Chocolate Covered Cake Balls II

I meant to get a picture of the cake balls closer up. I put on a baby shower for my friend today and I attempted to decorate the cake balls. You can click on the picture to get a close up. I melted white chocolate and added food coloring and put it in a little cake decorating thing to decorate the tops but it was SOOOO difficult. The chocolate was all over the place. I definately am not an expert in this field. Oh well, they taste freakin awesome so I didn't care too much.
PS: We put peppers on the veggie tray and they were YUMMY, I've never thought to do that before since I'm not a huge raw pepper fan.

Chocolate Covered Cake Balls

I saw these on my friends Lisa's blog and then tried one at my friend Erin's house and I HAD to try them out. I'm doing a babyshower this weekend so I practiced them last weekend so I could get the hang of things. There are about a MILLION varieties using this same idea.

They have also been called 'Bakerella Balls' because that is the original creater. Here is a link to some of her other similar creations: link

1. Bake a cake-I chose chocolate.

2. Let the cake cool completely, then break it up into small pieces. Mix a container of cream cheese frosting with the cake. ( Other people have tried broken up oreos and broken up nutter butters)

3. Roll them into little balls and stick them in the freezer or fridge until they are nice and firm.
4. Dip them in chocolate and return them to the fridge to harden. I dipped them in melted hershey's kisses, melted white chocolate chips, and melted cookies and cream bars. The cookies and cream were definately my favorite! I heard that if you mix a little shortening with the melted chocolate the chocolate sticks better. I'll try that next time!
It makes a LOT, luckily we had plenty of friends to share them with or else I may have gained about 20 lbs! We had 85 balls!

Aunt Jeanne's Potato Salad

If any of you know my Aunt Jeanne you know she is an excellent cook! Her potato salad is excellent and I tried to make it for the second time and I learned some things that I don't want to forget!



1. Make a 1/2 batch!

2. Do not put in too much sweet relish!

3. Do not let the potatoes cook too long!



Here is her recipe:



5 Large potatoes-cubed and boiled

15 hardboiled eggs cut in pieces

1 package of celery hearts chopped up

1 sweet onion finely chopped

1/2 container of cream cheese

3 raw eggs

1/4-1/2 C flour

3/4 C sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 C vinegar

1/2 C water

1/4 bottle honey mustard

1 1/2-2 C Miracle Whip

1 tbl Sweet Relish (add to taste, start small!)



1. Mix the red ingredients until they are really smooth.

2. Bring the green ingredients to a boil on the stove and then add the red ingredients. Mix until they are all smooth and thick then add the purple ingredients. This makes the dressing.

3. Mix the dressing with all of the blue chopped veggies.

4. Enjoy
As you can see from the picture, this recipe makes A LOT of salad! It made a perfect side dish for memorial day!

Sweet N' Sour Chicken: the fried variety :)

This was really similar to the sweet n' sour you would get at a chineese restraunt...really good! If I had to rate parts I'd give the chicken a 10 and the sauce a 7, I'm looking for improvements on the sauce so any ideas are welcome. Here is the original recipe with my adjustments.

It basically is veggies and fried chicken over rice all covered in a sweet n' sour sauce...yummy

Sauce:

1. Mix 1/4 c water and 1/4 c cornstarch in a small bowl

2. Mix the following 4 ingredients until they boil, then turn off the heat and slowly add cornstarch while stirring.

Pineapple juice from an 8 oz can
1 1/2 cups water
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
2 drops orange food color

3. Add pineapples

Veggies:

Chop up your favorite veggies, we chose green and orange pepper but if I wasn't so lazy I would have done onions and carrots too. Fry them up in a little butter or oil until they're just soft enough.

Chicken:

1. Mix the following ingredients to make a batter...it kind of resembles a thick pancake batter. Then add 2-3 breasts of chicken that have been cut into little pieces and mix it all up.

2 1/4 cups self-rising flour OR 2 C regular flour, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1 1/2 tsp baking pwdr
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
1 egg
2 cups water

2. Heat up the oil( I used medium heat) and use tongs to scoop out the pieces of chicken and plop them into the oil. They cook WAY fast and they are SO good!

I tried to make it in the afternoon and then warm it up that night and the chicken was not nearly as good as it was fresh from the grease...I will remember that for next time. It was literally the best fried chicken I've ever made, you should try it!

Here is the final product, I forgot to take the picture until Zac was already almost done...dang

Chicken Noodle Soup

Alright, this was delicious and I was able to freeze half and save it for next week (the week before finals for my students).

As always the basic recipe was taken from allrecipes.com, but I made a few adjustments.

Ingredients

3 cloves garlic

1/2 chopped onion

5 chopped carrots

3 medium potatoes

1/2 package of cooked noodles

2-3 cans 14.5 oz chicken broth (next time I'll use boullion and water since there is no difference)

1 can vegetable broth

1 can cream of chicken soup

Diced and cooked chicken (I use about 1/2 pound)

1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

Chicken Boullion to taste

1. Sautee the veggies in butter for 5-10 minutes.

2. Add in all of the broths, soups, and seasons

3. Let it cook on the stove on medium heat until the carrots are soft.

4. Take it off the heat because if the potatoes cook to long the soup gets all starchy.

5. Add the noodles just before you serve.

When I make it there isn't a lot of the actual soup/broth because I like it that way so add more broth according to how you like it. Also add salt and pepper to your own family's taste. It was a little bland which is why I added a boullion cube. Overall this is a delicious, inexpensive meal that isn't too hard to make. You can chop all the veggies in the morning and throw it all together at night.