Christmas Dinner Theme is PLANNED!!!!

Sometimes all you need is the Seaside (Oregon, that is!)

Just what we needed!  A weekend at the beach, a book to read, some sunshine and we're rejuvenated.  A few more days would have been perfect and we had to cut our time short due to obligations at home, but the getaway was awesome!!  Click on the picture for some of my favorites of the pictures I took!  And here's a clip of the surf in action.  Don't blink or you'll miss it! :-)

Happy 11th Birthday, Coda!

This is the (was) napping birthday boy!  If he knew what was in the oven right now, he'd probably be sitting inside creating a saliva-puddle in front of the oven door.  Would you like to join him for some cookies later?  There's baby food chicken, peas, sweet potatoes and oatmeal cereal, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, bacon bits, cheddar cheese, egg, oat flour and oats all basted with bacon grease.  Are you sure you won't join him for his birthday treat?! ;-)
   

Or, if you'd rather, we can just have some cinnamon applesauce!!  This is the second large batch of applesauce I've made from the two FULL grocery sacks of apples that I received from friends.  I've eaten a number of the apples, but I LOVE the applesauce that come from these apples!  No sugar, just the pure flavor of the apple!  And it makes such a beautiful mauve applesauce!

Well now isn't that something?

Ah...the glorious days of fall -- something to be enjoyed while on a leave of absence from work!  EXCEPT I'M NOT ON LEAVE.  Oh, wait!  Yes, I am.  But I'm not supposed to be and so why did I work today?!  Somehow, in preparing to get ready for my Coffee Break Sabbatical and doing everything right to have that start on the 13th of January, it got entered into the computer as pending, but also completely "finished" because the date the specialist entered was January 13, 2013!!!  But my leave isn't until 2014!!  Anyway, so that explains why I couldn't assign a till today at work, and also why I couldn't even access the partner portion of the Starbucks website.  So, hopefully my specialist should be able to fix that first thing in the morning and I'll be able to work until January 2014!!!  Phew!!

So, off to coffee for my hard-working, lawn-mowing, still-sniffling husband!  And I might just need something to calm my nerves after having to try and take care of a mess I didn't create!

Lessons of the Heart

Yesterday I had the extreme pleasure of introducing the heart to three adorable young ladies!  We listened to the heart with a stethoscope, found our pulse, dissected a sheep heart and talked about what makes for a healthy heart.  I didn't feel it quite right having these girls here right after school without a snack, but I also wanted the snack to be heart healthy so I looked for an oatmeal cut-out cookie recipe that I could cut into heart shapes.  I found this recipe and want to make sure to keep it on file!  I made just half of the recipe so I had just an egg white and I also used part whole wheat flour and did NOT pack the brown sugar!  The cookies were huge hits! (As was the whole heart experience!)

Iced Oatmeal Cut-Out Cookies

• 1 c. butter
• 1 c. brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1½ c. flour
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1½ c. old-fashioned oats (cut with a knife)

Pre-heat oven to 350°.  Prepare parchment covered baking sheets; set aside.  

Cream butter and brown sugar.  Add egg and mix well. Add flour, vanilla, cinnamon, baking powder and oats and mix well.  Dough is VERY sticky so make sure work surface is very well floured and roll out with well floured rolling pin.  Cut out with well floured cookie cutter.  Place on prepared cookie sheets and bake 7-9 minutes or until golden brown.

White Icing

• 1 c. powdered sugar
• 1 tsp. corn syrup
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 tsp. water

Mix all together and pipe onto cookie with a #4 tip.  Start with outline and then fill in until smooth.

Cinnamon Icing

• 1 c. powdered sugar
• 1 tsp. corn syrup
• ½ tsp. cinnamon
•  5 drops cinnamon extract
• 2 tsp. water

Mix together as for white icing, adding drops of water if needed to get a creamy consistency.  Ice cookies in same way.