Adventures in Baking

So remember that little list at the end of my last post?
Well, this week I began checking off some of those items.
First I made the Cranberry Muffins with Orange Marmalade Glaze.
They were DeLiCioUs! Especially while they were still warm and fresh! So good and easy that I forgot to take pictures.

Then, I made the pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.
What a fiasco! I have never before made a bad cookie! I will NEVER use this recipe again. The author of this particular recipe attempted to make the cookies healthier by using less sugar. And maybe I did something terribly wrong in translation, or there is some little tip that she forgot to mention in her directions, but my cookies were awful.
Making them was fine.

This is a very typical pre-baked cookie shot. 

One would never suspect that something was wrong.

They came out like this:

They look like normal cookies, but not like normal PUMPKIN cookies, which really isn't the end of the world.

The flavor was great--enough pumpkin and spice, but they weren't puffy. 

And even when I baked them longer, they were still a little mushy. I deduced that this was the result of too much pumpkin.

My solution was to add a tad bit more flour. 

The next batch (3rd--pumpkin recipes make TONS of cookies) was less doughy, but still not puffy.

So I added maybe an 1/8-1/4 teaspoon more baking soda. 

And those came out like this:

As you can see, more poofy, but not really enough. I baked the last 2 batches without further adjustment because they tasted fine. 

Then, to my horror, after fully cooling, all of the cookies took on a dry-overly-floured-almost-sour (like baking soda) taste. This included the first few batches of cookies. 

All in all, I probably messed up huge somewhere. And the amendments I made to the recipe probably added to the chaos, but I honestly don't think that 2 Tbs of flour and 1/4 tsp baking soda would really make cookies that tasted that bad.

I've made pumpkin cookies before, and they were fine. I obviously just don't agree with this recipe.

So I threw away probably 30 rock-hard, too-much-flour tasting cookies.

That was sad.

But I have 3 more 29 oz. cans of pumpkin, so I'm bound to try again sometime.

So, wish me better luck in future baking endeavors. 

We'll call it all part of a learning experience :)

How to Be a Lego Pirate

Warning: There are lots of pictures, but honestly, words are not enough for this coolness!

So 11 days ago I was a Lego Pirate for Halloween!

No, I can't take all of the credit for my ingenious idea.

My friend Tanya Sanders always has super clever Halloween costumes, and once she was a blue lego piece. Thinking this was awesome, I decided to take it a step further. Peter had recently found a pirate lego key chain. This was it. I could still be a person and a lego!

So I enlisted Peter's help and we got to work--which all seemed to take place late at night.

He Measured &

 He Cut

 And then he Glued

 Checking for fit

I must say, I think I make a sweet pirate!

And then there was painting. This was my first experience with spray paint. All I can say is it was tiring and didn't work quite as well as anticipated. Oh well.

 I totally wrote lego on the back using a ton of painting tape--doesn't work quite as well with drippy spray paint.

I used a "Marks-A-Lot" Marker to fix the weird spots, and then it was finished!

Me after finishing:

I painted my face in the morning--Lego men are yellow. It wasn't quite the right yellow, but options are limited when it comes to Halloween makeup. Then there was also the problem of getting it off. It was on there good!

 And me in full costume at work---where I won 1st place in the costume contest!!!

So there's my sweet Halloween-spirit.
Now that it's the second week of November, I'm definitely in the mood for baking.

Things I intend to make very soon:
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Braided Cranberry Bread
Fall colored Oreo Balls
Sweet Potato Casserole
Apple Pie
Chicken Divan

It's all going to be so delicious and you should all be jealous!

I live in the Wilderness!

You'll appreciate this dad!

Check out what I saw outside my window just an hour ago!
(click on the pictures to make the BIGGER!)

I'm pretty sure that's a WILD PHEASANT!

If it's not wild, then it has escaped from somewhere, but it's in my yard!

How cool is that?!

I tried to take a picture when it was still close and in the open, but

of course the camera focused on the rain/snow spots on the outside of the window, so I had to sneak outside.

By the time I got outside, he had moved into the taller

grasses.

When he left, I took these cool pictures.

When I was interrupted by this:

Yeah, that's a wild deer! Haha.
S/he just stood there and looked at me for a little while while I took pictures of her.

Then she walked away and either started jumping or stamping at something--I couldn't see, but HOW COOL!

And just one more picture of the beautiful cool fall/winter morning here outside my front door!

It's a FLOOR!!!

It's not over, but the entry way floor is complete!!!!

This is us laying down the first of many squares! We used self-sticking vinyl. It was really easy to use and looks pretty good in my opinion. We'll see how it lasts.

This doesn't really fully reflect the true glory of the now finished (minus the molding--it'll be done in a few more weeks) floor, but this is a small taste. I'll amend the situation when I get home again : ) You can also see a bit of our painting job in this picture.

So, Tuesday night, at about 8 pm, we started and worked on laying the tiles together, but we weren't able to finish before 11pm. So we called it good and cleaned up for the night.

Wednesday evening while I was at work, Peter FINISHED! He was responsible for cutting all the edge pieces to fit perfectly against the wall--much harder than just lining up 2 already cut squares.

This is Peter cutting out a cardboard guide for going around a door frame:

And some pictures of progress!

We're on the Ward Activities Committee!

So, this happened 3 weeks ago now.

We're awful at blogging.

My reasoning is that every time I was online and had time to blog, I didn't have a memory card reader, and so I couldn't upload the pictures that I wanted to post. Yes, I could have blogged anyway and said something about posting later, but I didn't think of that until now.

So without further delay, here is the record of our part as Ward Activities Committee Members:

First, 6 jellyroll pans of yellow cake

Each pan holds 1.5 boxes of cake mix

And then there was rice!

Yes, there are 3 large, Costco size boxes.

Each contains approximately 37 1/2 cup servings.

We planned to serve 250 people because that is 1/2 of the ward. The task of cooking rice and cakes was divided between one other Sister and me.

I only cooked for about 125 people. Ward members were asked to bring rolls and salads--fruit and green. We also had a whole pig that was cooked in the ground all day long with hot rocks.

Here is his head!

So with all the variety in food, we had about 6 pans of rice left after the party. (about half the amount we made)

Peter and I brought home 2 pans of rice and one cake.

One rice and cake for the guys at school, and one pan of rice for us. We also had 1 cake because 5 pans of cake requires 8.5 cake mixes. I, therefore, added my own cake mix and had 6 pans.

The rice and cake at school were gone within 2 days.

At home we still have half a pan of rice, but the cake started to mold before we got more than half way done.

Posts that are more recent will likely follow shortly--or possibly not