Strawberry Lemonade Buttercream Cupcakes

My favorite way to spread love on Valentines Day is straight through the mouth, and into the belly. With sweet treats! This year I came across this recipe for Strawberry Lemonade cupcakes, which looked perfectly pink and sweet for the holiday.

It also ended up being another perfect occasion to use the new KitchenAid mixer since the buttercream frosting requires a lot of whipping.

The resulting cupcakes were very moist and lemony, and the frosting was amazing. I was happy to share the cupcakes with the office because Mr. Homewrecker and I got to enjoy the best part -- licking the frosting off the beaters.

Cupcake transportation tip: Red Jacket Orchard fruit containers from Fresh Direct!

Popovers!

The HSHW household recently bought a KitchenAid stand mixer. You know, the classic ones that every good homemaker should own. And now we do! Shoutout to Target for having it on sale for only $199.99.

I hadn't actually used it yet -- Mr. Homewrecker has been using it to make his from-scratch chipotle mayo -- so I browsed the little cookbook that comes with the mixer and came across a recipe for popovers. For those unfamiliar, popovers are similar to Yorkshire Pudding, which like many English "pudding" dishes isn't anything like the Jell-o we're familiar with. It's bread. And it's eggy and delicious.

I love when the food actually looks like the picture in the recipe

And, as it turns out, they're a total breeze to make, especially with the stand mixer. I'll share the recipe with you all since it's a cinch. The hardest part was greasing and flouring the ramekins. A large muffin tin would work as well.

POPOVER RECIPE from KitchenAid recipe book

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tbs butter or margarine, melted
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp salt

Place eggs, milk, butter, flour and salt in a mixer bowl. Attach bowl and wire whip to mixer. Turn to Speed 4 and beat 15 seconds. Stop and scrape bowl. Turn to Speed 4 and beat 15 seconds more. [Now, if you don't have a KitchenAid mixer, I'm fairly confident this entire step could be done with a hand mixer or a wire whisk and a little elbow grease]

Fill 8 heavily greased and floured custard cups half full with batter. Place cups on cookie sheet. Place cookie sheet in cold oven and set heat at 450 degrees F. Bake for 15 minutes; reduce heat to 350 degrees F and bake 20 to 25 minutes longer. Remove from oven and cut slit into side of each popover. [I guess that's to deflate them? I skipped this step since mine de-poofed on their own after only a moment out of the oven] Serve immediately. Yield: 8 popovers.

Serving suggestion: I think these would go great with apricot jam. Today I had them with Anarchy in a Jar's Hot Fireman's Pear Jam with Chipotle and Cinnamon -- also a great pairing (pear-ing?)

These Cookies are My Jam

This is just a quick post to brag that I have made THE BEST COOKIES EVER. I know I made this claim once before, but this tops it.

Following Thanksgiving I had a stash of leftover hazelnuts -- which, by the way, are really expensive -- and in an effort to put them to use, I checked out this new site Gojee.com. It's not the first site to offer recipe search based on available ingredients, but it is certainly the prettiest I've seen. All the photos are huge and beautiful and made me instantly very hungry.

My search led me swiftly to this recipe for Hazelnut Rosemary Jam Cookies. And, since I had leftover rosemary in the house too, I didn't even have to get out of my pajamas to go to the store for ingredients. For the jam I used two of my mom's homemade preserves, which I always have stockpiled -- raspberry rhubarb and pear. The cookies were super easy to make and turned out perfectly. Seriously, just look at my snapshot above and compare it to Gojee. Pretty good, right? The rosemary gave them a really unique and dare I say fancy flavor. I may even whip up another batch of these to impress my in-laws at Christmas this year.

While I'm bragging, I might as well show off my pumpkin pie that I made for Thanksgiving. Joy of Cooking pie + Bobby Flay's graham cracker crust and some homemade maple whipped cream. So good!

Seagull Living: Week 4

My coupon-clipping, Groupon-buying, leftovers-scarfing journey through November continued. While the Thanksgiving feast ultimately blew our tight budget, we still picked up a lot of deals and freebies along the way. Here's the final round up:

Nov. 22: I took the rest of this holiday week off and spent much of it sleeping in and catching up on projects at home. By staying in my pajamas all day and not leaving the house, I managed to not spend much money.

Nov. 23: We recently started renting a storage unit for our business and received a coupon for a free pizza at Il Porto with the new rental. Cashed that in tonight. Il Porto is a hidden gem on the far north end of Washington Ave across from the Navy Yards. Try the "Navy Yard" pizza with pesto, sopresatta and mozzarella, or the veal scaloppine.

Nov. 24: Thanksgiving! Mr Homewrecker made a beautiful turkey and all the requisite sides. I made a cauliflower, pear and hazelnut dish I saw in New York Magazine, plus clementine cranberry sauce and my first ever pumpkin pie. Yeah, the fixins cost a bit, but it's freaking Thanksgiving, and besides, we're going to live off the leftovers for the next week.

Nov. 25: Saw the delightful new Muppets Movie with a Groupon for $9 admission for two + free popcorn at Alpine Cinema in Bay Ridge. We have rarely gone down to Bay Ridge, and it seemed like "real" Brooklyn to me. Not Cosby show, hipster, stuff-white-people-like Brooklyn where we live. Also instead of Black Friday, we effectively did "buy nothing day" by using this deal and living off turkey leftovers.

Nov. 26: Small Business Saturday. American Express was offering this awesome deal where you register your card with their website and spend $25 or more at any small business that accepts AmEx, and BOOM you get $25 credit on your account. We had a wonderful brunch at Bogato Latin Bistro in Park Slope. Plus, Bogata has deals on Facebook and Foursquare where you get a free side of papas criollas on your first check-in. Scored that too. After brunch we went to Staples and got a Black Friday deal on a paper shredder. Originally $80 -- $20 after the mail-in rebate.

Nov. 27: I'm way into Scoutmob deals now. Tried a cute little Mexican place in Park Slope called El Jalapeno and got 50% off our meal.

Nov. 28-30: Coasted into December eating nothing but those Thanksgiving leftovers.

How did we do? Well, we blew our ambitious $600 food budget big time, but that included a Thanksgiving feast, and still we only spent our usual $800 a month and scored lots of little extras like free coffees and treats. Hardly enough to save our budget, but enough to make each day a little more enjoyable.

Seagull Living: Week 3

Despite my best efforts to scrimp and save this month, the family food budget is already skidding beyond where it should be and we haven't even done all the Thanksgiving shopping yet. Nevertheless, I did find some killer freebies this week, including several of the pumpkin variety!

Nov. 15: Passed a new restaurant on the way to band practice with a sign out front advertising their grand opening that said "Free Coffee. Don't be shy." Don't mind if I do.

Nov. 16: Scored two deals in quick succession today. On my way to Tebaya to use a $5 for $10 Google deal for a Japanese chicken sandwich lunch (plus jasmine tea), I passed the Treats Truck. As I am friendly with the owner, I was gifted a mini pumpkin pie. So cute (and delicious)!

Nov. 17: Keeping the pumpkin theme going, today my friend Ezra tipped me off to a ScoutMob deal at Billy's Bakery for 100% free pumpkin whoopie pies. We met up for a dessert break and then topped it off with two-for-one holiday Starbucks drinks, which was today's special from 2-5pm. Score!

Nov. 18: I earned my free food today. Mr Homewrecker and I served from our mobile food biz in the fancy cafeteria "Cafe 57" at the Hearst building. As a thank you, we got free lunch from the cafe, which was really delicious. I even took a brownie for the road. Passed Nina Garcia from Project Runway on the way out. Then this evening I went to hear my friend Toby read at Book Thug Nation where I gladly accepted a free can of beer.

Nov. 19: With so many good deals the past few days, I was content today to just not leave the house much and graze on leftovers. I also ate the last few bites of my friend Dan's doughnut from Pies n Thighs. Seagull swoopin in.

Nov. 20: A few weeks ago my purse got stolen, which was a drag to say the least. Good news is a woman found it discarded in a nearby park, contacted me, and I got it back, though short about $40, a Metrocard, my iPod and all my credit cards. Another funny upside? All the fraudulent spending the thief conducted on my Banana Republic card before I had a chance to cancel it added up to enough bonus points with BR to score me a $10 gift certificate which arrived in the mail this week. I stopped in an Old Navy this afternoon and discovered there was a 75% off sweater sale happening for TWENTY MORE MINUTES. $10 would easily buy me a sweater at those deep price cuts. I started to panic with the prospect of a free sweater looming over me, but ultimately decided to hell with it when I took a deep breath and remembered that I don't actually want to wear any Old Navy sweaters.

Nov. 21: Last Christmas we took Amtrak to Chicago to visit my parents, and on the way back we got held up by Snowpocalypse. While we were still better off than those who were stranded without flights, I was disappointed with Amtrak's handling of the situation. (We got unceremoniously dumped in Albany and crammed onto charter buses.) My complaint resulted in two $75 vouchers, and today I finally found occasion to cash them in. I had to purchase the tickets in person, which meant making a special trip to Penn Station and dealing with a woman who seems to hate her job and hate helping people like me with coupons and questions about timetables which she did not care to answer. Now I have two round-trip tickets to Boston for Christmas, which at $75 off are still much more expensive than taking the bus, so I'm not sure who wins here. At least we'll have more legroom?

One more week of Seagull Living ahead of me. Get ready for several days of Thanksgiving leftovers. Turkey pie, turkey sandwich, turkey soup...

Seagull Living: Week 2

Week two of seagull-style, food-snatching austerity living was tougher than week one. My enthusiasm for leftovers was waning, but I did score some good deals this week and picked up some Groupons and rewards discounts for later this month.  Here's the run down:

Nov. 8: Didn't score any freebies or deals today, so compensated by eating a dinner entirely of odds and ends from our freezer. A few frozen Trader Joe's meatballs, some frozen green beans, and two freezer-burned bread dumplings that once nuked were no longer fluffy and moist, but more hockey-puck like. Gross. At least I cleaned out the freezer a bit.

Nov. 9: Again didn't score any deals today, so we'll have to count the $2-off happy hour wine I had at Brooklyn Winery where I attended the Work-It Brooklyn social networking panel. Cheers!

Nov. 10: Possibly my most exciting deal of the week, today my coworkers and I walked over to 9th Ave where the Luke's Lobster and Bongo Brothers food trucks were handing out free food as part of a MasterCard Facebook and Twitter promotion. I'd been wanting to try the sandwiches from the new Bongo Bros Cuban truck, so this was the perfect occasion.

Nov. 11: My coworker Jen brought in doughnuts from the Donut Pub, and maybe I had more than one.

Nov. 12: My band played a show in Brooklyn and as "the talent" were entitled to $1 beers all night. Yes please.

Nov. 13: Didn't really leave the house today, but I did a lot of deal shopping online as I planned for the upcoming holidays. Bought a photo album from Snapfish for my parents and scored two more for free with a coupon code. Cashed in some AmEx rewards points for a $75 Avis gift certificate which I'll use for a rental car at Christmastime in Boston. Going to try and shave an extra 10% off the rental with my ASCAP membership discount. I am seriously feeling like an EXTREME COUPONER today.

Nov. 14: Stuck working at the office until 9:30pm. Upside? Boss let us order pizza.

We seem to be on track with our food budget so far, but we're hosting Thanksgiving next week and are sure to go overboard. Mr Homewrecker grew up in Plymouth, MA so he's got a bit of a Thanksgiving dinner precedent to uphold, you know? The trick will be stretching those leftovers until December 1st.

Seagull Living: Week 1

If you know me, you know I'm a bit of a seagull. Ready to swoop in and snatch any leftover snacks. Shameless when it comes to offers of free food. This is why I really don't fare well in open bar situations. My desire to take advantage of free consumables overrides all other logic.

Last month I blew my food budget big time (which I know from obsessive tracking on Mint.com). Now that it's a new month, I'm determined to make up for it. I shaved a whopping $200 off the household food budget for November. In order to make this work, I'm looking for daily opportunities for free food, dining and shopping deals, and any other ways to stretch our budget.

Here's the seagull deals from week one. I scavenged a surprising amount of food from the office:

Nov. 1: leftover Patsy's pizza in the fridge at work from Halloween party; free can of beer offered by friend at band practice

Nov. 2: free fries with the purchase of a burger at Energy Kitchen, who often have deals going if you keep an eye out

Nov. 3: day old Murray's bagel from a work meeting (that I was not even a part of); more than my share of Milano cookies during a work meeting about our new employee benefits; tuna salad made from cans of tuna leftover from our Hurricane Irene stockpile

Nov. 4: toast and jam from delicious leftover rosemary bread a friend didn't use last weekend at his grilled cheese business + free sample of strawberry jalapeno jam from Heat Sweets; can of beer from work fridge leftover from management meeting reception several weeks ago.

Nov. 5: delicious Japanese dinner at our friends' apartment, offered in exchange for advice on how to use Facebook to promote a non-profit. Glad to dispense advice for food!

Nov. 6: watched the NYC Marathon pass through Clinton Hill -- free entertainment! Even chased my friend Colleen for a few blocks -- free workout! Then enjoyed a glass of Willamette Valley Pinot Noir that I got with a $25 credit at Lot18.

Nov. 7: didn't really score any deals today, but did eat one of Mr Homewrecker's delicious stuffed red pepper leftovers for lunch. Shared seagull karma by sending a link to a Scout Mob deal on 100% free fries from Pommes Frites to friends who live nearby in the East Village. I've had more than enough pommes frites lately.

What kind of deals should I get in on this coming week? Send me some tips in the comments.