Fresh Garden Tomatoes in a Sandwich

You take these and slice them. Put them on a slice of bread with
some mustard/mayo or plain mayo, top it off and you get......................

This wonderful sandwich!! Yum..... Yum....

Just tomato, mayo and bread. Can't beat that. And Ryan even like it!!

Spring 2011 - May 25th Ride up to Tibble - American Fork Canyon

We took a ride up to Tibble Fork Reservoir, American Fork Canyon just before Ryan was to leave to work in Moab at Entrada- Scout Camp for a month.

The lake is completely full. I don't believe I have ever seen it this high before.

My favorite fishing pole is still on the bottom of this lake! Argh...........

This is where Ryan & I usually launch our float tubes. The tree is usually out of the
water and the rock barely showing is always fully out of the water.
There is usually a little shallow bay with plenty of big rocks to
help you get in your tube and get your gear organized.

The Spillway entrance is  overflowing. No more water can be held by this dam.

This white water waterfall is usually just a trickle.
But with so much snow this year, it is tumbling happily down the mountain.

We had a nice ride, but I am sorry to say I am not excited to come fishing because the water is too high and it makes my nerves crazy!! Crazy I know, but true.

The other reason we took this drive was to see when the campgrounds for TERT were going to be opened. Not for several more weeks and maybe not in June at all. We will have to wait and see.

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Baked Tacos

So it was time for tacos again. This time I wanted to do something a bit different. Main ingredients: taco meat, hard shells, flour tortillas, beans and toppings.






I took hard shells and put them in a baking dish. I used foil to make a holder for them that allowed them to stand up. I  just folded grooves into the foil.

 Then I filled them with my cooked meat mixture. Added a sprinkling of cheese and stuck them in the oven for a few minutes to allow the shells to crisp and brown slightly, and the cheese to begin to melt.

See how they are crispy, the cheese is melty and the shells are standing up? This worked out great.

After I removed the tacos from the oven, I took a warm flour tortilla and spread a thin layer of refried beans on it and then wrapped it around the crisp taco. Yum! It was fun, good, looked good too. They tasted great. Easy-Peasy way to shake up a normal meal.

We rounded up the meal with corn, black olives, a spoon of refried beans and Mexican rice. Toppings were chosen from diced tomato, shredded lettuce, additional cheese and sour cream. Yum!

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Blueberry Muffins

Blueberry Muffins

Favorite Sweet Muffins

1/2 cup milk

2 Tbs water

1/4 cup applesauce (or oil)

1 1/2 cup flour

1 Tbs dry egg powder (whole egg or whites only)

1/2 cup sugar (or Splenda)

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

Optional: 1/2 cup frozen blueberries

     (When using frozen blueberries, I add them to the dry mix and coat them well. Then I stir in the wet until just moistened. In order to keep from turning the whole batter blue, I do not thaw the blueberries. I quickly coat them and finish the batter. Then drop the batter into the pan. If the batter sits before panning, the blueberries will bleed as you scoop them into the pan- or at least this is what happens to me!)

bake at 400 degrees F for 20-25 minutes.

1. Measure and mix all dry ingredients, until well incorporated.
2. stir milk, water and applesauce into dry ingredients.
3. mix until flour is just moistened.
4. Batter will be lumpy!
5. fill muffin cups 2/3rds full- grease cups if not using paper liners.
6. bake in middle of oven.
7. immediately remove from pan after baking.

(The regular recipe calls for 1 egg and 1/2 cup oil. If using fresh egg, just omit egg powder and the 2 Tbs water. Exchange the applesauce and the oil using the same measured amount.)

I found a Kitchenaid silicone muffin pan at the Thrift shop for $1.50- I love it!!! Got to love those bargains. 

Someday I will experiment with fresh & freeze dried blueberries too. My guess is that fresh berries will fold into the batter very well without bluing it up too much. I will mix them with the dry ingredients first and proceed as stated above for frozen. However, I will cull the injured ones out- unless that is a lot. Hopefully I will get a good batch of berries with perfect skins and no cuts or nicks. 

My freeze dried blueberries instructions say to reconstitute by soaking in water before using. I don't know how this will work. If the berries are whole and undamaged, they might reconstitute and hold the moisture without bleeding out into the batter. Or maybe I mix them in dry, add a little more moisture to the batter and let them reconstitute in the pan as they sit to bake and bake.  Will be fun experimenting!!

Blue blueberry muffins look weird to me, but they taste fine. So nothing is lost with trying out different methods and products.

Recipes Found (they've been lost for nearly 4 years!)

In the year 2010:  Finally after nearly 4 years, (yes 4!), I found my favorite cookie recipe.  

But how sad that when I baked them, they weren't as fabulous as I remembered!! LOL.......... too funny. Isn't this always the way it is?

I remember our favorite chocolate chip cookies from when I was very very young. They were the best ever! Then we got a new oven. And we could never get the cookies to bake to perfection!! It was so sad. I wish we had had an oven thermometer back then and maybe that would have solved our problem. We think it was the oven temperature that made the cookies the best. But I don't think we have ever succeeded in duplicating them, maybe we never really tried hard enough? We maybe just moved on and were happy because they still tasted great, even if the texture wasn't perfect? I hope I don't have to move on from my favorite shapes........................

So after baking my favorite Shape Holder Cookies in my new (now 4 year old new) oven, (meaning a different oven) they did not come out how they used to bake up! What's up with that!! 

Maybe I did not make the dough correctly? Maybe my oven temp is off? I know I baked the first batch too long, could that be the problem? But the second batch wasn't much better. 

So many variables............ now I have to figure out how to make my favorite cookies work here and anywhere they get baked!! 

However they still have a good taste and that might be what ultimately counts. 

They are not the best tasters, but they are good, at least we think so. They were the best shapers though, they kept the shape you put them into before baking. That was fun. 

Shape Holder Cookies

3/4 cup butter

1 cup sugar

3 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

1 Tbsp baking powder

3 1/2 cup flour

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp cocoa powder (optional)

bake at 350 degrees F for 6-8 minutes.

1. Cream butter and sugar. 
2. Add eggs and vanilla. 
3. Mix/whisk baking powder, salt, cocoa and flour together. 
4. Gradually add dry ingredients.
5. Roll out on floured surface and cut shapes or use cookie scoop and make 'ice cream' balls, my favorite way of doing this recipe!

The following recipes are ones that I used on a regular basis when we lived in Ruby Valley and the kids were younger. Now I have found these recipes too, and I am happy! I might make some of them up this next week and see if we still like them too.  

The muffins will be great for grab and go breakfasts. You can add lots of fun things to make different variations, the recipe is a basic recipe.

Favorite Sweet Muffins

1 egg

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup oil

1 1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

bake at 400 degrees F for 20-25 minutes.

1. Beat egg, stir in milk and oil.
2. mix in remaining ingredients just until flour is moistened.
3. Batter will be lumpy!
4. fill muffin cups 2/3rds full- grease cups if not using paper liners.
5. bake in middle of oven.
6. immediately remove from pan after baking.

I have been making pancakes for the kids for breakfast for the last couple of months. It isn't too labor intensive and I really love the feeling of doing a warm breakfast for them in the mornings. I have not done this for many years if really ever and I love taking care of them and sending them off with a breakfast in their tummys. Starting the day with breakfast is very healthy! and I do try to make my pancakes using healthier ingredients.

However, the following recipe is typed as I used it years ago, without any healthy habits alterations. So, I will be substituting Splenda for the sugar and leaving out the oil, or using applesauce. Then it will be better for my kids.

Delicious Pancakes

1 egg

1 cup milk

2 Tb oil

1 cup flour

1 Tb sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 Tb vinegar

1. Beat egg, add milk and oil. 
2. mix in dry ingredients.
3. beat until smooth.
4. add vinegar and stir in thoroughly.
5. cook on heated griddle.  

This pizza dough was an easy fix dough and we used it many times in the old Ruby Valley days. However, I always did make it up in the Bread Maker on the dough only cycle. I am not one to make bread dough and knead by hand when the dough cycle on the Bread Maker will do. 

Calzone - Pizza dough

2/3 cup warm water 80 degrees

1 tsp active dry yeast

 2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

2 Tb olive oil

Bake at 500 degrees F for 10-12 minutes.

1. Place warm water in a bowl, stir in yeast.
2. allow to sit at least 2 minutes until bubbly.
3. Place flour, salt, oil in mixing bowl and beat for 10 seconds.
4. add the yeast mixture.
5. beat for 1 minute, until dough is well combined.
6. Knead for 2 minutes.
7. Let rise for 30 minutes.
8. divide dough into four pieces for calzones or makes a 12" round pizza.

I am very happy that I found my long lost recipes! And now they are on the Internet and I should never loose them again!! Happy Blog Site Storage!!!

If you try them, I hope you have good luck with them and enjoy them too.

I always end up altering my recipes a bit each time, mostly because I don't precision measure, I do use what I have on hand, and I, well sometimes I just am weird and just make things. Many happy accidents have been enjoyed by my family and I over the years. But sadly, most of them have never been replicated!! I have sometimes taken the time to write my alterations down and that has been good and then I could replicate a good change, but those are few and far in- between!

Oops! I am rambling. Have a great day..................

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