Buttermilk Biscuits & Chocolate Gravy

Who loves chocolate gravy?? I don’t. Haha But everybody on the planet does. Andrew is obsessed with chocolate gravy and I have got by the past few years without having to make it for him; until now. I finally had to give in and get the recipe from his mom and ever since then we’ve had chocolate gravy every weekend. So this chocolate gravy recipe is from Andrew’s mother and the buttermilk biscuits are from my great-grandmother’s cookbooks.

 

Biscuits:
-1 cup flour
-1 teaspoon salt
-1 teaspoon baking powder
-1/4 teaspoon baking soda
-1/3 cup shortening
-1/2 cup buttermilk

In a medium bowl mix together flour, salt, baking powder, & baking soda. Cut in shortening until crumbly. Add buttermilk. Knead on floured board with flat fingers. Add balls of dough to a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 450 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

 

Chocolate Gravy:
-2 cups sugar
-2 Tablespoons flour
-2 Tablespoons cocoa
-1/2 cup milk

Add all ingredients to a pan. Heat over medium heat until just boiling. Do not over heat!

 

Costa Rica – Pura Vida!

Unfortunately, Andrew and I are back from our vacation to Costa Rica. We had the most amazing time you could ever imagine! As promised, I’m going to give yall some of the highlights from our trip! We will definitely be going back to Costa Rica and we highly recommend it as a vacation spot for any adventurous people!

 

We stayed at the Occidental Grand Papagayo Resort in the Guanacaste region of Costa Rica. It’s about 20 minutes from the Liberia International Airport. The resort is absolutely beautiful, although like most of the resorts in CR, it sits up in the mountain side (All the beaches are public) so there’s a lot of walking up hills and stairs. I wouldn’t recommend this resort for a handicapped or elderly person. There was so much wildlife on this resort property it was unbelievable! We saw pretty birds, howler monkeys, and coaties (raccoon/ant-eater looking things) every day.

 

 

 

The first full day we were in CR we went to another resort called Borinquen. This place is gorgeous! We got on horses and rode them up the mountain to the top of the zip line. Then we zip lined down the mountain through the rainforest. Zip lining was so much fun. The first two lines were over this huge beautiful waterfall! I’m not sure Andrew really enjoyed it as much as me, it kind of made him nervous. When we got to the bottom of the mountain we had lunch and then went to the bottom of the volcano (There’s like 11 active volcanoes in CR) and we took a mud bath in the hot volcanic mud. After rinsing the mud off we sat in the hot springs that are heated by the volcano. this water is like 248 degrees F, so it is cooled off with cold river water, but even then it’s still hotter than any hot tub!

The next day we went deep-sea fishing on a boat called the Black Marlin. This was the part of the trip that Andrew was really excited about. Before we left we got those sea sick patches from the doctor, but they didn’t help Andrew. He got so sick it was unreal! I felt so bad for him! We did catch 2 100lb sailfish and a big Mahi Mahi! It was amazing seeing those big fish jumping out of the water!

The next day we caught a ride to one of the national parks around a volcano and hiked through the park. I bet we walked 20 miles that day! Let me tell you, these are not Americanized hiking trails either! You are literally just walking through the jungle! There are places that are so steep and you are basically climbing up rocks on the side of a mountain! It was a pretty intense workout! We really enjoyed seeing all the volcano vents, boiling streams, waterfalls, and boiling mud pots. There’s also a huge beautiful waterfall that we got to swim in! The water was super freezing though!

Our last day in CR was probably my absolute favorite day of the entire trip! We took the Palo Verde river trip with a guide named Larry who has a degree in tropical biology. Before the trip he told us to bring a lot of bananas from the hotel so we snagged several from the buffet at breakfast. We were cruising down the river when we saw some Capuchin monkeys in the trees on the bank so we pulled up on the bank and offered them some bananas. One brave monkey came over to our boat to check things out and got some food from us. Then, all of a sudden, there were like 100 monkeys on the boat with us! They were all over the boat! In our laps, on our head, on our shoulders! They all wanted some bananas! They are pretty rude little creatures too, they would snatch the bananas from your hands! Our guide called them “White faced gangster monkeys” haha. Seeing all the monkeys and being that close to them in the wild was truly amazing! Ohh and Andrew got peed on! One of the monkeys was sitting on his shoulder and all of a sudden it just started peeing on him! It was absolutely hilarious!! We also saw giant crocodiles. Apparently this river has the largest number of crocodiles in one place than any other river. They were seriously huge too! Scary!

Overall, we had an amazing time during our week in Costa Rica. I would highly recommend visiting this country to anyone! It’s extremely safe! If anyone has any questions or wants to know anything about the country, please ask me! Comment, go to my contact page, or email me!

 

These Ain’t Your Grandma’s No Bake Cookies

Worst blogger ever award goes to…Me! I know, I know, I have been MIA for 3 whole weeks! I’m so sorry! I’ve been taking 2 summer classes and pinching pennies for our upcoming vacation (which means no excessive baking) and things just got really hectic for a while! I’m back, for a moment, though!

Sunday Andrew and I are leaving for a week-long vacation in Costa Rica! We are so ridiculously excited! Neither of us have been to Costa Rica before and it will be just the two of us on this vacation! I will be sure to post a blog about our trip with pictures when we get back!

On to today’s topic though, no bake cookies. I really love no bake cookies. The chocolate and peanut butter ones, anyway. I’ve never had any other kind besides the regular ones my mom makes. They’re really good too. Way to go Mom! (I know she reads this). As I said earlier I’ve been trying to save money for our trip so I haven’t been buying any unnecessary items at the grocery store so my baking supplies are pretty limited. Today I was having a sweets craving and searched all over Pinterest for a recipe that I already had all the ingredients to. This was a REALLY hard task I might add! So I found this recipe, I had all the ingredients, and it was something I have never had before. These are REALLY REALLY GOOD! I don’t even know how to describe the taste to you except that they are great! Go make some! Now! They take like 10 minutes to make! Hurry!

 

**Update: After I posted this the cookies were cooling on the counter so I went for a run (You know, to counteract the fact that I was about to devour them!) When I got back from my run I realized that my dog had got up on the counter and ate 12 of them! Seriously! Obviously he loved them and they surprisingly didn’t make him sick all night!

 

You Will Need:

-2 cups sugar

-3/4 cup butter

-2/3 cup milk

-1 (3.4oz) box vanilla instant pudding mix

-3.5 cups oats

-1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

-In a medium sauce pan add sugar, butter, and milk

-Bring to a boil and continue boiling for 2 minutes

-Remove from heat and stir in pudding mix, oats, and vanilla

-Let sit for 5 minutes

-Spread out a large sheet of wax paperMost Used

-Drop spoon fulls of the mixture onto the wax paper and let cool

Apple Cinnamon Bake

Today I was at the grocery store and as I was walking past the apples I began to have this uncontrollable urge to make apple pie. Who makes apple pie in July? Apparently I do. I proceeded to buy some apples, go home, and make this Apple Cinnamon Bake. This is kind of sort of like apple pie, but not exactly. It has no top or bottom crust, but it’s super fabulous!

 

What You Need:

-1 cup brown sugar

-3/4 cup flour

-1.5 teaspoons baking powder

-1/4 teaspoon salt

-1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

-2 eggs

-1.5 teaspoons vanilla

-2 green granny smith apples, peeled & chopped

 

Directions:

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees

-In a medium bowl mix together brown sugar, flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon

-In a small bowl whisk 2 eggs and vanilla together

-Add egg mixture to dry mix and stir completely

-Stir in apples until they are completely coated

-Pour into a greased 9 inch pie pan

-Bake for 30 minutes

The Best Homemade Cake & Icing

Let me start off by saying I don’t like cake! I can’t explain why, but I just am not a fan of cake. For my birthdays I’ve always requested ice cream cakes. My point is, if I say this is the best cake, then it is THE BEST cake! It’s moist and rich and I actually love it! It’s really easy to make too and sure to be a hit with everyone!

You Will Need:

Cake:

-1 cup butter

-1 cup water

-2 cups sugar

-2 1/4 cups flour

-1/2 teaspoon salt

-2 eggs

-1 teaspoon baking soda

-1 teaspoon vanilla

-1/2 cup sour cream

Icing:

-1 cup butter

-6 Tablespoons evaporated milk

-4 1/2 cups powdered sugar

-1 teaspoon vanilla

-pinch salt

Directions:

-Preheat oven to 375 degrees

-Melt butter and water together in microwave

-Stir in sugar, flour, salt, and baking soda. Whisk until smooth

-Add eggs and vanilla

-Whisk in sour cream until well blended

-Pour batter into a well greased 9×13 baking dish

-Bake for 25 minutes. Toothpick should come out of center clean

-While cake is cooling make the icing

-Melt butter in a medium bowl

-Whisk in evaporated milk, powdered sugar, vanilla, & salt

-Spread over cake

Baked French Toast

Last night after dinner I realized that we had about half a loaf of Texas toast left and I wasn’t sure when we were going to get to use it again before it got old. So I pondered for a while what to do with these slices. My only thought was to make French toast in the morning, but then I’d have to get up at like 5am and I really wasn’t up for that. That’s when it hit me! I can make baked French toast, prepare it all tonight, and then in the morning I just have to pop it in the oven! I’m really glad I decided to do this because it was so good this morning!

You Will Need:

-Texas Toast….I used about 5 slices

-1 stick of butter, melted

-1 cup brown sugar

-4 eggs

-1.5 cup milk

-1 teaspoon vanilla

-1 Tablespoon powdered sugar

-Sprinkling of sugar and cinnamon

Directions:

-Melt butter and stir in brown sugar

-Pour butter/sugar mix into the bottom of a 9×13 pan and spread it around

-Place the Texas toast in a single layer on the bottom of the pan

-In a medium bowl whisk together eggs, milk, vanilla, and powdered sugar

-Pour the egg mixture over the toast until it’s completely covered (You won’t need to use all of it)

-Sprinkle a little cinnamon and sugar over the top of the toast

-Cover and refrigerate overnight

-Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes

-Sprinkle with powdered sugar

 

Banana Pudding Pie

I usually change recipes to make them a little easier or to work with what I have already in the kitchen, but since I had all the ingredients and plenty of time today I decided to follow this recipe to a T….BIG mistake! There are several modifications that I would have made if I could do it over. So I’m going to give you the original recipe and tell you how I would change it so you can decided for yourself how you want to make it! The pie did turn out good & we loved it, but I think it would have been better.

You Will Need:

-1 box Nilla wafers

-3 bananas

Crust:

-30 crushed wafers

-1/2 cup melted butter

Pudding:     (Instead of making the pudding I would have used a box of Jell-O vanilla pudding)

-3/4 cup sugar

-1/3 cup flour

-2 eggs

-4 egg yolks

-2 cups milk

-2 teaspoons vanilla

Whipped Topping:   (I would have used a tub of Cool Whip)

-1 cup heavy cream

-1/4 cup powdered sugar

-1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

-In a medium bowl mix together crushed wafers and melted butter

-Press the mixture into the bottom and sides of a 9inch pie plate

-Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes

-In a medium saucepan combine sugar, flour, eggs, yolks, and milk

-Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until a thick pudding mixture forms. The pudding will make soft peaks when the whisk is lifted

-Remove from heat and stir in vanilla

-Pour into a medium bowl, cover, and refrigerate until completely cooled

***As stated earlier, it would be much easier to use Jell-O instant vanilla pudding

-In a medium bowl whip cream on medium-high speed until soft peaks form.

-Slowly add in sugar and vanilla and continue to beat until thick and stiff

***A tub of Cool Whip is much easier

-Cut the bananas into thin slices and assemble them on top of the crust

-Cover the bananas with pudding

-Top the pudding with wafers

-Cover wafers with pudding

-Top the pudding with banana slices

-Cover with the remainder pudding

-Garnish with wafers

-Refrigerate for at least 4 hours, overnight is best.

Stuffed Crescent Rolls

 

These little babies are quick, easy, tasty, finger foods! They are great for kids & parties! I don’t really have much else to say about them except they are good!

 

You Will Need:

-1lb ground beef

-2 cans of crescent rolls

-1 8oz package of cream cheese

-1/4 teaspoon chili powder

-1/4 teaspoon cumin

 

Directions:

-Brown ground beef and drain

-Cut up block of cream cheese into cubes and stir in with the meat

-Stir in cumin and chili powder

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees

-Add a tablespoon full of the meat mixture to the crescent rolls and roll them up.

-Place them seem side down on a cookie sheet

-Bake for about 12-14 minutes.

American Flag Pallet

 

Sifting through Pinterest, as usual, I kept coming across all of these painted wood flags; they all looked so pretty & perfect, but honestly, who wants to nail a bunch of boards together? I’m not a big fan of that. So I took the easy way out. I went to the farm and picked up an old pallet and brought it home. That was MUCH easier. The hardest part was sawing the pallet in half. Andrew says I can’t use the skill saw without adult supervision and since he is never home early enough to supervise me, that means I had to saw it apart by hand.

 

You Will Need:

-1 wood pallet

-1 saw

-Red paint

-White paint

-Blue paint

-Star stencil

-Painters tape

 

Directions:

-I didn’t cut the pallet in half until last, but it may be easier to do that first. So whichever way you choose, cut the pallet in half.

-Using the blue painter’s tape, tape off the blue stars part of the flag and the white stripes

-For the red stripes I used red spray paint because I already had it

-Next thing you need to do is take the tape off the white stripes and paint them white

-Take the tape off the blue section and paint it blue. I let it dry overnight after this to make sure.

-I printed a picture of a star off the internet, cut the center out, and used it as a stencil.

-I used the stencil to paint the stars over the blue part of the flag.

 

Total cost: $0 and some labor

Funfetti Cookies

The other day I was sitting at home by myself and I started to have a sweet craving. I needed something sweet and fast! All I really had to work with was a box of Funfetti cake mix. I have to admit, I’m not a big fan of cupcakes & I didn’t really want to make a cake, so I made cookies with it instead. It’s super easy and super fast! Perfect for a random sweet craving! The funny thing about these cookies is that while they were in the oven I let the dogs outside to go to the bathroom. Our dogs are great, we don’t have a fence, but you just open the back door and they will go potty in our yard, wander around a bit, and come back inside. So anyway, I let them out and then noticed our neighbor was outside & the dogs went to visit her so I had to go out and get them. As I was outside with the dogs I got to talking to the neighbor for a long time until Andrew got home & we went back in…That’s when I realized I had cookies in the oven!!! They were sooooo burnt I can’t even describe it!! I had cooked the first 2 cookie sheets at the same time so I only had enough dough left over after the burnt ones to make like 5 small cookies 😦

You Will Need:

-1 box of Funfetti cake mix

-2 eggs

-1/3 cup vegetable oil

Directions:

-In a medium bowl mix together all ingredients

-Roll dough up into small balls and place on a greased cookie sheet

-Bake for about 10 minutes until edges are golden