Horror Horror!

Samantha here, I have a complaint on mom! I do not know what she was thinking yesterday morning or if she was trying to "tell" me something.

My mom vacuumed my tail!!! I was laying on the kitchen floor, minding my own doggie business and next thing I knew, my tail was being sucked into the vacuum cleaner!!! Was she trying to tell me that I'm dirty? But that's not how you clean a puppy! What should I do wif mom? Do you think this grounds fur punishment?

YD: Mommy sincerely apologize my dear girl. Mommy is sorry for accidentally vacuumed your tail. I was vacuuming the cobb webs and didn't realize that I had pulled the vacuum too close to Samantha. Next thing I heard was my vacuum getting stuck and frantic nail clicking sounds on the floor. To my horror, Samantha's was sucked into the vacuum! I hurried and turned off the vacuum and helped her "unstuck" her tail. Poor girl, she ran right outside to the deck. I went out to hug her and kiss her and apologize to her.

Additional notes: Samantha's tail is fine. After mommy's hugs and kisses, it was wagging happily again. She didn't seem to be over-traumatized, just at that moment she was. After that she just went on as usual. I went back to vacuuming and she stayed in the same room instead of running away.

Golden Friday

Sisfurs furever!

Samantha: Mom was putting laundry away and June was already sleeping on the bed,

so mom helped me up the bed.

June & Samantha: We have a little news to tell efurybody. Mom said we are going to have a little brofur or sisfur. She said in another 6 months the little one will arrive. They kept asking us if we are going to be good big sisters and protect the little one.

YD: The little addition to the family is not going to be a dog but will be a little human instead! Yes, my husband and I are expecting our first child(together)! The little human "pup" is expected to "arrive" on New Year's Day.

Rhubarb Coffee Cake

Remember a few weeks ago I got some rhubarb from a co-worker? I still have some in the fridge and wanted to find ways to use them up. So I went online searching for rhubarb desserts recipes. I found a few rhubarb coffee cake recipes and this was one of them: Big Crumb Coffee Cake. I saw this recipe over at Smitten Kitchen and her scrumptious photos of this coffee cake made me drooled all over my desk(well, not really).

I made this recipe for a pic-a-nic last Saturday and it was a hit! There was no leftover at all, so the next day I made another one, except I used frozen blueberries this time instead of rhubarb. It tastes just as delicious!

Here's the recipe, adapted from Smitten Kitchen:

‘Big Crumb’ Coffeecake with Rhubarb
Adapted from The New York Times 6/6/07

Not rhubarb season? Don’t fret. I think this cake would be amazing with a blueberry, raspberry, sour cherry or any other tangy fruit filling you can think of. Simply adjust the sugar level accordingly–most of these will need far less than rhubarb does to make them palatable.

Butter for greasing pan

For the rhubarb filling:
1/2 pound rhubarb, trimmed (I didn't have a scale, so I use 2 1/2 cups of chopped rhubarb)
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

For the crumbs:
1 3/4 cups cake flour (I used All Purpose Flour and I only used 1 1/4 cup)
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick or 4 ounces) butter, melted

For the cake:
1/3 cup sour cream
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup cake flour (I used AP flour)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons softened butter, cut into 8 pieces.

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease an 8-inch-square baking pan.
For filling, slice rhubarb 1/2 inch thick and toss with sugar, cornstarch and ginger. Set aside.

2. To make crumbs: In a large bowl, combine flour, sugars, spices and salt. Add melted butter and mix it with a fork. The mixture will be slightly wet. Set aside.

3. To prepare cake, in a small bowl, stir together the sour cream, egg, egg yolk and vanilla. Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, mix together flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add butter and a spoonful of sour cream mixture and mix on medium speed until flour is moistened. Increase speed and beat for 30 seconds. Add remaining sour cream mixture in two batches, beating for 20 seconds after each addition, and scraping down the sides of bowl with a spatula. Scoop out about 1/2 cup batter and set aside.

4. Scrape remaining batter into prepared pan. Spoon rhubarb over batter. Dollop set-aside batter over rhubarb; it does not have to be even.

5. Using your fingers, break up the topping mixture into big crumbs, about 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch in size. They do not have to be uniform. Sprinkle over cake. Bake cake until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean of batter (it might be moist from rhubarb), 45 to 55 minutes. Cool completely before serving.

Yield: 6 to 8 servings.

Happy Anniversary!

8 years ago, a boy met a girl;
They got married and live happily forever after...

Happy Anniversary Hubby!

Thank you for being a wonderful husband!

Looking forward to many more years.

Golden Friday

June, investigating what's going on...

Samantha, just chillin' and smillin' fur mom


Happy Father's Day to our daddy! We wuv woo!

Hope woo pups and hoomans have a great weekend!

Pea'd out

I am all pea'd out. I've been picking and eating a lot of peas lately. I have been picking peas almost every other day and thank goodness I think they are almost done. You see, in the previous years I almost never planted enough peas, not even enough to make it out of the garden. So this year I went crazy and planted the entire package of seeds. Now, I have

endless peas. I've given some away and I've freeze some.

This are garlic scapes. Scapes are immature flower stalks from garlics. They should be removed in order to focus all the garlic's energy into bulb growth, that way you get bigger bulbs. But don't throw the scapes away! The scapes are delicious when cooked(or you can eat it raw). They taste just like garlic. You can stir-fry them, steam them, or saute them.

Below are pictures of my garden.

In the far end are peas, some NG Impatiens, 3 types of peppers(Jalapenos, Sweet Banana & Italian Pepperoncini), Marigold and Eggplants. In the front are various tomatoes(Opalka, Yellow Pear, Black Cherry, Betterboy, Beefmaster, Cherokee Purple) with basil and marigold in between.

My Three-Sisters planting: Corn(Sugar Buns), Beans(Chinese Red Noodle) and Squash(Pumpkin & Sweet Dumpling)

Three-sisters planting in the back left. Front left: cukes, zukes and sweet potatoes.

On the right: 4 varieties of Garlics and next to them are my row of herbs and onions.

Another look at the garlics. Behind the garlics are carrots, which you can't see from the picture.

My potatoes: Yukon Gold, Dark Red Norland, Laratte fingerlings and All Blue. In the far right end are some strawberries.

Golden Friday - Are You Smart?

Seeing Wrigley's post about his new toy yesterday inspired us to paw about our post fur today.

When mom and dad visited Kane's pawrents in March, mom noticed a very neat toy Kane has. She asked his mom about it and they showed us how the toy is played. The toy Kane has is:

Nina Ottosson Dog Activity Toys: Dog Brick (picture below). You put treats in the "holes" and then slide the black covers over the treats. Then you let your SMART doggie figure out how to get to the treats! Mom said she is going to get us one. We hope she gets it soon. Please also check out other Nina Ottosson Dog Activity Toys here.

Mom also went online and search for some other toys for smart doggies and here's what she found:

TreatStik

Twist N' TreatBusy BuddySo do you have any smart doggie toys?

Rhubarb-Apple-Ginger Butter

A co-worker of mine brought in a bunch of rhubarbs, and if you know me, I never pass up any free fruits/veggies(the ones that I don't have growing). So I brought some home with me and then figured out what to do with them later.

I've seen a recipe for Orange Rhubarb Butter on Food In Jars and I was going to make that. But my computer was "out of commission" so I couldn't get to the recipe. What's a girl to do? I made up my own! The end product is sweet with a little tang. If you do try this recipe, will you please be so kind and come back to let me know what you think? Thank you.

Rhubarb-Apple-Ginger Butter

Ingredients:

• 3 cups chopped rhubarb
• 1 cup chopped apple
• A little less than 1/4 cup finely minced ginger
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup orange juice

Instructions:

• Mix everything in a medium saucepan and bring the mixture to a boil.
• Lower the heat to low and simmer for about an hour. The end product looks somewhat like apple sauce.
• Immediately ladle hot butter into canning jars and process jars according to canning instrustions. It will make about 2 pints. I did not can this batch, I just put them in air-tight containers and store them in the fridge.

Golden Friday

Mom has been slacking big time lately. We need to have a talk with her. We need some updated pictures of us but fur today please enjoy 2 pictures from our archive.

Samantha chewing on Kong

June, being lazy

We received an award from our friend Sugar!

Thank you very much Sugar for giving us this award!

Rules for accepting this award...
(1) Thank the blogger who gave you this award. Thanks again Sugar. You are so sweet!
(2) We have to Share 7 things about us:

• We love going camping
• We love to sleep on mom and dad's bed
• Samantha loves her Kong
• June loves to sleep on the bathroom tile floor
• Samantha's nickname is Moose
• June's nickname is Princess
• We love going for rides

(3) As for rule #3, we are not going to follow because we just can't pick 15 bloggies.

Happy weekend!