Pumpkin Muffins

Fall equals pumpkin season
pumpkin season plus fall back equals an extra hour to bake before work!

These simple pumpkin muffins have allowed me to embrace the season and baking early in the morning is such an amazing way to start my day. Perfectly paired with rich coffee or matte tea.

Sugar, vanilla, pumpkin spice, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, baking powder, flour, oats, egg, olive oil, and love. Gently Stir together ingredients, do not over mix. Pour into greased muffin pans and bake at 325 for 10-20 minutes until toothpick comes out clean. Let cool... enjoy!

Brewing Kelly's IPA and My Current Beer Drinking Favorites

Final Product! Used an old stamp kit to label each bottle using blank name tags. 

BREWING: This past month I ventured into the land of home brewing. I had been wanting to experiment with home brewing for a couple years now but was to intimidated (and a bit to busy) to actually get the supplies and ingredients to start a batch. The above photo is the initial soak of the grain in warm water.

BREWING: This past month I ventured into the land of home brewing. I had been wanting to experiment with home brewing for a couple years now but was to intimidated (and a bit to busy) to actually get the supplies and ingredients to start a batch. The above photo is the initial soak of the grain in warm water.

First off, BREWING IS SO EASY!! If you can handle making homemade bread you can handle brewing beer. We decided to make an IPA, my Dad's favorite. It took us about 4 hours to complete the boil and since then I have spend an hour each week monitoring and dry hopping the batch.
The above is a photo of the boil while we were stirring in the hops.

After 2 weeks of primary fermentation, I racked the beer into a secondary fermentation vessel, a glass carboy. We added additional hops to the beer, this is termed 'Dry Hopping' because the hops are being added once all the sugar has been converted to alcohol, aka 'dry'.

The beer is still aging in the carboy and we plan to bottle it in the next few weeks!






BEER DRINKING: Here are three beers I have been enjoying lately.

Excellent Double IPA from one of my favorite breweries, Ninkasi, located in Eugene, Oregon.

Lagunitas Lucky 13. A go to brewery for me.

Uncommon Brewers Bacon Brown Ale. An interesting and delicious beer to switch things up!

Hens and roosters

Baby chicks at three days old

This May for my Mom's birthday I brought home nine baby chicks for us to raise and live in the vacant chicken coop that is in the back garden. We have have chickens in the past. Lately we have been missing fresh eggs in the morning so decided to get another batch. 

                                  Chicks at three months old enjoying watermelon, what a treat!

We have three boys, yes three roosters. I have enjoyed waking up to their attempts at cock a doodle doooing but I am not sure how long the three will last in our neighborhood! They are doing a wonderful job at eating all the compost we produce. Stay tuned for fresh eggs, maybe more chicks next spring.

Summer in the garden

       

Fresh basket of produce picked from my backyard. Featuring orange and purple mini carrots, lettuce, sugar snap peas, zucchini, plums, apricots, blackberries and strawberries! 

First flying saucer squash has been harvested ! It is summertime and my garden is full of delicious fruits and veggies. Everyday I look forward to checking on all my plants and seeing what needs tending to or what needs to be brought inside for dinner! I am looking forward to green and red grapes (just netted to keep the birds away), should be ready to pick in a few weeks!

Yosemite Falls Dinner

 This past week I went snow camping in Yosemite. It was my first time camping at this time of year and it was awesome. The above picture is Half Dome and was taken about half way up the Upper Yosemite Falls hiking trail.

At the campsite we had limited resources for cooking but we were still able to make a couple delicious meals. The above picture is a Mexican inspired stir fry which was delicious and super easy !

Ingredients:
Bell peppers
Jalapenos
Ginger
Red and white onions
potatoes
sweet potatoes
tomatoes
eggs

Guacamole- mash up 2 avocados, slice one white onion and add. Add lemon, pepper or a little salsa to taste and enjoy with chips, on top of stir frys  or on a slice of bread !

Chop all vegetables and mince ginger. Cook onions, ginger and potatoes first and add in the rest of the vegetables as the potatoes cook. When all vegetables are cooked stir in 2-4 eggs, depending on how many you are serving. The eggs cook very quickly so do this right before you are ready to serve. Serve in bowls or on corn tortillas with guacamole and salsa !

The above picture is me at the top of Upper Yosemite Falls after a 3.7 mile climb to the top. The first half of the hike was rock stairs and the second half was in the snow ! The views along the way were spectacular!

Voodoo Doughnuts.......Good things come in pink boxes...

Voodoo doughnuts, the final destination after a long adventurous Thursday in Eugene, Oregon. During my week in Eugene, visiting my wonderful sister Kristen, I had a lot of good experiences. Voodoo doughnuts is a local and very popular doughnut shop. We stopped in at 10 p.m. and they were still busy baking. It is a very cute shop in downtown Eugene, there are other locations throughout Oregon.

Kristen enjoying a Vegan M&M doughnut!

Me happily holding and indulging on a Vegan Glazed doughnut!

Chocolate Raspberry Cake

Pretty simple...Trader Joe's Chocolate Cake Mix, follow directions on back of box. Decorate with fresh raspberries! Enjoy!

Polenta & Mushrooms, Gorgonzola Salad, Chocolate Cake with Raspberries

For Valentine's Day Dinner I was in Eugene, Oregon visiting my sister. We decided to cook dinner and wanted something relatively easy and quick. The main course was polenta and mushrooms with parmesan cheese sprinkled on top.  The salad was a standard gorgonzola salad to compliment the savory flavors of the main mushroom based dish.

For dessert we bought a chocolate cake and icing mix from Trader Joe's (we decided a cake from scratch was to complicated at the time) and added fresh raspberries for decoration and to compliment the dark, rich chocolate.

Polenta & mushrooms
Ingredients:
1 cup button mushrooms thinly sliced
1 cup shiitake mushrooms thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic minced
2 cups polenta
parmesan cheese for toppings

Simmer mushrooms and garlic until cooked. Cook polenta until it is the consistence of oatmeal. Serve in bowl with mushrooms over polenta.

Gorgonzola Salad
Ingredients:
2 cups mixed greens
1/4 cup red onion, thinly sliced
1/4 cup gorgonzola cheese
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup cucumbers
olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dressing, to taste

Combine in a bowl and mix. Adjust quantities of ingredients to taste! Serve on separate plate or bowl.


Arrange your entire meal on the dining table and note how beautiful and delicious everything looks, enjoy !

Welcome

Welcome to my blog, Piglets. My name is Lianna Jane Kelly, I am currently 23 years old and live in Santa Cruz, California. This blog is for me to share my love of cooking, baking, gardening, the outdoors and do it yourself everything. Here goes nothing, enjoy the ride!