Two Sisters and a Mixer

Corn Dip

Wed, 30 May 2012 12:38:25 -0400

Corn Dip

This past weekend was a blast. We had visitors in town and got to spend the weekend hanging with friends and our roomies!

Freedom Weekend Aloft, which is a festival in our town, was also this past weekend. The festival includes hot air balloons and concerts, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. The concerts are only $8 and they usually have some good acts.

Friday was Gavin DeGraw/Colbie Caillat, Saturday was Jake Owen, Sunday was Eddie Money and I have no idea who played on Monday.

We attended the concerts Friday/Saturday night with some of our friends and yellow balloons. If you don’t know the yellow balloon story, ask my sister or my mom…they’re always up for telling the story…nice, right?

When we weren’t at the concerts we were consuming adult beverages, hanging by the pool, eating copious amounts of food or downtown. It was like a mini tailgate! The weekend was overall awesome.

One of the dips that we made was Corn Dip so we decided to share the recipe! We don’t have a photo of the finished dip because we were too consumed with eating the dip to take a pic. Enjoy!

You will need-

2 lbs frozen corn

2 8 oz. cream cheese, at room temp

1 stick butter, melted

Diced jalapenos from a can (add as many or as little as you desire depending on how spicy you like your food)

1.) Place the corn in a baking pan

2.) Pour melted butter over the corn

3.) Add cream cheese and stir until combined

4.) Add in diced jalapenos

Serve with tortilla chips or crackers!

Mexican Lasagna

Fri, 25 May 2012 17:40:14 -0400

If there’s one thing that our fam loves, it is Mexican food…and the other night was Mexican Casserole night. This recipe is quick, easy and delish!

What you will need-

2 lbs ground beef (you could ground turkey, chicken, etc)

1 packet taco seasoning

1 cup corn (we use a small can)

1 14oz. fire roasted dice tomatoes (you could use any diced tomatoes on hand)

1 can black beans (washed and drained)

1 chopped onion (we use a sweet onion)

2 1/2 cups cheddar cheese (let’s be real, the more cheese the better…and you could use Mexican cheese)

1 package of soft tortilla shells (use the 8 inch ones)

Add jalapenos if you like spicy food!

1.) Add 1 tbsp of Olive Oil to a hot skillet

2.) Add onions and saute for a minute

3.) Add ground beef and cook until brown

4.) Once meet is brown, add in the taco seasoning and mix thoroughly

5.) Add corn, tomatoes and black beans and stir

6.) Put 1 tbsp of Olive Oil in the bottom of a 9x13 pan and coat

7.) Place two tortilla shells on the bottom of the pan

8.) Top tortilla’s with 1/3 of the mixture

9.) Coat with a layer of cheese (as much or as little as you want)

10.) Repeat steps 7-9

11.) Place in oven at 350 and cook until cheese is melted and bubbly

Serve with some mexican rice and a Margarita!

Breakfast in Bread

Thu, 24 May 2012 20:10:00 -0400

Last Sunday morning Julianne made brunch for our fam.

She adapted this recipe from a recipe that she found on Food Network.

Let me tell you, these little pastries are delish and don’t take that long to make…good luck eating only one! I think all four of us could have eaten at least two!

Ingredients-

1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed

4 eggs

1/2 cup cheddar cheese

1/2 cup parmesean cheese

Salt and Pepper to taste

2 pieces bacon, cooked and crumbled

1.) Preheat oven to 400 degrees

2.) Cut puff pastry into four equal squares

3.) Fold edges of puff pastry so that it is a circle and will hold the egg in the center

4.) Take a fork and put holes into the center of the pastry

5.) Place in the oven for 8-10 minutes or until slightly brown

6.) While the pastry is cooking, fry the bacon

7.) Remove the puff pastry from the oven and let it cool slightly. If the middle has

puffed up poke it back down.

8.) Sprinkle cheese in the middle of each of the pastries

9.) Crack an egg in the middle of each puff pastry

10.) Sprinkle with salt and pepper and top with bacon

11.) Place the pastries back in the oven and cook until the egg white is solid. It should take about 8-10 minutes

Serve with a Mimosa or a Bloody Mary!

Anita's Strawberry Daiquiris... "There is No Recipe"

Sun, 20 May 2012 12:22:00 -0400

Remember how I said my mom bought more strawberries than she knew what to do with? Well, as my sister and I found out when we woke up yesterdat morning, she found another way to use some…Strawberry Daiquiris.

Apparently “pre Laura and Julianne”/when we were younger our parents made Strawberry Daiquiris like it was their job! Yes, even B Boozie will put down his cheap “man” beer and sip on a Strawberry Daiquiri when available.

We now have a big container of daiquiris freezing in the freezer as well as a pitcher that the family is sipping on! This means the Ward’s are happy and we have lots of daiquiris to share, so come drink with us!

My mom said there is “no real recipe” sooo this is “roughly” what we use…give or take a loooot more booze!

Start with 110 oz. can of Frozen Bacardi Strawberry Daiquiri Mix. Add approx. 16 oz. sliced and sweetened strawberries and blend. Next, add 10 oz. rum and ice and blend again. Additional ice may be necessary as well as additional booze!

This recipe can be doubled, tripled, etc. and frozen as needed. If you decide to freeze it, let thaw and stir before serving so you can mix the alcohol up. Also, if you want to make them non alcoholic substitute sprite for the alcohol…

Enjoy!

Cake Pops Turned Cake Balls

Wed, 16 May 2012 21:42:38 -0400

Back in December Juli decided she wanted to make Cake Pops. She had been sucked into the whole “Cake Pops” craze and had.to.make.them.immediately. Side note-we often see recipes on websites and want to make them that instant…

Anyways, we quickly learned that the whole “cake pops” venture was more difficult than it looked. Let’s just stay we couldn’t get the “stick” to stay in the “pop”. After a few failed pops, glasses of sangria and cuss words later, we gave up on the “cake pop” idea and made “cake balls” instead.

…and what we ended up with was a fat kid’s dream, party in your mouth, total and utter deliciousness. No joke.

…we also ended up with hundreds of cake balls!

Cake Balls have are now something that we frequently make and yesterday we made some. They are not that hard to make, but I will warn that they are time consuming.

Ingredients:

Box of cake mix

Frosting (small thing of frosting per box of cake)

Parchment Paper

Chocolate Candy (Found at a craft store)

Sprinkles (if desired)

-To begin buy a cake mix (yes buy, we haven’t made these out of cakes from scratch, yet. That’s a goal for this summer). We usually buy two boxes at a time and our favorites are Funfetti and Red Velvet Cake.

-Bake the cakes per the directions on the box.

-Let them cool.

-Take the cake and crumble it up. Then put half in a bowl.

Add about a quarter cup of frosting. We use Cream Cheese frosting. However, we have used “sugar free” frosting and they tasted just as good. You want to have enough frosting so that the cake mixes together and can be rolled into balls but not too much or they won’t roll as easily.

-Once mixed together, roll into balls and place onto a sheet covered with parchment paper.

-Place the cake balls in the freezer for at least 30 minutes. The longer they’re in the fridge, the better.

-Take one bag of chocolates and pour half into a bowl. Put in the microwave for about a minute, or until the chocolates are melted.

-Place the cake ball in the melted chocolate and completely cover with chocolate. Once covered, place the cake ball back on cookie sheet. Cover with sprinkles, if desired, and let the chocolate harden.

Chocolate Oreo Bottom Cupcakes stuffed with a Reese's

Wed, 16 May 2012 17:29:00 -0400

Earlier this year my sis came up with this recipe and even though I may be a bit bias these cupcakes are deeelish.

These sweet little things are a chocolate cupcake with an Oreo (who doesn’t love an Oreo) for the bottom of the cupcake, stuffed with a Reese’s peanut butter cup, topped with cookies and cream frosting…

What you’ll need for the cupcakes-

-Box of chocolate cake mix and ingredients

-2 packages of Oreo’s

-Bag of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Mini’s

Yields 24 cupcakes

-Prepare cake mix as directed

-Line cupcake tin with cupcake liners

-Place an Oreo cookie in the bottom of each liner

-Pour chocolate cake mix over the Oreo

-Bake as directed on box

-Once cupcakes have completely cooled cut a whole in the center of the cupcake using a small knife.

-Remove the cake and insert a mini Reese’s

-Take the top part of the center that you removed and cover the Reese’s

For the frosting-

-8 oz. Cream Cheese

-Stick of butter

-12 Oreo’s

-3 cups powdered sugar

-1 teaspoon vanilla

-Beat the cream cheese and butter together

-Add 3 cups of sugar, 1 cup at a time

-Once blended add the teaspoon of vanilla

-Crumble Oreo’s and add to batter

-Mix until combined

-Frost each cupcake and top with an Oreo

Mother's Day Dinner!

Sun, 13 May 2012 20:36:00 -0400

We spent the day celebrating our Mom! Mom and Julianne spent most of the day in the kitchen cooking and drinking. I had big plans of helping all day buuut I was a liiittle “under the weather” as we went to a Beer/Bourbon festival yesterday (we’ll blog about that later) and had a realllyyy good time!

Last week she told us that she didn’t want to eat out but wanted to cook so that’s what we (I mean I did help wash the dishes) did.

The menu included-Filet with a red wine reduction sauce, cream corn and grilled veggies.

The filets were seasoned with salt and pepper.

They were grilled and then covered with a red wine reduction sauce. To make the red wine reduction sauce saute an onion in 3 tbsp of butter.

Then add garlic and oregano and cook the onions until they were translucent. Next, add 2 cups of red wine and let the onions simmer until they were reduced. Right before serving melt 3 tbsp of butter in the sauce.

Pour the sauce over the filets when ready to serve.

Our mom bought more strawberries today than she knew what to do with, so she requested Strawberry Shortcake for dessert. Juli baked a pound cake using our grandma’s recipe, soaked some cut up strawberries in sugar, and made homemade whipping cream…partay in your mouth!

To make the whipping cream buy a carton of whipping cream from the store. Pour into a bowl and mix with a hand mixer until creamy. Add a teaspoon of vanilla and enough sugar to taste.

Now that our family is in a food coma, we will be spending the rest of our evening on the couch watching our new obsession, Friday Night Lights! We hope everyone had a great Mother’s Day!

Teriyaki Chicken Burgers

Fri, 11 May 2012 19:47:00 -0400

One thing we love about summer is grilling and we grill out as much as possible. B Boozie (another name for our dad) is our grill master!

Last summer Juli made Teriyaki Chicken Burgers with grilled pineapple and cheese and they were a hit! Tonight we had the chance to make them again!

What you need (our recipe served 4)-

2 boneless chicken breast cut in half
Teriyaki Sauce (We use Lawry’s)
Pineapple Slices (We get the Dole canned slices)
Provolone cheese
Whole wheat buns

Cut the chicken breast in half

2. Marinate in Teriyaki sauce for 4-6 hours

3. Grill chicken breast until cooked through.

4. Add provolone cheese when the chicken is almost done

5. Remove chicken from grill

6. Place pineapple and buns on grill for approx. 1-2 minutes

To serve-

Place chicken breast on wheat bun and top with pineapple! For a side to go with the burgers we will grill veggies.

Simple and delicious! These also heat up well and are great with an ice cold brewski!

Welcome!

Thu, 10 May 2012 11:56:00 -0400

This is the cooking/baking blog of two sisters, Laura and Julianne.

Julianne, who is currently working towards her Master’s in Social Work in Boston is home for the summer! I work in logistics and I am also living at home with mom and dad (we will refer to them as our “roomies”).

Our plan is to cook, bake and drink our way through the summer and post those activities in this blog. So raise your glass, or your fork, for a summer of deliciousness and good times!