Piping Icing

My friend Karalee made some cupcakes for the potluck and I frosted. I think piping is getting easier and easier and these turned out too cute not to share! And she's a better picture taker than I am so I had her snap these photos. Here are closeups.

To get the raised middle, you pipe a small a small amount in the center first and then pipe around the cupcake starting w/the outside.

These were my favorites. So cute and fun. For these you pipe a star in the middle and then you just do this all around the cupcake. This seemed to be everyone's favorite.

We couldn't find all her piping gear so we used a ziploc bag, cut a small hole on the end and put the tip inside and taped the outside of the tip to the bag. It worked just fine.

When piping frosting I notice you just need to have a steady hand and consistant pressure. I love how these turned out and will probably never "frost" a cupcake again using just a knife.

Small Grown Up

I was listening to my 5 and 6 year old boys play. Since I've read Dr. Seuss I've always just called them little boy 1 and little boy 2. Annnnyyywayyy....The conversation went like this:

Little boy 2(5 years old): No, you can do that. You have to have a grown up to do that. Here, let me do it.

Little boy 1 (6 years old): Your not a grownup.

Little boy 2: I'm a small grownup.

Well, that explains it all!

Rainbow Cupcakes

Okay I thought I had these on my blog and just told someone to go look at them and guess what? They were not there, they were on my facebook page though... so

here they are:

I totally cheated using Betty Crocker's white cake mix and then divided the mix into equal parts and colored the mix with bright food coloring. Then you simply layer them into the cupcake liner. I frosted them using Betty Crocker's Cream Cheese Frosting w/a lot of food coloring in them because I wanted that bright color for my little guys 5th bday. These were fairly easy but they did take a lot of dishes and a lot more time than I thought they would take.

YUM

For frosting I piped it on there with Tupperware's squishy accordion thingy. I don't know what it's called but basically it's to pipe frosting on. It worked okay, although you can tell when it was almost empty on the ones in the back it was hard to get a nice full frosting look. It works much better very full.

Gluten Free Meetup Group

If you are looking for a gluten free "support" group there is one here in the Tri-Cities area. Here is the info.

GF Tricities- A way of life for many of us
Supporting the Tri City Area. See what we are all about!
Email Autumn Zuljevic: Glutenfreeinwastate@gmail.com

QUICK and EASY Taco Soup

This was quick and easy taco soup. It's not my "real" recipe but for the week I didn't have a stove it was a hit and it was easy.

1 lb ground beef , cooked w/taco season

(We had made up tacos before my stove died and so we just used the left over meat from that)

1 can red kidney beans

1 can corn

1 can diced tomatoes

1 can tomato sauce

1 small diced onion

Taco fixins

tomato, sour cream, cilantro, cheese, chips, whatever else you put on your tacos

Dump everything but the taco fixins in the crock pot. Cook on low 6-8 hours or high 4-6 hours. Give or take a few. It really just needs heated through. You could omit the onion and/or put it on top of the soup w/the other taco fixins.

This was super simple and didn't require much cooking. I call it my cheating taco soup recipe.

TO FREEZE: Put all ingredients into a freezer bag instead of crock pot. Cook the ground beef and add it in there. TO REHEAT: Place in crock pot or on the stove top in a pan.