On Monday, Livia wanted to bake gingerbread men. We didn’t do it.

On Tuesday, Livia wanted to bake gingerbread men. Knowing she wouldn’t like the spicy cookies, we convinced her we’d make sugar cookies in little gingerbread men shapes. But still, we didn’t do it.

On Wednesday—that would be today—Livia wanted to bake sugar cookie gingerbread men, but got distracted by Bolt on Netflix online. I pulled out the ingredients, took a few photos for the December Photo Project, actually made the dough, and that was it.

Will all Livia’s cookie wishes be fulfilled on Thursday? Stay tuned. It doesn’t get more exciting than this, folks.

**You are very welcome to join the DPP at any point! We’ll continue updating our participants list through the weekend.

We enjoyed a really relaxing and delicious day yesterday as we celebrated Thanksgiving with both sets of parents. There is something quite decadent about two turkey dinners in one day, I must say. What I really felt was the wealth of riches God has given us: our parents (now grandparents to Livia) that have raised us faithfully and loved us unconditionally over the years. We are incredibly blessed by our families.

As much as we enjoyed our folks, we did miss our siblings. So Bean, Adam, Kris and Andrew? Can’t wait to see you at Christmas!

Pictured above are a few of the side dishes we ate at the Lawton dinner. There was the sweet potato souffle and bourbon cranberries from Needs More Butter sitting next to The Pioneer Woman’s corn/wild rice dish. We ate our fair share of green bean casserole and stuffing, and of course, the star of every Thanksgiving meal, turkey. Liv and I ate turkey sandwiches tonight and I can’t imagine a better way to eat leftovers than slapping them between mayo-coated slices of bread. Mmm, mmm good.

Now that Thanksgiving is over, what is left of 2009? A lot! The December Photo Project starts shortly (make sure you sign up—it’s fun!), then we have the national holiday known as My Birthday, and finally Christmas. Jesus’ Birthday. Somewhat of a larger event than mine, I suppose. ; )

1/2 C washing soda
1/2 C Borax
1/3 bar of Ivory soap, grated

In a large pot, heat 6 cups of water; add grated soap and stir until dissolved. Add washing soda and Borax and stir until dissolved. Remove pot from heat.

In a clean 2 gallon pail, pour 4 cups of hot water and add heated soap mixture. Top pail with one gallon + 6 cups of cold water; stir well.

Use 1/2 cup per load, stirring detergent before use.

After my friend Sarah M. posted a detergent recipe, I became very curious about the idea of making such a product at home. While I’m not exactly a frugal woman, I knew making my own detergent would save a lot of money. But the biggest draw in my eyes was the number of ingredients. I’m concerned about all the weird chemicals in our home environments these days and I’ve slowly become more interested in using simple products to accomplish household tasks. I still like spraying 409 on the kitchen counters, so don’t suspect me of turning super granola or anything. ; )

I used this page as a reference and ended up visiting the Duggar family site (afterall, their kids look clean, don’t they?!). If you dig around the world wide web using Google you’ll find a lot more information on the financial savings of homemade detergent. I’m also going to post the (inedible) recipe to Needs More Butter for easy referencing in the future.

Final note: Arm & Hammer Washing Soda isn’t the easiest product to find. I check about six different stores before finally locating it, ahem, at my grocery store three miles down the road. Wish I had looked there first!

Cute cupcakes are only a boxed cake mix away. Liv and I like to put some batter in the oven and move on to icing. It’s simple to mix up Wilton’s buttercream recipe and then tint it to our heart’s desire.

Our preferred icing method is to heat the icing in the microwave, then dip the cupcakes in the mixture. Livia’s task, then, is to sprinkle like a mad woman before the frosting hardens. We get a little crazy, sprinkles go everywhere, but the end result is cute cupcakes every time. Need a quick platter of treats for a friend? Want an afternoon pick-me-up? Cupcakes are the answer. The cuteness is just the (ahem) icing on the cake.

Yesterday turned out to be a really great day.

It involved working out at the YMCA for the first time ever, shocking even (or especially) myself; mowing the yard on what had to be the most gorgeous July day in Nebraska history. And cooking a dinner that reminded me why cooking can be worthwhile: hello, Chicken Tikka Masala.

My mom made the cheery hot pads pictured above. Cooking is a lot more fun when you have handmade gifts to help keep your hands from burning. Thanks, Mom—I love them!

Our community dinner blog, Needs More Butter, is still up and running despite the fact that community dinner has been shelved momentarily. I just posted a recipe for one of my all-time favorite salads, Bok Choy Salad; and for a yummy take on an always delicious side dish, check out the Corn Casserole.

We love community dinner—at this point, it feels like a very natural part of our lives in this neighborhood—but at the same time, a family can only do so much during the week. So what is it that’s taking up our time and momentarily shoving community dinner out of the way? Redeemer. Redeemer is our church plant (meaning, a new church body started by an older congregation, in this case Zion Church) and we are wholeheartedly committing to the vision and ministry of it. And really, community dinner hasn’t been completely shoved aside. It’s been somewhat replaced by our small group which meets every other week. We eat, we hang out, we study the Bible, we pray. We only did three of those four at community dinner. ; )

Ma had a system. It went like this:

Wash on Monday,
Iron on Tuesday,
Mend on Wednesday,
Churn on Thursday,
Clean on Friday,
Bake on Saturday,
Rest on Sunday.

Apparently, Laura like baking and churning days best. I don’t blame Half-Pint a bit; baking days are always nice.

I’ve fallen into a routine of baking on Mondays, though I’m not sure why. (I like to bake, reason one, perhaps.) I was never more grateful for a Baking Monday than last week. When Liv was so sick the rest of the week—and we were all sleep-deprived—it was really nice to pick up a blueberry muffin for breakfast or eat a slice of toast for a snack. The truth is that I’m not at all organized when it comes to homemaking skills. I can be incredibly organized when it comes to working in an office or traveling or leading group projects, but home life is different for me. I value flexibility and the ease by which I can jump in the car and head for Target and Starbucks, so adherence to a strict cleaning schedule doesn’t exactly bring me joy. But I like to bake. And Livia likes to bake alongside me. So perhaps Mondays will turn into our baking day, and we’ll be able to enjoy the fruits of our labors the rest of the week.

The recipe for Grandma’s Banana Bread is up on Needs More Butter.

You know what? I do adhere to another day on Ma’s schedule… Sunday. Resting is so not a problem. We’ve got that one down.

The recipe for Esther’s Orange Marmalade Layer Cake is posted on Needs More Butter. More photos can be found on my Flickr site.

A group of my friends gets together every week to eat a meal together. One household cooks the meal and everyone else is left to enjoy a night without food prep or cleanup. One of the unofficial rules of community dinner is that you come as you are. Had a rough day? Just come. Feeling tired or more than little introverted? Come anyhow. And stay for as long or as little as you’d like. Sometimes one of us will show up with tupperware, eat a quick meal, then carry some take-out home to an ill roommate, husband or wife. The dinners have pulled us together in a unique way and have created a family where one didn’t exist before. Because of this family attachment, the deep friendship formed over shared meals, we still greatly miss Brook and the O’Donnells.

A year ago we started Needs More Butter as a way to keep track of community dinner recipes. Stop by the site for new meal idea—and to enjoy Renae’s abundance of posts for NaBloPoMo. I’ll post the following recipes on Needs More Butter eventually.

Chicken Lasagna Florentine

Zion Cookbook, Carrie Moseman

• 6 lasagna noodles, prepared according to pkg directions
• 10oz pkg frozen spinach, thawed and drained well
• 2 C chicken, cooked and chopped
• 2 C shredded cheddar cheese
• 1/3 C onion, finely chopped
• 1/4 – 1/2 t nutmeg
• 1 T cornstarch
• 1/2 t salt
• 1/4 t pepper
• 1 T soy sauce
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
• 8oz carton sour cream
• 4oz fresh mushrooms, sliced
• 1/3 C mayonnaise or salad dressing
• 1 C parmesan cheese
• butter pecan topping (recipe below)

In a bowl, combine spinach, chicken and all remaining ingredients expect parmesan cheese and butter pecan topping. In a lightly greased 11×7 dish, arrange 3 noodles. Spread half of chicken mixture over the noodles. Repeat procedure with remaining noodles and chicken mixture. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese and butter pecan topping. Bake lasagna at 350 for an hour, or until heated through.

Butter Pecan Topping: Melt 2 T butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add 1 C pecans and cook 3 minutes. Cool completely.

French Bread (with an Italian flair)

Zion Cookbook, Kristie Strahm

• 3 1/2 C flour
• 1 T sugar
• 1 t salt
• 1 T Italian seasoning
• 1 T rosemary
• 1 1/4 C water, lukewarm
• 2 1/4 t yeast

Place ingredients in a breadmaker on dough cycle. Remove, punch down and roll into a rectangle shape. Roll dough in a jelly roll shape, cut slits in the top, and place on a baking sheet to rise for an hour. Bake at 425 for 10 minutes, then reduce oven to 375 for 4-8 minutes. Brush melted butter on top and sprinkle lightly with garlic salt.

My parents’ apple tree is in full production mode and its limbs are heavy with fruit. Apparently, the tree needed a sturdy trimming last year in order to be this fruitful. We are glad to be recipients of baskets and bagfuls of these tart green apples—and Livia is thrilled to experience apple farm outings in her own Nana and Papa’s front yard!

I plan to make apple butter in the crockpot soon. I made some applesauce as well which didn’t turn out so great. That’s what I get for “winging it” and forgoing all recipes. Gloppy, sticky applesauce. It smelled great and tasted fine, but I can’t say I want to eat it a week later (texture is key!). I am thoroughly enjoying the new Zion Cookbook however and decided to cook up Karen Hunt’s apple muffins. This is the part where I have to eat my words. I’ve told many friends in the past that I DON’T LIKE muffins. (I think I wrote it on the blog, too.) Well, guess what. I made Karen’s apple muffins and they were delicious. Yum-o. Tasted great. So scratch my old prejudice against muffins. New days of muffin-y goodness awaits the Tredway household.

For the record, the new Zion Cookbook rocks. It has a lot more recipes than the old one and has breathed new life into my kitchen. If you’d like one but don’t attend Zion or Redeemer, you can send me an email (). Cookbooks are $15 and I imagine you’d need to include something extra for shipping and handling. Without further ado, I present the recipe for Apple Muffins.

Muffin

• 2 C flour
• 3 t baking powder
• 1/2 C sugar
• 1/2 t salt
• 3 T shortening
• 1 egg, beaten
• 3/4 C milk
• 1 t vanilla
• 1 C apples, peeled & chopped

Preheat oven to 400. Sift together flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Cut in shortening; set aside. Combine eggs and milk. Add to flour mixture, mix until flour is just moistened. Fold in apples. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin tins half full.

Crunch topping

• 1/3 C brown sugar
• 1/2 t cinnamon
• 1/3 C nuts (opt)

Combine topping mixture. Sprinkle over muffin batter. Bake for 25 minutes.