look a little blury? i wasn't wearing my glasses when i took this picture and i was SUUUPer sure i nailed it. ha ha!

here are my girlies in their halloween costumes. penelope is a fairy princess and isla is a gnome. on their costumes i made:

isla's hat, skirt, collar, shoes (inherited from p) AND penelope's wings, crown, wand, skirt and leaf belt/wand holder thing. aren't they cute! i will probably post more pictures of them from tonight's festivities tomorrow. we are having dinner with family & friends and then trick or treating. i think it will be great...if i can screw my head on right and get everything done.

i hope you all have a fantastic halloween!

for my parents' birthdays (on the 15th and the 25th, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!) i decided to make them a cake while they were in town. my mom said that they would go for a carrot cake or a chocolate cake...i knew that the unselfish thing for me to do would be to make a carrot cake. i generally have the opinion that it's not worth the calories if it's not chocolate...i've been trying to branch out though. this cake was super tasty. it was nice and moist and the frosting was also a win with the pecans. yum. i made it in a 9"x13" cake pan and i decided i would 3/4th the frosting next time around. i also added some nutmeg. here's the recipe:

Ingredients

• FOR CAKE:
• 2 cups Sugar
• 1 cup Vegetable Oil
• 4 whole Eggs
• 2 cups All-purpose Flour
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
• 1 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon Ground nutmeg* (this is my addition)
• 2 cups Grated Carrots
• _____
• For Icing
• 1 stick Regular Butter, Softened
• 1 package (8 Oz) Cream Cheese
• 1 pound Powdered Sugar
• 2 teaspoons Vanilla
• 1 cup Pecans, Chopped Finely

Preparation Instructions

i also made this soup. it was super good and it was a perfect fall lunch paired with these sliders.

oh hi!
i hope you all had a fabulous weekend. we sure did. my parents and little seester were in town while my dad went to a shrink's conference in la jolla. we went to the zoo and to the pacific ocean...you know, cuz' we live 5 min away. jealous? a spot we really like to go is the torrey pines glider port. it has a nice little deli and you can just sit and look out at the beauty that is the pacific. you also get to watch hang gliders and paragliders take off and float around. it's magical. i didn't get any pictures of these events, because i forgot my camera's memory card... like a champ.

ANYWAY, we had good food and a lot of fun. justin and anna came down to play too. it was just a big party.  one thing i miss about living in UT is being so close to family. family is important to me and i just miss being a short drive away from either my family or bryan's.

WAIT, did i say i didn't have any pictures? HA! punked! here are some from a little trip we took to the playground:

click here to download the orange
click here to download the black

this weekend we did a chicago style deep dish pizza. we do a homemade pizza party on most fridays. i really love pizza and i enjoy finding new ways to make it. bryan and i fell in love with chicago style pizza when we were in chicago during our journey home from NYC. we found berkeley pizza here in san diego, which is to die for, but a little challenging to get delivered in north SD. they don't have an eat-in option, so when we get it we need to do curbside delivery downtown. ANYWAY, i thought i would try my hand at making it. this is a third attempt and it's been delicious every time. i have used a skillet and this stoneware to bake it in and i think i might need to get a real deep dish pan if i want to achieve the super flaky pie-like crust that i covet. this is the recipe i use. i don't follow it exactly. the crust is good, it makes tons, so i freeze 1/2 of it for later. i use stewed tomatoes to make my sauce thicker and i also up the spinach.   

i also had some peaches that i needed to use, so i decided to to a rustic peach tart. i used this recipe for the crust and it was amazing! i rolled it out on parchment paper on a large cookie pan.  i spread a very thin layer of cream cheese on the crust up to 3" away from the edge of the crust and then sprinkled that with a tablespoon of sugar. i peeled and sliced my peaches and mixed them with 2 tablespoons of brown sugar, 1 tablespoon flour and 1 tablespoon of almond flour (you could just use 2 tablespoons of flour and omit the alomond flour) and poured them onto the cream cheese. i folded the crust up over the peaches and pinched it into place. for the glaze that i applied before baking i used 2 tablespoons of raspberry jam melted with 1 tablespoon of butter and brushed that over the peaches and crust. i baked it 40min at 400 degrees. it was a win. i can't wait to try it with apples.

i also made tikka masala from here. it is was not super awesome. i think it used just WAY too much spice and way slightly overwhelming. the taste was good though and i think i will give it another shot, but maybe 1/4 the spices...