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In the kitchen
By Lisa Strunk
Last Updated: February 19, 2015

Basketball game, lunch, shopping for Valentine's Day

This week has been so much quieter than usual. It's been a nice break. There were no calls to the police about nude people in the bushes. However, there was another naked chick in the bushes at the church behind us. I looked out the back door the other day to see two kids peering into the bushes. I thought they must have read my column. Come to find out, there was a chicken in the bushes and the kids were chasing it.

I stayed out of it. I don't know what a chicken was doing in the middle of Valley Center in the church bushes, but the kids seemed to have the situation under control. Maybe it was their runaway chicken. Maybe they were just walking down the street and heard the clucking and went to investigate. I'm just hoping nothing else shows up in those bushes in the near future.

Chris and I did something special for Valentine's Day. In fact, we did a couple of special things. On Feb. 11, we went to the WSU basketball game. It ended up being a pretty big blow out, but WSU got off to a slow start.

I noticed that former Valley Center teacher Linda Hohler and her husband got on the kiss cam. That was funny.

On Valentine's Day Chris and I went out to lunch so we would miss the dinner crowd. We ended our celebration by going to the Sears outlet store to look for a range or refrigerator. We are looking for a good deal since I painted cabinets and redid the countertops, but we are hoping to completely remodel the kitchen in the next five years, when the kids are old enough that we can get by without a full kitchen for a few weeks.

I don't want to spend a bunch of money on appliances that I plan on replacing in a few years. We didn't find anything on this trip, but we'll keep looking.

We ended our date by stopping by the furniture store to get new mattresses for Jer and Marci. We were really looking at sectionals for the basement family room, something else that we'll get when we find the right thing at the right price, but we don't need to replace the couch and chair down there immediately.

Jer and Marci needed new mattresses far worse than we need appliances or a sectional, so they won. So far they are both happy with the purchase.

For Fat Tuesday, I usually try to make red beans and rice, shrimp poor boys and kings cake. I didn't get a kings cake this year. In fact, we didn't eat our Mardi Gras meal on Tuesday because Chris had to be at a meeting. That's OK. I'm going to cheat in another area too. I'm considering making kings cake cupcakes instead of he regular kings cake.

Kings Cake Cupcakes

2 dozen yellow cupcakes prepared according to pkg. directions

10 oz. cream cheese, softened

2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1/3 cup butter or margarine, softened

3 T. half and half

1/4 tsp. almond extract

purple, green and yellow decorating sugar

Mix 6 oz. cream cheese with 3/4 cup of the powdered sugar until well blended and smooth. Place in a pastry bag with a 1/2 inch round tip. Poke a small hole in the top of each cupcake and pipe a small amount of mixture into the center of each cupcake. Mix the remaining cream cheese, powdered sugar, butter, half and half and extract until smooth. If necessary stir in more half and half a teaspoon at a time. Frost cupcakes. Sprinkle with bands of colored sugar.

Lisa Strunk is co-owner of The Ark Valley News. Reach her at lisa@arkvalleynews.com.




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