I used to have an obsession with hoop skirts too. I sometimes think I was born out of my time. A homesteader without a homestead. Then I go stay in the country and realize I like modern city conveniences just fine!

Maybe it was that early influence that has me trying things like making jam and cooking from scratch. I hate to waste anything. One of my closest friends regularly tells me I must have lived through the Depression. Whatever it is, I usually think I’m just being smart.

This weekend I decided that I wasn’t going to let the pumpkins I bought as Halloween decorations go to waste. There were three that didn’t get carved that I decided to convert into pulp for muffins, pancakes, and pies.

I read about it first, I went into this knowing that jack-o-lantern pumpkins were not necessarily the optimal pumpkins to make into smush. I did it anyway. There is so much sugar in muffins that surely it won’t really matter? I doubt the children will notice.

Smart or not, I stared with the largest pumpkin first.

He looks pretty cheerful lying there, doesn’t he? I had to use the largest baking sheet I had. I put the other half in the crock pot, on a suggestion I saw on the web.

Looks really gruesome after an hour in the oven at 425F, doesn’t he? Great thing about the blistered skin is that it peeled right off!

This isn’t all of the pumpkin puree I “harvested” – I ended up taking some pieces out of the crock pot and putting them in the oven because baking it was faster. NOTE: This picture does not show all of my measuring cups – I have a bit of a problem in that area…

(Please don’t judge my cramped kitchen!!!)

I ended up getting nearly 10 cups of pumpkin puree out of this particular pumpkin!

Did I let the seeds go to waste? Not on your life!

I have two more pumpkins to process. I’m planning on making pumpkin pancakes and pumpkin muffins soon and possibly some soup, but I think that before I bake anymore pumpkins I need to aquire a chest freezer…

Pumpkin bread really ought to be called pumpkin cake for all the eggs and sugar it includes. I admit I tweaked the recipe a bit – I cut the sugar by a cup and replaced one of the three remaining cups with brown sugar. I also replaced some flour with ground flaxseed and wheat germ. Ssshhhh! My children haven’t noticed one bit of difference. It’s just vitamin enriched cake now.

This batch didn’t take as long as you might think either – my oven will bake 24 muffins and a loaf pan simultaneously. I love my oven.

While I was in the kitchen I also decided to take advantage of the fantastic strawberries available locally now and make some jam. I don’t have canning jars or fruit pectin or experience, but I wasn’t going to let any of those things stop me! I decided to make freezer jam because it was the best option for a novice like me.

Did I follow the recipe? Sort of. The basic recipe was 4 cups of chopped strawberries, 4 cups of sugar, and a splash of lemon juice (to supply the pectin). I cut the sugar by half – strawberries are sweet enough on their own. It wasn’t such a radical departure on my part – the recipes I looked at varied a lot by how much sugar they used. I used more lemon juice however – more pectin seemed like a good way to go.

I hulled two packages of strawberries, about 800g per package, so probably ended up with about 3lbs all together. I didn’t weigh them, I just guesstimated how many cups there were once I gave them a spin in my food processor. It was more than 4 cups but probably not quite 6 cups. I compromised and used about 3 cups of sugar. It’s kind of appalling how much sugar you have to use, but it helps to preserve it and also makes it set.

It doesn’t take so long for the juices and the sugars to dissolve together. Once it boiled, I let it cook, stirring frequently, for probably 15-20 minutes. If you have a candy thermometer, good for you. I boiled it until it was thick enough to start gelling on a cold spoon, but short of crystallizing into hard candy (been there, done that!)

Did I mention that I didn’t have any equipment or canning jars? Here’s where I went all pioneer woman and improvised. With freezer jam, you can just put it in a container and throw it in the freezer. I did that with some, but I also wanted to try a nifty trick I saw mentioned in the comments of a recipe I looked at and create a seal with a regular old jar – I used an empty pickle jar. Obviously I could have used a smaller jar had I had one or I could have filled this one up more, but I didn’t have a smaller jar handy (I had to get the pickle jar out of our recycling!) and I was hedging my bets! I didn’t want to ruin all my jam, if the jar trick didn’t work out. I boiled this jar to sterilize it and kept it in the hot water until I was ready to fill it using my (sterilized) ladle. I kept the jar inverted for about 15 minutes before I put it in the fridge.

I’m happy to say there was a satisfying pop when we opened the jar this morning.

The jam was thick but also wonderfully spreadable. It’s definitely a spoonable jam. Fairly sweet, but hey – it is strawberry jam. I’d be curious if I could cut the sugar a bit more, but I suspect if I wanted to do that I should just make sure and buy some fruit pectin when I am back in the US in the summer. This jam would be equally wonderful on waffles or ice cream. It certainly was great on my morning toast.

I am totally applying both of these things toward my recipe goals: one new recipe and also dessert for the week…

I have never had much luck with making yellow cake from scratch so I decided to buy a mix. And I didn’t want to take chances with making custard from scratch for the first time and risk ruining my birthday cake, so I bought a couple of pots of vanilla pudding. The instructions to make the chocolate glaze didn’t look *that* difficult, but I’m more than a little phobic about frosting. The only successful frosting I have ever made from scratch is cream cheese frosting for carrot cake. All my other frosting turns out just a bit gritty so I normally just buy it in cans (shame on me!) This time was no exception.

I made the cake first thing in the morning. Traditionally, you are supposed to cut one layer in half and spread the custard as filling. The cake mix made two layers so I did that instead. In fact, I don’t have two 9″ pans so I used one cake pan and one pie dish – they are roughly the same size. While the cakes were cooling, I went out to buy the frosting.

The only frosting available was milk chocolate or triple chocolate. I wanted a chocolate more on the semi-sweet end of things, so I went with the triple chocolate and thought that if it wasn’t the right flavor I’d either add some melted dark chocolate to the frosting or just try and make the glaze.

First mishap occurred when I was transferring the first layer to the plate. I lay a dinner plate across the top of the pan, flipped the cake out, then attempted to transfer it to the final cake plate, top side back up. This method has worked well for me in the past but not this time. This time the top of the cake stuck to the plate and a big chunk came off when I lifted the transfer plate. No problem, I thought – I just replaced the chunk and spread the pudding over the top. No one would notice, right? I used a bit of wax paper when I transferred the second layer and that went a bit better.

Because the cake was so moist and the top so sticky, I realized that spreading frosting was going to be hard (especially for me). Also, the frosting I bought had visible chocolate chips in it. I tossed it in the microwave to melt the chips and then stirred in a bit of milk. Voila! Chocolate glaze. I poured the frosting over the cake. My plan was to add a few cut strawberries to the top and around the edges of the plate for decoration when it was chilled and set. It would be beautiful.

And then the trouble started.

The top layer of the cake developed a crack. Hmmm… I filled it in with frosting and mentally added a few more strawberries. I put the cake in the fridge and hoped the cold would set things. Nope. The crack widened and grew. Soon it was more of a canyon. A crevasse. The San Andreas fault of cake cracks. No strawberries were going to camouflage this fault line.

I wasn’t going to take a picture of the cake because it wasn’t pretty, but then it became so absurd I had to take a picture.

We have dubbed it the Earthquake Cake. Isn’t it ridiculous? The incredible self dividing cake! Or perhaps it was attempting to clone itself??

In spite of its lack of aesthetic appeal, it was at least a very tasty cake. And lesson learned: next time I’ll make my own cakes from scratch!

And one might wonder what a smart man gets for his wife on such a milestone birthday. My husband played it safe and went for jewelry. But not just any jewelry – he got me a necklace from Azza Fahmy, a very prestigious Egyptian designer.

I love it. My picture doesn’t really do it justice. The chains are silver, the charms are white and yellow gold. It’s the kind of necklace I can see dressing up jeans or pairing with a fancy dress. I’m going to wear it to tennis later today (with jeans) and I’ll definitely be wearing it for my party on Friday – but I’m going to buy a cake for that event!

At the moment I have several bags of chocolate chips (2 mint, 1 milk chocolate) in my cupboard so I thought about making chocolate (mint) chocolate chip oatmeal cookies (got that?) but I didn’t have the time so I opted for a tried and true family recipe: toffee bars.

1/2 c butter
1/2 c Crisco *
1 c brown sugar
1 egg yolk
1/2 t vanilla

2 c flour
6 Hershey bars

Cream together butter, sugar, egg yolk, and vanilla, then add flour. Bake for 15 minutes at 350F, top with chocolate. Let cool slightly then cut into squares.

(* the recipe above is as it was handed down. I don’t use Crisco, I just use 1 c of butter instead)

I remember eating toffee bars at my grandmother’s house when we would go to visit. Her bars were always melt-in-your-mouth rich and it was never possible to eat just one. Over time I started to make them as well, but usually only at Christmas time or in situations when I could share them. I still can’t resist them so it’s just as well not to have the temptation!

I would have taken a picture, but the bars I made yesterday were not my finest batch. I’m not sure exactly what happened but the base was crunchier than it should have been. Not enough butter? Baked too long? Then there was the problem with the chocolate. My grandmother used to top hers with 6 Hershey bars, wait for them to melt, and then spread the chocolate around like frosting. I’ve always used chocolate chips instead of Hershey bars and up until a few years ago it worked fine. Yesterday I used milk chocolate chips and they softened with the heat, but refused to spread. Attempting to spread them simply caused them to grab the top of the base and roll around the crumbs. The best I could do was sort of smoosh them down and try to spread them out a bit that way.

I mentioned this problem in another blog post a couple of years ago when a similar thing happened and one reader said that manufacturers treat chocolate chips now so they won’t melt in transit. Thanks a lot. Fat lot of good it does me when I’m baking and I need them to melt. And I don’t even want to think about what it is they are adding to them so they resist melting because that can’t be good for you… Maybe it’s the difference between milk chocolate chips and semi-sweet chips?

My birthday is next week and I’m planning a small get together for which I was mulling over the idea of making truffles – however now I’m wondering if I can find any decent chocolate that I can manage to melt properly, especially without a double-boiler. Stay tuned…

It was a hot day and very still – and it takes longer than you’d think to fill up a gallon sized ice cream bucket even if the berries are fat and juicy!

If I crouched too long, I’d get stuck in that position.

But standing wasn’t so much better!

Even after we’d been out there a couple of hours and I’d filled my bucket 2/3 of the way, I still couldn’t stop. We had decided to go back to the car and maybe find another spot but I kept having to stop and pick just a little more because the berries were so pretty!

As you can see, all that hard work paid off in the end. Is there anything better than fresh blueberry pie?

The first recipe I tried was for baked falafel. I love falafel, but I don’t like to deep fry things – if nothing else, it’s messy. I’ve tried to make it up myself and bake it but never have gotten the mix quite right. So, I finally looked for and found this recipe.

The only thing I did differently was to skip the fresh cilantro and use only parsley – not because I don’t like cilantro, but because I didn’t happen to have any, but I did have a lot of parsley. I also skipped the hot sauce because I didn’t think the children would enjoy it. I was encouraged when I made up the batter – it was moist but not drippy. I scooped it out and put the majority in my cast iron skillet and the overflow on a cookie sheet.

The patties on the cookie sheet actually cooked much better – I suppose because the cookie sheet heated up so much more quickly. I ended up pan frying the ones in the skillet just to crisp them up a bit at the end. Next time I’ll just use a cookie sheet for all. And there will be a next time – these were great and everyone enjoyed them so much I didn’t have any leftovers.

Many of my recipe ideas come from some item hanging around in my kitchen. The parsley inspired the falafel patties. The aging strawberries and leftover spray whipped cream from my daughter’s party inspired me to try my hand at strawberry shortcake.

I’ve only ever had strawberry shortcake on top of sponge / angel food cake and I have to say that served that way, it doesn’t tempt me much. Make a fresh shortbread base for it though and oh-my-goodness-is-it-good. Seriously yummy.

I am also pleased to say that I’m making my way through the final edits for Separation Anxiety bit by bit. Once those are complete, I only need to format it and get it uploaded (hopefully by the end of the month).

ETA: I bought a pastry cutter last summer and finally got to use it when making the shortbread recipe. It’s much easier to clean than my food processor, but I’m not sure that benefit outweighs the speed and efficiency with which my food processor would blend in the butter! Also, I’m already making plans for alternate toppings for the shortbread – like raspberry sauce, plums, peaches, etc. Hard to go wrong with just about any berry or fresh fruit. Kind of like a reverse cobbler!

It’s not the first time I’ve had brown sugar go hard, but I’ve never had it go quite THAT hard. I did a quick search on the internet and found a tip that suggested putting the hard sugar in an airtight container with a slice of bread for a few days. The sugar would absorb the moisture from the bread and soften – problem solved.

I wasn’t sure it would be quite that easy but I didn’t figure it would hurt anything either. What do you know – worked like a charm!

I love the internet

But because I’m me, now I’m wondering what would happen if you substituted beets for the carrots. Pretty in pink or just plain yuck??

This is my children’s last week of school and all of the classes are having Christmas parties. I was asked to make brownies for my son’s class. No biggie – brownies are easy to make and for him to carry to school. However, I am one of three class reps for my daughter’s class and as such, I’m responsible for helping to organize her class’s party.

We’re trying to keep things fairly simple. The children will bring their lunch as usual only we’ll take them outside to have a picnic and play a few games. Duck-duck-goose with a Santa hat should get a giggle out of them. It was also suggested that someone should bring in cupcakes for a special treat. After the mix-up that occurred with my daughter’s soccer team where they ended up with no cupcakes, I felt compelled to volunteer to bring the cupcakes – all three dozen of them.

Sigh.

Oh well – at least they’ll actually have cupcakes. I’m planning to top them with white frosting and stick a peppermint to the top for a little extra holiday fun.

I’ve activated my Curves membership. I haven’t been many times yet but that’s not entirely my fault – their hours during Ramadan didn’t mesh well with my schedule and then I was away and when I came back the kids were off school, blah blah blah. Their new hours are much better for me so I went this morning. While I’m not totally sold on their “rah rah” motivational atmosphere (their wall clock says “Time to Amaze Yourself”) I do like their thirty minute approach – cause that’s about all I want to spend there anyway!

I’ve also tried out a couple of yoga classes at a new studio in my neighborhood and signed up for a water aerobics class. Can I just say now that water aerobics, done right, is hard!? I couldn’t walk for about 4 days after my first class. I wondered if I was going to be limping around Italy! I did enjoy it though and since I’ve already paid, I suppose I’ll be going back this week.

So, after two years of doing next to no exercise, I have a new (ambitious) plan. Barring school holidays, travel, or illness I intend to do yoga once a week, Curves three times a week, and water aerobics once a week. Next week will be my first full week. We’ll see how it pans out.

I’ve also been eating better – having so many evening sports activities with the children has forced me to do more meal planning. We’ve been eating such nice meals that I’ve even been able to keep my occasion longings for fast food in check. So what’s the problem?

The problem is when people like Shelley Munro go and post a recipe like this on their blogs! How’s a girl supposed to resist that? Optional chocolate chips, my foot!

Nothing good can come from it – well, maybe one thing: I’m sure to get crowned Best Mom ever after school today.