My friend Joan came over. We'd pulled a bunch of recipes and were going to cook all day. I highly recommend this activity. First we picked the recipes: Cooking Light's Spicy Peanut Chicken, Williams Sonoma's Split Pea Soup with Ham, and Egg & Sausage Casserole and Skillet Gnocci with Chard and White Beans from Eating Well. Everything was delicious, and we split them and froze a bunch of servings for quick and healthy meals.
Since I had Red Velvet on my mind, and it was Valentine's Day after all, so we also made Paula Dean's Red Velvet Cupcakes*. These were the only let down. The cream cheese frosting was amazing, and they looked really cute, but they don't taste all that great or special. Putting the special Val Day toppings on was my favorite part.
Oh, and we drank Bloody Mary's while we did it, which I also highly recommend.
*Ours were actually orange velvet. Those little food coloring containers are only 1 Tbs. I had no idea that the recipe called for 2 Tbs!? That seems like A LOT of food coloring, no? So, I added the yellow one too. I guess I could have used only the red and maybe gotten pink velvet? Anyway, if you have to buy the food coloring like I did, make sure you get enough.
I have to say that it kind of scares me that there are 2 tablespoons of red food coloring in those cupcakes. It won't ruin them for me but...kind of gross. I feel like that amount of coloring could dye my insides. Now that I got that out, I will go eat one.
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