Bakey McBakerton

Cody made this awesome 5 tiered cake for his friend's surprise birthday party today.  Now he gets to mop the kitchen floor!

There's Always Time for....

One of the very very limited times I baked during the first 13 weeks of this pregnancy.  I made them for my book club.

A Taste of Hawaii

When Don and I went to Hawaii many moons ago-ok 2 years ago-I ate the most delicious pancakes with strawberries, macadamia nuts and coconut syrup.  I ate that every morning at the restaurant in our hotel.  We found some coconut syrup at a store and brought it home.  We ran out a little while ago and as I was wanting to it again and they don't sell it in Logandale, I decided that I would make it.  I found a recipe on line and it was quite simple and quite tasty.  It was only sugar, butter and coconut extract.  A few weeks later when we were in Vegas we found an ABC store-just like the ABC stores in Hawaii-and they sold the same coconut syrup that we bought in Hawaii for about $7 a bottle and the bottle was the size of a hot sauce bottle.  I made mine for pennies and it was not processed or prepackaged!

Baskets of Bounty

We have been participating in the Bountiful Baskets co-op the last few months.  Every other week I order a basket online and then I go up to the elementary school on Saturday morning and pick it up.  It is a co-op where everyone pays the same amount, $15, and gets the same amount of fruits and vegetables.  We usually end up getting $40-$50 dollars worth of produce.  The participants are asked to come and volunteer atleast once a month.  Volunteering means helping unload the trucks and distributing the produce to the baskets.  I have been volunteering quite a bit and now I am in charge of the distribution once a month.  I get a free basket out of it so what the heck.  We have been eating so many more fruits and vegetables than we really ever have.  I never know what we are going to get but once we have the produce I try and make menus and figure out ways to use it all.  We always get bananas and grapes and usually lettuce.  We have had broccoli, spinach, potatoes, yams, and even parsnips.  For fruits we have had different kinds of pears and apples, oranges, nectarines, pineapple and one time the most awesome mangoes I have ever had. This time we are getting persimmons.  Hmm that is interesting.  As long as you order a basket you can order what they call add-ons.  One of the add-ons is the most awesome 9 grain bread.  We love it toasted with peanut butter and my homemade peach-nectarine-mango freezer jam.  I also made raspberry freezer jam, raspberry peach freezer jam, bottled tomatoes and apple pie filling.  I end up making banana bread as often as once a week and I make a mean fresh tomato pasta sauce.