I took Adam out to dinner a little early for his birthday, the night of his actual birthday I wanted to make something extra special. I decided that it was time to try my hand at fish. I don’t really like fish except for seafood… and I have never cooked it, yep at 27 years old I have never made fish. But I decided it was time to attempt. Attempt I did, blow it outta the water that I did too.

I set the bar pretty high for my next fish experience which will be sooner then later. I went with tilapa as I have read that this is very mild flavors. I didn’t have any of the fishy taste and our 2 year old gobbled it right up. So win win in my book!

Pesto-Parmesan Crusted Tilapa (From: Pink Parsley, Originally Adapted From: Curisine at Home, Cuisine Light)

• 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper
• 1 Tbs lemon zest
• 8 tsp basil pesto, divided
• 3 tilapa fillets
• cooking spray

I asked a few months ago for guest posters while I was getting use to have 2 babies at home. Ammie from Adventures in My Kitchen was happy to accept. I left all details up to her one what she made, I couldn’t be happier with the results. I wish I had one of these right now as they sounds great. I actually have never made cupcakes using the cone idea and really need to try it. Thank you Ammie and make sure you check our her blog!

I was a little shy when Carrie first announced she was looking for guest posters for her maternity break. Maybe it’s a fear of rejection, I don’t know. However, after thinking if over for a few days, I figured why not and contacted Carrie. She sounded excited in her response back to me, so I have no idea was I was worried about! That’s when the ideas started churning through my head, and one theme consistently stuck with me; something Carrie and her family would enjoy, and it must be pink and sweet to represent her new baby girl!

I had a few different cupcake ideas, and finally settled on these as a play on chocolate covered strawberries. Instead of the real thing we have a chocolate cupcake filled with chocolate ganache and topped with strawberry cream cheese frosting. I attempted to decorate them with thawed frozen strawberry slices and a drizzle of chocolate syrup, but it was so hot and I was having a hard time getting the frosting to hold its shape and all these extras were making it worse. Have no fear, strawberry frosted chocolate cupcake are pretty much always is good, but the ganache makes these pretty great (and all those extras really aren’t needed)!

While these do have several steps, they come together fairly easily. I baked the cupcakes and made the ganache the night before, which made the day of filling and frosting a piece of cake (pun intended!). I’m sure these would be well received at your next gathering. Enjoy!

Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes with Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting (From: Cooks.com (Cupcake), Allrecipes.com (Ganache Filling), Beantown Baker (Cone Method), Cupcake Project (Frosting)

For the Cupcakes:

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
8 tsp baking cocoa
1/2 tsp salt
6 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp vinegar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup water

Preheat oven to 350F. Place cupcake papers in 12-cup cupcake pan and set aside.

In a mixing bowl, sift dry ingredients. Combine well. Make three holes in the mixture, one for the oil (make this one largest), one for the vanilla and one for the water. Place each wet ingredient in their hole.

Pour water over all the ingredients. Mix together well, being sure no dry ingredients are stuck on the bottom of the bowl.

Evenly divide batter into cupcake pan using a 1/4 cup measuring cup (it’s actually just a little less than 1/4 cup each cupcake).

Place pan in middle rack of oven and bake 18-20 minutes. Test by gently touching the cupcake tops, if they spring back the cupcakes are done. Be careful not to overbake.

Remove from oven and place cupcakes on cooling rack.

For the Ganache:

4.5 oz semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup heavy cream

Once cupcakes are cook, place chocolate chips in a small bowl and set aside.

Pour cream into a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring cream just to a low rolling boil, being careful not to let it boil up and over the pan.

When the cream is ready, pour it over chocolate chips in bowl. Whisk until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth. Allow to cool ~5 minutes.

Take a cooled cupcake, and cut a cone shape out of the top with a serrated knife. Place 1/2-3/4 tsp of ganache into the hole. Place cone back on top of cupcake. Note: some of the ganache may overflow and squeeze out from under the cone. This is perfectly fine since you’ll be frosting over it. Repeat with remaining cupcakes.

For the Frosting:

1/4 cup butter (room temperature)
8 oz package cream cheese (room temperature)
1/2 cup strawberries, mashed up in a food processor and liquid partially drained
3 to 4 cups powdered sugar

Cream the butter and cream cheese together in a stand mixer at medium-high speed for ~3 minutes. Add strawberries and mix on medium until well combined. Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time until you reach your desired consistency and taste.

If you find the frosting is too soft, refrigerate it for a while until it firms up. Pipe frosting onto cupcakes.

We make a Costco run about once a month, Maddy loves these trips because it means she gets to pick out fruit. Last time we went she picked out Bananas amongst other things. Once home she would NOT touch the bananas. Adam ate a few but they were going to go bad if I didn’t do something with them. We also had bought some strawberries, my favorite fruit combo is strawberry banana so I went searching for a good bread.

This bread is great, fun take on tradition banana bread. The unexpected strawberries add to the flavor.

One of my favorite recipes to date is this orange chicken. So when I saw these sweet and sour recipe I thought humm maybe it will be just as good.

We were disappointed in one aspect but yet very pleased in the other aspect. This takes FOREVER to make, and the added baking time is kind of weird. But the sweet and sour sauce is awesome. We will make this again, but follow the chicken method in the orange chicken and then mix with sauce, no added baking time.

About once a week I have a random need for a fresh cookie. More often then not it’s chocolate chip. I decided to make a batch back in late April. I only made about 6 cookies and froze the rest of the dough so that when little sister came we could still just pop the dough in the oven and bake and have fresh cookies. I rolled the dough into balls, flattened a bit and froze then put into a ziplock. When we want one we will just pop how many we want in the oven.

Speaking of Baby Sister, Hanna Grace made her appearance on May 6th at 1:43am weighing in at 8lbs 10oz, and 21 in. I hope to be back in the kitchen cooking and baking soon!

When Sarah put out a request for the Bloggers Choice, I knew I wanted to participate but was a little worried with the time as we were expecting baby sister at any time. I decided to go for it. I got the blog So Tasty, So Yummy. I instantly starting searching. I found these strawberry cream cheese muffins and knew I had to make them. We had bought a large thing of strawberries from Costco and Daughter and Husband were letting them go bad, muffins to the rescue.

They both gobbled these right up, fun spring time muffin.

When I saw this recipe I got excited at the thought it would be green beans that tasted like this broccoli recipe. It was as good, but was still delicious and a different way to prepare green beans. The shredded cheese got a little too hard for our tastes, next time I would roast the green beans and then toss in grated parmesan this would prevent the hard cheese.

Enjoy.

Today my husband turns 30, his big 30th GOLDEN Birthday! He was feeling a little down about the baby being due around his birthday and not getting to celebrate properly etc. So I decided to through him a surprise early golden birthday party. We got around 20 of our closest family members together and had a potluck BBQ. My Grandparents were nice enough to host, my Dad was nice enough to grill and everyone brought a dish to share. This was perfect for my tired 38 week pregnant self.

I was left to the punch and ordering the cake. Oh and getting the guest of honor to the destination. I searched for a good punch and just went with this one for no real reason. But it was delicious, as many said it would be delicious if it was spiked Next time.

The theme for this month’s What’s Baking is bake with yeast. I was excited at this challenge. I am not as nervous about yeast but still shy away from it on most occasions. So this was my chance go full force. I was going to go for bagels as I really want to try them. but then decided that was not a challenge I wanted to tackle while pregnant as I get contractions if I’m on my feet for more then 10 minutes.

This bread came together so quick, and I love that it doesn’t require kneading. This has great flavor and so simple to through together. And the smell going through our house is pretty awesome

Sally Lunn Batter Bread (From: Taste of Home Baking Cookbook)

• 1 package (1/4 ounce) active dry yeast
• 1/2 cup warm water (110° to 115°)
• 1 cup warm milk (110° to 115°)
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoon salt
• 3 eggs
• 5-1/2 to 6 cups all-purpose flour

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add the milk, butter, sugar, salt, eggs and 3 cups flour; beat until smooth. Stir in enough remaining flour to form a soft dough.

Do not knead. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease the top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.

Stir the dough down. Spoon into a greased and floured 10-in. tube pan. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

Bake at 400° for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pan to a wire rack to cool.

Serve with honey butter

Much to my husbands approval I have been head over heels in love with shrimp this pregnancy… like cannot get enough of it. So when I saw this in my google reader from Sarah I had to make it asap. we really enjoyed this, you have the noodles, shrimp and the creamy goodness of the sauce, can’t get much better then that in my opinion.