They were a big hit and very easy. That’s my idea of success!

To make them you need a white cake mix, icing, cupcake liners, and food coloring.

Line your muffin pan with cupcake liners and prepare the cake mix like the box tells you to. Then separate the batter equally  into six cups.

Add food coloring to each cup…

Purple: 9 red, 6 blue drops

Blue: 12 drops

Green: 12 drops

Yellow: 12 drops

Orange: 12 yellow, 4 red drops

Red: 18 drops

Have your little helper stir until the colors are smooth.

Layer the batter in the cupcake liners. Start with purple on the bottom and layer until you have red on top. Fill wells about 2/3 full.

Bake as directed on the back of that fancy white cake mix box. Let cool, frost, and voila! Yummy rainbow cupcakes.

Alas, I should not have judged Mr. Leek by his unfortunate name. For leeks, as it turns out are ABSOLUTELY fabulous.

I had a heck of a time finding them in the produce section this morning while trying to soothe a screaming baby on my hip. I thought I had grabbed them and then asked the produce man if the stuff I was holding were indeed leeks. He said “Nope. That’s bok choy.” Sigh. Thankfully, he showed me what they were:

They look like monstrous green onions.  Phyllis Grazer calls them “a kissing cousin of garlic and onion.” She’s right, although that’s a real creepy way to say it.

I cut ‘em up like this and rinsed them well because the suckers are sandy:

I have no clue if that’s how you’re really supposed to slice a leek, but it worked.

Why did I need leeks, you might ask? I needed them to make Pioneer Woman’s potato-leek pizza. It has homemade crust, bacon, red potatoes, mozzarella, goat cheese, and leeks. What’s not to love?

Let me tell you, it was so, so gooooooood. And you *know* I am not a savvy cook. Need I remind you of this?

I am a little obsessed right now with Ree’s cookbook (thanks for a super Christmas present, sis!). I made her olive cheese bread and enchiladas last week and amazingly, I didn’t screw ‘em up. They were yum-o. If you’re looking for easy, tasty recipes with step-by-step pictures for the culinary challenged like moi, this book is for you!

If you haven’t tried a leek yet, go get you some! And if you have tried them, do you have a recipe you’d like to share? I wanna get leeky with it.

I’ll have a tutorial up for the mystery craft next Friday.

PS – I was going to write the tutorial for the stocking tonight but I’m too lazy (grin). I’ll have that next week for ya too

Brad was gone all week for work (San Francisco – tough life, right?) and the girls and I ate dinner at home two nights. One night we had sandwiches (clearly, they were turkey with American cheese, being the culinary expert I am). And tonight I made the most disgusting, inedible, all around nasty pot roast. Kate said “This is not so yummy.” Sweet girl. It was so, so much worse than “not so yummy.” My drive to cook well is diminishing at a rapid pace.

On a completely unrelated note, do any of you peeps do Zumba? I take yoga and kickboxing classes at my gym. Occasionally I’ll take a step class if I feel like being embarrassed by my inability to face to the right direction Back to Zumba. The yoga teacher I love teaches Zumba and she says you don’t have to be *ahem* uber coordinated to get an awesome workout and keep up. Is this true? Or should I stick with inner peace on one day and kicking the crud out of someone the next?

Okay, gotta go watch Project Runway and Real Housewives… OMG, friends, Orange County’s back on tonight!! Weeee hoooo!!

xoxo,

Bleh. I made three things: London Broil, popovers, and a salad with homemade Caesar dressing.

Let’s start with the steak. Okay, seriously. Where did I go wrong? The recipe said to broil my tenderized flank steak 4 inches from heat for 5 minutes. Then, I was supposed to turn the steak over and broil for another 3-5 minutes. I did 5 minutes on the first side and 4 minutes on the second side. I even measured to make sure the broiler pan thingy was 4 inches from the heat.  The steak was a rubbery mess. Edible? Kinda, sorta. Tasty? No. It tasted like a steak you would get at the Sizzler that was under the heat lamp all day. I snapped pictures but it turns out poorly cooked steaks are really gross to look at so I’m not going to make you suffer.

That’s okay though, because I still had opportunity to shine with the popovers, right? Here’s what my cookbook told me my popovers should look like:

Cute, right? I was feeling really optimistic as I put them in the oven, looking like this:

My optimism dwindled as I took them out of the oven looking like this:

You think that’s funkified? Wait until you see what they looked like after I popped them out of the ramekins:

What in the world? How is that even possible? My poor, pathetic, tumorish popovers They tasted good but were so fugly.

Finally, my salad. I used Dole’s Sassy Baby Blend:

I added tomato, orange bell pepper, croutons, and freshly grated Parmesan cheese. So far so good. Enter homemade Caesar dressing. The recipe called for one tin of anchovies. I’ve never made Caesar dressing before so I didn’t think anything of it. Um, one tin of anchovies is way too much. After eating the salad, I smell like a fish died inside me. Not kidding.

Overall… solid effort, miserable results. I gave myself a C- because I think trying counts for something, right? We’re having leftovers tomorrow (wow, everyone is so excited about that in my house as you can imagine) and Thursday I’m going to try roasting a chicken. God help me.