jay display

Original Valentine's Day plan:  hiking at a national wildlife preserve...until the temperatures dropped and the cold rain set in.  Instead it was tex-mex, board games, and a relaxing evening of Everybody Loves Raymond.  Oh, and baking...a lot of baking.  

A friend's daughter was turning 21, so I made a surprise-inside cake.  First, I baked a halved vanilla cupcake recipe in a sheet pan and cut out lots of 2s and 1s...

After freezing them for a few hours, I stood them up inside a half-poured chocolate cake batter...

...and then spooned the rest of the batter on top.  Freezing the letters means that when the cake is baked, the letters/numbers will thaw instead of 'baking twice,' which would make them tough.  I don't have a photo of the inside of the cake, but each slice has a pink '21' inside!

I had a baby shower this weekend, and made a cake for that...

...and at the same time as the shower, Todd had a toy show on the north side.  I wanted to make plenty of treats for him and the friends that were helping out.  I made brownies...

(all photos taken on a rainy day in a dim kitchen, so are pretty terrible)

Blueberry bars....

...and Nutter Butters.

Oh, I also made another batch of peanut butter cookies for the baby shower.  It was a very busy couple of days!  

The cold weather was perfect for cats on laps.

It got colder, and...snow!!

The feeders drew a lot of birds...especially blue jays.

So...many...blue jays.

Even though they're 'bully birds,' I like to see them.  Besides...our other birds seem to stand up to them just fine!

Nice bit of color in a dull month, too!

Todd's made one trek out to check the trail cams in this cold weather, but we caught something interesting.  It's coyote mating season.  Are these two playing?  Fighting?  Courting?  They seem to be having fun, whatever it is!

(maximize screen to see better!)

This is my favorite part.  :)

Maybe there'll be PUPPIES in the spring!

Have a great week!  

chillin' with my SNOWmies

 I've gotten to wear THIS shirt a lot recently because we've had some great snow!

(It says 'Chillin' with my snowmies' and yes, I know there's a way to flip the image.  

No, I don't know how to do it!)

I LOVE SNOW!

We got nearly 14 inches and it's stayed cold enough for the snow to hang around.

We had no mail delivery for days and we were under a travel advisory at least twice, so we've been hunkered down at home.  Besides regular work, I finished a 2000 piece puzzle (started mid-December):

...and we celebrated National Bean Day.  Before January 1st, I decided to select two random fun holidays per month to celebrate instead of the usual ones (well, we're probably still celebrate those too!).  National Bean Day was our first and it was so much fun!  So many random bean songs...Mr. Bean video clips...bean facts...and something that truly shocked me, an absolutely delicious black bean brownie recipe.  

I don't like beans, but somehow this recipe that has no eggs, no butter, no oil (I substituted pumpkin puree instead), no flour, and almost no processed sugar (other than the chocolate chips) was so delicious that I've been thinking about it ever since we finished the batch.  I used her healthy chocolate frosting recipe and it was TO DIE FOR.  One frosted brownie is about 225 calories per serving but really nutritious.  I think I'm going to make another batch next week!  :)  

Otherwise, we've been playing games and snuggling with cats.

Hoping that the snow is going to stick around a while.

Have a great week!  

chipmunk slam dunk

The apples are DONE!  In the end, we had between 30 and 40 pounds of apple...and that's processed apple slices, minus the weight of peels and cores.  

Todd holding just a small fraction of the peels generated

I've been folding big handfuls of apples into the weekly baked oatmeal, tossing a cup into fall salads, and I've finally found a great apple dessert recipe that's going into rotation here.  It's based on a popular Allrecipes entry, but I've made it significantly healthier.  It's so, so good.

German Apple Cake

1/2 cup + 2 Tablespoons pumpkin puree

1 TB vegetable oil

1 egg

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 - 3 cups of diced/sliced apples

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease an 8x8 pan.  As with most recipes:  mix the wet and dry separately, combine, and stir in the apples.  Bake for about 35 minutes.  

If you care about that sort of thing, a big piece is about 125 calories.  It is especially good on day #2, and I think it would be AMAZING with a slick of cream cheese frosting.  PIE will be coming soon, and apple bread, and applesauce.  I can't wait!

The weather has remained unseasonably warm (85 degrees today!), and the tomatoes just keep coming, too.

Besides dehydrating sliced tomatoes for winter salads and soups, I've been making an all-purpose pizza/pasta sauce.  I use this recipe and it's the best sauce I've ever had!

A few leaves are changing here...

...but it's not really cold enough for the big color change yet.  I'm still seeing a ton of insect activity...

Carolina Leaf Roller cricket

Eupithecia moth caterpillar

...and plenty of the usual katydids, spiders, and moths on the porch that keep the kittens riveted.

Of course, our trail cams are still picking up tons, too.  So...many...deer.

Turkeys...

Rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, and plenty of coyotes.

We hear them howling at night too and it's such a cozy and essential component of fall around here.  

Speaking of creatures, Claudia is too old/pampered to hunt many of them now, but sometimes she surprises us.  I'll hear a loud meowing on the porch, and Claudia is coyly hinting at a great prize.

Then the big reveal...

...and the official offer.

This week, it was a chipmunk.

She waits patiently until she's sure that we aren't going to have a nibble (so far, we're on a five-year streak of abstaining from her gifts), and then she falls to, messily devouring it on our doorstep.  

Our indoor cats stare through the screen door in amazement.  I don't think they've ever seen food that doesn't come out of a can or bag.

They suspect that food procurement might cut into their nap time as well.

I think they may be right about that!

Have a great week!