Orange Cranberry Walnut Bread

This is one of my favorite Christmas recipes to make as a gift because it doesn't taste like anything else people get at Christmas time.  It's not fudgey, cinnamon-y, gingerbread-y, peppermint-y.  Yet the cranberries still make it seasonal.  And honestly y'all, once you get all the orange zest and cranberries together, the taste ends up something like a high end version of Fruit Loops.  Not even joking.  I love it :)  It's also very easy to freeze so people can store it away while they are up to their ears in goodies, and bring it back out a month or so later to enjoy.  It's a great little bread, versatile enough for breakfast, snacks, or dessert.

Orange Cranberry Walnut Bread (this recipe is for a 9 x 5 x 3 loaf pan, but I've done lots of variations on it too.  In fact, if you use smaller pans you can get two loaves out of this one batch)

2 cups flour

1 cup sugar (I add a little extra, just for fun)

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 c melted butter

1 tsp Vanilla

1 1/2 tsp orange rind zest

1 cup orange juice (use the real stuff, like Simply Orange with lots of pulp)

1 egg

1 1/2 fresh chopped cranberries

1 1/2  golden raisins

3/4 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350. Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda.  Stir in butter, vanilla, zest, and orange juice.  Add egg, mix until just combined.  Add cranberries, mix gently again.  Add raisins, mix.  Add walnuts, mix.  Lightly grease pan, then coat inside of pan in sugar (it helps keep the bread from sticking and gives a fun little zing of taste).  Pour batter into pan, pop in oven.  Bake for 1 hour 10 minutes. 

(You can sub extra cranberries in for raisins)

Chopping cranberries is a PAIN y'all.  I mean it.  Don't try and do it on a cutting board.  You'll wind up with cranberries all over your kitchen, b/c they're rolly little things (I speak from experience).   In fact, I wouldn't advise trying this recipe unless you have either a food processor or one of those Oxo Chopper things.  Thats what I use, and its a lifesaver!

Books that Rocked My World in 2011

A co-worker asked us to come up with a list of books published in 2011 that we really enjoyed.  I actually came up with two lists: Books that Rocked my World and Books That Kept Me Up At Night in 2011!  I thought you reading friends of mine might like to see the lists.

Books that rocked my world in 2011:

Divergent by Veronica Roth (Teen)

Thrilling urban dystopian fiction debut from exciting young author. A “Hunger Games” read-a-like that reads fresh.

One choice can transform you. Pass initiation. Do not fail! Thrilling urban dystopian fiction debut from exciting young author. In sixteen-year-old Beatrice Prior's world, society is divided into five factions. On her Choosing Day, Beatrice renames herself Tris, rejects her family's group, and chooses another faction. After surviving a brutal initiation, Tris finds romance with a super-hot boy, but also discovers unrest and growing conflict in their seemingly "perfect society." To survive and save those they love, they must use their strengths to uncover the truths about their identities, their families, and the order of their society itself.

The Breath of God: A Novel of Suspense by Jeffery Small

A murder at the Taj Mahal. A kidnapping in a sacred city. A desperate chase through a cliffside monastery. All in the pursuit of a legend that could link the world’s great religious faiths. Definitely not the best written book of 2011, but it caught my interest and the idea is intriguing.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor (Teen)

  

Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky. In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grown dangerously low. And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.

Ashes by Ilsa J. Bick (Teen)

An electromagnetic pulse flashes across the sky, destroying every electronic device, wiping out every computerized system, and killing billions.

Alex hiked into the woods to say good-bye to her dead parents and her personal demons. Now desperate to find out what happened after the pulse crushes her to the ground, Alex meets up with Tom—a young soldier—and Ellie, a girl whose grandfather was killed by the EMP. And oh yeah…there are zombies.

All These Things I've Done by Gabrielle Zevin (Teen)

In 2083, chocolate and coffee are illegal, paper is hard to find, water is carefully rationed, and New York City is rife with crime and poverty. And yet, for Anya Balanchine, the sixteen-year-old daughter of the city's most notorious (and dead) crime boss, life is fairly routine. That is until her ex is accidently poisoned by the chocolate her family manufactures and the police think she's to blame.

A Discovery of Witches: A Novel by Deborah E. Harkness (Adult)

In a sparkling debut, A Discovery of Witches became the "it" book of early 2011, bringing Deborah Harkness into the spotlight and galvanizing fans around the world. In this tale of passion and obsession, Diana Bishop, a young scholar and the descendant of witches, discovers a long-lost and enchanted alchemical manuscript deep in Oxford's Bodleian Library. Its reappearance summons a fantastical underworld, which she navigates with her leading man, vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont. Harkness has created a universe to rival those of Anne Rice, Diana Gabaldon, and Elizabeth Kostova, and she adds a scholar's depth to this riveting story of magic and suspense.

Graveminder by Melissa Marr (Adult)

Rebekkah Barrow never forgot the attention her grandmother Maylene bestowed upon the dead of Claysville, the small town where Bek spent her adolescence. There wasn't a funeral that Maylene didn't attend, and at each one Rebekkah watched as Maylene performed the same unusual ritual: She took three sips from a silver flask and spoke the words "Sleep well, and stay where I put you."

Now Maylene is dead, and Bek must go back to the place she left a decade earlier. She soon discovers that Claysville is not just the sleepy town she remembers, and that Maylene had good reason for her odd traditions.  Especially once the dead begin to walk. 

Wither (The Chemical Garden Trilogy) by Lauren DeStefano (Teen)

By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. She can thank modern science for this genetic time bomb. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years. Geneticists are seeking a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children.

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin (Teen)

Mara Dyer doesn't believe life can get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there. It can.  She believes there must be more to the accident she can't remember that killed her friends and left her strangely unharmed. There is.  She doesn't believe that after everything she's been through, she can fall in love. She's wrong.

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray (Teen)

From bestselling, Printz Award-winning author Libba Bray comes the story of a plane of beauty pageant contestants that crashes on a desert island.

Teen beauty queens. A Lost-like island. Mysteries and dangers. No access to emall. And the spirit of fierce, feral competition that lives underground in girls, a savage brutality that can only be revealed by a journey into the heart of non-exfoliated darkness. Oh, the horror, the horror! Only funnier. With evening gowns. And a body count.

The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler (Teen)

It's 1996, and less than half of all American high school students have ever used the Internet. Emma just got her first computer and an America Online CD-ROM. Josh is her best friend.  They power up and log on--and discover themselves on Facebook, fifteen years in the future.

Books that kept me up at night in 2011:

(This is unusual, as it takes a lot to scare me.  But these books managed it!)

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs (Teen)

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs. It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. And the photos are creepy.  Really really creepy.

Don't Breathe a Word: A Novel by Jennifer McMahon (Adult)

On a soft summer night in Vermont, twelve-year-old Lisa went into the woods behind her house and never came out again. Before she disappeared, she told her little brother, Sam, about a door that led to a magical place where she would meet the King of the Fairies and become his queen.  This novel takes place 15 years in the future with the family members still trying to solve the mystery with very disturbing results.

Anna Dressed in Blood  by Kendare Blake (Teen)

Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.

So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father's mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay. 

This book reads like a terrifying episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Warning: several of the descriptions get very gory.

Texas Gothic by Rosemary Clement-Moore (Teen)

Amy Goodnight's family is far from normal. She comes from a line of witches, but tries her best to stay far outside the family business. Her summer gig? Ranch-sitting for her aunt with her wacky but beautiful sister. Only the Goodnight Ranch is even less normal than it normally is. Bodies are being discovered, a ghost is on the prowl, and everywhere she turns, the hot neighbor cowboy is in her face.  Reads like a modern Nancy Drew, with magic, in Texas. 

The Name of the Star (Shades of London) by Maureen Johnson (Teen)

The day Louisiana teenager Rory Deveaux arrives in London marks a memorable occasion. For Rory, it's the start of a new life at a London boarding school. But for many, this will be remembered as the day a series of brutal murders broke out across the city, gruesome crimes mimicking the horrific Jack the Ripper events of more than a century ago.

Making Pumpkin Bread Pudding out of Failed Pumpkin Bread

Sometimes there are those recipes that don't quite go the way you think they will.  I started out with one of those yesterday. 

I started out with what looked like a delicious recipe for Pumpkin Gingerbread.  Easy enough, right?  Well I wanted to make it healthy of course, so I made two subsitutions.  #1 I subbed in Splenda for half the sugar.  I don't think it made a very big difference and if I were going to do it again, I would still sub some Splenda in.  #2 was more important: I subbed in whole wheat flour for half of the white flour.  In retrospect, when working with something as moist and dense as pumpkin, adding in a dense flour like whole wheat was not wise.  I digress.

I also didn't read all of the reviews on the bottom of the recipe.  Had I done that, I would have known to let the bread cook for an hour AND 30 minutes, instead of just an hour like the recipe suggested. So rewind to me yesterday, take this super dense hunk of bread out of the oven about a half hour before I should have.  I tested it with ye old toothpick, but it seemed to come out clean.  Fast forward to a little while later when I dump it out on the cooling rack.  It went "thump".  Not a springy bouncy thump, but like a moist brick thump.  I tried a piece and found that it had the consistancy of Pumpkin Pie.  Good in pie, not good in bread.  So I thought, how can I salvage this????  It reminded me a lot of bread pudding!  Ah ha!

I looked around and found several recipes, but none that was exactly what I wanted.  So I made up my own.  Here it is:

Failed Pumpkin Bread Pudding

• 1 loaf failed Pumpkin Bread (I bet it will work with any pumpkin bread, and not just a failed loaf)
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1/2 cup raisins (optional)
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup cream
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1.  Cube your loaf of Pumpkin Bread into 1 inch pieces.  You can let it sit out for a few days, or if you are speedy like me you can toast it.  I arranged my 1 inch cubs on a baking sheet and toasted them at 325 degrees for about 20 minutes.

2. Take all the pumpkin bread pieces and put them in the bottom of an 8 inch pan (I used a casserole dish).  Drizzle the butter on top of them and let it soak in.

3. Drop your raisins on top of the bread (this is optional for people like my little bro who hate raisins).

4. Mix the eggs, milk, cream, sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla together.

5. Pour it on top of the pumpkin bread.  Make sure all the pieces get mushed down into the sauce.

4. Stick it in the oven on 350 for 45 minutes. 

Voila!  Pumpkin Bread pudding out of failed pumpkin bread :)

  

Quick Cinnamon Rolls

“Quick” Cinnamon Rolls

I love Cinnamon Rolls.  My little guy loves them too.  In fact, when I make those canned cinnamon rolls, he can polish off half of them by himself easily.  I was looking for a really good, easy, homemade cinnamon roll recipe that would be just as good as the “canned” kind, but a little healthier.  I came across a Bisquick recipe and decided to give it a try.  I believe that the original recipe would have been a little dry, so I added a few of my own changes.  In the end this gave us a wonderfully flavored roll, not too dry, and with a little more heft than it’s canned cousins.  Little guy ended up eating about 1 and ½ before declaring himself “full” J

Quick Cinnamon Rolls:

***Note: This recipe makes a full 13 x 9 pan of Cinnamon Rolls.  I halved it easily and just filled a pie plate. 

Inside filling mix:

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 tablespoons butter

Cinnamon Roll Dough:

2 ¾ cups Original Bisquick® mix

2/3 cup milk

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

2 tablespoons greek yogurt or sour cream (I didn’t have any “plain” yogurt on hand, so I used the honey flavored greek yogurt.  And I think the result was a little more kick of flavor.  It was awesome!)

1 egg

2 teaspoons vanilla

Glaze (you should know that you can also just sub in store bought vanilla icing.  No one will even know.  I used it and it worked great!)

1 1/3 cups powdered sugar

2 tablespoons milk

Heat oven to 375°F. Grease bottom and sides of 13x9-inch pan. In small bowl, mix 2 tablespoons sugar and the cinnamon; set aside.

In medium bowl, stir Bisquick mix, 2/3 cup milk , 2 tablespoons sugar, greek yogurt, egg, and vanilla until dough forms. If dough is too sticky, gradually mix in enough Bisquick mix (up to 1/4 cup) to make dough easy to handle.

Turn dough onto surface well dusted with Bisquick mix; gently roll dough in Bisquick mix to coat. Shape into ball; knead 10 times.

Roll dough into 15x9-inch rectangle; spread with butter.

Sprinkle evenly with cinnamon sugar mixture.

Roll up tightly, beginning at 15-inch side. Seal well by pinching edge of dough into roll. Cut into 1 1/4-inch slices; place cut sides down in pan.

Bake 17 to 19 minutes or until just starting to turn golden brown.  Cool 5 minutes. Remove from pan.

In medium bowl, mix powdered sugar and 2 tablespoons milk until smooth. Spread glaze over warm rolls.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Muffins (aka Heaven In Your Mouth)

"Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?"  

Warning: These muffins are highly addictive.  The batter tastes like melted Reese's cups, the aroma smells like heaven, and the taste.....beyond imaginable.  I found myself purposefully breaking some of these because "Opps!  Guess I'll have to eat it!"  And some lucky co-workers get to sample them tomorrow :)  It starts, as many good things do, with a cake mix.

Ingredients:

1 package devil's food cake mix

1 package french vanilla instant pudding mix

1.5 cups milk (you can use buttermilk if you have it, but regular will do too)

3/4 cups creamy peanut butter

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/2 Tsp Vanilla

4 eggs

2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  

Put all the ingredients (except for the eggs and chocolate chips) in a bowl ALL AT ONCE.  Yes!  You don't have to separate dry and wet ingredients!  This actually makes it a really good recipe to have a little guy help with.  They can open all the ingredients and dump them in at once.  They feel really involved.  But I digress....

Add mix it all together until thoroughly blended.  Add the eggs in.  Blend.  Add in the chocolate chips.  Blend.  Take a taste....tastes like Reese's Peanut Butter cups, yes? Yes.

Spoon the batter into muffin cups, filling about 3/4 full.  

Pop them in the oven for 23-25 minutes (or longer if you have one of those chunky muffin pans).

This should make around 24 muffins.

Enjoy! 

Halloween Tutu Wreath

I love Pinterest.  Like LOVE it.  I spend hours on it.  This is the first time that I've actually made anything inspired by things I've seen on there.  I saw this post:

http://lemontreecreations.blogspot.com/2010/10/wreath-bewitched.html

I really liked it, but thought I would make a few changes.

I started out by purchasing supplies.  And I made a MAJOR discovery.  Walmart has cheap craft supplies.  Like way cheaper than Hobby Lobby.  Seriously.  Selection is not as good, but the price is right.  Also, I hate it when blogs say, "I made this for less than $10!!!!"  but then they put together all kinds of stuff they had around the house.  But I don't necessarily have all that stuff around my house, so it would cost me WAY more than $10.  So on this project I only used one thing from home- white spray paint. I wanted to be able to tell YOU that YOU could do this for around $10!   The rest was purchased (I assume that you have a glue gun and glue sticks) for......*drum roll please*............
$10.43.  Seriously.

The first thing I bought was the wreath base.  At Hobby Lobby a styrofoam wreath base can be as much as $10.  Not good.  I went to the dollar store and bought a little wooden twig wreath they had to use as my wreath base.  $1 vs $10  = happy crafter!

Then I went to Walmart and got a few more supplies.  Here's my list and the total:

Wreath base from Dollar Store……………………….$1.08

3 yrds of Black Tulle………………………………………$2.91

Orange Ribbon………………………………………………..$1.97

1 yrd Green Ribbon………………………………………..$0.53

Black Paint…………………………………………………....$0.99

Silver Paint……………………………………………………$0.99

Black Felt……………………………………………………….$0.99

Wooden Plaque……………………………………………….$0.97

TOTAL                                                            $10.43

I started out with the Wooden plaque.  I sketched out my basic design, spiderwebs and our family name. After I had sketched it in pencil, I spray painted it white. 

I started off painting this first because I knew it would take the longest to dry.

Notice- no ribbon or spiderwebs on the right corner.  That came later.....

I started working on the tu tu.  If you don't know the tu tu technique, Google "Tu Tu Tutorial".  A good one is: http://plumtickled.typepad.com/plumtickled/2007/08/tutu-tutorial-t.html

It gives you the general idea.  Progress so far....

Find a good girly movie on and watch it.  It helps relieve the tediousness of this part.  I watched How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days on Oxygen.  It was fun.

Yay!!!! It's done!

Now for the legs.  I started working on the bottom of the legs first.  Orange Ribbon for the base of the legs, and the green polka dotted ribbon for the leg warmers.  Start by folding a side up, glue it, and then the next.  Basically, just use lots of glue gun glue.

And the end product:

Then I free handed little funny witchy shoes out of the black stiff felt.  I glued those to end of the ribbons.

Then I glued the two legs on to the Tu Tu wreath.

I was almost ready to add the sign.  But it looked too plain and boring for me.

Here it is again:

I added some ribbon....

Cute, but still not quite done.  So I added another spiderweb.

Done!

Then I glued that on to the wreath.  The finished product?

SPOOKTACULAR!!!

Carrot Cake Waffles and Cream Cheese Syrup

These turned out super yummy and weren't TOO much work for a quick breakfast.  I hate spending too much time cooking on Sunday morning.  I want to spend more time eating :)  Anyways, these turned out delicious and made the house smell really good.  I grated my carrot the night before to make it a little faster in the morning.

Carrot Cake Waffles

Yields: about 4 double waffles

Waffle Ingredients:


1 cups all-purpose flour


1/4 teaspoon salt


2 tablespoons sugar


¾ teaspoons baking soda


1/2 teaspoon cinnamon


1/2 teaspoon nutmeg


½ teaspoon allspice


½ cup sour cream

½ cup milk

1 egg

2 tablespoons butter, softened

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract


1/2 cup raisins


1 cup grated carrots


Directions:
1. Combine the flour, salt, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice. 

2. Mix together the sour cream, milk, egg, butter and vanilla extract. 

3. Stir the wet and dry ingredients together.  4. Add carrots and raisins. Stir gently to combine. 

5. Spread 1/3 cup or so of batter onto the waffle iron and bake until the waffle is done, usually 3 to 5 minutes, depending on your iron. Spray iron with cooking spray between waffles as needed.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Two big scoops of ready made cream cheese frosting

Milk to taste

A dab of syrup

Powdered sugar

Heat the cream cheese frosting over medium heat.  Add a little milk and stir until completely liquid.  Stir in syrup until completely combined.  Remove from heat and stir in powdered sugar till it reaches a consistency you like.  easy!