Disneyland's Blue Bayou monte cristo

This recipe is inspired by one of my favorite restaurants at Disneyland, Blue Bayou.  I thought about making a healthy version, but this is a recipe you just have to go all in with. And it's worth it;)

Blue Bayou Monte Cristo Sandwich

Serves 4

Ingredients:
1 egg
1 3/4 cups water
1 3/4 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder

8 slices Hawaiian bread (challah works well), sliced 1/2-inch thick
8 thin slices ham
8 thin slices Swiss cheese (make it vegetarian  by removing the ham and add more cheese!)

3 cups canola oil
Confectioners sugar
Apricot/ pineapple preserves (or any preserve)

Directions:
Line a cookie sheet with paper towels; set aside.

Whisk the egg and water together in a mixing bowl. Add flour, salt, and baking powder and beat for 2 minutes. 

On one slice of bread, arrange 2 slices of ham and cheese. Spread preserve of your choice on the remaining slice of bread and place on top.

Heat oil to between 365 degrees F and 375 degrees F in a 10-inch pan. Do not let the oil reach a higher temperature than this. Dip the sandwich into the batter, allowing excess to drain, and very carefully place into the oil.

Cook 3 minutes on each side, or until golden brown. Cook one at a time, and allow the oil to reach the desired temperature between each. Place the cooked sandwich on the prepared cookie sheet in a warm oven until ready to serve. Repeat with the other three sandwiches.

Sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar and serve with additional preserves on the side.

Enjoy! 

More Disney inspired recipes to come:). 

Quick tip for meatloaf

I know, way random. WAY random, but it has to be said. Who hasn't had super cold hands while mixing their meatloaf? Or too tough loaf from mixing in their Kitchen-Aid? So I decided to add all of the ingredients into a gallon plastic bag and smoosh it. Then dump it all in a pan and you're done, plus no hand washing needed.

Gee, this is not an attractive photo:)!

Or put it into muffin tins and bake for only 25 minutes like I do:

My meatloaf recipe can be found by clicking HERE.

I also added this to the following parties:

Matilda's party

Last weekend we had Matilda's 2nd Halloween party and it was fabulous! Great friends, fun food, and cute kiddos in their costumes.

Started off the afternoon with a beer run for the dads. Matilda beer is so appropriate:)

Pumpkin cupcakes topped with chocolate cats and pumpkins.

I love these Dollar Tree bottle labels!

Seven layer spider dip!

Cannolis with tombstone sprinkles.

White chocolate covered Oreos!

Treat bags ala Martha Stewart!

Getting party time cuddles with the birthday girl!

She was cracking up at the Happy Birthday song!

Yes, this is how Matilda eats cake. Straight for the chocolate bats.

One of the take home treats was a Ball jar with frosting, cupcake, frosting. These were a hit!

I made this last year, and it made another appearance:).

Charlotte likes the witch!

Tilly gives that vampire baby from Twilight a run for her money.

Haha!

 Here are some of the cake recipes that I used:

Pumpkin Autumn cake via Country Living.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup(s) (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup(s) firmly packed dark brown sugar
• 1 cup(s) sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup(s) pumpkin purée
• 1/2 cup(s) buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon(s) pure vanilla extract
• 2 cup(s) all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoon(s) baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoon(s) ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon(s) baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon(s) fresh-ground nutmeg

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Directions

1. Prepare cake pans: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly coat three 8-inch cake pans with softened butter. Cut three 8-inch circles out of parchment paper and fit them into the bottom of the cake pans. Lightly coat the paper circles with butter and set aside.
2. Make the batter: Cream butter until smooth in a large bowl with an electric mixer set on medium speed. Add the sugars and mix until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition, until the mixture is smooth and light. Set aside. Combine the pumpkin purée, buttermilk, and vanilla in a medium bowl and set aside. Combine the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, and nutmeg in a large bowl and set aside. In thirds, alternately add the flour mixture and buttermilk mixture to the butter mixture, blending well after each addition until smooth.
3. Bake the cake: Pour batter into the prepared pans and bake until a toothpick inserted into the middle of each cake comes out clean -- 35 to 40 minutes. Cool the cakes in the pan on wire racks for 30 minutes. Remove cakes from pans and return to the wire racks until completely cool.

Honey and Spice Buttercream

Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon(s) unflavored gelatin
• 1/2 cup(s) dark honey
• 1/2 cup(s) sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon(s) salt
• 2 teaspoon(s) ground cinnamon
• 3 1/2 stick(s) butter, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon(s) vanilla extract

---

Directions

1. Combine the gelatin and 2 tablespoons water and let sit for 10 minutes. Bring the honey, sugar, and 2 tablespoons water to a boil in a small saucepan, reduce heat to low, and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool for 3 minutes. Stir 2 tablespoons of the honey mixture into the gelatin until dissolved. Whisk into the remaining honey syrup along with the salt and cinnamon. Strain into a medium-size bowl and beat, using a mixer set on high speed, until doubled in volume and completely cool -- about 10 minutes. Add the butter, 2 tablespoons at a time, while continuously beating. Stir in the vanilla and use immediately or keep chilled. 

Linked to Between Naps on the Porch's tablescape Thursday party!

Melissa's cream cheese potato soup

This is some serious good soup. I have been trying to replicate Grand Luxe's creamy chicken mushroom soup for a while now, and I think I am nearly there.

This is what I have so far. You can add chicken, shredded carrots, mushrooms, and peas if you like. I made this plain with just potatoes and it was SO good. So I will leave you with the plain recipe until the other is perfected.

Melissa's cream cheese potato soup:

- 4 c water and 4 tsp chicken bouillon seasoning. Or just 4 cups chicken broth. I like the seasoning best, because it is cheaper:)
- 4 c potatoes (peeled), this is roughly 4 med/ large potatoes.
- 1 8oz pack of cream cheese, I use the light cream cheese.

The following is to taste, or 1/4 tsp - 1/2 tsp each
- season salt
- ground red pepper
- ground black pepper

Boil your broth and potatoes until tender.

Add cream cheese and stir until melted.

Break up a few of your potatoes with a fork or masher.

Serve topped with bacon and cheese if you like, but I loved it plain.

Melissa's best pancake

So I seem to have fallen in love with pancakes for dinner again. They are so delicious and with my new love of turkey bacon I can't stop. Having had trouble in the past with finding the perfect pancake I decided to post this here. Trust me, after you try this you will be wanting them for both breakfast and dinner.

Here goes:

Melissa's buttermilk pancakes

1.25 c flour
1 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
.25 c sugar

1.25 c lowfat buttermilk
.25 c oil
1 egg
1 t vanilla

Optional- chocolate chips....yum!

Mix the dry ingredients together then add the wet. Of course you know not to overmix and the other joys of making pancakes so I won't bore you. Please try these them let me know what you think!

Charlotte's 4th Princess and the Frog birthday party

We just today wrapped up Charlotte's 4th birthday month of fun. Yes, a full month. It started with our trip to Disney World, got put on hold with my wicked sinus infection, and wrapped up this weekend with her friend party and her real day of birth celebration yesterday. Whew!

Anywho, she wanted a Princess and the Frog party and no matter how much I pushed her towards a really cool Alice party she refused. She would try to please me and agree to the Wonderland themed party but then I would see in her eyes she really longed for a Tiana (the new Disney princess) party. So since I was sick all month and not feeling the whole frog New Orleans party (I mean voodoo and beads for 4 year olds is not so appropriate) I loosely based our theme on the movie. We went with frogs, crowns, and daisies. Simple and still adorable.

So the party started with the invites from my great friend Ruby Dorcas. Aren't they great???

She also helped me find these cute paper dolls online, from Deviantart:

I wish I had time to put this out on party day, a "Pin the frog on the princess" game". I had this picture of Charlotte printed up and used my Silhouette Quickutz machine to cut out frogs. Same as the classic pin the tail on the donkey game but for a Princess and her Frog:)

Kelley from Kelley Kakes  made the cake. I just told her that we were having a frog princes party and that Charlotte wanted the inside purple. She did a fabulous job! To top it off the cake tasted even better than it looked, as if that were possible. Iy you are in the Denver area I highly recommend using her. So good! But I think the picture says it all... 

Here are some of the goodies I made: white chocolate covered strawberries, double stuffed oreos, and pretzels. 

 

The cookie recipe was Allrecipes "the best rolled sugar cookies" and I really think they were! I chilled the mixture for a couple of hours before rolling. I then cut then into flowers, inserted the sticks and baked for 8 minutes. This left me with a nice soft cookie. 

I then frosted them with this recipe that I whipped up:

1c powdered sugar

2t milk

2t honey

1/2t vanilla (you will want to use clear vanilla if you want white icing)

assorted food coloring

First I lined the cookies using leftover melted white chocolate I had on hand from the candies. Next time I will just line then in frosting, or not at all, but I did like how it kept the frosting in place. I then put the icing in a squeeze bottle and began frosting. Pop any bubbles you may have with a toothpick. 

Some more simple decorations:

Hope you enjoyed our "Princess and the Frog" party! I know Charlotte did!

Play with your food

In an effort to make dinner fun I whipped up some meatloaf cupcakes today. Now I know that somewhere out in blogland these have probably been done. That said I am NOT going to google it, because I like to think that these are my very own creation. Oh, and I didn't use the Lipton soup mix recipe, I used my own (which oddly enough had onion soup in it, haha).

Both kids loved this, but honestly I think if I stuck a candle in anything and sung the "unbirthday" song they may eat it. May. So here it is...

Melissa's meatloaf cupcake (I can't stop laughing at the name)

Preheat oven to 350

Ingredients

2 lbs lean ground beef
1 packet of dried onion soup mix
1 egg
1/4 c ketchup
1/2 c breadcrumbs
2 T worcestershire
2 t season all

Combine meat mixture with hands, do not overmix (makes your end result a bit chewy).
Place meat mixture into greased muffin pan.
Bake for 30-35 minutes.

Frosting and sprinkles: mashed potatoes and peas!

Add candle and sing songs for garnish. Enjoy!