Minion Cupcakes

Tomorrow my biggest little man turns 5. What is that cheeseball saying again? The days are long but the years are quick? That's definitely been my experience. 

My kids and I recently just experienced the holidays with family stateside. While there, I'm pretty sure my kids and their cousins watched Despicable Me 2 about seven zillion times. Know how often we hear "bee doh bee doh bee doh" around here? Well, if you have littles who have seen this movie, you probably know what I'm talking about. Add on an uncle who is a firefighter and gave the kids a tour of the fire house and trucks, and, well, fireman minions are super popular. 

A friend made minion cupcakes (and a sweet purple minion cake) for her son's fifth birthday. My son saw them on Facebook and was smitten. We made some of the minions for his birthdayin class tomorrow. He's already selected which funny faces should be allocated to which friend. 

Step one, while the cupcakes are baking, assemble the minions. Our selections are rather slim here, so we used wintergreen Altoids and knock-off Twinkies. I'm not going to lie, I feel a little bad about a class of preschoolers biting into Altoids unsuspectingly tomorrow. I also kind of want to see their faces. Is that terrible of me?

Anywho, I used the black sparkle gel frosting which takes a bit to set up, so definitely get these started first. 

When your cakes are cool, slap some frosting on them. I am not a fan of canned frosting, this is a simple buttercream made with butter, powdered sugar, vanilla extract, milk, and a little sea salt. Dyed blue to match the minion overalls (plus blue is my son's favorite color). I added a little green because, well, I like blue green better. I used the little caulk gun-like device sold by Pampered Chef. 

 

If you like, add some sprinkles. Do it while the frosting is still freshly applied so they stick. I like sprinkles. They're not really that minion-like, but whatever. 

And last, nestle your minions in the frosting. Again, I would try to get them on before the frosting hardens for the best results. 

These puppies are tall, I'll be using a covered cake container to transport them. 

These are really a cinch to make, and my son has repeatedly told me how excited he is to share these with his friends. Totally worth it. 

Crockpot Pork Carnitas

A friend in my mom's group is a major fan of her crock pot. If it can be made in a crock pot, I bet she's done it. I'm with her on the crock pot love; it cuts down a lot of time in the kitchen, allowing me more time to keep my kids from burning the house down. Win.

This is her recipe, with a few tweaks (mostly due to my pantry constraints). My husband loved it, and I'm going to jump on the bandwagon there too. I left it mild in case my kids would actually eat some, but if it were just my husband and I, I would have kicked it up a few notches. 

The biggest surprise from cooking this was how amazing the onions turned out. Perfect. 

If you are like me, and using an American crock pot without a converter on lower voltage Japanese plug-ins, you may find you only cook on high. 

Crockpot Pork Carnitas

Ingredients:

1 onion, thinly sliced 

2-3 T extra virgin olive oil 

3-4 lb pork tenderloin or roast

1 can beef broth

1/2 t cumin

1/2 t garlic powder

1/2 t dried oregano

1/2 t smoked paprika

1 t chili powder

2 bay leaves

Salt and pepper 

Put the onions in the bottom of the pot. Drizzle with the oil, then add the roast. Add the spices (salt and pepper the roast to taste). Cook on low for 6-8 hours or high for 4-5. Or in my situation (see above), cook on high for 6-7 hours. 

This is the roast fully cooked. Shred it with two forks. Add the meat back to the onion and broth mix and cook an additional 30 minutes or so. 

Here's what the onions look like after the initial cook. 

Final product. YUM. You can maybe imagine how good it made the house smell. 

There are probably a thousand ways to serve this up. I made tacos by frying some corn tortillas and serving with beans, shredded cabbage, tomato, salsa, and sour cream. 

Homemade Mayo (in Under 5 Minutes!)

Homemade mayo seems ... well, maybe kind of silly at first. Why would I make mayo? That's something you buy at the store. Inexpensively too, I might add. Ain't nobody got time for that.

But maybe you read something about how good homemade mayo tastes. Or you are trying to eat more whole foods, and you finally read what's actually in that tub of goodness. 

Either way, you start researching and turns out, it kind of looks like a pain. Slowly drizzling oil into a food processor, separating eggs, sheesh. 

If you have a stick/immersion blender though, making your own (way tastier) mayo is super easy. And fast. And easy to clean up. You can tweak it to your hearts content, making spicy or smoky chipotle mayos, using whichever oil you choose, etc. 

This recipe is for a basic, tangy dijonaise-type mayo. Omit the mustard and switch out the apple cider vinegar for lemon juice and a little salt and pepper if you want it less tangy. 

Homemade Mayo

Ingredients:

1 egg (I like to wash the shell with soap and water but you don't have to)

1 T apple cider vinegar 

1 t Dijon mustard 

1 T water

1 c oil

Put everything but the oil into the immersion cup or a wide mouthed mason jar. 

Add the oil into the cup, let it sit a few seconds. 

Plunk the stick blender into the bottom of the cup, and turn it on.

You can bring the blender up a bit to get the last bit of oil into the emulsion if you like.

It should be done in about 15-20 seconds (seriously). It will be thinner than commercial mayo, if you like it thicker, you could use just the egg yolk.

Ta da!

What do you think?

If you need to make some Whole 30 compliant mayo, you will want to substitute mustard powder for the Dijon (Dijon mustard has white wine and sugar added). I've made it that way before, it's not quite as good in my honest opinion but still pretty tasty.

Hey, I know you are a grown-up and you know this, but remember that this is fresh. No preservatives. Which is good BUT it's not going to keep for two years in your fridge. Keep an eye on it.