Halloween Wishes & Treats

My celebration was baking a little bit today. One of our neighbor girls showed up on her bike about the time I was ready to begin (she was fundraising for her 5th grade basketball team). She offered to help bake as she loves to cook. We had fun!

Neighbor Girl helped me with the layers for these Candy Corn cookies, and pretty much made the Halloween Turtles all by herself. I paid her with candy and jewelry, and a jolly ball for her horses that my donkey girls just never really felt the love for.

These treats could also be made allll the way up to Thanksgiving (or beyond) if you like, of course! You can find the recipe for the Candy Corn cookies here. Thanks to a co-worker for finding these cute cookies!

For the Halloween Turtles, I modified another recipe found somewhere (sorry can’t remember!). Pretzels are the bottom layer, then place a Rolo’s or Great Value Creamy Caramel Milk Chocolate Cup (which is what I used), and bake at 350 for about 2 or 3 minutes. Just enough to soften the chocolate a bit. Lastly, press a candy corn in on top of the softened caramel/chocolate to complete the “turtle”.

Here are but a few completed Turtles and Candy Corn Cookies (the cookies are tiny & bite-sized & pretty yummy). A tip: watch the youtube video mentioned in the comments for the cookie recipe. It’s not that difficult, but hard to explain.

Hope to be back later this week with a post about a darling wedding shower I attended this weekend. It was Farm Girl themed, and, why yes… I do have pics :)  Hope everyone has, or is still enjoying, a fun-filled Halloween!

Hay & Straw, and other random things…

My first randomness - a random mosaic including a few of my favorite things in the pie safe.

A favorite towel – a gift from a favorite young lady; Shamrock in a crock; Mama & baby donkey – treasures found by my dear mother at a recent antique show & sale (thanks Mom!); Grandma Winfree’s sugar “stove” (very precious to me); Hummel donkey & cart (my most favorite eBay find ever); yet another donkey with one of last summer’s hydrangeas; Greta Goose’s egg which was Pysanki-painted just beautifully by our very talented neighbor, Colleen.

Did everyone have a nice Easter? We had a dual celebration, also celebrating the Fiddler’s birthday on Sunday afternoon. I fixed a simple lunch on Easter called “Hay & Straw.” It’s a Taste of Home recipe, and you can find it here if you like. Very easy and delicious! And I love the name! It consists of julienned strips of ham, linguine, frozen peas, parmesan cheese, butter, whipping cream (I used half & half). I put it in the big slow cooker on buffet setting and it worked perfectly. Along with a salad, we were good to go. Or at least until later, when we all pigged out on an enormous white cake with heavenly frosting & ice cream.

I have big plans to do a Thursday Walkabout tomorrow. We have a few blooming trees now. We’re loving Spring, but it’s so overwhelming the amount of things that need to be done. Like… right now!  The only thing holding us back is all this rain, but that has allowed more time for Spring Cleaning. Speaking of which, back to work I go… the Purge continues!

Enjoy your day!

Muffins, Cobbler and Storms.. Oh My!

Our Sunday began with a rather ominous looking sky.

The Heavens are parting… or so it seems!

Really, it was so strange ~ almost looked like we were living in Colorado mountains for awhile! Thankfully, the storm front only brought us some nice rain and just a few thunder-boomers. It also delivered some nice, cooler temps for the day, which worked out great for my blueberry-baking plans.

We had muffins with brunch ~

And Blueberry Cobbler this evening. I felt a little creative and made cut-outs for the top crust with some little cookie cutters. We took the cobbler with us to visit my parents. They supplied the ice cream accompaniment. We all enjoyed it! This is the before-baking picture~

After-baking – the chunky sugar crystals on top made it better I thought…

I may try this cookie-cutter method again next time. For me, it was easier than trying to keep a whole top crust together during transfer to the cobbler (or pie). I always manage to make a mess of that!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Barn/Cottage Update & Homemade Treats

The Blacksmith and Fiddler accomplished a lot today on the Barn/Cottage! We now have a fully functional, flushing toilet. Additionally, bead board panels now surround the entire bathroom, and a door was installed thus making the privy area pretty much private now.

Here is a view of the manifold, which is where all the water originates  for the Barn/Cottage.

There are many more details yet to finish for the bathroom area – a door knob, water heater, ceiling, install sink & vanity, hook up water to the tub/shower, install trim, a permanent light fixture – just to name a few items. But a lot was accomplished!

Additionally, the Fiddler, almost singlehandedly framed up this wall that separates the Cottage from the Barn. This was his first framing lesson ~ well done! We have a French door that will be installed in this wall.

I spent the day catching up on laundry and other neverending chores. I also started painting the metal chairs for the porch. This morning I “churned” butter and baked whole wheat beer bread. I got this fabulous butter recipe from Evening Shade Morning Latte. You may view the recipe here, and be sure to check out her other great recipes.  Here are a few glimpses of my butter-making process. Yes, I cheated and used the KitchenAid mixer. It was SO easy! Here you can see it turning to butter, and separating from the buttermilk.

After about 13 minutes on medium-high, here is what I had.. draining the buttermilk here.

And into the crock it went.

I have to confess I tried this butter recipe the other day and I ended up with salty whipped cream. It never quite made it to the butter stage – guess I hurried it up a little too much! Homemade butter calls for homemade bread so I used one of my favorite quick recipes - Farmgirl Susan's Almost Too Easy Whole Wheat Beer Bread. My bread never turns out as pretty as Susan’s, but this recipe is always tasty.

All in all, a tasty duo, and a good treat for my carpenters and me! (Yikes, and another reason to start that diet Monday!)

Hope you’re enjoying the weekend!