Laura Cooks: Cooking with Pumpkin (w/ illustrations)

Hey everyone just wanted to update my blog with a pumpkin-themed fun cooking adventure I had. And since this is my illustration blog, I also created a cute little pumpkin character to guide us through each dish!

I LOVE all things pumpkin. I'm a pumpkin addict!! And fall just happens to be my favorite season. Unforunately everyone is still focused on summer and it's just a TAD too early for stores to be carrying their "pumpkin spice" seasonal eats. I decided I'm not waiting until fall. Armed with a can of pumpkin and Pinterest recipes I had all day pumpkin feast!

 

First came breakfast. Even though it's been about a billiondy degrees outside almost daily I decided to start my morning with the "Clean Eating Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal" recipe from "The Gracious Pantry." The recipe only required simple ingredients I already had at home. The oatmeal serves 4 but I'm only one person so I adjusted it back to 1 serving.

Drizzled with maple syrup and topped with chopped pecans, this was such a filling breakfast!! And yes, it looks as good as it tastes!! Next up came my lunch. What could you possibly make for lunch with canned pumpkin?? Two words: grilled cheese.

Mmmm cheese on carbs!! Not the healthiest thing to be stuffing my face with but the ingredients weren't too terrible for you. For instance, the recipe calls for a laughing cow cheese wedge which are very low in calories (and super yummy). And instead of a deli cheese slice I used some vegan cheese made from rice and it tasted just as good.

Bizarre sounding but totally savory!! The pumpkin "filling" was enough for 2 separate sandwiches but I piled it all on one anyway. YOLO my friends. I ate my sandwich with some wheat thins and some applesauce. Mmmm!! Check out the full recipe by user asally04 on the "KeyIngredient" website. And last but not least dinner.

All I needed was one more pumpkin recipe and my pumpkin feast would be complete!! And I definitely had one up my sleeve. "Pumpkin Mac and Cheese" by "Eat. Drink. Love." I can't say no to Mac and Cheese. It took me two attempts to make this. The first attempt I burned myself on the pot of boiling water and spilled the entire pound of curly noodles all over the floor. Yikes!! It just goes to show you accidents happen. We all need to be careful when we cook!!

I'm glad I picked myself up and tried again because this recipe was a unique filling dish!! It calls for not only cheddar cheese but also Gruyere. If you don't feel like buying Gruyere you can use Swiss but I wanted the full Pumpkin Mac and Cheese experience!! It was a great way to end my day. I hope you enjoyed the illustrations. If you're a true pumpkin addict like me, go try out some of the recipes!!

A Pinterest Perfect Valentine's Day!

Hey everyone just wanted to update the blog with how my Valentine's went. I always tend to embrace Valentine's day regardless of my lack of a significant other. A day whose main theme is not only commercial but revolves around hearts, candy and cakes?? Heck yes I'm going to celebrate it!!

Me and my friends threw a little Valentine's day party before going out to watch the ever-so romantic "Die Hard" sequel in the theater. Let me admit this first, I am total Pinterest addict and I wanted to share with you some of the wonderful tips and tricks I found through Pinterest that I used in my party!

First off I made these cute little Valentine's gift baskets for my friends. It was filled with chocolates, sugar wafers, and cookies I baked in the shape of hearts. I even dipped some of the sugar wafers in some red melting chocolate and covered them in Valentine's themed sprinkles an idea I pinned from Craft-O-Maniac from http://www.craft-o-maniac.com/2013/01/valentine-cookies.html

After showering each other with gifts we did our planned craft which was creating memory jars. This is an idea that I have seen on Pinterest a lot. Find a jar. Decorate it. And fill it with little slips of paper with memories written on them. Fill it up and open it up at the end of the year! Basically an overly simplified, personalized and pretty journal jar!

The jars we bought at dollar tree. Paper and stickers from Joanns and HobbyLobby. The finished products all came out really cute and different from each other. 

This was the one my best friend and fellow blogger KaraKreative made!! So elegant!

We all get together for Christmas and exchange gifts so we'll have to open up our jars and share our favorite memories with each other then! Last came dinner. I picked two great recipes I found on Pinterest a baked rigatoni and heart shaped dinner rolls. The dinner rolls were a huge hit.

 

The recipe for the Valentine's Dinner rolls can be found here: http://www.rhodesbread.com/recipes/print_recipe/2051 and the recipe for the Rigatoni I got off SkinnyMom here: http://skinnymom.com/2012/02/05/skinny-rigatoni/?_szp=120432&_szi=3 The pasta was made with ground turkey yum yum!!

 

We had such a fabulous Valentine's day! I honestly have the best friends on the entire planet because no matter what we do we always have a blast doing it! For more of my favorite pins you can always follow me on Pinterest @nerdycupcakes. Hope everyone had a good Valentine's Day and have a safe weekend!

Laura Cooks: Once a Month Mom BBQ Chicken Bites

I know this is an illustration blog but I can't help myself but to post ANOTHER cooking entry. I am trying my hardest to learn this whole "cooking" thing and tend to get REALLY excited when I complete a dish.

Since I eat like a little kid (and look like a little kid anyway) what better recipe to try than some homemade chicken nuggets!! The recipe I tried was "BBQ Chicken Bites," from Once A Month Mom.

The recipe was definitely easy enough for me to complete. One of the ingredients was Hellman's mayonnaise and I HATEEEE mayo. So I substituted the mayo for some plain, nonfat Oiko's Greek Yogurt. And instead of bread crumbs I used the leftover Whole Wheat Panko I used in Alton Brown's Baked Mac and Cheese.

The chicken came out tasting like shake and bake (which I had no problem with) with a hint of BBQ sauce. I dipped mine in the giant container of ranch dressing always in my fridge along with some baby carrots. Mmmmmm!!

To view the full recipe head over to Once a Month Mom or just click on this link: http://onceamonthmom.com/hellmanns-bbq-chicken-bites/ Try it sometime and I hope you all have a good weekend!

Laura Doodles Cooks: Alton Brown's Baked Mac and Cheese

Hey everyone! I have many baking adventures checking out new recipes in my dessert related cookbooks and finding recipes online but I don't usually cook MEALS much. I don't really know how to cook. I usually eat the same thing everyday and it's never anything complicated or that even INVOLVES an oven.

Image via Abrams Books.com

Recently I was watching re-runs of a show called, "Good Eats," hosted by Alton Brown, an extreme food nerd who makes cooking entertaining yet scientific and the episode was about Mac and Cheese. I LOVEEE Mac and Cheese and instantly inspired his seemingly easy Baked Mac and Cheese Recipe.

The ingredients were also super simple (the only thing I didn't already have on hand was sharp cheddar cheese and panko bread crumbs) and on the recipe page the full clip of Alton and his Nephew Elton concocting the delicious dish is available to watch. Great for people who are visual learners!

All in all, the recipe was very tasty! If I could change anything I would have probably added MORE cheese (and gained 5lbs doing it). I would definitely make it again sometime but my heart still belongs to the good old boxed Kraft kind, sorry Alton!

To try the recipe out for yourself, head over to the FoodNetwork website or just click on this link: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/baked-macaroni-and-cheese-recipe/index.html

Out & About - Illustrated Recipes!

Hey everyone! Just wanted to update the blog with another project I ended up doing at my full time job at the newspaper. The newspaper puts out a magazine called "Out and About" every year that is freely distributed atarea businesses with lots of summer goodies and this year I was obviously a part of it! I did a lot of illustrations and content for the magazine but one of my shining pieces was the two recipes!

A Toasted Marshmallow Milkshake Recipe:

(the recipe can be found here: http://acozykitchen.com/stands-toasted-marshmallow-milkshake/)

And a recipe for an Orange Creamsicle Fruit Dip:

(the recipe can be found here: http://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/2011/07/orange-creamsicle-fruit-dip.html)

It was a tough choice when going through the millions of recipes online. I wanted something that was vegetarian friendly, fresh, fun and relatively easy for both kids and adults! I really appreciate both A Cozy Kitchen and the The Girl Who Ate Everything for letting me use their recipes in the magazine!

To view "Out & About" in it's entirety just click on this link: http://lebanondailynews.pa.newsmemory.com/special.php?date=20120601

Hope you guys try this recipes and have a great rest of the summer!

Cute Brownie Packaging!

Hey everyone! Just wanted to show off some packaging designs I made for a Thank You gift! I got a Brownie Maker as one of my Christmas gifts so I decided to put it to good use yesterday by making some brownies.

I had some regular party bags and decided to add some flair with my artistic skills!

Cute right?? Here are some detailed shots of the gift:

Front of the tag :D

Back of the tag

I hope that Linda likes her gift! The brownie maker works really well! It takes a little longer than my Babycakes Cupcake Maker but cranks out really amazing results. Plus you now have crust on every brownie, which to me, is one of the best parts, MMMMM!!

If you like the gift bag and interested in your own CUSTOM party bags to fill with your very own baked goodies be sure to get in contact with me by filling out a Contact form at http://www.violet-ink.com/contact

Blueberry Cupcakes

We had two containers of fresh blueberries at home and after religiously pouring them into every cereal I would eat I was afraid, being that it was fresh fruit they would go bad in a couple of days :( So I decided I wanted to bake something with them. Blueberry muffins were out for being soooo cliche (also the last time I DID bake something it WAS blueberry muffins).

My next idea was to make blueberry PancakePuffs. Remember PancakePuffs?? It was a cast iron pan you put on your stove that made round little pancakes. Since I have my cupcake maker, I figured if I put pancake batter in it, it ALSO would make pancake puffs.

I finally decided just to go with my instinct and make my favorite thing in the world, cupcakes! I googled "Blueberry Cupcakes" and picked the first I recipe I found which was on Squidoo.

They turned out pretty good. The batch only make about 12 even though it said it made 18 LARGE cupcakes but oh well it's not like I can eat 18 anyway.

I also added leftover Teal Wilton Food Coloring I had to the frosting and attempted to pipe it on the top.

Want to try the recipe for yourself?? The original is at Squidoo but I typed out a copy for you all here:

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup butter
1 egg, beaten
3/4 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2/3 cup blueberries

Instructions

Sift dry ingredients together to mix well.
Cut in the butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
Whisk egg vigorously to incorporate air and make the eggs light.
Stir in egg, milk and vanilla and combine thoroughly.
Add to dry mixture and stir together (some lumps should remain) and add the blueberries.
Fill well greased muffin tins with batter until two thirds full.
Bake in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 20 minutes or until done.

As I've said before, I am no pastry chef, or baker, nor do I ever claim to be exceptionally good at it. It is just something I do to destress myself and make the people around me happy :)