Nothing Today....But Lots to Come this Week!

Sorry guys! No cooking today. I had to work in the dorms most of the day and didn't get to make anything :(
BUT.....After work I planned out the weeks meals and this is what is to come:
Shrimp Penne Pasta in a Tomato Cream Sauce
Greek Style Chicken
Tavern Burgers
Spiral Pizza Bake
....and Lemon Bars!!!!
Lots of good food, which means lots of working out!

Cuppie the Cupcake Bite & Sunday Night Dinner

So today was a really fun day....and definitely bad on the diet. As I promised, I made Cuppie the Cupcake Bite and also I felt ambitious afterwards and made Restraunt Style Potatoes with Pan Seared Tilapia in a Shallot Lemon Butter Sauce. YUM!

To begin making the cupcake bite you first need to bake a box of Red Velvet Cake according to the box. Then let it cool completely before you crumble the cake in a bowl, then adding Cream Cheese frosting. Mix the the crumbled cake with the cream cheese frosting...it will create a spongy texture which feels really weird!

Then roll the spongy cake mixture into quarter size balls and put them into the freezer for 5 minutes to harden up a bit.

To make the Cuppie Cake Bites you will need:

-White and Pink Candy Melts

-Edible Black and Red Marker

-Edible Ruby Red Dust

-Red Mini M&M's

-Medium Sized Peanut Butter Cup Sized Mold

-Black Oil Based Food Coloring

Melt the candy melts and in the White candy melt add some black food coloring to make it turn grey. Spoon the grey candy melt into the candy mold and drop the rolled up cake ball into the mold. Place the mold with the candy/cake into the freezer for 5 minutes for the candy to harden.

After the candy has hardened, pop them out of the mold and dip them into the pink candy melt and place a Red Mini M&M on top. Let the top pink candy harden and draw the fun faces onto the Cuppie!

Look how cute Cuppie is!!!!

This Cuppie isn't very happy because he knows that Dusty will be eating him very soon...

This Cuppie thinks the other Cuppie looks really good, and it makes the Cuppie kinda nervous!

Well, that was a really fun Sunday project! Now Dusty's sweet tooth will be taken care of by the expense of these little Cuppie's lives and I'm sure I'll help too!

For the awesome dinner I made, my camera battery died so I couldn't take a picture of it....but here are Pioneer Womans pages on them. They were soooo good!

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/05/restaurant-style-smashed-potatoes/

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/10/bronzed-sea-bass-with-lemon-shallot-butter/

These were delicous and full of flavor! Enjoy!

BROOKIES!!!

No...they aren't cookies and they aren't brownies, they are brookies!
As a Microbiologists, I have had endless semesters learning about hybrids and hybridization with genetics and evolution (nerd alert!) so these "brookies" from Bakerella tickled my fancy!
Last night I was working the desk at the dorms from 6-Midnight and around 10:30 the only thing to keep me awake was looking at Bakerella's webpage searching for awesome recipes....and Brookies are what I found!

This is Bakerella's fantastic page all about Brookies...
www.bakerella.com/i-hope-you-have-chocolate-chips-handy/

But this is my personal version of Brookies....

You will need:

-2 and 3/4 cup flour

-2 and 1/2 tsp baking powder

-1/2 tsp salt

-2/3 cup softened butter

-1 lb of brown sugar

-3 eggs

-1 tsp vanilla

-12 oz bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips

-1 cup of walnuts (bakerella uses pecans....but I like walnuts-use what you want)

Sift all the dry ingredients together (flour, salt and baking powder) in a medium bowl.

In a different bowl, mix together the brown sugar with the softened butter until fully incorporated. Mix in the eggs, adding them one at a time. Add the vanilla, chocolate and walnuts.

Dry and Wet Ingredients

Combine the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and place them in a greased 13x9 pan (I cut the recipe in half so I put it in a smaller dish) and bake for about 30-35 minutes until the top of the Brookie is beginning to brown.

Does that look delicious???? Dusty was very impressed and so was I! Thank you Bakerella!

Today I went to Michael's craft store to get supplies for my Sunday project: Cuppie Cupcake Bites! Inspired by two of my favorite blogs: Bakerella and Cakespy. Also, while I was at Michael's I decided to sign up for a cake decorating class for the month of June. I am so excited!!!!

Here is a preview of how Bakerella made Cuppie Cupcake Bites:

Hopefully mine will be half as cute as Bakerella's!

I'll show you all tomorrow!

Friday Night Dinner: Homemade Pizza

Tonight for dinner I went with the tradition Friday night dinner of PIZZA, but not just any pizza....homemade pizza!

I realize now that when I was little I was very spoiled because my mom ONLY made homemade pizza. We never had delivery or to-go pizza's. Almost every Friday night my mom would make her homemade cheese (or whatever toppings Dad wanted) pizza. YUM! This was because my mom had really severe food allergies and basically the "Make it from Scratch" Queen. Then I got to college and all that was available was Delivery Pizza (yuck).

So anyways, tonight I was definitely feeling pizza and I didn't want it from some greasy pizza place like Dominos, Black Jack or Papa Johns. I was going to make it myself, dough and everything!

The Scene of the Crime...

My new kitchen! Small but definitely gets the job done! You can't really see but next to the stove is my Paula Deen Poka Dot Cake Stand and Pitcher. I'm in love with my dishes! I usually have treats on the cake stand but Dusty and I ate them all....oops!

So to start off the Pizza, I made AWESOME pizza dough courtesy of Pioneer Woman (LOVE HER!)

This is how it goes....

-2 cups of flour

-1/2 tsp yeast in 3/4 cup warm water

-1/2 tsp salt

-1/4 cup olive oil

Mix the flour with the salt and then slowly drizzle in the olive oil while mixing with an electric mixer. Then slowly mix in the yeast and warm water combination into the dough and mix until it forms a ball.

In a new bowl drizzle some olive oil and place the ball of dough into the bowl and coat it with the olive oil. Cover with a damp towel and place in a warm dry place (the oven turned off is good) for 1 hour.

Then, drizzle some olive oil on the pizza pan and stretch it out to desired size and shape.

That's It!

Then I placed pizza sauce on the dough and sprinkled a ton of Mozzarella and Sharp Cheddar Cheese on top (about a cup of each).

For the toppings I sauteed half of an onion and green bell pepper with some olive oil and garlic. But you can do whatever topping you want, I just did what I had in the fridge.

Once those were done I put those on top of the cheese.

To top it off I sprinkled Parmesean Cheese and Italian Seasoning for the finishing touches!

Preheat the oven at 500 degrees.

Before baking....
Bake the pizza for 8-10 minutes until the cheese is bubbly and the crust is golden brown.

Results.....

Yum!

Basically I could have eaten this whole thing by myself because the crust was so crispy and thin and it was so cheesy, but I had to share with Dusty. Stupid boys. Just kidding!

It was sooooo good!

Enjoy!

THE FIRST ENTRY!!!

Hey!
I'm really excited that after a couple of days of being totally lost and confused that I actually figured this all out! I've wanted to start a cooking blog for a while but I've never known what to call it or how to put one together. So with the help of my mom, my boyfriend Dusty and friend Amy I came up with title:

The Girly Girl Cooks.

I'm not your typical Montanan girl. I don't wear cowboy boots and I don't know how to shoot a gun. In fact, I've never been hunting! My parents moved to Montana from California, so that allows me to have a dash of "city girl" even though I'm born and raised in the beautiful Bitterroot Valley.

My mom is the reason I got into cooking and wanted to start this blog. On Easter, she gave me The Pioneer Woman Cooks cookbook and showed me Ree's blog. Ever since then I have been hooked! I use to go over to my boyfriends apartment and for dinner we would have frozen dinners, pizza or go out to eat. Now I spend my evenings in the kitchen making fun and exciting dishes! I've broken out of my shell of making the same dish over and over again, and now I rarely make the same thing twice!
My favorite ladies in the cooking world are:
My mom
Pioneer Woman
Bakerella
Rachael Ray
Barefoot Contessa
Paula Deen
and of course....Julia Child!

I'm going to use these inspiring women to go through my new journey as a cook in my new apartment.

So as I'm learning to cook and win my boyfriends heart through his stomach,which I think I've pretty much already done, but I still enjoy impressing him with my meals. He has assumed the role of "food critic" and really enjoys it!
The reason I'm so excited and emphasizing my "new apartment" is because I have lived on campus for 4 years in an ity bity dorm room. As a freshman and sophomore in college I lived in the dorms by choice but as a junior and senior I lived in the dorms as an RA (resident assistant) and boy do I have some interesting experiences and stories to go along with those 2 years! So now that I have a kitchen that is all my own and I don't have to share a bathroom with 40 women or wear shower shoes....I'M SO EXCITED!

I hope you will enjoy reading my cooking blog and experiences in the kitchen!
ENJOY!

~Haley~