Flower Crazy!

My husband refuses to buy me flowers. He has not once bought me flowers ever since we started dating, but he has picked me flowers from the planters in front of restaurants (if you'd like to consider that cute or sweet. :P). Now, I'm not really the girly type who needs flowers all the time, but I do appreciate a beautiful bouquet every once in a while. I would love to come home one day to a vase filled with gorgeous flowers, or even have one delivered to my front door. It's just something about receiving flowers from your special someone that just makes you feel all good and tingly inside.

But anyway, back to the main point of it all. Like I said, my husband does not buy me flowers and I have been dying to have some sort of flower in my home! So, I came across this lovely wallflower tutorial that is literally super easy, super cheap, and super fun to make!

 I seriously couldn't stop at just making one...

 

I bought my paper napkins at the party aisle at Target. They conveniently have large and small napkins so you don't really have to trim down the center part of it.. I did make my flowers a bit fuller than the tutorial shows, but I sort of like it that way... except, the napkins were really fragile (and I might have a few tears here and there... SSSH! Don't tell anyone.) and accidents do happen with fragile stuff...

Now I have finally satisfied my urge to fill my house with beautiful flowers! At least I think they're beautiful... hubby isn't very fond of them (who wouldn't have guess that...). But hey! The bright side about my flowers are that they are vibrant, colorful, beautiful... and the very best part about them is that they wont die! Unless someone decides to be very mean and rip them into pieces. Ugh. That's just mean to do though, so lets hope that never happens!

Hope you enjoyed this and if you feel the need to create some of these.. go crazy and have fun like I did!

Oh, by the way... I made some very delish beef shish kabobs! I'm going to share the recipe with you, but I am so bummed that I didn't take any pictures of them first! Guess I'll just have to borrow one. Lol.. Unless you trust my judgement that these are really yummy! Just trust my judgement! ;)

Beef and Pineapple on a Skewer

• 1lb sirloin steak
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons brown sugar
• 1 clove garlic clove, minced
•  1 teaspoon fresh ginger root grated
• 1 teaspoon peanut or sesame oil (I didn't have either so I skipped this part. Still came out yummy.)
• 1 cup pinapple, cut in cubes
• 1 green bell pepper
• 1 red bell pepper

Directions:

1. Cut the beef and bell peppers in bite sized cubes (about 3/4" x 3/4"). Mix the remaining ingredients, except pineapple and bell peppers (make sure bell peppers are clean of seeds and the stem). Marinate beef overnight, or for at least an hour (I forgot to prepare ahead of time so I probably only marinated for 15-20 min). Remove from marinade. Reserve marinade.
2. Thread meat on skewers, alternating between beef, pineapples, and bell peppers (my skewer was threaded this way from bottom to top: [green bell pepper, pineapple, beef, red bell pepper, pineapple, beef] x2). If you are using bamboo skewers, be sure to soak them in cold water for at least 20 minutes before using. Broil or barbeque until meat is cooked until desired doneness (I broiled mine for about 16 minutes since I'm cheap and don't own a grill.). Baste with reserved marinade while cooking. 

Hope the skewers taste just as good for you as they did for me!

-S

P.S. Btw, I used rubberbands to tie the center of my wallflowers. I thought they worked pretty well and they only cost about $.50 for a bag at Target. :)

Chocolate Chip Cookies... Success or Fail?

I have to admit... I am on a blogging roll!!

Well, I finished baking my homemade chocolate chip cookies from scratch. All I have to say is, please do NOT be like me, misread the recipe, and melt 2 cups of butter when all you need is 3/4 cup of butter. Yeah. I totally did that, which in turn caused me to try and alter everything to make it work.....

You guessed it. Although the cookies are pretty tasty, I'm sure they would have turned out perfectly if I actually made them the way you're supposed to. But, to no further ado... here is the recipe!!

Chocolate Chip Cookies!!!

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). No need to grease cookie sheet, the cookies should be able to come up on their own (but if you feel the need to, feel free to lightly grease or line cookie sheet with parchment paper).
2. Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended. Stir in the chocolate chips with a wooden spoon. Set cookie dough in the refrigerator for about 30 min (you don't need to do this, but the cookies will come out better if you let them sit and chill for a bit). Drop cookie dough 1/4 cup at a time onto the prepared cookie sheets about 3 inches apart.
4. Bake for about 14-15 minutes, or until edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes and then transfer to cooling rack to cool completely.

The last batch of cookie dough waiting to be cooked!

The yummy cookies baking in 325 degree F oven!

The cookies cooling on a cooling rack!

The finished product!

Hope you enjoy, and I sure hope your cookies come our better than mine (I am NOT going to tell you my alterations, so don't ask! :P)

-S

A Birthday and Employment

Ok ok ok. It's been a week... AGAIN! I am horrible! Butt.. My daughter is finally a year old! On her actual birthday, hubby was lucky enough to have it off because he had watch the night before and got off in the morning. We pretty much went out to eat lunch, then we went shopping at the mall to get her gifts which consisted of two pairs of jordans, two outfits, and two brand new toys! We decided on letting her open her presents on the day of her party instead. Then we went to go pick up hubby's brother since he had just came back from deployment.. then we got ready again and went out to eat dinner at Chili's. We got baby girl a chocolate molten lava cake and she loved it! Then finished the night off with a little bit of shopping at Wal-mart to get some more things for the party on Saturday.

Then Thursday came and I started to prepare all the cakes for the party. That night I made Chocolate Cupcakes from scratch and put the in the fridge to get frosted on Saturday. Then Friday night I made Red Velvet Cake from scratch and mixed it with Cream Cheese frosting to make them into Cake pops. I also baked baby's smash cake which was regular yellow cake from the box. I didn't get to sleep until about 3am and I woke up at about 8am Saturday morning to finish the cakes and start baking the ribs in the oven. Once I woke up and got the ribs going, I started making the Butter Cream Frosting for the cupcakes and I started melting the milk chocolate for the cake pops. After about 3 hours, I finally got everything ready! I also had a bit of chocolate left over, so I decided to dip some fresh strawberries! All in all, things went pretty well! It was a bit too hot outside for anything, which made the swimming pool really useful... but I don't think we'll be celebrating her birthday outside again for a while! Now here are the pics of all my hard work and.... of course... a recipe for you! Enjoy!


Chocolate Cream Cake

• 2 2/3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 1/4 cups granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3 eggs
• 3 oz unsweetened chocolate melted and cooled
• 1 1/2 cups ice water

1. Grease and lightly flour three 9x1 1/2 or 8x1 1/2 inch round baking pans. Combine flour, soda, salt.
2. In a large mixing bowl beat the butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add eggs, one at a time, beating eell after each. Beat in chocolate. Alternately add flour mixture and water, beating on low to medium speed after each addition just till combined. Pour into prepared pans.
3. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 25-30 min or till a wooden toothpick inserted near the centers comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks for 10 mins. Remove from pans. Cool completely on wire racks.

Butter Cream Filling: Beat 1/2 cup butter till softened. Beat in 2 1/4 cups sifted powdered sugar, 2 tablespoons milk, and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Beat in additional milk, if necessary, to make a filling of spreading consistency.

Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting: Beat 1/2 of an 8oz package cream cheese till softened. Beat in 3 tablespoons milk. Beat in 3 3/4 cups sifted powdered sugar. Beat in 3 oz unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat in additional milk if necessary to make of spreading consistency.

P.S. After job hunting for about a month and surviving 5 interviews.. I finally got a callback and I was offered a position! So I will be starting work in a few weeks! Woohoo! So starting next month, my life as I know it is going to change completely. I hope I'm ready for it!

And by the way, she enjoyed her smash cake. :)

Pork Chops

Whoops! I totally forgot to update this earlier. :P But anyhoo..

I don't really cook pork chops and whenever I do I normally fail horribly at making them. They always come out tasteless and dry. But I decided that I wanted to make pork chops for dinner tonight since I bought a bunch of new spices yesterday to try it out in hopes of a tasty dinner. I mean, my best friend has this recipe that is sooo good and I really need to learn it so I can make it myself...

But since I don't have his recipe I sort of threw a bunch of stuff together and in all honesty it didn't come out too bad. I just used new orleans cajun spice, a little bit of lemon, salt and pepper, and veryyy little raspberry vinegarette (however you spell that). I should have seasoned it over night like I told myself to do but didn't. However, it didn't turn out so bad.. So in the future when I try to cook pork chops again I am going to either find out my bestie's recipe or I'm going to make a new one! I think also need to do a little research on recipe shopping for pork chops too. For some reason I don't feel comfortable cooking it, but since it didn't turn out too shabby this time I'm excited to try again.

Also, I really need to figure out how to start couponing. I went to some online coupon websites.. but for the life of me I can't figure out how to get them printed! I really need to stop procrastinating and get down to business. One day.. and hopefully soon. Lol.

And in all honesty, I have seriously been exhausted lately! I don't know why and I don't know where all my exhaustion is coming from because I do get decent amount of rest.. at least I think I do. Maybe 6 hours of sleep isn't enough anymore? Who knows. Well, back to working on Nani's dress. I've been lagging on that.. on my final homework.. on the Easter pictures.. yeah. I seriously think I am the queen of all procrastinators. Maybe one day I'll kick that bad habit....

-S