Pint-sized Cupcakes

Fact: I love all things tiny, cute, and not overly sweet.
Fact: Putting on my adorable apron doesn't make me a whiz in the kitchen.

But sometimes if I see something I REALLY like I'll be more inspired to stay motivated in the kitchen. Well, I think these little bites are cause to keep my drive alive. Seriously, how cute are they? And they actually seem pretty easy to create.

When a recipe begins with the word "easy," as in these Easy Cupcake Bites by Bakerella, it means there's actually a fairly good chance I can follow the recipe. AND, when that recipe has step-by-step photos to accompany the easy recipe (like here at The Pioneer Woman Cooks), it means my chances of screwing up decrease even more!

Now I'm not expecting my bite-sized cupcakes (cuppies?!) to ever turn out looking like the very first picture (shoot, I'll be happy if you can even tell they're supposed to look like "cupcakes") but I think these are too adorable to not attempt to make.

Before I bust out the apron, the next question is what flavor of cake mix should I buy?

Makin' Muffins

Thanks to Ashley (a fellow gal I "met" through a military girlfriend's Web site), I had a new recipe to bake today. I know, I know, you're probably thinking, "Jessica, you can't cook." And while this is true, I really like trying. So here's my adventure in making a new (and healthy!) recipe. (FYI, they don't look anywhere near as delish as they do on Ashley's blog!)

Flax Seed Cranberry Muffins

The recipe calls for flax seed, and seeing as how flax seed is in the name of the recipe I decided to find out what flax seed was. Basically it has lots of Omega 3 and is high in fiber. You can sprinkle it on just about anything and it's great to cook with.

My mom and I picked some flax seed up at Whole Foods, but what we didn't know is that the seeds come whole and we needed them ground. Great. After trying to grind them with a coffee grinder (it was broken) we moved on to using a blender. That did the job.

Now it was onto the next part of the recipe. Cranberries. Since cranberries aren't exactly in season, and I forgot to buy some frozen ones, we decided to just go with cranberries in a can. In the end all, be all of things, I think the cranberries worked even though there was lots of sauce (we rinsed off all the goo till we only had the berries left).
Ok, so moving on. I had to mix the dry ingredients and then the wet ingredients in separate bowls. Now, had I actually read the directions (this seems to be a recurring problem with me...) I would have read that I shouldn't put the cranberries in till later - oops! Here's what the wet stuff looked like (appetizing, huh!):

There's applesauce, eggs, egg whites, vanilla, cranberries and oil. Yum.

I almost forgot that I had to grate orange peel in there. I've never "zested" anything before, so I got out the grater and tried to make this work.

I mixed the whole shebang together and filled the muffin tins. The batch made 19 muffins, but I have enough flax seed left to make another batch. Next time (and there will be a next time because I think they're really yummy!) I'm going to make mini muffins.

They taste almost like bran muffins, but are a little sweet and a little tangy.

They may not look all that delicious, but trust me, they are!

Flax Seed Cranberry Muffins

Ingredients
1 3/4 cup of Ground Flax Seed
1 cup of whole cranberries
2 Eggs, 4 whites or 4 total eggs
1/4 cup of olive oil
1/4 cup of applesauce
1/2 cup of brown sugar
tsp. of baking powder
3 tsp. of cinnamon
1 tsp. of nutmeg
1/2 tsp. of salt
1 Tbl. vanilla extract
2 tablespoons grated orange peel
3/4 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional for topping) - I didn't add the nuts

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Liberally butter muffin tins. Makes anywhere from 12 to 24 muffins. Do not use paper muffin liners - they will stick.
1. Pour boiling water over cranberries. Let sit for 5 minutes and pour off water.
2. Mix dry ingredients and wet ingredients (minus the cranberries) separately, then mix them together.
3. Let mixture stand for 10 minutes to thicken.
4. Fold in cranberries.
5. Fill each muffin cup about half way, and sprinkle with nuts.
6. Bake about 15 minutes (a little longer if you're only making 12) or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Keep up to a week in the refrigerator or 3 months in the freezer.

Picture and Update Fest!

Oh goodness, it's been awhile since I've posted! Well, I'll try to make this short and sweet, but we all know that's probably not going to happen!!

Backing up:
Kenny came in Friday (9/5) night! But he was supposed to originally get in on Sept. 2, then that was delayed to Thursday the fourth in the morning, then it was the fifth in the morning...and so on and so on.

I freaked out when I heard it was going to be delayed AGAIN because I was supposed to leave Sunday at 8 am. I called Delta and spoke with some not-very-nice lady who only cared about following the rules and was going to charge $450 to change my flight for later that . Yeah, that wasn't going to fly, so I called back and talked with a supervisor. I pulled the "military card" (hey, I wasn't about to spend $900 on this trip) and she worked with me and we ended up changing my ticket to come home on Monday morning for a $170 change. Now, I could handle that.

I stayed with Kelly, Bryan and their two kids (THANK YOU A MILLION, AGAIN!!!) and we made a sign for Kenny before he got in:


But back to the homecoming. It was awesome. I had NO idea what to expect, but I just went with the flow. We actually got to see the plane fly in and land on base.


There must have been about 50-75 (maybe more, i'm a bad judge of numbers!) people waiting for their loves, family members and friends to get off the plane. The rolled the stairs up to the plane and then they started deboarding. It was such a sight to see.





I started crying almost immediately because a little girl ran up to her daddy and just hugged him like there was no tomorrow. He said, 'Ok, I have to stand up now," and she just shook her head and said, "I don't wanna let go of you again." Ah. It breaks my heart all over again!

Kenny was one of the first to come off the plane, and I know this sounds really, really silly/stupid, but I was most nervous about not recognizing him. You see, they were ALL wearing the SAME uniform/color and I was just so afraid that I wouldn't be able to pick him out. But the minute he came through I knew it was him.

Really there were just lots of hugs and kisses and tears. I think I cry more when I see homecomings not directly related to me, but damn do I love them! I saw moms reunited with their kids, dads who missed birthdays and lots and lots of love all around.

And that was my first homecoming; I apologize for how long it took me to get the pictures up!

Now back to real time:

I had a pretty good day yesterday! I got to sleep in a bit and then went gallivanting around town with my mom. We had lunch at a yummy casual Italian restaurant and I had a very delicious sandwich! Then I came home and took a nap (I LOVE Saturdays because taking a nap in the middle of the day is perfectly acceptable).

After the nap I decided to make some cupcakes. I LOVE cupcakes and decided I'm going to make a valid attempt to make them more often! Today the church my dad grew up in out in Tome has a "Fiesta" for all the churchgoers and at the park they have a cake walk, so I wanted to make some for that. I'll try to remember to take pics of it!

I had SO much fun making them! Here are some pics:

Me (I'm even wearing an apron! Go me! lol):


The FUNFETTI batter:


pouring it into the mini cups!


What 80 mini cupcakes without frosting look like:


I dyed the white vanilla frosting pink (it's much more vibrant in person):





And blue!:


And then I mixed the two and made a purple:

I ended up having two more pans of each. Woohoo! I'm really excited about doing this and can't wait to make more! :)

Perfect Timing

I sent my lovely computer away Monday around 2 pm to be fixed. I packed it real tight, taped it shut and kissed it goodbye, crossing my fingers I’d get to see it at least by next week. You see I’ve never had good luck with computers when they break. In fact, most of my junior and senior years of college were spent cursing at Best Buy’s Geek Squad for being no more intelligent than an ant. Seriously.

So when I checked the tracking number for my iBook last night I was SHOCKED to find out that it was already being shipped back to me. Wow. Talk about fast service. Not only that, but when I called to report my laptop’s booboo they answered my call in less than five minutes and were actually helpful, unlike just about any other customer-service hotline.

My dad called me this morning around 10 am to let me know that Fed Ex Air had just dropped off my laptop. Again, talk about fast service. I’m not all that great at math, but by my calculations that comes out to less than 48 hours from the time I sealed the box to the time it arrived back on my doorstep.

I’m tellin’ ya, once you go MAC you never go back.

Another awesome timing story happened this afternoon. Kenny got online for a quick five minutes before his flight and was way happier than necessary for being stuck in a desert. Well, it turns out that the cookies I sent him on Saturday arrived today. Can I get another “wow”?! That means they got there in about three days. Seriously, that’s just crazy! No word on how delicious they are yet, but he promised me he'd share them with his crew :) Is it wrong that I’m questioning whether he’s really stationed in Qatar or not? I mean I can’t even get something I ordered online to get to me that fast! Simply amazing I tell ya!