In the Kitchen: Pumpkin Muffins

I can't believe I've gone this long on the blog without mentioning my recipe for pumpkin muffins! But then, my mum did just leave me with nearly a year's supply of tinned pumpkin, so if ever there was a time to share my love of this particular squash, now is it.

I love these things: as far as foods go, they're one of the oldest and fondest memories I have. (Though my mum's Christmas cookies all have a special place in my heart.) The recipe, as with many of my favourite baked things, comes from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook.

Originally, the recipe is for pumpkin bread, but I've never bothered do whip up this particular confection in loaf form. Here then, with my own slight modifications, is Fannie Farmer's pumpkin bread recipe:

Yield: 12 muffins (or 1 9x5x3" loaf)
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup sugar (I use 1/2-3/4 cup...you don't really need more than that.)
1 cup pureed pumpkin
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup water
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp cinnamon
(1/2 cup chopped nuts...I never add these, but you can if you'd like.)

1)Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C.
2) Sift together the dry ingredients.
3) Mix up the eggs, spices, oil, water, and pumpkin, then add to the dry ingredients.
4) Line your tin with muffin cups, or butter your loaf pan. I've found, though, that if you have a good non-stick tin, you're not necessarily worse off if you forget to butter the muffin tins or loaf pan.
5) For 12 muffins, bake for about 25 minutes. For a loaf, bake 50-60 minutes. Either way, if a skewer comes out clean, you're good to go.
6) After a minute or two (just long enough to cool ever so slightly), pop your muffins or loaf out of the tin and onto a cooling rack. You can consume them as hot or room-temperature as you'd like: they're delicious either way!
7) Enjoy plain, or with butter, or with cream cheese, or with this gorgeous cream cheese frosting!

via, Not So Humble Pie

If you do make this one, have fun with it! I hope it turns out well. E and I are definitely enjoying some warm muffins on this unseasonably snowy day. Seriously, English weather: get the memo. It's supposed to be spring!

Snow again? Honestly...

Enjoying the Snow

This weekend we headed up to the in-laws's place to get the whole family together for the first time in 2 years. The Husband's youngest brother has been in France doing missionary work and just came home earlier last week. Aside from the initial inconvenience of clogging some of the roads, the weather couldn't have been better, either. Who doesn't love a cozy family gathering when there's picturesque snow outside and you have nowhere else to be?

Accordingly, we enjoyed copious amounts of hot chocolate, Lindt truffles, home-baked cookies, YouTube videos, and sledging. Pictures of that last activity to follow...

Father and son just before their first trip down the hill!

Henricus and Rachel

Henry wasn't too sure about going sledging...

Em gives Tim and Felicity a push.

Robin getting to know his youngest (for now) nephew

We all had a fantastic time playing games, watching videos, and reading books. Not to mention letting E and Henry run around all over the place together. It's nice to have the space and the leisure to just let him wander around to his heart's content.

Not sure yet what the rest of this week will bring, aside from a much-needed trip to the mechanic to get our car sorted! But at least E has now been able to enjoy a proper snowfall and his first two sledge rides with Mummy & Daddy. Hopefully, this week will bring the first signs of some new teeth. Because right now we just have all of the fussiness with none of the benefit of new chompers. Hmm...

Take What You Can Get

That is my philosophy with snow here in England: take what you can get, because it won't be much! That's why, when we woke to a light dusting in the car park of our block of flats, I decided to break out the snow trousers (thanks, Momma!) and get E outside pronto.

I used to have a tiny baby...

The last time we got any snow was back in February. Being about 4 months old, E wasn't really of an age to appreciate the snow. Now that he is, the snow wasn't significant enough to be worth appreciating. But I took him out to run around in it all the same. I'll be honest: it was more for me than anything else.

It's funny to think how much has changed since our last snow. E can walk now, and so it was worth letting him sport his little red Wellies to stomp around the car park. How did the tiny baby I held in the snow suddenly become a toddler who can scamper off all on his own? It may feel strange, but don't get me wrong: I love it. I can't wait to get some proper snowfall so that I can introduce this boy to all the joys of winter. Sledging, ice skating, snowball fights, igloo building...there's a whole world just waiting for me to use my kid as an excuse to rediscover.

And speaking of using my kid as an excuse for things, how about another cute video? I'm starting to have fun with our camera and Windows Movie Maker. (Oh, and special thanks to Mr. Dean Martin for providing this clip's backing track!)

Agent of Chaos (The Dark Knight)

At the end of my tether tonight with the internet, I've decided that the best way to relieve the stress of web design is to blog. Creation of a web page with much less effort required.
This above is really what drove me towards insanity: Dreamweaver. Designing a page is all fine and dandy; the only problem is when html-illiterate Yours Truly tries to publish the page to the internet. I will resume my battle with Adobe in the morning. Though at this point, the fight feels a bit like the Charge of the Light Brigade...

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred

The next project after this (aside from a research paper proposal) will be planning a fashion show with the IOC. (Yay!) Of course, even more fun was yesterday's weather. Just to even things out, after leaving the 4 or so odd feet of snow in Utah, and after everyone in London got to enjoy a few inches of snow, it decided to snow here as well.

Of course, I'm quite excited, since it's only snowed about 4 times in my whole 3 years on campus...

...This one felt very "Chronicles of Narnia".

The view from my window. It was flurrying quite hard at this point.

Trees in the Q! (This was on the way to the faculty woodwind quintet concert...manditory, of course, but very good.)