Potato Patties My Way...

Today I want to share with you my way of making potato patties.  They come out crispy and delicious!!
  

Let's go over the ingredients:
* 5 lbs of potatoes ( I used Yukon Gold potatoes)
* Water 
* Salt
* Pepper
* 2 C Mozzarella Shredded Cheese
* 2 Scallions sliced
* Oil 
* 1 Egg (optional)
* 1 - 2 C Flour 

Let's get started:
 1. First you want to rinse and scrub your potatoes to make sure they are
     nice and clean.
 2. Place potatoes in a pot of cold water. Make sure that potatoes are 
     covered by water.
 3. Cover the pot and bring the potatoes to a boil. 
 4. When the water starts to boil add 1 tsp of salt. Cover until potatoes 
     are ready.
    (the potatoes will be ready when you can poke them easily with a fork 
     or when the peel of the potato starts to crack and peel on its own.)
 5. Drain the potatoes. and place in cold water to cool or just wait for 
     the potatoes to cool.
     (do NOT let potatoes get to cold. Cool just enough so you can handle 
       them with your hands.)
 6. Once the potatoes have cooled you want to peel and place them in 
     a large bowl.
 7. Mash the potatoes and add cheese and scallions. incorporate into
     potatoes until you have the nice soft consistency of mashed potatoes. 
     Taste the mixture for saltiness and add salt if desired.
 8. Scoop a small amount of the mixture into your hand and shape 
     into a pattie. (you can also make them into croquettes or stick shape)
 9. Place patties on a plate and place in fridge for about 10 minutes to cool. 
     (this will help harden the patties so they wont crumble.)
10. After about 10 minutes take out the patties and heat your oil. 
      (Here is where there are different ways of doing this.)  You can whisk
       an egg in one bowl and place 1 - 2 C of flour in another bowl.  
11. Coat patties in egg then in flour. Make sure you shake off excess flour.
      Then place in hot oil. 

* You can completely skip this step and just fry patties in oil without the egg and flour if you like. Or what I like to do is only coat the patties in flour then fry. The flour help keep the patties together and have them not crumble in the oil.

12. When the patties are browned on one side flip to the other.
13. When both sides are done place on a paper towel lined plate and let cool.

You can serve them on their own or with a salad and sliced avocado.  

TIPS:  
 1. Because of the cheese do not let the oil get to hot or the patties will start losing their shape. 
 2. Remember that the frying is only to brown the patties since everything else is already cooked.
     Therefore you don't need a lot of oil .

Please share your pictures or comments as to how they came out when you try them. Also don't forget to leave any questions or comments ( Which are welcomed and appreciated) and I will answer them gladly as soon as I can.            

Enjoy! 
   

Yummy Orange Chicken Thighs

I want to share the most delicious recipe I have for making Yummy Orange Chicken Thighs! My family loves this chicken and my boys can't get enough of it. Which is great because I have two who are very picky eaters. The little one, well he just loves everything I make. 

First let's go over the ingredients:
* 8 chicken thighs 
      (you can use boneless and skinless or any part of the chicken you like)
* 4 tablespoons of soy sauce 
      (feel free to use light soy sauce)
* 4 tablespoons of water
* 10 tablespoons of sugar 
       (feel free to substitute honey or use less sugar. I recommend adding 
        5 tablespoons and then adding it 1 tablespoon at a time until you get 
        the sweetness you desire)
*10 tablespoons of white vinegar
* The zest of 1 Orange. 

Now the directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400° F 
2. Rinse and pat dry chicken thighs
3. Place chicken thighs in a baking pan and set aside
4. In a mixing bowl add the sugar, vinegar, water soy sauce and whisk together.
5. Add orange zest to the sauce mixture
6. Pour sauce mixture over the chicken thighs and cover with aluminum foil. 
7. Place in oven for 20 minutes
8. take chicken out of the oven and flip thighs over.
9. Place back in oven for another 20 minutes
10.Take chicken out of the oven and flip thighs again and leave uncovered
11. Place back in oven uncovered for more 10 minutes
12. When the thermometer reads 180° F the chicken is ready!

serve with rice  and enjoy!!!

Let me know how it came out for you and if you liked it. If there any recipes you'd like to see just let me know. Thanks for reading :)

Chantilly Frosting.

Hi, hope you're doing good. I made a carrot cake this week and I didn't want to frost it with the traditional cream cheese frosting. So I thought it would taste great with Chantilly frosting, and I was right! If you don't know what Chantilly frosting is, let me tell you. It's a whipped cream base frosting. You can add any flavoring you like to coordinate it with your cakes or cupcakes. If you'd like to see how to make it just watch my YouTube video. I'll post the link below.

Watch "Chantilly Frosting" on YouTube

Valentines Day ribbon wreath

I hope the flu hasn't made it to you. We battled it for two weeks. During that time however I was able to make a ribbon wreath for Valentines Day. I an very proud of how it came or because it's the first one I have ever made.
I saw the beautiful Christmas ribbon wreaths that were available and wanted to try to make one but thought it would be a hard thing to do.  Guess what...I was wrong. I want to share with you how easy it was to make.

Materials: wire (a wire hanger works great), ribbon (feel free to use any width 2 inches or bigger, and either mesh or the wired edge one. I used a 2 inch wire end ribbon), transparent tape.

First you want to take the wire and form a circle. if you are using a wire hanger you can either leave the hook and hang your finished wreath from there or cut it off using a wire cutter.I cut mine off and used duct tape to keep the ends together. See the 4th picture. Then take your ribbon and fold the edges in toward the middle of the ribbon and tape it to keep it together. See pictures 1 and 5. Take the taped end and place it on the wire and tape it again to keep it in place. Then I moved down the ribbon about 3  and pinched the ribbon and place the squished part next to the tape you previously placed on the wire and tape it to hold it in place. Keep doing this until you have placed ribbon on the entire wire. The back of the wreath will show all the tape, but the front will be beautiful. All you have to do now is fluff the ribbon so it looks extra nice. See picture 3. You can add decorations to your wreath or leave as is. I added a ribbon and little hearts I made out of foam. See picture 2.

Sorry about the pics being out of order. I tried many times to change this but since I'm publishing from my cell it's acting a little crazy.

I hope you will give it a try and share your creations with me. I'd love to see how beautiful your wreath will be. :-)  until next time xoxo.

Sugar Cookie Recipe

I have the perfect cookie recipe for sugar cookie dough that is great for using cookie cutters and I want to share it. :-)
Ingredients:
* 3 cups of all purpose flour
* 3/4 cups of room temperature butter
* 1 egg
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1 teaspoon almond extract
* 3 tablespoons whipping cream
* 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup granulated sugar
Equipment:
* Electric hand mixer or stand up mixer
* Parchment lined baking sheet (you can also grease the baking sheet)
* Rolling Pin
* Cookie cutter of your choice
* Lightly floured working surface (when you roll out your dough)
* spatula to transfer cookies smoothly to baking sheet
Directions:
Whip room temperature butter until fluffy. Gradually add sugar and egg. Stopping mixer to scrape bottom and sides of bowl. Add vanilla and almond extracts. Add whipping cream. When the mixture is nice and fluffy begin to add the dry ingredients. Start with adding half of the flour a little at a time then add the salt and baking powder. Then add the remaining half of the flour. And mix until it forms a soft dough.
Once everything is mixed together, stop the mixer. Take half of the dough and form a disk, wrap in plastic wrap. Do the same with the remaining half of dough. And put in fridge to cool and firm up for 1 1/2 - 2 hours. Once the dough has chilled, right before you take it out of the fridge. Preheat your oven to 400°F.
Make sure dough is nice and firm before you start to roll it out. Flour your working surface and roll dough to a 1/4 inch thickness. Then place cookie cutter as close to the edge as possible to be able to get as many cookies as you can. Take excess dough and roll out again to cut some more cookies. Use spatula to transfer cookies to baking sheet. Place in oven for about 6-8 min. You want to check on them at the 6 min mark. They are ready when the edges are golden brown. Place cookies (still on baking sheet) on cooling rack to cool. once they are cooled you can decorate as you like.

I hope you enjoy this recipe. Let me know how they came out for you. And if there is anything else you would like a recipe or video for just let me know. :-)

Snoopy Cupcake & Cake Topper

First of all I want to wish you all the best in this new year. It's an opportunity to work hard to make our dreams come true.

I kept myself busy this holiday season not just with planning and decorating for the holidays but also planning Aaron's 6th birthday. This year he wanted a snoopy theme. I made pretty much everything myself because it's hard to find snoopy birthday things on short notice. I want to share with you what I did so you can get ideas for your party needs.

This video will show you how I made the cupcake and cake toppers. Hope you like it. Let me know if you have any questions, or if there's a project you would like to see. :)

Watch "Snoopy Cupcake & Cake Topper" on YouTube

What a weekend...

What an amazing weekend!

On Saturday I was woken up with breakfast in bed. The boys and daddy made me eggs, sausage and pancakes. Along with coffee and orange juice. It was definitely a great start to my day!

Then we went to a Christmas Tree Farm. If you haven't been to one and you like real Christmas trees then I highly recommend you visit one for your tree. We had a great time! When we got there, we were taken out to the trees on a tractor ride. Then we got to walk around the trees to pick the one we wanted. Once we chose our tree, we told one of the employees who then gave us a saw to use. It was a thrilling experience to get to cut down our own tree. Then they put a tag with our name on it and gave us a ticket to give at the register on the way out. We rode the tractor back to the entrance and paid for our tree. We went to get the car and they loaded it and tied it for us.

We came home and decorated our tree. Then we went to the Holiday Stroll in our town. It was great! We visited with Santa, roasted marshmallows,  watched a movie, and at the end of the night we took a hayride around downtown. It was spectacular, definitely got our whole family in the Christmas Spirit!

On Sunday we went to church, and did a little Christmas shopping. I also made the wreath for our door. Here's a pic...