Sweet Drop Biscuits YUM! (Inspired by/for Dad)

Ingredients

• 2 cups original Bisquick mix or any other complete pancake mix  
• 2/3 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons honey                                        
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 chopped ripe banana
• 1 handful rolled oats (optional)
• 2 tablespoons butter (for melting)
• 3 teaspoons granulated sugar (for cinnamon sugar topping)
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon (for cinnamon sugar topping)

Directions

1. Heat oven to 450

2. Stir Bisquick mix, milk, brown sugar, and cinnamon until soft dough forms.  Fold in chopped banana.  Drop dough by spoonful's onto ungreased cookie sheet.  I like to use an ice cream scoop for this part.  Sprinkle with rolled oats to top, this is optional but I love it for the added texture.

3. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until golden brown.  Melt butter in small bowl.  Brush over warm biscuits.  Mix together granulated sugar and cinnamon.  Sprinkle cinnamon sugar over warm biscuits.  Eat! Enjoy! Yum!

These biscuits are my favorite!  They are so easy, delicious, and the ingredients are forever interchangeable.  Try them with shredded cheese and garlic for dinner, or chocolate chips and walnuts for dessert, you get the point!

Adventures in Soup Making - Slow Cooker Potato Soup

What? A set-it-and-forget-it potato soup that doesn't actually need to be topped with cheese? Why yes, such a thing does exist....not that it stops me from topping it with a ton of shredded cheddar and crumbled bacon...but, whatevs.

This is a pretty forgiving recipe, and I've made it with diced ham, bacon, or crumbled sausage. I've even shocked myself and eaten it with no artery blocking breakfast meats OR my beloved cheddar cheese (almost everything is bedda with chedda)!

Without further ado, here ya go:

• 1 pound ground sausage, browned (optional, but could use bacon or ham as well)
• 1 (30 oz) bag of frozen shredded hash browns
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 1 can cream of chicken soup
• 1 onion, chopped
• salt & pepper, to taste
• 1 (8oz) package of cream cheese (do NOT use fat free - it won't melt!)
• 1 tsp seasoned salt
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• shredded cheddar cheese/crumbled bacon to garnish

1. In your slow cooker, add in your sausage, hash browns, broth, soup, onion, and   seasonings.

2. Cook on low for 6-8 hours or on low for 3-4 hours.

3. About an hour before serving, add in your cream cheese (I cube mine up before adding it), cover soup back up and keep heating. 

Makes a great lunch, as it cooks in about 4 hours - especially delicious in the fall!

Nyan Cat Cake Saga

Note to self: never, ever, EVER ask your soon-to-be five year old what kind of cake she wants for her birthday. You'll get a response like, "ummmm a Nyan Cat Rainbow Cake!"

A what?!?!

Soooo...off to Pinterest I went, and I found a few different cakes that would fit my kid's pretty tall order. Ultimately I decided on mashing a couple of ideas together - this one and this one were my go-to images.

I decided to build a 6 layer cake and make each layer a different color of the rainbow - don't worry, I cheated and used a white box cake mix. 

Following the instructions, I mixed the ingredients to make 2 boxes of white cake mix. Using a 1 cup measure, I divided the batter into 6 bowls. I highly recommend using gel food coloring to tint your batter (and the massive amounts of buttercream you'll use to frost this monster) - you will get a much brighter color. After tinting, I went ahead and baked the cakes in 9 inch cake pans for about 13 minutes or so. It helps to have your mom there to stick her hand in the hot oven and touch the burning hot cake with her bare hand to test if done because you're too much of a wuss  busy with other things.

While the cakes cool, make a butt load of buttercream - seriously, I went through like, 3 and a half pounds of powdered sugar. The buttercream recipe I use is pretty simple:

• 2 sticks butter, softened
• a few tablespoons milk
• a few splashes of vanilla
• 4 cups of powdered sugar

Of course, I tripled these numbers...because more frosting = more fun. Just cream the butter in a stand mixer and slowly add powdered sugar, adding milk and vanilla to loosen it up as necessary. I set a small amount aside to tint different colors for the Nyan Cat's rainbow, and used the plain white to frost between each cake layer, plus a crumb coat on the outside. For the very top layer of frosting, I went with a bright sky blue.

To decorate the cake, I used a cherry pop-tart for the body, then free-handed the Nyan Cat's face, paws, and tail in gray buttercream. The facial details had to be done using store bought gel icing (so sue me), and the rainbow coming out of his butt was done in rainbow tinted buttercream.

The best part is when you slice into this bad boy...

Total shock and awe....as well it should have been  - this thing took me hours!!!!

Lesson learned.