Tied with a Bow Cupcakes for Valentine’s Day

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Better Homes and Gardens, Bittersweet Chocolate Ganche, Chocolate Cupcakes, Homemade Gifts, Tied-with-a-Bow Cupcakes, Valentine's Day, Vanilla Candy Coating, White Chocolate Ganache Frosting

I’m a big fan of homemade gifts.  I think they offer a truly personal touch that anything you can buy just can’t compare.  So for Valentine’s day I was looking for something special to make my boyfriend and that’s when I found it.  “Tied-with-a-Bow Cupcakes”  How utterly adorable are these?  And you know what?  They taste great too!  This recipe comes from Better Homes and Gardens.

Tied-with-a-Bow Cupcakes

• Makes: 24 (2 1/2 inch) Cupcakes
• Time:  From Start to Finish 1 hour, 30 minutes

The Ingredients

• 4 ounces vanilla candy coating, coarsely chopped
• 1/4 cup light-color corn syrup
• 4 ounces dark cocoa candy melts
• 1 recipe Bittersweet Chocolate Ganache
• 12 2 1/2 inches chocolate cupcakes in paper bake cups
• 1 recipe White Chocolate Ganache Frosting
• 12 2 1/2 inches white cupcakes in paper bake cups
• Powdered sugar

Directions

1. For white clay, place vanilla candy coating in a microwave-safe dish. Microwave on 100 percent power (high) for 1 to 2 minutes or until melted, stirring once. Stir in 2 tablespoons of the corn syrup. Spoon onto plastic wrap. Cover and let stand for at least 1 hour or until cooled and firm. For chocolate clay, repeat with dark cocoa candy melts and the remaining 2 tablespoons corn syrup. When firm, unwrap and knead each mixture separately until smooth and pliable. Wrap each in plastic wrap; set aside.

2. Spoon Bittersweet Chocolate Ganache over chocolate cupcakes and White Chocolate Ganache Frosting over white cupcakes. Chill until firm.

3. Between separate sheets of waxed paper dusted with powdered sugar, roll out white clay and chocolate clay to 1/8-inch thickness. Using a pastry wheel, pizza cutter, or knife, cut clay into 1-inch-wide strips about 5 inches long. For each bow, bring ends of a strip together, making a double thickness. Turn upside down, with the seam underneath. Gently pinch in center. Trim scraps of clay into ribbon tails and center knots. Place two tails on top of each cupcake; top with a bow and a knot. Makes 24 (2-1/2 inch) cupcakes.

Creamy White Frosting

Ingredients

• 1 cup shortening
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 2 – 5tablespoons milk

Directions1. In a large mixing bowl beat shortening, vanilla, and almond extract with an electric mixer on medium speed for 30 seconds. Slowly add in about half of the powdered sugar, beating well. Add 2 tablespoons of milk. Gradually beat in the remaining of powdered sugar and 1-3 tablespoons more milk to reach spreading consistency.

Bittersweet Chocolate Ganache

Yield: 1 cup

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup whipping cream
• 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped

Directions1. In a medium saucepan heat whipping cream over medium heat just until boiling. Remove from heat. Add chocolate (do not stir). Let stand for 5 minutes. Whisk until smooth. Cool about 15 minutes or until thickened, stirring occasionally.

White Chocolate Ganache Frosting

Yield: 3/4 cup

Ingredients

• 2 ounces white baking chocolate with cocoa butter
• 3/4 cup Creamy White Frosting (see recipe, page 000) or canned creamy white frosting
• 1 tablespoon milk (optional)

Directions1. In a small saucepan melt white chocolate over low heat. Remove from heat. Stir in Creamy White Frosting. If necessary, stir in milk to make frosting smooth.

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5 Fabulous Reasons To Grow Your Own Fruit And Veggies

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DIY, food, Fresh Fruit, Gardening, Growing Your Own Fruit, Herb Garden, herb patch, Vegetables

Who hasn’t been to the grocery story lately and looked at the price of fresh fruit and veggies and thought “there has to be a better way”?  More and more people are returning to the old tradition of growing their own produce, ranging from as little as a small herb patch right up to full self-sufficiency producing all their own fruit and vegetables. Why is it becoming popular again, and why should you start your own food garden?

Having your own vegetable patch or fruit garden was once commonplace, but fell out of favor as the food industry become more commercial and supermarkets began to take over. In recent years however, more and more people have started explore growing their own produce again. Here we give 5 reasons why you might consider starting your own kitchen garden.

1 – Freshness

Fruit and vegetables taste better and are healthier if eaten as soon as possible after picking. Most fruit you buy from supermarkets and the like is picked well before it is properly ripe, to extend shelf life, and this usually has an impact on flavor. Growing your own lets you taste the freshest possible produce as it’s meant to taste.

2 – Quality

Commercially grown crops are often selected for their high yields, uniform appearance and long shelf lives rather than for quality and taste. When you grow your own, you can concentrate on the quality rather than the economics.

3 – Price

Much supermarket fresh produce is hugely overpriced, despite their advertising claims. Growing your own from seed is about as inexpensive as you can get, and even growing from small plants you buy is likely to provide you better food at a lower cost. With many plants, you can use the seed from one growing season to provide plants for the next – a self sustaining cycle that will cost you only time and effort to keep going.

4 – Provenance

More and more people have concerns about how our food is produced, with chemical pesticides and GM food a particular worry. With your own vegetable patch, you know exactly where your food is from and how it was grown.

5 – Variety

There are literally thousands of different varieties of fruit and vegetables, but supermarkets tend to concentrate on only the most profitable and easy to sell. This means that our choice is often limited to a few select varieties of apple, for example, rather than the hundreds of traditional kinds that exist. Growing your own lets you pick the varieties you like the most, and experiment to find new ones you’ll rarely see on sale.

There is of course a downside to all this – it takes time and effort. In these increasingly busy times, we might not think we have the time to spare, but starting small with a few herb plants on your windowsill, or even the odd tomato plant, will give you a taste of growing your own and might even be enough to hook you into it for life!

My all time favorite drink!

Tags

Blender, Crystal Light, Diet, Energy Drink, Healthy Smoothie, Serotonin, Strawberry Banana Smoothie

Looking for an uplifting, great energy drink that takes fabulous and is really diet friendly?  Let me introduce you to the banana strawberry shake!  What you will need are 4 simple ingredients and a blender.  Take the 4 ingredients below and blend them all together.  Crystal light package has less than 10 calories, the water has none, nor does the ice but you still get all of the flavor.  And who doesn’t know the great benefits of eating bananas?  Bananas besides tasting great are also a wonderful natural source of serotonin which helps your brain relax and is also known to help with anxiety and is a natural mood lifter.

• 1 banana
• 1 bottle of water
• 1 Cup of Ice
• 1 Crystal Light On The Go Hunger Satisfaction, Strawberry Banana Single Packs – Or if you want, wild strawberry energy from Crystal light also works perfectly.

A Delicious Way To Make A Difference

Tags

Food Gifts, Helping Others, Oreo Cookies, Oreo Truffles, Random Acts of Kindness

It would be a sweet reward to find a cure for diabetes, or cancer and perhaps some other life-threatening diseases … but we can’t all be award winning scientist so we  have to look for other more creative solutions to put a smile on other people’s faces and what better way to do that with deliciously sweet treats?

So if you have a friend who is down whip up something like some no bake Oreo truffles.  They are so delicious they should be illegal and they are incredibly easy to make.

This recipe for Oreo Truffles makes about 4 dozen that are sure to put a smile on anyone’s face.

1 pkg. (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened

1 pkg.  (1 lb. 2 oz.) Oreos

2 pkg. (8 squares each) Baker’s Semi-Sweet Chocolate, melted.

1. Set aside 5 Oreos and throw the rest in a food processor until they are finely crumbled
2. Thoroughly mix cookie crumbs with cream cheese.
3. Form crumb-and-cream-cheese mixture into balls, approximately 1-inch across each (but don’t worry too much about being exact here. They will come out delicious no matter the size!) and place onto a cookie sheet that has previously been lined with wax paper.
4. For best results, pop the formed mixture into the fridge for at least 15 minutes to chill while you complete the next step. If you really don’t have the time, the truffles will still taste delicious (so don’t worry!), but they will be more difficult to handle and some of the coating with mix with the filling.
5. Melt the chocolate. There are many ways to do this. I don’t have a double boiler, so I just throw my chocolate into a saucepan and heat it on low, stirring frequently, until it is completely melted.
6. Remove the pot from heat.
7. Coat previously formed balls with chocolate and return to the lined cookie sheet.
8. Throw the remaining 5 cookies into the food processor.
9. Sprinkle some of those crumbs on top of the (still wet) truffles.
10. Refrigerate for at least one hour.

You are done! You are now free to package them up and gift them to a friend in need.

Variation:  Swap out regular Oreos for Golden Oreos (semi-sweet chocolate for white chocolate, if you like white chocolate). You will end up with a cheesecake-like truffle.
An adaption from Kraftfoods.com