Last of the Pumpkin...for now, at least!

After a few heart-wrenching days, I came home from my grandma's funeral today and just needed to bake.  Just having that smell in the air, and being able to feed my family something I made was really important at that moment.  So, after a quick glance in the fridge, I decided that the last bit of pumpkin leftover from making Thanksgiving desserts would work well.  I decided to use a cake mix as my base because, although I was ready to bake, I wasn't entirely ready for all the clean up and steps.  Baby steps here.  So I used a yellow cake mix, added in the pureed pumpkin (about a cup or so) and 3 eggs.  Mixed it together, put it in muffin tins and was just about ready to put in the oven (at 350) when the combo of cream cheese and pumpkin started calling my name.  So, I set the tins aside and went to work making a bit of a cheesecake filling; 8 oz of softened cream cheese, 1/4 cup sugar and about 2 tablespoons of flour.  I creamed it together and put a dollop on each muffin and then swirled it.  Then, I finally put in the oven!  The next 25 minutes of the house smelling festive again were wonderful.  I took them out and tried to let them cool but couldn't resist popping one out hot and eating it.  It was just what I needed. 

Sometimes, you just gotta bake! 

A Week of Thanksgiving

This has been a busy week.  I don't mind busy but this was the kind of busy that occasionally sent me into a "need a nap now" mode and that doesn't happen often.  The emotional drain of losing my grandmother as well as the start of the holiday season just took it's toll on me.  But instead of allowing the stress to take over, I am instead going to spend time giving thanks for everything that I have in my life.  It's so easy to forget how much we have when the walls are crumbling around us.  It's the difference between standing still and moving forward when those moments happen.  Give thanks for every bit of positive in your life and it will be repaid. 

My list of thankfulness has to start with God.  I am beyond thankful and in awe that He has allowed me to have the life I do.  "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, Philippians 4:13" is a verse that comes to mind often.   This life I get to lead is not because of me, it's in spite of me far too often.  God keeps letting me screw up and still keep moving forward despite my shortcomings. 

My husband is my rock.  He is the one person who knows me better that just about anyone else on this planet, and he still loves me.  I know he has to shake his head sometimes, just wondering what the heck he did to deserve my craziness.  But he keeps on keeping on, no matter what.  I am thankful for him and I thank God every day that he brought us together.

My children are my blessings.  I am trying hard to learn to be a "letting go" parent as they get older and let them find their path, tough as that is.  Being their mom has been an awesome responsibility and a blessing to be part of their lives.  The road isn't always an easy one, but their love makes it worth it.  

I am thankful for all of my family - my nieces and nephews, my siblings, my cousins, etc, etc.  I love having them around me, and I am blessed beyond measure to have them in my life.  Our circle keeps getting bigger and it's so wonderful.  I love seeing how they grow and change and where we're all headed in our lives.  I would be listing people all day individually, so please know that I love each of you and I am thankful to be part of your family. 

Child care is really more than my job, it is who I am and I am thankful for the opportunity to be a part of so many childrens' lives.  And, some of my best friends started out as parents of children in my care and that was an unexpected, but lovely, blessing.  The children keep me moving, keep me challenged and are unwavering in their childhood appreciation of the little things.  I learn a lot from them. 

"Friends are family you choose for yourself"  Ever heard that quote?  It's so true and I have the most wonderful, supportive extended family I could ever dream of having.  They support me when I'm down, the encourage me when I'm trying, they make me laugh when I'm crying and sometimes just sit and hold my hand.  My friends rock!

Food!  Don't worry, I won't forget the food.  The food is what brought this blog out of me.  I love writing and sometimes wish I had the time to do more of it, but this blog has allowed me to bring together my love of creating healthy, good food for my family and friends and write about it.  How wonderful is that?  I know I need to get back to some food posts - I really haven't forgotten that is the reason I'm here!

Last, but not least, I am thankful that I am a runner.  Being a runner has opened doors for me - physically, mentally and socially.  I've met great people through running who I now call friends!  I know I can accomplish so much more than I ever thought I could - races, bike rides, and the list will continue to grow because I took that first step almost 3 years ago.  Mentally, when life just gets to be too much, I head out for a run and lose myself in it.  Problems seem smaller and my place in this crazy world is restored for awhile as I hit the trails or the road.  It's all about that journey and I'm thankful to be on it.  

As I get older, I am learning to be more appreciative of all of the many facets of life.  No tomorrow is every guaranteed to us so live each day as if it could be your last and make sure that everyone around you knows how much you love them.  When my grandmother died on Friday, it was sad, but beyond the sadness was peace, joy and love.  Peace that she's in heaven singing in a choir of angels - she even spent her last days singing quietly to herself at times.  Joy that she is no longer in pain and her body is no longer broken by age, disease or sickness.  She is a radiant version of my spunky grandma from my childhood.  And love because she was love.  She gave love freely to all of us, telling us how much she loved us often.  She never held a grudge and was always in your corner.  Her love will live on in so many ways.   

With Love to Grandma

I spent the day with my Grandma yesterday, saying my goodbyes and sharing memories with family.  Like so many people, I loved heading to Grandma's for a visit when I was a kid.  She is so easy-going and laid back and it was a child's dream to have that kind of love and support.  She fostered my love of the creative cooking - she let me run wild in her kitchen and I spent many nights creating all kinds of odd dishes to serve for breakfast.  And she always ate them.  Even when my cousins and I woke her up at 4 am to eat them because we just couldn't wait any longer to share them.  Like my Aunt Joyce said yesterday, "she was usually up for just about anything."  She carted us grandkids around, hauling pets, kids, friends, toys, etc...anything you "had" to have for a visit!  Once I got punished when I was about 13, and I felt like the world had come to an end and I'd never survive...and then I got a card from my Grandma.  I've never forgotten it.  It had Maxine in it from Hallmark, and it said on the front, "I find when I get upset, a nice bubble bath helps" and on the inside it said "I've been in here since last week."  It reminded me that her love was always there, even when I screwed up. Something I needed to hear pretty badly at that moment.

As I grew up, her love and support never ceased.  She was the one person in my family to stand by me when times got tough - even when I was the reason they were tough.  She always told me what she thought, and she never pulled any punches, but she always tempered it with love.  She was a gift, a treasure.

This morning I woke up with a million memories swirling around in my head.  I know her time is short and because she is over an hour away, visiting her takes a big chunk out of a busy life so I'm not sure I'll have another chance to see her before her time comes.  I hope I do, but if I don't, I know that she knows I love her just as much and just as unconditionally as she has always shown love to me.  I didn't want to leave her last night but my comfort came in knowing that she knew that too.  I love her more than I could ever express into words, in thoughts, in any way.  I just adore that woman!!

So, with those thoughts and memories, I decided to bake.  And I made cinnamon rolls.  I know how much she loved my cooking and baking so these were made in honor of her love that helped mold me into who I am today.  I know that her love will live on in me, and that when the time comes I will be that Grandma.

I love you, Grandma.

I'm still a kid...

Do you need proof?  Here's my morning hot chocolate...

I think there is a reason I am a child care provider.  :)  I enjoy the little flashes of laughter in my day, the giggles at all the things that us adults forget is funny.  There is a host of other reasons that I love my job, but being able to drink hot chocolate with colored marshmallows and not get one little raised eyebrow is a big perk!  And the kids love my cooking - well, they love the baking more than the cooking, but that's normal, I think.  Sometimes the cooking is just a bit too healthy and I get an upturned nose, but it's not often.  I try to make things for them that are healthy, as well as enjoyable to eat.  I succeed most days.  Childhood is such a great time to introduce all kinds of healthy foods to create a lifelong love of real food.  

I wish my own kids were young again so I could have a do-over on their eating habits.  They are 16 and 20 and don't share our love of all things healthy.  I still serve it but unfortunately there comes a point when they can buy their own food and snacks and you lose control as a parent over what they put into their bodies.  I only hope that they'll remember at some point and carry that through with them when they become parents.  I am just glad that I've been able to expose them to a wide range of foods and dishes.  

As a kid, my diet was a bit atypical.  We ate mostly fish - caught by my parents and either eaten fresh or frozen, and venison  - again killed and fresh frozen by my parents.  Add to that mostly things my parents grew in the garden and that was the basics of our meals.  To this day, I have a lot of issue eating venison.  It's like I reached some sort of limit for it and that was it.  I don't eat meat in any form very often, so it's not entirely surprising but such a reversal from my childhood.  I am thankful for the early exposure to fresh veggies though.  There really isn't a veggie I don't like.  I love them all, and can eat them raw, cooked, baked, anything.  I just love them.  I didn't appreciate the garden, the fresh meat, etc, when I was growing up, but I sure do look back and think how lucky we were to have had such a good food foundation.  

Now, I have my own garden, I grind my own wheat, I bake my own bread and I rely on canning and freezing fresh foods in season to get us through the winter.  My childhood has come full circle!  So, there is hope that my own children will find their way back too.  

So, for today, try to just let a little childhood into your day.  Smile...and not just because it's Friday!  :) 

Wednesday's ramblings

I started out this morning determined to not serve quick and easy to the daycare kids so I used some instant oatmeal in the cupboard as the base for a healthy muffin.  Muffins are not typically great results for me, but these were pretty good.  I used 3 packets of blueberry muffin oatmeal, added in about a cup of milk, 3 teaspoons of baking powder an egg, and a tablespoon of melted butter.  In the end, I wish I had used 2 tablespoons of butter but other than that, it was a great little muffin and the kids ate them up!  I bet fresh blueberries could also be added to make them even more healthy and moist.

Tonight's a dinner out for me and the hubby!  I love those date nights - I think we're headed for Mexican food and I am pretty excited.  I never did get around to my weekly menu, but so far we've avoided the take out call.  Tonight's meal was planned already so I'm giving myself a pass to enjoy.  Not to mention it's raining here again and I am not seeing a pleasant run in my future with a chilly rain + the beginning of a chest cold.  We're already signed up to run a 10 mile run on Sunday so I want to give myself permission to rest a bit before then and hopefully knock this cold out of me.  All of the daycare kids have been sick so I'm sure this is just a byproduct of my profession. 

Happy Wednesday everyone!  I hope it's a great rest of the week...hopefully I'll have more yummy stuff to share soon!

Fall Leftover Casserole

Doesn't this just look like a bite of fall flavor?

Really, I am not sure what else I would call tonight's dinner.  It was so pretty...very similar to the Jamaican Jumble I made a few months ago, but in a completely different category at the same time.  It had all the basic fall components...squash, swiss chard, cranberries, pecans; and just because we had some leftover in the fridge, diced pork tenderloin.  I used a sweeter spice mix with it -  cinnamon, clove, allspice - and baked everything but the cranberries and pecans together.  I reduced the cranberries and pecans down on the stove into a sort of chutney texture and spread that on top of the casserole before serving.  I loved it.  And I loved that it was a healthy meal, and cleaned out some leftovers.  A win-win!! 

Still haven't worked out the Thanksgiving menu.  Seems like I just am avoiding it so I need to just sit and force myself to work out.  I was thinking about it while I ran last night but just ended up drifting off and letting my mind wander while I pounded the pavement.  I guess I needed that more!! 

Menu? What menu?

I am a planner.  And I tend toward the OCD side of the planning.  I obsess, I plan, I obsess some more...you get the picture.  So, as the daycare kids were coming in this morning they were asking "What's for breakfast?", this question is really only second to "What's for lunch?" on the repetition scale of my day. Throw in a few "he hit me" and "Miss Sheri" and you've got my day in a nutshell.  But I am getting sidetracked.  I head out to the side of refrigerator where I hang each week's menu only to discover....there's not a menu.  I completely, in my errand and cleaning crazed weekend to do a menu.  WHAT????  I FORGOT to do the menu.  I am seriously starting to consider whether the hit I took to the head while doing our night time trail run a few weeks back was worse than I thought.  I screwed up food recipes for my coffee party, I have no weekly menu, and don't even ask what happened to half of our pot of coffee today. It's just too painful to discuss. Oh, and even worse is my apple pie that somehow turned out looking more like applesauce pie.  What in the heck is going on around here?!?

So, I took a quick inventory of what I had on hand and declared english muffins and bananas today's breakfast winner.  Not inventive, not creative but on hand and ready in a few minutes.  I had gathered my senses a bit by lunch and we had homemade mac and cheese but dinner.  Well, I am scrambling in my head.  I am sure I'll have it figured out by the time we get there but it's hard to do my job and plan out anything that requires concentration so our actual menu for the remainder of the week won't be done until tonight.  The only free night I have this week.  Yep, I'll be doing more household chores after working all weekend to make sure our calendar was clear for this week.  And maybe I can find some semblance of sanity that allows me to return to cooking, planning and just in general being myself again.  Is that too much to ask???

Seriously though, all of the food has been edible and tasted good, just not how I pictured it.  The coffee overflowing was a fluke (I hope!), and I at least did some grocery shopping so there is food to work with in the house.  Just need that framework to avoid the call of the "take out monster" 

Enjoy the week...massive planning will be underway this weekend for my Thanksgiving feast. I was planning on it this week but it just doesn't look like it will happen.  And, for once, my OCD side is okay with that! 

The Tale of a Bad Day of Baking

Baking is fun.  Baking is relaxing.  Baking is my refuge.

The above statements describe most days for me.  Today was not one of those days.  I hosted a coffee party tonight with a few friends and decided to make some treats to go along with our coffee tasting.  I wanted to branch out a bit because most of these friends have sampled my tried and true favorite recipes and I didn't want to make the same old thing.  And so, I decided, I would make some new recipes.  Maybe I'd find a new favorite?  Well, spoiler alert, I definitely did not find any new favorites.

On the menu...a chocolate sponge caked rolled around a cream cheese frosting, a lemon cookie bar and some cheddar cheese scones.  Sounds yummy, doesn't it? 

I had made plans to run in the afternoon at 1 pm, and also I took my son early to do one last practice run before his driver's license test next weekend, so there was a small window in the middle of those took obligations.  We returned home around 9 am so I had more than a few hours.  Well, the lemon bars crumbled apart taking them out of the pan, my sponge cake didn't turn out spongy at all and my cheddar cheese scones were okay but not very scone-like in appearance and a little bland in taste.  And it was 11 am now.  I ran to the store for some white chocolate, then back at home I mixed the lemon bar crumbs into some strawberry preserves to make cake balls, popped them in the freezer and set to work on making the chocolate roll's icing.  I melted the white chocolate, dipped the frozen cake ball mix in and let it harden.  I spread the icing on the chocolate cake and rolled it up as best I could and then set to work on the scones.  I thinly sliced apple and laid that on top of the scone and also added some shredded cheese.  I put those back in the oven and hoped that would help.

Once time for the party came, I was a wreck over the food.  I felt like it wasn't worth serving it, but I needed something out so I smiled and did it anyway.  And everyone seemed to like the food.  I don't have many bad days in the kitchen, but this was one of them.  Hopefully it will be the last one for awhile.  I am not sure if the rushing around caused it or if it was just the lack of experience with each recipe.  I may try again, but not all at once and not anytime soon.

Our coffee party spread - unattractive but still pretty yummy!

Of course now it's time to plan Thanksgiving...hopefully that is a good day of baking!

I Love Salad

I really think the title sums it up nicely. I am a huge salad lover.  It is one of my favorite "go-to" meals and I sometimes eat two or three salads a day.  Today's lunch?

Yummy!  It's one of my favorite combos...fruit in my salad is always welcomed and blue cheese is invited to almost every plate.  :-)  This particular salad is made with Olivia's Spring Mix (one of my favorites when my own garden is not producing lettuce) topped with a fuji apple sliced fairly thing, craisins - I think my love of this ingredient is already known on this blog, blue cheese and some pecans.  I topped it off with my new favorite dressing, Panera Bread's Fuji Apple Dressing.  I love that stuff!  If I'm not having a fruit salad, honey mustard is my top pick, but the Fuji Apple is pretty amazing stuff.  I found a whole thread of info related to this dressing here, so it's not just me who thinks it's great.  I do want to try my hand at making it myself next time around. 

So, besides eating salad, what else have I been up to?  Well, I made a pumpkin roll yesterday to surprise the hubby when he woke up, and then I made some oatmeal bread.  It seems to be the only bread I've been making lately so I know it's a favorite.  Last night hubby and I both ran, but at separate locations because of daylight savings time, so I cheated and we ate take out paninis from the little Italian restaurant we love.  I love their crabcake paninis!!!  I'm a big time Old Bay girl, so it took some getting used to with a more Italian infused flavor, but now I am completely in love with them.  They also have a crab cake platter with two huge crabcakes stuffed with gorgonzola cheese and apples.  Heavenly!!!  I don't even attempt to recreate them because it's more fun just ordering them.  The chef there is amazing to watch and I can't begin to describe the heavenly aromas when you walk in the door.  They do it right, that's for sure!  So glad we live nearby...

I hope everyone has a wonderful day and has enjoyed my salad view...I'm slowly adding meat back into my diet but I don't think I'll ever give up the meat-free salads!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year...

Isn't that how the song goes?  I guess it is...I love the holidays.  But I don't love the chaos that often accompanies it.  I love thinking about my gift list, planning each item out specifically what would make the recipient smile.  I won't say I've never bought a gift card, but I would like to think that the older I get, the more personal and thought out with love my gifts have become.  My goal this year is to just soak in the holiday season.  I want to really just immerse myself in it - not because it's expected or I think I should - but because I am thankful each day to live the life that I lead, and sharing that love and thankfulness with others is something that I hope I can do each day. 

This week's dinners are pretty easy.  Nothing too crazy around here.  With the puppy and the kids' schedules, there just isn't much time for crazy.  :-)

Tonight: Beef with Barley Casserole (we like the barley too much to make it soup!) in the crockpot
Tuesday: Shrimp Fried Rice with Egg Rolls
Wednesday: Going out with the hubby to a favorite Peruvian/Mexican restaurant.
Thursday: Lasagna
Friday: Tossed Salad with Crispy Chicken Tenders and Honey Dijon Dressing

I will admit that hubby and I already sampled the casserole and it is pretty yummy!  Nothing too hard - browned some beef cubes in garlic, oil and salt and then put in the crockpot with some cooked barley, carrots and mushrooms along with some beef stock.  Yummy!  Add in some bread and it will be a nice warm meal now that it's getting chilly.

I soon will be deciding on my Christmas cookie list too.  It's a big affair around here!  I make a list of all the cookies, a master list of ingredients and then head out to shop. Then for a few weeks, I bake, adding new cookies to a box in the freezer as I go.  Once they're all done, I assemble plates of cookies to go to friends, family and ALWAYS to hubby's work.  I love sharing all the seasonal yummies.  Last year I added in some new candies.  I didn't hear one complaint.