EEEEK! Spiders!!!

So Halloween is coming. It is not a day that I particularly look forward to but our playgroup is having a party on wednesday so I volunteered to make cookies. And here they are:

Jacob helped me put the eyes on...  however Jacob and Daniel ate at least four chocolate chips for each one that ended up on the cookies. It was fun to get them involved.

There is a bit of a story behind these cookies which I am going to share and I will finish with the recipe. Last Christmas I was looking for a gingerbread/gingersnap recipe. All the recipes had molasses in them which is not a stocked pantry item in my kitchen and I didn't want to buy it. Well.... Christmas passed and I found this recipe. It is called "Almost Gingerbread Cookies." I was very excited by the recipe and even planned to use it in my 2011 recipe challenge as a "Christmas in July" kind of thing. But then my challenge became an epic failure because I didn't keep up with it.

Anyways, what could be better than fake gingerbread fake spiders for halloween?

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Almost Gingerbread
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1 pkg butterscotch pudding mix
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon

In a medium bowl, cream together the dry butterscotch pudding mix, butter, and brown sugar until smooth. Stir in the egg. Combine the flour, baking soda, ginger, and cinnamon; stir into the pudding mixture. Cover, and chill dough until firm, about 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 350. On a floured board, roll dough out to about 1/8 inch thickness, and cut into shapes using a cookie cutter. Place cookies 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets.

Bake for 6-7 minutes in the preheated oven, until cookies are golden at the edges. Cool on wire racks.
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Harvest at Our House

Just wanted to share some pictures of the bounty our small garden gave us. These pictures are from a few weeks ago and are taken in our front yard.

Rescuing the tomatoes before the frost.

A butterfly visits my marigolds and eyes my parsley!

Ready to help.

Fresh out of the dirt. Yum.

Digging for carrots.

Found one!

We really enjoyed watching all the butterflies.

Apples, Apples, Everywhere

So I may have gone a little overboard with the apples. I was invited to someone's house to pick apples and took home three full grocery bags worth. My neighbor brought over a bag and then my in-laws brought me a bag. Last week I ordered a case of mixed apples from our food co-op because I really want to taste a Shamrock Apple, and tonight I ordered a case of Gala apples from some 4H kids doing a fundraiser.
I have already made mini-wrapple pies (which you can see here), several apple crisps, apple brownies (which was more like apple cake to me), three pans of apple bars, and over a dozen jars of applesauce. With the applesauce I have made carrot muffins, zucchini bread, and low-fat brownies. And I have enough apples sliced and frozen in the freezer to make eight large apple crisps.
And I won't even get the two cases of apples until the 25th. So if you have any good apple recipes, please please send them to me!



Low-Fat Brownies

Ingredients:

- 1 cup baking cocoa
- 2 cups whole wheat flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup soft margarine
- 2 cups sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup apple sauce
- 2 tsps vanilla
- chocolate chips, if desired

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Use 9x13 glass pan.

3. Mix all ingredients.
Sprinkle chocolate chips on top if desired.

4. Bake 35 minutes.

Okay, I know brownies are probably never really no-fat but these are so delicious and so easy! Plus the recipe calls for applesauce.

Pass the Salt

I need to thank three friends for their help in this post: Shannon, Kurt, and Marc.

These are my salt and pepper shakers.

The salt is on the right.

And here is the story behind them.

About three years ago two good friends (Shannon and Kurt) were moving out of the country and had an "Anti-Housewarming Party" which basically means come over and take any of the stuff for yourself that they didn't want to move with them. I picked up a really cute salt and pepper shaker set. The salt was an orange wedge and the pepper was a lime wedge.
About two weeks ago Jacob dropped the pepper shaker on the floor and it broke. I don't know what he was doing... he has been known to "drink" from the shakers and then I would have to empty and clean them which annoys me, so maybe it was that. Anyways....
So now I only have a salt shaker. But then I notice the little grain elevator that has been sitting on the back of my stove for about six years and has made three moves with us.
When I lived in Saskatoon I saw a commercial on TV for these commemorative salt and pepper shakers (the salt one had a white roof) for the city's 100th anniversary. The only problem was you had to buy a bottle of Polar Vodka to get one. I told my my friend and co-worker, Marc, about my problem. A couple weeks later he surprised me at work with the pepper shaker. (You had to buy something else, I don't remember what, to get the salt shaker).
And that is the story of my somewhat unique salt and pepper shaker set.