Come Join me for a virtual Halloween party!!

I know you're all thinking "Halloween!? But its August" Well, my very best friend Veronica over at MorningNooNight and I are planning a Halloween Link Party for October 1st. And come on people, that's only a month away!

We are looking for other bloggers who want to participate with a fun homemade Halloween Craft, Recipe, Cocktail, anything really! We will take all of the submissions (links) and link them at the bottom of our blog post (asking you all do the same) and have one fun virtual Halloween party! Since we are new to the blogging scene we are looking for as many bloggers as possible to participate! Also if you want we can send your link to other participants!! 

Please comment below if interested or email me at craftscakescats@gmail.com and we will get started!!! For those who do choose to participate we will have more information for you soon and also ask that you spread the word!! Lets help everyone out and get all these great blogs noticed.

K-Cup Holder

I was so excited when my husband and I picked up our Keurig machine at Costco!! When you buy it there you get tons of K-cups!! One thing we didn't think of when buying it was where do all those little k-cups get stored in our apartment kitchen??  So some got stored in a drawer while the rest got put in a basket on the counter. Great idea except digging in the basket for different flavors....

We looked for a holder in stores but they cost about 25$ dollars for a nice one and still take up counter space which I really wanted to get back. So we decided a wall hanging on would work best for us. Big tip when buying you supplies use your craft store coupons!! If getting everything at once I suggest having a shopping partner so you can use 2 coupons if needed.

What you need
1 canvas that is 1 1/2 inch thick.
1 bottle acrylic paint
1 brush
1backing (we used photo matting)
crafting knife
template with circles
hot glue gun

To do
1. Cut you backing so that it fits into the back of the canvas.
2. Paint canvas your selected color. Ours is Martha Stewart pumpkin orange.

3. Cut your circle template. I cut mine using my silhouette sd. Took a couple tries to get the size circle that worked best for us.

4.Cut the circles out of the mat board. This was the longest hardest part. I need a better tool for thick cutting I think. 

5. Hot glue on to canvas and cut the canvas to wrap around the circles.

6. Hot glue canvas around circles.

                                      

7. Customize the front. Mine was again using my machine but this time the letters are cut out of vinyl!

And mine is all done!! I love it!!

Honeydew Lime Sorbet

This blog will be short, sweet, and to the point! Who doesn't love a good sorbet, its that one "ice cream" dessert you don't feel bad eating. Its called girl math for all the guys out there. Its 98% fruit so why feel guilty, am I right?

So this is the conversation between my husband and I

Him "When are we making sorbet?"

Me "Look for a recipe and when we go to the store we will get the stuff."

Him "How about honeydew lime?"

Me "Sounds refreshing"

A couple days later, a trip to the store, and 35 minutes in the kitchen and we are eating sorbet!

Here is what you need (As found at allrecipes.com)

3cups cubed honeydew

1/2 cup sugar

1 tablespoon water

1/2 cup lime juice (about 6 limes)

2 teaspoons lime zest

Blend together sugar and honeydew in a food processor or blender. Add the rest of the list blend for a minute then add to your ice cream maker per its directions. For me this was 25 minutes then it was ready to eat!!

Yep that its short, sweet, easy and oh so refreshing!

Hot and Sour soup- crock pot style!

Do you like Chinese food? We love Chinese, actually if we are being honest we love almost all food. But when cooking it at home who said it always had to be stir fry or sweet and sour chicken?? My husband will always order hot and sour soup when we go out for Chinese but for me its hit or miss. I always worry about the hot being too hot, but doing this at home you can make it the perfect hot. 


This recipe is not exactly what you get at the restaurant it has protein in it and can be a main course dish for your dinner. Its also very easy to make into a vegetarian dish if that is what you want. Oh and did I mention its cooked in the crock pot!!! Really the hardest part of the meal was trying to remember where I put the crock pot when we unpacked it. 

Hot and Sour Soup
32 oz chicken broth ( use vegetable if going vegetarian)
1 cup cooked chicken or pork (I buy the cooked roasted chicken in the deli)
4 oz fresh shitake mushroom caps thinly sliced. ( Most stores have it already sliced. When my store is out I just use white mushrooms)
1 small can sliced bamboo shoots (about 1/2 cup)
3 tablespoons rice vinegar or rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons sriracha hot sauce
honey (you will choose amount for me its just one turn around my pot)
4 oz firm tofu well drained and cut into 1/2 inch pieces (optional)
2 teaspoons dark sesame oil
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons water



Combine broth, chicken, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, vinegar, soy sauce, and sriracha in crock pot. Cook on low for 3 to 4 hours. At 2 hrs in taste the broth and decide on how much honey to add. This will cut the hot down just a little. Really depends on how much you add. 


Stir in tofu and sesame oil. Combine cornstarch and water until smooth then stir into the soup. 

Chocolate Chip Muffins!!

I can cook and blog again!!!! Ok I make that sound like I was physically incapable of blogging but the truth was I was overly busy moving across country. That's right my husband and I just moved from hot and sticky mid west Chicago land to the beautiful always perfect weather of southern California San Diego County!!

This was taken one night while eating at the beach! I love picnic night!

Well now that we have moved and gotten mostly settled in my husband is at his new job and for now at least I am playing housewife. So my goal cook more, craft more, and of course blog all those things. So lets start off with these yummy Chocolate muffins!

The recipe I originally went off of used oats instead of flour and used sugar substitute instead of white sugar.

CHOCOLATE MUFFINS

Ingredients 

1 3/4 cup flour

1 cup sugar **

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar 

1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 egg whites

1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1/2 cup plain greek yogurt

1 cup hot water

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

** This amount of sugar might not be enough for everyone I wanted a less sugary muffin. This amount is based of a sugar substitute which would actually double the amount of sugar that was too much just taste before baking. 

Preheat oven to 350 and line 2 cupcake pans and spray with cooking spray.

Mix all your dry ingredients together in your mixer. Then add in your wet items. stir in half the chocolate chips and set the rest aside. 

Fill your muffin cups and bake for 10 minutes. DO NOT TURN OFF OVEN top your muffins off with the remaining chocolate chips and bake for another 2-3 minutes. Cool and enjoy! I will admit I addes extra chocolate chips  hehe.

Note my husband still calls them cupcakes....when will guys understand? 

Pink Lemonade Cupcake

Summer is almost here!! So you know you are seeing those cute kids on the sidewalk selling their lemonade. Me I like pink lemonade and the big thing this year seems to be adding it to cupcakes! You could so do this with plain lemonade or even maybe a lemon cake and do pink lemonade frosting...so many options and really that's what summer is all about.

What you need (found here)
1 box white cake mix
3/4 cup defrosted pink lemonade concentrate
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup oil
4 egg whites

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Combine all ingredients. I also added a very small amount of coloring gel. I really wanted to use pink but the store only had rose. It was very bright and fun. I also didn't stir the coloring in completely so there was still some swirl in the color. Bake for 25 minutes or until a test poke comes out clean.

For my frosting I started out with 1 cup butter and 2 cups powdered 1 teaspoon vanilla and then just added a little bit of concentrate and more powder sugar till I liked the flavor and consistency. I also added the coloring gel to the frosting.

Enjoy these just as you would their liquid counter part! But a small warning they are a sweet sweet treat depending on how you like your frosting, but there is never anything wrong with that!

Lemon Squares with history

I have actually never made lemon bars or squares, whatever you wish to call them before. I love eating them so I am not really sure why this was my first time.

These are a little special though, they have a history lesson with them. Stick with me here it won't be like sitting in a  high school or college history class. So pop quiz time! Do you know who the 36th president is and what his favorite sweet treat was? Well if you said Lyndon B. Johnson and lemon squares you are correct!!

Now you are asking why in the world does she know this?? Well I have this cool cook book called Presidential Cookies  that has the favorite cookies/sweet treats of the presidents George Washington to George W. Bush. Its  fun book and some of the recipes have a picture from the white house cook book at the time. Here are Lady Bird Johnson's Lemon squares that she made for the president.




Crust
2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup butter cold but soft (2sticks)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix the crust items together. Press in to a greased 9x13 baking dish. Bake for 20 minutes until lightly browned.

Filling
2 cups sugar
1tsp baking powder
3 beaten eggs
Juice and grated rind of 2 lemons
powdered sugar for dusting

Mix the ingredients in the order given leaving the powdered sugar to the side. Poor over the baked crust. Bake 20-25 minutes or until set. Cool the pan and dust with powdered sugar.