Lauren's Love List

Since it's Valentine's Day, a day all about LOVE, I decided to write my love list.  I've been thinking about this for a few days, so here are 50 things Lauren loves (some of these things are material things, some are not, and this list is not necessarily in order):

1.) My dear husband
2.) My puppy wuppy Kato
3.) My immediate family-Mommy, Daddy, and Sissy
4.) My extended family-The Watkins' and the Harts
5.) My in-laws
6.) My in-law extended family-The Eders and the Siegels
7.) Mexican Food
8.) Jesus
9.) The beach
10.) Going on vacation to anywhere, but my absolute fav vacations are cruises
11.) Road trips
12.) Disney World
12.) Social media
13. ) The Pioneer Woman (seriously-new life goal: Be the Pioneer Woman, think Ben is up for cattle ranching?)
14.) Snuggles
15.) Scarves
16.) Apple products
17.) Blogging
18.) Cupcakes-making and consuming
19.) Christmas
20.) Spring
21.) The weather in North Carolina
22.) Babies
23.) Gymnastics
24.) Boots (NOT snow boots. Cute boots.)
25.) Cooking
26.) Baking
27.) Kisses from Kato
28.) Spending time with the ones I love
29.) The Louisville Cardinals
30.) Summertime
31.) Swimming pools
32.) Country music
33.) Driving while listening to country music
34.) The movie Titanic
35.) The movie Mean Girls
36.) The movie My Girl
37.) Going to the movies (I'm sensing a theme)
38.) Playing Call of Duty
39.) Pizza
40.) Fruit
41.) Waking up next to my husband
42.) Taylor Swift
43.) Watching IndyCar races
44.) Road tripping to IndyCar races, especially with my Dad
45.) Girl talk with my Mom & Sister
46.) Skinny jeans
47.) Painting my nails
48.) Starbucks (I know I'm such a basic white girl. Not ashamed)
49.) Going out to dinner with people I love
50.) Buffalo wings
51.) Weddings
52.) New friends
53.) Friendly neighbors
54.) Sim City on my iPad
55.) Fruity girly cocktails
56.) Fruity cheerleader beer
57.) Budweiser
58.) Getting dressed up
59.) Lifelong friends




Okay 59 things I love.  That was not a hard list to come up with, and there are so many more things I could add.  I know I have a really blessed life, to be able to easily come up with so many things that I love. #Blessed.   :) :) Happy Valentine's Day! <3

Latest in cooking and baking

I have done a LOT of baking and cooking in the last month.  So I thought I would share some of what I made...I love to cook, and I was talking to my Grandma recently who mentioned that cooking is a hobby.  She is right, cooking is definitely one of my hobbies.  I'm thankful I have this blog, so that I can share my hobby with the world. :) 

Superbowl Sunday

    We had 0 plans for Superbowl Sunday, other than to sit on our couch and watch the game.  I decided to make some yummies for us to enjoy.  One of my favorite recipes right now is chicken "wings".  They are really just homemade chicken nuggets.  I cut up a few chicken breasts into small pieces and marinate them...mine in buffalo sauce and Ben's in barbecue sauce.  I only marinate them for a half hour or so.  Then I roll each piece in Panko and put them all together on a baking sheet.  Pop them in the oven for about 20 minutes, (sometimes longer depending on how big the pieces are). When they come out I usually put a little more buffalo sauce on top of mine and dip them in ranch for eating.  Mmmm.  Ben dips his in more barbecue sauce. Of course we had to have wings while watching football, so I made those.  

      We also had Skyline dip, (I luckily had 1 can of Skyline that moved with us...it is nowhere to be found in the South. Wah wah).  Skyline dip is super easy...soften up some cream cheese and spread it around a glass baking dish. It doesn't even have to be glass.  Then pour on some Skyline chili (that has been heated), and top it with a bag of cheese.  The best way to eat it is with Fritos Scoops.  It is truly delish. I even had Skyline dip for lunch the next day.  #sorrynotsorry

     I made Oreo cupcakes for a Super Bowl dessert.  They were awesome, although I did struggle somewhat.  I have been working on my cupcake making, (watching a LOT of Cupcake Wars, makes me wanna open a bakery!), and for Christmas I got an awesome cupcake recipe book.  I made a huge mess while making these cupcakes.  Flour for the batter went everywhere. So did the powdered sugar for the frosting.  I know you should only put a little bit of these things into the mixer at a time, but I feel like it doesn't matter how much I put in, there is going to be white powder ALL OVER my kitchen.  Luckily, the taste wasn't affected.  I also didn't have cupcake liners, which made the outside of the cupcakes a weird texture.  Oh AND I was supposed to put chopped oreos in the batter and totally forgot.  Not my best cupcakes in terms of technique, but they tasted pretty good! I have a LOT more cupcake recipes to make, so watch out for more blog posts.  :)

 I believe they were titled "Cookies and Cream" cupcakes in the book...delish!  

A whole book about cupcakes!

Dinner

    I have cooked dinner a LOT in the last month.  Almost every night.  We've ordered pizza a couple times and gone out a couple times, but mostly I cook.  I have made a lot of recipes from Pinterest, and even came up with a meal plan for a month.  That's helpful in the motivation to cook, as well as for making a grocery list. I HATE making a grocery list.  But it must be done or I will buy the entire store.  Anyways, some of things I have made this month: Crock-pot roast, roasted sausage and potatoes, pork tenderloin, crock-pot creamy chicken tacos (they were awesome btw and I don't know if I will make beef tacos again. Like ever.), and ham and hash brown casserole, (also awesome), among other things.  

   Last night I made homemade Hot Pockets.  They were great, although again, my technique wasn't so good.  It was my first time using Puff Pastry, and it didn't occur to me to thaw out the dough before I had to use it.  The recipe said to roll it out, but when I went to unfold it out of the box, the pieces snapped, because they were frozen.  Whoops.  It's alright, I made it work by microwaving what I could save, and ended up making 4 large pockets.  I put sliced deli ham and cheddar cheese inside the pockets.  I  put 1 piece of puff pastry on the bottom, layered the ham and cheese, then put another piece of puff pastry on top. Then I pressed the edges together. Next I brushed on some whisked egg, and then popped them in the oven for 20 minutes.  They were fantastic, and it was nice to have something kinda different for dinner.  I even put some slits in the top for decoration..thank you Pinterest for your awesome ideas!

I don't like how the cheese melted out of the pockets but it didn't affect the texture or taste.  Turned out just fine!

Cheesecake Fail

    I think I've mentioned how I fail at cheesecake.  I decided to try again, with a recipe from my cupcake book for cute little individual cheesecakes. They were real cheesecakes...made with ricotta cheese.  The technique wasn't difficult, other than my powdered sugar all over the kitchen problem.  I actually found more powdered sugar under the Keurig just yesterday, and I made these cheesecakes like 2 weeks ago.  Ridiculous.  I really think the only reason I failed at these was because they didn't cook long enough.  When I pulled them out of the oven they were liquid in the middle, and instead of putting them back in I thought maybe they would cool and set up. Nope, they were liquid even after sitting out for a few hours.  It wasn't a total fail though, I had a lot of batter (is the stuff that makes cheesecake considered batter?) leftover, so I made a large cheesecake and cooked it for almost an hour, and it turned out great.  Too bad I couldn't eat it, because it had orange extract in it and I'm allergic to oranges and orange flavored things. Oh well. I did taste it and it tasted good, just like a real cheesecake. If I do this again I will swap out the orange for vanilla, to make it a little sweeter.  The crust was really good...graham cracker crumbs, melted butter, and honey, all blended together, chilled, and pressed.  I could have eaten the crust by itself.  

Failed mini cheesecakes

Succesful large cheesecake

I have had a really good month of cooking and baking, and I'm looking forward to more kitchen adventures in the next few weeks.  Valentine's Day is a great excuse to bake, and we will hopefully have some visitors soon, who I'm sure would love to have some meals and goodies made by yours truly.  :) :)

Thanks for reading!