My Daily Diet

Breakfast: Fried egg and sausage links.

Went to the mall to get Hannah some shoes so lunch was from the Food Court.

Lunch: McDonald's Bacon Ranch Crispy Chicken Sandwich, as you can see I put the bun aside and ate it with a fork and knife. The chicken has a little breading but I'm ok with that. I forgot to take my camera with me, Hannah's phone died, so this picture was taken with my ancient phone.

Dinner: "Reward Meal", Broiled Steak, Betty Croker Julienne Potatoes and sauteed zucchini, onions and diced tomatoes. When I go shopping I buy NY strip steaks, I bring home the steaks and cut them in half, part economical, part reducing the amount of red meat we eat.

Dessert: with "reward meal" Snicker Doodle Muffin, recipe can be found here

Ok, so far I think I've made this "diet" seem really great. I mean, on how many diets can you have a regular dessert, or low carb diets where you can have potatoes. Not many.

Here are some draw backs to this diet, 1. I prefer eggs with a runny yolk. Omelets are ok, so are scrambled eggs and hard boiled eggs, but I love a runny yolk egg. The problem is I desperately, yes, I said desperately, want a piece of toast or biscuit to sop up that yolk, but unless I want breakfast to be my reward meal I can't have it. I don't usually make that meal breakfast, because it doesn't give me anything to look forward to. 2. Another draw back are tasty little morsel such as the ones pictured below.

I've decided to call these Pizza Poppers, recipe here these are crescent roll dough filled with pizza sauce and mozzarella cheese.

I made these today for Hannah, they are soooo good fresh out of the oven, they are flaky and the cheese melts, mmmmm. Could I have any, NO. I had to save one and have it with my "reward meal" they just aren't the same warmed over. So there is good with bad on this diet.

Cake Creation

Made this cake back in August from this recipe http://fullbellies.blogspot.com/search/label/buttery%20pound%20cake If I make it again, I will probably leave out the layer of apples in the middle. Only because, it's just Hannah and I, Michael on the weekends, he's not a crazy cake fan, and Hannah isn't a crazy apple fan. But I liked it.

But I must be honest, the star if this post isn't the cake, it is the Cake Platter.


I had been wanting one of these Princess House Cake Platter w/Dome since I was 19, and selling Princess House. It was a Hostess gift. You could only get this if you had a crazy amount of sales, and 3 people from your party hosted a party as well. I had been looking for one for a few years now, and I finally found one at a local antique store. You can find them on e-bay, but they usually go for 70-90 dollars, I got this one for $55.00 baby! Princess House stuff is probably my one extravagance. It is really expensive to buy new, but I look for it at flea marts, thrift stores and antique stores. Every now and then I find something really good, fairly cheap and I jump on it.

Easter Desserts

When Michael's cousin invited us over for Easter Dinner, I was responsible for desserts, yum.

So, I decided to bake this cake. It is a vanilla cake mix I bought at Trader Joe's, it is soooo good. I used a powder sugar glaze because my girls don't like usual cake frosting.

Here I am putting on the final coating of glaze. The first couple were too thin, the third one was just right.

I also made approximately 3 dozen cookies. These cookies are made from dough sold by my daughter for a school fundraiser. It's handy to have tubs of cookie dough in your freezer. I keep it in the freezer because it is harder for the girls to eat it raw, they would eat it all before I could bake any.

Then Saturday night I decided we didn't have enough dessert so I sent Michael out Sunday before church to pick up a box of brownies, and I made them right before we left for the festivities.

Obviously, we had plenty dessert, I brought home about half the cake, a dozen or so cookies and more than half the brownies, they were good so they haven't gone to waste.

Christmas Cookies

Snicker Doodles
Oatmeal

Amanda Gardner Photography

These are the same as the previous picture, just frosted.  These are called sugar cookies, but they are thicker and denser more cakey, they have nutmeg in them so they are very Christmasy. My girls enjoy them plain but I love them frosted, which makes them even more like little cakes.  I started making these cookies the Christmas we bought our first home 1982, it was my friends recipe, she was low on funds that year so we got together bought the ingredients and made them for presents.  I have added the Snicker Doodles, Oatmeal Cookies and the Pumpkin Bread and this year I'm giving them to my Girl Scouts and people I work with.

Here is the little holiday plate with all the goodies together getting ready to be wrapped up and given out.

Christmas Tree's

The other night the girls wanted something sweet, luckly we had some of these droplets of cookie dough in the freezer again. I usually buy some for every holiday, and aren't the trees so cute.

Hand made Christmas Ornaments

In a previous blog I mentioned the christmas right after we bought our first home. Christmas 1982. We didn't have alot of money. However, this home had a vaulted ceiling and I really wanted a tall christmas tree for that tall spot in the room. This was only our second christmas together, so we didn't have alot of ornament already to fill this tree. So a friend of mine had a recipe for these baked ornaments. I don't remember the recipe, I do remember it had a lot of salt in it. So we made this dough rolled it out, gathered all of our christmas cookie cutters and she, my sister-in-law and I made these christmas ornaments. I already had the paint. I remember it was alot of fun and I enjoyed the painting part as well. I don't use these on my tree now, they are old and kind of fragile now so they stay in the box, and get brought out just to look at and reminise. Though, when my girls take all their ornaments away with them, I just might have to bring them out again.

My Contribution to Thanksgiving

Some years ago, (memory fades) I made this Chocolate Pie and my oldest daughter, Amanda absolutely fell in love with it. Then one Thanksgiving someone else made a chocolate pie and she didn't care for it as much, so from that point on I had to make her this pie specially. The main difference between the two pies was that I use a graham craker crust and the other pie had a regular dough pie crust. All I know is that she didn't like it. This pie isn't very pretty, but it is tasty, and simple. Store bought graham pie crust, one large box of instant chocolate pudding. Follow the instruction for pie, put a piece of plastic wrap on top of it during the chilling process. It would be much prettier with whip cream on it, but she doesn't like it that way. Last year my youngest daughter, Hannah decided she wanted a special pie. After visiting the buffet at the near by casino, we have decided that she and I really like coconut cream pie. So she asked that her special pie could be coconut cream. The pie crust is a store bought dough crust, pre-bake the crust. Again the pie filling is coconut cream pudding. After the crust cools, fill the crust, and let it chill, you don't have to put plastic on this one because

you cover it with whipped cream, then add a little toasted coconut on top. Mmmm! I'm sure both of these pies would be very good with all home made ingredients, but my girls love them just the way they are. Have I mentioned how much I "love" semi-homemade?

Goodies for a Bake Sale

A couple weeks ago, Hannah's dance company had a Vendor & Craft Faire with Baked goods for sale as well, we contributed a dozen each of Brownies and Chocolate Chip cookies. They had to be individually wrapped for sale. Aren't they lovely. We didn't get to taste these, but I'm sure they were scrumpcious.

I know I said I was feverishly creating, but I've been holding on to all these pictures, and I finally had some time to get on the computer. I needed to get all of these done before Christmas.

Pumpkin Bread Recipe

So as an afterthought I have decided to post the recipe for my pumpkin bread.  Enjoy!

Pumpkin Bread

1 3/4 C. sifted flour

1 1/2 C. sugar

3/4 t. cinnamon

1/4 t. nutmeg

1 t. baking soda

3/4 t. salt

1/4 C. + 2 T. water

2 eggs

1/2 C. oil

1 c. canned pumpkin (100% pure-not pumpkin pie mix)

1/2 C. nuts (opt.-I don't use them)

Sift all dry ingredients together in large bowl, make a well in the center.  Add water, eggs, oil, pumpkin, and nuts (if using).  Mix well. Pour into greased loaf pan.  Bake at 350 for about 1 1/2 hours. 

Wish you could smell this.

Fresh out of the oven, this has to be one of the best smell's there is. Pumpkin Bread. I got the recipe for this in Home Economics when I was in the 7th grade. I hung on to that and many of the other recipes I got back then. One Christmas several years ago, we had just bought our first house and money was a little tight, so a friend and I decided to make this recipe as well as some cookies for gifts. Didn't really make it much after that, until I had my first daughter. I don't remember when, but I decided to start making the bread and cookies every year. More about the cookies later, the star if this blog is the Pumpkin Bread. It's a very simple recipe, no nuts and no cloves, just a pure pumpkin and nutmeg taste. I try not to make this any other time of the year, because it wouldn't be a special holiday treat for my girls.

YEA!! It's November

Why am I so excited about November? Three things, the obvious Thanksgiving, not so obvious is my Birthday, and November is when I start baking. Usually Pumpkin Bread and Cookies. I'm especially excited this year because of the birthday present I received. This handy dandy standing mixer. I know, this isn't a creation (yet).

Semi-Home Made...

Well, the only thing home made about these creations are they were made in my home. Baked these morsels last night. Fresh out of the oven they are very tasty, and the cats are chocolate. It's rare that these cookies ever get cooked around here, my girls usually eat the little drops of dough before they ever see an oven.