The perfect muffin or cookie

Are you looking to make perfect looking chocolate chip muffins or chocolate chip cookies? I've got a simple trick for you to make them LOOK fantastic!

Go ahead and whip together your favorite chocolate chip recipe ...go ahead I'll wait...BUT only add in half the amount of chips. Don't be sad that I'm asking you to cut the chips in half. Just wait...

Now that you have your recipe ready and you filled the muffin tins and/or placed the cookie batter on the cookie sheet WAIT don't put it in the oven just yet!

The tins are full and the scoops of dough are waiting...go back to the bag of chocolate chips and grab a handful. Take a moment to place 3-6 chips on top of the batter/dough. Placing the chips on top will let your muffin/cookie rise and will host a cluster of chips on the top of the delectable treat!

You are getting the same amount of chips that would normally be baked inside the muffin on the top of the muffin for a more appetizing look!

Just try it out and you'll see how fantastic your recipe is with a simple trick of placing the chips on top.

Enjoy those muffins tonight... I am.

Live and learn...apples are not banana's

Inspiration struck tonight as I looked at the week old apples in the fruit bowl. The large green apple looked delicious but was starting to get a little soft and no one wants to eat a slightly soft apple now do they? So I peeled, cored, and diced it up and poored the last 1/2 cup of oatmeal on it and doll'd it up with some cinnamon sugar and let it soak in. Sounds tasty doesn't it? I just made some fantastic banana muffins out of the BLACK banana's that were in the fruit bowl too last week and they didn't last but a few hours because over ripe banana's are perfect muffin makers!

So tonight, I thought I'd see how well the apple muffins would go over with the fam. I am baking them up with hopes that the kids will eat muffins instead of cereal bowl after cereal bowl tomorrow. So baking up the o' so sweet smelling goodness of apples and cinnamon the house smelled like Fall. Just add some crunching leaves under your feet as you sip some hot apple cider. Mmm mmm sign me up!

So the apple muffins were baking away and the batter seemed SO thick I could probably serve it to the muffin tins with a knife. I filled it nearly full and as they came out of the oven they didn't rise at all, and looked like a dead cupcake. They smelled nice, don't get me wrong. But they looked like melted pancakes in paper wrappers. :(

So I break one open and taste. Not bad but now I know why banana's should not be subsituted with apples, I should have probably looked up an actual apple muffin recipe instead of using a banana muffin recipe and just added apples. Ah well...live and learn.

Now accepting applications for fantastic apple muffins...

I lost my poor marshmallow...

So I've been cracking up about this all day. I could probably think of about 100 different reasons why it was there. Just laying there on the sidewalk behind a vacant building in the middle of the parking lot. The kids laughed as we got close, I too joined in their frivolous giggle when we realized what it was.

We walked up to the theatre today. There happens to be a movie theatre within walking distance of the house and just by chance on our bike ride yesterday we rode by and saw the giant sign that read "1/2 off Tuesdays". Everything was 1/2 off and they had matinee prices the entire day. So we came back today and enjoyed the movie Despicable Me.. I'm not one to write a review on a movie and all I remember was that it was cute. That's probably all I can recall about the movie except for those mighty bean shaped yellow worker guys in the movie that did not speak English and they made me laugh a lot with their reactions.

Anyway... back to the venture home with giggles.

There laying in the middle of the empty parking lot was a lone marshmallow.  One of the kids walks over and picks it up. 

"EW" were my first words. "Put that down, we don't know where that has been." She throws it back to the ground and we leave it there. Aaron happens to bust out laughing, spews melting Icee out of his mouth.

"It's still a little bit soft," she says as she thumps it to the ground. It bounces as only a marshmallow can bounce.

"What's so funny Aaron?"

"Why is there a marshmallow in the middle of the road?" He asks back as he wipes red spit from his chin.

"I'm not really sure son." I can't help but smile at the odd scene.

He starts singing the song. On Top of Spaghetti--- All covered with cheese. I lost my poor marshmallow when somebody sneezed!

We all laugh and sing along with him. Then we joke about how it may have ended up there. Somebody had a marshmallow throwing contest. It fell out of a bag as somebody had a campfire and a bird grabbed it and picked it up and dropped it many blocks away. Aubrey's version was that somebody threw it out their car window. Oh the stories we could continue with this one small thing we found today and it has caused many tears of laughter.

Where do you think the marshmallow came from?

Why was there a marshmallow in the middle of the road? The world may never know.

Spice things up!

So is your spice rack overflowing with various spices you probably don't even remember buying? They are lined up, stacked on top of each other balancing precariously and shoved in the top shelf of your pantry aren't they? No...wait...let me guess they are all above your microwave and you can't even reach them with your step stool? No...they could be on that carousel of spices that takes up over a foot of counter space? Am I right?

You know just where the cinnamon and the seasoned salt is because you use them on a daily basis...but for heavens sake the recipe is calling for Cream of Tartar. What in the heck do you even use Cream of Tartar for? You know you have that spice...it's up there...but where? So you rummage the shelf, your knocking over the salt, and the nutmeg makes a dive for the floor and pepper just flaked into your eye. UGH. You just can't find the spice you need but you know it's up there somewhere? Wouldn't you love to be spice-organized?

~~~Here is my resolution for you!~~~
Stop at your local dollar store on your way home or a way fun place to go is IKEA and pick up a plastic see-through shoebox or two. You know what I'm talking about. The plastic rectangular shaped box with a lid that can snap on. Like a Sterlite or a Rubbermaid, or the cheap off-brand it really doesn't matter. You don't need the lids so don't buy them or just leave them at the store if they want to keep them. Or just go ahead and play frisbee with that rectangle. Or wait for another post one day in which I'll reclaim a purpose for that never-used lid from a plastic box thing.

Now take down all those spices that you have up there. Take them out of the carousel and get rid of that bulky countertop taker and line them up. Go ahead and get a little creative maybe you want to put the cinnamon with the nutmeg. Or put the salt in the opposite bin as the pepper. It doesn't matter really.

Now put each shaker or spice inside the plastic bin. (I use two because I have lot's o spices!). It doesn't matter what order they are in but make sure they all fit in those shoeboxes standing up. Don't stack them on top of each other. Now just lift the shoebox up and set it back on the shelf you used to keep your spices in. I keep mine in that shelf above the stove. Now...you can easily see through the sides of the box so you know which bin you'll need. You just lift the entire box out of the shelf, use your spice, and put them all back inside the bin when you are done. Now lift the bin back into the shelf. You'll be baking with ease and the next time you are baking mom's signature tomato marinara and you need about seventeen spices they are all in that bin and easy to reach. It's a perfect organizer for the kitchen and it make the shelf look so organized. Plus...you don't have to wipe down the spice shelf every time you use a spice and it leaves a little reminice on the shelf. It's in the bin, easy to wash and easy to organize!

Good luck emptying out that spice rack baby, now go spice things up a bit in the kitchen!

But... I didn't mean it!

It's hot. It's so hot outside that we are sweating just thinking about it. The yellow sun has ducked behind the swollen clouds but it's just too hot to even rain! The clouded sky stays a light gray well into the midday. I'm sweating just thinking back about it still. 90+ degrees in pure humidity. Did I mention it was sticky too? Hot. Sticky. Miserable.

So on this miserably hot day we are on our way to the Sprinkler Park. Also known as the spray pad, the outdoor sprinklers that spray up from the soft asphalt in various mists, sprinkles, and showers. We tried a "NEW" sprinkler park. A new-to-us-never-been-there-before-lets-just-go-because-we're-too-cranky-from-the-heat-and-we-need-to-cool-off, sprinkler park and it's only 4 miles away.

We approach said Sprinkler Park and enjoy a quiet afternoon there. As we jump out of the car onto the molten lava blacktop my son, forgets his shoes at home. How does one leave the house without shoes? Especially on days like this one in which we could easily fry and egg on the front sidewalk.

So he jumps from the black lava asphalt to the grass and the kids go play in the sprinkles. I find a quiet shady patch by the tree and spread out my blanket and begin a little tapping on the laptop as the mist from the sprayers find their way over to me, a mere 4 minutes after we arrive I put the laptop away because the sprinkles were heavy. So I watch my children enjoy the spray and I myself, enjoy the mist. Soaking wet they come in for a towel and are ready for a break. The kids got bored, much too quickly from the playing in water and begin playing 'race'. Race to the fire hydrant halfway across the grass. Race to the tree and back. Race to mom and back. See who wins. So the race is on between my three kids and a friendly family of two other kids. I'm so glad we came all the way to the park on this stupidly hot day just to run in the grass.

As I pack up our blanket I put away the towels since they would rather play in the grass and now they are begging to play on the playground. So we head over to the playground for a good swing on the swingset before we go.

As the kids race up the hill Aaron falls to the grass.
"MOM! O, I stepped on something!" Of course the first words out of my mouth were.... "Aww....maybe next time you'll remember your shoes."
Truthful... maybe a little harsh at first but seriously, how did you forget your shoes son? I said it with a smile and his sad puckered lip made me bend down so I could kiss his boo-boo.

He rubs his foot and I find a smear of something... it looked wet. GROSS actually. That was my instant thought. GROSS! Someone just hawked a loogie on the grass and he stepped in it. It was right next to whatever he stepped on. The towel comes out and we wipe it off. Maybe it was, hmm... I'm not sure. Whatever it was it didn't really leave a mark but the bottom of his foot was a little pink. I search the grass thinking... o gosh... there are a number of things he could have stepped on. We were just next to a pine tree, maybe it was a pine needle. Nope. Hmm... well we are in a public park, maybe it was glass. Nope there are no cuts and nothing in the grass. JINKEES, maybe it was some kind of needle from a drug lord or something dangerous. (Yes my mind wanders to instantaneous danger in our friendly neighborhood splash park). So I'm on my hands and knees for fifteen minutes using my glasses as a magnifying glass trying to find just what he stepped on and find...Nothing.

We continue our day...of course now he's got MY flipflops on and he is really nursing the mystery pain of his foot. Limping... dragging his leg, and the word "ouch" comes out much too often. Yet, I'm barefoot racing across the molten lava pavement now and pinching my feet on the wood chips near the swings because I told him to wear my too-big-for-him flip flops. BUT, at least he had shoes on now. Hmm... why is it I am suffering now?

So a few minutes goes by and he is just in too much pain to swing. O geez, really? . So let's walk ALL the WAY back to the car now on the other side of the park, and go home. The other two kids are devastated by the fact we have to leave because Aaron has a mystery pain. As we walk back toward the grassy patch that claimed Aaron's foot we search again. As we cross the grass I look at his foot more closely. I see four of his toes are swollen and it's getting pretty pink and red-ish. I'm concered. What in the heck did he step on? I find NOTHING still. Except for the fact there were about five bees nursing the weedy-flowers in the grass.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOh. Now I get it! I tell him. "Son, you stepped on a bee and it stung you."

"But... I didn't mean it!" Were his priceless words. "Do you think it's dead?"

Yes son, it's dead. We wiped bee-guts off your foot without knowing it was bee-guts, thank goodness it wasn't a loogie!

A little sad, and a big frown. He repeats himself. "But. I didn't mean it."