Pecan Muffins

This weekend I decided to make some of my favorite muffins. They are so yummy! So yummy that when Josh asked where they were the next day I had to tell him the girls and I had ate all 12 of them, and he didn't get 1.... Oops. 

I made him some of his own this morning before he went to work and thought I would share the recipe. They would be great for Thanksgiving morning but we eat them year round. 

Preheat oven to 425*

1 cup of packed brown sugar

1/2 cup of flour

1 cup chopped pecans

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

Mix together dry ingredients

In separate bowl mix

1/2 cup melted butter

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1tsp vanilla

Mix together dry and wet ingredients

Add some cooking spray to the bottom of your muffin pan so muffins do not stick. 

Finely chop about 1/2cup pecans and sprinkle in bottom of muffin pan. 

Scoop muffin mix into pan. Fill about 1/2 way. Makes 12 muffins. 

Bake 15-20mins. 

Will be a darker brown. Check to make sure it's cooked on inside. 

Use a knife and go around each muffin in the pan to unstick from sides. Let cool. Will pop right out so you can pop them right into your mouth. 

*Southern Living recipe

Thanksgiving Memories

 

 

I've decided that I HAVE to get back to blogging in 2013!!!!

 

Before I get into this new year I need to finish off 2012.

I can't believe that I haven't even blogged Thanksgiving, let alone Christmas.

So here is some Thanksgiving Memories.

 

We did lots of fun things for school.  There were many crafts and projects.  Here are some hand printed turkeys that we made.

 

This is a little lunch that we had with some friends.

 

At home we did a Thanksgiving Tree.  Each day the girls wrote down something they were thankful for. 

 

We also learned about (and dressed up) as Pilgrims and Indians.

 

 

 

On Thanksgiving Day we were at my parent's house.

We watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, did some fun crafts, and of course ate a big meal.

 

 

 

 

We also took a few holiday pictures.

 

 

 

Here is one of the new recipes that I found for this Thanksgiving.  (We also had it for Christmas because it is very yummy!  And yes it does taste just like Ruth's Chris Sweet Potatoes.)

 

 

Ruth's Chris Sweet Potato Casserole

---

• CRUST
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup flour
• 1 cup chopped pecans                                      
• 1/3 stick butter -- melted

                                                   

• SWEET POTATO MIXTURE                                                 
• 3 cups mashed sweet potatoes (You will have to cook these before hand)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 eggs -- well beaten                                                 
• 1 stick butter -- ( 1/2 cup) melted

• Combine brown sugar, flour, nuts and butter in mixing bowl. Set aside.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Combine sweet potatoes, sugar, salt, vanilla, eggs and butter in a mixing bowl in the order listed. Mix thoroughly.
• Pour mixture into buttered baking dish.
• Sprinkle the surface of the sweet potato mixture evenly with the crust mixture.
• Bake for 30 minutes. Allow to set at least 30 minutes before serving.
• Serves 6  

 

 

Next up, Christmas time!!!

 

Turtle Pumpkin Pie

 

 

I made this pie for the first time last year and it has become one of my favorite fall recipes.

Everyone always loves it.

And I don't really like pumpkin pie, but I like this pie a little too much.

 

Turtle Pumpkin Pie

 

1/4 cup caramel ice cream topping

1 Graham cracker pie crust

1/2 cup chopped pecans

2 pkgs Jello Vanilla Instant Pudding (3.4oz boxes)

1 cup cold milk

1 cup canned pumpkin (half of the can)

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tub of Cool Whip, thawed

 

Spread caramel ice cream topping and chopped pecans onto the bottom of the crust.

Beat together the pudding, milk, pumpkin, and cinnamon until well blended.

Stir in half the tub of Cool Whip.

Spoon into crust.

Top with remaining Cool Whip. 

I always top with more caramel and pecans.

 

Refrigerate 1 hour before serving.

 

 

Beach Week

The past 6yrs our family has gone to our beach house in Topsail Island, which is not far from Wilmington, NC.  Well, it's not our beach house... We have just rented the same house all 6yrs so it kinda seems like it's ours.

 

This year, we went the week after the DNC so we were so ready to get away.  My sister and I loaded up a van full of beach stuff and children and headed to go open up the beach house.  The next evening, Josh finally got there.  We were very happy to see him!  We hadn't seen him in a week and being at the beach is one of our very favorite things.

 

The rest of the week was full of lots of fun.

 

Of course there was lots of playing on the beach.

 

 

 

We love going to this beach house because we can take our dog with us.  Ellie loves the beach.  She likes to be right at the waves if the girls are in the water.  She also loves to relax and run.

 

 

 

 

Watching all 3 of our girls on the beach made me happy.

 

One of Josh and my favorite things to do is walk on the beach.  My girls usually stay at the house with my parents so it's a great time for us to talk, laugh, and encourage each other.

 

We also have some favorite beach traditions.

 

Sand Pudding is really yummy and the girls loved eating out of shovels and buckets.

 

 

 

 

 

1 pkg Vanilla Wafers

3 or 4 Oreos

8 oz Cream Cheese

1/4 C Butter

2/3 C powdered sugar

2 small pkgs French Vanilla pudding mix

2 3/4 C Milk

12 oz Cool Whip

Crush Oreos and Vanilla Wafers in a food processor to make sand.

 

 In a separate bowl, cream together softened 8 oz cream cheese, butter, and powdered sugar.

In another bowl, mix pudding with milk.

 Add to cream cheese mixture.

 Fold in cool whip.

 

 Layer into buckets with sand, pudding, sand etc.

 

 

We also go "crab hunting" at night on the beach. 

Really it's 2 children with flashlights and a dog running around like crazy and screaming when they see a little crab, but it's fun.

 

 

 

 

 

Finding pirate treasure is also a favorite tradition.  Josh has created this story that he tells the girls about a pirate ship that sunk in a storm right by our beach house.  His story is that when it storms there is pirate treasure that washes up on the beach.  He buys some of those fake pirate coins that are popular at beach stores and he goes and hides them on the beach.  First thing in the morning we tell the girls there was a storm and we saw some treasure on the beach while we were walking.  They go running out there and find their treasure. They love this!

 

 

 

The girls have come to this beach house every summer of their lives.

 

Alyse - 5

 

Breeley - 2

 

Our final tradition is the annual try to get a good family picture.

 

 

Now summer is officially over at our house.

 

A Recipe... or 6

My kitchen has been very busy the last week!

First of all I had some strawberry recipes that I made.  Now, I had big plans for those strawberries we picked but honestly there were not enough and they were not big enough to do everything that I wanted to do.  I had planned on making cheesecake stuffed strawberries and chocolate covered strawberries, but that never happened.  I still have all the stuff I need to make those so I may get to them soon, but I have had other projects to take up my time and counter space.

The first thing I made was some strawberry muffins.

I pinned them on Pinterest.  You can see a little healthier recipe here but I went for the original recipe.

Strawberry and Cream Muffins

2 C. flour

1 T. baking powder

1/8 tsp. salt

Whisk the dry ingredients together in a medium sized bowl.

2 eggs

1 C. light cream (I used whole milk)

6 T. butter

1 C. superfine sugar or regular sugar

1 tsp vanilla

In a medium bowl, lightly whisk eggs and add the rest of

the wet ingredients. Mix together with the dry ingredients.

1 C. strawberries

Gently fold in the strawberries. Fill the

muffin cups 2/3 full.  

Makes 12 regular sized muffins

Bake at 400 for 20 minutes

I also made my pound cake, which is one of my favorite and easiest recipes.  Josh loves this cake by itself or with strawberries and whipped cream.  (My friend Heather also loves it and I think of her every time I make it.  She was pregnant when she ate it for the first time last year and ate it for breakfast because she had to have some.  Of course you can do that when you're pregnant.)

Pound Cake

1 Box Yellow Cake Mix

1 Cup all purpose flour

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup oil

4 eggs

1 1/2 cup milk

1 stick of butter

Mix all ingredients well and place in a bunt pan.

Bake 350 for 45mins

Now, for some reason my cake did not come out of the pan very easily.  It wasn't looking all that pretty, so I decided to make a trifle with it.

I layered some cake, some chocolate chips, some strawberries, and some whipped cream.

Pretty and yummy!

I kept the strawberry muffins for home, but sent the trifle along with a bunch of other stuff with Josh to his district office.  It was Police Week so they needed some yummy stuff to celebrate.

Blueberry Streusel

(which is this recipe, I just didn't make muffins out of it.)

Doughnut muffins.

I also made some whoopie pies.

Oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookies

(which are huge!)

And some badge sugar cookies.

The last thing I put together for Police Week was this little basket of gum

I also made some bear sugar cookies for Alyse's preschool class.

(They are the bear class.)

Her teacher put them in their graduation gift bags.

I have to tell you what happened when I went to drop off these cookies.

There was a lady who saw them and she said, "Wow, that's a mom who has too much extra time on her hands."

Yeah, that's right.  I had nothing to do this week.

Resurrection Rolls and Eggs

This morning we woke up with a special breakfast planned. Normally on Saturdays we have pancakes, but today we made Resurrection Rolls.

(I was going to do them on Easter morning, but knew we probably wouldn't have time.  Also, Josh could do them with us today.)

Resurrection Rolls

You need a can of 8 crescent rolls

8 large marshmallows

half a stick of butter melted (4 tb.)

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons cinnamon

Mix cinnamon and sugar together in a small bowl.

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees

Roll out each triangle of dough

Take a marshmallow and roll it in the butter.

Take the buttered marshmallow and cover with cinnamon/sugar mix

Put marshmallow on the triangle of dough and roll up, making sure to completely cover and

pinch shut the dough around the marshmallow.

Place in oven for 10-12mins until golden brown

Eat and you will see that the marshmallow is gone leaving the "tomb" empty.

The marshmallow represents the body of Christ.

When you dip in the butter, talk about how they took His body and cleaned Him.

When you cover with the cinnamon/sugar mixture, talk about how they covered Jesus body in spices.

When you roll the marshmallow talk about how they used linen to cover His body.

When you pinch the dough closed, talk about how they closed the grave by rolling a stone in front.

When they look into the finished roll talk about how it is empty and that Jesus rose again leaving the tomb empty.

My girls loved this.

Butter

Cinnamon and sugar

Roll them up

Make sure they are nice and closed up

And of course have a marshmallow or 2.

Once they are done we saw how they were empty.

Also, this morning we did our Resurrection eggs.

We hide them and do a mini egg hunt.

Then we talk about all the pieces and how they tell about the Resurrection story.

From the donkey to the empty tomb.