Breakfast Wrap, Tuna Salad and Cupcakes!

Omigosh, has it been two weeks since I've written for this blog?

It’s not that I haven’t been thinking about food. Or cooking. Or even taking photos. I have--all those. Just no long step-by-step creations. More in the line of take each day, one step at a time (step by step). Whatever comes of it, that’s what you have.

There has been so much heat in my life for the past couple of months. Remember the trip to Maryland and the 100+ degree days? We’ve had some pretty hot ones back here in New York State too. Now, however, it’s cooling down (80s are cooler, while I crave the 70s more than I used to when I was younger.)

Even though it’s cooler outside, I have to pick and choose what I cook and the times of day I cook ‘cause I’m in an upstairs apartment and it can get really hot and muggy in here. Just one little air conditioning unit doesn’t always cool things down enough to suit me.

Okay, enough of that. What I have to offer today are a couple of things I cooked for meals and some cupcakes I put together out of a boxed mix (cringe!).




BREAKFAST...
I like lots of ingredients, colorful and tasty, yet nutritious.

For instance, when I had a bowl of oatmeal this morning, I added a cut-up banana, a couple of teaspoons of organic flax seed (ground in my coffee grinder), cinnamon powder, sliced almonds and almond milk.

But, no photo of oatmeal. Who wants to look at pictures of oatmeal? Not me. In spite its yummy taste, oatmeal -- any way you dress it up -- is not that pretty. (Unless, of course, it’s part of Chocolate No-Bake Cookies!)

Instead, what you get are these pictures of my Breakfast Wrap...

* 90-calorie spinach Flat Out flatbread
* Morning Star Farms veggie bacon strips
* light sour cream
* shredded carrot
* eggs
* parsley
* kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.

I found a wonderful recipe on Helium http://www.helium.com for scrambled eggs, and I wanted to give you the link as well as give credit to the author of the article. But, now I can’t find it! Here are the instructions to the best of my recollection.

1. Crack egg(s) into small dish. Do not stir. Pour into hot (medium heat) pan and stirring constantly, cook till starts to set. Lift pan off heat for a few seconds as you continue stirring. Put pan back on heat. Do this 2-3 times till eggs are set the way you like them.

2. Remove the pan from the burner and stir in a teaspoon or two of sour cream (depending on how many eggs you’re cooking) and some salt and pepper.

3. If you decide to add any extra ingredients, such as diced onions or parsley, do your prepping beforehand and add them at the end. (Items that need cooking should be cooked and set aside until the eggs are done.)

LUNCH OR SUPPER...
Again, colorful, tasty and nutritious.

A salad -- always easy and quick to prepare. Just check the frig and the cupboards for ingredients to mix and match. In this case...

* leafy green lettuce
* cherry or grape tomatoes
* yellow summer squash (from a neighbor’s garden, sliced and lightly steamed
* shredded carrots (steamed with the squash)
* a whole (small) can of tuna in water -- drain off the water before adding to the salad

Arrange artfully and appealingly! Top with your favorite salad dressing.



DESSERT...
Perhaps my best cupcakes ever.

I had a coupon, so I cheated and bought Betty Crocker “FUN da-middles”: cupcake mix with creamy vanilla filling. Couldn’t help myself! There was a great coupon in the Sunday paper, so I got myself a deal when buying two boxes. I baked the vanilla version (as is obvious in the pictures). Love the filling--it’s marshmallowy!

Mmmmm, cupcakes even look yummy in black and white...

The icing came straight from my freezer. Homemade. Leftover. From Coconut Rum Cupcakes that I made for my son’s birthday. The texture and taste of the cupcakes was pretty bad, so I quickly removed that “pin” from my Pinterest cupcake board! The icing, on the other hand (with its tiny addition of coconut rum) was the best!

Doesn’t this picture make you a wee bit sad that you weren’t here the day I made them. I handed most of them out to neighbors.

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Basil leaves and a marigold from my little garden...

Organized Kitchen, Organized Cookie Mixes

Monday, I think it was, when the weather was so-o hot and humid. I wanted to bake, but didn’t want to risk turning on the oven and making the entire (upstairs) apartment any hotter than it was.

As I wandered around Pinterest, I came across an idea for making cookies mixes -- dry ingredients only -- and thought to myself: Aha, a way to cook (kind of) without actually cooking! You can see the actual blog post itself at FAKE IT FRUGAL.

Now you’re probably wondering why I titled this blog post Organized Kitchen, Organized Cookie Mixes. It’s because organization fits in with my cookie mix adventure. After I’d made two bags of each of four kinds of cookies...
* Chocolate Chip (I used chocolate chunks)
* Sugar
* Oatmeal Raisin
* Gingerbread
I needed some place and some way to store them. Well, I really do intend to give my daughter some of the duplicates for her boys, but in the meantime, I needed a way to gather them up.

Tuesday I went shopping, at Wegmans of course, and while there came across a cute basket of just the right size for $1.29.

I’ve been reading a couple of blogs about organizing your home. Wish I’d found the great organizing ideas on them years ago, back before I even had a computer.

Now that it’s just me, I don’t have as much to organize as I did when the family was growing...
Me and Hubby #1
Me and Hubby #1 and son
Me and son and apartment-mates (another mother and son)
Me and Hubby #2 and my son and his three kids
Me and Hubby #2 , my son, his three, and our daughter
Me and daughter (son flew the coop and made a career in the USAF)

You get the idea. We needed so badly to have some kind of systems set up.

Fast forward to the present. I’ve been reading ORGANIZING MADE FUN and I (HEART) ORGANIZING and was inspired to buy baskets and little white racks.

Plates, bowls and glasses are so much more organized now that there are two racks instead of high stacks of plates.

I keep medicines in the kitchen; bathrooms are often too hot and humid. That’s the basket on the top shelf. The bottom shelf has the rack, with a basket of herbs beneath it and spices on it.

This lower shelf was organized before I added the rack, but that meant I had to remove the whole stack if I wanted something on the bottom.

Another lower shelf. The black case is a hand mixer that I used to place upright on the right, with the basket of oils and vinegars beside it. It was awkward and when I wanted one of the bottles I had to lean way down (or squat -- awkward!), sometimes having to remove the mixer to pull the entire basket out to reach something in the back of it. Now that the rack is there, I stored the rarely used hand mixer at the lowest level and placed the basket on the top where I can easily slide it out.

I’ve organized other areas of my apartment, most notably a huge closet in the front room, but we’re sticking to the kitchen and maybe you’ll get some good ideas -- or give me some!

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LIKE Step by Step in the Kitchen on Facebook. I'll be posting extra notes and photos there.