Cake Batter Bites

Well, we're back from vacation, whomp whomp. On the plus side we had a great, relaxing trip and our MIHM projects for the cabin were so cool! 

The wax votives were so pretty on the cabin deck...

And the breakfast burritos were delicious! After having been frozen for a week, the tortillas were a little tough, but the meat, cheese and seasoned potatoes inside more than made up for that little issue.

The Monday before I drove up to Tahoe, I made a surprise vacation treat: Cake Batter Bites! I've been wanting to make these for a few months now but never had an excuse to. These were relatively easy, but definitely tasted better than the final product looks :)

Simple ingredients: cake mix, agave sweetener, vanilla extract, sweetened condensed milk, and chocolate. 

Mix all of the ingredients, minus the chocolate, using the measurements from this recipe I found on Pinterest.

Chill the dough in the fridge for 15 minutes.

Then roll the dough into bite size balls. 

Melt chocolate and dip the dough into it. I melted chocolate in the microwave and it was SO hot. Using a spoon to cover the dough in chocolate ended up making the chocolate layer chunky, rather than smooth. 

Place the cookie dough balls on a wax paper covered tray and freeze over night.

The final Cake Batter Bites looked a little amateur, but they were actually really tasty. They tasted like cake batter, and were the consistency of cookie dough. Everyone at the cabin loved the sweet surprise. I would make these again, and try to perfect the appearance. 

Lake Tahoe Luminaries

One of our favorite things to do in Lake Tahoe is sit out on the deck of the cabin to relax, read, play games or just stare at the beauty around us! Aside from the lake shore, it is where we will be spending the most time, so we wanted to jazz it up a bit. For our second vacation prep project this week, we created wax candle luminaries which will be used to decorate the cabin's deck.

After a trip to Michael's, my mom was prepared with a candle making kit, wax, red dye, and balloons.

First we filled the balloons with water to a reasonable size.

Then we melted the wax, creating our own double boiler situation.

Once the wax melted, we added red dye. Ultimately our votives came out pink, so we probably could have added more than the recommended 1/8th of the dye bar.

Once the dye had melted, we dipped our balloons into the pot. It was hard to tell where the bottom of the pot was through the red wax so we guessed at how low to drop the ballon. This was a little nervewracking because if the balloon touches the pot at all, it will pop!

To make a thicker votive and form a flat bottom, we let the balloons cool for a few minutes, and then dipped them into the wax a few more times.

After the wax was completely cooled (about 30 minutes later), we popped the balloons over the sink to drain the water. The balloon shriveled right up and was easy to remove from the wax.

To smooth the top edges of our votives, we placed them upside down for a few seconds on a hot cookie sheet. This was a very cool trick! Then we added candles.

With the lights off, our votives look so awesome. When a candle is lit inside, it gives the effect that the whole votive is glowing!

Both Girls Team members really liked these wax votives. We can't wait to see them on the deck of our cabin. They give off a pinkish glow, and look serene and beautiful. We would both make them again! However, they are very fragile, so our challenge now is to get them to Tahoe without breaking or cracking. The only downside to these votives is that the wax making kit is expensive, around $30, so if you're on a budget, it might not be the most realistic project for you. Other than that, we'll add this to the list of clever and entertaining Make It Happen Monday crafts!

We can't wait to see these in action outside in Lake Tahoe :)

Breakfast Burritos

Next week, we pack up and head out for our annual family vacation in Lake Tahoe. Everyone is beyond excited as we look forward to this week all year! This week, we used Make It Happen Monday to prep for our trip. We tackled two projects - breakfast burritos to eat in the cabin and wax candle votives to decorate the deck.

First we made breakfast burritos to freeze and bring for breakfast. We found our burrito recipe via Pinterest on this blog and it was very easy to follow. The most challenging part was actually finding a breakfast burrito that was more than eggs and meat. This recipe calls for potatoes, eggs, saugsage, bacon, ham and cheese.

The potatoes were easy; all we needed to do was cube them, mix them with olive oil and Emeril's seasoning (BAM!) and then roast them in the oven for 30 minutes.

Then we prepared the additional ingredients on the stove: bacon, sausage, ham and scrambled eggs.

After everything was cooked, we formed an assembly line to start building our burritos. We prepared enough food for 14 burritos!

Rolling the burritos was a little challenging, and we did end up with a few square burritos :)

After freezing the burritos for one hour on a wax paper covered cookie sheet, we removed them from the freezer, wraped them tightly in plastic wrap and then placed them in ziplocs for freezer storage.

Our burritos are ready to eat! Although I picked at a few ingredients as we were cooking, we have yet to try them so expect an update following our vacation. all signs point to these being delicious! :) Now visit our next post to check out our second project of the night - wax candle votives!

Summer Reading

Sometimes Make It Happen Monday doesn't need to be about cooking or baking or DIY projects; sometimes it's literally about making something happen. For weeks now, we've been saying that we need to see The Hunger Games movie while it was still in theaters, as this book series has been our stand out series of the summer. So finally we stopped making excuses for not seeing it, and made it happen! On Monday night we went to see The Hunger Games. I don't want to give much away if you haven't seen or read it yet, but it was a very fascinating, and pretty accurate interpretation of the book. We both really enjoyed the movie, and were not disappointed! 


Inspired by a great movie based on a great book, and our passion for reading, the Girls Team is here this week with summer reading recommendations. So pull up a lounge chair, apply some sunscreen and get reading! 

I'll let my mom, the library insider, take it from here:

My first recommendation is "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins. After seeing this book and hearing the hype of this book for years now, I could not believe how much I enjoyed it. It was really well written and so hard to put down. Every chapter was a cliff hanger. I also enjoyed the movie. I thought they did a great job following the book.

I go on reading kicks when I read all kinds of books from a certain genre. Right now I am into Historical Fiction. Here are a few of my recent favorites:

"The Kitchen House" by Kathleen Grissom takes place in the late 1700's/early 1800's on a tobacco plantation in Virginia, and is centered around an Irish orphan girl who becomes a servant on the plantation and the slaves that become her family.

"The Island" by Victoria Hislop is the story of the people in a Greek village and the island off the coast where there is a leper colony. It is set in the 1930's to 1940's.

"The Last Letter From Your Lover" by JoJo Moyes starts in the 1960's when a woman who is suffering from memory loss after a car accident, finds a letter from a man (not her husband!) she seems to have been in love with. 

A couple more of my favorites from my Historical Fiction kick are: "The Dry Grass of August" by Anna Jean Mayhew; "Molokai" and "Honolulu" by Alan Brennert; and "The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet" by Jamie Ford.

I recently read some great books that are not from the Historical Fiction genre, but I really liked them and think they would make a great summer read:

"The Language of Flowers" by Vanessa Diffenbaugh - The story of an 18 year old girl who grew up in foster care and now has to make her way on her own. "Defending Jacob" by William Landay - A respected District Attorney's middle school son is accused of killing a classmate. 


And finally, the book I plan to read this summer is "The Forgotten Garden" by Kate Morton. I have heard nothing but great things about this book and yet it has been sitting on my bookshelf for 3 summers now!

Now let's go back to Casey for her summer must-reads!

My first recommendation is The Hunger Games series. When I first heard everyone was reading this book, I was immediately turned off. I'm not a fan of Science Fiction and I happen to be very skeptical of books with cult followings. But I finally caved, and when I did, there was no turning back. I read all three books in the series in a few short weeks. Competition, girl growing pains, love stories, fantasy, and yes even SciFi, make The Hunger Games one of the best book series I have ever read! 

Introduced to this book by my mom while she was in her Historical Fiction phase, I would also suggest reading "Moloka'i" by Alan Brennert. Set in Hawaii beginning in the late 1890's, this book chronicles the life of one little girl, Rachel, who is sent to the island of Moloka'i after being diagnosed with leprosy. This book is both heart wrenching and heart warming, as we watch Rachel grow from a girl to an old woman at the leper colony. I also really liked the book because my grandpa is from Hawaii and this story made me wonder if we had any ancestors who may have had similar situations as Rachel's family. 

"American Wife" by Curtis Sittenfeld was the best book I read last summer. Loosely based on the life of Laura Bush, this fictional story follows Alice Lindgren, born in the 1940's, as she grows up in the midwest, suffers a tragic accident and then is swept into the life of a powerful Republican family. Her husband's presidency forces Alice to come to terms with many contradictions between her public and personal lives, all of which kept me glued to the pages. 

"Live Wire" by Harlen Coben is another one of my recommendations. Harlen Coben is one of my favorite writers. I've read every book of his, and am always just as thrilled and shocked when it comes to an end. Mixing mystery with sarcasm and contemporary American life, Coben always takes his readers on a ride through kidnapping, murder, secrets and lies - all of which make his books entertaining and easy reads while floating in the pool :)

Lastly, I am recommending "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck, a true classic. Steinbeck is one of my favorite authors of all time, and although I haven't read this book since high school, I plan to re-read it this summer. While dense and dry to some, I find all of Steinbeck's works to be very complete and compelling tales of American life, still applicable to modern day. The reason I want to re-read this book is because I feel like the struggles and trials of the Joads, driven off their homeland during the Dust Bowl in search of opportunities and something better, would resonate now with what's currently going on in today's environmental and economic climate. 

A few more books I would suggest because I love them would be ANY book by Jodi Picault, "The Kitchen God's Wife" by Amy Tan, and for laugh out loud fun, "Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?" by Mindy Kaling (the actress who plays Kelly Kapour in NBC's The Office) and "Bossypants" by Tina Fey. 

We hope that our book recommendations inspire you to read new books this summer. And if you have any favorites, leave them in the comments section below so we can enjoy your suggestions too! 

A Day on the Farm

The Girls Team ventured out on our first Make It Happen Monday field trip! We took a trip up the hill to Patrick's Berry Farm in Camino. Upon arrival, we were given a map of the farm and two buckets. After strolling through the many rows of berries, we decided to pick black raspberries and some boysenberries.

Patrick's happens to be right next to the Christmas tree farm where we cut our tree down every year. (We got a sneak peak at what awaits us this December!)

Rows of berries.

Black raspberries: the darker the berry, the riper it is!

After about 2 hours and $22, we left the farm with 8 cups of black raspberries and 2 cups of boysenberries. We had a great time picking berries. The weather was cool, it wasn't crowded and the trip helped us further appreciate all the work it takes for fruits and vegetables to arrive at our local famers market, ready for us to purchase!

Back home, we searched for a few jam recipes online. Because we were increasing the quantity of jam by a significant amount compared to the recipes, we ended up using multiple recipes as references, a few from online and one on the back of the pectin jar to help guide us. Before starting, we had to sterilize the mason jars by washing them alone in the dishwasher, and sterilize the lids by boiling them on the stove.

The initial process of making jam was easy, so easy in fact that at one point I told my mom we should try to "can everything we could possibly think of!" Little did I know, I would later retract this statement...

Mashing the black raspberries.

Sugar, berries and lemon zest.

As all of the ingredients above melted and began to boil, we added pectin to the mix which gives the jam its sticky, thick texture. We felt like it wasn't thickening enough, and added more pectin. Later we regretted this though, because the jam turned out too thick for our liking.

After melting and boiling the ingredients, we used a jam funnel to put the jam into mason jars. Because of canning, you have to be very careful not to get any jam on the side of the jars. This step was a little stressful for Girls Team.

Once the jam is in the mason jar, we used this silly magnetic stick to take the lids out of the boiling water and secure them onto the jars. I didn't get any good pictures of this step because I was kind of freaking out. Between the pressure to not touch the lids with our hands (contamination!) and trying to screw the hot rims to close the jars (ouch!), I was officially declaring that we would be buying all jam at the farmer's market from now on and unlike my earlier idea, never canning anything ourselves again. (To be fair, my mom actually did most of the work here. I just complained and panicked.)

Once the lids were securely on the jars, we dropped the jars in boiling water and let them boil for 10 minutes. This seals the jam jars. Once sealed, the jam can be stored in a cool place for up to one year.

Here's another tool we had to buy specifically for canning. Man this is an expensive MIHM project! This helped us take the jars out of the boiling water once they were done sealing. We both felt like we could have used tongs here.

And finally, after a day out on the farm and an evening in the kitchen, we could celebrate by spreading our homemade black raspberry jam onto some crackers and giving it a try! We both love the way the jam tastes - it is sweet and fruity, with seeds remaining for that homemade touch. However, it was a bit thicker than we had hoped due to the extra pectin we added in a panic. Next time, we would be more patient and let the jam settle first before adding more pectin. Worse case scenario, the jam doesn't thicken and can be used as syrup or a sweet sauce!

Ready to pass out to family and friends :) Enjoy it now people because you won't see any jam from the Girls Team anytime soon! ;)

Even though the canning part of this project was a little more work than it was worth, we are really happy that we accomplished the challenge of making homemade jam. We also got out on the farm to pick berries, which is something we have wanted to do for a while but never really had a reason to go. And that's exactly what Make It Happen Mondays are all about - tackling a new adventure and trying new things!