Funnel Cakes

Funnel Cakes.

I don't even need to go any further, because we all know funnel cakes are amazing and totally worth the 3 million calories that I'm SURE it has.

The Cleveland County FREE Fair is coming up, and to celebrate this event, I decided to pre-fair it up with some funnel cake at home. Granted, it's an adventure on it's own, with grease fires and experiments gone awry. But it was just so much fun to make!

I found the recipe at AllRecipes, which is my favorite site for simple dishes and fun desserts.

 

Kelli's Notes:
- Be CAREFUL when you are cooking this! The oil will drip of the funnel cake or it could splatter if your heat is too high, and everything gets really hot. Never EVER leave the hot oil unattended. 
- Wait until the oil is cool completely before you dispose of it in the sink.
- It gets messy, so you're gonna need lots of room and paper towels!
- Sprinkle the powdered sugar on immediately, and be generous if that's your favorite part!
- The reason I chose a medium-sized pot is to create a size for the funnel cake, which was about the size of the pot, approximately 5 inches wide, which I think is perfect! If you want bigger or smaller funnel cakes, chose a different size pot!

Mini Taco Bites

BOOMER!

Who is ready for football season?!?!

I am so excited!! It's my last OU football season as a University of Oklahoma student, and it's bittersweet. I want to go out with a bang!

I think my favorite thing about football season is the tailgating. It's fun, exciting, entertaining, and social. All of my favorite things. 

Not to mention the tailgating food! It's that time of year to cook up some unique finger foods, whether you'll be eating it on the couch at home watching the tube, or 500 feet away from the stadium under a tent with the rest of your tailgating group. 

 Alright. So let's talk tailgating food. Let's talk Mini Taco Bites.

These can be made with any kind of meat, any kind of cheese, any kind of taco topping. You can fill it with plain cheese if you don't eat meat, you can cook up ground beef instead of chicken, I bet even shrimp could be good! Or just a ton of vegetables! Use your imagination!

Pico De Gallo

Alrighty. If anyone likes Mexican food, then you know that pico de gallo is the best place to start trying to break into the cooking world of dips, quesos, and tortillas.

I've posted a recipe on how to make flour tortillas that are better than any I've had at a restaurant. I've made countless dishes with enchiladas, burritos, quesadillas, queso, chips, etc.

I just googled this recipe, and found it on Spark Recipes. I, of course, modified it to make it taste better. I gave it more kick, and more cilantro, because let's admit it: Cilantro wins it all. It is THE BEST herb out there!

Chocolate Monkey Bites

So even though I've come back to the surface of the earth and will eat some sugar and gluten again, my poor boyfriend still has to live a miserable life of no sugar and no gluten. He chooses to live this way, so whatever floats his boat!

I was feeling generous (it happens every once in a while), and came across one of my favorite blogs new recipe, which is gluten, sugar, and everything free.

INGREDIENTS
1/4 C + 1 tbsp cocoa powder
1/4 C coconut oil, melted
3-4 tbsp liquid sweetener, such as agave
1/2 banana
tiny pinch salt
optional (and highly recommended): 1-2 tbsp peanut butter

DIRECTIONS
1. Combine first three ingredients in a bowl and stir until it makes a chocolate sauce.

2. Pour a little of the sauce (saving the rest for later) into the bottoms of cupcake liners or mini cupcake liners. Freeze 8-10 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, blend (or mash and stir with a fork) the banana, salt and optional ingredients.

4. Take liners out of the freezer and top each with banana mixture.

5. Evenly distribute the rest of the chocolate and re-freeze until solid.

Key Lime Pie

With it being so stinking hot here in Oklahoma, I wanted to whip up a nice light dessert that won't cause me to sweat while I'm eating it. Thus, I came across this recipe, via Pinterest.

Mini Canoli Cups

Holy Canoli! (Get it??) I can NOT get over these! Maybe I'm part Italian, I don't know, but wow! These aren't traditional Canolis, they are baked instead of fried, so it's a little bit healthier (or at least less clogged artery inducing). I'll openly admit that I'm still obsessed, a probably always will be, with Pinterest. Of course, I found the recipe on there.