Halloween Deco


It's time to start decorating for the holidays! Decorating really helps me keep my spirits up and puts a smile on my face! Since I don't have a lot of room to have decorations everywhere, I thought of a way to have pumpkins in my house but not use my space! I have a window in my kitchen that overlooks the parking area and entrance of my condos complex. I added pumpkins that hang in the window! It looks pretty cute and I have gotten some complements from my neighbors. Take a look!

Johnny's Birthday!


Happy Birthday, to my husband, John! Last night we went to a friend's house for dinner. They recently bought a house in Palo Alto so a birthday dinner was a good excuse to see the new house. I asked John what kind of cake he wanted me to make and instead of cake he wanted a apple pie! So, I took it as a challenge since I have never made a apple pie. I now how to make a pretty good crust so I just needed to figure out the filling part! I decided to use a recipe for pie crust that I have always used, because I knew it was good, and I went to an original, The Joy of Cooking for the apple pie recipe. I got a great response from everyone who ate it, and I also thought it was really yummy!

Sweet Potato Bread

The other day I was grocery shopping at Trader Joe's and found something I had never seen before, canned sweet potato puree. I love pumpkin bread and thought it would be a yummy twist on it! So I bought it with a cart full of other items! Yesterday was a lazy day for me, so I decided to make Sweet Potato Bread. I found a recipe on All Recipes.com and here is my version of the Southern Sweet Potato Bread with Pecans.

1 cup of whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg with one egg white
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons non fat milk
1 can of sweet potato puree
1/2 chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 325, and grease a 8x4 loaf pan
In medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon and sugar.
Add eggs and milk and mix until blended. Finally, stir the sweet potato puree and walnuts and pour batter into the prepared pan.
Bake for about 1 hour, or until toothpick comes out clean. Allow bread to cool before serving and then ENJOY!!
***I think the bread came out a little crumbly so, next time I would add more oil to bind the ingredients.

Veggies!



Here is a veggie salad that I threw together. I think it's pretty good. It would be a good dish to bring on a hike or a picnic.

juju's Bulgar side salad:

1 cup of Bulgar
2 Persian cucumbers
3 small tomatoes
2 Carrots
2 golden beets steamed
1/4 cup of sliced almonds
red onions
mint
parsley
salt and pepper
olive oil
lemon juice
balsamic vinegar
Boil hot water and pour on Bulgar to cook
Mix the last four ingredients to form a dressing and pour on above ingredients!

Party Hopping



Party hopping! On Saturday John and I had two parties to go to. So Saturday morning I got baking! The first was a party for a friend of John's, who he had not seen in 15 plus years. His friend got married and they had a little party for people who could not attend. As a little gift I made the couple Espresso Swirl Brownies from Alice Medrich's Cookies and Brownies Book. These brownies turned out fabulous, I tried one and they are wonderful and full of espresso and chocolate flavor.

The next party we went to was for John's best friend. It was his birthday! I made regular chocolate cupcakes with yummy sugary frosting! I put some fun electric blue sprinkles for decorations. The funny thing with these cupcakes was the actual cupcake did not stick to the baking cups so I had to take the cupcakes out of the cups because it did not look pretty!

Cookie Swap!

For my birthday I decided to have a cookie swap! Everyone who is invited brings a batch of cookies over and at the end of the party we all have a bag of different cookies to try out! For this I tried a new recipe for a nutmeg tea cookie. I also made chocolate hazelnut oatmeal cookies! We had so many fun different kinds of cookies, my friend Janine made coconut macaroon which were delicious!