Birthday Cakes and Cake Pops

Happy Birthday my sweet Lucy.

 The youngest of 3, she has been a pleasure - most of the time. She puts up with her big brother and sister and gets dragged around everywhere. She makes me laugh every day and I love to see how her mind works. She is her own person. And yes, she has to wear a skirt every day. Good thing Gma and I sew! She has some style.

Yes, she has had 2 cakes so far. One on her actual birthday (Mickey Mouse) and one while celebrating with Gma and Gpa Frank (Zooter - from Jungle Junction). 

As usual, both cakes were last minute requests and I had to look to the internet for ideas and do the best I could. Here is a little tutorial on making the Mickey Mouse cake and how I handle all the 'extras'. 

1. I started with a standard 9x13 cake. I used 2 different sized bowls to cut the circles. Cake left overs when into the larger bowl. The circles were transferred to a sheet cake pan lined with foil. I don't know where my cake board is - probably in the attic. I decided to make due with the pan.

                                                   

2. Then, on to the crumb layer. Spread a thin layer of thin frosting over the cake. This doesn't need to be pretty, just needs to contain all the crumbs. Place in the fridge for a bit to let the frosting set.

3. On to the main frosting. I am so glad we can get easily gel food coloring now! Makes getting colors other than pastels much easier. 

Now - what to do with all that extra cake and frosting??? Mush them all together and make cake balls!

Add a little frosting at a time and mix really well. 

Add frosting until you get what looks like a stiff cookie dough.

Then just roll into balls and chill. Now, if you want to be really fancy, you can dip these in chocolate. By this time, I am too tired to worry about anything other than getting these to be in a somewhat round shape. They get gobbled up so fast, no one has cared about how they look. Phew - no need to do more work. ;)

If you still have left over frosting, you can just spread some on graham crackers. Yes it is YUMMY! However, I just threw mine out. Really, there are soooo many sweets in our house right now, I don't need to be temped with MORE.

Crazy Life

Life can be pretty busy. I promise, I have been busy working on lots of new things to share. I just have not taken the time to sit down and document it all. So, today will be a bit of a catch-all catch-up on the things that have been keeping me busy for the past couple of months.

1. We moved. I FINALLY feel like I am out of the mountain of boxes. Or at least the mountain has been distributed into several hills spread out to different locations. Which, for now works for me. I am not starring at them and can slowly work on dealing with them as I feel like it. I guess that is one of the issues you face when majorly downsizing.

2. We now own a farm! The only animal we currently have is a dog. He is really enjoying his space and I think is finally adjusting to being with us. We adopted him, and in just 6 weeks we moved. So he has had a lot to adjust to along with the rest of us. However, we are working on transforming this building into a chicken coop!

And a view of the coop and barn early in the morning.

As typical of a farm, there is always a ton of work that needs to get done. On the top of the list is to finish the coop, get some chickens, and plant a garden. The garden space is HUGE and we will not the planting the entire thing. BUT, It is taking a bit of energy to plan.

3. Homemade Craziness. I like to try making things myself. Why? I think just to prove I can do just about anything I set my mind to. Maybe it is just to keep things changing. I may never do it again, but I like new challenges and trying new things. 

I saw an article in the newspaper about all kinds of different nut butters. So, I made a mixed nut butter. I followed the same method as my homemade peanut butter, but just used some mixed nuts. WOW! I had NO IDEA what I was missing. I think I like it better than the peanut butter!

While surfing Pinterest, I came across several different coconut oil recipes. I thought I would try this one. Mine doesn't look this good. I suspect I didn't use enough coconut oil to allow the mixer to properly work. But, this is how it turned out. I will try it tonight and this weekend at the beach!

4. Funny aside: I made some hard boiled eggs - because YUM! Epic fail! I have never had 6 of the 12 eggs crack! Oh well, they were a bit over cooked, but they still make great egg salad sandwiches. 

5. Dishes: we have no dish washer in this house. There is space to put one in, but that is low on the priority list for now. So until then, My kitchen seems to look like this a lot.

Doesn't really bother me much, but it feels like I am ALWAYS doing the dishes. 

6. House remodeling/updating. We haven't done any true remodeling as of yet. Just taking down wallpaper and painting. Also working on pulling up the carpets. I will share some progress photos in another post. 

7. Weight Progress: Through everything, I have not been sticking to any weight loss plans. On the up side, I stepped on the scale for the first time this week. Much to my surprise, my weight has held steady since before Thanksgiving. I count that as a major success -in that I didn't gain a ton of weight over the holidays without thinking much about food or exercise. 

Hope you are all staying busy and enjoying life.

Jill

Homemade Peanut Butter

I have tried several rounds of homemade peanut butter. After the first round, I thought 'well, that was fun but I doubt I will do it again'. I was wrong. The second round was much better and the third round has been the best. There are TONS of recipes out there. I got the idea from Pinterest here. Just peanuts - sounded intriguing. Nope - definitely NOT what I was looking for. You know how PB tends to stick to your mouth - well, multiply that by a thousand. And, well I am use to store bought which a bit more sweet. So I did a little experimenting and added some white sugar and some coconut oil. This made it edible, but grainy.

The second round I used honey as the sweetener and again coconut oil to help smooth out. This was good. but the flavor was not quite what I was looking for. If you really like all natural type stuff, this is probably perfect for you. I still need a little more of the refined, not good for you, sugar flavor. I know - crazy, but true.

This round, I used corn syrup and coconut oil. The good news, I needed much less sugar in this recipe as opposed to the honey version. I have actually started to prefer this to the store bought. BUT, they are different. Do not think you are getting store bought texture or flavor. You are never going to get the smoothness like a creamy PB in the store - at least I have not been able to. Maybe with a bit more experimenting. Instead it is more like a cross between crunchy and smooth - which I really like. You can see the texture  here. And yes, it is almost gone and I finally decided to write this post and take pics. :)

So, I case you are interested in how I made mine, I will share.

1 container of salted dry roasted peanuts. (I don't remember the size, 12-14 oz I think) - the one that is $2.88 at walmart - for the off brand.
2-3 TBSP coconut oil (FYI, it is solid at room temp)
3ish TBSP corn syrup

Put peanuts in the food processor. Let her go for several minutes. Wait until it is smooth - or the texture you want. Adding the other ingredients will make it so the peanuts don't get any smoother. Then, add the oil and sugar to taste. This is REALLY forgiving. I play with it until I like the texture and flavor, so the above amounts are an estimation.

Store in a jar with a tight lid in the fridge. I have read this lasts up to 2 months in the fridge - mine doesn't last that long. Also, it gets hard when stored in the fridge. I have to pop mine in the microwave to soften. I usually do about 20 sec at 50% power.

Note: You can also use a veggie oil, but you will have oil separation and have to mix every time before using. This does not happen with the coconut oil since it is solid at room temp - which is why I use it.

Happy Packing - oh New Year?

I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays and had a great celebration to bring in the new year. I spent the day packing and went to bed by 8:30! Not much of a party girl I guess.

We have just 7 days until we have to be out of our house! EEK! We have made some great progress with packing, but still have a ways to go. I just started doing my craft/sewing space. It is a bit overwhelming. I am so good going through everything else and getting rid of things we are not using. Even the kids did a great job getting rid of toys. I must say, that all changed when I got to MY stuff (the fun stuff that is).

We are not entirely sure where we will be moving to. We are under contract with a property, but things are still up in the air a bit. Even if we do close, we won't know for sure what day until the very end. So, we may just be homeless for a couple of days. 

As for my weight, yes, I gained a little over the holidays. But, after weigh in this morning - I am still in an overall net weight LOSS as compared to where I was a year ago. So, I will take that as success. And, since we got Boomer I have been walking a whole lot more. Now that we are past the holidays and I am a bit sick of all the junk food - it is a good time to really try hard again to drop a few pounds. Not to mention all the exercise I get while packing (and soon - while moving). I don't do a whole lot of sitting these days - although I don't do a whole lot of hard core exercise either. I think my biggest challenge in the next few weeks will be with food. Not having a fully functional kitchen for a while may hinder things a bit. But, I will really try to get good meals on the table.

As of last week, I reinstated no dessert Wednesdays. I will also shoot to add a second day each week of no desserts.

So, lots going on here. All part of the adventure. Anyone else having a big adventure to start the new year?

Family Changes

Lots of changes happening around here these days.

First, we have a new addition to the family. Meet Boomer.

He is approximately 3-4 years old and has been a delight so far! He is a Treeing Walker Coonhound. The kids are SOOOOO excited. Training is going pretty well, but we are new at it and we have our own struggles to overcome too. ;)


And, just a few days after bringing Boomer home, we got an offer on our house. Finally. Of course. We are excited to sell the house and move on to our next adventure. We are not entirely sure what that will be yet, but we know it will be interesting. We have found we may not always have chosen the path life has lead us down, but we have always landed in a great place. We look forward to see where this path leads us.