R.I.P. Cupcakes

Just in time for Halloween! I got this recipe out of the Betty Crocker Magazine "Best Halloween Recipes 2011." I just changed a few things. If your in the mood to bake something spooky, they are perfect (and they aren't very hard to make either).


Ingredients:
- 1 box Duncan Hines Devil's food cake mix
- Water, vegetable oil and the eggs used for the cake
- 2 honey graham crackers, crushed
- 2 chocolate graham crackers, crushed
- 1 container of creamy white frosting
- 12 Milano sandwich cookies, cut in half
- A tube of ready-made chocolate frosting or homemade brown-colored frosting

First: Heat oven to 350 degrees. Place a halloween themed cupcake liner in each of the 24 muffin tins. Make the cake as directed on the box for 24 cupcakes. Let the cupcakes cool completely* before starting to decorate.

Second: Ice all the cupcakes with the vanilla frosting and set aside. In a large ziplock bag, crush the graham crackers (both kinds together) using a rolling pin and set aside.

Third: Take each Milano cookie and cut in half crosswise. Using the frosting, pipe onto the cookies different halloween sayings such as "R.I.P", "BOO", or tombstone dates "1811", "1790", etc. After decorating all the cookies, place in the freezer for a few minutes to help set.

Fourth: Now you are ready to assemble! Place the flat side of the "tombstone cookie" into the back of the cupcake and push down until the cookie stays in place by itself. Take as handful of the crushed graham mixture and sprinkle in front of the tombstone to look like grave dirt.

And now you have a very spooky cupcake!

*If you know you are going to make then ahead of time, you can actually made the cupcakes the night before and then decorate them the day you need them. It saves a lot of time!

In the beginning, there was this nurse who had no idea how hard the ER was

Adjusting to the emergency department has been incredible...
...and incredibly challenging.

I feel like the patients I see are most often as their worst. I keep thinking to myself, "how in the world did you get like this? What happened to you, in your life, that made you skip out and decide not to be present anymore?

Sometimes I will get a person who is drunk, intoxicated often times by multiple different drugs or alcohol, and they are... for lack of a better word

...awful.

The other night my preceptor and I got a man who was brought to us by ambulance, due to a fall he took at the bar (after many a drink or two). He came in handcuffed to the stretcher because he was so combative.

-just a side note, thats not normal-

He was drunk, combative and didn't think he needed help, although he was bleeding all down his face and in his hair. He was so loud and obnoxious, the ER doc thought he might have a brain bleed due to his manners and the obvious head trauma he had sustained. So, the doc ordered a head CT.

The patient was NOT about to have it. He didn't think anything was wrong, he started drunk dialing everyone he knew, yelling "YOU BETTER GET THE F*%K DOWN HERE AND PICK ME UP."

As the night went on, and the hours that we had this guy increased, I started to lose my patience. (normally you try to hide these things, what's our motto at work? Put the patient first?... yeah I don't remember). But I was not the only one to lose patience, my preceptor was also losing it. Actually I take that back, she wasn't just losing it, she lost it. Bye bye.

The patient was sitting up in bed and yelled at my preceptor to look at him. She was sitting with her back turned toward him and didn't turn around. She just sat there minding her own business, doing her thing, trying to ignore him, hoping he would just fall asleep. I thought to myself, that was not a good choice... and I was right.

The patient started yelling at her, at the top of his lungs "YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I HAVE BEEN THROUGH! DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO HAVE CANCER? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO WATCH YOUR WIFE GO THROUGH A DOUBLE MASTECTOMY??

...and thats when he started crying and completely lost it.


Everyone has a story. Everyone has been through so many life shaping events that trigger either a positive response or a negative response, sometimes a detrimental response. How am I to see past their rudeness? How am I to get past their grotesque outward appearance to see how soft they are on the inside, how much they are hurting or breaking?

Jesus give me eyes like you have, a heart like you have. Please give me enough patience to help them where they need to be helped the most.

Chewy Caramel Mystery Cookies

These cookies are way delicious! My dad and Mason both agreed they are worth the extra effort! I got this recipe from an "Everyday Food" magazine.

Ingredients:
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 cup packed light-brown sugar
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 cup caramels (about 20), halved
- 1 cup roughly chopped candy bars (such as Mr. Goodbar, Kit Kat, etc.)
- 3/4 cup small chocolate candies (such as mini M&Ms)

First: preheat over to 350 with racks in upper and middle thirds. Chop up all the candy bars and set aside.

Second: in a medium bowl mix flour, salt and baking soda. Set aside. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer,  mix butter and sugar on high until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in eggs and vanilla. With mixer on low, beat in flour mixture in small additions until well combined. Fold in caramels and candy bars.

Third: Using an ice-cream scooper, drop dough 2 inches apart on parchment-lined* baking sheets. Bake 6 minutes. Remove from oven; immediately press small chocolate candies into cookies, the rotate sheets and bake until golden brown around the edges and set in the centers, about 6 more minutes.

Fourth: Transfer cookies to wire racks by taking the whole sheet of parchment off the cookie sheet and laying it on the cookies rack. Enjoy!


*make sure you get baking parchment paper and not wax paper... have I made that mistake before? ...yeah maybe.

A source of strength

Pumpkin Spice Bread with Maple Glaze

This is a collaboration of many different recipes that I have found online (mostly from a "Kitchen la Boheme" blog and Martha Stuart) and I think it is just right!

Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter (melted)
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup packed light brown sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 1 15oz can of organic pumpkin
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/4 teaspoon allspice

Glaze Ingredients:
- 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/3 cup maple syrup


First: Pre-heat over to 375 degrees. Butter and flour 2 8 1/2 by 4 1/2 loaf pans. In a medium bowl mix together flour, salt, baking powder and all the spices and set aside.

Second: In a large bowl whisk together sugars, pumpkin, melted butter and eggs. Mix in the flour mixture and stir until well combined.

Third: Divide batter between the two loaf pans and bake for approximately 50 minutes.* Let cool for 10 minutes and then transfer to wire rack to completely cool.

Fourth: Mix together all ingredients for the glaze. Using a fork, drizzle the glaze over pumpkin loaf in lines (back and forth) until loaf is covered.

 *Watch the loaf closely toward the end of the 50 minutes. Each oven is different and it may need a little more or less time. Its much better to leave it a little undercooked and let it finish cooking in the hot pan while it is cooling, than to over cook it.

The First of October

Mason and I decided to have a pumpkin adventure to celebrate the beginning of our favorite season. Our day was full of hay, Julian goodness, pick-your-own-apples, pumpkin patches (we had to visit a few just to make sure our pumpkins were perfect), and a few street fairs. We had a blast to say the least...

Rows and rows of apple trees

Mason started having a heat stroke...

A festival we happened upon

The corn seasoning stand! They don't mess around

A pie eating contest for kids

My pumpkins!