Happy 14th Birthday, Hailey!

On Wednesday, my little sister turned the big 1-4! 

I can't believe how fast she is growing up!

The best birthday spread!

She had a fun birthday party with friends last Saturday, so Wednesday it was just family time. Her friend gave her beautiful flowers at school, how sweet is that! 

Our mom also made her a second lemon poppy-seed cake since the other cake for her party was long gone! She is amazing and very thoughtful!

Mmm...

Ashley and Erin picked up Hailey from school that day with the balloons shown above. As they pulled up to the pick-up area, they had the balloons hanging out of the window for all to see their birthday chariot. Lola joined, too. Hailey may have been embarrassed, but they wanted to make her feel special right off the bat.

Next, they made the usual, delicious birthday rounds! This includes Joe's Farm Grill, Joe's BBQ, and Liberty Market. Hailey chose up to $10's worth of all her favorites (at each place!)...and Ashley and I got ideas on what we would get when our birthdays come in a month, haha!

Yes...

Keep 'em coming...

Some of Liberty Market's options - Chocolate Death Ray and éclairs! 

Ultimately, here were her picks:

 Bread pudding bowl topped with whipped cream and chocolate ~ Liberty Market

Macaroni and cheese ~ Joe's BBQ 

Fried zucchini and a chocolate milkshake (random, we know...) ~ Joe's Farm Grill 

We mostly got the food to-go in order to share it with everyone! And, if you can believe it, we still had dinner to eat! "Dinner" was more like breakfast...but really, honestly, more like dessert, since we had crêpes! 

Mom made the batter and Erin made the crepes. Of course we had strawberries, whipped cream, cinnamon, Nutella, etc., to make them utterly superb.

After this mind-boggling feast, she opened her presents. 

Volleyball/Badminton set to enjoy the nicer weather before it's 100°+! 

Two of her favorite movies!

We watched Princess Mononoke and will be watching Kiki's Delivery Service tonight!

We love Studio Ghibli/Hayao Miyazaki films. 

It was a day full of fun!

Thanks for reading! 

I'll update again with our next adventure! 

Southwestern Spaghetti Squash

Hi everyone, 

First post of 2016!! Here we go!

 The other night we tried this new recipe - Southwestern Stuffed Spaghetti Squash - and I wanted to share it! 

The recipe is from: http://www.thecomfortofcooking.com/2013/10/southwestern-stuffed-spaghetti-squash.html

We begin! The squash bakes in the oven while we get to work on the filling...

Prepping our ingredients!

We didn't have bell pepper, but it was still colorful and delicious!

Sauteing the ingredients, waiting for the squash to finish cooking in the oven...

I'm helping out by providing some kitchen jams with my boom box... :) 

\

The squash is finally done, so we fork out the spaghetti squash, combine the strands with the other ingredients in the pan, then stuff it back into the squash and broil the entire thing, making sure to throw on extra cheese and cilantro on top. Mmmm!

We accidentally forgot to put on a timer, which ended up slightly burning the top of our creation. Despite this, it was very yummy! We added a garnish of cilantro and dug in! 

Next blog post will be about my little sister's 14th birthday!! Can't believe how old she is! 

Also, I am always looking for new email buddies, so please email or Facebook message me! I love talking with you all.

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned! 

Solar Baking + Happy Joe's Lunch

Hello everyone, 

It has been a great week! 

My mother's friend Lanie brought her spiffy solar oven to bake bread with us. We have never tried baking bread this way so it was really exciting to try out. We felt more like scientists than bakers.

All of the panels concentrate the heat of the sun into the oven. So cool. 

The finished product! Lathered in butter and ready to go...

Mmm...

Naturally, bread just wasn't enough for me. My occupational therapist Melanie has been telling me about Happy Joe's for the past month - it's a charming buffet-style pizza joint that has taco pizza, breakfast pizza, all kinds of good stuff. Plus, the one in my town is the only one on the west side of the United States as of right now. You can check out their menu here: http://www.happyjoes.com/menu/index.php

I used my iPad and TouchChat app to order pizza, too! I get to choose options and the app will tell people what I want. It's easy for my mom and other family members to understand me, but this app helps me communicate with other people who aren't as familiar. Technology rocks!

We got Hawaiian pizza and were treated to free dessert pizza - cinnamon pizza with vanilla icing! 

 Feasting with my mom! Thanks for driving me to Happy Joe's and helping me so much! 

She really is the best. Oh, and my twin sister was also there, she snapped most of these photos for me to use on the blog. Thanks, Ashley! 

Melanie, me, and mom. I got a big ole cup of Root Beer - my favorite. 

Best of all, they took a photo of us and featured our group on their Facebook page! How awesome is that!

 Thanks for catching up with me! Until next time. :)

- Erik

Preparing for Fall with Pumpkin Scones

Hi everyone,

Seeing that the last post was January 18th, it's about time I updated my blog...

It has been a blistering summer, but now that September is here we can start to hope for cooler weather here in Arizona.

Sadly, the decorations in the store are the only change of color for the transition of seasons, but hey, at least we have fall flavors like pumpkin to enjoy!

Which brings me to this yummy recipe - pumpkin scones!

Mmmm...

We found this recipe from Mel's Kitchen Cafe - Link here: http://www.melskitchencafe.com/pumpkin-scones-with-ginger-glaze/ -

You can read the recipe there, or keep reading below:

"Pumpkin Scones with Ginger Glaze

Makes 6-8 scones [we usually double or triple this...]

Ingredients -

Scones:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg [we use less to emphasize the pumpkin flavor]
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup cold butter, cut into pieces
• 1/3 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup canned pumpkin puree (no added spices or sugar)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 
• 1/2 cup white chocolate chips [we didn't use these this time, but man is it good! We also made a batch with cranberries...]

Glaze:

• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon ginger or pumpkin pie spice
• 3 tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

DIRECTIONS: 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
For the scones, in a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, spices, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Toss the cold butter pieces in with the flour mixture and cut in the butter with a pastry blender, two knives, or your fingers (careful not to melt the butter with the heat from your fingers) until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs. In a separate bowl, mix together the buttermilk, pumpkin and vanilla. Add the wet mixture to the dry flour mixture and mix until the dough just barely comes together. If the mixture is too crumbly to come together, add 1-2 tablespoons more buttermilk. Don't overwork the dough or the scones will be tough and dry. Gently mix in the white chocolate chips. The mixture may be on the crumbly side but when you turn it out, it should come together.
Transfer the dough to a very lightly floured surface and knead gently 3-4 times. Pat the dough into a thick circle, about 1 1/2-inches thick. Cut into six or eight pie-shaped wedges. Transfer the scones to a parchment- or silpat-lined baking sheet, placing about 2 inches apart. Bake for 18-20 minutes, just until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Don't overbake.
While the scones are baking, mix together the ingredients for the glaze. When the scones come out of the oven, transfer them to a cooling rack set over a baking sheet or waxed/parchment paper. Drizzle the hot scones with the glaze. Serve warm or at room temperature."

Getting together our dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl, recipe being read off my laptop in the back. 

Helping add ingredients. :) 

 Did I also mention we've made these three times in the past month? They are that good.

Making the mixture resemble coarse crumbs after adding butter. Keeping the bowl nice and steady for my sister (or maybe trying to pull it off the table..Heh heh.)

Before...

...after!

I had a blast baking with my sister and my mom. We're going to try to be better about posting more often, especially as baked goods increase around our house! What is your favorite fall treat to enjoy?

Cheers!

- Erik

Black Bean Quinoa!

For this recipe, my twin and I just messed around with what we had in the kitchen. These instructions are from our Organic Quinoa Ancient Blend bag. Enjoy. :)

First, measure out 1 1/2 cups of quinoa! Then rise with cool water.

Add the quinoa to a sauce pan of 2-3/4 cups of water. You can also use broth, if you want! We stuck with water.

Bring to a boil then lower the heat to simmer. Cook for a whopping 18 minutes, or whenever the water is absorbed into the quinoa.

Remove from heat and let stand for 5 minutes.

From there, we added all the good stuff!

We seasoned black beans over the stove. Then used leftover grilled peppers and onions from our fajita night. The combinations were delicious! Ashley added shredded spinach and kale, too.

Our creation:

Yum!

German Pancakes

WHOAH. Look what we made:

(Looks like an evil, pastry castle...)

Ashley and I spent yesterday morning making a random recipe from our mom's collection. These German pancakes (also known as Dutch babies) require melted, sizzling butter before pouring the batter in to bake - not your typical pour and flip pancakes! It was fun to do something different.

Here's the handwritten recipe:

Yummy!

I'm back!

So...Last post was in July. Oh. My. Goodness.

Shows that I'm quite the blogger, huh?

Anyways, let's get on with it.

This past weekend I baked something from Pinterest. Lisa's Blissful Bites - The Best-Ever Chocolate Chip Cookie - recipe found here: http://goo.gl/9whs3K

They were pretty dang good, but not quite perfect. Maybe that because my twin was the main hands on our project...And let's just say she isn't Betty Crocker. They also call for 3 1/2 cups of flour, which is a lot! We also only used milk chocolate chips. Next time we'll try a little less flour and different types of chocolate chips!

Our creation:

We also had pizza for dinner last night...My favorite! We tried Papa John's fiesta pizza and pineapple/ham. Sooo good.

Along with these oh-so healthy meals, we also have two little guests in our home! Abby and Zoey! They are my dear Aunt Jamie's pups. They miss her, A LOT.

Lola doesn't seem to mind too much. :P

And that's it for now! Feel free to email me or send me songs on Spotify, I love it!

P.S.: Halloween is this Friday...Have any special plans?

Next year I want to be a yellow school bus!