Hallow Weekend Mirths

We had the most amazing weekend.

It started out with a Draper family traditional Halloween celebration. On Friday night, we made doughnuts and washed them down with some heavenly spiced apple cider while watching the Disney classic, "Ichabod Crane".

{family, devouring doughnuts}

{spiced cider}

Saturday night was our friends Tim and Audrey's Halloween party...fabulous!

{a flapper, a muskateer}

{Tim and Audrey, Me and Jeff Jeff}

I love parties. And the only thing I love more than a party is a really good party. Audrey knows how to throw a really good party! See for yourself:

{awesome decor}

{cute, and tasty, treats}

{games! shane won this one, you can just the determination in his face}

As the perfect cap for a wonderous weekend, we spent a delightful Sunday afternoon in God's Country (for those of you who don't know, this is Coalville, Utah...at least according to my aunt who lives in Coalville!), being with family and spending valuable time with my uncle who will be moving to Virginia for a couple of years to work. I love visiting my family in Coalville, it's always so nice to get out of the city and breathe the fresh air, see uncluttered mountains, and ride around on four wheelers shooting jack rabits. Ah yes, good times.

This weekend was a much-needed break from our routine, and it was fabulous.

P.S.-please don't go all PETA on me for shooting rabits. It's a very valuable form of pest population control, because, come on, you know about rabits...

The Fickleness of Fall

Here in Utah, Fall typically has trouble deciding what season it really wants to be. The result is an incredible and often surprising juxaposition of Fall and Winter. One day you have snow, frigid temperatures, and need to slap on a coat and scarf before you should even think about stepping out the door. The next day, it's 65 degrees and sunny; not a cloud in the sky. Or even somedays, in an unbelieveable display of weather schizophrenia, there is snow on the ground in the morning, and by late afternoon the sun is blazing and you find yourself wondering why you're lugging around a heavy coat and not wearing shorts.

The only obvious solution is to stay in bed (or maybe just putt around the house) until the weather has finally reached a decision of what it wants to be that day.

It goes without saying that should one decide to slough around at home, she would need a good pair of slippers. These are the ones I desire for the unpredictable days that are predictably ahead:

{muk luk nordic toggle slipper boots}

I'd love either the grey or purple ones. Someone please inform my husband, seriously, there are a lot of crazy weather days ahead. A girl's gotta be prepared.

That kind of day

I woke up this morning and looked out my window and saw this:

{snow, in October}

Yes. Sadly, it is what you think it is. It's October, and there is already snow covering the ground.
So I cuddled up, starting some online shopping for a new winter coat, and enjoyed a hearty bowl of pumpkin oatmeal. Maybe I'll get some things done, maybe I won't.

Yes. It's that kind of day.

For the pumpkin oatmeal recipe, check it out on my cooking blog which I made because apparently I need some more excitement in my life. Or maybe more organization. Or maybe my life is so full I have too much to share on just one blog....

Weekend Mirths

The first costumes of the season! Jeffrey had a work Halloween party this weekend so we got to try out our first costume idea: Unhappy Campers! (....we shouldn't have been smiling in that photograph....whoopsie!)

We obviously wore flannel and smeared dirt on our faces and fluffed our hair (Jeff's was easy to fluff, mine actually required the use of some hairspray) and stuck sticks in our hair and drew tons of mosquito bites on our arms (and Jeff's face and legs). It was great! My Halloween morals dictate that I can't wear the same costume twice in one year, so I have to come up with something new for this weekend. I want to be a "shopaholic," but Jeff Jeff says that's not a costume for me...

Any ideas?

Halloween Treats

Lets not start by talking about how I may or may not have already eaten a third of a pan of these blondies all by myself today.

Lets instead talk about making Halloween sugar cookies!!
As previously mentioned, many times, I adore Halloween. One of my family's old Halloween traditions involves the "Halloween Phantom." We would gather together, make cookies, arrange them festively on a plate or two and affix this little ditty to the top:
The Halloween Phantom has come today,

bringing this treat in a tricky way.

We’ve prepared and dropped this festive delight,

and ask you do the same by tomorrow night.

You’ll leave something yummy, along with this rhyme,

so others will know it’s their time to shine.

A trick with a treat until all Hallow’s eve,

will spread smiles and grins for all who receive.

So join in the fun, don’t break the chain,

deliver your treat in the dark or the rain.

You’ll feel the excitement that giving can bring,

As you become a part of this autumnal fling!

And then....we ding-dong-ditch them!!!!! I love doing this!! I realize I may be revealing a bit too much here, so if you like this idea, please do it by next weekend, and then forget about it by next year. At least until you find you find a special plate of cookies on your doorstep, then you are free to remember and even thank me if you'd like :)

Here are the cookies we made this year, they are the BEST sugar cookies.
Sorry there aren't any pictures...I got a little excited and involved and carried away in it all and my camera was left neglected on the counter.

Best Sugar Cookies,
according to Rachel

For the Cookies:
1 1/2 C granulated sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 C sour cream (I used all natural, regular. some day though I want to try it with reduced fat)
5 C all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda

For the Frosting:
4 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
2 1/2 Tbsp half and half (or milk)
2 C powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
gel food coloring

Method:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F

Cream together sugar, butter, vanilla and eggs. Mix in sour cream.

Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Gradually add to the batter, and mix thoroughly. Dough will be sticky. Cover the cookie dough and chill for at least one hour (this helps it to firm up and makes it workable).

Roll dough out onto a lightly floured surface to about 1/4 inch thick (or a bit more if you dare....and I dare). Cut out cookies to desired shape. Place on lightly greased cookie sheet and bake 7-8 minutes. Be careful not to over bake! These cookies can get dry really fast if you over bake them, but are perfection when cooked just right. I would even say it's better to underbake them just a bit than over bake them.

To make frosting:
Beat together the butter and half and half. Add vanilla extract. Sift the powdered sugar, and whip that into the butter mixture until smooth and creamy. Add more powdered sugar to stiffen it up, and more half and half to loosen it up. Color with food coloring. Frost cooled cookies.

Side notes: I prefer using the gel food coloring because the colors come out so much truer and more deeply hued, as opposed to liquid food coloring which almost always yields pastel colors. Plus, gel food coloring comes in awesome colors like purple, navy blue, even black!

For really groovy cookie decorating, use a piping bag. If you don't have one, put the different colors of frosting into ziploc sandwich bags and snip of a tiny little bit of the bottom corner. Then squeeze (make sure you don't squeeze it out the top!) and decorate away!!

I hope you try this ding-dong-ditching, Halloween Phantom thing. We absolutely loved doing it as kids, and in fact, I still love to do it. Nothing says Halloween like hiding out the dark, waiting for someone to find their cookies.

**oh and about those blondies....you should make those too. With white chocolate chips. The pan is now over half way gone, er... um.... thanks to the boys...I swear it wasn't all me.

Oatmeal...in Cookie form

So those cookies I mentioned making for Jeffrey and his friend last Friday...oh yeah those ones, mmmm mmmm they are sooo good!

They possibly could have been better had I not completely torched the white chocolate I was intending to drizzle all prettily over their golden tops, but even without chocolate, they were scrumptious. And maybe even healthy...I mean, they had oatmeal in them, and no chocolate, and coconut (which counts as a fruit in this instance).

Make these, you'll love them. They stay chewy and soft for about 4 days, which means I packed them into our lunches till they were gone gone gone.

Toasted Coconut Oatmeal Cookies

1 C butter, softened
1 C firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 C granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract
1 1/2 C flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1 C toasted coconut flakes
optional: 1/2 C white chocolate chips, either for mixing in or for drizzling

Method:

Toast the coconut flakes. Spread the flakes out into a thin layer on a baking sheet, and broil them with the oven rack in the middle of the oven until golden (3-5 min, depending). Be very careful not to burn them! Allow to cool before putting them in the cookie batter.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Cream the butter and sugars together. Add the eggs, one at a time, then the two extracts. Beat well. Fold in the oats and cooled coconut flakes and white chocolate chips, if using. Roll into 1 to 1 1/2 inch balls and bake for 7-8 minutes.

Then....eat 'em all up!

Here's one of my little secrets: since it's just me and Jefferson around here, I bake up anywhere from 6-8 cookies. Then with the rest of the dough, I roll little cookie balls and wrap them up tightly in plastic wrap.

Then I put them into a freezer bag and store them in the freezer. They never really make it past two months, but I think you could probably keep them in there a maximum of three months.

When we two get a hankerin' for some treats, I heat up the oven to 350 degrees F, pull out the cookies, place them on the tray and bake them from frozen. Sometimes they need a bit longer in the oven, around 10 minutes or so.

This way we have freshly baked cookies at our fingertips....anytime we want them.

This little trick is also great for quick desserts when you're in a pinch, like unexpected (but welcome!) visitors drop by or when you feel like doing something nice (and easy!) for someone.

Weekends

Due to nature of things this week, it's Thursday, and I'm finally ready to discuss the lovely weekend Jeff and I had. We went on a real date. We got sushi at what may be our new favorite sushi place, then went "window-shopping", where Jeffrey really didn't let me look at any of my favorite places that have beautiful clothes. You can't blame the man though, he just knows me too well (window-shopping would cease being window-y and would become all want-y). He did buy me some new leggings, and goodness knows, I LOVER leggings.

After our date, Jeff did homework with his friend (yes, he does Friday night homework, and it's ok, I'm over it), I made them cookies, and later.....we watched Bones :)

Saturday we baked and then decorated Halloween cookies with Jeffrey's sister and her husband. Decorating them was fun, eating them was nice, but the best part was ding-dong ditching them!!!




Sunday we had a family dinner, played some UNO (we stopped once I was the supreme victor, of course :) and enjoyed the rain.

This week....I got some mail!! I love my sister!!!



AND...I got my second 97% test score of the semester!! I love it when my brain works!!
Tonight Jefferson gets to work the graveyard shift, 12 am to 6 am, then come to class with me at 8 am tomorrow morning after taking a 1 hour nap. I love that man, and I'm grateful he taking on some extra hours, but I don't like being left alone all night. All this Bones watching gives me nightmares....

"Tiredness overwhelms my body"

I'm tired. Maybe you've been able to tell since recently there's been a slight lull on this blog. We had a really great and mirthful weekend, really we did, but I've been too tired to share pictures. I have great post ideas, yummy recipes to share, and all sorts of good stuff but I think it will have to wait. Hang in there with me...maybe tonight I'll get my midterm done, maybe tomorrow I'll get to sleep-in an extra hour, and then maybe, just maybe I'll be un-tired and ready to carry on as usual.



Who knows.

But we can all hope..... :)



I hope you are having a great week! Beware the tired bug!! It likes to bite hard!!



P.S.- the title of this post, "tiredness overwhelms my body," that right there is a quote from the foregone days of yesteryear- aka Freshman year- when somehow I managed to play all night, sleep-in half the day, and still get to all my classes on time (and, I might add, get pretty good grades, considering the circumstances). And we thought we were tired then...ha!

Spooky Season

October is already half over (yikes!) and if you haven't gotten your Halloween decorations up yet, you'd better hurry along. While cheery, smiling pumpkins and plump, laughing witches on brooms are cheery decor, I prefer to decorate for Halloween with the dark, glamorous side as my inspiration.

That means using black and purple, skulls, and glitter :)

The mercury votive holders on the "mantle" look amazing when lit, I highly recommend them. One of my favorite so-called "activites" is to light the candles, turn off the lights, and revel in the glorious glamour of spooky decor.

Other great decor not pictured here: glistening feather door wreath, black ravens, crooked black tree, little black spiders (not the real kind!! (although I might have seen one on the wall last night creepin' toward my spider web))

Simple Salmon Pasta

This was a super fast, super easy weeknight meal that was done so quickly, I forgot to take picutres of the process. That and, it's seriously so easy, hopefully you can get by without pictures.

Creamy Salmon Pasta:
2 Tbsp butter
3 Tbsp flour
1/2 C milk (I used 1%)
1 tsp garlic powder
1/4 C freshly grated parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste

1/2 lb pasta, I had to use bowties, but I wanted to use penne

1 Salmon fillet
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp chile powder
1/4 tsp paprika
3-4 dashes liquid smoke (optional)
salt and pepper- a little sprinlking will do

1 1/2 C frozen peas, defrosted

Method:
Boil some water and begin cooking the noodles to al dente.

Season the salmon with the above listed ingredients, tent it in foil and grill that sucker till the flesh is firm and flaky. Alternatively, you could bake the salmon in the oven for about 15 min at 425 degrees F.

Defrost the peas.

Then, in a large skillet over medium to medium high-heat (if you have a vintage 1960s green machine stove like me, you need to use medium-high), melt the butter. Whisk in the flour (you're making a roux here), and let the butter and flour simmer for a few minutes. Be careful not to let it burn, clump or dry out. Whisk in the milk, garlic powder and salt and pepper. Grate in the cheese, stir, and turn the heat down. Let simmer until thickened. Add more milk if necessary to thin it out.

Drain the pasta noodles, and dump them in the skillet with the sauce. Add the peas and stir to coat. Cut the salmon into bite sized pieces, gently fold it into the pasta and sauce and peas.

Then...enjoy!!

Pretty MIY (make-it-yourself)

Remember those headbands form girl's night? Well, I'm gonna tell you how to make them so you too can have a lovely head adornment.

What you'll need:

• various fabrics, I like to use chiffon, tulle, lace, and/or silk, basically anything gauzy and beautiful will work
• a headband
• scissors, needle, thread
• extra special cute things like pearls, beads, buttons, a bow, a brooch (this is optional)

First, cut your chosen fabric into little squares

Unless you want something really big and gaudy, cut the squares 1 1/2- 2 inches in size, and don't be OCD about this, trust me, variance is GREAT.

Here comes the variance again. Cut a plethora of squares from your various fabrics, and round the corners of some, while leaving others hard-edged. I like to round off my chiffon and silks and keep my lace and tulle hard-edged.



Take your first square and fold it in half to make a triangle.

Fold it in half again.

Then using your needle and thread, tack it to your headband (for those of you unacquainted with sewing terms, this simply means stitch it on).

There are some tricks to this:

1. Be sure that your needle runs through all the folds of your little "flower", or else it will come undone.

2. Put on your headband and decide where the first flower should go before sewing it on. You don't want it on the top of your head, or hidden by your ear.

Layer your fabrics on down the headband, alternating placement from left, middle, and right. Alternating the placement will give it a fuller look (i.e. make it cuter!!)

Then look! You've made a cute headband and it was so easy!!

If you'd like to, throw some pearls or buttons or beads or whatever on there to really fancy it up, kinda like the one I made on girl's night.

Now go out there and wear it!! You'll make everyone jealous, especially when you tell them you made it yourself.

Weekend Mirths

The weekend was cozy.

Saturday morning Jeffrey and I made yummy breakfast, one of my favorite traditions we started this fall. It's so yummy, I think it will stick around for awhile.

{french toast, buttermilk syrup}

Sunday we went for a fall color tour of the Alpine Loop in Sundance, Utah.
(this is also a family tradition, we go every fall)

These activities, combined with copious amounts of hot chocolate and lots of puttering about in slippers made the weekend a much needed break from what is quickly becoming a

much too hectic lifestyle.

Musing: Optimism

Jeffrey gave me the nicest complement yesterday. Well, I’m not sure he intended it to be a complement, that’s one of the great things about Jeffrey. He’s not a brown-nosing, fraudulent, tongue-in-cheek kind fellow. He’s honest. That’s why I take little treasures like this as complements, because I know that at least to him, it is a truth.

He said I’m an optimist; doom and gloom don’t suit me at all. As far as I can remember, I’ve always tried to wear rose-colored glasses, see my glass half full, look for the sun, and all those other optimistic things. However, as I have grown older and experienced more and more of the realities of life, I think that faith is what keeps my optimism afloat. Faith that no matter how bad things may seem, there is a greater purpose to everything, and if I can just stick it out, I will eventually come to see the good.

I know we could all use a little more optimism and a little less doom and gloom. The playwright J.M. Barrie said, “Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.” I would say the opposite is true as well: when we bring sunshine into our own lives, we will not be able to keep it to ourselves, rather, we will want to share it. I hope you all have a light-filled weekend, no matter if the sun in the sky is shining, or rain is pouring down, or a storm brews inside. Light will come. And when it does, please share :)

Glitter Gal

Once upon a time, in art class during my 5th grade year, we were all asked to decorate a Santa that would be hung in the local McDonalds. We could color it in with crayons, markers, colored pencils and we could put glitter on it if we liked. Well that dumb looking Santa for McDonalds just wasn't good enough for glitter. Several of my friends and I decided that a much better, much more beautiful place for it would be our pretty little heads. So we scattered glitter all over our hair. And we were sent to the Princpal's Office for it.

That was one of the most mortifying experiences of my life (up to that point at least). We all sat in the Principal's waiting room, nervous about what she would say, bad-mouthing the crazy art teacher for sending us to the office for putting glitter in our hair. I mean, come on, glitter? Really? We didn't think it was that big of a deal, and neither did the Principal. She told us to be more careful and only use art products for art. And on our way out, the secretary whispered that she thought it looked cute.

And you know what? I'm pretty sure that just a few months after that, glitter hairspray was all the rage.

From that moment on, we girlies called ourselves "The Glitter Gals," and 13 years later, I'm still loving glitter, any way it comes.

{christian louboutins...sigh}

{glitter nail polish, the more glittery, the better}

{jewelry, banana republic ring}

{MAC eyeshadows, honey lust is a fav}

{MAC mineralize highlight powder, in petticoat}

{falsies, especially on Halloween}

{swarovski crystals, on everything!}

{blatantly glittery shirts, Brandy & Melville sequins top}

{glitter with a touch of sophistication, Elizabeth and James "Pop Artist" shirt}

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

Remember that yummy chicken dinner I mentioned on Monday? Well this is it. It was my first time roasting chicken legs, but I knew they would roast better than chicken breasts and I was really in the mood to roast something (maybe just so I could scarf the accompanying vegetable, roasted carrots.....mmmm yummy!).

Roasted Tarragon and Garlic Chicken,
with carrots and mashed potatoes

For the roast chicken and carrots:
4 chicken legs
4 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 tsp olive oil
1/3 C chopped fresh tarragon
1/2 yellow onion, medium-sized

1 lb carrots, peeled and cut into equal-sized pieces

1 (14oz) can chicken stock, with 2-3 chicken boullin cubes dissolved into the stock

salt and pepper to taste

For the potatoes:

10 potatoes, washed,peeled, and quartered

4 Tbsp butter

milk

garlic salt, salt, and pepper to taste

For the gravy:

chicken drippings

3 Tbsp flour

salt and pepper, if needed, to taste

Method:

Heat oven to 350 degrees F

Trim excess fat. Rinse the chicken legs and pat them dry with a paper towel. Be sure they are dry! Wet skin=yucky wilty, not crispy skin. Run your fingers under the skin on each chicken leg to create a pocket, this is where you will stuff in the herbs.

Grate the 1/2 onion. Mix with tarragon. Heat the olive oil in a pan, saute the minced garlic until softened and fragrant, let it cool a bit, then add it to the onion and tarragon. Stuff the herb mixture into the pocket you made earlier on the chicken legs. Season the skin with salt and pepper and pat some of the herb mixture on top.

Place in a roasting pan with the prepared carrots. Roast 15 minutes, then pour in the chicken stock. Continue roasting 10-15 minutes more, until internal temperature is about 165 degrees F and the juices run clear.

Meanwhile, put the potatoes in large pot, cover with water, add some salt, then put on the stove and bring the water to a boil. When the potatoes are done, a fork will slide through them easily (about 10 minutes). Drain the water. I like to put the potatoes back in the pot, then mash them, then add the butter and milk till they are smooth and creamy. I season with salt, garlic salt, and a bit of pepper. Then I put a lid over them and keep them on the stove (heat off) to keep them warm. When it's time to serve, they may need more milk to make them creamy again.

Once the chicken is done, pull out the legs, put on a plate, cover with foil, and let them rest while you make the gravy. Remove the carrots from the pan, and cover those as well. If you are cool like me and roasted your chicken in a stainless steel roasting pan (or if you used a dutch oven roasting pot), you can make your gravy on the stove. Super cinch.

Just turn the burner on to medium, add the flour, one tablespoon at a time, whisking after each addition. Then watch your gravy thicken and oila!! Gravy is ready. (If you want to be finicky, you could strain the juices prior to adding the flour, but I LOVE the tarragon and garlic and in my gravy. So I don't.)

Plate up and enjoy!