The Big Announcement!

It's time for the big reveal!

After 3 clues, the announcement is here...

Hubby and I are expecting our first baby!! I am fifteen weeks pregnant and in my second trimester. We just had another check-up yesterday and got to listen to baby's heartbeat!

P.S., that ultrasound picture is old--from around 8 weeks, hence baby looking a little bit like a gummy bear! We will have our next ultrasound in about a month and baby will be looking more baby-like.

P.P.S., that text on the ultrasound says "CRL" for "crown-rump length," not "GRL" for "girl." I've gotten that question a lot!

The clues:

1--The lemon. At the time of the first post, baby was 14 weeks along and the size of a lemon.

2--Not cooking. 90% of the foods I usually eat do not taste good anymore or make me sick, and I also have very little energy to cook. We've been doing a lot of takeout and boxed mac'n cheese!

3--The apple. Baby at fifteen weeks old is now the size of an apple.

Baby FAQ (AKA the questions I've gotten 5-10+ times already):

When is baby due? Baby's official due date is November 1st, although the dating ultrasound gave about a 5 day range-- November 1-6.

What is it? We don't know yet--they won't do the gender ultrasounds for another month.

When will you find out what it is? Probably between 18-20 weeks, so not long now!

Was this planned? Yes! We've been looking forward to the possibility of this kiddo since October.

Are you guys excited? hfrn3457vsweoqpwlsp14qwlpqjciv OF COURSE!! Did you even have to ask?!

Weird cravings? Nothing too strange, although I had a horribly strong craving for McDonald's French Fries a couple weeks ago--and I don't even like French Fries! Although, I have had a lot of food aversions--especially cheese! Blegh!

Will you still be vegetarian while pregnant? Yes! It is perfectly healthy with lots of science to back it. I'm taking prenatals so baby is getting all the vitamins it needs and then some, and my diet is as healthy as any other ice-cream-and-pickle-eating pregnancy.

If I missed anything, feel free to ask!

See you next time!

Announcement, Clue #3

Hey, all!

I have the third and final clue for you about our announcement:

-Now, instead of a lemon, it involves an apple

To refresh, here are the other two clues:

-It used to involve a lemon

-It makes me not want to cook

The next post you see from me will be the official announcement! And, if you haven't gotten it, I will also explain all of the clues.

See you then!

Announcement, Clue # 2

Another day, another post!

And, another clue for you:

-It makes me not want to cook--hence no blog posts or recipes.

Me not cooking + a lemon?

Check back on Monday for Clue #3!

Reminder: If you already know the answer, don't tell anyone!

Not dead yet + Announcement, Clue # 1

I promise, this blog is not dead yet, despite all symptoms suggesting otherwise.

Sorry for the radio silence, but I swear it was for a good reason--which you will soon find out!

It's time for another guessing game! And this time, our announcement does not involve getting a new house, a new dog or a new car (all of which we have already done since last October).

Here is your first clue:

-It involves a lemon

(Thanks for the picture, Wikipedia.)

If you already know the answer, please do not spoil it for others--no additional hints!

Check back soon for clue #2 on Friday (most likely). I probably won't do as many clues as I did with the house, but we'll see. Announcement will be soon, either way!

Chocolate Chip Butter Cookies

Sorry for the delay, folks. I promise the blog is not dead again! Hubby got into a car accident a few weeks ago. Everyone's fine minus Sammy, his old car--so we were dealing with that. But we got a pretty new car because of it, so I guess not all is lost!

Do y'all remember my butter-nutella cookies, and how I said it was a varied version of one of my favorite cookie recipes? Well, this is the original! These were included in some gift baskets I did over Christmas.

Original recipe credit goes to one of my all-time favorite cookbooks, the Taste of Home Ultimate Cookie Collection (thanks, Mom!).

Let's get down to it:

Prep time: Less than 10 minutes

Cook time: ~12 minutes

Serves: ~2 dozen (the original recipe says 4 dozen, but I must make my cookies bigger)

Ingredients:

1 cup butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Combine your flour and sugar.

2. In a separate bowl, melt your butter in the microwave.

Stir in your vanilla.

3. Add the butter mixture to your flour mixture.

And of course, we can't forget the chocolate chips!

4. Form the dough into 1-inch balls. They don't really spread out or lose their shape much, so if you want flatter cookies you'll have to form them that way before they bake.

(Here, have a background Stella)

Since the batter is butter-based, you don't need to spray the cookie pan unless you want to! They don't really stick.

5. Bake at 375 degrees F for about 12 minutes, until the edges are browning up a bit.

Enjoy!

Sweet Potato Dog Treats

And now for my next trick... Dog treats!

You guys remember Stella, right? She's been on this blog before, a couple of times.

Now that we have a house, she can finally live with us! She's been staying with my parents, who love their little grand-dogger and were willing to keep her until Chris and I could have her with us. (Thanks, guys!)

And I've mentioned before that we got a new member of the family: Alby the Australian Cattle Dog-Border Collie mix. 6-ish months old, bundle of energy, super love-bug. He likes long walk on the beach (or anywhere), and chewing or licking or eating anything within his reach. Or anything out of his reach, safety tucked away in a hamper or trashcan. You know, all the places where people hide treats for puppies to find!

He was about five months old in that picture (and we have fattened him up some since. He was very skinny when he came to us). That's his favorite corner to curl up in while I'm in the kitchen, so he can keep me company.

Here are the kiddos together, hoping beyond desperate hope that I will share what I am preparing with them.

(At the time it was people cookies, so the answer was no.)

Today's recipe actually is for them, though.

My little miss Stella has itchy skin, and I read that sweet potato can help dogs with skin issues. So, I made homemade treats!

If any of y'all don't have dogs, I apologize. I have tested this on cats and confirmed they do not like them, so they really are just for dogs. But good news for y'all with dogs--the dogs loved them! Wolfed 'em and I think would eat them all day if allowed.

Granted that can be said about a lot of things, with my dogs. But they particularly seemed to like these.

Let's get down to it:

Prep time: ~5 minutes

Cook time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

5 very small sweet potatoes (or around 3-4 cups, chopped)
3/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup-3/4 cup oats
1 egg

Directions:

1. Peel, chop and boil your sweet potatoes until soft, about 25-30 minutes.

Once soft, drain and mash the heck out of them.

 

2. In a bowl, combine with egg.

And peanut butter.

And slowly add oats until you reach the desired consistency.

This should feel like cookie dough but a little firmer, since unlike cookie dough it will not harden too much during baking. You can add flour for a crunchier cookie, but I generally feed my dogs grain-free dog foods so I didn't want to add anything more than oats to these.

P.S., Hubby and I can both confirm that this batter smells exactly like peanut butter cookie dough. It was actually a little weird, to be honest.

3. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or tin foil. Since it's for doggies, no non-stick spray! Oil is not a necessary part of any doggie diet.

Roll them into 1/2 inch or smaller balls. (Prepare for sticky hands!)

They don't really spread out much so you can really pack them on there.

You can also form little bones if you like, or roll them out and cut them like Christmas cookies if you have a bone cookie cutter. The only bone cookie cutter I had was huge, so I just did this:

4 tiny balls of dough.

1 longer piece of dough rolled out between.

Squish 'em a little to keep them together.

And there you go. FYI though, only one of my little bones actually stuck together after baking.

4. Bake at 375 degrees F for ~35 minutes, until a little crispy. They will be a tad squishy, still.

Let cool, and let the dogs enjoy!

Here's Stella.

 

She takes it so daintily!

And little Mr. Alby.

Dogs are hard to photograph when they're wolfing stuff down out of your hand, so here's one of them waiting patiently and showing off their best "sit"s!

Stella will only gaze at you with this face, full of love and adoration, when she is sucking up because she wants something you have.

If you are curious, Hubby and I totally caved and tried them. They taste like bland, sugar-less peanut butter cookies. Not bad!

P.S., Doggie taste buds are different than ours, and they can't taste sweet the same way that we can--so don't add anything for sweetness! They don't need it. Anything that we would consider a sweetener is very likely to be bad for dogs, anyway.

Refrigerate after they're done. Enjoy! (Or shall I say, let your dogs enjoy!)

Breakfast Biscuits (And Happy New Year!)

Happy New Year! ...a little late! What did everyone do for New Years Eve?

I have a recipe for you! *Collective gasp* I had other posts I wanted to do (such as pictures of the house, or pictures of our "new" puppy), but I promised there'd be a recipe in the next post so I waited.

It was just a little longer than I expected! But we have internet now, a year and a half after we got married, so it should be a little easier now! Good news, too, is that I built up a little buffer of recipes in the meantime so I have at least a few guaranteed posts from here on.

Onto the recipe!

This is kind of my Egg and Sausage Biscuits, part 2. Everything has a sequel nowadays, right?

It's kind of more like a remake, I guess--new and improved! And much, much tastier.

I normally don't have ready-to-bake rolls in my house, since I pretty much only eat them at the holidays. Lo and behold, it was Thanksgiving day that I made these. The rolls of rolls were on sale for 99 cents each (which is just second to free) so I got three...then found out my parents were bringing rolls, too. We had extra! I decided to get creative, and sometimes creativity can be very, very tasty.

Did I mention they were tasty? Easy, too!

Let's get down to it:

Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time: ~20 minutes

Serves: 8 biscuits

Ingredients:

8-count roll of crescent rolls (any brand)
2 eggs
2 MorningStar Maple Sausage Patties OR Original Sausage Patties

Directions:

1. Spray a small skillet with nonstick spray. Beat your eggs in a bowl and pour into the skillet over medium-low heat.

Scramble until mostly cooked, about 2-3 minutes.

Don't overcook them. They will be cooking again in the oven!

2. Follow the directions to microwave the sausage patties. Chop and add to the eggs.

3. Pop open your roll of crescent rolls. Does anybody else get paranoid if the roll doesn't open on the first try? When will it open? Is it broken? Will it be loud? When?!

Ahem.

Separate out a single roll.

Fold it and squish it until it forms a nice uniform ball, and no original seams are visible.

Flatten it out into a little pancake.

Grab a tablespoon of the egg mix.

And stuff it into the pancake you've made.

Pinch the edges shut over the mixture, careful to smooth out any weak spots. I discovered that rolling it again helped a bit.

Rinse and repeat for the other 7 rolls. You may have a little extra filling left over, but I didn't mind. (and neither did Hubby, as he was sampling it.)

4. Line up the finished rolls on a sprayed cookie sheet.

(See that one I didn't close up well enough? It will pop open while cooking. Oops!)

Bake according to the directions on the crescent roll container until the rolls are crispy and a little browned. If they look underdone, just add a couple of minutes!

Here's that one I didn't seal properly post-baking. It still tasted good!

Here's a cross-section of one of the ones that did stay closed.

They were so good. Mmm. Now I kind of want them for lunch.

Enjoy!