These are the newest recipes I’ve tried lately. Oddly enough, they all contain alcohol, which was mostly cooked out:

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes, following this recipe. We used Guinness Extra Stout, and the flavor was strong but very good. Our only variation was to use Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey instead of Jameson Irish Whiskey. This is the part where the alcohol was not cooked out, hah, since the whiskey and Irish Cream Liqueur was mixed in the icing.  I will definitely keep this recipe, because they were absolutely deee-vine.

Whole Wheat Beer Bread for Mark’s birthday, made with an Amber Bock beer, which was very tasty. I made another loaf with Guinness Extra Stout for my Dad for Father’s day, and this was decidedly not tasty. There was a hint of bitterness at the end of each bite, and I’m glad we had the below banana bread to console our taste buds. Oh, and we had Pineapple Cool Whip Cake, my sister-in-law Tonya’s recipe, which he loves for good reason! It’s a light and tangy-sweet cake, yummm.

Finally, I made 2 loaves of my Mom’s Banana Nut Bread recipe: one for my father-in-law Dean and one for Dad. My alteration was that I soaked the raisins in 1/2 c. brandy for about an hour before tossing in both raisins and brandy. Rich smells of cinnamon and banana encircled the kitchen as the loaves baked for about 45 minutes. It turned out delicious, moist, and packed with goodness! It dawned on me that soaking the raisins in spiced rum would be heavenly next time.

And my next recipe endeavors will be homemade canned pickles and canned salsa. My cousin has a bountiful vegetable garden, and he picked out a huge bag of hot peppers, squash, and cucumber. I’ll save the canning process for another post…