Gluten Free Brownies

Over the weekend, I made these Betty Crocker gluten free brownies for a potluck, in particular for a friend who is gluten free, and they were DELICIOUS!  They were moist and gooey, just the way I like my brownies.  If I didn't tell you and everyone else at the gathering that they were gluten free nobody would have know the difference, they were that convincing!

Jack-o-lanterns

             Happy Halloween!  M and I carved jack-o-lanterns to celebrate the holiday. 

M's Meatloaf

M made a delicious meatloaf with our leftover carrots, celery, tomatoes, and bread among the other usual ingredients and spices.  He blended everything in the food processor, placed the meatloaf a glass loaf pan, and glazed it with ketchup, mustard, bbq sauce, and brown sugar. Next he placed the pan in a bigger 13x9 pan with one inch of water and cooked it for over an hour.  It was super moist and flavorful.  How wonderful to come home to a homemade dinner made with love!

Let Go

My east coast, yogi friend and I are doing a yearlong post card project.  Each month we make and send a postcard to one another.  We learned about this project from our mutual friend A. who's creating and sending 52 postcards (one/week) to her friend in the Garden State.  That seems overly ambitious to me because one postcard/month is challenging enough.

This is my October postcard, which reminds us all to breathe, let go, be present in the moment, and let God. I used newspaper, permanent markers, Modge Podge, and a blank postcard.

Thanks to Keri Speidel's dictionary art over at creativegeniusart for the inspiration.

Glue Line Pumpkin Note Card

This weekend I made a Halloween card for Baci and Dziadziu from a  glue line pumpkin project I saw on Pinterest. I drew the pumpkins in pencil on watercolor paper. Then traced over the pencil lines with Elmer's glue.  Once the glue was dried, I painted the card with watercolors.  Voilà! A Halloween pumpkin card!  I'll definitely use this glue technique to make other note cards. 


For This Project You'll Need: watercolor paper or watercolor note card, pencil, Elmer's glue, watercolors

Pumpkin Yogurt

I bought some Trader Joe's pumpkin butter and have been thinking of different ways to use it.  My colleague made pumpkin Greek yogurt with hers and I thought I'd do the same with nonfat plain yogurt. TJ's pumpkin butter isn't really butter, but a pumpkin puree.  It's fat free and cholesterol free and has less sugar; this pumpkin yogurt has less sugar than many of the pumpkin yogurts in the stores.  I mixed about 6 ounces of yogurt with a serving of pumpkin butter - one tablespoon.

What will you make with your pumpkin butter? I'm sure I'll have more recipes to share in the upcoming weeks.

Folk Art Heart Cross stitch

I borrowed a bunch of my Mom's old cross stitch magazines and have been stitching away.  Here's my latest creation. This folk art heart is from the April/May 1990 edition of Cross Stitch Quick and Easy.