the Moore 4

If eating the hind end of a loaf of bread isn’t your thing…

Make Croutons!

(out of them)

It’s easy and here’s a few steps you could follow:

Cut up the slices of left over bread into small square-ish type shapes and place in a mixing bowl.

Drizzle olive olive over top of cubes and sprinkle dried parsley flakes, garlic powder and onion powder. Mix together.

Repeat step above and mix again.

(the parsley was feelin’ a little camera shy today. it happens to the best of spices – y’know)

Place seasoned goodness on a cookie sheet and bake for about 10 minutes at 350 degrees.

After baking for 10 minutes and while croutons are still in the oven, stir them around a little bit with a spatula.

Turn oven off and continue to bake for another 10 minutes.

When finished, take out of the oven and let sit for a bit to continue drying.

They should be crispy…

Place in a storage container with a cover, store in the fridge and Voila!

Croutons for your next salad!

Looks like this made about 2 cups. This was 4 slices of bread loaf ends :)

And make sure to watch over your shoulder… someone or something! might just want to come and over and take a bite without the salad!

Carice –  our crazee fun four year old.

But did you know…That Little Nose of hers is Somethin’ Special.

Peel back that skin (cuz an x-ray wouldn’t show)

And you’d find a Marshmallow For Sure!

[_] A White Miniature Marshmallow Squooshy and Extra Soft [_]

(without the gritty powder.)

Yup!

It’s so fun to kiss – that little nose!

You may have noticed our  Overheards over there ——-}

Today I was in the play room and at the time I was cutting up some paper to help repair Cali’s dollhouse. (A make shift peg and stuff) Anyway… little did I know at the time I was cutting up paper that contained this ‘kind’ poem :)

a little Valentine pre-love, perhaps?

I wanted to put a new pic on FB, but I felt too vain to do one by myself.

So, I had my littlest love be a part of the picture…

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Plus we ended up having some good laughs with her craziness!

But now I am linking up to Little Miss Momma‘s self portrait post – and be sure to check out her other blog about secrets – wow!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffs (with a twist)

This photo is actually of the second batch I made. These are a little skimpy on the chocolate chips (used what I had) but maybe they will pass…

One can of pumpkin, it finally dawned on me, will make 2 batches (about 24 muffs). This saves from having to save pumpkin in the fridge.

(It’s not exactly 2 cups in the can, I don’t think, but – eh….)

But, I didn’t want to use one whole can of pumpkin in case my idea for a slightly different pumpkin chocolate chip muff turned out not so good.

This is what I snuck in the batter and then baked  :)

Okay – not the whole box of packets – just one.

One organic oatmeal chocolate chip packet.

I didn’t tell Cali, but I did tell Rick cuz he just needs to know food things sometimes.

Anyway… Cali ate them with no complaints and no questions!

SCORE!

And Rick decided that it wasn’t so bad.

There really isn’t that much oatmeal in them, but you can ‘feel’ it when you eat these muffs.

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I’d love it if all us us here on Dakota would gobble up a bowl of oatmeal every morning. It’s so Healthy! But, it’s just not gonna happen. Carice will eat it, but doesn’t often. And I will, too, but even for me, it has to be just so and I just can’t seem to make myself eat it more often like I should.

Anyway…

Besides. Who would really eat chocolate chip oatmeal? Maybe Carice. Although, she chose the plain version from the giant Costco box when she had it not to long ago; to which I add brown sugar on top :)

Here’s the recipe if you’d like to try them.

I had a no-salt version of banana bread that I *tweaked* and this is another *tweaked* variation of that:

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins w/ Oatmeal – makes around/almost ? 24)

1 cup butter

1/2 cup sugar

1 can (15oz) pumpkin or 2 cups

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1 cup wheat flour

1 cup white flour

2 packages of  instant oatmeal chocolate chip

4 eggs

1 tsp baking soda

1 or2 tsp vanilla

3/4 cups semi sweet (or milk) chocolate chips x 2 –sorry I can’t add 3/4 cups together :)

brown sugar

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With Electric Mixer: cream butter with sugar; add spices, vanilla and baking soda. Mix in eggs, flours and oatmeal. Stir in chocolate chips by hand.

Use paper-lined cupcake tins and sprinkle brown sugar on top.

Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

Cut recipe in half if you want to make 12 muffs.