A beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Since I haven't posted in a month and a half, I suppose it goes without saying that things have been busy.

Fall semester's official, final line-up: sociology, social work, psychology, and anthropology with a professor who's apparently some sort of natural birth activist - so I feel like we'll get along well!

We finally found a church home - after much ado, we're thrilled with this church, and incidentally my grandparents (and former boss!) are members there. It's been very nice getting to see my grandparents every Sunday morning. New member classes start in early October, but we go every week now.

We have a foster puppy here with us. She is a 15 week old deaf Aussie named Natalie, and she is an absolute doll. It remains to be seen how long she will be here with us, but we're in no particular hurry to rush her along. She's sweet and spunky, phenomenal with frisbee, Violet and Java both adore her and go out of their way to be gentle with her. Dogs have kept our hands full, but what's new there? Wouldn't have that any other way. Pictures of Natalie will follow, naturally.

Wedding: save the dates are out, engagement pictures are taken, little things are getting done bit by bit. Favors are assembled, things like that. 14 weeks and counting until our wedding day - it seems so real and soon. I'm thrilled. More than likely, at least one dog will accompany us on our honeymoon. Come on, what did you expect?

The rest: slowly, slowly starting to make space and rearrange the house for the time, post-wedding, that we'll expand the family. Photography. Lots of new recipes. The daycare. Family. Eric's birthday last week. 15 days until the fall semester starts. The next two weeks are the calm before the storm - maybe I'll actually do some blogging, huh?

 

Natalie's Martha Stewart sheep: forsaken for a dollar store sheepskin sheep.

 

Wonder Muffins.

The Violet picture apropos of nothing, this post is about recipes. Today kicks off Healthy Eating Week, which - budget and popularity allowing - will segue into Healthy Eating Lifetime. Eric, Adam, and Mary are far from health food fans, and in fact have absolutely no criteria for food other than "tastes good." I'm getting married in 11 months and I'd really like to take off some weight before then. My initial plan was to make them whatever and make myself a separate, healthy meal, but I decided that if at all possible, it'd be better and more cost effective to try to combine the two.

So tonight I embarked upon an easy, tasty sounding Hungry Girl recipe for Honey Mustard Pretzel Coated Chicken Fingers. They were awesome. Mary is allergic to anything relatively healthy and said that they were the best thing I've ever made, and Eric said that on a 1-10 scale they're an 8, and really, this is very, very high praise from him. The 16 year old liked them a lot, too. I wanted them to be a little crispier, but I enjoyed them. It's for 1, so I just multiplied as needed. Mind you, it's not truly health food, but it's not unhealthy. With some Green Giant Garden Medley (yummy red potatoes, sugar snap peas, and red bell peppers) and crescent rolls (still in the fridge from the last, less health-conscious shopping trip, and I'm not about to waste good crescent rolls), it was a great dinner.

PER SERVING (entire recipe): 349 calories, 2.5g fat, 928mg sodium, 39g carbs, 1g fiber, 13.5g sugars, 37g protein -- PointsPlus® value 8*

Ingredients: 

• 3 tbsp. honey mustard 
• 2 tbsp. fat-free liquid egg substitute (like Egg Beaters Original) 
• 5 oz. raw boneless skinless lean chicken breast, cut into 4 strips 
• 2 dashes salt 
• 2 dashes black pepper 
• 1 oz. (about 10 twists) hard salted pretzels, finely crushed 
• 2 tsp. granulated sugar 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Mix mustard with egg substitute in a small bowl. Season chicken with salt and pepper, and then submerge in the mustard-egg mixture. Set aside to marinate for at least 5 minutes.
3. Mix crushed pretzels with sugar and spread out on a plate.
4. Spray a baking sheet with nonstick spray. Thoroughly coat chicken strips with the pretzel-sugar mixture, and then transfer to the baking sheet. (Discard excess mustard-egg mixture.) Mist the tops of the strips with nonstick spray.
5. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes, flipping chicken halfway through baking, until chicken is cooked through.
6. Eat and enjoy!

MAKES 1 SERVING

Awesome. I highly recommend it.

Meanwhile, I was baking. I found a recipe for Blueberry Power Muffins, intended as a breakfast. At 244 calories for two muffins and some decent ingredients (yogurt, almonds, oats, whole wheat flour), I thought, hey, why not? The recipe says that they can also be frozen and easily reheated for a breakfast, or just one with a 100 calorie bowl of oatmeal would make a nice, 222 calorie breakfast.

So I made them. I was a little leery because honestly, I'm not a fan of yogurt, and the batter smelled pretty yogurty. But if I may have a moment of adult language, holy shit. I tried one, and it was massively delicious. Like oh my god delicious. Like no one would know if I hid in the kitchen and ate them all delicious. Of course that would defeat the purpose of their relatively healthy properties, but I can't even believe that these things are healthy. Nothing that delicious can be healthy. I made it with skim milk, Egg Beaters, and probably slightly more blueberries than called for. Without further ado...

Blueberry Power Muffins with Almond Streusel

We call these "power" muffins because they're loaded with B vitamins from whole wheat flour, calcium from milk and yogurt, antioxidants from blueberries, and heart-friendly monounsaturated fat from almonds and canola oil. You can freeze the muffins for up to a month, then thaw them at room temperature, or microwave each muffin at HIGH 15 to 20 seconds.

Yield: 15 servings (serving size: 2 muffins)

PER SERVING: Calories: 244, Calories from fat: 23%, Fat: 6.1g, Saturated fat: 1.3g, Monounsaturated fat: 2.9g, Polyunsaturated fat: 1.4g, Protein: 6.1g, Carbohydrate: 42.3g, Fiber: 2.5g, Cholesterol: 18mg, Iron: 1.5mg, Sodium: 260mg, Calcium: 136mg

Muffin Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, divided
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup quick-cooking oats
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups vanilla low-fat yogurt
• 1/2 cup 2% reduced-fat milk
• 3 tablespoons canola oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
• Cooking spray

Streusel Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup slivered almonds, chopped
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon butter, melted

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400°.
2. To prepare muffins, lightly spoon flours into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, oats, granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk.
3. Make a well in center of mixture.
4. Combine yogurt, milk, oil, vanilla, and egg, stirring with a whisk.
5. Add yogurt mixture to flour mixture; stir just until moist.
6. Fold in blueberries.
7. Spoon 2 rounded tablespoons batter into each of 30 muffin cups coated with cooking spray.
8. To prepare streusel, combine 1/4 cup all-purpose flour, almonds, brown sugar, and butter. Sprinkle evenly over batter.
9. Bake at 400° for 15 minutes or until muffins spring back when touched lightly in center.
10. Cool in pans 10 minutes on a wire rack; remove from pans.
11. Serve warm or at room temperature.

You want to make them. Get up, get off of Blogger, go to the grocery store, and make these muffins.

Imaginary cake.

So whenever it's someone's birthday, they get their choice of whatever baked good they want, and I'll make it, or at least try to. Eric wanted a carrot cake. My dad did too. My grandmother wanted an apple pie. What does my mom want? A cannoli cake that my (3 years deceased) great grandmother used to make when she was a kid.

You may be aware that cannolis are...things. Cream in pastry tubes. Not a cake.

But, no. She says it was a creamy fillimg of some description, layered with ladyfingers. Sound like anything else you've heard of? Like...oh...tiramisu? But no, she insists, it is similar to tiramisu but not the same. Also, it has chocolate shavings on top. Well, chocolate shavings I can do.

Cooking with Collies: Imaginary Cake Edition

So I cobbled together a Frankenrecipe involving cannoli filling from one recipe, homemade ladyfingers from another, a ladyfinger soaking technique from another, a putting-it-all together plan from the only thing I could find on the entire internet - the entire freakin' internet, guys - called "cannoli cake." I rolled up the sleeves on my cardigan, grabbed my cooking assistant Collie, and headed to the kitchen.

I made the ladyfingers, which turned out alright - a little chewier than I think of ladyfingers being, but I assumed that they would soften with soaking, and they did, to a nice, normal ladyfinger texture. I soaked them in coffee and imitation rum, which Eric fairly enough said smelled like a hangover, but in the finished product they tasted as ladyfingers should, which is definitely an acquired taste. Then came the cannoli filling.

First of all, this required separating like half a dozen egg-yolk pairings. Second of all, I found a freaking chicken embryo in one.

I'll let that sink in for a moment.

Reactions to this bit of news have been mixed, divided evenly between gross-out oh hell no, shock and bewilderment of the "I've been cracking eggs for 40 years and that's never happened" variety, and, most perplexingly to me, "That's never happened to you before?" Well hell no it hadn't.

I was so alarmed and traumatized that that was pretty much a half hour detour. Ultimately, I had to beat this stuff for ten minutes. With a hand mixer, thank God, but I was beating some peanut butter stuff the other day for three minutes and it seemed like a freakishly long time. Ten minutes...well, Eric left to pick Adam up from school, got halfway there, called me, and I was still beating. My wrist got sore. It was insane. "Beat ten minutes, until light and fluffy."

Ten minutes came, light and fluffy never did. It was like a thick pudding consistency. I layered it as instructed and ended up putting it in the freezer to hopefully thicken (or freeze, whatev) which it did sort of? It's not a "pile of stuff on a plate" kind of thing, it holds its form, but if you take too long to eat it, it sort of melts. I have no idea what went wrong. It's tasty. I just seem to have an ongoing problem in my life called "Why is this soup/batter/dough/filling so thin?" I do not know why, but I hope to one day get a handle on it.

It had some damn chocolate shavings. Hand-shaved from a Ghirardelli chocolate bar.

In other news, theme of the week has been getting busted snuggling. First it was Eric and Violet.

Busted.

"I wasn't snuggling this Collie. I was being real mean to her."

  

A couple days later it was Piper and Violet (whose nose wasn't really as up Peep's butt as it appears, it's just the angle), ruining Peep's big black Shepherd reputation. They've been all but spooning lately, regularly. Violet's Christmas collar seen here.

Cream puffs and other things.

Today for dinner I made chicken florentine, baked potatoes, and cream puffs from scratch. They were the hugest pain in my ass - I screwed up one step very, very minorly, but it caused the cream to come out much too thin (almost liquid) and led me to do all sorts of ridiculous things to remedy the situation (including but certainly not limited to adding whipped cream in hopes of adding some "fluff" - homemade whipped cream, which I made on the spot, which took a while, what kind of person keeps heavy whipping cream on hand but not some damn aerosol Cool Whip? Me.), and ultimately it came out a perfect consistency. The original recipe is here, I tweaked a few things. If you try it, make sure you don't take the cream off the heat too soon. I got jumpy about not burning it and it didn't get to thicken enough.

How did I ever cook anything before I had a trusty and loyal Collie to lay beside me in the kitchen? 

Dewey pulled a huge blanket out of the crate and across the room to make himself a little nest and settle in during the cooking.

They got a little wild.

Thank God for patient Collies. Violet wonders when Dewey's gonna be done being a baby.

She's learning a "bang" trick. Basically the word "bang" and a finger gun cues a "play dead." She demonstrates above.

Gourds.

Eric's cactus.

The incredible potty trained three month old. Dewey, asking to go outside.

 

Red bell pepper.

Cream puffs!

In other news, I decided once and for all today to try to apply to the BSW program at IUPUI. I've been back and forth between a bachelor's in psychology and a bachelor's in social work for months, completely angsty and indecisive about it. Both have pros and cons, BSW program is more relevant to my career goals/plans to get my MSW post-grad, but my big hang-up has been that it's fairly competitive to get into. I'll need a lot of volunteer work and letters of recommendation between now and next fall semester, but when I type that out, not going for it seems like a cop-out, and it is. I'm nervous about starting in January, I feel like I have no frame of reference for what to expect (will it be easier than I think? Harder? Will I be completely overwhelmed? Bored?), and I don't. (More on that another day.) But the way the timing works out, I don't have to apply until I've finished the spring and summer semesters, so I think I'll have my footing at that point, and if I feel like I should stick with psychology then, I can. But if not, I'll be starting on volunteer work now and will be putting myself on a path that will allow me to apply for the BSW program if I feel like I can. I feel good about it. Mary has some contacts that may get me hooked up with a soup kitchen (I'm excited - I love volunteering), and my grandmother's church has some opportunities as well. I'm hoping to get three regular/recurring volunteers positions lined up within the next week or so.

Return of the World-Famous Pearch Cobbler

So I have this recipe for peach-pear cobbler. It started as a recipe that I just found somewhere for basic peach cobbler, and has been modified in various ways over the years. For a long time, it was my default offering at barbecues, potlucks, holiday dinners and the like, and a favorite on the home-front as well, even (especially) with the notoriously picky, notoriously sweet-tooth-lacking Eric. When I planned to bring it to his family Thanksgiving, he told his mother (apparently seriously) that it was a special cobbler, "made with only the pear part of the peaches." I don't know what the hell he was talking about, it just has peaches and pears in it, but it's evolved to be known as Pearch Cobbler, as it was noted on the list of Thanksgiving attendees and their food that year.


Well, I moved 10 months ago, in the beginning of January, and...horror of horrors, the recipe was lost.


Perhaps not lost lost, but theoretically boxed up in the garage somewhere. I went out there and nosed around looking for it again and again, to no avail. Someone asked me to kindly locate the damn cobbler recipe about monthly, often more. Sometimes they would gang up on me, make cobbler demands en masse, demanding the cobbler with mob-like intensity. I couldn't find the recipe.


Well, I cleaned out the garage last weekend, and holy cannoli I found the recipe. There was singing and rejoicing, and that actually is not an exaggeration - I heard from one person an original song with "cobbler is coming" as the jaunty chorus, and from another remix of the Foreigner song, "I've been waiting, for some cooobb-ler, to come into my life." It was insanity.


So I made the cobbler tonight, and oh, it was delicious.


Make it at your own risk, and then put the recipe in a safe place.

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 cups sugar, divided
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk
• 3 generous cups peeled, sliced peaches and pears (canned works just fine, and in that case, use roughly one big can each)
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• Caramel sauce (optional)

Preheat the oven the 350 degrees.

Melt the butter in a 9x13 inch baking dish. Margarine is sufficient but it doesn't keep quite as well as real butter beyond the first day, so use your own judgement.

Sift together the flour, 1 cup of the sugar, the baking powder, and the salt.

Blend with the milk.

Pour the batter over the melted butter.

Spread the fruit over the batter. (Drained, if it's canned.)

Combine the remaining 1 cup sugar and cinnamon.

Sprinkle over the fruit.

Drizzle a little caramel sauce over all of it - not mandatory, but it adds an extra something to it.

Make for 50-60 minutes, or until a crust appears. I speed-baked it once to accommodate another thing in the oven, and it can be cooked at 400 degrees for about 30-35 minutes. It turns out slightly better the original way, but only slightly.

Top with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.