Savory & Sweet

Yesterday I made my first homemade peach pie, and probably my tenth or so spinach and tomato quiche!

Caramel Apple Cake

On Saturday I made the Carmel Apple Cake from the King Arthur Flour "Baker's Banter" blog. I'm starting to get excited about Fall! Pumpkins! Apples! Knitting! Crispy leaves! Cooler weather!

Awwww yeeeaaah.

Chicago!

Last weekend the Bibliophile and I went to visit SnappyJDog and her husband in Chicago!

SnappyJDog and husband walking in the rain. It rained the WHOLE weekend. Ask J-Dog about her basement. . .

There was a random poodle house guest joining us for the weekend. Here she is posing with the Bibliophile for a picture. Also you can see cards from 1000 blank white cards laying on the table. Its a pretty good game, and it was J-Dog and her husbands first time playing it.

J-Dog's cat Keenan is SUPER fluffy and adorable.

His brother, the MoCat, was waiting on the stairs for us to show us how adorable he is too.

Gorgeous tomatoes from J-Dogs Garden! I was totally impressed with their beautiful yard and the amount of produce they are getting. Well done!

The desert menu at the Chicago Diner, an all vegetarian restaurant! The Bibliophile, J-Dog and I are all vegetarian, so we were in heaven! We highly recommend the red velvet cupcakes. The seitan sandwiches were excellent also.

Maggie doesn't like having her picture taken, but I managed to snap one of her before she got too upset. Also The Poodle again, haha. I loved that Poodle! :D

Last but not least- Bodhi, the Bo-dog. What a sweetie.

<3
Other highlights of the trip include visiting the Lush store. I purchased more of my favorite bodywash, along with some new things to try out! I have a new favorite soap (they discontinued my old favorite, the avowash.) And I am pleased with the performance of the Therapy massage bar. I'd never tried one of their massage bars before!

Anyway, many thanks to J-Dog for being so awesome and letting us come crash at your place! It was lots of fun visiting with you again! :)

All Better!

Ella is all better! She can start to get more exercise now and doesn't have to go back to the vet for any more leg-checkups! YAY! <3

Backyard Critters

I took the trash out this evening and was surprised to find two lovely guests RIGHT outside my screened porch!

The first one was NOMing on my parsley. . .

He's an Eastern Swallowtail caterpiller. (Here's what he will look like when he grows up!)

The second guest was rustling around in the leaves and startled me.

I think he might be a Fowler's Toad. . .but I could be wrong.

Isn't he so fat and cute!?

Why my medicine cabinet is dangerous to my vision. . .

Its like a power struggle in there between things that go in my eye, and things that SHOULD NEVER GO IN MY EYE, EVER.

I should probably at least reorganize it so the eye friendlies are nowhere near the eye terrorists.

More madeup muffins! weee!

So, the other night me and the Bibliophile made some buttermilk pancakes and we added sliced banana and chopped walnuts and honey (or maple syrup) on top. Ever since then I've been craving banana/walnutty type things. So I made up this muffin recipe to satisfy. . .and boy did it!

Evilducky's Banana Pancake Muffins

1/4 cup milk (I used buttermilk to make it more pancakey-oooh fancy!)

2 medium/large overripe bananas (mashed)

1/2 cup honey (or maple syrup if you want em REAL pancakey. . .but eww, I hate maple!)

3 tbs melter butter (or oil)

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (or more all purpose if you don't have any)

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1/4 cup shredded coconut (optional)

some ground nutmeg to sprinkle on top (also optional)

Preheat oven to 400. Mix all wet ingredients and then add the dry till just combined (lumps are ok!) Fill greased or paper cup lined muffin tin and bake for 15 or so minutes. Should probably make a dozen but I only got 11 for some reason.

Enjoy! ;)

Really awesome cookies. . .

I made these chocolate chip cookies from scratch to take camping. This post is for Rabidmonkey, who hates it when I post delicious food items that she doesn't get to eat! hehe

;)

My First Camping Trip

Part 2- "The Horror, the Horror"

The second day of camping started out fine. We had an awesome breakfast, and decided to go hiking in an area we hadn't explored the first afternoon.

We saw a cute froggy.

And a nifty cave type thingy.

And "Anvil Rock"

So, after an hour or two we decided to head back. We had a nice lunch and then sat down to relax for while. Thats when we discovered we had a MAJOR deer tick nymph infestation.

Dude, these bastards are TINY. And VERY difficult to see. And just as dangerous as adult deer ticks. And we were both covered in DOZENS of them! We spent the whole day Saturday de-ticking ourselves and our clothing. It was rather unpleasant. But camping as a whole I'd still say was a positive thing, and I'm excited to go again in October with the Bibliophile and her boyfriend, SnappyJdog and her husband, and Velocibadgergirl and her husband! I've been researching and I'm going to try to find some permethrin to put on my clothes to prevent ticks before the October trip. Bring it on nature! *thumbs nose*