Lately

May 16, 2014 / mikeysinmykitchen / 1 Comment

My friend Jenna is a super talented wedding photographer in the midwest and she asked if she could stay with us while shooting an engagement in Chicago. While here, she snapped some pictures of me and our little apartment. The pictures turned out beautifully and she had me cracking up at her dirty jokes. She is multi talented (as you can see from her blog) and made an amazing video of our friend giving birth, as well as fun family photos and blogger profiles. She took the picture on my sidebar/below plus many others…now go check out her blog!

Photosbyjennaleigh.com

Continuing on with my “Lately” post from last week…here are a few of the things I’m loving this week. Happy Friday!

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Coconut Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream

May 15, 2014 / mikeysinmykitchen / 8 Comments

Samoa Girl Scout Cookies were my muse for this coconut cupcake.

Vanilla coconut cake, chocolate frosting, toasted coconut, a drizzle of caramel…

My favorite flavor Girl Scout Cookie changes every week. One week it’s a Samoa, the next it’s a Thin Mint or Do-si-dos.

I have all three in my freezer and was inspired to create a cupcake like the Samoa. It turned out great and I highly recommend you try them! I added caramel to a couple but didn’t like how the pictures looked and decided to scrap the caramel on the rest.

I was never a Girl Scout. I don’t know if I even really knew about Girl Scouts until I was too old and it was weird to join. But I sure do love the fact that cute little girls ask for money in exchange for boxes of the worlds most amazing cookies. So good. Also, this has nothing to do with these cupcakes, but I also love that Boy Scouts sell bags of caramel and cheese popcorn for like $15 and I still buy it every time! WHO CAN SAY NO TO CUTE KIDS SELLING MY FAVORITE FOODS?!?! Whoever is running those Scout’s is a genius. I will never say no to cookies or popcorn. It would go against everything I stand for.

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Classic Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

May 12, 2014May 12, 2014 / mikeysinmykitchen / 4 Comments

I made this frosting to top some coconut cupcakes and figured I would share the recipe for the frosting first.

It is like a giant fluffy pillow with a slight chocolate flavor and a smooth buttery finish. In other words, heaven.

As you know, my Mom is the reason I bake, she taught me everything I know and was constantly baking and in the kitchen when I was a kid.

She often made frostings and would always save the extra frosting for my Dad, who loved to put it on graham crackers. He’s a genius. It is now one of my favorite late night snacks and there is almost always a small container of frosting somewhere in our freezer for those late night cravings!

If you have been searching for a go-to chocolate frosting I can assure you you need not look any further. This is a simple, light and perfect chocolate frosting for any dessert or baked goodie.

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Fresh Strawberry Margaritas

May 5, 2014 / mikeysinmykitchen / 3 Comments

Happy Cinco De Mayo!

Let’s celebrate with this delicious and pretty strawberry margarita!

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Lightened-Up Tuna Salad

April 30, 2014April 30, 2014 / mikeysinmykitchen / 7 Comments

I have very specific memories of tuna salad from my childhood.

I hated it.

We had a lot of silly and fun family traditions when I was growing up and one of them was our Sunday tradition.

We would wake up and have donuts (which I didn’t love as a kid. I know, I was insane). Then we would pile into the car and go to church and Sunday school. After church my Mom would buy the newspaper at the tiny grocery store in town and we would head home for a delicious homemade brunch.

We would then impatiently wait for our cousins to pull into my Grandma’s driveway across the street. My brother and I were blessed to grow up with our Grandma and Grandpa across the street from us for a few years. It was the best. Every Sunday my Grandparents would have everyone over for football, food and fun. We spent the summers down on the water and the winters in the basement playing dress up (the boys played Atari and traded basketball cards).

My cousin Brook and I would always cry when it was time to go home because we knew that meant homework/winding down to go back to school on Monday. We called them the Sunday night blues. I still get them after a super fun weekend comes to an end! I had a super bad case of the Sunday/Monday/entire week blues a couple weeks ago after an amazing weekend in California at Coachella. Those blues were entirely too hard to shake, but I think I’ve recovered…

So anyway, back to the Sunday tradition….We would then head back across the street, meltdowns subsided (or not) and my Mom would do snack-dinners. We would have popcorn, or nachos, cheese and sausage with crackers…and sometimes my Mom would make tuna. It was usually just for her, no one else really ate it in the family, but I remember I always wanted to like it.

It looked so good smushed between two pieces of toast and she would always offer it to me…but no matter how hard I tried, I always hated it. I wanted it to be chicken. Tuna was just a bit too fishy for me.

I’ve grown up a bit now and my taste buds are officially mature! I am proud to say I will eat just about anything (aside from certain body parts that should remain on an animals body and not in my stomach). So all that to say…Mikey and I will have tuna salad from time to time, but I never like to make it with mayo. I just have a hard time smothering healthy food in a blanket of fat. Even if it is delicious fat. So I made up this recipe and used some ingredients I had on hand to make a little homemade and lightened up sauce. It turned out great!

This recipe is similar to my Basil Parmesan Chicken Salad, which is one of the most popular recipes to date on my blog! It’s delicious and super easy for lunches, especially with the warm weather that ( has to be, please!!?!) is on its way.