sausage dip

This one was a complete surprise. I read how good this dip was but have been pretty hestitate about making it because honestly, how good can sausage and cream cheese be?? But I was dead wrong. I swear this is highly addicting! And it's another super easy recipe with only 4 ingredients. It was a huge hit served with Fritos Scoops.  

 

Spicy Sausage Dip

1 (16 ounce) package pork sausage
1 (15 ounce) can diced tomatoes with mild green chilies, undrained
2 (8 ounce) packages of cream cheese; room temperature
hot sauce to taste ( I used Sriracha)

Cook the sausage in a skillet over medium heat until evenly browned and no longer pink. Drain. Reduce heat to low, and stir in the tomatoes and cream cheese until evenly blended. Cook just until heated through. Serve warm.

Pumpkin Dip

This tastes just like pumpkin cheesecake and takes minutes to make. Plus it has only three main ingredients and you can play around with the rest. I found many different recipes but liked this one mainly because I already had everything in my pantry and refrigerator. Once I made it I did make a few changes and added what I thought would taste best. It turned out creamy, sweet and delicious. Dip ginger snaps into it for a major crowd-pleasing dessert! I loved dipping green apples, the sweet dip and tart apples went really great together.

Pumpkin Dip

1 c. granulated sugar, sifted
2 (8oz.) cream cheese blocks, softened
15 oz. pumpkin
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

Mix cream cheese and pumpkin together until well blended. Add sugar, cinnamon, ginger and pumpkin pie spice, mix until well combined. Refrigerate at least one hour. Serve with ginger snaps, graham crackers, Nilla wafers, or fruit for dipping.

Rocky Road Popcorn

I'm a bit behind on a few new posts that have been patiently waiting for me to finally finish them from all the craziness these last two weeks.....time to play catch up ;)

I'm a huge fan of popcorn. Caramel corn. Cheddar Cheese. White cheddar. Loaded with butter. Or just plain stove top with salt.  Should I go on? I am obsessed with the homemade caramel corn I made last winter, found here. I've been looking forward to trying something new that you can't go buy at the store. Plus homemade is always better! This Rocky Road popcorn is the best of both worlds, salty 'n sweet and it's just as addicting at the caramel corn is.    

 Rocky road popcorn

Adapted from recipes by “Mouse Potato” and foodchannel.com

• 1 cup popping corn, popped
• 1 to 2 cups almonds (I used peanuts)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 stick butter
• ¼ cup light corn syrup
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 2½ cups miniature marshmallows, divided
• ¼ teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 250˚F. Spread popped popcorn on a greased baking sheet, and sprinkle with the almonds.
2. In a large heavy saucepan over medium heat, combine the sugar, butter, corn syrup and salt, and stir constantly until the mixture begins to boil.
3. Stop stirring and let the mixture boil for 2 minutes. Remove from heat.
4. Add 1½ cups of the marshmallows and stir until melted. Stir in vanilla. Pour marshmallow mixture over popcorn mixture; stir until well coated.
5. Bake popcorn and nuts for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Remove popcorn from oven and let cool.
6. Put chocolate chips into a large heatproof bowl set over, but not touching, a pot of simmering water, and stir until melted.
7. Add a few scoops of popcorn and nuts to the bowl of melted chocolate, and stir until coated. Then add a couple more scoops, and stir some more. Repeat until about half the batch of popcorn is coated in chocolate.
8. Pluck the popcorn pieces from the chocolate with tongs and spread them out on a baking sheet lined with wax paper. Sprinkle the remaining 1 cup of marshmallows over the chocolate-coated popcorn, and let cool.
9. When the chocolate has hardened, mix the chocolate-marshmallow-coated popcorn with the rest of the candied popcorn in a large bowl for serving. Store in an airtight container.

Prayers Please

Hello My Dear Readers,

If you could please keep my family in your thought right now. My grandfather had a massive stroke yesterday in which he was taken to the Waterloo hospital and then flown to the University of Iowa Hospital in Iowa City. He is currently in ICU. Although he is in great hands in Iowa City and has a lot of family and friends rallying around him, the more thoughts and prayers would be much appreciated!

Thank you!!

Safari Birthday

A few weeks ago I made Drake a smash cake for his One Year pictures, here. This past weekend was his 1st birthday party in which he had a Safari Themed party. This being my first jungle/safari theme I had no idea what to do or where to begin. Luckily Drake's mother included this link to all the party supplies she was going to use which gave me my inspiration. I wanted to make all the safari animals....

The beginning of my animals

Starting to come together

They actually look like animals!

And it all comes together :) 

A 2 layer 10-inch marble cake with chocolate ganache filling and vanilla buttercream

I love how it turned out! The safari animals turned out better than I pictured.

We have lions, tigers, zebras, giraffes, elephants, and monkeys!

The smash cake

Birthday cupcakes for all of little Drake's friends...I'd say my handwriting is starting to improve (at least on the cupcakes!)

Happy 1st Birthday Drake!

Hope you had a wonderful party and enjoyed your cake.

Wells Fargo Cupcakes

My best friend Tiffany's father gave me a call a few weeks ago for an order of 3 dozen cupcakes for his birthday. He recently took a new job a few months ago at Wells Fargo and requested what I could do to make them Wells Fargo related. I'm not sure if he was serious or kidding about wanting the horses and carriage that is part of their logo but this is my attempt....

Delicious Red Velvet cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting (yes its homemade and to die for!) and Triple Lemon Cupcakes (lemon cupcake with lemon curd filling and lemon cream cheese frosting). I think I could seriously eat the whole dozen lemon cupcakes all by my self! Topped with marshmallow fondant "Happy Birthday Mark!", "WF" for Wells Fargo of course and my free hand of the WF carriage, in red, yellow and black.

My carriage minus the half dozen horses....they wouldn't fit :)

Chocolate cupcakes with Peanut Butter frosting!

Mark sent me a text stating how much everyone at work were raving about them, makes me feel all warm and fuzzy when people tell me how much they love and enjoy my product! He also brought to my attention how I need business cards so I am currently in the process of thinking of a name (aside from My Buns Are Done), if you have any ideas or suggestions leave me a comment or email me at bunsrdone@gmail.com

Baptism

Another first for me....my first Baptism cake!

I got the honor of making our friends Chad and Kelsey a cake and cupcakes for their son Jackson's Baptism. I always feel so honored when asked to make special cakes for any occasion and especially for this precious little boy! 

White Vanilla Cross cake with light blue marshmallow fondant ribbon.

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Chocolate Cream Cheese frosting and each topped with a fondant cross

These cupcakes were definitely a hit with all of little Jackson's family!! 

Happy Baptism Jackson and may God bless you!