Southern taste buds!

Hellooooo blog readers!  Today’s entry is about simple Southern desserts…made easy…and a bit more difficult 🙂

Let me give you some background on why I picked these desserts from Pinterest….   I am a graduate student, working towards my Masters in Education and Teaching and I consider myself a pretty responsible adult, so when I was presented with a “snack sign up list” for not one but TWO of my grad classes, I was incredibly annoyed and immediately went on the defensive.  My thought was that I am an adult and I know I’m going to be in class for 5hrs, so I had better bring a snack for myself…and the last time I heard of a snack list was on the little league field.  Honestly, why do I need to bring a snack for someone else who hasn’t also signed up for snack duty?  Apparently I’m a lone thinker (well, almost alone)….so despite my verbal efforts to gain support for NO SNACK list, my efforts failed….even I caved.  I guess I caved under pressure or maybe just to get it over with and then I never have to worry about it again.  Either way, that brings me to my two “snack duty”  snacks, developed from things I have pinned from Pinterest!

In my quest for all things pumpkin, I found a recipe for chocolate pumpkin bites…though I wasn’t sure about the combination.  Needless to say, I changed the combination and created some different snacks that were super easy and around $5 to make.

Snack #1 – Chocolate Blueberry Cake Bites (big hit with my class and my teacher’s daughter! I sent her own with the leftovers!)

Ingredients: Devil’s food cake mix and blue berry pie filling

Mix the two ingredients, spray non-stick mini muffin pan, fill muffin cups a little more than half full.  Bake at 325 for 10-12min.  These will stay a bit gooey in the middle, but since there is no egg or dairy, this is fine!   Yields aprx. 36 mini bites

Snack #2 Pumpkin bites and cinnamon rice pudding (this was me bringing some of my Southern taste buds to Hawaii! You can take the girl out of the South, but you cant make her leave her taste buds behind!)

Pumpkin Bites ingredients:  Yellow cake mix and a small can of pumpkin (NOT pie filling), real vanilla extract and cinnamon.  Note: I doubled the recipe so I used the big can of pumpkin and two boxes of cake mix.

Mix the cake mix and pumpkin in a large bowl. (this may take a few minutes and some arm power, as the batter is STIFF!)  Then add a few splashes of vanilla and some cinnamon.  How much cinnamon depends on your liking of the spice…I added a few teaspoons and then tasted it. (tasting is ok here, bc there are no eggs)  If you want more…add more!  If you want to make it more of a pumpkin pie taste, then add some nutmeg too.  Thoroughly mix and cover with foil.  Let the mix proof in the refrigerator overnight. (I made the mix Monday evening and made the bites Tuesday night)

Spray mini muffin tin or use mini muffin papers, set oven to 325.  Scoop batter into a Ziploc baggie, seal the bag and trim off the corner.  Pipe the batter into the muffin pan, roughly 3/4 full. (the baggie method helped me get more even muffins)  Bake for 10-11min.  Enjoy!!!!!!  These little bites are pillowy puffs of pumpkin yumminess! Yields aprx. 72 mini bites for the double batch

Snack #2 part two – cinnamon rice pudding

This is a recipe that I pinned from Pinterest and for those of you who know me, I have a hard time following a recipe…meaning, I simply don’t use them! haha  SO, I started this by following the recipe, but as things didn’t seem to be working, I changed it and it turned out to be simply amazing!  (I made a triple batch for this, so my ingredient list is just for one)

Ingredients: 2cups of rice, 2cups of milk, 1/3c raw sugar, 2 cinnamon sticks, 2 eggs, ground cinnamon, 1 half stick of butter, vanilla, cornstarch, water

Cook your rice, with the cinnamon sticks in the water.  Drain. Put back in the pot.  Add two cups of milk (I used 2%), sugar and vanilla…cook until thick, over medium heat.  (Note: The Pinterest recipe now calls for you to add an additional 1/2c of milk, with the butter, eggs and vanilla.  My pudding wasn’t as thick as I thought it would be, so I didn’t add the additional milk.)  Add your egg whites, butter and vanilla. (make sure you temper the eggs before adding them to the pot, so you don’t end up with scrambled eggs!)  Continue cooking and stirring, until it thickens to your liking.

Now this is where the trouble begins….my pudding was more like a thick soup.  I had already eliminated some milk from the original recipe, so the only thing I could think of was that the egg whites I used instead of whole eggs or even yolks, didn’t have the thickening power needed.  So, I cranked up the heat and cooked…and cooked…and cooked!  Still needed thickening, so I mixed a few tablespoons of cornstarch and water and added that to my pudding…JACKPOT!!!!!!!  Added a few shakes of the ground cinnamon, allowed to cool and I was on my way!  (serving warm is fine too!)

My class LOVED these southern snacks, so despite the fact that I don’t think I need to be providing adults with snack, I did and it was a success!  Southern hospitality 🙂

Finally, as a snack for me and my mentor teacher at school, I made Peach Cobbler Bites:  325 for 10-11 min  (next time I may add some cinnamon…)

I hope you have enjoyed this tasty journey!  Now go get cooking!

Check out my yummy treats page on Pinterest

http://www.pinterest.com/imsteph1982/yummy-treats/

Crafts with corks!

Hellooooo everyone!  I am starting this blog to write about my experience working through my pins on Pinterest!  If you are anything like me, you pin and pin and pin….but rarely make or buy anything that you pin.  I seriously just get caught up in the moment and pin like crazy, but a few days ago I started wondering if I would actually benefit from anything I pinned…so hopefully this blog will be a way for me to commit to working through the hundreds of pins that I have.  Pretty certain the “yummy treats” board has almost 150 pins and my DIY and Crafts boards have dozens and dozens, so I have a LOT of work to do.  As I move through my pins and blogs, please feel free to ask questions or leave comments about the things I post!

My first cork crafts:  Do you drink wine?  Before I moved here, I drank a TON of wine and kept the corks…never really had a reason to, but I did and after several years of collecting, I have quite a lot.  Until I started on Pinterest, I didn’t have many ideas for these corks, so they sat in various vases and became floor décor 🙂 haha  original isn’t it?!?!  ok, so the first craft….a cork letter.  My last name starts with an L, so I thought this would be a great little something to hang on the wall in my apartment.

Materials Needed:  Corks (# varies), glue gun with glue sticks, wooden letter, knife                 NOTE: Wax or plastic corks wont work bc the glue wont adhere to them.

The pin on Pinterest had you gluing the whole cork to the letter, but I thought that was a waste of corks, so I cut mine in half. (you don’t have to do this step!) BE CAREFUL, bc this was not a super simple task.  The cork is rather stiff, so it was a bit hard to cut.  I did manage to cut them all with a sharp serrated knife…slowly and with gloves on.  An electric knife may work better, but I don’t have one.  Once you halve your corks, arrange the corks on your letter, so you can figure out how they lay best.  As you see in my pictures, I let my corks extend over the letter, so there is overhang…making the letter bigger.  After you have them arranged the way that you want, take a picture of it.  This way you have the exact template to use while gluing them.  Glue each cork to the wooden letter until the entire letter is covered.  Let it set for a good 30-60min, ensuring it is dry and not going anywhere.  Then you’re done!  I didn’t put a hanger on mine, bc it leans up against the wall, but you could always add a picture hanger or glue on some pretty ribbon or rope for a hanger.  BTW, I bought the letter at Ben Franklin for $5 (I think it was on sale).  They also sell wine corks if you want to do this craft but aren’t a drinker!

Craft #2 – Cork card holder

Materials needed: Corks, glue and glue gun, hanger of choice (I used hemp rope) NOTE: Wax or plastic corks wont work bc the glue wont adhere to them.

As with the first craft, lay the corks on the wood, to make sure you have enough corks to complete the project.  Once you have the correct amount of corks, glue them on the balsa wood, making sure to keep it all centered.  After all of the corks are in place, let is set for 30-60min to make sure it all dries and sticks.  Then, glue on a hanger of your choice!

Note: when hanging a card, make sure to push the pins in easy or you may pop a cork off.  The bond is NOT like super glue, so take it easy.

Until next time!  Keep on pinning 🙂