Homemade Card Exchange - Wanna Join?

Every 3 or 4 weeks some friends at work and I get together and we make cards.  Each of us designs one and then brings the materials for everyone to make the same card.  It's awesome!  It's relaxing and fun and we all leave with beautiful cards that we can mail out.  I just love getting mail - and sending it!  Sadly, it's become "old school" nowadays and most people text or call or email.  But there's something to be said about opening the mailbox and seeing a letter (and not a bill) in there for me or for my kids.  It makes my day!

Here are some of the cards we have made:

I just love them!  We've made lots more but I've mailed them off to family or friends.

That being said, I thought it would be fun to do a card swap/exchange.  Are you interested?

Here are the rules:
* Make 6 cards (all the same design).  Any occassion and any style is great.  We stamp, but you can Cricut, paper craft, anything!
* Write your name and address on a 6 1/2 x 9 inch envelope (or one about that size) and include $1.30 in postage (on the envelope).
* Mail the cards and envelope to me by April 1st.

I will sort the cards and mail them out to each of you so you will get 5 cards (all different styles.  One card remains with the hostess (that's me.)  =o)

Interested?  Email me @ crazybulldogs(at)comcast(dot)net and let me know you're in!  I'll send you my address to mail the cards.

I can hardly wait to see what you all create! 

No Bake Cake Batter Truffles

Cake Batter Truffles
Source: Chef in Training from The Girl Who Ate Everything

* 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
* 1/2 cup sugar
* 1 1/2 cups flour
* 1 cup cake mix
* 1 tsp. vanilla
* 1/8 tsp. salt
* 3-4 Tbsp. milk
* sprinkles

Coating
* melting chocolate

Beat together butter and sugar until well combined.  Blend in vanilla.  Blend in flour, cake mix and salt.  Add 3 Tbsp. of the milk and mix thoroughly.  (It needs to be dough consistency.)  Mix in sprinkles by hand.

Roll into 1 inch balls and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.  Refrigerate for 15 minutes to chill.

Meanwhile, put chocolate into a bowl and microwave in 30 minute spurts, stirring after each 30 seconds.  Using a fork, dip each of the dough balls into the chocolate to coat.  Tap off excess chocolate and place on waxed paper.

Let's take another look at these bad boys...

Chill cake batter truffles in the refrigerator until serving.

Just a personal note here... these are AWESOME!  Yowza!  So glad it only made about 24 of them because I would have eaten them all!

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Cake Batter Pancakes

This was my son's request, pancakes with sprinkles. Where did I go wrong? Oh wait... where did I go right?!?! That's my boy! Just like his Mom. =o)  It's breakfast but just pimped up a little.  Kind of like our Cinnamon Roll Pancakes.  Amazing!

So I searched Pinterest (my new food and craft searching tool) and found these bad boys by How Sweet It Is.  My kids LOVED them!  And what's not to love?

Cake Batter Pancakes
Source: How Sweet It Is

* 1 1/2 cups flour
* 2/3 cup cake batter (we used Funfetti)
* 1 Tbsp. sugar
* 3/4 tsp. baking powder
* dash of salt
* 2 eggs
* 1 tsp. vanilla
* 1 to 2 cups milk
* sprinkles

In a bowl, combine flour, cake mix, salt and sugar. Add eggs, vanilla and 1 cup of the milk.  Stir.  You want it the consistency of pancake batter so add more milk as needed.  FOld desired amount of sprinkles into batter.

Make pancakes as you would any other pancakes. 

We made a "frosting" for ours (of course.)  We're all about frosting.  We combined powdered sugar with a small amount of milk and vanilla.

Pour frosting over pancakes and add more sprinkles =o)
Viola!  Cake batter pancakes!

We make lots of pancakes on the weekends.  I spread them out on a wire rack and put them in the freezer for about an hour.  Then remove them and put them in a ziplock bag.  Now we have pancakes all week.  I just put some on a plate and microwave them.  It's much better than cereal (well, maybe...) and my kids love them.

Enjoy!!!


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{Secret Recipe Club} Pecan Pie Bars

It's Secret Recipe Club time again.  Did you miss us last month?  We all took a month off so Amanda (the founder of this great club) could do some revamping.  But we're back and are you ready for this one?!?!

My blog assignment this month was Male Cotte - A Little Blog That Feeds a Huge Appetite for Cooking.  I was so excited when I clicked on the link and Chris's blog came up.  Oh man!  Where to start?!?!  Her recipes are amazing.  She appears to have a little bit of a sweet tooth like me =o) so it wasn't hard to find a recipe that I wanted to make.  The only problem... I had to make only one!  Ugh.  How can I chose just one when my ever growing "to make" list of her recipes includes: Oreo Cookie No Bake Cheesecake, Peppermint Patty Mini Cupcakes, Homemade Twix Bars, Strawberry Rangoons and Peanut Butter Cup Bars???  But then I clicked on her Pecan Pie Bars and I knew this was the recipe I wanted to make (and devour!)

Pecan Pie Bars
Source: Mele Cotte

Crust
* 3 cups flour
* 1 cup butter - 3/4 cup softened, 1/4 cup melted
* 1/3 cup sugar
* 1/2 tsp. salt

Filling
* 4 eggs, slightly beaten
* 1 cup sugar
* 1 1/2 cups corn syrup
* 3 Tbsp. butter, melted
* 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
* 3 cups chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a sheet pan (like a 15x10x1 pan) with aluminum foil and then spray with non-stick spray. 

Cream together 3/4 cup butter and sugar until blended.  On low speed, add flour and salt.  Slowly add melted butter.  Press firmly into prepared pan and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown.

Using a whisk or mixer, blend all the filling ingredients, except the pecans, until well blended.  Then, add the pecans. 

*** Because I can't leave well enough alone, I added a package of Heath Toffee Bits and half a bag of mini chocolate chips.  Couldn't hurt, right?

Pour mixture over the baked crust and bake an additional 25-30 minutes, or until the filling is set.  Allow to cool completely, at least 1 hour. 

Cut into desired shaped - bars, triangles, etc.

First of all, my house smelled AMAZING when they were cooking!  I just love that (and it's always a good sign to me.)  And these bars did not disappoint.  They were heavenly!!!  This recipe makes a ton of bars (depending on how big you cut them) and I had to put half of them in the freezer to get them away from me.  They were so delicious!!!

Thank you to Angela (from Big Bear's Wife) for hosting group C.  Now come and take a look at the other amazing bloggers in group C.





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A Fun Birthday Gift When 30 Sucks

A friend at work turned 30 this year. 30! That feels like forever ago. But she was kind of stressing that she was getting so old. It just made me laugh =o)

This is what we made her for her birthday. Cute, right? I found this idea over on the Cricut website.  I just love that site for ideas.

I bought a simple container at the Dollar Store.  You can use anything.  I added floral foam to the container and them poked suckers in it.  30 to be exact =o) 

Easy peasy!



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Chichen and Shrimp Yakisoba

This was one of those "who knew" dinners. I mean, I knew I would like it but who knew my kids would absolutely love it! My daughter's exact words... "if I could Mom, I'd marry it." Ha!

Not too far from us (well, almost 40 minutes, but who's counting) is the best Japanese market ever - Uwajimaya. Have you heard of it? I absolutely love it. I love that you can buy almost anything there from fresh lobster and goeduck to Origami paper and anything Hello Kitty to a $400 toilet seat. Serious. Don't believe me?

See?  There is something to be said about sitting on a warm toilet seat in the dead of winter in the middle of the night.  I remember when I was over in Japan how totally cool I thought that was.  Simple pleasures, right?

Anyways... back to Uwajimaya.  My son and I made a trip there the other day and had so much fun walking up and down the aisles looking at everything.  We bought fun Japanese sodas and candies and shrimp flavored crackers (we're sending those to a friend) and fresh seafood and things to make delicious dinners.

I threw together some Yakisoba noodles (you can buy these in a "regular" grocery store as well), chicken, shrimp and broccoli.  I bought some Yakisoba sauce.  It is delicious.  Regular teriyaki sauce works as well but my kids are Yakisoba fans from the teriyaki restaurant.  This tastes just like the restaurant.

I guess we'll be making this a lot now since they inhaled it!  I also cooked op some pot stickers (AKA gyoza.)  My kids absolutely love those too.  Again... who knew?!

Enjoy!

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Oreo Stuffed Brownies

Whenever we go to Dairy Queen (which isn't very often) my son orders the Brownie Earthquake Sundae.  It's ice cream, brownies, hot fudge and crushed up Oreos.  It's pretty much heaven in a bowl.  This morning I asked him what we should make for a dessert and he said "Brownie Earthquake".  I told him we didn't have ice cream and he said "no, Oreos inside brownies."  He was pretty proud of himself thinking he came up with this genius idea =o)

I remembered seeing Oreo Brownies over on A Hen's Nest so I hopped on over there and this is what we came up with.

Oreo Stuffed Brownies

Source: A Hen's Nest

* Brownie Mix (and the ingredients to make the brownies)

* Oreos

We used the winter Oreos that are red in the middle.  We thought they would look cool.  =o)

Yep, that's it.  How easy is that?!?!

Make the brownie batter according to the directions on the box.  (This is always a good job for little hands.)

Dip each Oreo into the batter.

Place in a greased muffin pan.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 11 minutes.  You want them gooey because the Oreo gets all gooey inside (oh yum!)

Let sit in the muffin pan for a couple of minutes to let them set a little.  Otherwise it'll be hard to remove them and they will fall apart.

They were delicious warm!  The Oreo is all gooey and yummy!

Because we can't leave well enough alone, I mixed some vanilla buttercream frosting with crushed up Oreos and added that to the top.  Then put a piece of Oreo on top of that.  WOW! 

They were a hit!

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