Monthly Archives: October 2017

My baby girl just turned two, and after much discussion, her brothers, I mean she, decided she wanted a frozen cake.  The kids thought I should make an ice castle and all of the figures, but since I am a little more grounded in what my design abilities actually are, we decided on a mountain with store bought figures.  While this is a time consuming process, I think it is a cake that most people could recreate.  This cake doesn’t have any detail work and is basically just a blob of cake covered in fondant.  Here is the process including some of my missteps that will hopefully help you in your cake adventures.
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The leaves are turning orange and that means it’s pie season! I love pretty much every kind of pie, except custard pie, which oddly enough happens to be Mr. Insanity’s favorite pie.  I use butter in my crust and only butter, I don’t really love the flavor of Crisco (who does?) and I try and avoid it whenever possible.  I also think that butter gives the crust a better texture than a crust that has shortening in it.  I once made a butter and bacon fat pie crust, but that was impossible to work with, although it did taste AMAZING.  I welcome you to try it some day if you are a fellow bacon lover.  A warning about using just butter though, while it will taste great, and the texture is amazing, it is harder to work with than a butter/crisco combination.  You need to make sure you are keeping everything cold.  Do not, for example, try and make apple hand pies using hot filling because you will end up with a melted mess on your hands. I have learned the hard way, you can’t rush pie or hand pies for that matter. Continue reading →

I think I have mentioned I like to eat soups or salads for lunch most days.  If I keep my lunches and breakfasts fairly healthy I don’t feel so bad having a burger for dinner, or maybe even a slice of pecan pie afterwards.  I also need variety.  Mr. Insanity could eat the same thing every day for years and not become bored, even after decades of being together, I still don’t quite understand him. So, my quirk of needing variety means many salad dressing ideas.  I love creamy dressings, but I try and use them sparingly since they tend to be higher in calories than their vinaigrette counterparts.  I love the tangy sweetness that the honey and lemon create here. This is also a dressing you can make for any Paleo friends out there as I believe all of the ingredients in this are paleo friendly.  This is a super easy dressing that comes together in about five minutes. Continue reading →

I am excited to share this recipe with all of you.  I know I missed national taco day last week, but better late than never.  This taco is my best effort at recreating a favorite of mine and Mr. Insanity’s from when we used to actually go out to dinner.  We would go to our favorite Mexican Restaurant, sit at the bar to talk to our favorite bartender, and both order up the Tacos Caseros. Now we have many kids and getting out to dinner is near impossible, so I had to get to guessing in the kitchen and make my own version of our favorite dish. I love all kinds of tacos, but when you get bacon into the mix it is really just brilliant!  And, as a bonus, the margaritas that I used to order at my favorite little restaurant are now sold by the bottle so it really feels like we are on a date rather than at home surrounded by four kids.  These tacos are quite tasty, and even though they are not exactly like the original, they get two thumbs up from the hubby.   Continue reading →