Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

This is Brett and my 2nd Thanksgiving as a married couple! Today, as in everyday, I am thankful for so many things. My loving family, my cozy warm apartment, a church that has fully embraced Brett and I, a crazy cat, a full belly with plenty left to eat, my amazing husband, and wonderful friends both near and far.

Speaking of friends a couple of weekends ago my dear friend Bek and I hosted a cake pop party. What is a cake pop party you say? Well, let me tell you. There is this adorable blogger who makes the cutest little creations she calls cake pops. They are basically cake suckers that are decorated all cute for whatever season or event is close by.

For this party we didn't really have an agenda. Bek wanted to make a duck and we both knew we wanted to try the cupcakes and snowmen. The party was a success and we are going to have a Christmas cake pop party sometime in the next couple of weeks.

I hope everyone has a wonderful, safe, and loving thanksgiving. I will post cake pop picture either tonight or tomorrow - promise.

baking galore

Happy Friday the 13th!

I have found that when Brett is gone, I cook. This is bad for my waist but good for you who get new recipes and good for my friends who enjoy the tasty treats. Last weekend while he was away at drills I whipped up a batch of pumpkin spice muffins. Recipe courtesy of The Pioneer Woman. Since I knew I wanted to share them with the other Liquid Kids volunteers on Sunday I made mine in a mini-muffin pan and just reduced the cooking time. Without the cream-cheese frosting they are a great breakfast. I am sure they would be fantastic with it as well and might just have to try it when I whip up another batch with remaining pumpkin and milk I have. Hope you enjoy and stay tuned because tomorrow Bek and I are hosting a cake-pop party and I am sure there will be many stories and photos from that coming soon.

Muffin Ingredients:
• 1 cup All-purpose Flour
• 1/2 cups Sugar
• 2 teaspoon Baking Powder
• 1-1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon Ground Ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg
• 1/2 t Salt
• 4 Tablespoons Butter - cut into pieces
• 1 cup Pumpkin Puree
• 1/2 cups Evaporated Milk
• 1 Egg
• 1-1/2 teaspoons Vanilla

Topping
• 2 Tablespoons Sugar
• 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg

Frosting
• 1/2 cups Soften Butter
• 4 oz Cream Cheese
• 1/2 lb Powdered Sugar
• 1/2 teaspoons Vanilla

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease muffin tins.

Sift flour, sugar baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt. Cut in butter with a pastry blender until it is fully incorporated. In a separate bowl, mix together pumpkins, evaporated milk, egg, and vanilla. Pour pumpkin mixture into the flour mix and fold gently until mixture is just combined.

Pour into a muffin pan 1/2-2/3 full. Sprinkle with remaining cinnamon/sugar/nutmeg mixture over each unbaked muffin.

Bake for 18 minutes if doing minis, 25 for regular size. Allow to cool in pan for 15 minutes then remove to cooling rack. Ice with cream cheese frosting.

(To make the frosting, mix all the ingredients on high until soft and whipped.)

ghost and ghouls of all kinds

Last weekend Brett and I were blessed with a number of tickets to 6 flags. What better time to use them then Halloween day. Roller coaster in the morning, Fright Fest at night! It was a blast! Bek, Simon and I went earlier and rode a bunch of coasters. Then Brett, Raf, and a few of our exchange students came later just in time to ride a few rides before the Halloween festivities started. Overall a good time and hope to maybe do it again next year.

Along the same Halloween lines, I thought I would share with you all the adorable candy ghosts Brett and I made for a fall party we went to. Growing up I use to make these ghosts every year with my mom and I look forward to continuing that tradition when I have children. Here are the instructions – easiest recipe in the world.

Ingredients:

Candy/Popsicle sticks

White almond bark

Chocolate chips

Layout a sheet of wax paper spayed lightly with nonstick spray

Melt the almond bark according to the instructions on the packages.

Set down a stick and drizzle on some almond bark roughly in the shape of a ghost

Use the back of your spoon to finish shaping it.

Place 3 chocolate chips for eye

Let cool and enjoy.

See, told you it was easy!

I will also throw in a few other pictures

Brett and I with 2 of our exchange students

My man - 5am before he left for a drill weekend

link love

We have stayed busy with trying to get this apartment all set-up to fit our lives. I promise to post pictures soon - just a few more details left.

As if we didn't already have enough going on right now Brett and I have been working through some big changes in our lives. I have been tossing around the idea of making a job change. Not exactly sure what I want to do yet and it probably won't happen in the near future but the idea is out there. I want to have more free time and my long commute everyday sucks away so much of my evenings. Meanwhile, I want to start making jewelry again. It will probably be bead type work at first, until I can gather up the supply and equipment to make more intricate pieces.

Even bigger news though is Brett is going to join the Army National Guard. Right out of high school he looked into joining and playing in the army band. He is a fantastic musician and since we live in an apartment he hasn't gotten to play since we got married. This is the perfect opportunity for him. He will have to go away to basic training for 9 weeks :( and afterward he will go to the Military School of Music where he will have personalized lessons and take classes such as music theory. I will miss him terrible while he is gone, but to keep myself busy I have already said that I will have 2 months of craft night. I plan to sew curtains, re-upholster furniture, bake until I have no-one left to feed, and anything else I can do to stay busy. He has his audition on Wednesday, and will probably leave for basic in January or February.

Now I move onto what my title is all about. I want to share some of my favorite bloggers with all you dear people. May you get as much enjoyment out of them as I do.

Some favorite bloggers:
http://thepioneerwoman.com/ - I posted this last week but just in case you missed it. She posts wonderful recipes and stories of her life, all accompanied by beautiful photos.
http://mattbites.com/ - This was the first food blog I really started to follow. He is a food photographer who will occasionally post a recipe - they are always delicious.
http://www.101cookbooks.com/ - This is a fairly new discovery for me. She only posts vegetarian dishes, but they have always been fantastic and have introduced Brett and me to so many new combinations and dishes.

cool weather and warm kitchens

It is starting to feel like fall around here. The weather is cooling off - though we didn't have much of a summer - and I am in the mood to start cooking again. While I love the warmth and adventures that summer brings there is nothing like cooking a warm meal when it is cool outside. Fall is my favorite season with all the beautiful colors and abundance of food. I plan to make the most of it, picking apples and pumpkins and whatever else I can find to pick. I also want to learn how to bake. I feel fairly confident in the kitchen when it come to cooking. Not afraid to try a new recipe or add a little of this or that, but baking is a whole different game. With baking you have to be precise, no just throwing things together - at least not at first. So expect some more baking recipes on here.

To start the season, I made a Tres Leche Cake (a spanish 3-milk cake). Brett has been asking for one and while browsing a new blog I found a delicious recipe for it. As I have never had Tres Leche before I am not sure if mine tasted right, but I thought it was good and everyone who tried it said it was authentic. Check out this blog for the recipe and if you have some time (it's long), read her story of how she meet her husband. I have never been one to read romance novels but I was completly enthraled in her story. I started reading it durning my lunch break and had trouble staying on task at work because I wanted to keep reading.

So other than baking and reading blogs what have I been up to?... Oh yea, we moved into our new apartment, my parents came to visit, and I ran my first 5k! As you can tell, life has been slow at the Hartford's :) The apartment is great and I will post picture soon, but right now it is still a disaster and we are slowing getting the apartment set-up to fit our life.

Having my parents here was wonderful. We were tourist for the weekend and completely wore ourselves out. We visited a vineyard, tasted chocolate in Hershey, PA, saw the statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, ran a 5k for Africa, accessorized and worked on the apartment a bit, and ventured all around NYC. Not bad for a 4 day weekend.

Now it is time to get ready to go on a hike with some friends from our life group. I will leave you with some pictures of our recent adventures.

My wonderful parents

Brett in Hershey

The wall of names at Ellis Island

Exchange students with Elvis

My running buddy

Team Hartford

Life group + Nate

summer eats and travels

One of my favorite food bloggers, Matt Bites, posted this recipe for pasta with a fresh tomato sauce. It is very tasty without being heavy at all. A refreshing dinner for hot summer days.

Angel Hair with Fresh Tomato Sauce

garlic - Matt's recipe called for one clove but we both agreed that 1 or 2 more would be good
4-5 very ripe good size tomatoes (approx. 3 lbs?)
juice and zest of 1/2 a lemon
a bit of salt and pepper
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
olive oil
1lb angel hair pasta

Mash the garlic or put it through a press, and then further mash it into a paste with a bit of salt.

Chop up 2/3 of the tomatoes. Grate the remaining tomatoes on the large holes of a box grater over a good size bowl. Reserve the pulp and juices but discard the skin.

Mix together the tomatoes, garlic, lemon juice and zest, salt, and pepper. Put aside until pasta is done - at least 10 minutes.

After making the sauce, boil the pasta according to direction. Drain and immediately toss with the tomato sauce. Sprinkle with basil, olive oil, and a bit of salt.

Enjoy!


Here are some pictures from our trip to Virginia for the 4th. My goal for this summer is to visit as many states around our area as we can.

We stopped in hersey just to grab a bite to eat. I hope to go back soon and do the chocolate tour!

Finally made it to Virginia!

new movie

I am ubber excited about a new movie that is coming out in August. It is based off of two memoirs of food people, Julia Childs who revolutionize cooking and Julie Powell who wrote and blog and book about her challenge to cook all 524 recipes in Julia Childs book in a year.

Check out the trailer :)

the wonders of pumpkin

Our garden is all planted. It rained forever after we planted it and I was scared that the garden would get rained out. But other than an overwhelming about of weeds, things seem to progressing beautifully.

The evening following our garden planting the girls all went over to Bek's apartment and she made a fantastic parmesan risotto. She put roasted pumpkin, pine nuts, and spinach in it. In America, or at least everywhere that I have been, we tend to only eat pumpkin, and squashes in the fall. Bek has inspired me to work these gourds into my meals more often.

So here I present to you the fantastic risotto that Bek served us and I later recreated for my husband, and a fun little recipe I found for "Pumpkin Pie Squares".

Pumpkin, Spinach, and Pine Nut Risotto

Ingredients:
1 cup Arborio rice
2-3 cup vegetable or chicken stock
½ butternut pumpkin, cubed
1 onion, diced
1 glove garlic, chopped
1 piece ginger, chopped
1/2 c pine-nuts
1 bunch spinach, roughly chopped
1 cup parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Place garlic and ginger in a saucepan with a little olive oil.
2. Add the cubed pumpkin, cooking until soft. Remove and set aside. (I actually cooked this in a separate pan so I could be cooking the rice at the same time)
3. Add onion and a little oil to a fry-pan and saute.
4. Add rice and fry for a further 2-3 minutes with a little butter.
5. Gradually add stock, stirring until absorbed but still moist before adding more stock.
6. While risotto is cooking place pine-nuts on a tray and bake at 350°F for about 5 minutes or until they turn a golden color.
8. When rice is cooked turn off heat and add all remaining ingredients including pumpkin, and parmesan.
9. Leave for 5 minutes before serving.


Pumpkin Pie Squares

yellow/orange squash of some kind - acorn, butternut, pumpkin (we used the other half of the butternut squash from above and ate as dessert)
honey
cinnamon
sugar

1. Cube the squash into bit size pieces.
2. Roll the cubes in honey and a dash of cinnamon until well coated. Spread as a single layer on a foil lined pan.
3. Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes - until really soft
4. sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar - serve warm

Rafael with the tiller

the boys working the dirt

Our pretty garden

(pictures stolen from Sim's facebook)

in like a lion

Wow, it has been a while since I last posted. Our time of staying with the girls went well but I am very glad it is over. Since Mark was out of town, Brett had to cover all his building and so was gone every night. We basically had opposite schedules and I barely got to see him. It is nice to have to have my husband back.

Since then life has only slightly slowed down. I have started volunteering every other Sunday with the new iCampus at our church. Our church services are available on iTunes and podcasts through the websites but 4 times a week we have a chatroom open so people who watch the podcast can be part of a community. We are available for them to ask questions, receive prayer, or just be able to converse about the message. It has been fun and I have enjoyed being able to have even the smallest part in someone else’s life.

Last weekend Brett and I invited out life group over for pasta party part 2. It was a blast. We once again made ravioli and just had the opportunity to hang out with friends. The next day Brett and I made fettuccine with the leftover dough. I am becoming a firm believer in fresh pasta. I honestly think it tastes better and it is so simple to make that I want to try to make it more often. I will post a recipe for pasta dough on my other blog for anyone interested in trying it themselves.

This past weekend was a treat as well. Awhile back Brett and I had been given a gift certificate to a local restaurant and movie tickets for a date night. We used it this past Friday and enjoyed a lovely evening out. I finally got to see Slumdog Millionaire and loved it. I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t yet seen it. Then Saturday we went over to Brett’s parent’s house for a cookout and to watch the KU game. The food was fantastic and my Jayhawks won.

So that is what all has been going on with us. I want to wish my Dad and Brett’s brother Cameron very happy birthdays. We love you guys and wish we could be there to celebrate with you.

The group making ravioli

Hard at work

Our dinner

Jen enjoying her food

pasta night

I has been snowing a bunch here and I love it. This past Friday night we had two couples join us for dinner at our house. We all made ravioli. Most of the following pictures are from Marje.Rafael working hard on the ravioli

Matt decided that the pasta need to be crimped

our yummy home-made ravioli

our cat is very social and loved having everyone over

fresh bread in 5 minutes a day

I have been putting off writing this post because I wanted to have more pictures to go with it. I guess I will just make do with what I have, plus I am sure that bread will be the focus of many more posts to come. Here are my bread adventures from the past few weeks. Check the post below for the actual master recipe.

I was listening to The Splendid Table the other day and they did an article on this new cookbook "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day." I am not being over dramatic when I say that this has changed my life. My husband and I have literally eaten fresh bread, in some form or the other, 5 or 6 days a week. On The Splendid Table, they gave the master bread recipe, which is a basic bread dough that you can keep in your fridge up to two weeks and just cut off a chunk every time you want to cook some bread. The cookbook apparently has many other bread recipes that follow that same two-week storage format.

The first couple of days we just made fresh loaves of bread but pretty quickly, I started to figure out what all I could do with this endless supply of dough.

A couple of morning I have rolled out a ball and sprinkled it with some cinnamon and brown sugar then rolled it up and sliced it to make sweet rolls. I just let them warm up on top the stove while I get ready. Pop them in the over 15 minutes before we are ready for breakfast and we get to enjoy fresh sweet rolls any day of the week. To make them even richer put them in a sided pan like a loaf or cake pan and drizzle some melted butter over them before baking - amazing!

One day after work, I made some broccoli cheese soup and bread bowls in less than an hour. We have also rolled the bread out into pizza crust, baked in muffin tins for dinner rolls, and fried a little for a quick fry-bread.

my first loaf

focaccia bread with tomatoes, onions, garlic, parmesan, and some herbs

we made bagels!

serving and snow

Brett and I have had a lot of fun these past two weekends. Last weekend we volunteered as leaders for an outreach thing that Liquid, our church, was doing. They are opening a new campus in New Brunswick and as a way to reach out to the community, they gave away coats to the homeless and underprivileged of that city. They ended up giving away over a thousand coats that day and there were still people waiting in line. The groups that Brett and I helped lead went to different neighborhoods around the church location and handed out backs with info about the church and encouraging notes. We had a blast and got to serve with another young couple here for a few months from Australia.

This weekend was another great weekend. Bek and Sim, the Australian couple, joined us Friday night and we all went to a Christmas light display. It was one of those drive through things and at the end had a light show set to Christmas songs. They also had a little shop where we picked up some Christmas ornaments and found some candles with funny names.

Saturday was a gloriously lazy day. I made banana bread, adding the coconut and pecans left over from a pie I made for Thanksgiving, watched a couple of movies, and had the rare opportunity to just relax. That evening we went over to some friends' apartment for Chinese food, a movie, and good conversation. Then to top everything off it snowed last night and everything was wonderfully white this morning.

the group that led bag distribution


coats

me - trying to stay warm

brett with the funny candle

smell my nuts?