Sharing our joy across blogs :)

I wanted to announce to my awesome blog followers on here that we have a match! We were matched with the sweetest little 9-month-old boy you have ever seen in Korea. 🙂

 

Stay tuned as our extremely long wait to hold him in our arms no doubt means plenty of time to do new crafts!

Follow our journey at ourseoulmate.wordpress.com.

Long time gone

I apologize it’s been such a long delay. There’s been a lot going on in our lives that’s distracted me from the main focus of this blog – cooking, sewing and crafts. (The fact that Rufus chewed through the power cord on my sewing machine notwithstanding … good thing he’s cute)

The big news in our life is we have started the process of adopting from Korea! If you are interested in following our journey, feel free to check out our new blog: http://ourseoulmate.wordpress.com/

Thank you all for your ongoing support and understanding about the delays in posts. 🙂

Front porch Fridays …. errr, Monday

So a long time ago I promised you a new theme called Front Porch Fridays. Silly beginning blogger that I was, I didn’t realize how quickly these themes fall by the wayside.

Lo and behold, today I was finally syncing all of my iPhone pics and realized that I had taken a number of photos of beautiful houses around St. Joe on my walks with my husband and pups.

Forgive the quality, ogle the architectural details …

(Also, sadly, none of these are in *our* neighborhood)

Do people still eat pumpkin in January?

So this recipe is probably more appropriate for November. Or, the fall. Or really anytime when cans of pumpkin and fresh orchard apples are present. I’m sorry. You should bookmark this post for that time though, really. This was the yummiest cake. EVER.

First of all, this recipe was inspired by this post. Secondly, you should always trust southerners when it comes to baked goods. Thirdly, cream cheese frosting = delicious, no matter the base. And lastly, it has apples and pumpkin it – therefore, it’s basically health food.

Things I changed from the recipe above: 1 cup white sugar, 1 cup brown sugar. 1/2 cup melted butter instead of oil. Double the cinnamon and nutmeg (if you like nutmeg and cinnamon as much as I do), eliminate the walnuts (allergic), and don’t peel the apples (laziness. And there are vitamins in the apple skins. See, I told you this was health food). Be warned that the cake batter will seem insufficient to the amount of diced apples – it is not. It is delicious. Go forward.

OK for the frosting, this is difficult. My frosting method usually involves putting in a bunch of butter, a bunch of cream cheese, some powdered sugar, milk and just keep tasting. Here’s my recommendation:

Start with one package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened. 1 stick of butter, softened. 1 package powdered sugar (you will have extra, but this is so good you can eat it by the spoonful). 1 cup pumpkin. 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp nutmeg. Mix, add any additional water if needed. This will be slightly runnier than buttercream frosting but that’s OK. Make adjustments to taste.

That might have been the least scientific recipe with the most parentheses ever, but trust me it’s worth it.

Yogurt marinated chicken breasts with cucumber, tomato and feta salad

This is a great summer meal that’s fairly quick to make, requires few ingredients, and incorporates lots of goodies that come from your garden or the farmer’s market this time of year.

For the chicken:
Mix 1/2 cup plain, full fat yogurt, with three tablespoons chopped herbs from the garden (oregano, mint, lemon leaves makes a good combo), coarse sea salt, black pepper, paprika, garlic powder and onion powder to taste. Pour mixture into large ziplock bag. Place raw chicken breasts into bag, press air out of bag, seal. Turn bag over a couple of times to evenly coat meat. Place in fridge for 1-2 hours to marinate.

Meanwhile, deseed 2 large cucumbers and dice into bite-sized pieces and throw into large bowl. Add 1.5 cups diced tomatoes (I used halved cherry tomatoes and small yellow roma tomatoes). Add 1 cup full-fat plain yogurt (or greek yogurt). Add coarse sea salt, onion powder, black pepper, garlic powder and paprika and gently stir to incorporate all ingredients without damaging cucumbers or tomatoes. Top bowl with crumbled feta cheese and chopped herbs from the garden. Cover and refrigerate.

Place chicken breasts on baking sheet lined with greased aluminum foil. Broil for about 7 minutes on each side, or until skin turns golden brown and chicken is cooked through. Serve along side a hearty portion of salad.

Best peach crisp yet

August in Missouri means amazing, fall off the pit peaches. Especially from Schweizer Orchard or Hunts Orchard. Mmm. Plus, who doesn’t love an excuse to drive out to the country, pet a baby goat, and long for rolling hill farm acreage?

So by the end of today, I found myself with 14 ripe peaches and a craving for peach crisp. Previous attempts at making fresh peach crisp had resulted in not enough crispy topping that was not crispy enough, thanks to all of the delicious peach juice. Today though, success. (Just a warning – the amount of butter is not for those on diets. Or at all concerned about their hearts)

What you need:
10 fresh peaches
2 cups of flour
2 cups brown sugar
1.5 cups oats
2.5 sticks butter
3 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp lemon juice

Grease 9X13 pan and set aside.
Chop peaches into bite-sized pieces and put into large bowl. Toss with 1/4 cup flour, 1/2 cup brown sugar and lemon juice. Layer mixture/peaches into pan.

In separate bowl, mix 1.5 cups oats, 1.5 cups brown sugar, 2 tsp cinnamon and 1.75 cups flour. Cut two sticks of butter into small pieces and blend with dry mix with a food processor (or two knives) until a coarse mixture is attained.

Layer on top of peaches in pan, covering all peaches with thick layer. Place in oven at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes until peach juice is bubbling up to the top and the crisp is golden brown.

Remove from oven and cut remaining 1/2 stick of butter into small pieces and layer on top, and sprinkle remaining cinnamon over the crust. Once butter melts, dish and serve with homemade whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Bad blogger, better gardener

Oh my poor, abandoned blog. I have not forgotten thee. And reaching more than 10,000 visits since I have been back! Wow. Thank you all for your faithful reading and support. I promise to do a better job at keeping up with this.

While my blog has been collecting weeds, my garden is thriving! About a month solid of rain is making for beautiful flowers and yummy strawberries, green onions, carrots and herbs. Hallelujah.

Isn’t the ‘flower’ function of the Canon Rebel the best?

Forcing spring indoors

As the winter weather hangs on for a few more days, I couldn’t take it any more. I was missing the fresh herbs from our garden and decided to sow some seeds indoors to hold me over.

Lavander or oregano ... can't remember which pot is which

Basil sprouts!

Snickerdoodles = heaven

Stack of yumminess

Do you see these? These are snickerdoodles, and they are one of the most underrated cookies in the universe. Everyone craves chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies, peanut butter cookies … all delicious. But these buttery, cinnamony delights can hold their own.

This is a recipe based on the Betty Crocker snickerdoodle recipe, only better.

Ingredients:

1.5 cups granulated sugar

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup shortening

2 eggs

2.75 cups flour

2 tsps cream of tartar

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

2 tbsp Kahlua

To roll finished dough in: 1/2 cup sugar, 2 tbsps cinnamon

The key changes from the Betty Crocker recipe include the addition of Kaluah, of cinnamon in the cookie dough, of extra salt (a lot of extra salt), extra cinnamon in the sugar/cinnamon rolling mixture and a heavily greased cookie sheet.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Cream sugar, eggs, cinnamon, kahlua, butter and shortening with mixer until smooth. Add baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt, mix. Slowly add flour, mixing. When dough is finished, roll in balls (about 2 tablespoons big) and roll the balls in cinnamon/sugar mixture. Place on heavily greased cookie sheet.  Bake for 8-10 minutes. Watch carefully. Snickerdoodles very quickly go from underdone, to done, to burnt. Will make about 3 dozen.

Remove from pan to cooling rack immediately to avoid over cooking. Enjoy when warm and buttery.