Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

I know everyone right now is baking, eating, carving, and picking pumpkins so I apologize for the boring post. I had to taste these for myself though, hoping they would be worth the failure of trying to stay away from gluten.

Everyone in my house will tell you that I make amazing plain ol' snickerdoodles. Those and no- bakes are my specialty. My secret to snickerdoodles is surely the recipe though, not me. When I found this recipe on pinterest (of course) I knew I had to make them. Snickerdoodle + pumpkin sounds like a winner to me.

I considered using the amazing normal recipe I use and just adding pumpkin pie spice and pumpkin puree but I was too nervous that the puree might make the cookies too moist or something. The recipes aren't too different and Megan said she made these the other day and they were "awesome", so I just stuck to the recipe I found.

Like always, my dad was crazy about them. I couldn't help myself from thinking back to church this morning where they showed this clip from one of my favorite movies, "What About Bob". Luckily my dad wasn't this bad.





My mom's first word was "unique". I'm going to have to agree with her. They are really good, just not quite as delicious as the ones I usually make. My baking with pumpkin craving was satisfied but I think I will just make the recipe I am known for next time.



In other news, I'm so excited! The best sisters, Megan and Jenny, are coming home this weekend! So hopefully we can sneak a post in!


-Dani

Another Pinterest Success Story

Yes, this is a story of another Pinterest inspiration. A delicious one. I don't make dinner often, but this Chicken-Parmesan Bundles post on recipe.com inspired me to immediately get up and go to Kroger to get ingredients (I miss Meijer like crazy). I also like to surprise Megan with dinner when she gets home from working on my days off. =)



Ingredients:

4 oz. PHILADELPHIA cream cheese, softened
10 oz. frozen, chopped spinach, thawed and well-drained
1-1/4 cups Mozzarella cheese, divided
6 Tbsp. grated Parmesan cheese, divided
6 small boneless skinless chicken breast halves, pounded to 1/4 inch thickness
1 egg
10 RITZ crackers, crushed
1-1/2 cups spaghetti sauce, heated

**Also handy to have toothpicks!

Directions:

1. HEAT oven to 375 degrees F.
2. MIX cream cheese, spinach, 1 cup mozzarella and 3 Tbsp. Parmesan until well blended; spread onto chicken breasts. Starting at one short end of each breast, roll up chicken tightly. Secure with wooden toothpicks, if desired.
3. BEAT egg in shallow dish. Mix remaining Parmesan and cracker crumbs in separate shallow dish. Dip chicken in egg, then roll in crumb mixture to evenly coat. Place, seam-sides down, in 13x9-inch baking dish sprayed with cooking spray.
4. BAKE 30 minutes or until chicken is done (165 degrees F). Remove and discard toothpicks, if using. Serve chicken topped with spaghetti sauce and remaining mozzarella.

So, I tweaked the recipe a little bit and cut down on the amount of chicken since I was only cooking for Megan and myself. And my technique might not have been the neatest... my bundles fell apart a little bit. But I've also never pounded chicken in my life, and I've never really made chicken on my own. I would say I did pretty well! And I would definitely make this recipe again -- it was FANTASTIC. Highly recommended. It probably has a ton of calories, but it was too good to matter.

-- Jenny =)

Fabric Flower Necklace

Confession: I have been making lots of flowers lately (there will be more on that later). Until now they have all been to put in hair. So I decided to try something different. A fabric flower necklace! I used a easier way (I call it cheating) to make the flowers for my necklace than the way I usually make flowers. I used this tutorial as a reference. I was lucky enough to find all the materials right in my house and the fabric I used is actually one of my dad's old shirts!

What a great way to dress up a simple shirt! I added a pearl in the center of each of my flowers for a little extra something. Also, my flowers are slightly larger than that of the tutorial and I did not make the chain as long. Overall, this was a very easy, non-stressful project to do and took me less than an hour!

-Dani

Tennessee crafts

So, here's the thing. I finally gave in and got a Pinterest. BUT I'm actually surprised at how much it's inspired me. Instead of just sitting there and surfing the internet more, I have all this motivation and some fantastic ideas for things to do on my days off from the hospital.

Yesterday I decided to take a trip to the craft store, which turned out to be a disappointment. (I miss my Hobby Lobby and JoAnn's!) But I picked up a few things and sat around in the sun with my puppy doing projects all afternoon, which was great.

First up, I bought a cute picture frame on clearance for just $2. I put a cute patterned paper in it and now we can just write on the glass with an expo marker... it's perfect for writing verses or quotes or just little messages! I also bought some of those cinnamon-scented pine cones and just put them in a little bowl with some scrap fabric. This apartment still smells pretty strongly like cigarette smoke and I've literally been doing everything I can think of to both cover up the smell and get it out of here. If you have any thoughts on that, PLEASE let me know. So gross. But the pine cones remind me of Michigan, so I love them. And I had a few leftover to put in the bathroom too.






Here's what I have on top of the bookshelf. I LOVE the candle in a mason jar (from Amber's wedding I think!) Then of course we have a picture of the family and I got some flowers to brighten up the room.


And here's the whole shelf:



I also decided to recover my lampshade since it was boring old white and looking pretty grosss. I bought a little piece of tan colored fabric and recovered it, then put a dark purple velvety ribbon around the edges. I also bought some flowers to put in a little vase in my room, so I pulled off a couple of those and glued them on the lampshade as well. Then (Pinterest idea!) I used a sharpie paint marker/pen to write verses on it. It's not perfect, but I think that's why I love it so much. Now I just have to recover the bottom of the lamp to match it.


There should be more to come soon :) Or maybe some pictures of these gorgeous East Tennessee mountains I've been enjoying.

Southern Peach Cobbler

Megan & I purchased several peaches at the local farmer's market a week ago, and having been at camp all week I didn't get a chance to eat them before they got too ripe! This afternoon was warm and rainy -- perfect for baking! Delicious solution: peach cobbler!

The recipe I used is "Easy Peach Cobbler" from myrecipes.com. I halved the recipe since I only had 2 cups of peaches instead of 4. If you want four cups, you will need approximately 6 peaches.

The part about letting the butter melt in the pan before adding the batter was weird. It says not to stir it together, but it all mixed itself up anyway. I also didn't have any lemon juice in my kitchen so I just left it out. Since I halved the recipe I used a 9x9 in. pan, and I baked it for about 25-30 minutes instead of 45. However, this stuff is so good I wish I had more peaches so I could have made the full 9x13 pan! Perfect with vanilla ice cream or whip cream!



- Jenny