Oh boy, this has been a super busy couple of weeks. My business is finally starting to pick up, and both of my best friends had their birthdays less than a week apart. I made the boob cake for my friend PJ's 40th birthday, and the penis cake for my best friend Amy's birthday. On top of those very challenging cakes (since i don't have erotic cake molds...yet) I had a muffin order, and a couple of sauce orders. As if that was not enough, I still had a week full of working and other 'wifely' duties, I was asked to make one of my husbands favorite dishes, corn stuffed pork chops. This is a fairly simple meal, but I can't lie and say that it was made with any type of enthusiasm :)
I came up with the recipe for my husband, because although I do not eat much meat, (really only chicken for protein) my husband happens to be quite the carnivore. I hate getting stuck in ruts of making the same things over and over again and he hates eating the same bbq pork chops every time he wants pork. So I made this stuffing with corn, Italian bread crumbs, an egg and some butter and thought that it would go well in pork chops. iIt took a long time to get the 'chop stuffing' technique down, but I think I have finally mastered the best way. They started out being more like pork sandwiches, with the stuffing between two thin chops, and now they are pork stuffed rolls.
Ingredients
thinly cut pork chops, beaten to about paper thinness if possible
1 egg
2 tablespoons softened butter
1/4 - 1/2 cup Italian style bread crumbs
1 can sweet corn (drained)
Barbecue sauce
salt and pepper
garlic powder
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. On a foil lined baking sheet, place pork chops in one layer.
In a bowl combine egg and butter, whisk until combined. Slowly add in bread crumbs until the mixture starts to get dry. Add in about 3/4 of the can of corn. Stir until it looks like stuffing, see photo below.
Stir in salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste. I like mine a little more garlicky, so I tend to add tons of garlic powder. After everything is incorporated, take a tablespoon and spoon into the middle of the pork chop, then roll pork chop around filling, leaving the seam side down on the pan.
Once this process has been done to all pork chops, drizzle them with a little bbq sauce.
Place chops in the oven and cook for 15-20 minutes until pork is thoroughly cooked. Let stand about 10 mins to cool and let the juices redistribute.
Who wouldn't want to receive a boob cake for a special occasion? This was my thought when I received one for my 21st birthday a couple of years ago. I had just started my catering business and had named it Gabriella's Goodies, which my best friend thought was hysterical because we are always joking about my breasts being my 'goodies'. So, she decided a boob cake was very fitting for the occasion, and I have to admit, after I got over the shock of my cake being boobies, I really loved it!
It's now two years later, and one of my good friends is celebrating his 40th birthday, so I thought, what better way to celebrate a big birthday than with a boob cake! This wasthe first one that I made, but it was so easy.I'm not the first one to make the boob cake, nor is the recipe homemade, but I think its a fun one to share anyway :)
Ingredients List
2 boxes of your favorite cake mix
2 oven safe bowls that are the same size and a good boobie shape
Hershey Kisses
Red food coloring
Buttercream frosting
Follow the instructions on the cake mix to create the batter. Spray your boob bowls with a non stick cooking spray so that they won't stick. Fill bowls 3/4 full. I found that its easier to remove them from the oven if you put the bowls on a baking sheet before placing them in the oven. (this will also help with clean up if the batter overflows the bowls) Once your oven is preheated to the temperature that's specified on the box mix, place baking sheet with bowls in the oven. (I had a little extra batter left over, so I actually made some cupcakes as well.) How long they will need to be in the oven will depend on how large your bowls are...mine took almost an hour. This is the only tough part about the process because you really do need to babysit them while they are in the oven. You can check to see if they are done periodically by inserting a knife or toothpick into the cake, if it comes out clean, then they are done. Once they are fully cooked, remove them from the oven and let them sit upright in the bowls for about 30 mins. After 30 mins, the bowls will still be hot, so be careful when handling them. Line a baking sheet with foil, and turn the bowls over. Let this sit for about an hour before trying to remove the cake from the bowls. Place each cake side by side with only a small gap (for proper boobie look), and make sure to let the cakes cool completely before frosting. Frost with the butter-cream, leaving some left over for dying pink. After the cakes are frosted put the remaining frosting in a bowl and use only a drop of the red food coloring to dye the frosting pink for the nipples. Place one unwrapped Hershey Kiss in the center of each cake, and then cover the kiss with the pink icing.
You now have a simple boob cake :)
(and maybe some A cup cupcakes as well)
My husband came home and said that he had seen a recipe that I needed to make for him. I am now his wife, so I figured that it would be my wifely duty to make sure that his foodie needs were met :) I looked over the recipe and realized that it could be my weight loss downfall. I have one sure weakness to my dieting....peanut butter cups, and the recipe that he needed to have was for Inside Out Peanut Butter Cups.
The recipe is very easy, and doesn't take any crazy ingredients...most of the items that it calls for are already in the pantry, so I tried my hand and made him these tasty treats. They didn't look anything like the lovely picture on the recipe, but I think they tasted pretty amazing. I am now going to have to burn the recipe so that I can't make these tasty homemade goodies every day of the week. Check out the recipe below if you are like my husband and I and can't resist a peanut butter/chocolate combo!
I am constantly trying to find more healthy versions of the foods that I love so much. I have a serious soft spot for fried chicken, but the amount of fat and calories in it are enough to give me a heart attack just thinking about. I do always use boneless, skinless chicken breasts, but the act of frying them in oil still makes it super unhealthy. I have seen many recipes for coating the chicken in other ingredients besides bread crumbs, but the one that I love the most is a pretzel coated chicken. Coating the chicken breasts in pretzels is unique because there are so many different types of pretzels, and yesterday when I was feeling super healthy, I stumbled across a whole wheat pretzel and decided to give those a try.
This recipe is just as easy to make as regular fried chicken, but it has 83 percent less saturated fat, and 54 percent fewer calories!
Ingredients
4 4-ounce skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, beaten to an even thickness
2 egg whites
2 tablespoons honey mustard
1 1/2 cups pretzels, crushed
pinch of thyme
pinch of ground rosemary
pinch of garlic powder
nonstick cooking spray
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Place egg whites and mustard in a dish and whisk until combined.
Put pretzels on a plate and toss together the rosemary, thyme and garlic powder.
Dip chicken into the egg mixture and then press into pretzel mixture until it is fully coated.
Place chicken onto a foil lined baking sheet that has been sprayed with nonstick cooking sheet. Finally, place baking sheet into the oven for approximately 15 minutes.
I have been thinking about how to can my Italian red sauce for many years now. It seems that I always make too much sauce so it either goes to waste sitting in the refrigerator, or I freeze it and it just doesn't taste as fresh after being frozen. My husband’s friends always come over for dinner, and beg me to can the sauce so that they can take some home and eat it at their leisure. I would always make some excuse about how I didn't have any Mason Jars, but that I would pick some up the next time I went shopping. In reality, it had nothing to do with not having the jars, it was just pure laziness because I thought that the process would be long and difficult, but how wrong I was.
Recently I got married, and had used mason jars as apart of my centerpieces for the wedding. People took the items that were in them and left the mason jars, so suddenly I had tons of jars laying around that house, and a fridge full of sauce. I took this as a sign and decided to use the jars to save my sauce from the fuzzy things that like to grow on it after sitting in the fridge a little to long, and help it live up to the freshness it deserves! I began researching the process of canning by watching a couple of YouTube videos and reading a ton of articles. This made me see that all my hesitation and procrastination was just utter laziness.I have since done tons of canning, and continue to do more because the jars of sauce have been disappearing from my shelves! :) So without further adieu, here is the process for canning. (don't worry, I promise it's easy)
Canning Process
*items that you will need
Sauce pot of sauce, heated and brought to a simmer
Another pot full of water that is boiling
A ladle
Mason jars
Paper towels
Tongs, or something of the like, that you can use to grab the hot jars and lower them into hot water
An oven mitt
Start off by bringing a sauce pot full of water to boil. The pot should be large enough to cover the jars completely. Then, unscrew the caps on the mason jars and removing the lids. Take just the jar and submerge it into the boiling water. Leave the jar for about 10 minutes to boil, this is sterilizing the jar, as well as heating it up so it doesn't crack when it gets put back in. Once the 10 mins are up, you can take the tongs and remove the jar, dump the water back into the pot. Ladle the warm sauce into the jar, and make sure to wipe off any sauce drippings from the jar and especially around the top of the jar. Put the topper on, and screw on the cap, making sure that it’s tight. Use the oven mits and tongs to lower the jar into the boiling water again, leave it in for about 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes are up, remove the jar and place on counter or towel. After it cools for a bit, press down on the top so seal the jar.
You have now successfully canned...see not difficult at all :)
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