Apple Coffee Cake

You'll be seeing a lot of apple recipes here for a while, that and raspberries since we picked so many. It turns out that $19 worth of apples is a ton of apples, who would have thunk it?

Adapted from Bisquick

Streusel Topping


2/3 cup Heart Healthy Bisquick® mix

2/3 cup packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 cup cold butter or margarine



Coffee Cake

2 cups Heart Healthy Bisquick® mix

2/3 cup milk or water

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 egg

2 medium cooking apples, peeled and thinly sliced (2 cups)

1.Heat oven to 400°F. Spray 9-inch square pan with cooking spray. In smal bowl, mix 2/3 cup Bisquick mix, brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Cut in butter, using pastry blender (or pulling 2 knives through ingredients in opposite directions), until crumbly; set aside.


2.In medium bowl, stir together 2 cups Bisquick mix, 2/3 cup milk, the granulated sugar and egg; beat vigorously 30 seconds with spoon. Spread half of batter in pan. Arrange apple slices on batter; sprinkle with half of streusel topping. Spread with remaining batter; sprinkle with remaining topping.

3.Bake about 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Day Trip to Oak Glen

There is a lot to do here in Southern California for a day trip but a lot of it is the same thing or it's super crowded, or expensive. For example, you can go shopping in Palm Springs, you can go to an amusement park, you can go up the tram, there's Big Bear. Honestly, I'm tired of shopping, it's exhausting. The very thought of navigating the family through a crowded and over priced theme park makes me cringe, and I feel the same about the tram. It's over priced and over crowded. And Big Bear seems too far away, plus there's not much to do there n the fall but shop.

Yesterday we decided to switch it up a bit and head to the Oak Glen Growers Association which is a little township inside of Yucaipa, Ca. It was a blast, a totally laid back environment. While the crowds did start pouring in at around lunch time it never felt too crowded. We started our journey at Snow Line Orchards, where we ate fantastic cider doughnuts, sampled some unusual apple varieties like pink pearl, and picked a boat load of raspberries.

We then headed down to the town center for lunch at a BBQ joint called the rib cage. It wasn't bad but since I am a Texan and accustomed to certain BBQ standards I really can't say it was good either. Afterwards we walked around the village and found a cute little farm stand with heirloom apples and cider samples.

The last stop of our journey was Riley's Farm, a colonial farmstead where the employees are dressed in colonial era clothing. This is without a doubt a cool place to go, they've got a pumpkin patch, a petting zoo, great smelling food, and lot's more. We decided to go apple picking here and it was fun, you take a hay ride from the main colonial village up to the orchard and the take a trail past huge wild blackberry bushesand a beautiful mountain stream and fnd your self in a field of apple trees nestled in the mountains. From there you fill your bags with as many apples as you can. My only complaint is that one bag was $19, plus we paid $1 per person to walk the trail. It was kind of steep if you ask me but at the same time we had a great time, much more fun than we have had when we've paid more. If you don't want to spend that kind of money on apples you don't have to! You can still enjoy Riley's and then head down the road to a different apple orchard (there are plenty). Just call around and find the best price before going. http://www.oakglen.net/index.shtml

Alice is a Walker

Last night my little 8 1/2 month old baby girl walked for the first time. She had taken a couple steps before then but last night she was able to walk across the room to get to something. After numerous tries to get it on camera we finally got a few steps so here they are:

Miss Class Representative 2010

Haley came home last week and told me the kids in her class were given the opportunity to run for student council (they only choose two classes per grade) and she wanted to run for class representative. In order to do this she had to prepare an essay and then read it to her class. I really enjoyed helping her with her essay because I was able to see how aware she is of her community and the current problems with the economy. For example she said in her essay "I'll work to get tastier cafeteria food that's still affordable to make".

Anyway, today she found out that she did win, she actually had 20 votes out of 26 students. Before school she was a little anxious and carefully picked out an outfit and had me curl her hair, just in case she needed to make an acceptance speech or something I guess. Here are some photos:

She's really blossoming into a young woman! It amazes me how much she's grown over the last year. Over the summer even. We bought size 10 slim jeans for her in August and now they're too small. Pretty crazy if you ask me.

Meal Planning on a Budget

So yeah, 3 blogs in one day, it's a lot but I've been meaning to blog about this for a while. I've set our weekly grocery budget at $100 for our family of 3.5 which includes 3 meals and 2 snacks per day, plus toiletries. I usually shop for 7 days worth of meals at a time so it costs about $14 per day to feed my little family, about $4 per person for 3 meals a day, which is $1.33 per meal. Before I go to the store I make a meal plan where I write down 7 days worth of dinner ideas. To give you an example here is our latest meal plan:

grilled fish with lemon cream sauce, salad, rolls, and broccoli
bacon tomato quiche with salad
Zuppa toscana w/ baguettes and salad
Turkey Spaghetti with salad and baguettes
Philly cheese steak sandwiches w/ oven fried potatoes (oh man, these were good!)
Turkey burgers with baked zucchini fries and salad
Hot dogs with salad and green beans

We eat a lot of salad! I hadn't realized that. Anyway, once I know what I'm going to be eating I make my list of ingredients needed for these things, usually I don't need all of the ingredients because I've already got them on hand. I should mention that when I'm deciding what to make I usually raid my pantry first so I can incorporate what I've got on hand.

In addition to making an ingredient list I also list basic necessities like milk, eggs, bread, fruit, etc. and I list things like "3 snack items" (box of crackers, nutrigrain, etc), " 2 breakfast choices" (cereal or bagels, etc), "2 lunch items". I do this because for one thing I need snacks, breakfast, and lunch, but I also know that if I see something I want I'm going to be inclined to buy it. Setting vague limitations keeps me from over buying but allows me to add a few items to my cart that weren't specifically on the list.

Overall I've found that this works really well for us. No one goes hungry, we eat good food, and usually I come out $10-$20 under budget.


I'm curious to know what everyone else does? What's your budget, how much is an average meal in your house? Do you shop with a list or wing it?

Zuppa Toscana

Have you ever eaten the zuppa toscana at Olive Garden? It's amazing, I love it, the only problem is that if I want to eat it I have to drive an hour and a half and pay some ridiculous amount, which is why I make it at home, usually with bread sticks and salad. Last night we paired it with these baguettes, which are simply amazing and so very easy to make, and a light salad. The best part about this soup is that one bowl is only 251 calories!! I love it.

3/4 pounds of lean breakfast sausage
3 chicken bouillon cubes
3 slices center cut bacon - diced
some diced white onion
1/2 cup of cream
5 cups of water
1/2 cup of chopped parsley
1 tsp garlic powder
crushed red pepper
salt and pepper
2 large potatoes - diced

In a dutch oven saute bacon and onion, then drain the grease and add sausage. Cook through.

Add potatoes, bouillon cubes, water, and seasoning and bring to a boil. Cook until potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes.

Turn heat to low and add cream and parsley. Serve warm with baguettes or your favorite crusty bread. Makes 6 servings.

Dark Chocoloate Chip Maple Pumpkin Bread

I'm not sure I want to even consider the amount of calories in this, especially since I've convinced myself that it's an acceptable breakfast and dessert food, which means I can eat it twice a day. I really shouldn't though. But if I eat a slice for breakfast and then skip my mid morning snack it might be OK. These are the kinds of internal battles I have in my head on a daily basis. Why can't sugar and fat be good for you? **UPDATE** there are 216 calories per slice, and one loaf provides 8 good sized slices, I just couldn't take not knowing.

On another note, I am trying desperately to shove this weather into cooler temperatures via my cooking. So far it's not working. Today's high is 106! It's "near record breaking" according to the weather channel; isn't that cool?! We're breaking records here.

Anyway, here is the recipe:

1 cup of pumpkin pie filling

1 - 1/2 cups flour

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

1 egg

2 tablespoons maple syrup

3/4 cups brown sugar

1/3 cup butter - melted

1 tsp baking soda

1/3 cup dark chocolate chips.

Heat oven to 350

Mix pumpkin pie filling, butter, vanilla, and egg together then mix in sugar, maple syrup, and pumpkin pie spice.

Then mix in flour and baking soda, just until moistened, fold in chocolate chips.

Pour into a 9x5 loaf pan and if you're feeling fancy put some decorative chocolate chips on top. Cook it for 50 minutes and enjoy!