Simply Made Sunday--In the Kitchen With Mom

Welcome to another week of Simply Made Sunday-In the Kitchen With Mom! Since this is only the second week of my new carnival, first, I'll tell you what Simply Made Sunday is, rules for "linking up" and participating, and then I have two recipes to share with you from our kitchen this past week. After this week, I will be including a link explaining details and rules for participation, instead of including them in the weekly post.

What Is Simply Made Sunday-In the Kitchen With Mom?
Simply Made Sunday is a new linky carnival I will host each Sunday here at Our Homeschool Fun. Each Sunday I will share anything I've created in our kitchen either with, or for my kids. This may or may not be something edible. I've found myself posting recipes for a couple of months now from our weekly kitchen fun and I thought a linky carnival centered around just this would be a super way to bring together lots of fun kitchen crafts and recipes to share with others. This brings me to the rules for participating....

Simply Made Sunday Rules For Participation:

1. You may share recipes you have made currrently, or have made in the past--in other words, older kitchen creation posts are welcome any time!
2. Your kitchen creation link does not have to be edible--for example, all homemade play dough recipes aren't edible, but would be a great kitchen craft to share.
3. Your kids do not have to help make what you link up, this can be something you've made with them or for them.
4. Please make sure and include a link back here to my blog, the home of Simply Made Sunday, in your post.
5. You do not have to, but it would be greatly appreciated:-) if you used a Simply Made Sunday button in your post--you can grab one from my sidebar!

I will post Simply Made Sunday each Sunday morning. You are free to link up your post anytime from Sunday to Sunday. I will leave the linky up all week, and will not be removing linkies from week to week so we can always go back and get older recipes if we desire!

If you have any questions leave a comment or email me--customblog@gmail.com, and I will gladly answer you! Now, here are my Simply Made Sunday recipes from our week of fun in the kitchen!

Homemade Strawberry Cupcakes
I made these for our Muffin Tin Monday meal this week. This is a recipe I have had for years for a strawberry cake, but I chose to make cupcakes with it, and they turned out just as good as our cake does. (This is a recipe I use each year for my husband's birthday cake--he loves strawberries!)

Ingredients:

• 1 Pilsbury Pudding in the mix box cake mix
• 1 container of frozen strawberries, thawed
• 1 small pkg. strawberry Jell-O
• 3/4 c. oil
• 4 eggs

Directions:

1. Mix 1/2 c. boiling water with jell-o until dissolved.
2. Stir 1/2 c. of strawberries, using most of their juice into the jell-o and set aside.
3. Mix remaining ingredients well in a large bowl (I use my electric mixer).
4. Stir in jell-o/strawberry mixture.
5. Pour into layer pans or cupcake tins (I always use Pam for baking spray). *Will make two layer pans, or 24-30 cupcakes.*
   
6. Bake at 325 degrees for 40 minutes.

I usually use the frosting recipe below, however, this week I used Cool Whip to save time.

Frosting Ingredients:

• 1 box powdered sugar (or about 4 cups)
  
• 1 stick margarine or butter
• what's left of strawberries and juice (not used in cake recipe)

Directions:

1. Blend together all above ingredients and frost!
   

My little helper and I also made some very, very delicious banana bars!! I had overripe bananas I wanted to use so we tried a new recipe from a book I have, Amish Country Homestyle Cooking. This is the best banana recipe I have ever made! I have eaten so much of this--it won't be made too often, because it's not safe for me to have around:-)!!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 c. butter, softened
• 2 c. sugar
• 1 1/2 c. mashed bananas (about 3 large bananas)
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 c. plain flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda

Directions:

1. Mash bananas.
   
2. Mix above ingredients in electric mixer in order given.
   
3. Spread on a greased cookie sheet--I used Pam for baking, and did spray the sides, as well as the bottom. *I used a medium sized cookie sheet because I did not want my bars to be super thin.*
4. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. (Top will be pretty brown, but bars will be moist inside.) *I refrigerated my bars. I thought they were even better this way because they became chewy, like a brownie. However, my husband preferred them unrefrigerated because they stay "fluffier".*

Frosting Ingredients:

• 1/2 c. butter, softened
• 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
• 4 c. powdered sugar (1 regular sized box)
• 2 tsp. vanilla

Directions:

1. Mix all ingredients above with electric mixer until blended very well and frost cooled bars.