Happy Halloween!

No recipe for these guys, just a red velvet boxed cake mix and homemade cream cheese frosting. Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting

The following story is an illustration of how crazy all the medications I’m on are making me. The other day, while browsing the internet for food options and ideas, I came across a fall soup served in mini pumpkins. I just skimmed over the recipe (I will later regret this) thinking I would make it sometime soon. I went to the grocery store a day or two later and saw they had pumpkin pie pumpkins on sale. “Awesome,” I thought to myself, “I can get a couple of these pumpkins and make that soup this week.” Oh, how wrong I was.

A couple days after buying the pumpkins I pulled up the recipe to make the soup. Well, when I went back to the bookmarked recipe I discovered the soup was served in individual acorn squash “bowls”, not mini pumpkins. I could have sworn the first time I looked at the recipe they were in pumpkins. Also, there wasn't really a recipe, just a description of the soup. How in the world did I think that I had "skimmed" a recipe? I wanted to kick myself for relying on my (not-so-accurate) memory instead of verifying the ingredients before I went to the grocery store. I wish I could say this is the first time something like this has happened to me, but sadly it is not. You would think I’d have learned by now not to rely on my heavily medicated brain. But I guess I’m in denial about how mixed up the meds actually make me.

I then found myself stuck with two pumpkins and no idea what to do with them. So I let them sit around a bit longer to think. After mulling about it for a few days I decided to make some kind of pumpkin dessert with them. I roasted the pumpkins, scooped out the flesh, and made my own pumpkin puree. My two little pumpkins yielded about 1 ½ cups of puree. I decided to make these cupcakes because they looked yummy and were highly rated.

The cupcakes are moist and full of pumpkin flavor, but I was not a fan of the icing; I’m glad I only made half the icing recipe. I found it too sugary and I wish I had left some cupcakes un-iced. Oh well. Mr. Surly loved these, after trying one he uttered a “Holy shit, these are really good,” and went on to pop about 3 more mini cupcakes in his mouth. I bet you can guess who ate most of the batch.

Also, I apologize about the crappy job I did of icing the cupcakes; I’ve never been a good ice-er. The recipe yielded 24 mini cupcakes and 6 regular sized cupcakes. I had some bourbon and decided to add some to my cupcakes and icing for a little something extra.

Posting Pictures Side by Side with or without Captions

Since I haven’t been in the kitchen much, I thought I would do a blogger tip/trick post.

The longer I blog the more things I learn how to do in blogger. I’ve known how to post pictures side by side in a post for awhile now, but I couldn’t figure out how to put a caption under them. A google search wasn’t much help, so this past weekend I sat down to figure it out. It took a few hours and a lot of trial and error, but I finally got it. I thought I would share the info for anyone else who is having trouble like I was. Now, I am no computer expert, so I can’t say this is the best nor the easiest way to add captions under side by side pictures, all I know is that this is how I did it. And if it worked for me, hopefully it will help someone else.

I know the new editor allows you to drag and move pictures in the compose section but I have trouble getting things arranged to my liking. I find it easier to do it this way, by writing in the Html code in the post.

1. First you need to find out how wide your post area is, so you can make sure your pictures will fit and not be cut off. To do this go to Design-->Edit HTML. Hit Ctrl F to bring up the search box in the upper right hand corner, type in “#main-wrapper {“ to find that part of your template (you could also just scroll down your template and look for the #main-wrapper, but I like the search box because it’s quicker).

Under that main wrapper will be width=(number)px; this width is the width of your post. Mine is 500px. Your’s could vary based on which template you use and/or if you have customized your template. So, since my width is 500px, the total width of my side by side pictures cannont exceed this number.

2. Now that you figured out your maximum width, you can add the pictures to your post. After clicking on "new post," in the post screen, make sure you are on the “edit html” tab. You’re going to set up a table for the pictures. Below is the code I use:

<style type="text/css">.nobrtable br { display: none }</style>
<div class="nobrtable">
<center><table>
<tr>
<td>Photo 1 url height=h width=w</td>
<td>Photo 2 url height=h width=w</td>
</tr>
</table></center>
</div>

I type in values for height and width, usually 300 for both, and play around with the numbers until, when I click on preview, I’m happy with the picture size/dimensions. Just make that when added together, your widths don’t exceed the width of your blog. For example, my widths are 250 for photo 1 and 250 for photo 2, so my total width for both pics is 500, and since my blog width is 500, I’m fine. (See photos at top of my post)

Also, I like to center my photos in my posts. If you do not want your pictures to be centered simply delete the <center> and </center> in the above code. In this example, since both my picture widths equal 500px I don't need to center them.

If you don’t want to add captions to your pictures, then your done. But, let’s say you’d like to add labels underneath the pictures. You just need to add some more code for captions. In the code above, add this code (below) directly above the </table>:

<tr>
<td><center>Photo 1 Caption</center></td>
<td><center>Photo 2 Caption</center></td>
</tr>

So your final code should look like this:

<style type="text/css">.nobrtable br { display: none }</style>
<div class="nobrtable">
<center><table>
<tr>
<td>Photo 1 url</td>
<td>Photo 2 url</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><center>Photo 1 Caption</center></td>
<td><center>Photo 2 Caption</center></td>
</tr>
</table></center>
</div>

And your photos will, hopefully, look like this:

pear brandy	morsels

(I like to make by text italic, by clicking on the compose tag, selecting the text and clicking on the italic button)

I hope these instructions are clear enough to follow, if anyone has any problems or issues, leave a comment and I will try to help resolve it. Hopefully, I have saved someone else the many frustrating hours of trial and error I went through to figure this out.

Quick Cook Steel Cut Oats

My kitchen hiatus continues; I still have no energy for making food. My condition persists in perplexing my doctor. At our last appointment he told me he wrote the textbook chapter on fat malabsorption, yet he cannot figure out why I’m not absorbing fat. Great. For this reason, he has decided to bring in another specialist, all the way from Colorado, to meet with me at our next appointment. Apparently this guy is one the top GI specialists in the country and has helped my doctor in the past with difficult-to-diagnose cases. Let’s hope he can figure out my issue.

Since I haven’t been doing much cooking, I thought I would post about my favorite breakfast—steel cut oats. I love the chewy texture of steel cut oats, I just don’t like the long, 30 minute cooking time. I noticed that Trader Joe’s had quick cook steel cut oats, ready in only 8 minutes. I bought them and ever since haven’t turned back. After being spoiled with an 8 minute cook time, there was no way I could go back to 30 minutes. I know you could make a big batch and reheat throughout the week, but I like to make mine fresh every morning. For these quick cook oats I cook mine in the microwave. I microwave the water for 2 minutes, pour it over the oats, nuke it for 3 minutes, stir, then heat for 2 minutes more. While it’s cooking I usually put away the clean dishes. If you make it in the microwave, make sure to use a large bowl, with tall sides, if you don’t want to be cleaning oatmeal out of your microwave (I may or may not have learned that the hard way). I use a small serving bowl. I have made them on the stove, but I find the microwave more convenient.

I add brown sugar, maple syrup, ground flaxseed meal, cinnamon and walnuts. I stir in heavy cream or half-n-half to get a nice, smooth consistency. Normally, I would just use skim milk, but my nutritionist has me sneaking fat into my diet, hoping some of it will get absorbed. Sometimes I add fruit, bananas, blueberries, strawberries. If I’m using frozen berries I pour a handful into a strainer and let them thaw while the oats cook. Other times I add shredded coconut to get in more fat. Usually, it’s too much food for me to eat at once, so I eat what I can, let it digest, then rewarm and eat the rest later. I love when healthy food is easy, quick, and inexpensive. If you are a fan of steel cut oats, give these a try sometime.

Homemade Refried Beans

I finally made dinner this week, nothing special, we just had taco night. I did decide to make my own refried beans. I don't like the kind from a can, to me they have a tinny taste to them, like most canned foods. Thank goodness making my own refried beans is super easy.

Have you ever made your own refried beans? Once you make them you are unable to go back the canned kind. They are easy to make in a pressure cooker. I don't really use an exact recipe. I just throw the stuff in my pressure cooker, cook and season to taste. One cup of dry beans would be good for serving about 4-6 people. I make one cup for both of use because Mr. Surly likes to have a lot of beans in his tacos. And we always have left over beans for the next couple days. These beans are good on their on with a little bit of cheese and a dollop of greek yogurt (or sour cream). I'm sure you could make them in pot if you don't have a pressure cooker, they would just take longer to make, and you'd probably need to soak the beans overnight.

Cranberry Apple Walnut Crunch

I know I have talked about how my doctor has requested me to eat lots of sugary, fatty dessert and how I have done my best to follow this. But eating cakes, tartlettes, ice cream, etc gets old pretty fast when you’re eating them every day. Plus, I have to prepare and bake all these treats. Thank goodness it’s now Halloween season. I loaded up on candy and have been snacking on that all throughout the day. I bought one of those fun, plastic jack-o-lantern trick or treat holders, and I keep it on the table beside the couch so it’s near me and I can reach over and eat some candy whenever I want. But this post isn’t about candy, nor my snacking on it; it’s about me finally getting in the kitchen and baking something.

Our weather temperatures are starting to drop to a comfortable mid-70 degrees, so it’s actually starting to feel like fall (at least in the mornings and evenings). Trying to get into the spirit of the season, I thought I’d make some kind of fall-ish dessert. I love cranberries and decided to make some kind of dessert using them. I didn’t really follow a recipe, I just looked at some recipes I had for fruit crisps, cobblers, and crumbles and kind of combined some of them to make this. It turned out so tasty. I wish I would’ve have made some whipped cream or bought some ice cream for topping, that would have made it even better.