Pie Day!

Today, I decided making pies is better than doing homework!

First up another potpie - same ingredients as the last one, but less crust.

Then a new recipe (thank you Pinterest!!)

Mini Apple Pies:

They were so delicious that I've already had 2 of them and it's taking all of my willpower to not eat all of them right now! This weekend I need to do a case study assignment thing and study for my 3 test next week. I'll probably only will study for 1 of them and wait till after the first one to study for the others. And a trip to the Omaha Holiday Market to get Timm's ring sized correctly.

Back in business

Well I'm back in the swing of things with my nose to the grindstone. Classes started last Monday much to my dismay. I was excited to see all my PT buddies and get away from 8 hour shifts at the mall but I definitely wasn't ready for all the reading and studying that school brought with it. I hope to get back to posting regularly now that I'm back on a schedule during the week. I have a bunch of stuff from my break and Christmas to share. But for now I present to you Elvis cookies (or what happens when you start running out of everything in the middle of baking): I noticed at lunch today that the banana that I had thrown into my lunchbox a few days ago had gotten quite beat-up. I contemplated making my go to banana cookies, but I was craving something a little different. (side note: before heading home for Christmas I had stopped into the gourmet dog store in the mall and found dog treats to take to Cosmo they were banana and peanut butter flavored. I thought at the time that it was cookie form of my favourite quick breakfast.) So of course today I thought bad bananas + peanut butter was still the best idea ever. I wasn't sure if I could just add peanut butter or sub it for something in my normal recipe so I started looking around online. I found a blog called Siriously Delicious that had a recipe for chocolate chip peanut butter banana cookies. I decided to give it a whirl (I wasn't craving chocolate, but what the hell couldn't hurt). Well I started mashing bananas and got out my margarine to soften when I realized I didn't have a full stick of butter, so I threw in a few tablespoons of vegetable shortening. I got those together in a bowl and went to grab my peanut butter only to see that I had less PB than I remembered making it only about 1/4 of a cup instead of 1/2. I started scrambling around for what I could do ( I should also add that theres a nice snow storm involving 8" of snow happening outside making me unwilling to go to the store). After some looking through the cupboards and online to see what can be substituted for PB, I decided to use Nutella. Because of the Nutella I decided not to put chocolate chips in for fear of the other flavors being overpowered. The first batch didn't come out very well, they flattened out too much and got a little burnt on the bottom. I threw in more flour which helped a lot (you can see the difference in the pic above). Hopefully you'll be hearing from me again soon. I'm crossing my fingers for a snow day tomorrow although we were the only ones that didn't have one today, so I'm not holding my breath.

one day closer

Not much interesting today. I worked for 8 hours this morning. Then, I came home and had dinner before I started studying. I worked trough most of my thorax notes and some x-rays. Still need to do the abdomen notes. I took a break and watched the Glee episode from last week. It was awesome. I'm definitely hoping that Gwyneth Paltrow will show up on more episodes in the future.

The Cranberry Buckle turned out pretty good. I think it could use a tad more sugar.

I'm still debating on what colours I want to do my upcoming project in. Gotta decide before Tuesday when I go to the yarn store.

Off to study more!

'tis the season

to eat cranberries! Last week when I was at Trader Joe's overwhelmed with wonderfulness, I grabbed a bag of fresh cranberries. As someone who love cranberries in all other forms, I'd never had fresh cranberries or used them to make anything. I thought it was high time to change that, but wasn't sure what to make with them.

I remembered a recipe I'd made this summer when I had bought blueberries. It turned out awesome and I polished it off probably faster than I should have. This recipe was for Blueberry Buckle from the Better Homes and Garden Cookbook (the red and white checked one that it seems like everyone has, got mine from an estate sale a couple of summers ago). I decided to give it a whirl with the cranberries. I figured I might need to add a little more sugar to account for the tartness of the cranberries.

It just came out of the oven, so I can't report on the taste yet but it smells and looks delicious.

Other than that, it's been a pretty uneventful day. I had class at 1 and then lab. Class was physiology and right now we're on the endocrine system (hormones). Today we started the male reproductive system and I'm so glad to finally be on something that I understand and have a good background in. All the pituitary hormones were stressing me out a bit because they're so confusing and for the most part I haven't learned about them much before now. Lab was a review day and then we had a practice lab practical set up for us. I had to hurry through the practice practical so I could go to work, but it went fairly well. I definitely have an idea what I need to study more as far as the practical aspect is concerned. I'm pretty sure I need to study everything more for the written exam, but at least I have an extra day for that.

sometimes I need more than what's left at the end of the day

I am still alive. Life has been crazy! I'm pretty sure I always say that, but especially since the last post. 18 credit hours, working 12 to 15 hours a week and studying. And studying means at LEAST 2 hours every night or I feel like I'm not learning anything. I've been knitting the least amount since I started knitting sophomore year of high school (almost exactly 7 years ago). The only new knitting pics I have for you are of my shawl. Timm & I went out for a fancy dinner to celebrate our one year anniversary and I got to be all snazzy looking.


And then this can also be considered knitting content. For a Halloween party at the beginning of the month, I dressed up as a crazy knitting lady! I added a "noro" stripey scarf after this pic was taken. One of my classmates asked if I had knit my cardigan. I responded with "I knit everything I'm wearing except my shoes and the things you can't see." (Yes that's Voodoo's tail making an appearance).


As I mentioned earlier, I'm in class a lot and studying a lot. And sometimes (ok, most of the time) I don't get a bunch of sleep and I start to nod off in class or at home while I'm studying. Or sometimes I'm studying and KNOW that I was sleeping in class when I took a specific set of notes, such as this beauty:


(Yeah, don't ask me what it says, I'm really not sure)

So when I'm not studying (or sometimes when I am and stress-eating), I bake. I've been trying to find little things I can do to save money/waste less food/not eat the same thing everyday for a month. I started freezing some of my fresh vegetables (some work better than others). And I'm trying to use powdered milk in things that call for milk. I can't drink milk by itself (well not cow's milk anyway) and I kept throwing away the majority of the milk I bought or not buying milk to prevent wasting it and then not being able to make mac & cheese, etc.

Here's some of my latest yummies:


The above cinnamon rolls were Pumpkin Pie Cinnamon Rolls from Flour Mayhem (see link in the side bar). I had some issues with them (mostly never using yeast before). They still tasted delicious, but they were dense from not really rising. I'll definitely be making them again and hopefully (with the knowledge the internet has given me) they will rise.

I signed up to do NaBloPoMo. So hopefully, I will be posting everyday for the month of November. (Even if it's only a picture and a few sentences). After the head and neck exam in Anatomy, I've heard things go downhill, so far they haven't much but this week we don't have a test in any of our classes which is a big relief.

I will leave you with cute cat pictures.
Sometimes Dexter and Voodoo snuggle, sometimes they don't.



And Happy Halloween (now that it's almost over)!!!