This year we had the honor of hosting Thanksgiving. We usually rotate between my mom's family every three years (my mom and dad's house, my aunt and uncle near Seattle and my aunt and uncle in Idaho). This year it was my Idaho relative's turn, but we live almost the same distance from everyone 4-6 hours and agreed that it would be nice to have it in the middle of everyone.
We had a full house - 16 adults, my cousin's 5 year old daughter and Emerson. It was so fun! This was also the first year that everyone has made it. Usually work, weather or something gets in the way of one or more of us but this year we all made it, including two new significant others! Here are some pictures of the weekend.
The kids, Joie and Emerson
Joie, Emerson and Uncle Jared
Poor Emerson, it was rough having so many people loving on her ;)
My Aunt Lesli (far left) made everyone aprons! So cute! As the host, I got two! A turkey one, and an everyday one.
Cooking away
My mom and Joie making pie crust
The guys (and EJ with Papa) talking about guy things (guns, I'm sure)
Ready for dinner
Blake cooked the turkey on our wood pellet grill. It was SUPERB!
I mean really, it's hard work being this adored. Good thing no one in my family enjoys her.
The whole family.
L-R, Back row: Older brother Jared, mom and dad, Aunt Sandy and Uncle Rodney, Aunt Lesli and Uncle Dave, Cousin Kalen
Middle row: Jared's wife Theresa (chair), Danielle and Jed (cousins), younger brother Jordan and Kalen's wife Brandie (chair).
Front row: Blake, me, Emerson, Joie (Jed and Danielle's daughter) and cousin Macey
Soooo, last week's sweet tooth attempt didn't pan out. In the event you ever want to try chia seed chocolate pudding... you've been warned.
This week I tried a single serving cookie. After the brownie in a mug my mom showed me a screenshot of this and I thought I'd better try it out. I didn't mean to have this series of posts centered on microwavable desserts served in mugs.. but so far these are a hit.
Without further ado, here is the single serving microwavable cookie saga.
In reading about the brownie in a mug, reviews said that the egg-less version was best. So I started with an egg-less recipe and jumped right in with a healthy version (whole wheat flour, sucanat).
First you melt the butter, then stir in the sugar and vanilla. Then you mix in flour, baking soda and salt. Now you look all around for your camera. I mean ALL around. Then you give up and just take pictures with your cell phone (this is your warning.. the pictures aren't pretty).
I got this:
Yikes. If you have a tongue that only tastes but doesn't feel texture, then this is for you. Ya, I ate it.
So then I tried the same recipe but as written, with standard flour and sugar. I got this:
Looks a lot better but it was pretty firm. Ya, I ate it too.
So I thought I might have cooked it too long (I only cooked it for 40 seconds, but our microwave is hot). I decided to make it again and only cook it 30 seconds. I got this:
It's pretty good. Taste and texture are there but it was a little dry and I had to add extra butter before baking. When the recipe says 1.5-2 TBSP butter and scant cup of flour... go with more butter and less flour. It also got pretty hard when it cooled, so 25 secs might have been plenty.
Just to be thorough, I tried a recipe with egg. It goes together pretty much the same, except of course the separating of the egg. I cooked it for 30 seconds and got this:
You can see the added yellow from our farm fresh eggs :) I tried this one but Blake ate it.
Conclusions: Both the egg recipe and the final trial of the no-egg recipe are edible and cookie like. The egg-less one is a little finicky with the balance of moisture. However, I think that an entire egg yolk in one sitting is a lot. Now, egg yolks are extremely nutritious (particularly raw) but I think the flour and sugar cancel out the nutrition here and I wouldn't really count this as health food, even with the egg yolk. If you think about it, there are two whole eggs in a full batch of cookies.. so one egg yolk in one cookie seems like a lot. Plus then you have the egg white to deal with.
Blake tried both of the better versions and said that the egg recipe had better texture and was a little closer to a cookie, but the egg-less recipe was good too. No matter what, go on the underdone side of cooking times. Microwaves vary greatly and in my experience underdone is better than over done here.
Oh how we love our Sweet P! She's such a happy, smiley little gal. She's growing, learning and bringing joy to our hearts every day.
This month the big milestone is of course that we have a roller! She was playing on her back and we looked away for a second.. when we turned back she was on her tummy smiling because she got the toy she was after. Since then she has been a rolling fool. Almost every time you put her on her back she's turning to roll... that is unless you are trying to show someone that she can roll. Then she's plum happy to lay on her back until you give up and pick her up.
I'm a roller!
The next night we finally got her to do it for the camera (no fooling around either, it's like a six second video).
Emerson also continues to love her hands, but now she's really good at grabbing what she wants and isolating her fingers. One morning I woke up to her quietly laying there looking at her hand. She was just staring as she wiggled each finger individually and then moved each finger together with the one next to it (like star trek, but with each of them). It was so cute to watch her blow her own mind. She probably did that for about 3 minutes.
She is also loving tummy time these days, she can get up pretty high on her hands and off her chest, but doesn't seem to have any intentionality in her mobility. She usually moves a little bit around the blanket but I don't think she means to. Blake is trying to get her to figure out crawling but I'm trying to tell him that the longer it takes her to figure out the better for mommy ;).
I'd like to take credit for her extensive vocal skills, but really it has nothing to do with me, she's just a chatter box. She loves to growl, grunt, hum and fake cough. She has thrown a few consonants in there too, but not too consistently. She loves to take turns making the same sound, which is pretty cute. Here's an example (this one is long ~3 mins, it was for grandmas who can't get enough) ;).
Last week when we measured and weighed her she was 17.2 lbs and 26.5 inches long. She just went through a growth spurt and it shows. She is solidly wearing 6 month and 9 month clothes now, with just a few 3-6 month outfits holding on. She is still on the first rise of her BG cloth diapers and we usually have two rows of snaps left in the middle.
A few other milestones that happened last month were here awareness of cause and effect. It was cute to watch her mind working as she heard a noise from a toy and then made the connection that it happened when she moved her hand, so she did it again, and again, and again... She also had her first trip to Idaho to visit family and she has started going to bed a little earlier at night (and therefore waking up earlier too). She is ever the observer and has started watching things in more detail, like when we eat, she watches so intently as we move food from our plate to our mouth and then move our mouths chewing etc. It's pretty easy to get her to laugh these days too, she will laugh for most people that try these days and is really giggly when she's tired.
This monthiversary was on a weekend, so we enjoyed having daddy home to help us out with smiles :).
She still loves looking at that cute baby in the mirror :)
And a little blooper for you ;)
I call this 'the Look of Concentration'
She does make me happy
We finally busted out the stroller!
My parents went to Memphis last month and got her this cute onesie :)
We got some secondhand clothes from someone and included were
these adorable bunny slippers!
Daddy has fun things on his face to play with :)
She's a bear!
We were given this from Blake's Aunt and Uncle (originally in pink but when we
exchanged it for a bigger size they only had white, which is cute too).
I love her face! I will probably take 80000 pictures of her sleeping before she's two,
I'm not promising that I'll make this a weekly thing.. but I saw that title on another blog and I thought it was cute :). You might hate me for this.. but I have to share a little treat I discovered.
Single serving brownie in a mug. Bam.
I had the craving, thought there had to be a recipe, googled it, and had a warm brownie in my mug ten minutes later. Here's where I got the recipe.
Directions:
1. In a coffee mug mix butter, water, vanilla, and salt. Mix well.
2. Add sugar and mix. Add cocoa and mix. Add flour and mix.
3. Microwave 60 to 90 seconds. Allow to cool slightly before eating.
I've been making it with 3 Tablespoons of sucant instead of sugar and whole wheat flour to make it feel a little healthier. Even with those changes it is still delicious, heavenly and rich. I also add a pinch of espresso powder, to bring out the chocolate flavor more. The first time, I made an unhealthy one for Blake and he approved that too (but on our second indulgence he agreed to whole wheat flour) :). Normally I try not to use the microwave because it kind of kills nutrients in food, but I'm not sure there's much to kill here!
The batter, just before getting zapped.
Steaming, right out of the oven microwave
You can see the fiber of the whole wheat.. see, it's practically a health supplement.
