California

Here are some pictures from my December trip to southern California. The pictures aren't great, but they are nice to look at on a snowy Ohio day.

In the valley.

Lilies?

Palms.

Neighbor's flora.

Oranges.

Lemons and roses.

It was a nice trip, but it was weird to see Christmas decorations in such high temperatures. Odd to see so many things in bloom in December, too.

Suspension

My mom got the DVD box set of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century for Christmas and we watched the first two-part episode today. I remember watching the show as a kid, but I don't know whether I've ever seen the pilot. What I do know is that I was completely taken by surprise when the theme song started and the familiar tune had lyrics!



When the end credits rolled, I found out the song was sung by Kipp Lennon, who has a website with audio clips available for download. Do yourself a favor and download Suspension (Theme from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century) immediately! It is awesome.

Pumpkin Two Ways

I didn't take a picture of our Thanksgiving dessert table, but here is a picture of the pumpkin pie (add 1/8 tsp nutmeg and 1/2 tsp vanilla and reduce cloves to 1/8 tsp) for which I made the crust from scratch. It's fairly simple and makes a world of difference in taste. It lost some of its flakiness as the days went on, but so does store-bought crust.

Not pictured: Red Velvet Cake, pumpkin roll and pumpkin cheesecake.

My grandmother took the leftover pie crust dough and leftover canned pumpkin and made these pumpkin empanadas. They were delicious cold and more delicious when reheated for 5 minutes in the toaster oven.

What Are Little Boys Made Of?

I made cupcakes for a birthday party for a boy who turned one. The mom of the birthday boy thought it would be fun to decorate them with the theme of the party, which was, "what are little boys made of?" I guess the modern version of the classic poem is frogs and snails and puppy dog tails so that's how we decorated them.

This one shows off my new cupcake stand, which was a birthday present. It's shiny!

Frogs and dogs

Snails, which were my design. Believe it or don't!

Three for the show.

The cupcake baking cups (liners, papers, whatever) were primary colors, which were a great find. The cupcakes were pumpkin with cream cheese frosting. I accidentally made too much frosting, so I made a second batch of cupcakes the next day (cutting down the sugars to 2/3 cup each). Those got decorated with mellowcreme pumpkins.

Negative Ghost Cake

Here's the cake I made for a birthday that fell a few days before Halloween and was celebrated on All Saints Day. The cake is yellow and the frosting should have been white chocolate buttercream frosting but was instead semi-sweet chocolate buttercream frosting because I have some chocolate chips that melted and reset while still in the bag and, while still usuable, can't be used for cookies and the like.

I think the eyes and mouth were put on a little low and were possibly too big for the cake, but you get the general idea.

2009 Fall Television

For some reason, I'm just not that excited about television this fall. A lot of my favorite shows got canceled, and the new shows I've been watching are okay I guess. Regardless, here's my list of what I'll TiVo, what I'll watch live (if I'm home) and what I'll watch online for the fall season. I might watch some On Demand, but since I still don't really understand what shows are consistently on the On Demand channels I can't plan on it.

If you need to see a prime time fall schedule in order to make your own choices, click here.

Monday
8:00 PM
TiVo: How I Met Your Mother (CBS)
Live: Heroes (NBC)
Online: House (FOX)

11:00 PM
TiVo: Little People, Big World (TLC)

Tuesday
8:00 PM
TiVo: V (ABC)

Wednesday
8:00 PM
TiVo: New Adventures of Old Christine (CBS)

9:00 PM
TiVo: Modern Family (ABC)

9:30 PM
TiVo: Cougar Town (ABC)

10:00 PM
TiVo: South Park (Comedy)

Thursday
8:00 PM
TiVo: FlashForward (ABC)
Live: Vampire Diaries (CW)
Online: Community (NBC)
Online: Bones (FOX)

9:00 PM
TiVo: The Office (NBC)

9:30 PM
TiVo: 30 Rock (NBC)

Friday
8:00 PM
TiVo: Smallville (CW)
Live: Brothers (FOX)

9:00 PM
TiVo: Ugly Betty (ABC)

10:00 PM or in repeats
TiVo: Degrassi: The Next Generation (Teen Nick)
TiVo: White Collar (USA)

Saturday
nothing unless something is repeated from earlier in the week

Sunday
9:00 PM
TiVo: Masterpiece Contemporary (PBS)

10:00 PM
TiVo: Iron Chef America (Food)


That's 1 show each on TLC, PBS, USA, Food Network, Comedy Central and Teen Nick, 2 shows on CBS, 2 shows on CW, 3 shows on FOX, 4 shows on NBC and 5 shows on ABC. I'm already behind on a bunch of shows since I didn't set Season Passes right away, and I forgot to watch shows live, Online or On Demand.

Oatmeal Cookies

I baked these cookies for dessert and served them with mulled cider on Sunday. I made them "Quaker Square style" with no raisins in the cookie dough but with a single raisin on the top of the center of each cookie (placed after the bake). It had been a long time since I baked oatmeal cookies, but I've been meaning to make them since I bought a big canister of oatmeal a few weeks ago. I might experiment with the recipe since they tasted good but flattened out more than I would have liked. Maybe I'll try a different recipe altogether.