Saturday with the Family in the Kitchen!

Today was my husband's first day off for about 2 weeks. I've missed being with him during the day so much! Since it was his day off though we had a few things to do, and one of them was head over to my Grandma Bette's apartment to pick up a solid wood bookcase that she was giving us. We of course brought the twins over with us (Ares was with his dad so that's why he wasn't there) so they could get sometime with their Great Grandma. Aren't they all so cute!

 

 

Then my wonderful husband made plans for my Dad to watch the girls so we could go have a lunch date! This was awesome since I don't remember the last time we had any time for just the two of us. It's probably been since May! Even though it was for only 2 hours it was nice. :) We then picked up Ares from his dad's and went home so I could begin making dinner, and the truffles I needed to make for our family BBQ tomorrow. For dinner I made Shrimp and Cajun Rice. Here are some pictures of our wonderfully yummy dinner!

 

I got the recipe from http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/cajun-shrimp-and-rice-recipe/index.html

 

Then I spent the rest of the evening making two different types of truffles for my family's Labor Day BBQ tomorrow. The first batch I made was Lemon White Chocolate truffles, but those didn't turn out so well because I burnt the last bit of the chocolate, and I couldn't get all of the burnt chunks out. Talk about bleh! The next set of truffles I made though were delightful!  I made Cake Batter Truffles! Since we don't have an electric blender I asked my dad today if I could borrow his. He gave me two. One was an old electric one from the 50's and the other was a hand crank one. Ares and I tried out the hand crank one first. Boy I am going to tell you now that I give Kudos to those women who used one of these all the time! It wasn't to hard at first, but once I added the milk it got just too thick for me to turn the handle physically so I had to change to electric. Ares didn't mind at all because he just licked the dough off the hand cranked ones (there's no egg in this recipe so it was fine). 

Here's my little helper!

 

After mixing all of the ingredients I rolled them into what were supposed to be 1in balls. I did decently well though considering my past in rolling out truffles. I usually make them giant sized.

 Once they were all rolled out I stuck them in the fridge to harden a bit. I then melted the chocolate and learned a new way to dip them in the chocolate so it's not as messy as I've been doing it for the past 3 years. You use a fork and you dip it in then you tap the fork slightly on the edge of the bowl to get the excess off and then put them in the pan. Simple! Wish I'd thought of this a long time ago.

 

I should also point out one thing about the picture above. As you can see there isn't any foil or wax paper underneath them. Yea I just learned the hard way that was a bad idea. I had run out and thought, "Hey maybe I don't really need it they should just pop off." WRONG!!! Use the wax paper or foil because otherwise they crumble in your hands as you pull them off the tray. I know people will probably read this and go DUH! but hey I am new at this whole cooking thing I have to learn by trial and error. Laugh if you must, but hey I'm not embarrassed or ashamed. I learned a lesson didn't I, and if I can give you a good laugh then that makes it even better because in life you should laugh as much as want.

 

The recipe for the cake batter truffles came from: http://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/2011/03/cake-batter-truffles.html