Archives for February 2021

Super Easy Tater Tot Casserole

February 28, 2021 Leave a Comment

We all need a few of those easy recipes that we stick in our back pocket for last minute weeknight meals. If you have room for one more, this is it! Keep the few things that you need on hand and you’ll be all set for those days when you just don’t feel like making anything fancy. This is also a crowd-pleaser weekend breakfast!

You will need a bag of frozen tater tots, 2 cups of Colby Jack cheese, minced garlic, a pound of sausage, milk, eggs and salt & pepper to taste.

Preheat your oven to 425° and brown your sausage in a **cast iron skille**t. Mine is a 12”. (The **Mix-N-Chop** is fantastic for browning meat! I am a PC consultant 😉 but used it even when I wasn’t).

While that is browning, go ahead and whisk your eggs in a mixing bowl (**LOVE my classic batter bowl**).

Add Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste.

Add 1/2 tsp of ground mustard. This is the secret ingredient that gives it just a hint of tang!

When the sausage is cooked through, add 2 tsp of minced garlic and cook until fragrant, about 3 minutes, stirring constantly. These **adjustable measuring spoons** are my jam, by the way! Less drawer clutter is a big win in my small kitchen.

Turn off the heat and stir in the frozen tots and cheese. You could use the Crispy Crowns or the larger tots, either is fine.

Pour the egg mixture evenly over it all.

Pop in the oven and bake for about an hour, until the eggs are set and the top is golden brown and crispy! If you don’t have a cast iron skillet, you could do this in a regular skillet and transfer to a **baking dish**. I personally love the flavor and crisp that cast iron gives! And the fact that it goes from stovetop to oven. The **RockCrock dutch oven** would also be perfect for this meal, and that bad boy goes right into the dishwasher when you’re done!

You could easily change up the meat or add onions and peppers for a little flair! This one is so easy, comes together in minutes and is a family favorite!

Super Easy Tater Tot Casserole

Print Recipe Pin Recipe Rate Recipe

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour

Course: Breakfast, Main Course

Cuisine: American

Servings:

Equipment

Cast Iron Skillet

Ingredients

1 lb Breakfast sausage
2 cups Colby Jack (or cheddar) cheese
1 30 oz bag Frozen Crispy Crown Tater tots
8 large eggs
2 cups milk
1/2 tsp Ground Mustard
2 tsp minced garlic
salt & pepper to taste

Instructions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Brown sausage in a cast iron skillet.
While sausage is browning, whisk eggs in a mixing bowl.
Add milk, mustard, salt and pepper.
Once the sausage is browned, add the minced garlic and cook 3-4 minutes until fragrant. Make sure to stir frequently to avoid burning.
Remove the skillet from the heat and stir in the frozen tots and cheese.
Pour the egg mixture evenly over the sasage mixture.
Bake for about an hour, until the eggs are set and the top is melted, brown and crispy!

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

How to Make a Gnome Cake

February 27, 2021 2 Comments

Let’s be friends! Connect with me on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest!

First, let’s start by making his hat. This is basically a giant cake pop! I happened to have some extra yellow cake on hand, but you could use the cake pieces from leveling your layers or bake just a little bit extra to use for this. You will also need a little bit of icing as well.

I use my Pampered Chef pastry blender (I am an independent consultant, by the way!) to mix the cake and icing together. You can also do this in your KitchenAid stand mixer if you want to, to save your elbows!

You don’t have to use colored icing, but I happened to have some on hand from another cake and it worked out. Really, you just want to add enough icing to make it come together into a thick dough. If it still looks crumbly, you need to add a little more. The next picture is your goal:

Mold it into the shape of a gnome hat on a piece of parchment paper and then place it in the freezer for at least a half an hour. I let mine chill for about an hour and a half. It’s easier to work with if it is firm.

While that is chilling go ahead and make your **edible moss using this recipe**. It takes a little bit of time, so don’t wait until the last minute! You could even do this a day or two before if you wanted to.

Once your moss is in the oven, go ahead and make your **modeling chocolate using my recipe here**! It is incredibly easy and I typically will go ahead and make all of the colors I need at once.

Roll out a few balls of white modeling chocolate in varying sizes. We will be using these to make the mushrooms that are growing out of the side of the stump.

Flatten them out into a slightly wavy disc shape and then cut them in half. Set them aside while we do the rest!

Whip up some buttercream icing (you could use store-bought, but the real thing tastes best!). Set aside about a cup and a half of white.

Next, we need to turn the icing brown. You could do this with chocolate buttercream if you wanted to, but my client wanted vanilla cake with regular butter cream. I used **brown Wilton gel coloring** to turn it a nice chocolate brown. I will warn you if you’re doing this, you will use the majority of the little pot of food coloring.

Fill and stack the two layers of your cake next.

Apply a coat of icing. It does not have to be perfect, because you will cover it with the stump texture! Just get some on there, and then smooth that with a cake scraper (**I like this style best!**).

Apply a little bit more icing to the top because you want this to be a bit thicker. Using an **offset spatula**, spin your **cake turn table** to make the swirl design on the top. Most of it will be covered, so it definitely does not have to be perfect.

Using a large star tip (**Wilton 1M**) , pipe a swirl onto the side of your cake. It’s hard to describe in words how to do this, so I’ll just show you in a picture. Do make sure that your swirl also has lines going off of it, up to the top of the cake. This creates a “knot”and woodgrain effect.

Next, you will do a line going from the bottom to the top around your swirl.

Continue working your way around the cake, creating knots in various places and at different heights on the side of the cake.

Some lines will be straighter than others. It does not have to be perfect!

Your finished stump should look something like this!

Place your little gnome hat “cake pop” on top of the cake. I secured mine using a dowel rod inserted into the cake so that it would stay put!

Using white **modeling chocolate**, make little shoes for your gnome. I gave him pointy feet because I thought that was cute! You just do whatever your little heart desires!

Then you will stick his feet on the front of the stump.

Using red **modeling chocolate**, make a set of legs and press them on to the front of the cake as well! I gave little “bell bottoms” to blend where they meet his shoes.

Using Wilton 233 icing tip, in a pastry bag filled with our white icing, we’re going to make his beard.

This part is honestly kind of fun. Just pipe and drag strings at various lengths, building on each layer!

Once you have a nice, full beard, stick him in the fridge to chill (and let the icing set up) and let’s make his nose!

Using a toothpick, add a tiny bit of Wilton Copper food coloring to a small ball of softened white modeling chocolate. Knead it well until the color is fully mixed in. It makes the perfect flesh tone.

Take a good sized piece and roll it into a slightly oval shape Using a toothpick to two (to keep it from sliding down the beard), attach his nose to the top of his beard like this:

I chose to take a little bit and make him some arms and hands. You don’t have to, but it was really cute and easy!

Next, lightly coat a surface with powdered sugar. Knead and soften a good sized ball of whatever color modeling chocolate you are using for his hat (I used red).

Roll the chocolate out into a relatively thin sheet (I think mine is about 1/10″).

Carefully lift and wrap it around the hat. Allow some overlap on his nose, arms, etc. Using your hands, press firmly to mold it to the cake pop. You will have some extra sticking off like this:

Just use a good pair of kitchen shears to trim the excess off and then smooth with your hands.

Now, grab your little mushroom pieces. You may have to pinch to thin the edges a bit. Starting with the largest, stick it into the side of the cake wherever you want!

Repeat, offsetting them slightly and working your way down to the smaller ones.

Dust them with a bit of cocoa powder to give them that true earthy fungus look.

Sprinkle your moss along the base and on the top of your stump. (You could leave it off of the top if you wanted, but I like it!)

I used a little dab of black food coloring to make some grey modeling chocolate which I shaped into little rocks. So sorry I didn’t get pictures of the process. It was a spur of the moment decision! I dipped them in the moss before placing on the cake to give them a moss-covered look as well. Just stack them wherever you feel like it!

I also molded a couple of mushrooms dusted in cocoa powder to stick behind him on the stump.

I put them on the opposite side to the stump mushrooms to provide some balance.

There you have it! The most adorable little gnome cake, perfect for the gnome lovers in your life!

Time.

February 26, 2021 Leave a Comment

Without even noticing, the little piles of laundry have grown into larger ones. The socks are less and less tiny. Footie sleepers switch over to two pieces.

You are so proud of first words but suddenly you realize that you ache for that sweet baby babble, too. An ever-expanding vocabulary replaces those precious mis-phrases that signify just how little our babies are.

Each new tooth is celebrated, but yet you miss that gummy smile. You are so proud of first steps, but yet you miss the reliance and safety of carrying them everywhere.

You rejoice at the relief of self-soothing, but there is a tiny piece of your heart that misses rocking them to sleep. They start taking naps in their own cribs rather than snuggled on your chest. The glorious sleep-through-the-night happens, but in the corner of your mind, you would give anything for one more midnight cuddle.

Nursing sessions drop and bottles are replaced by sippy cups. One day you hand them a whole chicken nugget, and without even realizing it, your baby grows up a little. You stop tediously cutting food into tiny pieces and think that you are glad that phase is over. Until the reality sets in that this thing doesn’t move in reverse.

You start to check the Owlet less frequently. Then you don’t check it. And then one day you don’t put it on them at all.

They begin to dress themselves. They read the books to you at bedtime. They brush their own teeth. You celebrate and encourage the independence, but at the same time you wish for just a few more days of being so very needed.

The clutter makes you crazy, but one day there are less toys to pick up. Stuffed animals switch over to basketballs and televisions. Skinned knees turn into broken hearts. Cocomelon turns into Paw Patrol, and then one day they are watching the same shows as you.

Slow down and take it in. These days will be over before you know it. And in the midst of feeling a little like you have lost yourself, realize that just maybe you have truly been found.

Easy DIY Modeling Chocolate

February 24, 2021 Leave a Comment

More often than not, if a cake involves fondant, I turn it down. Or try to figure out a way to accomplish the look with buttercream. Mainly because that is my favorite medium, and fondant is nasty to me (and a lot of people). The other factor is the amount of time involved and what I can reasonably get paid in my area, but that is another post for another day!

Anywho…a little trick I like to keep in my back pocket for special cakes that just beg for the extra detail and time is modeling chocolate! You can mold just about anything out of this edible clay, and it tastes just like a tootsie roll! Once you know what you are doing, it is so easy to make that you will be kicking yourself for not trying it sooner! All you need is chocolate (candy melts, regular chocolate, white chocolate; they all work!) and corn syrup. See the links at the bottom for my favorite kinds!

You will do 1/3 cup of corn syrup for every 16oz of chocolate (or melts) that you use. Follow the directions on the packaging to fully melt your chocolate. If you are using Wilton melts, you will typically do 1 minute at 50% power and then continue heating in 20-30 second intervals.

Once fully melted, allow it to cool a bit to avoid separating. You don’t want it to start to solidify again, you just don’t want it piping hot, either.

As soon as your chocolate has cooled a bit, add the corn syrup and stir very, very well.

Keep on stirring, even if your arms are tired! Make sure all of the chocolate is incorporated. It will start to come together in a thick ball. Ensure that there are no pockets of runny chocolate, and once you have gotten them all, you can move on!

Turn it out onto a sheet of parchment paper and allow it to cool. It will have a slightly greasy look to it and that is ok!

I repeated the process to make some using white chocolate. I love having the white on hand because you can use a little gel food coloring on a toothpick to make it any color that you want! You simply knead the coloring in until uniform.

Press it firmly to the paper to make the cooling process faster.

You will know it is almost ready when it starts to lose its shine. It may feel hard again and that is ok!

This particular batch lifted off of the paper in one solid piece.

When you are ready to use, simply break a piece off and knead it in your hands. It will take on a clay consistency that is glorious for rolling out or modeling into shapes! If you need to, you can give it a little 10 second zap in the microwave to make the kneading easier. I usually work the entire thing into a ball for storage of extra when I am finished working.

See how I used it on this cute little Gnome cake? His hat, his nose, the mushrooms, rocks and his arms and legs are all modeling chocolate! His hat is actually a giant cake pop. I’ll be sharing a tutorial on that soon!

Here’s a little cake I made way back in my early days of cake dabbling, covered almost entirely in modeling chocolate. Super rookie, mind-you. But still really cute!

There you go! Crazy easy, and very yummy! My toddler enjoys playing with the leftovers and this could absolutely be a fun edible play dough activity for kids, too!

Save this pic to Pinterest!

How to Make Edible “Moss” for Cakes, Cookies and More!

February 24, 2021 4 Comments

Let’s be friends! Connect with me on Facebook, Instagramand Pinterest!

Have you ever seen “moss” on baked goodies and wondered “how in the world did they do that?!” Yea, me too! So I determined last year to figure it out, and you guys…it is so easy! I’m going to show you how, just in time for Spring!

If you follow my steps exactly, you will wind up with delicious “moss” that looks just like the real thing.

First, you will need Graham cracker crumbs. You could pulse whole crackers in a food processor, but I prefer the uniform look of just buying the Keebler crumbs myself. Plus it saves a step!

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees. Pour some into a bowl. There isn’t really a science to this, just eyeball about how much you think you will need. Since it requires running my gas oven, I usually make a good sized batch and store it in an airtight container for a couple of weeks.

Next, you will add some green liquid food coloring. You can use gel, but may have to add a little water to help it coat the crumbs. Start with a little and add more until you get the color that you want.

Stir, stir and then stir some more! Make sure you use your scraper to break up any clumps. You will just want to add coloring (and a little water if needed) until most of the crumbs have turned green. It should look about like this:

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Spread the crumbs in an even layer and place them in the oven. Set a timer for 15 minute increments and check them. Stir every time you check. You will want to bake them until they feel mostly dried out. For me this takes about an hour, but be sure to watch it closely. If they still feel very wet you may need a little more time.

Once they feel mostly dry, remove the pan from the oven and let them cool. I usually allow mine to sit out for a few hours to fully dry. The color will lighten up a bit and look exactly like moss!

Once dry, use it to sprinkle on cakes, dip frosted cookies and more. You could even make super cute fairy garden pudding cups with them! Endless possibilities!

Go here for a detailed tutorial on this CUTE little Gnome cake!

Check out these cute Fairy cookies here!

While you’re here, grab my viral Royal Icing Recipe!

And my viral Chocolate Buttercream Icing Recipe!

Meal Plan Monday: Feb 22-28th

February 21, 2021 Leave a Comment

It’s Meal Plan Monday, and I am here for it! This week’s meals are top notch and I am so excited to dig in! If you haven’t read last week’s MPM post, go here and do it! I break down eMeals in detail and its super helpful!

Now that you have the skinny, here is this week’s meal plan! If you want a recipe, just click the pink link.

Monday: Cheesy Pepperoni Calzones with Easy Caesar Salads

Mondays can be a little crazy! I am always making up for my weekend of baking and family time. I am a huge fan of easy meals that I can trust Addie will usually eat without fuss. I saw this one and decided it looked too good to pass up!

Tip: A good pizza wheel makes life so much easier! This one is my favorite! I also love these salad choppers for quick salad prep!

There you have it! My quick 15-minute meal plan packed with tons of flavor and variety! If you want to see a live video of how this system works, check this video out HERE!

Super Easy Tater Tot Casserole

Super Easy Tater Tot Casserole

Equipment

Ingredients

Instructions

How to Make a Gnome Cake

Let’s be friends! Connect with me on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest!

Time.

Easy DIY Modeling Chocolate

How to Make Edible “Moss” for Cakes, Cookies and More!

Let’s be friends! Connect with me on Facebook, Instagramand Pinterest!

Go here for a detailed tutorial on this CUTE little Gnome cake!

Check out these cute Fairy cookies here!

While you’re here, grab my viral Royal Icing Recipe!

And my viral Chocolate Buttercream Icing Recipe!

Meal Plan Monday: Feb 22-28th

Monday: Cheesy Pepperoni Calzones with Easy Caesar Salads

Tuesday: Chicken and Wild Rice, Roasted Asparagus and Carrots with Honey

Wednesday: Loaded Chicken with Asparagus

Thursday: Chicken Parmesan, Angel Hair Pasta and Garlic Spinach

Friday: Cornbread Mexican Wedges

Saturday: Beef and Zucchini Casserole with Mandarin Orange Salad

Sunday: Pear and Gorgonzola Chicken-Pesto Pizza

More Weekly Meal Plans Here!