Tag Archives: Teaspoon

Pregnant Goldfish and Taco Seasoning

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I’d be willing to bet you that you couldn’t guess what the top search term was on the blog the other day. Any guesses? I seriously doubt you will guess this. Unless your guess involves fishes. And baby fishes.

An image of a Common goldfish

An image of a Common goldfish (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Here it is…”how to tell when a goldfish is pregnant”. Seriously? LOL. Why would you think I would know when a goldfish is pregnant?! Little fact about myself: I have never owned a fish in my life. I once wanted a fish, but I think my mom said it would get smelly  or something. Or that could have possibly been when I asked for a turtle. I was/am a HUGE animal lover.

Well are you interested in finding out how to tell when a goldfish is pregnant? I feel slightly obligated since it was the top search term. After a little research, I have found that, like humans, their bellies swell. You can also usually see lumps in their tummies from the eggs, and their tummies are a slightly lighter color due to the stretching. So there you go goldfish lovers. Your little lesson on how to tell if your goldfish is pregnant.

Now that we have that cleared up, let’s talk food, shall we? I made some a taco seasoning mix. As you may know, I love mexican and southwest flavors. Hello? Remember my taco salad, Mexican Lasagna, the salsa I made for SRC, Mexican flair wraps, Spanish rice, or the Cheesy Chicken tortilla bake? I think I’ve proved my point. I love mexican food and flavors. So here we go, super simple. Just mix up these spices right here, rub them on some chicken and cook it, or you can mix it into some brown rice to flavor it up a bit. Be creative! You can even use it on oven baked fries to give them a little mexican flair.

Taco Seasoning Mix

(from Brown Eyed Baker)

4 Tablespoons chili powder

2 Tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon paprika

3 Tablespoons onion cumin

1 Tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons onion powder

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

  1. whisk together all of the ingredients in a small bowl. Store in an airtight container and rub seasoning on any meat, tortillas, or anything else you choose!

Random Fact of the Day: Sarah Bernhardt, a famous 19th and 20th century actress slept in a coffin that she took every where with her.

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Happy Mother’s Day! Plus a Chocolate Pound Cake

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Hey there! I know it’s Sunday and I normally don’t post on Sundays…but I also know that today is Mother’s Day. And I think that certainly calls for a blog post. I have a couple things to share with you all today. One is a recipe, of course! And the other is short little video.

I saw this ad about a month ago, and it really touched me. Literally made me cry. I know, I’m a baby..crying during a commercial. But hear me out. Just watch it, I promise you it will touch you too. Here is it. Mother’s Day Ad.

I hope all you mothers out there had an awesome mothers day and everybody wished their mom’s a happy mothers day, and for those of you who have mothers that have passed, I hope you have remembered all the good memories you had with them.

I feel truly blessed to have my mother in my life. She has taught me so much that nobody else ever could have. She has taught me that women will always be right. She has taught me which boys to avoid and which ones are worth a shot. She has taught me what is right and what is wrong. She has taught me how to cook. She has taught me how to bake. She has taught me who to trust and who will have my back at the end of the day. She has taught me how to tell when a pizza is truly good.

She has taught me that sometimes you have to get your “south-sider” out to get your point across (sorry for those of you who don’t know what I mean by “south-sider”, maybe I’ll explain later). She is the one who sat through countless hours of teaching me how to drive, including the days of nauseating backing-around-the-corner. She is the one who I look up to as a role model and hope to become a fraction of a mother she is. I love her to infinity and beyond, and there is nobody who will ever be able to replace that. Love you mom!

So to bounce off of that, I made a chocolate pound cake that is perfect for Mother’s Day. I know that mother’s day is practically over now, but it’s great for showing your mother, grandmother, or any other special person in your life that you really love them! This is a rich, chocolatey, delicious cake that is sure to put a smile on anyone’s face. Enjoy!

Chocolate Loaf Cake

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, softened

1 1/4 cups white sugar

2 eggs

1 3/4 cups flour

2/3 cup cocoa powder (I used dark cocoa powder)

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 (6-ounce) container nonfat vanilla/plain yogurt

1/3 cup water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a loaf pan, set aside.
  2. In a bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
  3. In a separate bowl, whisk together yogurt, water, and vanilla extract.
  4. Cream together butter and sugar. Mix in eggs, one at a time.
  5. Add half the flour mixture to the creamed butter-sugar mixture. Mix in the yogurt mixture, then add in the rest of the flour mixture. Mix until just combined and pour batter into prepared loaf pan.
  6. Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour. Cool in pan for 20 minutes, then turn onto wire rack to finish cooling process. Enjoy and store leftovers in airtight container or cake stand with lid.

Random Fact of the Day: A lion’s roar can be heard five miles away

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Homemade Cookie Butter

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For those of you who have not yet experienced Biscoff Spread or  Speculoos Cookie Butter from Trader Joe’s, my heart aches for you. That stuff is seriously AH-mazing. Capital AH.

Now if you have tried the stuff before, you know what I’m talking about. It’s just plain good. I have attempted to make my very own recreation of cookie butter. It’s definitely not the exact same taste, and not exactly the same texture but it’s the same concept!

I love this stuff. This is MY cookie butter. My very own version that suits my very own needs. But I thought I’d be nice and share. :) So here you go. This concoction is awesome with anything and everything. Even healthy things *gasp*, like apples! Go off and make your own cookie butter!!

Homemade Cookie Butter

(makes about 1 cup)

2 packages (18 total sheets of crackers) Graham Crackers

1 Tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1 Tablespoon brown sugar

1 Tablespoon molasses

2 Tablespoons coconut oil (any other type of oil will work as well)

3/4 cup-1 cup water

  1. Place graham crackers in food processor and process until they become very fine crumbs.
  2. Keep processor running and add in cinnamon, nutmeg, and brown sugar through top spout. Add in molasses and coconut oil through top spout.
  3. Gradually add in water until cookie butter has achieved desired creaminess. It is best to add in about 1/2 cup, lift the lid and then see where you are at and how much more water you want to add in from there. This is also a good time to taste test and see if you want to add in more spices. I store my cookie butter in an air tight container in the fridge. It should be fine in the pantry, but I have not tried it.

Random Fact of the Day: The first man to survive going over Niagara Falls later died from slipping on an orange peel.

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A Baby and Buttery Biscuits

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If you happened to have read my last week in review post, you might have caught how on Friday I got my baby for my child development class. It was weird how I became so emotionally connected to a doll. Borderline creepy.

I ended up having to take the baby to my soccer games this weekend. How lucky am I that not only did i have one, but TWO games! Thankfully my mom was able to take care of her for the second game.

You would not believe the looks I got from some people. I feel for teen moms now more than I ever thought I would. Sure, I think that raising a baby as a teen is far from ideal, but I don’t think giving teen moms looks of disapproval will make anything better. It’s not going to change what has happened and it sure will not make things easier. It’s hard enough raising a baby as a teen, criticism just adds to the struggle. Again, I’d like to emphasize the point that I am NOT encouraging teen pregnancies or teen sex or any of things of that matter. This topic is not normally something I would bring up on the blog, but this baby project really hit me hard. The looks that I got were hurtful (from people who did not take a close enough look) and it just kills me to imagine what it would be like for a teen with a real alive baby. As much as I hate to say it, I think the fact that the baby was African American did not help.

Alright, that’s enough of that.

Let’s make biscuits! I have made biscuits in the past, some flavored, some definitely not. This biscuit recipe is my FAVORITE to date! They don’t exactly look “perfect” but that’s just because you don’t have to do the whole rolling and flouring thang. Plus for me! Enjoy these delicious buttery biscuits with jam, butter, or pretty much anything!

Buttery Biscuits

(Makes 6 biscuits)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 stick butter, cold and cubed

1/2 cup plus 2 Tablespoons (150 ml) milk (I used skim)

  1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
  2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Cut in cold butter, I used my hands. Pour in milk and use hands until fully incorporated, but be sure not to over mix. Mix until just combined.
  3. Drop dough onto cookie sheet and shape as desired. Bake in preheated oven for 10-12 minutes or until golden. Enjoy! Perfect with jam or butter.

Random Fact of the Day: In Romania around 1935, Mickey Mouse was banned because it was thought that he would scare children.

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Cheese and Garlic Drop Biscuits

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So I’ve made biscuits before. They were pretty good. I definitely made a couple mistakes that I have learned from, but I decided to try a new biscuit recipe.

Drop biscuits seemed like the perfect thing for me. No flouring counters, no rolling, no fuss. So I started a recipe on my own happy little way and let me tell you….this recipe was crazy. It was messed up.

I can NOT stand it when I start a recipe to later realize that the ingredients and directions are all out of wack. There were ingredients listed that were never put in the directions. Ingredients in the directions that were never listed on the ingredients list.

The serving size was totally off! It said it served two…so I figured, okay I’ll double this to serve me, my mom and my dad. Woah, big mistake. We ended up getting 16 biscuits. Now I like biscuits, but 15 is where I draw the line (kidding…kinda).

Anyways, here is my version of the drop biscuits. I hope you like them! Oh yeah, one last thing! They had “grated butter” listed on there. I actually did do this, but it is not totally necessary. What I did was pop the butter in the freezer for about 15 minutes to get it to harden a bit, then I used a regular grater and grated it down. It looks pretty funky, if you look at the picture below!

Cheesy Garlic Drop Biscuits

(makes about 8 biscuits)

3/4 cup All-purpose flour

3/4 cup whole wheat flour (All-purpose will work fine as well)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) cold, grated butter (or you can just chop into very small pieces)

1/3 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese

1 Tablespoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon parsley flakes

1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes, optional

2/3 cup milk (I used skim)

2 Tablespoons melted butter, optional

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
  2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and garlic powder.
  3. Add grated butter, cheese, thyme, parsley, red pepper flakes and mix until fine crumb. I used my hands here and just worked it out.
  4. Gradually add in milk until well combined, and the dough holds together. I used my hands here too. A mixer would work well, also.
  5. Drop dough by about the tablespoonful onto an ungreased cookie sheet and bake in preheated oven for 10-15 minutes.
  6. Lightly brush the biscuits with melted butter and baked for another 5-6 minutes. Enjoy!
Random Fact of the Day: Your right lung takes in more air than your left one does.
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