Nothing is better than fresh corn roasted on the grill. This is a cheater’s Mexican corn because we aren’t using cotija here, OR mayo, since mayonaisse makes me barf. Nope, this is quick and easy and your kids will love it.

ingredients:
fresh corn on the cob
butter
parmesan cheese

If you don’t want to deal with the husks, just take them off and lay the corn on a piece of foil. Add a few dabs of butter, sprinkle liberally with cheese, and roll up the cob in the foil.

Put on a hot grill for 20-25 minutes. Then eat!!

Inspired by the book ‘Hello, Cupcake!‘ I took their slumber party kids cupcakes and made sleepy babies instead.

ingredients:
cupcakes (I like to use Brown Sugar cupcakes – recipe, here.)
frosting
mini nilla wafers
little heart sprinkles
melted chocolate or black frosting
marshmallows
starbursts

Bake cupcakes and frost them. I’d say a dozen is manageable. Don’t do 3 dozen like I did or you might go insane.

Then lay out the mini nilla wafers and put some frosting or melted chocolate in a bag with the end cut out, or in a piping bag and pipe the faces. You can also used the premade crap in the tube which worked out well for me – as I was under the gun, time wise. A tiny dollop of frosting will hold the heart sprinkle in place which will be the mouth.

I found that hair really made these stand out, so some babies were bald, some had hair. They all looked sleepy and happy.

Cut the marshmallow in half and lay them in a ‘T’ formation. One side will be the pillow for the head, the other will be the body under the blanket. Use another dollop of frosting to glue the nilla wafer ‘heads’ down.

Now the blanket, again, a dozen shouldn’t be that bad, but a mass quantity – and it was kind of a headache. Take two matching Starburst colors and melt them in the microwave for 5 seconds. Then between two sheets of wax paper or plastic wrap, roll out the Starburst into a square, cut to fit the size of a blankie for the baby. Use an alternate color to do the top of the blanket. You can use crafting scissors to make the nice blanket edges. Clean ones, of course.

Again use frosting to hold down the blanket. You can add even more decor on the blankets, or add teddy grahams as bedtime buddies. These things are really adaptable.

They are impressively cute at parties and surprisingly not that much work, just some assembly time. I am trying to think of other parties to make these for, just because they were so fun. Try it! If you do make them, I’d love to see yours!!

When I was 15 I worked in an architecture firm. One of the older architects took me under his wing and skooled me. I think he was bored with his job and was happy to not work and just talk to me all day. So one day he gave me this recipe and said, ‘When you are older and have children you should make them this recipe every week. It is easy and tasty and good for you.’ In some weird way it stuck with me and I carried that recipe with me all through college up and up til today. He was right. It is easy. And tasty.

ingredients:
1 pound ground turkey
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
1 cup shredded carrots
1 cup green onions, thinly sliced
1 cup sliced mushrooms

16 large lettuce leaves

sauce ingredients:
1/3 cup light soy sauce
1/3 cup water
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger root
1 teaspoon sugar

Peel the carrots, then grate them. Wash lettuce leaves and set aside.

In a medium bowl, mix together ground turkey, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 1 teaspoon minced garlic and 2 teaspoons ginger. Brown in a skillet over medium high heat, add carrots, green onions and mushrooms til turkey is cooked through, no longer pink.

Combine sauce ingredients.

Spoon the meat mixture into the lettuce leaves and serve, or you can have people assemble them themselves. Either way, add a little sauce just before eating.

This cake is a stunner. The layered lines are gorgeous inside, but man, it takes some dedication. I used a freakin’ teaspoon to make each one. Do you know how many teaspoons are in a cupcake? TOO DAMN MANY. Worth it though. If you have free time that is.

Ingredients:
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 c. granulated sugar
1 c. milk, at room temperature
1 c. oil
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 Tbsp. baking powder
2 c. all-purpose flour

2 heaping Tbsp. valrhona cocoa powder

In an electric mixer, combine eggs and sugar. Beat well.

Add milk and oil, and continue beating until well blended. Then add vanilla and baking powder. Gradually add flour and beat well.

Divide the mixture into 2 equal portions in two separate bowls. Keep one the way it is, and in the second bowl add the cocoa powder. The Valrhona not only tastes better, but has a lovely natural dark color.

Prep a cupcake pan with liners. Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Here comes the tough part. If you want a lot of lines, a nice complex interior when you cut into it, then do what I do and use a teaspoon. It’s tedious as hell, but the payoff is worth it. Put one teaspoonful of plain batter in the middle of the cup. Then one teaspoonful of the cocoa batter right in the center on top of the plain batter. Don’t jiggle or tilt the pan, just let the batter spread by itself. Keep doing this until you get ¾ of the way full. Believe me, it’ll take a while.

Bake it in the oven for 20 minutes. Do a toothpick check, and let the cupcakes cool on a wire rack. I like to frost this with a mocha frosting. When you cut into the cake you should get nice stripey stripes, if all went well. It’s quite pretty, definitely takes more effort than your average cupcake, but so worth it!

This is a quick and DELICIOUS frosting, great for cupcakes.

ingredients:
1 stick of butter, softened
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup Valrhona cocoa powder
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 cup strong coffee

With an electric mixer beat the butter and slowly add the sugar and cocoa. Careful – also don’t wear a black shirt. Trust me.

Add the vanilla and the coffee, you may need more or less coffee, depending on the consistency you want. This is not a thick frosting, it’s a nice spreadable one.

I needed something quick. And chocolatey. With coffee. This is a very good recipe for cupcakes.

ingredients:
1 stick of butter, softened
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup Valrhona cocoa powder
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 cup strong coffee

In an electric mixer beat the butter slowly adding the cocoa powder and sugar. Add the vanilla, and slowly add the coffee. You many need more or less coffee, but get it to the consistency you like. This is not a high fluffy frosting, but a nice spreadable one.

My MIL brought me some of these Hawaii Hershey’s kisses with macadamia nuts inside. Interesting. I thought they’d make great cookies. Instead of using Hershey’s cocoa powder, which I despise, I advise you to invest and use valrhona – you won’t regret it.

Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup Valrhona cocoa powder
About 40 HERSHEY’S KISSES (I used the mac nut ones)

Powdered sugar

Beat butter, sugar and vanilla in large bowl until creamy. In a separate bowl, stir together flour and cocoa; gradually add to butter mixture, beating until blended.

You can refrigerate the dough if you need to, but I just use it right away. Heat the oven to 375 degrees.

Take a tablespoon or so of dough roll it into a ball. Flatten the ball in your hand and put and UNWRAPPED (hello, crazy) chocolate inside. Pull the dough up around the kiss, covering it completely. Roll into a ball again, and put on the cookie sheet.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until set. Cool on a wire rack. Roll in powdered sugar just before serving.