Back from Deployment and Getting Out

He's back. My son is back from his 2nd and last deployment with the Army. He spent the last year in Iraq and then Kuwait, and this week he returned to Fort Hood, TX. In a few short months, he will be done with the Army, having finished his 4 year commitment, serving his country bravely and proudly. His mama couldn't be more proud and yes, relieved. Now he will be looking for a civilian job and I'm praying for something closer to home.

Two Hundred Cupcakes

I just did my biggest cupcake order yet, when I baked cupcakes for the wedding of the daughter of a friend of a friend. :-)    It was fun, but a little stressful, as I felt a lot of responsibility for providing this part of someone's Big Day! The cake is a big part of the wedding celebration, and I wanted them to be pretty as well as delicious.  I haven't done a whole lot of decorating yet, but I've been experimenting a little bit with fondant and candy melt. For these, I made homemade marshmallow fondant, colored half a pretty teal color, and used a small cookie cutter to cut out teal and white flowers.  These set out for 3 days to dry before I made the actual cupcakes.

I borrowed an extra KitchenAid mixer from a friend, and gave myself two days to bake and frost 100 regular cupcakes and 100 Jumbo-sized cupcakes. J was at camp last week, so I was alone during the day for my baking marathon, and I let Eric and Mark know that they were on their own for dinner when they got home from work.  I had had the bride, groom, bride's mother, and bride's sister over one evening back in April for a "tasting", where they sampled several flavors of cake and frosting, and they chose Chocolate Oreo (chocolate cake with vanilla Oreo buttercream),  Milk Chocolate (chocolate cake with milk chocolate buttercream), and Coconut Almond (white almond cake with coconut cream cheese frosting).  The decorations were simple - coarse sugar and candy pearls, Oreo halves, in addition to the fondant flowers.

I had seen an idea on some website for transporting the Jumbo cupcakes, since I can only get the plastic cupcake containers in the regular size. I  bought 3 Rubbermaid shallow underbed storage boxes, and a roll of rubber mesh shelf liner.  Each box held about 40 of the Jumbo cupcakes, which was perfect.

 

 

Back to a Weekly Menu - June 2012

Okay, I've been saying I really need to get back to planning my weekly menu. The other day my hubby made the same suggestion - seems me going to the grocery store most every evening to find something for us to eat is getting old. hmm. Plus, baseball season just killed dinnertime, because we didn't get home until after 7pm two or three nights a week. But now baseball is over and we are entering a much more laid back summer schedule. Mark and I have a high school reunion coming up in August, so it sounds like a good time to try to drop a few pounds too (why do those things go hand in hand?) A plan is definitely needed. Here is a plan for the coming week plus a couple of days. I'll start linking up with Menu Plan Mondays, so you can go there to see other people's menus, if you'd like additional inspiration! 

6/1

Homemade Pizza, Spinach dip & veggies

6/2

Crockpot BBQ chicken, potato salad, curried cole slaw, carrot sticks

6/3

Taco Salad

6/4 

Chicken-TortelliniSoup, crusty bread

6/5

Spaghetti & turkey meatballs , salad

6/6

Bourbon Chicken,  brown rice, green bean & carrot stir fry 

6/7

Big Salad – lettuce, tomato, cucumber, pepper, shredded carrot & cabbage, red onion, hard-boiled egg, turkey, cheese, croutons

6/8

 Homemade Pizza, Spinach dip & veggies

6/9

Jambalaya , bread, salad

6/10

Chicken- Garlic- Farfelle Aldredo,  salad