Happy Birthday Pumpkin Cake — The Lovely Crazy
I am the best sister. .
Yesterday was my sisters 31 birthday. Yuck..If she is 31, what does that make me?( I am younger, but not by much) The ladies in my family have a really hard time with birthdays. We act like we don’t care, but we do. We say don’t do anything, it’s no big deal, but it is. Who cares that we are getting older……oh we care. We are all crazy.
So while the birthday lady who doesn’t care was out picking up her darling children, I showed up with ingredients for a cake from scratch..a bad ass bundt pan…and a bunch of beautiful sunflowers. I prepared the batter, popped it into the oven and me and my mr. proceeded to clean her house. Yup…#1 right here!
For real, I love my sister and I wanted to do something nice for her on her birthday. Pumpkin is nice. Pumpkin is not the conventional birthday cake. It’s a little different, a little spicy, much like my sister.
All the right stuff nicely measured out and the oven preheating.. I really like baking in her kitchen. She has the best light and a bunch of kitchen gadgets, lots of bowls, plus a dish washer. I miss having a dish washer.
Creaming the sugars with butter and adding the eggs…It took me like 20 minutes to find the beater which was in my face the whole time. I was looking for a white beater. Hers is black.I am oblivious.
Here comes the pumpkin. I added the spices at this point. (This picture is awesome)
Beat in the flour and milk….and now you have cake batter. I made the mr. lick the spatula just to make sure the spices and stuff were right. He always says everything is right.





Happy Birthday!!
INGREDIENTS
- 1 stick unsalted butter
- 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 2 l eggs
- 1 cup Pumpkin Puree
- 1/2 cup milk
DIRECTIONS
Pre heat oven 350 degrees.
Butter a bundt pan or a 9-inch round cake pan.
Whisk together flour, cinnamon, allspice, salt, baking powder, and baking soda
In a large bowl, beat sugars and butter together until light and fluffy. Add eggs, pumpkin and milk and beat until combined. Mix in dry ingredients and beat until combined Pour batter into greased pan, and bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted i the middle comes out clean.
Remove from oven and let cool for a few minutes in pan. Remove from pan and dust with powdered sugar.
And there you have it a cake fit for a birthday, a holiday, or a breakfast on a Tuesday morning.




Mustard and carrots. It’s that simple.






Whenever me and the mister get invited / show up for dinner at someone’s house, I like to bring at least one thing to contribute to the meal. First, because I am nice like that. Secondly, because I get to make food for other people besides Nick and get new feedback on recipes. (Sometimes I think he tells me things taste amazing when they might not) And thirdly, its nice to mess up someone else’s kitchen besides my own. So last night we went to my sisters and I made a salad. A very easy and virtually mess free salad…….I still made a mess (I cleaned it up myself!)
Start with the base layer of kale… then first goes the sliced onion. (Make sure it’s thinly sliced or else it will be to overpowering)
Add thinly sliced oranges…oh boy, your half way there!!!
Top with thinly sliced avocado, a sprinkle of salt and drizzle with lime juice. I also served with an extra wedge of lime, there is never too much lime.
New Years Eve hike. Anything outside makes me happy.This giant tree fell over on the trail and it looked so pretty. And yes, Washer looks handsome too.
My Grammy Stems Poppy seed roll recipe…My Dad makes them every year and this is the first time I ever made them. I split the recipe in half( the recipe make 6 huge rolls) and turned one of the rolls into little rolls. Those little rolls might be one of the prettiest things I have ever made. I am going to be making them again soon.
We had to take out Christmas tree down…which is kind of sad, but I stopped watering it and Nick stopped watering it….and it turned into fire tinder. Nick took the popcorn garland from the tree and lined the fence…. that made up for not having the tree anymore.
Best Christmas present ever…The Mister paid off my outrageous library fine so I can start taking books out again.!(what a guy) I am reading both of these at the moment… and both are excellent! I kinda don’t want to do anything but read.
This situation going on here…sometimes the most simplest of ingredients make the best dishes…
This blue arrow, a marker in the woods. I love arrows
A visit to a green house. I am a house plant slut…I have a ton and always want more. But ever since we moved into our little cave(it has almost zero natural light) my plants have been sad and I am trying my hardest to keep them happy. I was on the hunt for some plant food to keep my green babies alive and I found myself happily wondering this greenhouses. I think everyone should have a green house full of plants, it’s impossible to not feel good in a light warm room of color.
Freshy snow walk. Our feet were the first to lay tracks around the neighborhood. Our feet are awesome.
I love my little kitchen wall, but I would love a little more space/storage/light. I am dreaming up a few kitchen projects for the mister and I to tackle, maybe more shelves, some hooks..Maybe a big old hole in the wall? I spend a lot of time fantasizing about little ways to make the kitchen a little more awesome(it’s pretty awesome now) But I mean, a window would make everyone happy. Just an idea…We will see.
Lets kick the weekend off right, with a nice warm and hardy salad. Not a frilly little salad, but a salad that fills you up and leaves you feeling warm and cozy. A salad with a lot of squash! So here’s the thing, I eat a lot of winter squash, maybe 4 plus a week. Because I eat so many, I store a good amount in a cold storage area outside of the little warm living space we call home. Last week we had a drastic temperature change and a good few of the my butternut and spaghetti squash froze.. then started to de-thaw. Not good. That was the second bad food experience of the day….. Earlier that day I had bought about 2 dozen super ripe bananas that I had been planing on freezing and what not. There were four bunches and each bunch was wrapped in plastic and were in a bag that I left near the back door. The thought crossed my mind, but I hastily brushed it away. Washer won’t eat those….. Well guess what? The shit ate half of my freaking bananas…plastic and all. Needless to say, I was kind of pissed already so finding my squash on the way out really set me off. I was not about to let more food go to waste.(or be eaten by the dog) I went into rescue mode..Chop chop and dice…boil, roast and steam…and eat eat eat…. and eat. I have been eating butternut for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the past week and that’s ok with me cause man it does taste oh so tasty. But for some people in my life, eating mashed squash out of a jar all day long does not hold the same appeal so I have been sneaking it in where ere I can.
Easy peasy….
Diced butternut and a mediumly sliced onion..(mediumly is a new cooking term) Spritz a bit of oil in a pan and toss the squash and onion in there and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Shove into the hot oven and roast until squash and onion are tender and tasty.

Plate it and eat eat… I drizzled a little balsamic vinegar on mine…Nick like his straight up. Do what you will cause either way, it’s going to be awesome!!!!
Holy crappers…2015….HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! January 1st and people everywhere are making resolutions…. stop doing this or start doing that and blah blah blah.…Like right now, I am watching the news and the main theme of the morning is weight loss. I don’t want to hear it, I just wanted to know about the guy who robbed all the Walgreens in the area (I think I might know him) Anyway, I don’t think its a bad thing to want to make a change or two, I just don’t like the all of a sudden pressure and don’t want to be smacked in the face with it for the next few weeks or until we start thinking about the next holiday(think its Valentines Day). With all of that being said, yeah, there are a lot of things that I want to do this year, or maybe stop doing, but I am not going to try to change a bunch of things in one fail swoop. Instead I am going to take today(maybe even rest of the week) as a quite day and keep to myself. (trust me..I need it) I will most likely make a little list( I make list all year long) and try to remember to start keeping track of all my money transactions.(I never do). Little steps. But to be honest, today I am not trying to accomplish much other than cleaning the bathroom and maybe make a loaf of bread.
Oh boy we made it! Ate our way through another Thanksgiving. I hope yours was a good as mine, lot of family and friends…an abundance of pies, and lot of warm lovely goodness.
When something goes on sale at the grocery store, I tend to buy it. Being that it is Valentines Day this week, all the stores are having specials on all sorts of sexy things… and strawberries are one of them. Now I am not a huge fan of buying produce that is terribly out of season, but I can’t help myself…a good deal is a good deal and the strawberries were a super good deal. I was just going to make some sweet ass strawberry jam or maybe a lovely strawberry cake with them (and I probably still will), but these strawberries are actually super juicy and full of flavor, and it’s always nice to eat some full flavor freshy strawberries… especially soaked in balsamic vinegar. And yeah, I think that this salad is pretty sexy, so it makes for a perfect Valentines day dish.
A handful of ingredients and 5 minutes will get you to a fantastic salad experience.
Pour the vinegar on the strawberries and let sit for at least 5 minutes. (the longer the strawberries can sit with the vinegar, the better)
Pile it on.. thinly slice avocado.. rough chopped toasted almonds… It’s pretty much as easy as it can get.
And last but not least, toss on the balsamic soaked strawberries and drizzle the remaining vinegar. (if you made hearts, place on top to make pretty) Sprinkle with a pitch of salt and pepper and pow! Fancy, sexy, delicious salad.
Warm Winter Lemonade — The Lovely Crazy
March 4, 2016 by maximios • Blog
First off.. Happy Saturday and Happy Valantines Day!
Once again, it is so F-ing cold out and I don’t want to leave my house! And because of the cold we decided to forgoing the traditional V day hike(kinda sad) but instead are going to just hang at home and watch movies. (which is actually kind of nice because now I get to stay all frumpy and warm , hanging out in my baggy old sweats and oversized sweater (so sexy right?)
Anyways.. being all cozy usually entails something warm and yummy to drink. Neither of us are really big on hot chocolate, (plus we don’t have the stuff to make it) and sure we could crack open the fancy bottle of wine we bought for dinner (4.99 Trader Joes Special!!!!) or we can save that and I can whip up something a little spicy sweet.
Warm winter lemonade!! We are both big on lemon in everything and I just bought a bunch of sweet meyers lemons, so I think it’s meant to be.
Sweet, a little spicy, and warning….Perfect for a day of cuddling on the couch or for something to warm you after being outside. Great for anyone who wants a little something tasty that isn’t chocolate or booze, even good for those that might be feeling a little under the weather. Kids and adults alike…. this winter lemonade works for it all.
So whip some up and stay warm!
And have a fantastic day!!!
-C
Serves 2
Slice lemon and place into a pot with water, cover, and bring to a boil. Once boiling, remove from heat and let sit for a minute or two. Transfer to a blender (or use a emulsifier) and blend until frothy. Place a tablespoon of the honey or whatever sweeter into each cup. (add more if you like) Strain lemon mixture in equal amounts into mugs. Stir and sprinkle with cinnamon.
If you don’t want to use the blender method, you can juice 1 lemon, split into two mugs , add sweetener and top with hot water.. Don’t forget the cinnamon!