What a mess.

So the bug guy is supposed to come and spray.... and he said for maximum effectiveness, you should empty your cabinets. *sigh* Now my kitchen (most of it) is all over my dining room, my family room, and inching out into the living room. Oh well. No more buggies?

Baking up a storm!

Can I just say "yum?!" Mike was gone this afternoon and I decided to work on some of my "projects". Namely, using or storing the roasted squash I had hanging out in the fridge. A friend of mine gave me a recipe for pumpkin bran muffins which I absolutely ADORE and had yet to find a good recipe for. I also wanted a pie. AND I needed to make dinner. So.. this is the result. : )

Butternut Squash Pie. It looks, tastes and smells like pumpkin! 

I made biscuits and then we had Chicken A La King.

Mike was helping me put away the muffins and looked confounded.

I went and picked some of the green beans out of our garden to use for dinner. They were huge! The top green bean is the huge one, the bottom one is the size I am accustomed to picking. I can't believe how big they got. I've been really enjoying going out to pick a handful of green beans every few days. I will have to plant a bigger patch next year. : ) Anybody have canning jars?

Pumpkin Bran Muffins

This recipe is the best bran muffin recipe I have ever had. We used to buy Krusteaz Bran Muffin mix and they stopped selling it in our store. : ( I think this recipe is going to be my replacement. I am curious to try substituting applesauce and peanut butter for the pumpkin and see how that works out.

Some things I did do, I used wheat bran instead of oat bran. I also used cinnamon and nutmeg instead of the pumpkin pie spice. An alternative would be cloves and ginger. For some added nutritional kick, yogurt would probably substitute well for the milk. 

Oat Bran Muffins

from food.com via Joanna Campbell

1 1/2 cup oat bran 

3/4 packed brown sugar

1/2 cup flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup mashed pumpkin, cooked*

1/2 cup milk

1 egg (or 2 egg whites), beaten

2 Tbls oil

Mix dry ingredients

Mix wet ingredients well then combine with dry ingredients until wet (don't over mix)

Spray or line muffin 12 muffin cups

Fill 3/4 with mixture

Bake at 425 for 20 min.

If you have never used fresh pumpkin or squash, it makes things even better!

Roasting Squash

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Slice pumpkin (or squash such as butternut) in half, empty the innards. The seeds can be roasted too. Place pumpkin skin side down and bake for at least one hour, until a fork easily pierces the flesh. Remove skin and puree pumpkin. 

Let me know how things turn out, everybody. : )

Oh, and this picture is just for fun. My sister took it.

Hugs!

~Scottie

Friends and Fun

So it seems this weekend turned into an intense people filled weekend. We had dinner with some friends, then some more friends arrived to spend the weekend, and then saturday we went to a party of some other friends. Whew! I crashed out last night and didn't want to wake up this morning.

Saturday we went to the Nelson - Atkins Museum of Art. We didn't look at more than a third of the exhibits and spent several hours. It is definitely on my list to go visit again. I enjoyed not feeling I had to see everything because I can come back. So often on trips to museums and what not, it is in a different city and if you miss something, the opportunity might not come again.

Here are a few pictures of the exhibits.

I forget how much taller we have gotten.

Mummy?

I LOVE this photo. Don't ask me why.

And.... some photos of us. : D

Photo bomb!

What? Nothing to see here.

Jump!

Now you see me

Now you don't!  :D

And last not but not least, a real picture of the group. : )

D.J, Anne, Hubby and Me, Steph and Gary.
Yeah. : )

Conquered!

I feel like a man. I mean this in the best way of course. Tonight, I conquered the grill. : D I got the charcoal, lit the charcoal, let it catch on fire nicely, had lovely coals, and cooked the steak. Woot. :D  Of course, Mike gave me advice on how to get the charcoal going.... and then he flipped the steaks for me. Oops. Didn't realize they would cook so fast! Oh well, dinner was quite yummy. : ) Sorry, no pictures of the roasted corn, baked potatoes, and steak.

By the way.... why is it the corn is roasted and the potatoes baked, but they were in the oven together?

~Bekah