Topsy Turvy vs Homemade Week 3

Well last week, I thought it was the end of the Topsy Turvy tomato plant. However, this week has brought a pleasant surprise. That plant has started to perk up a bit and is growing new leaves. Good news for me! I still have my doubts but we will see how it goes. I am not going to count out the Topsy Turvy until the plant is dead and leaves have shriveled away. Now I think it will perk up and become a great plant. Time will tell however.

A couple observations this week:

- The upside down plants do not need to be watered as much as the potted plant. The sponges in the bottom of the planters stay wet which is still allowing the roots to gain water.
- The upside down plants do not get as much sun as the potted plants. I am guessing that it is because they are shaded by the planter mechanism directly over the plants whereas the potted plant is always exposed when the sun is out.

Interesting...
Well form your own opinion on how they are doing by watching this video of this weeks progress and see the growth for yourself.


As for the NaBloPoMo, I am on day 12 and so far doing fine! I have been busy this month so there will be alot of good blog posts on the way. We are cooking a lot of different things and experimenting more with food and other topics. I am on my way to beating this challenge, and have NOT felt the difficulty of it yet. We will see how I am doing when it comes down to day 20 or 24 or something like that. Have a great day!

Cupcakes and Jell-o

When it comes to desserts, my kids think cupcakes are their favorites. This cupcake I make for them when it gets close to summer are just awesome and so easy to do! Little more time consuming than most out of mix cupcakes, they hit the spot when it is warm outside.

What do you get when you mix cupcakes and Jell-o? You get an easy and yummy summertime cupcake. When I make white cupcakes, I also add any flavor of jell-o gelatin on top to make them swirling with flavor. This last time I made these, I made white cupcakes with strawberry jell-o. It was their dessert of choice for Cinco de Mayo. Not your normal Cinco de Mayo dessert, but, for the kids; it was their choice. They wolf them down quickly! This time I decided to make them a little more festive with some sprinkles on top, they loved it!

You start with a normal white cake mix and make it to package directions. Or, you can use your favorite cake recipe from scratch. With these you have to make white cupcakes so that the colors really come out of the jell-o gelatin. This time I used a cake mix because I bought a bunch since at my grocery store they were buy 2 and get 3 free, I cannot pass up a deal on that for quick easy desserts for my kids. Bake the cupcakes according to package directions, this time they took 18 minutes in the oven.

Then, you let them cool in the pan. Well, since I have only one muffin pan, I had to make them and take them out before adding the gelatin so it was a little trickier to get the gelatin on top since usually you put the gelatin on top while they are still in the pan. I had to come up with an inventive way to do this. After I poked the holes in the cupcakes, I figured out that with a bowl and a strainer, I could add the gelatin on top of the cupcakes by spooning it on like in the next pictures.
Not the most graceful way of doing it but it still got the job done.


Then they should look like this:

After the gelatin is on top of all the cupcakes, you put them in the fridge for 2 hours so the gelatin can set. Then frost it with whipped topping. But, since I did not have whipped topping, I made a buttercream frosting and frosted with that instead.

My buttercream frosting recipe:
1/2 cup butter
4 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
(if you want the frosting colored, use a couple drops of food coloring; if you want the frosting flavored add what flavor extract you want instead of the vanilla, in this case strawberry extract or flavoring would be very tasty with these)
Whip up the butter until fluffy, add half of the powdered sugar. Then slowly add the milk and vanilla and beat until all mixed. Add remaining powdered sugar and whip until light and fluffy. Frost cupcakes.

When you cut into the cupcakes, they should look like this:


And, that, my friends, is how to make a simple tasty dessert out of one cake mix and one gelatin package for a whole bunch of fun! Next time I think I will use the purple Berry Fusion jello I have in the cupboard. YUMMY!

What a Great Mother's Day!

Just a fun post to share with you all what a fun Mother's Day I had with my husband and kids. They were pretty sweet today, aside from the neverending daily bickering my 2 daughters do. Sometimes it is a complete zoo at my house, but I would never trade them for anything and they are the light of my life.

Today, I was allowed to sleep in; it was nice! Then I had my coffee ready and Cooking Dad didn't drink all the flavored coffee creamer this time, that was really cool too!

Even though the day was overcast, cloudy, and almost rainy; it still didn't dampen the fact that we went to the Farmer's Market and a new produce stand (which I will be frequenting very often since their prices were the best I have seen).

Jay's Produce Stand (located right by my house) and for fellow Thurston County people (meaning people who live or visit here), this is the best place for great produce with such low prices. I spent a grand total of $8.48 and got this

Asparagus 99 cents/lb (I got about 1 lb)
Roma Tomatoes 99 cents/lb (got 4 tomatoes)
Zucchini 79 cents/lb (got 4 small zucchinis)
3 lb bag of red potatoes 99 cents
organic basil 1.49 for the bunch
green onions 50 cents a bunch
green pepper 59 cents each
Pink Lady apples 69 cents/lb
celery 89 cents per bunch

I would say I did awesome on my great food find. Since, I was trying not to spend a ton of money today, we passed on a bunch of things I could have gotten at very good prices also. Such as, navel oranges 49 cents/lb, head lettuce 59 cents each, the hugest globe artichokes I have ever seen (I would guess they were as big as a small cantaloupe...) they were $2.00 each, plus tons more great buys!

The place is Jay's Farm Stand and is located 3533 Mud Bay Road NW in Olympia WA. Their phone number is 360-489-0295. They take orders for large amounts of produce for canning when it is in season. I am definitely going to order about 30 lbs of asparagus for canning and pickling it in a couple weeks. They told me I could get wholesale prices on orders 25 lbs or more. That is a great deal since produce is getting so expensive to round off costs of trucking it in, but they are still keeping their prices low. They were packed with wall to wall people and the produce looked phenomenal.

Then, we went to the Farmer's Market and just walked around, and walked on the waterfront since the market is right by the bay on Southern most tip of Puget Sound. Even with the clouds it was still a nice day. Sad part is that we did not buy anything from Farmer's Market because their prices on produce is shocking. I love going there for plants and seafood though, but just was not in the market for plants or seafood today.

Pictures on the waterfront:
Me and my daughters, Nicole is 10 and Vanessa is 4

Then the pictures at the waterfront where this weekend was our annual Wooden Boat Festival, which showcases fancy wooden boats and has a street fair and market for this weekend. Lots of fun!


Unfortunately, we did not get a chance to get to the wooden boats before it started to rain and my youngest was acting up because she was cold since she brought no coat, she left it in the car. So we made our way back to the car. To go to Grandma's house for BBQ and that was fantastic! BBQ ribs, corn on the cob, a wonderful cauliflower casserole (of which I am going to make myself so I can blog it), and strawberry shortcake for dessert. I would have taken pictures all day today but I neglected to bring spare batteries (bad Bren...) and didn't get a chance to get some new ones. But, this day was awesome; I had my family, I didn't have to work, and I got to just spent time with them. Can't get much better than that!

Hope you and yours had a very Happy Mother's Day!!

The Winners of the Cookbook Giveaway

Well, this has been quite the experience of my first giveaway. The prize is a great cookbook called Picture Yourself Cooking with Your Kids by Beth Sheresh and it looks like a fantastic book.

I botched things up though and mislabeled the entries and so we have 2 winners. I am not going to be dishonest and put another's name on the number when I already announced it, so I am just going to be the bigger person and admit to making a mistake and award both people as they are both deserving winners.

So Comment #39 won, and I labeled it as Judy Brittle, when it should have been Jill Page. They both win! I figured that I would give one of them my signed copy of the cookbook since I did screw up, but Beth Sheresh is such the awesome person that she is, is still going to give me my book and award and ship 2 books to 2 winners. How is that for such a nice person. You must visit her sites and get her book. Here are the links to her sites and to her book:

Kitchen Mage She has the most tasty looking Pomegranate Limoncello Sorbet pictured and posted on her site. YUMMY!
A Year in Bread is a site where she co-writes with 2 other great people about bread, very yummy site!
Picture Yourself Cooking with Your Kids which has the direct link to go buy Beth's book, and a bunch of yummy stuff on her site there.

Thanks again for everyone who entered and thank you to Beth for giving away 3 books total, you are awesome!

To the winners, we have already had one (Jill, thanks) claim her prize and I am now waiting for the other winner to claim her prize within 48 hours simply by emailing me back.