Sloan’s Harlequin Dip

Sloan just loves this one little puppy we have left. She’s getting very spoiled!

This is a favorite of Sloan’s and she makes it all by herself! She loves to chop the olives. I like the curry powder in it. Sloan likes it on saltine crackers, but it is good with chips too.

Sloan’s Harlequin Dip

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup mayonnaise or salad dressing

1/2 cup chopped olives

2 tablespoons snipped chives

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1/2 teaspoon prepared mustard

1/2 teaspoon curry powder

Blend the sour cream and the mayo. Add the other ingredients and mix well. Cover and chill for at least 1 hour. Serve with crackers.

The Best Chocolate Cake

Sloan had a costume party for her birthday. A few of her friends came early and raided our costume box. Sloan is wearing my pink prom dress I made when I was 16.

Chauncey wore two of Sloan’s tutu’s and one of his favorite hats. We’re still not sure what he was suppose to be!

A couple of swim team friends came after the group picture.

I forgot to take a picture of the food table. We had a candy theme.

This is my daughter Jennie’s chocolate cake recipe, and it is the best and easiest chocolate cake ever! One of the things that make it so wonderful is the King Arthur Cocoa that I bought when I was in Maine.

The Best Chocolate Cake

1 1/2 cups cocoa powder*

3 cups flour

3 cups sugar

1 teaspoon soda

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

3 eggs

1 1/2 cup buttermilk

1 1/2 cup hot water

3/4 cup oil

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two 8” round cake pans (or two 6” round pans and 24 cupcakes) with Baker’s Joy and parchment paper.

Sift cocoa, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into mixer bowl.

On low, stir in eggs, buttermilk, hot water, oil, and vanilla; beat until smooth, about 2 minutes, scraping bowl as necessary.

Pour into prepared pans and bake, rotating the pans once, 35-45 minutes. (Less for the cupcakes)

Remove cakes to a cooling rack and let cool in the pans for 15 minutes before unmolding.

When the cakes (and cupcakes) are completely cool, frost with icing.

The Best Frosting

1 cup butter, room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla

Heavy Cream

6-8 cups Confectioners Sugar, sifted

In a mixer beat the butter and vanilla until fluffy. Add 3 cups of confectioners sugar and beat well, Add some cream and 2 more cups of confectioners sugar beating well, add more cream and more confectioners sugar until you have the desired consistency.

Cream Puffs With Chocolate Pudding

When I was a teenager my mother bought herself a Betty Crocker Cookbook. We loved that cookbook, especially me! I seemed to spill a lot on the pages, so all my favorite recipes were marked with food. She bought me a notebook style one. After I was married I used my cookbook a lot, and soon all my favorite recipes were marked with food spots. One time when I was at my moms I decided to make something out of the favorite cookbook, and I grabbed hers and low and behold there were no food spots! She lovingly took it from my hands and replaced it with the old stained one! She didn't want me to stain her good one!

The other day I was at our local second hand store (D.I.) and I found another copy of my favorite cookbook. I decided to buy it for my 12 year old daughter, Sloan. I thought we could find some recipes that she would want to try (she's a very picky eater). She brought it to me the other day and asked if we could try cream puffs! I quickly told her yes! They are fun to eat and not to hard to make. We decided to fill them with chocolate pudding. The picture above is my cookbook on the right and my daughters on the left. Someone left some previous food spots to mark some recipes!

Cream Puffs

1 cup water
1/2 cup butter
1 cup flour
4 eggs

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Heat water and butter to a rolling boil. Stir in flour. Stir until it forms a ball. Remove from heat and add eggs all at once, stir vigorously until smooth. Drop dough by 1/4 cup full’s onto ungreased baking sheet. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes until puffed and golden. Cool. Cut off tops. Pull out filaments of soft dough. Carefully fill puffs with chocolate pudding and whipped cream. Dust tops with powdered sugar.
Makes 11 - 12 puffs.

This is how the dough looks after you add the eggs

Carefully drop onto ungreased cookie sheets

Chauncey takes a turn

After they are baked

Chocolate Pudding

2 cups milk
2 heaping tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla

Blend sugar, cornstarch, salt and cocoa powder in a 2 qt saucepan. Add milk and egg and whisk well. Cook over medium heat stirring constantly until mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir 1 minute. Remove from heat. Stir in butter and vanilla. Pour in a bowl and press plastic wrap onto top of the pudding. Cool in refrigerator until cold.

Someone has to lick the pan, it's chocolate!

Any Time Costumes Review and Giveaway

 

 

 

Are you ready for a little Halloween Fun? Let’s go look around Anytime Costumes!

Adult Devil Temptress

 

Wouldn’t you love to show up Trick or Treating with your kids as a temptress? Sorry, I got carried away! Let’s look at some fun things for the kids!

 

Child Giraffe

 

 

Barbie Princess

For my review I let Sloan pick a costume. She was so excited because she decided to be Abby from NCIS this year! We found

the perfect costume for her!

 

 

Lovely Lolita

 

 

 

Here’s Sloan in the Lovely Lolita! It is such a nice costume, the fabric is very high quality and it is made really well!

Anytime Costumes has kindly offered one lucky Songberries Follower their very own $50 Gift Certificate! Here are the rules~You must be a follow of Songberries, stop by Anytime costumes and in a comment tell me what you would pick if you won!

For extra entries you may~

1)Like Anytime Costumes on Facebook~3 entries~leave 3 comments

2)Like Songberries on Facebook~3 entries~leave 3 comments

3)Update your Facebook status with the giveaway~5 entries~leave 5 comments

4)Blog about the giveaway, leave a link~10 entries~leave 10 comments

5)Grab my Songberries button on the left side of my blog~6 entries~leave 6 comments

6)Sign up for my Newsletter(top left of my blog)~5 entries~leave 5 comments

7)Follow Anytime Costumes on Twitter~2 entries~leave 2 comments

8)Follow Songberries on Twitter~2 entries~leave 2 comments

9)Tweet this giveaway~3 entries~leave 3 comments

10)Follow Songberries on Networked Blogs(right side of my blog)~3 entries~leave 3 comments

11)Sign up for any of my other giveaways~2 entries each~leave 2 comments

I would like to thank Anytime Costumes for sponsoring such a great giveaway! This giveaway is open to US Residents only and will close September 25, 2010 at 12pm.

~I received a product sample in order to write my review. I received no monetary compensation. All opinions expressed are mine.

Temple Square and Because He Lives!

The other day my mom took the kids and I to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. While we were at Temple Square my mom and I went to the temple. We left the kids on their own for a few hours. There are so many gorgeous flowers on Temple Square. Chauncey had fun taking pictures of them.





This is Sloan at the museum.

Here's another picture of Sloan in front of a fountain.
This is the Assembly Hall. I love the spires and the contrast of the white against the gray.

Here's the side of the Temple.

Here's the Salt Lake Temple.

Spaghetti Casserole

Today is Sloan's birthday, she's 12 years old. I took this picture of her Saturday morning when we hiked up the mountain.

Don't forget to enter my giveaway for a chunky bling ring! You can find all the details here!




I found this recipe over at Shelly's Swag. It makes a nice big 9x13 pan full and the family loved it! I love a casserole recipe where I have everything on hand!

Spaghetti Casserole

2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
1/4 teaspoon Italian Seasoning blend
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
1 pound cooked ground beef
16 oz. cooked spaghetti
28oz. jar spaghetti sauce
4 ounce can mushroom stems/pieces
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, garlic salt, Italian seasoning and parmesan cheese. Add spaghetti and toss to coat. Please in a 13x9 greased baking dish. Top with beef, spaghetti sauce and mushrooms.

Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese and bake another 10-15 minutes, or until cheese is melted. Let stand for 15 minutes before cutting.

I Made Fabric Flower Headbands and Chicken And Rice, My Way

I'm linking this post with The Shabby Chic Cottage for Transformation Thursday.


These are the new headbands I made. On this one I used scraps from a drop cloth to wrap the headband.

The flowers are made from leftover lace.

This one is made just from drop cloth scraps.

I thought they turned out pretty good!

Sloan loved them and wanted to keep both.



This is Chauncey's late night snack. Yup, that's green beans on top the whipped cream and chocolate mint ice cream. Makes you want a nice bowl of ice cream and veggies, huh?


I've always liked chicken and rice when someone else made it. I didn't like it so much when I tried it. The rice would never cook all the way! So I thought about it the other day and decided to try it a little different. It turned out great and I loved how easy it was!

Chicken and Rice, My Way

1 chicken, cut up
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 can chicken noodle soup
1 1/2 cups regular rice

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

In a 9x13 pan mix the cream of chicken soup and the chicken noodle soup, add in 1 1/2 cups rice and stir around. Top with the chicken pieces. Cover with foil. Bake for 2 hours.

Do you like shoes? OOoh, I do! Just for Me..and you is doing a giveaway with ZooShoo.com and you could win a great pair of slouchy boots! You can get a 10% discount if you want to buy some. I did! Sandals, because summer has to come sometime!

Work For Me Wednesday, A Sunday Hike and Cream Cheese Brownies or Death By Brownies

Don't forget to sign up for my giveaway! You can find the details here!


Here's a little St. Patty's day easy breakfast tip! Just add a little green food coloring to your pancake batter. I like to use a mix when I'm in a hurry and Sloan likes her's with chocolate chips. I'm also adding green food coloring to corn syrup for the syrup. When I want to make waffles in a hurry, I use pancake mix, but I whip a couple of egg whites to peaks, then I put the yolks into the batter and mix well, then I just fold in the egg whites. I'm going to tint the waffles green this morning. This Work's For Me! Join us over at We Are That Family for some great ideas!



Yup, that's me! I've had allergies all week and so my eyes hurt so bad I had to wear my glasses.

We went for a little hike out at the Bear River Bird Refuge. It was really nice to be outside!


We always take the dogs, they love to hike!

I can't wait until the snow melts off the mountains!


Here's a picture of the visitors center.

I'm not so good at spotting birds. We could hear them, but couldn't see them.

There's a duck!

We loved the prints in the sidewalk!




I've been wanting to make a cream cheese brownie for a while now and couldn't find a good recipe, so I decided to make up one! I took some over to my neighbor for helping me with a project and he named them Death by Brownies! Everyone loved them and I had to make another batch!

Cheesecake Brownies or Death By Brownies

2/3 cup shortening
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
12 tablespoons cocoa
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups flour

Cheesecake Layer

2 8oz packages cream cheese
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup chocolate chips

Frosting

1/2 cup butter, melted
3 1/2 -4 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 tablespoons cocoa
milk

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9x13 inch pan with Pam.

In a bowl whisk the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt.

In a mixer beat the sugar and shortening for 2-3 minutes. Beat in eggs and vanilla mixing well. Add dry ingredients and mix well. Scoop into prepared pan and smooth with a knife.

Cheesecake Layer

Beat cream cheese and sugar, beating well. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Fold in chocolate chips. Pour over brownie layer and smooth. Bake for 45 minutes or until it is not real jiggly in the center. Cool and frost.

Frosting

In a bowl whisk the powdered sugar and cocoa. Mix in the butter and vanilla adding enough milk to make a good frosting.