Posts to look forward to:

I'm hoping to post about a few things in the next couple of days, including:

-July weddings in Ohio
-My job search
-An update on Wizzo
-Our day at the beach
-What happened with our move damages
-Our visitors
-Fun things we have coming up!

I promise I'll get to it soon!

Chunky Peanut, Chocolate, and Cinnamon Cookies

This recipe also came from Martha's book. They turned out okay. For one, I think I baked them a little too long. They did have good flavor though. And the recipe makes 5 dozen cookies, so it took forever to roll that many balls and bake them! Again, no picture. :(

Chunky Peanut, Chocolate, and Cinnamon Cookies

Ingredients:
2 c. all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 c. (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 c. smooth peanut butter
1 c. packed light brown sugar
1/2 c. granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 c. semisweet chocolate chips
2/3 c. roasted, salted peanuts, coarsely chopped (I omitted these.)
2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a bowl.

Put butter and peanut butter in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; mix on medium speed until combined, about 2 minutes. Add sugars; mix 2 minutes. Mix in eggs. Gradually add flour mixture; mix until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips, peanuts, and vanilla until well distributed. Refrigerate dough until slightly firm, 15 minutes. (I left mine in for 30 minutes and kept sticking it back in the fridge while some were baking...it was easier to roll in balls when it was firmer.)

Roll dough into 1-inch balls. Space balls 2-3 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Flatten slightly. Bake until just golden, about 13 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Transfer cookies to wire racks to cool. (These cool directly on the racks so they end up being a crisper cookie.) Cookies can be stored in airtight containers at room temperature up to 3 days.

Snickerdoodles

Last week I was on a baking kick. I wanted some sweets, so I found two cookie recipes to make. I'll write about the others in a separate post. I ordered the book Martha Stewart's Cookies a few months ago as a late birthday gift for myself, so I thought I'd flip through it and see if anything sounded good. The Snickerdoodles were calling my name! These were delicious! So soft and yummy! I highly recommend making these! I also recommend following Martha's directions for using cooled baking sheets before putting the dough on them and allowing the cookies to cool on the sheets on cooling racks. It helps to keep them soft! And unfortunately, I don't think I took a photo.

Snickerdoodles

Ingredients:
2 3/4 c. all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp coarse salt
1 c. (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 c. plus 2 Tbs. sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp ground cinnamon

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl. Put butter and 1 1/2 c. sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Mix in eggs. Reduce speed to low; gradually mix in flour mixture.

Stir together cinnamon and remaining 2 Tbs. sugar in a small bowl. Shape dough into twenty 1 3/4 inch balls (I used my 1 inch cookie scoop and scooped a heaping amount of dough); roll in cinnamon sugar. Space 3 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. (They will spread! The parchment paper makes for super easy clean-up!)

Bake cookies, rotating sheets halfway through, until edges are golden, 12 to 15 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks. Cookies can be stored between layers of parchment in airtight containers at room temperature up to 3 days.

Raisin Swirl Bread

I also made the Raisin Swirl Bread recipe from Dorrie's Baking book a couple of weeks ago. It was good, but I couldn't taste the cinnamon and sugar that was swirled in the bread, so I would definitely add more the next time I make it. It is a rather long recipe (and time consuming to make!), and I don't have pictures, so I won't bore you by typing it all here. Check out the book if you really want it. If it turns out better the next time I make it, maybe I'll post about it then. :)

Classic Banana Bundt Cake

A few weeks ago, we had some bananas that were getting too ripe, so I decided to make something with them. I found the recipe for this cake in my copy of Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorrie Greenspan. This book is awesome...it's FULL of great recipes for baking. Although I baked it a little too long, the cake was delicious! It was moist and very flavorful, yet the bananas weren't overpowering. The lemon icing was a nice touch too!

Classic Banana Bundt Cake

(Source: Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorrie Greenspan)

Ingredients:

3 c. all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 sticks (8 oz) unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 c. sugar

2 tsp pure vanilla extract

2 large eggs, preferably at room temperature

About 4 very ripe bananas, mashed (you should have 1 1/2 - 1 3/4 cups)

1 c. sour cream or plain yogurt

Directions:

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Generously butter a 9-10 inch (12 c.) Bundt pan. Don't place the pan on a baking sheet--you want the oven's heat to circulate through the Bundt's inner tube.

Whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt together.

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter until creamy. Add the sugar and beat at medium speed until pale and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla, then add the eggs one at a time, beating for about 1 minute after each egg goes in. Reduce the mixer speed to low and mix in the bananas. Finally, mix in half the dry ingredients (don't be disturbed when the batter curdles), all the sour cream, and then the rest of the flour mixture. Scrape the batter into the pan, rap the pan on the counter to de-bubble the batter and smooth the top.

Bake for 65 to 75 minutes, or until a think knife inserted deep into the center of the cake comes out clean. Check the cake after about 30 minutes--if it is browning too quickly, cover it loosely with a foil tent. Transfer the cake to a rack and cool for 10 minutes before unmolding onto the rack to cool at room temperature.

If you've got the time, wrap the cooled cake in plastic and allow it to sit on the counter overnight before serving--it's better the next day.

Lemony White Icing

Sift 3/4 cup confectioners' sugar into a bowl and squeeze in enough fresh lemon juice (start with 2 teaspoons and add more by drops) to make an icing thin enough to drizzle down the Bundt's curves. (I just used bottled lemon juice and it tasted fine!)

Weekend Fun

Sorry that I haven't updated the blog in a while! I guess not much has been going on. Actually, I take that back...we've been pretty busy. Grant and I made the trip back to Ohio a couple of weeks ago for another wedding. His friend from college was getting married. Grant's parents decided to drive down and meet us, so that was nice to spend a little time with them. Last weekend, we had a nice relaxing weekend around the house.

Today, the guys don't have class, so we are heading to the beach with Justin and Amanda, our friends who live down the street. Hopefully the weather holds out...I'm a little nervous that it's going to be raining the whole time!

Tomorrow morning, I fly to Cincinnati for my friend Jenny's wedding! I'll be flying back to Raleigh on Sunday then. This trip will make the 3rd time I've been to Ohio in a month! Holy moly! ;) This means Grant will be responsible for Wizzo this weekend too...uh oh!!

My uncle and aunt will be coming into town for a little visit on Saturday. Unfortunately, I'll miss them the first day they're here, but we'll be able to visit when I get back on Sunday.

Just wanted to post a quick note to let you know that I'm still here, just not blogging much. I promise I'll get better (I think I say that every post...). I've got a few recipes to post and--crossing my fingers--some job updates that you can look out for next week! Have a great weekend everyone!!

Back in the O-H-I-O

...first let me just say that I can't believe I actually titled this post with something somewhat related to Ohio State University...gag. ;)

I thought I'd post a few thoughts and photos from my trip back "home" to Ohio. I left Wednesday June 24 around 10:45am and drove with Wizzo as my passenger straight through, arriving at my mom's around 11:00pm. Wizzo did really well in the car...he slept most of the time, and we only stopped a few times. It was interesting to see him interact with the cat...well, try anyway. She hissed and ran away, like the mean cat she is! I think Wizzo would have loved to just play with her!

Thursday morning I slept in and then hung out with Wizzo. I visited with my grandma that afternoon, and I think she enjoyed having Wizzo around. He loves ice cubes, and Grandma and Mom loved giving them to him so they could watch him play with them. Anyway, we tried to go for a walk that evening, but were rained out.

Friday I headed over to my Dad's to visit with him and Sheryl. Wizzo met Maddie, their 2 year old St. Bernard! Unfortunately, Maddie has bad hips and can't run around much, because Wizzo wanted her to chase him!! It was cute. They mostly just layed around in the shade since it was pretty warm. I left there and headed to Findlay to get my eyebrows waxed. Mom, Grandma, and I headed back into town Friday night to do some shopping at Kohl's, where I got my throw pillows and a couple other things, (oh how I miss that store!) and then picked up Bellacino's for dinner...yum!

Saturday morning, we got ready and headed up to Brighton, Michigan (Wizzo too!) for the Margraf family reunion, which is one of the reasons I made the trip back to Ohio. We got there around 12:30 or so, had lunch and hung out for a bit. My cousin Jodi hosted the reunion at her house, which is right on the river. It was such a cute place! It was good to see everyone, and I would have liked to stick around and take part in the water fun later that afternoon (Wizzo got to go out on a pontoon boat for a ride...he liked it!!), but I actually had plans to head over near Detroit for a wedding! My friend Anja, from grad school, was getting married about 45 minutes away, so I thought it was perfect to be able to go to both events. It was great to see some of my friends from grad school, whom I hadn't seen since my wedding in September and some since graduation in May 2008! The wedding was beautiful and I wish I could have stayed longer, but I couldn't! I headed back to the reunion so Mom, Grandma, my brother, and I could head back home that night. Wizzo was passed out when I got back...I think he had had a fun, but tiring, day! My cousin's daughter kept him busy, I'm sure.

Sunday, I met up with some of my girlfriends from high school at Panera (yum!). We didn't have a Panera in Mississippi and we don't have one here in North Carolina, so I was excited to get a cinnamon crunch bagel! It was fun to meet up with them and share stories and happenings in our lives. Hopefully we can all get together again sometime soon!

After we left, I headed over to the mall to look at a few things and then headed back home. I also made it over to visit with my grandpa and grandma at their house for a little while too. That evening, I stopped by Grant's parents' house to say hello and pick up a few things. I took Wizzo along too and ended up staying for dinner. Grant's sister, Karli, has a cat there, so he and Wizzo "met" through the screen door. This cat was nice and I think it would have been funny to watch them play together. They were both very inquisitive!

Monday morning I packed up, and Wizzo and I left around 10:30am. We didn't stop as often this time and made it back to North Carolina around 9:30-10:00pm.

It was really nice to be able to make the trip back home, especially since I hadn't been back or seen my family since Christmas time!! At the same time, though, it was weird being back "home." For the first time, I didn't really feel like I was home. My stuff was no longer there, and I was just "visiting." It is hard to explain, but I guess I just felt that now my home is with Grant in North Carolina. I'm sure I'll always refer to it as going back "home", but now it's different. I am glad to be back in North Carolina!

Grown-up toys #2, #3, and #4

Our new furniture has arrived!!! We got it from Ashley Furniture for a pretty good price. It was delivered on July 1st, and we love it! I picked up some throw pillows from Kohl's while I was in Findlay, and we found some curtains at Target this past weekend. Sorry I didn't get a good picture of the curtains.

And here is our new TV, all set up and in our house. Our tv stand looks pretty measly compared to the tv, but it will have to do for now. You can see how good the picture is in the second photo! We like it very much. :)

We also bought a lawn mower at Lowe's today since we have to mow our own yard here. It is a Troy-Bilt self-propelled push mower. We (well, Grant) went back and forth on whether to get a Troy-Bilt or Craftsman, so hopefully we like this one. Here it is, all ready to go!

And I can't forget to mention our new grill. This is Grant's baby...he knew he had to have a Weber, just like his dad! ;) It seems to be a pretty good grill, and the bigger cooking space came in handy this past weekend when we grilled 4 steaks, 5 burgers, 4 hot dogs, and 6 ears of corn!! I couldn't find the exact grill on the Lowe's website, but it's pretty close to this one.