Cullen, the biscuit man, the biscuit man

Cullen loves the biscuit!!! especially with sausage. I told him he should start making them himself, insted of purchasing them at those drive through fast food joints... and well he did! They were delicious too, way better than the fast food ones.

Kenny's creative play!!

And so here we have it folks, Kenny and all of "his" creative playing. He decided to build and play the other day. This first pic is hard to see, but he something that extends all the way up to the top bunk of his bed. It is hard to tell from the messy room, but he was proud of it. This pic is of the "truck" he built. It was pretty good and he even too the photo of it...which is great too.

This last one is of a floor puzzel he made and i took the pic of him. Kids are so funny with their toys and I just love it when they use their creative thinking process'.

Winter Ain't good for nuthin' but Baking!

Since it has been cold and yucky out lately, I have been trying some new recipes. I have been looking for some good sweet quick bread recipes, that are easy to make, good, but not to sweet, for an everyday type of recipe. So far, I have tried 2 different ones...

The first is pictured on the left and it is a

CRACKLE POPPY BREAD
Printed from COOKS.COM
1 1/4 c. whole wheat flour

1/2 c. raw sesame seeds

2 tbsp. dry milk solids

2 tsp. poppy seeds

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

2 eggs, slightly beaten

1/4 c. honey

1/4 c. orange juice

2 tbsp. unsalted sweet butter, melted

2 tbsp. vegetable oil
Combine flour, sesame seeds, dry milk, poppy seeds, baking powder and salt in medium size bowl. Mix eggs, honey, orange juice, butter and oil in small bowl. Stir egg mixture into flour mixture just until mixed. Spoon batter into 2 small buttered loaf pans or 1 large 8 x 4 x 2 1/4 inch pan. Bake on center rack until toothpick tests done, 35 to 40 minutes, 350 degree oven. Cool in pan on wire rack. Serve with orange flavored cream cheese.

This turned out just "OK" in my opinion. It is pretty "dull". I did make a couple of changes...1) i used lemon juice insted of orange juice and 2) I used all oil insted of the melted butter. I did this because I am trying to get that Loaf "that can be make form regular pantry goods" that i keep on hand at all time and we just do not always have real butter (or maybe i am to cheap to use it ) and we do not usually have orange juice on hand.

I think it needed more honey, cause it is almost "not sweet at all"... It does sound like 1/4 cup of honey is quite a bit for one loaf, but really 1/2 would be better.

Now the second loaf, pictured on the right is:

WHOLE WHEAT BUTTERMILK QUICK BREAD
Printed from COOKS.COM
2 cups King Arthur White Whole Wheat flour

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons butter

1 egg

1 1/3 cups buttermilk

1/2 cup chopped pecans
Combine the dry ingredients. Stir in the remaining ingredients, mixing well.
Place in a well buttered loaf pan and bake at 350°F for 35 minutes or until done.
Submitted by: CM

And well, I have to say, I CHANGED it UP A LOT... here is what I did...

I used 3 c. ww flour (insted of the 2 c ww and 1 c all purpost)

I added 1/2 cup honey (and complete cut out the sugar and butter)

I used 2 eggs

I only had "regular milk" so I added 1T lemon juice to it to make "a foe buttermilk"

and I added 1 T gluten

It turned out good, bit sweet, the nuts were great, good, nice firm texture and would be great with honey butter, or cream cheese...

It was also easy to make and made only one good size regular loaf (where some recipes make several).

This recipe could be "dressed up" easily with added dried fruit too!!

you could also change the nuts to walnuts, chopped peanuts, or no nuts at all!!!

I like this recipe and will keep it in my files!

Merry Christmas to All

Merry Christmas to all!
We had a wonderful Christmas with our family. We spent Christmas day with Cullens family, then the day after with my family. It was a nice pleasent couple of days for all.

Kenny is a quick study on his guitar hero and is now a rock star!!!
Simone had a great time too.

The food was good and no one went hungry, that is for sure!
Cullens fav was the pie, the chocolate pie, the coconut cream pie, the apple pie, the pumpkin pie and well the pecan pie, it doesn't matter, what kind of pie, just as long as it is pie!

Even thought the weather had been so cold, Christmas day was pretty nice and mild, and the day after, it was back up into the mid 60's...
what a change from the 2 degrees the other day.

Hope everyone had a great holiday!

The Weather outside is Horrible Cold!

And the title says it all. It has been very cold for the past 2 days now. The temps have droped to under 0 degrees in the night time and my windows actually had frost on them on the inside this a.m. when we got up.

It is misleading when you just look out, because the sun is shining and it looks like a lovely day, just if it wasn't so bitterly cold. I guess that is what December is for, huh? So, how is the weather where you live?

Sliver Dollar City

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The Tiny Man Cook

Here is Kenny chopping onions for the Nachos...he decided that the shades would help with the onion crying, lol!

And here is the finished product...Nachos for the boys.

Kenny did a good job all by himself...what a great little man cook....