Spinach Ambrosia Salad

I was craving for this last night. Although this recipe doesn't call for dijon mustard, generally the dressing would include that which I didn't have at the time.

2 slices of bacon
3 cups of spinach
3 mushrooms, sliced
1/4 of an onion, thinly sliced
feta cheese (to your liking)
5 tbs red wine vinegar, more if desire
pinch of sugar, salt, and black pepper

1) Cook bacon on skillet, remove bacon and cut into pieces, set aside. Reserve bacon oil.
2) On low heat add to bacon oil red wine vinegar, sugar, salt, pepper until well blended.
3) Pour warm bacon dressing over a bed of spinach, sliced onions, sliced mushrooms, and chopped bacon topped with feta cheese.
Optional: Can substitute onions with pickled onions for an even more tangy taste.

I made myself a small bowl last night. Yummers! Saving the rest for today's lunch. Putting this on What's for Lunch Wednesday - I haven't done this in a long long time...

Cupcakes Galore!

 

Lil P's birthday came and went. No dinosaur party, no nerf gun party, no star wars party this year. Just good ol' family get together. No birthday parties doesn't mean no cake! So I made an assortment of cupcakes for the festivity: Vanilla, Peanut Butter, Oreos, and Nutella.

Cupcakes
1) Prepare the cake batter by following my moist cupcake recipe here, except replace chocolate cake mix and chocolate pudding mix with yellow cake mix and vanilla pudding mix. For vanilla cupcakes, follow the rest of the recipe's direction completely. For oreos, peanut butter, and Nutella, do the following:

2) Line cupcake pan with cupcake liners.
3) Pour 1/3 to 1/2 of the batter into each cupcake liner.

For Oreos cupcakes
4a) Place an oreo on top of the batter, push the cookie down to the bottom so the batter rises up

For Peanut Butter or Nutella cupcakes
4b.1) Use a cookie scoop to scoop out peanut butter or Nutella, place each scoop on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper, then place them in the freezer for 5-10 minutes.
4b.2) Take one semi-frozen scoop of peanut butter or Nutella and place on top of the batter, push it down to the bottom so the batter rises up.

5) Pour additional 1/4 batter on top, use a knife to move the batter to cover the oreo cookie, peanut butter, or nutella completely.
6) Bake for 35 minutes.

Frosting

1 cup powdered sugar
1 stick of butter (soften)
1/4 stick of shortening

My super lazy, yet effective version
1) Place all of them in a sandwich ziplog bag, get all the air out then zip it.
2) kneed them so they're completely combined.

For vanilla, oreo, and peanut butter frosting
3a) Cut a slip at the corner of the ziplog bag, pipe the frosting directly on the cupcake

For Nutella frosting (or you can do that with the peanut butter too if prefer)
3b) Open the bag of frosting, add in a couple tablespoons of room temperature nutella (or peanut butter), kneed to combine, add nutella (or peanut butter) to taste. No need to add toppings since it is already Nutella frosting. =)

Toppings
For the vanilla cupcakes: just cut a vanilla straw in half, then affix on top of frosting.
For the Oreos cupcakes: coarsely cut oreo cookies into small pieces, then pile them on top of the frosting.
For the Peanut Butter cupcakes: coarsely cut reese's peanut butter cups into small pieces, then pile them on top of the frosting.

Here is a picture of how the Nutella cupcake looks like someone says this taste like there is a truffle inside the cupcake.

The peanut butter and the oreos cupcakes were devoured before I get a chance to cut it in half to show to take a pic!

Just so you know, I made 6 of each (24 cupcakes total with one patch of cupcake/pudding mix, and with that measurement of frosting. (I had to mark the pans so I know which 6 is what so I don't put the wrong frosting on the wrong cupcake!) If you like more frosting I would recommend you double it up. It got a bit messy for me when I had to transfer the vanilla frosting to another uncut ziplog to add in the nutella before piping...but overall, I am super duper happy with the results.