No Monkey Business....well maybe a little

Hello Sweets,

I know I've been MIA again, but this crazy weather has been wreaking havoc on my head and body :(   I don't mean like ouch I've got a headache, more like someone has put my head in a vice and keeps screwing it tighter and tighter, which makes me one sad little girl.  But the blog must go on right?  Which is why I've decided to start teasing your sweet tooth tonight with the first of many cookie recipes.

As you may or may not know my little sister is getting married (actually it's tomorrow), and I offered to make cookies for the reception.  In all honesty I'm regretting doing that, I know that doesn't sound very sisterly but I always overreach with my capabilities and this has been very painful for me.  Standing in the kitchen to make one batch of cookies wouldn't be so bad, but I've had to triple each batch and shape them into their initials four different times.  I've probably spent upwards of twelve hours in the kitchen and my body has screamed loud each and every time, but before anyone questions I did break it up over five days, unfortunately that didn't seem to help much at all :(

I figured I would start with my favorite persons cookie, that being my little cutie of a nephew :)

 An old pic but his cuteness hasn't faded!

So when I had to decide what type of cookie the "m" would be I knew it was pretty obvious, my little monkey loves banana bread so why not a cookie?  That meant I'd have to research to see what I could find, I've made banana bread and muffins but never a cookie.  In the midst of my searching I took a break to relax by checking my Facebook, earlier that week I had started following a page of recipes and what was on my news feed?  Banana bites!!  If you have Facebook check out the page "recipes" it's a closed group but they will add you shortly, they are full of yummy recipes and people are constantly sharing new ones :)

Banana Bites

Ingredients

1C white sugar

1/2C butter, softened

2 eggs

1 1/2 ripe banana, mashed

1Tsp vanilla

2C all-purpose flour

1Tsp baking soda

1/4Tsp salt

1/2Tsp cinnamon (my addition)

Directions:
1)  Preheat oven to 350F.  Coat baking sheets with cooking spray, I like to use coconut oil personally :)  In a large bowl, cream together sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

2)  Add eggs and beat thoroughly.  Beat in mashed bananas and vanilla until well combined.

3)  Gradually blend in flour, baking soda, and salt.  Mix until just combined.

4)  Drop mixture by teaspoonfuls onto the baking sheet (I made mine into letters), baking for 12-15 minutes.  Remove to wire racks to cool.

 

I didn't like the way they looked all blob like, so I cut them once cooled with the cookie cutter again :)

Well there you have it lovely readers, cookie number one complete and not a moment too soon because my shoulder and low back are starting to bug me :/  I probably won't be posting tomorrow obviously because of the wedding, hopefully I'll be back Sunday with another cookie recipe and maybe even a few wedding pictures.  Until next time...................

Stay sweet,



Jennifer xoxoxo

Little Bites of Love for My Monkey

Hello Sweets,

Ugh I've been having one of those weeks that makes it tough for me to get anything done, including my passion of creating in the kitchen, but let's take a detour for just a moment shall we? One good thing that happened to me this week was I got a new bed! Lol I know it seems like a mundane thing to be excited about, but with my health (and everyone else for that matter) a good night sleep makes a world of a difference. I went from having an old small , no make that tiny bed (not by my choice GRRRR), and now I have a over sized double bed with an extra mattress topper to make it that more comfortable! The funny part of this whole story is that as a child my mother always read and referred to me as "the princess and the pea", and now I have a bed that I may need to buy a step stool since its so much higher lol. You make think I'm over reacting but I'm 5'8" and when I sit on the side of the bed my feet don't even touch the ground lol, true story :)

Okay enough of my comfy new bed lets get to the tasty and fun stuff, as I mentioned in my last few posts I have been given the honor to create signature cookies for my sisters wedding. Now Nathan will confirm I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my baking, and you could imagine the pressure I'm putting on myself for this. I'm not sure if I explained what my vision is for the cookies with all of y'all so I'll do so now ;) My sister wanted them done with their initials, so I took it even further and this is my game plan by making the cookies their favorite types;
The letter A (for Asha my sister) - chocolate chip cookies
The letter J (for Josè my brother in-law) - peanut butter cookies
The letter M (for Miguel my cutie nephew) - banana cookies
The letter Z (for their last name) - I'm doing a combination of all three to signify them coming together in marriage.

I know I'm going a little crazy but it's my little sisters wedding so I wanted to do something nice for them :) The one cookie I was slightly worried about was Miguel's cookie, as I have never had or seen a banana cookie, but divine intervention worked its magic and on my news feed on Facebook (I think :/) was a recipe for cookies known as banana bites ! Now I know one of my nephews favorite snacks are bear paws which are basically soft banana cookie breads, so I figured I would make some tweaks to the recipe and hopefully it would be kid and bride approved :) I'll share with you my take on the recipe, and show you how difficult it was to make the dough cooperate in to the letter "M".

Banana Bites

Ingredients

1C sugar

1/2C butter

2 eggs

1 1/2C bananas, mashed (I used 3)

1Tsp vanilla

2C all-purpose flour

1Tsp baking soda

1/4Tsp salt

1 1/2Tsp cinnamon

Directions:
1)  Preheat oven to 350F.  Coat cookie sheets with cooking spray (I used coconut oil).  In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

2)  Add eggs and beat thoroughly.  Beat in mashed bananas and vanilla until well combined.

3)  Gradually blend in flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.  Mixing until just combined.

4)  Drop mixture by teaspoonfuls on to baking sheet.  I used my "m" cookie cutter and spooned the batter into it.

5)  Bake for 10-15 minutes (mine were closer to 10), or until lightly golden.  Remove to wire racks to cool.

As you can see my "m"'s actually look like crazy blobs of cookie, and of course I was panicking, so I threw the remainder of the batter in the fridge to see if that would help them hold more.  It didn't :( so I decided to sleep on it and think about how I was going to remedy the problem.  The next day I decided to go over them blobs with the cookie cutter again and it cleaned them up perfectly :D

 

aren't they perdy lol 

All that was left to do was the taste test.  Tereza my roommate tried them the night I made them and she said they were good and different.  Normally when someone hears different you think it's not that good, but I knew exactly what she was talking about.  If banana bread and cookies had a baby this would be it lol!  Next I texted my sister to come and try them to see if she liked the taste and look, and of course she brought the real judge along too Miguel :)  She liked the look and she even liked the taste (success!), and when we went to see if Miguel liked them too we saw that he had gobbled the cookie up.  I think it's safe to say that this will be the recipe to represent my cutie nephew, so that's one down only three more to go!

I am very happy that this turned out exactly like I had envisioned it :) now to create the others and make sure they are just as spectacular as these were.  So I am in full on research and creating mode, how much am I into this you ask?  So much that I am in full on study mode with my chic geek glasses lol.  Until next time.................

hehe cutest nerd around ;)

Stay sweet,

Jennifer xoxoxo

Canuckette's Passion

Hello Sweets,

I hope you all are having a relaxing Sunday :)  Did you do anything fun this weekend?  Maybe you baked a special little treat? I would love to hear from all of you.  Me, well today hasn't been too great, I feel pretty awful so I don't have the energy to whip up something creative in the kitchen (I know, no recipe I'm sorry :( ).  With my migraines sometimes it's best for me to take a break from the kitchen because I never know what sound, smell, or even temperature will make things even worse.  You would think after more than a year of this I would be used to it, but sadly no, I'm just as big of a suck now as when it all first started lol.

So I started thinking to myself, what should I write about today?  The idea was all too clear to me, why not write that post about passion I was going to do earlier this week!  This won't be a super long post, rather quick and to the point, but I really want to make sure I tell you guys what passion means to me, and what it has done for my life. 

Dictionary Reference website defines Passion as;

passion ~ noun

1.  any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling, as love or hate.

2.  strong amorous feeling or desire; love; ardor; lust.

4.  an instance or experience of strong love.

5.  a person toward whom one feels strong love.

6.  a strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm, or desire for anything: a passion for music.

7.  the object of such a fondness or desire: Accuracy became a passion with him.

8.  an outburst of strong emotion or feeling: He suddenly broke into a passion of bitter words.

Now I removed a couple of points that referred to sexual desire, anger, and religious references because they were not applicable to my reference to passion, but you can find the complete definition through the link above :)

What I take away from this definition, and what I know applies to my passion for everything about being in a kitchen, is that I absolutely love creating and making food for others.  I can't even begin to explain the sheer emotional feeling I get inside when I see someone smile, or that they absolutely love what I have made for them.  I guess the closest I can describe it to is when I volunteer, for any organization, knowing that I can make even the smallest impact on someones life and be a little ray of sunshine for them.  It's that warm feeling you get when your with the ones you care about the most, laughing and smiling, being in that moment and not caring about anything else that is going on.  It's been this passion for baking, cooking, and blogging that has really helped me deal with all the stress of my illnesses and to have a sense of normalcy to my life, and even bring me back over to the happy side when I am feeling down.

When I am in the kitchen, I want to be there, actually I love being there, it makes me forget about all the other things going on in my life and I can just create and explore new things.  I can make mistakes and be okay with them,  or even laugh about them because it is all part of the experience for me.  I love trying new recipes and flavors.  I have that unmistakable desire of wanting to better myself at each task.  I take the utmost pride in what I create, and I put some much care into my work because I want to see people enjoying what I create for them.  I can get lost in the moment when I'm baking and cooking, and forget about everything else that is going on in the world.  Now I'm not perfect, nor do I claim to be.  I will have my moments where I can get frustrated when something is not going according to plan or even get overwhelmed (Nathan will tell you!), but there are definitely more smiles, laughs, and silliness that tend to take place in whatever kitchen I am in :p

For me, my passion is baking and cooking for others, almost nothing feels better then that.  It is something I've always loved; from helping my grandmother at Christmas (I started out on the cheese and veggie platters lol), to creating yummy treats so I can watch my cutie nephew Miguel dive right in, and most importantly learning to make the things that my wonderful other half loves :)  I mastered coconut meringue pie (find the recipe here) just for him, and I put a lot of pressure on myself to make it perfect, but I put even more love into it because I have this need to create and master.  The feeling of when what you are trying so hard for something, then it comes out exactly or even better than you planned, is beyond words.

Kid knows how to eat a cupcake lol!

He loves auntie Jemmy's Peanut butter chocolate chip banana muffins 

These are the things that make life worth while.  I do it all for the smiles :)  What are you most passionate about?  I would love to hear from all of you, anytime, so please feel free to contact me.  Now I am off to relax with my trusty ginger ale, one thing I always reach for when I'm sick :)

Until next time.......

Stay sweet,

Jennifer xoxoxo

Sick as a Dog :(

Hello Sweets,

I hope you all had a wonderful Thursday, you are after all one step closer to the weekend!  I, however, woke up today feeling like I had swallowed a pine cone :(, so unfortunately my blog will be short but sweet today since I need to rest up my immune system.

Waking up sick today reminded me of when I first got diagnosed, the doctors told me that I could get sick easier than the average person because my immune system is confused with everything else my body is fighting and not sleeping properly.  But it was easier for me to deal with being sick then over now, and it's weird because it's not because I did things differently, it's because I had my best fur friend Roxy a lab/collie/shepherd mix, to cuddle me when I was away from Nathan.  Roxy is no longer with me (that is a long story that I don't like rehashing), which has been hard for me, considering it's been almost a year (December 17th to be exact) I thought it would get easier too.  But when something or someone has a huge impact in your life,  it always feels like it was yesterday.  I wanted to share some pictures and happy memories with all of you, because even though she is not with me anymore she never leaves my thoughts :)  She was literally that great of a dog!

3mths old, just brought home <3   

We used to take long walks on the trails by the river, and she would always go for a swim lol she's just like me, loves the water :)

I went on a girls trip to Las Vegas and someone definitely missed me, instant cuddles when I walked in.

Sick days became more often, and she never left my side.  Best dog you can ask for! 

Last night together :( we watched Marley and Me (our favorite), and I let her finish the peanut butter, still in the jar lol

Although thinking of her still brings tears to my eyes, I can still smile through them because we have so many great memories together.  Every animal I have ever owned holds a place in my heart (I love fur babies), but I think Roxy holds an extra large spot, she was with me everyday during one of my sickest parts of this whole ordeal, and if it was a really bad day she wouldn't leave my side.  I love my baby girl still, and I'll never forget her :) xoxox

My all time favorite picture of my girl :)

But you know I am fortunate enough to have some great people in my life and even a new fur baby, Nathan has been kind enough to share his dog with me; little baby Bear a Pomeranian.  And who can forget my amazing nephew Miguel :) aka my little raspberry burrito (inside joke), and I just remember the good times with Roxy and create new memories with the ones that are here today!

The love of my life and I at a Dallas Stars game last year

My adorable burrito, in auntie Jemmy's sweater! 

Sleepy little Bearries

Well sweets, this is all the energy I can muster up for now, I am going to make me another cup of green tea with a touch of honey and cuddle up in bed and watch some of my favorite shows (American Horror Story). 

Until next time.............

Stay sweet,

Jennifer xoxoxoxo

Canuckette's Pumpkin Cupcake Patch

Hello Sweets!

I hope you all had a fantastic Friday.  I know mine hasn't been the best health wise, but this is nothing new, so I trek through as always :)  Yesterday Nathan and I had a relaxing Texas day, that means we enjoyed each others company, the beautiful weather, finalized our Halloween costumes (yes I will be blogging about my favorite time of year ;)), and then I baked him some yummy pumpkin spice cupcakes.  I spoil this man so much, but it brings me the utmost joy to do so, my runner up would be my cutie nephew Miguel!

This brings a smile to my face, seeing my little burrito enjoying my treats!

Now I have only made this recipe once, and it turned out great, but this time I decided to test out different spices and the measurements.  For those of you whom don't know me, other than through my blog, this is the way I like to cook and bake.  It's actually the way I was raised.  Like my grandfather always said, "recipes are directions and guidelines only!", and I couldn't agree more (he is a wise man after all).  When I cook, I love to get my nose up really close and smell the aroma.  Of course, I will take a taste now and then (to make sure it's not poison lol), and I have even been known to literally get my hands it there too!  So when I decided to make these delicious cupcakes again, I decided to venture further with my spices than originally.  There are two recipes with this one, since you need special icing to go with pumpkin cupcakes ;), so hang on to your whisks we are heading to cupcake town!

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

Ingredients

2C flour

1tsp baking soda

1tsp baking powder

1tsp coarse salt

1tsp cinnamon

1tsp ginger

1/4tsp nutmeg

1/4tsp allspice (or cloves)

1C packed light brown sugar

1C white sugar

1C butter, melted and cooled

4 large eggs

1 can (15ounces) pumpkin puree

I used both pumpkin spice and cloves in addition to what's listed above

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 350F.  Line cupcake pans and set aside.  In a medium bowl whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, clove, pumpkin spice and allspice, set aside.  The extra spices I added I eyeballed, approximately 1/4tsp each.

Am I weird because I love these types of photos??

2)  In a large bowl, whisk together: brown sugar, white sugar, butter, and eggs.

:( harder to keep liquids separate

3)  Add dry ingredients and whisk until smooth.  Whisk in pumpkin puree.

loving the fall color!

4)  Divide batter evenly among liners, filling each about 1/2 way (I only had a 12 and 6 muffin tins).  Makes 24 cupcakes.

waiting is the hardest part

5)  Bake until tops spring back when touched, and a toothpick comes out clean.  Takes about 20-25 minutes.  Rotate pan once if needed.  Transfer to wire rack; let cool completely.

your kitchen will smell divine mmmmm

Brown Sugar Cinnamon Icing

Ingredients

8oz cream cheese, room temp

1 stick of butter, room temp (1/2C)

1/4C brown sugar

1tsp vanilla

1/2tsp cinnamon

4-6C icing sugar

I also added pumpkin spice, allspice and food coloring to make it more festive

Directions:

1)  With an electric mixer, mix cream butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy.

2)  Beat in brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, allspice and pumpkin spice until fully incorporated.

3)  Gradually add icing sugar(powdered sugar) in small portions, (I only used about 2 1/2 - 3C), scraping down the sides with each addition until desired consistency is reached.  When you think it's ready, slowly add the food coloring until you reach your desired color :)

Tada!

There will be plenty of icing for 24 cupcakes and plenty left over.  Since I was going with a pumpkin patch theme, I decided to top the cupcakes with green decorative sugar to imitate the stems lol.  The last time I topped them with graham crumble in an ode to pumpkin pie.  Go with whatever inspires you ;)  The addition of the extra spices gave the recipe a more robust flavor, in other words......delish!!!

My little pumpkin "cupcake" patch

I hope you all enjoy this recipe as much as my family, friends, and myself do!  Let me know what inspires you in this recipe, I always love to experiment with an already great recipe!  Until next time.

Stay sweet,

Jennifer xoxoxo