Made A Lemonade Layer Cake today

This was so easy to make and it tasted great.  Perfect for a hot sunny day.  Something about lemonade, you just can't go wrong.  I went a bit over on the decorating, but yellow and pink flowers just seemed to work.  Plus I love using my new 2D decorating tip.

Lemonade Layer Cake

Bourbon Barbecue Sauce

Made this to use on some pork ribs and can't wait to try it on chicken. Spicy hot when you taste it, but seems to loose some of the bite when you use it on the meat.  So don't cut the heat before you cook with it.  Can make this up to 2 weeks ahead.

Ingredients:
1 cup ketchup
1/2 cup Bourbon plus a shot for the chef :)
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons molasses
3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon Dijon Mustard
1 1/2 teaspoons liquid smoke (I used mesquite)
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Bring all ingredients to boil in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally.  Reduce heat and simmer until sauce is reduced to 2 cups.  About 10 minutes, stirring often.

Cover and chill.  Use at room temperature.

Vegetable Garden

It has been a while but things have been incredibly busy.  We managed to pull off the birthday party for my Dad.  80 years old.  Wow.  It was a lot of fun and the food went over really well.  One of the appetizers was this vegetable garden.  I bought some green Styrofoam at Hobby Lobby along with some green spanish moss.  Then put all the veggies on skewers.  I found these great small green pails at Target and used them for the vegetable dip.  Everyone loved it.  The skewers made it even easier to eat. :)

Fresh Strawberry Crumble

We bought lots of strawberries this week so I needed to find something to do with them.  This turned out delicious.  I wasn't sure about using cinnamon but turns out it worked.

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 1/4 cups quick oats

2/3 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/8 tsp salt

2/3 cup cold butter

2 tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 cups sliced fresh strawberries

In a bowl, combine sugar and cinnamon.   Stir in the strawberries.  Set Aside

In a large bowl, combine the flour, oats, brown sugar, baking soda and salt.  Cut in the butter so it looke like coarse crumbs.  Reserve about 1 cup for topping.  Press the remaining crumb mixture into a greased 9 inch pan.  

Spoon the strawberries over the crust.  Sprinkle with the reserved crumb mixture. 

Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes, until golden brown.  Serve warm.  Goes great with vanilla ice cream!!

Colored Devil Eggs

So going with the color theme, I decided to do the same with Deviled Eggs.  Only I didn't want to color the yolks too.  That looks a bit icky.  So I hard boiled the eggs.  Removed the yolks and soaked the whites.  I only did a few to see how they looked.  I really like them and think they will look pretty awesome on the table.

Rainbow Jello Mold

For my Dad's party, the decor and the food are all going to be brightly colored.  As much as possible.  So I practiced making this jello mold and it didn't come out to badly for a first shot.  I need to do it a bit slower I think and find a darker green and brighter yellow.

It was really easy.  Just spray your mold lightly with cooking spray.  Then make all your jello.

You will need :

1 package each of purple, blue, green, yellow and orange.  Then 2 packages of red.  Also 1 container of Cool Whip.  

Make all your single packages of jello with 1 1/2 cups of boiling water.  Use 2 1/2 for the red.  

Let it cool some before you start adding to the mold.  

When you are ready, start with the purple.  Add 3/4 cup of the jello to the mold and set it in the fridge.  Add 2-3 tbsp of cool whip to the rest of the purple.  Wait 15 minutes and carefully poor it on top of the first layer.   Continue with the rest, waiting 10 - 15 minutes between each new addition.  Did I mention you need something else to do while you are doing this?  I added the colors in this order: purple, blue, green, yellow, orange and then red.  

Let it set overnight.  When you go to unmold , set the mold into hot water, briefly.  Not enough to melt it, just to loosen it.  Wipe off the excess water then flip onto your serving plate.  Careful, you don't want it to bounce onto the floor!  It is really slippery!!

Apple Fritters

Made apple fritters from scratch.  They came out pretty great.  After some practice.  The directions said to form the dough into a ball and drop into the oil.  Well that is easier said than done.  The dough is sticky and I ended up with some kind of funny shaped fritters.  But they tasted good.  That counts, right?

Here is what you need:
1 1/4 cup of all purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tbsp melted butter
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
1-1/2 cups chopped apple

for the glaze:
1 cup of confectioners sugar
1 tbsp milk (about, may need more to get consistency you want)

Here is what you do:

Mix all your dry ingredients together.  Add the rest of the ingredients, except for the apples.  Combine well but try not to over-mix.  Gently fold in the apples.  You might need a bit more milk if your dough is too solid, but add the apples before you add more milk.  The apples will loosen your batter some.

Heat up your oil to 375 degrees. You can check to see if it is ready by dropping in a little bit of dough.  If it rises right away, you are good to go.  Place a few balls of dough in the oil.  Watch carefully for them to turn golden brown, then flip them to cook until they are done.  About 45 seconds to a minute per side.  Experiment with one before you cook the rest.

I set mine on a paper towel for a moment to soak up any oil.   Then rolled them in the glaze.  Transferred to a rack to drip and cool enough to eat.  Then watched them disappear!