Life is a rollercoaster ride!

So, it's been a long time since I've written anything on here. My computer took a nose dive to the land of confusion and can't decide if it wants to start or turn off. I also found out I'm pregnant and have been riding that rollercoaster. 

R and I are very happy and looking forward to meeting our little one. I didn't anticipate how tiring growing a new life is. I am finally seeming to move past the morning sickness and exhaustion so I'm planning on being around the world of the conscious again.

It's also baking season and I'm hoping to experiment with some gluten free cookies, as well as more savory baking. I'm looking forward to being back in the game and providing all kinds of yummy updates for you! In so far as my phone will let me post!

Take care and see you soon!

Kitchen Experimenting

Once again I'm getting creative in the kitchen.

Ok not too terribly creative....and for once my exploits have yielded something decently healthy for frequent consumption.

I'm a huge fan of the Amy's Tofu Scramble breakfast burrito. I'm not so huge a fan of the price. So I decided I was going to figure out how to make one myself

I grabbed a few containers of a great tofu, by Cleveland Tofu, and looked up a few dozen recipes online, and took a little of what I liked from each. 

I came up with a vegan breakfast scramble, that I can make into a burrito, and I actually like it better than the Amy's version. 

Tofu Scramble

4 servings

1 lb extra firm, non silken tofu

1 medium onion

½ green bell pepper

½ tsp granulated garlic

½ tsp kosher salt

½ tsp tumeric

½ cup water

1 TBS olive oil

Fresh cracked black pepper

1. Drain tofu over night, or press for 1 hour

2. Crumble tofu into large skillet on medium heat

3. Combine garlic, salt, and tumeric until evenly mixed, and no clumps

4. Sprinkle spices over tofu, and stir, slowly adding water until a uniform color

5. Dice onion and green pepper, add to skillet and drizzle with olive oil

6. Cook over medium high heat, stirring frequently until onions are translucent and peppers are tender

7. Add pepper to taste and enjoy

Goes very well wrapped in a tortilla for a to go breakfast snack.

Can make and freeze wraps ahead of time:

Make wrap, be sure to warm tortilla first so it rolls nicely and doesn't crack apart.

put about ½ cup scramble in the middle of an 8 inch wrap, and roll up

Place on cookie sheet so not touching and let cool completely

Once cool place in freeze. Once frozen, wrap individually and store in airtight container in freezer.

The hardest part about this is not eating it all!

I plugged this into a few food calculators online, and as far as nutrition goes:
Per serving:
~135 Calories
~8 g carbs
~9 g fat
~9 g protein

Honeymoon in Scotland

A few people have been asking me to get some of our pictures from our honeymoon up. Well, here are a few.

On our third day we drove down to Loch Lomond, and stayed a cute little place called the Oak Tree Inn. Not too far away from there was Balloch Castle, a small castle, I think we actually have houses here bigger than it. Behind the castle was this nice paved path. We started to follow it, even though it start drizzling.

Balloch Castle path

 After a short while, we went off the paved path, and onto a well used dirt path. That dirt path kept narrowing, and narrowing until it practically disappeared!

Balloch Castle path

After a short ways of not really knowing if we were on the path or not, we came to this beauty! It was a perfect example of a babbling brook. I could have sat and listened to the melody of the stream, and forest around me, and watching the water play over the rocks as it tumbled it's way downstream for hours.

babbling brook beside the trail around Loch Lomond

I came to realize how people could have been considered kidnapped by the Fae, as mesmerizing as this bit of nature was, to have seen it 200 years ago or more, I can only imagine how entranced, and ensorcelled people may have been by it's beauty

Plus we found this stump. I have named it as being a gnome home. Standing there long enough, you could almost swear you saw something darting in and out of the leaves, dodging rain drops, and human eyes. 

After a while of following this stream, we rounded a group of trees to see Loch Lomond. In all it's glory, a foggy, over cast day, with a slightly misty rain. I was amazed at how clear the water was!

I don't think I have ever been moved so much by what I've seen as to say that it moved me to tears. Until this. Looking out over the loch, seeing the hills in the distance, standing with my husband behind me, holding me. I started crying. I still cry when I see this. I truly felt at peace, at home, and it's a feeling I will never forget.

After we left Loch Lomond, we traveled up A82 and made our way to Inverness. The picture below is what we saw that was just so perfect, we had to stop and take a picture.

Ah yes, the petrol station, with the most animated lady I've ever met! We stopped to gas, and to grab a bite to eat, they had a little carnival cart outside the station to buy hot food from. We were just going to get some chips and be on our way, but a group of construction workers came up to order their lunch. These were three young strapping lads, and one of them ordered black pudding.

I asked "What is black pudding?" and this lady looked at me completed flabbergasted! Her eyes grew round and wide as saucers, and with a cry of incredulity she asked, dumbfounded "Ye've ne'er 'ad black puddin?" in her beautiful brogue.

"We'll no, I haven't" I said, trying not to laugh at her amazement. "They don't exactly offer it where I'm from". 

"Och, weel I'll just have ta fix that up now won't I? I'll make you and your darlin' a wee sample to try" As she set about making her 'wee sample' she chatted with the construction lads, and told them about a special for next week. One of the lads said they wouldn't be there next week and that their project was done and they were heading back to another part of the country. To this, the lady said "Och, weel, ye'll just ha to come back wi'out yer clothes on" and kept on cooking. After about 10 seconds of the construction guys, my hubby and myself looking at each other shocked, she stopped dead in her tracks, spun around to face them with her eyes huge and her mouth hanging open slack at the realization of what she said. "I didnae mean it like that! I meant wi'out yer work clothes, in yer normal clothes!"

The laughter that ensued had me crying, and clutching my sides. She was by far the most animated lady I've ever met. If I ever go back, I WILL be going there again. She handed us our 'wee sample' of black pudding, she had made a sandwich out of it, and gave us a whole piece to split for free. It was very good! No, you don't want to know what's in it. We got back in our car, and kept traveling north, continuing to laugh randomly at the little lady from the Glencoe petrol station.

Ok, that's all for now, need to go make some bread!

Minion Birthday

So, my friend K's little girl turned two yesterday. Cutest little kiddo ever. She's using her manners, with a little prompting, she enjoys helping in the garden and around the house (I can't tell you how many times I've turned around to find her 'sweeping' the kitchen floor, or 'dusting' something), and will talk up a storm for you.

This adorable little blue eyed, blond curls of a little American Girl doll also LOVES minions. Like OMG every other word it seems is Minion. So for the birthday girl, her Momma and I decided I would make Minion cupcakes. I was super stoked, plus it gave me an excuse to buy a mini cupcake tin (everyone needs one those right?)

I looked up a few ideas online, and found pictures of people using Twinkies, and marshmallows, all sorts of different frostings, or fondant, and some painted on eyes, or used Smarties, or something else. I finally settled on how I wanted to put everything together, and took inventory for what I already had, and K and I headed off to the store.

I used a basic butter cream frosting, and about a half batch of the batter I used for K's birthday cupcakes last December. Plus, marshmallows, chocolate, candy eyes, black painting icing and sprinkles.

I started off by melting the chocolate, but of course I couldn't use my double boiler, because I used it with all sorts of fragrances and other things making lotions and candles last year, and yea well, didn't wanna risk it. No worries, we'll make this work the way my Momma taught me. A pan, and a bowl.

*DISCLAIMER* I don't really consider these candies as chocolates, but I can never get white chocolate to melt properly so I went with these.

Anywhoo....once it was all melted down, I added a splash of oil, and a pinch of vanilla, and started prepping the marshmallows. I found that if you just stick a toothpick in them, they pull off and get stuck in the chocolate, so I dipped the toothpick into the chocolate a little, then shoved it into my marshmallow, let it cool, and THEN dipped the marshmallow. Also...don't cover the whole marshmallow, because you'll have nothing to hold later without melting chocolate, and it makes it tricky getting the tooth pic out. Unless you want an excuse to eat half of your minions...then go ahead.

I used a styrofoam circle to hold the minions while they were cooling and drying, popping them in the fridge to hurry the process along since I'm not all THAT patient of a person.

How minions are born

Once I had all my Minions dipped, eyed, and haired, I started making cupcakes, and icing. I used Wilton Royal blue coloring to get the batter and icing as close to the shade of blue as their overalls and I could. 

Yay! First batch in mini cupcake tray!!!

After everything had cooled, and I took a break for dinner, I sat down and tried to draw the goggles and mouths on with a food writer pen. Thanks to the waxy nature of the chocolate, the pen tip just gummed up and didn't work for more than a tiny little mark that was REALLY faint any way. 

I tried to Google home made edible ink...and kept finding all these really cool ideas for making ink out of beets, and dryer lint, and walnuts, and all sorts of things, but not really what I was I going for. So I thought, well I have the black Wilton gel coloring, but it's too thick to paint on, so I'll try to water it down. Well that didn't work well, because the waxy-ness of the chocolate just had the water beading up and not drying. In the words of the minions "well, poop". 

I'm not sure what made me think of it, but I tried mixing some powdered sugar into the black water until it was about the consistency of an acrylic paint. Found my detail paint brush that I bought because I wanted to paint stemware, but never got around to it. I proceeded to paint, every minion's goggles, and mouths by hand, and assemble the cupcakes, while watching an outrageous comedy about a haunted house. 

MINIONS!!!!

WOW did they turn out pretty well! Some of them were a little wonky, some looked a little messed up, but overall, I had my own army of minions sitting on my coffee table.

The birthday girl, was so excited when she saw the minions that it didn't take her more than 5 minutes to snag one (after being told to wait) when no one was looking. K and I were in her kitchen getting dishes ready to set out and heard her say "I ate it". K and I looked at each other wondering what she was eating, and go into the other room to see this:

One very happy, Minion demolishing, birthday girl. Guess which one she snagged? The one I made with little piped stars on it so we could put her star candles in it for her to blow out....So we had to put the candles in a different one, but thankfully I had more cupcakes than minions.

Now that I've seen Despicable Me 2, I'm going to have to figure out how to do the new minions. Thinking, of cotton candy for the hair, and coconut for the teeth. If I ever actually make them, that is. I think I'm slightly minion-ed out for the time being. But we had one happy little birthday girl!