A Few Things from Today

A few things from today...

• when I go walking, sometimes I will pass by a nearby shopping plaza and when I go by the plaza, I usually stop into the Dollar Tree and stock up on about $10 worth of extra stuff.  With all of the talk about food shortages and supply chain disruptions, I figure it is always good to have extra food and supplies on hand just in case (and if we don't use this stuff after a while, I usually box it up and send it to the Philippines).  Today I stocked up on beans and tuna.
  
• from the news...our local water levels have been dropping like crazy and in today's news it was reported that the Colorado River levels may drop so low that the dams on the river may no longer be able to generate power!  Yikes!  I'm trying to get hubby to move but so far he hates the idea.  He will hate summer in the desert without electricity even more!
  
• I made a tres leches cake today!  This is the first time I've tried to make it and according to my Mexican neighbors and hubby, it tasted great!  I thought it was ridiculously sugary so if I make it again I might cut back a little on the sugar, especially in the whipped cream.  Also, I forgot to take a picture of the big cake I made before giving it to the neighbor, below is the smaller section I kept for us.
  

 

Cinnamon Rolls

I was bored today so I decided to make some cinnamon rolls.  I pulled up a random recipe online--it said these were the best cinnamon rolls--so I baked some up and can confirm these actually are the best cinnamon rolls I've ever made!  Usually they are dry and tough but these were really light and fluffy.  Yum!

A Lazy Day at Home

It was a cool and overcast day today so I decided to stay home and bake a few thing.  First up,  blueberry muffins which are the very easiest thing to bake.  Then I threw together a potato salad (boiled eggs and potatoes, add some chopped onions and baby dill pickles as well as a bit of pickle relish, then mix up a sauce of mayo, mustard, salt, pepper, and a little dill...easy!).  Finally I made some granola (oats, crushed nuts--in this case almonds since I had a bag of almonds than I needed to shell and use up anyway--a bit of brown sugar, a bit of oil, a bit of maple syrup, stir and bake at 275 until dry and crunchy).  Next I did our taxes at H & R Block online which is super simple.  I need to wait a week or so to finalize our taxes as I don't know if hubby has any casino winnings from last year (it seems like we didn't do anything last year but he played in January and February and I can't remember if he won anything big back then).  Overall a very quiet and somewhat productive day today!

Blueberry Muffins

It was a quiet day in the middle of a quiet week so in addition to my usual household chores--cleaning the house, doing the laundry, washing our bedding--I decided to use up some older frozen blueberries by making blueberry muffins.  I don't have a particular recipe for blueberry muffins so I Googled and came up with 'To Die for Blueberry Muffins'.  While they weren't actually "to die for"--maybe because I didn't add the sugary topping?--they did come out pretty yummy!  One of my general goals for this year is creating less waste so using up food that would otherwise be tossed in the garbage goes right along with this goal.

Baking Today

It's a quiet day today so instead of going to get some sort of treat at the store and spending money, I decided to bake some brownies from scratch.  I used this recipe, and I can't rave enough about using parchment paper when baking, especially sticky things.  I would usually have to pry the brownies out of the pan after they were baked, even after thoroughly greasing and flouring the pan, but with parchment paper I just pick the brownies up out of the pan and peel the paper off the brownies.  As you can see I still haven't figured out how to keep the crumply paper from making crumply-looking brownies but they tasted great!