Brownies and onion dip

Answers about me

2012-02-08T20:41:00.000-07:00

Lena at Frugal and Thankful tagged me in a little get-to-know-you blog post. If you like saving money on groceries, it's fun to read her blog and see how well she's done each week.

So here are the rules:

#1 - Post these rules.
#2 - Answer the 11 questions from the person who tagged you.
#3 - Create 11 new questions for the people you tag.
#4 - Tag 11 people and link them to your post.
#5 - Let them know that you tagged them.

1.When did you start blogging and why?
Five years ago. Don't remember why - I think my sister was doing it and it seemed fun?

2.What was the last thing that you bought that you wish you didn't?
Gosh, I'm not sure. Maybe the salad I bought for lunch on Monday. I think they packaged it on Friday. The cheese was dried out.

3.What is your most precious childhood memory?
I'm not sure I can pinpoint the MOST precious one, but I remember loving to snuggle with my parents. My mom would rock me in her lap long after I stopped fitting, and my sister and I would snuggle with my parents on Sunday mornings and play with their hair (the royal treatment!).

4. What is your favorite color and why?
Cerulean. How can you not love such a pretty shade of blue?

5. What was your best date with your significant other?
Either the one where we became best friends, or the time we were stuck in horrid L.A. traffic and he grabbed a flashlight to be a microphone so we could sing along with the radio and lighten the mood.

6.What do you consider your biggest achievement in life?
I think any day that I intentionally improve myself in a tiny way is my biggest achievement. Perfection is a journey, not a destination, and I love those little moments when I recognize I am becoming a better person.

7.Are you a loner or would you rather be in a crowd?
In general, a loner, but sometimes I enjoy sitting in a crowded room and soaking it all in.

8.What was the best meal you've ever had?
I really miss the Thanksgiving dinners we had growing up. My grandpa made delicious gravy and I loved to put it over everything on my plate, including the jello salad. It's not Thanksgiving dinner without my mom's jello salad. I've never tried making pecan pie her way but I really miss that too. Thanksgiving hasn't meant much to me since my grandpa died and my parents stopped doing holiday gatherings. We usually end up at some random house and there is food, but the feeling is gone.

9.If you were granted 3 wishes from a genie, what would you ask for?
Free Jetblue plane tickets whenever I wanted to visit my family; my mortgage to be completely paid off; to be a SAHM.

10.If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?
New England. I never made it there on my road trip and I want to visit Boston, etc., to soak in the history.

11. Who is your best friend?
I decline to answer.

I tag:
Jaime from Polka Dots on Parade (go check out her linky party!)
Shauna and her man
Danna
Jackie
Golda
Todd and Jena
Eve

And private blog people:
Amy S.
Amelia
Shell
Tammy

Here are their 11 questions:
1. Do you celebrate Valentine's Day?
2. What do you do when you or your spouse get a pay raise / promotion?
3. If you're going to get cozy with a container of ice cream, what flavor would it be?
4. Do you get along better with your spouse on vacation or in normal life?
5. Have you ever eaten any unusual meat (like gator or snails)?
6. When you go to a sit-down restaurant for breakfast, what do you normally order?
7. Do you sing along with the car radio?
8. What's the most recent klutzy thing you did?
9. Do you open and sniff deodorant and shampoo containers when picking a new kind?
10. What's the fanciest thing you've ever cooked or baked?
11. What did you do for fun today?

Honey-onion cough syrup

2012-02-06T19:41:00.014-07:00

I've been toying with the idea of using a mustard or onion poultice when I'm congested, but haven't gotten up the nerve to try it yet. I did try something new for this round of sickness though -- honey-onion cough syrup. Here's a link to the recipe and some general info about how much onions can help congestion.

It was easy to make...if you don't count the 15 minutes it took me to pry the lid off a new bucket of honey. Totally wiped out the little bit of energy I had.

I added a little ginger to mine and it tasted very good and felt nice on my throat. It seemed to ease the stuffiness a bit and reduce coughing. It gave me kickin' onion breath though.

Friday night adventure

2012-02-04T17:47:00.000-07:00

I bought advance tickets to a play showing last night, which isn't something we do very often. Then I got a cold and Nathan had a skin cancer spot removed and it didn't go as smoothly as anticipated. I really needed a little fun and I decided to stock my pockets with cough drops and grab a friend. I left another friend at home to watch over Nathan, who was hopped up on pain meds.

SO MUCH FUN!

The play was called Noises Off. It's a comedy about what goes on behind the scenes of a play. CenterPoint Legacy Theater got special permission to alter the play to clean it up a little, which was nice. I hear it's normally filled with language and innuendo.

Right after we sat down, I opened my bottled water and it exploded like a soda. Cold water landed on me, my friend, and the two people in front of us. The play itself was hilarious. We laughed and laughed. Then we stuck around for the improv show, because we wanted to laugh some more. The improv show wasn't as good as last time we went, but at least it was clean humor and cheap.

After the improv, we got a tour of the tech booth, the set, and backstage. It was really interesting. I never realized all that goes into a good play. After seeing all of the fancy equipment and work that's involved, I could understand why tickets cost so much. "So much" being relative...I'm a cheapskate.

The play talked a lot about sardines, and we each got a little rubber sardine as a souvenir before being escorted through a dark theater and out the only door that was still unlocked. The sardine is cute. It fits on my finger and the floppy tail drives the cats nuts.

We didn't get home until around 1AM. I felt decent the entire night even though I was sick, but my cold got worse today. Totally worth it!

From ponytails to velcro head

2012-02-01T07:20:00.000-07:00

Nathan was a movie extra last fall and had to grow out his hair and beard. After filming ended, he decided he liked all this hair and kept growing it, with various changes to his facial hair.

Then he decided he wanted to donate it to Locks of Love - or as he kept mistakenly calling it, "Kids for Cancer" - so it got even longer. He even started putting it in a high ponytail (ay-yi-yi) and one day a female at school braided it to match her hair style.

Last night he was finally ready to chop it. I separated it into lots of ponytails first. Side note - I always use a pencil to part hair because that's what my mom did. Does anyone else do that?

He buzzed off the first few ponytails and then made me do the rest. I hate holding things that vibrate; it was past my bedtime; and I was getting sick. I was willing to make the sacrifice though - so tired of all that hair!

He's adjusting to life without hair again. He says his head is cold and feels like Velcro.

Peanut butter cookies

2012-01-25T07:18:00.000-07:00

I may have posted this recipe before. It's an easy recipe to fall back on when you're short on time or ingredients.

Peanut Butter Cookies

1 C peanut butter (crunchy or smooth)
1 C sugar
1 egg

Mix together all three ingredients. It helps if the peanut butter is at room temperature. Grease your hands. Roll the cookies into 1 inch balls (should make 12-14 cookies). Dip a fork in sugar (dip it in water or run it over a cookie first). Lightly press down on the cookies to make grid marks.

Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 10-12 minutes. Cool on cookie sheet for 1-2 minutes before moving to a rack. They will be crumbly until they cool.

This recipe is great if you're out of flour, if you're baking for a gluten-free person (we have a couple youth at church who can't eat gluten), or if you just need a super easy recipe. I can whip up a double batch in no time and I always get compliments.

Blessings!

2012-01-22T19:32:00.000-07:00

Sorry for my bitter post yesterday. I had just survived a particularly rough two weeks at work and in my crazy depressed head, but thankfully this weekend has been a lot better. It feels like I mostly focus on surviving lately and have no desire to blog...or do much of anything, but here are some good things! (Sorry if I've mentioned any of this before. My memory isn't so hot lately.)

Nathan has a job - sort of. Let me explain. It's with the video department at his school. Last semester he enjoyed his way through a video editing class. The job is working with all of the departments and campuses to learn about upcoming events, suggest that the video students record the events, and place all of said events on the calendar. He has to work 20 hours a week (meetings take up about 5 hours) and at the end of the semester, he gets paid $1000 as an independent contractor. It's not much money for the time he puts in, but this really is fantastic and I'm proud of him. This will give him experience, something recent for his resume considering how long he's been unemployed, and a big confidence boost. So awesome!

After a year of dealing with water leaking into the car trunk whenever it rained, we finally found someone who found the problem. Our car had been in a massive hail storm prior to us purchasing it. When the rear window was replaced, it was not sealed properly. The Honda dealer actually had to put a guy in the closed trunk and pour water over the car to locate the leak. It was worth the cost.

Probably due to water getting into the rear speakers, the car radio has been working intermittently, with no rhyme or reason, for months. Also one of the rear speakers blew. Now that the leak is fixed, we can look at this. I have a new friend who thinks he can fix it pretty easily (we have no experience in this regard) and will do it for the cost of a sushi dinner. We're really excited for this, because the radio worked most of the way to CA, and none of the return trip. That's a long trip to make without music. Thank goodness for my laptop.

The same friend also retrieved all the data from our crashed hard drive that died when I accidentally killed my dying computer while trying to save it from a lightning storm. We had lost our backup drive and I was upset to lose months of recent photos. He did it for a batch of his favorite cookies. Bless his heart.

This month was the first in a series of changes in the hiring/training process at work. I had 8 new employees (plus a new supervisor that needed training) start on the same day, and overall the training center had...oh gosh I forgot already...I think 13 new employees? I know that for large companies this is nothing, but our training center hasn't even existed for a year yet, and we have created everything from scratch with constant changes along the way. It was a very busy two weeks for me, conducting a morning and afternoon session so as to give more personal attention. Lots of drama mixed in, one employee who couldn't keep up and needed a separate training plan, technical difficulties...all of these things made it especially hard.

But by the end, I had learned valuable lessons and felt like I bonded okay. That's part of my role as a trainer - to be their friend and help them feel comfortable and welcome. I enjoy getting to know the new employees. Even if I'm not their trainer, I usually at least meet them, and I prepare their welcome bags. Some people I struggle to get along with during training and some turn into friends, like the radio/hard drive fixing guy who joined us for our holiday dinner along with his wife. :-)

Finally, even though I'd had my share of sickness before Christmas, I managed to avoid getting a cold immediately after Christmas vacation. This is a change from the last few years. Yay!

If only I knew where to send this email...

2012-01-21T10:30:00.000-07:00

Dear Target:

I'm not sure how you knew I was once pregnant, but please stop sending me emails on creating a great baby registry. I'm depressed enough without you reminding me that I miscarried after trying for what felt like centuries to get pregnant.

Sauerkraut

2012-01-16T17:15:00.000-07:00

Of all the new things I tried making over the last year, sauerkraut was the most intimidating.

1) I didn't know what it should taste like, making it hard to know when it was ready.
2) Leaving food outside the fridge for weeks just sounds wrong.
3) Eating something that you had to skim scum off of regularly is scary.

I spent so much time reading my canning book that everything started to look intriguing, including sauerkraut. I gave a shout-out on Facebook asking if people liked it. I got a variety of responses. It seems you either love it or hate it, and I was warned that it would stink up the whole house while fermenting. I finally decided to make it, especially after seeing an encouraging blog post here.

I bought a lot of cabbage at a cheap price and already owned two crocks, thanks to my grandparents. What did I have to lose if I failed? About $5 and a couple of hours.

As you know, I rushed to make it before Thanksgiving and stuck it in a downstairs guest room to ferment. It smelled horrid the first few days when I lifted the lid, but then improved. I checked it every few days and learned exactly what skimming scum meant and how to weigh it down properly.

A week before Christmas, I got brave enough to taste it, because I wanted to share some with my brother, who likes it. Let me tell you, that took guts. I'd just finished skimming gross stuff off the top and then had to take a spoonful of food that had been basically rotting for weeks, not even knowing how it should taste. I was pleasantly surprised. It tastes sort of like dill pickles.

The night before we left for CA, I removed the top layer (you ruin some every time you open the crock and un-submerge it from the brine) and put it in the fridge. I didn't have time to can it; I didn't want to keep skimming it regularly; and I'd learned how good for you it can be if you don't heat it.

I made mine layered with caraway seeds and I love the flavor that adds. It is crunchy and sour, and we both like it. To Becky J.: turns out it is actually really healthy for you when it's fermented properly and not heated to kill the beneficial health properties. Mine isn't super salty either.

Nathan has been putting it in sandwiches, but I like it so much that I just eat a few forkfuls a day. Much less scary now that it's in the fridge. If you'd like some and live nearby, we have an awful lot and I'd be happy to share my successful experiment. One step closer to becoming a domestic goddess!

Christmas 2011

2012-01-15T08:04:00.001-07:00

We started our Christmas trip to CA with Nathan having a beard and me having brown hair.

We ended with me having "raspberry creme" hair and Nathan having...whatever you call this.

Our holidays this year:

23rd Drove to CA with Nathan, his sister Sarah, and Sarah's roommate (very full car)
Upon arriving in CA, immediately had Christmas with the cousins
Christmas Eve service project, ham dinner, and general craziness
Christmas Day presents, Christmas story, church as a family, quick family photos, tons of fun, Hanukkah dinner and story
26th-30th in Solvang (cute Danish town) with my sisters Jaime and Janice and their families
On the way back from Solvang, had brunch with my friend Holly and her family
New Year's Eve banged pans outside at midnight with Nathan's parents
New Year's Day visited my parents and my grandma, then drove to Henderson, NV, where we stayed at a stranger's house...but they were related to friends that are like family....that was a little weird
January 2, breakfast buffet (only reason I like Vegas) with Alina, oil change to make the car happy again, then home where there was no snow, the weather was reasonable, and the house and kitties were perfect

I got great gifts like a handmade apron, handmade dish cloths, a fresh pineapple, a Christmas shirt, wooden spoons, and earrings that look like fall leaves. The last gift was especially heartwarming, because my bachelor BIL actually went on Etsy and hunted them down. Overall it was wonderful to be with both sides of the family and play with my nieces and nephews that I don't see often. Of course, the warm sunshiny days weren't bad either. :-)

Wishing you a happy 2012!

2011-12-31T11:08:00.001-07:00

I didn't do a Christmas letter this year. Summing up the year was too depressing. I thought I'd write a quick blog post doing it, but it's making me start to cry. Even with all of the wonderful things we've been blessed with, it's been a hard year. I'll blog about Christmas next week but for now...

Happy New Year!

I hope 2012 brings you happiness. We are SO blessed and hope you feel the same way.

Raspberry cream pie recipe

2011-12-18T09:34:00.001-07:00

I was too busy cooking and then wanting to die to take pictures of yesterday's food, but this is the same raspberry cream pie I made for Thanksgiving that was a hit.

Raspberry cream pie:

1 pkg frozen raspberries
1 6 oz pkg raspberry jello
3/4 C sugar
1 C evaporated milk
1 T lemon juice

Bring raspberries to a boil; add jello and sugar. Stir until dissolved; set aside to cool and thicken. Put evaporated milk in bowl in freezer until frozen around edges. Remove and add lemon juice. Whip until stiff. Add the thick jello mixture to whipped milk, mixing well. Pour into baked pie shell and chill. Top with Cool Whip and serve.

Anyway, yesterday was our 2nd annual holiday dinner. We did this last year - a dinner with some friends between Thanksgiving and Christmas. That way I get to make my own turkey and whatever sides I like, and enjoy our friends before everyone is busy with family.

I ended up taking Friday off work because I was feeling overwhelmed with gifts to be made, shopping to do, and food to make for the holiday dinner. I'm so glad I did. I was able to enjoy my FIL's surprise visit Thursday night, time with family on Friday night, and the perfect Christmas-y atmosphere on Friday.

Even though I'd gotten a jump on food Friday, I still spent 12 hours working nonstop (mostly in the kitchen) on Saturday, and had to draft Nathan to clean the house. It was insane. By the time we started dinner, I really hurt and was exhausted. Nathan had to put away the leftovers and the dirty dishes didn't get touched. At least I had kept up with dishes until then.

But you know what, it was worth it...I think. The food ranged from decent to great, we enjoyed the company, and I won't have to cook for a few days. And by tomorrow, I'll stop aching.

Here's what we enjoyed:

Turkey
Garlic-cheddar rolls (recipe link)
Mashed potatoes
Gravy
Jello salad - the one my mom always made
Rye-sausage stuffing
Apple-pecan french bread stuffing
Sweet potato casserole (recipe link)
Green bean casserole
Deviled eggs
Pumpkin pie
Raspberry cream pie
Toll house cookie pie (recipe link)
Cinnamon peach pie

I also made cranberry sauce from scratch but I forgot to put it out, dang it! I had to scrap my plans for funeral potatoes when I ran short on time.

I think the only things here not from scratch are the green bean casserole and the jello in the raspberry pie. I made the rye bread (recipe link), french bread and rolls, cooked pumpkin and sweet potatoes, used a jar of home canned peaches, made my crusts from scratch, and my mom's jello salad actually uses gelatin and fruit juice instead of jello. Hence the hours of work.

I also made two more pies to give away on Friday, and a breakfast casserole for the church Christmas brunch. I didn't actually get to go because I was so short on time, so I just sent Nathan with the food.

Mmm, just re-reading my list makes me want leftovers.

Pumpkin bars or cake...or something

2011-12-15T12:00:00.001-07:00

When I say everything I make is an experiment, I'm not kidding. Everyone is my guinea pig. Does your baking go like this?

Look up a pumpkin bar recipe.
Cook half a pumpkin and puree it.
Measure pumpkin into mixing bowl...hmm...too much for a double batch, I'd better not throw it all in.
Wait, I don't want any left over. I'll make a triple batch.
Wait, I can't fit three 9 x 13 pans in the oven and have them bake evenly.
(Quick mental calculations as I stare at the recipe)
I'll multiply the recipe by 2 1/2 times and then use some of the pumpkin in place of oil. I'm supposed to reduce oil at my altitude anyway.
I don't really need 10 eggs. Recipes call for medium eggs and these are large. I'll do 8.
This sounds like it would taste better with brown sugar. I'll do half brown sugar, but increase the amount to balance out the less-sweet flavor of my jack o lantern pumpkin.
This looks like it needs vanilla. A lot. Orange peel would go well too.
Oops, I don't have enough oil upstairs. Oh well, I wanted to reduce it.
Maybe I should do part soft whole wheat flour. Nah, I'm already altering this enough. What if it doesn't live up to everyone's expectations for my baking? I'll pick another recipe to make healthier.
Okay, 5 teaspoons of baking powder. Ugh, no one can ever agree if a tablespoon is 2 1/2 teaspoons or 3 teaspoons. I'll do two scant tablespoons. Except that my baking powder is ancient. I probably need a little extra.

Dang, when will I learn to stop multiplying recipes by this much. My arm is killing me trying to mix this and there's no room in the bowl. Bust out the mixer!
(Tasting) Ugh, this needs help. More sugar and vanilla! And those last two eggs! Maybe more salt.
This recipe sounds like it needs cloves. And a lot more cinnamon than it calls for. Oops, that dumped in more than I planned.
(Tasting) Not spicy enough. More cloves. And maybe some ginger.

(Pouring into pans) It looks boring. Chocolate chips!
Hmm, this is turning out more like cake than bars. Oh well.
I can't bake this any longer or it will burn on the bottom, but the middle isn't done! Why oh why did I multiply this by 2 1/2 times?!

And that is why I can't always give you the recipe I used, duplicate it, or guarantee it will taste amazing. Because really, you're my guinea pig. Every time.

Eggnog pie

2011-12-14T08:00:00.004-07:00

I had originally thought of making buttermilk pie for our upcoming holiday dinner, but then I found a variation - eggnog pie! My friend Rachel loves eggnog pie. Then I learned she couldn't come to our scheduled dinner, so I decided to make it her early gift.

Nathan was really dubious about eggnog pie and I'd found this fun idea to do mini pies - perfect way to try it! I used custard cups instead of the suggested muffin tins. I pressed the crust into the glass cups instead of rolling it out and cutting circles.

They turned out really cute and came out of the dishes easily.

Even though I only made 3/4 of the recipe, I still had enough to fill four mini crusts and two crust-less cups. We enjoyed the crust-less pies and agreed this was a make-again.

Here's the eggnog pie recipe. I added a dash of nutmeg and three dashes of cinnamon.

Linked to:

Toll house pie / Applesauce pie

2011-12-12T08:00:00.002-07:00

The pie baking continues!

This time I made two toll house cookie pies. My brother-in-law makes these for Thanksgiving and I thought it would be a fun one to give away.

I also decided to make applesauce pie. I couldn't bring myself to buy apples so soon after canning season, but I certainly have lots of applesauce on hand. What do you know - there's a recipe for applesauce pie! I love the Internet. Here's the link.

These looked like pumpkin pie and the filling tasted good before baking, so hopefully they turned out well.

Freezer cooking - December

2011-12-11T08:08:00.001-07:00

I've been wanting to purchase better quality ground beef but my cheapskate side kept winning.

I finally found a compromise. I got 93% lean hormone and antibiotic-free ground beef in a 40 lb box from Zaycon Foods. I've heard a lot of good things about the company, which only recently started doing truckload sales in my area. Now granted, it's not from a local farmer and it's not grass-fed, so I'm sure I could still be making a better choice, but it's a start.

This is what a 10 lb roll of meat looks like.

Then we realized I was wearing an I love Chick-Fil-A shirt while holding beef....we repositioned the beef. :-)

Naturally this much meat meant it was time for a big freezer cooking session! I got a jump on the hamburgers on Thursday night but the rest was done on Saturday.

This quiche has a hamburger crust. Several months ago I saw a recipe for something like cheeseburger pie that used the burger as the crust rather than the filling. I couldn't find the recipe again so I combined several ideas into this. I took my meatball mixture before adding seasoning (so just meat, eggs, cornflakes), and pressed it into a pan, lining the bottom and edges. I baked the meat and let it cool. The filling very loosely follows this recipe. I baked the quiche until almost done, so when I re-heat it, the eggs won't be overdone.

Final results:

Meatballs - 9 dozen made it to the freezer (so tasty I almost scrapped all my other plans and only made meatballs)

Meatloaf - 2 pans

Hamburgers - 3 stacks (maybe 20 burgers?) (BBQ, teriyaki, Italian)

Hamburger spinach quiche - 2 medium pans

Beef enchiladas - 2 large pans

Cooked ground beef - lots

Taco stuffed potatoes - 21

Gosh, it doesn't look like much when I list it like that. It sounds more impressive when you also learn that I did our laundry and another family's laundry, made 5 pies and 4 mini pies from scratch, washed all the dishes I dirtied in cooking, and did Christmas and grocery shopping on this same day. It was the most productive day I've had in ages, with some help from Nathan!

Peanut butter pie / Nutella cheesecake pie

2011-12-03T15:01:00.004-07:00

The pie baking has commenced!

I've been using this pie crust so far this year. For my initial round of PB pie over Thanksgiving, I made a crust that was basically a brownie, with different ratios of ingredients. Today I used the linked crust recipe but I swapped out 1/2 C of the flour with 1/4 C cocoa and 1/4 C sugar. It made a chocolate crust that wasn't overly sweet but tasted of chocolate.

It worked fantastically on the first two crusts, except that I'm still learning the art of pre-baking crusts. Even though I chilled the crust in the pan prior to baking, the crust didn't stay in its beautifully fluted shape. So for the next two crusts, I decided to weigh down the crusts. I'd read a few options, one of them being putting dried beans on waxed paper. The dough was hard to work with, which I attributed to not having the butter cold enough. I sorta pressed the crusts into pans and threw them in the oven with wax paper and beans inside.

A few minutes later, it really smelled strange in the kitchen. Suddenly it dawned on me that I hadn't put enough flour in this batch. No wonder the dough was uncooperative. I opened the oven to find that the extra butter had caused the dough to bubble over. I tried to pull out the wax paper and beans to allow the crust to bake better, since it was so liquidy. The combo of the butter and high temps caused the wax paper to be extremely fragile. It fell apart under the weight of the beans. A few of the beans had baked into the bubbly crust. I'd failed to set a timer so I had no idea how much longer to bake them.

I managed to shake the beans and wax paper out of the crusts and put them back in for a few minutes. I think they'll be okay. Not one of my better moments.

Peanut butter pie filling:

4 oz cream cheese, softened

1 C powdered sugar

2 Tbsp (approximately) cocoa powder

1/3 C peanut butter

1/2 C milk

8 oz whipped topping

Beat together the cream cheese, powdered sugar, and cocoa; then the peanut butter; then the milk. Finally, fold in the whipped topping. Put it in a pre-baked chocolate crust and freeze. Thaw 1/2 hour prior to serving, sprinkle grated chocolate or peanuts on top.

I followed the recipe great for Thanksgiving, unless you count adding cocoa. This time I also added vanilla, extra peanut butter, and used whipping cream and a bit of sugar in place of half the whipped topping. To be honest I didn't even measure the PB or milk. So it's very flexible.

The Nutella cheesecake filling can be found here.

I'm not sure I'll make this one again. It was milder than I anticipated.

Linked to:

The North Forty

Pumpkin pancakes

2011-11-27T09:28:00.001-07:00

Pancakes and waffles both make my stomach hurt. Occasionally I decide it's worth it. I still have cooked pumpkin in the fridge so I searched the internet for pumpkin whole wheat pancakes. I found a great recipe here.

I was not disappointed - yum! Nathan thought they were a bit heavy. I did use all hard wheat flour. Soft flour or the recipe's listed cake flour would have helped. A half batch was perfect for me and Nathan. I had a partial jar of apple-cinnamon syrup in the fridge, which was a good match. I'm sure molasses or maple syrup would have also gone well with these lightly spiced pancakes.

Thanksgiving

2011-11-26T09:44:00.008-07:00

Okay, this is really what the holidays are about. Food.

We had Thanksgiving with our friends, who wanted to use our oven. Because I was in charge of pies and rolls, I carefully planned out the extremely busy week to get these done before my oven got appropriated. The best laid plans....

I was exhausted Monday night and fell asleep before 7pm. So much for cooking a pumpkin.

My Tuesday morning training session was canceled so I planned to cook the pumpkin Tuesday morning. Until I remembered that I still hadn't turned the cabbage into sauerkraut and I had no fridge space. I spent Tuesday morning shredding cabbage. I got off work at 8pm and stopped by the crowded grocery store on the way home to finish taking advantage of sales. No pumpkin cooking that night.

I worked a 12-hour day on Wednesday. While at work, I learned that Sarah and her roomie were spending the night with us. In the guest room with the unmade bed and fermenting sauerkraut. Oops. Nathan picked me up from Trax and I came home to tackle a pumpkin. I was supposed to be already baking said pies.

Instead I was up most of the night. I had purchased a pumpkin screen for my strainer, but by the time I was ready to grind up pumpkin it was past midnight and Nathan was asleep. I was tired and didn't assemble the strainer properly so Sarah's cranking efforts didn't work well. Pumpkin juice landed on me and the floor.

I took a little nap between 3am and 5am, started rolls, took an hour nap while the dough rose, then finished the rolls and no-bake pies in time for Rachel to use the oven. Nathan's turkey bowl game didn't have enough people show up so they played capture the flag instead. We were blessed with 40-50 degree weather that day, which was nice. It was an unusually warm Thanksgiving because it always warms up before a storm blows in.

I napped on and off during the morning, wondering why Rachel hadn't shown up with things to bake. Eventually Nathan called and learned we had somehow miscommunicated and she thought I had changed my mind and my oven wasn't available. Ahh! I stayed up all night so she could use it! My lack of sleep caused me to almost drop a baked pie crust in a sink of water. That would have been sad.

Three regular crusts and one chocolate crust turned out tasty, as did the pie filling experiments. Pumpkin, walnut crunch pumpkin, raspberry cream, and peanut butter. I'll share recipes later. The raspberry was a big hit.

Holidays are also about family! We played Speed and watched Sarah braid her hair.

Somehow we conned Nathan into letting her braid his hair too.

Once it was done, he thought he was a hair expert and started demonstrating how Bea's hair should be done.

=Eventually it was luscious food time with our adopted family. Afterward, we laughed and laughed about random things until we burned off lots of calories.

Everyone collapsed somewhere, even under the table.

Hope your Thanksgiving was good too!

My birthday / Chick-Fil-A Sugarhouse

2011-11-25T08:18:00.008-07:00

A new Chick-Fil-A opened on my birthday, which meant we headed to the campout the day before. I was getting over an obnoxious cold and it was in the low 20s that morning, so we were a little worried. Despite the temperature, there were about 165 people there and so everyone froze their toes off while waiting for the raffle. I didn't get drawn but Nathan did.

There wasn't a surrounding parking lot so people had to take turns pulling up next to the CFA to unload their stuff, then go park elsewhere. Once we were set up and got our breakfast, Nathan took a nap hogging all the pillows, so I used him as a pillow.

Our old tent had served us well but had dead poles and a broken zipper, so we bought a new one. I like it but Nathan decided during this campout that he doesn't like it. It will be nice in summer to give good ventilation but wasn't nice in the winter. It had lots of screen areas and a big rainfly to cover the whole tent. These little windows don't allow for privacy. I joked about making tiny curtains. :-)

I was wearing three pairs of PJ bottoms - two flannel and one fleece. Two pair of socks and my warm boots. (This is my attempt to show all of my lower layers.)
This was NOT a pleasant experience for me. I had work to do, so I took advantage of CFA's wireless and spent some time on my laptop. They tried to keep a constant supply of hot cocoa, which was much appreciated. This campout didn't have a DJ at night - not sure why, maybe the cold? Maybe the neighboring motel? Our friend ditched us at the last minute, I was sick, we had annoying tent neighbors, and other than a few hours during the day, it was just COLD! Thankfully the cold weather somehow stopped me from coughing as much.

CFA tried to make it a great day, as they always do. They played a few games, did some giveaways, fed us tasty food, and weathered the unexpected like when a breaker tripped prior to the evening movie showing. Nathan spent his waking hours in "the game tent" that a group of guys had set up, complete with big screen TV.

We survived the night in our double sleeping bag with a fleece blanket, and hoods pulled over our heads. There was ice inside our tent in the morning. Before everyone got their meal coupons, Nathan arranged for them to announce my birthday and sing to me. He ran over to bring me a rose and the cow gave me a hug.

We packed up and Nathan drove me to the TRAX station. We have locker rooms at work so I was able to shower and change before starting training. It's been busy at work and I didn't feel I could take two days off in a row, so I had to work on my birthday. I haven't done this in awhile.

My boss brought pies, a few coworkers sang to me and gave me a giant candy bar, and my coworker Kyle really went above and beyond. He made me a CFA themed poster and a new cubicle name plate.

At the end of the day, we grabbed our friend Seth and went to use free food birthday coupons. At IHOP, Seth decided to sign up for the birthday club. When he saw how many spaces were allowed for your first name, he went a little crazy.

When we were tired and couldn't eat any more, we headed home, where to my surprise I had two packages! Birthday packages don't really happen as an adult but an old friend and his wife decided to surprise me with a bath set, and my sister Jaime threw together all kinds of goodies. Look at all these fun things that were individually wrapped for even more fun!

That weekend, we had birthday dinner. I made another batch of elk chili with cornbread. Then we made homemade ice cream. My mom handed down this hand-crank ice cream maker years ago and my intentions to use it finally came through.

We had a few last minute additions to our group and I was worried there wouldn't be enough ice cream, so I threw together peach cobbler too. I was trying to duplicate an ice cream flavor we'd bought a few months back. It was banana ice cream with cherries, crushed pineapple, chocolate chips, and swirls of dark chocolate. Tasty!

All in all, it was a good birthday. I really appreciated everyone's help in making it good. I'm a little burned out on CFA campouts for awhile, especially because I end up washing all the dirty or wet blankets and sleeping bags after. Oh, and it's been about 4 weeks since my cold started and I still can't lose the occasional cough.

Breaking things

2011-11-24T08:50:00.003-07:00

Sometimes I forget that I've been married for 8 1/2 years and living on my own for 9 1/2 years, and some things were already used....so it's normal for them to break.

I had to remind myself of that this week when:

1) I dropped my large mixing/serving spoon and it shattered.
2) I snapped my wooden spoon in half while pressing down sauerkraut (finally making it!)
3) My hand mixer died in the middle of making pie filling.

I wasn't prepared for the spoons to break. That's been a challenge. But my mixer cost me $5 and has mixed a lot of stiff cookie dough. It lived a good life. I've expected it to die for years, so I held on to a wedding gift, rightfully assuming the mixer would die at a very inconvenient time.

I'm loving my new mixer! It has three sets of beaters and six speeds, as compared to my old three speed mixer where only two speeds worked. It did a fantastic job on the peanut butter pie...which is looking mighty tasty in the freezer right this minute.

Happy Thanksgiving!

These holidays are looking mighty tasty!

2011-11-20T16:52:00.003-07:00

Okay, it appears my thought of giving away pies isn't too crazy. I liked Amy's suggestion of chips and salsa and I might have to try that one year.

I've made my list of families (so far just 13, but I'll probably add a few) and chosen my pie recipes. I've also picked the pies for Thanksgiving (going to a friend's house) and our own holiday dinner (sometime in December). I'll share recipes and photos as we go.

Most importantly, my stash of butter has been re-stocked! With higher dairy prices, I haven't seen a good butter sale in months. I bought a pound of butter at a lousy sale once, just to survive, but mostly we've gone without butter. Now that it's time for holiday sales, I was hoping for my previous stock-up price of $1.67/lb but I knew that was unlikely. I settled for $1.99 (I've since seen $1.88 but not at a close store) and guesstimated how much to buy. I decided 10 lbs would get me through the holidays and then 2 lbs a month for the rest of the year. I'm hoping 32 lbs will last me until next year's good sale.

I'll end up making some cookies and definitely some pumpkin bread (recipe here), especially since I found cinnamon chips on sale.

What new things are you baking this year?

Christmas pies?

2011-11-06T14:29:00.005-07:00

I really don't like thinking about Christmas already, but realistically I have to do a little planning in advance so December isn't a nightmarish sleep-deprived month. Although...I won't be working OT like I have for the past several years, and that should help.

Anyway...

I'm thinking about skipping Christmas cookies this year. So many people are avoiding gluten and/or sugar, or are trying to lose weight.

I'm also contemplating the idea of giving away pies instead of plates of cookies. Not very conventional, I know, but it sounds tasty.

Feel free to cast your vote over on the side or leave a comment.

It was tasty...but what was it?

2011-11-06T11:02:00.004-07:00

Here's the problem with making up recipes as you go. If you don't record the ingredients IMMEDIATELY, it's too late. I had grand intentions of blogging about this cucumber salad that I finally tried making back when cucumbers kept arriving on my doorstep. It was oddly appealing while I was pregnant, until one day when it suddenly wasn't. :P

But even sadder is the fact that I forgot what was in this luscious casserole. Nathan and I really wanted to make it again and I was going to tell you all about it. All I know now is that it contained spinach, ham, chicken, rice, 3 kinds of cheese, and who knows what else.

Halloween

2011-11-02T06:06:00.003-06:00

We decided to mostly skip Halloween this year, because I was feeling cheap and I'm really not into Halloween anyway. I'm married so I'm not planning a cute costume to attract guys, and it's a holiday that really reminds me that I have no kids. That being said, our friend's 80s band was playing the Saturday night before Halloween, and I had been wanting to support them. That made an 80s costume the logical choice.

I had originally planned to find a hideous hot pink dress with a bow over the butt at the thrift store, but as you know I was just a bit busy canning. By the time we made it to the store, it was Friday night and everything crazy was gone. I found an orange tube top and a bright skirt that was a couple sizes too big, and figured out what I could pair it with. Then I went to Target and bought big hoop earrings (since they're back in style) and a few pairs of socks to scrunch down.

I washed and braided my hair Saturday morning. Nathan helped braid so we could finish before my hair dried. Unfortunately I had to go to the store AND a baby shower that day....I got some funny looks. It was nice and big once I unbraided it though, and amazingly I still had a scrunchie sitting around that I hadn't used in a long time.

With every bracelet I own and my bright yellow tights, I deemed this an acceptable costume, especially since I really just don't care. We went to a church party and then the performance, which would have been more fun if I'd known more people there. I was dying to dance but didn't want to dance with weird strangers. Nathan had borrowed video equipment from school (he's taking a video editing class) in order to record the band. They were really appreciative of this and it meant we got in for free, because we were with the band.

Nathan shaved his mustache, bought a straw hat, and went as an Amish man.

Oh, and for the church party I made these cute owl desserts. Didn't remember to take a picture before they were consumed. I couldn't find candy melts so I just whipped up a tiny batch of yellow frosting.

Apples

2011-10-30T18:40:00.004-06:00

We picked just a few free apples this year. I spent a lot of time on the bus scanning for apple trees that weren't being picked, and now I can't seem to turn off my apple radar. It's amazing and sad to see how many people don't pick their fruit.

We didn't know any of these people. We just asked if we could pick, since it looked like they weren't going to use all of their apples. We always try to clean up the fallen, rotting fruit so we will be welcome back next year. We could have picked many more boxes if I'd had the time and energy - I probably saw 25 more houses with apples going to waste.

Source #1 - Neighbor around the corner. Think they were Granny Smith. Very wormy and small, took us two rounds of picking. Picked up a few walnuts from their yard as well.

Source #2 - Vacant house a few miles away, got permission from the owner. Think they were Jonathan. Wormy but larger, so I sorted out the good ones and used the corer-peeler-slicer to do a few jars of apple slices.

Source #3 - House a mile away. Golden Delicious and Red Delicious, not very many, somewhat wormy but good sized. They had a red pear tree and I'd never seen red pears, so they said we could take just a few. They turned out to be Asian pears - SCORE!

Source #4 - Neighbor on our street. Think they were Jonathan. Wormy and large, but the apples were really high and Nathan wasn't home that day. It was hard picking and even harder to carry the one box and fruit picker home by myself.

Source #5 - House a few miles away. Red Delicious, best bunch we got. The owners chose not to pick because they hadn't sprayed. We got scads of beautiful, large, wormy apples. These ones were good enough that I could use the slicer where you push down and it cores the apple and makes slices. Then I just cut out the bad parts. We also picked a few bunches of Concord grapes at this house.

Because I had to cut out bad spots in 85% of the apples, I mostly made applesauce. On the days when I had more than one variety of apple in the house, I mixed them for better flavor. I also made several flavors of applesauce. Cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla-spice (nutmeg, cinnamon, and vanilla). I chose to use sugar to sweeten all the batches although some batches didn't require much.

A bit into the project, I decided I couldn't possibly keep peeling and blending all of these apples. We were given a strainer but it turned out to be missing a number of parts. We decided it was worth it to buy a new strainer and keep the old one for parts. It really sped up the process but was still physically demanding, so I drafted Nathan when he was around.

The apples are now officially done. I would have liked to pick the rest of the Red Delicious apples but I was too exhausted and ran out of time before we got a hard freeze. I spent hours and hours on the apples and I'm pretty sure we now have a two year supply.

I tried a new recipe with the last of the apples - caramel spice apple butter. I've been eyeballing it for months and it lived up to my expectations. I had an additional jar that didn't seal and Nathan scarfed it down. I guess I'm adding it to my repertoire.

Final tally:
Apple juice - 6 quarts, 1 pint
Apple slices - 3 quarts, 1 pint
Applesauce - 30 quarts, 34 pints
Apple-cinnamon syrup - 3 quarts, 1 pint
Caramel spice apple butter - 8 pints
Jalapeno applesauce - 5 pints

Oh yeah, here's the scoop on the jalapeno applesauce. I cooked the elk chili in my pressure cooker. I subsequently washed it and cooked a batch of apples in it. I made the brilliant decision to speed up the cooking process by actually putting on the lid and bringing it up to pressure. Unfortunately I hadn't thoroughly cleaned the seal on the lid, which had absorbed just enough jalapeno flavor to mildly flavor the apples.

To answer a previous comment, my pressure canner (used for meat and veggies) is different from my pressure cooker (cooks things faster - great for dried beans).

Almost done!

2011-10-25T07:03:00.004-06:00

I can almost see the end of canning season!

Thank goodness because October is almost over, it's possibly snowing this week, and I'm about to lose my mind. In fact, my sister decided I accidentally pickled my brain along with the zucchini. I think she's right. I'm constantly losing track of what day it is. Work and canning all blur together until Sunday, such a blessed day of rest.

Can you believe I've canned or frozen 278 jars of food since canning season began, much of it from free food (minus the sweeteners/spices)? I was out of hand-me-down jars and running out of garage sales that carried jars, so 1 1/2 weeks ago I put out a request on Facebook. I was willing to trade 1 filled jar for 6 empty jars.

We were overwhelmingly humbled by the response. Between my brother, a ding-dong-ditcher, and someone from church, we received some cash, a peppermint plant (yay, a new kind of mint!), some used jars, and multiple boxes of BRAND NEW JARS!

Other than an occasional glance in the store, I'd never experienced new jars before. My mom and grandma always used hand-me-downs and that's how I got started in canning, with gifted jars from people who no longer needed them. These new jars are awesome. I don't have to check for chipped rims, I can replace my ancient dented/dirty rings, and I don't have to scrub dirt and dead bugs out of jars.

Of course my immediate response was to tell Nathan we could go pick more free apples, since I now had jars! I'm glad we did, because the last tree we picked had excellent quality apples.

I also had the opportunity to pick grapes. A coworker wasn't planning to use his grapes this year. I picked Concord and some other kind, and he gave me a start of each vine. Hopefully we'll have grapes in a couple years. In the meantime, thanks to my steam juicer and a significant lack of sleep, I was able to put up 11 quarts of delicious sugar-free grape juice and save two glasses' worth for our enjoyment. Yay!

What am I doing wrong?

2011-10-22T23:24:00.003-06:00

Somehow... canning always takes longer than "they" say it's supposed to. For example:

Right now I'm making grape juice in the steam juicer. I read online that it's supposed to take one hour and I'll start getting juice after 20 minutes. Umm, no. It's been at least 90 minutes and I have a jar's worth.

Cooking apples for applesauce - that supposedly takes 30 minutes until the apples are soft. Again, not a chance. I have to stir them several times and it usually takes an hour, AFTER the liquid starts boiling.

That would probably explain why it's 11:30 and bedtime isn't coming for awhile, even though I skipped half my projects for tonight so I could get some sleep.

The lack of sleep might help you understand my silly error earlier today that resulted in applesauce mildly flavored with jalapeno... at least we decided it could be a tasty meat topping, so I didn't just toss it. Instead, I canned it after adding lemon juice, cinnamon, and brown sugar, which isn't the combination I've used in the non-spicy applesauce, but it complements the mild kick nicely.

Digital scrapbooking giveaway

2011-10-21T14:30:00.002-06:00

My sister's blog (Polka Dots on Parade) is hosting a giveaway for digital scrapbooking software. If you're interested, go check out her cute crafty blog.

Elk Chili

2011-10-19T13:02:00.003-06:00

I put that elk meat to use! I signed up for a chili potluck at work and very much regretted it as the day approached and canning season still hadn't ended.

I defrosted elk tenderloin and pressure cooked it until it was nicely tender. Then I pressure cooked kidney beans. My pressure cooker is one of my favorite bridal shower gifts. No recipe of course, but the ingredients were as follows:

2-ish pounds (pre-cooked weight) of cooked meat chunks
Broth from cooking
1 1/2 C dried kidney beans, cooked
2 cans tomato sauce
1 large onion, chopped
4 jalapenos, diced, with a few seeds left in
Brown sugar - 1/2 C?
Garlic powder - approx 1 Tbsp?
Chili powder - approx 1 Tbsp
Salt - 1 tsp?

Simmer on low heat for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

I was very pleased with the results. It was thick, sweet, and had a bit of kick.

Quick update

2011-10-17T21:40:00.002-06:00

Too tired and busy to do anything besides update the canning tally on the sidebar! Right now I'm trying to stay awake until a load of laundry finishes.

So far we've picked free apples from five different homes. A mix of varieties, but most of them containing worms, so they take time to cut up. One day when they're finished, I'll share yummy ways I've preserved them.

While picking apples, we've also managed to score Concord grapes, walnuts, pears, and Asian pears.

I've identified trees at work as crabapple, talked to the city and my employer for permission, and plan to pick those to make crabapple jelly.

We've been blessed by generous people. Details to come.

I made my arm pretty mad. It's doing better today and hopefully I'll be up to canning again by tomorrow. Combination of all this canning/picking throwing me out of alignment and causing achy arms, tennis elbow from turning the crank on the strainer and cutting up wormy apples, and sore muscles from the aforementioned crank. I woke up Saturday night in horrid pain and had to take Advil to dull the pain to a manageable level.

Free elk meat

2011-10-13T20:50:00.003-06:00

I've fallen in love with KSL's online classifieds. They seem to be more popular in our area than either Craigslist or Freecycle. I've been keeping a frequent eye on the "free" section for jars or food to can.

Tonight I saw an ad for free elk meat. A hunter's wife didn't care for elk and was tired of it taking up space in her freezer. I saw it just in time, because she was splitting it between the first two responders and she got flooded with calls within 15 minutes.

After picking more free apples (drowning in apples over here, holy cow), we drove another 15 minutes south to pick up the frozen meat. We got 15 pounds of steak, roast, and ground meat. I was told it doesn't have freezer burn but is rather tough. No worries, I'll throw it in the slow cooker. I'm thinking it should make some good chili!

More cheap jars!

2011-10-10T19:46:00.003-06:00

It's ironic really that I'm buying jars, because my mom and grandma both have some to give me next time I visit. But canning season is NOW and I'm blowing through jars like crazy this year.

I scouted the internet again for garage sales that advertised jars, and last Saturday I headed out to be the first one at a sale. The jars were too expensive, so I asked if they'd give me a discount if I took all of the pints and quarts. They agreed, but it still wasn't a great price. At least these jars were perfectly clean and wouldn't require a good soaking.

But here's where things got good...

They had 8 boxes of lids at 10 cents each. I normally spend 14 to 20 cents per lid, depending if it's wide or narrow mouth. The seller said they were about 5 years old (and I've since discovered they seal beautifully), so I wasn't too worried about the quality.

I spent $18.80 for 39 jars and approximately $14.40 worth of lids.

It got better... On the way home, I called a friend who needed more pint jars to can salsa. (I'm so proud, I inspired her to try canning this year and she's doing it on her own now!) She took 12 jars and insisted on paying me $5.00.

So ultimately I spent $13.80 for $14.40+ worth of lids and 27 jars....they basically paid me to take those jars. Love it!

Zucchini pickles

2011-10-06T19:57:00.003-06:00

I am thankful for free food. I actively seek it out during the summer. But when I'm drowning in it, I have to remind myself out loud..."I am thankful for all of this free ______."

Two wonderful ladies from church kept bringing me zucchini this year. I made a couple batches of flavorful soup and some zucchini bread, but they just kept coming. And they got bigger. I stepped outside in the dark one morning to find two massive ones on my doorstep.

I've been wanting to can pickles for a few years but the thought intimidated me. Then I started searching the internet desperately for ways to preserve the zucchini, learned you could make dill pickles, and got the courage to tackle them. I did decide to take a shortcut and buy a mix rather than play around with fresh dill, brining for a few weeks, etc.

One zucchini was so big that I had to prop it on my hip while I peeled it over the trash can. It was too heavy to hold one-armed.

All of my jars sealed but Nathan made me open one a day later so he could sample them. Zucchini does not make crunchy pickles but the pickles taste normal. For some odd reason, he tasted one and said it would go well in soup. Soup? I've never heard of pickles in soup. He thought about it and came up with the idea of pickle and potato soup. Eww. We'll just put them in potato salad - close enough.

Next year I hope to try pickles without the mix! One more food challenge conquered!

Plums

2011-10-04T22:26:00.009-06:00

We were blessed to pick (for free!) approximately 77 pounds of freestone plums last week. Man oh man have I been busy with plums. Plums in cinnamon vanilla syrup (divine), plums in ginger lime honey syrup (okay), spiced plum butter, Asian plum sauce, plum pancake syrup, and plum-jalapeno jelly. Take a look at the canning tally in my sidebar!

My hands are stained purple and the floor and cupboards got covered in sticky purple juice as fast as I could clean it up. See the drips of juice across the floor?

I'm especially proud of the jelly since it's my second time making jelly and first time using pectin. My coworker has been toying with the idea of starting his own jalapeno jelly business called Sweet Mama's Fire Jelly. I labeled one jar especially for him.

I hit up a garage sale and scored 52 pints or half pints plus one box of lids for $10.00. Without those, I could never have completed all of this canning. I also did my first (and hopefully only) all night canning session. After a couple of days rest and a trip to the store to buy more pectin and lids, I finished the plums tonight. We have samples of each item in the fridge, either some that didn't fit in a jar or jars that didn't seal, which I have not included in my total count.

The canning isn't finished though. Next up, apples in some form and zucchini pickles.

Awesome day!

2011-09-30T14:51:00.002-06:00

Yesterday was a pretty great day.

We went to Olive Garden a few weeks ago and I completed the customer satisfaction phone survey. Yesterday I got the mail and found a letter saying I had won their monthly survey sweepstakes. Included was a check for $50.00. Not even a gift card that I have to use there...a check!

The mail also held concert tickets we had purchased (yay!) and the hospital bill (boo!).

Facebook told me an infertile acquaintance was pregnant. I love when the list of women I pray for gets shorter because someone got pregnant!

Then I tackled plums...we picked a lot of them on Wednesday night. I had only helped my mom can plums as a kid and I was pleasantly surprised at how easy and tasty they were. I'll blog more about them later, but those 14 quarts of tasty goodness looked like success to me. :-)

Pears and tomatoes

2011-09-26T19:13:00.005-06:00

Well sadly the pears and tomatoes all ripened either when I was nauseous or when I was exhausted after the miscarriage. We gave away many, many pears and had to throw away some that I didn't get to in time. Canning was too much work, but I froze what I could.

I was able to make a small batch of pear sauce. We enjoyed some and then I froze 3 pints.

I was given a nice quantity of tomatoes. I froze 6 quarts of tomato juice and 7 quarts of spaghetti sauce. I was disappointed in this year's sauce. I don't actually know what recipe I used last year. I suspect the difference was that I didn't have bell peppers this time.

We also received a few plums and a bag of peaches. I made raspberry-peach cobbler for a work potluck, and then peach-pear-plum cobbler just for the heck of it. I didn't use a recipe in either case but the second cobbler turned out especially good. The topping was a bit dense but tasty.

General concept - for those who can bake that way:

Heat together, then pour in a glass dish:
Slices of peeled pears, peeled peaches, and unpeeled plums
Sugar
Nutmeg
Cornstarch (I would have rather used tapioca but I was out)

Mix together, then pour on top of the fruit:
Soft (pastry) whole wheat flour
Brown sugar
Baking powder
Salt
Vanilla
Egg
Milk
Nutmeg

Bake at 350 degrees until topping is cooked through, 30-40 minutes.

Six years of Utah

2011-09-24T07:01:00.003-06:00

Six years ago today, we arrived in Utah. Our wonderful friends (Chris and Christine) helped us drive the moving truck. By the time we were finished packing and cleaning, it was mid-afternoon on Friday. We hit traffic just before Cajon Pass and were creeping along. While we were stuck in traffic, my landlady called.

In the alley behind our apartments, it was common practice to set items that still had some worth next to the dumpster. They were often claimed quickly. If not, you threw them in the trash 1-2 days later. I thought this was awesome and we were able to get rid of and gain some items in that manner. When we moved, we placed a couple pieces of furniture in the alley. In my naivete, I thought I was doing a good thing. However, the landlady informed me this was illegal and the city would fine them for it. We agreed on a compromise. We would ask family members to move the furniture away from our complex. If if it was still there in a couple days, the landlady would call the city and complain about "someone" having dumped these items.

Okay, so now I was exhausted, frustrated at traffic, and completely mortified. We kept driving. My memories of the drive include that we all drank a lot of caffeine and therefore had to stop to pee quite often, which also helped keep us awake. We were shocked that one gas station was closed during the night. Coming from SoCal, all gas stations are supposed to be open 24/7!

Around 4:30 Saturday morning, we finally stopped to sleep in a park in Provo. I had the delightful experience of using a park restroom where the stalls had no doors, with a flashlight, convinced I was going to get attacked at any moment. I'm not a fan of Happy Valley, and this is the one and only time I was thrilled to arrive there.

We slept a few blissful hours and then said goodbye to our friends. As another fun part of moving, escrow had been delayed a week. Our loan agent was kind enough to let us park our moving truck in his gated driveway, so we ditched it and then went to live with our realtor and his house of bachelors for a week. (Our realtor had been one of Nathan's mission companions.)

There were a lot of things we had to adjust to. I went grocery shopping within a couple days of arriving. Strangers kept talking to me...welcome to the store.....do you need help finding something... I just wasn't used to that in a grocery store.

Anyway, the fun of buying a home, moving, and driving through the night was a horrible experience that I have tried to forget. Even now, when I see a yellow moving truck, I have a flashback moment and shudder a little.

But I love living here, and I love this time of year as we move into fall, because it reminds me of our first few weeks as a homeowner, making our own way without family nearby.

Miscarriage

2011-09-19T08:39:00.003-06:00

I've thought a lot about this post. I was so confident when I got pregnant that I wouldn't miscarry, because Heavenly Father knew I wasn't strong enough to handle that. It's always amazing to me that He feels I can bear harder burdens than I think I can. I guess the key is to lean on Him. My faith has grown a lot over the last year and it continues to grow through this trial.

I debated whether to share our exciting news before the 2nd trimester, and I felt that I should. I know some people regret having to un-share the news. I still believe it was the right choice for us. I needed the amazing outpouring of joyful support for my pregnancy. It made me feel so special and loved, and helped me through the nausea and fatigue. Now, we are again flooded with loving support for our loss. I would have been so sad to have never had the opportunity to share my excitement. I am surrounded with a support system of which I never before recognized the extent.

I had mild cramping and brown spotting starting Thursday night. I tried to rest but wasn't overly concerned. Saturday night the cramps worsened and I started bleeding. I felt we should go to the emergency room. I didn't really think we were losing the pregnancy. We were blessed to be alone in the ER due to a big football game, so we got in immediately. Things got a lot worse once we were there. Due to a lab error, they were confused as to the situation at first. It was a pretty awful experience even before they told me I was miscarrying, but Nathan was amazingly supportive and held my hand through the worst of it.

The baby died about a week ago. The ultrasound showed nothing but fluid and dissolving tissue in my uterus. They wouldn't let me eat or drink in case I needed surgery, and I collapsed on the bathroom floor at one point due to low blood sugar. That was so much fun. They admitted me to the hospital in the wee hours because of how much blood I was losing.

Everyone was very, very nice and I tried hard to smile and thank everyone. There was no point in being a grouch. Funny story - when I was discharged the next morning, the nurse who wheeled me out apparently didn't know why I was there. She made small talk while we waited for the car. She asked if we had children and I said not yet. She immediately said, "That's so nice! You have a quiet house!" I laughed once I was in the car. What else could I do?

While I'm grieving, I was able to hold it together pretty well in the hospital and I'm working to find the good things. I'm grateful to feel well physically again. My house has been a mess and I haven't cooked much for several weeks. I'm grateful for the opportunity to finish canning season. I'm grateful for insurance and flexible spending money, so I had no concerns about going to the hospital to get answers. I know not everyone has that luxury. I'm very grateful for the kind words and gestures that have come our way. There are beautiful flowers on our kitchen table. I'm grateful for a loving husband, even though I'm concerned about how he's really feeling right now.

My turn will come. I will be a mom. But right now, I'm gonna cry for awhile.

All I ever do is eat!

2011-09-03T20:03:00.002-06:00

Bless Nathan's heart, he suggested we go buy some fruit, in case I was getting tired of the frozen and canned fruit we have on hand. It was such an inspired idea. We got a wonderful colorful variety (how I love summer!) plus the cheesecake I'd been craving.

Two kinds of plums
Oranges
Bananas
Cantaloupe
Kiwi
Pineapple
Grapes
Blueberries

Yum!

Bun in the oven!

2011-08-30T11:22:00.002-06:00

Most everyone already knows from Facebook or a phone call, but I wanted to post it here as well.

I'm baking something new, a bun in the oven! We've been waiting for this day for a long time, so I'm thrilled to be pregnant. I'm due in April.

I know my blog has been too quiet and I've failed to return the favor of following some blogs. I'll do my best to catch up as I can. I was still fighting depression on and off for the past few months, and had no desire to post. Now that I'm pregnant, I'm feeling tons better emotionally (nothing like achieving a huge success!) but I feel nauseous and tired most of the time. Thankfully the puking is limited.

I do have a couple recipes to share and pictures of my yogurt-making attempts, once I feel up to it. Right now my focus is surviving each day of work and the accompanying bus/train ride, trying to make some food occasionally, and making sure we have clean clothes. Nathan's been wonderful about buying or making whatever I think I can eat, lifting anything heavy, and being understanding when I just want to lie on the couch for hours.

Thankful Thursday

2011-08-11T21:26:00.003-06:00

Today I'm thankful for:

1) MORE free apricots!

2) Family to buy us dinner after we melted while picking apricots.

3) Walks with Nathan. He's started walking with me in the evening. We'll see how long it lasts, but I'm loving it while it does.

What about you??

Canning season = not enough sleep

2011-07-29T05:58:00.007-06:00

I added a spot in the sidebar to keep track of this year's canning.

This is what life looks like around here.

I bought 58 lbs of peaches on sale and then decided it wasn't enough and bought an extra 33 lbs. We've had several sources of free apricots, some better than others.

I was blessed to be given a steam juicer and a strainer (to make puree/sauce), as well as several dozen jars. I'm loving the steam juicer! Nathan said the juice tastes like Kern's nectar. I'm taking that as high praise!

All this canning means I'm not getting enough sleep though. Yesterday I finally gave up and came home an hour early. Took a 2 1/2 hour nap, picked apricots, and gave up for the night.

I decided to make peach salsa, found a yummy recipe, and bought the two ingredients I didn't have. Then I learned you aren't supposed to can salsa in quarts and I had no pints. Ended up freezing it and eating lots fresh - so good!

Thankful Thursday

2011-07-21T05:52:00.002-06:00

This week I'm especially thankful for...

1. My own washing machine. We came home last week from visiting a flea-infested home and I had to do 5 loads of laundry immediately to prevent spreading them. That wouldn't have fun if I'd had to drop in quarters for each one.

2. Friends who help at a moment's notice. Monday I grabbed a friend right after he'd done physical labor all day. He helped me try to wedge a couch into the basement....and then back out and down again three different times before we gave up.

3. Snuggly cats, even though they force their way into my lap when I'm trying to do things, like type this. :P

Lasagna roll-ups

2011-07-08T10:05:00.003-06:00

I came home with Italian sausage a couple weeks ago, intending to make some sort of pasta. Turns out all I had was half a box of lasagna noodles. I opened my first jar of spaghetti sauce (which turned out to be incredibly good), defrosted some ricotta, and devised something tasty.

Lasagna Roll-ups

9 lasagna noodles, broken in half and cooked
1 1/4 lb. bulk hot Italian sausage, cooked and crumbled
1 quart spaghetti sauce
20 oz. ricotta cheese
1 egg
2 cloves garlic
two dashes nutmeg
parmesan (the good stuff or the powdered kind)
9x13 pan

Mix together the ricotta, egg, minced garlic, nutmeg, and 1/2 C of the sausage. Mix the rest of the sausage in with the spaghetti sauce.

In your pan, lay out a noodle. Spread it with a spoonful of the ricotta mixture. Roll it up and put it in the pan with the seam down to hold it together. Repeat until you run out of room; fill in the gaps with any broken noodle pieces.

Spread the remaining ricotta mixture over the top of the noodles. Pour the sauce over everything. Sprinkle parmesan cheese on top.

Bake at 375 degrees until bubbly, 20-30 minutes. Chow down! This is a definite make again and would freeze well.

Apricot spice cake

2011-07-06T09:40:00.001-06:00

I needed another last-minute cake for company. I dug out an applesauce cake recipe I'd used before but didn't really like, and hoped for the best with some alterations. After a little help, and then a little more, it turned out yummy. It's a dense spice cake, not light and fluffy.

Apricot Spice Cake

Warning: Use a LARGE bowl. When I mixed in the baking soda, it started expanding like crazy. I had to move to a larger bowl.

3 1/2 C apricot jam (mine already has spices in it, if yours doesn't, add extra spices)
1/4 C oil
1 1/2 C white sugar
1/2 C brown sugar
1/4 tsp almond extract
4 tsp soda
2 tsp baking powder
-------
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp each: cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, cloves
4 C flour

Thoroughly mix everything up to the dashed lines, then add the remaining ingredients. Put in a greased 9x13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees until toothpick in the middle comes out clean, approx 40-45 minutes.

(This is where I tasted it and started improvising even more.)

The edges will be a little overcooked. Take a fork and stab holes about 1/2 apart, focusing more on the edges.

Mix together 1/2 C milk and about 1/4 C white sugar and pour it over the cake, especially on the edges. You could probably use sweetened condensed milk instead.

Topping:
2/3 C sour cream
two large spoonfuls brown sugar
powdered sugar, nutmeg, and vanilla to taste

Spoon over the cake while it's still warm.

In case you couldn't tell, I was flying by the seat of my pants. Almost out of butter and brown sugar. Out of chocolate chips and molasses. Happened to have sour cream and milk on hand. Isn't that how it always goes in my kitchen though?

Random pics

2011-07-05T21:29:00.000-06:00

Echo really loves Nathan's shoes. He's forever playing with or cuddling with them.

He also likes to stand on top of the towel rack.

Nathan's proud of his new laptop! He's been saving his spending money for many months.

I never know what I'll find when I transfer the photos from the camera. Here's me sleeping with the cats.

Freezer cooking - July

2011-07-04T22:29:00.003-06:00

I'm so stinking tired. Life is just crazy right now. We have company, both expected and unexpected. I decided to do a freezer cooking session over the holiday weekend.

On Saturday, I invited a friend over who really doesn't cook at all. With much hand-holding, we prepared three recipes. We cooked two of them and then froze individual portions. The other one she took home to cook, since she had family in town. She was very proud of herself. Unfortunately my 40 lb box of chicken took forever to defrost, so I didn't get much cooking done until several hours later.

At this moment I'm very sick of chicken and not quite done. I even ended up eating some of it instead of freezing, in order to feed our guests. I ran out of energy and wanted to spend time with my company. I'll have to finish it early tomorrow morning.

Herbed chicken - 2 8x8 pans and 2 pint jars, some with rice, some with broccoli.
Chicken enchiladas - 2 9x13 pans
Tamale pie - 3 round dishes
Cream of chicken soup - 3 pints
Chili verde - to be finished (probably 2 quarts)
Diced chicken - two ice cream containers' worth
Chicken divan - 2 9x13 pans
Broth - 2 quarts

8 years

2011-07-03T21:13:00.005-06:00

Nathan gave me his ring to wear when we started dating. I kept it hidden on an anklet or a chain around my neck for a long time.

I never had an engagement ring, but we got the matching wedding rings I wanted. No gold or diamonds for this girl!

Last week was our 8-year anniversary. I had the brilliant idea to go on a cave tour near us, and try new ethnic cuisine. Yeah, brilliant. The last time we went hiking was on our honeymoon. The 1 1/2 mile hike to the cave was pretty rough on us, even though we went when it was cool. Nathan was still half asleep. The camera died after three photos, even though I had grabbed new (but sadly dead) batteries that day. My phone camera didn't work in the dark cave.

The power went out while in the cave, and only two people had flashlights. The guide hauled out two emergency glow sticks, which didn't help much given the size of our group. We had light every few people, but mostly we walked in the dark listening to instructions from people with lights. "Stairs coming up, 15 of them." "Duck on the third step!" It made me grateful I didn't find the cave initially and explore it by candlelight.

After we got back down the mountain, we went to see Cars 2. I was so tired I almost fell asleep. The movie was interesting but not that impressive. We were too stinky and sore to go for food. We went home and Nathan slept the rest of the afternoon.

The next day, we had dessert at a Thai restaurant. (Still using the phone camera, sorry.) We got sticky rice with mango and coconut milk. It was incredibly delicious.

Halfway up the hill, Nathan decided our next anniversary would consist of a spa visit. I don't think hiking will be in our future anytime soon. It's not meant for two out-of-shape people!

Chocolate-Dr. Pepper cake

2011-06-29T19:41:00.004-06:00

I'm not claiming this is healthy, but it sure is good! I needed to make a last-minute dessert with what I had on hand, and I found this recipe to tweak.

Chocolate-Dr. Pepper Cake

Mix together:
2 C white flour
2 C sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
dash salt

In a saucepan, mix:
3 Tbsp cocoa (I use Dutch cocoa)
1/2 C butter
1/2 C oil
1 C Dr. Pepper (You can use caffeine-free)

Heat until boiling. Remove from heat.

Stir in until melted:
1 1/2 C mini marshmallows

Mix together:
The dry ingredients
The above liquid mixture
2 eggs
1/2 C buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla

Bake in greased 9x13 pan at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.

While it's baking, make the icing and frost the cake as soon as it comes out of the oven.

Icing:

1/2 C butter
1/4 C dark chocolate chunks
3 T Dr. Pepper

Heat until boiling.

Mix in approx. 1 lb. powdered sugar until you think the consistency is good. It should be soft.

Frost the cake. After it cools about 10 minutes, sprinkle it with pecans, toffee chips, or chocolate shavings. (I did sections of each!)

Locks of love

2011-06-27T20:15:00.003-06:00

For those of you who haven't already seen (and made sweet comments) on Facebook, I chopped my hair. Nathan cut off a 12-inch ponytail and then I had my second-ever professional haircut. It was a really different experience. My hair has so many layers! It's so short, argh! I know it was time for a change though and I don't regret it. It will just take some time to get used to it.

This is the second time I've cut off my hair to donate to Locks of Love. The first time we cut 14 inches. Jaime and I screamed our way through the cutting. This time wasn't traumatic. I was so ready for it to be gone. The part that made me nervous was going to the salon. I wasn't sure what the end result would be.

Canning season has begun!

2011-06-25T20:57:00.005-06:00

What a great day! It really didn't start well - this week exhausted me to the point of being weak and shaky this morning - but I ended up accomplishing a few good things.

I went to the thrift store in search of more dishes for freezer meals. I scored a metal pan, a Pyrex 8x8, and a Pyrex medium sized bowl. Total - $4.50. :-)

When I got home from my errands, I found friends at our house. They decided to go for sushi with Nathan. While they were gone, I made our friend Seth the dairy-free peanut butter cookies I'd promised him, for him to pick up when they returned. Since the oven was already hot, I figured I should use up the apples that Nathan wasn't eating. I threw together an apple crisp without a recipe and it turned out to be super yummy.

Then it was time to put up the rhubarb from the garden. I used the same jello-flavored jam recipe I always use. This time I used blackberry and raspberry jello. I canned 5 tasty pints. And thus canning season commenced. Pop, pop, pop!

On Monday we had that huge food event at work. No one wanted onions on their sandwiches, so I brought home the leftover onions and froze 4 gallon bags of onions. On Friday, I brought home the leftover tomatoes. I made a salad tonight to help use them. Lettuce, tomato, boiled eggs, tuna, homemade garlic-ranch dressing, and parmesan cheese.

Love all the yummy herbs! I didn't bother to follow a recipe but it still turned out really flavorful.

What a great way to end a summer day. Barefoot in the garden, picking strawberries, holding up the hem of my ancient denim jumper to act as a basket.

Toffee brownies

2011-06-22T10:34:00.004-06:00

I'm a brownie snob. I don't like most people's brownies. Oddly enough, I prefer brownies from a mix, not from scratch. I like the Pillsbury mix with an entire bag of chocolate chips, slightly underbaked. I've been unhappy with multiple brownie recipes. Monday night, however, I made some tweaks to one and was satisfied, although not in love. Since I'm so picky, if I was satisfied, it must be acceptable enough to share. :-) I don't even have a picture, because we had a friend over and they disappeared SO fast!

Toffee Brownies

1/4 C butter, melted or very soft
1 C sugar
1/3 C cocoa
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 C flour
dash of salt
2 eggs
2-4 squares of a milk chocolate candy bar
toffee chips

Mix together the butter, sugar, cocoa, and vanilla. Add the salt, flour, and eggs. Pour into a greased 8x8 pan. Cut the chocolate squares into small pieces and sprinkle on top. Sprinkle toffee chips on top until the entire surface is lightly covered.

Bake in preheated 325 degree oven for 25-30 minutes, until they begin to pull away from sides. Will look under-baked. Best eaten warm and slightly gooey.

Welcome to summer!

2011-06-22T10:28:00.002-06:00

We celebrated the first official day of summer with watermelon and "extreme moose tracks" ice cream. Yum!

What did you do?

Life's crazy again!

2011-06-14T21:46:00.003-06:00

I'm horribly behind on blogging. I should be asleep by now but I'm waiting to switch laundry and turn off the water in the garden. I'll try to post next week when life slows down, but here's a brief update.

Nathan went to visit friends in TX for almost two weeks. While he was gone I did things like start a compost pile, try yoga, buy solar walkway lights, and paint.

My department at work is getting ready to move into a newly remodeled building. I'm helping with a number of things to prepare, such as arranging for a welcome breakfast and lunch for 350 people.

I'm also smack in the middle of training three new employees. One of them will be taking English and Spanish calls for North America. One will be taking Dutch calls for Suriname. One will be taking Creole calls for Haiti and English calls for North America. The training varies slightly for these areas of support, so I'm extra busy trying to cover it all. All of them know English as a second (or third) language, so there are always a few communication gaps.

Nathan has a cold and had a mysterious allergic reaction / large quantity of bites. We never figured out what caused it and the bumps are finally going down.

Pictures and more details to come...next week after the move is done!

Nut bread

2011-06-07T11:38:00.002-06:00

Nathan was gone for the last ~2 weeks and took the camera. It made me cranky to take pictures with my phone and email them to myself for blogging purposes. At least the phone takes good quality pictures.

Last week we had a little potluck of munchies to celebrate a new round of people finishing training. I'm trying to get back to the bread cookbook, so I dug out a quick bread recipe. This is a very basic recipe that includes walnuts.

I wasn't a big fan of this bread, but it's greatly improved by slathering on butter. I won't be making it again.

Thankful Thursday!

2011-06-02T07:31:00.003-06:00

This week I am thankful for:

1. The cute little onions Nathan found in the garden! I planted them last year and never knew when to harvest them. I eventually forgot about them.

2. Our car. I was trying to save $ and take the bus today, but the bus never came. I got the car and drove a carload full of people to work. What a blessing!

3. The wind. It rejuvenates my spirits. I love to hear the trees and windchimes blowing.

Summer kick-off picnic

2011-05-30T12:29:00.005-06:00

We had a fun party in the park for the young women from church. I gladly volunteered to make the food, because the day prior was Memorial Day. That's how I love to spend my holidays - in the kitchen for most of the day!

Dessert was the hardest part to decide but here's the final menu:

Potato salad
Baked beans
Tortilla roll-ups with a variety of fillings
Fruit kabobs
Sour cream cheesecake
Chocolate peanut butter pie

Failed to take pictures until the grub was mostly gone - it was well received!

The topping on the cheesecake is apricot. I needed to whip up a topping from the pantry at the last minute. I opened a jar of apricot jam (made with honey and pumpkin pie type spices). I heated a little with sugar and gelatin, then added almond extract. It went well with the cheesecake.

Linked up to:

Coconut bread, my own version

2011-05-29T19:53:00.003-06:00

Remember the coconut coffee cake / bread? I decided to make it again with a few tweaks. We keep having rainy days and this morning the house was 66 degrees in the warmest part. I refused to turn on the heat this late in the year. The obvious option was to do a little baking!

This is my recipe. Not the original copyrighted version.

In a large bowl, put:
3 tsp dried orange peel - add just enough water to rehydrate

Add:
2 1/2 C white flour
1 1/2 C white sugar
1 heaping Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 medium handfuls of shredded coconut, well toasted under the broiler

Mix, then add:
1 egg
1 1/2 C milk
2 Tbsp oil
1 glub vanilla (probably about 1 1/2 tsp)

Pour in a 9x5 (big) loaf pan that has been greased and floured. Bake at 350 degrees for 60 minutes.

It will be crusty with a soft, flavorful middle. The flavors blend really well, especially if you refrigerate the leftovers. It's a shame that Nathan doesn't like coconut. I'll be forced to freeze part of this and enjoy it for weeks to come. ;)

Shampoo & deodorant update

2011-05-28T13:05:00.004-06:00

Still in debate over whether or not homemade deodorant #2 works. It worked great for about 3 days, even when getting warm, and then my 99 cent spray bottle broke. I tried dabbing on the deodorant with a piece of TP (out of cotton balls) and I started getting stinky pits. I'm back to my toxin-filled deodorant until I pick up a new spray bottle. Maybe the deodorant doesn't work. Maybe I'm just not putting on enough with the TP.

As for the non-shampoo, my hair has adjusted quite nicely. I haven't combed my hair in years because combing hurt too much. I can either comb or brush my hair now and hardly ever get a tangle. I can go as long as 4-5 days without washing, depending on how often I run my hands through my hair. My hair feels fantastically silky most of the time and never has static.

A few weeks ago, I noticed a slimy thing floating in my jar of diluted apple cider vinegar aka conditioner. I was disgusted and threw it out. The next time I washed my hair, I found another one. I switched to a new jar, thinking there was funky residue in the jar. New jar - new floating slimy thing.

After a lot of internet searching last night, I learned this is a GOOD thing. The slimy thing in ACV is called "the mother," kind of like the mother dough for sourdough. You aren't supposed to throw it out. Isn't that weird? In all the blogs I've read about using ACV as conditioner, no one ever mentioned that.

Anyway, I don't know that I'll ever switch back to commercial shampoo. We've been using the liquid castile soap in the soap dispenser for the bathroom sink and are pleased with it there too. No more sodium laureth sulfate!

Thankful Thursday

2011-05-26T19:42:00.003-06:00

This week I'm thankful for:

1. Having never frozen my tongue to something. In the last week I managed to temporarily get my wet hair stuck to the frost in the freezer, and get my fingers seriously stuck to ice cubes (needed water to get them free).

2. Not living in tornado country. My heart goes out to people living in the devastated areas.

3. People who tell me uplifting things. Sometimes we all need a little boost.

How 'bout you?

Not much new here

2011-05-22T06:48:00.002-06:00

I feel like I'm just surviving life the last couple of weeks. Our excitement consists of things like Nathan finally fixing the light switch on our living room fan. It was fine all winter because we could turn on the light at the wall switch and leave the fan off. Once it started warming up (before it poured rain and got cold again), it wasn't so nice to have the light on all day in order to run the fan.

We turned off the power to the whole house, because I wasn't brave enough to find the correct breaker and risk shocking the hubby. We didn't have all the parts or tools we needed, but a neighbor's son was kind enough to come help us finish the repair. It's so nice to have it working!

As for work, I've been busy with round after round of new employees to train, plus other types of training when I have a gap. I had some 12 hour days last month (always fun) and tomorrow morning I'll do another one, because I need to train a grave shift employee on a task and then do my normal training schedule.

It feels like I'll never finish training new employees and get a chance to work on improving my training, but I had a couple successes this past week.

1) I created a permanent training schedule for new employees to comply with. Anyone who needs a refresher course on a specific topic will know exactly when to attend. This should prevent those obnoxious 12 hour days where I try to work around the new employees' schedules. Since our training team is a new concept, we have been figuring out how to do training and the supervisors have just been making demands left and right because they aren't used to having trainers and aren't sure how to use us.

2) I created my first training video, freeing up two hours on my schedule. We purchased Camtasia, which can be used for screen capture, audio capture, etc. One of my coworkers has been using it for brief training reminders each week, but I haven't had time to play with it. I was charged with providing training ASAP to 30+ employees on a new task. Because all of these people are on phones, I had to schedule four separate training sessions to accommodate everyone's schedule and keep enough people on phones at all times.

I was able to mostly create printed instructions on the bus Friday morning, then arrived at work, finished the instructions, and created a 5 1/2 minute video. I ran it by one of the supervisors and they LOVED it. They promptly forwarded it to all of their employees while I handed out the printouts. I canceled the training sessions and spent my day working on other projects, while my trainees watched the training at their desks between calls.

Okay, I know all this detail is probably really boring to anyone reading, but it made me happy. So yeah, that's what my life consists of right now....training, domestic tasks, and watching it rain.

Thankful Thursday!

2011-05-19T15:57:00.002-06:00

Oh boy oh boy is this an awesome week, albeit photo-less.

I am thankful for:

1. A timing chain on our car! Nathan just took the car to get the timing belt changed and learned we have a timing chain which will probably never need replacing. Timing belts aren't cheap!

2. Rain! It's been raining practically non-stop for three days. This started right after I planted half the garden. :-)

3. A practically free bus pass. My bus pass only costs $12/month through work. Riding the bus is kind of a drag, but it allows us to be a one-car family. I feel especially blessed to ride the bus to work while gas prices are so horrendous.

I am loved!

2011-05-15T13:00:00.001-06:00

I handled Mother's Day this year by mostly avoiding Facebook and only going to church for the sacrament, then bolting out the door. I holed up at home, talked to my mom briefly, and made the aforementioned eggnog.

In the late afternoon, I was pleasantly surprised to have someone stop by with a bouquet from her garden. She's aware of my infertility struggles and struggled herself, so she understood. It was so sweet of her to think of me. It really helped.

Eggnog

2011-05-14T21:13:00.005-06:00

My friend Rachel absolutely adores eggnog. She chugs it all holiday season. This year she learned she was pregnant before eggnog was available in the store, and her doctor forbid her to drink it. When she had the baby a couple of weeks ago, eggnog was no longer in the store.

I decided to make eggnog for her, for Mother's Day. I found a recipe, bought the ingredients, and followed instructions EXACTLY. (I know, very unusual for me.)

It was very time consuming. Definitely a labor of love.

It turned out just like it should - thick, creamy, and flavorful. I took her half and chugged the rest myself. (Nathan doesn't like eggnog but did sample a few sips.)

I'll be buying my eggnog in the future. $1.99 for a quart no longer seems expensive.

Mother's Day 2011

2011-05-08T08:34:00.002-06:00

Out of all the Mother's Day songs we sing at church, this is my mom's favorite. This year I decided to put it to video, using our beautiful spring flowers.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom! I love you!

Homemade deodorant, version 2

2011-05-07T06:46:00.004-06:00

Remember my previous attempt at homemade deodorant? It worked effectively for awhile. Nathan's pits started hurting, which was a known possibility. He switched back to commercial deodorant.

It worked well for me much longer. I'm not sure if it wasn't mixed evenly or what, but eventually it didn't work right. I didn't smell like B.O., but on hot days I smelled like non-smelly sweat. You know how the back of your shirt smells after your back sweats? Like that. It made me uncomfortable, so I went back to commercial deodorant.

I hated that I was using that nasty stuff again, and eventually it stopped working effectively too. I've noticed that I have to rotate deodorant periodically to a new brand, because one stops working.

Yesterday I finally made the new recipe I'd been eyeballing. I put approx 2 oz. witch hazel with 20 drops tea tree essential oil and 16 drops lavender essential oil.

Can you see the tiny oil droplets mixed in?

Anyway, only one day into the trial, so I'm not sure how it works yet. It worked fine yesterday. I smelled lightly of lavender, and I didn't stink after getting hot crawling around desks rearranging a computer lab. I'll keep you posted! While I'll be doing frequent pit checks (and making Nathan sniff me, haha), if you are around me and notice I stink, TELL ME!

Three things Thursday - thankful

2011-05-05T20:45:00.003-06:00

My sister's been doing this thing on her blog, listing three things she's thankful for each Thursday. Day's almost done, but finally remembering to do it!

The tulips were late in blooming this year, but they are as beautiful as ever. I'm amazed at the variety of colors. Today when I came home, they were all tipped toward the sun.

I'm thankful for my squishy monsters. Picasso sometimes wakes me up during the night with loud meowing outside the closed bedroom door, accompanied with scratching and doorknob rattling. I get up to pet him and shush him, and sometimes I step on the little stuffed Tigger rattle. He brings it to our door during the night once in awhile.

I'm thankful for my bed. Dear, wonderful waterbed. How I love your warmth in the winter. I love sinking into my waterbed. It always feels WONDERFUL at the end of a day. I'm thankful that my sister Janice hooked Jaime on waterbeds, who hooked me on waterbeds. I'm thankful that Janice swapped waterbeds with me when I got married so we could have a bigger one, and my nephew (who inherited the love of waterbeds) could have mine (which used to be Jaime's). Did you get lost in that story? Bottom line, I'm thankful for it. :-)

What are you thankful for today?

Knott's, how I miss you

2011-04-23T16:28:00.003-06:00

Knott's berry punch.....mmmm. My MIL buys me a bottle of concentrate for Christmas every couple of years, and I hoard that stuff like you wouldn't believe. It seriously lasts me 1-2 years.

When Nathan and I were newlyweds, we lived about 10 minutes away from Knott's Berry Farm. We bought annual passes for a really cheap price. We didn't use them very often on busy days, but I have very fond memories of our time at Knott's. Here's how it normally went:

20-30 minutes before closing, one of us would look at the clock and say, hey, wanna go to Knott's?

We would jump in the car, zoom there, and park in the free short-term parking. There was almost always a single spot available. If not, we'd circle around and have better luck. This parking is nice and close.

We would RUN through the annual pass office, because the main gates were already closed, and RUN to the ride we wanted. RUN through the empty walkways and right up to the front, just in time. Then we'd stroll out of the park hand in hand, listening to the music they play at closing. The park was quiet and fairly deserted.

I'm too scared to keep my eyes open on Ghostrider in the daytime, but at night, I love to look around. This was usually our ride of choice, since it was the closest to the entrance.

Sometimes we'd spend more time there, and we'd splurge on punch to share. I struggle with my blood sugar at times, and this was one of the worse periods in my life. Any other non-100% juice would make me nauseous/headache-y within a few sips, but not Knott's boysenberry punch. I've never figured out why.

So now, whenever I decide to bust out the punch, I remember all those frantic runs through the park just before closing, and smile. :)

My mint is up!

2011-04-20T08:24:00.003-06:00

I've had no interest in planting a garden this year...haven't bought seeds, pulled weeds, anything. Our tulips haven't even bloomed yet. This morning I noticed that my mint survived the winter and new growth shoots are popping up through the bark! Even better, the chocolate mint transplants (only planted a few weeks before snow) also survived!

That was all it took....I hopped online and just finished ordering seeds and plants! In the last few years, I've used the seeds I bought the first year we lived here. They're mostly gone now and I'm branching out.

2 raspberry plants
6 multi-colored heirloom tomato plants
3 yellow and red pear tomato plants
6 strawberry plants made to survive cold winters
jerusalem artichokes
brussels sprouts
swiss chard
bush beans
butternut squash
pumpkins

Things I never thought I'd try

2011-04-13T12:03:00.004-06:00

When I'm sick, I try to drink lots of water and herbal tea, and maybe some juice if I feel like splurging. Even when I alternate tea flavors, I get tired of all that liquid.

I tried some new tea when I was sick a few weeks ago, and the package said to try adding milk and sugar. Milk and tea has always seemed like a really weird combination to me. This tea is delightfully spicy, so I added molasses. Then I decided to add just a touch of milk. Oh my goodness! It was so yummy! It completely changed the flavor and broke up the monotony of consuming so much water.

Now I don't think I'd add milk to every herbal tea, but for a spicy one like this, it was fantastic.

Another thing I never thought I would try...organ meats. You know, like liver.

A little story. My mom hated liver and onions and vowed never to serve it to her kids. Because of this, I've never had liver. When she was pregnant with me, she was very poor and didn't even do prenatal visits- no money. A friend brought her a liver from a cow they'd slaughtered, because organ meats are good in pregnancy. (More info on that fact to come.) My mom knew she needed the nutrition from the liver, so she went to my grandma and asked how to prepare it. My mom ate liver for me. Man, I feel loved.

Anyway, back to the point. On one of my favorite blogs, I read about how organ meats are a super fertility food. If you're interested, read here, here, and here. I also learned that you can get them in capsule form and I'm seriously considering buying them.

A few weeks ago we were enjoying one of Nathan's free food birthday coupons, at a Brazilian grill. They came around offering chicken hearts and of course we both refused it immediately - eww. Then I remembered I wanted to try organ meats. The next time they offered, I got one. It was actually pretty decent - not gross at all.

So there you have it. My food choices have expanded. :-)

Random photos

2011-04-03T09:04:00.004-06:00

Nathan was sick, lying on the couch drinking lots of fluids, and found a way to prevent accidentally knocking over his cup.

Nathan was hanging out with friends watching Tangled, and when the lead character demonstrated his "smolder," Nathan paused and told one of the guys to show off his smolder. Here's the comparison.

Stocking up!

2011-04-02T18:12:00.006-06:00

I hate spending so much in one day when I hit big stock-up sales, but I love seeing my low grocery bills and infrequent shopping all the other months, thanks to food storage. Grocery prices are supposed to keep going up, thanks to the increase in gas prices plus a damaged wheat crop. I noticed the higher prices compared to the last time I stocked up, but at least I'm good to go for awhile while prices keep climbing.

I know canned goods contain nasty stuff leeching into the food, but it's one of those areas I haven't managed to change yet. I do try to can (bottle) a lot of things myself to cut down on it. I don't know of a good way to do food storage without using canned goods. I can't imagine doing only dehydrated fruits and veggies. I do use fresh produce but I have to keep my budget affordable too. I've realized I can't address every single thing that concerns me all at once, so I tackle one at a time.

My storage room is a mess right now. I just have no motivation to do anything. It's very unlike me. But here are my nice full shelves, buckets, and boxes of full jars stacked on top of buckets. Plus my freezer is still full of chicken and hopefully I'll fill it with meals and homemade bread again soon.

I also have a nice stash of good TP.

I keep a stash of the frequently used items upstairs. One cupboard mostly has things Nathan can fix for himself - popcorn, ramen, spaghetti-o's, mac n' cheese, tuna. It also has a few #10 cans of items I use.

I always have hard wheat, soft wheat, corn, white flour, brown sugar, and powdered milk under the table where the microwave sits (and sometimes a few other things). It's right next to my grain mill - very convenient.

I know it's not the best place, but I keep #10 cans above the stove with white beans, brown rice, and dried onions, plus oats and whatever other #10 cans happen to be open. I refill all of these from buckets downstairs. It works well for me to keep food storage easily accessible and therefore in constant rotation.

Anyway, today I bought:

200 lbs. hard white wheat
50 lbs. soft wheat
24 cans tomato sauce
96 packages ramen
40 lbs white sugar
96 cans spaghetti-o's
192 cans tuna (I've been waiting SO long for a good sale of the right brand)
48 cans mandarin oranges
24 cans green chiles

Is that really all? It seemed like so much more when I was unpacking all the cans onto my shelves.

Update

2011-03-12T07:07:00.002-07:00

I'm sorry I've been so absent and that I haven't been sharing yummy food pictures. I've been having some emotional struggles and honestly haven't been doing much cooking. Thank goodness for those homemade freezer meals and our abundance of free Chick-Fil-A coupons. I'm doing better and I hope to start posting more frequently soon.

For those who don't know, I got a new position at work and just completed my first week. I'm now a trainer for the group I used to be in, and I have a new boss. I'm now salaried instead of hourly; I got a sweet raise (we're so blessed!); I get a laptop and phone (the smartphone has been fun!). Oh, and I now share a cubicle that has a window! Having natural light really helps me, especially in the winter. I'm also feeling more rejuvenated about work and that's so nice.

The sad part is that I have a friend at work and we both interviewed for the same position, but when he learned I got it, he pretty much stopped talking to me. I understand where he's coming from - he's just as burned out and desperately wants to escape the team, but I hate it's come between us. Maybe there's something else causing it and I'm misinterpreting, but hopefully it will blow over soon.

Nathan's doing well in school, spring is coming, and we're incredibly blessed. :)

Shampoo update

2011-02-24T06:19:00.003-07:00

I've found success since my initial post on avoiding conventional shampoo. I desperately searched the internet and learned two things:

1) Dr. Bronner's has two kinds of conditioner - a rinse and a leave-in. They aren't super clearly labeled on their site and I had purchase the leave-in, so using as a rinse wasn't working as well.

2) Hard water leaves soap residue in your hair. I definitely have hard water. The solution is an apple-cider-vinegar rinse. I really didn't want to do the baking soda/ACV thing but I don't mind just rinsing with the ACV.

Here's my new routine:

A. Wash my hair with the soap - don't be afraid to use plenty. It will make good suds if you rub it in your hands for a few seconds first.

B. Rinse out soap.

C. Pour a diluted ACV/water mixture over my hair. I keep this in a pint jar and it's about a 1-ACV to 5-water ratio.

D. Leave for about 1 minute and rinse.

E. Lightly towel-dry hair, then rub a squirt of leave-in conditioner into my hair.

F. Only finger-comb hair between washings.

As for F, I really just need to scrub my hairbrush. It got a lot of residue on it during my initial experimenting and I'm sure once I get it off each bristle, I can brush my hair again. I might just buy a new brush. I've had this one for probably a decade and it has lost a few bristles.

My hair now feels clean for 3-4 days (same as shampoo), is EXTREMELY tangle- and static-free, and feels delightfully smooth. I might dilute the ACV mixture a little more, because sometimes my head still smells like ACV for a day.

Next I want to convert the hubby to it. He doesn't have dandruff but has some other condition that causes his beard, eyebrows, and scalp to get flakes and irritated spots. Tea tree oil helps a little but I'm thinking losing the chemicals may help even more.

Freezer cooking - January

2011-02-09T07:02:00.002-07:00

In January, 40 lb boxes of chicken went on sale and I decided to do a big batch of freezer cooking. I actually got two boxes (one already frozen that went straight into the freezer). I had only planned on one but felt prompted to buy two. Who knows why, maybe chicken prices will go up soon. I didn't count on being sick while doing it, which dragged out the cooking through short bursts of energy. It's been wonderful though to pull out frozen meals for Nathan to cook when I'm working overtime.

I got two 9x13 metal pans at the thrift store so I could freeze more casseroles. I didn't want to use disposable pans because I'm trying to cut back on my use of foil and produce less trash. I used almost all of my casserole dishes, plus two ice cream buckets, a recycled #10 can, a few jars and recycled freezer ziploc bags.

I made:

Poulet de france x 2 (too salty, not sure we'll make again)
Chili verde x 1.5 (didn't even remotely follow the cooking instructions; served without any toppings; froze in pint jars which was perfect for lunches)
Mandarin chicken x 2 (luscious, recipe and picture below)
Almond chicken (used fresh mushrooms, haven't tried yet)
Caesar chicken x 2 (using up dressing Nathan didn't like; out of noodles, will make my own and add before cooking; haven't tried yet)
Chicken & noodles (using up the Swiss; Nathan liked, I didn't)
Mexican chicken lasagna x 3 (was recommended to me, we liked it okay, a copyrighted OAMC recipe)
Chicken enchiladas x 2 (one of my fave white enchiladas, hopefully it defrosts well; recipe below)
Chicken muffins (SO good, definite make-again, sorta-recipe below)
Diced, cooked chicken - an ice cream bucket full

Consumed fresh:

Chicken salad for sandwiches
Chicken rice soup (best I've ever made, if only I can duplicate it next time)
Something else chicken-y I can't recall, I'm sure it was good

Mandarin Chicken

2 C cooked, diced chicken
2 C sliced mushrooms
2 tsp flour
2/3 C chicken broth
6 oz OJ concentrate (half can)
1/2 C onion (recipe called for green onion, we used sauteed white onion)

Saute the mushrooms, sprinkle flour over the top, add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Add chicken and simmer for 3 minutes. Freeze. When ready to eat, defrost and add 1 can mandarin oranges. Heat until bubbly, then serve over rice.

I got wild rice at Winco so we enjoyed our second dinner with a nice mix of wild and white rice (really need to go pick up more brown rice but this white was free).

Chicken Enchiladas

1/2 C onion, chopped
1 4 oz. can diced green chiles
1 C cream of chicken soup
3/4 C sour cream
1/2 soup can water (or broth)
1 dozen corn tortillas, cut into quarters
3 chicken breast halves, cooked and shredded
1 1/2 C grated cheddar cheese

Combing onion, green chiles, soup, sour cream, and water in a bowl. Grease a 9x13 pan. Layer tortilla quarters, chicken, soup mixture and cheese in pan until all ingredients are used. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. If freezing, defrost and then bake until hot in the middle.

Chicken Muffins

You know this isn't really a recipe, but I'll do my best! I've done this with sloppy joe filling but the chicken filling is much better.

Take commercial or homemade baking powder biscuit dough and press it into muffin tins until you've made a thin cup. Multiplying my biscuit recipe by 1.5 (used about 3 C of flour) gave me 21 cups.

Mix together one can cream of chicken soup, about 1/2 C sour cream, onion powder, grated cheese, and cooked, diced chicken. It should be enough chicken to make a thick but creamy mixture, and I would guess about 1 C cheese (I used cojack).

Spoon the mixture into the biscuit cups. Don't fill any higher than the dough.

Bake at 375 degrees until biscuit dough is done (around 15 minutes).

These were scrumptious fresh but the biscuits can get a little chewy when re-heating. Just don't heat them too long in the microwave. Nathan devoured these in no time.

Cheddar rolls

2011-02-07T06:02:00.004-07:00

Our friends invited us over for ham dinner and I offered to bring rolls. I was running low on eggs and didn't want to use flax seed, so I searched the internet for rolls without eggs. Then I saw recipes for cheese rolls, so I started looking for recipes without eggs with cheese. I ran across a new recipe blog with a delectable looking recipe for cheddar pan rolls.

Let me just tell you, you MUST make these. You will love them. They cook smushed next to each other so the sides are soft, you don't have to knead them but just stir up by hand, and they taste soooooooooooo good. Nathan and I ate half a pan before we even got to our friends' house and they all loved them too. There's a pretty picture on the recipe blog so I didn't bother to stop eating to take a picture. :-)

Quince

2011-02-05T11:05:00.003-07:00

I'm not doing so hot at eating fruit every day, but I'm trying. I went to the fancy-schmancy grocery store while I was on the phone with my sister, and she picked quince out of their exotic fruits. I bought a not-very-pretty quince and learned that you can't eat it raw, because it's very bitter when raw. Quince is apparently an old-fashioned fruit that has fallen out of style. It has a high pectin content so it's ideal for jelly.

I washed it, sliced it thinly, and boiled the quince until it was very tender. Then I drained and mashed it. It's described as tasting like a cross between pear, apple, and pineapple, and I would say that's pretty accurate. It wasn't very sweet so I added some sugar. It was really good and I think I'll try eating stewed apples as breakfast sometimes because that's what this reminded me of. Warm and filling.

Bread tips

2011-02-02T12:00:00.001-07:00

For my birthday, I went to a multi-grain bread class at the Bosch store near me. It was so awesome! They have free classes at various times but none of those times ever work for me. Since I took the day off work for my birthday, I could attend a class smack in the middle of the day.

I have to give a serious shout out to this store. They have saved me twice now when a part broke on my Bosch... my ancient Bosch to which some parts are no longer available. The store is run by a family and they only sell consistently high-quality grain. The instructor said, "Why would I teach you how to make bread and then sell you wheat that won't work consistently for you?" I'm definitely buying my wheat there in the future.

Anyway, even though my mom baked bread all of my life and I've gotten plenty of experience over the last year, I still learned a few things. I thought I'd share some tips with you that I've picked up in various places.

- Use a meat thermometer to tell when your bread is done. It should read between 195 and 200 degrees. It only makes a tiny hole in your loaf. You know how sometimes your loaf gets overly crispy so you can't tell if it truly sounds hollow? This will eliminate your confusion. Just poke it.

- Grease your pans with oil, not butter. For awhile, I was in the habit of using my fats pretty interchangeably. I've learned which work best for each purpose. If you grease your loaf pan with butter, the loaf is more likely to stick. Same for greasing your hands to handle the dough - use oil.

- Slap the dough a couple of times as you are starting to form it into loaves. It's fun to slap your dough, but it also causes the gluten to relax and you can actually see the dough become more cooperative.

- When your bread comes out of the oven, spray it with water. My mom always greased the top of loaves immediately to soften them. My friend throws hot loaves straight into plastic bags to seal in the steam. I don't do that because I don't want the plastic getting heated. Spritzing the crust with water works beautifully (even better than butter, and without the extra calories) to maintain a soft crust, even if it got hard while baking.

- Spread the leftover grease onto the back of your hands. Okay, so that one's not a bread tip, but I wish I'd learned it years ago. I get really dry hands in the winter - painful, bleeding, rough. All the time I was growing up, I hated greasing pans because then I had to use hot water and soap to clean my hands. In my quest to avoid lotion, I read a reminder that lotion hasn't always existed. In the past, women rubbed some leftover lard, etc., into their hands while in the kitchen. Now when I finish greasing a pan, I rub my greasy fingers on the back of my hands. My fingers are no longer greasy and my skin almost never cracks anymore. It's a great way to waste not, want not.

Shampoo alternative

2011-02-01T21:19:00.002-07:00

I keep trying to reduce chemicals in my life. My latest focus has been shampoo. I just haven't been up to trying the "no-poo" method, which basically uses apple cider vinegar and baking soda, partly because it has a rough period while your hair weans itself off its reliance on shampoo.

I decided to buy Dr. Bronner's castile soap, which is full of good things and devoid of bad things, and can be used for shampoo. It's often used as a transition to no-poo. I bought peppermint soap and peppermint conditioner, and citrus soap for other uses. Nathan really loves the smell of the citrus soap for hand washing. He says it smells like lemonade.

I didn't realize my hair would still have to adjust to the soap though, and I'm struggling! I usually wash my hair twice a week. It doesn't typically need it more than that. Now, I'm washing it every 1-2 days and trying slightly different techniques each time. More soap, no conditioner, etc.

My hair feels thicker than usual, which is really nice. It feels absolutely fantastic on the surface, but close to my scalp it seems to get greasy faster than usual. But when I brush my hair, suddenly it all feels pretty good again. I know your scalp is supposed to produce a healthy amount of oil once you aren't using harsh shampoo that strips all oil and dries out your hair. I think that's what is happening - my hair is producing oil that I then brush through, to fix the dried out portions below. My hair hasn't been static-filled, unusual for this time of year.

I'll keep you posted! I'm really hoping this works out.

I've also switched to using coconut oil instead of lotion. It smells yummy and I feel a lot better not slathering chemicals all over, especially after shaving my legs using the castile soap. Who wants to avoid chemicals only to use them a minute later? It's like putting sugar and whole wheat flour in the same recipe, in my opinion. Hehe.

Squishy cats on a squishy comforter

2011-01-31T01:00:00.000-07:00

Everyone seems to be sick this month, and we're no exception. We had a delightful week earlier this month where I had a cold and Nathan had the flu. We took turns caring for each other when we got a short burst of energy. We also took turns sleeping on the floor next to the sicko on the couch, and hauled out some twin-sized comforters my MIL gave us awhile back, for extra padding. They turned out to be delightfully squishy and the cats loved them too. The cats slept on them no matter where we had them, and if we had to move the comforter, the cat just moved along with it and didn't mind their nap being disrupted.

I finally got all of the blankets washed free of germs, but I had to take a few cute pictures first.

The cats don't sleep next to each other much anymore, but when the comforter is involved, they'll make the sacrifice.

Chocolate cherry cordial muffins

2011-01-30T08:14:00.003-07:00

I made these really luscious muffins for a training meeting at work. I added a little almond extract to the recipe. I would suggest adding cherry extract too if you have it - I think they needed a touch more cherry flavor. Try them! So good!

Lousy picture, but you can see they are studded with loads of chocolate chips throughout.

Swiss Oatmeal Bread

2011-01-28T05:18:00.005-07:00

bI'm so behind on bread blogging but my sister gave me a shout-out today so I wanted to share a fresh bread post!

I had some Swiss cheese left over from Christmas, so this was the perfect opportunity to make Swiss oatmeal bread. It was very good! My taste-testers never got back to me...tsk tsk, but Nathan loved it. He said it was the perfect sandwich bread, because the crust tasted like it was already toasted and the bread itself had a good flavor.

RECIPE FROM BETTER HOMES & GARDENS (R): HOMEMADE BREAD COOKBOOK (C) 1973. USED WITH PERMISSION FROM MEREDITH CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. You may not download or re-post this recipe to other websites or blogs. More recipes available at www.bhg.com/recipes.

Swiss Oatmeal Bread

4 1/2 to 4 3/4 C unbleached white flour
2 C rolled oats
2 packages active dry yeast
2 C milk
1/4 C packed brown sugar
1/4 C butter or margarine
1 C shredded Swiss cheese (4 ounces)
2 teaspoons salt

In large mixer combine 1 1/2 C of the flour, rolled oats, and yeast. Heat milk, brown sugar, butter, and salt till warm (115-120 degrees), stirring constantly to melt butter. Add to dry mixture. Beat at low speed with mixer for 1/2 minute, scraping bowl. Beat 3 minutes at high speed. By hand, stir in cheese and enough remaining flour to make a soft dough.

Knead on a floured surface till smooth and elastic (about 10 minutes). Shape in ball. Place in greased bowl; turn once. Cover; let rise till double (about 1 hour). Punch down; divide in half. Cover; let rest 10 minutes. Shape into two loaves and place in two greased 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 2 1/2 inch loaf pans. Cover and let rise till double (about 30 minutes). Bake at 350 degrees about 50 minutes. Cover loosely with foil last 25 minutes. Remove from pans; cool. Makes 2 loaves.

Christmas

2011-01-19T06:55:00.001-07:00

Well considering it's mid-January and I have a lot of bread pictures to post, I'm going to wrap up Christmas really quickly.

Christmas was busy and fun, with sewing, burned chestnuts, lots of driving, not so much sleep, pouring rain, friends, family, laughter, Hanukkah, good food, and gifts.

P.S. The banana bread french toast casserole was even BETTER with pumpkin bread.

Sports cars, dip, and sickness

2011-01-11T07:20:00.003-07:00

I still haven't finished my Christmas blogging, but I took a little break and flew down to SoCal for the weekend. My nephew was getting baptized and I wanted to be there to support my sister. My sister Janice picked me up at the airport and I had a blast with her family all day. I finally found a Wii game I'm good at - the preschooler version of Wii Fit, hahaha. Then I went car shopping with Janice and sat in a few sweet little numbers, including a Corvette! It was awesome!

I brought my camera and took absolutely no photos! The baptism was good and I got to catch up with a few people at the after-party while eating dip.

I spent Sunday with Jaime and had fun with them too, until I started getting sick that afternoon. Jaime dosed me with lemon and honey, but it didn't help. I spent half of Monday traveling home, what with driving to the airport, flying, then taking two buses and a train home from the airport. Nathan started school yesterday (yay!) so he wasn't available to pick up my sick self.

I'm so thankful for Jetblue (love flying with them!), the opportunity I had to work overtime to pay for this trip, and family!

My real goals

2011-01-05T09:28:00.002-07:00

I do have real goals for 2011, although I had fun with yesterday's post and appreciate all the comments.

1. Eat beans at least once a week. I like beans. Nathan doesn't. I hate cooking two separate dinners. This means I don't eat them very often. I'm going to try adding beans to my portion of the meal or just eat them for lunches.

2. Eat fruit every single day. I've really been slacking at this. I'm going to try new fruits this year. My fruit intake may be fresh, frozen, canned, or dried - as long as I do it.

Finally, a quick shout-out to a fellow blogger whose goal is to make a new kind of pizza every week. She's much more adventurous than I would be with pizza. Follow her new blog with me!

Achievable New Year's goals

2011-01-04T12:21:00.002-07:00

In the middle of the night, I thought of the perfectly achievable New Year's goals. I'm still working on my real goals, but in the meantime, here you go!

This year, I will:

Bake an insane amount of bread.
Spend too much money seeing doctors and buying pregnancy tests.
Cry on a regular basis.
Avoid pregnant women, including hiding them from my Facebook news feed.
Alternate between eating healthy foods and gorging myself on comfort food while in the depths of emotional pain.
Spend too much time on the internet.
Read at least 100 books.

Yay! I know I can succeed in every single goal! :P

Christmas baking - cookies

2011-01-03T10:28:00.000-07:00

Most tasty cookies start with brown sugar, white sugar, real butter, and real vanilla.

A fun apron is also essential to a long day of baking.

I followed my cookie plan, with two additions. This is the start of Tropical Cookie Drops.

They turned out a little flat. Next time I'll add more flour. They're pictured here with the applesauce spice bars on the rack underneath.

Tropical Cookie Drops

1 1/3 C flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 C butter
1/3 C brown sugar
1/3 C white sugar
3/4 C chopped dried tropical fruits (papaya, mango, pineapple)
1/2 C coconut
1 egg
2 T milk or pineapple juice
1/2 tsp vanilla

Cream together butter, sugars, egg, milk, vanilla. Add dry ingredients. Stir in tropical fruits and coconut.

Drop rounded teaspoons 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Makes approx. 30 cookies.

Using parchment paper made this baking day a breeze. My sister Janice even gave me another roll for Christmas, so I can continue easy clean-up cookies!

I limited my cookie giving to 30 families this year. Nathan printed some Christmas-y tags and we taped them onto ziploc bags - super easy!

The pineapple bars with vanilla glaze were to die for, especially after sitting for 1-2 days in the fridge. The glaze soaked through the bars and made them very moist.

Pineapple Bars

2 eggs
1 1/2 C sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
20 oz. can crushed pineapple with juice
2 1/4 C flour
1 1/2 tsp soda
1 1/2 C coconut

Combine eggs, sugar and vanilla; stir in pineapple with juice. Add flour, baking soda, and coconut. Pour into a greased jelly-roll pan (I used my largest cookie sheet); bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Spread vanilla glaze over the top while still warm; cut into bars.

Vanilla Glaze

3/4 C sugar
1/4 C evaporated milk (I used 2%)
1/2 C butter
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Mix all ingredients together; bring to a boil. Boil for 30 seconds.

The blonde brownies went horribly wrong and I thought I had wasted the ingredients. They were extremely crispy on the top crust and edges but raw inside. I ended up throwing them back in the oven after they had cooled a bit, and baked them for awhile longer. Then I immediately covered them and let them cool overnight. They turned out delicious, with a chewy but cooked middle, and just a touch of crust surrounding the chewiness. I'll never try this recipe again though, as it required a lot of fiddling.

This horrid picture didn't properly capture the caramel apple cookies. Good without frosting, delectable with. My recipe looks like this, but without raisins or nuts. Try them!

The next morning, I decided I didn't have enough cookies (because you know, ~20 dozen isn't enough), so I made one more recipe. These are chocolate chip cookies minus the chocolate chips, with PB cups. I had intended to squish the cups in the middle, but I didn't use enough flour and the cookies spread. I folded the hot cookies over the PB cups and it worked out fine, although a bit strange looking.

Pumpkin bread recipe

2011-01-02T09:55:00.003-07:00

This is seriously the best pumpkin bread I've ever had. I've tweaked the original recipe quite a bit, so here's my version. I may have posted this before, but it's worth posting again.

Pumpkin Bread

3 1/2 C white flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 rounded tsp each of nutmeg, cloves, and allspice
2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 C white sugar
1 3/4 C brown sugar

Combine all of the dry ingredients.

Then add:
1 C oil
4 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla (that's my best guess - it's a really generous glob's worth)
2 C pumpkin
2/3 C water

Note: If you are using pumpkin you cooked and blended yourself, which is more watery, use about 2 1/2 C pumpkin and add water to bring it up to 2 2/3 C. I've never tried it with canned pumpkin and I suspect the extra pumpkin I add contributes to the flavor, but I wouldn't blame you for buying a can of pumpkin.

Mix thoroughly.

Add 1 bag cinnamon baking chips.

Pour batter into 2-3 greased loaf pans. (I find it bakes more evenly in medium sized pans.)

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

**I don't recommend doubling the batch, because it requires a very large bowl and a lot of muscle power to stir it, and the flour tends to lump, plus I inevitably lose track of how many cups of flour I've added.

Christmas baking - breads

2011-01-01T16:53:00.001-07:00

Mmmm, bread. I scheduled two nights on the calendar - quick bread night and yeast bread.

Remember I had searched out delightful quick breads to make? Well I had already tried the buttermilk-cinnamon, my lavender plant was buried in snow, it's not cantaloupe season, and I failed to buy cheese or eggnog. So it was between 3C bread (I DID remember to buy candied cherries and candied fruit) and PB bread. I choose 3C bread and it was very tasty.

This is my night of quick bread. Two loaves of 3C bread, 3 loaves of banana bread (pick any recipe, add nutmeg - very yum!), and a double batch of pumpkin bread. The pumpkin bread is the best ever. The recipe can be found here.

For yeast bread night, I made my basic whole wheat bread as gifts for my sister Jaime and my in-laws. I also tried Sugarplum Loaves. I'd been waiting for the holidays to try lots of holiday bread recipes and then I ran short on time and only tried this one.

It was good spread with butter. Not amazing enough to post the recipe.

Holiday feast

2010-12-30T00:01:00.002-07:00

Remember how I bartered bread for turkey? It finally was time to eat this bird. We did a holiday feast with our friends, between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The turkey didn't grow very big so my coworker also gave me a small, locally raised ham.

My sage plant is so big that I shoved in two huge stalks, plus onions and carrots.

Not all of the hair got burned off, so Nathan ended up peeling the turkey after it was cooked.

I've never had a fresh turkey before! I could tell the difference because his legs wouldn't bend to fit in the pan. He tasted good but not amazing. Maybe if I'd shoved butter under the skin like I normally do.

Now the stuffing....that was amazing. I decided to try it with rye bread this time, and the flavor was excellent.

My stuffing recipe isn't really a recipe, but here's my best guess at this batch.

Throw 1/4 to 1/3 cup butter in a pan and saute two stalks' worth of sage leaves, two stalks celery, one diced onion, a handful of chopped pecans, and one diced apple. (Add the apple near the end.) Add salt and pepper to taste.

Slice bread cubes (rye or wheat), about one loaf worth. Spread them on a cookie sheet and bake at 200 degrees, stirring once, until they are dry on the outside.

Mix together the sauteed goodness with the bread cubes, and add chicken or beef broth until the bread is moist but not soggy. It will probably take 1-2 cups, depending how much bread you have. Add two eggs and mix just enough. Stop before the bread falls apart.

Grease your crockpot before adding the stuffing. Cook on low for 3-4 hours or until done. It will turn out just as good as in the oven but you won't have to make room in the oven. Who has room when you're cooking a turkey?

My first attempt at fresh cranberry sauce. I used orange-mango juice concentrate (it's all I had), sugar, and a bag of cranberries. It was yummy!

My favorite sweet potato casserole

This butterscotch pie was tasty, but the recipe failed me and I had to mess around with it. If I master it another time, I'll post the recipe. It's basically butterscotch pudding from scratch with meringue on top. My first time making meringue!

I also made pumpkin pie, apple pie (using apples I canned)..

...and mincemeat pie (canned this summer). It was my first time making a top crust and it fell apart when I tried to slap it on top, so I just patched pieces together. Nathan wasn't a fan of this pie, but I was.

BBQ breadsticks. Nathan didn't like them as much this time. Apparently I made them a little too big so they were too soft. Oh well.

Our friends brought sparkling cider, green bean casserole, and mashed potatoes. There's nothing like fresh turkey gravy and mashed potatoes, YUM! It was a fantastic meal and we had so much fun....even when their daughter puked on our couch after eating too much.

Hanukkah

2010-12-29T09:05:00.008-07:00

Nathan's dad has Jewish heritage, although he is no longer a practicing Jew. Nathan's parents still do Hanukkah every year, although they usually observe it later, when we are there for Christmas. Normally we just light the menorah and tell the story, but this year we had a Hanukkah meal...on Christmas Eve.

Latkes - served with applesauce

Matzo ball soup

My 30th birthday

2010-12-21T22:50:00.000-07:00

Lots of recipes - enjoy!

For my 30th birthday, we took a few friends and family to a timeshare we hadn't yet visited, in Eden, Utah. It was a beautiful location. I loved the master bath!

The view from our balcony.

We went on some very chilly walks. I had a blast crunching in leaves with a 3-year-old and collecting leaves of every color.

We stayed up way too late chatting, playing games, and watching movies.

But the food....mmmm....that might have been the best part.

For breakfast, we had french toast casserole with cinnamon syrup, and baked oatmeal with cranberries. Plus eggnog, thanks to our guests!

French toast casserole:

2-3 loaves banana bread, sliced into thick slices (enough to fill your pan with 2 layers)

1/2 C butter

1 C brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla

5 eggs

1 1/2 C milk

Melt butter and pour it into a 9x13 pan. Mix together brown sugar and cinnamon. Whisk together eggs, milk, and vanilla in a separate bowl.

Layer bottom of pan with half of the bread. Sprinkle half of the brown sugar mix over the bread. Layer the second half of the bread. Pour egg mixture over all, then sprinkle remaining brown sugar mix.

Cover and refrigerate overnight. In the morning, cover with tinfoil and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake 15-30 more minutes. It should be browned and the egg mixture set.

Serve with cinnamon syrup and fall in love, just like we did.

Cinnamon Syrup

1 C sugar

1/8 tsp salt

2 Tbsp flour

1/2 tsp cinnamon

2/3 C water

2 Tbsp butter

Mix sugar, salt, flour, and cinnamon in a small saucepan. Add water and bring to a boil. Boil until thickened, stirring. Stir in butter.

Baked Oatmeal

Even my oatmeal-hating husband liked this. Good with the cinnamon syrup, by itself, or with milk poured over.

3 C rolled oats

1 C brown sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 C milk

2 eggs

1/2 melted butter

2 tsp vanilla

3/4 C dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, mix together oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt. Beat in milk, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla extract. Stir in dried cranberries. Spread in a 9x13 baking pan. Bake uncovered for 35-40 minutes.

I had planned lots of dip, and our guests brought munchies and more dip, so dinner was quite the feast!

Nathan chopped assorted candy bars into little chunks so I could make candy bar brownies (regular brownies with chunks of candy mixed in) and a yummy layered cake.

You know it tastes good when I'm so excited to dive in that I fail to take a picture until we're down to one hunk that fell off the top. The cake was regular chocolate cake, with homemade marshmallow frosting and candy bar pieces between layers. This is the first time I've successfully cut a cake in half to make more layers. Dental floss and a big spatula really help!

I won't list all of the food here, but trust me, it was good. I gave up my grain- and sugar-free diet for my birthday and the holidays, so my tastebuds have been happy and my body not so much.

This black bean salsa dip is a Pampered Chef recipe. I won't put the recipe here but it might be worth buying one of their cookbooks just for this one!

Holy heck, I may never go back to onion dip from a packet. This dip made from scratch is AMAZING.

I took a pizza dip recipe and made it my own. It was the most popular dip at the party. It disappeared before I could even get a photo. Next time I'll make a double batch. Here's my version:

Hot Pizza Dip

8 oz. package cream cheese, softened

1 tsp dried Italian seasoning

1 C grated cheddar cheese

3/4 C grated parmesan cheese (it's gotta be the real deal)

8 oz spaghetti sauce

2-4 oz pepperoni, cut into small pieces (do as much as you'd like)

2 Tbsp chopped green peppers

2 Tbsp chopped green onions

Combine the cream cheese and Italian seasoning and spread it in a microwaveable glass dish. I used a pie pan.

Sprinkle half the grated cheese on top. Pour on the sauce and spread evenly. Sprinkle the pepperoni on top, followed by the peppers and onions, and the remaining cheese.

Zap it for 2 minutes, then look how it's doing. It may take up to 5 minutes to get all of the cheese melted. You don't want to stir it.

Best served with chunks of French bread. My bread dough sat in the fridge for 2 days and took on a sourdough flavor - even better!

Young Women in Excellence

2010-12-09T21:13:00.004-07:00

Here are the apples I tried to dye purple. They didn't turn out very well so I dyed dip instead.

This was for the Young Women in Excellence program at church. This is when we invite parents to see what their girls have been doing all year, and present awards to those that have completed the Personal Progress program.

We wanted to do something we'd heard about online for treats - fruit in the value colors. That would have been a great idea in the summer, but it wasn't as easy in the winter. I couldn't find any purple grapes or even plums, hence why I tried dying apples purple. When that failed, I used the apples as the white color and dyed the white fruit dip purple.

At the beginning of the year, we did the opening ceremonies, so these were the closing ceremonies. We had three categories of medalists - bronze, silver, and gold. Bronze medalists had at least worked on the Virtue value. Silver medalists had completed either the value project or all four value experiences. Gold medalists had accomplished everything.

Two girls had completed the entire Personal Progress program and their moms presented them with their necklaces.

The girls and leaders either displayed something they'd done related to this year's theme or performed a talent.

After it was done, Nathan and I went to our friend's house for his birthday and he lit the candles with a blowtorch, like he always does.

Sorry I'm MIA again!

2010-12-07T11:47:00.002-07:00

December is so nuts. I've been taking photos but haven't had time to blog. I'm working overtime and my calendar is booked solid with shopping, commitments, baking, etc.

Once I find a few spare moments, you can expect to see posts on my 30th birthday, holiday baking with a recipe or two, and my attempt to dye apples purple for a church activity. Thanks for your patience!

Simplifying Christmas

2010-11-28T13:22:00.002-07:00

I love Christmas but gosh it's such a busy time of year! We've already cut back our gift list over the last few years and do more name drawing exchanges.

Here are some of the ways I'm simplifying this year:

I bought cheap ziploc bags for giving cookies. We don't usually have these and it takes so much time to wrap up plates of goodies. These won't be as cute, but the cookies will taste the same.

I bought parchment paper. I've never bought this before and it seems rather wasteful, but for baking mass amounts of cookies, it should be a great help! Well worth the ~$3.

I planned my cookies weeks ago and made a list of the quantities of special ingredients I would need. No unpleasant surprises when starting a new recipe.

As fun as it is, I'm not coordinating a cookie exchange this year. While I am eating sugar again, I don't want to eat THAT much. It takes me a lot of time to coordinate it and bake and package individual plates, plus the emotional energy in smoothing things over when people have conflicting ideas or someone skimps on the cookies they committed to bake.

I'm buying my stocking stuffers from the Winco bulk foods section. I usually hit up the dollar store, but I get suckered into buying more than I planned, and my options are usually only sugar-filled. At Winco, I can get small amounts of dried fruits to please the family members who are trying to eat better. I think I'll actually save money by doing this and I'll feel better about it.

What are you doing this year to simplify your Christmas?

Pumpkin, pumpkin, pumpkin!

2010-11-28T06:23:00.001-07:00

I was in charge of a pumpkin pie and fruit salad for Thanksgiving. You know I totally couldn't limit myself to one pie though, haha. I cooked a big pumpkin Tuesday night and I have TONS of pumpkin even after making all these things.

Candy bar salad - I've been wanting to try this and it was a crowd-pleaser! I used bits of multiple candy bars, not just Snickers. We had chopped candy left over from my birthday, which I have yet to blog about.

Regular pumpkin pie, with honey instead of sugar. Recipe not available online but here's the link to the cookbook if you want a great healthy cookbook.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Pie - didn't get a picture, but definitely a make again. I didn't have enough cream cheese, so I used part sour cream. I also used cream instead of evaporated milk.

Chocolate Pumpkin Pie - a big hit with the kids! I used pineapple bread crumbs instead of graham cracker crumbs. I think I'll add this one to the repertoire too.

Pumpkin Yeast Bread - I used half whole wheat flour and cut back on the yeast. It still rose insanely well. In fact, I had to go shove it back into the pans and let it rise again, because it had escaped the pans on all sides and was threatening to consume them. It tastes fine - not a strong flavor but it was meant to be subtle. It will be sacrament bread for church today.

Halloween and Chick-Fil-A

2010-11-26T07:46:00.007-07:00

We pretty much skipped Halloween this year. It was on Sunday, I was feeling broke, and I just didn't see the need. Easy to avoid trick or treaters - we just closed the gate and wrapped a chain around it. However, we did have a potluck at work and trick-or-treating at desks. I made jello salad with these adorable gummi butterflies on top and gummi worms buried in the jello.

I spent all of $1.25 at Winco to pick up some surprisingly good, cheap candy, and filled these adorable pumpkin jars that Nathan got a few years ago.

A new Chick-Fil-A opened in Logan (colder than here) and Nathan went with his friend to win more free meals. They were up most of the night packing the car and left just before 4am for the 2-hour drive north.

Nathan hates cold, so I was really worried about him. There was an ample supply of hot chocolate, and instead of ice cream before bed, CFA fed them soup.

It's so fun walking through the drive-through to get each of your meals!

Jeff bought this hat for the occasion and it cracks me up. He looks like a redneck hunter who should be sitting in a swamp with a shotgun.

A group of college students went dumpster-diving right before the campout and brought this treasure with them.

One girl wore these awesome footie PJ's to stay warm.

Jeff survived almost to the end of limbo and then his chin bumped the stick.

No one froze by morning, although Nathan was chilled for the next day and got sick (probably due to the lack of sleep.)

I hate being home alone at night, and not only was I alone that night, but he came home and went to a midnight showing of Harry Potter the next night. No wonder he got sick! I've been working lots of OT, so between me being gone and him being sick for a few days, the house is a disaster. Guess what I'm doing today? :P

Onion rolls & Cereal-seed Bread

2010-11-04T05:36:00.003-06:00

Two more recent bread recipes. This first one is Onion Rolls. They are white rolls with egg yolk and rehydrated onions on top. I'm really looking forward to the pastry brush my sister is buying me for Christmas! It's such a pain to brush bread without it.

I substituted all whole wheat flour and my taste-tester said they were a little dry but the flavor was good. They smelled so good that I thought they might be a new favorite but Nathan did not agree.

I also made the 7-grain cereal bread again, but with a million substitutions. I didn't have enough 7-grain cereal, so I added oatmeal. Instead of eggs, I used ground flax seed. Then I decided to add even MORE ground flax seed (about 3/4 C total), as well as caraway and poppy seeds. I threw in more honey to compensate for all the seeds. I think I might have also used powdered buttermilk in place of regular milk. It looked so pretty as it rose, speckled with seeds. I've been seeing seed twist breads on the internet and this was my impromptu adaptation.

I actually have no idea how it tastes. I gave one loaf to the turkey grower and the other one I threw in the freezer, because Nathan is way behind on eating bread, both sweet and regular. I bought him a lot of lunchmeat on clearance so he should catch up soon and I'll let you know!

BBQ breadsticks

2010-11-03T08:18:00.004-06:00

Dear Life:

Please slow down. I don't have time to read blogs, let alone write one.

Sincerely,
Me

I tried a new recipe over a week ago. These are BBQ breadsticks. They are basically a soft dough with BBQ sauce (I used the homemade kind) and dried onions mixed in. You are supposed to roll them into very thin sticks that turn out crunchy. I did that for awhile and ran out of time, so the remainder are big and fat. Turns out they are better fat and soft.

I made beef-veggie soup to go with them and had friends over for dinner. Nathan and our friends enjoyed them so much that Nathan wants these for Thanksgiving dinner instead of rolls.

I also gave some to a taste-tester but didn't even tell them what they were! I got this comment: "They were really good and went great with our dinner (everyone ate them, even before dinner was ready) . But we're curious what they are called and what went in them because of their unique color :)" Sorry, now you know!

Dishpan Cookies III-A

2010-10-25T19:49:00.003-06:00

I know I owe you reviews on three new bread recipes, but doesn't a cookie recipe sound good in the meantime? I needed to make cookies for a church youth activity but still have no butter, so I searched for a recipe that used oil, without using cake mix (since I also don't have that). I chose Dishpan Cookies III, but altered them enough (gotta use what's on hand!) that I'll call this recipe III-A.

Nathan says they taste fine - not his new favorite, but good.

Mix together:
1/3 C brown sugar
2/3 C white sugar
1/3 C oil
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg

Add:
1 1/3 C flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Then add:
1 C frosted flakes
1/3 C old-fashioned oats
1/2 C mixed baking chips (white and PB/choc swirl)
1/4 C toffee chips

Makes 3 dozen smallish cookies. Bake at 325 degrees for 8-12 minutes, let cool on cookie sheet for several minutes.