Addicting Pasta Salad

When my sister first made me try this, I was skeptical, but this stuff is the perfect BBQ side dish.
Recipe stolen from my sister Emily, as mentioned.

Combine 2 cups cooked macaroni with chopped green onions, baby dill pickles (I know, I know, but trust me, it's good), and 2 cups-ish of grated cheddar cheese.

Sauce:
1 cup mayo
2 tablespoons mustard
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup white vinegar

Mix sauce with first mixture and refrigerate.
It's also tasty with chicken.

Enjoy!

Kid Friendly Peanut Butter Cookies.

I babysat for my nieces Chloe and Lily a couple of weekends ago and wanted a really easy recipe to make with them. I found this recipe for PB cookies that uses only three ingredients, perfect!

Lily with a spoonful full of peanut butter.

Sugar, eggs, peanut butter.

Yum.

The recipe:
1 cup sugar
1 cup peanut butter
1 egg
I also added some mini chocolate chips that I found in my sister's cupboard.

Mix all ingredients until smooth, bake at 350 F for 6 to 8 minutes.

These were so insanely easy and tasty, too. Clean-up is easy too since you don't have to use a bunch of measuring cups.

Key-Lime Pie

I like how this blog is mostly about food. Someone should suggest some beauty tricks for us to try.

Anyways,

I made this key lime pie recently and it was deliciously delicious.

The recipe told me key lime juice would be easier to find than key limes, but that was false. I squeezed all of these babies by hand, and in the end I was still a couple of tablespoons short. I ended up cutting it with a little lemon juice, which was fine.

Graham Cracker Pie crust. The smell of this thing is so very amazing.

And the final product!

I got the recipe for both the crust and pie from Kendra's Betty Crocker Cookbook (pgs 128, 134, and 217).

First make the Graham Cracker crust:

1 1/2 cups finely crushed regular graham crackers (about 20 squares)
1/3 cup butter
3 tablespoons sugar

In medium bowl, stir all ingredients until well mixed. Press mixture firmly against bottom and side of 9-inch pie plate.

Then the filling:

4 large egg yokes
1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup fresh or bottled Key lime juice
1 or 2 drops green food color, if desired (I did this)
1 1/2 cups Sweetened Whipped Cream

1. Heat oven to 375 F
2. Mix egg yolks, milk, lime juice, and food color with electric mixer on medium speed about 1 minute or until well blended. Pour into unbaked pie crust.
3. Bake 14 to 16 minutes or until center is set. Cool on wire rack 15 minutes. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Spread with Sweetened Whipped Cream.

And lastly the Sweetened Whipped Cream:

1 cup heavy whipping cream (chilled)
2 tablespoons granulated or powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

In chilled medium bowl, beat all ingredients with electric mixture on high speed until soft peaks form.

Lemon Deliciousness

I made these lemon cupcakes with my friend Janey a few days ago. I forgot to take pictures, but they were so delicious I decided to share anyways.

Here's the recipe:

3 1/2 oz softened butter
3 1/2 oz softened cream cheese
2 tsp finely
grated lemon rind
2/3 cup superfine (castor) sugar
2 eggs
1/2
cup
all-purpose flour
1/3 cup self-raising flour

Pre-heat oven
to 325F. Line a pan with cupcake papers. Beat the butter, cheese, lemon rind,
sugar, and eggs until smooth and creamy. Sift the flours. Add the flour
gradually to the cheese mixture and beat on a low speed, until just combined.
Divide the mixture evenly between the cake cases. Bake for 25 minutes until firm
to touch. Allow to cool for a few minutes and then transfer to a wire rack.
Makes 12 cupcakes.

These weren't hard to make, but I did have some trouble finding the superfine sugar. If you want to buy some look for a package that says "baker's sugar" or something like that. The grating of the lemon rind also took forever. I was surprised to find that 2 tsp of lemon rind are basically the whole thing.

We also made some delicious frosting:

2 cups chilled heavy cream
3/4 cup confectioners sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice

Beat the cream in a chilled bowl with an electric mixer set on
low until the cream begins to thicken. Add the confectioners' sugar and lemon
juice, a little at a time, wating after each addition, until fully incorporated.
Increase the mixer speed to high, and beat until the icing orms soft peaks,
about 5 minutes. (If you don't have a mixer a blender works just fine).

Seriously, they turned out so well. Absolutely delicious.

Here are the links:
http://http//www.cupcake-creations.com/lemon-cupcake-recipe.html
http://http//allrecipes.com/Recipe/Lemon-Cupcakes-2/Detail.aspx

The second one is the from a lemon cupcake recipe on allrecipes.com, but we just used the frosting part of it.

Love,

K&L

Fruit Smoothie

I found this delicious and easy recipe, once again, from the pages of Seventeen. Well, the one I made was basically not from Seventeen because I changed everything. The one from the magazine called for half a banana, 1 cup of strawberries, 3/4 cup of skim milk, and ice cubes. The banana I had was kinda small so I used the whole thing, I substituted OJ for milk, and decided against the ice cubes. I didn't mess with the strawberries, but I'm sure extras wouldn't have hurt.

It turned out delicious and was very filling. The best part was that it took about five minutes to make, which is essential for someone like me who has class at 9 a.m.

Highly recommended!

Love,

K & L

Easy Curls

Everyone knows that braiding your wet hair the night before you want it to be curly is an easy way to have cute, hassle-free hair the next morning. For me, it's always hit and miss, so I wanted to try something different. There are constantly tips for how to do this is various magazines, so I combined a few tricks.

After washing my hair, I let it air dry a bit and then spritzed some of this stuff in it. It's Designline Get it Pressed spray; technically supposed to be for straightening, but I like the texture it gives my hair.

This is where I differed from my usual routine: instead of putting my hair into two big French braids, I put it into four small normal (non-French) braids. This way, the braids started lower on my head so I didn't get that awkward curly on top look. These braids are also easier to sleep on.

In the morning, I loosely ran a straightener over my dry braids. The heat makes it so the curls will last longer. I also straightened the tips of my hair for a piecey look. Of course I finished with lots of hairspray. And here is the final result! Cute, no?

Love,

K and L

Tee Towel

One tip that Seventeen Magazine has suggested multiple times is using a old, soft t-shirt to dry wet hair instead of a towel. Linds and I recently decided to take their advice to see if it was any good. After we took a shower (not together of course) we each took an old tshirt and tied our hair up in it. We let the shirt soak up the excess water in our hair for about an hour before we went to bed. The next morning our hair was less frizzy and it felt super soft. :)


Love,

K and L