Thank goodness it's baseball season!

This was my first Giant's game of the season and it feels good to be back at AT&T Park (arguably one of the best ball parks out there) with a beer in hand cheering on the Giant's! Yes the coldest baseball games happen here (sadly SF doesn't get summer until Sept) but with every seat having a view of the bay, I can deal with the chill factor. And yes I'm repping a Giant's mascot, Lou Seal, hat. Let's paint the town orange and black!!! ;)

How Erin got her (baking) groove back

Hello, apologies for not blogging in forrreevvverr!  It's been a time of moving and transition and I honestly haven't had time for baking.  But now I do and I am back!  And of course I'm back with cupcakes.  Seriously, it's still me here.

I love to take pictures of food almost as much as I love to make and eat it.  And with my new fancy phone, I've been doing that a whole lot more :)  So a few weeks ago we went out to dinner in Walnut Creek and I saw this yummy confection:

I don't want to toot my own horn or anything but I consider myself a pretty good baker, therefore, I hate to buy baked goods anywhere when I'm pretty sure I can make it just as well myself.  Plus we had plans to visit a fabulous creamery for sundaes later that night so an additional cupcake would have just been too much (even for me.)  So I took this picture and made a mental note to look up a recipe for that.

Well, surprise surprise that mental note got buried until last weekend when I felt like baking and busting this baby out.  Yes, this fire engine red Kitchen Aid mixer is my baby.  I love it!

I scoured baking blogs for a yummy Brown Sugar Cupcake recipe and deiced to use this one.  (mostly because it only made 12 cupcakes.  I really don't need more than that around my lil apartment.)    And for the frosting I used this one.  Mostly because we share the same last name.  It was a toss up between brown sugar frosting and brown butter frosting.  I seriously took me a good half hour to decide.  Thank goodness I have friends that help me out by flipping a coin!

And the end product was delicious!  But seriously it's not hard to go wrong with that much sugar :)  But we all know my math skills are less than stellar so while I only made 12 cupcakes, I made enough frosting for 24.  Ooopps, guess I have to look for another project to use all that frosting...

Stay tuned and I pinky promise to be better about blogging now.  All four of my readers out there can now breathe a sigh of relief ;)

Food Across the Nation

Hello!  My name is Helen and I was asked to be a guest blogger on this cute blog.  After all. . .the little red-haired girl is my daughter.  I had the good fortune this summer of driving across the country from the East Coast to the West Coast.  And I love food almost as much as the little red-haired girl.  So I decided to take pictures of many of our local and regional meals.  We did have some incredible meals along the way.  Pictured above was our first stop in Philadelphia.  I have always heard about the yummy Philly Cheesesteak Sandwiches.  According to another one of my daughters who has spent time on the East Coast, Geno's in Philadelphia is about as good as it gets.  Arguably one of the finest sandwiches ever!  Most folks in Philly have their preference - it's either Geno's of Pat's.  And oddly enough, the two eateries are right across the street from each other.  Ironically, both establishments had line about the same length.  Fun place to have a great sandwich in downtown Philly!  

 Next stop on our cross country trip, was Hershey, PA.  What a delightful little town.  It's located not far from the capital city, Harrisburg.  Located in the rolling hills of eastern Pennsylvania, the sweet smell of chocolate can be detected from many miles away.  We took a tour of the factory and enjoyed seeing how the chocolate comes from all over the world and is processed here.  Hey. . . don't you wish that these huge containers were actually filled with York Peppermint Patties and Almond Joys?!

 We decided to stop in Morgantown, WV before our stop in Ohio.  This is a cute little town in the mountains of West Virginia.  Breathtaking views from the mountain tops.  We did learn that actor Don Knotts was born and raised in this area and the town folks even named the main street in town after him. We had dinner that night at a nice, upscale restaurant called Madeleine's in the downtown area.  The ambiance was friendly and the food outstanding.  I choose the Risotto du Jour which that day happened to be mushroom with a sun dried tomato sauce.  Not only was it delicious but the presentation was nice.  

 As we traveled through Kentucky, we stopped in Clermont to tour the Jim Beam Bourbon Distillery.  Located just off Interstate 65, the minute we drove into the little burg, there was the pervasive smell of bourbon throughout the town.  We were pressed for time so consequently couldn't take time for the tour but enjoyed the beautiful countryside in central Kentucky.  

We have always heard about the wonderful barbecue food in Kansas City, but we weren't sure which Kansas City it was supposed to be - Missouri or Kansas.  So we decided to try Kansas City, KS, especially since that was about dinner time.  We got a recommendation from some locals in Kansas City, Missouri and they said the best BBQ fast food was at a fun place called Arthur Bryan's.  And you can see the look of delight on my daughter's face when she is about to eat a huge portion of Pulled Pork.  She is holding just one portion - I had another huge plateful to eat.  It was so tender and made an excellent sandwich.  Too bad this was about 9pm and we didn't want all that food so late.  So we saved more than half for the next day.  Succulent, tender pulled pork at Arthur Bryan's!  

We had stopped earlier in Missouri and talked to some locals who found out we were driving across Nebraska on our way to Denver.  They impressed upon us that we really needed to stop in Paxton, NB at this roadhouse called Ole's.  Not only was the food impressive (delicious home cooking), but they had the largest collection of stuffed animals I have ever seen.  Including the fictional animal, the Jackalope.  I bet you have never seen one of these guys hanging from a restaurant before.  Quite a sight to be sure!  While I traveled most of the way across America by car (actually 2,800 miles) with my husband and daughter, I needed to fly home from Denver.  My experiences driving that distance, seeing most of America and spending time with my family is something I will always treasure.  I'm just grateful I was able to taste and experience such wonderful regional foods.  I hope you might be able to travel across our country at one time in your lives.  

Festive Fourth Food

I like holidays.  I like food.  And I like cooking.  This combines those loves.  So while this isn't a super fancy (ok, it's not fancy at all) meal, it's very festive.

The Fourth of July is also kinda a fun holiday for me because it's a very historical day too.  I was a US History major in college and especially love anything to do with the Revolutionary War.  I definitely imagine I would have been a patriot because the red coats of the British would have just clashed with my hair too much.  I could go one and on about history stuff but let me take it back to the food.

Breakfast today was blueberry pancakes with strawberries on top!  Simple, standard Bisquick pancake mix with handfuls of blueberries baked right in and then fresh strawberries right on top.  It doesn't get much better than that :)

Hope everyone enjoys their Fourth of July!

What a Hoot!

Since I haven't been baking in a while (sad face) it's a good thing I have some pretty creative friends and I can showcase their talents.  I am lucky because my besties are pretty fun and awesome too and like to hang out with me.  Well a few weeks ago it was my friend Briana's birthday (I won't say what b-day) and her sis, Cameron, made this sweet cake:

That's right folks, it's a cake in the shape of an owl!  Bri likes owls so it's kinda perfect.  Cam baked cakes in glass bowls and then put the two half spheres together, frosted it, decorated it and bam! we had an owl.  I really kinda like this view of the cake.  And not only is it super cute and creative but it was yummy too!  I just had to share because it's still one of my fav things of the moment

Cameron, can you please visit for my birthday?  My fav animal is a manatee...start researching :)

Love this cake and these girls!

Happy Father's Day!

I was lucky to be able to spend father's day this year with my dad and grampie - two great men in my life who I love dearly.

My dad is kind, patient (necessary when raising 3 girls) and always there for me.  From researching papers for me to always slipping me a twenty dollar bill when I was a broke student to being my travel agent to instilling in me a love of history and reading and so much more.  I was fortunate to carpool with my dad to and from work for almost two years and those are times I will always treasure.  Thanks for everything Dad!

I also have a wonderful grandfather whose love and support for me is never ending.  I love spending as much time as I can with my grandparents and was lucky enough to go to college near them and travel with them as much as I do.  As my grampie turns 86 tomorrow he continues to be a fantastic example to me and all my cousins of an active person who stills bicycles with us and works on his iPad everyday.  Thank you Grampie for all the fun times and memories!

Little Treats

The other day my friend Ali and I reunited over a lovely tapas dinner.  Now tapas are fantastic!  They are little plates of yummy food so you order a bunch and share and drink some wine and have a wonderful time.  (I tell you, those Spaniards are on to something: lots of little plates of food and siesta (nap) time everyday.  I'm so on board!  Perhaps it's time I take a trip to Spain...)

So much fun to catch up with my wonderful red headed twin!  Who woulda thought there'd be this great little place in GB?  It's a lil pricey but a great place for a celebration, which we had - we hadn't seen each other in about a month!  We had the best time chatting over wine and tapas instead of our usual fro yo :)

Anyways, we ordered four different plates to split and I am blogging about two and Ali on her fun blog will write about the others!  And honestly my memory is fading in my old age so if my descriptions aren't very well, descriptive, then I apologize but I ate this awhile ago!

So we started off with tasty lil skewers of fig, (I think) goat cheese and proscuitto.  Now I'm not usually a fig eatin type of girl (I blame it on my mom feeding us too many Fig Newtons when we were kids - they are not a cookie or dessert and never will be!) but when it's paired with something yummy, I'm down.  And of course when you throw in cheese and cured meat who in their right mind would say no?

Next up was lamb tenderloin pops.  Little balls of delish lamb fried up?  Si por favor!  It was hard not to try and pop a dozen of these in my mouth but I had to refrain because there were only four and my momma did teach me to share.

And don't you just love the presentation?  Seriously sometimes food looks almost too pretty to eat.  But just almost.