Apple Butter

A friend went to the apple orchard last weekend and posted that she was making apple butter.  Apple butter?!?  I completely forgot about apple butter and thought maybe you did too.  So here's a repost if you want to make your house smell like fall and have your tastebuds say mmmmmmmm.

I found the recipe here. But I didn't weigh my apples like she did because my scale needs a battery. 

Anyway, let's get this party started.

What you'll need:

5 1/2 lbs of apples peeled and chopped
3 C Sugar
1/4 Brown Sugar
3 t Cinnamon
2 t All Spice
1 t Ground Cloves
1/4 t Salt

Peel and chop you apples. I also ran them through the food processor a bit because she recommended it. Not sure it was completely necessary? Toss all the ingredients together and put in the crockpot on low. Cook 9-11 hours. Uncover, whisk a bit to break the apples up and cook another hour on low. It's ready to go.

Didn't have a scale so I filled up this colander

Top view

Chop them up a bit more

Throw your other stuff in the crockpot

Give it a good toss, cover, turn on low and come back in 10-12 hours.

Whisk it to get all the chunks worked out

Done...Now let's go make something YUMMY or you can be like Dylan and make a PB and Apple budda sandwich:)

Avocado Pit Removal

When I first started working at a deli years ago, I was in charge of the cold sandwiches.  A vegi sandwich with avocado was one of the choices.  I HATED making that sandwich.  The avocado completely intimidated me. 

Over the years I've learned a few tricks and the intimidation is completely gone so I thought I'd pass them along to you.

First, start with a ripe avocado.  You typically won't find the "perfect" avocado in the store ready to go so serving avocados requires a little bit of planning.  You will need to buy a few days ahead of when you'll need them.  They'll ripen faster on the counter.  I'm told they'll really ripen in a bag but I haven't tried that trick.
This is what a ripe avocado looks like. DARK green that is soft but not squishy.
How to get your pit out...Cut avocado in half, whack with a knife, give a twist of the wrist.
TA DA, out comes the pit. No fuss, no muss.
Take a big spoon and scoop out the yummy avocado.
Here they are ready to meet the fork for some mashing or a knife for slicing.
Now the choice is yours. Mash these babies until they are smooth or if you're like me and like a few chunks you can do that too.

Couch to 5K

I think I might have told you that I was going to run a 5K to start my 45th year off with something healthy.  Alanna liked the idea so we signed up together for a fun Suds Run race.  Costumes are "suggested" but we opted to just run this year and they provide beer at the middle if you want and at the end, it was our birthday weekend afterall;)

I downloaded the free app to my phone and started the couch to 5K in enough time to take me into the race. 

What's that saying about best laid plans?  SUPER high temps and humidity slowed me down, shin splints, swollen ankles, sore knee, pain in my toes, blisters. Yeah, I had it all.  But, I didn't stop.  I repeated week 3 a couple of times and week 4 twice.  I never got past week 4.  For those of you that have never looked at couch to 5K, that means I never ran for more than 5 minutes at one time.  That's kind of a problem when you're planning on "running" 3.5 miles!

The night before the race Alanna talked me off of my ledge and told me that she would walk as often as I needed to.  Our goal was to finish under our age of 45.

Race day we had lovely weather.  Sun shining, nice breeze and a decent temp.  Our pre-race photos are all smiles:)

I didn't love the run from the beginning.  But I had Alanna next to me saying encouraging things.  Telling me to just keep a slow pace.  I had to walk a couple of times for a little bit because I had this nagging shin splint that surfaces about every 5th time I exercise.  We passed the mile 2 marker and my foot was completely numb!!  As in it felt like I had a brick in my tennis shoe instead of a foot!!  That's never happened before!  I slowed to a walk, shook my foot, stretched.  Nope, it was still numb.  What choice did I have, I had to finish so off we went again.  Alanna could have had a much better time but she stuck with me and we finished together at 40 minutes RUNNING!  I have to admit, I liked the accomplished feeling finishing gave me.

I was a little sore the day after but on Monday I was out walk/running again and I felt better immediately.  I haven't had a problem with my foot going numb again but will be getting some compression socks the next time I'm near a sporting goods store because from what I've researched, those should help with the ankle issues and/or numbness.

Not sure I'll run another 5K but I like the feeling of pushing myself out of my comfort zone and running definitely does that so I'm not saying never;)

At the finish, under the SUDS, toasting another year together and STILL smiling!

Mixed Berry Cupcakes

Remember the bake sale from a few weeks ago?  Well this was cupcake number 2 that I made.  A simple white box cake mix made according to directions except use milk instead of water and add 2 t of Vanilla.  Fold in (that means gently stir in) 1/2 C Blueberries, Raspberries and Blackberries.

Scoop into cupcake liners and bake at 350 for 14-17 minutes, when you touch the top of the cake, it should pop right back up.

Remove from oven, cool, frost with cream cheese frosting and top with a berry so your customers know what they're buying.

Frost with Cream Cheese Frosting and top with a berry

Cream Cheese Frosting
1 brick Cream Cheese~softened, yep low fat
1 stick butter~softened
2 t Vanilla
4 C Powdered Sugar

Mix together, put in a frosting bag with a star tip and decorate OR simply frost the cupcakes with a knife.

Makes 30 cupcakes.

Sweet 16 Cake

Alanna's daughter Kayla turned 16 in August and I made this cake for her actual birthday.  I think the stand up letters make the cake more festive.  You can learn how to do them here.

Here's what you'll need:

1 3/4 C Flour
2 C Sugar
3/4 C Cocoa Powder
2 t Baking Soda
1 t Baking Powder
1 t Salt
2 Eggs
1 C Buttermilk
1/2 C Vegetable Oil ~ I used Canola
1 t Vanilla
1 C Strong Hot Black Coffee ~ I used Espresso Roast

Combine your dry ingredients and mix well. Add wet ingredients with the exception of coffee. Give it a couple of minutes with the electric mixer. Pour in black coffee and mix until incorporated. The batter is a bit thinner than a cake mix.  Pour into greased pan.  I used a round pan that took about 40 minutes at 350.  If you used a 13x9, I'd start with 20-25. Bake until toothpick comes out clean.

I cut the cake into three layers and put a chocolate cream cheese frosting inside.

This is what you'll need:

1 brick Cream Cheese~softened, yep low fat
1 stick butter~softened
2 t Vanilla
3 1/2 C Powdered Sugar
1/2 C Hershey Cocoa

Mix together and frost.

For the outside I did a simple chocolate buttercream but you could also use the chocolate cream cheese if you wanted.

Decorate with your chocolate toppers, refrigerate for about an hour and serve.

  The kids enjoying dinner with some fun masks.

 Happy Sweet 16 Kayla!!

Super 16 Birthday Party

I don’t think I’ve had a party give me more anxiety than my son’s 16^th.  I wanted it to be special.  I wanted it to be comparable to a SWEET 16.  Just because he’s a boy shouldn’t mean that he not have the fun decorations and “big deal” made.  I finally came up with SUPER 16 and made a play from the Superman logo and it was a hit.  The small problem is, you have to create everything yourself.  BUT it was all fairly easy and the end result was a big smile from a SUPER kid.

I started with having his Dad put a 16 inside of the superman logo.  From there it was just a matter of printing different sizes.  In Microsoft Word I also created a few POW, BANG, ZAP and Happy Birthdays.  To do that I went to insert, shapes and used the first star shape

 I also sent the logo to a local t-shirt place and had t-shirts made for all the kids that were coming.  Not only did the kids all love it including his friends, but so did he!!

He wanted cheeseburgers for the food so I did a topping bar with that and kept the rest simple with deviled eggs, tuna salad, potato salad, beans, vegi and fruit tray and chips.  The sweet table was where I had a little fun because Max has always been about the sugar! 

I created Super 16s with colored chocolate melts from Michaels.  I put the logo under wax paper and with a squeeze bottle created the toppers for the cupcakes and cookie cake.

I dunked Oreos in red and drizzled with yellow, dunked marshmallows on sticks into red melts and frosted rice krispy bars with yellow chocolate and sprinkled.  We also had Nana's fudge and I scooped ice cream into small cups for root beer floats.

I bought some cheap yellow, red and blue bags at the dollar store, printed out smaller Super 16s and made goodie bags which I just filled with candy and a juice jug.  And even though they didn't say so, I could tell the older kids liked getting a goodie bag as much as the youngest kid there. 

The banner was just 8x10 sheets of paper that I printed with a font of 650.  I also had blue star balloons lining the driveway that I taped Super 16s to. 

Lastly, my favorite photo of the day.

Happy Birthday Alanna!

Today is Alanna's birthday!  Our 29th birthday that we'll be celebrating together to be exact.  I know that's a tough thing to wrap your brain around because we're still just young chicks;) 

Over the years, I have strayed away or ended friendships for one reason or another.  And, I realized a few years back that it was the people that I could be quiet with that were the ones that mattered, the ones that I wanted to share my life with.  Alanna is my quiet friend, my loud friend, my get me off my butt or out of my funk friend, my friend I can count on and one of my best.  I wish her a year as fabulous as she is!!