Tag Archives: valentine

thursday things

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valentines cake

Happy Thursday! I hope everyone’s had a good week! I don’t know about you but I’m happy it’s Thursday. Wednesday can go $*&% itself for all I care!

steak mat

Our Valentine’s Day night was spent with House of Cards, filet mignon, cherry-almond cake, and my new owl mat!

I thought it was too cute to go outside where I would never get to see it, so it’s currently staying inside. In the kitchen. Where I get to see it ALL. THE. TIME

Oh! And we also played with legos, like all grown ups do on Valentine’s Day. FH couldn’t help but get them at Walgreens because… well… I think he might have a slight shopping addiction and buying a thousand small items at a drug store seems more reasonable to him than buying one large item. 

Either way, we turned what was once a pile of random lego pieces into this:

Teamwork.

Saturday we upheld our usual Valentine’s tradition at Binkley’s – I won’t bore you with all the details but I will share my favorite part of my Binkley’s meal – the adorable and ridiculously-delicious mini sloppy joe, on its own mini brioche bun with a baby cornichon. Isn’t it just adorable?

binkleys sloppy joe

As with most fancy restaurants that don’t want their patrons photographing their meals, the lights are kept dismally low so most of the pictures are rather grainy so I will refrain from torturing your poor eyeballs.

In other news – other things have been happening in the world besides Valentine’s Day.

For example, I got my hair cut (and dyed). I wish I had a ‘before’ picture so you could see how gnarly and gross it was, but it’s all fixed and blonde now! (yay!)

hair

I read somewhere that once you are over 30 you aren’t supposed to have long hair anymore, so I’m going to give this last year all I’ve got before I turn 30 next year and apparently have to get a grandma cut or something instead.

While I got my makeover, Wee Eats got a makeover of its own!  Check out the shiny, new “archive” complete with pictures and hovertext! (Oooh, fancy)

archive

 

Usually visual archives kinda piss me off because I don’t know what recipe I’m actually looking at – that’s where the hover-text comes in handy. (See pretzel image below.)

arch

And if that’s not “news” – how bout those Olympics, eh?

Sure I could talk about things like who won the gold in what and political injustice, but I’d rather talk about more important things like all the puppies being adopted or the faces of Olympic figure skaters.

olympic skating

And how they have finally created a pizza that lasts for three years.

Three. Years.

Meanwhile brussels sprouts and kale had a baby (and apparently it’s delicious). It’s basically the cronut of the vegetable world.

And then there’s this video, which proves that goats just wanna have fun.

“Ooh GOATS – JUST WANNA HAVE – FUN!” (It’s best when sung to this tune.)

It’s cold in a lot of the world and some people are much nicer than others.

I’m going to ask FH to get me a thousand of these caffeine-packed chocolate bars for my birthday.  Please?

While he’s at it maybe he could grab a waffle-scented necklace.

scented-heart-waffle-necklace

 

Still don’t have quite enough spirit to make it to Friday? Just watch this little dude (with sound, preferably)

Who knew that armadillos could be cute?

And if you need a bit of food-spiration: Here’s what’s been on my mind lately…

This apple dumpling monkey bread

These blueberry oat pancakes

This thai brussels sprout salad 

These savory cornbread waffles… preferable topped with homemade chili.

These gochujang peanut butter cookies

 

 

chocolate covered strawberry cupcakes

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strawberry chocolate cupcake 1I’m generally really bad about posting timely recipes. I make my Christmas cookies at Christmas, not before, so I don’t have anything to post about them until afterward. Apply that same thing to pretty much every holiday themed treat and there you have it.

Well, luckily for you, I was determined to get something up in time for Valentine’s Day. I hope to make this a tradition for all the holidays this year, but realistically speaking I’m guessing one, maybe two, will make it. But that won’t stop me from trying!

So, inspired by a super cute picture from Pinterest, I was determined to make these cupcakes BEFORE Valentine’s Day. The flavors are chocolate + strawberry, so I was all “aw, chocolate-covered strawberries!” I think that, technically, the chocolate would have to be on top for it to be “chocolate-covered”, but whatever.

I played with the idea of making a chocolate ganache for the top, or even placing a little chocolate-covered strawberry on top of them… all great ideas, but since I’m not getting around to posting this until the DAY BEFORE Valentine’s Day, I decided to opt for the fastest, most stress-free way possible.

So, something relatively unheard of around here – BOX mix (GASP!) – to make all of your lives easier. You can definitely whip these up in time for your Valentine sweety or to take to work (or, as I like to do, send them to work with your other half so that you’re not tempted to eat any), or if you’ve got a Little whose got no Valentine, send them off to school with a bunch of these bad boys and they’ll be sure to win over their classmates.

Some reviews I read complained about the brownie portion of these not baking all the way through. Mine baked just fine (maybe they weren’t realizing that the brownie portion would be fudgy and brownie-like?), I’m sure it could be remedied by following the “cake-like brownie” directions, or just using a chocolate cake mix instead of a brownie. I used milk chocolate brownies, because Boyfriend loves the milk chocolate, but dark chocolate or whatever your favorite is will do just fine.

I did not follow the recipe that was posted online, but instead followed the recipes on the back of my box mixes. So if you decide to use a different type of cake or brownie mix than I did, just follow the instructions on the back of the box. If you’re not a particularly big fan of strawberry cake, just use white and dye it red or pink 🙂 If you’re super anti box mix, just use your favorite cake and brownie recipes.

Happy Valentine’s Day <3

Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Cupcakes

[ Printable Recipe ]

  •           1 (19.5 ounce) “family size” package brownie mix
  •           2 eggs
  •           1/2 cup canola oil
  •           1/4 cup water
  •           1 (18.25 ounce) package strawberry cake mix
  •           1 1/3 Cups Water
  •           1/3 Cup Vegetable Oil
  •           3 Large Eggs
  •           1 container fluffy white frosting (or frosting of your choice)

1. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line 36 muffin cups with paper liners.

2. Prepare brownie mix according to package directions, set aside.

3. Prepare cake mix according to package directions, set aside.

4. Spoon the brownie batter into prepared muffin cups, filling each cup 1/3 full. Spoon the cake batter over the brownie batter, until muffin cups are each 2/3 full.

(I did this one pan at a time, so that one pan was baking as I was filling the 2nd pan)

5. Bake in the preheated oven until golden and the tops spring back when lightly pressed, and a toothpick comes out clean – about 20 minutes.

6. Cool completely, then frost and decorate as desired. Let your other half try one for “quality control” because he (or she) just can’t wait for them to cool.

* If you decide to use a different type of cake or brownie mix than I did, just follow the instructions on the back of the box. If you’re super anti box mix, just use your favorite cake and brownie recipes.