Rainy Night Visitor

This little guy can be found sitting on my front door mat every night that it rains. We've watched him grow up. Isn't he cute?

Blueberry Brunch Cake

Anyone who knows me knows that I am just not a morning person. I swear that I can't function before 9:00 a.m. Try as I might, I am still not used to getting out of bed before the roosters, to get the kids ready for school. When I reached into the frig. to grab the milk for their cereal, I came across a container of fresh blueberries that needed to be used or soon they would have to be thrown away. What did I do? Well, right that minute, I put them back on the shelf and shut the door...it was too early to think about it. ;)

As 9:00 a.m. rolled around, I was finally awake and ready to focus on the blueberries. I checked the cupboards to make sure I had all of the basic ingredients for a "cake". I did. So off I went to find a bowl. Oh, no...I have no eggs. That's never stopped me before - so with paper and pen in hand, I sat down to write up a recipe. Here is what I came up with:


Blueberry Brunch Cake

Preheat oven to 350*

Grease and flour a 9x9 baking dish.


Basic Cake
1 1/2 C. flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup sugar ( I ended up using a generic
version of Splenda for baking)
1/4 C. room temp butter
3/4 C. milk

Add all ingredients into a large bowl and mix well with an electric mixer. Pour 3/4 of the batter into the greased and floured pan.


Middle Filling
2 C. fresh blueberries, washed thoroughly and dried
2 tsp lemon juice.

Toss blueberries and lemon juice together. Spread blueberries over the batter.

Spoon the remaining batter over the blueberries.



Top off with the crumbly topping mix below.

Crumbly Topping Mix
1/2 C. brown sugar, packed tight
1/2 C. chopped pecans
1/3 C. flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 C. room temp. butter


Cream everything together until the mix resembles course crumbs. (any crunchy topping would taste delicious on this). Sprinkle over entire top of cake.


Bake for 45 - 55 minutes or until golden brown and a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Serve warm by itself, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or in a bowl with some milk over it.


While it was baking, my husband got out of bed and commented on how good it smelled in the house. (he's a third-shifter so on his days off he comes and goes at weird hours) I had to agree, it was smelling so yummy! After about 53 minutes, it was nice and brown so I removed it from the oven. It looked great! Of course we couldn't wait to eat it. It was very good. I really liked it because it's not overly sweet. It had a great blueberry taste to it. This turned out to be a great way to use up extra fruit. I think that you could use any berry or even peaches with this and it would be great.



Here it is...Enjoy!

Easy Chicken & Broccoli Fettuccine Alfredo

Think you have no time to prepare restaurant quality food at home? Well, you’re wrong. If you have 30 minutes, you can serve your family this wonderful dish that they are sure to enjoy.

This has become a favorite dish of my family.

You can see the complete recipe for this dish at MomsMenu.com.

Corned Beef, Potatoes & Carrots

This is one of my family's favorite meals. I like the fact that it's so easy to make. All you have to do is boil the corned beef with some spices for approximately 2 1/2 hrs. With 45 minutes remaining on the meat, add cubed potatoes and carrots and cook until they are tender. That's it! A one pot meal. YUM!

Goblin Grub

Feed this yummy treat mix to all of Goblins in your neighborhood. They will surely come back for more! Super quick to make, mix it up and eat it in under 15 minutes!

What You Need

Rice Chex cereal

salted peanuts

raisins

thin pretzel sticks

candy corn

Gummi Worms (optional for decoration)

chocolate chips for melting

What You Do

The ingredients amounts will vary depending

on your likes and dislikes. For this mix,

I've used:

8 oz. Rice Chex cereal

6 oz. peanuts

6 oz raisins

6 oz candy corn

8 oz pretzel sticks
Dump 6 oz chocolate chips into a separate

microwave-safe bowl

In a big bowl, mix all of the above ingredients except chocolate chips. On a baking sheet, spread the mixture out in a thin layer.

Melt the chocolate chips in the microwave at 30-second intervals until completely melted.

Drizzle chocolate over the treat mix. Slide the tray in the refrigerator for 5 minutes to speed along the hardening time for the chocolate. Once the chocolate has hardened, break the treat mix into pieces.

To serve, pile high in a big bowl. Garnish with Gummi Worms around the edge of the bowl. Store treat mix in a Ziploc bag.