Happy Birthday Ashley

November 9th

Many years ago we lived in Michigan. I was pregnant with our third child.  My mother had just retired from teaching so for the first time she was able to come help me with my baby.  She came on my due date for the birth.  The next day she fell down our backstairs onto the cement floor and ended up in the hospital.  I faithfully visited her for 8 days in the hospital.  She was finally released the same morning that I went into labor.  My husband took me to the hospital, admitted me, went upstairs and filled out papers for my mother then took her to our house.  He raced back to the hospital in time to put on a gown and come into the delivery room to see the birth of this beautiful girl:

Happy Birthday Ashley!!  And now she has a sweet one of her own.

A   ttractive and astute=(clever, smart, intelligent, crafty, artful, discerning, clear-sighted, sharp)


S  tylish


H  elpful and honest to her customers


L  oving (especially since she has had cute Hudson 6 months ago).


E  ntrepreneur  (she started her own business and has made it successful even through these rough times.)



Y es, I'll take three!--her favorite words heard from her customers.


I am so thankful for that special, unusual day and for the wonderful woman Ashley has become. (My mom was allright after all the trama with  not a broken bone) .

Foodie Friday--Mini Molasses Pumpkin Cakes

 

Perhaps you saw these Pumpkin cakes on the cover of Southern Living magazine last month.  I finally got around to making them last week.  It is the best tasting pumpkin muffin recipe I have tried!  It has a deep spicy flavor that is so good and different from most pumpkin bread-like recipes.  Probably because it uses molasses and just ginger for spices.  Their stem and leaves are made with caramels molded into the shapes.  I just glazed mine as I didn't have the caramels to work with.

Mini Pumpkin-Molasses Cakes (makes 4 pumpkins)

1/2 cup butterr, softened

34 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 large egg

1 cup canned pumpkin

1/4 cup molasses

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 Tbsp. baking soda

3/4 tsp. ground ginger

1/4 tsp. salt

Beat butter at medium speed until creamy; gradually add brown sugar, beating well.  Add egg, beating until blended.  Add canned pumpkin and molasses, beating well.

Combine dry ingredients and add gradually to pumpkin mixture.

Spoon into a lightly greased pumpkin-shaped muffin pan, filling three-fourths full.

Bake at 375 for 24-26 minutes.  Cool in pan for 5 minutes, then remove and cool completely.

 Cut rounded tops off muffins to make them flat (They were a very tasty snack)

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Invert top muffins onto bottom muffins, forming pumpkins.  I used pretzels for the stems.

I put a little of the glaze in between the top and bottom to "glue" them together.

Drizzle glaze over pumpkins.

 Caramel Rum Glaze

1 cups firmly packed brown sugar

1/3 cup butter

1/4 cup evaporated milk

1 cup powdered sugar, sifted

1 Tbsp rum

Bring first 3 ingredients to a boil in a 2 qt. saucepan over medium heat, whisking constantly; boil, whisking constantly, 1 minute.  Remove from heat; gradually whisk in powdered sugar and rum until smooth.  Whisk gently 3-5 minutes or until mixture begins to cool and thickens slightly.  Use immediately.  Enjoy!

To find more tempting recipes click here for Designs by Gollum.

 

Ways to Give Thanks

After posting about gratitude yesterday I was reading through some of your posts and Kristen @ We Are That Family has a wonderful idea to use with your family.  It is a Thanksgiving Countdown Calendar with sweet I am Thankful cards to fill out each day and place in the cute numbered sacks.  She has the instructions to make it and some printable forms for the cards.  Check it out here.  She also wrote some thoughtful insights into the holiday too so go visit there today.

Here is another idea I'd like to share.  Give each person in your family little "calling cards" to leave when they do a good deed for another member.  The cards are little 3"x3" colored card stock.  Each person has their own color of cards so the color indicates who left it.

My family had a good time personalizing their color with stamps.  Now the fun begins as little deeds of goodness are done and make way for the cards to be left anonymously.

I am so happy and grateful that our weather is so warm and pleasant this week. I am thanking God for each day of Indian Summer that we have.

  What are you thankful for today?

November is Gratitude

It is always nice when November rolls around.  The spooks,zombies and skeletons have gone home, we pull out our plaid and flannel throws and make our homes cozy and warm.  But it is also a time that we have to really concentrate on being grateful for those little and big things, people and blessings that we have in our lives.  I say we have to work on it because I think we are not prompted and guided in our thought processes to do so by the media or retail establishments.  Gratitude isn't something that we can hand our hard earned cash down on any check-out line with a cashier eager to take it, and so many stores would and could just as soon sweep Thanksgiving under the carpet and ring the bells as loud as they can and run ad after ad for the next big profiting holiday--Christmas.  That is why stores are all decorated in red and green, and all the orange, red, rust and tan have been packed away with the leftover Halloween merchandise.  It is up to us, those who have grateful hearts, to love and celebrate this day of giving thanks for everyday blessings by giving it and the reason behind it priority in our busy lives.  But, we can do it without support from any retail establishment and without commercialism because we can do it right in our homes with our families by quietly sharing our feelings of gratitude together. And we lovingly teach our children and grandchildren by example to cherish who they are, with what we have been blessed.  I, for one, want to take the month of November to count my blessings each day and share this gratitude with those I come in contact. To make everyday a day of thanksgiving!  Thanks to each of you for coming here today.  I am grateful for you too.

And the Winners Are...

 The winners have been selected
I have been excited to see who the lucky winners are for my recent giveaway for my 100th post I had last week.  I used Random.Org and the winners are: (1) #28--Autumn @Tum Tales,!
Autumn is a very new blogger with two adorable children. Go visit her and give her your best advice for new bloggers.  I'm sure she'll appreciate your wisdom. 

(2)#68 Doylene @A Gracious Home and

Doylene is a busy mom and grandma doing her best at taking care of everyone.  Visit Doylene and congratulate her today.

(3) #97 Michelle @Treasure the Moment.

Michelle is a very brave mom having just been through cancer treatment.  Visit her and wish her well.

 Winners please send me your addresses so I can get these gifts in the mail to you and thanks for participating.  I hope you enjoy your banner/or apron!

In response to Amber @ Friend Makin Monday, she asks which candy is your favorite.  Since I really like chocolate and sugar together, this is a hard one to answer.  I really like this one because it is so creamy

But I also can eat one of these at any given moment

But right now, this minute, I would like one of these. ( And I didn't eat any on Halloween!!)

I am not alone in my choice because my grandson took a poll at school and in his neighborhood and Twix won as the favorite of most of those he asked!!

Have a great week!

 

New Ideas Using Tortillas

Did you know that  you could make traditional Greek, Italian, Polynesian and sushi recipes from tortillas?  Some friends and I have been testing recipes from 101 Uses for a Tortilla cookbook and were surprised at how creative this cookbook is.  They have taken very traditional regional foods and adapted them for use with tortillas.  Here are some of the foods.

Greek Spinach and Cheese Triangles (like Spanikopitas)

Tortilla Sushi Rolls

Apple Struedel (like Rugelach)

Some of the other recipes were for Cannelloni, Chocolate Raspberry Burritos (dessert, of course), Snowflakes (using a tortilla like a piece of folded paper and cutting with scissors into a snowflake and glazing with Nutella.  Kids would love doing this!), Hot Fudge Tostada (using the thicker, gordita-style tortilla and pressing them into ramekins, microwaving to get a cup shape bowl to hold ice cream, and Pigs in a Blanket (cutting the tortilla into a square, then wrapping around a hot dog stuffed with cheese and baking it).  It helped me think more creatively about the use of tortillas.  Hope you learned something new like I did!

Here's how the Spinach and Cheese Triangles are made:

1 cup chopped green onion

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 Tablespoons minced garlic

1 bag (16 oz) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained and squeezed dry

2 cups crumbled feta cheese or queso fresco

2 eggs, beaten

6 large, thin flour tortillas

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Saute green onion in 1/4 cup butter for 1 minutes.  Add garlic and saute 2 minutes more.  Add spinach and stir frequently until all moisture evaporates.  Remove from heat.  Stir in cheese and eggs.  It will look like this:

,

Then fold into a triangle, like folding a flag.  Place on baking sheet, seam-side down.  Brush each tortilla with melted butter.  Bake 20 minutes, or until light golden brown.  Makes 18 triangles.

These have a great flavor, a little more substantial than the ones made with Phyllo dough, but less messy as these don't crumble in your hands.  Each one makes a substantial four-bite appetizers.

For more wonderful recipes and ideas click here for Designs by Gollum's Foodie Friday.

A Last Minute Witch Hat to Make

If you are in need of a witch's hat here's how you can make one real quick.  Take 2 sheets of black scrapbook cardstock (12' x 12").  Cut a round circle 12" out of the one.  Then in the center of that round circle cut another one that is 4".  This is your brim.  From the second one cut a triangle from the top edge corner to the middle of the side edge, curving the cut as you go. This will be the pointed part of the hat.  Bring 2 of the straight sides together to form the cone and glue together.  You may have to trim the curved edge to make it fit.  Then attach the cone to the brim by making little cuts all the way around the curved edge so the cone can be attached to the brim and glue the two parts together.  There you have it--a small witch hat.  Embellish with spiders dangling from the tip, and ribbon around the cone.
I used toilet tissue wrapper and cheesecloth.  You can spray the whole thing with Ink Refresher (buy it at the craft store) and kind of crunch the hat in your hand to make it look more like leather when it dries.
There are also sparkly press-on embellishments like ghosts and spider webs.

This makes a good size hat for a table decoration or to put on a small pumpkin or a little trick-or-treater or your cat!

Happy Halloween!

Be sure to sign up for my giveaway here.