Take home gifts My 100th post!

We made take home gifts for the guests at the harvest party, here is what we did.

Skull jar

Owl jar

Pumpkin Jar

These jars are for chocolate chip or cowboy cookies.  I did both.

Start by layering the jar:

On the bottom put 1 cup of brown sugar, pack it down to make a smooth line.

Next 1 cup of white sugar.  Then layer your chocolate chips, about 1 cup.  More is okay too!  *You can add nuts to this, or M&M's, add them with your chocolate chips. Next mix 3 cups of flour with 1 teaspoon soda and 1/2 teaspoon salt.  This is your top layer.  Seal your jar and decorate!  It is that simple.

You could make these for Christmas gifts for the neighborhood with Christmas trees, back to school or teacher appreciation gifts with little apples on them, anything really!

This is the recipe card that I printed out and tied to the jar for easy access.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (175 C).  Line one baking sheet with parchment paper.  Empty the contents of the jar into a large bowl and mix until all the ingredients are well combined.  Using your hands work in 1cup softened butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Beat 2 eggs with 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, then add 2 teaspoons hot water.  Work this into the flour mixture until well combined.    Shape dough into 1 inch alls and place 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet.  Slightly flatten the balls with the palm of your hand.  Bake for 10-14 minutes or until the edges are slightly browned.  Makes about 2 dozen. 

Roasted Fall Vegetables

Butternut squash

Carrots

Red onion

Red potatoes

Olive oil

Salt

Pepper

Rosemary

Bake at 400 degrees for 30-45 minutes

I threw our vegetables on a Boboli crust with mozzarella and ricotta.  Perfect fall dinner!

Caramel Banana Cupcakes

I just mashed two bananas into a devils food cake mix.  Once i filled all of the muffin tins with the batter, i pressed a caramel into each.  I made regular buttercream and just added about 1/4 cup of cocoa to the frosting, piped the frosting and topped with caramels.

Fall Sugar Cookies

1 C butter, softened

1 C sugar

1 large egg

1 T. cinnamon

2 t. vanilla

2 t. baking powder

3 C flour

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Cream butter and sugar, add egg and vanilla. Then add dry ingredients.  Bake for 8 minutes.

Now let's learn why leaves change color

We all enjoy the colors of autumn leaves. Did you ever wonder how and why a fall leaf changes color? Why a maple leaf turns bright red? Where do the yellows and oranges come from? To answer those questions, we first have to understand what leaves are and what they do.

Leaves are nature's food factories. Plants take water from the ground through their roots. They take a gas called carbon dioxide from the air. Plants use sunlight to turn water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and glucose. Oxygen is a gas in the air that we need to breathe. Glucose is a kind of sugar. Plants use glucose as food for energy and as a building block for growing. The way plants turn water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and sugar is called photosynthesis. That means "putting together with light." A chemical called chlorophyll helps make photosynthesis happen. Chlorophyll is what gives plants their green color.

As summer ends and autumn comes, the days get shorter and shorter. This is how the trees "know" to begin getting ready for winter.

During winter, there is not enough light or water for photosynthesis. The trees will rest, and live off the food they stored during the summer. They begin to shut down their food-making factories. The green chlorophyll disappears from the leaves. As the bright green fades away, we begin to see yellow and orange colors. Small amounts of these colors have been in the leaves all along. We just can't see them in the summer, because they are covered up by the green chlorophyll.

The bright reds and purples we see in leaves are made mostly in the fall. In some trees, like maples, glucose is trapped in the leaves after photosynthesis stops. Sunlight and the cool nights of autumn cause the leaves turn this glucose into a red color. The brown color of trees like oaks is made from wastes left in the leaves.

It is the combination of all these things that make the beautiful colors we enjoy in the fall.

Thank you Sciencemadesimple.com

All i can think when i read this is Chlorophyll more like Boraphyll! 

The cleanup begins!

We had our harvest party last night, here is a recap...

These were our take away goodies.  Cowboy cookie mix dressed up in Owl's, Pumpkin's & Skulls

Our front porch.  With our Martha-would-be-proud pumpkins, and our candy corn filled lantern.

Nick decorated our house, this was our spider infested bathroom.

Our living room, skeleton banner, balloons, bobbing for apples bucket, and our happy pumpkins smiling from outside.

Our beverage bar.  Monsters (because i thought it was cute for halloween... monsters, halloween they go!)  Our pumpkin cooler with tangerine cream soda and root beer.  Crazy straws, pirate coasters, ugly cups (thank you commissary!), tea, ice, booscotti, coffee, and thai iced tea (because it is orange).

Our table.  My favorite part is the napkins and plates, thank you Target!

Pumpkin seeds, satsumas, owls sugar cookies, pretzels, Hawaiian sweet rolls, pumpkin butter, pumpkin cheesecake and brownie bites.

carmel apple slices, pumpkins with pepperjack and turkey, and baked macaroni.

Mauled Apple cider... looks spooky huh!

Our goody table.  Candy eye balls (in my topless jar, i dropped the top and it shattered! :( ) Candy corn, bad teeth suckers, gummy worms, m&m's, hershey's, york's, cookie jars and silly string.  (We will not be doing silly string again.)

Nick... the freddie crougar of forks.

My costume started falling apart, AND my cupcake shoes did not come in time!  BUMMER!

A cake & Fork

Yes, he loves me!

Eric & Jakob

Let me see that Tootsie ROLL

The Zemke's, Scattergood's, Jakob and I all dressed up

I love my husband!

I sent Nick a quick message about the paper that i stressed about and posted on Sunday, This is what my teacher wrote "Graded  99%     Brittany, you did an outstanding job on this paper. Your length was good at 2463 words; you answered the questions well; I could find no typos; and you cited three good outside sources. Well done!"  I was thankful because it was a really hard paper to write, and this is my "stickler" teacher.  We are docked down for every typo in any conversation during the class.  This is what my awesome hubby wrote. "That is what I'm talking about! I really am so proud of you!
I love being married to you. I love that you are so intelligent. ...and hot."  

He makes me happy!

Fall time at the Cooley household.

I LOVE the beautiful apples this time of year!  MMM..mmm... good.  Plus i am catching wafts of our Apple cinnamon candle and it is just setting the mood for my fun fall day.

What are you going to do with all of your beautiful apples you may ask?  Why, I would love to tell you.

I am making Carmel apples of course.  With Cinnamon sticks as their stem, and dipping them in M&M's once they are covered.  I am also making some mauled spiced cider with fresh pink ladies each with 10 cloves to bring a lovely aroma to the household and then to my tummy.  Last but not least we will be bobbing for apples at our party, to bring our childhood fun back to life.

We went over to our Landlord's house for dinner on Sunday (DELICIOUS), and her friend made her this cake, and she gave us some to take home.  Isn't it beautiful!  Just an FYI, German baked goods are not as sweet as American ones.  No death by chocolate here, it was good though.

For dinner they made a turkey they said they used apples and oranges, it was so good!  They also made red kraut out of apples, so good, and knudel which is potato and bread mixed?  It looked like a dumpling, smashed like potatoes and tasted like goodness with a hint of mint.

One of my favorite fall dishes to make is a vegetable pasta bake.  In spain i had manicotti stuffed with fall vegetables and tried to make it as soon as we got home.  I just made mine a bake because the cheese baked on top is the best part, why not have more of that?

I sauteed the zucchini and yellow squash in just salt and pepper.

The Eggplant was sauteed in cinnamon and nutmeg.

I sauteed Mushrooms in chili flakes, and then threw all of the veggies into a large bowl and added gorgonzola sauce.  Tomato sauce that is orange, due to the high volume of cheese!  :)

Now pop this sucker into the oven until the cheese bubbles and is beautiful!

Ta da!

Then i made Bruschetta to go with...

Just chop Basil very thin... very, very thin.  Add olive oil and parmesan cheese.  Then chop up the tomatoes, i take the goop out.  Ick.  Place on a baguette.  Voila!

Oh and no, the tomatoes on the pasta bake didn't move in the oven, i made two.  My friend Kari just had her baby, and Nick and i tried to provide some lovin' with a vegetarian dish.

Pumpkin Butter!

I had never made it before, and if you want the truth, i only tried it because i thought it would be a cute wife thing to do... but it was good!  :)  Now i want pancakes with this smothered on top!

So easy too!  I just threw the whole 29 oz can of pumpkin into my pot, added 2 cups of apple juice, about 1 Tbsp. of ginger, cinnamon and freshly ground nutmeg.  1 tsp. of cloves and 1 1/2 cups of sugar. Set on low for about half an hour.  It smells so good simmering...

I just bottled it up in my jars and popped it in the fridge, now it is ready anytime we need some!

I also made booscotti, owls, and pumpkin cheesecake!  I can't wait for our party!

Then, when Nick got home we carved pumpkins!

My party cooler pumpkin!

Our pumpkins

Mine is lame.  The whole time i am thinking to myself "I am sooo... good at this, i made two pumpkins and baked the seeds with time to spare in the time Nick made his one pumpkin.  Now i know why, his kicks butt.

Mine doesn't even show up in the dark.  LAME!  It was an owl...

Cakes

Okay, to follow up my "I am quitting the cake business" post.  I was.  Temporarily at least.  Then this week came, i was asked by 3 people to make different cakes and being me, i said okay.  Now, let this be a lesson to me, i was stressed, wasn't that the whole point of quitting this year.  To focus on my school work?  How is your 10 page paper due Sunday going Brittany?  ... not well.

This is how to make Fondant

First, Crisco each bowl that you are using.  You need a microwavable one like shown above, and your mixer.  (You can do this all by hand, but BE PREPARED FOR A MESS!)  Pour your bag of mini marshmallows (9 cups) into your pre-greased micro bowl and zap for 1 minute.  In the meantime you can pour one of your boxes of powdered sugar into your mixer (or counter).  Stir the marshmallows, then zap at 30 sec. intervals until you have a nice marshmallow cream, shown above.  Add 1 Tbsp. water and 1 tsp. vanilla to the marshmallow cream and pour into your stand mixer (or onto your counter... mess!).  Add the second box of powdered sugar.

Now turn the mixer on low, or start using your hands to mix.

 If the mixture gets too crumbly add more water, this should turn into a stiff looking frosting, and continue getting more stiff.

  

Sprinkle/pour powdered sugar onto your work surface and then pour this mixture out on top (or if it is already there... keep going :) ).  Knead this until it becomes a firm dough.

Next you can use this, you can saran a wrap and place in the fridge for later use or you can color it.

I tear off a little strip of the fondant and submerge it into the color.  Then place it back in the middle of the fondant, roll up like a taco and start kneading.

Keep going....

Now make some fun things...

Cherries for my ....

Banana split cake

God is good... All the time.

Do you know how you can sometimes tell when things aren't going to be going your way?  Well that happened to me this week.  First i received a lovely letter from my sister in law Linda, it was super sweet and wonderful and made me feel fantastic.  (Thank you Linda).  Then... the next day i received a handmade card in the mail from my dear friend Andrea, again super sweet and wonderful.  ( I started to say... okay God what are you building me up for?) ... THEN the world came crashing down the next day.  Of course!  At least to sensitive old me.  I was TORE UP, trying to keep my composure.  Later that day before i left work, my friend Sharee handed me a "Happy Bosses Day" card... this cannot be good right?  I know God always helps you to get through things so it is scary when you start to see the help because you know the situation is going to get worse before it gets better!  Anywho... the day ended with me sitting in my car, fatty burger in hand listening to Michael Buble sing "Georgia" (Sharee made a CD to put in my card), it was raining outside... AND I WAS BALLING!  haha!  The card was so nice, and had such an applicable verse, and i was just so thankful that God DOES SEND HELP!  I can feel so cruddy, like i am helpless, and God sends little notes from loved ones that help pull me out of my rut and get back on my feet.  Thank you Jesus, and thank you girls!  I love you all.

I am a happy Pumpkin now.

"The Righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles."

Psalm 34:17

(Not that i think i am righteous, i am just thankful that God loves me.)