Memorial day picnic

Your quest to graduate is Complete

Graduation gift

Walking to ceremony 

Getting in

Celebrating

with LOVE

going home

Happy siblings day picture that never got posted

getting the official documentation a month and a half later

Busy Bee

I saw this Bee walking back and forth on my screen and I wanted to get a picture of his funny little face. I felt like he was saying "Bezz buzz let me in buzz bezz".

NAILED IT!

I found these culinary mystery series that I had listened to one with my Mom forever ago so I decided to read them all. The only recipe that really caught my eye was Goldy's Dream Cake, this is the recipe
Crumb Mixture:
4 1/2 cups all-purpose Flour 
1 1/2 cups Sugar 
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1 tablespoon pieces, well chilled

Cake:
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon Salt 
6 cups reserved crumb mixture
2 large eggs, beaten
1 ½ cups sour cream
2 teaspoons almond extract

Filling:
1 pound (two 8-ounce packages cream cheese, softened 
1/4 teaspoon Vanilla 
½ cup sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup red raspberry preserves, sieved to remove seeds

Topping:
2/3 cups raw whole almonds
2 cups reserved crumb mixture
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter two 9- or 10-inch spring form pans and set aside.

In the large bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade, blend the flour and sugar until well combined, about 5 seconds. With the motor running, quickly drop the butter pieces through the chute, blending until the mixture resembles small, sandy crumbs, less the than a minute. Measure out 6 cups o this mixture for the cake. Measure the last 2 cups of the mixture for the topping and set aside.

For the cake, gently stir the baking powder, soda and salt into the 6 cups of reserved crumb mixture. In a separate bowl, mix the beaten eggs with the sour cream and almond extract, stirring until well combined. Pour the egg mixture over the crumb mixture and stir until smooth and thick. Spread the cake batter over the bottom and up the sides of each of the prepared pans.

For the filling, beat the cream cheese, sugar, eggs and vanilla extract in the large bowl of an electric mixer until smooth. Spread half of this mixture over the cake batter in each of the prepared pans. Top with cream cheese mixture in each pan with ½ cup of the sieved preserves.

For the topping, whirl the raw almonds in a food processor fitted with the steel blade until chunky. Mix the almonds into the 2 cups reserved crumb mixture and sprinkle half of this mixture over the preserves layer in each pan.

Bake the cakes for 45 to 55 minutes. Test with a toothpick for doneness. (All that should adhere to the toothpick is cream cheese and preserves, not cake batter. Cool the cakes thoroughly on racks, then cover with foil and refrigerate several hours or, even better, overnight. Serve in the morning with coffee, if desired.

Makes 2 large cakes.


I faced a few problems going into this enterprise. First I needed to make it gluten free, second I only have 1 spring for pan so I needed to half the recipe and third I didn't have any almond extract or almonds. My solutions? First take the mystery bag of what I think is all purpose flour I got from Ducky and mix it with one of my other all purpose gluten free blends to meet recipe requirement, second  only realize I had one spring from pan after putting in 3 cups of flour so minus the extra ( but actually you had put in 4 cups so you had extra still and had to improves and put in too much butter) and third use vanilla and almond flour.  The results?

getting started

two flavors of berry preserves because Ducky gave me a ton of homemade jams

with crumb top

close up of crumb top (

right out of the oven, now a crust stop instead of crumb top

After it has cooled  and fallen

naked cake

All of the ingredients kind of sunk down to the bottom, but it still tasted good. Chris and I ate half of it and then gave the rest to my Jennie friend. 

How old am I again? oh right 24...wait what?!?!

My Birthday lunch with Jennie. We didn't have a phone but I had a camera so picture time

guess who graduated, yep that is my broha Steven and me

I am having a moment of concern. Well that isn't the way to put it. I am living in a transition-ish like time of my life. Until April my only goal was to get through school, but then I graduated. I have had a lot of people ask me what if feels like to be graduated. I have mostly said if feels like I am off track (which it does), but sometimes it feels like turning out the lights on my life. I have no desire in pursuing a higher education or a career. I would like to have a family and stay at home, but here is the problem : at what time is that going to happen? I don't have any of the specifics, it is all wibbly wobbly timey wimey as the Doctor would say. I keep reminding myself it has only been a month, but I feel this sense of urgency to get on with my life, but I don't even know where it is going.  I think that is the biggest problem. I don't have a direction and I want that. I am 24 years old, but I don't feel like much of an adult.

Gluten Free Subway Substitute

I work at subway so I am around gorgeous looking cookies all the time but because I am gluten intolerant I can't eat them. My wonderful husband put it upon himself to give me the best in life so he helped me make these recipes. Hope you enjoy ^_^

The recipes makes about 2 dozen cookies.

White Chip Macadamias

Ingredients:

1/2 a stick of butter

6 tbs. white sugar

6 tbs. brown sugar

2 small eggs or 1 large egg

1/2 tbs. vanilla

1 cup + 2 tbs. gluten free all-purpose flour

5/8 tsp. Xanthan Gum

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. baking soda

6 oz. white chocolate chips

2 oz. macadamia nuts

Directions:

1. Mix butter and both sugars together well.

2. Add the eggs and vanilla, mix until smooth

3. Add the flour, xanthan gum, salt, and baking soda. But save a small portion of these ingredients to mix with the chips and nuts.

4. Wait until the mixture is thick and then add the remaining ingredients.

5. Set it in the fridge for an hour or the freezer for fifteen minutes if you don't have time.

6. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and roll the dough into cookie balls.

7. (Optional) slightly flatten the balls, and for appearance place a few chips on top of the cookies.

8. When the oven is ready stash a pan with the cookie balls in for 10 minutes.

9. Let cool and enjoy.

Chocolate Chip

Replace of 6 oz. white chocolate chips and 2 oz. macadamia nuts with 6 oz. chocolate chips.

Double Chocolate Chip

Replace of 6 oz. white chocolate chips and 2 oz. macadamia nuts with 3 oz. chocolate chips and 3 oz. white chocolate chips.

On step 3 also add 1 cup cocoa powder.

Pumpkin Fun

A day after the Trunker treat I was looking at our Jack-o-Lantern realizing their was no place for me to display our master pieces and it was just going to start rotting on my table if I didn't do anything with it. So I told Chris I wanted to make a pumpkin pie.  So he helped me cut it in half and we baked it and made pumpkin pie and pumpkin custard. 

Being manly cutting it in half

face side

back side

made Chris take this picture

Yep that is the man I married 

barf! I thought it was a funny picture

And I did the pumpkin face picture do

I don't know why I was looking at it, but Chris took a picture

baked back of the pumpkin

backed face and then I saw the steam and then I went crazy trying to take pictures. 

favorite

MOUTH

EYE

inside

scraped out face

the  pan left cooked pumpkin juices (?)

Long face!

deflated

raw view

going into the oven

That is his pie face

Finished product

It  tasted really good but had a...organic texture

There was a lot more  pumpkin stuff  than what went into the pumpkin pie so we made custard with the rest. We tried to blend it but it still had a...organic texture.