Daily Dish - Apple Pie

Apparently, it's fall.  Living in SoCal, we don't experience much for seasonal changes.  The fact that we started off October with triple digit heat has me wondering when the time will come for soup, hot cocoa and snuggling under blankets.  Perhaps I'll get the cool down in time for my maternity leave. 

Regardless of what the weather is doing outside though, there is no bad time for apple pie.  I have scored some great deals on Granny Smith apples at the store recently, so decided to venture into pie baking.  I'm a dutch apple pie kind of girl, as I can be picky about how the top is baked with regular pastry, so when I found this recipe for Butter Crumble Apple Pie, I knew I was onto a winner.  It's so unbelievably easy, but lives up to it's name (i.e. buttery and crumbly).  We ate this topped with a little Cool Whip, and also tried it a la mode for subsequent tastings.  I can assure you it's delicious with both.  :)

What are you looking forward to for fall?

Daily Ramblings - Freshly showered!

This Saturday, I had my baby shower. It seemed like the shower was so far away, but then I realize I'm 35 weeks today and my pregnant self is rounding the last curve, heading straight toward the finish line!

My girls, Holly and Paige, had been conspiring on my shower theme for weeks.  They had my mother-in-law (who graciously allowed us to invade her house) fully entrenched in the conspiracy, so I was very much in the dark on their plans until I showed up.  They ran with the fact that I'm still a British citizen, and went full-on UK themed - union jacks, shepherd's pie, sausage rolls, royal family facemasks, the whole deal!  I was even given a rubber duck fascinator (a duckinator?) to wear - which is why you should never make frivolous comments about "you know what would be funny" to a crafty person as they will probably make it happen.

So, while Holly was busy being super crafty, Paige was a baking fiend.  Both of them have toddlers in the house, so no clue how they managed to accomplish everything they did.  My desert bar was insane, with a variety of treats that were all delicious (and some of which now reside in my freezer for emergencies during maternity leave).  In a slightly sick and twisted moment, Paige made the inside of the baby cake cops red velvet.  I've never felt so guilty to be chomping on a baby's head....not that I do that often anyway.  She also super-imposed husband's head onto the body of a baby, which was both hilarious and simultaneously creeped out all his family members.  It is still making me giggle! 

All in all, I'm such a lucky girl to have the best collection of family and friends who were there to celebrate with me.  It was fun, relaxing, and overall, I had a fantastic time.  The girls were even sneaky enough to Skype in my parents from the UK so that they could join in my special day.  This did result in spontaneous weeping on my part (that's one hell of a surprise to spring on a preggo lady) but I couldn't have asked for more.

Thanks ladies!  You are both so amazingly fabulous and talented...and quite frankly - you rock.  :)

Daily Dish - Mini Pumpkin Muffins

Continuing the Halloween theme for the week, my friend Holly over at Indie Home Ec sent me this recipe for mini pumpkin muffins and promised even I wouldn't be able to completely bugger it up.  So, I gave it a shot...

If any of you have been paying attention to what I cook, you may have noticed that baking is not on the list of things that I do (albeit on the list of things I'd like to do better).  I figure most people fall into either the cooking or the baking category.  I'm firmly in the cooking camp seeing as I generally don't measure things, which is really a problem when trying to bake, and my past attempts at baking have been, um, "questionable."

Pumpkin Pie Spice (makes 1 tsp):
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground allspice (or clove)

I think it says enough about my usual baking skills when husband got home from class, walked into the kitchen to find me blending flour-y stuff with pumpkin-y stuff, and the first words out of his mouth are "I can't believe you're baking...and it's not from a box".  As if that wasn't bad enough, while I was happily filling the regular sized muffin cups, I asked him to grab the mini muffin tray from the cabinet.  He says, "you mean this one?  In the wrapper?"  Yes, the one we got as a wedding gift...nearly 4 years ago.

Regardless, 25 minutes later, I had a batch of muffins ready for cooling and tasting.  We both ate one and success!  They were moist, tasty, not deformed (which is more of an accomplishment for me than you might realize) and, as husband pointed out, "at least you didn't burn them".  It has to be said, the recipe is pretty foolproof as the pumpkin keeps everything nice and moist; plus they're not bad for you.  100 calories for 3 mini muffins (or 1 regular sized muffin as an estimate) is almost completely guilt free.  I just wish I'd had a little more granola to sprinkle on top.

I finally baked something from scratch that is worthy of feeding to other people - and even brought some to work.  I'm happy to report that all of my co-workers survived and none of them seem to have called in with food poisoning, so we'll call this one a win!

Daily Dish - A bread maker and some pizza

I was just searching through my posts and I'm perplexed as to how on earth I have not posted about my bread maker.  You may remember the "great Santa Barbara pizza experiment" from last year.  My brother loves his bread maker and decided he needed to get me one for my birthday.  I'm not sure if it's a sign of age or a sign of loving food that makes kitchen appliances such an appealing gift for me.  Next though, I might be needing new kitchen counters as a gift so I can store all my awesome appliances - will have to put that on my wish list.

Since getting the bread maker, one of our favorite things has become home-made pizza.  I've heard that pizza can be a somewhat healthy and balanced thing to eat - especially if you're using all fresh ingredients instead of the oily, salty, instant-bloat version that you might order from Dominoes.  I was never the biggest fan of pizza, although I do believe I'm being converted.

This version was chicken with portobello mushroom, onion and olives, on a home made pizza sauce, then topped with spinach and mozzarella.  2 slices and I'm full!  That's better than ordering a large pizza with a girlfriend and realizing there's only 2 slices left to finish off the entire pie, so daring each other to do it, and then having to live with the regret.....ask me how I know.

We've also been making some pretty tasty loaves of bread.  The only thing we haven't figured out is how to store them so that they don't go bad quite as quickly.  It's also nice to know that as a rather sucky baker, I can totally cheat make delicious sweets using this machine - banana bread from scratch?  Sure!  It's not cheating if I put all the ingredients in the machine myself...