It's baking day again!

I love Baking Day! Today and tomorrow it is being hosted by Money Saving Mom and Life as Mom. There are 200+ people participating. How exciting! Bonding over our love of food. :)

My list for the next two days looks like this...

Chocolate/cream cheese muffins
Pumpkin chocolate chip muffins
Gingerbread muffins
Citrus muffins
Pumpkin bread
Pumpkin pancakes
Waffles
Mashed potatoes
Lazy granola
Pizza crust- I am not going to freeze this. We are having pizza for dinner.

Last time I participated in baking day it went over very well with my family. Especially our 8 year old, every morning he asked for pumpkin chocolate chip muffins for breakfast. Actually, I think he asked for them for every meal. :)

I hope you are going to be joining us. What is on your baking day list?

Menu Plan Monday

Last week was pretty hectic because I had a lot to get done for midterms at school. This week is looking a lot more peaceful. I am thinking about having another baking day this week because my family has eaten almost everything I made on my last baking day. We have a few waffles and a loaf of pumpkin bread left. Of course, it will be a lot easier since I can pick from any of these great pumpkin recipes at Amy's Finer Things.

Our dinner menu for the week looks like this...

Monday- Breakfast casserole
Tuesday- Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo
Wednesday- Dad's night to cook
Thursday- Ham and mashed potatoes
Friday- Cheese pizza
Saturday- Taco Soup

You can look at other menu's at I'm an Organizing Junkie.

The winners....

The winners of the Got Chocolate milk gift packs are...

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

5 15 

Timestamp: 2009-10-13 14:53:51 UTC

#5
MKB said...
I would love to win this! Kbroderi@msn.com

#15
Anonymous said...
YUM! I would love to win this one. I don't like white milk so much. Harder for me to drink, but I won't pass up a good glass of Chocolate Milk!!! Gotta love it :)
email is motherlove243@yahoo.com and my name is Laura

Congratulations!

Baking Marathon

When I heard that Crystal at Money Saving Mom was going to do a baking day on Wednesday, I thought it would be something good to try. Unfortunately, I already had prior engagements on Wednesday so I decided to do mine on Thursday.

I found that one of the best things to do is make sure you have dinner already taken care of, that way you don't have to worry about it too much during the day. I had soaked some beans the night before and in the morning put them in the crockpot with some ham and water.

My list for Baking Day consisted of....


Black bottom muffins
Pumpkin chocolate chip muffins
Waffles
Cornbread muffins
Pumpkin bread
Pumpkin dump cake
Lazy granola

I got through everything on my list but the waffles. I will be making those today. The purpose of the black bottom muffins wasn't necessarily to freeze but to keep my boys from eating the pumpkin chocolate chip muffins that I did plan to freeze. They didn't eat them all so I did end up freezing a dozen black bottom muffins.

The cornbread muffins and pumpkin dump cake were part of our dinner but my husband has been sick and has not had too much of an appetite lately so I ended up freezing some of the cornbread muffins. The dump cake is more of a pumpkin pie type of dessert with a crumb topping. Our older son loves pumpkin pie and really liked this cake but it was not much of a favorite for the rest of them.

After dinner I made two loaves of pumpkin bread and mixed up the lazy granola. Next time I will make sure I have all my ingredients on hand because instead of 7 cups of oats I only had 4 but I still went ahead and made it.





So for my first baking day I ended up freezing 3 1/2 dozen breakfast muffins, 1/2 dozen cornbread muffins, 4 bowls of ham and bean soup, and 2 loaves of pumpkin bread. We also have a pumpkin dump cake and some lazy granola that we will be eating this weekend.

Hopefully I will get my waffles made and froze today and I might even throw in some pancakes.

You can see how other people did on their baking day at Money Saving Mom.

I {heart} chocolate milk.

Chocolate milk is honestly my absolute favorite drink. I would rather drink chocolate milk than anything else so when I was contacted about going to the Got Chocolate Milk Halloween Tour I, of course, said yes.

The Des Moines leg of the tour is this Wednesday and you can get all the details of this fun, free event over at Iowa Geek Online.

So to celebrate this fun happening I have some Got Chocolate Milk goodies to give away.



I will be giving these gifts packs away to two different winners. Each pack includes an adult t-shirt, a child's t-shirt, Got Milk straw, and either a Got Milk Frisbie or a some fun milk mustache stickers.

To enter just leave a comment on my blog. The contest will be open until 3 p.m. on Friday.

You can also check out some great snack ideas on Whymilk.com and check out their profile on twitter @MilkMustache.

I am loving Fall

I love Back to School and I love fall. We have had a lot going on around here lately and I am not sure quite where to start.

First off, we got our internet hooked back up. Well, it has actually been on for a while but our computer was upstairs and we had a wireless router. In order to get the new service connected I had to bring the computer downstairs. So that happened last night and I can finally get moving on my online class.

Secondly but probably the most exciting, is that our son, who is a Senior this year, has been accepted into two colleges as of today. He (we) applied to four and are waiting on responses from the other two. Of course, one of the colleges we are waiting to hear from is the the college he really wants to go to.

Thirdly, momma got a new washer and dryer. Our old set was seriously on it's last leg. Not to mention that it wasn't agitating, a very vital part of the process for top loaders. I am very pleased with the pair we got. It is a nice middle of the road set.

They are LG front loaders and I will be honest, I did not realize how much they would make me LOVE doing laundry. I walk around the house looking for things to wash. I have read several reviews and I know that A) I need to wipe the seal and leave the door open so the drum can dry otherwise it will start to smell and B) I need to drain the washer once a month. Other than these two things I have read great reviews on the set.

Lastly, I have been branching out from Hot Chocolate to flavored coffee drinks. Because, you know, I really needed to increase my caffeine intake. :)

I am so excited to be back, to be able to post more, and to get to other blogs more often. But right now I really need to get to my homework.

Back to School Breakfast Week- Day 5

Today's breakfast is Cinnamon Bread. It can be made the night before and is also an easy recipe. This is so good it is gone within minutes.



* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1-1/2 cups sugar, divided
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup buttermilk
* 1 egg
* 1/4 cup canola oil
* 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
* GLAZE:
* 1/4 cup confectioners' sugar
* 1-1/2 to 2 teaspoons milk

Directions:
In a large bowl, combine the flour, 1 cup sugar, baking soda and salt. Combine buttermilk, egg and oil; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. In a small bowl, combine cinnamon and remaining sugar.
Grease the bottom only of a 9-in. x 5-in. loaf pan. Pour half of the batter into pan; sprinkle with half of the cinnamon-sugar. Carefully spread with remaining batter and sprinkle with remaining cinnamon-sugar; cut through batter with a knife to swirl.
Bake at 350° for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack to cool completely. Combine confectioners' sugar and enough milk to reach desired consistency; drizzle over loaf.

Recipe: Taste of Home

I hope you have gotten some quick and easy breakfast ideas that will make your school mornings run a lot smoother.

Back to School Breakfast Week- Day 4

I don't know if this really even classifies as a recipe but I thought I would put it on here anyway. It is our families basic breakfast casserole.



I have made this so many different ways it is so versatile.

I put potato rounds or hashbrowns on the bottom of a 9 x 13 pan. Also, preheat your oven for the temperature on the package.

We brown some sausage or bacon and put it on top of the potatoes.

That is topped with a dozen beaten eggs and then baked for the time alloted on the potatoes.

Lastly, I put a layer of cheese on the top and bake it for an additional 5 minutes. My entire family loves this and we rarely have any leftovers.

Back to School Breakfast Week- Day 3

I have never baked oatmeal before but decided to when I found this recipe for Peanut Butter Baked Oatmeal. We cut it into squares or crumble it into a bowl. You can eat it with milk or plain.



I came across the recipe on another blog, Lynn's Kitchen Adventures. Lynn has a wonderful blog with a lot of great recipes.

If you have never visited her blog I highly recommend you do. Your family will thank you for it.

Back To School

Today I am not going to be posting a breakfast. I am busy getting everything ready for my kids to go back to school before they leave for grandma's tomorrow.

They will be gone for 5 days while my hubby and I demolish their room. We are going to be sanding walls and pulling up carpet. Next month I hope to get some bead board on the walls and paint.

One of the fun things I get to do for back to school is have my son try on all his hand-me-downs. We are fortunate that my son has 3 older boy cousins that give us their clothes. Today C had to try on about 20 pairs of jeans. He wasn't loving it. Then I divided them up between me and another sister-in-law whose son is a year younger than C but about the same size. Really, I don't have the space to store that many jeans and I do laundry every day so 10 pairs of pants is enough.

We have all the school supplies so all that is really left are haircuts and today is looking like the perfect day for it.

Are you ready for back to school?