A job and celebratory chocolate coffee cupcakes!

Hey, hey! I have a job :D I am happy to announce that in a couple weeks I will start working on an ortho/trauma unit. Sounds exciting, right? Lots of patients who are injured in accidents. Broken bones. Surgery required. Many patients who may have been intoxicated at the time of the accident. Also a lot of overflow patients from the other medical floors. Did I mention I will be working night shift? Yes. It will be very exciting. It will also be stressfulllllllllll. I’ll be learning a lot and gaining a lot of new skills. This is good, but so much new stuff can be overwhelming. Working 12 hour shifts at night is no piece of cake either. And every other weekend and every other holiday is one of the biggest bummers of nursing. In summary, I am excited and nervous and preparing myself mentally for some difficult shifts. It will also be interesting figuring out my new schedule in relation to marriage. I did night shift when I was single and had no one else I was responsible for. Throwing a husband in the mix will be a bit more challenging.

Yet I am determined. Not having done floor nursing on a medical unit before (I’ve done inpatient psych and outpatient surgery before this), I will be challenged. But I know that I am up for it. When I was first applying for jobs in Michigan, I gravitated to outpatient positions. Think Monday to Friday schedule, no holidays or weekends, less stressful work in general and focused nursing skills. I was a little scared/hesitant/resistant to going back to night shift, weekends and holidays and the stress of floor nursing. Yet I know that it will be an excellent experience. It will make me a more well rounded nurse. It will open up more doors for me in the future.

And there’s this battle that’s been going on inside my heart. My desire for that perfect schedule and easier job had me feeling kind of guilty and selfish. I think about why I became a nurse. I want to take care of people. I want to heal and help and restore. I want to be the hands to serve those who are the most in need. I want to love. I love that nursing can be an easy way to live out my faith. To me, it feels wrong demanding when and where and how I will do this. Yes, the hours stink. But, who else will do it? Who else will care for the man and woman and child who gets sick or hurt at 3 am on the weekend? I will. Because I’m a nurse and I care. I care... I CARE!! (Care Bears reference anyone? Thinking of you, Mom, Christine, Amy, Sarah)

So when are we going to get to the cupcakes, Heidi? OK, yes. So in celebration of the end of unemployment, I decided cupcakes were in order. Chocolate coffee cupcakes with white chocolate frosting. Can I get a ‘YUM!’ ? This cake recipe is so great. It’s not super sweet because of the coffee and cocoa. But it has a rich, dense texture that is super tasty by itself. Add some sweet frosting and BAM. So good. I used Seattle’s Best number 4 coffee. It’s bold and dark, but not as dark as their number 5 roast. 3 is too light. 4 is just right. I brewed a few cups when I started baking so that the coffee would be ready for when I got to that step, and also so that I could sip on some while taste testing :)

The white chocolate frosting is smooth and sweet. I used a bar of ghirardelli baking white chocolate because, hey.. this is a celebration recipe and worth the best ingredients; but pretty much any white chocolate bar or baking chips will work.

The goods:

For the cake (makes about 12 cupcakes)

¾ C plus ⅛ cup white sugar

½ C brown sugar

½ C unsalted butter, melted

2 eggs (only 3 if doubling the recipe. 1.5 eggs is tricky, so 2 is fine for 12 cupcakes)

1 tsp vanilla

1 ½ C flour plus ⅛ cup more

⅜ C unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

¾ tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

¾ cup warm coffee

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350. Grease cupcake tray generously. Even if using liners, grease the liners. These are sticky sticky good.

In a bowl, combine the dry ingredients. In the bowl of your stand mixer, beat the sugars and butter until well mixed. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Mix in the dry ingredients being careful not to over mix. Slowly drizzle and stir in the coffee.

Fill prepared trays half way. I filled them ¾ and they grew over the tops. Bake for about 30 min or until toothpick comes out clean. After a few minutes cooling, move them to a cooling rack. While they are cooling, make the frosting

White chocolate buttercream frosting: From How Sweet Eats

½ C butter at room temperature (too melty and frosting will be thinner, too hard and it will be difficult to beat.)

2 ½ cup powdered sugar- maybe a little more

1 tsp vanilla

4 ounces white chocolate, melted

1-2 T of milk

Cream butter in an electric mixer until fluffy, then add vanilla. Slowly add in powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time with the mixer on low speed. Add in melted white chocolate and beat until incorporated. (I just microwaved the chocolate to melt it. You must be careful not to over heat if microwaving chocolate. First break up the bar. Start with 30 sec. and then stir it up. Stirring will continue to melt it. Put it back in for another 15-20 sec. Stir again and at this point stirring melted it all for me.) To reach desired consistency, add in milk 1 teaspoon at a time with mixer on low speed. If frosting becomes too liquidy, simply add additional sugar. Frost the cupcakes and enjoy!

More Fall Things (Savory Pancakes and the U.P.!)

My last post was a little bit of a downer, with the whole unemployment thing… so I wanted to post a few things I’m excited about. Savory pumpkin pancakes and a trip to the U.P.!

Do you like my dining room table centerpiece? I do :)

I’ve posted 2 pumpkin recipes recently, but they were sweet recipes. Time for a savory one. I’ve been dreaming about pumpkin pasta dishes and pumpkin soups. When I came across this recipe for savory pumpkin, cheddar and rosemary pancakes I was pumped because I had all the ingredients on hand. Minus the rosemary, sort of. I only had dried rosemary, but it was delicious. 

It was one of those recipes you are thinking about the night before and can’t wait for breakfast to come tomorrow. Does anyone else do that? I am planning out my meals and treats the day, sometimes 2 days before. Weird? Maybe a little, but hey. That’s me.

The goods:

1 tablespoon olive oil

¼- ⅓  cup diced onion- depends how much you like onion (I used a yellow onion)

1 garlic clove minced (I often used garlic powder in recipes when I don’t have the real thing, but I did this time!)

1 tsp minced fresh rosemary (or a couple dashes of dried rosemary)

½ cup flour

¼ tsp salt

¼ tsp baking powder

⅛ tsp baking soda

⅛ tsp pepper

1 egg

¼ cup pureed pumpkin

1 Tbs honey

1 Tbs apple cider vinegar

3 tablespoons milk (I use 1%)

⅓ cup shredded cheddar cheese (sharp would be best)

canola oil

Directions:

Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Cook the onion until it starts to brown and become tender. Add the garlic and rosemary and cook for another minute and you can smell the garlic. Remove from heat. Set aside for now.

Whisk the flour, salt, powder, soda, and pepper together in a bowl. Add the egg, pumpkin, honey, vinegar, milk. Don’t overmix. Just until combined. Over mixed batter results in thin pancakes. We want fluffy :) Fold in the cheddar

Heat a skillet and coat with canola oil. Drop the batter into the heated skillet by ⅛ cup fulls. Spread the batter out just a little. Cook both sides until golden brown.

I topped with a little maple syrup, but to keep it more savory you could use sour cream or whatever suits your fancy :)

OK, so I am also excited about a trip Joe, his brother and his brother’s wife, and I just went on to northern Michigan. The Upper Peninsula. Joe’s brother planned out the weekend trip to Tahquamenon Falls. It is so beautiful, especially right now with all the fall colors. Check out some sweet pictures!

Jordan and Margeaux. Aren't they cute?

This white pine is 120 feet high and almost 200 years old!

Having a blast

Mackinaw Bridge :)

Can someone get me some chocolate please?!?! (Chocolate cupcakes and puppy chow)

When Joe and I moved from Utah to Michigan, I did not have a job lined up yet. I felt pretty confident that I would find a job quickly. I went to school in Michigan, right where we moved to. My school is well known and respected in the area. Plus, I have 4 years of nursing experience now. Yay! I had 3 interviews lined up within the first week we were back. The first one offered me a job, but I turned it down. I did that because it was for 2nd shift (3-11pm), and Joe had just been offered a job on 1st shift. We never would have seen each other with those schedules :’( And..well.. I really like Joe. I don’t like the idea of never seeing him. That sounds like a nightmare to be honest. Because I had more interviews coming up, I felt ok turning the offer down. It did feel really weird though. I’ve never turned a job down before. Plus, I did not feel like it would have been a good fit after the interview and job shadow. I was a little surprised to get the offer actually.

Unfortunately, I did not get the other 2 jobs I had interviews for. So now it’s been over a month since we’ve been back that I have been unemployed. 2 months since my last day working in Utah. I was very discouraged when I received the phone call from a recruiter saying I did not get the job I was really hoping for. It was similar to my last job in duties and schedule. I am feeling very ready to go back to work. And financially, it would be great if I got a job soon. I might have shed a tear or two. I thought I rocked the interview.

The recruiter is super nice. She immediately asked me what else I’d be interested in, and is in the process of getting me another interview. So there’s that :) I know that God is in control. He has always always provided for us, and I know He will continue to do so. Just one thing I LOVE about God. He remains the same. No matter what is going on. He’s constant.

Even so, I was feeling down and mopey. Baking is therapeutic for me and I decided that I really needed some chocolate. I don’t usually make a lot of really chocolaty things because Joe is not a chocolate fanatic like me. He loves sweets, but he prefers a frosted sugar cookie to a chocolate chocolate chip cookie. Weird. I know.

So I whipped up these chocolate cupcakes.

I was disappointed with the overall taste. The frosting was too thin. It was more like a Texas sheet cake frosting. I’m all about the buttercream frosting. Nice and thick and rich. I should have known when the recipe called for so little butter. So I am posting the whole recipe because the cake part was good, but next time I would make this frosting:

http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2014/08/24/moist-yellow-cupcakes-with-milk-chocolate-frosting/ I love Sally. I make a lot of her recipes.

The cupcake left me still craving some chocolatey goodness. So the next day, and since I had all the ingredients for puppy chow, I made a big batch of that too. I’m posting two recipes for puppy chow because one recipe has more butter in the butter to peanut butter ratio, and the other has more peanut butter. They’re both good. Let me tell you, I love PB. It’s a staple in my diet. Plus, I used some milk chocolate in the more pb recipe. I think the milk chocolate goes great with pb. So the recipes are both good, but definitely different.

Here’s the recipe for the cupcakes I made: http://www.sophisticatedgourmet.com/2012/03/chocolate-cupcakes/

But again, the frosting recipe that I like much better: http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2014/08/24/moist-yellow-cupcakes-with-milk-chocolate-frosting/

And now for the puppy chow:

Version #1 (More butter)

1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

½ cup peanut butter

7 cups chex mix

½ cup or 1 stick butter (I use unsalted)

about 2 cups of confectioners sugar

Melt the chocolate, butter, and PB together. Melting chocolate in the microwave can be dangerous, but because of the butter and PB, it works great for this recipe. I put it in for 30 sec at a time, stirring after each 30 sec until it’s melted completely. Pour over the chex mix. Dump in a zip lock bag that has the sugar. Shake shake shake! Enjoy :)

Version #2 (more PB)

1 cup chocolate chips (this is when I used milk chocolate chips)

½ cup PB

¼ cup butter

1-2 tsp vanilla (optional)

6 cups chex mix

about 2 cups confectioners sugar

Same directions as the first recipe, but if you want to try adding some vanilla, stir it into the chocolate, pb, and butter mixture after it’s melted.

I kind of eye balled the chex mix when I made this version, so you might need a little more or less. Sorry. I would start with 6, and if it seems like there is excess chocolate mixture, you can always add more chex. If you need more chocolate mixture because it’s not coating all the chex, simply melt more choc, pb and butter. I did that once by cutting all 3 amounts in half. And if you have extra melted chocolate mixture, that is certainly not a crime. Nothing you and a spoon can’t take care of ;)

Happy chocolate indulging!

Iced Pumpkin Cookies

We’ve already established that pumpkin is delicious (see previous post). And who could argue that cookies are not also delicious? Therefore pumpkin cookies must be great! At least that’s what I thought when I saw this recipe. And to top it all off, these cookies are iced. Icing on the cake..er cookie :)

These cookies bring back a dear memory from when Joe and I were dating long distance. I drove to visit Joe for the weekend in Michigan. He decided to surprise me with a home cooked meal, including these tasty pumpkin cookies! I was so impressed. Joe doesn’t choose to cook very often...almost never actually. So the gesture was even sweeter. When I walked into his apartment he was a little….frazzled. He was attempting to bring the meal together. He had chicken in the oven and a few side dishes going on the stove top. I gladly stepped in to assist :) He felt bad because I had to help, but I couldn’t help but love the whole situation just as it was. Anyways, these cookies remind me of that day and my thoughtful husband :)

This was my first time making them. Pumpkin muffins kind of dominated our pumpkin desserts last fall. But I came across this recipe (that he had printed off and saved) the other day and decided to give it a go.

They’re very easy to quickly mix up, and they made the apartment smell delicious! No tricky steps in this recipe. Cough. Thinking about you, beating egg whites to stiff peaks.  Cough. Man I hate that. Anyone else struggle with that? Please say I’m not the only one.

The batter is pretty sticky. I found it easiest to use my cookie dough scoop to get the batter to drop nicely onto the baking sheet.

They also baked much faster than the recipe said, so keep an eye on them. The recipe says 15min, but I found 12min was perfect.

The icing is also very simple. I used a fork to mix it up, and a spoon to frost the cookies. Some of the icing will run off the cookies, so put some wax paper under your cooling rack. That way you can scoop some of the excess up and ice them some more. I usually make a half batch of most recipes, since it’s just the two of us, but they are almost gone a day after I made them...so next time I’ll make the whole recipe :D

The goods:

½ cup butter softened (try not to microwave if you can avoid it. Sitting out on the counter is best)

1 ½ cups white sugar

1 cup canned pumpkin puree

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 ½ cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground nutmeg

½ tsp ground cloves

½ tsp salt

for the glaze:

2 cups confectioners sugar

3 tablespoons milk

1 tablespoon butter, melted

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350. Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in the egg, pumpkin, and vanilla until creamy and dreamy. In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients- flour, powder, soda, spices and salt. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. The batter will be pretty sticky. That’s okay. Drop by spoonfuls (or use cookie dough scoop) onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for about 15min or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let them cool and then glaze them.

To make the glaze: combine all ingredients with a fork and drizzle over cookies. You can add more milk if you want it to be more runny. Add more powdered sugar if you want it thicker. And then eat them! Oh and share them too..

Pumpkin Muffins- with chocolate chips of course!

Yes. Yes I am. I am posting a pumpkin recipe during the time of year that you may be saying “Enough already with the pumpkin!” I don’t know about you, but my pinterest feed is FILLED with pumpkin recipes. Pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, pancakes, waffles, chili, pie, and the list goes on. OR maybe you’re in love with pumpkin, like me, and you’re saying, “Bring it on. Bring. on. the. pumpkin.” I like it best in breads and muffins, but I will often add some to my morning oatmeal to shake things up. Not only is it delicious, but it’s healthy! Pumpkin is full of vitamins and fiber and good for you goodness!! What’s not to love?!?

The first time I made pumpkin muffins, Joe and I were living it Utah. I came across a recipe in this adorable little cookbook I have that one of my college roomates put together. It’s filled with recipes that we made together as an apartment. I loved those days. Living with 3 of my best friends, cooking, studying, learning, laughing, sharing life together. The highlight of the week was apartment dinner, when we would invite some more friends over and cook a big meal together. You often hear that it’s important to cook and eat with other people. I think it’s true. Anyways, this recipe is adapted from the one that is in that cookbook. I added some more spices, because let’s face it, spicing things up is usually a good idea :)

I knew immediately that this recipe was a keeper. Joe came home from work and ate one. And then another..and another… and I lost count how many he ate that day. Joe doesn’t give me a lot of feedback on my baking or cooking, so the sure fire way to know how much he likes something is based on how much of it he eats. When the first batch was gone in two days, I knew I struck gold. We found that they taste even better cold. Cold? I know.. sounds strange, but they really do taste a little better cold. Of course they taste delicious still warm from the oven, but try keeping them in the fridge after you eat one or two straight from the pan.

So fall has come around again and Joe requested pumpkin muffins. I had made them twice already when I read this article from Time, saying that there was a shortage of canned pumpkin this year due to lack of rain or something. My anxiety levels started to rise. I’m going to the grocery store and stocking up right now, I told myself. I thought about sharing the article on facebook for the benefit of all my friends. Then I thought, that’s a bad idea because then there will be less pumpkin for me. Then I thought, you are being ridiculous Heidi. Ri dic U lous. But just to be safe, I added pumpkin to the grocery list and plan to get at least 3 cans.

So here’s to pumpkin and all things fall. Apple cider and donuts. Leaves that change colors and cool crisp air. Pumpkin spice latte and corn mazes. Football and halloween candy. What a great season.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins

The Goodies:

3 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon

½ teaspoon nutmeg

½ teaspoon ginger

¼ teaspoon allspice

(OR if you have pumpkin pie spice, just use one tablespoon of that instead of the 4 separate spices)

1 teaspoon salt

4 eggs

2 cups sugar

1 can (or 15 oz) canned pumpkin puree

1 ½ cups canola oil

2 cups chocolate chips (a must!)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 and place liners in muffin pan. This recipe makes about 24 muffins.

Combine the first 8 ingredients (through the salt) in a large bowl and set aside. In another large bowl, beat the eggs, sugar, pumpkin, and oil until smooth and creamy. Add the flour mixture and mix until smooth. Fold in the chocolate chips. Fill muffin tins ¾ full and pop in the preheated oven for about 15 min, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.