Check out pictures from the baby shower

Before the shower, during the shower, and after the shower, I couldn't find my camera.
You're getting pictures of the after party clean up.
The theme: PINK LEMONADE

The pink lemonade......almost gone.

The oriental salad and the shrimp penne............picked over,
but their were plenty of leftovers.

The cupcakes were lemon and the frosting was strawberry butter cream.
Since the decorations were all down, Dad and Gracie pretended to be the chandelier over the island

you get the idea.

Baby Chickens

Brigham, here are some pictures of Pops baby chickens. They don't have names because they all look the same. Nani just calls them all Stinky.

Stinky #1, Stinky #2, Stinky #3.............all the way up to Stinky #11

They eat and drink and poop a lot. And they peep, peep, peep

Who does that remind you of?

Happy Halloween

I probably should not admit this, but I hate Halloween. I mean I really don't like anything about it. I didn't even like dressing up as a child. So now I just ignore all the stuff I hate and use it as an excuse to make yummy treats. I started with cupcakes, of course.
Apple cupcakes with cinnamon butter cream frosting

While the cupcakes were in the oven I made English Toffee, which took a long time to cool so I made the frosting and popped popcorn .

Then I made the caramel for the popcorn, melted the chocolate for the top of the toffee and frosted the cupcakes.

So that everything could be ready for the grand kids to come, eat the treats and mess up my house before going home.

First Mary Poppins showed up. She was practically perfect in every way.

Gracie (6)has been planning for a whole year for this costume. She started growing out her hair last November 1st so that it could be in a bun, and has been practicing snapping her fingers for months.

Indiana Jones (Gehrig) was very tough and brave.........

and a bit mischievous

Nolan must feel the same way about Halloween as I do because this is a picture of Nolan (who hated his bear costume) having a temper tantrum on the floor. I can relate.

The Hulk, aka Brigham was mean and green.


And Brinley, what can I say? Quack Quack.
We all missed Brielle, who was having a great time in Logan.
To check out her costume check out Emily's family blog
See you on Thanksgiving Miss Scarlett.

Brigham and Nani baking cookies

Look at that cute boy wearing an apron. Notice his fingers are ready to turn on the mixer even though they are greasy from unwrapping the butter.

He thinks he's really good at cracking eggs, but 3 out of 4 landed on the counter, before they made it to the dish and then the mixing bowl.

This is Brigham licking his fingers.


This is Brigham sneaking more cookie dough.
Thanks for all the help Brigham.
Baking with children is like baking with your hands tied behind your back.
But they sure have a good time.

Happy Birthday to Gracie

The process for baking a chocolate cake for Gracie begins with melting 4 semi-sweet chocolate squares.

Butter, at room temperature.

Buttermilk, sour cream and eggs, all at room temperature.

sugar and brown sugar,

the dry ingredients, including cocoa powder, sifted

The prepared pans. Two 10 inch pans (I wish I would have used 9 inch) buttered then lined with parchment and buttered and floured again. This should help the cakes come out of the pans soooo easy. Next you'll want to see the batter in the pans but you're about to be disappointed. What was I thinking? No picture of the batter in the pans can only be attributed to the fact that either my fingers were sticky from licking the bowl, or I was in a chocolate coma from licking the bowl and the beaters. What ever the reason there are no pictures until the finished cake. Sorry.

There is a picture of the horses I bought to put on top of the cake. I went to my favorite toy store, The Red Balloon, and found many sets of horses to choose from. I thought Gracie would love these ponies and kittens.


The finished cake top.

Hmmmm. What to do with the left over frosting?

Put it on a graham cracker of course.

Gracie blowing out the candles.

Rachel helping Gracie try on her new cow girl boots.
Who knew they came in pink?
Every one should remember to wear their shoes at all times.
It really hurts when Gracie steps on your toes.

Happy 6th Birthday Gracie!

Tapioca Pudding

It is a cold wet rainy day in Utah. My 17 year old is off hunting with my son-in-law and Ken is out working in the shop on the latest mistress (a 1968 Camaro). I think the only way to get him in the house is to bribe him with his favorite treat. Tapioca pudding should do the trick.

The ingredient list is small; milk, tapioca, eggs, vanilla and sugar. And since I can't leave well enough alone I'm going to try it with brown sugar to see if it makes a difference.

It has to set in the pan for 5 minutes. I don't know why. I'm guessing for the tapioca to get soft and tender. Then cook over medium heat and stir constantly. It really is a very small effort compared to the reaction I will get. He always says, "You made tapioca?" "Why?"
Then I always say "For you". Which he knows I will say. It's just this little ritual we always go through.

Speaking of rituals, here is the tapioca cooling in the dishes. The brown sugar was not something I would do again. It changed the texture of the pudding.

And here it is with cream and a cherry on top.

While it was cooling I completed another project. Gracie, my grand daughter wants to be Mary Poppins for Halloween. The hat is now complete. What do you think, Gracie?
I'm off to sew the skirt.

Where does the time go?

I'm finally getting into the habit of taking pictures of everything but I have not yet made a habit of posting to the blog. I vow to be better. We celebrated my grandson's birthday last week. He's 1 year old. Is it possible to keep it simple for a child who doesn't even know what's going on? I don't think so. I made cupcakes just so he could have his own birthday cake to eat all by himself.

Chocolate cupcake with....
Nutella Frosting.

2 T. butter
2 T. Nutella
1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 T milk
1 tsp. vanilla
Of course I tripled this to make sure I had enough. It always takes more than you think when you're using a piping bag. It was smooth and creamy and oh so Nutella. In my vocabulary that means yummy.

This is Nolan and what's left of his cupcake.
Thank goodness we ate outside. We used the hose for clean up.
(not on Nolan just on the high chair)

This is the real birthday cake.
Made in the Beehive Cake Pan from Williams-Sonoma.
My daughter Rachel made it using the recipe on the package that the pan came in.
It was so00 moist and dense like a pound cake, and very lemony.

The party kids (bears) had to follow the bee(puppet) to find the hive (honey). They were so cute running all over the back yard from flower to bush searching for the beehive cake.

On to the next project.....
Don't think I'm crazy but sometimes I just want to find the perfect recipe.
So I made several batches of Biscuits this week hoping to find the best one and file it in my permanent file so I never have to wonder if I'm making a really great biscuit ever again.
One last thing to worry about, if you know what I mean. haha.

1st try... an old recipe card that dates back to a High School (Home Ec.)
results.......not as good as I remembered
2nd try...the old red plaid Better Homes and Garden cook book.
results......better but not a winner
3rd try...Buttermilk Biscuits from Tyler Florence on the Food Network.
results.....I thought I had my winner but then I found......
4th try... Cream Biscuits from Emeril Lagasse also on the Food Network.
results.....doesn't it just make sense that the recipe that uses butter and cream should be the best?

Here is the bowl with the dry ingredients and the cold cube of butter ready for the pastry blender.

Here we have all the ingredients after the cream has been added. It looks as though they won't come together, but just lightly knead the dough and it does. Be careful not to over work or the biscuit can be tough.

I rolled the dough to 3/4 inch thickness and cut into 3 inch circles.

As good as biscuits with butter and Nanette's peach jam would be (for the 4th time this week), I think I'll try something different. I went to Barefoot Contessa Family Style page 90 and made chicken stew.

Put it in individual gratin dishes left over from the restaurant

Brushed each biscuit with cream, and.....

Baked them in the oven for 15 minutes until the tops were golden brown.
A sort of chicken-n-dumpling/chicken pot pie/chicken with biscuits/call it whatever you want, kind of dinner.
I may have over-filled the dishes slightly but at least I thought ahead and placed parchment on the baking sheet.
All in all a very productive day. I now have what I consider to be the only biscuit recipe.


Oh, and Brielle slept over and we made cupcakes.
Chocolate with peanut butter frosting
drizzled with Nestle Chocolate Syrup and sprinkled with chopped peanuts.