StarCraft II Protoss Cupcakes

For my husband's birthday back in July I made this cake:

I got the idea for the cake from 2 different sources, but I turned it into one big towering birthday cake. In this post I will describe how to make the Protoss symbols that I put on each cupcake. I made 50 cupcakes and one 8 inch cake for the top of the tiers.

For roughly 54 candy symbols, you will need:

1- 14oz bag of candy melts in the color of your choice. I bought mine at Michael's craft store.

1- 7oz bag of M&M candies. I also bought mine at Michael's because they have a section in their store which sells specific M&M candy colors.

 
1-Protoss symbol template: Right click and save the image below. It is sized to be printed on a regular 8.5 in x 11 in piece of paper.

Several sandwich sized ziploc bags.

Several pieces of wax paper cut to the size of the template.

Double boiler to melt candy melts. I made mine by adding water to a small pot and putting a metal bowl on top of it.

Plastic Spatula

Scissors

Directions:

Turn your stove onto high heat and assemble your double boiler. Pour the entire bag of candy melts into the metal bowl.

 

Stir constantly with the spatula until completely melted. Set it aside for about 5-10 minutes to let it cool down a bit.

In the meantime, print out your template and cut several sheets of wax paper to fit over the template. Clear some space on your counter and lay the template flat with a piece of wax paper on top. Next, cut out a tiny hole on one corner of the ziploc bag. Keep in mind, if you don't let the candy melts cool down a bit it will melt the ziploc bag. Pour some of the candy melt into the bag, squeeze excess air out of the bag, and zip it closed.

You need a tiny hole because each Protoss symbol is rather small. It is better to start with a hole that is too small, which can be fixed, than one that is too big and needs to be thrown out.

I start by outlining the symbol, then I go back and fill it in. You need to be kind of quick while doing this. You don't want the candy melts to turn hard before you finish. As soon as I finish filling in a symbol, I add the M&M in the correct spot.

After I am done filling in all the symbols, I move the waxed paper into the fridge so the candy melts can turn hard. Then I put a new piece of waxed paper over the template and continue. I was able to make 54 symbols out of one bag of candy melts. Make extras, because some will break. 

I ordered 50 black cupcake liners from the internet because I could not find any in stores. Then I frosted each cupcake with dark blue frosting. I was lucky to find frosting that was all ready dark blue since my local Aldi's had a whole bunch of 4th of July themed stuff on sale. If you cant find dark blue frosting, then dye some vanilla frosting with food coloring. Once your done frosting each cupcake, then add a symbol on top.

 I will explain in a later post how I built the top tier of cake and made the Protoss Nexus.

My Favorite Rice. A Recipie Concocted with My Favorite Things

This is my absolute favorite rice ever. I can't believe that I never posted this before. It is full of flavor and is a meal on its own. It is inspired by the traditional Spanish rice cooked with cubed meat. Or try this with bacon, lots of it. Just make sure you drain all the grease out.

Ingredients:
1 can of whole kernel sweet corn
1 can of dark red kidney beans is preferred, or pinto beans work nice too.
1 chicken bouillon
1 small can of tomato paste
1 link, 14 oz of smoked sausage. For lack of a better term, I use the kind of link sausage that resembles the Hillshire Farm brand. My preference is the beef kind but use what ever flavor you desire.
1 TBS of olive oil
1 TSP of minced garlic
1 TSP of dried Italian herbs
1 TSP garlic powder
salt and black pepper to taste
Rice- I think I used 3 cups. Read directions to see how I figure out how much rice to add to my pot.


Directions:
Get a big pot and start heating the olive oil. Once it gets a little hot, turn down the heat to medium and add the garlic. My goal is to extract the flavor of the garlic and cook it until it turns translucent without burning it. If you burn it then start over. I will stir the garlic, remove the pot from heat, stir some more, and add it back onto the heat, several times to ensure that it will not burn.

Once it gets translucent, remove the pot from heat and set aside. Now start cutting up the sausage. I start by slicing it into circles and then cutting each circle into four pieces. Use the entire link of sausage.

 

Once it is all cut, add it to the pot and place the pot back onto the heat. Stir constantly until the sausage turns a little brown.

Next add the entire contents of the cans of tomato paste, corn, and beans.

 

Add the chicken bouillon and stir everything until it is well incorporated.

Now here is the part that is hard to explain. I never measure how much water to rice ratio I use when I cook. So I cant say how much water I added to my pot exactly. The only way I can describe it is to add enough water that it rises approximately 1 inch above all the corn, beans, and sausage mixture.

Now it is time to flavor the water. Add enough flavorings that the water has a slightly over flavored taste. You want this because the rice will absorb a lot of the flavor and it will taste like nothing if you don't add slightly too much. I used dried Italian herbs, salt, black pepper, and garlic powder.

Before you add the rice double check the flavor of your water mixture. Now I add enough rice to the pot that it touches the surface of the water. I think I used about 3 cups but this could vary depending on the pot size you used and how much water you added.

 
JAdd enough rice that you can see it barely coming to the surface when it settles. This is so important. I do this to ensure that my rice never comes out mushy. The worst thing you can do is add too much water which results in mushy rice. Mushy rice can not be fixed. However, rice that is too hard due to lack of water to cook in, is easily fixable by adding more water. In this recipe, I do have to add water a few times but I do it in small increments like 1/3 cup at a time.

Turn the heat down to medium and put a cover on your pot so the rice can steam.

 

Cook it for 6 minutes at a time and then stir the contents.

Repeat this until the rice is cooked. If you notice while stirring that there is no liquid, add 1/3 cup of water. Rice cooks relatively quickly. When it is fluffy, and no longer hard to the bite it is done.

Traditionally, at least in my family, rice is cooked in what we call a "caldero". However, I find that when cooking with this type of pot, the rice burns and creates a crust on the bottom that is just gross to me. Some people love the crunchy burnt crust and eat it. We call this crust the "con con". My family is from the Dominican Republic :). When I cook with a nonstick pot I find that my rice doesn't burn (if you stir properly) and I actually have no waste.

Top it off with some finely chopped cilantro and enjoy!

CVS Freebies

There are some pretty good deals going on this week at CVS, starting today July 24th and ending July 30th.

$1.99 for Paper Mate Grip 8 pack of pens. You pay $1.99 at the register but you get back a $1.99 extra care buck reward on your next purchase making this item FREE. It is limited to 1 offer per card. I have 2 CVS cards, so I got 2 packs.

Get $6 extra care bucks when you buy Bausch & Lomb sensitive multi-purpose solution at $7.89. Get the $2.00 off manufacturers coupon by following the link or find it in the June 12th edition of Smart Source. The total for this is $5.89 out of pocket but you get a $6 extra care buck making this item FREE.

$10 extra care buck rewards when you buy $20 worth of the specified items. To qualify for this deal, I got the following:

2 Skintimate shaving creams at $2.19 each and 2 Schick Hydro razors at $7.99 each. The total was $20.36 but I had two $1.50 off the skintimate shave cream coupons which can be found here, and two $4 off Schick Hydro coupons found in the June 12th edition of Smart Source. Once I added all these coupons, plus the $6 extra care buck I got from the Bausch & Lomb sensitive multi-purpose solution, the total came to $4.79 with taxes that I paid out of pocket. Then the $10 extra care buck printed out so all these items were FREE.

Select Kotex U products are on sale for $3.49 and you get back a $2.00 extra care buck. Use the $1 off coupon found in the July 24th edition of Smart Source, and you pay $2.49 out of pocket, but get back $2 in rewards. This item comes out to $0.49 which is not free but still a good deal.

Lastly, the 8.5 oz Softsoap hand soap is on sale for $2 each. When you buy 3 you get a $3 extra care buck. You need to get 3 of the $1 off softsoap coupons which were printables found online. However, this campaign has now reached its limit. This is why it is important to look at the sales previews for CVS shown on websites such as southernsavers.com which come out before the sales starts. They will tell you which coupons you will need and link you to the ones that need to be printed so you can get them before they run out. If you were able to get 3 of these $1 off coupons, then the transaction came out to $3 paid out of pocket, but you get back the $3 extra care buck, making all items FREE.

The whole point of couponing at CVS is to buy each "deal" separately so you can get the extra care buck and use it on your next purchase. For example, I bought the Bausch and Lomb solution first, so I could use the $6 extra care buck on the whole skintimate and Schick razors deal.

When all was done, I spent $10.99 out of pocket for $52.26 worth of items, a savings of 79%. Plus I was left with $13 worth of extra care bucks, so really I got everything for FREE.

***the $10.99 also includes the 2 packs of 5 count Zrytec medication shown in the photo. They are on sale at Walmart for $5.27 each. I had two $5 off coupons found here, making the total $0.54 for 10 tablets.***

Coffee and FREE cookies back again at Publix!

Today the new Publix sales started for the week and I went early in the morning to make sure they would not be out of stock. I posted about this same deal May 10th 2011. It is just to show you that sales do repeat so make sure to stock up until it comes back again.

This deal ends either on Wednesday July 20th or Thursday July 21st depending on when the sales start in your local Publix. 

At my Publix Eight O'Clock coffee is buy one get one free for $6.60. Plus there were $2 off 2 and $1 off 1 coupons in the smart source June 6th coupon insert. Or you can go to www.eightoclock.com and sign up to print a $2 off coupon. You need one $2 off 2 per every 2 bags you get, or two $1 off 2 for every 2 bags you get. This drops the price to $2.30 per bag of coffee.

Plus be on the look out for the Eight O'Clock coffee bags with a sticker on the front for a FREE bag of Pepridge Farms cookies. I went in and bought 8 bags of coffee, each with one of these stickers so I was able to get 8 free bags of cookies! The bags with the stickers will run out quickly, so go as soon as possible to snatch them up, and don't feel embarrassed to dig deep into those shelves to find them.

Splenda sweeteners are also buy one get one free for $4.29. Click on "promotions" on their website at www.splenda.com to print out a $2 coupon off Splenda Essentials products. You need 2 of these coupons so you can use one on each box which drops the price down to $0.29 for 2 boxes of Splenda. The buy one get one free is applicable to the regular Splenda sweeteners and the Fiber added version of the sweetener. However, the coupons available for these versions is only $1 off. It is still a good deal if you get two of the $1 off coupons dropping the price down to $2.29 for two boxes.

Overall, I spent $18.69 for 8 bags of coffee, 8 bags of cookies, and 2 boxes of Splenda.

I saved $70.61, which is a savings of about 80% off the full price.

Strawberry Waffles with Strawberry Syrup

I had 4 sandwich bags full of frozen strawberries and I decided to use them up with a recipe posted on foodtv.com by Emeril Lagasse. I made my own tweaks to the recipe. I added strawberries to his waffle batter, and for the syrup I removed the orange zest and juice.

The waffles and syrup turned out fantastic! If you are bad at cooking pancakes like I am, then waffles are much easier. The waffle maker does all the work and I tend to not burn my waffles to a black char like I do with pancakes.


Ingredients:

For the Waffles
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 large eggs, separated
2 tablespoons sugar
2 cups whole milk
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Nonstick cooking spray

I added in 3 cups of chopped up, frozen strawberries that I thawed out. You could use fresh strawberries too.

For the Strawberry Syrup
1 pound fresh strawberries, hulled and diced, or thawed frozen unsweetened strawberries (about 3 cups)
1 cup sugar

Directions:

First thaw out the strawberries your using for the waffles if they are frozen. This could take a while. When they are thawed out, they are squishy and juicy which is fine. The strawberries to be used in the syrup can be left whole.

Next, dice up your strawberries. 

Now start mixing the dry ingredients:  flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. At least this is how I choose to make the batter.

Put the butter in a microwavable dish and microwave it until completely melted.

Now mix in all the rest of the ingredients starting with the milk and butter first. Then add the eggs, vanilla, and diced strawberries.

Start heating up your waffle maker. Once it is ready, spray it with the nonstick cooking spray. I added 3/4 cup of the batter to my waffle maker to create each waffle.

I hate it when the batter spills over...

The waffle is done when it is a nice light brown color and is not mushy in the center.

I was able to make 6 waffles with the recipe.

Now get started on the syrup. You might want to this this the night before if you wont have enough time in the morning. It took me 1 hour to cook down the ingredients to the correct syrup consistency.

Add the strawberries required for this recipe and the sugar.

Cook this on low-medium heat for one hour stirring occasionally.

Eventually it will become a syrup. I made mine the night before and stored it in a microwavable dish. In the morning I heated it up for 3 minutes in the microwave.

 After the syrup was heated through, I spread it on top of my waffles. This is optional, but I added 3 heaping tablespoons of yogurt in the middle, followed by a sprinkling of granola. You could add cool whip, sliced bananas, chocolate chips, or anything like that. It just so happened that yogurt and granola were what I had at hand.

I served the waffles with a bowl of watermelon and cantaloupe. I also made an iced coffee drink for my husband who hates hot coffee. My recipe for this is as follows:

Brew coffee as you normally would. Fill 1/3 of the cup with the hot coffee. Then I like to add 2 heaping teaspoons of sugar and mix well. If you like it sweeter add more sugar.

Next add another 1/3 of milk.

Add enough ice cubes that the liquid level rises to the brim of the cup.

You could buy flavored coffee syrups to add a little something extra to the drink.

Enjoy!