Out with the old

Eww! What's that ugly range doing in my kitchen?

It must go, it must!

Ahhhh, much better. I like, I love, I'm oh so happy!

Pretty, but wait, there's more! It works and I can actually see through the window. Life is grand.

Eventually we'll replace that HUGE eyesore of a white microwave. I can hardly wait.

Yummy Summer Dinner

Spinach salad with fresh black berries, strawberries, pear, and pistachios. The hubby made a wonderful dressing for it.

Cold cucumber and avocado soup. Fabulous on a hot summer night. Very refreshing.

The hubby's awesome quiche, so good!

Muffin Medley & Cherry Overload

I was hungry for something small and sweet for breakfast and couldn't decide which type of muffin to make, so I made three, from left to right: apricot white chocolate, blueberry almond, and banana walnut. I like all three and it's just as easy to make 72 muffins as it is 24, so why not? Of course, after that I realized I had a ton of fresh cherries I needed to use before they went bad, so I pitted them (staining my hands a bloody red, looked like I had just committed murder!) and cut them into little pieces. These I added to corn muffins:


and the rest of the cherries I added to devil's food cake cupcakes:


The frosting is a chocolate cream cheese, sour cream. Very rich and creamy, quite delicious.

Bourbon White Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding Cupcakes

I made Martha Stewart's 7-minute frosting for these cupcakes. WOW! It's good stuff, tastes like marshmallow. It's kinda a high-maintenance frosting as it requires boiling sugar, water, and light corn syrup to 230 degrees and whipping 6 egg whites into a frenzy, then adding the boiling mixture without scaling yourself, and finally whipping all that for about 7 minutes... but it's so worth it. Melts in the mouth. Mmm mmm YUM!

The hubby likes bread pudding, me, not so much. But, hey, it's the 4th of July so why not give it a shot. I figure with enough booze even bread pudding can be good - right? I found your typical bread pudding recipe online, however, I greatly modified it to make them into cupcakes. I didn't use any milk, just a cup of Bourbon! Anyway, I added the white chocolate chips simply because I had them. For the bread we had two loaves of sandwich bread: French and Sourdough. I used about equal amounts of both torn into little pieces and mixed thoroughly into the wet batter. I wasn't really sure if these would turn out or not, but they did. Yeah! I doubled lined the paper cups to be on the safe side and that worked nicely. The flavor of these bad boys is wonderful.... the bourbon is present, but not overwhelming. The white chocolate chips impart a nice sweetness, and the over consistency is fabulous: not dry, not mushy, but just right. A success if I do say so myself! Can't wait to hear what our friends think about them. I'll be bringing these to the 4th of July cookout, along with the Raspberry/blueberry corn muffins.

Raspberry & Blueberry Corn Muffins

Happy 4th of July! For the cook out we'll be attending later I made raspberry/blueberry corn muffins. Very simple recipe the hubby found online. And, quite tasty! Hope our friends like them.