Thirty!

Well, I've gone and turned 30. Thirty. My father and brother-in-law were good enough to remind me that I have now entered my 4th decade. It feels a little weird, but I'm not really depressed about it or anything. I'm thankful for the 30 years I've had. They've been good ones. :) I'm blessed.

My sister came down with her family on Friday night to spend the weekend with us.  I spent the night making a strawberries and cream cheesecake.  It turned out to be a great deal more time intensive than I expected due to the strawberries needing to be roasted for an hour and a half (I'm horrible about reading recipes all the way through before I start them.)  I also used a white chocolate chip cookie dough crust (using my mom's famous pudding chip cookie dough) instead of graham crackers.  That was a good choice I think. :D 

Saturday morning I woke up to a "Happy Birthday" phone call from D and the footsteps of my nieces coming down the stairs.  I got started on the bacon wrapped smokies we would be eating later and then got dressed for the day.   D and the boys showed up around 10, and we feasted on the smokies and some delicious french toast made by my mother.  We spent most of the rest of the morning just hanging out.  D and I took the kids outside where they found a coconut. The kids all wanted to cut it open and try the meat and milk (or is it coconut water? Doesn't look very milky to me.)  D cut it open, and let everyone try some.  No one liked they milk.  Most of them spat it right back out.  They had fun with it though.

A while back, D's Sister and I had both purchased some Groupon's for a local ice skating rink.  I thought my birthday might be a fun time to use them.  We also found some extra coupons in a book D had, so we got a pretty good deal on it.  My parents decided not to join us for the skating portion of the day; but my sister, brother-in-law, nephew, nieces, D and his boys, D's sister and her family all came along.  We had a great time! The kids were all very unsteady at first, but they eventually started getting the hang of it and having fun.

My youngest niece loved it!  She has no fear at all.  She kept saying, "Don't touch me! I can do it!"  She did pretty well, too.

I think she's going to be the bravest of her siblings.

Occasionally, D and I got a few moments to skate without little ones hanging on to our hands.

D's sister got me an awesome hat for my birthday.  It kept my head nice and warm while I skated. :)

After skating, my parents met us at PF Chang's for lunch.  It was soooo good!  Click that lunch link for more description on what we ate and some new things I tried. 

After lunch, we headed over to a little playground to let the kids burn off some energy (where does it all come from?!) before walking around at some shops.

In the evening, we all hung out at the house and relaxed.  We ate my mom's yummy spaghetti for dinner, and I opened my presents. 

I had no shortage of helpers!!

Since the kids had been snacking on chocolate chip cookies all night, we decided to put them to bed before we did the cheesecake.  D and his boys stayed the night in the guest room, so we read with the three boys for awhile and sent them all to bed.  

We ended the evening with my yummy yummy cheesecake.  It was totally worth staying up baking till 1 AM the night before. :D 

Yay for Birthdays!!

Cookies and Cream Cheesecake Cupcakes

 Make these.  If you like cheesecake, Oreos, or anything in a cupcake wrapper; go make these right now.  I originally saw this recipe on Pinterest, and I knew I had to make them for my birthday week.  I plan on there being two cheesecakes this week.  This one is for tonight's Bible study group.  The other will be on Saturday (when I turn 30!) I haven't decided if I'm making the second one, or if we are all going to the cheesecake factory.

Anyway, back to these cupcakes.  The are adapted from a Martha Stewert Recipe, and a million food bloggers have made them.  (Seriously, look it up.) I used a halved recipe for them, subbed Greek yogurt for sour cream after reading a suggestion by Pink Parsley, and added more Oreos than originally called for.

 The original recipe says it makes 30 cupcakes.  I cut it in half and still got 18.

• 28 Oreos - 18 left whole, and 10 coarsely chopped
• 2 8oz packages cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup Greek yogurt (or sour cream)
• pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees.  Line muffin tins with paper liners, and place 1 Oreo in the bottom of each cup.

With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat the cream cheese until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.  Gradually add the sugar, and beat until smooth.  Beat in the vanilla, then drizzle in the eggs.  When well combined, mix in the sour cream and salt.  Stir in the chopped cookies by hand.

Divide the batter evenly among the muffin tins, filling each one almost to the top.  Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until the filling is just set.  Most of the versions of this I read said about 22 minutes, but I found that mine took more like 30 minutes to set. 

Transfer the tins to wire racks to cool completely, then refrigerate (in tins) at least 4 hours.  Remove from tins just before serving.

I also added an Oreo Whipped Cream to mine. The following recipe I came up with made just enough for my 18 cupcakes.

8 oz of Heavy Whipping Cream
1/4 tsp Vanilla
1 TBS Powdered Sugar
3 Crushed Oreos

Pour whipping cream into the bowl of a stand mixer.  Begin mixing on high for a minute.  Add in vanilla and powdered sugar, and continue to beat on high until it thickens into a a whipped cream.  Gently fold in crushed Oreos.

I let mine refrigerate overnight, and then scooped it into a plastic zip top bag with a tip cut off the end, and piped it onto my cupcakes.  It was delicious!

Cheeeeeeeesecake!

Several weeks ago, I was asked to make a peanut butter cheesecake for a friend's birthday.  After much searching through recipes, I finally decided to go with this one.  Let me assure you that it was an excellent choice.  As with most good cheesecake, it wasn't cheap or quick to make, but it was worth every penny and minute I put into it. (The birthday boy seemed to enjoy it as well!) It has an Oreo crust covered with a layer of chocolate fudge and peanut butter cup pieces, a thick and rich peanut butter cheesecake filling, chocolate ganache spooned over the top, and finished off with some peanut butter icing and a peanut butter cup.  If you are a fan of cheesecake, peanut butter, and chocolate, I'd say this is definitely one you should try out!

PIE !

On Tuesday, I made my very first pie.  Well, I should say, my very first, totally from scratch, successful fruit pie.  Pie crusts have always scared me.  I think I might have made one years ago that was a failure, but for the most part I have avoided them.  I'm not sure why, really.  I think that maybe my mom always talked about how difficult it was to get them right, so I kind of just assumed I couldn't do it.  I like making things from scratch, especially when I'm baking.  Cutting corners in my desserts is not really my thing.  I've used pre-made pie crusts a few times, but I've mostly just stayed away from pie because I didn't want to make something that wasn't really mine.
  
Anyway, for my Bible study group on Tuesday, I was responsible for dessert.  I was going to make a peach cobbler, but the peaches at the grocery store weren't ready to eat.  Blueberries were on sale and looked good, so I figured I'd just do a blueberry cobbler instead.  I looked at recipes for a long time, but didn't come up with anything that really looked or sounded all that great to me.  I'm not exactly sure what led me to think of pie, but somehow my mind when there.  Most of the recipes I found called for the berries to be cooked down before adding to the pie, but that wasn't what I was going for.  I was using fresh berries, and I wanted them to be as close to fresh and whole as possible.  I finally found this recipe to use for the filling.  Since I was apprehensive about the crust, I decided to look for a step by step instructional recipe.  I ended up using the all butter recipe from this site.  It actually turned out to not be that difficult.  I think the real trick was using the frozen butter.

I think my pie turned out pretty good.  I had fun with the little hearts, and I like the way it looks.  David said it tasted "spectacular."  I'm pretty sure I can trust him.  He never minds telling me when he doesn't like something I make.  I like that about him.  It makes the compliments so much more worth getting when you know someone really means them.

I think I'm going to have to make more pies.  I have, however, come to the conclusion that I need a bigger food processor if I'm going to do so.  I wonder if I can hold out for Christmas...

Salted Caramel Tarts

So far, having my sister living here has been kind of fun. Last night we made fish tacos and salted caramel tarts together. For the tarts we used this recipe.
The recipe itself is not all the great as it lacks in detail, however, the tarts turned out pretty good. One weird thing about the recipe is that it says to serve it warm and does not mention chilling the completed tart. We were making the tarts for today, so ours needed to be chilled. I am not sure how you could have eaten them without chilling them though. They would have been a runny mess (unless our substitution of half and half instead if cream made the caramel more runny than it should have been.)


We used a few broken pieces of dark chocolate candy that we had on hand and mixed it with some semi-sweet chunks and chips.


We ended up making two 10 inch tarts and one 4 inch tart.


The 4 inch tart came out of the fridge this morning for testing and was very yummy.


This picture was taken this morning of the chilled tart. The funky spot is from where the foil stuck to it. I can't say it is an attractive dessert, but it sure does taste good!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Weekend Fun

Since I have decided to get back into blogging, I figure I will jump right in with a post about this past weekend.

Saturday my sister and her family and D and his boys were all over at my house for the day. (My sister and her family are living with us for a couple weeks. My BIL has taken a job in a city a couple hours north of us, so they will all be moving up there in about two weeks. :( My heart is sad to think of my nephew and nieces not being close enough to just drop by and visit them, but I know they have to do what they feel is right for them. I am also glad that it is only a couple hours drive, and we will still see them.) D and the boys came over in the morning, and I made homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast. (Sooo good. I made them the night before, let them sit unbaked in the fridge overnight, and then took them out for an hour or so in the morning before popping them in the oven) We spent the day fishing, swimming, grilling out, eating, and watching movies. It was a very fun, relaxing day. In the afternoon, D and I loaded up the older 4 of the 5 kids in his van and took them to a local park to play for awhile. The weather was beautiful...warm and sunny, but breezy enough that it never got too hot. The kids all had a great time playing together, and we even caught a few fish off my dock. S caught a very pretty Sheepshead...he always seems to catch something fun. (I have a couple really cute pictures I wish I could post here. Maybe I will work on a way to blur faces or something.)


Sunday I went with D and the boys up to Lakeland for his nephew's birthday party. I met them at their house before church, and we went over to target to buy his nephew a Thor hammer. After church and a quick stop at Burger King we hit the road for Lakeland. The party was at a family fun center with arcade games and a huge bounce house/maze/playground thing. The kids had a blast, and it was fun watching them play.
After the party, D's sister suggested BD's Mongolian Grill for dinner.


It was AMAZING! I had heard of Mongolian Grills before as several members of my extended family rave about them. I had even been to one years ago, but I was so picky then, my Aunt went next door and got me chicken tenders. I don't think I even went up to see the grill or what they had. Silly me! I was missing out. Thankfully I have started branching out a lot more in the past few years (though in some ways D's boys are more adventurous than me. Last night I wached N, who is 4, eat a squid. Seeing him sit there with the tenticles hanging out of his mouth was both disgusting and hilarious) and was able to truly appreciate how fabulous this place was last night. I piled my bowl with Tuscan chicken, peppers, corn, onion, red potato, pineapple, nuts, sesame seeds, pasta, egg, sauces and spices. Watching the guys throw it on the grill, mix it all up, and throw their utensils around was an experience in and of itself.




I think I would have enjoyed it even if I hadn't liked my food. Thankfully though, I loved it! I can't wait to have a chance to go back there again.
After dinner we started the two hour drive back home. N was asleep before we got back. I think we were all pretty worn out by the end of the day, but everyone had a great time. It was the first weekend in awhile that we have been able to just have fun. The past couple months were filled with busy, "productive" weekends. It was really nice to be able to hang out without stress and "gotta get _____ taken care of" hanging over our heads.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

'Twas the Night Before Halloween...

and, no, I will not be continuing on in poem form.  I'm afraid I am simply not that talented.  Instead I will give you my night in pictures.

After that trip to the pumpkin patch last week, I had a pumpkin hanging around waiting to be given a face.  I wanted to have my nephew over to "help" me with it.  I knew I'd be home alone tonight, and since tomorrow I won't have to go to work, I figured it would be the perfect time to have him over for a little one-on-one Halloween fun.

I picked him up at his house.  He wanted to wear his costume, so we had my sister take a picture of the two of us together before we left.   And so, Iron Man and the 50s girl began their night.

By the way, this is the skirt I made yesterday.

After getting ourselves a little dinner and watching Finding Nemo, we got into our aprons to do a little baking.  I really should make him his own apron.  Perhaps a Superman one. He shouldn't have to wear this Christmas one all year, but it's the only one we have that really fits him.

Personally, I love any opportunity to wear my apron, but I especially loved wearing it over my new circle skirt!

(From this point on, all pictures of me were taken by my nephew.)

I wanted to do some fall shaped cookies that we would be able to decorate, so we went with gingerbread cookies.  I have a fabulous recipe for gingerbread cookies, but makes a lot more cookies than I wanted to do tonight, so I used a recipe I found online.  Honestly, it wasn't worth sharing with you.  However, we had a great time making them, so that's what counts, right?

Sifting is Fun!!

I don't know about you, but personally I want to kiss that little dot of flour right off his face!

"Am I a great helper?"

Yes you are, Iron Man.  Yes you are! 

The cookie dough had to spend some time in the fridge, so "we" moved on to pumpkin carving.  I had scooped it out this morning because I knew he'd have no patience for that.  I barely even have the patience for it!  (As a side note, have you ever seen your pumpkin seeds sprouting inside your pumpkin?  I never had before, but many of them were in this one.)

Iron Man was very insistent that the pumpkin's face be made mostly with triangles this year.  As there really wasn't much he could do to help with the carving, he stayed back watching, offering suggestions, and jumping around in must-not-stop-moving-or-I-will-fall-asleep mode.

I showed Iron Man the picture of the pumpkin we did together last year, and told him how he had chosen the name Rock Pumpkin. 

Apparently he still likes the name.  This year our pumpkin is named Pumpkin Rock.

Once we got our pumpkin mess cleaned up, it was time to cut out and bake our cookies.

As you can see, Iron Man had, by this time, changed into his Lightning McQueen PJs.  (I admit that this was very much against his will, but it was getting rather late.)

The late hour kept us from decorating our cookies.  That will have to wait till tomorrow.

We finished the night with Yertle the Turtle, a drink of water, and a tearful hunt for a replacement stuffed animal for the bunny he'd accidentally left at home.

Goodnight,  little man!

Fresh Ginger Cookies

 I just wanted to do a quick post to share this recipe for ginger cookies with you all. They are made with fresh ginger, and they far surpass the Betty Crocker gingersnap recipe I shared sometime last year.  The only things I changed in this recipe were using whole wheat flour that I sifted twice and making the cookies slightly smaller than what was called for.  Honestly, you can't even tell they were made with whole wheat flour.  These might be my new favorite cookies!  I will tell you, the ginger flavor is very strong in them, so if you aren't a huge fan of ginger these may not be for you.  Personally, I can't get enough of them!

Whole Wheat Acorn Squash Muffins

Sunday afternoon, while walking through the produce section of the grocery store, I was overcome with the urge to bring home a winter squash.  It may not feel like fall outside here, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to pretend and eat fall foods! I picked out a nice Golden Acorn Squash, and took it home with me.

I was going to be spending the afternoon in the kitchen making potato soup, so I figured I'd look up a recipe to make use of my squash.  I really want to try out this one, but I knew I didn't have the time for a yeast bread.  Eventually I came across this recipe for Acorn Squash Muffins.   I wanted to use whole wheat flour instead of white because, well, that's just the kind of girl I am.  I also was a bit disappointed by the lack of fall-ish seasoning in it, so I added a bit of that to the mix.  Then, as I combined the ingredients I discovered that it was FAR too dry.  I couldn't even get all the flour to work into the mixture.  I had something of a looming disaster on my hands.  I recalled seeing a comment on a squash bread recipe elsewhere about someone adding Chai concentrate to their bread, and I thought, "Hey, why not?  It's a mess anyway!"  Well, my friends, they turned out pretty good!  I took them with me to my Bible study group that night, and have been told that they were pretty tasty.   So, I'm going to write down my version of the recipe for you in case you ever care to try them.

2 1/2 cups sifted whole wheat four
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
2 eggs, beaten slightly
1 cup mashed acorn squash
1 Tbsp. margarine
1 cup sugar

1/2 cup liquid chai concentrate (Or somewhere around that.  I just added it in at the end until the batter was wet enough to incorporate the flour.)

 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease or line muffin pans. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and pumpkin pie spice in large mixing bowl and mix. Add eggs, mashed squash, butter, sugar, and chai and beat until mixed - the batter should not be smooth. Fill muffin cups almost to the top by spooning in batter. Bake for about 15 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Remove from the oven and serve warm.

Sorry I didn't get any pictures this time.  I never thought they would turn out, so it didn't really occur to me to take pictures until it was too late.  My mom wants me to make them for her, so I'll try to take some pictures then and add them to the post.  

Lemon Ginger Muffins

I found this recipe the other night on Simply Recipes., and I just knew that I had to try it. I'm a huge fan of ginger, but I'd never actually used fresh ginger before. I was very excited to try this out. As I cannot seem to ever follow a recipe strictly (whether by accident or by design), I did make some changes. They were minor. I'll include them here in green.

(Mini) Lemon Ginger Muffins Recipe


Ingredients

3 cups of all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup 1/2-inch cubes of peeled, fresh ginger
1 large lemon (I ended up needing about 1.5 lemons to get enough zest)
1 cup sugar -divided into 1/4 cup and 3/4 cup

10 Tbsp unsalted butter (1 1/4 stick), softened
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cup plain yogurt (I used half plain yogurt and half vanilla yogurt. I'd like to tell you that this was an inspiration that came to me, but the truth is, I just accidentally didn't buy enough of the plain and happened to have the vanilla already in my fridge. I liked the way it turned out though!)

Glaze
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 cup confectioner's sugar (powdered sugar)
(I added a little cinnamon to the mixture. I will also say that I don't think this glaze is fabulous or really worthy of the muffins. It tasted a little too powdered sugary for my taste. I kind of think I like the muffins best plain.)

Method,

1 Adjust the oven rack to the middle-lower part of the oven. Preheat oven to 375°F.

2 Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside.

3 Using a vegetable peeler, peel off the lemon zest from one large lemon (avoid the white pith). Coarsely chop the zest. You should have approximately 1/4 cup of chopped lemon zest. Add this zest, the cubed fresh ginger, and 1/4 cup of sugar to a food processor. Pulse until a paste forms.

4 In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and remaining 3/4 cup of sugar together, beating until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating until incorporated after each one. Beat in the lemon zest and ginger paste.

5 Beat in one half of the dry ingredients until just incorporated. Beat in one third of the yogurt. Beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients. Beat in a second third of the yogurt. Beat in the remaining dry ingredients and then the remaining yogurt. Again be careful to beat until just incorporated. Do not over beat.

6 Use a standard 12-muffin muffin pan. (I used mini muffin tins. 1 3/4" x 3/4" size) Coat each muffin cup lightly with olive oil, grapeseed oil, or a little melted butter using a pastry brush. (Used cooking spray...worked fine) Distribute the muffin dough equally among the cups. Bake until muffins are golden brown, about 25 to 30 minutes (My mini muffins came out perfectly at 12 minutes). Test with a long toothpick (we use a thin bamboo skewer) (<-not my note. I used a toothpick) to make sure the center of the muffins are done. Set on wire rack to cool.

7 While the muffins are cooling, in a bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar and lemon juice for the glaze. Add more lemon juice if necessary. While the muffins are still a bit warm, use a pastry brush to brush the glaze over each muffin. The muffins will absorb some of the glaze, so you add more glaze to each muffin if you like. (Since I wasn't crazy about the glaze, I didn't add it to the muffins. I left it in a separate container for people to spoon on as they wished).

Makes 12 muffins. (I got 69 mini muffins out of this recipe)

I found these muffins to be delicious, light, and almost creamy in texture. I will certainly be making them again!

ETA: No, I do not own enough muffin tins to make 69 muffins. I own enough to make 24 mini muffins at a time. I just made them in shifts.

Fruit Tarts

It has been entirely too long since I've been able to post a new recipe that I've tried, but I have one tonight. I volunteered to make a dessert for my parents' small group Bible study that meets at our house every other week. I was looking at recipes online this afternoon, when the idea of a fruit tart popped into my head. I found a Paula Dean recipe for one, and decided to try it out. It was YUM, and everyone seemed to love it. The recipe is for one, but I doubled it to make two. I also did not have tart pans, so I had to make do with smaller pie pans. It made the crust much thicker, but I really liked it that way. Also, the cook time for the crusts was at least doubled for mine. It also took me far longer than 2 minutes to get the glaze to thicken...not sure why. I think my favorite part of it was arranging all the fruit on them. It was like a little art project. :D

Cookies and Cracked Faces

I say, if you are going to bother making Gingerbread men, they should be Super Gingerbread Men! I made these last weekend using a recipe given to me by a lady I've known my whole life. She used to make them for me when I was a child, but her arthritis makes it hard for her to make many of them anymore. I'm very thankful that she shared the recipe with me, as I LOVE them. They are part of Christmas for me. :D

Only one week till Christmas! I'm very excited. :D My Grandma is here now, and my Aunt and Uncle will be here early next week. The house is all Christmasy, and our pantry runneth over with junk food. If you have not had the Hershey Cheesecake Kisses, run right out and get some!!

My nephew and niece were here the past couple days, and my mom, nephew, and I decided to be chefs again. This time we decorated the pre-cut sugar cookies. (Personally, I do not endorse this kind of baking, but my mom bought them. What could I do? They had to be made.) My nephew is learning about sharing now. Those of you with experience with children will understand that to a 3 year old, sharing means that they get everything you have and also get to keep what they already had. Everytime my mom would decorate a cookie and start to put it in her mouth, my nephew would say, "How bout you share that with me?!" She would offer him a bite, and he would insert the entire cookie into his mouth. Isn't sharing fun?

In other cute nephew news; this morning, my Grandma was playing with my nephew when he looked at her face, noticed the wrinkles, and said, "Nana! You have cracks in your face!" Later in the day when he got angry and made a face at us, Grandma said, "When you make that angry face, you get cracks too!" His expression turned to one of shock. He ran out of the room for parts unknown, and I yelled to him to ask where he was going. He hollered back to me, "I'm going to the bathroom to look in the mirror and see if there are cracks!!" To his great relief, he found that his face was still crack free.

Baking With My Favorite Little Helper

It's December! Christmas is nearly here! It's kind of hard to believe. Even with all the counting down I've been doing, it still seems like it kind of snuck up on me.

Today, after church, we met up with my sister and her family for lunch. I mentioned to my nephew that he should come home with me, and he looked at his mom and said, "MOM! I want to go with LAUREN!" So naturally, I brought him home. I had promised to make a dessert for my mom for her Bible study, so my nephew and I made ginger cupcakes with lemon spice buttercream frosting together. He was a much better helper than I expected him to be. He helped with measuring, pouring, stirring, and almost anything else I asked him to do. He really seemed to enjoy it. The only part he didn't want anything to do with was using the mixer. He doesn't like loud noises, so whenever I would turn it on, he would run into the other room and cover his ears.

Here is the recipe if anyone is interested. I believe the cake recipe came from a Laura Ingles Wilder cookbook. The frosting is from Southern living with a variation of my own.

Ginger Cake

1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar dissolved in 1/2 cup of hot water
2/3 cup butter or margarine
1 cup milk
2 eggs
1 tsp each of baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves
3 cups flour

- Sift dry ingredients and set aside
- Cream sugar and butter. Mix in brown sugar mixture, eggs, and milk
- Stir in dry ingredients
- Pour in 9 x 13 inch baking pan (I did cupcakes instead)
- Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes (The cupcakes only took 20-25 minutes)

Lemon Spice Buttercream Frosting

1 1/2 cups butter or margarine, softened
4 cups sifted powdered sugar
2 Tablespoons lemon juice (the recipe calls for orange, but I like the way lemon compliments the ginger cake)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

- Cream butter at medium speed of an electric mixer
- Gradually ad sugar, beating until light and fluffy
- Add lemon juice and spices
- Beat until spreading consistency


After we finished the cupcakes, we decided to make Minty Snowmen. With this one, he mostly just watched. He is not a big fan of getting his hands into stuff. He did enjoy eating them though. ;) Mine are not as well done as the ones in the picture on the recipe, but I did enjoy making the little Superman one...and yes, I know the colors are off on the S shield. I also got a little bored of the snowmen and decided to make a Christmas tree.

Bread and Cute Kids

Shhh! Enter quietly tonight. My nephew is sleeping on his little bed on the floor in my room. My mom and dad picked the kids up after their Bible study tonight and brought them back to our house. Now really, is that precious or what?
Poor little guy is in need of a bath, but by the time he got here tonight it was really too late to bother with that.

It seems that another possible job has fallen through. They were supposed to call me today, but they never did. They also haven't returned the email I sent them on Thursday. I really do believe that the right job is going to come along, but it's SO hard to wait for it!

I made some pumpkin bread tonight. This recipe is from Nancy Creech's Cooking For One, so it makes a pretty small loaf.

I wasn't sure how I felt about the idea of putting the curry powder in the bread, but I like how it turned out. It gave it a very different, yet subtle, flavor.



Middle Eastern Pumpkin Bread
1 mini loaf



1 Cup unbleached, all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp curry powder
1 egg, slightly beaten
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup cooked, mashed pumpkin
2 TBS water
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (I loathe nuts in bread, so I left this out)



Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
Grease and flour a mini-loaf pan (6"x3-1/4"x2") (I don't have one, so I used small loaf shaped muffin tins) or a straight-sided baking dish of 2 cup capacity.
Mix flour, baking soda, salt, and curry powder.
In a separate bowl, combine the beaten egg with the brown sugar, then add the pumpkin, water, and soft butter.
Pour the liquid ingredients into the flour mixture, add the nuts, and stir until well mixed.
Pour the batter into the greased and floured loaf pan and bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean (because mine were smaller they only took about 30 minutes to cook).
remove from the pan and cool on a rack.