0 Cheese Sticks

I LOVE cheese sticks! LOVE them.. Completely, with every piece of my heart. What I don't love: frozen food. What else I don't love: paying $8 for six cheese sticks, then having to share them with everyone at the table while we wait on the main course. My solution? Make them! What I used? String cheese, bisquick, seasoning, an egg. That's it. Oh, and despite my love for pulling them apart and eating them from the middle out to the ends, I made them bite-size to avoid the awkward moment when the crusty bits fall to pieces in your hands and get all over and end up mostly in your lap. Here is how they turned out:

So here is where we start, with string cheese (these might be out of date, if so, it's only by a little bit and there is a definite chance that I am reading this wrong.. most of my food doesn't have packaging so it's a little weird)

Start by cutting the cheese into bite size pieces

Put some oil in a pan and get it heating, you will want med/hi heat (I didn't start the stove until I put in the first cheese bite but starting it and getting the heat going would've been a much better idea- learn from me)

So the way I have this set up is dunk-dunk-drop. Dip the cheese stick in the egg, then the bisquick (with seasoning) then I did it a second time before dropping into the oil. 

First the egg..

then the bisquick/seasoning

Then the oil..

They will need to be flipped/rolled over halfway through

Beautiful. 

I worked it out to where once one was ready to come out another needed to be flipped and a new one was being added all at the same time. 

OmGod.. yes. These were amazing

dunk them in some spaghetti sauce and you're set, bite size no-touch cheese sticks. Never frozen, no need to share. Deliciousness. Again, I am in love. These were amazing and made for an excellent lunch. I hope as always that this was helpful, that you try this, and that you too fall hopelessly in love. 

Enjoy

=]  

0 Apple Crisp

This was REALLY good =]

I liked this a lot and probably most of all because I didn't use a recipe. I will share it with you..

This is basically how it turned out (this is actually before it went into the oven). I'm sorry I didn't get a proper "after" picture but I actually took this over to a friend's house and baked it in her oven. 

Here is what you will need out of your pantry.. 

Of course you will also need some of these =]

I used a potato peeler on the apples

Then slice them up

Cut them to size and mix them all together (I used different kinds of apples, I like the variety in flavor and textures)

Dump the apples into the pan and spread them out fairly evenly. Mix equal parts of brown and white sugar in a separate bowl, add another part flour, throw in a little nutmeg and cinnamon to your liking, mix it really good then pour it evenly over the apples. Cut up some chunks of butter and scatter them over the top. 

Oh, I almost forgot, before you put in the apples, rub some butter in the bottom of your pan

Add  some graham crackers to the top if you want, then bake for 30-40mins @350F. When it's done you can add more graham crackers, I did, or not, either way it was delicious. 

This was a big hit at game night but I have to say I think my friends are getting a little spoiled, they no longer offer suggestions when I ask what I should bring to our gatherings they simply tell me anything I make will be perfectly fine. Which is great to hear don't get me wrong, but I'd like some ideas here and there... 

Happy Baking 

Enjoy =]

1 Cake Balls

I should be ashamed, really, I should. Because its taken me literally a week just to get the pictures from my camera to the computer.. But, since I happen to have today off from work (substitute teaching lends itself to randomly having days off - <3 ) I decided I needed to catch up on a few things.. Also, I should be ashamed that I didn't get any final result pictures and for that I sincerely apologize. This is the best I could do:

They're amazing, just FYI, and I'm not posting a recipe because honestly I didn't really use one and enough people have their own variations that I didn't feel the need to credit anyone.

Start by making a cake, any kind of cake, if you're less adventurous I give you permission to use box cake, I simply didn't feel the need to spend $3 on the box mix when I already had all this at home -yes, I'm cheap. 

This cake recipe can be found >HERE< it's really easy I promise and you probably have most if not all of this in your cabinets already.

It really doesn't matter what you bake this cake in, like really, you could even do it in a glass mixing bowl if you wanted though the center may take longer to finish.. 

Bake, bake, bake until the center is done and its gold-ish-y colored

Like this.. but you could easily use a chocolate or red-velvet or lemon or any number of other cake flavor options

While the cake is baking I mixed up some frosting, again, since this is my recipe and didn't come from anyone else there are no measurements just keep adding things until the consistency is where you want it. *keep milk to a minimum, it will thin out the mix like crazy. 

When it's done (and I'm really sorry, my camera only likes to see orange-y yellow sometimes) its time to destroy it, yeah you could let it cool, that would be okay too, and probably best.

Yes, I meant "destroy" it. It should look like crumbly dust when you're done with it

Throw the crumbles in with the frosting mix and get your hands dirty, then start forming balls, it should be easy like play-doh but wetter and smooshier. Then put the balls in the fridge (or freezer) for long enough to forget you were making them then suddenly remember you were working on something.

Put some baker's chocolate in the microwave (because its faster this way) but make sure there is no water anywhere near the bowl before hand and don't chew the corners off the chocolate or it will seize up in the microwave.. These will be horribly unattractive and since it happened to me, these will be sacrificed to the kitchen gods and new chocolate in a new bowl will be heated for the Movie Night snacks.

This is what seized chocolate looks like, no, there is no way to recover from this, if you know of a way to remedy it, please comment below, as far as I know once this happens its ruined, but I went with it anyway because I needed a sacrifice for the kitchen gods. 

(after I made the new chocolate I kind of forgot I was supposed to be taking pictures so these all have seized chocolate, non-seized chocolate is smooth and pretty) Roll one of the cold balls of cake/frosting around in the chocolate

I threw in some arrows so you can see the cake ball

Turn them out onto a cookie sheet or foil or something to dry, you can put them in the fridge if you want to, I didn't, they harden up okay at room temp if you use baking chocolate

And here they are, you can tell which ones were seized and which weren't in this picture, see the smooth ones.. those were from the second batch of chocolate. I strongly recommend these for any event or even "just because" they're great and amazing and somewhat addicting so heads-up. =]

Happy Baking!

Enjoy! =]

2 Cheesy Stars

So I made these things thinking I would have something similar to goldfish crackers.. They were excellent, for about an hour, after that they belonged to Hank. 

Here is everything you need, simple enough, the recipe came from >HERE< 

The recipe calls for a food processor- which I don't have -so I did this:

This is a food chopper from Pampered Chef. 

You'll have to chop all 8oz of cheese (or put it through the food processor)

It should look like dust. 

I dumped the cheese dust into the mixer.

cut up 4T butter into cubes (then chop it too) it'll need to be good and cold or it will just make a mess

A pastry cutter would be your best friend right about now but I don't have one so I made do with a knife and threw it all into the mixer with 1C flour

This didn't quite do it

I used a knife and this was as good as it got

Add 2T cold water

Then you have to get your hands in there and get it into a ball-ish form, it should take shape pretty easily

Next you'll want to wrap the ball in cling wrap

Put it in the fridge for about half an hour, if you forget about it, that's okay, I did too.

When you suddenly remember that you had that cheesy ball thing in the fridge, go get it and unwrap it on a flat surface

Roll it out pretty thin

use a small cookie cutter, I have stars in every size so I went with that, if you're feeling creative you can make your own by slicing a soda can and bending into your desired shape

Start laying them out on a cookie sheet, you can use parchment paper or whatever, wax paper works too, its what I used (I don't like it though)

I made a LOT.. this is only the first batch

This is after 15 mins @ 350F 

this is batch #2 there ended up being over 700 crackers and I had leftover dough

here's some of them in a sandwich container. They were excellent for like an hour or so while they were still warm, after that they took on this weird texture like pie crust and I really just didn't like it. Hank on the other hand LOVES them. 

Here he is dancing for one

Can you see the crazy in his eyes? 

okay Hank sit. 

Down.

sit up

Do you want it, Hank? Speak.
Good boy! 


Happy Baking =]
Enjoy!