Mind Tricks

I promised you baked goods, and you shall get baked goods. 

Oatmeal is a hot commodity in our house. It's very versatile- banana oats, baked in bread, overnight oats, and when you're dying for a cookie but don't have any butter, it makes a decent breakfast cookies. 

Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies from my new website obsession since Weight Watchers kicked me off their site: SparkRecipes.com

Ingredients- 1 cup of oatmeal, 1/3 cup whole wheat flour, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 2 tsp cinnamon, pinch of salt, 1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 egg white, 1/2 tsp vanilla, 1/4 cup raisins or nuts or chocolate chips. (I totally did chocolate chips.)

Mix your dry ingredients together and then whisk together the applesauce, sugar, egg, and vanilla. 

Combine wet with dry and stir to combine. Fold in any add-ins you want (ahem! chocolate chips).

Shape into five mounds on a baking sheet that has been lightly oiled or sprayed with pan spray. Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes. When mine came out, they looked like this...

Oh dear. Not very pretty, and I'm not so fond of my "Ugly Baked Goods" crown. What to do? Ah! Mind tricks... Muah ha ha!

Pretty plate + Pretty rug + sunshine = decent looking cookies. 

There you have it. My little hobby is blossoming, and I'm finally getting into "real"-ish food blogger/photographer mode. So what if taking pictures of your desserts on the floor of your living room is slightly bizarre? I've never pretended I wasn't bizarre, so you can't blame me for it. Besides, the cookies were marvelous and made AWESOME healthy little breakfasts. Enjoy the recipe! :)

Self Entertainment

It's just me, myself, and Quincy at the Ashby abode for today. Robert's been at a church leadership conference since yesterday morning, so I've been finding ways to entertain myself!

Like nixing the idea of making healthy pumpkin pancakes for breakfast and instead choosing a pumpkin cupcake with cream-cheese icing and an apple. Same thing right?

 Or deciding that visiting the Coulter's for dinner last night would be more fun than appearing stag at our apartment complex's Halloween party, then playing with Mary's new icing piping bags on said pumpkin cupcakes. Beautiful no? (There you go Sarah! Reader's Request: Cupcakes! :-p)

And as always, Quincy has no problem entertaining herself when Abby is around! She came home exhausted and covered in Sheltie drool. Come to think of it... that's how I came home too! (I kid. I kid.)

Enjoy your weekend! I'm off to the farmer's market and the mall to do some more entertaining, then I'll be back with some recipe posts this afternoon. 

Happy Love Your Body Day!

I've been crazy busy, so I haven't had time to blog or material to blog about. But today is National Love Your Body Day, so I think it deserves a little attention.

I love my body because...
     - it allows me to run races and feel strong.
     - it lets me hug friends and kiss loved ones.
     - it is super awesome and adaptable. I love being able to see changes.
     - it has some killer curves.
     - it's the only one I've got!

Why do you love your body?

Some Season Sightseeing

Happy Fall from the Ashby Family! We went to Cade's Cove yesterday to see if we could see a bear. Nope. No bears. Plus we got lost, but there were plenty of leaves!!!

We had a good time. And just look at our silly pooch. Always sticking her tongue out! Hope you're enjoying your October!

The Queen of Ugly Baked Goods

 My fall break plans got turned upside down this afternoon. Robert went to hug me, then stepped back with a very concerned look on his face. He asked me if I felt ok, and when I looked confused he told me I was burning up. I took my temp- 100*F. Holy Mess! I NEVER run fevers. In fact, I usually run a little cool. I called the doc and they said as long as I didn't feel really super sick there was no point coming in. Apparently you have to be 101* or higher to count as a "real fever." Whatever. Needless to say though, an 8 hour drive I would have been making alone is not in my future anymore. I know if I stay here, I'll probably end up feeling fine. But if I go, I'll probably get super sick out there and have no way home. It's kind of how my life works. Whatever I choose is usually wrong. I'm super sad because I feel like I'm letting my sorority family down, but I know they understand. At least I hope they do. (Love you ladies, I really do!) I'm going to go in January when I have a random Monday off for President's Day or something. I'm bummed, but I'll make the best of it. 

Earlier today, while I still thought I'd be leaving for the weekend, I decided I needed to do some refrigerator clean up. Robert doesn't really cook when I'm not here, so I needed to use up some things before they went bad. First on my list was a whole mess of CSA veggies. I made a stew in the crock pot, but I have no idea how it turned out yet. It smells good though.

Second on my list was 24 eggs that Bert bought for the church picnic egg toss. Needless to say, they were never used, and I don't throw out animal products if I can help it. Twenty-four eggs? Totally stumped... I made french toast, but that still left me with twenty-two!  

I did some research online and- Aha! Angel food cake to the rescue! Now being a culinary maverick (or just a culinary nerd), I know that angel food is not easy. I wanted to do it anyway, so I gathered all the ingredients and jumped right in. How could I go wrong with an Alton Brown recipe?

I let the stand mixer do the hard part- twelve egg whites + super fine sugar + cream of tarter...

Will give you this! Looking good. Looking good....

I carefully scooped my batter into my bundt cake pan, and thought I was home free at that point. The hard part should have been over. 

Or not... I put my cake on a rack that was too high in the oven, and it puffed up and burned against the broiler coils. Fail. Maybe the inside looks ok?

Nope. Still pretty fail-tastic. For some reason, my cooking is always slap-dash. I make a huge mess and the presentation is never right. How this next point comes to be, I don't understand... 

No matter how ugly my cooking is, it tastes really, really good. Does that fully redeem me?

After all, that's what really counts right?

I love this man.

He is amazing- That is all. Have a good night! 

What I haven't been blogging about

Robert and I ran 5 miles yesterday! It was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be; and even with all the stops and knee brace adjustments, we finished in 1 hour! Not bad for the farthest we've ever run. 

So in all the Disney World aftermath, there have been some fun things in my life that I didn't get a chance to blog about, so I'd like to catch up now. First of all- while we were in Disney, Karns was celebrating homecoming. I was very sad that I missed the faculty skit, but I got to help some by choreographing the dance. (An amusing you tube video came out of this. Let me know if you care to see it.) The lovely beaver cave woman below was my contribution to the faculty hallway competition. I didn't draw her, but I did color her. I spent way too much energy on perfecting her, but isn't she awesome? We won by the way. :)

 Two weekends ago was the annual Teacher Appreciation Weekend at the Gatlinburg Ripley's attractions. Robert and I went with Mary and Thomas and had a really good time! Here's Robert with the statue I entitled "Startled Eagle." No really. Look at it's face! (The bird, not the husband's)

Robert and I on our way to the "Swangin Bridge." Which, by the way, is exactly how they would say it out here. I doubt they even intentionally misspelled "swinging." Love it! 

After the "odditorium" and the VT football game, we made a mad dash through the aquarium to see the penguins! So fun! Although they were all pretty much asleep since it was 9pm. In the Penguin playhouse, they have a bunch of ways to be quasi-interactive with the penguins. Mainly it is just tunnels you can crawl through to get to a little viewing area in the exhibit. There were no adults in there at the time, but I have no shame. I crawled in with all the kids, and it was absolutely worth all the raised eyebrows. 

This weekend we visited the farmer's market to pick up our CSA share. If you're unfamiliar with Community Supported Agriculture, it is a wonderful way to get fresh, local, and organic veggies for cheap (and in our case- to make yourself try more green things). At the beginning of the season we bought a share of the farm, and then each week we go get whatever they have for us! We've gotten popcorn, turnips, alfalfa sprouts, green beans, tomatoes, green peppers, apples, cabbage, squash... you name it! It's been a really fun way to up our veggie intake and try new recipes. Plus it's just cool to pop fresh popcorn on your stove; then chow down knowing it was grown 20 miles from our house. 

We tried a run before the market (hence my attire), but it turned into a walk since my ankle was sore. Still running one mile, then walking a little over one more makes you thirsty. Mmmm fresh squeezed pomegranate lemonade!

 Q likes the market too. Lots of new smells and dogs. 

Beautiful local art for sale. 

  

And those really cool name puzzles my mom got my siblings and I when we were kids. 

The market was a ton of fun, but there was so much I didn't get to buy or try. I would love to sample the home-made ice cream or breads, but I guess that will have to wait another week! I'm headed to Williamsburg this weekend to visit with my Gamma Phi Beta Fish! :)