Baking Therapy

Last week was long. Why does a 5 day week always feel so much longer after a 4-day week? Work has been hectic as a few projects have been coming to a close, or at least I thought they were coming to a close. By the time I left Friday, I was mentally exhausted. Luckily I have a wonderful husband who went to the liquor store and bought some beer to go with our planned taco dinner.

Saturday was my BFF's 26th birthday and we were celebrating with a BBQ in their backyard. This was the perfect night to have some baking therapy and make some sweet treats to bring to Saturday's BBQ.

I knew I wanted to make cupcakes because what's a birthday without some type of cake? I made funfetti vanilla cupcakes with a semi-sweet chocolate buttercream icing. The frosting was my favorite part. I thought the cupcakes turned out looking awesome, but tasted a little dry. I guess I'll just have to keep making cupcakes to perfect the recipe!







I was a little concerned that there wouldn't be enough cupcakes because I had no clue how many people would be at this BBQ, but my friend has a huge family, so I decided I should whip up a batch of cookies too.

Meet my plate

The USDA released new eating guidelines this week. They have retired the food pyramid we all grew up learning about and replaced it with an image of a plate. Personally, I really like this idea. I think it helps people truly visualize how their plate should look. Plus, it does a good job of pointing out that grains should only be about 1/4 of your plate. Gone are the days where we all got to carbo-load all day and justify it with "but the food pyramid says I need 6-10 servings"...

I perused the new website as well today and was pleasantly surprised by how much information was available. I think the USDA has done a really good job keeping the information simple, providing tips on how to make your diet healthier, and even including tools to help you track your food or plan meals. If you haven't yet, I suggest you venture over to choosemyplate.gov and check out all the info!

One of my favorite parts was the Key Consumer Message that shows up on screens throughout the website. I appreciate that they encourage you to enjoy food, because it should be enjoyed!

Key Consumer Messages:
● Enjoy your food, but eat less.
● Avoid oversized portions.
● Drink water instead of sugary drinks.

A long weekend

May came and went extremely quickly this year. I woke up yesterday and was completely surprised to realize that it was already June! (Okay, I probably wasn't completely surprised since I have had access to a calendar for the past 31 days, but you get my point).

The holiday weekend was a busy one for us. We had numerous things to do and places to go, but were blessed that through all this, we got to stay in town for the weekend. There's just something so nice about sleeping in your own bed at the end of a busy day. Our weekend included the following:

1. A trip to the Kansas City Zoo (If you haven't been in awhile, I highly recommend it. There are a lot of new exhibits, including one very active-lap-swimming-polar-bear. He was impressive. Maybe it was a she. Either way, still impressive.

2. Lunch at a "new for us" restaurant: Blue Koi. There are two locations, one in midtown on 39th street about a block down from KU Medical Center) and one in Leawood at the Mission Farms complex. We went to the 39th street location.

We've been wanting to try this place and finally had an opportunity after the zoo. We had the Eggplant pockets for an appetizer. They were good but they were battered and fried with a very thick batter. This just seemed very heavy compared to the rest of the meal. I would have liked this more with just a light battered crunch. We split chicken dumplings and a mushroom/pork dish with rice for our entrees. The dumplings were really good while the pork was a little bland. also, there were only 2 mushrooms in the WHOLE meal. If you're going to put mushroom in the name of the dish, shouldn't it include more than 2 of them? Overall a good experience, despite some extremely slow service. Our friends assured us that the service usually isn't that slow so we would try it again.

3. Celebration at the Station: This is a tradition for Chase's family so I've been the last 3 years. For those of you who haven't been, this is a memorial day celebration where the Kansas City Symphony gives a free concert outside Union Station and then fireworks are shot off behind Liberty Memorial. It's always packed but we are lucky enough to have some family friends who get there early and save us a spot every year!

4. Amy Thompson Run: Chase and I spent our Memorial Day morning running an 8k. That's just short of 5 miles! It was hot and the race was tough, but we survived and enjoyed a nice big breakfast with Chase's parents afterwards at First Watch. Yum.

5. Yardwork: This is a never ending item on the to-do list. It never gets crossed off because there's always more to do. Luckily, Chase's parents came over this weekend and helped us with some of it, which made a huge dent in what needed to be done. Chase and I honestly have the best parents ever. Both of our sets of parents have helped us so much with various projects around the house; we would be lost without them!

6. Royals Game! We spent Monday afternoon at the Royals Game. The weather was beautiful and the game started out really great. Unfortunately, in true Royals fashion, they were letting in runs in the late innings and Soria lost it in the 9th. There was a really cool proposal by a soldier to his girlfriend during the game, so that was fun to see. Normally I am not a fan of the baseball game proposals, but this one was a specially taped video of a soldier who hadn't been home in over a year and then surprised the girl with a weekend trip home to propose! She was so excited to see him she practically tackled him. It was really sweet.

I also made some bacon peanut butter cups this weekend, but you'll have to wait for those details until a later post!

How was your weekend?

Peanut Butter Pancakes

I've been wanting to make pancakes for breakfast for a few weeks now but just never seem to have time. This morning we woke up with nothing pressing on the agenda so it seemed like the perfect day. I was feeling a little creative as well, so I embarked on making peanut butter pancakes. And I must say, I think they turned out pretty delicious!

Here's the recipe! Admittedly, I used pancake mix since we already had some rather than making them completely from scratch.

Peanut Butter Pancakes
2 cups pancake mix
1 1/4 cups of milk
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 Tbsp sugar
3 Tbsp peanut butter



Put all ingredients in a bowl and whisk briskly until well blended.



Heat a skillet over medium heat. Using a 1/3 cup measuring cup, pour batter onto heated skillet. Flip pancakes once small air bubbles start forming on top (about 3 or 4 minutes).



Cook another minute or two until golden brown.



Makes about 15 pancakes. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Muffins!

I know it's not exactly prime time to be making something with pumpkin, but we've had a can of pumpkin puree in our pantry for about a year now and I was determined to use it up. Plus, I really felt like baking but was out of brown sugar, which was limiting my options. So Saturday night I whipped up a batch of pumpkin muffins (with the help of THIS recipe, of course).

A few notes:
1. I don't like coconut so I substituted oats in the topping instead.
2. We didn't have pecans so I used almonds in the topping as well.
*The oatmeal and almond topping was delicious and if I make these again, I will continue substituting these items.

3. I used nutmeg instead of coriander. Not because I think they are good substitutes, but because I didn't have coriander. I'm sure it would have been fine to just leave it out but I thought nutmeg would go nicely with the pumpkin flavor.

4. When the filling recipe says to beat the cream cheese BEFORE adding the egg and sugar, do it. I was not paying attention, threw the egg and cream cheese in a bowl together, and ended up with a liquefied mess. It still turned out fine but I think the "filling" really just mixed in with the batter during baking rather than acting as a layer of filling.

5. Try using cupcake liners. I baked these right in the pan, but they were a little difficult to get out. Let me know how it goes if you use paper liners.

6. Put the muffin tin on a cookie sheet before baking, especially if the cups are really full. The topping is quite messy and I now have another "to-do" on my list: Clean the Oven.

7. I had to bake these for about 40 minutes, not 20-25 as the recipe suggests.

8. Share these with someone! They turned out delicious and it was really difficult not to devour them in one sitting. Luckily we spent all day Sunday at my in-laws house so we were able to bring some over there for sharing.

Sorry I didn't take any pictures. I will tell you that mine turned out looking pretty similar to the pictures on the link, so I think that is a plus.

A few recent projects

I feel like I've been neglecting my blog for awhile, but sometimes life just takes over. The past 4 weekends have been very busy for me, with family events, Easter, a baby shower in St. Louis, and Mother's Day. On the bright side, our calendar is opening up quite a bit over the next few weekends so we can start enjoying this beautiful weather!

A good friend of mine from college is having a little girl in July. She is an extremely sweet lady and will be one amazing mom, I have no doubt! Oddly enough, even though we went to college together, it was after college that we became good friends. I am so blessed to have been surrounded by so many wonderful ladies in my Undergraduate degree program, and even more blessed that we continue to keep in touch today. Of course when she announced she was pregnant, me and a friend offered to throw her an amazing shower. However, we were too late and another friend had already snagged the hostess role. I still made sure to have the date on my calendar months in advance so I wouldn't miss it, and a few weeks ago made the 4-hour drive to St. Louis to see the lovely mommy-to-be. I bought a bunch of her miscellaneous items and put together a gift basket, which I must say turned out adorable in my opinion. I'm always really excited when a crafty idea in my head actually turns out as good or better than I imagined it (this is usually not the case). Here's a snapshot I was able to get before she opened it.



This past weekend Chase and I spent much of Saturday doing yard work. Last year I planted a garden, which really means I threw random seeds in the ground around mid-June after all my starter plants had died inside, in hopes that something would grow. And it did! We had one extremely large stalk of basil (does basil grow in stalks?), 2 HUGE zucchini plants (which really only rendered about 6 or 7 zucchini since we didn't know we needed to help pollinate the flowers ourselves), a cucumber plant (which rendered exactly 1 cucumber), and a TON of cilantro. It turns out that we don't really like cilantro that much and saw no reason to grow it this year.

This year I had big plans! I mean, it's been on my to-do list for about 4 months now to plan my garden. I have the Square Foot Gardening book and have skimmed through it; I was completely ready to create the ultimate SFG. Sadly, time got away and I felt overwhelmed trying to start my garden without some help, so we're winging it again this year! We figured our soil is decent since everything grew so well last year, so we bought some compost to mix in, as well as throwing in what was left of some potting soil we had from another project, and mixed it all in. This year I tried to methodically space my seeds appropriate distances, and we even bought a hose so the garden will actually get watered! (My garden from last year is sounding more impressive now that you know we didn't even have a hose, isn't it?) We did buy 2starter plants, a tomato plant and a bell pepper plant. They look impressive right now, but I figure it's only a matter of time before they are sad and pathetic. Oh, we also planted zucchini, cucumber, arugula, and basil. We figured we would stick with the staples for this year, but next year, I'll have a lush SFG, I promise!

Planning frenzy

The past week has been a whirlwind of internet research in our house. One week ago today, we were convinced we absolutely could not and would not be going to France. Everything was just too expensive and we didn't feel like we could justify that expense when there are so many other things around the house we should spend our money on. However, ultimately our desire to travel and my desire to see my friends won over and by Thursday evening we were actually seriously talking about going. By Friday evening, we had booked flights. Sometimes it feels completely irresponsible and irrational to plan a trip to France on a whim like this, but it's also been very exciting. And I really needed some good planning projects. I've been going through planning withdrawl since the wedding ended.

On the bright side, we have found a hotel to stay at in Paris the first few days of our trip. It's actually a B&B of sorts. We're excited for the opportunity to stay with some locals and be able to interact with them a bit, as well as saving some money over booking a traditional hotel. Yesterday I sent out my passport to have it updated with my married name! Now if we could just get the rest of our trip planned I could spend my time planning my wardrobe instead of researching various transportation and lodging options!