All it takes is an idea...

I'm not sure if any of you have heard me say this but,....

PINTEREST IS THE DEVIL!

All my niece needed to do was repin something to bake, and I was off to the races this morning.

I shouldn't be baking, today is "cleaning lady day", and I need to be pre-decluttering! oh well.

Here is a photo of the pin, easy, peasy...I can do this with my eyes closed, or can I..

.

DOH, no chocolate chip cookie dough, I was just at the store yesterday. I'll just use the leftover smores cookie dough from last week...but peanut butter with that, na...just the brownie mix...

but I don't have enough cookie dough for the rest of the brownie mix,

sugar cookie dough in freezer, 

but that'll be plain, now add the candy, let's try Almond joy, Reeses peanut butter cup and Rollos,

now on with the Brownie batter,

Run out of Brownie batter, make more...

oh no, now extra Brownie batter, 

put it in cupcake wrappers and top with a non peril.

Phew, get all that...that's how my baking goes sometimes...

and hour and a half later...I need a little rest before it's on to the decluttering...

I'll post pictures of the finished products to Facebook & Pinterest, of course :D

Fresh Strawberry Coffeecake, YUM

Cook Time: 35 minutes…Total Time: 35 minutes

·         Ingredients: CAKE BATTER

·         1 cup sifted all-purpose flour

·         1/2 cup sugar

·         2 teaspoons baking powder

·         1/2 teaspoon salt

·         1/2 cup milk

·         1 egg

·         2 tablespoons melted butter

·         1 1/2 cups strawberries, sliced

CRUMB TOPPING:

·         1/2 cup flour

·         1/2 cup sugar

    1/4 cup butter

·         PREPARATION:

·         Sift together the 1 cup flour, 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add milk, egg, and melted butter; beat 2 minutes. Spoon batter into a greased and floured 8-inch square baking pan. Top with sliced strawberries. Combine 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup sugar; cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle crumb topping over the strawberries. Bake at 375° for 30 to 35 minutes. Serves 8.

Dirt

 This is for all the smattering of followers on Pinterest who would like a recipe to go with the pictures :) Dirt is a combination of all wonderful things...Cool Whip, Cream cheese, Chocolate Pudding & Oreos. HELLO, WHO WOULD NOT LIKE THAT? It's a little labor intensive, just a smidge, but worth the trouble!

Dirt
Crust
1   16oz package of OREO cookies, regular. Crush the crumbs in your food processor, then place 1/2 to 3/4 in a 9x13pan. I tamp them down with a flat bottomed glass.

Filling
1   stick of butter,softened
1   8oz bar of cream cheese,softened
1    c. powdered sugar.
1   8oz Cool Whip
3   c. milk
2   4oz packages Chocolate pudding
1   tsp. vanilla

Cream together butter & cream cheese. Make sure they're completely mixed together. You'll have to scrape your mixing bowl several times. turn mixer on low (learned that the hard way) and add 1 c. powdered sugar, mix until completely incorporated. Fold in Cool Whip, I use the mixer on low still.

In a separate bowl, mix 3 c. milk, chocolate pudding & the vanilla. Combine completely with no big lumps, and let stand for about 10 minutes to thicken. It helps keep the cool whip fluffy! THEN. stir into cream cheese mixture. Spread over crust, cover with remaining crumbs. Drool.

Then place in fridge for at least a couple of hours (couple =2)

When the boys were little I would make this in plastic cups for their friends at school, or after school or at scouts, and I would top it with gummy worms. put the worms in the dirt, so they look like they're crawling out.

Enjoy!

They can't all be masterpieces...

So, started off the day with my new favorite recipe, CRANBERRY ORANGE SCONES. So far, it's not working out as planned. The dough is sticky and wet ick. dough on hands. dough on counter. dough on shirt. I've been kind of obseesed with scones since the San Diego trip...where I went to High Tea with the Ladies. OMG, it's highly recommended, especially for a tea addict like me. Can you say obsession? The scones at The Aubrey Rose Tea Room, were heaven on a plate, moist, buttery delicious morsels...not these dry as dust versions I've tried before, so as any good baker would do I did a lot of research and found a recipe I could use. The first couple of times, it was a little moist, but I tossed the dough in the fridge for a good amount of time before baking and that solved my problems. Hopefully that will help THIS TIME.

There's a reason cake mixes with all there crappy fillers are popular. Success. It's what drives that industry. Failure is what we from scratch, grating our own orange peel, making our own buttermilk, squeezing our own orange juice people have to live with...or we can bitch about it to our 1/2 dozen fans. I'll let you know how they turn out, hopefully I didn't overwork the dough...

A New Beginning

Sorry It's been so long peoples, all 4 of you :D...The end of this year has been challenging for us here. Otis has been sick much of December. We had an absolutely lovely time In San Francisco the day after his Company Party. It's so much nicer looking at the Macys' Window displays and Lights @ Neiman Marcus when it's 65 out. All the Cali people were all bundled up, and we're just too comfortable in our fall jackets. We had lunch with some friends at Burger Bar, a Hubert Keller restaurant. Alcoholic shakes, OMG, we couldn't decide...so we got 3 and shared between 6 people. So much food, Otis and I shared a burger. It was perfect, no doggy bag to carry on our excellent adventure. So we then went to the Union Square Cristmas tree, and watched skaters at the rink, and walked around looking at all the shops including a Swarovski Crystal place. Then we moved on to Fishermans Warf and had some Bubba Gump Clam Chowder for supper...Perfect day.

The next morning, rise and shine ready to go to the airport and fly home and Otis isn't well. He doesn't get sick. What's up with this? I didn't know how sick he was...He's going to make it home, he'll be fine... We take our car back. Check my luggage, and I come back to find my germaphobe husband LYING ON AN AIRPORT BENCH...slight panic, he's too ill to travel home...then I talk to a Southwest Supervisor, and I regret not having gotten her name, get my luggage back, get a credit for our flight, call the office, they get a new hotel, and send a driver to get us and take us to our lovely room. He spends the next 2 days drinking lots of fluids, eating soup, taking over-the-counter meds and trying to shake the flu...

Home, ah, now to get Christmas done...work, work, work...Day after Christmas HE GETS THE FLU AGAIN, or still, not sure...Here we are on January 2, and he has rarely gotten up...his cough seems to be subsiding...he's eaten mostly soup, drank a ton of water and juice, and hopefully is ok to go back to work tomorrow...We'll see...

In the meantime, I've been taking all the vitamins, tinctures, and teas I can shove down my throat :)...Here's hoping I DON'T GET IT. Love to All.

now let's see if I can attach some pictures...

so Ya, haven't quite got the hang of the picture thing...I've been obsessing over placement for an Hour and Half, you get the idea!