What's Cookin'?

Today I'm putting on my chef's hat and I'm actually cooking dinner for my family. It's such a rare occasion, last time was Valentine's Day! I was too tempted by this easy peasy recipe I found on Pinterest.

Baked Garlic Chicken

Now that our grill has conked out, we are using our oven more. With 4 ingredients and 30 minutes cooking time total even I can't mess this up.

Sautéing the sauce

Uh-oh! Spoke too soon. I needed 3 garlic cloves and I had 3 bottles *because everytime I go to the store I am positive we are out* of minced garlic so I hope that didn't ruin things. I also have no idea how to "sauté" I basically pushed the olive oil and minced garlic around for a minute then poured it on top of the chicken.

So it's 20 minutes later and the chicken is cooked. Listen folks, this may be elemantary cooking for the average person but I had to look online for a recipe to cook rice! Here's how were looking now.

The sauce is quite runny but the meat is cooking all the way through

Antz just came home and said the house smells like apple pie so that's a good sign. I made some butternut squash with cinamin and olive oil for Liv and some Hawaiian bread rolls. Keeping my fingers crossed it's as yummy as it smells!

Well, verdict is in, Antz loved it! The rice was a little hard *leave it up to me to mess up rice!* The chicken was tender and the sauce had a nice flavor. Liv loves her squash as always. I just may be cooking more recipes from my Pinterest.

Chili Chili Baby

Humming the Ice Ice Baby beat now...Holy Balls! Antz decided to make chili from scratch. I honestly didn't have high expectations cause chili is made from the heart, you let it slow cook for hours, drench it in juices and simmer in seasoning and use a recipe passed down from generation to generation. That guy blew my socks off. Paired with my Jiffy cornbread *it was my first time making cornbread using jiffy* WOW! I hope someone invents smellovision cause our house smells amazing right now. The chili had the perfect consistency. Spicy, but not too spicy. Perfection. I had 2 bowls! He told me his secret was adding sausage and chorizo.

My attempt at a chili cornbread cupcake, it tastes better than it looks

I bought all these new spices

Secret recipe

Delish, delish, delish!! Antz wins at chili goodness.


Today Liv had a playdate with her best bud, Kieran. The plan was for them to ride their scooters but choosing a park as the location wasn't so smart. Liv rode her scooter for about 48 seconds. She then ran, climbing and jumped for an hour straight. She wore me out. It's funny how she rides the scooter in the house all day but the second I take her to ride outdoors she's like, nah.

I love this photo, she is midair during a jump...she looks like she's levitating!

Liv looks so long, like 4 feet tall!

Surfin' Dude!

Happy Happy weekend!!

I scream for Sprinkles Ice Cream!!!

Yup, tomorrow Aimee, Liv and I are going to Sprinkles ICE CREAM opening! I hope the line isn't as ridiculous as the Sprinkles ATM was.

WOO-HOO! I love Memorial day weekend, it kicks off summer season and Antz will be taking off a bunch of days next month. He's taking next Friday off so he can come to Scruffin Rock class with us to celebrate Liv's birthday. Did I mention I went to Surfas and bought a mini cake stand and icing spatulas?

That little guy is for the edges

I want mine to look like this one

 

I'll be freezing the cake Friday night so Saturday I can frost it nice and smooth.
So besides her doll, I need to finish working on her 2nd year video and wrap her presents. I really hope my laptop cooperates with my camera cause I'm going to be taking thousands of pictures. Lately I've been uploading 5 at a time which takes forever but it's the only way I'll ensure to not get those lame black images. Next week I'm definitely taking my computer in for service *and the Nikon D3000 too!*

I got her Shutterfly Photobook in the mail yesterday. I love how it came out. I really like their new chalkboard style. You can see it online here. We plan to make a book every year!

The verdict

After some serious taste testing with regular milk and *chock milk* as Liv calls chocolate milk, Kieran and Olivia *along with Terry and I* have decided the rainbow cake is a hit. I used cream cheese frosting which looks yellowish so I didn't have the crisp white I wanted but boy was it yummers.

We only ate half the cake so there will be plenty for the three of us in Palm Springs. Even though the slices are small, with so many layers, it's filling. I'm stoked to try it again in 2 weeks. I may bake some mini cupcakes for her dance class since she's going the Friday before her birthday, depending on how busy I'll be prepping for our trip.

Today we went to Scruffin' Rock and took a nice long walk after. Liv has been liking murals lately.

sunkissis via Instagram

I love how she's intrigued by art *future museum curator*  Tomorrow we're going to an art show opening that has like 8 of our talented friend's art featured. It's a Just Desserts theme which is more than appropriate.

I can't believe it's almost summertime! I am ready for new bedding and this Orla Kiely bedding set has my name all over it. I am still kicking myself for missing her homewares line at Target a couple of years ago so I may have to jump on this *with my 20% coupon, of course*

As excited I am for June to get here, it's gonna be a busy month. We are going to our friend's Carlos & Stephanie's baby shower, swimming lessons, Father's Day and Antz birthday will keep me busy. Our nephew and niece are expecting a baby in June and Liv's pre-school is having a Summer Serenade Morrocan Masquerade party. I will be making masks for the whole family.

This made me pee my pants!! Happy Weekend lovelies!

Rainbow CAAAAAAAKE!

It's on!

I have no clue how they made this guy

My first purple layer *I'm loving the food coloring*

I'm making mine a mere 6 layers thick. I'm using One Charming Party's recipe so if it turns out lovely, I'll attempt 8 layers for Liv's birthday. MERDE!! Her birthday is 16 days from today.

Hopefully in 3 hours or so, I'll have this pretty guy. I'll be back with more pics later.

Update...why oh why is my cake coming out so dark? Boo, the color is so vibrant and lovely in the bowl but when I bring it out of the oven, it's darkness. I'm using the special super expensive cake grease I bought from the fancy schmancy Chef's store. I suppose we'll see when we cut into it.

Not very violet

What's the secret to keeping it this color?

BOO!! my bright turquoise blue looks green

While I'm slaving away over a hot stove, the BFF is in the living room engrossed in the smut book!

50 Shades of Grey

I'm back and four and a half hours later, I have completed my cake. It's pretty, I am definitely happy with it but thank goodness I did a trial run before her birthday. I found some things I need to tweak to get it perfect. Mainly, remember to measure each layer, I have some pretty wonky looking layers. I had to slice the green layer in half since it was much thicker than the rest. I also needed to use a dowel to keep it from becoming a leaning tower due to the crooked layers. I ran out of icing, so I didn't frost the outside but I will freeze the cake the day before Liv's birthday so it's easier to frost. The tools I got from Surfas really came in handy. I was wary about spending so much but I'm glad I bought the professional grade stuff. I am thinking of going back to pick up one of the cake stands I drooled over but thought I could find an alternative for less at Macy's. I browsed the Martha Stewart section on Friday and even with the 30% off sale, I didn't love them as much as the ones at Surfas, yet the smallest one was $29. I'm not sure how often I'll make cakes to invest in one yet.

My Top Chef loot

So pretty, I want a small white one *the small ones are on the far right*

Here's the remainder of my rainbow cake making. As you can see it's crooked and my banner is much too big but this was the largest circle cutter *4 inches, I would prefer 6 inches* they carried so I bought it.

the cakes were just a hair too small to cut out 2 circles

This part was fun cause the cutter is so precise and easy to use

the cake looks like a green hamburger

Voila!

I love you Olivia!

Liv was beyond excited to taste it

I'm telling you, Olivia loves being nude

It's gonna be a rainbow extravaganza!

By the way, I used 2 boxes of vanilla cake and cream cheese frosting. The food coloring doesn't change the taste at all. It was yummy and we have tons of excess left over. I think I'll use buttercream frosting next time. It's possible the cake came out darker due to the vanilla cake mix being yellow. I may just go with a white cake to keep the colors bright. The work was tedious and long but fun!