This and That

I've been having a little bit of blog envy lately, drooling over beautiful pictures and collages and images and wishing I were cool and artsy and had a knack for capturing things on film. I'm definitely not any of those things, but I have been having some fun playing around on Picasa and using a retro camera app on my phone.

Here is what I've come up with - a little slice of what's been going on in my world the past few weeks...

Flowering tree in our yard; Anna playing in her pool; green cake ball; baby birds; Anna going in for a smooch;
again, Anna and her BFF Cedella; crime scene?; my new sticker; peanut butter cake balls; ice, ice, baby

Also - who can tell me about this Pinterest business? It seems like all the cool kids are doing it and I wanna be cool, too. Hit me up, yo!

Ballin'

All kinds of peeps have been asking me for a recipe for the famous cake balls, and since it's not really a recipe - more like a process - I decided to create a little tutorial so everyone can enjoy these delicious little orbs of cakey goodness. And since I was making 200 of them, I had the perfect opportunity to get some good pictures. If you want to see how they're done best, you really should check out Bakerella and her book. She gives tons of tips and pointers, and gets waaaay fancier than I ever plan to. It also seems like cake balls are the new hotness of the baking world, so it might not be too long before they're showing up all over the place. Starbucks is even selling cake pops now, so if you really get a craving and don't feel like all the work, head over there for your fix!

Ok. The first thing you'll need to do is decide on flavors. Really, any kind of cake will do, although I would probably avoid anything with chunks. Rainbow chip does sound delicious, though, so if anyone tries it with success, let me know! Our favorite is probably red velvet cake. Bake the cake according to the directions on the box in a 9" by 13" pan. Let it cool completely and cut into quarters. If you don't want to make a full batch, here is where you can freeze any sections you don't want to use. Just adjust the amount of frosting and coating you use accordingly. Each quarter of cake will make around twelve balls.

Next, take each quarter and break it into half. Rub the two pieces together so the cake starts to crumble. Continue on with the rest of the sections, and work through all the crumbs to make sure there aren't any big chunks.

After that, it's time to add the frosting. For the red velvet I use cream cheese frosting, but again, any kind will work, although make sure it's not the whipped kind. For a full cake, you will probably need about 3/4 of a tub of frosting. I usually start by adding about half, then more as needed. Use the back of your spoon to mix it in, until it's a consistency that can be formed into balls without being too mushy.

Start rolling! This can get a little messy, but it's fun. For a whole cake, you should probably get between 45 and 50 balls, depending on how big you roll them. Put them on waxed paper on a baking sheet, and when they're all rolled pop them into the freezer for 20 minutes, or the fridge for a couple of hours. You want them to firm up a little bit, but not freeze.

Next, you need to figure out what kind of coating to use. Michael's sells just about every color of the candy coating - most of the colors are vanilla flavored. I know they also make peanut butter and chocolate, too. I've been using the Meijer brand chocolate coating and it seems to work well and taste pretty good, too! Follow the directions on the package and melt it in a small bowl. For a full batch, you'll probably need two bags of coating.

Take only a couple of balls out of the fridge at a time so they don't start warming up. Put one ball at a time in the bowl of melted coating. Don't stir! Use a spoon to cover the ball, then lift it up and tap your spoon on the side of the bowl a few times to get rid of the excess coating and smooth everything out.

Slide the ball off the spoon onto another piece of waxed paper. This might seem a little tricky at first, but you'll get the hang of it! If there is extra coating pooling around the bottom, you can always break it off when it dries, or use a little toothpick to scrape it away.

Here is where you can get a little fancy. Sprinkles? Colored sugar? Mini chocolate chips? Go for it!

All that's left now is enjoying all the fruits of your labor. Sit back, relax, and pop a few of these bad boys in your mouth and let the cake take over!

It doesn't hurt to have an extra cute helper, either...

Happy Sunday!

Extra special thanks to my photographers - Mike and my mom. You really did a wonderful job of capturing the beauty of the ball-making process. xoxoxo 

Put 'Er There, Pal

I've been elbow deep in green velvet over here for the last couple of hours, and I'm not talking about fabric. I'm talking cake - green velvet cakes that I'm baking for the 200 plus cake balls I'm making for this weekend. Yep, 200. Sounds crazy, I know, but it's for a really good cause, and the more I think about it, staining my fingers with a little bit of food coloring is really the least I could do.

A few weeks ago, I took a stash of my cake balls with me when I went to visit my sister and brother-in-law. I tried to warn them of the addictiveness of these little treats, and sure enough, one bite in and they were asking me if I could make some for Drew's upcoming golf outing. When I came across a recipe for green velvet, I knew it would be perfect - and even though green and white aren't my favorite colors, surely I could put my distaste to the side in honor of doing something charitable, right?

Somewhere along the line, Kristin also asked me if I could put together a poster with pictures and information about all the stuff their charity is involved in. I happily agreed, mostly because there's still a huge part of me that loves anything that involves Sharpies, but also because I was starting to realize just how awesome the High 5ive Foundation actually is.

It's embarrassing to admit, but I never really paid that much attention to all the stuff they do. Sure, my sister tells me about it, and I attempt to keep up with their crazy schedules (seriously, it exhausts me just thinking about it sometimes), and I've been to a few events, helping out when I can. But last night, she handed me a stack of pictures to use, and I was just about a sniffly mess looking through them.

It's probably because I'm a mama now, but seeing actual photographs of the kinds of things the foundation is providing really hit home. Because those babies that need those bubble machines to distract them when they're getting chemotherapy or see the puppets being used to show them what a CAT Scan will be like? Those babies could easily be my baby. And even though there is absolutely nothing that I can think of that would be worse than seeing Anna in need of any of that stuff, it's comforting to know that there are people like Drew and Kristin (and everyone else involved in the foundation) who are doing something to make an awful situation a tiny bit better. My love and respect for both of them has grown so much in just the last few days.

Here is an article about how Drew won the Lions' Man of the Year Award for the second year in a row.
And here is one about an event they do around the holidays.
More information about the puppets can be found here and here is a little bit about the bubble machine.

A couple hundred cake balls? No big whoop.

And in between all the rolling and dipping and decorating, I'm going to take a little extra time to hug my baby a little tighter and be thankful for all the wonderful people in our lives.

If you want more information about High 5ive (because I certainly can't do justice here to all the things they are doing), please check out the website: www.high5ivefoundation.org

Where'd You Hear That, A Renaissance Festival?

It's Tuesday, you say? I am all mixed up on my days of the week right now, which I suppose is one of the joys/curses of staying home with Anna. Other than the fact that there are more people to hang out with on the weekends, most of my days are pretty much the same. Awesome because I never get that yucky Sunday night "Ugh, I have to go to work tomorrow" feeling. Lame because I also almost never get that exciting Friday afternoon "Woo hoo - two whole days of freedom" feeling. I am definitely not complaining here, just observing. With anything in life, there are positives and negatives, and for me, right now, the good things are piled up much higher than the bad.

My calender is all askew, though, because of the long Memorial Day weekend and then an extra long weekend visit from my brother-in-law T.J. It's also possible that I ate way too many bananas and am just now waking up from a food coma. Anyways, as promised, I would like to share with you some of our adventures.

It all started with a Groupon offering two-for-one admission to a Renaissance Festival in Marshall. Since it was a good deal, and neither one of us had experienced one of these magical fairs before, we decided to give it a shot. In my head, I was probably picturing the movie A Knight's Tale. You know, Heath Ledger-types running around sweeping sleep-deprived mamas fair maidens off their feet while an awesome 80s soundtrack played in the background.

I also had dreams of giant turkey legs and mugs of ale, but let's just say that it wasn't quite what I had envisioned.  First of all, there were no wenches serving beer - only one little food booth dishing out hot dogs and lemonades. And even though I knew Heath Ledger wouldn't actually be in attendance, I was a little disappointed in the lack of knights in shining armor. Well, except for one...

Anna was really digging the belly dancer.

So was this kid.

Would have been a great shot, except for the lady holding her cigarette and coffee. Way to stay in character, right?

The King and Queen of the festival!

We did have tons of fun people watching, although I'm curious to know if this particular festival was on par with others. I've heard there's a big one in Clarkston - maybe that's where all the ale swilling takes place? And even though we're not racing out the door to buy corsets and daggers and start talking in British accents, we accomplished our main goal of experiencing something totally new and different.

The rest of the weekend was spent letting Anna (and Cally) enjoy the new pool, much more our speed, turkey legs or not.

Happy Tuesday! It is Tuesday, right?

It's Bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

I've been jamming in my head to Gwen Stefani all day, because I'm pretty sure I just discovered the most delicious summer treat evah. It all started when I heard about something called the Yonanas Maker. It's basically this high-powered blender that transforms frozen bananas into a soft-serve ice creamy concoction. I was intrigued, because I could probably eat ice cream (especially soft serve) for every meal and not blink an eye. (I'm still holding a grudge against that ice cream machine in my dorm cafeteria my freshman year in college for producing such delicious soft serve and doing evil things to my pant size. You mean you can't scarf ice cream cones after every meal and not gain weight? Lame.) I did a little investigating, and found a whole bunch of recipes for pretty much the same thing, except instead of shelling out fifty bucks for a Yonanas Maker, I could use my food processor.

As soon as we got home last night (more on that adventure to come), I sliced up some bananas, froze them, threw them into my Cuisinart, and proceeded to be totally amazed/dumbfounded at the results. Delicious. Sweet. Creamy. And it's frickin' bananas! Mike and I loved it so much, we went out this morning to buy more bananas - and came back with a fifteen pound bag of almost too ripe 'naners that cost a whopping $2.99. I spent my afternoon slicing and freezing them, pretending I was Gwen Stefani, and dreaming about all the awesome, healthy desserts I would be chowing on in the months to come.
Here's what I did:

First, we bought an insane amount of bananas. But it was less than three bucks for the whole bag and I was feeling thrifty. You can probably make do with two or three at a time.

Next, I sliced and laid them out on wax paper on a baking sheet.

Into the freezer! Two hours is probably enough time to get them good and firm. I threw all my extras into freezer bags.

Toss them into the food processor. This is probably three or four bananas. I was making a little extra since my parents were over for dinner.

Blend them up! It will take a few minutes - they will look chunky at first, but once they start to thaw a little bit it will be smoother. You should also periodically scrape the sides down with a spoon.

The finished product! You can stop here - totally delicious!

Or, if you're feeling a little crazy, you can add some peanut butter and chocolate chips. Mmmmmm.

Looks just like ice cream, right? Bliss.

The ultimate seal of approval.

Not to sound pushy or anything, but you seriously need to go make this right now. For reals. Go!
Happy Memorial Day!

Luuurve!

I know I'm biased, but hearing her say this (even if she doesn't really know yet what it means) just about kills me.

Happy Friday!

Everything She Knows I Taught Her

I would like to submit the following as proof that Anna is, without any shadow of a doubt, Mike's daughter. Not that there were really any questions, but this pretty much seals the deal.

The quality isn't the best, but hopefully you get the idea. Anna really, really likes Baba Ganoush.

If that's not enough evidence for you, please take these pictures into consideration:

Anna is extremely insistent on feeding herself. As you can see, she does an excellent job.

And I shall proclaim this "The Summer of Constant Bathing".

Do I have something on my face?

On a completely different note, I would like to show these pictures as proof that there may, in fact, be hope for me yet:

Lighthouses, be gone!

You can't tell from these pictures, but all the boxes are gone and the scrapers are back to their permanent homes in the garage. Now, all that needs to be done is a little painting. So, by my calculations, that should be done within the next, oh, eight to ten months. In all seriousness, though, I almost feel even worse now that it's done, because the whole job took me all of an hour and didn't even suck that much. For over a year, I looked at wallpaper I hated because I couldn't find an hour to scrape it off. Which means that all the other annoying tasks on my to-do list probably aren't that annoying after all, and I should just stop whining and do them already.

First up? Scraping baby-flung yogurt off the ceiling...

Happy Monday!