Homemade Sugar Cookies, Pumpkin Bread, and Granola

Today I'm going to share a few recipes I've made recently. Also, I want to remind you that I have a giveaway for an Aeropress Coffee Maker going on now. You should check it out!

Easy Sugar Cookies

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 cup butter, softened

1 1/4 cups white sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, and baking powder. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in egg and vanilla. Gradually blend in the dry ingredients. Roll spoonfuls of dough into balls and place onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until golden. Let stand on cookie sheet two minutes before removing to cool on wire racks.

Easy Pumpkin Bread 

1 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cups sugar

1 cup canned pumpkin 

1/2 cup olive oil 

2 eggs

1/4 cup water

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350°F. Mix together flour, salt, baking soda, and sugar. In a separate bowl combined pumpkin, oil, eggs, water, and spices. Combine with dry ingredients. Pour into a greased loaf pan. Bake 50-60 minutes until a toothpick poked in the very center of the loaf comes out clean. Turn out of the pan and let cool on a rack. You can also use this recipe to make pumpkin muffins. 

Maple Nut Granola
3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 tsp. almond or vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups fruit and seed trail mix

Mix all ingredients together except trail mix and place on baking pan, which you can cover with aluminum foil or parchment paper to make the clean-up easier. Bake at 325 degrees for 15 minutes, stir, then bake another 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Mix baked granola with trail mix for an even more robust granola treat.

Abandoned Kittens and Braided Bread

Hello everyone! I have a great story to share today!

This past Thursday evening, I was walking to the store in the rain when I heard a cry and looked down at my feet to see a wet, small grey kitten. I immediately picked it up and looked around. I saw no one. The kitten shivered as it snuggled against me. As I held the kitten and my umbrella, I tried to determine the best course of action. I could call Animal Control then and there, but I wasn’t sure what would happen to the kitten there. So I zipped the kitten into my jacket and carried it back to my apartment where I checked to see if it had fleas – nope!

I then called Animal Control to see if a kitten had been reported missing and also to see what their procedures were for lost kittens. I wasn’t too keen on the idea of her being taken by them, so I decided to hang on to the kitten for the weekend and try to find the owner myself (if there was one). My first step was to run to the store (which I never reached earlier in the evening) and pick up some cat litter and kitten chow. The kitten stayed in my bathroom most of the evening until it started crying around 5 AM and ended up sleeping on my lap for the rest of the early morning hours… I have a soft heart, what can I say. I was also fearful of neighbors complaining of the noise since I’m not supposed to have a pet here.

On Friday I called a local vet clinic and some apartment complexes near where the kitten was found to see if the owner was searching for it, but I had no luck. At this point I was growing attached and decided to call my landlord and see if I could keep the kitten for the last 2 months of my lease and how much it would cost. In less than a few minutes, I was emailed paperwork to sign and asked to pay a reasonable fee – SUCCESS!

It is now Saturday and the kitten is looking better, though still sneezing because of a cold from the rain I assume. I will be getting medication for the kitten on Monday. :-) I’m sure she was abandoned (she’s too tame to be a stray), and I am planning to take her in as my own. When I spoke with Animal Control, they mentioned that kittens and cats are regularly found where I found this kitten. Luckily this kitten found me. I’d say I’m lucky too. I’m preparing for a big life transition when I move away from my many wonderful Champaign-Urbana friends to take a full-time job. It will nice to have a friend to keep me company at my new place. Also, I can’t help but think this is the final step after receiving my MLIS to become a true librarian. Many librarians have cats (the stereotype is based on some truth).

I have just decided on a name for my kitten: Riada Etta. I found her near a stream, and riada means ‘stream’ in Spanish. Riada is also an Irish name, and I have a love of all things Irish. I included Etta so as to name her after one of my favorite jazz and blues singers, Etta James, who passed away earlier this year.

Now for a picture of little Riada (Ria for short):

In other less exciting news, I baked a braided bread for a co-worker. It was lovely and made my apartment smell heavenly.

P.S. Stay tuned for more reviews and giveaways to come!

~

Pumpkin Bread AND Winter Break!!

Fall semester is over!  I turned in my last final project yesterday and can finally breathe again.  Winter break is such a blessing, and I will definitely miss it once I'm working full time.  I have to say I'm still extremely pleased with my new home state of Illinois.  While we did get a dusting of snow a couple days ago, we have yet to truly experience winter, and it's already mid-December!  Back in Iowa that is most definitely not the case. 

The lack of snow and reasonable temps in the 30s have also allowed me to keep biking to class and work!  I'm trying to hold out longer than I did last semester, and so far I am succeeding!  Once the ice and snow arrive though, I'll resign and take public transportation again.

I baked some pumpkin bread recently too.  I decided to try a lower sugar and fat recipe, and it actually turned out to be quite delcious.  Here it is:

Ingredients (Makes 10 servings)

1/2c. sugar
3tbsp. olive oil
1/4c. applesauce, unsweetened
1 egg
3/4tsp. cinnamon
1/4tsp. nutmeg
1tsp. vanilla
1c. pumpkin
1tsp. baking soda
1/4tsp. salt
1 2/3c. flour
1/3c. water

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°F. Cream sugar, oil and applesauce together. Add egg and mix well. Add spices, vanilla and pumpkin. Mix flour, baking soda and salt. Alternately add flour mixture and water and mix well. Pour into 3 greased small bread loaf pans or 1 greased large bread pan. Bake at 350F degrees for 30 minutes for smaller loaves or 45-55 minutes for large loaf.

Enjoy!!

I hope everyone else is having a wonderful holiday season so far with good food and minimal stress.  Take care!

Thanksgiving Bread

Happy Thanksgiving!!  I hope you all had a wonderful day yesterday and were able to spend it with friends and family while eating scrumptous foods.  I decided to bake some bread, which is something I should do much more often since it is oh so delicious!  It's not that difficult either, especially when you make "Easy No Rise Bread" like I did (pictured below).  It's always the best right out of the oven - warm with a crisp crust.

Did any of you hit the stores to do some Black Friday shopping?  I went to CVS under the impression that their sales started today at 6am (I just wanted a hair dryer for $5.99), but when I got there I noticed the parking lot was empty.  It turns out that their sale started on Thursday and the hair dryers were gone :-(.  That will teach me not to rely on those Black Friday aggregator sites.  I should've actually looked at the CVS website...  Oh, well.  I ended up purchasing what will likely be a higher quality hair dryer from Amazon.

Now I must do homework - the end of the semester will be here soon!