Aaaah....life!

Before she got too old, we made a trek to the American Girl Doll store in LA and splurged on lunch!

My Boy Scout on a zip line!

On a cruise ship.  With real grass.  Amazing trip!  Thanks, Mom!!

My little ham.

Ft Ross Settlement.  Gorgeous place - highly recommend!

Visit to one of our favorite places.  Poor pig. 

Giddy up!  City boy meets Ms Easy.

What form!  Track and Field Spring '13

Yes, it's supposed to be edible.  Man o'da house having fun with the dehydrator.

Before the oven broke.

64 Oreos.  Since the oven wasn't working.  

Ummm....shouldn't the boy or Dad be doing this???

Fishing.  Dumb fish too smart to eat peanut butter and lettuce.

She better end up an artist.  Hopefully not the starving kind.

Look, Ma!  I learned how to sew on zippers!

Fancy pillowcases.  With pockets a la Pottery Barn.    And crocheted edge!  If you wanna buy one, it will cost you $50!

Fun with fleece.  

Learning how to sew more stuff.

Foot mops.  Binding and curves - aaack!

Holiday Re-cap

We escaped Thanksgiving in the Bay Area and went to the Islands, and did a lot of this.

Saw several whales during a trip to Lanai - see the tail?!  No clue who these two are but their heads kept getting in the way!

Brave kiddos - jumping into the ocean to snorkel!  I thought I saw a shark prior to taking this photo.....

I'm a bad Mom - allowing my 11 yr old to jump into said shark-infested waters.

I could look at this all day.

This too ;-)

Suddenly we HAD to climb a volcano.  We lost no one.

Back home, we made cake pops and stuck them onto mini ice cream cones.  Of course, totally not for fun.  It was the girl's 9th bday and I HAD to bring goodies to class.

And look at what you can do with dollar store tea lights (instructions courtesy of Inking Idaho).  Not getting paid to show Cuttlebug or MonoAdhesive.  However, if you work for them, I'm for hire.

One must have snowflakes!  Next time I'm using glue and water to stiffen the snowflakes.   Don't waste your money on the Alene's stiffener.  Bad stuff!  Makes limp snowflakes.

Went back and made boxes for snowmen tea lights.  The boxes took longer to make than the snowmen.   I better not find the boxes in the trash, my gift recipients, heh, heh!!!

Aaah....the very relaxing tradition of putting together a gingerbread house (girl screams, "Mine! Don't eat those!"  Boy yells even louder in his big boy voice, "You're contaminating the candies - don't touch those!!")

Then trying to relax by crocheting hexagons via Attic 24's instructions.  Very bubble gummy colors, I must say.

Did I say that I made 18 of these? - only cost me $6.  I'm a very creative cheapskate.

Happy 2013.

My baby is eight

Eight years ago we thought we won the lottery:  we found out we were having a baby girl!  One boy, one girl - we were done.

She is still our precious jewel even on those days when I want to pull my hair out

 with the naughty things she does.  

Happy Birthday my sweet girl!

Rugelach recipe

This is my loot from the cookie exchange I went to yesterday.  My only beef is they only exchanged 1 cookie.  Gone are the days when cookie exchanges meant you got a dozen cookies from everyone.  This is literally a cookie (meaning 1) exchange :-).  

But the positive thing is - my hips don't need those dozens of cookies I was hoping to get.

Rugelach  (makes 4 doz)  pictured above

Cream

1 c. (2 sticks) butter, softened

8 oz cream cheese, softened (use regular, not light, or it will taste blah)

1 tsp. vanilla

Add

2 c. all-purpose flour

- mix until soft dough forms

- divide dough into 4 equal round disks

- wrap in plastic wrap and chill at least 1 hour

Filling (mix the following in a separate bowl)

3/4 c. mini chocolate chips

3/4 c. finely chopped toasted pecans

1/2 c. granulated sugar

1 Tblspn cocoa powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 T. melted butter

- set aside

1.  Flatten 1 round dish into an 8" round on a floured surface.

2.  Sprinkle with 1/2 c. of filling and gently press into the dough.

3.  Cut into 12 equal wedges.

4.  Roll each wedge towards the center and shape into crescent.  Place on parchment lined baking sheet, point side down.

5.  Bake at 375 degrees, 20 minutes or until golden brown.

6.  Repeat process with remaining 3 rounds.

7.  When cool, sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Mmmmmm....

More baking going here...

It's Rugelach!

All neatly packaged in groups of 4 - all ready to go to cookie-exchange recipients.

My son said they look like miniature chocolate croissants :-)!

Recipe to post later.

Batter up...a baking tutorial

Finally! Glorious California sun is back! And with that, who'd want to be stuck indoors baking all the time?!

Here's my solution: Six-week Date-Bran Muffin batter in the fridge!

Remember those chopped dates* from previous post? Well, this is their first stop....

Gather the following ingredients:

Cream together in a heavy-duty mixer:
1c. shortening (butter-flavor is best - don't give me dirty looks! Crisco is now trans-fat free!)
2 c. sugar (14 oz)
5 t. baking soda

Then slowly add 2 c. boiling water (this is where you have to put a towel over your mixer because it will splash and get really messy but it's so worth it afterwards).

Just when you think you can't possibly add any more liquid, add 1 Quart of buttermilk (do this slowly too - you may want to stop using the mixer at this point and use a wire whip to get this incorporated).

Pour liquid mixture in a large mixing bowl.

In a separate bowl, measure out 5 c. all-purpose flour (1 lb., 4 oz) and 1 Tblspn salt.
Slowly add this to the liquid mixture, using the wire whip to mix together.

In yet another large separate bowl, mix together:
4 c. All-Bran cereal (the kind that looks like short, straight noodles)
2 c. bran flakes
2 c. chopped dates (10 oz)*

Add this to the liquid/flour mixture (this time, use a spatula and ditch the wire whip).


You can now either put it in a large plastic tub to store in the refrigerator for up to 6 weeks or you can scoop some out to bake up some fresh muffins. The bran flakes will continue to absorb the liquid so don't be alarmed if you take the batter out tomorrow and it looks thicker - it will only taste this much better to let the flavors develop overnight before baking.

Bake at 375 degree oven for 20 minutes or until golden brown.



Make sure to label the container when batter will expire.

So go impress your family and make up this batter ahead of time and just scoop and bake the next time you need something fresh and hot in the morning.

Note:  No need to further mix the muffin mixture once it's in the plastic container.  Doing so will only toughen the batter.

Chopping Day

You read that right -- Chopping, not shopping.

Chopping, as in chopping up old candy bars (from Halloween)...
...and dried fruit (those are not cockroaches). It's one of those labor-intensive jobs that require a separate day from baking.

Today, it was that kind of day.

I had confiscated my kids' Halloween chocolate bars shortly after they ate all they could and froze the candy bars for safekeeping. Until today.

These nasty things don't need to be in here.

Out they go! (yes, you just got to see a close up shot of the inside of my trash bin).

Here's my nice collection of chopped things: golden raisins, assorted Halloween chocolate bars and dates.

In the next few days, you'll see what these can be transformed into!