Chocolate, cleaning and cookies

We have orders to CT - it's official! Not that there was any doubt, but still, it makes it "real" for us military folks.

Things are on a roll and now we are in "moving" mode. I don't know that I've wrapped my head around all of it just yet, but I'm excited about our next step, so I think that's a good thing! We have our papers in for the movers, and all our housing stuff is done - so those are two big checks off the old "to-do" list.

Yesterday and today we spent a good chunk of time in our basement, we don't even have that much stuff down there, but just looking through what to keep, toss, etc. We are also trying to arrange what down there is going into storage while we are in CT and what will be making it to the new house. We had BAGS of stuff to toss. It's amazing what you think you "might need" later, then realize that in two years you haven't looked or thought about it, so it can probably go. As a reward to my dear hubby who worked very hard this weekend, I made his favorite, chocolate chip cookies (a new recipe for me) and they were AMAZING!! But hold that thought, we will get back to the cookies!

Needless to say, we will be going through this house room by room repeating the same process, so that's a glimpse of my life for a little while :). But on the up-side, it always feels so good to do a big "clean out".

As for after our stay in CT, well hubby finally decided on his top pics, and he sent in all his info to his detailer on Friday. That being said, the jobs can and most likely will change, and we won't know for certain (meaning actual orders in hand) where we are going until after the new year. He will get verbal orders before that, but those are not the "real" thing and are subject to change. (I know you Navy folks know all this, but for you non-Navy folks...). His top choices take us anywhere from CT to Hawaii and in-between. His first choice would be to be on the USS Jimmy Carter out of Washington State, then after that the USS Missouri that is currently in Groton, CT, but will be moving to Hawaii. So we would just be in Groton a little longer, then when it was time for the boat to go, head over to Hawaii. He made sure to check on the timing, and will would be good to go for a home-port change (for all of us). After that I really didn't pay much attention, I know there were two more in Hawaii that were near the top, and a couple in Groton, and one in Virginia. So...we shall see...eventually!

So, in CELEBRATION of our next step, and as I said above, just to do something nice for my sweetie, I made some chocolate chip cookies. I had a recipe I wanted to try out, and am really glad I did, because these are better than my old "go to". They are from the cookbook "Passion for Baking" that was given to me by my sweet friend Sam not too long ago (waving to Guam), and I have been baking things from it left and right, and have yet to find something that wasn't amazing, and these are no exception. They are buttery, tender, and just melt when you take a bite...

Who needs the oven...I'll just take a spoon...

Amazing Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup butter, melted and slightly cooled
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 large eggs
1.5 tsp vanilla
2 cups AP flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3 cups semisweet chocolate chips

To make:
- Line cookie sheets with parchment paper, and preheat oven to 350F
- Cream together butter and sugars until very smooth, about three minutes
- Add eggs and vanilla and mix well
- Add in the flour, baking soda and salt and mix to combine
- Stir in chocolate chips
- spoon onto baking sheet and cook, 8-10 min for small cookies, 10-12 for large
- enjoy still warm with a tall glass of milk :)

Hope you all have had a wonderful weekend and I'll be back soon :).

Back in business!

Haha - we have internet again, and it's ALL OURS!!! No trying to surf the web on my phone (although it is quite good at that) or taking the laptop to various locations to hook up with some wifi - no we are back to the land of technology here! Well almost...we don't have our home phone hooked up yet, or the cable upgrade, but those are coming tomorrow. :) Hooray!

So, I know it's been forever - there is so much going on I hardly know where to start!! Matt did his triathlon a few weeks ago. We had a great time cheering him on, and we were gone about 4 days so it was also a nice little mini-vacation. Also, my mom, dad and sister came as well, so it was great to be together as a family. We all had a lot of fun. My in-laws came to town over Memorial Day weekend, and that was nice as well. We had a bunch of friends over for a crawfish boil and it was a big hit!! I'll have to post pictures of that soon.

I have been baking up a storm here recently, so it's hard to pick one thing to post on my first post back, but I'm going to have to go with the sugar cookies that I made for big kids graduation reception. You probably remember (or maybe you don't but that's okay) that I was hired by his school to cater the cookies for the reception after the ceremony.

For about three days I lived, ate, and a few time almost slept in my kitchen. The order was for 350 cookies...that's a lot of cookies y'all.

The baking went really fast actually, but then I got to the "outlining" part and thought maybe I didn't charge enough after all - haha. It took FOREVER. And as you will see, every surface in my kitchen was at one point covered in butterflies!!

Not only did this part take forever, my hand was so cramped at the end of the night it hurt to straighten my fingers!!

But then the filling in wasn't so bad either, so overall it was a very fun, and positive experience, and they got lots of compliments.


Here are a few pics of my big kid at graduation. I can't believe next year he will be in "real" school - crazy!

And here are some of the many cookies out and ready to be gobbled up!

So, there you have it - a quick sum up of three days of my life! :) In other news, we are moving in just over two months...YIKES!! We still have nothing set up because we don't have orders yet...but who really needs those right!?!? Hehe, kidding - we've been told they are "on the way" so hopefully soon. The hubs also got his slate (list of jobs that will probably be available for his next tour) and while I know it changes and nothing is final, it's nice to see where some of the options are. He is changing his mind daily on the order of his list, so really I couldn't even venture a guess as to what our top choices are. It will be awhile (and I mean many months for you non-navy people) before we know anything for certain, but I'll keep you posted! :)

OKay, well this is getting really long. So with that I'm going to wrap up for today and promise to be back soon with some more updates!

PS the sugar cookies/icing recipe I used is the same that I posted before back with the baby shower post.

I'm still here...

I just don't have internet. I'm using the hubs laptop right now at a location that gives free wifi, but as far as our home, I'm out of luck. Long story short, we came home from KC not this past Monday, but a over a week ago Monday, to discover that while we were gone our modem broke. So we called up our internet company to place an order for a new one, nevermind that we are leaving in just over 2 months and it was going to be 70 bucks to replace, but whatever. We place the order and are told it will be here by Thursday. Thursday comes and goes, Friday the hubs calls around noon. He's first told that they can't find the order, but we had a confirmation number so he gives them that, is transferred and they tell us that it will be there by 7pm via UPS. He asked for a tracking number and was told that they "couldn't give us one". Strange, yes we thought so too. So, knowing they closed up at 6 we called again at 5:30, went through the same issues with finding the order, then again were told that they had until 7. At this point we were pretty sure it wasn't coming so my husband told them flat out that if it didn't get there by 7, we would be calling first thing Tuesday to cancel our service. This didn't seem to bother them. So, as you may have guessed it didn't show up. So hubby called Tuesday to cancel and talked to the customer care people who informed him that the order had never been placed, and it was clear to her (therefore to the others he talked to on friday) that there was no such order in the system. The guy who took the order started it, but it was never finished, so it was just sitting there waiting to be processed. So, we were lied to TWICE. She offered us a free modem, but we still canceled our service due to the lack of service we received. But this leaves us without a phone or internet for another week while we get everything switched over to the "competitor" of our previous provider. Okay, so i guess that wasn't such a short story, but oh well. Never get service through Qwest because they stink!!

Okay, have to run. I baked lots of yummies over the holiday weekend and as soon as I get my connection back i'll post some goodies!

Take care folks!!

It's Here!!!

Farmer's Market season that is! I LOVE going to the farmer's market and getting all my goodies for the week. This weekend we got some awesome asparagus, and rhubarb. I also got my herbs for the summer and a few other goodies as well. My "perfect" Saturday morning starts with an early (but not TOO early) morning run, home for a shower and coffee, then me and my boys load up and go to the market and grab a bite while we're out. Ahhhhh.... Of course it doesn't ALWAYS happen like that. There are many times, because that's the way life is, that some or all of those events don't happen...but in my perfect world, they always do. Here are a few pictures from this weekend's outing.

my three guys

Off and running

So, this was my first time to purchase or use rhubarb, and I have to say I am a fan. I got a ton of strawberries on sale so I made a strawberry rhubarb crisp.


It was delicious. The filling was a little runny, probably due to the fact there was no thickening agent in it, just sugar and the fruit, so next time I think I'll try a different recipe, but it was still super wonderful. I didn't follow the recipe for the topping though, I did my own.

ready to be baked

This was the perfect dessert to go with the hubs smoked brisket he made for Saturday night's dinner. And of course you can't have any kind of crisp without the addition of some vanilla ice cream. It would be better if it were homemade vanilla, but I don't have an ice cream maker, and won't let myself buy one because then I would probably make (and therefore eat) ice cream all day long every day! So here it is: my first ever rhubarb endeavor, and a wonderful way to welcome in the farmer's market season!

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp
Adapted from HERE

Ingredients:

5 cups strawberries, washed, dried and sliced
2 cups rhubarb, washed, dried and sliced
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup uncooked oatmeal (old-fashioned, not quick-cooking)
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 stick unsalted butter
1/2 cup sweetened flaked coconut
1/2 cup brown sugar

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, mix together the strawberries, rhubarb, and sugars. Spread the fruit in the bottom of a 9 x 12-inch baking dish.

Combine remaining ingredients in food processor and process until you get nice crumbles. Distribute crumbs evenly over fruit. Bake in preheated oven for 30 min. Let cool slightly then serve up with vanilla ice cream (or flavor of your liking). Enjoy :)

Cupcakes Galore

Hello kids! What have you all been up to?? I have been baking up a storm here recently, although I don't have too many pictures of my creations. No good reason for that, just laziness on my part - but I do have a little treat for you all today.

Last weekend we went to a pig roast, which was a lot of fun. Our neighbors have one every Spring, and this year I think they out-did themselves. The boys played non-stop for HOURS and actually were asking to go home before 9PM because they were so worn out. It was a fun night for all. And you can't beat a party that you can walk home from...it just doesn't get any better than that!

For my food contribution I made two different kinds of cupcakes. Cherry Chocolate and the much raved about "Carbomb" cupcake. Honestly I have to say the cherry variety was my favorite, but everyone else seemed to LOVE the "adult" variety. Although I do have to say that I could have ate the whole batch of Bailey's butter-cream frosting all by myself - no cupcake needed. Of course I probably would have landed myself into some sugar induced coma and then missed out on all the fun, but that stuff is so good it might have been worth it. ;)

For the cherry chocolate I just used a chocolate cupcake, filled it with butter-cream, then frosted the top with a cherry butter-cream icing and topped with a cherry. I also added in some chopped cherries into the cake batter. YUM! I have to say I think they turned out so cute!

Filled and waiting for their toppers

Adorable AND Tasty

The Carbomb cupcake recipe can be found here. I followed the recipe exactly - with the exception that I left out the alcohol in the ganache filling. Overall I was happy with how they turned out, and was glad that everyone seemed to enjoy them.

All "dressed up" and ready to go to the party

So, that was our big event last weekend. This weekend we have NOTHING "planned" and I am actually almost just as excited about that. We're going to the farmer's market tomorrow, so I'm hoping to pick up some goodies to do some baking Sunday. I LOVE the farmer's market and am so glad it's that time of year again. I hope you all have a fabulous weekend, and I'll be back soon (I hope) with more yummy goodness.

Steamy Goodness...

* working on getting the pictures up - blogger is really trying my nerves!! *

Oh boy - let me just first say it's a good thing I don't live somewhere that steamed puddings are more easily accessible because I would no longer fit into my pants.

Okay, maybe I should back up a bit. It's the end of the month, so you all know (or maybe you don't but you soon will) that it's time to post my Daring Bakers challenge for April.

The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

I did not have, nor could I find suet, so I used good old fashioned butter, and a lot of it, which is why it's a good thing I don't eat this more often, because after eating my small slice, I did some mental calculations of calories, and let's just say, it wasn't pretty - AT ALL! But it was yummy, and I don't eat sweets too often, even though I make them all the time, so I figure it won't kill me or the ability to fit into my jeans.

I enlisted some help from my big kid in making this treat today, and I have to say I think he did a very nice job.

already a pro with the mixer

We take quality control very seriously around here...

We chose to make a lemon steamed pudding and then a Grand Marnier strawberry syrup for the top. The flavors together were pretty delicious I have to say - maybe my favorite part of the whole dessert.

These were about to be on the "un-usable" end so they were perfect for syrup

Strawberry syrup on bottom of dish, ready for the batter.

This recipe was different from anything I have ever made before. It's sort of a cross between a cake and a bread pudding. It's very moist because of the steaming process - so that's a bit different for me, and I have never made anything that you steam to cook. I didn't have a strainer/pot combo big enough for my baking dish, so I did mine in the crock-pot and just set my dish on-top of a tea towel and it worked out just fine. I have to say, it was nice to have dessert cooking away and still have my oven free for fixing supper.

Ready to go into the crock pot for a few hours of steaming
after a good steam - ready to be flipped


FLIP

I served it up with a little bit of cream in the bottom of the dish. Overall it was a nice dessert. I don't know that I'll be making it again anytime soon, but I did enjoy the challenge. So, thank you Esther for broadening my baking horizons!!



If you're interested in trying this out on your own, go to the Daring Kitchen website and there you will find bunches of recipes in the "recipe archives" section! Enjoy! :)

testing