Alphabet Soup

I've been making the littles some apple muffins lately, which they love, but I've been wanting to make something with pumpkin instead.  However, I've been stuck in a rut and just haven't found a recipe that I've wanted to try.  Sure, I have my stand-by recipes, but I wanted something new.  I can't believe I hadn't checked one of my favorite baking books ( Baking From My Home to Yours , by Dorie Greenspan ) before now.  A quick look at the index, and I found what I was looking for, All-in-One Holiday Bundt Cake.  It really does have it all:  pumpkin, apples, fresh cranberries, and pecans.  Perfect!  I even had all the ingredients, since I had picked up some cranberries on a whim at the grocery store this week.  I decided to let all the kiddos help me, and they were excited to.  Let me warn you though, I would prep the pecans, cranberries, and apples ahead of time if you're going to be making this with kids, especially young ones....

Several years ago, my mom gave me an old cookbook, it was hers but I'm not sure she ever used it, Favorite Recipes from Southern Kitchens:  Desserts .  I love this cookbook!  I thought it would be great to go through it and pick a recipe or two to use for this year's 12 Weeks of Christmas Treats series.  For this week, I chose a super easy one, Hello Dolly Cookies.  I have absolutely no idea where the name came from.  I'm really not sure I've ever eaten one before, though the ladies I shared the finished product with knew about them!  I did an internet search too, and it seems they go by a lot of names, including Magic Layer Bars.  Honestly, they are so easy to make.  There's no mixing required.  Kids could absolutely help with these.  The cookies smelled divine while they were baking, and I barely waited for them to cool before trying one. At first I thought "these taste almost like German chocolate cake", then "or d...

Let's take a moment to look at the calendar, shall we?  Let's see, yep, it's still September.  I tried buying some Halloween baking products today, but the stores were already sold out and replacing them with Christmas items.  And I complained about that on Facebook.  Yet, here I am, talking about Christmas treats.  According to the countdown on my phone, there are 89 days left until Christmas day.  So, in that spirit, I've joined Brenda of Meal Planning Magic again on her Twelve Weeks of Christmas Treats blog hop.  That's right, me, the Queen of Procrastinationland.  ;) This week, I made a pretty easy treat:  Chocolate Caramel Pretzel Bites.  I found the recipe through Pinterest (where else these days, right?) and thought they would be a great treat to make! Instead of using the individual caramels, I decided to try the caramel apple wraps found near the apples in the produce section of the grocery store.  They made...

Hard to believe, but a little over a week ago we had snow on the ground.  Today, it's 66 degrees and windy!  Snow never lasts long around here.  Ever since the Munchkin read "Little House in the Big Woods" a couple of years ago, he begs to make maple syrup candy whenever it snows (it's snowed 3 times this winter; that's a lot for us!) and this time I finally gave in.  Needless to say, he was thrilled.  And when the other two heard "candy" they were thrilled too! I found some instructions on Shelterrific that looked good, and off we went.  I got the syrup to boiling, and Munchkin got his coat on and waited {im}patiently by the back door to collect the snow.  I did make one mistake.  I didn't let the syrup cook long enough.  I didn't take the time to make sure it had gotten to the hard ball stage before taking it off, and in fact I'm pretty sure it didn't even make it to soft ball stage.  I should've checked, because while ...

Okay, so after my last post you're probably going to be shaking your head when I tell you that I've joined another cooking group.  :)  Brenda of Meal Planning Magic  has revived her  Eating the Alphabet , series, and since it kind of gets back to the "roots" of my own blog, I couldn't really pass it up.  ;) So, while I do complain a bit about Pinterest, I have actually gotten some good ideas from there!  One of the recipes that caught my eye last month was these Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins from Skip to my Lou .  I made them, with some changes, and they were a hit.  While trying to decide what to post for the A or B month, I thought these would be perfect. Hey!  That's Sprout swiping one while I'm trying to take pictures.   Yes, I know, banana chocolate chip muffins are not earth-shattering, but I healthy-fied these, and that made me feel much better about the fact that we were all popping these little bite-sized tasty t...

  Munchkin Like half the people on the planet, I've recently become addicted to enamoured with Pinterest.  I've been gathering quotes I like, and while I managed to not pin this one, it went something along the lines of "when we compare ourselves to others, we lose a little bit of our own awesomeness."  I've been struggling lately.  A lot.  And with things I don't really want to bother you with.  Trust me, I'm not good at sharing my burdens with others. Anyway, through Pinterest, I was led to this post by Adriana of Just by Living .  I'd never read her blog before, but this post hit home, in so many ways.  One of the things she says in her post is "My life isn't pretty enough for Pinterest."  I want to hug her, give her a high five, and cry on her shoulder because that is so how I feel.  I've lost a lot of my own awesomeness lately by comparing myself to way too many others.  I didn't start blogging to be...

Planning   Yes, it's been a while.  I'm not going to apologize or give excuses.  I've just been dealing with a lot lately, and as usual when that happens the blog takes a hit.  That's just...me!  :) Earlier this month I cleaned out my pantry, which wound up being more of an undertaking than I had planned, but it definitely needed to be tackled.  I couldn't believe how chaotic the pantry had gotten!  This weekend, I decided to tackle the freezer, and restock it as well.  I know I am lucky to have a stand alone freezer.  I've had it for years and it is such a wonderful asset!  Like the pantry, sometimes it gets disorganized and I have no clue what's even in there!  I try to do a deep clean (I also have to defrost it...unfortunately it's not self-defrosting, lol) at least twice a year, and take an inventory, which I then print out and stick on the front of the freezer.  I don't always keep the inventory updated as I ...