May and Baking

Happy new month to everyone. It's May again and I'm grateful to see it. It's been a strange time as we continue through this time of quarantine. Also, with the loss of my sister Mary two weeks ago, everything really just seems to be perpetually out of sync. I can't believe that it's been two weeks already. I'm doing a bit better on the surface, but underneath, I'm just going through my grief hour by hour and day by day. Anyone who has gone through grief knows what this is like. We just have to do the best that we can individually in whatever way that works for us. Second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day...

My sister was a good cook, like most of my family. I can cook too, but I've never been able to master baking. I used to joke and talk with my sister about how terrible of a baker I was. She would laugh with me and then she'd offer tips. 

Well, I think the tips might have finally worked...

I made banana bread and it is absolutely delicious...so moist and light.

I know that Mary would be proud. I think I'll give this baking thing a few more tries. I might just turn into a good baker (smile). Thank you for the tips Sis! 

Cookie Recipe

Hello :) I wanted to share the chocolate chip cookie recipe from an earlier post. I promised in the comments that I'd post the recipe here. It's certainly not my very own recipe, but it's one that I've made quite a bit back in my teen years. It's a classic recipe from back home and so I'm sure that many of you already know this recipe well, but for those of you who are from elsewhere and may not be familiar with it, here it is. As I noted within the recipe, I had to substitute the main ingredient in the recipe since I'm not able to get the chocolate morsels here readily. However, the cookies turned out great and I look forward to making some more some time in the near future :-)

One more thing, I've also included a conversion tool here to make the measurements easy to calculate for everyone if needed. Click here for the site. So without further delay, here it is :-) I hope you enjoy giving them a try and if you do try to make them, please drop by and let me know how they turned out!


Original NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Chocolate Chip Cookies

Prep: 15 minutes
Baking time: 9 minutes
Cooling time: 15 minutes


Ingredients
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups (12-oz. pkg.)NESTLE TOLL HOUSE Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels (I can’t get these here, so I substituted another brand of chocolate chips)

• 1 cup chopped nuts

Directions
PREHEAT oven to 375° F.

COMBINE flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

BAKE for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

FOR HIGH ALTITUDE BAKING (5,200 feet): Increase flour to 2 1/2 cups. Add 2 teaspoons water with flour and reduce both granulated sugar and brown sugar to 2/3 cup each. Bake drop cookies for 8 to 10 minutes and pan cookie for 17 to 19 minutes.

**If you'd like to see the link to the website where I got this recipe, click here.

For the Love of Cookies

It was a baking day around the Yellow House a few days ago. I made some chocolate chip cookies and this is a photo of the first few. I made a few more, but between me and Brit Boy they somehow disappeared. I wonder how that happened??? ;-)

I know it may seem that I only bake and never cook anything else, but I do cook other things...some rather healthy things, but sometimes you just need a cookie :) I thought back and realized that I haven't made chocolate chip cookies in probably twenty years. So I got all nostalgic that day and decided to make some. I've been very nostalgic lately.

By the way, they were delicious...I'm gonna have to make another batch and this time I won't wait twenty years! :-)

Blue Shimmery Cake

Okay...so I’m finally getting here to post about my blue food. Sorry for the delay, as I mentioned in a previous post :)



Above is a lovely “I Love You” cake that Brit Boy made for me here at the Yellow House. He made the cake and the decoration turned into a collaborative effort. The cake was a devil’s food cake with vanilla icing and it was so yummy! I love baking as you know and it was really fun to collaborate with Brit Boy on this cake.

I love the color blue, and as you can see, the cake features that color prominently...so there’s my blue food ;-)

Some of the decorations are courtesy of a great company called Silver Spoon, makers of the Askeys brand products. The good folks there sent me several of their products to try out since I love baking and creative cooking ;-) You may remember my post from back in November, when I was experimenting with the Askeys brandy snap baskets as a substitute for mini pie shells. Check the post out here.

I wasn’t familiar with the Askeys brand before I tried their brandy snap baskets, but they make really excellent products that can help you create some tasty desserts.

Silver Spoon also makes wafers, cones, topping sauces, sprinkles, and various icings. They boast an impressive range of products in their Cakecraft range for all of the bakers out there.

I received a variety of products, so I will be presenting a couple of other posts in the near future, highlighting what we’ve made around the Yellow House when we decide to have a treat again. I look forward to sharing what I’ve come up with as I present the other products.



So, back to our cake :-) In order to decorate our cake, we used these blue shimmer balls by Silver Spoon along with some other flowers that we had on hand. The blue shimmer balls were an excellent accent to the flowers and just made a sweet looking little cake. Also, the decorations actually tasted good, so that was a plus!

The folks at Silver Spoon also sent along a couple of products from their Cakecraft range.



They sent some strawberry and lemon icing sugar that I haven’t tried yet, but I’m sure that they will both get a whirl too. I have to spread out my baking though...we can’t have treats like this too often ;-) But that’s what makes treats like this special...you don’t have them every day. I'm excited that I have two flavors to try since I’ve never tried these before. I look forward to getting creative with these!

And that’s my blue food story. Okay...so it was more blue-adorned, but blue just the same ;-) And most importantly, Brit Boy was kind enough to make it for me and that is a wonderful thing!

Until next time....

Disclosure: I was sent these products by The Silver Spoon Company and received no money for this post. All views on these products are my own as always :-)

Quickie Posts and Blue Food

Hello there! This will be a mini post, but I just wanted to check in and say hi!!! :) I'll be back with a baking post, later this week. I'll give you a hint...it's very blue (my favorite color).

Right now I'm in the thick of an assignment for school, so my little typing hands are needed elsewhere right now ;-) Wish me luck!

Have a great day and I'll be back to talk about blue food on Thursday!

Christmas 2011 Baking

As I mentioned in a previous post, I did a bit of baking over the days leading up to Christmas and things turned out pretty good. I made Magic Cookie Bars, a chocolate cheesecake, and a red velvet cake.

Everything did taste good, however the Magic Cookie Bars got a bit toasty around the edges ;-) Surprisingly though, the toasty bits were kind of the best part. Who knew???? Here's a picture of my result:



Next, I baked the chocolate cheesecake. It turned out pretty good. It's very rich, and I would definitely make it again. Here's my attempt:



And my last bit of baking for Christmas 2011 was a red velvet cake. I usually make red velvet cupcakes, but this year I decided to bake a full size cake. And in order to add a bit of festive fun, I planted a Christmas tree and let Santa and the Snowman hang out in my cream cheese flavored snow ;-) It got all winter wonderland around the Yellow House.



And our old friend Trevor just had to horn into this last washed out photo. Lol. He loves making his way into the spotlight during the holidays!



It was fun to do a bit of holiday baking. I wonder what I'll bake next year???? Who knows...but watch this space. And as always, I'll be baking and cooking throughout the year, so please stop by again to see how it all turns out :-)

Until next time...

Baking at the Yellow House

I'm getting ready to do some baking around the Yellow House. Christmas is coming along quickly, so I've got to get it going in the kitchen. I love to bake, but I just loathe washing dishes afterward ;-) Anyway here is a fuzzy picture of some of my ingredients.



I'm starting off my baking with making some Magic Cookie Bars. I haven't had any of these in years. I had a taste for them, so I decided to take the plunge this year! I'm also going to be making a chocolate cheesecake and a red velvet cake later in the week. I've made red velvet cake many times before, but this will be my first time baking this chocolate cheesecake. Wish me luck! ;-) And you know me, even if it turns out a disaster, I will plaster a picture of it on here...I love full disclosure in my cooking :-) So please come back in a day or two to see how it turned out if you have a minute.

Buying all of the ingredients for baking like this takes a bit of fundraising management, since ingredients aren't cheap. However, I pride myself on being a bit of a bargain shopper, so it all works out in the end!

Have a great day and I'll be back with more food pics very soon!

Holiday Baking

Well the Thanksgiving weekend has come and gone and it was a good one around the Yellow House. I had the chance to go on Skype on Thanksgiving with my niece and sisters as I mentioned in a previous post. And it was a whole lot of fun! It was just like I was sitting in the room with them. Then on Friday, Brit Boy and I had our Thanksgiving dinner. We had a great day together!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I decided to make a different version of sweet potato pie this year and you know what...they turned out great. I made mini sweet potato pies. I got the original recipe off of the Food Network website and had to make a substitution for the crust. Here’s a link to the recipe from their site. I’m not very good at making crusts yet and I ran out of time, so I found a substitute. I found this product called brandy snap baskets that were pre-made and used them for my shell. You can see them in the photo below. They are kind of crispy and a bit chewy, but they were the perfect accompaniment to the pies. My version tastes better than it looks in the photo...trust me ;-)




So the filling of the brandy snap baskets is a sweet potato soufflé that I made separately and then placed it into the baskets. Then I made the whipped topping with cream cheese, cinnamon, and confectioners sugar/powdered sugar. I didn’t have a pastry bag so I just kind of dropped a bit of the cream on each one. It turned out fine and it was still good :-)

I was intrigued when I saw them made on the cooking show that I watched. So when I tasted them, I was not disappointed at all. I’ll definitely be making them again.

This was my latest cooking adventure and it was fun...now on to the next thing.

P.S. – Brit Boy recently completed his first review. Please go by his blog if you have a moment and check it out! Thanks...

Messed Up Bread

I had a pretty good weekend. I’ve been wrestling with a cold, but today I feel somewhat better. And I’m relieved. I hope that things continue to improve...
Anyway, I decided to forget about my cold and make some chaos in the kitchen this weekend. And that’s what I’d call it, especially when I saw the finished product. LOL. Brace yourselves for this....here it is!



I know you may be wondering...what the heck is that!!?? Well it is supposed to be bread. It’s called 21st Century bread and it’s supposed to be sort of unformed and rustic looking. But it turned out looking really tore up! LOL. However, I tasted a chunk today and it doesn’t taste that bad after sitting overnight. I’m gonna have to tweak my technique though, so that next time my bread is more edible like the one on the cooking show ;-) I saw the recipe on a television show here, but when I went to the website to get the recipe, they didn’t have it listed. So I googled it and found it listed on a blog. I’m going to have to check the measurements again because something went wrong.

It’s bread that has cheese and chives in it. In the original recipe, the cook had ham in it too, but I didn’t have any ham. I think that if I get the recipe to work out right, it will be very tasty. It looked delicious when it was presented on the show.

The reason that I’m posting my not so successful attempt is to be truthful and to out my own cooking... the mess ups make me laugh! As I’ve mentioned here before, I want to share the good, the bad, and the ugly of my cooking on this blog. So here it is...ain’t it pretty?!! LOL. Better luck next time.

Memories Through Cornbread

It’s been a while since I did a cooking post, so it just seemed like a good idea for today’s post, since I need to get back into the blogging hot tub. I don’t love to cook, but I like it pretty well and hey, we've all gotta eat don’t we? For those times when I don’t want to cook, a frozen dinner is my best friend ;-)

There are times when I like cooking and times when I loathe it. It’s all about balance ;-) In those times of enjoyment, the thing that pulls me in is the chance to be creative, so that aspect is right up my alley.

I truly enjoy watching cooking shows, especially Barefoot Contessa. Her food inspires me to want to cook EVERYTHING and do it well. Her variety of dishes that she cooks always inspires me to try something new and I’ve learned lots of cooking techniques from her, so I love me some Contessa :-) And as a fellow Georgia girl, I love to watch Paula Deen when I’m back home visiting. I can see the Barefoot Contessa on the Food Network over here, but they don’t show Paula Deen here. So that’s where the website comes in handy. Anyway, that’s enough of my TV favorites for today. Pardon my detour ;-)

So this past weekend I cooked cornbread muffins…well actually cheese cornbread muffins. I had a taste for some. I’m not a really big fan of cornbread or any bread really, but sometimes I get the taste for it. It usually coincides with me thinking about home or back to the times when my parents were still alive. When I was growing up, my mom made cornbread everyday and I used to love to watch her make it. The memories that I have of watching her make cornbread stick firmly in my mind. I don’t know why. I guess it’s the everyday normal things that you may take for granted at the time, but when you look back, those are the things that are burned into your memory forever. As time goes by I realize that memories are TRULY the beautiful things in life :-) The simplest, beautiful things…

Over the Christmas holidays, I received a package from my sisters and I had mentioned to them when we were Skyping once that I couldn’t get cornmeal very readily where I live. So I’d asked them to send me a small bag if they could. Well, in the Christmas package there was the cornmeal…just like my mom used to use :-) The sight of the bag instantly filled me with nostalgia. Here it is:



Yeah, I took a picture of the bag of cornmeal…it’s an expat thing. LOL. Anyway, I made some cheese cornbread muffins and they turned out pretty good. My mom was strictly old school though…she just made straight cornbread and hers was great, but I love to play around with a recipe from time to time.



I’ve been nibbling on these muffins all week and yesterday I crumbled some up in a bowl of soup…mmmmmm. Now that was good! Next time I may try putting some other flavor in there to see how it turns out. See, it’s that creativity thing again ;-)

I realized the other day how much I used to love posting about my culinary creations in the earlier days of this blog and I realized that I don’t do that much anymore. Well that will definitely be a returning feature here. I’m no chef or even a really great cook, but I just love mixing stuff up and seeing what happens. And also I love photographing things…and that includes food, so I hope you’ll come back and see what I cook next :-)

Until next time…

Christmas All Around

I just wanted to drop by and wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!



Brit Boy and I went to London to the theatre yesterday and it was great. I'll share a full report in a few days. I'm going to be taking a mini blogging break for a few days, but I just wanted to share a few sights from Christmas around the Yellow House.

We had a bit of snow here in Wiltshire over the past few days, but now it's all gone. Here's the snow resting on the heads of our little gnome and cat in the garden.




And this is a view out front with the snow dusting everything. You can see a bit of our decorations. They are multi-colored lanterns that we have draped across the window.




Here's my latest creation in the kitchen. It's sort of a Victoria Sponge/Strawberry Shortcake/Strawberry Cheesecake hybrid that I came up with and I'll probably never be able to make it again. LOL. It's a vanilla layer cake with a bit of strawberry juice drizzled into the pores and then I globbed on the cream cheese icing and put strawberries in the center. It's reminiscent of a cake I did before, but it's one better. We had some today and it was delicious. I think I'll try this one again for Valentine's Day or something :-)




And here are a couple of photos in London of Covent Garden. It was bustling with pre-Christmas traffic. We walked from here to the theatre. It was a wonderful afternoon :-)





Have a wonderful holiday!

A Simply Good Weekend

Over the weekend, Brit Boy and I went down to the market town of Devizes and did some errands. We like it down there. It’s a nice little town with cozy little walkways between the shops. As we did our errands we picked up some food at the supermarket for our lunch. Then we walked back to our car. We sat in the car underneath a beautiful canopy of trees and listened to the radio as we ate our lunch. We shared a pasta salad and had sandwiches…we hadn’t had breakfast so we were hungry ;-) It was really good! I think that the combination of good food, good music and the scenery were just the right way to spend our day. I love days like that. It just reminds me that the simple things in life are indeed the beauty of life. Here are a couple of photos I took from the car after we finished eating. The trees were beautiful. Here’s a bit of our view.





On Sunday, I was in a baking mood and autumn always makes me muffin crazy, so this was my snack on Sunday afternoon and it was so good :-)




I made apple cinnamon muffins. The house smelled great as they were baking. I just love those apple cinnamon aromas during this time of the year. Don’t you? :-) It just smells like autumn.

Brit Boy has been having a couple for breakfast every morning and I’ve been having them too, so we’re starting to run low. So now I’m off to replenish the supply. Talk to you later!

My 200th & Some Cake As A Bonus

This is my 200th post and I’m very excited to have made it to this milestone. I know that many people have more, but I wanted to mark this day because it reminds me of what blogging has taught me…the value of sticking with something :-) Continually showing up here at the computer has definitely helped my discipline. Also this whole wonderful foray into blogging has given me a great creative outlet that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. And best of all, I’ve made some great friends. Who knew 199 posts ago that so much of my world would open up :-)

I look forward to many, many more posts in the future and they will certainly become more frequent again once I finish my course in a couple of weeks. Brit Boy and I are planning more outings coming up, so I’ll have lots of stories and photos to share about our adventures :-) Thanks everyone for continuing to visit me.

In other news, I made a cake this weekend and Brit Boy and I have been enjoying it over the past few days. It started out as an ordinary box cake mix and then I decided to rev it up a bit. So I ended up making a cake from scratch with cake mix incorporated into it, if that makes any sense :-) It was wild. It was like science in the kitchen. It ended up tasting very good and I’ll probably never be able to duplicate it again. Sometimes the sublime comes from the totally farcical. LOL.




Here’s my culinary invention. It’s a vanilla flavored cake with vanilla frosting, served with a dollop of ice cream and strawberries. It was so GOOD! It kind of ended up tasting very strawberry shortcake-esque. Now, I think I’ll go and see if Brit Boy is ready for round three of cake at the yellow house ;-) Talk to ya later!

Plums and Parties

It’s a cloudy day here, but a nice calm morning. I love Saturday mornings. You have the whole day and then Sunday ahead of you. What could be better (smile)

I’m trying to eat more fruit nowadays, so I’ve been in the kitchen trying to decide what to have. I’m still undecided. The lay of the land is like this…we have plums, bananas, and grapefruit.




Hmm,this photo is making my mind up for me...maybe I’ll have a plum. And I’m thinking of putting some bananas into my muffins that I’m going to make later. I usually make those blueberry oatmeal muffins, but I thought it might be tasty to substitute the bananas for the blueberries this time. Brit Boy is okay with it either way…he just likes to eat them (smile).

Anyway, we’re just hanging out today around home and then we’re venturing out this evening to a surprise party. It’s for Brit Boy’s former sister-in-law. I don’t know her very well, but I guess I will after the party (smile). So it’s party night at the yellow house! Have a great weekend!

Christmas Countdown Continues

Our countdown to Christmas continues… We ended up not going to Salisbury Cathedral for the carol service this year. We had planned on going, but in the past few days we have been having plumbing problems and we were waiting around for the plumber to let us know when he was coming. It was kind of up in the air. Also, Brit Boy was finishing up his studying, and that was most important for him to finish, so it was a nice weekend around home.

Our shower has been working and then not working. We get scalded one moment and then we freeze the next and it is just all messed up. Sometimes it decides to be merely a trickle, so it's time they finally authorized a repair. We have had a leak also. It’s been really fun ;-) Thankfully the plumber is going to pay us a visit today. Woo Hoo!!!!! That’s our Christmas present for sure :-)

Since we couldn’t venture too far away, we ended up just chilling out around home. Periodically, Brit Boy took breaks from his studying and we watched Christmas movies or watched music videos on television while we danced around. We enjoyed those study breaks! We love to do our freestyle dancing and then we dance together all elegant…it’s funny. Then I do my Beyonce dance :-)

Later in the afternoon on Monday, Brit Boy finished his final paper and turned it in. And as a bonus, we got our call from the plumber soon after so the day turned out good in the end. We were free to head out. We went into town to pick up some ingredients for my baking and for our Christmas Eve nibbles. We fully expected the crowd that met us, but it was wild in there!!!! :-) We bought my baking ingredients, and some cheese and dips and veggies for our Christmas Eve hanging out. Then I saw them and I was in love ……







These cute little journals/notebooks are my new favorite thing. Usually I always take a detour to the stationery aisles wherever I am. I love pens and journals and notebooks…gotta do the writing thing :-) But I haven’t hit pay dirt like this in a long time. These lovely little books are made of recycled materials, so that’s very good. I just love that the outside and inside are very organic-looking with a bit of flower power on the outside :-) The lady at the checkout was oohing and ahhing over them too, so I wasn’t alone in my love. The best part is that they were on sale. I got two of these mid-size books for £1.75!!!! So a deal on top of everything . Yay!!!! Okay, enough of this notebook swooning! :)

When we got home, I figured that I should go ahead and do the baking so I wouldn’t be rushed. But mostly though, we were just greedy and ready to eat. LOL. I decided to bake us a batch of red velvet cupcakes like I did back in the spring, but with these I sprinkled them a bit to add a festive flair.





We stuffed our faces with a couple after they cooled off and I iced them :-) And then today, we have had one…they seem to get better, like most things after they get a chance to sit. So we are happy people right now with cake in the house :-)

Oh, an update on our shower problems. The plumbers arrived as I was writing this. They just left and they said that we need a new shower. They patched up the leak, so that’s good. I guess that after Christmas when they get the order in, we will get fixed up. So it’s very dodgy showers for a bit longer :-) It's all good though. No sense in sweating it. Hopefully Santa will bring us a new shower for after Christmas.

Anyway, we plan to enjoy a quiet Christmas Eve tomorrow with a few drinks, some finger foods, and cake…what could be better! :-) Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Thanksgiving Wrap Up

I mentioned yesterday that Brit Boy and I had a nice laid back weekend. Thanksgiving was great and the food turned out great. The menu included: turkey and dressing (or stuffing depending I guess upon where you grew up) :-) , macaroni & cheese, braised brussel sprouts, and mashed potatoes with cream cheese and chives. For dessert, we finished it off with sweet potato pie. Our robot mascot Trevor was most interested in the pie. Here’s a photo of him getting ready to dive in.




I would have posted a photo of Trevor after he dived in, but take it from me, it wasn’t pretty. LOL. But all in all, it was a nice Thanksgiving. The food was great, but we also paused to think of what we are grateful for. That is what I love about Thanksgiving…it’s being with the ones you love and being thankful for all of your blessings. Brit Boy and I don’t have a lot of money, but not many people do these days. However, as far as we’re concerned, we have everything :) We have a roof over our head and we have enough and that indeed is a blessing.

Pizza Day

We have had a beautiful weekend. The sun has finally come to shine on us in these last days of September. :-) Yesterday, Brit Boy and I went into town to do some errands. There were a few stalls there that were reminiscent of the continental markets that they have sometimes, but it wasn’t a full blown market. There was a French food stall, a Dutch stall, and one with jewelry and handbags. We didn’t buy anything there, but it all looked great. We did our errands and then headed to the grocery to get a few things so that I could make a pizza later. I have been really wanting to give this a try, so we took a whirl around the grocery store. I already had bell pepper and onions, so I was searching for pepperoni, mushrooms, mozzarella cheese, and a pre-made crust (haven’t figured out the crust from scratch yet). We got everything along with what we thought were dough balls to make crust. So we headed home and later we chopped everything up, readying it for the pizza. Then I realized that we didn’t have dough balls for making dough, we had dough balls for toasting and dipping in sauce. Boneheads we were. (laugh) We were rushing a bit in the store and got the wrong thing. But in the end, they turned out good and were a nice addition. No sweat. :-) We were in an adventurous mood and we would not be deterred, so we headed back to the store and picked up some roll-out pastry that made a GREAT crust. On the ride back home, the sunset was so beautiful. So when I got inside, I snapped this photo of the view out our back door. Back in pizza mode, I layered everything on the pastry crust. I started with a thin layer of mozzarella and mature cheddar and then the sauce with some onion granules and a bit of pepper sprinkled over that. Then I finished it off with layers of the other ingredients and voila! Here is a photo after we had already devoured half of it. There’s a pattern here. I always seem to get the photo after we have been eating. (laugh) We usually just can’t wait. It turned out divine. Today is a gloriously sunny day and it feels like we are getting spring and summer a bit late. But I figure, it is just a beautiful bonus. Here’s a photo I snapped today. It sort of says it all, the beautiful sky is there, and the rosebush has shed and is going to sleep for a while. But it will be back before we know it. :-)

Oatmeal Blueberry Muffins Recipe

Hello all. Here is the recipe for the muffins. I had to type this out last night after I posted yesterday, with the intention of sharing it. I have done these muffins so many times and I play around with the recipe so much that I had to search for the original recipe to share. :-) So here it is. I also sometimes don't put the blueberries in and then I put a bit of cinnamon and raisins in these to taste and they come out sort of like big oatmeal raisin cookies. As I said yesterday, I have found that a bit of peanut butter tastes good smeared on the blueberry ones. So I thought that I would try next time to add peanut butter to the recipe and see how that tastes. I got this recipe from a fellow blogger, Jenn, a while back. It is healthy-ish and not too sweet. So without any further commentary by me, here it is...enjoy! :-)


OATMEAL BLUEBERRY MUFFINS
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup soy milk (or regular milk)
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (whole meal flour)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup butter or applesauce(for healthier option)
1 cup blueberries

- Preheat oven to 400F degrees.

- Combine oats and milk in small bowl; set aside and let stand.

- Combine flour, baking powder, soda, salt, brown sugar, and stir well. I sift all the dry ingredients to make the muffins fluffy.

- Add egg and melted butter or applesauce to oats.

- Rinse and pat dry the blueberries and toss into the dry ingredients and this prevents them from sinking in the muffins.

- Combine wet and dry ingredients and stir just until all is moistened.

- Gently fold in the blueberries and then spoon the mix into muffin pan until three-quarters full each.

- Bake for 17 to 20 minutes.

Nutritional info for 8 large muffins (using applesauce):
Calories 183, fat 2.1g, carbs 36.3g, protein 5.1g, fiber 3.4g

You can use large muffin pans, and you get 8 muffins because they are so big. You can use any size you like, obviously the nutritional content will change with size. Very tasty and healthy muffins, ENJOY!!!!!

Just one more note: This recipe is written with US measurements. Since I am in the UK, I had to convert the recipe. So for any UK readers, I have been measuring one US cup as 8 fluid ounces. Have a great day!! :-)

Baking Day

Yesterday I did some baking again, but Brit Boy wasn't in on it this time. So it was a solo bake. :-) I made some oatmeal blueberry muffins. They turned out really good. During the last year or so I have been steadily trying to get more healthy food into my diet...into both of our diets really. So this muffin is a great new favorite of Brit Boy and I. The blueberries are tasty and are a natural anti-oxidant, so it's a win win. Here's a photo of it before and after I dug into one of them. :-)

Trevor's Celebration and Holiday Pie

Yesterday, we all waved goodbye to the summer Olympics for another four years. As I wrote at the beginning of the Games, Brit Boy and I were cheering for two teams in our house and our family mascot Trevor was cheering along with us. In the end, the divided loyalties meshed and all together we were proud of both of our home teams. And overall, we caught the Olympic spirit and were proud of all of those from around the world who competed. There were so many athletes that I found myself cheering for, just for the strength and drive that they showed and it didn’t matter where they were from. I was cheering for Usain Bolt from Jamaica, as he broke the world record and just loved his enthusiasm. My heart went out to Liu Xiang, the Chinese athlete who was unable to compete due to an injury and he wanted so much to compete in front of his home crowd. I just love that all of these athletes from everywhere had the opportunity to compete.

Back on the home front, Brit Boy and I watched the Closing Ceremony and the handoff to London for the Games here in England in four years. Trevor, our mascot and dear robot friend, decided to hold his own little party to close things off nicely. Here’s a photo of Trevor with his multiple flags…isn’t he a proud one. (smile)



And he blew up the balloons all by himself. Brit Boy and I showered him with a bit of confetti, so he was a happy boy.

Today, here in the UK, we have been having Bank Holiday. A bank holiday, for those who don’t know, is a public holiday that is held here at different times of the year, sort of like Labor Day in the US. Brit Boy and I have been enjoying a day together and we even did some more baking today. This time instead of turning a cookie recipe into a cupcake recipe, we went another route and baked a pie. Although this time we changed one of the ingredients in the pie, so our changeable baking is still alive and well. (smile) The recipe was for a strawberry and rhubarb pie, but we can’t find rhubarb in the store anymore, so I thought we would try substituting raspberries.

Well it turned out great and we are really doing well with this “design your own recipe thing”. (smile) We were so anxious to taste it that we ate some of it first and then we had dinner. This is also becoming a tradition with us sometimes. We both think that we read somewhere once that eating in this order helps you digest or metabolize better or something like that. Who knows? But it sure is fun to eat that way sometimes. (laugh) Here’s a photo of our pie after we had our pieces and it has a few nips out of the crust here and there. We had to sample it to make sure it was okay. (wink)




So we have had a fun day, with our tasty pie and our celebratory robot.