Happy Halloween!

Boo!
Have a save and happy Halloween!

Cinnamon Apple Walnut Cheesecake

Are you still drooling from the Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cake post? If you are, you can still keep drooling for this next one: Cinnamon Apple Walnut Cheesecake.

This recipe was adapted from Kraftfoods Apple Pecan Cheesecake. Their recipe makes a 13 x 9 cheesecake with graham cracker crust and uses sour cream in the cheesecake. I didn't want to make such a big cheesecake and I wanted to try a different crust, so I changed a few things in the recipe. The picture below was from Kraftfoods site:

Ingredients:
1¾ cups ginger snaps crumbs
½ cup melted butter
2 tablespoons sugar
or you could use a pre-made graham cracker crust(which I usually do)

2 pkg cream cheese, 8oz each
½ cup sugar
½ tsp vanilla
2 eggs

1 big apple or 2 med apple, peeled, cored & chopped into little chucks, about 1 – 1½ cup
¼ cup brown sugar
½ tsp cinnamon

Instructions:
1) Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a 9” round cake pan or pie pan with foil. Mix ginger snaps crumbs, butter & sugar and press in the bottom of pan. Bake for 10 minutes, remove from oven and cool.
2) In a large mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until well blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mix until blended. Be sure to scrape sides of bowl after each egg addition.
3) Pour cream cheese mixture into crust and set side.
4) Mix apple chunks, brown sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle apple mixture onto cream cheese mixture. Some of the apple chunks will drop in the cream cheese mixture but that’s ok. The remaining will stay on top of the cream cheese mixture. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Remove from oven and cool. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving. (Trust me, it’s better cold. We couldn’t wait to try it, so we tried a small piece within 2 hours after it was baked, it was still a little warm and I did not like it warm.)

Note: The girls gave their paws up for this cheesecake. :-)

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cake

Believe it or not October is coming to an end soon and Thanksgiving is exactly a month away! I'm sure a lot of you have already planned out the big feast for Thanksgiving day. For those who hasn't, you still have time.

This year for desserts why not try something different than the traditional apple pie and/or pumpkin pie? Or you could serve these along with the apple pie or pumpkin pie: Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cake(pictured above) and/or Cinnamon Apple Walnut Cheesecake. Now don't these just sound yummy?

For today I will post the recipe for Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cake. Let me tell ya, this cake is to-die-for if you love pumpkin and chocolate! I saw this recipe in the Oct/Nov issue of Taste of Home and had been dying to try it. Well, I finally made it yesterday for a party and everyone loved it!

Ingredients:
3/4 cup butter, softened
1-1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 can (15 ounces) solid-pack pumpkin
1 cup (6 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips (I used 1/2 cup semisweet & 1/2 cup white chips)
2 squares (1 ounce each) unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled
3/4 cup finely chopped pecans, divided (I did not put in any nuts)

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cake
Instructions:
1) Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2) In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla.
3) Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon; add to the creamed mixture alternately with pumpkin. Fold in chocolate chips.
4) Divide batter in half. Stir melted chocolate into one portion. In a well-greased 10-in. fluted tube pan, sprinkle 1/2 cup pecans(you can skip this, which I did). Spoon chocolate batter over pecans; top with pumpkin batter. Sprinkle with remaining pecans(or skip this).
5) Bake at 325° for 65-70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 15 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack.
Yield: 12 servings.

In a few days I will post the recipe for Cinnamon Apple Walnut Cheesecake.

Dog Tag?

Well, not really because no one actually tagged us. I saw this over at The Fraker Farm and have decided that I would tag my girls. They each will tell you a few things about themselves.

First up is Samantha because she's got seniority.

Please answer the following questions:
1) What breed are you?
Golden Retriever

2) How old are you?
Just turned 4 last Friday(10/17). So if you haven't sent me my birthday gift, please do so right now, it's not too late

3) What is your full name?
Samantha Jane

4) Do you have any nicknames?
Moose, Moosey, Samsam

5) Where do you usually sleep?
My blankie but I much prefer mommy and daddy's bed

6) What is your favorite thing to do?
Fetching, Swimming, Eating, Sleeping, Playing with my little sis 7) What is something unusual/interesing about you?
Digging for rocks from the lake, as seen here: 8) Who is your best friend?
Mommy, daddy & June

9) Did you go to obedience school? If so were you "TOP DOG" or did you flunk out?
I didn't have to go to school. I am already smart, plus mommy thought me a lot at home. She's a good teacher (Thanks Sam! Love mom.)

10) Can you do any tricks?
I can I can! I can sit, stay, lay down, stay with a treat on my nose and catch it, crawl and open the sliding screen door! I would like to learn how to open the fridge and get my own food but mom won't teach me that.

Thank you Samanthan for answering the questions.

And now June's turn: Please answer the following questions:
1) What breed are you?
Golden Retriever & Huskie mix

2) How old are you?
I will be 3 in November, right on Thanksgiving day. Please plan ahead in sending me my birthday gifts! :)

3) What is your full name?
Junebug

4) Do you have any nicknames?
Woofy, Princess

5) Where do you usually sleep?
Most of the time on mommy and daddy's bed but I also like to share the blankie with Sam

6) What is your favorite thing to do?
Eating, Sleeping on the bed, Playing with my sister, Making snow angels, Eating & playing in the snow 7) What is something unusual/interesing about you?
I like to howl like a wolf

8) Who is your best friend?
Mommy, daddy & June

9) Did you go to obedience school? If so were you "TOP DOG" or did you flunk out?
I did not but mommy & daddy taught me very well, they said I am a very smart girl!

10) Can you do any tricks?
Yes I can! I know how to sit, stay, lay down, speak and make snow angels. How many dogs have you met that know how to make snow angel?

And that conclude our little interview with Samantha and June. They had requested to pass the tag on to a few friends:

Travis and Riley from Purple is a State of Mind
Marcel & Wylie from Velvet Lava
Callie from Achorn Farm
Dustin, Logan & Remington from Razor Family Farms

Please don't feel obligated. It would be really fun to get to know other dogs or cats or goats...etc

Something Fun

I saw this over at Achorn Farm last week and I thought it's kinda fun to do. The object is to answer all the questions with only one word. You are welcome to play along.

Here goes:
1. Where is your cell phone? purse
2. Where is your significant other? working
3. hair color? black
4. Your mother? far
5. Your father? kind
6. Your favorite thing? dogs
7. Your dream last night? none
8. Your dream/goal? happiness
9. The room you're in? accounting
10. Your hobby? baking
11. Your fear? sickness
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? here
13. Where were you last night? home
14. What you're not? boring
15. One of your wish-list items? Alaska
16. Where you grew up? Malaysia
17. The last thing you did? ate
18. What are you wearing? heels
19. Your TV? off
20.Your pet? two
21. Your Computer? old
22. Your mood? sleepy
23. Missing Someone? siblings
24. Your car? outside
25. Something you're not wearing? skirt
26. Favorite Store? Walmart
27. Your summer? over
28. Love someone? many
29. Your favorite color? purple
30. When is the last time you laughed? always
31. Last time you cried? unsure

Garden Review - Part 2

Continuing my garden review(hope I'm not boring you with this):




11) Broccoli

• Planted broccoli for the first time, from seeds!
• Will definitely do that again next year

12) Bok Choy (Chinese Vegetable) - picture on right

• I grew up eating bok choy but this is my first time planting them
• Started from seeds, very easy to grow

13) Mibuna (Japanese Vegetable) - picture on right below bok choy

• Planted these for the first time, from seeds
• Had never tasted them before until now
• Strong taste, good in salad or stir-fry

14) Carrots

• Bought a pack of seeds and followed the instructions on back but did not germinate. Bad seeds maybe?

15) Radishes

• Planted only 1 row, will plant more next year

16) Cantaloupe & Watermelon

• I started these from seeds and transplanted the seedlings but none of them made it. Wonder what I did wrong. Perhaps I did not "harden" the seedlings to the outdoor climate

17) Sunflowers

• Started these from seeds, planted 2 kinds: Evening Sun & Moulin Rouge(pollenless)
• Saved seeds for next year
• Note for next year: Plant sunflowers with cucumbers. The cucumbes will climb up the sunflowers

18) Strawberries

• Purchased 3 types from Four Season Nursery
• Robinson - June bearing
• Quinault - Everbearing
• Ozark - Everbearing
• I can't wait for next season for my own fresh strawberries and of course strawberry jam!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Garden Review - Part 1

Growing season is officially over for me. I picked all the butternut squash, jalapenos, peppers and basil last Wednesday when we had frost warning(which we did get frost for 2 nights). Tomatoes and all the others were all picked a few weeks before last week.

Overall I think this has been a good year for me. A few months back I honestly didn't think the tomatoes would do well this year due to all the rain we had in mid July and early August. It rained almost every other day for a few weeks. My tomato plants looked like they were dying(which you can see from the picture above). But to my surprise the tomato plants kept producing more and more tomatoes.

I started a garden journal this year and here's what I had written down:
1) Tomatoes

• Planted a total of 22 plants, 6 varieties
• Started from seeds 1 variety: Better Boy Hybrid
• Purchased these varieties from the nursery: Beefsteak, Supersonic, Sweet 100, Roma & Grape
• This is my first year starting out with seeds and I did pretty good. Will definitely do it again next season with more varieties

2) Bell Peppers

• Planted 6 plants, all started from seeds
• Not at all thrilled with the peppers, did not get many
• This is my second year with bell peppers and again it didn't do very well, I may not try it again next year

3) Jalapeno Peppers

• Planted 6 plants, all from seeds
• Just like the bell peppers, I am dissapointed at the amount of peppers I got
• The plants are big and healthy looking, just not many peppers. What is up?
• I will however try the jalapenos again next year as this is my first year with jalapenos

4) Cucumbers

• Planted 4 seedlings I started but only 1 survived, this one did not yield many cukes
• Purchased 4 more to replace the dead ones and these did very well
• Will try some pickling cukes next year

5) Butternut Squash

• Purchased 1 plant from the nursery, this was not in my "original" plan but I had some room in the garden and decided to try it for the first time
• Only harvested 3 squashes
• Saved the seeds to try again next year

6) Onions

• First time planting onions
• Planted about 24 bulbs: Yellow onions
• Harvested all 24 but the size is quite small. Not what I had expected. The biggest one was only around 3" in diameter

7) Basil

• Started from seeds and planted 4 basil plants
• Great harvest!

8) Parsley

• Purchsed 1 container from the nursery but it was pretty big so I divided it into 4 to transplant
• All 4 did great and they are still growing

9) Green Beans

• Only planted 6 seeds
• Did not get many
• I will probably skip beans next season

10) Peas

• Planted 2 rows(twice) but those darn bunnies ate them all!!!

...to be continue