Oh My, It's November.

Well, October sure went by in a blink.  Not much of anything done to really be considered an accomplishment either.

On the other hand, some accomplishments have happened.  The kitchen remodel is paid for.  All the decisions on color, wood, counter top and design have been finalized. I am so excited and so ready to start emptying and tearing out cabinets.  I have had both grand babies several days this month so have not been able to get too much done as far as house work.

To top all that off, on Tuesday evening before Halloween my daughter, Miss Zebra, came home and informed me that she needed a priest or monk costume for the play this weekend and 100 cupcakes for Thursday morning.  So, being the great mom that I am, I spent Wednesday morning running around picking up ingredients for 100 cupcakes.  You know, mixes, powder sugar and Crisco for icing, paper baking cups, two more muffin pans so I could cook more at one time, decorations to put on cupcakes. Plus, since it was the day before Halloween had to go to two different shops to find the costume.  Then came home, ate lunch put Mr. M down for his nap and got started baking.

This is the first of three batches of white cakes, made one batch of chocolate.  Each batch was 4 dozen, but being the wonderful math wizard that I am, didn't realize when I was counting that 24 is actually 2 dozen, not 1 dozen.  I over cooked a bit.  I bought some white cardboard boxes to put the cupcakes in, each held 35 cupcakes.

I made the orange ones, daughter made pink. Those are molded candy melt bats.

I swirled these out as well. One row has caramel and sprinkles, then the caramel bag busted.

At 1:15am we flat wore out.  Our energy and ability just left.  We also ran out of icing and I was just not up to making a third batch of butter cream icing.  Really great tasting butter cream icing, if I do say so myself.  Now the bottom photo is the box Miss Zebra decorated, she has a thing for molded chocolate and made mummies, bats and jack o lanterns.  Not all of the molded decorations made it on to a cup cake.

 

Here is a little closer look.  We used the Wilton spray color, the yellow, silver, green and gold worked fine.  The purple and black not so well.   I can tell you this much, the Wilton cake decorating class that I took with Miss Zebra sure helped.  We didn't get as fancy or creative as we had originally planned, especially since reality of time sunk in, but we did a pretty good job.  I still have one box of cupcakes that have not been iced, but she took 3 boxes (35 in each box) so ended up with 105 cupcakes.  It was a food sale at school with the proceeds going to her school club.  I donated the ingredients and such for the cupcakes, would much rather spend $20 on something that they sell and get 100% of the earnings rather than buying a candle or cookie dough that is over priced and only gives them about 40% of what they make.

I bought a large star tip, thinking the larger tip would let me ice the cupcake quicker.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that instead of a rigged swirl it makes a swirl that looks a lot like a rose.

I love this tip, will be using it a lot more.  Maybe next time, make a little smaller swirl and add some leaves.  It all turned out any way.

This is Miss Zebra working.  About midnight she pulled the stool up to the counter.  OH HOW HAPPY I will be when the new kitchen is done and I have more counter top space for doing things like this.  It was really hard for both of us to work in there at the same time.  She set up there because that is where the microwave is.  I ended up moving to the dining table.

Along the lines of the kitchen, I bought a new gift for me.

Isn't it just so pretty.  It has a bowl lift which is supposed to be easier to add ingredients with, a quieter motor and a soft stir setting to help the ingredients mix together a little before starting a mixing cycle which helps keep the dust cloud down.

As you can see, it is a step up from I already had.  Which still works just fine.  I just wanted an upgrade and different color to liven up the new kitchen.  All my kitchen appliances are stainless steel so the grey would look good on the counter.  In fact, will be going back to Costco to buy the Kitchenaid 13 cup food processor as well.

Thanks for stopping in, come back soon.  Please feel free to leave a comment, it is always nice to know that some one out there reads this.

Fall, Football, Cakes...Craziness!

Hello all.  I have been so busy lately that I have really neglected menu planning.  It shows in the household too.  I have been making more clutter and mess than I am getting cleaned up.  Oh well, nothing but a thing I guess.  I will eventually get my house totally clean, fixed just like I like it, meals planned, projects finished, and then just fall over dead from shock.

I will once again try...no will...hook up with Organizing Junkie and link this post to her Meal Plan Monday.  Great place to get some ideas.  I am doing my meal plan a little differently for a while. So here is what is cooking this week.

Ground beef, round steak, chicken, pork chops and steaks with various side dishes.

I know you are thinking that this is not a plan, but it is.  Let me explain.  By the end of the week I will have finalized plans for the grand kitchen remodel, in other words will have paid the money and it will be starting.  I have for months gone back and forth over cabinet style and color, countertop material and color, paint color, tile color.  It is now time to put it all together in a contract and get it going.  So...this means that I will be cooking out of my pantry in an attempt to downsize my inventory so that I will have less to deal with when I have to empty out all the cabinets so we can demo the current cabinets and counter top.  I have no idea what to do with all of my kitchen stuff while we are in the middle of this, or just how I am going to cook even.  But it will SO BE WORTH IT.  I will post photos along the way of course.

In fact, one set of cabinets is going to have clear glass in the door so that I will be able to put my collection of mom's glassware in there to be stored and still show off a little.  Some of her crock bowls as well.  I have a hall storage closet that I am working on emptying out so that I can put some food stores in there along with the every day pots and pans. All the extra stuff, that isn't used every day, along with all my cookbooks and small red appliance collection will go to the storage unit.  When we are completely finished, I will just bring back a box at a time and see just how much I can actually get rid of.  I mean really...do I need 18 coffee cups...in a house that only one person drinks coffee and he has his travel mug that he uses?  No I don't.  Do I need 7 glass pie plates?  No, but 4 or 5 where my mom's.  Do I need 5 sets of mixing bowls?  No, but one is from my grandmother that I never knew and one can be put up for youngest daughter Miss Zebra for when she gets her first apartment.  The other three...I have to admit, I do use them regularly, depending on what I am making.

Speaking of Miss Zebra...we finished up our Wilton Basic Cake Decorating Course 1.

This is her cake for the final class.  I think she did extremely well.  Even if she did jack my denim blue icing. I know the photos are kind of yellow tinted, but that is what my kitchen does to things for some reason. In fact, Miss Zebra was so proud of herself that she has now approached her school club leader to have a bake sale for their fundraising. She has offered to make decorated cupcakes...10 dozen...lots of cupcakes.  Pretty sure I will end up helping to finish them up.  At least cupcakes ice our quickly.

This is mine.  We were late getting to class because Miss Zebra had play rehearsal so the instructor asked another student to let me use her icing for the border.  I had a terribly time with crumbs on these two cakes for some reason.  At any rate, that course is done and Monday we start course 2 which is gum past and fondant.  Am really looking forward to that one.

Got to go meet for another design session for the kitchen.  Wish me luck.  Thanks for stopping by and come back soon.

Good Intentions - Yeah Right.

I really did have the best of intentions.  Long about Thursday or so I keep thinking that I need to get my menu plan for the week done.  I start looking over Facebook, Pinterest and various blogs for inspiration, which I get, and by the time I figure out a few things to cook it is 2 in the morning.  Then, something inevitably comes up over the week end that seems to prevent me from putting that illusive menu plan on paper.

This past week end for example.

We kept the youngest grand babies so that our son and daughter-in-law could have a little anniversary trip over the week end.  Obviously with a two year old and a two month old in the house, my attention was better spent on other things as opposed to menu plans.

Along with all of this, I did get started cleaning out kitchen cabinets.  My pantry just absolutely looked bare once I got it cleaned out and organized up.  I had to go get a few groceries, just couldn't stand it any longer.  I then started on the other cabinets, trying to force myself to purge as much as I possibly can...regardless of sentimental attachments.  Actually, once I cleaned out some clutter (plastic cups, glass jars) I am amazed at how much room I am finding.

See that little open cabinet in the back...to the left of the stove?  That is my biggest peeve with the kitchen.  Storage space I cannot use well.  That little cabinet door has a opening of 9 inches.  NINE inches.  The storage space is 24 inches door to wall and 36 inches from stove back to other wall.  Yes you get the picture.  Huge space, all of this plastic ware was stuffed up in there, along with about a half dozen glass jars.  Not to mention I found a single serve blender, complete with travel lid so I can take that healthy smoothie with me, still in the plastic wrap.  I hate the new trend of green smoothies.  Rave about it all you want, but throwing some spinach and avocado together with ice cubes, flax seed oil and fruit, does not make a tasty drink.  Un uh, no way.  There is also a brand new in the box mix and go battery powdered gizmo that makes drinks using protein powder.  Do we use protein powder?  No, hot hardly.  But this is the type of crap I find lurking around the house.  The harder part is the bake ware and glasses.  Some of them I got for a wedding gift, just can't seem to make myself let go of them.  I know, if it has a chip in it then it is dangerous.  I am working on it.  At any rate, the cabinets all have to be cleaned out so I know what I have, before the remodel starts.

Speaking of the great remodel...it hasn't even started yet.  I have gone through several layout designs, and have finally settled on one that I believe will give me all I want from the kitchen.  Plenty of storage, should say useable storage, flows easier, and more room.  Just a few final decisions remain.  One being whether or not I will get a stove or built in range and oven.  I would like to upgrade to five burners, and if we go with the built in's that will change counter space and lay out a bit.  Also have a wall that I am wanting to open up a little bit by putting a pass thru counter top that could function as additional sitting for a eating, or just as a space to prep dishes.  Would also be where we put the food out when there is a big family meal.  We kind of eat buffet style for most meals.  Every one fills their own plate and then sits at the table to eat.  I am really excited about finally get to make this kitchen not only look better but function better for my type of cooking.  I am no where near what would be considered gourmet or chef style, I cook home style meat and potatoes type of dishes.  But...I would like to be able to chop my onions and such close to the stove, not have to set something on a bar at the other end of the kitchen to cool.  No, the kitchen is not that large, only about 12 x 10.  Am hoping to increase that about six inches on the length part by moving things around. My hubby was going to do a quick fix job to the RV and then clean out the garage so we would have a place to work on things or put things while we worked.  Then we could start removing the existing kitchen.

HOWEVER...some lazy little ass wipe stole his pick up last week.  Now, he is having to work on a little truck that wasn't running to see if he can get it going to drive back and forth to work in.  Effectively putting the kitchen remodel pushed back about two weeks.  Or more.

My daughter and I are taking cake decorating classes together.  I am not really interesting in the first part of the courses, but you have to take them in order to do the course on gum paste and fondant, which I would really love to learn.  Daughter is however extremely excited by all of it.  For an early birthday present I bought her the Wilton deluxe kit, got to use a 40% off coupon which made it even better.  It was expensive, but the best value in the long run because it has all the equipment needed for all four courses and then some, plus a big tote to carry it all. 

This is my class work from last night.  Flowers on cupcakes.  Their was a slight mishap with the carrier, so a couple of them are squished.  Now, I don't have any grand designs or plans for becoming a paid cake decorator on the side, that's for sure.  I was talking to a lady that now has her own cake business that she runs from her house.  She has a booth at the local farmer's market where she sells cupcakes, cake pops and the cakes in the push pop things.  She has cookies and brownies as well.  He stuff was nice, but not a WOW kind of thing.  I am sure that what she does on special orders would be.  She was talking to my daughter and  I about how taking the classes got her started.  My daughter mentioned that she likes decorating and has the patience for it, I mentioned that it drives me crazy to take so long decorating one cake.  The cake lady then told us that it takes about three days to do a small wedding cake.  I am not going to spend three days to decorate some cake, not even for my own daughter's wedding.  Well, unless she asks me to when the time comes.  I just want to take cute cupcakes to the church carnival, for my turn at bible study, a nice birthday cake for a family member's birthday or holiday.  That is all.  I just don't want to spend $20 dollars for a dozen cupcakes that only have a fancy swirl on top.  Or, $3.50 a piece for some rich decadent little cupcake that I can make myself.    As you can see by the photo, I have a lot of practice to do.  But the main thing, the one thing I hadn't really considered, was how good it feels to just spend a little time with my daughter.  Just the two of us doing something together.  You should see the way her face, her whole face, lights up when she clicks with something the instructor has shown her.

Next week is a cake.

As for the budget plan, it has worked fairly well so far.  The last few weeks was pretty tough, only because my youngest son, Joe College, has been staying with us over his school's summer break.  He and his cat.  They went home, back to college, last night.  Now, as soon as I can finish up some major cleaning projects, my house is back to being my own.  Don't get me wrong, I love having my son here, would even be fine if he had to live here again.  It is just that with the grand baby, I had gotten in to our comfortable little routine.  Then came the baby (his sister and a girl), his mom went on maternity leave about a week before the birth.  We went on this huge vacation, expensive vacation, worth every penny too. So, things are now finally feeling like things are ready to settle down.  My daughter's cat is going through mourning and depression...running around here trying to find to find him.  At least now I can clean up and the creator of massive hair balls, wads of hair, every where.  Not to mention the worst litter box there ever was.  But hey, at least it was in a litter box.

I have got to get something to eat in me, I am literally dozing off as I type.  Thanks for stopping by and check in with me again...in a few weeks.