Gift from a special friend.

We had dinner guests last night.  K, A, and fluffy little C.  And with their arrival came birthday presents (since all three kids have birthdays in November).  There was even a present for me.  It was a Professional Series Kitchen Aid stand mixer.  I am in heaven!!!!! 

Not sure where I will put it yet but I had it out of the box and used it last night after everything was settled down.  It weighs a ton and works like a dream so, like there was any doubt, I'll be using it to make everything I can think of and everyone in our house (and maybe even neighbors) are going to gain a ton of weight.

Fresh corn tortillas

Z helped me make some fresh corn tortillas yesterday.  What a huge hit!!!!!  and so easy to make (once I found the right ingredient to start with).  I finally found a product called Maseca which is basically a masa mix.  All we had to do was add water and mix for a bit, press, fry, and ENJOY!

This is what the bag looks like, and it will do tons and tons of recipes.  2C of mix makes about 16 6' tortillas.

  Their web site has lots of recipes on there as well so I'll be checking out a few of them over the next week or so.  Maybe Grandma and Grandpa's anniversary dinner will be Mexican instead of steak.

It had the consistency of playdough so it was super fun for Z to kneed and of course rolling any kind of dough into balls and smooshing it is a kids dream.

We had the tortillas with some sausage and peppers, which was super easy, and supper was scrumptious.

Now I have to research tortilla presses to figure out which one I want, and I'll be looking for a cast iron tortilla pan as well.  Good thing my birthday and Christmas are soon.  I  might just have to wait until Mothers Day for some new bread pans.

Halloween and Birthdays

Halloween is coming faster than I want it to so it's time for me to get in gear and finish costumes and figure out what we're doing for treats.

The girls wanted treat bags to bring into school for their classes so here's what I came up with as a treat bag topper.  (I know, I got the colors in the wrong order to resemble candy corn but still very cute).  I'll attach them to a baggie filled with some goodies.

Frankenstein's monster for boys and witches for girls.

H's costume was very easy this year.  We were at Winners (love that place) and he said he wanted to be a monster.  Well there just happened to be a dragon costume right next to me and he loved it.  Super cute!!!!!

Z wants to be Cinderella so we're going shopping for a blue ballgown this week.  She has her tiara from the wedding this summer and some fancy shoes already.

M wants to be a vampire and will need a cape and white blouse so that's easy enough.

Right after Halloween, the day after in fact, our birthday marathon starts.  I waddled around the  neighborhood Halloween night three years ago wondering when this little miracle was going to make his debut.  He decided the next day would be the perfect time.  Then comes M on the 10th, me on the 12th, and Z rounds it all out on the 24th.

*****In the event that I forget, happy birthday L, J, and poppy O in NL, M, B, J, N in NS; happy anniversary A and M in Lab, and K and A in NS.*****

Aside from the usual cake on the actual birthday and family gifts, we're going to have one big party for the three kids on the same day.  Lots of kids in the house, all the festivities out of the way, and I only have to worry about the house for one day.  It'll be fun!

I'm thinking about doing some cakepops as treats and got my inspiration from Bakerella.  I love all the cute ideas.  I might do some icecream cakepops but we'll see.  It will be great for the kids to help me. 

That's it for now.  I'm off to bed after a super busy day.  Some pics of our fall welcome display later on in the week.

Thanksgiving, apple picking, family, friends, and great times.

Thanksgiving is this weekend in Canada and I can't wait.  I've got family visiting for the weekend and it's going to be nice to catch up and spend some quality time together. 

Last weekend I spent the weekend with an old friend and we took the kids to pick some apples (in the rain) so we'll be using those to make some yummy deserts with Aunt L over the next few days.

My 15 lb turkey is in the fridge thawing, my ham is ready to be cooked, and I've got enough sweet potatoes to choke a horse.  I just need to pick up a few odds and ends and we're all set for a weekend of pigging out. 

The weather is supposed to clear up and get warmer again for a few days.  I'm ready for the rain/hail to stop for a little while so we can spend some time outside playing and cleaning up.  The sun is trying really hard to shine this afternoon and I feel like a lazy animal drawn to the warm floor by the living room window.

So a very Happy Thanksgiving to everyone celebrating this weekend.  I hope you are surrounded by family, friends, good food, and lots of love!


***any apple recipes would be appreciated so we can try out something new***

Cool stuff

Today's Daily Bzz is Sodastrream Fountain Jet!  How cool is that.  THe first time I saw one was on the weekend when we were out shopping with Grandma and here it is the Daily Bzz just a few days later.  They were a bit pricy for my liking but it would be a great thing to get from BzzAgent to try out.  And would be so much easier to limit the amount of sugar in the kids pop, without having to give them aspartame.

Cauliflower and Cuisinart

I found a beautiful cauliflower at the supermarket this morning and decided I was going to use this recipe that I found online (with a few of my own modifications of course. I see recipes as a guideline most of the time)  What a conicedence that BzzAgent's Daily Bzz is the Cuisinart Smart Stick Hand Blender!  Might be a handy appliance to have for creamed soups. 

Time for me to bake some bread and scones.  I'm thinking of different things to give the girls in the mornings, instead of just a bowl of cold cereal, so I'm thinking some apple cinnamon scones, or maybe some ham and cheese scones might be a nice treat. I use the tea biscuit recipe from the old Cream of the West cookbook.  Thanks Mom!

50 Mile Yard Sale - And not much to do with baking today...SORRY

On the weekend we all went to an annual 50 Mile Yard Sale!  It's so much fun and you can find tons of different stuff there.  It's set up along a country route and there are tons of different sellers.  Some people set up on the town square or in a church parking lot, some people set up tables in their yard along the route, and some people even set up a table on the side of the road.   No matter where the tables are set up, there are tons of people who go to buy and it's a fun weekend.  We spent about four hours at it and we didn't even see everything.

My first awesome purchase was new dishes..and what a deal.  All white plates, bowls, mugs, adn even french onion soup bowls...10 of each, and I got them for next to nothing.  Now I'm all set for Thanksgiving (if we're having anyone over).  I didn't check to see if the bowls were oven safe, but if they are, I'll be baking some lava cakes in them for sure.  What a yummy way to finish dinner. 

After that it was just a bunch of picky things we bought, some toys for the kids, some clothes.  Oh I did buy a spring form pan with some decorator bottoms (clown and teddy bear).  Maybe I'll do a circus cake for Hunter this year since I have a clown now and some old circus decorations from Nanny C.

Today I'm working on another BzzAgent campaign for Bodum glasses.  I didn't even know they did glasses!  I've known about their coffee presses for years and love them but I had no idea that they had such a big line of products.  When I saw the Pavina glass that Bzz was offering I knew that I wanted it.  It's so funky and I love it already. 

I got this picture right from BzzAgent

Then I read a description on the Bodum web site for another one of their double walled glasses and I knew that it would be awesome. 

"The insulating quality of the double wall glasses doesn’t just keep hot drinks hot for a longer period of time, it also keeps cold drinks cold longer. Another nice thing about them – there is no condensation water when you serve cold drinks, therefore no messy rings on your table. And by the way, they’re great for ice cream as well. Double wall glasses are truly multifunctional. They are made from borosilicate glass and are dishwasher safe."

There's no outlet near me so I'm really really really really hoping that I can get in on this campaign try them out before having to order online.  It would make our Thanksgiving that much funkier (along with the new dishes I got on the weekend).  Fingers crossed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

brownies, passwords, and blender bottles!

It's taking forever to do anything today because all of my passwords and automatic log in stuff got reset the other day.  Oh well, I'm finally logged into just about everything, set up auto log in again, and here I am.

Last night I let the girls make brownies.  It's hard for me to let go and just let them make a mess and forget steps and ingredients but last night I did it.  (just a little help scraping out the bowl at the end...can't waste  brownie batter) 

Z was dressed in her finest play clothes, "pearls" and all.

After she put in the ingredients, M mixed and poured.

And the final product wasn't in the pan for very long.  I made some yogurt cheese the day before so we added an egg and poured that on top for a "cheesecake" effect.  MMMMMMMM

THey did really good.  M put it in the oven and took it out all by herself, which is new for her.

And now that I have all this extra time to sit and put my feet up, because the girlies are baking by themselves, I need a Blender Bottle from BzzAgent to try out!  Apparently they are the best.  But I'd like to be the judge of that.  Hope they pick me today!

BzzAgent

I'm on a mission to get in on another BzzAgent campaign.  Today it's MiO "the first-ever liquid water enhancer."  Sounds like something that would be handy in the girls lunch boxes at school or in the van on one of our road trips.  Or it might be easy for me to get something yummy while H is climbing on me or demanding my attention like right now.  Fingers crossed!!!!!

Oh and M is making brownies after school today.  Pics later on if we're not catching up on more episodes of Bones.  Man I love that show.

Back at it...sort of.

Back from vacation and kids are back to school.  Z's first day was great (and I didn't even cry at the bus stop)!

Just me and my little man home during the day now and while he's napping, I've been spending some time online.  Today I'm working on getting in on a BzzAgent campaign for a Kindle 3!!!!!  Check out the links to find out how to become a BzzAgent and for more info on the Kindle as well.

I've been doing a little baking since returning home but while my second batch of bread turned out well, my banana bread was lacking a little something....like sugar.  Good thing bananas are on sale this week and that H wanted to "go to the store and buy things" today. 

So everyone keep your fingers crossed for me and my Kindle quest and stay tuned for Banana Bread round two.

Banana Bread

It's been a slow few days around our house.  Lots of rain.  Not so much energy.  I decided it was time to do something with my babies so we attempted some banana bread.  Out came the new food processor ( I figured what easier way to do a quick banana bread than to throw everything in and give it a whirl) which would have been fine if I hadn't doubled the recipe.  Why not throw some math in there for Z while we baked?  NOT A GREAT IDEA.

The machine bogged down and I ended up dumping it into a bowl, adding more liquid, and over mixing.  I won't do that again.  The result was a rubbery flat cake instead of our usual moist crumb bread.

I'm sure we'll eat it since is still tastes good but it'll have to be with a big glass of milk or a good cup of tea.

And speaking of TEA, I'm heading to Newfoundland on a vacation soon. ( a cup of tea during a visit is a must when you're in Newfoundland).  H's Godmother is getting married and he and Z are going to be in the wedding party.  What a great excuse to take the family home for two weeks to do some camping, see lots of interesting things, and spend time with extended family we don't get to see enough.  I'll be keeping an eye out for some interesting bakeries on my way. 

Something savory.

I tried making Scotch Eggs yesterday.  I didn't want to deep fry them, which seems to be the usual way to prepare them, so I found a recipe to bake them.  I dont' know if I would take that route again.  I just mixed up a batch of hamburgers and saved some of the meat to do the eggs.  I wraped them, put them in a baking dish and baked at 350 for 45 mins.  The meat shrank and exposed the eggs!  Still yummy though and that's what we're having for supper tonight. 

And what does one eat with Scotch eggs???  Some potato dish??  Well I'm having rice.  I'd eat rice with every meal if the rest of my family would go along with it.  I think H might since he asks for rice whenever we go out to eat!

I bought flour the other day so I should be getting back into a baking routine soon...or at least soon after we're back from vacation.  I'll be visiting Aunt J who has some laying hens and I'm going to try to bake something with her fresh eggs. Can't wait!

Strata

It's not as good as my mom's.  I decided to use up some potato bread I got at the farmers market the other day.  I know, what am I doing buying bread?!  It looked yummy and it was half price (2 days old).

So yesterday morning I needed to use up the bread. French toast didn't sound appealing.  None of us wanted cereal, and I'm not even sure there was enough in the house for all of us.  What to do????  Fritata?  Nope.  Scrambled eggs?  Nope.  I still had 3 dozen eggs in the fridge so it was going to involve them.  Some sausage, bologne, a dozen eggs, cup of milk, and loaf of potato bread later (oh and 30 mins at 425) we were sitting at the table eating breakfast.  A good cup of tea made it the perfect Saturday morning breakfast. 

And gave us all lots of energy to do a ton of work around the house.My darling got to ride on his new lawn mower most of the day.  The kids helped me rake up lots and lots of grass clippings.  I managed to get rid of a huge pile of construction debris that we've been looking at for too long.  It makes me sooooo happy to see the yard taking shape finally.  Now it's just maintenance!

My version of breakfast pizza

I've been craving something different for breakfast this past week and I finally made a breakfast pizza this morning.  Well my version of breakfast pizza anyway.

Biscuits are a quick and easy thing for me so I started out with a biscuit crust.  Spread on to the pizza pan and baked a little.  Not till it's completely done, but almost.  Then Z helped me scramble some eggs and throw some bologne pieces in.  again, not completely cooked.  Spread the eggs over the almost done crust and  then cheese on top of that.  I put some sauteed mushrooms and peppers on half for me and my darling and left the other half plain for Z and H.   I realized the only cheese i had in the house was string cheese so I pulled it all apart and put it on anyway.  What's a girl to do...I was already 3/4 done!

It turned out pretty good and no one was hungry when we left the table. I added salsa to mine after it was baked because it seemed like it needed something else but I guess you could put it on the crust before the eggs, or add some sort of yummy white sauce. 

I would have put some pictures of my creation on tonight but my photography skills were lacking this morning, and my stove top was super messy.  We're going strawberry picking early in the week so I'm hoping we'll have some pictures of strawberry pie or tarts later on in the week.

instant gratification turns out not so instant after all

NO COOKIES IN THE HOUSE!!!!!!  What to do????

In my  desire for instant gratification (and still having most of my cookbooks packed and no ink in the printer) I decided I'd just throw some stuff together and make some oatmeal raisin cookies.  Not the chewy cookie that any of us were looking for, but we did have cookies in 20 minutes and they were quite edible.  I'll have to spend some time tomorrow opening up a few of  boxes of cook books and finding the best baking ones to have on hand until I get a proper book shelf in the kitchen.  And I need to stock up on some baking supplies.  Almost out of flour.  All out of chocolate chips, baking powder, and vanilla.

*Now that we're just about ready to sign off on the papers for our other house, I think it's time to figure out exactly what I need to finish organizing the kitchen.*

Long Weekend and Cinnamon Bread

Our long weekend started out with biscuits on Friday morning.  No bread in the house (I should be ashamed of myself) and no cereal either, so I decided to make some fresh from the oven biscuit breakfast sandwiches.  I used my usual recipe,( flour, baking powder, salt, butter, milk) but that morning I decided to add some sour cream for a bit of a change.  It didn't do a whole lot but it was just enough to know that they werent' my usual biscuits.  Some fried eggs, cheese, and meat later we had a yummy breakfast.

Saturday for my darling and H was spent at home, Z was with nanny and grampie, and M and I spent the day with grandma, grandpa, and Aunt J.  Dinner was at a very yummy sushi restaurant....all you can eat, which was right up my alley!

Yesterday I decided to bake some bread again and I let Z help me get it ready for the pans.  I almost made cinnamon buns but didn't want to go pulling another pan out of the cupboard so I just let her spread some dough out, rub with some butter, sprinkle a ton of cinnamon sugar on top and roll it up.  Into the pan it went to rise with the other two loaves.  I forgot to grease the pan so it stuck a little but yummy all the same.  That was the bedtime snack for the kids last night and part of my breakfast this morning. Mmmmmmmmmm.

So today I'm just waiting for some progress on the sale of our other house and trying to finish a good book.  The kids found another box of toys to unpack so they've been pretty content with that all morning.  Maybe we'll pick some more flowers later and do some easy baking...chocolate chip cookies!

Chocolate chunk banana bread.

I've finally opened a box of cook books!!!  After a lot of organizing, and the first thing I grabbed is my trusty notebook.  I'm sure everyone has a book of handwritten recipes that they go to before anything else.  Here's mine.

Lots of papers sticking out the top but I know exactly where to go to find my favorites.  I've had this for nearly 20 years.

After a great deal on bananas earlier in the week I decided to make a big batch of banana bread.  But not just plain banana bread.  I"ve been craving some kind of chocolate desert so I took some chocolate easter bunnies out of the freezer to add to my recipe.  I picked up about 20 bunnies at one of the local department stores right after Easter...I think I paid 10 cents each and into the freezer they went.  It's a lot less expensive than bags of milk chocolate chips!

No pics of the banana bread, since it's disappearing quicker than I ever thought.  Z wanted it cut right out of the oven and slathered with butter.  H says he doesn't want any but then eats half of my slice with huge bites that a 2 year old should never be able to take.

I'll give credit to my Godmother for this recipe.  I'm not sure that it's hers for sure, or where she got it, but it works out every time and it's yummy.

1/2 C melted butter
2 eggs
2 mashed bananas
2 tsp sour milk (just add a few drops of lemon juice or vinegar to your milk)
2 C flour
1 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt

Combine first 5 ingredients.  In a separate bowl combine remaining ingredients then add to wet ingredients.  Place in a buttered and floured loaf pan.  Bake for 1 hour in a preheated 300degree oven.  Add chocolate chips/chunks or nuts if you like.  Whatever you think would taste good with bananas.

**When C was making her banana bread she would always mash the bananas a few hours or even a day before.  They release a bit more liquid and the bread always seemed to stay really moist.**

And this recipe makes really good muffins too but you have to adjust your baking time.  Maybe 1/2 hour to 40 mins.

Enjoy

Next desert I think will be my mom's recipe for Rhubarb Delight. I'm hoping to try it over the weekend.  It's cookie bottom, custard/rhubarb middle, and merangue top. It's a big recipe so you need a crowd or a big appetite!

What to make now.

I've spent most of my time lately organizing the house and little time devoted to baking, except for bread which Z is getting quite good at these days!  Now I need something easy, quick, and oh so yummy to bake with my babies.  Maybe a batch of granola if I can find a great recipe.

Daddy helped make jam.

We've made jam with fruit picked from our property already!  The rhubarb is gone crazy and if I've learned anything from my parent's huge rhubarb patch it's that picking what's ready will help the new stuff come up sooner.  So I've been picking!

Z wanted to make jam so I went online and found a recipe that we modified a little to suit what we had on hand. 

5 cups rhubarb, washed and cut into chunks
1/2 pineapple, crushed
2 C sugar
1 small package of jelly powder  (we used strawberry kiwi because that's all we had on hand)

That's all you need.  The recipe called for a can of crushed pineapple, but since fresh pineapples are on sale this week I happened to have half of one left in the fridge so we used that.

Mix the first three ingredients and leave it for 2 hours.  I think this is to help get some of the moisture out of the rhubarb.  Then boil it for 12 minutes.  Take it off the heat and add the jelly powder.  Mix well to make sure all the granules have dissolved and put it into containers.  It made 2 regular sized mason jars for us.

The kids all tasted it before it went into jars but I waited until last night and had some on homemade bread with peanut butte.  Yummmmmmmmmmm.  I think I would cut down on the sugar a bit next time (maybe 1/4-1/2 cup) but still really good. 

Pancake Poppers

That's what we're calling them anyway.  Yummmmmmmy!

I got this idea after some online surfing the other day and it seemed so simple.  So this morning I .decided it was time to make mini pancake muffins for the kiddies.  We're all sick of the usual toast, cereal, scrambled eggs.

THe recipe is nothing special, and actually, I didn't even use a recipe.  I just threw a bunch of ingredients into a jar and shook it up.  We've done pancakes enough times to remember flour, baking powder, salt, egg, milk, and something sweet.  I used maple syrup this morning and when I had it all done Z and H put chocolate chips on top.  Into the oven at 350 for 10 mins and they were perfect. 

Unfortunately I still haven't been able to find an actual non-stick mini muffin pan (or any muffin pan for that matter) so I had to be a little creative in getting them out of the pan.  Still so good.

I can't find the charger for my Canon camera battery so I've been suing my Flip Video Camera for everything lately and these are a few still shots I got from this mornings videos.

Adding chocolate chips.

Final product

And breakfast time...shhh don 't tell anyone we're sitting on the living room sofa!

New neighbours bearing cookies....and an offer to mow the jungle.

We were out trying to mow the jungle with our itty bitty mower yesterday evening when our wonderful neighbors came over to say hi.  She brought a plate of very yummy cookies (chocolate chip and coconut.mmmmmmm) and he brought an offer to finish the main lawn with his ride on mower! 

It's nice to know that we've got some friendly people living close by if we ever need anything.  I just hope we can be as helpful to them if they need anything.  And I hope that we can become friends, since we plan on being in this new house for a long time.

I'm Back!

Boy things have really been crazy for our family.  

Exciting news:  We moved into our new house.

Not so exciting:  Our bathroom reno is taking so much longer than we had expected.

I'm still super psyched to be in our house though. We have lots of space, big barn for storage and projects, lots of property for the kids to play in, and we're in the country a little.  I can't wait until I'm all organized in the house and am able to go and explore our new community and meet some people. 

We bought a new stove a few weeks back, since I hated the flat top one we had at our other house, and I like it so far.  We're turning into a Kenmore family.  The kids baked cookies already and last night I baked my first batch of bread since moving in. It's good to get back in a routine even if its a small one.

Not much else to talk about today, although I did find a new web site called BookSneeze that offers free books in exchange for reviews so I'll be signing up for that and giving it a try.  I'll add a Book Review section on the side of the blog and you can check it out whenever I post a review.  I'm hoping they have some good cook/baking books!!!!!

Totally unrelated, but also noteworthy before I sign off, one of my other favorite baking blogs is Bakerella.  For those of you who don't know about Bakerella, she's the lady who makes the awesome cakepops and just published an entire cake pop book.  Check her out here.  She's been sick lately so send her some good vibes and prayers.

cheating

The only thing I've been baking with the kids lately is bread.  Yummy yummy bread!  I did cheat and buy ready made cookies the other day though.  I couldn't believe I was picking up pop in the oven cookies.  But there I was, drawn in by a big fluorescent pink 50% OFF sticker.    They were good though.  PC chocolate pecan caramel bars or something ridiculously yummy like that.

Back at it

I have actually been busy baking over the holidays and since the new year started but I just never seem to find the time to get the pictures put on the computer or the time to find my way here to the blog.

That being said, we've been baking bread like crazy this past week.  Every day we make 1-2 loaves.  Seems like a lot but it doesn't last long at all in our house.  I'm going to have to get some whole wheat so we're not eating a ton of fattening white bread got much longer.

I cheat a little and put everything in the bread machine to mix but I do take it out and we kneed it and put it in a good loaf pan.  I'm ashamed to say that I only have one good loaf pan to my name :(  But making one loaf at a time is working for now.  When we get into our new house and I get the big freezer set up I can make several and have them in the freezer. 

I remember my mom making 15-20 loaves of bread at a time.  The house smelled so yummy and we couldn't wait to get the first slice still hot and slather it with butter. 

That's not all we've been doing lately though.  The kids all made their own gingerbread houses.  Of course I can't find the pictures right now but as soon as I do I'll post them.   Hunter decided early on in the process that he'd rather eat the gingerbread than make anything with it so his looked like the one that Shrek and Fiona stayed in on their honeymoon.  Mackenzie got chocolate rosebuds from the store specifically for putting reindeer poop around her gingerbread house.  She wanted it to be lifelike I guess!

Zoe got some easy bake stuff from Nanny P and of course we had to make some of that this week.  She made s'mores and loved doing it but when it came time to eating, she took a bite and that was it.  I don't blame her, it's not like campfire s'mores at all!  But still fun.

So I hope you all had a nice holiday and had a little bit of a break.  I enjoyed staying home and being with the family.  Craig had a week off so that was an extra treat for us this year.

I'll leave you all with the only picture I can find easily this morning.  It's our Christmas card for this year.  And those of you still waiting for one, it's coming.  I totally dropped the ball on those this year.