Hey Sweetie Pie, It's Friday! 2 - Sweetie Pie and Cupcakes

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Hi there! Every Friday we’re doing a little weekly roundup of what’s happened over here at Sweetie Pie and Cupcakes. We had a busy week with the pie contest, and I think we’re still recovering from the enormous overdose of sugar from tasting all the pie! But keeping things all in balance… we’ve got a ton of beautiful crops coming out of the garden and we’ve been conjuring up some great recipes that we’ll be sharing this upcoming week! Here’s the lowdown…

Roundup of Recipes From the Past Week:

Firecracker Chicken Wings

These sweet and spicy chicken wings are baked in the oven until they turn just a bit crispy. You can also grill them up. They are made with combination of Sriracha sauce, buffalo sauce, hot sauce, garlic and spices. I don’t know about you but chicken is like a staple in our house, and these hot wings will definitely be made over and over again!

Perfectly Flaky All-Butter Pie Crust Dough

Yep, we figured out a pie dough recipe that is easy to make AND produces the most delicious all-butter flaky crust ever! We tested a lot of recipes to get here, and this one was the winner. Find out how to make it here!

Award Winning Bourbon Pecan Pie with Almond Crust

This was the winning pie at the KCRW pie contest. We received third place in the nut category with this pie. The pie contest is a fun day for us! We get to meet a lot of other bakers, exchange tips and tricks and of course, eat pie! We practice making pie for weeks leading up to the contest and then prep the week before. The day before the contest is a day of baking and decorating the pies. Then we piece together packing material to transport them to Los Angeles, about an hour away from our home. Finally, on pie day, we pick the one that looks the best upon arrival, say a few prayers over it and release it to the pie Gods (the judges). Everyone makes two pies, one for the judges and the other for the crowd. And so once we are checked in, we grab a spot and wait for the general public to arrive. In the meantime, we get to wander around the booths and eat some lunch. We found a yummy Vegan booth and discovered Cashew Cheese! I’m now addicted and plan on sharing a recipe for it on the blog soon! Here’s the winning Pecan Pie recipe!

Three Ingredient Huevos Rancheros

I’m often snacking on chips and salsa to tide me over before dinner if it’s been a long day. Lately, I’ve been having a little fun with adding in a bit of cooked chicken or an egg. This was a simple take on Huevos Rancheros that I thought would be fun to share. It only takes a few minutes to make and it’s a great breakfast, lunch or even tapas type dinner. Find the recipe here!

Walnut Cranberry Pie Crust Cookies

What do you do with all that left-over pie dough? You make pie dough cookies of course! We received many compliments on the pecan pie crust and wanted to share the recipe for the cut-outs we used to create the Fall looking leaf edge. You can use these cut-outs to decorate your favorite Fall pie, or you can bake them up and eat them as cookies! Whatever your little heart desires 😉 Just beware, it’s easy to eat like a hundred of these little cookies in one sitting! Here’s the recipe to the pie crust cookies!

From the Garden

We are still getting a ton of bell peppers from the garden. This last weekend, we enjoyed some chopped grilled bell peppers fresh from the garden. It’s really been a lot of fun to be able to just walk out to the backyard and grab fresh veggies. And I’m excited to see that the bell peppers are getting bigger and bigger with each round. I’m curious to see if we can get them to survive through winter. If anyone has any tips about what to do to keep them from freezing, please share! We’re in Southern California, so it gets down into the 30’s and sometimes high 20’s so I’m thinking we could use some kind of clear tarp and make a little popup greenhouse. I’ll have to research to see what I find.

I’m the proud mama of about 50 baby tomato plants! I found out how to germinate tomato seeds easily and low and behold, they ALLLL sprouted. So here they are, all sprouting out of their cups. I’m planning on keeping a few of them indoors through winter to see if they produce. And I’d also like to see how they do outside in different parts of the yard. That bowl in the center of the picture is filled with apple cider vinegar and water. It’s a little trick I discovered to catch the tiny flies. As the water slowly evaporates, I just fill it up with a little more water and it continues catching flies for me. Super simple and keeps the bugs down in the house!

What I’ve Bookmarked and My Favorite Sites Right Now

Recipes and posts from other blogs that I thought looked especially delicious and that I thought you would like too:

Cider Beer Sangria (How Sweet It Is) – This looks like the perfect Fall drink! I can’t wait to make some of this and enjoy it on the porch after some serious yard work!

Endurance Crackers (Oh She Glows) – So when we went to the pie contest, the gal at the Vegan booth was handing out some super healthy yummy crackers that went with the Cashew Cheese. These crackers reminded me of hanging out at the Chocolatree in Sedona. This recipe looks easy and I can’t wait to try them!

Go to Cashew Cheese (The Full Helping) – And of course, I’m excited to try the Cashew cheese too! This recipe at The Full Helping looks simple and yummy. The Cashew cheese we tried was served with a bit of dill and pomegranate seeds. I think I licked the cup! Seriously good stuff!

Brioche Bread Recipe (Stella Cullinary) – I was at a coffee shop the other day and spotted some Chipotle Brioche Buns… Mmmmm, those looked goooood. I found this recipe at Stella Cullinary and it looked like they tested the heck out of their Brioche recipes, so I will be giving this a whirl soon and using some of that Chipotle sauce I have stored in the freezer 🙂

Pear Crisp (Brown Eyed Baker) – This pear crisp recipe looks like a tasty and simple Fall dessert to make. I just received pears in my Farm-Fresh-To-You Box this morning and can’t wait to give this recipe a try! Farm Fresh to You is an organic based cooperative of farmers in California and they let you select items online and then they deliver right to your doorstep! I’ve been delighted by how fresh the veggies are and loving using them in my fresh recipes!

Enjoying the Fall Weather

I can always tell when the weather is perfect because Sugar lays outside in the sun 🙂 I’m hoping we get a few months of this perfect weather! We have more trenches to dig for the backyard sprinklers, and I can’t wait to see the final result once the grass is growing in!!!

Have a Delicious Weekend!

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Hey Sweetie Pie, It’s Friday! 2