Pumpkin Spice Scones

This week I've been feeling very much into fall, even though last Thursday brought a heat wave upwards of 90 degrees - our hottest temperature of the summer, in the beginning of September! Even with the heat, the heart wants what it wants, and mine wanted pumpkin!! 

I decided to make pumpkin spice scones, a new recipe I hadn't tried before.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup cold butter
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup & 2 tablespoons  canned pumpkin
• 1/4 cup milk

Icing:

• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1/4 teaspoon equal parts cinnamon and nutmeg mixture
  
  

Directions:

In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients together.

Slice the cold butter into pea sized pieces and cut it into the dry mixture.

Mix so that it is incorporated and the mixture forms crumbs. 

In a medium sized bowl, mix wet ingredients together and pour into dry ingredient mixture, mix. Take dough and knead on a flat surface, 10 times. Shape into a circle about 3/4 in. thick.

Slice into 8 triangular pieces (like a pizza) and place on a greased or parchment lined cookie sheet. Brush with milk.

(You can reshape a little to clean up the edges)

Bake 12 minutes or until golden brown at 400 degrees.

Let cool for 10 minutes and make icing.

Icing Directions:

Mix all ingredients together, spread on cooled scones. Serve warm!

Enjoy!!

These were so delicious and moist! Yum!! Everyone in the house was a huge fan :), which means I did reeeeal good!

Meatball and potato casserole

So the other day I was getting ready to make dinner for the men in the house (and of course myself) when I looked in the kitchen and realized I hadn't bought any kind of meat. GREAT! So looking around I found tuna, spam, some sort of fish sticks, and frozen meatballs. That's it! The meatballs were the least offensive to me at the time.

Gathering some more supplies ( still trying to figure out what the h*@&!! I'm gonna do ) I grabbed 

1/2 an onion - chopped

2 large red skin potatoes - chopped

1 cup of green beans halved (from the garden!)

1 clove of garlic minced

1 can of golden mushroom soup

2 small/ medium carrots or one large - chopped

Fresh thyme

Salt

Pepper

Dried oregano

Milk

I cut all of the veggies and put them in the glass pan, then placed the meatballs in too. I seasoned with the thyme, oregano, salt, and pepper. Drizzle with olive oil.

I then poured the golden mushroom soup into a 2 cup measuring cup, and filled the rest of the cup with milk until the mixture reached the 2 cup mark. Mix it together with a fork or whisk, then pour over your pan.

 Mix so that everything in the pan is coated with your mixture, then put in oven at 425' for 45 minutes, after 30, take out and mix then sprinkle with Italian blend cheese. *** Cheese was an after thought, not pictured, also optional*** Continue cooking the rest of the 15 minutes.

This goes great with bread!!!

It was very good, I was told that the recipe is a keeper! 

I would definitely try it again with some beef or chicken as well, as I am not the biggest meatball fan, something about the sweetness. 

I hope you enjoy!!

Burnt pot: resolution

So I've let my pot soak in vinegar for not 24 hours, but 48 hours. It didn't look too different at all. I bought some Dawn steel mesh scrubbers, and went to town.

It definitely took some elbow grease, but it finally started to come off! What a relief, I don't like having to replace things!

I have to confess, I definitely broke the coffee pot decanter. Not happy, but on a lighter note, we had tacos tonight and I chopped up a tomato from the garden. Is this not one of the brightest, reddest tomatoes you've ever seen!? I was so impressed :)

Well, I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend!

Faults

Anyone who says they aren't "cool" enough, or good enough to start a blog, take note. Though I've completed a few projects in the past few days, since my first post, my second *official* post isn't about helping you learn how to do something perfectly. No, not at all. Today is more of a DIY-Don't.

You will never hear me claim that I'm perfect, or that anything I do it perfect, I can simply find the best details of something I've done and find a way to be proud of it, and the fact that "I did that." I believe that part of being a DIY Girl is being able to admit when something went terribly wrong and, on that note, being able to laugh about it!

So last night I was attempting to make a recipe that is made by my fiance's mom, because it's his favorite. The recipe is not important, what's important is that I don't know how to make rice. You might  ask yourself what kind of idiot I am, and the answer is the Sara-kind. I know the directions are on the back, and I have followed them many times, but for some reason (I add a little too much of one ingredient, I forget butter/oil, I lose track of time...) I can never make rice correctly. So last night, I lost track of time and walked into a kitchen full of smoke. OOPS. It was bad.

The rice had burnt BLACK on the bottom of the pot..... yeah, nice, I know.

I scrubbed and scrubbed today, but could not take off the burntness even after soaking overnight!
So I decided to look to pinterest to help me, and used the vinegar-water-baking soda trick.

1 cup vinegar (I only had apple cider vinegar....great...)
1 cup water

Heat vinegar and water mixture to boil in burnt pan.
Once it's boiling, add 2 Tbsp of Baking Soda.
This will fizz.....a lot... it boiled over and I didn't remove it from the hot burner yet, so it burnt a layer of nastiness on the burner.... ugh....

Empty pot/pan and scrub.






Ok, this did not work for me at all. I took a little off... but apparently this DIY is not for the amazing type of  f-up that I did.

So, I am trying another DIY and soaking it in vinegar over night, filling the pot up with vinegar just enough to cover the burnt part.

I had to cover this because I have to tell you, this vinegar project made my house smell absolutely HORRID. DISGUSTING. GROOSSSS!!!!!



I am currently simmering (in a small clean saucepan) a mixture of 1 cup of water, approx. 1 Tbsp vanilla, and 1 Tbsp of cinnamon. I pretty much just threw it together, you'll have to experiment.... all I know is that even though it's slow, it is working to take the vinegar smell out of this house.
I will update on my burnt pot tomorrow!



Please let me know if anyone has any ideas on how to make this work, the cleaning the pot thing! I'd love to try anything....as long as I don't have to buy anything extra :)

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great Friday!

Light Homemade Caesar-like Dressing!

Ok, will somebody please pay me to be active on Pinterest?
I promise to: always be on time, show dedication and work until the wee hours of the night/morning, be detail oriented, bring great inspiration and creativity to life, take ideas and make them better, be professional and keep a good sense of humor, and maintain a quota of 100+ pins per day.

That would be nice....

Last night I was making an Italian dish and REEEALLY wanted a caesar salad. One problem: no caesar dressing. Earlier in the day I was watching Ten Dollar Dinners on Food Network and watched Melissa d'Arabian make a caesar-like dressing, a parmesan vinaigrette. I realized I had all of the ingredients, and got to mixing :)

1 Tablespoon Dijon Mustard
2 Tablespoons Red Wine Vinegar
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
Salt
Pepper
1/4 cup Parmesan (I actually used an italian blend - which is what I had on hand)

Whisk together mustard and vinegar, then add all other ingredients and whisk together.
This was great!
I actually really like things vinegary and salty but my fiancé thought it was too vinegary, so you'll have to try it and see what you like. This is so incredibly simple and a little bit goes a LOOONG way!

Also, if you like a creamy dressing but still want it healthy, I once made a similar dressing but added plain greek yogurt to it! I'll have to post that one soon.

Have a great Wednesday!