I want a sweet big kitty that loves a sweet little girl just like Banjo and Adelaide. 

We had Francois, a recent hire in Clark Kent's department, over for dinner last night.  I was confident in the beer bread and chili that I made a couple of weeks ago, so I made them again.  For dessert, I tried the Joy of Baking recipe for vanilla cupcakes.  They turned out fantastic!  I didn't have enough butter to make a buttercream frosting, so I iced them with a simple cream cheese frosting and they were pretty tasty.  I love how the recipe only yielded 12 cupcakes.  Francois informed us that cupcakes do not exist in France.  He's never really seen them before!  When we invited him for dinner on Tuesday, I prefaced the invitation with, "Do you like to eat chili?"  A conversation ensued about chili peppers.  I then said, "No, chili...soup.  You eat it with a spoon.  It is red and has beans in it.  It's called chili."  He thought for a moment and then said, "Ahhhhhh, chili con carne?"  Yes, that was it!




 

Well, I've gotten back into the crafting spirit.  Until Monday, the last ornament/craft I made was the Obama sun to celebrate his victory on November 5.  So, I jumped into crafting again on Monday night and the living room has been littered with scraps of felt and embroidery floss ever since.  Clark Kent lays on the couch and reads whilst I craft.  He's reading the first Obama book and every now and then he'll look up from his book and I from my ornament because he has something fascinating to share - like Obama's dad's first wife lives in our county, Berkshire.   Anyway, it's a lovely way to spend our evenings.  I will show off my latest two ornaments (I'm keeping a couple a surprise).

The Christmas tree circle and the Star Trek thingie are the new additions.   Those glitter baubles (the pink and the purple) came from The Pier.  They're going out of business and we waited in line to pay for those suckers for about 30 minutes.  I'm not exaggerating.  The place was a mad house last Saturday evening.  It felt like standing in line for a Disney ride. 

Since tomorrow we're having a guest for dinner and I will actually cook up a dinner, I decided to take tonight off (we're having a frozen pizza!).  So, since I had a bit of time on my hands this afternoon/evening, I decided to bake a couple of things: one out of necessity since we're now out of breakfast bread and the other out of curiosity.   May I present Aloha Bread and Cinnamon Butter Cookies:

Both recipes came from allrecipes.com - which is my second favorite website (bloglines is my first).  I can't wait to try the Aloha bread.  It's banana bread with crushed pineapple and coconut.  It just sounds so delicious.  And it baked up perfectly!  The cinnamon butter cookies are made with dark brown sugar.  I was happy to find a recipe that called for dark brown sugar!  I had to bake them in my 13x9 cake pan as I have yet to add the Faberware cookie sheet to my collection.  When we were at TK Maxx this weekend, Clark Kent even offered to purchased a new pan, but I turned him down afraid that we were spending too much money (as we bought MUCH needed 100% cotton sheets for both our bed and the guest bed...since we're having a guest in LESS THAN TWO WEEKS NOW!).  The cookies are pretty good.  They're crisp on the outside and pretty cakey on the inside.  They'll be quite delicious with a nice mug of milk.  They'll accompany this evening's crafting/reading session quite nicely, I think.

 Clark Kent and I went to see a traditional English panto at our church this evening.  It was called A Lad in a Manger and for £2, it was totally worth it.  So cute, fun, well acted, and definitely in the Christmas spirit!  What more could we ask for?  And, during the "interval," I was able to take a few quick, no flash pictures of the inside of the church - it's such a beautiful church and I have wanted to take pictures of it since we first stepped in.  



The Widow Swanky (in the over the top costume) and King Herod were DEFINITELY the best.  King Herod is addicted to sweets and carries that little box around with him so he can get his fix.  BUT, his lines live in that box, too.  CK and I would chuckle every time he "slyly" took a look at his next line.



The three wise guys were the fun modern take of the three wise men.  They consulted google, wikipedia, and asked Jeeves to get the answers to Herod's trick questions.  They were lots of fun.  That crazy donkey was a hoot!  He was the narrator - the one who gave Jesus a ride on the day he was born and the one who hauled his body on the day he died (as he ended up working for a graveyard.  His name is Rover.



 

 This is my new favorite toy:

It came in today's grocery delivery.  It was just £1.84 and it measures in kg AND lb!  I used it tonight to measure about 800 g of potatoes for a pretty tasty dinner of cheese, onion, and potato pie (with a bit of a meaty surprise).

 If you were at the wedding, you might remember the place cards.  They were stamped birds on green card stock.  I tried to make it so that women got one stamp and the men another stamp.  Linda's best friend and her husband have been taking water color classes and after the wedding, Gene painted his own rendition of the birds from his and Gayle's seating cards.  He gave them to me the Friday before we left for England.  For six weeks I have looked around town for the perfect frames to house these precious watercolors and Sunday I found them!  We happed upon The Pier (which is Pier One).  I'm not sure why neither Clark Kent nor I have ever noticed it, for it is right in town centre.  I found the perfect frames with leaves for the birds to live in.  How special these are to me - they will forever be the perfect reminder of our wedding with the combination of our bird and leaf theme.  And, they were painted especially for us by such a dear friend.

Here are Gayle and Gene at the reception. 

We saved the second row for the VIPs.  Gayle and Gene were right the first two seats. 

Gayle's seating card - Table 1. 

Gene's paintings. 


 

I absolutely love pumpkin pie.  Ask Linda and she will tell you I can eat an entire pie from Publix in close to one sitting.  The half a pie in one sitting?  Piece of [pie]!  I love pumpkin bread, too.  Now that I'm a coffee drinker (and by coffee, I mean a flavored latte with half a shot of espresso - and pretty soon I'm going to start asking for double the syrup), I've been to Starbucks in search of a pumpkin latte - but I guess either no Starbucks does them any more or just not in the UK.  When Clark Kent and I ordered the Libby's pumpkin and knew we would have a Thanksgiving, I got busy on allrecipes looking for the perfect pumpkin bread and pumpkin pie recipe.  After quite a bit of searching for bread, I decided to make a Pumpkin Tea Loaf.  What I liked about this recipe is that it used only half a can of pumpkin (so I could make bread recipe as long as it also called for about a cup) and it used orange zest and orange juice.  What I ended up not liking about this recipe is that the middle just would not firm up.  I was too afraid I'd underbake or overbake it.  I had to saw off the very ends of the loaf, but by yesterday (the day after I made it), it had moistened up quite a bit and was actually quite good.  I wish it had a tad more pumpkin flavor, but Clark Kent loves the strong citrus scent.  Basically, I'm just glad I have another loaf on which to use cream cheese.  The pie took a bit more thought.  Immediately I was thinking I'd just go with the standard Libby's Pumpkin Pie recipe.  The crust, however, was going to prove to be problematic.  I was not going to make my own crust - and the recipe calls for a frozen crust anyway.  We checked Asda and could not find a suitable ready made crust.  The ready made crusts they do have on the market are super shallow and made for tarts.  So, I turned to crust less pumpkin pie recipes.  I found some interesting and novel recipes on allrecipes, but when I asked CK how much he liked pie crust, I decided that crustless pumpkin pie was not going to happen.  Then I turned my attention to pumpkin cheesecake.  I pretty soon discovered that the Asda doesn't sell graham crackers and we don't have a spring form pan - not that we couldn't buy one for this recipe, but I like buying pans that I am confident I will use often.  Needless to say, the cheesecake was crossed of the list of possibilities.  Around 10 pm on Wednesday night I discovered pumpkin cheesecake bars on allrecipes.  I immediately put it in my recipe box and kept searching for other possibilities.  I very quickly realized that I already had the best recipe and returned to it to study the steps and reviews.  The recipe called for it to  be made in a 15x10 jelly roll pan - which we KIND of have - and the crust called for a box of cake mix - which I knew I could get at Asda as they do sell a few Betty Crocker goods.  I shared it with CK and he suggested we just buy a new pan for the occasion - a regular 13x9 pan.  Sooo.....after a few modifications (all modifications that had been tested and written about by reviewers, so I knew I was safe), I used a 13x9 pan to make my pumpkin cheesecake bars and I used a carrot cake mix (instead of pound cake) to make the crust.  It turned out absolutely perfect.  I second guessed myself about taking them out of the oven and ended up leaving them in maybe 3 minutes too long - but this slight overcooking did nothing to the filling and only toughened the crust a bit around the edges - it was still delicious.  The consistency is just slightly more creamy than a pumpkin pie, but it tastes nearly identical to pumpkin pie.  The carrot cake crust was SUCH a great and easy idea.  And, I love that you can pick it up and eat it like a brownie.  May I present Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars:

Oh yeah, here's the bread, too:

 Clark Kent and I have had a fabulous first Thanksgiving together.  And the day's not over yet - we still have a tree to decorate, hot chocolate to drink, and pumpkin cheesecake bars to eat (those pictures will come later).  But, we sure did have a great time cooking up our Thanksgiving dinner, spending time together, and basking in our gratitude for each other and all our many blessings.

Everything turned out delicious.  A mozzarella meatloaf (rolled up jelly roll style), green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin orange bread (not pictured here).  iTunes has been playing Christmas music and today just might have been the best since we've arrived. 

I just can't wrap my head around how THIS
 
can become THIS

Dinner was absolutely fantastic last night.  AND AND AND...
the best part is, we have leftovers which we're eating tonight!

Both the beer bread and chili for two (that I doubled - hence the left overs) recipes were splendid!  They were definite confidence boosters.  The canned pumpkin arrived this afternoon and in about 5 minutes I will take our pumpkin tea bread out of the oven (special ingredients: orange peel AND orange juice).  I CAN'T WAIT TO TASTE IT.

 

But things ended poorly - in a bit of a melt down that materialized in the wee hours of the night.  Poor Clark Kent.  Dinner was a disaster.  I had studied the recipe for potato-banana-chicken cakes with this delicious sauce until I really knew what was going on.  I was so careful with following this recipe since there was quite a bit going on and well, it was our dinner, so I wanted it to turn out perfectly.  In fact, I was the kind of careful that keeps you in the kitchen for hours - standing on a hard floor on bare feet that makes your feet hurt the next day (which is today, which they do).  You will not see any finished product picture because the whole mess ended up in the garbage can:

I didn't know they were going to be a flop.  One time Clark Kent made fish cakes and I helped a bit.  When he began to fry them, things weren't working - so he baked them a bit and they still turned out great.  These, however, were a flop.  I didn't cry about it until the wee hours of the night when I had my real melt down - poor, poor CK.  However, as the verse in Psalms says, "Though the sorrow may last in the night, the joy comes in the morning," which happens to be the way the song "Trading My Sorrows" puts it, this morning seemed hopeful and joyous.  Since neither one of us slept much last night because I was a bit of a basketcase, we didn't get up until nearly 11.  I decided to get back in the saddle and cook something easy - something I knew would turn out: scrambled eggs with "cheese alternative."

Clark Kent announced that he would stay home Thursday and we would prepare our own Thanksgiving feast and even get a Christmas tree.  Thanks to Ben's previous comment, we called and ordered Libby's canned pumpkin and Stove Top Stuffing, which will arrive tomorrow (the £8 next day delivery fee seemed a small price to pay for comfort) AND AND AND...shortly after Clark Kent left for the office (nearly 3 hours later than usual), I checked my email and found the most glorious email I've received in a while: and invitation to interview for the shelving position I applied for at the oncampus library!  We're buying tights this weekend for the event!  So, on Monday, December 1st, I will hopefully convince the powers that be to hire me!

And, not to be beaten by culinary disaster, the beef is thawing on the counter.  I WILL successfully make chili and beer bread for dinner tonight.  And, it will be delicious.  So there!

I'm on the up and up....
 

 

 

 

And, it always seems to rain when we're heading home:


 

 

 

We also bought two newspapers (the campus store sells them dirt cheap) so we could feel informed.  Clark Kent enjoyed tucking them under his arm on the walk back to our flat.  We enjoyed tea and banana bread (this time with cream cheese on top) and each called home.  I began reading a book called Super Foods (put out by DK - basically, I love all DK books) and taking notes in the 5x8 notebook Clark Kent got me.  We walked to our little neighborhood shops to a bookstore that's closing down - a used book store selling all books for a pound, and children's book are just 50 pence.  I found a copy of Winnie the Pooh and Clark Kent got an economics textbook AND got REALLY excited to find a copy of Watership Down (I had no idea he loved that book).  It was a fruitful trip because I finally took this picture (that I've wanted to take for 6 weeks now):

Tomorrow we're going to meet my aunt (who's been in the UK working on a movie since August) in town - so, we're back on the bus.

 

(we need a dryer, or at least a drying rack)