Bread Pudding

This is our current favorite afternoon recipe. So easy! This is the first recipe Chili can actually help with...most times her help does more damage than good :) She is pretty good at ripping bread apart though. Let the ripping begin!

Not all of it goes in the pan though...

Yum!

Beating eggs.

Now doesn't that look good!

Did I mention Papi loves this?

Here's the recipe, this is doubled from the original(so you could cut it in half):

16 slices of whole wheat bread

6 c of milk

6 eggs

1 stick of butter, melted

1/2 c sugar, plus more to sprinkle on top

a little salt (if you want, I used salted butter, so I left that out)

cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves if you want

raisins

sliced bananas

Grease pan, put in ripped up pieces of bread. Beat eggs together, add spices and milk and stir. Pour mixture over bread pieces. Make sure all bread gets wet. Add butter and raisins. Sprinkle sugar on top. Slice bananas and place on top. Bake in oven on 350 for at least one hour, maybe more. It will get harder as it cools. Enjoy hot or cold!

Out My Window

What a beautiful way to end this special day!

Monkeying Around

With the money she received for her birthday, Chili bought herself a swingset. Mami and Papi found it on Craiglist, and she paid for it herself. She has enjoyed swinging and monkeying around these past few days.

Just a reminder for those who know me personally, we are trying not to use our names in our blog, so please don't use our names in your comments. Thanks!

The Best and the Worst

The best pizza I have ever made! The worst outfit ever! Lime green pants, pink long sleeved T, with a short sleeved red button down shirt...can you tell who picked out that outfit?!

More Fall Fun

Fall Fun

Planting Garlic and Shallots

With help of course! We hope to see them make their appearance in the spring.

Recycling

This is one thing I WON'T be recycling.

The Tale of the Scary Bunny

This little Chili thought she was tough stuff this Halloween all dressed up as a...bunny! She growled the whole night long thinking she was just as scary as all the other little monsters. And here is my little monster:

Homemade Chicken Pot Pie

After getting inspired from reading this: http://adventuresofhannahandcharlie.blogspot.com/2009/10/chicken-pot-pie.html, I decided to try my first ever pot pie. It took a long time to make, but it was much better than the store bought variety. I cooked a chicken the day before, deboned it, and shredded it up. The next day, I added some fresh green beans, carrots, and parsnips and let them cook in the broth. I added a little flour to try to thicken it up a little. When they were done I added frozen peas and the chicken to warm. Then I tried to prepare the crust which was a mess! I used the recipe that my favorite cook book recommended. It was:
1 1/4 flour
1/2 t salt
10 T butter, cold and cut into chunks
1 egg yolk
3 T ice water, more if necessary
(I doubled this to make a larger pot pie.)

Put flour, and salt in food processor for a couple seconds. Add butter and process until uniform. Add egg yolk and process a couple more seconds. Put in bowl and add ice water, mix with hands and form a ball. Wrap in plastic and freeze ten minutes. Sprinkle countertop with flour and roll with rolling pin....so I did this. When I took it out of the freezer it was rock hard. It did get a little more managable as it warmed. But it started cracking and I couldn't roll it out well. Eventually when I had it flattened to the thickeness I wanted, I put the pieces in the pan and used my fingers to connect the pieces and form the shape I wanted. This part took a long time, and was almost impossible to get the top pieces to connect. That turned out to be ok, since my inside mixture was not very thick, and the holes let the water evaporate as it cooked.

The end result was very tasty! I think next time I will try a different crust recipe and see if that makes a difference. I think I will leave out the parsnips too. This was the first time I had ever used them, and I wasn't crazy about them. I will definately make this again!