Showing posts with label Baking / Cooking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Baking / Cooking. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Thanksgiving 2014

Thanksgiving 2014 was such a great holiday for us! We got to not only spend it with our little Arizona family, but we also got to see our good friends, Chris & Ainara, who flew into Tucson from Seattle, to visit Chris's parents.

Well start off with Thanksgiving day.  We decided to take it easy, we slept in and just hung out at around the house, until I got started on dinner.  I love cooking, especially for family & friends.  What was on our Thanksgiving dinner menu?  Turkey, Mashed potatoes & gravy, bacon wrapped asparagus, mac & cheese, and green bean casserole. It was my 1st time making the bacon wrapped asparagus & green bean casserole, and they both turned out great, thank goodness! lol.  I was also very happy that I was able to find 90% of our dinner ingredients at Trader Joe's :P

Here are some pics from Thanksgiving:
Our new formal dinning room.  We feel like such grown ups now, lol
I was very excited about our new placemats and dinner plates
Jon doing his yearly duties of pulling the neck and yucky stuff from out of the turkey
We had some champagne and brie while our the turkey was cooking
All set and ready for dinner!!!
Husband carving away 
Jon was very proud of his plate for dinner :)
Our little Arizona family! Me & Jon, and My little sister and her BF Austin 
After dinner & clean up, we all headed outside for a little bonfire

Friday evening, Jon and I made our way to Tucson to spend the weekend with Chris & Ainara and Chris's parents.   We stayed with them until Sunday afternoon.  Friday, we all just hung out at their house, enjoyed some pizza and drinks.  Saturday, the boys headed to the golf course, and us girls went out to do some shopping and lunch & drinks.

When we all got back to the Sherwoods house, the boys hung out in the pool.  Then we all got ready for the evening festivities, FOOTBALL!!! Our college teams were playing their rivals, 1st up, with our Oregon Ducks & Oregon Beavers, of course, the ducks dominated and did a great job :)  Then it was time for the Washington State Cougars & Washington Huskies (boo)…. The cougs did not do so well, and got beat by the Huskies, but it was still a great night and a fun night of football.
Ainara and I, we captioned this photo "Bisco Wives" since our husbands work together :)
The gang 
The boys being silly in the pool

The view from the backyard, so pretty :)
The whole gang watching football.  Chris's dad is in the 3rd seat, and his mom is next to Jon.  The other couple are good friends with Chris's parents. 
Go Cougs & Go Ducks! 
We had such a great holiday weekend, it was great to catch up with our friends.  And Tucson is not a bad place, I love how cute it is :)

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Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Red velvet cheesecake cookies! YUM!‏


A few months ago I found this yummy recipe on pinterest and I was very excited to try it out.  I’ve made these cookies twice now and they always turn out SO yummy and moist!
This is what you will need for the cookies:
1 box red velvet cake mix (I used Duncan Hines)
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 large eggs
1/2 cup canola oil

And what you need for the cheesecake filling:
4 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the white chocolate drizzle:
1 1/2 cups white chocolate chips, melted

***Please note: The cookie dough & the cheesecake filling will need to be refrigerated for at least 2 hours.  Something I didn’t read the 1st time, which then lead me to have a long night of baking! Lol***

To make the cookies:
In a large bowl combine cake mix and 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour. Whisk until clumps disappear.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix together flour cake mix, 2 eggs, 1/2 cup oil and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Mix until smooth.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap. The dough will be oily. Refrigerate for at least two hours.

To make the cheesecake filling:
using a mixer, combine 4. Oz of cream cheese, 2 cups of  powdered sugar, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Mix until smooth.
Using a teaspoon, scoop out cheesecake filling and place on a plate. (If the filling is too runny, like in this picture, use more powdered sugar, which I did the 2nd time I made them, and the filling turned our perfect)
Place plate in the freezer and freeze for at least two hours.  The picture above is of the filling AFTER I had put it in the freezer.... 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.

To assemble the cookies:
Take about 1/4 cup of red velvet cookie dough and flatten in your hands.
Place a teaspoon of cheesecake filling in the center and wrap the cookie dough around the filling.
Gently roll into a ball and place on prepared baking sheet.  The recipe says to only bake 3 cookies at a time, but I did 6 cookies at a time and didn’t have any problems, my scoops may have been smaller than what the recipe calls for.
Bake for 11-13 minutes or until the cookies begin to crackle.  I baked them on a silicone baking mat and I had no problem with them sticking. 
Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes.
Remove from baking sheet to a wire cooling rack and cool completely.

White chocolate drizzle
Melt the white chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl or over a double-boiler.
Drizzle the white chocolate over the cooled cookies with a fork.

Let the cookies set until the chocolate hardens. Serve and enjoy!

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Our Thanksgiving!


Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Jon and I had a great time this year! 
Our Thankful jar
Our home, ready for the celebration! I made the banner on the window, it says "Thankful" so funny and easy to make! 
I was up bright and early and started baking our dessert.  Jon requested chocolate cake with white frosting, which I of course made! I love to bake! Once the cake was cooked, Jon and I worked together to get our turkey ready.  I made Jon stick his hand inside the turkey to pull out all of the yucky stuff!  Then while I was chopping up celery, carrots and onions, Jon was buttering & seasoning up the turkey.  Our turkey was ready to go and in the oven by 12:00! Yay!  
Husband helping with the turkey prep! 
Miley and Jon enjoying some football
Our turkey all ready to go!
While the turkey was in the oven, I started to frost my cake, but Jon wanted to be a part of it too, so I let him take over the frosting.  It didn’t turn out as cute as I wanted it to BUT it was good, and it was nice to have Jon be so involved this year!
Me, trying to frost my cake...
Then Jon took over....
The final product.... Not bad for Jon frosting it and it was still a delicious cake! :)
Dinner is served! 
Pretty proud of my food this year, I even made homemade mashed potatoes & gravy! Yay me!

During dinner, Jon and I read out our “Thankful” cards we had been writing all month.  It was fun to read them and to talk about all the things we were thankful for, and also it was fun to think back on our past year, its crazy to see how much things have changed!!! I am so happy with our life and the place we are currently in. 

Miley also got spoiled this thanksgiving, she got to take part of our thanksgiving dinner and try out all of the food.  She was a fan of everything except for the celery and corn, silly little girl!
Miley's dinner :)
Enjoying her special dinner
Baby girl had to take a nap after all of that turkey!  
Our 2nd Thanksgiving as Mr. & Mrs. Burns 
Miley and I taking some silly pics together, lol
It was sad being away from our family, but it was nice that we got to face time with Jon’s mom, which was so much fun! It felt like we were all hanging out, we showed her around our place, and I showed her all the yummy food I was cooking and she even  got to see the turkey in the oven :) 
This picture makes me happy :)
And I kept in touch with my sister and she sent me pictures of the family, since they were all together for Thanksgiving.
I miss this silly crew! 
My mommy! Getting this picture made me a little homesick! Wish I was in Portland with my family!
My sister and her fiance 
Only 5 out of my 15 nieces and nephews :)
We ended our night by flipping through old pictures from the past 4 ½ years and laughing at all of the memories!

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Heroin Chicken

Last week I tried out a new recipe and it turned out really good! Jon LOVED it, and it was really easy to make so we both win! :)

I found the recipe on pinterest of course, i think the name is a little interesting, but its named heroin chicken because its so addicting.  Original recipe found here.

All you need is this, and chicken of course! :)
2 cups grated parmesan cheese
3 tablespoons dried parsley
2 tablespoons dried oregano leaves
3 teaspoons paprika
2 teaspoons salt 
1 teaspoon pepper
2/3 cup melted butter
Preheat the oven to 350

Mix together all of the seasonings and parmesan cheese
Line  a shallow baking pan with foil, make sure to do this!!

Melt the butter in a bowl.  Then dip each piece of chicken into the butter, and then into the seasoned cheese, coating well.

Bake the chicken for 30-45 mins at 350, and you're done! I served the chicken with mashed potatoes and corn.  DELISH!!!

This dinner was a huge success and I will definitely be making this again.  Im going to attempt to use this recipe on chicken wings, I'm sure that'll be another win in the Burns household! :)

Oh and for dessert, we had THIS!

If you love Oreos and chocolate, um, you MUST make these delicious cupcakes!!! They are SO amazing! I did a special blog post about these beauties here!

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