Pumpkin Cookies

Food group was yesterday. The theme was Halloween: Your Interpretation. There was a record number of people in attendance: two (four if you count the kids).

I decided that afternoon what to make. Good thing I had frozen pumpkin puree that I made last year or else I’m not sure what I would have done!

I found this recipe on Pinterest. You can find the recipe here.

These cookies are so delicious. I forgot to add the chocolate chips on the first two cookie sheets but you know what… they still taste good! They are very soft. Kaelyn called them muffins at first. I didn’t make the icing but it’s pretty much cream cheese frosting. And I had some leftover cream cheese frosting from these cupcakes so I pulled that out. It’s almost a little too sweet with the frosting. Yummy cookies! Go make them!

Pocket Frog Cupcakes

We continued our birthday celebrations that we started a year ago. You know, actually celebrating everyone’s birthdays. We kinda failed on Josh’s and totally bombed on my parents (which my mom usually doesn’t mind). We plan on changing that this go around.

The story of Valerie’s dessert started way back in March/April. I was trying to think of what to do for Jamie’s dessert. My mom found these fun cupcakes that were froggy heads. You know, marshmallow for the eyes, green frosting, stuff like that. Cute but didn’t seem right for Jamie. We decided they’d be PERFECT for Valerie. This was right when Valerie first got addicted to Pocket Frogs. She would play on my phone any time it, she, and I were together. It’s Jamie’s fault.

Anyway.

I did the cupcakes my way. I followed an idea I think I got from Our Best Bites. I went for easy and used a box cake mix (white) and then put mini Reese’s peanut butter cups in the middle of the batter. I made cream cheese frosting (maybe one day I’ll make another kind but I really love cream cheese frosting). Some got colored. They were soooo good. So good!

For the eyes, I used mini chocolate chips with the pointy side down. The first one I put pointy side up and it didn’t look right.

I would make cupcakes with peanut butter cups in the middle any day. They were so good. And there ended up being a couple extra so I ate a few on the way home!

No, they don’t look like frogs, but if you know the Pocket Frogs, you’ll get the patterns.

These were fun to frost – I made Jared watch Kaelyn.

I didn’t want to stretch my artistry too much so I didn’t do the more difficult patterns.

Sorry the pictures aren’t that great. It was dark outside and I didn’t have great lighting.

Valerie loved them once she realized what they were. I’m super insulted… she got stuck on the one that looks like an eye and started thinking illuminati. As if. Whateves. Most everyone else loved them instantly.

A favorite food to hate

I did the unthinkable today. I didn't even tell Jared I was going to do it. Maybe I didn't want to psych myself out or something even though this was on my list of things I wanted to accomplish this year.

It is common knowledge that I don't really do favorites. It may also be equally as common knowledge that I have a favorite food to hate. I really don't think of myself as picky but there is one food that I have never liked. Fish. And dill pickles. But I'm talking about fish tonight.

This recipe came up in my meal plan and so I vowed to at least try it. I ask Jared to try things he hasn't liked in the past--often several times in different ways--so I thought I should do the same.

This is the first time I have cooked fish in our married life. It will probably not be the last.

What Suki Thought
Yuck. The crunchy outside part was good. The fish texture is barf worthy. It was easy to prep and cook. I ate it all. It was tilapia, by the way.

What Jared Thought
"I would eat it again." That can be arranged. I have more fish.

What Kaelyn Thought
Cantaloupe and corn is yummy. So are brownies.

I called myself a miracle worker

Yup. I did. And I have the email to prove it. Whether or not I actually was... I still think I was awesome.

So let's start with last night. Jared decided he was going to make a roast. He put stuff (salt, pepper, stuff) on it, covered it with foil and put it in the oven on 250. That was while I was rushing out the door to go to youth night.

I come back home. Still a roast in the oven. Understandable. It needs to cook.

Midnight (ish--I really don't remember when I did what last night). Kaelyn wants more milk. Still a roast in the oven. "You know the roast is still in the oven, right?" "Yeah."

3:00 am (ish). Kaelyn wants more milk. Still a roast in the oven.

5:30am. Kaelyn wants more milk. Not only that but she had ended up in my bed after the last milk and then she leaked out her diaper. Like majorly leaked. I had to take all the bedding off. Jared comes in the room and asks if she leaks. "No, I just like to change the sheets at 5:30 at night." Okay... I wasn't in a good mood. It's 5:30 and I'd already been out of bed twice. Had to get her milk still. Still a roast in the oven. "You know the roast is still in the oven, right?" "Yeah."

7 am. Jared's alarm goes off. I hate this thing. It's annoying to wake up to and he rarely actually has it near him. I take it to him. Go back to bed.

8 am (ish). Jared gets up. That means Kaelyn gets up. Which means I get up. And when I get downstairs.... there's still a roast in the oven.

Just in case you haven't kept track, that's something like 15 hours that that roast has been in that oven. Guess who took that roast out of the oven? Finally. No, he was still upstairs.

This thing was dried out. Oh my word. It definitely was cooked though. No doubt about it.

Jared totally tested it and then ignored it.

I tried to ignore it too. I was NOT happy. And was there anyway to fix an overcooked roast???

I had to try....

I succeeded. Especially with the gravy. I don't have a good track record with gravy but I've learned a few things about the art of gravy making and put it to use. Jared ate it. Although he thought the meat just needed BBQ sauce to make it better. (Absolutely not....)

I made a basic gravy (using no drippings since there were none after 15 hours of the oven). I let it thicken and then I thinned it down with some water. I put the roast in and let it simmer on the stove for about 5 hours. I actually added even more water at some point. I probably could have let it simmer for a few more hours but I couldn't wait on dinner.

With mashed potatoes and some brussel sprouts, it was a delicious meal. And I learned you can fix an overcooked roast. And that I can make awesome gravy.

These is what Kaelyn did while I was finishing dinner prep. Poor little girl.... she's teething again. Because you probably don't remember, Kaelyn got her first tooth at 14 months and then proceeded to pop out eight by the time she was 16 months. There has not been any progress since then. Until this week. Almost 5 months later. A molar is peeping out and I'm sure there's more to follow. She's got the runny/stuffy nose and the low grade temperature.

Her meal plan looks like this: eat a grape, ask for chips but don't eat any, ask for crackers but I really wanted a cookie, eat another grape, run around (that's part of the meal plan, right?), ask for cheerios but I really didn't want those either..... By the time she woke up from her nap, I think she maybe had eaten the equivalent of a piece of bread. And maybe 1/4 cup of juice (or maybe it was water). So she was cranky to say the least.

She asked for milk.

I put it in a cup with a lid and and a straw.

She cried.

But she wanted the milk.

Just not the cup with a lid and a straw.

No, she wants the bottle.

She drank 20 ounces of milk before dinner. And probably another 8 or so before going to bed (I had a meeting so I don't know).

Anyway, so the opportunity to get her by herself and not whining and lounging on me was too much to pass up. She helped wash the pot. Mostly she got water everywhere.

And Kimmi should be happy because Kaelyn is using the zebra dish scrubber that Kimmi left here that her friend bought for her for cheap while in Finland.

Pancake Art: Butterflies

Because of our travels on Saturday, I moved our pancake morning to today. It really takes a while to do this. Like... an hour. I'll be looking at large griddles because I really do enjoy this!!

Despite receiving a request for a tutorial on how I do my pancake art, I forgot to take pictures until they were already cooking. So instead, I'll give you my pancake recipe plus my pictures from today.



Pancakes
Original recipe from Joy of Cooking. I grew up with this recipe memorized in its tripled form. That's what it took to feed my family and in my memory, I almost always made them. I've tried other pancake recipes and this one is definitely my favorite. I have made a few changes from the recipe and it works for me but I'll make note of what I think is the original recipe amounts. It makes 14 4-inch pancakes. If you're making them regular-like.

Melt in microwavable bowl 2 Tbsp butter. (I use unsalted butter.)(Original recipe is, I think, 3 Tbsp butter. Eliminating butter means you have to grease your pan.)

With a whisk, combine a pinch of salt, 1 egg, 1 Tbsp sugar, and 1 3/4 tsp baking powder with the melted butter. (Oops! Totally forgot the baking powder this morning. It does make a bit of a difference as Jared mentioned how they tasted this morning.)(Original recipe calls for 3 Tbsp sugar. I've done it without and it tastes fine. I just prefer that little bit of sugar in it.)

Add 1 1/2 cups of flour and 1 1/4 cups milk to the bowl. (To make lump-free pancakes, alternate adding your flour and your milk making sure each addition is whisked smooth before adding the next thing. I usually do roughly 1/3 of the milk, then 1/2 cup flour, 1/3 more milk, etc.)(This morning I used powdered milk. That substitute is 1 1/2 cups water + 4 Tbsp non-instant powdered milk.)

On my electric stove top, I cook them over low heat (#2 on my dial) because my stove gets HOT and I don't like burned pancakes. Haha, I should show you what I think a burned pancake looks like... most people call them NORMAL. I put my oven on WARM (roughly 150 or 200 F) and put the pancakes in there until they're all cooked and we can sit down as a family to eat  them.

You can use any pancake recipe but you don't want it really runny or really thick. You definitely don't want chunks.

I don't have black food coloring so I created my own. You know when you have a ton of leftover icing on a plate because it's nasty and you just wanted the cake and then you were lazy and didn't want to get up to throw the plate away so you just sat there playing with it while listening to the conversation around you and you made this really gross grey color? That's what it looked like when I mixed it up.

But it cooked up all pretty and black! And purple always mixes up blue but then turns purple after it sits for a few minutes.

I'm not sure why there's all those spots on the pancakes because I don't remember them from last week. This was just one of my fun must-use-up-all-the-batter pancakes.

I made a few hearts. Kaelyn ate all the small pancakes. She refused the butterflies until we broke them up into small pieces.

I didn't take a picture of it, but I made this circle chain and Kaelyn picked the circles apart one by one to eat them. She still called them cookies at first but then she switched to pancakes.

Yes, I created a scene directly on my table. It was cute though!

Sticky Rice Attempt #1

One of the yummy food pictures I came across on Pinterest led me to a recipe for Thai Coconut Sticky Rice. (That website is Thai food related so if you're looking for some recipes or information about it, check it out. Some good stuff there.) It seemed easy enough. I even read the additional articles on peeling a mango and what type of rice to use. And then I promptly used whatever rice I wanted to. I did make sure I purchased the recommended brand of coconut milk (Chaokah which is what I would have bought anyway).

This is what I did. You can read what she wrote at the link above but it's almost the same thing. I fully intend to change this recipe and I want to see my path there.

1/2 cup rice (I used Jasmine rice) - I tried her method which is steaming rice. Totally didn't work for me. Maybe it's the type of rice I used. I'll just cook it normal next time. This was supposed to take 20 minutes (+ 10 minutes soaking) until cooked. I tried 20 minutes soaking and closer to 40 minutes cooking and there were lots of hard middles of rice grains.

1/2 cup coconut milk, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 1/2 tsp salt (definitely just did an approx pinch) - combine in bowl and microwave for two minutes. Sugar should be dissolved and mixture hot.

Combine rice + hot mixture. Cover with plastic wrap. Let sit for 30 minutes. (Mine sat for... yup, you guessed it. Longer! More like 45 minutes.) Your rice is supposed to soak up the milk mixture. Mine did a fairly good job of that.

Plate it pretty and pretend you take good pictures.

The mango was perfectly ripe. But it was a normal big mango which aren't my favorite. I haven't seen the little mangoes in a while. They are much tastier though.

The rice was super duper sweet. It was so sweet that my stomach turned and it made the mango taste not sweet and yummy like it should have. It was too sweet even for Kaelyn.

I will definitely be trying this again because I have leftover coconut milk. And another mango.

Snack Station, Smoothies, & Smores

I feel like I got a lot done today. Maybe because I did. I didn't vacuum or do laundry one little bit. Priorities, people.

Kaelyn helped me with some more cooking today. (Ignore the mess. Focus on the kid.) I'll show you what we made a little bit later. Jared seemed a little surprised.

One thing I got done today was grocery shopping. Among my purchases were two of these baskets. One medium size and the other was smaller. I wasn't sure which one would work best and knew I'd find a purpose for the other. I don't know if I would have gotten this brand initially, but I forgot to see what Meijers had and so I got these at Walmart (since I was there picking up something else there that Meijers apparently doesn't carry). Walmart gives me the hives.

One thing that is cool about these baskets is that the handles flip in so that you can stack them on top of each other. I have some green ones (different brand) for our recycling. Although we wish they had a scooped front for easy access to the bottom basket, I like using up the vertical space.

Oh! I guess you want to know what I used the basket for. I made a snack station! I've seen them around but never really thought about having one for us. I mean, no kids are in school and I only have the one anyway. But Kaelyn eats constantly and I have lately found myself getting tired of having to prep something else for her to eat. Sometimes I would feed her the same thing several times and I really don't like that in terms of nutrition. SO. Snack station it is.

I've used lemon juice to keep apples from browning in the past but never really liked the taste afterwards. I ran across a tip that said to try ginger ale or any lemon-lime soda. Soak them for 10 minutes. So I got Meijer (cheapest) diet (no HFCS) lemon-lime soda. And six pounds of apples. I may have gotten a little bit too much for our little family of three especially since Kimmi is no longer staying with us. Oh well. :) We like apples.

Three cans of soda soaked all six pounds of apples. I even had to do them in two batches because my bowl wasn't big enough. I used the same soda for the second batch as the first and it still worked.

Best of all, they still taste like apples afterwards. I didn't detect any soda-type taste or anything kinda funky like that.

Grapes were washed & de-stemmed. Everything was bagged up into snack-size baggies. Except for the string cheese since those are already easy grabs. String cheese, grapes, apples, carrots. The only thing Kaelyn can't eat are the carrots. She LOVES the grapes and recently has been liking apples (especially with peanut butter). She also LOVES string cheese.

I now have a place in my fridge for this easy quick grab snack. This will really be handy for Jared's snacky moods and additions to his work lunches. (I already warned him that he'd better not eat all the string cheese.)

Something else I did was create smoothie packets. I froze plain yogurt (homemade with powdered milk) into cubes. In each packet are two cubes (which I think is somewhere around 3 Tbsp) of yogurt and 1 1/2 - 2 cups of frozen fruit. We already had all of these ingredients so I didn't have to purchase anything. Although, we are now fairly low on frozen fruit but since they were mostly for smoothies anyway, I'm okay. Each packet makes one nicely-sized smoothie or two small-ish but probably more *accurate* serving size (8 oz). It is the perfect amount for Kaelyn and I to share.

All you have to do is stick it in your blender (our blender is horrid--truly) and add a little milk until it is the consistency you like. If you want peanut butter or flax seed or anything like that, now is also when you want to add it.

Remember that picture at the beginning with Kaelyn? We made cookie wrapped s'mores. Oh my heavens, they were huge! They looked like baked potatoes. Seriously. Here's a picture of one next to an avocado.

If you want something sweet, you should try having just a half of one of these babies. It is a basic cookie dough recipe. You make a smore and wrap the cookie dough around it. I got the recipe from here (via Pinterest).

When Jared came down to help Kaelyn (since I needed both my hands to wrap), he sounded surprised that I was making s'mores AND cookies. When I informed him that they go together, he didn't really know what to say. I guess I really don't make dessert all that often. But at least when I do, I go all out.

We ate two cookies between the three of us. And that was stretching it. But it was soooooo good! SO GOOD. I can't even describe the gooey, delicious, awesomeness of it. The marshmallow is a nice addition to the chocolate chip cookie but then you get the graham cracker and it's a little unexpected but works so well.

And because I want to brag more, I also put a pork shoulder in the crock pot. I just shredded it and it was so easy. And so delish. I can't wait to eat it for reals.

Tomorrow I plan on finishing meal preparations. I think it's easier to spread them out over a few days because of Kaelyn. I can work on it during her naps. I am excited about this venture of mine. I even kept up on dishes today since I was in the kitchen so much.

My craft area looks better too but not good enough to take a picture. Yet.

Meal Planning + Making Pizza

Today I had a bit of a surprise (holy cow we spent a lot of money of food). Jared and I each decided on something that we would do to bring that number down a little bit in September. So I'm bringing back the meal plan. I haven't for a while now.... summer was a little crazy. (That's a valid excuse, right?) I kinda let it go. It wasn't too bad. But I like having meals planned out so I don't have to think about what to make when it's time to make something.

I'm also going to take it a step beyond that and prepare all of the dinners in one afternoon. They will keep in the fridge until I'm ready for that meal. One of the meals I'm making will be split into thirds for two of the parts to be frozen. Oh! And I'm freezing yogurt cubes right now so I can prep smoothies. We'll see how it goes tomorrow when I grocery shop and prep the food. We'll see how Kaelyn goes....

Oh wait! And I'm going to have a snack station kind of thing. Pre-portion snacks out and then it's a quick grab for either me and Kaelyn or Jared for his lunches.

I thought about being smart and making pizza dough while Kaelyn was still taking a nap today. I thought of this too late, however. So I involved Kaelyn since she complains any time I make bread or anything like that.

She was very eager to help.

It took her a bit to understand how to knead. I told her to push and she got it.

She also thought eating the dough was okay.....

:)

Dinner was awesome. Maybe it was the home grown, ripe, delish tomatoes. Maybe it was the extra serving of cuteness that Kaelyn added to the dish. Whatever it was, the tomato tart was sooo good. We always love eating this type of pizza and having tomatoes that we grew on it made it even better! (Except Kaelyn wanted regular pizza--she doesn't eat tomatoes yet.)

Blackberry Jam

I had this idea to write about fitness. Close upon the heels of that thought came the thought that really, what do I know about it? Maybe I can write about what I'm doing or reviews of DVDs that I've tried. Actually, I like that idea.

But not today.

Today I have two other things to say.

1. This is post #100. Tear.
2. I noticed today that I have blogged more this year than I did last year.

And I just decided I'm going to blog about Wellness on Mondays. See? A step in the right direction. On Mondays, you get Wellness. On Fridays, you get Garden. On Saturdays, you get Rambles. Or perhaps Bad Habits, Evil Doings, and Other Unnecessary Confessions is a better title.

Wellness is a way of life. Wellness is being fit. Wellness is exercising. Wellness is movement. Wellness is healthy foods. Wellness is unprocessed foods. Wellness is cleanliness. Wellness is being financially fit. Wellness is being spiritually fit. These are just a few of my thoughts about what wellness includes for me. I certainly have not achieved my goal, but every little change gets me closer.

When I run out of a food, I often look for a healthier alternative or brand. In one of those past 99 posts, I mentioned that Heinz makes ketchup that has no HFCS (high fructose corn syrup). It is not that much more expensive and it is called Simply Heinz.

Recently, I was running low on jam and I always dread buying jam because it seems like the healthier versions are way more expensive so I have to hang my head in shame while I buy a product loaded with HFCS, CS, and other additives. When I got to the store, I looked down the row and picked up one that said it was all natural with no preservatives. The pricing wasn't that bad and it was a decent sized jar. My jaw dropped. Four ingredients! Now THAT is what I'm talking about.

I wish I had the price, but this was one of the weeks that I did not enter anything into my price book. :(

Blackberry Jam by Wind Stone Farms. Made in Kentucky. I bought seedless because I thought that's what Jared liked. Jared told me otherwise when I got home. Does my dad like seedless then? I swear someone in my life somewhere does not like seeds and apparently it is not Jared. It is an 18 oz jar and it is yummy.

Ingredients: Blackberries, sugar, fruit pectin, citric acid.

Nutrition Facts--I confess that I haven't really ventured too much into this world. I figure if I'm eating foods that are low in ingredients and not very processed, I'm doing pretty good. But maybe someone who reads this will want to know this information. So here you go.
Serving size: 1 Tbsp
Calories 50
Total Carbs 13g
Sugars 12g

One year I will take it a step further and make my own. I'm not there yet.

Rolls in the making

Back in October, I made rolls using a recipe I hadn't used before. The recipe didn't exactly say how many rolls I would end up with. So after I let the dough rise, I wasn't expecting this...

Or this (which is just a different view of the above).

Or this.....

Doesn't that look like... I don't know. Such a big blob! It was huge!

True to its claim, however, these were good rolls. Although... they came out huge. This picture doesn't not do it justice. They were the size of two rolls. But they were very light and oh so very yummy. The missionaries who stopped by my house to pick up some pants (or maybe they were dropping them off) benefited from some fresh rolls as I was just pulling them out of the oven. They also declared them delicious.

Although I don't have a picture of them, only half the dough was made into rolls. The rest were made into cinnamon rolls. Yummy. Of course.

The next time I made this recipe, I knew a little better what to do. I halved the recipe, for starters. I made the roll chunks smaller so that I had smaller rolls. When they were rising, I forgot to put them in my oven (the warm spot) and so they weren't quite as light as the first time around. However, they were still quite delicious. 

Warning: This recipe is not the easiest roll recipe out there. There are more steps and dirties more dishes.

Snickerdoodles

Last week I made my first batch of Christmas cookies. Yes, my first. I haven't made any more because I need more milk. But I do plan on making more. The only way this plan will be bust is if baby decides to come. And I won't complain about that.

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Lighter Snickerdoodles
Recipe from allrecipes.com

1/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cup white sugar
4 oz lowfat cream cheese
1 egg
2 egg whites
2 3/4 cup white flour
2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt (which I didn't add)
1/4 cup white sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, 1 1/2 cups of white sugar, and cream cheese. Beat in the egg and egg whites until smooth. Sift together the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt; stir into the creamed mixture. Cover, and refrigerate dough for at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). In a small dish, mix together the remaining white sugar and the cinnamon. Roll the dough into walnut sized balls, and roll the balls in the cinnamon and sugar mixture. Place the balls at least 2 inches apart on cookie sheets, and flatten slightly.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Remove from cookie sheets to cool on wire racks.

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These cookies turned out so yummy and pretty! And I haven't felt guilty eating most of them. I took a plate to the apartment complex managers. But I'm selfish and kept the rest.