Anna's Mini Pumpkin Cakes

Recipe by Anna Peck
http://www.knitting-up-a-storm.blogspot.com/

This is a great recipe for an additional holiday desert. Feel free to make them even smaller, to pop in your mouth. It is best served warm, as it is soft and deliciously moist.

If you love white cupcakes & pumpkin pie...be prepared to be addicted!

Recipe yields about 18 medium-sized cupcakes
Skill: easy

Ingredients:
1 box of Betty Crocker's white (vanilla) cake mix.
1 can of pumpkin pie filling
1 tsp each of Cinnamon, nutmeg & ginger
A dash of clover (no more than 1/2 tsp)
1/8 cup of white sugar
4 eggs
A little more than 1/3 cups of canola oil

Pumkpin Cupcake Directions:
Beat the eggs, pour the oil in, and slowly add all of the dry ingredients together. Beat until completely smooth. Pour evenly into your cupcake pan, and bake for 17-18 minutes at 350 degrees(F) per 12 cupcakes. Do not over-bake.

(Optional) Frosting Ingredients:
1 brick of softened creamcheese
1-2 cups of powered sugar
1 tsp of pure vanilla extract
A couple drops of orange food coloring

Frosting Directions:
Place 1 brick of soft creamcheese in a good size bowl, add 1 tsp of vanilla & about 1-2 cups of sifted powdered sugar, and blend all together with a mixer until creamy. Add a couple drops of orange food coloring, and blend for a couple seconds more. Smother the frosting on the top of all of the cupcakes. Refrigerate the leftovers, if you're luck enough to have any left.

Roasted Red Pepper, Onion & Garlic Hummus

Recipe by Anna Peck
http://www.knitting-up-a-storm.blogspot.com/

This recipe yields about a full bowl of hummus. This would be great for parties. Feel free to divide the recipe in half for smaller portions.

Ingredients:
1 can of chick-peas (24-26oz can)
1 lemon
1/2 red pepper
1/2 onion
2 cloves of garlic
1/4 (or less) cup of water
3 tbs light olive oil (and extra to coat the flat bakesheet)
1-2 tsp of salt (depends on how salty you like it) & a dash of pepper
White or wheat pita bread for dipping

Directions:
Cut up the 1/2 red pepper & 1/2 onion into strips, and remove the skin of 2 cloves of garlic. Pour some olive oil on the flat bakesheet, and put the veggies on top of the oil. Sprinkle about a tsp of salt and pepper on top. Bake for about 30 minutes at 400 degrees (F).

After the veggies have cooled, add the can of chickpeas, 1 lemon (the juice), 1/4 cups of water, 1 tsp of salt & pepper, 3 tbs of olive oil and the veggies, and blend it until completely smooth.

Simply dip your pita bread in, or enjoy on a turkey sandwich.

Good things come in pairs.

Hey Everyone!
Although some might have thought that I would give up one these size 1 + fingeringweght combo, but I didn't. There was no way a skein so beautiful was going to collect dust bunnies. Not on my turf! I weaved in the last thread, and grabbed my "knitting in the tiny" diploma and got that camera the heck out! Here's my shots:

And good things do come in pairs. The proof is in the pudding, er.... on the foot.
"Arctic Socks"
Yarn: Lana Grossa (80% virgin wool & 20% polyamide)-75g of 100g
Needles: Size 1's
Cast-on amount: 64 stitches

MAIL CALL!! "Here's the mail it never fails... it makes me wanna wag my tail... when my knitting package comes I wanna wail.... MAIL!!!" You're looking at three skeins of 840 yards of pure lace weight goodness.... In white.... Ready to be dyed. (I'm sure you knew that was coming!) And no Liz, i'm not on drugs.

Although the bag of lettuce has seen better days, the salad I had was just too pretty to dig into just yet, until I took a picture. And yes, that is fruit in the salad. Trust me, it's good.
Rasberry Walnut Salad:
Instructions:
1. Put a glass salad bowl in the freezer for at least several minutes.
2.Take it out, put a nice handful or two of iceberg salad on your plate.
3. Throw some rasberries (and cherries, if you want to. I did, but you don't have to.)
4. Sprinkle walnuts all over your salad. The more the merrier, my taste buds says.
5. Spray Wishbone's Rasberry salad spritzer all over your salad. Don't be shy, it's only 1 calorie a spray!
6. Voila! Feast yourself to some healthy goodness for lunch!


What's going on tomorrow: I need to start working on Baby knitting for my pregnant friend tomorrow. I'll be working up a raglan pattern, then a bib (sometime), and more booties (at a later time).

Joke of the moment: After being depressed Monday (complicated reason), I came to the conclusion that I was going to write a book. Yeah. Believe me, the funny part isn't that my blog doesn't show my "creative" and more "sophisticated" writing, it was that I thought for several hours that I could commit to a book. I would love to write a knitting mystery series, like Maggie Stefton, but then the book would really sound the same... I would get sued. Then I thought, hey, you're good at the Fantasy genre, you should do that. However, if I can't think ahead while playing chess, would I really be good about planning ahead for characters, the plot and such? Then I thought, ok, well, children's books are simple enough...maybe you could do that...

There really is no ending to this book-writing rambling. However, feel free to laugh. I can't even commit to a diary for more than a couple of days.
However, If I do ever write a book, and it's good, use the code: "amused" for a discount price.

And I do realize it's 1:30am right now.