Bears Week #9

Yes the Bears Beat the Eagles 30 - 24. The first quarter I thought that the Bears were going to shut them out. But then the defense was not doing to good. The offense was on fire for the first quarter then somehow they lost it until the fourth quarter.

Cutler was on fire with his passes but the receivers just kept dropping them.

Then Forte went a year and a half with a fumble until last night. That I think was awesome going with a fumble for that long. But why did he have to fumble last night of all nights.

Urlacher was on fire last night too. The way he was slamming the Eagles offense down.

The Eagles lost two players first quarter.

I would really like to hear what you thought of the game last night. I thought is was a really good game.

Cute Turkey Cupcakes

Here is another idea for Thanksgiving cupcakes. This is a cute and sweet treat that every child (or child at heart) who saw these turkey cupcakes just loved it. And boy was it easy!

These cupcakes were made from Patty Gironda's Hummingbird Cupcake recipe from our latest issue of Newnan-Coweta Magazine (see the recipe, starting on page 40) but you can make any kind of cupcake you like. I used a butter cream icing, but Cream Cheese frosting will work. If using it for decorating, use only half the butter in the original recipe (1/4 cup butter rather than 1/2 cup). That way when you add the brown food coloring, the frosting will be a little thicker and will hold up better. I just mixed the brown food coloring until it was the color I liked.

You could always use a cocoa butter cream frosting recipe if you make chocolate cupcakes. Just tint the frosting brown or use chocolate frosting. For decorating purposes, the insides of the cupcakes really don't matter.

The turkey is really, really simple. Use a large icing bag -- at least 16 inches and a large tip coupler with a large star tip. Make large stars all over the tops of the cupcakes.

To make the head, nose and wings. Use two or three small (or mini) vanilla wafers and trim each wafer with kitchen shears until it is the perfect oval shape. The head is one wafer and the wings are each a half-wafer. You can save the "shavings" (which is what you will have) when you trim the cookies into the perfect shape for other recipes.

Some of the cookies broke and it took a couple of tries for me to create the perfect shape but after I made one of each, I got the hang of it.

The nose is a candy corn. I placed the large end of the candy corn underneath the edge of the head.

The wattle is a piece of strawberry fruit roll up, carefully cut with kitchen shears, or a sharp knife into a large teardrop shape. It was gently laid over the "beak" and part of the face.

I drew the eye on with a food coloring maker, but a mini chocolate chip could be pasted on with a tiny bit of frosting.

I put two rows of candy corn in the icing for the tail feathers. First I put five in the back row and then alternated with four pieces of candy corn on top.

I was very pleased and amazed that my turkey looked so good, using such common ingredients.

Perfect turkey for a Thanksgiving tray of cute cupcakes. I will have more cupcake decorating suggestions for you between now and Christmas.

Cupcakes!

We are so excited today because the new issue of Newnan-Coweta Magazine is now out and that means it is time to get ready for the holiday season. The adorable child on the cover, Alyssia Brantley, is holding some of the holiday cupcakes, featured in this issue.

Four local women, known for their baking skills sent us a favorite cupcake recipe to share and editor, Angela McRae and I, made the recipes with great success. The people in our office really enjoyed them!

Bob Fraley took some great photos for the magazine and Angela, a talented photographer with a good eye for design, took photos for me, including the photo at the top.

I invite you to pick up a copy of our magazine for the recipes, and I will be sharing some decorating tips for cupcakes here on my blog. The first tips will be for the fall cupcake, pictured above.

I used the recipe by Patty Gironda for Hummingbird Cupcakes and used her recipe for Cream Cheese Frosting. To decorate, I used a 16" pastry bag and a large tip coupler with a large star tip to frost the cupcakes. I iced them in a circular motion from the outside, finishing in the center and building the icing to a peak in the center. I then dusted the  cupcake with chopped pecans and sprinkled on sugar leaf decorations, then added two candy pumpkins on top. It was easy and didn't take but a few minutes to decorate each cupcake.

I used Wilton cake decorating supplies available at Michael's, Hobby Lobby, and WalMart. The large bag, coupler and tips are very important when decorating cupcakes because if you want to give the cupcakes a "bakery" look you will need the big tips. It takes roughly twice the amount of icing when you use large tips but the finished product will have everyone oohing and aahing over the results.

The sugar leaves I found at Kroger in the baking section. This is a great recipe for fall and especially for Thanksgiving and the recipe is included in our November/December issue.

There are a number of other decorated cupcakes in that issue and I will be posting the how-to instructions for each one for the next couple of weeks, beginning with the Thanksgiving cupcakes.

For out-of-towners here is the link for the digital issue. The cupcake recipes begin on page 40.

My Youngest Daughter's Birthday!

Yes my youngest daughter is 19 years old today. I can still remember the day I gave birth to her. Now she is in her first year of college. Where has the time gone?

I can remember taking her to her first day of school. She did not want me to leave her in school she screamed at me not to leave her. But then when I came to pick her up she didn't want to leave school.

Then I can remember the day she graduated 8th grade. I was crying so much because this was my youngest child. Then when she graduated high school this past June I was glad my boyfriend was there with me. We both sat there crying and so did my mom and my son and older daughter.

It is just unbelievable how quick they grow up on you. Especially being a single mom for the last ten years. It was not easy for me to do this by myself. I was so glad my mom was there to help me out with the kids. My mom was there for every concert for my daughter and graduations. The last year and a half she has had the most wonderful man her for her too my boyfriend has been here for her. He loves and cares for my kids like they are his kids.  My youngest daughter is lucky for the family she does have and how much we all love her!♥

Another good choice for cake

Between the final days of October and first days of November, we have plenty of cake. That is because we have three birthdays right together. I guess we could celebrate them all at the same time but it seems a bit unfair to make all three give up their special day because it is more trouble to make several cakes.

The first birthday cake was I made was a chocolate/chocolate for my Mother's birthday, then I made chocolate/chocolate cupcakes for Halloween. Then, my sister's birthday is the next day which incidentally is All Saint's Day. I decided we didn't need another chocolate/chocolate cake so I decided to make a chocolate cake with vanilla frosting.

My normal gluten-free cake mix was sold out at the grocery store and I saw this Pamela's chocolate mix so I bought it and to mixed up some butter cream frosting for a little something different. I am really sold on this cake mix. It was wonderful.

I was concerned because one of the ingredients was chicory and I really am not a fan of chicory. However, this cake mix was so perfect. I decided to add a cup of vegan chocolate chips because I wanted it to be really rich.

Even my family members who are not too excited about gluten-free products were wowed by this cake. It was a great success. All I can say is that I don't want any cake for awhile, but when make a gluten-free one, I will try another Pamela's mix. It is my new favorite product. Does anyone know where I could find some coupons?

My Birthday Weekend!

Yes for my birthday my boyfriend took me up north to visit family and friend. We left on Friday and came back on Sunday. My boyfriend asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday and I said to get away from here for the weekend by ourselves. That meant no kids and no dog in the car with us. I just wanted a nice peaceful drive were ever we went. So this is were we decided to go.

We stayed at my mom's place. We didn't get to her house until about 7pm.. We had to stop at my sisters house to get the keys and my son came there with my granddaughter. It was so nice to see her again. She is getting bigger every time I see her.

On Saturday we went to my storage shed up there to get some things out of it. I didn't expect to get my pots and pans out to bring home with us. We ended up having a car full of things to bring home. I also gave my microwave to my mom because she needed one.

This is what we woke up to on Saturday morning. Yes frost on the ground and on our car. This was really sad to look at. But by the time we got ready to go out it was gone. I can tell you this much it was cold up there at night. I was just glad the heater worked really good in the car.

My mom made me a cake and she had some snacks out for us when we got there. Then we went and had dinner with my boyfriends family. Saturday was his sisters birthday and we were able to see her for her birthday. It was really good to see her and her husband. His mom made a really good ham dinner with potatoes, German potato salad, barbeque meatballs, green bean casserole. It was really good. But one this is my boyfriend ate to much cheese and sausage at my mom's and then dinner by his mom and dad's. He had an upset stomach that night.

I did get to see my granddaughter on Saturday also. This is the outfit I bought for her for Halloween. It says " Grandma's Little Pumpkin". I could not pass that up for her. It was just so nice to get away from here for the weekend.

Another reason we went up there was to see his parents because they are going to be gone the whole month of November. So we will not see them for Thanksgiving.

We both did enjoy ourselves being away from here. I love my boyfriend so much and he is the sweetest man in the world. He will do anything for me to make sure I am happy. But I want him to be just as happy as he makes me. I can tell you one thing we are both so happy when we go up north. Yes we really didn't do much when we went up north but the thing was seeing the family and some friends while we were up there. The main thing for me was just being with the one and only man I love in the world for my birthday!♥

Looking like a garden at last

 My grandson came in this morning and said, "It's November 1st. It's not Halloween anymore." I have to admit I am kind of glad the spooky season is over and we can begin the season of thanks. I can understand why kids really like Halloween. It is so much fun to see them dressed up in costumes and who doesn't like candy? I answered the door last night to a father all decked out in costume with green hair and painted face -- kind of like a giant Oompa Loompa. He smiled at me and said, "Dad's like to have fun, too!

Today, I am all candied out and ready for ... vegetables.

Our garden is beginning to produce some nutritious fall greens and since last week's rain and cooler weather, our greens are really taking off. Above, see our turnip and mustard greens and our large broccoli plants.

I think we will be ready for turnip greens at any time. I can almost taste them now. The collards we will save for awhile. They could be eaten but I am thinking I should wait and pick them when they are really huge. We traditionally have them on New Year's Day but maybe this year we will have them for Thanksgiving. It is time to fertilize them and it would be nice to have more rain.

They look good, don't they?