M-I-C-K-E-Y

M-O-U-S-E!!!! How cute are these?



Hello people! I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving! And i hope you didn't miss me too much, i haven't written, cause well i haven't cooked in weeks.

This was the last thing i cooked back on November 8th. Mickey Mouse cupcakes!

I made chocolate chip cupcakes and just popped in 2 mini oreo's for the ears. It was the perfect touch for the Mickey Mouse pizza party we had here right before leaving for Orlando.


We were supposed to have some work done to our place while we were on vacay, and you know how that goes, it didn't start on time and 2 weeks later, they are now just about done. I should be back in my kitchen by the end of the week. And all i can say is THANK GOD! Eating out all the time sucks, just about as much as it sucks to live through construction.

But i'm feeling chatty tonite, so i think i'll go into my food blog photo folder and pull out some stuff i cooked previously and didn't get a chance to write about. So stay tuned! :)

Platter of Severed Hands

BWahahahahahahaaaaaa...

Halloween is near and you would not believe how creative some people are when it comes to spooky food. Not me though, i'm not into Halloween, i don't like scary things at all, i like to keep my "spooky" G- rated. But when i saw this 'recipe' over on kraftfoods.com i was suddenly inspired.

Spooky Gloved Munch Mix

I just had a Halloween themed makeover party. As favors, i handed out severed hands. These went over BIG. There were tons of "ew gross, and ooh cool" to go around.

I simplified the process by using Crunch n Munch to make the flesh for the hands. The hardest part was finding clear gloves, then cleaning said gloves. See these gloves are coated inside and out with a thin coat of some sort of powder. On the bag of the gloves, it doesn't even say what the powder is. Regardless, i wasn't going to stuff one finger until those gloves were totally residue-free.

Once the gloves were wiped clean and dry on both the inside and the outside, it was a cinch to pop in the candy corn and the popcorn.

I also created a frightening feast using some homemade goodies, some store bought. On the menu:

Witches Warts- Alexia Mushroom Bites
Goblin's Eyes- Baked Cheese Olives
Rest in Pizza- California Pizza Kitchen White Pizza
Mold & Slime Dip- Friday's Spinach, Cheese and Artichoke Dip
Skeleton Fingers w/ Congealed Blood- Pistachio Crusted Chicken w/ strawberry preserve dipping sauce

We had a devilishly good time! :)

P is for Pumpkin

Cause i already used the C is for Cupcake line... :P

It's STILL good enough for me!

It's FALL, WOO HOO, even though it's still 87 degrees out. The calendar says fall and that means pumpkins! i LOVE fall and i LOVE pumpkin. So time to get my pumpkin on. One can of pumpkin purchased, and off on a mission i go. Looking for something sweet, someone linked me up to this recipe and i'm all over it!

Pumpkin Bliss Cupcakes

Aren't they gorgeous? I swear i was so excited to see these perfectly plump cupcakes come out of my oven.



The first ones i frosted, were frosted and sprinkled with chopped pecans. I loved the texture the pecan added to the cupcake, but much to my surprise, my perfectly plump cupcakes had the wrong cake to frosting ratio. Definitely NOT enough frosting.



So we proceeded to eat the remaining cupcakes this way.

Step 1: Nuke cupcake in micro for 10 seconds.
Step 2: Take warm cupcake, slather the top wtih frosting.
Step 3: Eat top of cupcake.
Step 4: Flip cupcake upside down, slather the bottom with frosting.
Step 5: Finish enjoying the perfectly frosted cupcake, lick fingers, make mmmm sounds.

Repeat as necessary! :)

Mmmm...Beefy!

Now that it's getting cooler out (i think it's 83 yesterday, instead of the usual 89), i was inspired to make a cool weather dinner. This was my first time ever making beef stew and when i told my hubby we were having beef stew for dinner, he said he had never had it before. So this dinner was going to be a hit or miss.

I went on a mission to find a good recipe, but i couldn't find one that i felt would suit our likes and dislikes. So i took a little bit from ALL the recipes i came across, and came up with my own!

Meli's Beef Stew

1 sweet potato chopped but chunky
2 white potatoes chopped but chunky
2 onions chopped but chunky
1 small bag of baby carrots
1.5 lb cubed stew beef
1 pt white mushrooms, halved, stems removed
3 cloves garlic, smashed
2 cups of red wine
1 small can of tomato sauce
1 can of condensed beef broth
oregano
parsley
basil
salt/pepper
cornstarch

Throw everything in the slow cooker in the order mentioned except for the cornstarch. Cook on high for 6 hours. A few minutes prior to serving, take out 1C broth, whisk in cornstarch (i used about 1/4c), then return that mixture to the crock pot and stir. Repeat until desired thickness is achieved. Serve immediately with a side of bread for dunking.


Luckily it was a hit, he got up in the middle of eating for seconds and everything. His only complaint was he wanted more beef and i wanted more onions, so i wrote the recipe above already adding more of both.

It was a snap to put together, and i love that i was only in the kitchen for less then 10 minutes. Great for a weeknight dinner. :)

Fabulous Chicken

I've eaten ALOT of chicken in my lifetime, enough to not get excited about chicken...ever. I don't order it when i go out, and i have only recently built up a small repertoire of chicken recipes i actually do enjoy at home. So if i wrote out my short list of chicken recipes, this would be at the top of the list with hearts dotting the i's.

Pistachio Crusted Chicken

I've made these for a crowd, i've made these just for us, every single time, this chicken is a hit! So easy, so tasty! The pistachios really add a nice flavor to the chicken. I just love using the honey mustard as a binder instead of an egg, it also adds a subtle layer of flavor.

For a less messy way of making these, i have prepped the chicken strips and left them in a zip lock bag with the honey mustard combo for a couple of hours. Then when i was ready, i took the strips and put them in another zip lock bag that had the crumbs and nuts in it. Just a quick shake and they are ready to be thrown on a prepared baking pan.

I serve it with a strawberry or raspberry sauce, which is just seedless jam and red wine vinegar stirred together and nuked in the micro till warm.

Give this fabulous dish a try, then come back and tell me how much you loved it! ;)

2 Bites

Looking for something different for a quick app for a ladies lunch i hosted, i came across this unique recipe and decided to give it a shot. I love allrecipes (foodtv and cookinglight) for the real life feedback you get from cooks who have made these recipes before. Here's a perfect example where reading reviews before you make the dish really comes in handy. Although highly rated, the recipe as written is FLAWED.


Baked Cheese Olives

Again, the recipe is flawed. You must add 2 Tbs of water to actually make the batter. Also, i used Queen Olives, and found that i needed to double the batter recipe to get all 24 olives wrapped. Though the recipe isn't written correctly, with some minor adjustments, it was a really great recipe.

I had to get all clever and put them in my olive dish. Cause well, it IS an olive, and what the heck, i'm going to pull out this odd dish at every opportunity i get. :P


I LOVED these, loved them!!! Biting into the cheese biscuit and finding a little olive treasure tucked inside is so much fun! Once you fix the error in the recipe, it's a cinch to make and as a bonus, you can make these in advance and freeze them. So on party day it's one less thing to do. LOVE THAT! :)

Turkey Picadillo

Picadillo is a staple in any Cuban home. My friend Christy shot me a link to a lightened up version of the traditional favorite. She actually shared with the a lightened up version of a Cuban Feast. This one is bookmarked, as i want to try to take on boliche...someday! Cuban Feast Makeover

As i was making it, i realized for our tastes, i needed to make some changes to the recipe. I made some slight alterations and popped it into the weight watchers recipe builder and viola!

Turkey Picadillo



This was delicious and deceptively light. You couldn't even tell that i used ground turkey instead of ground beef. As you are cooking it, you can figure out if you like it soupy. Personally, i like it a little soupier then dry. If you like it drier, just keep simmering away. No matter how you make it, this is a must try. Enjoy! :)

Clean vs. Plain

Inspired by the most amazing taste sensation, i bought a URL for this blog. Someday, i'll be blogging from www.butterandbrownsugar.com. HOORAY! :)


I told my hubby, and he's got a million ideas for my blog already. Can i just interject right here, that my hubby has looked at my blog, oh maybe once.

He started telling me about some of his ideas. I told him babe, i like the format how it is now, it's v. clean. He says gimme your URL...after like half a dozen attempts, he finally gets it right and says, CLEAN? This is not clean, this is PLAIN. No to the font, no to the header, yada yada yada, we'll get to work on your new site soon.

So, i'll continue blogging from here until Mr. Man gets my blog in fighting form. :P Hopefully it's sooner rather then later!

Love you babe! xoxo

C is for Cupcake!

That's good enough for me...

Publix had a buy one get one sale on cake mixes, so i ended up with a random box of pineapple cake mix. I really didn't want to make a cake cause, it's only us, so i decided to try to make pineapple upside down cupcakes. Cause i feel bad eating a half a cake, but i don't feel bad eating half a dozen cupcakes. Go figure! lol.

Mini Pineapple Upside-Down Cakes

While making these cupcakes, i came across the most amazing taste sensation i've ever eaten in my whole entire life... BUTTER AND BROWN SUGAR. Good Lord, have you ever eaten softened butter and brown sugar? Yeah, me neither. I mean i was so blown away, i grabbed my hubby and told him babe, you gotta try this. And there we stood in the kitchen eating brown sugar and butter just oohing and aahing away. lol.

All of the picking at the brown sugar left us with half a dozen cupcakes unadorned. Eh, whatev, it was worth it, BUT the cupcakes made the right way, upside down-style, were really unbelievable. My father in law came over, tried them and said oooh that's good! :)

I came across a couple other recipes out there on the world wide web and they suggested using crushed pineapple. I think the slices (trimmed) worked out just fine, but i would like to try this recipe again using yellow cake mix and crushed pineapple. ;)

I am the Crepe Queen!

Hell Yeah i am! :)

Ok, so back story. Went to Key West for Lobster Fest earlier this summer and had the BEST crepes- well, here in the US ;) out of this teeny window on Duval called La Creperie, see...

Anyhoo, we come home and all i want, every single weekend is crepes. So i venture forth and decide i can do it, hell, MELICAN DO ANYTHING! :)

So i find this recipe and think whamo,this is it. Hooray, i'm on my way!

French Crepes

My enthusiasm quickly dissipates as this is how my first crepe turns out.

Next thing i know i'm on the phone with my mom asking where her crepe maker (some hokey gadget from the 70's, lol) is, and telling her that my stupid crepe adventure is going really badly. She assures me that the first one or three always turn out badly, and to keep trying, but she'll look for the crepe gadget anyways.

**INSERT NEVER GIVE UP LESSON HERE** :P

So yes, after making like 2 or 3 really bad ones, i learned my lesson. I switched to a small non-stick pan, sprayed with a quick spritz of pam and start turning out AMAZING thin little pancakes! We stuffed them with ham and cheese, a variety of jams and jelly's and gorged ourselves on fabulous homemade crepes! My fave was the pineapple preserve crepes- mega yum!

Needless to say, this is what i do at least once a week now, but i do half the recipe cause for us, 12 crepes is too many, but not for the first time you make it. For the first time, even if it's just you that you're cooking for, go ahead and make all 12! :)