We had yet again another successful family dinner.  We were a little distracted because we were also watching the Giant's beat the Tigers and carving pumpkins.  Still everything threw together a yummy fall dish.  We were able to experience everyone's recipes! 
   This is a picture of Whitney's very scary pumpkin from the Nightmare before Christmas (I think). Mine will not be included...I was not feeling the carving and mine ended up looking messy, terrible, and not very creative!
   I am not posting anyone's recipes except the one I made.  However, if you want them, write a comment and I will get the recipe and add it for you. 

We brought a pumpkin shaped cheese ball for an appetizer.  I was kind of grossed out while we were making it because all the flavors smelled sooo strong.  However, everything came together nicely and it was a hit at the party. This is a good simple recipe that you can make ahead of time.  You can really form the cheese into any shape, so it would work for a lot of special occasions.  Here is the link to the recipe with some pictures of the steps.  

    Dana Started us off with some creepy deviled eggs with adorable labels. They were three color and flavor combos; mustard and yellow bell peppers, sraracha and red beats, and avocado and dill.   She also made some black berry cocktails, but they were not pregnancy proof so I didn't have one.  

Philip and Whitney hosted the event.  They treated us to three different kinds of chili with freshly baked cornbread.  They had spicy chili, pumpkin chili, and veggie chili.  Thanks guys!

Kim made maggots and worms! Yes, it sounded pretty gross, but it was good.  This consisted of some wild rice and grilled hot dogs.  Very creative!

Lastly, for dessert, Sarah and Nick brought us hand dipped caramel apples! They were delicious! Thanks everyone for all the yummy food...until November!

     I though this would be as good a time as any to tell you why I have been lazy, not writing, and not inventing cool recipes.  I am pregnant! I am so excited to be expecting our first baby!
     However the pregnancy has been horrible for Robin's Urban Farm House.  For the last three months I have wanted very little to do with food, have had no energy for gardening, and have not felt inspired to write.  Now that I am emerging from the haziness of the first trimester I am coming back to life.  
    I have to admit that I didn't have it all that bad. I only got sick here and there. It is crazy to me how tired I was! You read about all these things, but I just felt like my body was being taken over! Luckily my husband took over grocery shopping and cooking.  Anytime I went near the butcher shop I thought I was going to lose my lunch right there in the grocery. He put up with me having random mood swings and being too tired to function after work.  (I say this is the past tense hoping that these things may be behind me.)
     I have been feeling great the last few weeks and am getting my energy back.  My belly has started to pop out and this week for the first time someone knew I was pregnant ( and not just fat). This picture of from last month's ultrasound.  I will have some new ones next week.  
   The baby is due in April so I won't have to go through a Sacramento summer preggers! Anyways, we are excited, thought it would be fun to tell you all!
Round Robin

   This weekend we celebrated my grandmother's 87th birthday! Additionally my husband was in Vegas on a guy's weekend.  So I had the whole weekend to make a mess of my kitchen and create  an artful cupcake for my grandma. 
   I have an absurd amount of weeds in my garden right now! Some of those pesky weeds are mint, so I decided to make chocolate mint cupcakes.   I wanted something that was more elegant and had flavors an adult would enjoy. 

Frosting
     For the frosting I made Martha's mint butter cream.  I am not putting up the recipe because it was the most time consuming, mess making, hardest frosting I have even made.  You had to make a custard, cook mint leaves, straining them, bla bla bla, it was ridiculous. In the end I did my own thing with it and was frustrated that I had spent so much time following the specifications of the frosting recipe. 
    Here is what I basically did (or would recommend to you).  Make a basic butter cream frosting, or any yummy white frosting.  Cut 9 Andes Mints in half diagonally to have for extra garnish on the cupcakes that need a little more. Do this first in case some don't cut well.  Then chop up about 10 or 12 other Andes mints and mix them in to the frosting. Pipe on the frosting with a wide round tip.  I just put a flat bit of frosting in the middle leaving the shiny edge of the cupcake exposed. 

Chocolate Leaves
Okay, let's be honest, those directions for the leaves sound simple, but this was hard.  It was impressive, so I encourage you to try it, but I made enough leaves for 3 per cupcake and I ended up with 1 successful leave per cupcake with a very few that scored a second leaf.  Don't worry, I have some pointers for you that were learned through the trial and error method.  They will save you some effort! 



Tools and Materials

• Small paintbrush
• Fresh mint leaves
• Bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled slightly
• Skewers
• Kitchen tweezers

Chocolate-Mint Leaves How-To1. Using paintbrush, coat underside of 1 leaf with a thick layer of chocolate. Drape leaf, chocolate side up, over a skewer set on a parchment-lined baking sheet, top. Repeat. Refrigerate until set, about 10 minutes.Gently grasp each leaf with tweezers, and peel from chocolate. Frost tops of cupcakes with buttercream. Decorate with chocolate leaves.

My Tips
1. Wash the mint leaves and choose the ones you want.  Make sure to either dry them each or let them dry for a long time before you get started.  The ones that had water still on them make the chocolate all chunky and then would not peel off when the chocolate was cooled.

2. Chop the chocolate very finely.  In my book it talked about using certain brands of very high quality chocolate, tempering it, and having it at 185 degrees.  I don't have a candy thermometer, so I just used normal bakers chocolate and "guessed" how to temper the chocolate, but it worked!

3. Melt the chocolate over, but not touching, boiling water.  Stir as it is melting. When it looked shiny and yummy I started painting!

3. I turned the heat down as low as it would go on the stove and took a spoonful of chocolate at a time.  Otherwise it cools too fast and becomes difficult to use. 
*** Put something under the parchment paper that fits in your fridge.  I didn't do this and had to painstakingly move each leave to a small cookie sheet***  
 Paint each of the front side of the leaves.  It is gets on the back try and get it off with your finger or it makes them very hard to peal off. Lay the leaves over a spoon if you want them to be three dimensional.  

4. Cool them for about 10 minutes in the fridge. 

5. Use tweezers to peel the real leaf off.  Don't touch them with your hands because they will melt in front of your eyes.  I found it was helpful to have a second tweezer to push on the chocolate gently on each side of where I was holding the leaf.  This spread the pressure out as I was peeling the leaf off and avoided cracking the chocolate.  After peeling a few the chocolate will start to get soft and you will need to put it back in the fridge. Repeat until done!

6. Place the leaves on the cupcake. The texture really looked beautiful! Add Andes mints where it looks nice and chill in the fridge.  Bring everything to room temperature before serving.  You will only need one per person because they are rich, but delicious!

I don't know if you heard, but yesterday was national cheese burger day! I also didn't know this, but my husband came home yesterday hell bent on burgers for dinner.  Unfortunately, I was not feeling a beef patty last night.  So I went and worked out and came home to find all the ingredients for homemade veggie burgers.  I was pretty skeptical at first, but it turns out that they we amazing and were not that hard to make!  The patties turned out crispy, flavorful, and very filing! 

Here is the recipe! It was submitted by Guy Fieri on FoodNetwork.comWe left out the bell peppers, but if you like those, put them on in! Make sure to mash up the ingredients a bit so that the beans make the patties stick together.  We were very tempted to grill them, but I would recommend using a skillet.  My sister tried them on the grill and they kind of crumbled.  

On the side I made some roasted potatoes.  These are always delicious and really customizable to your taste.  I started by quartering small red potatoes.  I them sprinkled them with garlic powder, salt, pepper, paprika, cumin, and a bit of cayenne pepper.  Drizzle olive oil on top and stir everything up to evenly coat the potatoes.  Roast them in the oven at 375 degrees for about 35-40 minutes depending on the size of the potatoes.  Half way through the time mix up the potatoes so all sides get roasted and to ensure that they don't bake right onto the pan.  

Just as the patties are finishing up, melt the cheese on top, and put the buns in the toaster.  Add your favorite burger toppings.  We used lettuce, tomatoes, and a bit of catsup (although the patties were very flavorful all by themselves). Enjoy this very healthy burger!!

    Once upon a long time ago our friends and some family had a tradition of family dinners.  It was a wonderful tradition with lots of good food, good wine, and lots and lots of laughing.  I decided as we are entering into autumn that I needed to bring this tradition back so that I could make new memories of warm kitchens full of friends.  
       So last night was the reincarnation of the family dinner.  After a little debating on the theme and what was in season right now, I decided on Red and Round.  Everyone brought their own take on a dish that included either apples or tomatoes. 
 

      I have to say that I really get sick of my own cooking and the flavors that I familiar with.  This is a great way to try some other flavors and other people's creative uses of the same ingredient.  We ended up with chicken parmesan, a beautiful green salad, caprese salad, barley salad, grilled ham and cheese sandwiches with tomato soup, fantastic cocktails, and a homemade apple pie a-la-mode.  Let me just say that I was impressed with evereyone!  Unfortunately I didn't grab pictures of everything. 
 

My husband and I decided to make Chicken parmesan.    I had never made this before, and was expecting it to be very difficult, but since my husband did most of the cooking, it was easy for me!  You toast your own breadcrumbs, season them just to your liking, and bread your own chicken.  Bake, add sauce and cheese, and bake again. 

My adorable sister got very creative! She mimics one of our favorite cocktails from Red Rabbit downtown.  It includes vodka, ginger beer, apple cider, and fresh apple slice as a cap, and freshly ground cinnamon sprinkled on top.  She found all these fun creative ginger beers and Nugget and was off and running!  After Whitney and Dana adjusting a few of the trials they were just right!

      So if you want to have everyone over,  but you don't want to cook for everyone, this is the way to do it!  I have no doubt that the October dinner will be even more festive with pumpkins and fall foods everywhere.  Start your own family dinner and send over the pics!

     First off, I have to admit I have completely neglected my garden this summer.  I don't know what got into me, but I just haven't wanted to go out and dig in the dirt.  So I am sorry I haven't written much about it.  Luckily, I was motivated in the spring.  So even without my sweet talking my plants and constant attention, veggies have still grown!!

      When we were in Costa Rica the weeds got completely out of control! I never really recovered.  Consequently I noticed that a lot of the plants were flowering but not producing any fruit.  I decided if the birds and the bees weren't getting it done, then I was going to have to pollinate the garden myself! So I went out with a few Q-tips, rubbed it in the blossoms of the flowers and waited.  I kept a metal note of what flowers I had done this to.  To my surprise it worked and I got zucchini and cucumbers from it! 

Naturally my favorite thing about having a garden is being able to cook with the food I harvest.  I found this gigantic zucchini hiding under all the weeds.  I would not recommend letting them get this big! But you use what you have! From this one zucchini I made four loafs of zucchini bread and zucchini fritters.  Unfortunately I didn't keep track of the recipe I was using, but I am sure you can all find one! The zucchini fritters are a lot like potato latkes and I love them! 

     School started last week and I was suddenly thrown into the routine of rushing all day at work, coming home tired, and trying to throw something edible together for dinner.  Here is my secret.  Keep boxes of pasta handy at all times! Then you can whip up some penne and go shopping the garden.  Tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, sage, zucchini, squash, etc. The fresh ingredients are tasty enough that you can really just use a little olive oil in stead of sauce. 

Garden Maintenance:
1. Weeding, weeding, and more weeding. I know, it's the pits.  
2. Also, maintain your tomato plants.  In the crotch of the branches little starter branches will grow like you see in this picture.  At the point in the summer they will not bare fruit.  So you have to pull these sucklers off.  The plant will use all the energy growing these extra branches that don't benefit you! If you have tomatoes on the vines, but they are not turning red, or they are splitting then cut back the water.  Tomatoes need to be starved of water a little in order to ripen. 
3. Plant anything that you want growing for the fall if you haven't already (I haven't).

     Our dear friends Candace and Eddie are getting married next weekend! I am very excited for the event. For Candi's bridal shower gift I wanted to get her something fun that really reflected her personality.  I couldn't find just the right thing.  
   Way back when Candace had asked me to teach her how to sew.  So I bought an apron pattern for a starter project (because I have a ridiculous obsession with cute aprons).  The wedding buzz began and the weeks passed, and no apron was ever assembled.  So I decided to do it for her as a gift!  I had so much fun making it and adding all the spunky details until they matched Candi exactly.  It thought one of you might like to try it! 

    I started with a trip to the fabric store with Grandma.  I felt like I was getting a peak into like in 50 years! We found a fun fabric and even louder edging to match.  I picked a subdued tan for the belt and pocket so it wasn't too crazy.  
  First off I cut the basic cut of the pattern.  I feel like you could almost do this without a pattern.  I really only used the main body piece and the straps piece of the pattern.  All the rest I just created.  The patterns are only about $3.  

    On the whole project I tried to avoid having any rough edges. Since this is only one layer of fabric thick I really had to depend on the edging.  For the straps and the belt I cut a long strip, sewed it together, turned it inside-out like a tube and ironed it flat.  This made everything tidy and clean.  
   After some conferring with Grandma, I used the same procedure for the ruffles. 

  I made the "tubes" of ruffles and layered two of them together.  I pinned them on and held it up in the mirror about 30 times to make sure they wrapped around just right.  The turquoise edging was again a life saver.  I folded it over the ruffles and sewed it all on together with matching thread.  
   After everything is on, sew edging around everything to tuck in the ruffle edges. 

I used much of the same procedure for the pocket, except of course you don't sew the top shut.  Instead of just straps to hold on the bodies I extended into one long piece so it made more of a belt.  

Lastly came the detail work, a little bow here, a few buttons there, and all the sudden it is adorable!

   I coupled the apron with some measuring cups, spoons, kitchen timer, and a whisk.  So now Candace is all set to be the hot wife in the kitchen! I would recommend this when you are feeling crafty and looking for a gift for the girl who has everything!

If the title alone doesn't make your mouth start watering then this might not be the recipe for you.  But I have to say, I thought it was delicious and even my cake hating sister (I don't know how it's possible for my sister to hate cake) gave it two thumbs up!  Obviously this cake is in the shape of a W.  That's because it was for my friend Whitney's birthday (and she does like bake). I was returning the favor, because she once baked me a peanut butter birthday that looked exactly like our cabin, where we were celebrating!

    Cutting the actual cake into a fun shape gives the cake some pizzaz and personalization!
    I started by buttering and flouring the cake pans.  This is by far the best way to get a smooth even surface when you flip your cake out.  
     I used Paula Deen's Peanut Butter Cake recipe.  Although I substituted butter for shortening and did not put actual peanuts in the frosting.  The frosting goes on more like a glaze than a frosting and then hardens as it cools. 

    While the cake was baking in the oven I got busy with the decorations! I tinted tiny chunks of white fondant to make various bright colors.  If you are doing this use powdered sugar to roll out the fondant.  Flour will alter the flavor.  I also recommend using gel food coloring or the concentrated food coloring in jars so the fondant doesn' become too wet and sticky! 

    When the cake was finished baking I let it cool in the pan.  I then cut the W out so that the edges of the pan supported the cake.  I held the cooling rack tights to the baking dish and flipped it. 
 

  The glaze was quick to cook! I poured it over the cake until I had a smooth finish.  Do this over something where the extra can drain out so you don't have a soggy cake.  Lastly I placed the W's randomly around the cake and it was finished! 

My adorable neighbor Peyton just turned one!  Her party was all about lady bugs, so her mother Marina and I thought some lady bug cookies were in order! I threw in some butterflies as well for variety.  These were the party favors.  

I started with a basic sugar cookie.  I was careful to pull out the cookies out of the oven as soon as the edges showed any brown because otherwise they are hard and cardboardish! This was sort of half day thing in itself because I needed about 50 cookies.  
For the lady bugs I used an egg shaped cookie cutter then took a little triangle out of the bottom to make it look like wings. 

After baking the cookies I made royal icing for the top.  Royal icing is egg white based.  So it dries very quickly and firmly.  This makes it so you can place the cookies in bags or containers without disturbing the frosting.

Royal icing is pretty hard to work with.  So if you are trying this, make sure you have everything out and ready so that the icing doesn't harden before you get the cookies frosted. This includes, the cookies, icing bags, rubber bands to seal the top and slow hardening, food coloring, bowls to mix fod coloring, and paper towels. Also, the more you beat the egg the harder the frosting will be.   If you can't tell it was kind of a learning experience for me!

My friend Kim came over to help me with this and was kind of a life saver! We put on the base color, then added details.  After that was dry I lines it with black frosting or a dramatic edge. 

I plopped each of them into an individual bag, so they could be taken home as favors. Repeat fifty time and you're done!

So...after 5 days in Samara Beach the really adventurous portion of our trip began.  We rented a stick shift car, which provided us with some good entertainment, and headed to the mountains.  We stayed at  Hotel Borinquen Mountain Resort at the base of an active volcano called Rincon De La Vieja.  I know I am being very specific but his place was absolutely amazing and if you are ever in the area you should go.   We arrived to cold tropical drinks and were taken out to our bungalow complete with a porch and hammock.  After that we started our spa day (which was outside in the jungle).  
Rincon De La Vieja is an active volcano.  All around the base there are steaming, boiling pots of mud and minerals.  The resort built a naturally outdoor spa. They plopped their sauna on top of a steam pot so we started by relaxing hovered over naturally boiling mud, weird concept, but amazing.  We then headed over to the mud pits.  They pull the mud out which is warm and buttery and makes your skin feel so silky.  So we gave ourselves a mud treatment.  While the mud is drying we walked along all these raised paths that lead you into the jungle and passed some ancient hyroglyphs. After the mud dried and was washed off we went through a series of three pools heated by the natural springs.  Lastly we got a massage in an open are room that is suspended over a creek, so there is no need for any relaxing background music.  
    The next morning we hiked through the national park and Rincon and saw all kinds of steaming bubbling pots scattered across the mountain.  Costa Rica is pretty lax on regulations, so you get to go right up close to everything and experience it to the fullest.  While we were walking through we were followed by a pack of about 15 adorable white faces monkeys.  They were swinging around in trees and it was pretty fun to watch.  

    After a very long rainy drive and a quick stop over in the capital city of San Jose we picked up our good friends Chris and LeAnne. With them we headed up north again to see another volcano, Arenal.  The site of it was impressive. 
    This resort had a series of about 8-10 different pools that were all heated by thermal water from the volcano.  You could kind of flow through them depending on how hot or cold you wanted it.  We tended to migrate the the pool that was the perfect temperature and has a swim up bar!
  

  The next morning we hiked through the lava fields at the base of Arenal and back through the jungle.  On this hike we saw a few animals that we neat but I honestly can't tell you what they were.  We definitely encountered lots of toucans and an incredible giant tree!
      On the way home from Arenal we did a zip line tour that covered 25 zips over all kinds of beautiful terrain.  One was a quarter mile long and zipped you over a small waterfall.  It was really fun! 
  I am having trouble getting these pictures to load on my site.  So when I do I will add them in!

Back in Samara we did a lot more relaxing.  We ate some delicious sea food, grilled out while enjoying the hammocks, surfed, and went on a fishing trip that resulted in 0 fish, and lots of sea sickness.  Overall it was a fantastic trip and I would do again in a heart beat.  I loved spending so much time with my husband and getting to experience the adventures with our friends.  I feel blessed to have been able to go! (One last world of wisdom: Don't eat the ceviche. Many days later I am still recovering)