Sugar Dish Me Relocated…

…a few months back.

Check it out!!!

http://www.sugardishme.com/

Lots of new recipes, a decent amount of sarcasm, and pretty stuff.

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 44,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 10 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

Sugar Dish Me Moved!!

So… by some default of my own (because i am the complete opposite of techno-savvy), some of – actually A GOOD CHUNK of – my traffic keeps landing here at WordPress.com.

And I’ve made SOOOOOOOO many new things since those Whole Wheat Strawberry Muffins.

I moved Sugar Dish Me and it would make me so so happy if you’d make the jump with me (if you haven’t already).

To see allllll the new goodies CLICK THIS LINK!!!!

And when you get there you can subscribe at the right-hand side of the page.

Here is a quick look at a few of the things you’ve been missing (you can click the photos for the recipes)…

If you’re already following at the new site THANK YOU!!! I appreciate you so much! I really truly do.

And if you’re new here, I look forward to hearing from you!!

Until then…

~Heather

Strawberry Muffins

I do realize that it isn’t strawberry season anymore. So let me explain.

Evan LOVES strawberries. And when I spied them on sale at the end of the season I got just a little overzealous with my purchase. He happily raided the strawberry container in the refrigerator for about 4 days, and then some of the berries lost their luster. Bruises appeared here and there and my little guy lost all interest.

I felt sort of guilty about buying too much because I reeeeeeally hate waste.

And so… muffins.

But before I break down the superb nature of these crazy awesome complex carbohydrates… a few changes!

SugarDishMe.com is moving! Okay but not really. It will still be sugardishme.com. I’m just moving my web hosting around (I posted a little note on Facebook last week, so those of you that follow there already had a heads up) which is basically like one gigantic brain-melting headache. The new site is built and I honestly thought everything would be done about a week ago but it takes 7-10 days for the domain to move and then another few days for the name servers to propagate.

Hey! Look at that! That sounds like I know what I’m talking about! (I don’t.)

What I DO know is that I haven’t posted here thinking that I would just publish this post there, except the recipes are piling up and I haven’t talked to you all since SATURDAY. And I missed you.

Oh! Before I forget…Trailer Trashtastic is still alive and well and I actually found time to update it last week, so there’s that. Especially if you’re interested in mobile home living/decorating/solutions, or maybe you’d just like to laugh at my wallpaper? Anyway… I’ve got a few cool projects set to go up in the next week or so.

Okay, so strawberry muffins. This is what happens when I buy too much fruit. Or when I buy fruit that just totally disappoints me (yeah. I’m talking about you, GRAPEFRUIT.) . Blackberries I think would be pretty amazing here. Chopped apples would, too. If you were clever enough to freeze your summer bounty (or if you are in the habit of stocking up on frozen berries, you know, just in case) then use some of it here! Seriously.

These babies were my breakfast for three days straight. And my snack. And Evan’s snack.

It got down to paper, rock, scissors for the last muffin. I was paper. PAPER COVERS ROCK!!!

Buuuut I shared. Because Evan is really cute. And I thought that hoarding all the muffins from my nine year old might set a bad example.

Whole Wheat Strawberry Muffins

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

4 eggs

zest of 1 lemon

1 cup buttermilk (I used reduced fat)

1 1/2 cups chopped fresh or frozen strawberries

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

Pre-heat the oven to 350. Line a muffin pan with paper liners or grease the pan.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until its light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition until just combined. Mix in the lemon zest and buttermilk. Using a rubber spatula, stir in the chopped strawberries and coat them with the eggy buttermilk mixture.

In another bowl whisk together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Gradually stir the dry ingredients into the wet and divide the batter between the prepared muffin cups, filling them about 3/4 full (I got 18 muffins out of this recipe). Bake for 25-30 minutes, until golden brown on top and a pick inserted into the center of the muffin crown comes out clean.

Cheez-Its, From Scratch

This weekend is for snacking. And loafing. Because the weather is garbage. It’s all rainy, but not cozy up with a book kind of rainy (I just looked evuuureeewhere for that clip from The Office where Phyllis rattles off all the rainy day cliches but NBC is holding it hostage). Today was an ugly, cloudy, it-looks-like-rain-but-it’s-really-only-going-to-storm-for-about-5-minutes, 9000% humidity, extra frizzy-haired, and the little boys won’t go outside kind of rainy day.

So I have decided to be a complete couchy potato, eat snacks, only cook things in the crock pot, and immerse myself in all the new fall TV that’s happening.

What are you watching? Looking forward to? Missing?

I am definitely missing Desperate Housewives. Sooooo sad.

But Bones is on again- looove Bones.

Caught up on Modern Family the other day- still hilarious. But I think the amount of time they devote to talking about Modern Family on GMA is a little bit creepy.

The Office is in its last season- the kids and I still like to watch this one together, but we miss Michael Scott. Parks & Recreation is entering into its 5th season, and Amy Poehler always takes the cake, though I haven’t jumped into that show just yet this fall.

So with all this lazy couch surfing and TV watching going on, I decided to make us some snacks. Cheese crackery snacks to be exact.

These cheese crackers taste almost EXACTLY like Cheez-Its, but without all the preservatives, of course. And because they’re orange I felt like the color was sort of appropriate for fall when all things pumpkin take center stage (Note: there is not any pumpkin in these crackers).

Speaking of pumpkin… I decided to give the Dunkin Donuts Iced Pumpkin Latte a whirl today. Except that I think the girl that works at our Dunkin Donuts must HATE coffee. Because in the three times I’ve visited the only location near us (which by the way is actually just a sad little drive-thru window stuck in the back of a gas station) and an ordered iced coffee, what I’ve actually been handed is a giant cup of sugar and milk poured over ice. The exception today was that my sugared milk was pumpkin flavored. AND I actually asked her to go easy on the sugar because my teeth still hurt from the last time I attempted a DD iced coffee (at least 3 months ago). Sorry, Dunkin Donuts. That was your last chance.

These cheese crackers are nothing like the DD sugar milk garbage. They WILL NOT dissappoint.

What are you watching this fall? What’s your TV snack of choice? Does your Dunkin Donuts suck as much as mine does?

Homemade Cheez-Its (from THIS recipe at Creative Noshing)

4 ounces sharp cheddar cheese

4 ounces grated parmesan

1 cup all purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon salt

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon ground mustard ( I actually used a little spicy mustard from the fridge… worked just fine)

2 tablespoons hot sauce (I went with Texas Pete) OR 2 tablespoons water (if you don’t want spice)

Pre-heat the oven to 375. You can prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper, but i found it unnecessary; didn’t even grease the cookie sheet.

Put all the ingredients in your food processor and pulse until coarse crumbs have formed. Add the hot sauce (or water) in a little at a time until dough forms.

Lightly flour a clean work surface and turn the dough out. Divide it in half (makes it a bit easier to work with) and roll the dough out. I left mine sort of thick (see photos) because I like it when homemade stuff looks sort of rustic. Use a pizza cutter or a sharp knife to cut the dough into squares, and then poke that signature “Cheez-It” hole in the center using a toothpick or skewer. Repeat the process with the second half of the dough. Line your crackers up on your prepared baking sheet; they won’t expand like cookies so there’s no need to leave gaps in between.

Bake for 10-12 minutes; they’ll be just a tad bit golden.

Eat ’em warm or let them cool.

Enjoy!

Two-Bite Homemade Hostess Cupcakes

Sometimes I think that Chad might be from another planet.

And I’m not talking about that Men are from Mars crap.

I’m talking about normal cultural references… stuff I thought most people our age (most ages) knew. This all started a few weeks ago when we began toying with the idea of furniture shopping for a few things we need around the house. I’m a sucker for Rooms-To-Go and Ikea marketing; everything in one place at a discount!!! Plus I am really not good at decorate-ey fashiony sort of girl stuff, so wandering through places like that gives me some idea about what in the world I’m supposed to do. A Rooms-To-Go ad appeared in our mailbox and I flipped through it, commenting on things I may want to go see. I said something about liking these chairs but that they were probably sort of pricey because they have Cindy Crawford’s name on them. And then he said this:

“Who’s Cindy Crawford?”

So I’m like, “You know. CINDY CRAWFORD. Supermodel. Pepsi commercial. Very distinctive mole. Cindy Crawford!” And he still had no clue.

I busted out some Youtube and pulled up the Pepsi Commercial thinking he’d go, “Ohhhhhh. Cindy Crawford.” But no. Chad has no idea who Cindy Crawford is.

I guess maybe I should be thankful for that?

Saturday afternoon gave him some lazy time on the couch while I worked out some elaborate kitchen project (but for the life of me I have no idea what we ate on Saturday…?). He was scrolling through the Netflix library looking for something suitable to half watch/half sleep through, and then IT HAPPENED AGAIN.

Chad asked me, “What’s ‘Heathers‘?” Ummmmmm, are you kidding me?

First of all… my name is Heather. And though I bear absolutely ZERO resemblance to anyone in the movie, I’ve spent my whole life having people draw references to it when I say my name. PLUS I thought ‘Heathers’ was one of those movies that you everyone HAS to see. It’s like saying you’ve never seen The Breakfast Club.

So I told him that. AND THEN he said that he’d never seen The Breakfast Club.

I almost fell over from shock.

I’m pretty sure both of the kids have seen The Breakfast Club. Where has Chad been? Under a rock? And how do you find your way into adulthood in the year 2012 knowing who Conway Twitty is but not Molly Ringwald?

To be fair, he sort of saved himself a little bit when he said, “Oh, you mean the one with all the kids in detention and that one weird girl eats Cap’n Crunch on her sandwich?”

So I made these little two-bite homemade versions of Hostess cupcakes. Chad DID know what a Hostess cupcake is… I was worried there for a minute. These taste exactly like the real deal, except better because the filling doesn’t have that odd sugar-flavored-but-flavorless-vegetable-oily thing going on. AND I topped them with a chocolate ganache. AND this recipe makes about 48 little squishy two-bite chocolate dreams, which is waaaay more than you’ll get out of a box of those cupcakes. AND since they’re so small you can have two without the guilty compulsion to run 16 miles. Even Cindy Crawford might indulge.

Two-Bite Homemade Hostess Cupcakes (adapted from THIS recipe at Can You Stay for Dinner)

Cupcakes

1/2 cup hot brewed coffee

2 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, chopped (I used semi-sweet chocolate chips)

1 egg

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup canola oil

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cup granulated sugar

Pre-heat the oven to 325. Line a mini-muffin pan with paper liners and then lightly spray over the whole lined pan with non-stick cooking spray. In a medium bowl, pour the hot coffee over the chocolate, let it stand for about a minute, and then stir with a fork until smooth. Mine had lumps at the bottom and wasn’t so pretty at first; don’t worry. Set the chocolate aside and in a large bowl beat the egg until it’s frothy- about 30 seconds. Add the sour cream, vanilla, and oil. Then beat in the chocolate.

In another large bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, unsweetened cocoa, and sugar. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined, making sure to scrape down the sides. Use a tablespoon to portion the batter into the prepared mini-muffin cups.

Bake for 10-12 minutes; a pick inserted into the center will come out clean, or with just a few sticky crumbs, The tops will be a little bit springy to the touch. Let the cupcakes cool completely.

Cream Filling

1 stick unsalted butter, softened

3 cups confectioner’s sugar

3-4 tablespoons heavy cream

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Beat the butter for just a minute to smooth it out. Then beat in the confectioner’s sugar a cup at a time, mixing until smooth in between each addition. Follow the same procedure with the heavy cream, adding it a tablespoon at a time and beating until smooth in between each addition until you’ve reached your desired consistency. Then beat in the vanilla.

Start Assembly

Using a tiny paring knife cut the middles out of your tiny cupcakes. The cupcakes will be really soft and this part won’t look perfect. It’s fine. Just use clean fingers to gently press and shape the opening in the top of the cupcake, but not too much. The frosting will fill it and there will be glaze to cover all this up.

Fit a pastry bag with a good tip for filling (I used a Wilton star tip 22 and put all the filling in one bag instead of dividing it because the star tip 22 worked for piping the curly-cues across the finished cupcakes, although it wasn’t totally “Hostess authentic”) and put about 3/4 of the filling in the bag. You can also use a ziploc bag with one corner lobbed off. Fill the tiny cakes with the vanilla buttercream just to the top (try not to go over the lip of the opening).

Chocolate Glaze (Chocolate Ganache)

3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/4 cup heavy cream

Put the chocolate chips in a medium bowl. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan heat the heavy cream until it simmers. Pour the heavy cream over the chocolate chips and let it stand for about a minute. Using a small whisk or a fork, whisk the chocolate and cream together until smooth. If the mixture is too liquidy for you just let it stand for a few more minutes, stirring occasionally. It will thicken as it cools.

Complete Assembly

Spoon the chocolate glaze onto each cupcake, using the back of the spoon to smooth it out. Work as quickly as you can because the ganache doesn’t smooth as easily (or look as pretty) as it starts to cool.

After I spooned the chocolate glaze over my cupcakes I refrigerated them for a few minutes, to let the ganache set up. Then I used my pastry bag to pipe the little swirl across the top of each cake using the last 1/4 of the buttercream.

 

Creamy Balsamic Vinaigrette

Mealtimes have felt EXTRA boring for about a week now… I’m in a rut. I mean, I think we all know I have breakfast down pat. Lunch is no problem… I just eat soup because no one else will and I LIKE IT. I have no problem at all feeling creative with desserts or snacks. Those things are always fun. It’s dinner that is reeeeeally gettin’ me down.

I’m bored with chicken.

I’m bored with the grill.

I’m bored with pasta. And rice. And potatoes.

All the vegetables at the grocery store looked super boring on Sunday morning, but I may have been temporarily blinded by the giant-sized Pumpkin Spice Latte that accompanied me around the produce section. Sidenote: there were NO BANANAS at the supermarket. Not even one. Is there a banana shortage that I am totally unaware of?

Even Pinterest has failed to provide me with inspiration. That’s bad, right?

So until I figure something out, I’m going to share something with you that is the opposite of boring: Creamy balsamic vinaigrette. And THIS (I just can’t stop looking at this… it never ever stops being funny).

Anyway… this dressing is completely awesome! I love it. It makes carrot sticks interesting. Broccoli likes to dance around in it. Mixed green salads wanna swim in this stuff. I might have soaked a bit of it up with a pinch or two of whole wheat bread. Annnd I may have drizzled a little over Chad’s sandwich at lunch to see if he’d notice. He did. It’s his new favorite thing. I’m thinking I’ll try it as a marinade as soon as I make friends with chicken again. It’s only a matter of time.

So I’m trying extra hard to drum up some creative dinner energy. And until I come up with a few new somethings, we’re gonna be eating this dressing on everything.

If you have any suggestions, I’m wide open!

Creamy Balsalmic Vinaigrette (from THIS recipe at My Life as a Mrs)

4 cloves garlic, very very finely chopped

3 tablespoons mayonnaise

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 tablespoon spicy or dijon mustard

1 tablespoon sugar

2 teaspoons Morton’s Nature’s Seasoning

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar

3/4 cup olive oil (extra light is recommended)

Whisk together all of the ingredients EXCEPT the balsamic vinegar and olive oil. When they are well-combined, whisk in the balsamic vinegar and then gradually whisk in the olive oil.

Easy Basil Walnut Pesto

A Moral Dilemma.

And, no, it has nothing to do with pesto. I think basil pesto is pretty uncontroversial.

Anyway… if you drive, you’ve been on one side of this situation or the other… or both. You’ll be surprised to find that I’m actually not talking about the road rage that posesses my middle finger to have a mind of its own when people drive like snails in the left hand lane. I’m talking about parking lots. More specifically, knicking or dinging cars in parking lots.

Every car I’ve ever owned has been bumped or bonked or ever-so-slightly dented when left unattended in a parking lot. It’s a fact of driving life. I’ve never ever been one to drive in circles looking for rock star parking spaces. If I have to walk, I walk. If I have to run in the rain, then I run. I refuse to spend more time looking for a parking space than it would take me to actually walk to the entrance of wherever I’m headed. It annoys me to no end when I get stuck behind some lazy person that’s “waiting” for a space with their turn signal on while the rest of us helplessly pile up behind them, especially when I know they could have just nabbed the first available space and been halfway through their shopping list by the time they finally put their cars in park.

Sooooooooo RUDE.

People. If you are not handicapped or assisting the handicapped, just freaking walk. Okay?

I digress.

The deal is, I just park my car straight IN BETWEEN THE LINES wherever I find a spot. Sometimes it’s next to the cart corral and I return to find a cart just hanging out on my front bumper. Sometimes it’s next to a sedan that clearly belongs to someone toting kids around and there’s a brand new scuff mark where their little people forgot to have spatial awareness (with {my} kids there is always that panicked warning before they open their car doors when you say, “WATCH!!! for the car over there… geez…”). I don’t guess I’ve ever owned a car nice enough to be one of those people (like my dad was) who parks reeeeeeeally far away from everything, like on the other side of the universe, so there is not a chance that anyone will ever park near your sweet sweet ride.

In all the time I’ve been driving, and with all the times my car has been binged by my parking lot neighbor, I’ve never had anyone leave me a note, or wait around to explain, or try to apologize. With regards to my personal property, I the motto is, “whoops! okay… moving on.” And I think that’s pretty standard, right? I mean, if you accidentally bump a car with your door in the parking lot of a shopping mall, are you actually gonna void out your whole day waiting for a stranger to come wandering out of Macy’s so you can properly explain that you’re the jackass that just scuffed the paint?

Who honestly does that? I wanna see a show of hands.

What’s the proper etiquette here?

Let me tell you what happened.

Chad and I made a quick grocery store run. It was dark and we were in our truck. The window tint on the truck is pretty dark, and with Chad driving and me fishing something out of my bag, I really wasn’t paying attention to where he parked, I just went to hop out. When I opened the truck door I heard a “thunk!” noise and realized that we’d parked our darkly tinted truck, in the dark, next to a very dark car— I had no idea it was there. I scootched out and walked towards the back of our vehicle where Chad was standing and he said, “You know you just hit that car, right?”

So I say, “Yeah, ummmm thanks for parking us ON TOP of that car…,” and we continued to poke fun at each other and hover while we decided what to do because I don’t think I’ve ever been the car-bumper. I’m always the car-bumpee. And then the worst thing ever happened…

The back door of the dinged car opened.

And out got this woman holding a teeny tiny baby.

I. Felt. So. Bad. So I blurted out,”I bumped your car!!! I’m so sorry!”

She said, “I know I felt something bump and saw you guys walk past…,” and her sentence just sort of dropped off as she walked toward the front of her vehicle to inspect the damage.

I had not yet inspected said damage and so I started to worry- what if I hit her car harder than I thought? Is this gonna be a really big deal? I feel so bad! This is so embarrassing! That baby is so tiny! I wonder if she’d let me hold it? STOP HEATHER. Just stop.

The woman turned with her tiny bundle and headed back our way and said, “It’s fine. It doesn’t look like much to me, but I work at the Toyota dealership, so I can just have one a the guys buff it out if it looks like more in the daylight.”

Meanwhile, I’m so embarrassed and profusely apologizing and asking her, “Are you sure? Is there anything we can do?”

She was so kind and so gracious… she just snuggled the tiny baby close, folded herself back into the comfort of the backseat, and told us to have a good night.

I really felt bad- nice girl, tiny baby, newer car- but what is the actual rule of thumb here? If she hadn’t been in the car to offer absolution and permiss our walking away, what were we supposed to do?

And if no one’s around to see what happened, what would you do?

I promised a recipe for this easy basil walnut pesto a week or so ago – the basil in my garden is still of epic proportions & I hope yours is, too! Because this stuff is gooooooood.

It’s also pretty comforting when you are completely mortified about playing bumper cars at the grocery store.

Easy Basil Walnut Pesto

2 cups packed fresh basil leaves

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

2 cloves garlic, very finely minced

1/2 cup grated parmesan or romano cheese

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil (and more if needed)

In a food processor or blender, place the basil, walnuts, garlic, and cheese. Drizzle in the olive oil and pulse until the pesto is your desired consistency, adding more oil if necessary.

Before serving this pesto over pasta blending in a couple tablespoons of the hot pasta water can make it easier to work with.

Carrot Cake Oatmeal Cream Pies

Growing up, my sisters and I had a favorite book. I’m not sure my brothers ever cared much about it, though I KNOW it lived in the giant book basket that was perched next to the hearth, and I’m sure my mom must have read it to them. My mom read us lots of books.

Anyway, our favorite book was called Fanny and May, by Jon Buller (and NO, this has nothing at all to do with the giant loan conglomerate Fannie Mae, though they should probably read it and learn a few life lessons). Pleeeeeease tell me you’ve read this book.

Image Courtesy of http://www.bullersooz.com/f%26m.html

If you haven’t read this book, you need to find it and commit it to your everlasting mind… stat. Download it to your kindle, search it on your nook, read it on your iPhone. I don’t care if you have no small children in your life. It’s THAT crucial. I promise.

In this book, a sugar obsessed elephant named Fanny lives with her mom and her little sister, May, in a house made of CAKE.

That’s right. I said cake.

So in the story, published in 1984 because that year helps this next part make sense, Fanny and May’s mom (also an elephant… a very fit elephant) marches through the cake house in leg warmers, a leotard, and a fuzzy headband and says she is heading out to aerobics class. If I lived in a cake house I guess I’d probably have to take like 17 aerobics classes a day, but I wouldn’t be caught dead in a leotard. My mom used to rock the leotard/leg warmer/fuzzy headband look in aerobics class at the Y when I was little. That’s because she is infinitely cooler than me.

Okay, so the elephant mom is heading out to aerobics class, and the last thing she says to the girls is, “And don’t eat the house!!!!”

Ummmmm… I don’t know about you, but if I told my kids not to eat the house made of cake while I left for an unspecified amount of time, I’m pretty sure they would do exactly the opposite.

When mom is away, elephant girls will play! It wasn’t long before cakey cravings got the best of Fanny and she just had to lick the house frosting.

May tries to tell Fanny that licking the frosting is a sliiiiiiiipery slope. Very slippery. Because only a teensy percentage of us possess the willpower to have just one tiny taste of some kick ass frosting (though I’m wondering… does house cake stay fresh? Does the frosting melt in the sun? Does it freeze like wedding cake? What kind of foundation do you build it on? So many questions…).

Of course, Fanny does not listen to May. If she did this would be a really boring story.

Fanny tempts fate, licks the frosting, licks some more frosting, has a bite of cake, and then CAN’T STOP EATING THE CAKE.

Before she knows what has happened, Fanny eats the whole house.

And then May is all like, “What’d you do that for, Fanny? Why can’t you be more like me and exhibit some freaking self-control? Mom is going to kill you.”

Fanny starts to worry, though thinking back, I’m not sure how she wasn’t in a sugar coma. Maybe elephants metabolize cake better than I do?

So here’s the best part of the whole story: Fanny’s like, “Whatever, May. You’re such a goody two-shoes. What kind of elephant girl doesn’t WANT to eat a house made of cake? Gah.”  And then! She jumps on her skateboard and heads to the wishing well. In case you couldn’t tell, that’s my favorite part.

When Fanny gets to the wishing well she waits in line for a while, hoping she can fix the problem before her mom gets done working out. There’s this creepy man in line right in front of her and when it’s his turn, he throws his coin in the wishing well and does the WORST THING EVER.

He says, “I wish for there to be no more wishing well!” Then he cracks up laughing in Fanny’s face.

I mean, who does that?! I suppose, in the real world, someone would probably commandeer a wishing well and ruin the fun for the rest of us. There is no way a wishing well could ever exist peacefully in the center of a small town. But I still think it’s a pretty crummy thing to do to a little girl on a skateboard, for crying out loud.

Poor ‘ol Fanny makes her way back home, dreading the conversation she’s going to have to have with her mother.

P.S. Before I finish with storytime here, I’d like to note that the above photo is a very clear picture of What Not To Do when making these cakey little cream pies. DO NOT shape, smush, or flatten out the dough. Just let it be weird and rounded and ugly. You’ll be glad I warned you when you make these.

When Fanny arrives home, her mother and sister are busy baking new bricks of cake to rebuild the house. The mom was pretty nice about it. Probably nicer than I’d be if my kids destroyed our home. Maybe she had really good insurance? At any rate, I always felt sort of bad for Fanny. We all know what it feels like to totally lose control and eat the whole house.

Moral of the story? You can’t have your house and eat it, too.

Carrot Cake Oatmeal Cream Pies (adapted from THIS recipe at Cookin Cowgirl)

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1 1/2 cups old fashioned oats, divided

3/4 cup all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ginger

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cloves

2 medium carrots, peeled and grated

Pre heat the oven to 350. Butter a cookie sheet or line it with parchment paper.

Beat the butter and sugars together until they are fluffy and smooth- this takes about 3 minutes. Add in the eggs, one at a time, continuing to mix until they are just combined. Blend in the vanilla.

Using 3/4 cup of the oats, make oat flour. Just pulse the oats in the food processor or blender until coarse crumbs are formed.

In a large bowl whisk together the oat flour, remaining oats,  all purpose flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, salt, and cloves. Using a sturdy wooden spoon stir the dry mixture into the wet mixture. Then fold in the shredded carrots.

Drop the dough by the rounded tablespoonful onto the prepared cookie sheet. Do not try to flatten or shape the sticky cookie dough – you want the cream pie sandwiches to be fluffy and this dough has a tendency to spread in a tasty but not-so-pretty way.

Bake for 10 minutes and then let the cookies cool slightly before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

For the Cream Pie Filling

The Pioneer Woman says that marshmallow fluff tastes EXACTLY like the filling in a Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pie. That would be a great shortcut if you have it on hand. I used vanilla buttercream because I was out of cream cheese (a sin, I know). The original recipe calls for a cream cheese filling, which I bet would be amazing, considering cream cheese and carrot cake are practically best friends. So the cream cheese option is what I’m including for you here:

8 ounces cream cheese

1 stick unsalted butter, softened

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 cups powdered sugar **Note: Again, I haven’t tried the frosting part of this recipe, but if it were me, I’d cut the sugar and the cream cheese in half.  Annnnd I’d sift the powdered sugar. If your frosting seems too thick, add heavy cream a teaspoon at a time until the consistency is where you want it. Okay. I’m done.**

Beat together the butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add in the vanilla. Then beat in the powdered sugar. Beat until the frosting is smooth and creamy. Spread a bit onto the flat side of half of the cookies. Sandwich the frosting between another cookie.

Maple Oatmeal Breakfast Bread

Breakfast is easily my favorite meal of the day. Unless dessert is a meal.

I love breakfast for lots of reasons. Some of them include waffles with whipped cream. Or “Ah-lah-modey”. Other reasons have to do with coffee, eggs, breakfast potatoes. Don’t even get me started on biscuits or cinnamon rolls.

But I have to say that one of my very favorite things about breakfast is that I don’t have to talk my children into eating it (except when I make these Oat Nutty Whole Wheat Blueberry Pancakes – Evan doesn’t like them. Because his taste buds are deranged). So here’s the deal: I cook. Every night. I think I’m pretty decent at it… unless all of my family and friends have carefully constructed a very elaborate lie that includes all of you. Gah. That would be weird, right? One of you would tell me I hope.

Okay, so DINNER. I cook the food, I set the table, I call the family, we all sit down. I’m going to take a wild guess and say that 4 out of 7 days one or the other of my boys has to be coaxed into eating his meal. It. Drives. Me. Crazy. We’re eating good food over here!

Evan tries to pick out every shred of seasoning – today he was totally offended by cilantro. He spends mealtimes dissecting food, searching for things like green peppers and red onions. Andrew, to be fair, has gotten much better about this with age. But he still has major aversions to all beans (unless they are in chili), shrimp (unless it’s shrimp cocktail or fried), and mushrooms (unless nothing- he hates them).

Breakfast presents NONE of these problems. No matter what I put on the table at breakfast, the little boys are all about it. Maybe pickiness expands as the day wears on? Maybe they’re still asleep when I feed them at 6:15 a.m.? Whatever the rhyme or reason, in the morning I never have to tell them to finish their food 14 times. It’s such a relief.

Most days my breakfast is cereal. Or oatmeal with fruit. Lots of days I call a banana + coffee breakfast. I started making this bread last month, and it has quickly become my favorite breakfast staple. It’s great fresh from the oven. But if you don’t feel like baking for two hours before you eat the first meal of the day, it’s still great the day after, toasted, with a little bit of butter and way too much blackberry jam.

P.S. The power just inexplicably went out … what in the world.

This bread is fantastic covered in peanut butter and sliced bananas. It makes THE BEST cinnamon toast. Slice it up and soak it in custardy goodness for french toast? Amazing. Mapley bacon and egg sandwiches? Yessssss. Oh! In one of those breakfast casseroles that calls for cubes of bread? I just thought of that. Just right this minute.

Do power outages boost creativity?

I call this “breakfast bread” because it’s a little bit cinnamony and a little bit sweet with lots of earthy whole wheat and oatmeal goodness. Not that it wouldn’t easily pair up with sliced turkey breast, a big leaf of lettuce, and a cranberry spread… wow. My mind just totally went to a Thanksgiving place…

But really this bread is suited for breakfast. Slice it thin. Dip it in egg.

Your kids won’t complain about a thing.

Except maybe the egg.

Maple Oatmeal Breakfast Bread (adapted from THIS recipe at King Arthur Flour)

2 cups boiling water

1 cup old fashioned oats

1/3 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoons maple syrup

1 tablespoon honey

1/4 cup unsalted butter

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon instant dry yeast

1 1/2 cups bread flour

4 cups whole wheat flour

In a large bowl, combine the boiling water, old fashioned oats, brown sugar, maple syrup, honey, butter, salt, and cinnamon. Stir, set the bowl aside, and let the oatmeal mixture cool to lukewarm.

When the oat mix has cooled, stir in the yeast and then the flours with a sturdy wooden spoon until a shaggy dough forms. On a clean work surface, knead the dough for about 10 minutes, dusting the surface with bread flour occasionally if the dough gets too sticky. The dough will be smooth and a bit satiny. Form a ball and transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl (butter, cooking spray, a bit of olive oil- whatever suits), cover the bowl loosely with plastic wrap and let the dough rise for 1 hour.

Grease two 8 1/2 X 4 1/2 loaf pans (you can use a larger loaf pan but your bread won’t be as tall). Divide the risen dough in half, shape into two loaves, and situate the dough in the prepared loaf pans. Cover each pan loosely with GREASED plastic wrap and let the dough rise for another hour, or until it’s about an inch above the rim of the pan.

Preheat the oven to 350.

When the dough has risen, uncover and bake for 35 minutes. Remove the loaves from the oven when they are golden brown. Let the bread cool slightly before turning out of the pans. Slice with a sharp serrated knife to avoid smushing your pretty bread.

This bread is best served warm, but it will keep, wrapped tightly, for up to a week (if it lasts that long).