Breakfast Recipe

Another neat recipe I recently found online and tried out. Usually when I find a recipe I print it out and then it sits in my recipe "basket" until I eventually decide to make it or never gets made at all. Oops! I really should try them out right away so if they aren't any good I can pitch them and not store them but oh well......

Anyways....Here it is...Rocky Mountain Pancake.

My attempt. Hmm...it looks different from the recipe picture....

I drizzled honey over ours and it was very tasty but sometime I want to try it with jam or syrup.

Recipe Review

I tried a completely new-to-me recipe the other day and I must say it turned out quite tasty. But then again, it did come from the Pioneer Woman's recipe box so I wasn't surprised.

It happened when Jay requested dessert for after dinner and a quick search came up with these - Creamy Lemon Crumb Squares.

Yummy goodness!

Blessedness.....

The end result. :-)

When the kitchen is messy, one is incredibly tired and definitely isn't feeling like cleaning said kitchen or even thinking about cooking dinner and the husband just quietly steps in and makes dinner.....well, lets just say that I am one very lucky lady!!! But get this, not only did he make waffles from scratch and cook them, he also cooked down strawberries into a wonderful jam to spread on them. A-m-a-z-i-n-g.
I love my man!
Nuff' said. :-)

Checklist

-Clean bathroom- Check
-Organize kitchen cupboards- Check
-Take down and pack away Christmas Decorations- Check
-Move furniture back to living-room- Check
-Vacuum all carpet- Check
-Run two loads of laundry- Check
-Bathe Roy- Check
-Update blog-Check :-)

Now to crash on the couch with a cup of coffee and a Country Women magazine.

Life is good!

Outside my front window.....

...is this Hawthorne tree with little red berries. Don't they look pretty against the snow?

When we got a rapid accumulation of snow the other night, I was thrilled! It doesn't seem like winter when all you've had is freezing temperatures and NO SNOW!!! I was hoping for a white Christmas but alas, it was not to be. Ah well, at least we made up for it this month, I mean, 8 inches?!?! Yippee!!! :-)  Now to bundle up the Little Man and go make a snowman before it all melts....:-)

Christmas Gifts 2011

Here are the pictures as promised of all the Christmas goodies. Photo credit goes to T.W for kindly taking all the pictures since I'd forgotten and frantically called asking her to help me out. :-) Thanks sis!

White Chocolate Lemon Cream Cheese Truffles

These were so much fun to make and of course I made extras of everything to sample. Its not a good idea to make something to give when it might not turn out or something, right?. ;-)

Milk Chocolate Brownie Truffles

 Simple to make but very time consuming with all the freezing and such to make the chocolate workable. I want to try a version with caramel in the center sometime.

At left is the Lemon Curd, Then the Pumpkin Cranberry Bread and last is the Apple Butter.

Oh, writing up this post is making me hungry!!!

Oops, I hear Little Man waking up from his nap. I'll "talk" to ya'll again soon!

2011, Christmas Baking, Odds and ends, 2012, Baby......

As I sit here waiting for my cup of tea to brew (its got to be brewed for a good 5 minutes or it isn't tea. ;-) I'm thinking back on the past few weeks, indeed, actually the past months or the latter half of 2011. It was a great year in so many ways, definitely a year of growing (and not just because I'm pregnant, hah!:-D). I've always felt very close to Jay, he is such an awesome man and I love him very much but as we passed the 2 years married mark it obviously got me to thinking about things, being married and how different life is from even when we first married. I thought that when we married that we were really close, not that we couldn't grow closer but just that we were way ahead on being a newly married couple in that I trusted, adored, loved.....(you get the idea;-) him very much. But, all that said, I still realize how much closer we've actually grown together and if its possible, love each other more than that day over 2 years ago. LIFE IS GOOD!!!!

Oops...tea's brewed and the mail just arrived....be right back.........

Okay, where was I...? Oh, right! Getting really sappy....alright, I think ya'll know what I mean, at least those of you that are married will understand what I'm trying to say, hopefully its not so jumbled that you can't make head or tail of what I mean. :-)

Ahhh....there is nothing like a hot cup of tea with shortbread cookies....(except maybe a nice cup of coffee with a dollop of ice cream on top where the coffee is super hot and the ice cream is really cold and slowly melts into the coffee.....;-D)

This year (or actually, it was last year....;-) I decided to do homemade baking for Christmas gifts for family and try to make it fun and easy but really good.....good tasting I mean! :-) It sorta worked, it worked in that I got the fun and good tasting part down but easy was not, well, not so easy. ;-) Being almost eight months pregnant and staying up 'till 2:00 in the morning making apple butter was lots of fun but I did sort've crash the next day. Crash in that I had to drink four cups of strong coffee to stay awake because it was Christmas and I didn't want to miss anything. Silly reason I know but still. I loved making all the different goodies though and I would never have been able to do it without the awesome help from a super sister.....hats off to T.W.!!!!!!! She not only made several batches of Pumpkin Cranberry bread but also did the family recipe for Shortbread and gave loads of advice and encouragement as I fretted and worried over this or that. Thanks T.W! 
I do think that if I do it again I will plan much better, do things that can be done ahead of time much sooner...(like canned apple butter.....;-) and make sure I don't worry too much over what so and so might think about such and such. :-D Oh, and T.W very kindly took pictures for me to show you the end result of all that fun and yummy work which I will show in the next post since this one is getting very long.

I haven't made any New Years Resolutions really.....I did decide to get outdoors more but that's not too hard for me anyways so I don't think I'll count it as a resolution. Other things coming up in 2012 are baby of course! This pregnancy it seems like the months have gone by much quicker and that might be because we've not only been really busy but I've also felt better. Baby should arrive sometime next month, probably later rather than sooner and we'll see just which side of the collective cousins wins out....boys or girls. ;-) I do have an inkling as to what it might be but I'm not saying since I'm not sure enough and I will be really thrilled with either. :-)

Well, I think this post is long enough ;-) and so I shall say good evening and I'll be posting other random things very soon.