Where I've Been

At the beginning of autumn I found myself offered an opportunity.  There was a contest offered by the local city council to help start your business.  It included classes about writing a business plan, marketing your business and technology available for small businesses.  I had dreamed about starting a cupcake business for a while.  My big dream was to have a cupcake food truck that would go around three days a week and sell cupcakes.  I signed up for the contest and was really excited.  For the month of October I was busy drawing up the financials, looking up how to get a food truck and refurbish it, what sort of legal hoops I needed to jump through and how to write a business plan.  And it took All. Of. My. Time.  Eventually it went from a food truck to just a stand at the farmer's market in the summer.  But that meant I would give up every weekend I had off to sell cupcakes and then bake those cupcakes (read hundreds) in my "free" time after work and at the end of a year I'd make around $10,000.  I may or may not have had a minor breakdown.  And then in all of that Mom said something that freed me.  "Who says you have to do it?"  I was caught up in not letting anyone down.  I feel so guilty if I say I'm going to do something and then don't follow through that I felt locked in to creating this business.  There were other people in the contest that had businesses that were their livelihoods or were giving up their day jobs to start a business and here I was still clinging to my day job and thinking of starting this business for what?  For fun?  I realized that I am not prepared to start baking as a business.  I am not an expert at baking and I have never baked more than one set of cupcakes at a time to take in to work.  The work it took to do the financials was torture and that's what most of my time would be about.  I have so many other things that I love to do or want to learn to do besides my day job and all of the time I have to do them would be lost to making cupcakes.  I love baking, but not being forced to make them, lets me do it for fun not for profit.

Around this same time I was writing a lecture for the students in the Medical Laboratory Science program about clinical microbiology.  It's what I am (a Medical Laboratory Scientist) and what I do every day (clinical microbiology) and what I've done for 10 years.  It was easy to sit down and write about microorganisms and pathogens and all the intricacies in identifying them.  And I realized in that I am close to an expert.  I have experience and certifications and I really love doing it most days. I've felt restless and unhappy in my job recently but I also realized that I am free after I leave the laboratory.  For the most part it doesn't follow me home.  I have time to do those other things, like knitting, blogging, photography, gardening, that I would have to give up for making cupcakes.  So the job that I thought would free me from my unhappy job would actually shackle me to it.  I would have less free time, work more and ultimately be even unhappier.  And in that I found more job satisfaction and was more thankful for my day job than I had been in a long time.  If I ever did want to try my hand at making cupcakes in the future I at least have more information.  Because I wouldn't want to do it poorly.  I would want to succeed and right now anything I did would not succeed.  I don't have the energy or the will to see it through.  So I've found contentedness again in where I am.  And I'm thankful for that.

Recipe Tuesday :: Autumn Apple Cheesecake

So I was pretty sure that I had already done a post about making this cheesecake before.  I mean, I make it every Autumn and it's a favorite at work, requested even.  But I searched all the way back to 2012 and didn't see a single post about it!  How could that be!?  I mean look at all this deliciousness...

I know, right!?  Well, here is the post you've all been waiting for.  If those pumpkin bars didn't get you two weeks ago, then maybe apple is the fall flavor you're craving.  My recipe came from a Philadelphia Cream Cheese cookbook I picked up at Costco on a whim one year.  I've tweaked it, of course (when don't I tweak a recipe?), and so I'll give you the link to one that looks just like the original and also type up my tweaky one below.  I also looked on Amazon to see if you could still get it and there were "new" ones for $1.50.  Seriously, only $1.50 for the most amazing cream cheese cookbook ever.

But really.  You need to make this cheesecake.  For the sake of fall!

Autumn Apple Cheesecake
(tweaked by me)

Crust - 
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
3 Tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter. melted

Filling - 
2 packages (8 oz each) cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs

Topping - 
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
pinch of ground allspice
pinch of ground cloves
4 cups THINLY sliced peeled apples
1/4 cup finely chopped pecans

Crust Instructions:
Mix together graham cracker crumbs, pecans, sugar, cinnamon and melted butter.  Press into bottom of 9 inch springform pan.  Bake at 325F for 10 minutes.  Let cool.

Filling Instructions:
Mix cream cheese, sugar and vanilla with a hand mixer on medium speed until blended.  Add eggs one at a time, mix on low speed until just blended.  Pour over crust.

Topping Instructions:
Mix together sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and cloves in a small bowl.  Pour over apples and toss well to coat.  Spoon apples over cream cheese mixture and sprinkle with pecans.

Bake at 325F for 1 hour and 10 minutes to 1 hour and 15 minutes, until center is almost set.  Run a knife around the outside of the cake to loosen and allow to cool before removing rim.  (I usually wait until after I take it out of the fridge to do this.)  Refrigerate 4 hours or overnight.

My biggest tip for making this perfect is to get one of the most amazing gadgets ever, the Apple Mate by Norpro.  It peels, cores and slices the apples into the perfect pieces for cooking on this cheesecake or in a pie.  We've used ours when we have bumper crops of apple from our fruit trees and want to freeze them in ready-to-go bags of apple pie fillings.  Small apples seem to work best and they can't be too soft, but it really works.

And now a fabulous food photo to end on that'll make your tummy grumble... ;)

Recipe Tuesday :: Church Pumpkin Bars

I recently saw an advertisement for Starbucks that said "Fall starts with three letters, PSL."  Many of us understand that the taste of pumpkin equals fall.  (PSL stands for Pumpkin Spice Latte, if you hadn't figured that out.)  With the trees starting to change and the evenings getting chilly enough to turn on the pellet stove, a pumpkin recipe was in the cards.  Enter my family's favorite fall treat, Church Pumpkin Bars.

The recipe was given to us by our church to make for a CCD Family Night back when I was a kid and though it's gone through a bit of modification (the original asked for 1 cup of oil!) it's been a favorite ever since.  This year I topped it with my favorite Cream Cheese Frosting from all the cupcake making and I'm sure that will become a tradition as well.


Church Pumpkin Bars

4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups pumpkin (fresh cooked or 15oz canned pumpkin)
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp salt

1.)  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2.)  In a stand mixer add eggs, sugar and oil and mix until well blended.
3.)  Add pumpkin and blend well, then add in vanilla and mix.
4.)  In a separate bowl place the dry ingredients (flour through salt) and whisk until well blended.
      While mixer is going add the dry ingredients to the wet.
5.)  Grease and flour an 11 X 17 cake pan.  (You can spray it with non-stick spray instead.)
6.)  Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
7.)  Let the cake cool before frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

8oz (1 brick) cream cheese
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
1 to 2 Tbsp heavy cream (or milk)
1 tsp vanilla
2 to 5 cups confectioners sugar
(pinch of salt if frosting is too sweet)

1.)  Bring cream cheese and butter to room temperature.
2.)  In a stand mixer add cream cheese and butter and blend until smooth.
3.)  Add 2 cups sugar and 1 Tbsp cream and blend until smooth (about 1 minute).
4.)  Add vanilla and 1 Tbsp cream (if needed) and blend for 1 full minute on high.
5.)  Add sugar one cup at a time and blend for 1 minute after each addition until frosting reaches the
      consistency you want.  My frosting is always sort of a soft-serve ice cream consistency.  Add in
      the pinch of salt at the end if you think it's too sweet.
6.)  Pour the frosting over the cake and smooth out, the frosting will harden just a bit on the top as it
      sits though it stays deliciously soft underneath.  You can also add chopped walnuts to the top if
      you'd like.

Doesn't that look like a plate of autumn decadence?

Grape Pickin'

Yesterday Mom called me at work and said, "Wanna go pick some grapes?"  Of course I said yes!  She'd been looking for concord grapes to pick ever since our friend took out his grapevines and had finally found some down in Wapato.  They were going to go through and harvest all the grapes left on  the 20th, so we only had a few days to get there.  After bringing a change of clothes for me (not gonna get grape juice on my nice clothes!) we drove down to Kreuger Pepper Gardens.  They have more than peppers, of course, including squash, garlic, onions, watermelons and right now concord grapes!  We had brought our own boxes and pruners, but we were informed the grapes around the U-Pick were all pretty well picked.  They directed us down to another vineyard they owned and we had to get past the security...

...but luckily we weren't hassled much.  (Sweetest dogs in the world, they just hung out while we picked.)  We had the whole vineyard to ourselves, there wasn't another soul around!

Isn't that beautiful?  Miles of vineyards with velvety Eastern Washington hills in the background?  This is why I love where we live.  The grapes were thick too!  Mom and I picked and picked and didn't make it three feet in either direction.

There may have been some pretending I was a nymph of Dionysus with all those grapes around...

Too bad I can't Photoshop a toga and some laurel leaves on that pic.  :)

When we'd filled our boxes to the top we trekked back out and drove back to get them weighed and pay.  I picked up some butternut squash, because ours didn't do so well this year, and also some garlic and peppers.  At the farm stand they told us about getting a steam juicer to process the grapes into juice to make jam or just drink.  My coworker had also mentioned getting one, so we bought a fairly nice one on Amazon with 1-day shipping.  Mom had spent all theses years doing it the centuries-old fashioned way with a potato masher and cheesecloth.  This should speed up her processing time greatly!  She figures one box for jam and the other box for juice.  Or possibly wine...she's already started research.  And speaking of spirits we had to pass field after field of hops.  If you never knew where all those Yakima hops were grown to make your favorite craft brew, then behold the majesty...

You know your from Eastern Washington when the smell of hops makes you instantly think of fall!

**I didn't have my nice camera, so I had to make with do with my iPod.  The pictures aren't too bad, but I know they could have been better.**

Three Things Thursday :: Stress Reliving Coloring, Aggie's Candles and The Great British Baking Show

Back in July I had a really bad day at work.  REALLY bad.  I'm not one to air dirty laundry online and I'm not starting now, but let me assure you it was the worst day I've ever had.  With some distance came perspective and the narrowing down to the root cause of the trouble.  Stress.  I am a microbiologist in a hospital laboratory and I like to call what I do a "highly technical McDonalds".  The order comes in from the customer (doctor/patient), we interpret the order and perform the test requested as quickly as humanly possible and we have to get the correct result every time.  So you can see how stressful it can be when the doctor puts in orders for "PCR".  What do you want the PCR for?  On what type of specimen?  No it's not like TV, it's going to take a week for the result to come back.  It's like ordering a "burger" at McDonalds.  Big Mac?  Quarter pounder with cheese?  Bacon Clubhouse burger?  Or maybe a McRib?  Managing my stress has become a major part of living my life outside of work to any degree of satisfaction.  So I knit.  I garden.  I make cupcakes.  And now, I color.

I had heard rumors of these adult coloring books, but it wasn't until I went to Medford and colored with Emily (in a regular coloring book) that I realized how relaxing it was.  So off to Amazon I went and found a plethora of amazing adult coloring books.  Ones with intricate designs made for de-stressing, ones with gardens, snowflake mandalas and tartans, dragons and sea creatures, even nordic and celtic designs.  Some of them haven't even been released yet so apparently this is a newly catching fad?  I also needed a premium set of colored pencils to go with it all.  I mean, when did you ever not want a new set of crayons as a kid?  I ended up with this Prismacolor set, though it did set me back a bit more than a classic set of Crayolas would have.


Continuing with the stress relief, I found a new line of candles that I love!  Aggie's hand-poured candles!

The first one I picked up at a garden store and then they had more at Sesame + Lilies when I was in Cannon Beach.  The candles are made in Union, Oregon and they use all natural soy wax.  The scents are to die for and the candles last a long time.  My favorites have been Pink Grapefruit, Lemon Verbena and Heirloom Apple.  The apple one would go great with a pumpkin spice to get you ready for those cool fall evenings you know are coming...


And lastly, The Great British Baking Show!

I saw one episode last year when we were in London and it is so good!  (And called The Great British Bake-off across the pond.)  I know it seems like one baking show would be like another, but it just so much classier than our American versions are.  They show the failures and successes equally and there is no aggressive back-biting between the contestants.  Quite to the opposite actually, you see them helping one another at times and then hugging it out at the end when one of them has to go home.  It shows on PBS at 7 PM on Sunday for us.  And heck if I don't want to learn how to make the perfect sponge after watching week 1!  Mom thought the same thing and armed with the book I picked up in Medford she made up some mini carrot cakes and chocolate hazelnut cakes.

We had them with tea, of course.  Delicious!

I go to the sea to breathe...

Do you feel like you leave a part of your soul in places that are special to you?  The place you go to relax, a place where you have an adventure that re-energizes your soul or a place where happy memories are made with the ones you love?  And when you go back to that place you can pick up that piece of your soul you left behind and feel whole again?  Okay, maybe that's a bit over dramatic. But I love Cannon Beach so much that I feel I live there all the time and that I live my life at home for a while and then go back and pick up that other life and it fits so well and I'm so happy I wonder which life I would be happier in.  We all know we are often happier on vacation than off, but really there would be no way to sustain it.  So I enjoy every moment I'm there but I'm also happy to come home.

This year my cousin Melinda and her two children visited us for a day at the beach.  The weather was fine and I finally had someone who wanted to splash in the waves as much as I did!  It's been so many years since I jumped waves, splashed around, let the incoming tide rush up my legs as I stand there letting it soak my pants.  So. Many. Years.  I also forgot how much I love it!

Sand...*sigh*

We had such a good day!  We ate at Morris' Fireside restaurant, which was always our eating place when all my cousins would go with Mom and Gram.  I got clam chowder and Melinda said that just looking at it she knew what it tasted like.  She tried some and was happy it did still taste the same!

Since I'd missed Number 1's birthday and Number 2's is coming up soon, we went over to the toy store and they each picked out something good.  We also went down to the candy store, of course!  There's no way you could go to Cannon Beach without stopping at Bruce's Candy Kitchen.  All sugared up and new toys acquired, Melinda got the lucky task of driving home two crazy kids.  One can only hope they fell asleep...20 minutes before she made it there.  :)

Later that day there was an amazing storm coming in over the water...

It got closer and closer...and then the rain started.  It got harder and harder until it was almost horizontal and then some tiny hail was added in.  It was quite a downpour outside.  And then it was a downpour inside!  Water started coming through the small accent light in the mini-kitchen in a small stream.  We ran over and rescued food and candy and then stuck the ice bucket underneath.  Disaster temporarily fixed we called the front desk and they said that the people above us had called too.  The water was coming in their room from the balcony because of a blocked drain.  About that time water started leaking from the ceiling in our room around the fire sprinkler!  A couple of dog bowls under that one and we waited out the storm.  It disappeared as quickly as it came it, though it took a little longer for our indoor waterfall to stop.  Maintenance went up and cleaned out the drain on the balcony above and then came down to see what they could do for us.  There was really nothing to do besides giving us a bunch of towels to soak up the water.  Eventually it stopped and the sun came back out.

Other than that adventure, our vacation was fairly calm.  We walked the beach down to our favorite coffee shop, Sea Level, every morning.  A caramel mocha and a maple pecan roll for each of us and then the walk back to the hotel was required to work it off.  The puppies love walking the beach and meeting new dogs or following their noses to some detritus they find terribly appealing.  But this year Ariel seemed to have a bit of arthritis.  She would walk only so far and then sit.  This made getting to the coffee shop difficult.  The very first day we only walked part of the way and then headed back and drove down.  It would've taken all day to walk there and back with her sitting.  So we did what all good (dog) parents do; we bought a stroller.  That's right she rode up and down the beach this year and she loved it.  I have to say it was pretty cute.

And the clouds were amazing this year!  I couldn't stop taking pictures of them!  Other than the one rainstorm they didn't sprinkle on us.  Just built these amazing clouds up everyday over the Coastal Range.

It was a wonderfully relaxing vacation.  There was knitting and donut eating, movies and coloring, porch sitting and sea shell finding, puppy petting and stuffing yourself with chocolate.  I managed to finish the top part of my Outlander shawl, so a photo shoot was required.

And then all too soon it was time to go home.  Until next time, my beloved beach...