My birthday was March 10th which was a Sunday and the first weekend of Spring Break for us. I realize I'm late posting this, and I apologize, but I just had to share some of the weekend festivities with you.
We decided to go to Dallas for the weekend. Mostly because they were having the Dallas Quilt Guild Quilt show which I had never been to but just couldn't pass up. And also because we like going on mini vaca trips to Dallas. We usually go several times a year sometimes to see a Rangers game or some other specific reason but mostly just to hang out. It's only about 2 hours away from our house and for some reason, my son loves staying in hotels.
So here are some pics of our weekend.
My present opening. (a very blurry picture of me and my new "jugs".)
My husband and son each got me a Fiesta ware pitcher. One was lime green and the other was turquoise. My 2 favorite colors. I've been wanting to start collecting them and now I have :) I already had an orange one. I also have 3 antique pitchers that are not Fiesta but I love them just the same. We have a large Fiesta ware "collection". And by collection, I mean we use them for our everyday dishes. Have for years.
My son took this picture. He took about 6 of me and my hubby and they were all just as blurry. Great.
Me and my son.
The Dallas Quilt Show was awesome. Not as big as the Houston Quilt show of course but it was much larger than our local quilt show (which is growing every year btw).
I don't have the names of the people who made these quilts. I just took pics of ones I liked. There were so many and so many that I liked but of course my battery started going dead about half way through.
This one was in the modern quilting section and I thought it was sooo cool.
We had my bday dinner at this little funky restaurant on Greenville called Daddy Jacks. I didn't want to go to a chain restaurant with their frozen crappy food that they just thaw and serve. Daddy Jacks was wonderful. The freshest seafood I have tasted this far inland. I highly recommend it - but it's tiny so if you go, get a reservation.
Instead of a cake, we got cupcakes at Society Bakery also on Greenville. Their "plain cupcakes" like chocolate was just okay. Your regular old cupcake. But where they excel is with their fun flavors. My hubby bought Pecan Praline and let me have a bite. I thought I would die, it was so good. My son got Oreo but didn't let me have a bite. And I got Italian crème which was as good as the Italian crème cake I make which is awesome. We will definitely be going back.
We also went to the Krispy Kreme and bought a whole box of doughnuts which we ate for breakfast. Calories you eat on your b-day don't count though - right?
We had a great time and I love my hubby and son for giving me such a fun birthday weekend.
And now for pics of my quilt show loot. Ahhh shopping, the best part.
This past Friday, I told my son that we would go to the new cupcakery, Ganache, in our town after school to celebrate the beginning of Spring Break. The store has been open for about a year, so I guess it's not new but we had never been there before, so it's new to us :)
We each got a cupcake. I got Raspberry Chocolate, my son got a Lava Cupcake which didn't have any icing but did have melted ganache in the middle, and my DH got a Coconut cupcake.
My Raspberry Chocolate cupcake was delicious. The cake was moist and yummy and very chocolatey with just a hint of raspberry flavor. The icing though, was awesome. They must have puried the raspberries for the icing because it had seeds in it and the flavor was very strong. I give it a thumbs up!
My DH liked his coconut cupcake. He said the cake part tasted like vanilla cake but the icing was very coconutty.
My son stuffed the whole thing in his mouth. I guess that means it was good?
So, I'd say it's worth another trip. Next time I want to try the salted caramel cupcake. It looked really yummy. I think I can talk my son into the Smores cupcake - it probably won't be too hard.
Last weeks sweet treat that I made for my family was Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes.
I used this recipe that I found on allrecipes.com and had wanted to try for awhile. I know it calls for a cake mix and in this post, I rambled on and on about only making things from scratch, but what can I say. I'm a hypocrite. LOL It's so sad. But I really am trying to stick to the made from scratch rule.
Here's the recipe:
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips
1 (18.25 ounce) box yellow cake mix
1 1/3 cups water
1/3 cup canola oil
3 eggs
Directions
1.Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and sea salt; set aside. Beat the butter, white sugar, and brown sugar with an electric mixer in a large bowl until smooth. Add 1 egg and the vanilla extract and beat until smooth. Mix in the flour mixture until just incorporated. Fold in the chocolate chips; mixing just enough to evenly combine. Form the dough into tablespoon-sized balls; place onto a baking sheet, and freeze until solid, about 2 hours.
2.Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line 24 muffin cups with paper liners.
3.Beat 3 eggs in a large bowl with an electric mixer to break up. Add the cake mix, water, and canola oil; continue beating for 2 minutes on medium speed. Spoon into the prepared cupcake liners, filling each 2/3 full. Place a frozen cookie dough ball on the top center of each cupcake.
4.Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the cake portion of the cupcake (not the cookie dough ball) comes clean, about 20 minutes. Cool in the pans for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.
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So, basically, you're making the cookie dough part from scratch but using a cake mix for the cupcake part. I didn't put any icing on them because when we ate them fresh out of the oven, they seemed really sweet and didn't really need icing. But, the next day they didn't seem as sweet and could have used icing. A chocolate buttercream would be yummy on top.
If you use this recipe, be sure you freeze the dough balls really good - at least 2 hours or else they will cook with the cupcakes. They turned out pretty good for me. Although, I didn't like the cake mix cupcake part. If I make these again, I'll make them all from scratch.
One of the blogs I follow (So, I'm in Texas Now) makes alot of cupcakes and she always posts the recipes. Here is her's for the same kind of cupcakes. Her's look way yummier.
These are very kid friendly - my son loved them!
