On the lighter side

Cooking is a passion of mine - there is usually nothing I enjoy more than trying out a new and exciting recipe and finding the results to be tasty and satisfying. Food is truly my love language, and every meal is an opportunity to express care and creativity to family and friends. New recipes are an adventure, and "mistakes" are often opportunities to exercise creativity to salvage a would-be disaster and to learn to laugh at yourself. You cannot take yourself too seriously in the kitchen!

With that said, I want to expand the subject of this blog beyond just sugary treats (though they are fun to make) and include fun meals that others might enjoy trying themselves. I also hope to encourage others who may feel inadequate in their cooking abilities to branch out and try something new. Maybe blogging meals will also help me to plan better and more interesting meals to share. Win-win!

Breaded boneless pork chops with baked sweet potatoes,
and cranberry pecan salad with feta cheese

You'll need:
4 boneless pork chops
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup reduced sodium chicken or vegetable broth
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon ground sage
1 cup italian bread crumbs

4 sweet potatoes, washed
butter
brown sugar
cinnamon

1 heart of romaine, washed
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup shelled pecan halves
1/2 cup feta cheese, crumbled
poppyseed dressing

2 hrs before dinner: Bake sweet potatoes.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil. Pierce sweet potatoes all over 8-10 times with a fork and place on cookie sheet. Bake for 45 minutes - 1 hour (depending on size of sweet potatoes). When done, slice each sweet potato down the middle and insert a pat (about 1 tablespoon) of butter to give it time to melt and permeate the inside of the sweet potato. Mmm..
**To check for doneness: pick up the largest baking sweet potato out of the oven with oven mitt. With medium to light force, tap it on the counter - if it feels soft (or even gets a little smashed), then they are done. If it still feels stiff, put it back in and bake for another 15 minutes or so and check again. (I forgot to do this and we ended up with partially baked sweet potatoes - remember what I said about laughing at yourself?) :)

45 min before dinner: Prep salad.
Tear washed romaine leaves into bite sized pieces and place in salad bowl. Sprinkle cranberries, pecans, and feta cheese on top. Done! (Don't forget to set out dressing when it's time to eat - that way the lettuce won't be soggy.)

30 min before dinner: Prepare pork chops.
1) Heat olive oil in large skillet on medium to medium high heat. Beat egg and sage in a small bowl and set aside. In a second small bowl, pour in bread crumbs. Use paper towel to pat-dry your pork chops.
2) When the pan is hot, dip each pork chop into the egg mixture bowl making sure to completely coat the pork chop on all sides. Do the same with the bread crumbs.
3) Place chops in hot skillet and brown on both sides (about 5 minutes on each side). Add chicken broth to pan, just enough to cover the bottom of the skillet and reduce heat to medium-low. Cover skillet and allow to simmer for 10-15 minutes or until pork is cooked through. Serve hot.
**If broth evaporates before chops are done, just add a little more. Too much broth will make your chops soggy!

Before serving the meal, slice open the tops of the sweet potatoes and dress it up with a pat of butter, a sprinkle of cinnamon, and 1-2 tablespoons of brown sugar.

Homemade Pecan Pie + Dark Chocolate = YUM.

My mom, a very health conscious woman, mailed us a bag of pecans this week. Now, I don't know about you, but when I think of pecans my mind usually drifts into one particular direction:

**Photo courtesy of webmd.com - under an article titled "holiday food horrors"

I'm sure my mother did NOT have this purpose in mind for her lovely pecans, but sometimes ignorance is bliss. And my friends, it WAS bliss.

This time I decided to spice things up by chopping up some semi-sweet dark baking chocolate and mixing it into the filling before baking it. Actually, my husband suggested the addition. The result: Amazing. Something very similar to derby pie but with a little more bittersweet bite to it. Yum.

Here is the recipe - if you want an easy pie to make for Christmas, look no further.

Note: I started with a basic pecan pie recipe from the Millard Cook Book, a collaboration made several years ago by the men and women on my dad's side of the family. Thanks again for the copy, Aunt Sis!

Dark Chocolate Chunk Pecan Pie
- 3 eggs
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup butter/margarine, melted
- 1 cup corn syrup
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup pecans
- 3-1 oz blocks of semi-sweet dark chocolate
- 1 unbaked pie crust

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine eggs, sugar, butter, corn syrup, vanilla, and salt until well blended. Set aside.

2) Using a serrated bread knife (I'm told this kind of knife is best!), carefully chop dark chocolate blocks - make small cuts on the corners of the brick and work your way inward. The pieces don't have to be very large or uniform, though you will probably want a few nice sized chunks to bite into. Fold chocolate and pecans into egg mixture.

3) Pour filling into pie pan and place pie on cookie sheet. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until done.

4) Enjoy a warm piece of pie with a cold glass of milk.

**I made this pie dairy-free by substituting reduced fat margarine for the butter and using Baker's chocolate. You will have to make your own crust if you need it to be dairy-free also, simply make it by substituting the butter with same margarine.

Bad boys, bad boys...

I'm almost finished playing catch up now - 2009 was not a good year for cake making. Pregnancy was nine months of illness, dizziness, fatigue, etc etc - but on September 30, 2009 the result was a beautiful baby boy, Emmett Abraham!


Though I'm not planning on getting back into cakes yet (helloooo, new baby?), I am hoping to post a few fun recipes and little projects here and there over the next few months. But before I start with the new, I have one more cake from this past summer that I made for my friend Robby who graduated from police academy.

Robby's wife and my long-time friend Rachel wanted to surprise Robby with a cake that looked like the LMPD squad car. She let me borrow a miniature that they possessed and I did my best to replicate it. So here they are, side by side:

I was so out of it that I forgot the cover the cake board with foil, DOH!


Ah well, at least Robby liked it.
Congrats, Robby!

Weddings, weddings... Part 2

Wow, I've really fallen behind in blogging - between trying to eek out the last few weeks of pregnancy and buying/moving into our first house, there hasn't been much time to post. But I will quickly attempt to at least post a couple of pictures of some fun wedding cupcakes for a fun couple, Jared and Stephanie Manes!

Stephanie and Jared opted for light blue swirl cupcakes with purple/orchid candy hearts. I was excited about the project and happy to be a part of the celebration, and I knew it was going to be a lot of good old fashioned work. The first step: bulk up on icing and start filling those candy heart molds!

Multiply this sheet by 26. and that you are getting the idea.

This is my friend Kasey - she helped make the 6-7 batches of icing for the cupcakes. I think it ended up being about 30 lbs of icing, whoo!!

**NOTE: I began this blog entry several months earlier, and it is now December. So, I'm just going to fast forward to the end product:

The Cupcakes

The Topper Cake

Display Table - construction by the lovely bride herself!

Congrats, Jared and Stephanie! :)

Weddings, weddings... Part 1

Okay, so it's been a while since I've posted - a thousand pardons to all two of you who read this blog. Truthfully, the first half of pregnancy really packs a punch in my case: for a while there I couldn't even GO into a kitchen without wanting to be ill. In fact, I felt so terrible that I had to cancel almost all of my cake baking commitments (thanks to all of you for understanding).

Essentially the only commitments I didn't cancel were two weddings for old college friends: one for Adrienne (Keller) Eisenmenger and her wonderful new husband David, and the second wedding for Stephanie Wilson and Jared Manes. Adrienne and David were married on May 16th, and Stephanie and Jared's wedding were just married this past Saturday, June 6th. I'm going to recap both weddings and their cakes in two parts.

Here are a few photos of the process of creating Adrienne and David's cake:

First, I was still coming out of the morning sickness haze so Adrienne graciously agreed to purchase a pre-made wedding cake from Walmart and I would simply add the decoration. However, when I picked up the cake I was extremely disappointed: the cakes had big gaps in between each other, there were areas where the cake could be seen through the icing, and the cakes weren't even level. GAH!

So, I whipped up a batch of icing and started patching, smoothing, and making some repair on the cake.

Once it was in a somewhat better state, I started on the decoration: an assortment of fondant vines and a matching live green accents. My dear friend Ang came in from out of town and was staying the night because she was going to be doing wedding hair in the morning. Little did she know that she would also be assistant cake decorator as well. :) So we started cutting out the leaves using Wilton fondant leaf cutters... and kept cutting... and cutting...


A few hours and hundreds of leaves later...

WHEW! Done - I think this part was complete by 12:30am.
Thanks, Ang, for your help - it would have been much later if I didn't have you cutting those leaves!

The next morning, I added some more accents with kelly green buttercream icing...

And off to the wedding!

Many congrats to David and Adrienne - may your love continue to grow!

A Bun in the Oven

So, I haven't posted in a while and wanted to give an explanation for those of you who don't know already...


Yep. We are. :)

As many of you know, I tend to have terrible morning sickness for the first few months... so bad, in fact, that cooking and baking of almost any kind is next to impossible. I managed to bake one cake for a friend last week, but I was so exhausted and sick that I didn't even remember to take a picture of it. So, I'm taking a break from cake making until May - I'm really hoping the nausea dissipates before then, because I have three orders that month (yipes!!).

In the meantime, if you have any baking creations of your own that you would like to feature on my blog feel free to email a picture and I'll display your confectionery masterpiece for all five people who follow this blog. So... get baking!

And I'll be getting another cup of chamomile and laying down on the couch for the next two months.

A birthday cake fit for a princess

One of my long time friends, Rachel, has a daughter who just turned four years old. For her birthday, she requested a princess cake - so Rachel decided to hire me for the task. Rachel, her daughter, and I put our heads together and after some internet searching for photo inspiration (other cakes, mainly) decided on a Cinderella castle cake.

(Gulp.)
Deep breath. Hoo boy.

This was by far going to be the most challenging cake I had ever made. Of course, I wasn't going to make an exact replica (I'm not suicidal), but I wanted it to be recognizable. The kicker: due to unforeseen circumstances I was going to have less than two days to make it. YIPES. I had been counting on a week.

One immediate decision was to forego making the turrets and spires by hand using ice cream cones and cardboard tubes (yes, you can do it and someday I will... maybe). For the sake of time, I bit the bullet and decided to go ahead and buy the Wilton Castle Cake kit, which is basically just plastic turrets/spires/roof/door/windows. Thankfully I found it on sale - yes! Whew, that was going to cut down on about 2 days of work. (Keep in mind that I have to do my cakes while G-Bug is usually napping/sleeping or she tries to sneak bites of the "cookie" = anything sweet.)

Now, I had already decided that I wanted the castle covered in little pink blossoms (hel-LO, it's a princess cake!!). So, with the help of my trusty blossom plunger, fondant, white nonperiels sprinkles, and sugar glue....
Ah... God bless the man who invented flower plungers.

Okay, I didn't take many pictures of the actual cake making/icing/fondant covering because - honestly - I didn't have the time to grab the camera. Just use your imaginations. :)

BUT I did get a shot of the pre-fondant turrets - I took this after my dear friend Jen (who came over to help with G-Bug) helped me decide on the placement to maximize visual appeal.

She did a pretty good job, huh?

Okay, I had to break after that for G-Bug's sake - you can see that his part was finished while it was still light outside. Once she went down for the night, it was time to get down to business:

Several hours of grumbling, mixing, cutting, wrapping, dusting, and pasting later:
Hmm... not bad. WAIT. The door is too big!!! DOH!!!!

I used a new chocolate cake recipe and it fell significantly after it came out of the oven. To make it worse, when I inserted one of the top turrets into the cake, the side bulged out and cracked the fondant covering. I almost cried, but I decided it was too late to worry about it and maybe I could decorate it in a way that it wouldn't be noticable tomorrow.

The next morning:
Well, the flowers were definitely a nice touch, and I think it actually made the door look nice. But the castle still seems like it needs a little more UMPH. So... let's make a few more fondant windows for the turrets.

Now THAT's better. Oh, and a "flower vine" to disguise the crack... (hoping no one will notice the huge thumbprint right next to it from trying to save the cake)

And... voila! A cake fit for a princess!

Happy birthday, Hannah - Aunt Donna loves you.
And now she needs a nap.

A reflection of a remarkable woman

Many of you know that Lynn McGary, a woman who has been a personal mentor, friend, and like a mother to me has been battling cancer for about seven years now. And many of you know that her condition became very grave last week and she has now been allowed to go home and spend what time she has left with her family and loved ones.

This weekend Jason and I were able to go and be with her and her family who is so much like my own, and to see Lynn, hug her, and tell her how much we love her. I wish I had been able to tell her how much her love and relationship has meant to me for the last few years, but it would have taken much too long and time is so short.

For those of you who don't know Lynn, she is one of the most incredible people I have ever been privileged to know. She, with her husband Ross, founded a soon to be nationwide organization that ministers to families with children with special needs, Stone Soup (see website http://www.stonesoupnews.com for more information). Her background in child development and education also provided other opportunities to teach parenting and education seminars locally and internationally, as well as draft a book of baby games for babies from newborn to one year old.

Lynn loves exercising and encouraging creativity in others. She enjoys opening her home to others and hosting people with delicious foods and meaningful conversation. She loves God's many creations with joy and wonder: brilliant colors, beautiful nature scenes, and the intricacy of the human body always illicit comments of amazement and thankfulness.

She is also an amazing wife and mother, daugther and sister - she loves completely without holding back and without giving a second thought to herself. I've heard countless stories she's had with her children, many including her ability to turn potentially difficult situations into "adventures." :) Something her daughter Lisa once told me has always stuck with me: that in all the years she has known her, she never recalls a moment in which Lynn complained about something. Oh, to have that kind of legacy with your grown children.

Lynn doesn't know how to love people half-heartedly - she sees every person as having value and being made in God's image. And she seeks to show them how they really matter, to herself and to her Lord. She greets cashiers at her usual grocery store by name and enquire about their mothers, their children. And she really listens when they answer.

Lynn has played a pivotal role in my own life tenfold, impacting every aspect as an adult, a wife, a mother, and a follower of Christ. She humbles me by her matter-of-factness, her openness and lack of ceremony, and her continual giving of herself to others without expectation of recognition or return. She was first known to me as a mom of a roommate and dear friend who we saw at holidays, but over time I was slowly pulled into the "McGary Force" and soon felt like one of the family.

Ross and Lynn were also an important part of mine and Jason's story of deciding to get married, directly and indirectly. :) They led our premarital counseling and taught us by example what marriage should look like: how to love deeply and with honor and respect, how to face challenges as one no matter what, and how to really laugh together and revel in the joys of marriage. They rejoiced with us at our wedding and delivered the charge to the bride and groom during our ceremony and led a prayer for our future together.

Ross and Lynn were one of the first people we called when we found out that we were expecting a baby, and Lynn helped me cope with the first difficult months of pregnancy and morning sickness. They came up soon after Gracie was born to see her, "their first grand baby," as they call her. Lynn was a listening ear during the dark moments of post pardum and offered much counsel as I floundered and fretted as a new mommy. It was also Lynn who talked me through the fears and questions of an ectopic pregnancy, emergency surgery, and loss shortly after Gracie's first birthday.

I wish you could be able to read this and know how much you impacted my own little life - thank you for being such a steady and steadfast presence, always ready with a hug and a kiss and an "I love you, sugar." I look forward one day to see you dance and laugh and sing off key again, free from sickness or grief or weariness... and you will be with the Creator you know and love so well. Thank you for the legacy you leave behind you through your husband, children, brothers, sisters, parents, cousins, students, friends, and on and on and on. We love you and cherish you and all of the memories you leave behind.