Nut butter granola bars

Last year, I posted a recipe that I got from my friend Kara. She brought me a batch of her Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Granola Bars after Colin was born. I blame this recipe entirely for not losing my baby weight. It's a delicious way to still be fat, by the way.

However, in the interest of wanting to fit back into my jeans before Colin turns *ahem* two years old, I have modified this recipe, gradually removing sugar from it without sacrificing the taste.

Now, I always take some of these to new mamas with the instructions to store them in the freezer, remove one before you start nursing, and then enjoy after you are done. Last week, I took a batch to Jessica (sans coconut), and I figure it's now time to post the new version of the recipe.

The changes from the original include cutting the brown sugar in half, using freshly ground almond butter instead of peanut butter with oil and sugar added to it, and using dark chocolate chips - a 1/2 cup instead of 3/4 cup. Sometimes I also use Earth's Balance sticks instead of real butter if I want to make them dairy free.

You can also include dried fruit, and I've got some candied ginger to try in my next batch. Something else I'm going to try is making it with freshly ground peanut butter made from honey roasted peanuts, then I'll cut the honey either completely out or in half. I'll never cut the molasses because I love the taste so much.

Without further ado, here is the modified version. Less sugar, still yummy.

Nut Butter Granola Bars

2/3 cup fresh ground nut butter

1 stick butter, softened

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup molasses

1/4 cup honey

2 teaspoons vanilla

3 cups uncooked oats

1/2 cup of dark chocolate chips

3/4 cup shredded coconut

1/3 cup wheat germ

1/4 cup ground flax seed

Heat oven to 350. Beat brown sugar, butter, and peanut butter till fluffy. Add honey, molasses, and vanilla- stir well. Stir in oats, chips, coconut, raisins, and wheat germ. Press into bottom of a 9x13 baking pan. Bake fifteen minutes. Put in the freezer to chill for 45 minutes or until firm. I then cut them into bars and store them in large Ziploc in the freezer.

Pimento cheese for people who hate pimentos

I love pimento cheese.

I hate pimentos.

This has presented a problem for me most of my life. A problem, that is, until I came up with this genius solution.


No-Pimento Pimento Cheese


16 oz. shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
6 oz. softened cream cheese
1/2 C mayonnaise
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 can of chopped green chilies

Blend in food processor until creamy.


Voila. And, you're welcome. I recommend a big fat sandwich on wheat bread with slices of avocado.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Granola Bars

I'm posting this in between licking my fingers clean of the yummy goodness. My friend Kara brought a batch of these after Squeak was born and gave me the recipe as well.

You will want to make them right away and often after that. They are so incredibly good.

1 cup brown sugar

2/3 cup peanut butter (I have used creamy and chunky-both work well.)

1 stick butter, softened

1/4 cup molasses

1/4 cup honey

2 teaspoons vanilla

3 cups uncooked oats

3/4 cup of chips (chocolate or butterscotch or you could use raisins)

3/4 cup shredded coconut

1/3 cup wheat germ

1/4 cup ground flax seed

Heat oven to 350. Beat brown sugar, butter, and peanut butter till fluffy. Add honey, molasses, and vanilla- stir well. Stir in oats, chips, coconut, raisins, and wheat germ. Press into bottom of a 9x13 baking pan. Bake fifteen minutes. Put in the freezer to chill for 45 minutes or until firm. I then cut them into bars and store them in large Ziploc in the freezer.

Nothing to it, but oh so amazingly good. And from stuff I mostly have in my kitchen already.

You're welcome.

Split Pea Soup

Kevin and I have tried to marry our very different family culinary traditions during the winter holidays. I have loved learning to make pirogi, and tolerated learning to eat pickled herring. My favorite recipe of his mother's that we've adopted though is split pea soup.

Never in a million years did I imagine loving a thick green soup with barely any spices in the recipe, but I do.

Split Pea Soup

16 oz package of green split peas
3 qts of water or enough water to cover
1 small ham shank or bone (with plenty of ham left on it)
1 large onion, finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 1/2 cups finely diced carrots
1 cup finely diced celery
1 cup finely diced potatoes

In a large pot combine peas, water, ham shank or bone and simmer for 1 1/2 hours. Remove ham shank or bone. Stir in carrots, potatoes, onions, and celery. Simmer an additional 1 1/2 hours or until soup reaches desired thickness.


Of course, by now you know that I've got some "but I do it this way" to add to any recipe. This one is no different.

First of all, we cut up even more ham and add it to the soup at the half way point. We use big chunks of potatoes. And of course, I use stock instead of water. Usually I have plenty of turkey stock left over from Thanksgiving, and I'll just use that.

However, this year, my fabulous brother and sil sent Kevin a rack of ribs from Dreamland. They were delicious. We ate them for lunch the day we made the soup, so I collected the rib bones and made stock from them.

Let me tell you. There is no other way to make pea soup now. That stock was amazing, and lent the perfect marriage of our southern and northern roots to an old recipe.

Yum.

Cookies, anyone?

Last night, after Little Bird was in bed, I started making my first batch of Christmas cookies. There was a cookie exchange for my woman's circle at the church this morning, and I was supposed to bring 10 dozen cookies.

Best laid plans, right?

I went to get started, opened the fridge and found that I only had one stick of butter. I needed five. My dear, sweet, wonderful husband changed out of his pajama pants and went to the store at 8:30 at night.

By 11:00, I was finally finishing up baking the cookies. I still had to turn them into oh so delicious little double doozies with my frosting, and roll them in my crushed candy canes, but I went to bed instead. Figured I could do that part in the morning.

This morning, Bird woke up with 101.4 fever. That meant no school for him, no cookie exchange for me, and a trip to the doctor.

I can't decide if I'm upset by the 120 chewy chocolate double doozies on my counter or thrilled to death. A little of both, I believe.

Cookies, anyone?

Shirley's Shoepeg Corn Casserole

One of the things I make each year for the Boo-Shamoopie annual Thanksgiving blowout is this Shoepeg Corn Casserole. I almost feel guilty printing the recipe because it is so stinking easy, that this part of the meal feels like a cop out on my part. But Boo's husband loves it, and I've been making it every Thanksgiving dinner for over a decade now.

If you need something to take with you to a dinner, this is super easy, impossible to mess up, and you can make it the night before. Just wait to add the Ritz crackers until you are ready to bake it, and remember that if you have a refrigerated Pyrex dish, you want to put it in the cold oven and let it heat up as the oven preheats. Lest your Pyrex shatter. Which would be bad.

Shirley's Shoepeg Corn Casserole

1/2 C chopped celery
1/2 C chopped onion
1/4 C chopped bell pepper (I use orange because it's pretty and I hate green ones)
1 can cream of celery soup
8 oz. sour cream
1 C grated cheese (I usually use cheddar, but have been known to just use a combo of whatever was in the fridge at the time)
2 cans shoepeg corn, drained
1 can French style green beans, drained
1 sleeve Ritz crackers
1 stick melted butter

Mix first 8 ingredients. Pour into a long, shallow baking dish (I use a 9x13, but I also don't measure very well, so I often am just dumping random amounts of the ingredients into a bowl until it looks good, so I'm not much help there, am I?). Top with crushed crackers. Drizzle melted butter over the top. Bake 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

See? Isn't that embarrassing? So incredibly easy, but I promise, people will love it. Unless your people are like my father-in-law, who doesn't like anything. But says he does. Well, he doesn't like this, or rice, or grits, or mushrooms, or several other things that appear on my table frequently. But he eats them anyway. Except mushrooms.

Papa does approve of The Pie, however, and I think you should click on over and remind yourself of said pie and how good it looks. It's something else you should add to your Thanksgiving table fo' sho'.

Meal planning

If I don't plan ahead, there is likely to be pizza on the table or a trip to Torrero's. I just am not one of those people who can walk in the kitchen and throw something together.

So I meal plan. Often for a month at a time. I didn't mean to do it that way, but I got this awesome book, a Busy Body Book, at Blogher in 2008, and it just lended itself to compulsive meal planning. I know I'm not using it how they had in mind, but because of how I'm using it, I'm inclined to say it's the best planner I've had (although I'm waiting to see what Molly comes up with next, you know, supporting local moms and all!).

Here is what a week looks like:














The columns on the right hand side, I use for 1)Meals 2)People eating them 3)Notes 4)Weekly appointments 5)One-time appointments. The "people eating them" column may sound strange, but my stepdaughter is only here 50% of the time, and we like to have Papa eat with us whenever we can. Also, we meal share with a neighbor, so every other week, I make double and take part of it across the street, so I need to keep up with who I'm feeding nightly.

That's a terrible scan above, but the book is too big for my scanner. What you can't see on the far left is a lovely blank space where I put a list of what's in the freezer, Target lists, Trader Joes list, Costco list, or even copy down a new recipe I want to try. You can see the lines where I make my main grocery list.

About once every six weeks, I'll make a Costco run and buy meat. I'll divide it up into portions and freeze it, keeping a tally of what I've put on the menu plan. Other freezer basics are buttermilk biscuits, a frozen meal from Trader Joes for emergencies, a frozen pizza, a couple of casseroles, soup, stock, fat back for veggies (don't tell my Yankee husband about that though), twice baked potatoes that I make a couple dozen at a time, and summer vegetables put up for the winter. Basically.

That's it in a nutshell. If I follow the system, it works really well. I remember to take things out of the freezer in time for dinner, and I usually only have to go to Harris Teeter once a week. I feel better about how I'm running the household, the budget, and as a wife and mother.

And then there are weeks like this past one where I let it all slip through the cracks and barely made it to the store to get milk.

I like the organized weeks much better.

Little Bird changes his mind

We've come a long way from the first time Little Bird tasted apples. He is quite the fan now, although he chews them for awhile and then spits out what is left. Same with clementines.



Chew, chew, chew, spit. Endearing.

Bird does love his fruit though. Every afternoon after his nap, he gets a smoothie. He follows me into the kitchen and watches me load up the blender. As soon as I turn the blender on, he starts spinning in a circle and then runs back and forth the length of the kitchen, waving his arms in the air and yelling. He gets really excited over his smoothie.

Like I said, we've come a long way since the introduction of fruit to our Little Bird. Here he is last summer, having some apples.

Meal planning and other rambling

Oh, my heart. Almost daily, Bird does something that astounds me. Simple things that are so normal, but that to a first-time waited-so-long mama, are amazing.

I don't think this is necessarily fascinating reading material, but it's about all I think about some days. Between that and the overcoming nausea, I've been a little silent lately.

I do think that this pregnancy is going to end up with a healthy baby come the end of January, 2010. Today marks 8 weeks, and I am quite certain that things are progressing.

We've been spending our days biding time the past couple of weeks. There is lots of mommy-on-the-couch time with Bird climbing over me to reach the books that have been placed carefully within his reach. We read a lot. We watch too much TV. We try our very best to make it to the pool or the park after nap time when I feel better. We also infringe upon our neighbor probably way too much, but she is the type of person who meets you where you are, feeling good, bad, or ugly, so it's nice. I can be talkative or silently fighting off feeling like crap.

Summer is moving slowing, I'm afraid.

Meal plans have gone out the window. I've got to get back on that. At the beginning of the year, I took my dayplanner, which I always insist on having even though I have used it less and less since I left the non-profit world, and turned it into a meal planner. (Leave now if you are already bored, because it's about to get a lot more boring)

Each page has a week's calendar on the right and the left page is half blank and half full of lines. It's a planner that came in the infamous SVMoms swag bags last year at BlogHer, a BusyBody Book. At the beginning of the month, I go to Costco and buy meat for the month. I divide it up into portions of 2 or 3 and then freeze it. After listing what all in is the freezer on the blank section next to the first week of the month, I start filling in the days with meals, checking off the contents of the freezer as I go.

There are some constants. Tuesdays are swap meal days with Cyndi. Friday nights are breakfast for dinner nights. I also always buy 2 whole chickens every month so one night we have roast chicken, then the following night we'll have chicken enchiladas or some chicken casserole. Also, buying the whole chicken ensures that we always have chicken stock in the freezer.

Using the planner means that I can also incorporate Lovely's schedule into the planning, making sure I have lunch fixings on hand for her time with us as well. Or, if Kevin has a meeting or whatever, I can put it right in the same calendar where our meals are. The blank sections give me room to jot down a new recipe to try, and the lines for each week give me a place to make my grocery list right next to what meals we are going to have.

This was a fantastic system until I started getting really woozy when thinking about food. Planning meals is very difficult when just considering food makes you want to yak.

I have got to get back to it though, because I completely scored at the North Hills Farmer's Market yesterday. Thanks to Ilina, I was able to scoop up the full share of someone who wanted out of their committment to the very booked up Double-T Farm CSA for the rest of the season. Farmer Tom was looking for a "friend of a friend" to take it over, and Ilina was just that friend I needed to convince him to sell the share to me.

This means that every Saturday, we will have a whole mess of beautiful, tasty, organic, local produce to work into our meals for the week. I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. This week we have lettuce, carrots, cabbage, cucumbers, leeks, vidalia onions, zucchini, and zepher squash. The carrots taste exactly like I was standing with my grandfather in his garden. We would wash off the vegetables before we even got back in the house and munch on them in the backyard. I haven't had a carrot that tasted like that in years, until yesterday.

If I don't plan ahead, I'll be sure to forget what is in the fridge and let it go to waste. That would be awful, so I'm going to get back on it for sure this week.

It looks like I've written myself into a goal. I had better quit before I make any more promises to myself in public. Wish me luck.

Be sure to go over and enter the giveaway at Triangle Mamas. As of right now, it's been up for almost 48 hours and no one has entered. That is both embarrassing for me and great for you at the same time. It's for Animal Planet's Emergency Vets for the Nintendo DS. I don't even care if you have a DS. Just enter. It will make me feel better. Mercy buckets.

Haiku reflection on a new me

Guy and Lovely gave me a new mixer for Christmas. For 10 years, I have used my very basic Kitchen Aid 4 1/2 quart mixer for all my baking. I felt lucky to have a Kitchen Aid, but I knew that it was a little small for the amount and kind of baking I like to do.

There have been times that Guy has tried to talk me into buying the Professional 600 series mixer that I drooled over. The 6 quart one. Yum. But I just couldn't do it. I had a mixer that worked just fine. It seemed like such a frivolous purchase when I had something that already did the job.

Thank goodness for gifts. The new mixer is a power house, and I swear, I made the best pound cake I have ever made with it on its first run. The crust was absolutely perfect. The batter had room to breathe in that wonderful 6 quart bowl. I love it.

Since my old mixer didn't break, I couldn't see getting rid of it. It's a great mixer. So, we deemed it Lovely's mixer and set about teaching her how to bake.

Yesterday, I gave her a stack of cookbooks so she could pick out a cake to make.

She chose a Hot Milk Cake with Caramel Icing from the Jackson Junior League's Come On In cookbook.

Oh boy. I have never done caramel before.

We set our mixers up this morning and each made the cake. At the same time. Because I think the easiest way to learn it to get to do it yourself. We walked through the steps together and both had some really good looking batter to go into our respective ovens.

Tonight, we tackled the icing, but did it together instead of each doing a separate batch.

I am happy to report that it turned out beautifully. We were beyond proud of ourselves. We cut into Lovely's cake, that she made completely with her own two hands, and it was fantastic. My daddy would be in the kitchen with a fork, finishing off at least one of those cakes himself if he were here.

Now, if someone could just tell me how to clean caramelized sugar out of my cast iron skillet, I would be so thankful.

Tomorrow, we tackle some pajama pants with some cute pink flannel that her dad picked out for her. It's dadgum Home Economics 101 around here. From the woman who never considered herself very domestic. The woman who was going to be a rock star. Then the woman who was married to her job.

Y'all come by. I'll make you some biscuits. Things are different now.

************

Allowing for change
Allows you to find yourself
In comfortable skin.

Make sure you stop by and wish Jennifer safe travels and painless moving before she takes a Haiku Hiatus.

Puppy Chow is even better than puppy love

My apologies for the ranting yesterday. I'm better. I sent a polite email explaining my position and canceled my other gigs at that facility. The email ended complementing their facility and the parties they hosted, and I told them that I hoped they would begin to treat the musicians with the same respect they treat their other vendors. So there.

************

Whymommy and I were talking about old boyfriends this weekend. Not reminiscing, just remembering. I had a great high school boyfriend really. He was a total cutie, had great taste in music, was laid back, respectful, and just plain fun. He was a terrific guy.

Unfortunately, he went to college a year before me, rushed some fraternity, broke up with me over the phone, and then got involved in RUF. The getting involved in RUF was the worst of it. Dang right winged conservative jerks. He and another guy from our youth group wrote a letter to the Session of our church telling them how wrong it was that we had a woman preach and women serving as elders and deacons. They patted him on the head, he changed churches. Then he married some girl, they spit out a few kids, and I'm sure James Dobson has helped them be dutiful Christian parents.

I digress.

Heh. I digressed so much I forgot my point.

So instead, I'll give you one of the best things I got from that relationship. A recipe. His mom would make this every Christmas, and I think our youth group must have eaten a barrel of it at least.

I just made my first batch of the year tonight. My students always get a bag of it, my nieces and nephews love it, Lovely loves it, and I can't get enough of it. So enjoy.


Puppy Chow

1 stick butter
1 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter
7 cups Rice Chex
2 cups powdered sugar

Melt butter, chocolate chips, and peanut butter. Pour over Rice Chex. Stir to coat evenly. Coat with powdered sugar.

Haiku Friday, by 35 minutes to go

Gratuitous shot
Of turkey stock on the stove
Will freeze twenty cups.







My boys in new chairs
Ready to eat all they can
And sleep through football.






More haiku, and a sloppy fun Thanksgiving here.

The pie

I hope this is worth the wait. I forgot that the pie wouldn't actually be finished until Thanksgiving day, so I couldn't finish this post on Wednesday. Photos are included after the recipe. Enjoy!


Black Bottom Banana Cream Pie

1 9 inch pie crust
3 tablespoons cornstarch, divided
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
Dash of salt
1 1/3 cups 1% low-fat milk, divided
1 ounce semisweet chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon stick margarine or butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 ounces block-style fat-free cream cheese, softened
2 cups sliced ripe banana (about 2 large bananas)
1 1/2 cups frozen fat-free whipped topping, thawed
Chocolate curls (optional, and I prefer it without for taste, but they are very pretty)

Prepare and bake Pastry Crust in a 9-inch pie plate unless you are my mother, in which case, you have made your pie crust from scratch. Either way, it should be baked and then cool completely on a wire rack.

Combine 1 tablespoon cornstarch, 2 tablespoons sugar, cocoa, and dash of salt in a small, heavy saucepan; gradually add 1/3 cup milk, stirring with a whisk. Cook 2 minutes over medium-low heat. Stir in chocolate; bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat to low; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Spread chocolate mixture into bottom of prepared crust.

Combine 2 tablespoons cornstarch, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/4 teaspoon salt, eggs, 1 cup milk, and margarine in a heavy saucepan over
Prep medium heat, stirring constantly with a whisk. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, and cook 30 seconds or until thick. Remove from heat. Add vanilla. Beat cream cheese until light (about 30 seconds). Add 1/4 cup hot custard to cream cheese, and beat just until blended. Stir in remaining custard.

Arrange banana slices on top of chocolate layer; spoon custard over bananas. Press plastic wrap onto surface of custard; chill 4 hours. Remove plastic wrap. Spread whipped topping evenly over custard. Garnish with chocolate curls, if desired. Chill until ready to serve.

Melting the chocolate for the black bottom of the pie.

Spreading the chocolate in the baked and cooled pie crust, which I bought from the store.

Sorry, Momma.

Making the custard and trying not to burn my big belly on the stove. This pie involves LOTS of whisking.

Sorry, Bubblewench.

Arrange the banana slices over the chocolate layer.

Spread the custard over the layer of bananas.

Cover the pie in Cool Whip. I didn't use any chocolate shavings on top because I don't like them.

A slice of the pie in all its glory.

Guy eating the LAST slice of pie during Grey's Anatomy last night. There were only five people at our house yesterday with 2 cheesecakes, 3 pies, and some pumpkin bread. This pie gets finished off the same day every year.

I'm just glad this year it wasn't the dog who finished it off.

Have one for me, will ya?

Today is another prep day. There is more cooking and cleaning to be done, and recipes to share.

The first recipe I want to share is for Cajun Bloody Marys. Of course, I won't be making these this year, but usually, we make a big pitcher and sip on them throughout the week. Yum. Warms my heart thinking about it. They will also warm your throat. This recipe comes from the kitchen of Emeril. I took the liberty of augmenting it though because a 2 1/2 cup yield is just sad.

Cajun Bloody Mary

• 6 cups tomato juice
• 3 cups vodka
• 6 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 6 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 4 tablespoon prepared horseradish
• 6 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
• 8 teaspoons hot sauce
• 4 teaspoons Emeril's Original Essence
• 2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 teaspoon cayenne
• Pickled green beans or okra, for garnish
• Cocktail onions, for garnish

Combine all ingredients (except garnish) in a small pitcher and stir to combine. Refrigerate until well chilled. Serve over ice with pickled green beans or okra and cocktail onions for garnish.

Yield: 10 cups

Be sure that you make these now. Right this second. The longer they sit in the fridge, the better they get.

Off to prep for the pie. You know the one. The dog's favorite pie.

THANKSgivin' prep day

The cornbread is made. It is sitting out with the white bread, getting good and stale to go into the dressing.

The onions and celery are chopped.

The biscuits are made and cooked just until risen. Thursday, they will be ready to just pop in the over for a few more minutes.

A preview pumpkin pie is in the fridge for Guy. It's his favorite, so why not start a little early? Besides, Boo is bringing her pumpkin pie on Thursday, and trust me, you don't want to serve your pumpkin pie after Boo has served hers. It's killer.

I'm picking up the turkeys from The Fresh Market this afternoon. Yes, I said turkeys. I got two smaller ones this year so that one could sit on the table during the start of the meal and look pretty. The other one will be carved in the kitchen and served. I'm busy stocking the freezer for when Bird arrives, so I figured I could use any extra in casseroles anyway.

There is at least one more trip to the store to make for milk, eggs, and even more butter, but other than that, I think I'm done for today.

I so love this week. I love cooking a meal that takes 3 days. I love having the house smell like fall and having good friends and family come over for the sole purpose of eating.

Tomorrow, I give you the preparation of the famous Black Bottom Banana Cream Pie. And I swear on all that is holy in the universe, the damn dog isn't going to eat one bite of the pie this year. Not even a lick.

****************

Last week, one of my high school students asked me with a smug grin on his face if I said, "THANKSgiving" or "ThanksGIVING." One is apparently more cultured than the other. It's hard to know how you say a word once you start thinking about it.

I told him it was most likely that I said it the uncouth way, and he laughed. Even though he has lived in the South most of his life, his family is Swedish, and there is not a trace of a Southern accent in his English. He enjoys picking on my inner redneck.

As he left his lesson, I called out after him, "Happy THANKSgivin'." With no "g" on the end. With the emphasis strongly on "thanks." With him, practically rolling in the front yard with laughter.

Glad to know that my lovely drawl gives people such pleasure.

This is why certain of you to whom I would love to talk may never, in real life, hear my voice. The difference in listening to me talk and reading what I write is about 50 IQ points.

Sigh. (Spoken in three separate syllables).

Because you asked

Black Bottom Cupcakes (Cupcakes of Shame)

8 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 1/2 cups sugar, divided
1 egg
1 1/8 teaspoon salt, divided
1 cup chocolate chips
3 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa
2 teaspoons soda
2 cups water
2/3 cup oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Combine cream cheese, 1/3 cup sugar, egg, and 1/8 tsp salt. Beat with whisk attachment until well combined and beginning to get fluffy. Stir in chocolate chips. Set aside.

Combine flour, cocoa, 2 cups sugar, 1 tsp salt, and soda with a fork to blend. Add water, oil, vinegar, and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Batter will be thin.

Place liners in muffin pans. Fill each 2/3 full of batter, then drop 1 heaping tsp of cream cheese mixture in the center of each.

Bake for 30 minutes at 350. Yeilds about 2 dozen cupcakes.

Cupcakes of Shame

Yesterday, Guy and I joined a church. After the service, they had a potluck for all the people who have joined in the past 12 months. I love a church potluck.

We signed up to bring dessert.

Saturday night, Lovely and I set out to make our Black Bottom Cupcakes. We have our own little system for division of duties, and can whip out a batch in no time now. She is in charge of the cream cheese filling, and I am in charge of the chocolate cake part. These rich, dark chocolate cupcakes with a cream cheese and chocolate chip filling don't last long around our house.

These cupcakes have been one of my favorites since I was a child and my momma would send them in my lunch box. It never occurred to me that they look a little funny.

Until yesterday.

Now, a potluck is more than just a potluck where I come from. It's almost a cooking or baking competition in it's own rite. Women, and some of the men, pull out all the punches to make sure that they are taking an empty dish home with them. That their dish is the one that has been scraped clean and then peered longingly into by the ones who took too long to go get their seconds.

So when it was time to leave and I went to collect my plate, I don't have to describe my horror when there were only 2 cupcakes missing off of that platter. One that Lovely ate. And one that Guy ate.

Perhaps I can blame it on pregnancy hormones, but I actually cried. A little. I couldn't help it.

Lovely insists that if just one person had eaten a cupcake besides our family, that they would have been gone. She said that they wouldn't have been able to stop themselves from telling everyone how fantastic they were, and that there would have been a mad rush for the cupcakes at that point and none would be left.

I think she was only a little disappointed. Because after all, we were taking home a couple dozen of our favorite cupcakes. Ones that we didn't have to share now.

Nevertheless, I'm thinking of changing the name of the cupcake to The Cupcake of Shame.

I have failed my first potluck at the new church.

I should have just made a pound cake.

I'm just saying

There are a couple dozen pumpkin muffins in my kitchen right now.

I made them.

They do not suck.

That is all.

Dreamland

Today was supposed to be day 3 of no tears. Mascara could return into my life. Maybe even eyeliner if I'm feeling up for it. But no.

Target was full of the cutest babies. Then there was the baby section. The tiny baby things. The cashier who is my next door neighbor who hadn't heard the news. It was my first time flying solo on giving it. From my mouth that is. I've gotten pretty good at typing about it.

Anyway, she came up to me with all of her Ukrainian enthusiasm for pregnancy (which pails only to that of my Turkish friend) and wanted to know how me and the baby were. I told her. Then, I cried. Not sobbed. Not fell apart. Just cried.

Guy said he was proud of me and that I was doing just fine. I did have some Kleenex packed and ready in my purse so my tears were as graceful as possible. Whatever.

Just now while fixing dinner, my sniffling in the kitchen brings a call in from the other room.

"You okay, Schmoop?"

It's not what he thinks. I'm sneaking a piece of white bread and dipping it in Dreamland BBQ sauce. Mmmmmmmmmmmm. Heaven. Spicy as hell, but oh so heavenly.