Edible Adventures: January & February

Hello there, long time no see! I was going to attempt to write about our Edible Adventures once a week. Then it became once every two weeks. Then I was like, "Hey, once a month would be awesome!" And here I am, nearly through with February, and I still have not posted one edible adventure yet. Blerg!

Better late than never… here we go! We have made some pretty interesting stuff, too! Thanks to Pinterest, we have gotten a lot of really good, inspiring ideas.

I am completely lame and did not take a picture of them, but I did make the Soda Can Cupcakes. Basically you take a box of cake mix and substitute all the other ingredients for a can of soda — diet, regular, you pick! I took a chocolate cake mix and a can of Diet Pepsi. (If you know me, you know Diet Pepsi is my favorite beverage of all time. It's a little sad.) Despite my pessimism, the cupcakes were very flavorful and moist. They had a hint of something that I think comes from the carbonation. Super easy and simple — especially if you are jonesing for a cupcake and don't have any oil or eggs!

My classroom room-mom gave me a box of pastry dough, so I was all excited to make anything and everything with it! I really liked the Warm Apple and Brie Pastries from BlogHungry. I used my super awesome apple/corer/slicer to prepare the apples — and, using the recipe as a guide, topped the apples with some butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and a slice of brie. After baking them, be sure to serve them warm — they are oh, so tasty nice and warm from the oven.

We made several tasty Nutella treats over the last few weeks. We started off with some Nutella Sandwich cookies. After searching high and low for a recipe that looked easy and appetizing, we settled at Dishing Up Delights. They were delicious. I actually think I liked them better as a Nutella-based sugar cookie, rather than a sandwich cookie.

We also made Nutella turnovers – twice! Once for funzies, and once for World Nutella Day! We got a super simple and fabulous recipe from Bake at 350.

Seriously, so good. Especially hot out of the oven. 

Our good friends the Meeces hosted a Wine & Cheese Party. For this we decided to make Champagne Cupcakes. These cupcakes, featured on Gimme Some Oven, were very decadent and flavorful. And, yes, the frosting also had sparkling wine in it!

Sadly, we did have one edible flop. I was super excited to make the Mac N' Cheese receipe from the Alton Brown's Good Eats book. My sister purchased the book for us last Christmas and we had never quite gotten around to making it. Let me just say, it wasn't my favorite. I must have done something wrong since so many people love it and I clearly did not. But Aaron liked it, especially as left-overs. He thinks if we make a few 'corrections' it could be pretty darn tasty!