Shady Cupcake Dealings

I have been making a few cupcakes lately.

As in billions. I have been making billions of cupcakes lately.

And I cannot tell you how much I love it.

My darling friends, who know how much I love my Kitchen Aid mixer and who whole-heartily support my love of cream cheese frosting, have become excellent customers. Some are even repeat buyers. And last night, two of them showed up at my door shoving wads of cash into my hands in exchange for their sugar fix.

I dig it.

I am happy to be their supplier. It could be my new calling.

The Recap You Didn't Know You Needed

My re-entry into the real world last week was a bit rough. My plane from the DR had to make an emergency landing in Miami. It had something to do with our landing gear not working properly and the pilots were 94% sure that we would land without a problem.

Ummm...

 

Awesome?

Needless to say, we landed perfectly and then proceeded through customs, immigration and then re-boarded with the same fearless pilots for our layover in Atlanta. But because of our small detour, both my aunt and I missed our connecting flights and instead arrived home much, much later.

HOWEVER. The trip was unbelievably amazing. Relaxation was the goal and it was accomplished in strides:

The weather was a perfect 80 degrees.

The food was so fresh and delicious that I actually ate shrimp.

There were long conversations into the night, both in Spanish and in English

There were new recipes to tackle in a fully-stocked kitchen.

There was dipping your toes into the ocean and swimming until you became pruny.

There was dancing. Oh, there was dancing.

 And there was time to soak up the glorious sun (with SPF 50, of course), while deepening old relationships and developing new ones.

It was dreamy in every possible way.

...

And then I came home and the Arctic Vortex arrived.

But my dad also came home for his 72 hour furlough and everything seemed right with the world, Vortex included. On top of that, I got to make cupcakes for a baby shower: coconut cream and double chocolate fudge.

They are my new best friends.

We also went out for my birthday. I wanted us all to be together to celebrate. Sadly, Claire was down with a migraine but the rest of us ate for her:

 

 

 

 

 

Carr looks like an undercover cop in this picture. Love it.

 

 

Spirit fingers at dinner? Of course.

Two of my most favorite boys.

And finally, if you didn't know, Denver is going to the Super Bowl this weekend. It's a big, freaking deal. And our downtown looks so fantastically cool. It's going to be a great game!

 

Time to Ride, boys!

Dear Me at 33

Dear Me,
You survived 33.

You have more wrinkles. And your gray hairs now require more than just tweezers. You can't stay up late like you used to and the thought of having a night at home in your PJ's is almost equal to a night away dancing.

Almost.

You have battle scars from this year. It beat you up a little. It made you fight to be more of who you are. It made you grieve over things not yet happened, over too many things that went awry and it made you long for the the Home in which you were created.

You learned how to make the salted caramel sauce that has completely revolutionized your life.

You de-cluttered, simplified, and ate a lot of quinoa. You lost weight, gained weight and then lost it again (almost).

You had some unbelievably great cooking classes, completely void of food poisoning, house fires or blood. You realized that food is more than just something to eat, it a vehicle for friendship, comfort, culture and love.

You went on a few horrendous dates.  And then you had a few really good ones. They almost balance out except for the guy who looked like serial killer.

You now have to sleep with an oxygen machine. It is zero percent sexy.

You had to release a few of your dreams and plans. This was the hardest part of your year as you wrestled and waited and wrestled some more. God brought you to a place of heartache and then you (eventually) allowed Him to help you rebuild something new and better.

You have been blown away by high school students who know more about the Bible than you do.

Your car is still running. That will always be a highlight to any year.

You spent three days on the beach by yourself and it was exactly what you needed...especially when the Navy SEALS ran by.

Your friendships grew deeper, richer, became more valuable. You saw God work through people who then worked through you.

You cried over a boy. I hate when that happens, but you did. And he wasn't worth it.

You spent an entire day with your nephew and you found yourself completely in awe of who he is becoming: one part child, one part young man.

You became a bigger fan of your dad, more amazed at your mom, a more obnoxious cheerleader of your siblings and a better friend to yourself.

You survived year 33, but let's conquer 34. You are more than a conqueror in Him.


With great anticipation,
You

Need Dessert?

IF you live in the Denver area...

And IF you need help with your Thanksgiving meal...

AND IF you are out of time and don't know what the heck you are going to make for dessert (other than the infamous pumpkin pie)...

AND IF YOU just want to outsource one of your many tasks this holiday season...

AND IF YOU JUST WANT ME to show up at your doorstep...

THEN shoot me a line and I'll help you out! Gourmet Girl to Go is now taking dessert orders for Thanksgiving!!

(Just for clarification, I am Gourmet Girl to Go.)

That's right, just tell me what you want (within reason) and I'll bake/make/create it for you!

Pies?

Yep.

Cupcakes?

Absolutely.

Cakes, brownies, Oreo balls?

Why the heck not!

Email me or catch me on Facebook and I'll make all of your Thanksgiving dessert dreams come true.

(Do you have Thanksgiving dreams?)

(Because you should.)

(They are delicious.)

Top Five Pinterest Recipe Repeats

Hello world! Here I am. Between cooking classes, catering, my regular 9-5 job and a small bout of feeling like death, I have been a bit absent lately. But I have returned for one of my most favorite times of the year: The Pre-Thanksgiving Cook-a-Thon and Daylight Savings Hibernation.

(I just made up that title. Feel free to use it.)

I love November. I love the calm before the holiday storm. And I have always loved Thanksgiving, it is like Christmas' less-stressful younger brother who welcomes you with stretchy pants and pecan pie.

I have been doing a lot of recipe research lately. Some are for Gourmet Girl to Go classes and others are just to try new twists on old stand-bys. Pinterest is my go-to for recipes and over the course of the last few months, I have found several that are actually fantastic!

Here are my top five Pinterest Recipe Repeats:

Cast Iron Skillet Brownies

Yes, you should make these. Tonight, preferably. I fell in love with the simplicity of this recipe: you only need one dish! It is brilliant! I did not have a cast iron skillet that would work for this so instead I mixed everything in a sauce pan and poured into a baking dish. The results were incredible! These could be my favorite brownies ever.

(And I know my brownies.)



Dijon Maple Chicken

This is known as the "World's Best Chicken" and for good reason: it is amazing! There are only three ingredients to the marinade - Dijon mustard, maple syrup and vinegar (either rice or apple cider). It takes one minute to mix up and pour over chicken. I use whole grain Dijon mustard for an extra kick. I make this at least every other week and the left-overs are to die for!



Prosciutto-Wrapped Asparagus

This is the EASIEST recipe in the history of the world! I have taught this at several cooking classes recently and it is a huge hit every time. There are only two ingredients: prosciutto and asparagus. This works best on bigger asparagus and it only take five minutes to prepare and another five minutes to cook. You don't even have to pre-cook the asparagus. And the crispy prosciutto is the perfect combination with the fresh asparagus. It is my new go-to holiday appetizer or side dish!



Quinoa with Corn and Scallions

This recipe comes from Just a Taste, one of my favorite food websites. I love the freshness of this quinoa dish and it is great as a side dish or as a meal if you add grilled chicken. When corn is not in season, you can always use frozen corn as a substitute. It's good stuff, people.



Raspberry Dark Chocolate Banana Bread

Oh man. This bread. It is amazing! I have made it several times and the combination of fresh raspberries and dark chocolate is out of this world. It is perfect for breakfast or a snack (or dinner). I will make this again and again. And again. Amen.

What are some of your favorites?

Gourmet Girl, Women's Group and Hand Pies

The title of this post pretty much says it all.

When you combine my favorite Thursday night girls +  a Gourmet Girl who brings caramel and chocolate + buttery, flaky crust topped with cinnamon and sugar and a hot oven, a night of perfection is born.

These girls are so amazing. They have supported me for the past (almost) 11 years and now they are letting me bake with them. Geez. It's like I have hit the friendship jack pot.

Sweet Heather offered her home for us and we quickly covered it with flour and sugar, all the while sampling the pie fillings just to make sure they were edible. And yes, they were totally edible.

SIDE NOTE: Somehow I managed to bake through the entire evening without taking a picture of our amazing hostess. That's ridiculous. So let's all pretend I do have a picture of her in an apron and with a plate full of pies. Because that totally happened.

As you can see, a very delicious time was had by all.

 

Pie crust ready to be filled!

Jenn, Rachel and Natalie mixing it up.

 

 

Jenn and Rachel smiling for the camera. These two were the brains behind our Women's Group. They have known each other since they were young. And here they are, baking pies together. I love it.

 

 

Caramel, cinnamon and sugar. Yes, yes and yes. 

Hand pies ready for the oven.

 



 

Abby, working her pie dough magic.

 

 

 

 

Your favorite Gourmet Girl trying to look like I know what I am doing.

 

Hand pie perfection, all boxed up and ready to take home to share (or not share, whichever).

 

Thanks again, girls, for such a fun evening! You're the best. You know you have had a successful baking class when you find a caramel stuck to your shoe.

(And for those who want to "like" me on Facebook or schedule your own cooking class,  just visit my website or my Facebook page. I will totally show up and bake with you.)

The Hand Pie Class

On Saturday night, I got to hang out with some very amazing women. We have all been friends for years, but rarely (as in we have never) get to all hang out together. It was a night full of every wonderful emotion...and pie.

The night was full of pie.

These fabulous women asked your favorite Gourmet Girl to Go to host a hand pie class. So I did what any respectable baker would do: I strapped on my John Deere apron and got to work.

On the Hand Pie Menu:
Salted caramel apple
Brie and berry jam
Chocolate and marshmallow.

But of course, you could mix and match all night long!

As you can see, it was a fairly intense lesson. Hand motions were involved.

There was also laughing. I mean, you can't take hand pies too seriously, people.

And then there was this. I just don't even know.

 

These women quickly got to work and created AMAZING pies!

Here is Tricia mixing the dough.

Others chopped up caramel and unwrapped chocolate.

And two of us sliced apples for the salted caramel apple filling.

Everyone made their own: rolling, cutting, filling, crimping, creating. The kitchen smelled incredible!

And the final result were these adorable, edible hand pies of heaven.

Angels sang above us. I am not even kidding.

 

And these women?

 I had so much fun with these incredible women. It was a night to cherish and savor, in every possible way.

 

 

Mini Cupcakes and the Land of Denial

Last week, I got a catering order for mini cupcakes. I had yet to make the miniature version of any cupcake, because, let's face it, why eat a small version of something when you can have the big version?!

Can I get an "amen?"

So, I quickly picked up a mini-cupcake pan (I got mine at Walmart for $5!) and got to baking.

On the menu: Yellow butter cake with vanilla buttercream, chocolate cake with salted caramel cream cheese frosting, and pumpkin cupcakes with maple cream cheese frosting.

If you counted, this means I had three batters and three frostings being mixed, baked and piped on all at once! It was an explosion of flavor and powdered sugar. In fact, I found frosting on my elbow THE NEXT DAY.

That either tells you a lot about my baking skills or my personal hygiene. I'll let you decide.

The end result: they are so cute! And full of flavor! And crazy addicting! And virutally calorie-free!

(SIDE NOTE: That is not true. They do have calories. I just love living in the land called Denial.)

And they are so easy to make! Next time you decide to bust out some cupcakes, try giving their little cousins a try.

And if you decide to vacation in Denial, you might as well make yourself a dozen while you're at it.

 

And Then My Phone Fell into the Cornbread Batter

Thanks for the blog love, peeps. You made my weekend! Let's just hope I can try to act as normal as possible to all the new readers. But I am pretty sure this post will do the exact opposite of just that.

You see, I was making you all a recipe yesterday. It was a new recipe, full of bacon, which really is the only kind of recipe you should make: Bacon and Green Chile Cornbread Muffins.

And yes, they were magical. Especially with chili and football.

Just as I had added the egg to the batter, and while I was deftly taking a picture of me gracefully pouring the milk into the bowl, my phone slipped from my hands and fell in. Right in. As in it fell right into the cornbread batter.

People. All I could say was "oh no" over and over again. My nephew Noah, who was carefully watching my every move, thought it was perhaps the most awesome thing he had seen that day. And he had already shot my leg with a Nerf dart as I attempted to Karate Kid him in the kitchen. So, needless to say, he had already seen some form of awesome from his favorite aunt.

But that is not the worst part.
The worst part is that my phone is ghetto. GHETTO. You see, last year, after this really horrendous blind date (you can read about it here), I dropped my phone in the parking lot and the screen cracked in a million places.

However, I am cheap frugal and have waited and waited to buy a new phone. Hey, this one still worked, even if I did miss every fourth word in my emails.

But, when you combine cornbread batter with a severely cracked phone you end up with a hot mess that sticks to your face and makes you smell like a farm truck. As I told my coworker about this mishap this morning, she let me borrow her phone to take a picture of it.

Behold:

As you can see, cornmeal batter has found its way into every possible surface on my phone. It is in my speakers, my battery/re-charge portal, the cracks on the screen, under my phone case and in the ear bud hole.

Miraculously, the phone is still working. In fact, it didn't skip a beat, which is both tragic and budget-friendly at the same time. I just wiped it off with a wet paper towel and kept on cooking. I thought about washing it off and putting it in rice, but I thought that adding rice to the mix would make me smell like Thanksgiving. Cornmeal batter was plenty.

It reminds me of these commercials on TV:

So, in the future, if you see me talking on my phone and cornmeal falls from my ear, please just realize it came from my phone and not my actual head.

Because really, that would be ridiculous.

Pumpkin Madness and My Freak Show

If you open Pinterest these days, it is hard to miss the pumpkin explosion that has occurred since we rolled into September. Everything is pumpkin: cakes, pies, ice cream, cookies, candles, paint colors, Styrofoam wreaths, punch bowls and toilet paper.

I admit, I jumped on the bandwagon. Last week, I pinned my Pumpkin Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting recipe onto my Recipes board and thought that was that. I had done my part to add to the pumpkin madness.

But then, something happened. Something that has never happened before: people started pinning it. Pinning, pinning and pinning.  As in people actually wanted to bake these cupcakes. As of now, over 3,000 people have pinned it in four days.

WHAT the WHAT?

I admit, this makes me nervous. What if the recipe isn't good? What if I miscalculated the amount of sugar? What if their pumpkin cupcakes turn into pumpkin bricks?

Oh great. Now I am sweating. And I don't sweat. I just keep thinking:

I am not a professional baker! 

I only have 4 readers! 

I talk about SPANX and falling into Portuguese fountains!

But then...BUT THEN, as I was looking at today's statistics (which, really, are just a measurement to make you go crazy), I noticed a new referring site other than Pinterest:

The Slow Way.

Some website picked up the recipe and made it the recipe of the week.

Recipe of the FREAKING WEEK.

I just don't even know.

Apparently people are loving their pumpkin.

Welcome to my freak show, everyone.

If I Had a Rain Day

For those of you who do not live in Colorado, we are experiencing a bit of rain. It has been raining almost non-stop since Tuesday and it should continue through at least Friday evening.

Snow? Piece of cake.

Rain? Mass chaos.

We don't really know what to do with all of this water because we live in a high desert climate.

(I almost wrote "dessert climate.")

(Of course I did.)

Rain always makes me want to stay home. I have hit the snooze button more in the last week than I have in a month. There is just something about the water running down your window pane to make you think, "Nope, not gonna happen today."

(If I lived in Seattle, I would be paralyzed with lack of motivation.)

So, if I had a Rain Day, and got to stay home with a totally free schedule, these are the things I would do:

1. Sleep. Yes ma'am. I would sleep until I couldn't possibly sleep anymore then I would move down to the couch where I would rest from all of the sleeping.

2. Bake. Oh, friends. The things I would bake! Some of them include my favorite Warm Apple Cake and Caramel Sauce. Perhaps the Pumpkin Cupcakes, and of course, Pumpkin Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies. Then, I would tackle something new, like doughnuts. Oh, and I'd have a full pot of coffee available the entire time.

3. Read. I read the first two books in the "Divergent" series during my little beach getaway and I loved them. I can't wait for the next one to come out in October. So, if this rain day comes in October, that would be first on my list. I also need to catch up on some of my Joel C. Rosenberg, especially with all that is going on in Syria. And, I would probably read a cookbook because those feed my soul with inspiration.

4. Organize. It takes me a little while to get in the organizing mood, but it needs to happen. I have a year's worth of Bible study that needs to be sorted and filed, I have old clothes that need to be donated, budgets that need to be updated and ridiculous other things that are essential to me being able to function.

5. Invite a few friends/sisters/cousins over. They must wear stretchy pants. They must come hungry. And they must bring their favorite movie. Oh, and bring their own spoon for cookie dough.

(SIDE NOTE: The words "sweat," "exercise," or "muscle confusion" did not appear anywhere in my list. Let's just be clear.)

So, what would you do on a Rain Day?

How to Freeze Peaches

Today, let's talk about fruit.

You see, I love fruit. I eat it all the time, with almost every meal. And do you know who else loves fruit? Colorado. The entire state of Colorado loves fruit, and in particular, the peach.

Every August, Coloradans eagerly await, with reusable grocery bags and millions of dollars in hand, for the trucks to roll into town, loaded with the fuzzy-faced fruit of heavenly deliciousness. Once they hit the shelves, hoards of people race through the grocery stores to gaze upon their splendor. 

And we are not talking about any ordinary peach. Nope. We are talking about the PRIZED PEACHES OF THE WESTERN SLOPE OF COLORADO.

(I capitalize these things because of my respect for the peach madness.)

These peaches are only available for 3 to 4 weeks every year. During this time period, it is the only fruit people eat. And during the other 48-49 weeks during the year, it is the only fruit people talk about.




In an effort to prolong their shelf-life, my mom and I usually buy 20 pounds of peaches to freeze for
us to enjoy all winter. It's like we are pioneer women, except with actual freezers and cameras and Spanx.

Amen and Hallelujah.

So, if you have ever wanted to freeze your own peaches (or other fruit) this is how we roll:

First, grab your peaches, any amount you choose.

Now, grab your Fruit Fresh. This is a gem of a product that preserves the flavor and prevents browning of any fruit.

Fill a large bowl full of cold water and sprinkle in some Fruit Fresh. Then, start peeling...

And slicing...

 

And drop them into the cold water.

 

 



 

Once all the peaches have been peeled and sliced, drain the water from the bowl.

Now, add approximately 1/2 cup of sugar and a 1/4 cup of Fruit Fresh (for 20 lbs of peaches).

Stir them up.

And measure them into baggies.

We measure ours by our favorite recipes: deep dish peach cobbler, peach pie and then a few smaller baggies for times when you just want some cold peaches with breakfast.

These can last up to a year in your deep freeze.

And you'll have the AMAZING PEACHES OF HEAVENLY SPLENDOR to eat all year-round.

This really is so simple and you can do it almost every kind of fruit.

So go forth, fruit lovers, and freeze away! You'll feel like Laura Ingalls Wilder. Bonnets are totally optional.