orange you glad I made cake?!

Today's secret ingredient is... (drum roll)..Mandarin Oranges! I love these sweet, lil slices heaven. I like to add it to yogurt or just eat them plain. Yummerific! Here's how we added them to our menu for the evening:

*Lemon Pepper Baked Haddock

*Sweet Potato Fries

*Mandarin Spinach Salad with Honey Mustard Vinaigrette

*Mandarin Orange Mini Bundt Cakes

baked fish & sweet potato fries

1lb sweet potatoes- peeled and cut into fries (I made mine like steak fries)

olive oil

1/2 cup flour

1 egg-beaten

1 cup bread crumbs (seasoned with lemon pepper)

6 cod or haddock fillets

1 tbsp sugar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line 2 baking pans with nonstick baking sheets. Drizzle potatoes with olive oil, sprinkle with sugar and toss until coated.Spread the fries on a pan and bake for 25min. Turn over and bake for another 15min.

While the fries are baking, get 3 shallow dishes. One for the flour, one for the beaten egg, and one for the bread crumbs. Dip the fish fillets in the flour to coat, then the egg, and finally the bread crumbs. Place on baking sheet.

The last 15min of cooking the fries put the fish in the oven. Turning once during cooking, until the fish is tender. 

mandarin spinach salad

1 lb baby spinach
mandarin oranges 

4 oz pecans

1/4 c dried cranberries

4oz crumbled goat cheese

Honey Mustard Vinaigrette

2 tbsp honey mustard

1 clove garlic, minced

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

1/4 c balsamic vinegar

3/4 c olive oil

salt & pepper to taste

mandarin orange mini bundt cake
1 box yellow cake mix
1 11oz can mandarin oranges (undrained)
4 eggs
1/2 c vegetable oil
vanilla cake icing

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease mini bundt pan with butter and dust with flour. With an electric mixer on low combine cake mix, eggs, and oil. Reserve about 15 orange slices for later, and add the rest of the mandarin oranges with juice and mix with a spoon. Pour batter into pan 2/3 full. Bake for 20-25min. Check with toothpick in center of cake, should come out clean. Turn cakes over on a cooling rack. Once they're cooled off, heat icing in microwave for a few seconds.. until its smooth enough to lightly pour on top of each cake and decorate with a mandarin orange or two! You can also garnish with a lil mint leaf. Pretty!!

This is one of my favorite cakes that my mom passed down to me. It's usually a summer treat because it's fruity & refreshing, served with a cool whip/crushed pineapple topping. But since it's not summer I like to eat it warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Trust me, you want to try this one!

Happy Cooking!

Love, Lana 

itty bitty pumpkin pies

Have you ever seen those Jell-O No Bakes at the store and wondered if they were any good? Well wonder no more! I went ahead and tried one out for you.. and it was WONDERFUL! They give you the recipe to make one big pie, but I like the idea of making miniature ones. Sooo much cuter!! 

Mini Pumpkin Pies

Can't wait to try the JELL-O No Bake Cheesecake next. Happy Cooking!

Love, Lana

rewind!

Rewind to last month. Autumn is the time when all the leaves turn orange, red, and yellow.. it starts to get a little chilly outside..and its time to break out the hot cocoa and pumpkin pie! mm! 

Grocery stores start selling their Halloween goodies. I love getting seasonal things because it's stuff you normally get, only cuter! Kraft has ghost marshmallows that I like to use for my hot chocolate. It makes me laugh.. it's like the ghosts have their own hot tub! hahaha

My mom's favorite ice cream is Rocky Road. My brother and I like plain chocolate. So to solve this problem we get chocolate ice cream and I make my mom her own flavor simply by adding sliced almonds and my lil ghost friends. Everybody wins! 

We went to Holmberg Orchards where they have all kinds of fruits and vegetables to stock up on. But of course, being that time of year, they are most popular for their pumpkins and apples.. or as we like to say in our home, "It's Papple Pickin Time!" 

 

Carving pumpkins is pretty easy if you make a simple design. You can get a pumpkin carving kit that comes with stencils and tools or you can just freehand a traditional jack o' lantern face. This year we were going for a scary theme so I made a skull, vampire, and Happy Haunting pumpkin.

I didn't know there were so many different types of apples. I thought it was only red and green! I don't know what we're going to do with all these, but we have apples for days!! One idea: We found a "caramel mix" so I wanted to try making caramel apples.

 Caramel Apples

6-8 medium size apples

caramel powder mix

1/2 stick of butter

1 cup heavy cream

sprinkles, nuts, crushed up candy (optional)

wooden sticks 

Melt butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Add 1c heavy cream. Stir in caramel mix. Bring to a rolling boil. Then turn down heat to medium and boil for 15-20 minutes. It will turn a light to med brown.

While that's boiling, push wooden sticks into apples. Crush up your candy if you're using any. Good things to try: Heath bars, butterscotch, m&m's.

Remove the caramel from heat. Dip each apple into the caramel and roll in/sprinkle with the Good Stuff!!

We used white and brown jimmies. Place on nonstick surface to harden. 

aaaaaand Tada!! Caramel apples like grandma used to make! Well, not my grandmas but somebody's grandma! hahaha

Hope you all got to do some Papple pickin or at least Papple cookin! 

Love, Lana

a gift is a gift

Whether it is store bought or homemade, a gift is a gift. They both put a smile on someone's face.. and that is the point isn't it? I love giving presents to my family and friends but let's face it, I'm a kid and I don't exactly get paid to be a student. Here are a few gifts that anyone can make for next to nothing. In fact, I made all the gifts here with things I've found around the house.

Homemade Lei

Every time we pick up someone from the airport we like to adorn them with a lei. Since we are not in Hawaii anymore we can't buy them at any store and there are no tropical flowers to be found. But it's easy to make a pretty paper flower one any time of the year. Aaand they last forever!

1. Measure a piece of ribbon, yarn, or string to fit loosely around your neck, but add an extra foot to it. I used curling ribbon.

2. For the "flowers" I used gift wrapping tissue in different colors. You can use any colorful, decorative paper. (Wrapping paper, scrapbook paper, magazine pages, crepe paper etc.) If you have a flower paper cutter that would work perfectly! I don't have that so I cut the paper into little rectangles. For each flower I stacked a couple sheets of each color. Fold the stack accordian style, longways. Starting from one end of the ribbon I tied a knot in the center of each stack, scalloped the edges with scissors, and then crinkled each paper to form a blossom.

3. Repeat this for each flower until you have filled up your ribbon. You can make a full lei with a lot of flowers. Here, I just made a simple one with a couple blooms.. but you can be as creative as you'd like.. Experiment with different color patterns. String beads, cut straws, or painted macaroni between the flowers. Easy and definitely pretty darn cute!

Homemade Scrapbook

Another inexpensive gift is to make a memory book. It is personalized so it is sure to touch their heart. I made this book as a gift for my friend so she can remember the awesome summer she had while visiting Connecticut. I got a blank paper book at the craft store. It was around  $3. I printed off some of my favorite pictures that we took and simply decorated around the photos with stickers and scrapbook embellishments. The best $3 I ever spent! hahaha

Homemade Chocolate Covered Pretzels

My favorite treats are those dipped in chocolate! So looking in our pantry I found 3 simple ingredients to make the perfect, tasty gift: Pretzel rods, white chocolate, and sprinkles! Melt the chocolate, dip the pretzels, and roll in sprinkles! Once dried I bagged them up and attached a little note made of cardstock. Even my 5 year old brother can make this! So easy, yet so gourmet! Ooh lala!

It doesn't take much to make someone happy. It's the simple things that people remember the most. Hope you are inspired to make your own homemade gifts.

Love, Lana

Rosemary this, Rosemary that!

Tonight I wanted to try something different. Rosemary. Such a pretty name for a herb. Must be delicious!

Rosemary Baked Chicken Thighs:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Season the chicken with the garlic powder, rosemary, dijon mustard, salt and pepper. Dust with flour. Melt some butter in a baking pan. Lay the chicken in the melted butter, skin side down and bake for 25 minutes, turn over and bake for an additional 20 minutes.

I baked it with potatoes and served it with salad, and toasted bread. I just used regular sandwich bread because that's all we had and I thought 5 potatoes would not be enough but once they're cut up it's plenty! So everything.. the chicken, potatoes, and bread got sprinkled with rosemary. Okay, I went a little rosemary overboard! Haha

For dessert I made Apple Muffins and put a caramel chew into the center of each one. They sunk right into the middle for ooey gooey goodness!

My family loved this meal. Glad I can share it with all of you too! Happy Cooking!

Love, Lana



Groovy Baby!

Who knew tie dye was so much fun? And SO easy! First, you pick your design. Then you tie rubberbands on your shirt to where you'd like the "explosion" to be. After that, you put the dye on.. the more colors the better! You let them chill out for about 6 hours. Then, TADA! You have a Tie Dye Masterpiece!

You can tie dye a lot of things besides shirts. You can use skirts, bandanas, bags, even CUPCAKES! Here's how: Separate your cupcake batter into bowls depending on how many colors you are going to use. Then mix in a couple drops of food coloring. Spoon the batter into lined pans and bake according to the cupcake recipe. Aaaaand TADA! Tie Dye Cupcakes!

Hope you get a chance to try it out. It's a groovy time baby!

Love, Lana

bibbity bobbity blue!

What a beautiful day to go blueberry picking! We gathered up our friends and headed to a nearby orchard. We couldn't help but sneak a little taste while we filled up our buckets. Some were sweet and some were tart.

All that running around sure made me hungry! We decided to have a picnic at the park. I made blackberry jam sandwiches. It was easy to add a simple, pretty touch with a flower cookie cutter. Pretzel rods, apple slices, honey peanut butter, and veggie fruit juice completed our lunch.

The next morning I used the blueberries in our pancakes. I just followed the regular pancake recipe and simply tossed the berries into the batter. I made them into a heart shape because they were made out of love!

My mom made "Blueberry Basket Cupcakes".  They're chocolate, my favorite! We shared them with our friends who went with us. Blueberry season is over, but there is always something in season! So we'll be pickin' again soon. Until then..

Love, Lana