Last month we did a trial run of Gluten Free, we only made it a few weeks, but we had a lot of fun making new recipes and trying out some new stuff. One Saturday morning Paul made donuts for us!
He made one batch with powdered sugar and one with glaze and another with raspberries!
And just for good measure, my little booger butt.
I made a cake. And it was delicious.
It was my first time making a ganache frosting and it turned out pretty well, in my very humble opinion.
I made it for a church dinner that we attended last Friday night. The grandparents watched Sam so we could have some grownup time, and it was nice to get a little bit dressed up and eat dinner without bouncing a baby on my knee! But Sam did get to help make the cake, too, so he didn’t feel too left out.
I made some stuffed peppers for dinner one evening this week. And oh my word, they turned out so awesome.
Aren’t these peppers beautiful? I just love our Farmer’s Market. I am so sad that they are closing down for the winter in just a few short weeks.
I stuffed them with zucchini from my mother-in-laws garden, heirloom tomatoes and organic onions from the Farmer’s Market, ground beef, quinoa and cheese. Yum yum yum.
Fridays are one of those days where I always want the house to be at least tidied by the end of the day… there’s just something so nice about going into the weekend with a clean house. Anyway, today I’ve been cleaning and baking. Yep, barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen making cookies.
Gotta at least taste the cookie dough. Soo tasty.
Busting out of my apron… Yep. I’ll be 32 weeks on Sunday. 8 more weeks! Eek. It’s getting really, really close. TWO MONTHS AWAY! Well, two months if he decides to come on time. Two hot months. Two really, really hot months. I spent the last two afternoons at the pool, sitting in the shallow end letting the water just splash over me. Whenever I get in the water little Togglebuttons goes nuts and just starts moving around and going crazy. He’s still super active, moving around all the time and trying to kick his way out through the top of my belly. (Yay, this means he is still head down, so that’s awesome!) But I am getting anxious to meet my little boy. I think we’re pretty much prepared, or at least as prepared as I can be at this point, you know? I guess we will find out when he comes!
Ok. Also, on a completely unrelated note, has anyone ever tried the “No Shampoo” deal? I am kind of curious to try it because it seems like pretty much all shampoo dries out my hair really badly, even though I use plenty of conditioner- and it doesn’t seem to depend on the expensiveness of the shampoo, either. So, I might give it a try (maybe after the baby is born and I’m going to be staying at home alot, so if I end up with greasy hair no one will see….) So, if you’ve tried it, let me know how it worked for you.
I have had some strong cravings for cheesy pasta lately, so we decided to make mac ‘n cheese the other night, and it turned out SO good.
Seriously, seriously good. Here is the recipe: (I found it on allrecipes.com)
I substituted elbow macaroni noodles for shells, which is what we had on hand. I also added two handfuls of chopped ham to it, since we were just doing that as our main dish without any side-dishes. I also shredded provolone cheese on the top instead of using the Parmesan. Seriously, so good! Give it a try, you will not regret it.
Last night I had a huge craving for Monkey Bread. So, I made myself a batch. And it was delicious.
I don’t have a Bundt pan, so I had to use just a regular casserole dish, so it was a teensy bit soggy in the middle still, but it was perfect on the top and sides. I know some people don’t know what Monkey Bread is, so I will tell you. It’s made of that pre-made biscuit dough with white sugar, cinnamon, brown sugar and butter and baked until it’s all puffy and delicious. And it’s SO so good. Unfortunately I didn’t get started on it until like 8:30 pm, so by the time I made it and baked it, it was well after 9:00 pm, and then I got sort of a sugar rush and ended up staying up past my self-imposed 10:00pm bedtime. Oh well.
Also last night I finished making another custom ordered slouchy hat.
Sorry for the cruddy picture quality… but it’s like I said, it was past my bedtime.
Since we’ll be busy all day tomorrow we made our Valentines dessert today. I decided not to make that heart cake, mostly because it just seemed like too much work. So, sugar cookies it is.
I love sugar cookies. Especially with cream cheese frosting and sprinkles.
Yum. They’re delicious. We’re enjoying them this evening while watching movies and snuggling on the couch.
Hope you enjoy your evening, and you should bake yourself something tasty!
So… this week we made Apple Pie Pops. We made lots, and lots and lots of them!
We made an assembly line of sorts to get more productive with our baking.
It worked pretty well.
Now we’ve got this basket full of them, plus another 250 or so in tupperware ready to be hauled off to the reception.
(Don’t mind the saran wrap all over it, we’re just trying to optimize freshness here)
Ahh, my house is clean. Seriously, is there anything better than a clean house? (Except maybe a clean house with lots of fresh baked cookies?)
Made another (huge) batch of cookies for Paul to take to work, cleaned the house, finished Christmas shopping, all of the presents are wrapped, I am (mostly) packed, the dishes are done, now I’m just trying to decide which knitting projects to take with me on the trip. (This is difficult. Last time I traveled I took no less than 8 projects with me, and had time to work on ONE. Waste of precious suitcase space) but I am planning on a lot of downtime on this trip, so maybe 3 projects and a book? I can always go to the yarn store and buy more yarn if I am dying for a project.
Also, trying to learn how to knit ruffles… I am not impressed so far, seems like ruffles would be easier. Also, I love ruffles, why has it taken me so long to try them? Anyhow, this will be a ruffled baby hat, and I need to learn to knit a flower to go on the side. Why have I never knit a flower before? Huh.
Blogging might be light during the trip, due to the fact that it’s Christmas, and who blogs during Christmas anyway? I am hoping to keep up with my December Photo Project, I am pretty proud of myself that I haven’t missed a day yet! And we’re already on day 22, so I can do another 3, right? Or! I could take 3 more pictures today and then set to Auto-Post and just call it good. Is that cheating?
Well, off to make dinner and pack away all of the Christmas presents.
Merry Christmas!
It’s finals week.
Yeah. So, that means that most of the time Paul is:
A) At work
B) At School
C) Studying
D) All of the above
If you guessed D, well then, wow! You are right. I am ready for finals to be done so I can have my husband back. Not that I mind that he is doing well in school and studying to ace his finals. No, no. This is good! So I try to be supportive and make him little snacks. Like cookies, with a tall glass of milk!
That there, that is the best cookie recipe I’ve ever, EVER, ever made. It’s Mrs. Jack’s recipe, and you girls from Faith Pres, it’s in the church cookbook! I’ve honestly never tasted a better recipe for chocolate chip cookies. (And it uses a whole 4 sticks of butter, so they better be good!) Let me know if you want the recipe and I will send it to you, if you are one of the unlucky few to have a church cookbook (worth their weight in gold, I tell you).
So last night, while cutting up an eggplant, I sliced my left thumb up real bad. (Not bad enough to need stitches, thank goodness, which is good cuz my insurance was up the end of November) but just bad enough to prevent me from doing normal things like washing dishes, or knitting at a regular speed. But there is so much yet to be done by Christmas…. sorry family, I had great plans for knitted gifts for you, but there are so many Christmas orders that I just couldn’t do it… so instead of being awesome and making everyone handmade gifts, well, we are lame and are giving you store bought things.
This picture sums up how I feel about:
1. Having two bum thumbs (yeah, my right one is still all messed up, too, FROM AUGUST!)
2. Not having time to knit gifts this year (I even had the yarn bought and the patterns picked out!)
3. My husband having finals week
So there it is, all of my whining is done. Back to regular knitting related posts tomorrow.
Knittybutton 