Black Bottom Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

There is a slight trick to this recipe. I made no bake cheese cake cupcakes first and left a little of the cheese cake batter in the mixing bowl. Mixing it up with the cake mixes adds a lot of moister to the finished cupcakes.

Ingredients:
1 devil's food chocolate cake mix
1 dark chocolate fudge cake mix
1 large box instant chocolate pudding mix
6 eggs
3 Cups water (you may need more)
1 Cup oil

Preheat your oven to 350*. I mixed all of the ingredients together in a stand mixer, adding water until it reached the consistency of thick brownie batter. I overfilled my cups, so I got 36 cupcakes. If you filled them correctly (2/3 of the way full) you could get a lot more. Some of them I've decorated as pumpkins, the rest I will decorate as soccer balls. (For my son's soccer game Sat.)

Icing:
The pumpkin spice comes in when you mix up your icing. I added a little pumpkin pie spice to it, as well as neon orange gel food coloring. Set that aside.

If you don't have orange sugar sprinkles, you can make your own. Take 1 jar yellow sugar, a dash of red sugar, a dash of pink sugar and 2 drops orange gel food coloring. Mix thoroughly, set aside.

*These cupcakes can be top heavy so be careful.*

First spread about a teaspoon of icing onto the top of each cupcake. It doesn't have to be perfect, its going to act like glue.

Cut one mini cruler or twist doughnut in two. Place one half, cut side down, onto each cupcake.

Cover with each with orange frosting. Remember the center should have a small divot from the doughnut.

Coat with orange sugar.

The leaves are just really stiff green icing, piped from a sandwich bag. They did not turn out the way I wanted them to. . . .

Now as far as taste; these were super yummy!! They are really moist and the pumpkin pie spice in the icing adds and extra dimension of flavor without being overpowering.  I will definitely make these again!!

Calves ~ Fall 2010

 Brought home 2 new calves today. We put them in the sheep paddock. It has a gate in the middle so we can easily separate the sheep and calves. Lucy and Ethyl, our red Angus cows, have there date with destiny in about 2 weeks.  Once their gone and their paddock thoroughly cleaned, we'll put the new calves in. These are Black Angus cows, I'll let you know in 18 months if there's a taste difference.

The steer is slightly bigger and all black.

 

 The heifer has white on her face and a white belly.

I guess he's camera shy, lol!!

We will raise these guys for about a year and a half.

Lamb Goulash

This recipe is a lot like my Ratatouille, but the taste is very different. 

Its easy, quick and definitely comfort food without the calories. Serves 6 

3 adults and 2 kids. (one of the adults had seconds)

Aprox. 175 cal per serving (not including the mashed potato's)

The Ingredients:

• 1lb ground lamb (we used Romney which has a more delicate flavor but you could use whatever you have)

• 2 Cups baby carrots - cut in half

• 1 small yellow squash - diced into bite sized pieces

• 2 small zucchini - also diced into bite sized piece

• 1 can of diced tomato's 14.5oz (you could use 1.5 Cups of fresh)

• 1 packet of onion mushroom soup mix

Directions:

Brown lamb in medium pot 3-5 min. 

While the lamb is browning, start your mashed potato's. 

Drain the fat, add the soup packet and carrots to the lamb. 

Continue cooking until the carrots are just barley fork tender, then add the rest of the diced vegetables and the can of tomato's. 

Cook 3-5 min. until the veggies are soft but not mushy. Serve in bowls with mashed potato's on top.

Sorry there's no picture of this with the mash potato's. This was so good we inhaled it. There was no talking, no how was your day, just shoveling it in as fast as we could.

Free Halloween decorations!!

I love Halloween!!  I got a wild hair yesterday and started decorating. I like to buy stuff after the holidays, when their on sale. I also make a lot of things. The trees below I bought, painted, embossed and added cobwebs in different colors. The pumpkins I made by needle felting.

I love the magazine "Family Fun." They always have great ideas and things to do with the kids. I had not looked through our current issue until today. When I saw the milk jug skeletons I knew I had to make them.

We have a fairly large fish tank, but we also have well water, which can leave trace metals that can start to accumulate inside it. So I buy water in 2.5 gal jugs. My son has been wanting to recycle, so the jugs have been collecting on the enclosed porch.

This one is going to be a little smaller than the others. Its made from a half gal jug, a milk jug and the bones are cut from one of the 2.5 gal jugs. The directions say to cut out the eyes and mouth, but I wanted them to be a little more visible so I colored them in with a permanent marker. To make the whole skeleton smaller I cut out smaller shoulders, cut the bones smaller and will not be adding hip bones.

I free handed the bones onto the larger jug and cut them out with a pair of kitchen sheers.

The best parts are, I have enough jugs just laying around that I can do a whole family of skeletons, they look really cool and they didn't cost me any money!! Just a little time.

Bunny pregnancy update!!

Ok so I'm a little nervous. Its my first breeding and I decided to breed 4 out of my 5 does. So far I'm pretty sure 3 of the 4 are pregnant.

English Angora - She started to build a nest of hay Sun. and this morning was pulling wool.
Rex - She is fat and when reintroduced to the buck a week after breeding the buck turned away from her.
Large Flemish Giant - Has not entered the nest box since I added hay to it 3 days ago.
Smaller Flemish Giant - Is already a proven mother, and was starting to build a nest of hay this morning.

In theory they're all due tomorrow morning!! I will not be posting pics immediately. I do not want to disturb the mothers. Sometimes with rabbits that can cause a bad reaction in the mother.

Here's crossing my fingers for some lovely babies!!!!

I know its not Christmas but . . . . .

the craft show is in Nov. so by then the Xmas spirit will be in full swing . . . .  

Anyway this is one of the things I've been working on:

the front cover

 

the first 2 pages

both have a pocket with a tag for journaling or more photos

pages 3 and 4

and the back of the tag from between page 2/3

pages 5 and 6

the front of the tag from between page 6/7

pages 7 and 8

the back of the tag from between page 6/7

and the front of the tag from between page 8/9

pages 9 and 10

the back of the tag from between page 8/9

and the front of the tag from between page 10/11

pages 11 and 12

the back of the tag from between page 10/11

pages 13 and 14

with a pocket in the middle of page 13

 and tag from between page 14 and the back cover

 

 the back cover

and the back of the tag from page 14

Please feel free to let me know what you think!

 Sorry about the crummy photo's!

Angora Rabbit False Pregnancy?

Ok so this is my junior doe - Cinnamon. I chose not to breed her because she was less than 6 months at the time. I went out to the barn to feed the other morning and this is what I found: large clumps of felted wool, they looked kind of like cotton balls. I checked around/in her cage, there was nothing she could get a hold of and tear up. She doesn't have any bald patches and the next morning I came out to the same thing. Not sure whats going on here.     

Bunny birth day count down 3 DAYS!!!!