Love Surprise Cake

My sister, Abby (south Texas), and I had a bake-off for Valentine's Day.  I found this cake online last week and decided to make it. When she told me she was planning to make the same cake, it was on... BAKE-OFF! I made mine Saturday for dinner with friends that night; Abby made hers today. I started at 8:30 on Saturday and finished at 6:00 that night! Enjoy my day in pictures. I made four 9-inch white circles and one 9x13-inch red velvet.

All leveled out.

Hollowed out and shaped.

Forgot to take a picture of the filled halves, but made the stack/flip on the first try!

all frosted up and "decorated"

After the first slices. Is it a butterfly?


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Nope, a heart. Jeremy approves!

 



This cake was a lot of work.  I decided that I would never make it as a professional cake decorator.  Too much work and not enough patience.  And all the hard work gets eaten in about 10 minutes!  Not to mention, too much waste.

Chicken Divan

The Chicken Divan recipe is from Pillsbury.

Ingredients
1 bag Green Giant Valley Fresh Steamers Select frozen broccoli florets
1 1/2 cups cubed deli rotisserie chicken
1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
1 can (18.5oz) Progresso creamy chicken and wild rice soup
1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
1/4 cup Progresso Italian style panko crispy bread crumbs

Directions
1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. cook broccoli as directed on bag 4 minutes. Place broccoli and chicken in un-greased 9 inch square pan. Sprinkle with pepper.
2. Pour soup over broccoli and chicken. Sprinkle with cheese and bread crumbs.
3. Bake about 20 minutes or until hot and bubbly.


I didn't have the exact bread crumbs the recipe called for and it tasted fine. Both Scottie and I liked the new dish.

Creamy Chicken Breasts

This recipe is actually from Katie Frantes, Jenilee's and my college roommate. It's an old standby and Adam and I really love it. As always, falls in to the "easy" category for me :)

4 chicken breasts (boneless, skinless)
8 slices swiss cheese
1 can cream of chicken
1/4 c sour cream
1 c herb seasoned stuffing, crushed
1/4 c margarine or butter

Arrange in 9x13 baking dish. Top each breast with cheese. Combine sour cream and soup. Stir and spread evenly over chicken. Sprinkle with stuffing mix. Melt butter and drizzle over crumbs.

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

Nans Puffs

I found this recipe while I was looking for my banana bread recipe in the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. Needless to say, I forgot about the bread and these are really good and very easy!!

1/2 c butter
1 c milk
3/4 all purpose flour
4 eggs
1 T sugar
Honey (optional)

Grease muffin pan VERYwell... I didn't and they stuck pretty bad.

Melt butter, add milk, boil. Add flour all at once, stir with wooden spoon until it forms a ball that does not separate. Remove from heat. Cool 5 min.

Add eggs one at a time. After each stir until mix is smoothed out. Divide among muffin tin( about half full). Sprinkle w sugar.

Bake at 375 for 30 minutes until brown and puffy. Serve warm with honey.

When done they look like popovers but no special pan or work needed!

These were SO easy and I think they look like way more work than they are... Double score in my book!

... And Adam wanted me to add... You can eat them with honey, with your honey. So creative ;)

Velveeta Cheesy Chicken & Broccoli Rice

Tonight was a new recipe I found at kraftfoods.com. Both Scottie and I enjoyed it so I thought I'd share.


Ingredients
1 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
1 can (14 1/2oz) chicken broth
2 cups instant white rice, uncooked
1/2 lb (8oz) Velveeta cheese, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 pkg. (10oz) frozen chopped broccoli, thawed

1. Cook and stir chicken in large nonstick skillet on medium-high heat 5 minutes or until done.
2. Stir in broth. Bring to boil.
3. Add rice, Velveeta and broccoli; cover. Remove from heat. Let stand 10 min. Stir until Velveeta is completely melted and mixture is well blended.

Makes 6 servings, 1 cup each.

I seasoned the chicken a bit while cooking and we also added pepper to give it a little more flavor.

Baked Apples

I made baked apples tonight for a treat after a yummy chicken dinner.  Didn't take pictures, but you can find some on the direct link to the recipe I used.  I baked them for about 35 minutes and one of the apples skin split, but the apple retained its shape.  Guess that was a little too long!  I had only two golden delicious apples on hand, but still made the entire filling recipe and will use it in oatmeal tomorrow. Also added extra cinnamon because it's my experience that apples cannot have too much cinnamon.  These were so yummy. Easy too!

Baked Apples Recipe

4 large good baking apples
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1/4 cup currants or chopped raisins
1 Tbsp butter
3/4 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 375°F. Wash apples. Remove cores to 1/2 inch of the bottom of the apples. Make the holes about 3/4-inch to an inch wide.

In a small bowl, combine the sugar, cinnamon, currants/raisins, and pecans. Place apples in a 8-inch-by-8-inch square baking pan. Stuff each apple with this mixture. Top with a dot of butter (1/4 of the Tbps).

Add boiling water to the baking pan. Bake 30-40 minutes, until tender, but not mushy. Remove from the oven and baste the apples several times with the pan juices.

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream on the side.

Makes 4 servings.

Free Stuff!

So, below is the Tschida's 2011 Christmas Card. Shutterfly, being the generous people they are, offered a $25 credit towards my next offer if I embeded the card in my (well, our...) blog. I do have to admit, it was pretty dang easy to make the thing.

Another short cut for all you busy ladies, the post office will ship your postage to you. This also means you get to pick what stamps you want. It seems every time I go they only have the ugly ones left at the post office! The shipping only costs $1. I don't know about you, but a buck is worth not having to stand in line for 20 minutes at this time of year!

OK, back to the recipies :)