Random Woods

Don’t worry, G sanitized it first.

This week’s recipe is Granola Grabbers, chosen by Michelle of Bad Girl Baking. I am not a fan of cookies with nuts, raisins, or coconut. Um ya, so that is practically all of the ingredients for the cookies this week. So, why did I make them? Well, I thought that if I was going to join a group, I would participate. And the whole point is to make something each week and to try some things I may not have on my own. So, I decided I would make them. Who knows, I could actually like them, you know?

Here is the mix of granola, nuts, coconut and raisins.

After that mixture is mixed in with the cookie dough. Very dough-less.

Here are the cookies waiting to go in the oven. Ignore the extra cookie on each sheet that is due to my unwillingness to wait for the sheets to cool to put another two sheets in the oven. All or nothing I say!

And out of the oven.

They were easy and fun. And pretty. But I will admit, I don’t like them. My husband says he enjoys them and I will take them to work and my parents, but I am not a fan. I have to say, it was a little dissapointing to take fresh cookies out of the oven and not be excited at all about eating them. I tried one, just to make sure, and it is for sure that I don’t like them. Oh well, still a success, just not for my taste buds. You should go check out the rest of the group to see everyone else’s version.

Next week: Chocolate Banded Ice Cream Torte! (YUM)

So, Jaxon got his first trim today!  His hair was over his ears and about to get into his eyes, so it was time.  I am not the kind of Mom to bring an envelope for a lock of hair or anything (not that we cut enough off to really have a lock of hair) but I did manage to take a bajillion pictures.  There is a sampling below.  Please note the wide range of emotions and crowds of people trying to keep the baby amused, along with the lovely lady cutting his hair (by the way, this all happened in a span of 2 minutes) and the cute brown cape he got to wear (brown hand towel).  Enjoy!

This week, our group is not so much baking, as freezing.  Yum!  Thanks to Dolores of Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity, I made Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream this week.  It is the first time that I have made ice cream with my new ice cream maker attachment to the Kitchen Aid mixer and it was easy and fun!

First, I cooked the blueberries with the sugar and lime juice and zest.

Pretty, no?  After cooking that down, blending it, and then adding in the dairy, I put it in my ice cream maker.

Here it is about halfway done churning.  Action shot!

Here it is in the maker after I deemed it done churning.  It looks like ice cream, which I was thrilled about.

Overall, I would say that this was a success.  It turned into ice cream at the end, after a few hours in the freezer, which was my only real goal for this recipe.  I am not sure why I was so worried or why I was surprised, but it turned out well.  I do wish that it had more lime flavor than it ended up having, but still, I am happy to eat all of this project over the course of the next few days!

Go see what everyone else made this week!  Next week: Granola Grabbers!

So, the universe did not want me to participate this week.  It did not give me the presence of mind to buy bananas ahead of time so that I could have ripe and not bright green bananas.  When I thought there might be hope, the universe instead brought plantains into the house.  Did you know they look a lot like ripe bananas yet smell like lettuce?

So, no baking from me today, even though this recipe is just up my alley.  Go check out the rest of the group who conquered the universe and made what I am sure are many tastey banana loafs.

See you next week for Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream.

In list format for your convenience:

-Saturday G, J, and I went to the Red Bull Flugtag (videos of the crazy action here). We met Amy and Sonia there and had a great time. Jaxon was a total champ, only getting a little fussy when he was ready for a nap (which he did for well over an hour among the loud music and crowd!) and when he was hungry. My plan was to have lots of fun pictures of the action, but someone *cough*G*cough* forgot to charge the camera battery (even though a friendly reminder/request was given the night before) so no pictures. Amy came well equipped with her camera, so I will see pictures of the event (or at least of J being cute at the event) sooner or later, but geez.

-On Sunday Lyndsay hung out with us for the whole day, woo hoo! (Go eager Auntie who changes diapers!) She had warned us she was coming the week before, but it was a fun surprise to see her in J’s room when he woke up and I sent G in to get him. (No, he is not my slave, I got up 2 hours before to feed J, it was G’s turn!) She claims she did not actually wake him up (she is known for being eager for nap time to end) but G and I have our doubts!

-That morning, we went over to my parent’s house where we took the treadmill they were so generous to give us, then took a load of old chairs and boxes over to my grandpa’s house using our huge grocery-getter.

-Later, we dropped the boy off at my parent’s house and G and Lyndsay and I went to Starbucks (Lyndsay and I knit, G played with his new iPhone 3G). Um, is it sad that both G and I at one point panicked because we thought we had left the baby somewhere since he wasn’t with us? I think we need to take advantage of the grandparents more often and learn to have baby-free time where we don’t feel so weird. I think it is about time for that, given he is 7.5 freakin’ months old. (Okay, now I feel like a loser. I apparently need a life.)

-On the way out of the parking lot of Starbucks, I decided that G was my “huzzle” and Lyndsay was my “sizzle.” I am so hip.

-We stopped off at Target to look for a “Mom Bag” for me, but instead left with straw cups for J (he loves the sippy cups he has, but mainly just lets the water run out of his mouth and down his front). We were hoping the straw cups would stop this since he would have to work to get the water.

-We headed back to the ‘rents to have dinner and see the boy. My mom made Lasagna (I love having free babysitting from the same person who also spent that time cooking me dinner, thanks Mom!) and J napped while I ate so I could actually sit at the table and eat it warm like a human! (He always seems to wake and want to nurse just as we sit down at the table…)

-Success with the new straw cup for J. He loves it!

-After leaving there, our little group continued the search for my “Mom Bag.” Okay, let me explain the “Mom Bag” thing. I pick J up from daycare and we take the bus home 3 nights a week. I needed a bag that would allow me to carry his cooler, my cooler, my lunch bag and my purse all in one unit. I think my days of small purses are gone for a while. Anyway, I found a sherpani bag that I loved and so the “Mom Bag” was born. (We will not discuss how my bag is on sale at 50% online and was not where we bought it. It is too late and I am too lazy.)

-We got a new carrier for J! The one we have now is not so pleasant for long time periods and we wanted something that was more comfy and would let us go to things without the stroller (so annoying in crowds). It is huge but comfy, and the best part is that J loves it. He was giggling uncontrollably in the store while we were trying it. I think he likes the view from up there!

Okay, this post is huge. I did not plan that. If you made it down to the bottom, you have more patience for useless information that I would. How was your weekend?

J is going to hang out at the bar.

Later he has a gig.

And at some point he will play with Disco’s toy, just to mess with him.

Hope your weekend goes well!

Please forgive the poor picture quality, the iPhone tries hard.

I received another dispatch about the Wednesday fun-having from G this morning. He and J went to participate in a study (same one as mentioned here) and then have lunch with my sister.

Here is J waiting patiently in the waiting room for his test.

He is such a big boy, playing with toys on the floor!

This week’s TWD recipe was chosen by Michelle of Michelle from Colorado Springs.  There were many options for the fruit to use, but after arriving at the grocery store and seeing that the plums were on sale, they became my fruit of the moment.

This was a fun recipe to make, but it didn’t quite go as planned…  Let me show you.

Here is the crust after I rolled it out.

I think that this is were the problems began…  Do you see the lighter pieces there?  Ya, that’s the butter…  The recipe said to not be afraid of the butter pieces, and so I decided not to be, even though the recipe for crust that I usually use does not result in polka dotted crust…  But I powered on.

Here is the galette with my plums.

I knew at this point that it was not going to be pretty, but I was okay with that.  It was going to be a little rustic anyway, so I decided not to bother trimming the edge of the crust after I rolled it out.  I didn’t want to waste the buttery goodness!

Well, 10 minutes into baking it, I realized that things weren’t going to be exactly as it should.

It was kind of, well, melting…  But I decided that ugly doesn’t mean non-yummy, so I continued on.

After adding the custard and finishing the baking, it was not the most beautiful baked good I have ever seen…

But, in my defense, it was still yummy.  Even with the custard spilling over the side of the crust and the whole thing being quite a mess…

You should go now to check out what this was supposed to look like from the rest of the group.

But tell me.  What do you think went wrong?  Was it the large butter dots in the crust?  Was it the fact that I skipped the optional 15 minutes in the freezer before I baked it?  Both?  Something else?

I would love for some input…  Teach me.  Share your wisdom.