Sunday Bake 3

This week (due to my expanding waistline and gloomy mood) I decided not to indulge my sweet tooth, but instead to make my standard breakfast. It’s easy, takes two minutes to heat up, and sticks with me easily until lunch.

Here it is:
MorningStar Farms sausage, egg whites, spinach and 2% cheese.
Throw together in a 9x13 pan, bake until browned (about 40 min).
I cut it into 8 sections and have one section each day with a piece of toast for the next 8 days (they freeze well)


















Mother's day is not my gig. It still makes me very sad and is a day I spend missing my mom. This year I tried to stay busy and weeded my flower beds. There is a nasty flora predator that grows thick in my yard that goes by the name of bindweed. Is anyone familiar? I hate the stuff, it's too deep to get all the roots without damaging my plants so I pull up as much of the roots as I can - which the master gardeners tell me that I'm just giving it a good pruning. anyway, it was a good way to spend mother's day this year, weeding... pulling out the crap and throwing it away. I know there's a metaphor for my life in this and a lesson to be learned. Since I'm not an eloquent writer, I'll leave it to you to put in your own words. We all have weeds...right?

Sunday Bake 1 & 2

Sundays have become "baking day". I've been in a crazy baking mood lately and my waistline is soon going to show it!
Last Sunday I tried a new recipe for chocolate chili cake that I got out of the newspaper. It calls for New Mexico chili, which I'm not sure exactly what that is, so I used regular chili powder instead... interesting flavor - the texture was great.
I took it to work to mixed reviews. I think the look is all chocolate which makes that first bite a little startling.




Today is raspberry streusel muffins. I got this recipe from a mile-high baking class. We were told to overfill the muffin cup for that bakery-made look. Too bad I don't have a scratch and sniff blog so you can get the full effect of the charred smell of flour, sugar, eggs, and raspberries spilling over the pan onto the heating element below. The house is filled with smoke, but I think the jelly-roll pan quickly placed under the muffin pan has saved a call to the fire department and hopefully saved the tray of muffins!












They came out more like flying saucers than muffins with a flat muffin top. They do taste good, but they don't look too pretty!




Here's the recipe - but realize it's adjusted for baking at altitude.

Streusel topping:
1/4 c sugar
1/4 c flour 1/2 t cinnamon
2 T cold butter
1/2 c walnuts (optional)

Muffins
4 c flour
1 c sugar
2 T baking powder
1 t baking soda
2 eggs
2 c buttermilk
2/3 c canola oil
1 1/3 c fresh or frozen raspberries

Make streusel topping: place ingredients into the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade and pulse until the mixture has a fine cumbly texture. Set aside

Preheat oven to 350

Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and baking soda in a bow; set aside.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, buttermilk & oil.

Mix the fruit into the flour mixture so that each piece is lightly coated with flour.

Pour the egg mixture into the flour and gently fold together. The batter should be lumpy but make sure the dry ingredients are throughly moistened. (don't overwork)

Spoon muffin batter into prepared muffin cups to the top of the cup. Sprinkle with streusel topping.

Bake 20-25 min or until the tops are golden brown.

allow to cool before removing from the muffin tins

makes 24 (12 in my case)

Garden tour

Another jaunt around the yard -I'm a little obsessed right now...
the lilacs are blooming and smell wonderful - they're just outside my front door.




































The bed near the street has many xeric plants - these are cotoneaster - a cute little shrub that gets little pink blossoms in the spring and red berries in the fall AND is evergreen. In the back is the greenery from tulips, a tuft of turkish veronica (purply-blue flowering groundcover), and a potentilla - applewood variety (small shrub with white flowers)

My attempt at veggies with elephant garlic as the only specimen so far.




















Leo with his hedgehog toy (sorry, Nic) running through my little backyard, chantacleer pear tree in the background. And, another Iris.




















The volunteer mint that's growing near my birdbath and a few hostas that are just coming up.
A closer, but blurry look at the potentilla.





















I love Spring!

help wanted

I'm having a little trouble placing text around photos...anyone know how to make it easier? Also, any tutorials on how to help my links list - it became a total mess after switching to "new blogger" Anyone?...anyone?... connie?...anyone?

Happy May Day

Having gotten the idea from Buttercup and in honor of May day I thought I'd post a few of the little spring gems that are just starting to bloom around here...


aahhhahahaha..... Just my luck! I try to post photos of some of the flowers in my yard and blogger suddenly won't let me upload any more photos! Hee hee of course they would let me post this one! I really do have others, not just weeds - although the weeds are mighty healthy right now! Cracks me up!!!

Happy May Day!














Update:
I guess blogger isn't going to give me a break - I finally can upload pictures, but they're sideways...oh well.
Here's an Iris that's now in full bloom...













some tiny species tulips....















What's growing in your garden?

Hope springs...

Hope deferred makes the heart sick.-Proverbs

That's the way I've been feeling about the wait lately - sick and hopeless. But then my friend received her referral... Yah hoo. A balm to the sting of only two days of referrals. Then we had a shower for Samantha and little cutie Carly was there. Oh, yummy little girls. renewed hope. This blasted wait in line really does bear incredible fruit.

check out the cuties....


Carly loves ice cream...
















I can't wait to sqeeze this little one...maybe in June!