A Favorite Mistake

Joe and I (and I suppose the kids too) belong to this amazing church. I know most people say that their church is fantastic and amazing and all that, but ours really REALLY is. It goes so much deeper than the message we receive on Sunday (which is also so amazing), we have developed strong relationships with several people in our church and one of the ways we did this was by joining an Ekklesia (house church, small group, etc). The people in this group have truly become family to us. 

Our Ekklesia gets together weekly for dinner and usually a message, some weeks we have game night or worship. Something that our group has decided to do is follow Gods commandment to go tell others about Him. We are going to Oaxaca (pronounced Wah-haw-ka) Mexico this summer. We are going to be leading a bible day camp for kids there and also building chicken coops in the rural villages surrounding Oaxaca. As you can probably guess this trip is going to be pretty spendy. We are taking Kennidy but leaving Cruz with Grandma. SO for the 3 of us it is going to be over $4000, but more about that later ;)

Our group is currently fundraising for our mission and this weeks fundraiser was a combination bake/garage sale. Unfortunately Joe and I are going to be out of town for a wedding so we can't be at the garage sale, so to compensate I baked my birth weight in baked goods. No joke. 

Here's the proof.

There was more but *oops* it got eaten. Lets just say certain members of this family have impulse/portion control issues. Their *plural* names will remain anonymous. 

I made Snickerdoodles, Oatmeal cookies, and White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies AND cinnamon rolls and a mystery roll.....read on. 

Lets preface this mystery roll story by saying I am a terrible planner. These darn rolls cost me 2, almost 3, trips to the grocery store. 

I used one of my culinary idols recipes for the cinnamon rolls. The every fancy and beautifully buttered Miss Paula Deen. If it came down to shadowing one of my culinary/domestic hero's for a day I would be so stuck between her, Martha Stewart, & Ina Garten. Throw Oprah in there and we have a serious dilemma. 

Needless to say this is a pretty great Paula recipe. Lots of butter. Here is the link to the recipe on her page. I made one batch true to her fashion of these delicious cinnamon rolls. Then I ran out of cinnamon, rookie mistake. I still had 3 more batches of dough too, so I was literally up poop creek without a paddle. I scoured my brain and I came up with a brilliant idea, one I had never heard of before. So I am officially capitalizing on this idea....drumroll please......dum dum dum dum 

PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY ROLLS!!!!!!

 ***mindblown*** Delicious!!! I made 2 different kinds, with 2 kinds of peanut butter and 2 kinds of jelly. Luckily I am a mom to a 7 year old and a staple in her diet is peanut butter and jelly so we had lots of it on hand. I made a crunchy peanut butter and grape jelly roll and also a creamy peanut butter and raspberry jelly roll. Both equally delicious. 

I altered Paula's recipe a little bit; here is my rendition. 

 Dough

2 1/2 tsp. yeast 

1/2 cup HOT water 1/4 cup sugar 1/2 cup warmed milk 1/3 cup melted butter  1 tsp. salt 1 egg 4-41/2 cups flour

Filling

Peanut Butter

Jelly 

1/4 cup melted butter

Preheat oven to 200. Mix the hot water and yeast in a bowl and set aside. Mix sugar, warm milk, melted butter, salt and egg until well blended. Slowly mix in about half of the flour (a little more or a little less is NO big deal) then add in the yeast mixture. Add the remaining flour until the dough is easy to work with, again a little more or a little less than called for is ok. Next knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for about 5 min. Spray an all glass or all metal (no rubber or plastic) bowl with some Pam and add your dough. Cover with a light cloth towel.  This next step is super important(!!!!), SHUT THE OVEN OFF. Put the bowl in the oven and leave the door cracked open. The light heat will help your dough rise faster. Let the dough rise for about an hour or until the dough doubles in size. Then take it out of the oven and punch it down. Roll out the dough until it is about 15x9 inches, bigger or smaller is okay too, it just depends on how thick/thin you like your rolls. 

Now here is the fun part. In a bowl mix up a few table spoons of peanut butter and a few tablespoons of Jelly until fully blended. 

Re-reheat oven to 350. 

Spread it on top of the dough evenly. Roll up the dough and slice with either a really sharp knife or with dental floss. You should get between 10 and 15 slices, depending on how thick you want your rolls. 

Drizzle melted butter all over bottom of a baking dish (usually I would use a 10x13 dish but I made smaller batches for the bake sale). Add roll slices with a little space in between them. Let them rise again until doubled, usually about 20 min or so in a warm kitchen. 

Bake in the oven for 30-35 min. (Less if you like your doughs a little doughy). 

I wouldn't do a glaze on these because they are already pretty sweet and a little savory and I think a glaze would make them too sweet, but maybe you feel differently. 

Obviously these are a little bit healthier (but not much) than regular cinnamon rolls. They still make a yummy breakfast/dessert. And there is a little more variety with these bad boys; experiment with different kinds of nut butters and jellys. Maybe drizzle some honey on them. IDK, just have fun with it. 

Back to our mission trip. If you feel at all led to help us out financially on this trip,deltaministries is the link and all you do is  click on Donate/Payment, Click on Donate Online, under Categories & Funds choose Short-Term missionary support from the dropdown, then in comments type that you want your donation to go to Lauren & Joe Mendoza and put our team number which is #2013409FS. We really appreciate any help we can get! Plus we will send you pictures and a thank you card....even in Spanish if you want :) 

Thank you all so much for reading! Cheers!

Soccer Mom & The Upper Deck Pub

   This has been the year of new things for our little family. For my daughter it has been soccer. Who knew that my sweet little girl would find a passion in a sport that I literally know almost nothing about. And by almost nothing I know that; you kick the ball and can't touch it,  there once was a guy named Pele (beyond that I know nothing about him), 2 of the best looking guys in the WORLDs names are David Beckham and Christiano Rinaldo and they both play soccer too. Other than that, completely at a loss. I was that kid that wasn't coordinated at all and things involving hand/ eye & foot/eye coordination were especially difficult. That aside, Kennidy loves it. She also is not currently super coordinated but she is trying her very hardest. 

   Moment of honesty, being a soccer mom is totally not all it's cracked out to be. It involves lots of down time and waiting and waiting and, oh yeah, waiting. Being a bit of a nervous parent, I don't feel comfortable just dropping Kennidy off at soccer and going home for an hour, so I wait at her soccer practice. Luckily she's doing indoor soccer so there is no rain and wetness to brave. The other great thing about her doing indoor soccer is that there is a pub in the sports park. Who knew??? Certainly not me. So now while I am waiting I can order an appetizer such as tots or chips and salsa (they even have pizza and a few other things) and a beer. Since my family lives right down the road I usually have somebody there with me cheering on my little lady, so we can even order a pitcher. 

Proof that we did just that, ordered a pitcher. P.S. this picture shows only 2 glasses, but there was 4 of us splitting it. I really am not a lush :)

The Upper Deck Pub offers a pretty decent sized selection of beers on tap, including some not-so normal ones (this week they had Nectar Creeks Honey wine on tap-aka Mead. It's like a not sweet apple cider without the apple taste. It's made from honey and water and that's it! So good. Shout out to my sister and brother in law @ the "Broads World" blog for introducing us to this yummy stuff). Upper Deck also has a few wines to choose from too. Wednesday is $1 taco night as well, which is pretty neato and they also offer monthly brewery tastings. The price is reasonable for both food and drinks. 

Plus a whole other row of brews on tap, in addition to this one!

Decor for this place includes an array of soccer scarves hanging from the ceiling and some random sports memorabilia. They have a pool table and dart boards as well. A nice clear glass wall lets you see what's happening on the field while staying toasty warm inside the pub. 

Next time you're at the sports park for an indoor soccer match/hockey game/ kids birthday party I suggest you give this hidden gem a try. Also if you're looking for a place to hang out with your friends that nobody knows about this would be the place or maybe just somewhere to hang out where you won't run into people you know (this is a small town after all). 

The tiny sign telling you there is a pub there, other than that you would have NO CLUE! Super secret :)

Cheers!

Dessert.....in a MUG!!!!!

Love dessert but don't have time to bake? Read on because I SO have a solution for you. Today I am sharing 2 recipes (because they are so easy!); Strawberries and Cream Cake in a Mug & Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cake in a Mug. Enjoy!

A little bit of a backstory; cooking/baking is my love language. Family lore has it that it's because we are Portuguese. (Portuguese people love food. Love talking about it, thinking about it, cooking it, watching people make it, and most of all eating it). For  me it is also a way I show my love. If I cook for you, you are in, we are friends and I love you. Haha. Seriously though, when it comes to my husband, kids,family, friends, etc. I am willing to put in the time to make them something tasty. I am that wierdo that loves having people over to cook for them day or night. If you show up at my house unannounced I WILL feed you. If you are sick/in need I WILL bring you food. It's just what I do. So when I stumbled upon this thing called "Pinterest", a couple years back, it revolutionized my life with all the recipes. 

As a member of the "Pinterest Generation", I dutifully pay my minimum of 30 minutes a day to that wonderful, wonderful site. That noted, I have been seeing a whole lot of these desserts in a jar/mug ideas on there. Curious, I decided to explore these a little further. See, I am a sucker for all things tiny and small and cute and sweet, so a dessert in a mug kinda fits those criteria. Upon further research I found out these little bites are also microwavable. That's were the baker in me told me to run, run and not look back. There is NO way that something tasty comes out of the microwave. (I learned this in my high schools "foods" class. I still have nightmares about microwavable chicken *shudder*). Since I am extremely limited on time in the kitchen, without baby screaming bloody murder, I decided, warily, to give it a go though.

First thing I tried was a brownie in a mug and it wasn't half bad. Not great, but not terrible. I had to improvise a whole lot on these because I hadn't been to the grocery store since before the New Year. So instead of cocoa powder I used hot cocoa powder and I didn't have butter so I used heavy whipping cream instead. It still turned out pretty O.K. though. Not pretty enough to put on here though.

Second thing I tried was a Strawberry and cream cake in a mug and it was actually SO good. Pretty dense as far as cakes go but still really good. I think if you use a cake flour or sifted your flour first it will turn out a bit fluffier. The thing I really like about this cake is that the recipe I used called for yogurt instead of butter, I opted for greek yogurt instead and so I felt even less guilty for eating this and giving it to Kennidy (and our roommate, Nick-Joe was at work) for an after dinner treat. I whipped up 3 batches of this cake in less than 10 min. Including bake (microwave) time!

The finished product! 

Kennidy enjoying her cake in a mug. (Bonus points to whoever can guess what 1984 classic is on in the background. Hint it has the catchiest theme song ever)

Strawberries & Cream Mug Cake

Adapted from Stacy Miller

1 egg

2 tablespoons strawberry yogurt, well stirred <---greek yogurt

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1/8 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 tablespoons granulated sugar

5 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/4 cup fresh sliced strawberries and whipped cream for serving <---frozen strawberries

1. Coat the inside of the mug lightly with cooking spray and set aside.

2. Mix the egg, yogurt, vegetable oil, baking powder, extract, sugar and flour in a small bowl until completely smooth.

3. Fill the mug to halfway full and place it in the microwave. Bake it for 70 seconds, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Top with strawberries and whipped cream and serve.

Tonight it was just Joe and I and he was on a super limited time frame because he got called in for some overtime at work. He asked, nay dared, me to have a dessert ready for him in 15 minutes. I accepted this challenge and the outcome was the best "dessert in a mug" yet. Get ready for this one.
Chocolate chip cookie dough cake in a mug! 
So amazing right? My only qualm with this one is that it is rather big for just 1 person. I suggested to Joe that maybe next time we split one, and he looked at me like I am crazy. This one was the easiest to make yet. It did call for eggs & butter though (the shame) and so now I am promising myself an extra 15 min on the treadmill in the morning.

All the ingredients before getting mixed

All mixed up

 Fresh out of the microwave

All prettied up

My husband (Mr. Medifast himself ) shamefully eating his cake in a mug. He didn't want people seeing him eat something non-medifast. Lol. 

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cake in a Mug

Adapted from Brooke McLay

1 egg

3 tablespoons brown sugar 

1 tablespoon butter

1/3 cup flour

1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract

3-4 tablespoons chocolate chips

1. Coat the inside of the mug lightly with cooking spray and set aside.

2. Mix everything together 

3. Fill the mug to halfway full and place it in the microwave. Bake it for 70 seconds, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Top with whipped cream and serve.

Bon Apetit! 

Check back next week for a new restaurant review, a bit on my new years resolution, and of course, a new recipe.