Thanksgiving Leftovers

Using leftover sweet potatoes (organic I might add), I made sweet potato empanadas. I used the recipe below from allrecipes.com, but with a few variations. I used half whole wheat flour and half cake flour, I only chilled for an hour, and I rolled out 1 and 1/2 inch balls of dough individually instead of using a cookie cutter to make the shape. These are great with any type of filling that is thick enough not to leak through. I love to use pumpkin, guava paste, and apple pie filling, but I usually use powdered sugar for the guava and apple fillings. Delicious and bite-sized!

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Empanadas/Detail.aspx

These Cupcakes Are Worth $400

This past weekend, Emilie, Irma, and Christina held their 2nd-annual Thanksgiving Cupcake Bakeoff! It all started last year when Irma was asked by a priest at our church to help her make a dinner (our church does a Dinner Drive where members make Thanksgiving meals, and on Thanksgiving Day they're delivered to needy families). To defray the cost, she asked the sisters to help her make Classy Red Velvet Cupcakes to sell to our family and friends to raise money for it. It was a big success!! This year, even though she wasn't asked, we all thought it would be a good idea to do it again. We baked a lot of cupcakes (some were burnt, so we made even more) and in the end raised $400 to donate to the Food Pantry that runs it all. Everyone loved them and it was for a great cause!!

Irma's... WEDDING!!!!

This past weekend was Irma's wedding to Emilie and Christina's cousin, Gilles. It was in San Antonio and so much fun!! The gorgeous cake was made by hIrma's sister, Anna. It was lemon with raspberry filling. It's tradition to save the top tier of your cake and eat it a year later, but since it was in Texas and we live in New York we told Irma we'd just re-create it next year. So, in a year from today, check back to see how it comes out!! :-)

Oh, and Irma looked gorgeous as well!!