Vote for Me!!

I was reading a book called Stir It Up by Ramin Ganeshram and in it the main character (a girl my age) entered a cooking contest for kids called Super Chef Kids.

I thought that it would be fun to enter a cooking contest so my mom and I Googled “cooking contest for kids” and found something called the Ben’s Beginners(C) Contest and decided to enter it.

Since I had to incorporate Uncle Ben’s rice into a recipe, I decided to make my Lemon Honey Chicken and serve it over rice.

If you vote for me HERE, you will find out how I cooked the rice. I am asking that you please vote for me so I can live my dream of becoming famous! You can VOTE once a day, everyday through March 11.

Keep cooking, and never give up!

An FCAT Snack

I am so sorry I have not posted a blog in a while, but I have been busy! So here is a cupcake recipe (Finally!) to make up for it.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012 was FCAT Writes – a state writing test that is graded by the county, not even my own teacher. All 4th graders have to write for 45 minutes about the same topic. I didn’t really like the topic, but I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. So since it was FCAT Writes, I wanted to make a cupcake treat for my class.

About a week ago, I saw a show called “Unique Sweets – Childhood Favorites” and saw a recipe for Snickerdoodle Cupcakes. They sounded good to me because Snickerdoodles are my favorite cookies and I couldn’t stop thinking about them all week.

First, I made Vanilla Cupcakes – you can make your favorite Vanilla Cupcakes. Before you put them in the oven, you need to sprinkle Sugar in the Raw and Cinnamon over the top of each cupcake. For the cinnamon and sugar mixture, I used about 1/4 Cup of Sugar in the Raw and about 1/2 Teaspoon of Cinnamon.

When they are done, you make Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting – I just Googled “Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting Recipe” and found one that sounded good to me.

After you frost them, sprinkle more of the Sugar in the Raw and Cinnamon on top of the frosting – and Enjoy!

My class loved them and I hope you will too. They taste JUST LIKE a Snickerdoodle.

The Great Miracle Whip Cake Experiment

On Sunday I wanted to make a cake, so I Googled “Sunday afternoon easy cake recipe”. I found a recipe for Chocolate Miracle Whip Cake so I gave it a shot.

I guess I wanted cake so bad, I didn’t care what it had in it – unless it had been a flavor like Sausage Cake or something, I would not make that cake in a million years.

For my own twist, I also added chocolate chips because I like when you take a bite of cake with chips and they are all melty and gooey. Then I decided to be nice and put nuts on half for my mom.

I topped each piece with whipped cream. Mmmm!

Here’s the recipe so you try it yourself (adapted from cooks.com):

Sunday Afternoon Easy Chocolate Cake

1/2 cup cocoa
2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup Miracle Whip Salad Dressing
1 cup cold water
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Note: Do not use mayonnaise or fat-free dressing.

Combine cocoa, flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Stir with a whisk.

In a separate bowl, beat together sugar, Miracle Whip, water, and vanilla on high speed for 1 minute.

On low speed, gradually add flour mixture to Miracle Whip mixture, one cup at a time. Scrape down sides and bottom of bowl, beat until well combined. Stir in chocolate chips.

Pour into 9×13 baking pan coated with cooking spray. Sprinkle nuts over top, if using. Bake at 350°F oven until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean (about 25-30 minutes).

Chili Cookoff

I had so much fun at the 6th Annual Chili Cookoff at Fishhawk Ranch. It was very fascinating tasting all 18 of the chilis.

My favorite chili was #11 from The Broussard Family. It was beanless and they used red and green chili powder from The Hatch Chili Express in New Mexico. They also served it with Fritos, sour cream, cheese, Tobasco, and onions.

They won 1st place in the People’s Choice Awards. My aunt and I both voted for them, so we were very happy they won.

I am planning on entering next year, either with my aunt or by myself. Next year I hope that you can come, taste my chili and (hopefully) vote for me to win!

Mozzarella Sticks – A Super Bowl Snack

Now that its Super Bowl time I’ve decided to give you a snack recipe – and I know how my dad and his friends love their Super Bowl snacks. So here is a “perfect for Super Bowl” snack recipe – Mozzarella Sticks.

Slice mozzarella cheese into strips. Dip them in two eggs with salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, and red pepper flakes.

Then dip them in 2 cups of Italian style panko bread crumbs mixed with 1 cup of grated parmesan cheese, 1.5 teaspoons garlic powder, 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper, and two tablespoons of olive oil.

Place the sticks on a baking sheet coated with a little bit of oil. Pop the tray in the oven at 400 degrees for about 7 minutes – but watch them closely! They might turn into one big pile of goop and bread crumbs (and you don’t want that to happen). But you do want them to be gooey enough to stretch when you eat them like they are supposed to.

You can dip them in any sauce of your choice. I suggest 4 cheese marinara sauce.

And one more thing. Does anyone have any tips on how to make the breadcrumbs stick to the cheese better? They were pretty crumbly. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Food Truck Rally

I had so much fun at the Food Truck Rally!

Believe it or not, there was only one dessert truck and all they sold was donuts! But their donuts are heavenly and when I got them, they were SOOO good, hot and fresh. The way the cinnamon and sugar coated the fried doughy goodness – MMMMMMM! Their name: Ritter’s This n That.

There was also a truck called Jimmy Meatballs. We had to wait in line F-O-R-E-V-E-R.

So by the time we got to the front of the line all they had left were the Meatless Balls. They were actually the very last three meatballs they had. I tried them, they were ok, but I would have preferred one of Grama’s Meatballs.

My parents ate at a truck called Fire Monkey, but I did not. I did have a couple of bites. I tasted their Monkey Roll, but I did not like that it had plantains in it. I did like the bite I had of the Black Bean Cake.

The next food activity we are doing is a Chili Cookoff later this month. I’m looking forward to tasting all the chilis!

Will There be Dessert Trucks?

On Friday my mom told me that the following day we were going to a Food Truck Rally!

Then I started to imagine what it would be like if there were only dessert food trucks. The smell of chocolate filling the air, each line stretching across the Universe, people not being able to decide what truck to go to.

Well I hope that there will be at least one dessert food truck because I love dessert and some day I want to have one – with cupcakes!

I will tell all of my readers what I got and how many dessert trucks there are! Stay tuned for the results!

Lemon Honey Chicken

With all my new followers and the highest number of views EVER on my blog today thanks to Stuck At Home Mom, I thought I needed to get into the kitchen!

My mom couldn’t decide what to do with our chicken tonight, so I told her I would make it. So we went to the store to get the chicken. We had everything else I needed.

In a medium bowl I mixed a pinch of crushed red pepper, 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper, 1/8 teaspoon Italian seasoning, 1 tablespoon olive oil, the zest and juice of 1/2 a lemon, 1/4 cup honey (ours is special honey from West Virginia that came from hives that used to be my Grandpa’s), 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoon pepper.

I cut the chicken into bite sized pieces, put it in a big ziploc bag and poured the honey-lemon mixture in too. Next, I made sure every piece of chicken was covered evenly by sort of massaging it around through the bag. Then marinate it for half an hour.

Cook the chicken in a grill pan or large frying pan over medium high heat until the honey is caramelized on the outside of the chicken and the chicken is cooked all the way.

I served my chicken with my mom’s orzo and asparagus with garlic and parmesan. It was SOOO good and surprisingly not spicy. I thought it tasted almost as good as candy!

Meatloaf

My mom had a long day of cooking on Christmas so she did not want to make dinner on Monday so she told me I could make it. I immediately decided to make up a meatloaf recipe because I do not  like meatloaf and I wanted to see if I could turn it into something I do like.

I knew what to get because I have seen my mom make meatloaf so I knew that there are traditional ingredients: ground beef, Italian style bread crumbs, pepper, salt, 1 egg, ketchup, and milk. My twist on meatloaf was to also add bacon and tomatoes.

I combined 1 1/4 pound of ground beef,  1/2 cup bread crumbs,  1/4 cup ketchup, 1 egg, and 1/4 cup milk. For seasonings I added 1 teaspoon of minced garlic, two shakes of Italian Seasoning, two twists of the pepper grinder, and one twist of the salt grinder.

Then I chopped 5 strips of bacon, cooked it and cooled it. After it was cooled I added it to the beef mixture and put it in a loaf pan. Then I diced the tomatoes and placed them on top and cooked it at 350 for 1 hour.

It was sooooooooooo good – it did not even need ketchup, both my parents said that!

If you try it tell me what you think of it:}

Pasta Shells

It was only my mom and me last Saturday night for dinner and she asked me if I wanted to try making up a new recipe with the entire grocery store as my pantry.

Um, hello!! SURE!

Pesto, chicken, alfredo sauce, and jumbo shell noodles were the only things I needed.

First, I boiled the chicken with salt, pepper and garlic, shredded it and mixed it with 1/2 the jar of pesto sauce. Because we had shredded mozzarella leftover in the fridge, I added some of that too.

Then, I cooked the noodles and stuffed them with the chicken mixture.

Spread a little of the alfredo sauce in the bottom of a glass pan and place the stuffed noodles in. Then lightly pour the rest of the afredo sauce over the noodles, and bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

They were one big giant pesto alfredo chicken and noodle ball…except it was not a ball, it was a shell.

I hope you make them sometime. In my opinion, they are very good!