Of Self-Portraits... and Baking!

So, our last assignment for photo 101 is a self-portrait. Can I just say... not my favorite subject matter. I am seriously sick of my face after a week of taking way too many photos of myself! I ordered a remote for my digital but it won't be here until next week sometime... too late to be of help for this task. I'm not a big fan of the self-timer, but it got the job done in instances where there was no other way (my arms are only so long). =) Getting tired of my mug, I started looking around for shiny objects in which to reflect myself... ah, the ice cream scoop! But there had to be a reason for it...

Enter the Fruity Carrot-Bran Muffins! YUM! (the pic below will take you to the recipe) Mission accomplished. And a quite tasty result as well. =)

Snow Dance

I think Mugsy misunderstood. I said, do the "no snow" dance...

Now for the Food!

So, I cooked a bit for Thanksgiving. =) I made the sweet potato biscuits I posted last week and also tried a few other new recipes this year. I started out the night before, making a batch of cornbread (click on the pics for the recipes):


Which I made into yummy stuffing the next morning:

I also made a loaf of Pane Alla Cioccolata (chocolate bread) in my bread machine:

Of course, I also made an apple pie like I do every year. Somehow, I missed taking a pic of this year's pie before it got cut into... so this is last year's just before heading into the oven:

Baking success all around. The leftovers are all gone now and the fridge looks decidedly non-festive. Ah, only a month to go before Christmas! =)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sunset Sweet Potato Drop Biscuits

Found a new recipe I thought I'd like to make for Thanksgiving so I wanted to try it out in advance. =)

First off, I used red yams (@ half a large one) in place of sweet potato since it's what I had on hand. I also left out the oil with no issues and cut back on the salt a bit (maybe half). I also left out the added water in the end and upped the flour a bit (I used whole wheat pastry) to form a firmer dough and rolled/cut instead of making drop biscuits. YUM! =D

I may use half whole wheat pastry and half unbleached white flour for a little more loft next time.

Sunset Sweet Potato Drop Biscuits

1 cup mashed cooked sweet potatoes (2 small baked sweet potatoes)

3 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 Tbsp maple syrup

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup all-purpose or whole wheat pastry flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground nutmeg

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Coat baking sheet with cooking spray or parchment paper.

Combine sweet potatoes, oil, syrup, vinegar and salt in large bowl. Sift in flour, baking powder and nutmeg.

Cut dry ingredients into sweet potato mixture with fork until mixture comes together. Stir in 2 to 3 Tbsp water, or enough to get the dough to hold together.

Drop golf ball-size rounds of dough onto prepared baking sheet. Bake 15-17 minutes, or until tops are lightly browned and firm to the touch. Serve warm.

Following the recipe, you should get 12 drop biscuits. I rolled mine and got 9 so I'll definitely be upping the recipe for Thursday. =)

*recipe from October 2007 Vegetarian Times magazine

Finished Reilly's Besotted Sweater!

Reilly was a very good model for our little photo shoot. =)

Happy Howloween!

Reilly was kind enough to model his Halloween costume in exchange for a few (er, handfull) of Cheerios. =)


I've been doing LOTS of photography the past couple weeks and having loads of fun! I just love autumn! Spokane has some really great parks! Here are a few of my favorites. Check out my flickr account to see more. =)



And I've started another sweater for Reilly using the cable pattern from the Besotted Scarf and my doggie sweater pattern. I'm loving how it's coming out so far! Just in time too. The frost finally hit a week ago. =( Snow will be coming all too soon.