Plants and Strawberry No Bake Dessert

First, here are some pics of the progress of the seeds that I got at the Earth Day Festival this year. The first one is a cherry tomato plant cup that Chipotle gave away. I started the seeds a couple of days before we left for Lake of the Ozarks and when I came back they were sprouting like crazy.

 And here is where I started all of the flower seeds, in two little greenhouses...

 Next is the strawberry no bake dessert. I found the recipe from the newspaper...cut up a bunch of strawberries...

 Made some whipped cream...

 Layered some graham crackers on top of whipped cream...

 Then layered away...

 I once again mistook using dark chocolate for using bakers chocolate to melt....grrr....so this dessert was NASTY to say the least. Even after picking off the bitter chocolate it was still no good.

 Here are the first sprouts from my flower seeds. These were the Sweet Pea flowers which eventually got eaten by damn birds...

 And here is where I transplanted my tomato sprouts to...a big coffee mug!

 Here are some planters I got at Garden Ridge and strapped to my trellis outside...

 Planted the Sweet Pea...which was soon eaten....

More gardening pics to come!

Bake Sale Food

Both of these recipes can be found on my Pinterest.

First up is Orange Creamsicle Cupcakes...

Mixing butter and sugar...

 Making the batter...

 Batter is done...

 Ready to bake...

 All done

 Now making the marshmellow creme filling...

With marshmellow fluff and butter...

 All ready to go...

 Piped a hole in the center of each cupcake and let it spill out...

 Now for the orange frosting...buttercream with some orange juice!

 Added some food coloring...

 All done being piped....

 Close up shot of the swirls...

 Cutaway shot of the marshmellow in the center!

These cupcakes were amazingly good and sold really well!!

 Next is Peanut Butter Bars...can't remember what they were actually called...

Making the crust from chocolate wafer cookies, butter, and sugar...

 Then making the center with lots o peanut butter...

 The crust after it baked...I really don't like making crusts cause they never set up fully and move around on you when you try to cover them...

 And this is the chocolate ganache...

 Add some of that on top of the crust...

 Completely covered and ready to sit in fridge....

 Cutaway shot.

This was reallly rich. I gave all the customers a disclaimer that they need to take small bites and they might become diabetic. I won't make this again, it was too rich for me, but a lot of crazy nurses liked it.



Lake of the Ozarks

Here are some of the pics from my recent family trip to Lake of the Ozarks...

Almost there, getting ready to go across Bagnell Dam

 Going across the dam....

 My fabulous bathroom...with a TV in the corner (which you can't see)

 The whirlpool tub...which I filled with bubbles while watching The Big Bang Theory...

 My room!

 Out the hotel window to the lake

 Cooper attacking Isabel

 The Avila suites where we stayed...

 Indoor waterfall...

 Trying to get shots of the lake before all the drunk Kansas University kids came running at me...ugh.

 My completed Flashdance look

 Along with 80s eyeshadow...

 All the stuff I bought at the outlet mall

 And when I came back my tomato plant had started to sprout....



Mexican layer casserole and artwork

I have no idea where I got this recipe or what it was called...I guess I'll have to start saving my recipes until I write the blog posts...

Couldn't find it on my Pinterest so it's not from there...anyway I got 2 ears of corn...

 And cut off the corn...

 Yellow bell pepper...

 Cooked some ground beef and chorizo together...

 Then added pinto beans...

 Cooked the bell pepper with olive oil and some spices...

 Added in the corn and some salsa...

 Then started layering tortillas...

 Added beef mixture...

 Then cheese...

 Then the pepper mixture...

 And kept layering....

Apparently I don't have a finished product picture...hmmm

 This is the final product for the first of three canvases I made for my mom's bathroom....

 And here are the next two primed in off white ready to go...