Soft Onion Sandwich Rolls

Soooo good. And super easy to make. Make themmmm. Here's the recipe.

Done that's all I have to say!

Shocking I know. Ya right, Im going to keep talking..

They call for potato flakes, WTF? who has those on hand? Or can even find them in the store. 

I bought plain instant mashed potatoes. That's the same thing right?

lots of onion in them, but they aren't crazy onion-y. Just right.

So easy little one could help too! She loved it.

 Ready for the oven

Done! Boy that was fast. 

So proud!

I ate one right away. It was so good. (actually I ate 3 right away... )

Yummy!

You might want to eat them all in one sitting! I can't wait to make them again!

Good for sloppy joe's or pulled pork or ham and cheese...

Strawberry Cheesecake!

Cheesecake!!!

Anyone who knows me woud wonder why in the world i'd be excited about cheesecake.

I think cheesecake is disgusting. I want to like it, have tried it many times. It's still disgusting. 

Which reminds me, when I was little my mom decided to treat me to "mother and daughter day" (the only one I ever remember having) She bought me a necklace with a teddy bear with my birthstone in it. (obviously I still have it, even though I never wore it) She treated me out to a restaurant: The Cheesecake Cafe. When it came time to order.... I had to tell her. I don't like cheesecake. 

So much for a treat. I didn't want to disappoint her, but everything was cheesecake!

I can't remember what I did order, I just remember feeling worried about disappointing her by ruining her special mother daughter day.

On the other hand, my handsome boyfriend loves cheesecake. 

So I make them for him! (and saves me from temptation)

 I mashed up strawberries

 Made a graham cracker crust

 I used a Martha Stewart recipe 

Martha Stewart always calls for really specific things. This recipe called for vanilla beans (which cost $13) Oh well, totally worth it. (I think... considering I didn't eat it)

It has mascarpone cheese and tons of cream cheese, also had to buy corn syrup (I don't usually use that) it turned out to be rather expensive recipe.

She also says to put it in a hot water bath in the oven.

It cracked anyways, so I'm not sure if it was actually worth it. I'm just glad it didn't get soggy.

He took it work to share and got rave reviews :)

I plan on trying it again with cherry instead. 

Drool! Hey, even though I don't like it, it still looks good!

Strawberry Jam!

With the New Bread Machine I can make Jam! 

Of course I wanted to try it out. We went and picked strawberries in a local field. We picked (and ate) a lot of strawberries. I chopped them all up and threw them in the machine with lemon juice and sugar. The recipe was in the bread machine book:

1/4 cup of lemon juice and 1 cup of sugar for 2 cups of strawberries hulled. I doubled it and turned it on. It only took an hour and a half.

After sterilizing the jar and lid (from an old jar of jam we already ate) I poured the liquid all in.

After waiting a bit it was done.

 Yum! Strawberries!

Ok so here's the truth: the jam isn't that good. And I know why. The strawberries looked amazing but didn't actually taste very good. The dark ones were actually sour... not sweet. The jam turned out sour and sweet. Oh and just to clarify, it's not even jam. It's Strawberry Coulis.

I don't know if i'm even going to eat to tell the truth. Maybe I'll try it again with better strawberries. Another time. 

Cake stands!

In case anyone hadn't noticed, I love baking. I loveeee it. 

So of course I need adorable things to put my yummy baking on. Obviously. 

I saw this on pinterest.

Why yes, I do need to make those cute cake stands!

Maybe in different colors however, more my taste, less.... girly shall I say?

Yes, I was very tempted to make them black, but don't want the cake stand to take away from my yummy baking of course... I still have one more to go, maybe the last cake stand will be black!

Now to start with really ugly stuff. $1 each at Value Village. 

Paint and go. One purple and one aqua. Oh and if you are wondering why the 'bottom' looks so weird. It's because I taped it up so it would be clear on the bottom to 'hide' little accents! Like a matching flower or corresponding item.

Then glue them together. TADA!

Black forest cake on top! Ok I need to take some better pictures of it, but after I made the cake everyone was dying to eat it. I didn't want to look like a weirdo photographing my cake stand like a crazy person.

Black Forest Cake is super easy, well the way I make it is. I just make any old chocolate cake. Wait for it to cool and then put one layer down then add a full can of cherry pie filling to the middle. Then plop the second layer on top. Add whipped cream, I just use 3 cups of whipping cream to 1/3 cup powered sugar. and whip and whip (the boring part). Volia!

Just add a little chocoate and cherries and done!

Last time I just reserved some cherries from the pie filling but this time I had maraschinos.

So good! Rave review. I love the attention I get from this one! Be careful everyone will want seconds!

There is all three!

Can't wait to use them at a party! :D

NEW Bread Machine!!!

I can't even believe how excited I was to get a brand new spanking bread machine!!
The one that I had was a little old but still working... till recently. It would let the bread rise then kneed it randomly resulting is very odd bread that was Extremely stuck in the machine. We ended up ripping it out in chunks and my lovely boyfriend turned the bread chunks into a casserole. 
In need of a new one I started hunting them down to see how much one would cost. I couldn't believe how much they cost! I really wanted one that made bread like a typical loaf (bakes horizontal) as opposed to our previous vertical one.


Fortunately my brother was able to get me a discount on one at the place he works. We agreed on one and I gave him the money, but when I went to pick it up, it wasn't the one we had agreed upon. It was even better!!

 

Here is the bread machine we got. We got it for $230! Ok yes that is quite a bit of money, but as long as it lasts more then a year it is completely worth it. Homemade bread all the time! Yum!

Look at all those functions! Yes, I can make Jam! and Pasta! What, what?! Can't wait to try them out!
Thought I'd start with something simple however, a plain white bread for the win!

It turned out soooo good, better then any of the bread I'd made in the old machine. It's huge loaf too. In fact we discovered this morning it is so big it won't fit in our little toaster. hmm... I did make the biggest possible loaf. Next time I'll try the smaller one, heh heh.
Definitely will post new things I make with with the new bread machine! Can't wait to make Sun Dried Tomato and Feta Bread! If anyone has an awesome bread machine recipe let me know!