September's Dessert

We made this cake last weekend, and by "we" I mean Jared. I was going to send the recipe to you then but I was really busy and/or lazy. Here is a picture of it. It was really easy and deliciously decadent.

Mississippi Mud Cake

1 cup chopped pecans                                               

1 cup butter                                                                       

1 (4 oz) semi sweet chocolate baking bar             

2 cups sugar                                                                       

1 ½ cups all purpose flour                                             

½ cup unsweetened cocoa
4 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 (10.5 oz) bag miniature marshmallow
Chocolate frosting

1.       Place pecans in a single layer on baking sheet. Bake at 350 for 8 to 10 minutes.

2.       Microwave 1 cup butter and semisweet chocolate  in a large bowl at high 1 minute or until melted and smooth, stirring every 30 seconds

3.       Whisk sugar and next 5 ingredients into chocolate mixture. Pour batter into a greased 15x10x1” pan.

4.       Bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Remove from oven, and sprinkle evenly with miniature marshmallows; Bake 8 to 10 more minutes or until golden brown. Drizzle warm cake with chocolate frosting (recipe follows) and sprinkle with toasted pecans.

CHOCOLATE FROSTING

½ cup butter

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa

1/3 cup milk

1 (16 oz)package powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Stir together first 3 ingredients in a medium saucepan over medium heat until butter is melted. Cook, stirring constantly for 2 minutes or until slightly thickened. Remove from heat. Beat in powdered sugar at medium speed with electric mixer until smooth.

September Meal

Grilled Chicken Cola Marinade

2 C (16 oz) Coke or Pepsi

1/3 C soy sauce

1 T minced garlic

1/2 C brown sugar

1 T balsamic vinegar

1 T lime juice

6 chicken breasts

1. Combine all ingredients but the chicken in a medium sized bowl. Stir to incorporate well.

2. Place chicken in a large gallon sized Ziploc bag. Pour marinade over the chicken. Seal tightly and store in the fridge for 4-24 hours (The longer the better in my book).

3. Discard marinade and grill until cooked through.

Birds and Butterflies

After I saw Liz's mobile craft a while back I decided to make one myself. I did it one night a few weeks ago and finally took a couple of pictures of it to post. Thank you Liz for your idea. It was simple and fun. Now I will try to make some ceramic "thing". I haven't yet decided if I will go for the normal pot or bowl or if I will try some other object. Either way I will start to work on it this week.

August Food - Created by Liz

The Chicken Broccoli Wraps were DELICIOUS! (At least according to me, if not to everyone who ate it.) Andrew wasn't home, so I decided to make it for my parents. I already knew that Dad wasn't a big fan of broccoli, so my mom suggested we make his without. Of course, he is very polite and would never tell me he didn't like the food, I noticed that he didn't eat the chicken.....and without chicken or broccoli, all you really have is a soggy tortilla. Oh well, my mom said that she liked it....and she did have half of a second one, so I think I will believe her. I am planning on making them again for Andrew, hopefully he will like them because they are super yummy and super easy to make.



The Chocolate Zucchini Cake was a pretty standard Chocolate Cake, I don't think it stood out to me in any way as special or as disgusting. As I was making the cake I noticed that I was short 1 egg....so I substituted for 1 tablespoon of light miracle whip. It seemed to work out all right. For frosting I bought a "fudge Chocolate w/ mini chocolate chips" frosting. I think it may have been a touch too much and if I make this cake again, I will use a lighter frosting.

Baby Blanket

Here is a blanket I crocheted for Karston. I started it last Fall, right after we found out we were having a boy. I was almost finished with it at Christmas, but when we brought home a puppy, I put it away. I had heard that yarn was really dangerous for puppies since they like to chew and eat EVERYTHING and yarn could get wrapped around their intestines and whatnot.....so this project got put away and forgotten about. Then last month I decided it was time to finish it. It's fairly skiwampish, however every time I try to crochet a blanket I do get a little bit better and this is my best so far. I remember the first time I tried to make a baby blanket, it was the FUGLIEST thing I had ever seen. No way did I want to keep it, but it seemed sad to throw all of that hard work away, so I gave it to my sister-in-law after her baby was born. I do hope she did what I couldn't, and threw it away the first chance she got. This is my first real attempt at "granny squares" it was easier to attach them then I had thought it was going to be. All in all I do enjoy crocheting, hopefully someday I'll be FREAKIN' AWESOME at it!


PS - When I bought the yarn, I didn't buy baby yarn because they didn't have baby yarn in the colors I wanted, so I bought other yarn that I thought was soft.....turns out the yarn is not very much on the soft side. Do you think if I rinse it in Deft and Fabric Softener the yarn will become soft?

Works in progress

It seems to me that my crafts are all very similar, maybe in the future I should try something different...but for now here is more stuff I have been doing... A few weeks ago while Jared and his coworkers where doing some training in Washington DC, and I was dog-sitting moo, I decided to sketch the dogs. The blue one is tiny, the green one is Moo.


Now I'm sketching Aiden. His picture is not done yet, it is actually a work in progress...if I ever finish it, I'll post the finished product...

My Simple Little Craft

I realize that my crafts won't really be anything compared to Edda's crafts....however, I had fun making this mobile....

and Karston seems to like it as much as he would have liked any that I could have bought for him. At first I was hesitant to make my own, since it wouldn't spin around, but the breeze from the swamp cooler and the ceiling fan spin it around! All together it only cost $8 (Shiny cardstock, and new fishing line). So I suppose I can give myself a mark for provident living! I did get lazy at the end, and as you can see I didn't thread any string through the center of the top circle, and now it bends in the middle. I may or may not care enough to go back and fix it in the future. If I had to bet on it, I would say I won't be caring enough to do anything about it.