DB Challenge - November '08

I am sad to say I couldn't participate in this month challenge, which was Caramel Cake with Carmelized Butter Frosting with (optional) Golden Vanilla Bean Caramels. Doesn't that sound soooo good? I was really looking forward to this one, but unfortunately my oven isn't working, hasn't worked for several weeks now. It has been hard not being able to bake, especially the challenge for this month because I really like caramel. This month's challenge was hosted by Dolores of Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity, Alex of Blondies and Brownies, and Jenny of Foray into Food. The recipe is by Shuna Fish Lydon of Bay Area Bites. I hope my fellow bakers had fun with this one, I'll be checking them out and drooling!

Creep-a-zoid Shirts

Here's another shirt I made for Saffron, the design was drawn by her son, Wesley, and also Emi's friend. These shirts are available at her Etsy shop and at the Hungry Heart in Hemet. A shirt I made is sold at a store! Cool, huh? I'll have to swing by the store and check out the display. (future post...)

Squid Bento

It's been a while since I've posted a bento. The kids have been getting sandwiches lately. But today they got a bento. Last night's dinner leftovers on some rice. Sauteed squid and green beans, seasoned with garlic, soy sauce, and butter. Some edamame and pickles, a tangerine, and edamame chips. The kids and I really like that soy-butter flavor. It was one of those combinations you don't think about till you try it and it's good!

Microwave Applesauce Cake

Haven't decided what to do with our oven. Call someone and see if he can fix it, but if he can't we'll still have to pay him for his time...or just buy a new oven. The cheapest I've found is around $300, just a plain ol' oven with no frills and it won't clean itself, but it'll bake and that's the most important thing. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll see something at the after-Thanksgiving sales. So, in the meantime I tried making microwave cake. It was OK, I don't think I'll try this recipe again. Couldn't really taste the applesauce and it had this strange taste. And then it was kinda rubbery, which is a microwave trait. The kids ate it and they didn't say EWWWW but I was a little disappointed. I think I might try the microwave chocolate cake. Can't mess up chocolate, can you? We'll see...

Happy Birthday to Emi!

She is 11! Not enough fingers! She's wearing a cute panda shirt she got from her friend Sarah.

For her b-day dinner she wanted Clam Chowder in a Bread bowl and some Caesar salad with croutons. Her request was simple.

Chocolate chip cookie cheesecake for dessert, which I put on some "magic" candles (thought it'd be funny) but they didn't work (darn). David's standing next to me, You suck! Not me, the candles, THEY suck. Got her a manatee Webkinz, a cute snowman container, and downloaded some CD's, the new Coldplay album (Viva la Vida) and the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour. And this weekend she got invited to go to a concert at the House of Blues to see Buckethead, followed by Disneyland the next day. Lucky her!

Pedal 1 Long's 1st Expo

We just had our first shirt expo at Jason's 12-hr bike race. Things went pretty well, we sold 23 shirts and the word's slowly getting out. I think we'll do it again in January, maybe add some buttons and stickers.

Tony, our shirt model.

Since we were already there, David raced on a singlespeed team with some friends on his new Siren, Shaydee.

...and check out our new Pedal 1 Long shop.

The Final Five

Here it is, the shirts we'll be selling at the 12-hrs of Temecula this Saturday. Wish us luck!

Good Weekend

Drove Sage down to SD for the Charger game so we got in a day of play on Sat. Played a little baseball and football, and then went to the beach. Being it's so cold where we live, going to the beach was the last thing on my mind so I didn't pack their swimsuits, but had I did I bet they would've swam! So the girls played in the sand...

...while Sage and Teru played some "golf."
Rock hopping on the jetty...

Hey, snow! ^_^

The edge of the earth.

Persimmon picking in Pauma Valley on the way home.

And then came home to 36*F and signs that it snowed a little while we were gone. Brrrr, it's cold. Hard to believe we were on a sunny beach just yesterday.

Who Knew?

I got this sample in the mail today, microwaved chocolate cake. This concept was kinda strange, making cake in the microwave. I guess I haven't really thought of the microwave as anything but something to heat up or melt stuff with, or pre-cook my potatoes. It came with a small pouch of dry ingredients, add some water and mix, drizzle the fudge frosting and zap for 30 seconds, then let sit for 2 minutes. And there it was, chocolate cake! Since this was a "mini" version, the kids and I each got two bites and it was gone. Now that I can't use my oven, this thing's got me looking at microwave baking. Who knew you can make bread and cookies in your microwave! I'm sure it's not a good as using you oven, but it should be interesting...

The Simplest Muffins

A muffin recipe courtesy of King Arthur Flour. I'm a sucker for recipes that claim 'no-fuss'. Mufins are like healthy cupcakes, and are an easy snack. My add-ins were some cinnamon chips and I sprinkled some oats on top. My only gripe is that they started to get hard the next day, but they were very simple indeed. These were made last week, and possibly the last baked good for a while. My oven broke AGAIN, and this time I can't figure out what it is. I figure it's some sort of electrical wiring thing. So, unfortunately I may have to call a repairman and he can figure it out. And the sucky thing is that I was making bread when the oven stopped working, so I have some bread dough sitting in my freezer just waiting to be baked!

Freaked Out Chickens

The other day our chickens were just going off, BAWK BAK BAK BAK BAWK!!!! We looked down to see what was wrong and lo and behold, there was a mountain lion!!!! Man, those chickens were terrified, they were yelling their head off try to scare it away. Since they don't know they are in an enclosed safe area, it must of really freaked them out to see a mtn. lion so nearby. That lion hung out in the area for an hour or so, scaring the **** out of them. Finally, I went down (with an ax in one hand, just in case it attacks me) and locked them into their house so they can get some sleep. The picture is kinda blurry since I had to use the max zoom since I took the pic off my back deck, but you can see how close it was. Now that thing knows that there is dinner here, I'm sure it's scoping the area looking for an opening. Pretty scary knowing there are mtn lions so close to our house.

Happy Halloween & Sage's 9th Birthday

October 31... Sage's birthday (cool huh?) and Halloween. This year, Emi was Space Duck (from the Imaginary World of Mr. Toast). She made the costume herself. Sage was the Japanese baseball player, Ichiro Suzuki. And Abby was a black kitty cat. Idyllwild celebrates Halloween with a trick-or-treating parade down one of its main roads instead of going door-to-door. Since many of the houses are vacation homes or weekenders, it's a good thing for the kids things are this way, otherwise they would be walking a lot for just a little candy! (And there are no street lights, so everything is pitch dark.)




Here's Emi and her friends.

Abby with Annissa (some girl from the Jonas brothers.)


Sage with Ben (Al Capone.)

The parade ends at a carnival and a haunted house. There's a new place in town that has over 100 beers, so David and I had a beer while the kids ran around.

Back home, Sage got a rootbeer float and an Eli Manning jersey. Tonight he's having his buddies over for a sleepover with his dinner wish: ribs, mashed potatoes, veggie dip, rolls, chips & salsa & guacamole, and coleslaw, and Cherry Garcia ice cream for dessert. Next week, David's taking him to a Charger game. He's having a good birthday, don't you think?