Y goes domestic!

I had an epiphany today. Lately I’ve been on a baking/cooking spree. I’m not naturally gifted as D when it comes to cooking – I’m the type of gal that needs to follow a recipe. So with the encouragement of my co-worker M, I decided to try and blog (!) about a new recipe every week. Borrowing from M, the series will be called “Y goes domestic.”

So this past weekend was, as everyone knows, Labor Day. D and Y went to a pool/bbq party on Saturday. Everyone had to bring a dish – which by the way, is a brilliant idea and helps out if you’re hosting the party.

The first recipe, red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, I baked the day prior which helped time-wise. I spent the better part of Saturday at Loehmann’s, shopping with one of my best friends, A. FYI – amazing deals. Back to baking…after I came home, I frosted the mini cupcakes. They were too cute! I had never made mini cupcakes before and I wanted to try them out – they were well worth it. Those little delights were gone in no time.

Right before D and I left for the party, we whipped up the second recipe…a spinach and artichoke dip. If you’ve never had spinach dip before, you really must. This recipe was super easy and the only time-consuming part was waiting for the frozen chopped spinach and artichoke hearts to thaw.

I borrowed both recipes from the Food Network. The red velvet cupcake recipe is courtesy of Paula Dean. The cupcake part was super easy but I didn’t have enough time to make the frosting from scratch so I used store-bought frosting. Aside from the time crunch, I’ve attempted making frosting from scratch three times in my lifetime and I’ve failed miserably every single time. Homemade frosting is a sore topic for me.

The spinach and artichoke dip is one of those dishes that people just crowd the table for. I won’t lie – I devoured that thing and I had to remember to let other people try it. D likes food spicy so he added a little bit more of the red pepper flakes than the recipe called for. It was good, it had a little kick to it and everyone loved it!

Next up, I’m making mojito cupcakes!