I'm back!

Apologies for the long absence. Life got in the way. I haven't done much cooking the last week or so. I had good intentions and then I was asked to make cupcakes for a work birthday, which I thought I needed to do by Friday. So, Tuesday (last week) I went to the store to get the ingredients, then planned on baking them on Wednesday and filling and frosting on Thursday. I bought deli ham on sale because it's an all purpose deli item - delicious for breakfast, lunch and dinner. There were two nights of brinner grilled cheese (breakfast for dinner) - basically an egg in a grilled cheese sandwich. But, then cupcakes got delayed until Monday, which means I had Sunday to make them. But, Friday evening and Saturday had work required events. And the grocery store was crazy on Saturday afternoon when I finally did get escape from work. I did make chili over the weekend, and last night was happy hour. I guess that's how I managed to go about a week without really cooking.

But, let's talk about the cupcakes. They are my traditional St. Patrick's Day cupcakes, but one of my colleagues favorite and it was her birthday. They're a chocolate cupcake (Devil's Food Cake mix, sometimes made with Guinness instead of water), a chocolate mousse Irish Whiskey filling, and Irish Cream buttercream frosting. Since I'm being frugal, I decided to make the Irish Cream instead of buying it (I was already buying whiskey). I found a really good bourbon cream recipe I made as a gift for Christmas and all I had to buy was condensed milk (I was already buying heavy cream for the cupcake filling). I use this recipe. It's really good, but I think it does need to sit a day or two to be really good. This is a picture I took from when I made them in September - halfway to St Pat's Day. Now, I need to think of another St Pat's kind, although I was assured no one would mind having them again in just over a month.

Not sure what the plan is for the rest of the week. I bought chicken breasts (since they weren't much more than whole chickens) to cook in the crockpot, but forgot to buy potatoes. But, I think that will be dinner tomorrow night. I'll set it up tonight with the timer and then stop at the store for potatoes on the way home tomorrow night. There will probably be another quiche because I have heavy cream left over.

I'm going to try to keep this updated in the future, but we're entering my busiest time at work for the next three and a half months. We'll see how it goes....