Halloween Photo Post

Caramelized Pumpkin Seeds

1/2 cup butterscotch caramel sauce
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon extract
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
3 cups pumpkin seeds, roasted
1 cup almonds, crushed


Lightly coat baking sheet with cooking spray and set aside.

In a large skillet, slowly melt the caramel sauce and sugar. When melted stir in cinnamon extract and cayenne. Continue cooking until mixture reaches a temperature of 310 degrees F. Stir in pumpkin seeds until completely coated. Spread caramelized seeds onto the baking sheet and sprinkle with crushed almonds. Separate seeds with wooden spoon until cooled.

Cook's Notes:
Melted sugar is very hot. Please use extreme caution when handling and pouring. Pumpkin seeds may be purchased already roasted. If using the seeds from a jack-o-lantern, rinse and clean seeds. Place on a baking sheet, lightly coated with cooking spray, in a preheated 250 degree F oven. Roast seeds for about 1 hour stirring every 15 minutes. The actual seed of the pumpkin is inside the hull. The hull is edible.

Candy Apples

My attempt at making candy apples. They look good. I haven't tried them yet, my roommates kids loved them. Anyway, Happy Halloween everyone.

World Series What?

[rant]

Ok, so the other day I caught the arse end of the game between Boston Red Sox and who-ever, and as we all know Boston won.
Then I caught something one of the commentators said when the Sox won..."The Boston Red Sox are now World Series Champions!!!"
"World Series Champions?" I thought. "Don't you have to have teams competing that are from other nations for a winning team to be proclaimed WORLD Series Champions?"

I am the only one who is confused about this? Or is the MLB so full of shit and themselves that they think they ARE the world?

[/rant]

Hypodermic Needles and Pretty Leaves

You know the town you live in has gone completely to shit when you start finding needles on the ground. I saw this one this morning on the way to work on a pretty busy street, in what I thought was a haven from all that bullshit. I swear I had flash backs of Canada and some of the crazy shennanagens I witnessed there. It also reminded me of an earlier post I did, about some crazy needle banger I used to know. It was a photo post but needles that have been used to shoot drugs are powerful in photos.






I thought the photo of the leaf was fitting, seeing as the veins of it were a beautiful green color. Love the leaf. Anyways have a good week folks.

Sunday Bakings

Today I baked about two dozen muffins again. This time they came out way better then before. I am leaving you with the recipe this time. I didn't use the topping recipe though I just made my own glaze with powdered sugar, milk, margarine, salt, and vanilla. They came out AWESOME.

NEW YORK STATE APPLE MUFFINS

MUFFIN:

2 c. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. sugar
3/4 c. brown sugar
1/2 tsp. cloves
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
2 tsp. baking soda
2 c. apples, coarsely chopped
1/2 c. raisins
1/2 c. walnuts
3 eggs
4 oz. cream cheese, cut in sm. pieces
1/2 c. butter, melted
1/2 tsp. vanilla

TOPPING:

1/2 c. walnuts
1/4 c. flour
1 tsp. lemon peel, grated
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 oz. butter, melted

Combine topping ingredients, set aside.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine salt, flour, sugars, spices, baking soda, set aside. Combine apples, raisins, walnuts, eggs, cream cheese, butter and vanilla.

Add dry ingredients, a little at a time to the apple mixture. Stir until just combined. Do not over mix. Portion batter into muffin paper, sprinkle with topping. Bake 20-30 minutes. Yield: 24 muffins.

Budgie Smuggler

Ok folks the phrase for today is Budgie Smuggler. Which in Australianese means Speedos. According to a first hand source (Mik) this person says, the phrase came about when someone noticed that it looked like a man was smuggling Budgies (a small bird) down his pants whilst wearing Speedos. Personally I think it's the most hilarious phrase ever.

Use it folks, at least once today, make me proud.

One of these days....

One of these days I will be on one of those planes, heading towards the land down under. Kangaroos, wallabees, monster mosquitos, and plague proportion bunny rabbits. Oh and not forget Mik. It seems like we've been waiting forever for the home stretch, now with in the next few months (probably February or somewhere around that) we will finally be together again. It will be like Christmas for me, the anticipation, the happiness.

I am sure some of you get bored with hearing about our little love thing. But I can't help it, I seriously have not been this happy in all my life. There's always one defining moment in someones life, weather it be to keep them alive, set them on a career path, or just a special moment that defines us. I swear it Mik is mine. Anyway, you just have to bear with me a few more months, then we will both be posting about my wild and wacky adventures in bizarro world.

Random Photos

Kids Games And Cool Uniforms.

Ok, Erica's been kinda bugging me to put some photos up of me playing paintball, because she thinks I look hot or something in my get up. So here you go baby, this is for you, and I apologize to anyone who thinks otherwise:P