We love eating from our garden. Recently, we harvested some dinosaur and curly kale and whipped up a big batch of kale crispies. See all that kale pictured below, we cooked it all in one night and ate it all in one night too. Eating vegetables in our house is so good and yummy!

Then last night, Ben and I were still a little bit hungry before going to bed, so he decided to whip us up a smoothie to get more fruits and veggies in for the day. He put in some apples, oranges, blueberries, and a turnip. Yes, a turnip. Let me just say it was the nastiest smoothie ever! I did in fact drink it all, just for all the nutritious stuff inside, but I did hold my nose or at least tried to. It was literally like drinking horseradish! Yuck! My nose hurt so much afterward. That was my only experience of something healthy tasting so, so bad. The things we do in this house to eat our fruits and vegetables!

The weekend is almost here and my piles are slowly dwindling. I will attack more of it today. Unfortunately, my Benny is still sick and I hope he gets better soon, though it is kinda nice having him home this week! I like him being here. I hope he feels better by Easter. Speaking of Easter, which is a very special day and a day we are going to happily celebrate. All because of what Christ did on that cross, I am free, no longer a slave to my sin. Praise God for his abundant grace and forgiveness.

Have a wonderful Easter weekend! I will also be introducing some of the newest sponsors with some good giveaways, so come back and visit.

Going to the other side of the spectrum, from a vegetable garden to loaded with all things bad for you, but tastes so good cupcakes. You won’t think I am such a genius anymore once I tell you how these are done. It really is easy and makes for such a visually appealing way to dress up cupcakes, not that cupcakes need to be dressed up as the name itself is cute and enticing!

I pretty much use Paula Deen’s recipe, but with a few of my own tiny tweeks to the ingredients (see*) and then I pretty much follow the directions in Paula Deen’s recipe to make the batter and frosting, though I change it up a bit (time in the oven) when it comes to baking it.

Ingredients:

– 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

– 1 1/2 cups sugar

– 1 tsp baking soda

– 1 tsp salt

– *2 1/4 tsp cocoa powder

– *1 1/2 cup canola oil

– 1 cup buttermilk, room temperature

– 2 large eggs, room temperature

– 2 tbsp red food coloring

– 1 tsp white distilled vinegar

– *2 tsp vanilla extract

for the cream cheese frosting:

– 1 pound cream cheese, softened

– 2 sticks butter, softened

– *2 tsps vanilla extract

– 4 cups sifted powdered sugar

1. Batter is ready to be put in cupcake pan.

2. I spray the pan with pam and then fill each hole up 2/3 with the batter. Note: I do not use liners, but you could if you want, just pull them off before putting them in the jar.
3. Usually they are done after about 17 minutes in my oven at temperature of 350℉, and I take them out and put them on a wire rack to cool completely.

4. Once they are cool, I slice them in half. You will have a stack of tops and a stack of bottoms.

5. Place 1 bottom in each jar.

6. Put a layer of the frosting.

7. Take the top of the cupcake and place on top of the layer of frosting.

8. Flatten (gently smash) the top part of the cupcake inside the jar. You want to get the top sort of flat.

9. Beautifully frost the top of the cupcake.

10. Cover with lids and package however you like! It will be heartbreaking to eat, as it is so pretty, but it is so yummy!

Easy, right? See, I told you I am not a genius. I did also want to give a crack at actually baking it in a jar (crossing my fingers that I wouldn’t shatter or explode in the oven) and it came out pretty good too. I followed these instructions, but the lid I boiled shrank, so I just ran it in piping hot water right before I put in on the jar. Also, I didn’t listen to the “ping” because knowing my ears I wouldn’t even hear it (I have small ears, so I have bad hearing! At least that is why I think I can’t hear well.) I let the whole jar cool completely, which was 2.5 hours. After it cooled, I opened the jar up, I scooped out a hole in the middle and then filled it with frosting. I finished it off by frosting the top too! Then, I sealed it again and packaged it to my liking. Something I would change next time I bake it in a jar, is to only fill it up a quarter of the way because it came up higher than I wanted it too.

Just as cute and delicious as the other way of making it!

Here is a little supplies list with a link to where I bought my goodies for packaging:

Just so you know, I don’t really cook. In case you thought our days involved waking up to delicious waffle and omelet breakfasts, a scrumptious lunch, and a gourmet dinner all cooked by me, the stay home mom, well, you are quite mistaken. Don’t get me wrong, I cook sometimes and I like it sometimes, but I am just not good at it unless I follow a recipe. I’d rather bake.

Ben on the other hand, is a wonderful cook and can whip out things without a recipe, so he does the cooking in this house. He is usually the one who makes our dinner. Lately we have been making sure to have a salmon dinner at least once a week. We all love fish in this house, especially True, while Brave just likes to eat anything. Of course, Ben makes sure to pair our salmon with some veggies straight from our garden, thus we always have a well-balanced scrumpdiddlydumptious meal.

Two weeks ago, we had salmon, cous cous, and mashed cauliflower with swiss chard from the garden… mashed cauliflower is so much better than mashed potatoes.

A week ago, we had salmon and brown rice (not pictured) accompanied with beet greens, and gold and red beets with avocado… so yum!

Last night, we had salmon and brown rice, with swiss chard (from the garden) and sweet potatoes… I am craving it now!

Seriously, Ben is just the best chef ever. Every time he makes a new vegetable dish (or anything for that matter), it becomes my new favorite. He makes vegetables taste really good!

Don’t forget to check out the giveaway post at the bottom, as the polaroid winner has been announced. I promise to have another polaroid camera giveaway sometime next month! I am so happy that so many people love instant photography!!!

This song inspired some baking. Thank you Piccolina Designs for sharing it.

Yestermorning, with the song happily playing on repeat, we set off to make our own love cakes in the form of blueberry muffins. I used Martha’s recipe, but cut the amount of butter and sugar in half and substituted regular flour with whole wheat flour. It isn’t as scrumptious as regular blueberry muffins, but I feel a whole lot better putting these love cakes into my body! Plus, my little girls were quite content with these love cakes.

I am ready to put the song on again and whip up something else. Betcha the song is going to put you in a baking mood too!

p.s. Sophie, would you please come play in Los Angeles sometime?

We started off the celebration for the coming Valentine’s day with some fresh baked, heart-shaped, jam print cookies with strawberry filling… yum.

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If you need little Valentine gifts for some special little people (or yourself), don’t forget to check out my sponsors, especially my newest one, Warm Sugar. These little dolls are perfect for the day. My girls love day gifts are coming from this most lovely shop!

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We are baking, coloring, and doing some crafting in preparation for our little party tonight to celebrate the New Year.

Happy New Year everyone and thank you so much for all your support and love this year! I am so looking forward to see what comes of 2010…

Tonight we will have some Ben-cooked food, cookies, and a night of dancing (and possibly a movie) and tomorrow indulging in sushi at my parents’ house. What are you doing to ring in the New Year?