Little Pineapple Upside-Down Cakes

Today, is my husband, Nathan's birthday.  He's 33 today!  He requested pineapple upside down cake.  I've made a few in the past.  He liked them but I didn't so I wanted to find a better recipe.  I went right to Pinterest and found this.  They looked simple enough and I had most of the ingredients already in the pantry.  

I decided to make 4 little pineapple upside-down cakes.  :)

First, I took my custard cups and put them on a foil covered cookie sheet.

Then I took out 4 slices of pineapple and 4 cherries and let them sit on a cutting board so they could drain off some of the juices.

I put 4 tablespoons of brown sugar in a bowl.

I melted 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter.  I then added the melted butter to the brown sugar and 2 tablespoons corn syrup in a bowl.  Mix well.

Pour mix evenly into the custard cups.

Add your pineapple slices and cherries.

Add your frozen biscuit to the top.  Bottom of biscuit to pineapple.

Bake on 375 for 25 to 30 minutes or until the biscuit is nice and golden brown.

Flip onto a plate.

Nate came in just as I finished plating his birthday cake.  :)  I served with a few scoops of French Vanilla Ice cream.  You could also use redi-whip or cool whip.

Bavarian Chef for Nate's birthday dinner

Tonight, we went to the Bavarian Chef for Nate's early birthday dinner.  Gene, Linda, Dan, Candice, Kristen and Dave all joined us for dinner.  I forgot my camera but luckily, Kristen had her iphone.  YEY

Here's Nate and I outside at the front.

Table covered with lots of yummy food.  Since there was 8 of us they brought 1 of every side item so we could try everything.  There was 9 sides....red cabbage, creamed corn, whipped potatoes, spatzle, German potato salad, carrots, potato dumplings, zucchini, and string beans.  I ordered the Schweine Kotelett.  It was a pair of handbreaded, center cut pork chops, served with homemade applesauce.

We couldn't eat at a German restaurant and not get German Chocolate Cake even tho Kristen showed her Sheldon side by telling us that German Chocolate Cake wasn't German.  LOL  I loved this cake.  The frosting was sooooo delicious.  Happy early birthday Nate!  :)

Quiche made by the hubby

I worked tonight in the town Christmas parade.  Who knew dancing to Gangnam Style in a parade could be so tiring.  :)

Anyways, I came home exhausted to the smell of peppers and Nathan in the kitchen with the oven on.  I was happy to see the oven on b/c I knew something was in there.  Nate made me dinner and he cleaned the entire kitchen.  :)  #besthusbandever!  :)

Nate said he used my blog for the basic quiche recipe which is my sister's, Ashley.  :)  He said he used 5 eggs instead of 4.  He left out onion b/c he didn't know where I kept them.  LOL

It was delicious!!!  :)

Autumn Chopped Chicken Salad

I came across this recipe for Autumn Chopped Salad.  It reminded me a lot of my favorite summer salad, the Strawberry and Chicken Poppy seed Salad.  I decided for dinner last night I would make my own version of this Autumn Salad with what I had in my pantry and fridge.

Prepping my ingredients.....

1 chopped apple (cored)

1 chopped (skinned) pear

Mozzarella cheese

Chopped pecans (used some of my whole ones I got from Linda)

1 chicken breast (cooked and cut up)

garlic croutons

real bacon bits (didn't feel like making bacon)

Poppy Seed dressing

Craisins (dried cranberries)

fresh lettuce mix

Mix everything in a large bowl then pour on the dressing.

It was so delicious.  Nate tried it and he shrugged.  He's not a fan of fruit in salad, so MORE FOR ME.  :P

Thanksgiving 2012

I'm a little behind on blogging.  Sorry bout that.  For Thanksgiving, we went to my brother's house this year.  He lives about 15 minutes from me.  He bought his house last year and we all thought it would be nice to go to his house for Thanksgiving dinner.  I made Homemade Mac & Cheese, Watergate salad, and my most requested chocolate chip cookies to share with everyone.  There was Turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, veggies, rolls etc.  The few pictures I took didn't come out.  :(

Last Sunday, Nate and I went down to his parents house and had Thanksgiving dinner with them.

I made yum yums.  :)

While food was finishing up we munched on Guggisberg Baby Swiss Cheese and Troyer's Trail Bologna.  Nate's dad got these in the mail from an Amish friend.  Awesome!  :)

Time to eat:  Here's the carved turkey, Nate's mom made.

You can't have turkey without Cranberry sauce.  :)  There was also mashed potatoes, corn, sweet potatoes and Gene had made some venison loin or something.  I didn't try that.  LOL

Linda, showed me all these pecans she's been getting from her friend Christine's pecan trees.

There's so many!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Linda, has them bagged and weighed.  In 1 pound bags.  I made her a Craiglist ad and I think she put a sign out at the end of the driveway to sell the pecans.  Pecans are soooo expensive in the store.  Linda, let me bag up a few pounds for myself and a few friends.  YEY!  :)

Salt Dough Ornaments

Last weekend, I made my own salt dough ornaments.  I found a Salt dough ornament recipe from Pinterest.  It took me to a very cute blog, Oleander and Palm.

I couldn't wait to get started because I knew exactly one of the ornaments I was going to make.  I gathered my ingredients.  

1 cup salt

2 cups flour

1 cup water

Then I gathered up some stamps and my stampin up markers.  (you could use an ink pad too)

I then took out some cookie cutters.  

I mixed up all the ingredients in a bowl.  It kept wanting to stick to me and to the parchment paper.  I had to keep adding flour.

I finally got the ornaments the way I wanted them.  Be sure to use a straw to poke a hole at the top of the ornament before baking them.  Once ready, put them in the oven on 250 degrees for 3 hours.

Here's the final paw print of Harley.  :)  It took about 6 different tries because I kept trying to make it perfect.

Finally, after they were dry I tied some twine on them and hung them on the tree.

Gingerbread man....

Harley's paw print.  :)  I will treasure this one forever.  :)

Christmas 2012 Decorating

This past Friday night, I worked for my boss earlier in the day so I had the night off.  :)  I figured, I would go ahead and decorate for the Holiday's.  Nate helped with a few things and Harley helped by just being cute.  Harley loves to sleep/lay under the tree on the skirt.  :)

We got Chinese Food for dinner.  :)

Homemade Trail Mix

Nate mentioned yesterday that he wanted some trail mix.  I told him I would make him trail mix.  It's something I'd been wanting to do so I actually got excited thinking about the different ingredients to combine.  I looked on Pinterest last night at different trail mixes just to see what other people add.  I knew Nate would love nuts, chocolate and peanut butter so those were the first 3 ingredients I knew I would use.  I checked the pantry to see what I had on hand that would work and then made a list of other options to get from the grocery store.

Here's what I used for my homemade trail mix.

Raisins

Chocolate chips

Peanuts

Cashews

Pretzels

Craisins

Chex Cereal

Peanut butter chips

Lucky for me, I only had to buy the last 3 ingredients.  I had everything else in my pantry.

Get a big bowl and mix your trail mix together.  I didn't measure anything.  I just eyeballed it.  Once mixed I added the trail mix to a tupperware container and put the lid on.  This would be a good little snack to add to ziploc bags and take with you.  :)  This is the perfect sweet and salty combination.

You can pretty much add whatever you want.  There's no wrong way.  :)