Blog update in progress

I am trying to increase my blogging abilities…writing, photographing, posting, layout settings, etc…  Please bear with me as this blog goes through some changes in the coming days and weeks.
If you have any suggestions about learning to blog, please feel free to share them.
Thank you,
allison


thoughts of spring on another chilly snow day…

~ Love on a Snowy Day ~

Winter in Louisville means an occasional snow day.  On the first lucky day in February, I decided to make blueberry muffins.  While Josh headed outside to shovel my drive and uncover my car, I headed to the kitchen to make breakfast for us.

Yes, the muffins are heart-shaped.  I have the regular and mini Wilton silicone pans.  I’m still trying to decide if I like them.  While muffins always bake well in them, the pans are terrible to clean.  I’ve followed many tips for using them, including baking with and without non-stick spray.  Either way, I cannot get the muffins to come out in one piece and I always have a tough time getting the spray gunk off the pans after.  Anyone have any suggestions (other than throwing the pans away and going back to my regular metal muffin pans)?
I had blueberries in the freezer that I chose to use in these muffins.  Instead of letting them thaw, I threw the frozen berries into the batter and they promptly froze the batter.  It was a little difficult to evenly fill the muffin pans, but I liked that none of the berries got mushed while I was folding them into the batter.  They stayed fat and round, and looked wonderful in the hot muffins.
Here’s my favorite muffin recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 cup fresh blueberries

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.
2. Combine flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with flour mixture. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.
3. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.

We Love Pancakes!

Last week The Most Awesome Kindergarten Teacher and The Most Awesome Librarian continued a collaboration project with The Most Awesome Kindergarten Class. We have been working on informational writing, specifically How-To stories. After the students wrote a story to teach me how to find a book in the library (thanks for the great idea Awesome Librarian), we decided to write a story teaching people how to make pancakes.

To begin our study, we read two books about making pancakes. One was Pancakes by Jan Pritchett, a book in our Rigby Literacy series. This was a great teaching tool because it is a wordless book so the students had to verbalize all parts of the story and couldn’t rely on the text.

The second book was Let’s Make Pancakes by Emma Rossi. This is a leveled reader also, one that I found in our school’s bookroom. This book had text to read and the steps were slightly different from the steps in the first book, so we were able to have a discussion to compare and contrast the two books, which added to the depth of literacy skills covered throughout the week.

After we studied both books, the students created their own ‘book’ by listing the pancake-making steps on separate pieces of paper, then reading through them and correcting the sequence of steps. They then matched pictures (Google Images and MS Word clip art are wonderful resources) to the steps to finish the pages.

As a culminating activity, The Most Awesome Teacher and Librarian used the students’ created directions to make pancakes—a true test to the accuracy of their work. We made it through an intruder drill and a tripped fuse in our power strip to make the pancakes during writing time.
Every student had a hand measuring ingredients so it was truly a class project. Take a look at these pictures to see our fun.

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/4 cup shortening, melted

Directions

1. In a small bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Combine the egg, milk and shortening; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened.
2. Pour batter by 1/4 cupful onto a greased hot griddle. Turn when bubbles form on top of pancakes; cook until the second side is golden brown.

Happy Birthday, Janelle!

Janelle attended Wyatt's birtday party last fall and loved his cake. Her birthday was shortly after his and she wanted something similar. Since her favorite color is pink and she loves the Disney princesses, I created this cake for her.

Happy Birthday, Wyatt!

Wyatt turned 3 this month. Amy asked for a cake...no specifications. I love that!
I'd wanted to do a rainbow cake for a while and it seemed like the perfect thing for a 3-year-old. I had no idea that the party was going to be a carnival. Amy had no idea that the cake was going to be colorful. It made for a great surprise when they cut into it.

May Food Fun

I missed the Daring Bakers challenge in May, but I have a very good excuse.

Josh was home on leave and thought it would be a good idea to hit the road...and the water...and the air. We'd been dreaming of a trip to Croatia for months, and this was the right time.

Josh came to visit my school on his first Friday in town. We were talking with another teacher after dismissal about what we would be doing while he was on leave. His response to her questions was, "We are going to elope to Croatia...start the rumor." Little did I know that we were really going to go. One desperate phone call explaining the change in plans to my mother and a quick online search later, and we had ourselves 2 tickets to Split. WOW!
Only half of the rumor is true, though. We did go to Croatia, but we didn't get married.

Yes, we did consider it.

Here are some of the highlights from that trip...you'll notice a theme in all these pictures...we like to eat.

Our first night in Split. Josh ordered a seafood plate and I ordered scampi. I got a kabob. Not wanting to be rude, I kept it and we worked our way through both dishes. As we were finishing, the waiter came by and said, "Your scampi will be right out." Wait a minute!!?? What? Yes, I got the scampi after the kabob. We were confused and stuffed after that dinner.
 
 
The mountaintop winery: 
* Prosciutto with sheep's cheese
* Lentils and lamb 
* 'Pancake' with walnut spread
  

During our drive down to Dubrovnik we stopped at a roadside stand and found strawberries! They were small and juicy and quite possibly better than any strawberries I've had in Wisconsin. We also bought a bag of oranges, and after much prodding by the eager saleslady, a bottle of blackberry brandy. We also tried the olive oil…on our skin. :)
 
 
Dinner in Marina: 


Gelato in Trogir:

 
Eating pistachio and tiramisu gelato...or was it kiwi and coffee gelato? We went twice that night.

Lunch at Luna Cafe (right next to Pink Cafe) 
 
* scampi
* mussels in white wine
* Bitter Lemon
* brochette with fresh mozzarella

We saved the best for last. This was our final dinner in Croatia, at a little roadside restaurant on the way back to Split.



 

 

Daring Bakers ~ Cheesecake

April's Daring Bakers challenge presented a fun treat and an opportunity to be creative with flavor. Jenny from Jenny Bakes chose Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake. I decided to make my cheesecake in cupcake cups for easier sharing, and then I picked two fun flavors. Since Tony (of Tony's Bistro) makes lunch and dinner for me on a regular basis, I made key lime cheesecakes for him. I'm not a key lime fan, but Tony said they were great. Josh chose the other flavor. He suggested a bourbon dark chocolate cheesecake. I'm also not a bourbon fan, so I substituted amaretto. I used amaretti cookies for the crust and Hershey's dark cocoa for the chocolate. These were wonderful!


The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.