Spiced Peach Muffins

Yesterday, I made spiced peach muffins with white whole wheat flour. The kids at the pool ate them up quickly! 

Finished Muffins

If you'd like the recipe or more info, please visit : Pattie's Spiced Peach Muffins where I have more pictures and the recipe.  I love the organic white whole wheat from King Arthur Flour because it has all the nutrition of red wheat without an overpowering wheat taste!

Jam Sweet Jam and.... Diets

We've made more jam...... yum, yum. Yesterday, we bought some South Carolina peaches (better than Georgia peaches, I'm afraid!) and I made jam late last night.  Then, today, I made more peach jam along with some raspberry jam and blackberry jam.  Absolutely divine.  The boys had biscuits for breakfast and spread jam I made a few weeks ago all over them.  Strawberry and strawberry-blackberry mix were the jams of choice this morning. What I made last night and today go into the freezer for consumption later! Sunday we are going to pick tart cherries to make jam!  YUM.  I'll freeze some for pies, too. 

 If you want more info on how I made my jam, please visit the post on jam there at this link: Pattie's Wildtree Kitchen  I am really excited about my cooking blog and about starting Wildtree, too!  I'm going to post all sorts of recipes there, not just Wildtree exclusive.  I even have a few of my HCG Diet approved recipes posted there. If you are interested in HCG Diet approved recipes, they are posted here (more will be added as time goes on):  HCG Recipes . My friend and I did one round of the HCG diet over Lent and recently started a second round.  We had to create some tasty recipes to survive!  If you are into Low-carb cooking, I will also share those along with my sugar-free recipes!  I've lost over 30 pounds on the HCG diet!  My goal is to reach 45 pounds and then maintain by eating no sugar and lo carb during the week and then letting myself eat what I want on weekends.  During the break from HCG rounds, I did this and maintained my weight-- even lost 1/2 a pound! You can find low carb recipes here: Pattie's Low Carb Recipes.  Be sure to check back often...I just started the blog and will be adding recipes daily!!! 

Here are my jam pictures... don't they look yummy!?

First batch of Peach Jam

Raspberry, peach and blackberry jam

Gyros Tonight!

I love to make my own Pita bread and posted my recipe about 3 years ago. Pattie's Pita Bread

Tonight,m I am trying, for the first time, to make gyro meat from lamb, using a recipe I found on food network.  I hope it turns out as yummy as the gyros we get at the Greek restaurants!  Gyro Meat Recipe


For the first time in many months, we have a FREE Thursday. Meaning: I can stay home and cook! No baseball, no football, no piano, and nothing much to do at all.  We had a great visit at the GI yesterday. After 15 years of seeing the GI every 3-6 months, Sean graduates to once a year!  Joseph still has to go more frequently, but progress is progress!

Sunday is the big Stamp Out Mito event.  I'm very excited. Once I get my lamb in the oven, I am going to post pictures of the cards and scrapbook pages we will be making. I even created a Mito Awareness card!

Recipe Book

I'm considering doing a tutorial video on how to make this book.  It is quite simple to do with the proper punch for the edge.  I think I like how it turned out!  Two of the bees are popped up and they all have sparkly wings.  I added Smooch pearlized top coat to all of their wings!

Card Fun! Recipe Plans!

I came up with this design for Mother's Day. One Mother's Day Card, I made a pop-up bouquet for Twosday's Techniques and the other design is below. I made several with the original Mother's Day design, this one is a birthday card.  I used Pretty in Pink, Soft Suede, Early Espresso and Whisper White. I love Tri-fold cards.  The embossing on the front makes it pop.  I'd love to hear what others are working on.  I am currently working on a recipe book.  For 18 years, I stuffed recipes into a gallon size Ziploc bag.... I have finally started compiling them into a pretty notebook (made and designed by ME!). Once I am done, I'll share photos!

It is another wonderfully cool day here in North Carolina.  It got down into the 40s last night and is supposed to stay that way for a few more days.  Baseball season has only a few more weeks left, then we get a short break before contact football begins.  I'm hoping to get the boys finished with school by the beginning of July (I have hopes to get them done by the end of June, but July would be nice!) -- then I would have time for scrapbooking all the memories I haven't had time to scrap!  Yeah, like that will happen.  Have a great day!  Thanks for stopping by!

Sweet Potato Muffins

We had extra sweet potatoes and no one in the house (other than myself!) eats them. Until today. My boys ate all of the muffins in the first batch before I told them the secret ingredient. I used my favorite muffin recipe that I had already altered ...so this is an altered, altered recipe.

Sweet Potato Muffins

2 cups white wheat flour
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter
1 cup sugar/brown sugar mixed (I put them both in the measuring cup)
3 large eggs (or 4 small)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups mashed cooked sweet potatoes
splash of milk ( I added the milk last -- mix milk in until it is "muffin consistency" -I did not measure)

Bake at 400 degrees until done, about 15-18 minutes. I didn't time them, either. :-)