Spaetzel, Pizza and Buttercream Frosting

It has been a very busy couple of days.  Tuesday was my last day at Mid-Wisconsin, after almost 10 years with the company, I am taking a new direction and working for Ryan's family's business at the Gun Store.  It's an exciting new direction for our little family and I feel very fortunate to have this opportunity. 

SO.  I have not tried a new recipe yet this week nor have I made any sewing projects but I am going to post on the delicious food we had over the weekend. 

An early start to the weekend was my first Spaetzel making lesson with Ryan's Grandma Ertl.  Spaetzel is a little dumpling that you boil and can serve just boiled or reheated by frying in butter.  Yep.  Frying in butter.  Y.U.M. 

Ryan's family is filled with wonderful cooks and his grandmother is no exception.  For Spaetzel, the recipe is a very simple dumpling recipe, the key here is the tool more so than the recipe.  The spaetzel maker reminds me of a flat grater with a box that you put your dumpling batter in and drop little dumplings into boiling water.

It seems to me that its not so much the flavor of the spaetzel but that it's a blank canvas for flavors.  Grandma made finely sliced pork loin combined with a creamy tomato sauce to go with it. 

The beautiful plates were Grandma's mother's plates, she told us that her mother saved $2 a week for a year to be able to purchase these place settings.  They truly are beautiful...and it scared the bejezus out of me to have Naomi using one at dinner but thankfully she didn't break anything!

With our left overs I made a chicken based dish that I just threw in some mushrooms and onions with it.  All in all, spaetzel is very versatile, would be great in soups and Naomi LOVED it.  I didn't take a true blue before picture of the meal at Grandmas frankly because I was too excited to eat it and forgot to take the picture!

Friday night was wine, pizza and a movie at Justin and Amber's.  They make their own wine which is awesome and Justin is the maestro of homemade pizza. 

Justin rolling the dough...

Amber cutting into the 1st type of pizza, tomato and spinach with a white sauce. 

It was awesome!

I forgot a bib for Naomi and their apartment is SUPER hot so Naomi got to eat dinner in her diaper :)  ha ha!

The last culinary adventure of the weekend was on Sunday, I am going to test run a few different types of cake and frosting combos before Naomi's birthday in March so this weekend was Funfetti (yes from a BOX) and a homemade butter cream frosting recipe that I got from the The Small Things Blog:

Homemade Buttercream Frosting

1/2 C butter, softened

1/4 C Crisco

1/8 tsp salt

2 C powdered sugar (keep it out, you'll need more)

1 tsp vanilla

approx 2 tbsp milk

1. Cream butter and Crisco until well blended.

2. Add salt, mix well.

3. Gradually add powdered sugar. Add milk to thin out/fluff up the frosting. Begin with 1 tbsp..add more if necessary. Add extra powdered sugar (approx.  6 tbsp) if you like it sweeter. 

4. Add vanilla and beat until light, smooth and creamy.

I couldn't get Ryan to leave the kitchen while I was making the frosting so I think it's a safe bet to say he liked it!  And Naomi ate all of the frosting off of her cupcake but not the actual cup cake...sneaky girl!

I am not 100% sure this is the winning combination but it's a good start...according to Naomi at least :)