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Monday, June 20, 2011

Mom's Chocolate Frosting

This is what I am eating as I type this here little diddy up.


I swear if I would stop making desserts I would drop 10 pounds like that.  Anyway since Mondays no longer seem to be for memories and milestones, I figured I'd carry on the tradition and share another recipe.  This one is courtesy of my mother.  First let me give a bit of a back story of how recipes go in our family, frankly put they're a joke.  There is this baked macaroni and cheese that we all make.  I first knew it as Aunt Jane's macaroni but whenever you would ask for the recipe she would say "there isn't one".  Then my mother started making it, again same story "there isn't a recipe".  Oh they've both gotten my sister and I in the kitchen and tried to show us how to make it, but for some reason a recipe just doesn't exist.  Now I will say last summer when my aunt came into town she started a story about giving the recipe to someone at work only to end it with "there isn't a recipe".  So in the end what you do is stick to their instructions, some what, and add in a bit of your own little touch (your own little touch being prayer, and lots of it) and poof you have baked macaroni.

So back to my mother's recipe.  I call her up on Saturday and ask how she makes her chocolate frosting.  "Oh it's real simple"  Of course it is mother...oh God another one of these!  So she proceeds to tell me, loosely this is how...
{ First you get a half stick of butter, then some powdered sugar, a dash of salt, hot milk (just a little, you'll know when you add it), cocoa powder (you'll know, if it's not brown enough add some more), oh and vanilla don't forget the vanilla. }
So that's it.  She gave me a list of flipping ingredients.  A list of ingredients to basically any chocolate frosting out there mind you.  Would someone like to tell me how brown is brown enough for frosting?  Oh oh, slight correction, I did ask if this would frost a 3 layer cake and she said "better use a whole stick, I would do two dashes of salt then".  Thanks mom.


I don't know, can anyone tell me, is it brown enough?

Here is what I came up with...

Mom's Chocolate Frosting

1/2 cup of butter
powdered sugar (I honestly didn't keep track of how much, I think it was about 2 cups)
2 1/2 tablespoons cocoa powder (I had dark, so that's what I used, it may be different with regular)
2 dashes of salt
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1/4 cup warm milk

So cream the butter and some powdered sugar together.  Add in the cocoa powder, salt, and vanilla.  Add some milk.  Then add more powdered sugar and milk until you get the taste and consistency that you want.  

Like I said that's what I got, but I was too busy trying not to forget the list of ingredients that my mother gave me I didn't remember to jot down the amounts I used.  So follow the recipe at your own risk.


Sunday, June 19, 2011

happy dada day


After seeing this post, I decided I would try to make the hubs a thumbprint heart key chain for father's day. 


Well as usual, what starts out as an innocent little project snowballs into a full blown craft day.  We didn't stop at the key chain.


It's not my fault this time.  I went in to buy magic mold and they didn't have plain white so I grabbed some clay...in a tub the size of cool whip.  I looked for the small key chain size tub, apparently they don't sell that small of amounts, imagine that.


It turned out for the best though, because now in addition to the hubs new fancy shmancy key chain, he also got a set of not just hand prints but...


a set of footprints as well.  I already have the wall picked out.  We also got him an orb, it streams music from your computer to an audio device.  This, however has only added to my hatred for our router, but that's another story for another day.  And of course since it was father's day, dada got a nice relaxing day of doing nothing right?  Nope, not a chance, not in this house.  He was made pleasantly agreed to hang Cobra's shelves.


After all it wouldn't be dada day without some dada chores now would it?  I won't mention how thanks to me, we finally found a stud and hung them equal distance from the walls.  We're both happy with how they turn out.  Now I just need to figure out what to fill them up with.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

drips and spills

So for the past couple weeks after supper we head outside for about 20 minutes, well it should be 20 minutes it usually turns into about 40, before Cohen has to get his bath.  Recently I started giving the lil guy a popsicle, which quickly turned into the hubs and I having one as well.  Monday when I was cruising around Target I found some of those popsicle molds and the idealistic dreams starting floating in my heads.  I could make homemade real fruit popsicles for the squirt, so I tossed one in the cart and away we went with the rest of the necessary shopping.


After tossing some strawberries and plums I had frozen for smoothies, a box of apple juice, and a bit of yogurt in the blender and pureeing the hell out of it, we had us a concoction that may be popsicle worthy.  That night I pop out one of my homemade popsicles as Cobra was heading out the door, instead of the usually store bought sugary glob on a stick.


The Mr. and I of course decide to have one as well.  Turns out the sugary glob on a stick that you can buy on a stick is way better than my not very sweet, full of seeds homemade version.  


The kid, of course, didn't complain.  But the hubs, he went back to the sugary store bought goodness the next night.  I stuck it out one more night but I think the kid is on his own with the rest of this batch.


Maybe I should stick to kool-aid next time.


Like I said the kid obviously enjoyed it.  Thank God for Spray 'n Wash!

Thursday, June 2, 2011

just the pits

The bestie came in this past weekend.  As we do when she always comes over we came up with this crazy plan...to make s'mores.  


Now I know what you're thinking how is making s'mores crazy?  Well when you have to go to three different stores to get a s'mores making thingy, aka fire pit, it becomes slightly crazy.

the bestie

Even more so when your hubby doesn't come through with making a fire in the s'mores making thingy so that you can actually make them in the first place.


Now I know that looks like a fire, as a matter of fact it is a fire...gasp.  It however was made with newspapers and therefore only lasted like 5 minutes.  So the bestie and I just sat around complained about how the kids were put to bed early for nothing.  It didn't help, the hubs wouldn't be swayed, he was too busy playing on the iphone to be bothered by making us a real fire.


All in all it was a fun no s'more making weekend with some shopping, food, and plenty of other things that weren't really of much importance, as it generally goes when she comes over.  And now we have a fire pit and s'more making stuff so we'll be ready at a moments notice.