Halloween Brownies

I can't believe Halloween is almost here!  While shopping for groceries last week, I saw a bag of Halloween-colored chocolate chips, so I picked up a bag to make a new recipe--Halloween Brownies.  My official taste-testers approve, so find the recipe below.  Your little goblins will love them, too!

Halloween Brownies

 

Ingredients:  1 box of family-sized dark-chocolate brownie mix, one bag of orange and chocolate chips, one container of fluffy white frosting, and orange food coloring.

 

 

Mix together brownie (for a 9 x 13 inch pan) ingredients, and spread batter in a greased 9 x 13 pan.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

 

Before baking the brownies, sprinkle with one cup of the orange and chocolate chips.  Reserve the second cup and set aside.

 

Bake the brownies for 25-30 minutes, as directed, and then allow to cool completely.

 

Mix orange food coloring into the white frosting, beat well, and spread on cooled brownies.  Sprinkle the remaining orange and chocolate chips on frosting, and let set.

 

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



A Pie for Roger

Our neighbor Roger is a master woodworker, and he agreed earlier this summer to finish building a roof over our community mailbox stand outside my front yard gate.  It's been just a simple 4x4 with two 2x4's as the base for the mailboxes for the 13 years we have lived here.

He and his son built a beautiful roof and cross-beams out of cedar, with Desert Tan composition shingles on the roof.  It's a beautiful sight, and helps keep our mail dry in this rainy season.

We baked Roger and his family a Caramel Apple pie topped with apple pie-flavored almonds from Bob's Corn Country Store as a thank you.

The Last of the Dahlias

Well, the dahlias are finally winding down.  They have been so wonderful this year, providing color and gorgeous blooms all the way to the end of October.

Next year, I am foregoing all vegetables and only growing dahlias!

A New Travel Trailer!

After many years of wanting a small, older travel trailer, we finally found one (or it found us!) It's a 1999 Fiberglass Scamp trailer.

Here is the link below to our new travel blog, "The Musician, The Poet, and The Scamp"!  Stay tuned as you follow us on our adventures.

http://rvnscamper.wordpress.com/

A Perfect Fall Breakfast

The warm weather has receded a bit, and you can finally feel traces of Autumn in the air.  The leaves are falling everywhere, and the world has an orange and yellow tint to it.  It's beautiful.

Our breakfast the other morning was a batch of buttermilk pancakes with fresh organic blueberries and Bob's Corn Pumpkin Spice Syrup.  Yummy!

 

 

SCMTA (Snohomish Chapter of the Music Teachers Association) Meeting

We started out the week with our monthly SCMTA meeting at the Everett Music Hall.  This is a wonderful group of over 100 piano teachers involved in every aspect of teaching piano to beginning and adult students.  We have a chapter meeting followed by a Master Teacher presentation.  It's a great time to learn something new, and to network with fellow teachers and share best practices.

Our Master Teacher was Dr. Julia Shnebly-Black, author and teacher of "Dalcrose Eurhythmics", a method of linking our physical bodies to the whole musical process.  We often think of learning to play the piano as a purely intellectual process, but it is actually rooted in our physical responses and ability to use our large and small muscles to make the whole sequence of events come to perfect fruition in a seamless performance.

We danced, and clapped our hands to rhythms and music, sang and stopped, and walked and stepped. It was invigorating!

Dr. Shnebly-Black was head of the Piano Department for over 30 years at Georgia State University before coming to Seattle to get her Ph.D. at the University of Washington.

Everett Music Hall

 

Auditorium at Music Hall

 

Dr. Julia Shnebly-Black

 

 

Polly and Me

We had many lovely fall days this week, and Polly and I made it to the park mid-week.  We usually have the park to ourselves, and it's fun to walk the perimeter of Maltby Park and take in the beauty of the place.

Polly needs lots of exercise, and she is always tired and subdued after this type of workout.  She slept most of the afternoon once we got home again.

The Hungry Pelican

We had lunch the other day at The Hungry Pelican Restaurant in downtown historic Snohomish.  It opened a couple of years ago, and has continued to get rave reviews for their cute restaurant and gift shop, and for their delicious lunches.

While we were waiting for our sandwiches, we drank cucumber water and enjoyed eating outside on the patio behind the shop.  It was a beautiful, sunny fall day, and leaves were falling onto our table and chairs.

The sandwiches were huge, served on home-made focaccia bread and garnished with pepperoncinis and  baby gherkins.  We enjoyed the 'melty-goodness' of the cheese and sliced turkey and bacon. We had an elegant dessert of home-made French macaroons with lemon filling.  Yum!

We perused the gift shop on the way out, and I found an antique pie plate that I promptly bought and took home to sit on top of my pie safe in the dining room.

 

 

Henry and Gracie

Henry and Gracie are our neighbor's dogs, and we enjoy seeing them run around in their yards and interact with everyone who goes by.  Whenever they start barking, our dog Polly runs to the living room window and watches them and barks her 'hello'.  When we walk by their house in the middle of the day, this is what we see! (can you see Gracie peeking over the window sill from her perch on the couch?)...

Music Teachers National Association (MTNA)--Districts I and II

Yesterday, I took a break from The Slow Life and traveled to Marysville, WA for an all-day music teachers (piano teachers) conference for the Washington State Music Teachers Association (WSMTA).  Areas included were Skagit, Edmonds, Seattle and Snohomish.  There were over 100 attendees for this event, which included two guest speakers and three students performing during the Master Class with Dr. Karen Savage at the end of the day. Being a part of this organization creates a peer group for me, and provides mentoring, education, professional contacts, and job openings in the music field. 

Dr. Peter Mack, head of the Piano Department at the Cornish School of Music in Seattle, hosted the event.

The two morning sessions were led by Dr. Kay Zavislak, an active performer of the works of Bach, and a Bach expert.  She grew up in Japan and attended the Toho Gakuen High School of Music, and then earned her bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees at the University of Michigan.  She was the winner of many international competitions.

Dr. Karen Savage is Associate Professor of piano at Washington State University.  She completed doctoral and two masters degrees at The Julliard School.

Dr. Karen Savage, Dr. Kay Zavilak and President of Snohomish MTA Chapter

 

Dr. Peter Mack and Dr. Kay Zavislak

 

 

The View from the House

Looking out from the dining room to the deck and the yards beyond, I was struck today by how beautiful the yard still is in October.  I realized that the sun and warmth this year has been with us since late March/early April. 

The cold months ahead are necessary for the cycle of life to continue in our plant worlds, and the bare branches will soon have a beauty of their own as we head into winter.

                                                  

Wide Plank Hickory Flooring

Our new (sort of new) kitchen floor is almost four years old!  It's real wood, but it's 'engineered' with wonderful protective coatings that can withstand just about anything.  The floor is as beautiful now as it was the day it was installed.  And believe me, it takes some pretty hard wear in our little kitchen!

It's the most beautiful thing in the house, and I still look at it every day, loving how it transforms the room and the house.

Bob's Corn Maze and Country Market

We took a country ride this afternoon, arriving in Duvall to walk along the Snoqualmie Trail.  Polly the Dog got a real workout, and met two other dogs on the way.  Then we stopped at Sky Valley Nursery between Duvall and Monroe, and I stopped in to look through the gift shop.  They had a wonderful pumpkin made of twigs and filled with fairy lights--I got it, and it looks festive in the living room.

Our last stop was Bob's Corn and Country Market.  It was rather quiet there today, as the weekends this time of year are crowded due to the corn maze and all of the activities for children.  I got some Pumpkin Spice Waffle Syrup, and took the pictures below of all of the pumpkins.  What a great day to be out and about!

 

 

 

Spider Web

This was the first thing I saw this morning when I went outside to walk the dog.

Early Morning Light

The day dawned clear and crisp this morning, so I went out and captured the yard in this new season.

 

 

Chutney and Cardamom Tea

Last night at Shamiana (our favorite Indian restaurant), the Chutney Sampler consisted of the following chutneys (it changes each week):

Tamarind Mint Chutney
Coriander Chutney
Mango Chutney

We had this with garlic naan, and a pot of Cardamom Tea. Don't you love the camel teapot?

 

 

Vintage Aprons

I have a lovely collection of vintage aprons, collected over the years from my friends, family and various antique stores.  While shopping at Country Village in Bothell earlier in the week, I came across this lovely hand-sewn apron with canning jars on it.  I thought it would be a perfect kitchen apron for me as I preserve all of my fruits and vegetables from the summer.

Trip to Silverdale

I went to Silverdale to visit my uncle Rex yesterday, taking the Kingston ferry from Edmonds.  The weather was perfect for the 75-mile round-trip, and I enjoyed being out and having a mini-day trip on my own.  It was fun riding the ferry again after about a year or so.  Traffic was very light, and it was great driving most of the day and NOT having to commute to work!

Here are some pictures of Kingston and one shot from the ferry as we were heading home.

 

 

Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato Squash

Yesterday I received a Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato Squash in my organic vegetable box from a Snohomish farm just a few miles away.  It's a wonderful cream-colored acorn squash with a sweet chestnut favor.

This squash is a family heirloom squash, and it came to us from Thelma Sanders in Adair County, Missouri.  The seed was passed to Everett Pettit and Tom Knoche, Ohio squash collectors and two of SSE's (Seed Savers Exchange) earliest members. Thelma passed it on to Mother Nature's Organics farm here in Snohomish, and I can't wait to try it.

The easiest way to cook it is to cook it in an oven like a baked potato (pierce it several times, put it in a shallow pan with water, and bake at 375 degrees until it is soft). Butter and season it, and you have an incredible vegetable for your meal that contains special polysaccharides, pectins, which have strong anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-diabetic insulin-regulating properties.