u/SwagzBagz

This is Harvey Danger, our foster kitten, on the day she graduated and I took her back to the shelter to be adopted. Good luck little one!

The first two pics are the day we brought Harvey home to foster in mid-July, when she was 6-7 weeks old but barely over a pound. The last three are now, plumped up and sweet as can be. She’s going back to the shelter soon to be spayed and adopted out and I’m so happy for her. 🥹

ETA: if you happen to be in the Milwaukee area, she’ll be available at MADACC next week… 👀

This chocolate mousse cheesecake with Oreo crust is pretty dang good! I was looking for an excuse to use the immaculate springform pan I got for $0.25 at a rummage sale. This recipe takes a while because of all the chilling steps, but all things considered was pretty simple to put together.

https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com/chocolate-mousse-cheesecake/

The President of FIFA is Gianni Infantino - so when I saw this theme I went Infantino > infant > king cake baby. I decorated it with the flags of the final four, then put the baby under the country I think will win - we’ll see if I’m right!

Bonus pic of my first decoration, in which I did the flag of Switzerland instead of England on accident. Thankfully the icing is easy to scrape off.

https://www.explorelouisiana.com/culinary/recipes/traditional-king-cake-recipe

Sure summer/winter are important seasons, but here in the upper Midwest the one with the greatest daily impact is construction season. Inspired by the three (!) different main roads currently ripped up around my neighborhood, for this week I made ice cream cone cakes and coated them with orange candy melts. The coating didn’t turn out quite as clean as I envisioned in my head, but they do make me laugh!

For the 48 hour challenge, I went for quantity. Over the 4th of July weekend my mom and I made ~25 dozen cookies over two days for the soup kitchen she volunteers at. Because of the sheer number we were aiming for, these are cake mix cookies - a box of mix + 2 eggs + a scant 1/2 cup of oil + whatever mix-ins you like makes around 2.5 dozen, and we had 10 boxes. 🍪

Holy crap, 10/10. I could have eaten this whole loaf, and it’s ridiculously quick and easy to make. I think with an additional layer of garlic butter on the bottom of the pan before you put the dough in, it would be 11/10.

https://thesouthernladycooks.com/cheddar-bay-biscuit-bread/

For Berry Week I decided to finally use up the very last of the frozen blueberries from our trip to a u-pick farm 2 years (!) ago. We picked SO MANY guys. Anyway I made them into a quick compote and served with Sally’s mini cheesecakes. Special shoutout to my favorite multipurpose mini glass from the Sprecher Brewery tour, which is exactly the right size to press things into muffin cups.

Tasty on all fronts!

https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/mini-cheesecakes
https://vanillaandbean.com/easy-blueberry-compote/

This is Chameleon, 7 weeks old. She’s just… so little! And so pointy! And so squeaky!

Resident senior cat Karma at the end for balance. 🥰

This is Chameleon, 7 weeks old. We’ve only had her for a few days so she’s in quarantine from our resident cat - we keep walking into her room to find the three of them plotting mischief. 😈🧀

New foster kitten Chameleon (aka Millie aka General Mills aka Little One) reporting for duty 😈

Our new foster kitten: Chameleon, aka Millie, aka General Mills, aka Little One. She’s 7 weeks old, squeaks like a rusty hinge, and is an all-around menace. 🥰

👁️👄👁️

For this week I made butter swim biscuits for brinner. To be honest they were good but not incredible; I had one the morning after and I thought they were actually better after sitting overnight. I would definitely make these again if I needed biscuits for something, as they’re remarkably easy. But I’m not sure I’ll be adding them to my regular baking rotation.

I love a chicken nugget, and I love an Italian herb blend. In this case 1+1=100, they’re so good. I made them for dinner along with garlic cheddar mashed potatoes (sent me down a whole internet rabbit hole re: is garlic an herb? Answer: it depends), snap peas, and the freshest baguette Target can provide. 

The time and temp are based on Sally’s pretzel nuggets, but I use herbed panko.