CUPCAKES, HUMMUS, SOUP AND BREAD

If you are here looking for our Great Smokey Mountain and Gatlinburg pictures you will be very disappointed. Are you following along with us but not on facebook? Well then, you'll have missed my announcement yesterday that we have delayed our trip. 

After Tuesday's visit to Greenville, Derek and I did not wake up with a spring in our step to get the van packed and readied. Maybe we'll leave Thursday we thought - but no - that didn't happen either. Next week is an option but Monday we are here to help move some furniture for Debbie and Curt which leaves only Tuesday, Wednesday and dare I say Thursday - Thanksgiving Day and even worse - Friday - Black Friday.

Looks like we'll be staying here for a while.

That's ok with me - I'm getting back into cooking and baking. 

Yesterday I asked Cassia which cookies we should make. I'm not so quick obviously because that just worked against me. She no sooner had the ipad out flipping through my cookie app suggesting all the cookies that I didn't have the ingredients for. Hmmmm - let's try this again. 

Should we make chocolate chip or oatmeal? 

Apparently neither of those two met with the highly sophisticated tastes of this four year old.

Plan B: How about brownies? Ok says Cassia. Me - Darn! No cocoa.

Plan C: I did spy some chocolate cupcake mix and icing in the pantry......

Did you know that you could put marshmallows in cupcakes?! We had the batter, we had the marshmallows - hmmmmm - I quickly googled 'marshmallows in cupcakes' mid stream to find out that it has been done before. Let's do it! We did 1/2 of them just in case.

And it worked - the first marshmallow completely melts and leaves a bit of a hole. When the cupcakes are done you quickly add another and put them back in the oven for two minutes. Once out, I lightly pressed on them. Voila!

What does one do when they get icing on their hand - well, lick it off of course. There was definitely something fishy about that - I don't know, but my mommy radar says that someone got icing on their hand on purpose. 

And Cassia's bracelet? The very same one she got from Dinosaur World?! 

I'll start taking bets now on how long it's going to be there - 13 days and counting.

Decorating in progress - a little more understated than the last time we made cupcakes.

And what do you do when you are finished making cupcakes - or one cupcake? 

We MAY need an intervention at some point!

Derek and I developed 23 - yes, 23! Someecards today - we think we are pretty witty! I'd share, but I would probably scare most of you off and alienate the rest of you! Ha!

Curt and Debbie's living room new playroom. I don't know - should Cassia be cleaning this up every day? I'm torn - at first I did get her to put it all away, but then I realized that nobody is using this room but her. If it's left like this she just picks up playing where she left off. 

How it looked today - cold and grey which turned to wet and foggy by the afternoon.

Over the last few days I have been making applesauce with the apples we bought Sunday from a local grower. Today I made hummus! Cassia worked her way through the entire container that I bought at the store the other day. Silly me - I should have just made some and put it back in the same container - but no - I proudly announced to her that I was going to make her some. Like it? Nope. Still getting used to this parenting thing I guess. Have we sunk so low now that store bought is better than homemade. 

Oh, the indignity (that's really only funny if you know Gordon from Thomas and Friends!)

Oh well, more for me then. If you want to make your own here's the post I did about making your own hummus back in the summer of 2012 - Homemade Hummus and Pita Chips.

And lest you think that it's just Derek and Cassia with their noses in the computer. Nope - me too - I just have mine over in the kitchen. I JUST look at recipes - yup - that's all I'm doing! 

Three computers for three people - sad but true.

Anyway, I set myself to make soup and bread for dinner. I had come across a Bacon Cheddar Beer Bread on Pinterest the other night. Derek has craft brew beer sitting around here - maybe we should start cooking with some - I thought to myself......

So - here I am getting it going.

Mr. Craft Beer suggested a bottle of the Black Toad he had picked up at Trader Joe's. Hmmmmm - all we have is dark beer - can I use that for bread? A quick google check seemed to think I could - so here goes nothing.

And the final result? It looked good, it smelled really good - taste - well, I'd give it a 7 - good but a bit rich - obviously a lighter beer next time. Here's the link for Bacon Cheddar Beer Bread.

Paired with the bread - our stand by soup. It's the soup that we all make - right?! Hamburger soup I guess it would be called - or a little more spruced up - Autumn Soup my recipe card says.

Good that we all like it because right now it's the only soup Cassia will eat. If I stray off course she sets things back straight by asking for the good soup. Tonight I went crazy though and added stuffed pasta instead of the potatoes, noodles or pot barely that I usually use.

Mom's little helper.

And so here we sit - literally. Boy - it sure is easy to get very lazy very fast. The sun better come out soon or we will be done for. 

Oh and by the way - we have pretty much cancelled our trip north to Virginia via the interstate and south on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Sad - right?! I know - but it would be 750 miles (1,200 kms) round trip. Far. Neither we or our budget is up for that this year - and with the lack of leaf colour...... Will we kick ourselves for that one day - perhaps. 

However, I have been at this traveling game long enough to know that there is always another day. Case in point - back in 1994 as my boyfriend at the time and I were coming out of Mexico we headed to South Padre Island. I asked as we were leaving if we could go to Corpus Christi - for some reason I really really wanted to go there. My boyfriend didn't want to detour - I have no idea now why I wanted to go so bad and why he didn't. Fourteen years later I made it there with Derek. This has happened several times over the last few years - so now I say - well, maybe we'll make it back again - and I'm good with that.

The good news is that I have found some Christmas events to attend in and around Hendersonville over the next few weeks and they are free! There is the Ole Timey Christmas on the 30th, Christmas with Santa at the Library on the 2nd and finally the Hendersonville Christmas Parade on the 7th! 

Should be fun!

And by the way - I'm back BIG into Pinterest - if you want to follow along with my pinning madness I'm here.

Teresa

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