A Second Look--October 23, 2013

The days this week have been predominated by wet and dreary weather and some mornings have been downright cold with actual frost to scrape from the windshield.  The leaves are about at their half way point as far as color is concerned, and there are now plenty to rake/mow. In some areas I had to look hard, but there are still a reasonable number of flowers blooming. I always enjoy this time of year when we get color from both leaves and flowers. Here are some things I saw this week during my Second Look.

The hydrangea is getting a darker color of pink each week.

Another color of mum bloomed. These had several insects buzzing around them.

Most of the balloon flowers look like the seed pods on the left. This lone flower is refusing to believe it's fall.

The rest of the begonias turned brown about a month ago, but this one is still going strong.

Female cardinal and tufted titmouse. The female cardinal shares the feeder better than the male one does.

Dead nettle

Maple tree and leaves from it. The lower half of the tree is mostly green.

The Reasonings of Wally--Alaska

This happened when Wally was four-years-old..

Ward and I came home from work and went upstairs with Theo. He sat quietly on the floor looking at a book while we changed our clothes and discussed how our days had gone. Soon we went downstairs to join Wally who was watching Sesame street. Theo toddled in front of us and when he reached the kitchen floor, his feet slid out from under him and I heard a loud crack as his head hit the floor. That was soon followed by loud crying. As I went to see if he was hurt, I slipped too, but fortunately didn't go all of the way down. We both had slipped on a wet floor and luckily, Theo was not badly hurt.

As it turns out, Wally was no longer watching Sesame Street. He was standing in the middle of the family room (next to the kitchen) with the garden hose in his hand spewing water everywhere. At that point Ward and I just about lost it. Trying to get control of the situation, I immediately sent Wally to his room and told him to get on his bed and not move until we came to talk to him. Next while Ward took the hose outside and turned off the water, I dried off Theo and put him in his high chair to keep him out of the way. And then we began the long task of trying to clean up the water. There was about 1/2" of water on the tile floors and the carpets next to them were soaked. The whole drying process actually took days, but after an hour or so, we had most of the water sopped up.

Then to deal with Wally. We still found him on his bed. He knew that we were not happy and was afraid to move. After a few sentences about the danger of wet floors and the problems that come with wet carpets, we asked the question we had wondering about the most.

"Wally, what were you thinking?"
He slowly replied. "Well, my good mind was on vacation in Alaska, and my bad mind said, 'Do it, do it. It will be fun.'"

And there you have it. The reasonings of a four-year-old Wally.

Thankful Sunday--October 20, 2013

I am thankful for the family I married into.

Ward's family at two different family gatherings.

It really is true that not only are you marrying a person, you are marrying their family. I am lucky that when I married Ward, I got to become part of his smart, fun, and supportive family. I am thankful that for over thirty years they have let me be a part of them.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bars

Recently, one of our cats, Annie, was on a medicine that made her hungry. The vet said some cats will eat pumpkin, so that was one of the things we could try when she wouldn't stop bugging us for food. Well not this cat. Even with stinky dried catfish treats mixed in, the low calorie pumpkin was a no go.


So what to do with a almost full can of pumpkin? Recipes abound this time of year for pumpkin, but I had a hankering for something sweet. Pumpkin bread perhaps. That idea changed into pumpkin cookies with the prospect of them being done sooner. It was getting late and bedtime was approaching. After a little googling and finding several similar results, I decided on a recipe from Two Peas & Their Pod  for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies that I've reprinted below.


I mostly followed their directions but left out the nutmeg because I didn't have any and used only 1 3/4 cup of butter because that's all that I had. Also, I used 12 oz. of mini chocolate chips instead regular size ones. However, the biggest thing I did differently, was bake all of the batter at once in a 9x13" pan for 35 minutes at 350° F. Another time saving step to get them done sooner rather than later. This resulted in a finished product with a cake-like brownie texture. The flavor was quite rich and very good. I was afraid that the spice flavors might be too strong, but they blended well. The pumpkin flavor was also very mild. Ward didn't even know that there was pumpkin in them. And best of all, there were little pieces of chocolate everywhere.

Next time I may actually make them as cookies. We'll see. It depends on how impatient I get. Hope you get a chance to enjoy some.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies 

Yield: 3 dozen cookies

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes

Soft and chewy spiced pumpkin cookies dotted with chocolate chips! We make endless batches of Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies during the fall months. They are always a hit!

Ingredients:

3 cups Gold Medal all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
2 cups chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a large baking sheet with a Silpat baking mat or parchment paper and set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and spices. Set aside.
3. Using a mixer, cream the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes. Add the egg, vanilla, and pumpkin and mix until combined, about 3 minutes. Slowly add in the dry ingredients. Mix until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.
4. Drop by large, rounded tablespoons onto prepared baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes or until cookies are just beginning to brown around the edges. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for two minutes. Transfer to a wire cooling rack and cool completely.

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This delicious recipe brought to you by Two Peas & Their Pod
http://www.twopeasandtheirpod.com/pumpkin-chocolate-chip-cookies/

Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions--Oct. 18, 2013

It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions.

This Week's Food Waste

A tomato

We were the lucky recipients of tomatoes recently from my father-in-law. However, one of them didn't make it longer than a day before it turned black. The rest will become part of some pasta sauce tomorrow. (At least that's the plan.)

This Week's True Food Confessions

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

My confession for this week is that I am really messy in the kitchen. Messy, as in, food on the ceiling messy. While I'd like to say that when I cook, I measure carefully, clean as I go, and never spill anything, I really can't. Mostly I'm good, but sometimes things get away from me. When I was a kid, my sisters teased me about how messy I was when I cooked and that annoyed me. Just because the pressure cooker blew its safety valve and its contents all over the walls and ceiling during my watch didn't necessarily mean that I was messy.

However, maybe there was some truth in what they said. I do knock things over more than I would like and sometimes I do something really stupid like I did last night. While using our portable mixer, the cord came out. Instead of turning it off and plugging the cord back in, I just plugged it back in. Of course, that immediately started the beaters, which were out of the bowl, and caused butter and eggs to fly everywhere--all over the counters, the walls, me, and yes, some on the ceiling. Boy, did I feel foolish. And boy, I did I have a big mess to clean up. However, I was able to finish the dish,  pumpkin-chocolate chip cookies. At least that's what they started out to be. Recipe coming soon for this delicious treat.

Spinach asparagus soup.

On the eating front, we had sandwiches from last week's roast chicken and spinach-asparagus soup made with broth from the same chicken. We also had veggies with guacamole dip and pizza. In addition, we enjoyed fresh tomatoes and cottage cheese. Last weekend we went out to a Mexican Restaurant when we visited my father-in-law. This is somewhat of a family tradition and the males especially look forward to the huge burritos they have. In fact, one of the restaurant slogans is "Voted the biggest burritos in town,"  which never fails to amuse Wally. 

I really have to start taking more pictures of our food because our eating is getting fuzzy in my mind. It's hard to be accountable when you're not paying attention.  Need to nip, nip it in the bud. (Does anyone remember Barney Fife saying that?)

Until next week...