Okay, so I have made 10 dozen truffles. 4 dozen chocolate oreo truffles, 6 dozen golden oreo truffles. They’re so damn good it’s not even funny. Every year, Mom makes peanut butter balls as well, but this year, she mentioned not making them. I was like, what?? She said that she preferred the oreo ones. o.O So we sat and talked and I suggested that I go to the store and get more cookies. The Dollar General and most grocery stores carry their own brand of ‘oreo’ type cookies in multiple flavors. What I was thinking is that I can get peanut butter, mint, strawberry and lemon cookies and the cream cheese. I have the chocolate and can buy more easily. Mom is making her traditional sugar cookies, I’m supposed to make Hershey Kiss cookies, plus we’ll have fudge.

I need to go out tonight and get the rest of the stuff for Christmas dinner and for the family visit Saturday. It should be fairly easy and painless, but you never really know. I kind of want to go hunt down a few things, but I dunno, since Rob doesn’t get home til after 4. I was going to go to work with him, but it’s too fooking cold for me to sit around and twiddle my thumbs all day. I get too restless.

I started this post *yesterday* and totally forgot about it. So I guess I’ll post it now and move on with it.

- Oreo Truffles
- Peanut Butter Balls
- Rice Krispie Treats
- Sugar Cookies
- Hershey Kiss Cookies
- Mom’s Fudge
- Pretzel Clusters
- Mexican Wedding Cookies

We’ll see just how many of these actually get made. If there’s time, supplies and/or money left in the budget, I want to make turtle candies too.

What the hell is my deal lately? I’ve been all kinds of kitchen domesticated. In the last month, I’ve made cheesecakes, cookies, muffins, cakes and bread. Today? I made … 2 pizzas and then got the hair brain idea to to use the leftover pumpkin from the last cheesecake to make.. pumpkin bread.

I seriously love my bread maker. I can’t even put into words how much I love it. The sad part? There are so many *bad* reviews for it that at first glance, you wouldn’t want to buy it. You have to play with the recipes a tad sometimes, but I’m not complaining a bit.

I will be making pumpkin cheesecake for Thanksgiving. We’re supposed to go to my sister’s house for dinner. I hope the weather stays decent so that we do go. My nephew turns 18 two days after Thanksgiving. It’ll be the first time we’ve done a family dinner since she got with her current husband and the first that Mom doesn’t have to make.

So yeah, it’s time for me to sleep or something. Two posts in a day? wtf?

Made by defiant_angel

At the request of Amber, I give you a banana bread recipe. This is my grandmother’s recipe so I know it’s good.

Banana Bread

2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup shortening
2 eggs
1 3/4 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup mashed bananas

Cream together 2/3 cup of sugar, 1/3 cup shortening, add 2 well beaten eggs, add 1 3/4 cup flour, 2 tsp baking
powder, 1/4 tsp soda, 1/2 tsp salt and 1 cup mashed bananas. bake 350 degrees for 1 hour or until pick comes out
clean. makes 1 loaf.

For the love of all that is holy, they really need to give Rob the SAME SHIFT ALL WEEK! I mean seriously, two days it’s 4am-1pm or around that, other days it’s been 11am-8pm, tonight was 3pm-11pm, tomorrow is 2pm-10pm. This seriously screws with my dinner planning up. For instance, I’m going to be making what I’d be having for dinner at lunch time so that Rob can get a decent meal before work.

Meal planning is a pain in the ass on days like this, but I do it. Tomorrow I will be making BBQ Chicken Breast on my Panini Grill, Busch’s Grillin’ Beans and *ponder* maybe quick taters. I haven’t decided yet.

I should go to bed, but I’m watching Big Brother: After Dark on Sho2 and after that I’ll watch more Olympic coverage til I fall asleep. I’d do so much better if I could fall asleep when I hit the bed, but I lay and toss and turn. I mentioned that I need to talk to the doctor about it, maybe she can give me something to help. I know it’s not covered by the Walmart plan, but I have a discount card that should make it fairly reasonable, I’d hope.

Anyway, I need to sleep, then get up and be a human in the morning to get work done, so I’m outta here.

Made by goodgal996

So, Rob came home from work with a handful of overripe peaches that needed to be used immediately. I cut 4 of them up and made the absolute *best* peach muffins evah. Yeah, they’re that good. I’ll be nice and post the recipe too I’ll be nice and post the recipe too Yes, they’re for Blueberry Muffins, I just substituted my own fruit choice.

Blueberry Muffin
Recipe courtesy Paula Deen, 2008
Show: Paula’s Best Dishes
Episode: Ladies Who Lunch

Blueberry Muffin
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons teaspoons baking powder * Note the original calls for tablespoons, I used teaspoons
1/2 cup sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, melted
1 egg, slightly beaten
3/4 cup whole milk
1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
1/2 cup granulated brown sugar or white sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin.

In a bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and sugar. In another bowl, combine butter, egg, and milk and mix well. Pour the wet ingredients into the flour mixture and with a spatula, stir until just combined. Do not beat or over mix; it’s okay if there are lumps in the batter. Gently fold the blueberries into the batter.

Spoon the batter into the muffin tray, filling each cup about 2/3 full. Bake for 10 minutes and remove from the oven. Sprinkle the tops of the muffins with the granulated brown or white sugar and return the muffins to the oven to bake for an additional 10 to 15 minutes, until the tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool for about 10 minutes in the pan before turning the muffins out.

So yeah… how was YOUR Sunday?

So, in the time of many many social networking sites, there are social networks for almost everyone. One of the newest that I’ve found is www.foodconnect.com. It’s a really neat site that lets you share your favorite recipes with others. You can find other people there who are cooking the same way you are. It makes it easier to get answer to your questions because it’s dedicated to cooking and to food in general.

Can you imagine a social networking site that connects you with other people who are interested in the same ingredients or who have the same dietary needs as you? Diabetic? Gluten Free? Low Carb? There are people there for you. Give it a look and see what you think.

From their press release:
www.foodconnect.com is the ultimate tool for every foodie.

What makes foodconnect.com so great? These and many other features:

- Free nutritional analysis, for all recipes on the site and every recipe you submit.
- Share your recipes with your friends and other foodies.
- Discuss recipe ideas and techniques.
- Plan your meal and easily print off your shopping list.
- Create the perfect dinner party

All of this and much more and best of all its all free. Get to foodconnecct.com to get started today.

So, my sister had a bread machine she wasn’t using. I had mentioned that I wanted one, so she brought it down when they came for Christmas. I was excited, but it didn’t have a book, so it took me a bit to find a decent wheat bread recipe for it (thanks ). I finally put the ingredients together one day last week and set it up and such, lo and behold, it didn’t work.

Well, I got looking and found a really nice bread machine on amazon and Mom ordered it for me. We got the package today and I immediately decided to make bread. I’m so happy with it. I made whole wheat bread and it turned out really nice. Definitely easier than making bread by hand! Even if they do call me a cheater.

I sat and crocheted on the baby blanket for a while today, so I’m closer to done on that. I’m hoping one more round will be enough to do it so that I can trim it and get it shipped off. *bounce* Then I can move on to the pink and white blanket.