Twice Baked Sweet Potatoes/ Our week

I thought that since it's November which is the best month EVER (mine and Emma's birthday's and Thanksgiving) I would post different dishes you can make for your Thanksgiving dinner. This weeks recipe comes from Martha Stewart. Last Thanksgiving we celebrated with our friends Willie and Sally. It was really nice of them to invite us over even though Willie's family was over too. Anyway, Sally made these sweet potatoes and I became addicted.

• 14 (each about 8 ounces) sweet potatoes
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened, plus 6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 3/4-inch-thick slices
• 1 3/4 cups packed light-brown sugar
• 4 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
• 2/3 cup pecans, toasted, coarsely chopped
• 40 large marshmallows, halved crosswise

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Prick sweet potatoes with a fork. Bake until soft, about 50 minutes. Let cool slightly on a rack.
2. Cut a lengthwise slit in potatoes almost all the way through, leaving about 1 inch at each end intact. Scoop out flesh, leaving a 1/2-inch border on skins. Put flesh in a medium nonreactive bowl, then transfer half to a food processor. Process until smooth; return to bowl. Stir in sour cream, 6 tablespoons softened butter, 1 cup brown sugar, lemon juice, and nutmeg. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees. Transfer sweet potato mixture in batches to a pastry bag fitted with a very large round tip. Pipe mixture into 12 of the potato shells, dividing evenly; discard remaining 2 shells. Filled shells can be refrigerated in an airtight container up to 1 day. Just before serving, top with remaining 3/4 cup brown sugar, the sliced butter, and pecans; arrange marshmallows on top. Bake on a rimmed baking sheet until hot and marshmallows are golden brown, 7 to 10 minutes.

In other news, I'm going in next Tuesday for another checkup. This one I will be 13 weeks and will have an ultrasound. I'm excited to see my little baby and hope that it will give me a boost of confidence and excitement. In January hopefully they will be able to tell us what we are having. I really thought that with our next baby that I wouldn't find out but now I'm sitting on the fence. Last time we got a false alarm so I don't know if I trust the machines or not.

Emma's birthday party is on Saturday (though he birthday isn't until next Saturday). I've gotten all the decorations and have a final decision on the birthday cake. I'm going to do the one that no one voted for because it's easiest and I'm feeling lazy this week. For the cake, all I will have to do is ice is white, smoth it out, outline the characters of Ernie, Elmo and Cookie monster (I believe) and then just pipe stars. I'll save the extravagant cakes for when Emma is older and can appreciate my work a little more.
Last Year's Birthday Cake

Baked Potato Soup/ Recent Events

In celebration of the fall I thought I would post one of my favorite soups. I'm sorry I don't have a picture this time. I will post one soon though. I'm actually making this for dinner tonight. I got this recipe from my mom and it's fantastic. I think the bacon adds an awesome flavor.

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4 large baked potatoes with skin

1 lb bacon, cooked crisp

1 stick butter

½ c flour

1 (14 oz) can chicken broth

4 c milk

¾ tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

4 chopped green onions

1 ¼ c shredded cheddar cheese

8 oz sour cream

Bake potatoes and set aside to cool. Peel and dice. Crumble bacon. In a 3 ½ quart saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Add flour and whisk until smooth and creamy. Add broth, slowly add milk and cook until thick- DO NOT BOIL- about 10 minutes. Add potatoes, pepper, salt, onion, bacon and cheese. Simmer until heated. Add sour cream.

To make this lower fat you can use turkey bacon (it looks gross and sounds gross but the taste difference is only slight), non fat sour cream, light butter, and reduced fat cheddar cheese (don't use fat free... it doesn't melt).

This tastes really good with just a plain salad or if you like lots of flavor (and some more calories) a Caesar Salad would be good as well. I also like to make rolls to go with my soups. Here is my FAVORITE roll recipe:

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Kris’ Basic Rolls

4 c hot milk

1 c sugar

1 c shortening

1 T salt

4 eggs

3 T yeast dissolved in 1 c warm water

Flour

Mix ingredients in a large bowl or bread mixer. Add flour until it forms dough, not sticky, but softer then bread. Raise once. Shape and bake. Bake at 350 degrees, until golden brown. Makes 64 rolls.

I got this recipe from my mom who got it from Kris Riddle for those of you who know her. They are wonderful. I usually halve the recipe. I use powdered milk for the hot milk and just mix it up with the hottest tap water I can get. If your milk is too hot it will cook your eggs. I use the better n' eggs egg substitute as well to cut out some of the fat.

This week I started walking with my friends Lora, Stacey, and Karen. It's really nice to get outside and exercise. We end up walking for about an hour which feels so good after wards. Among us we have 5 kids under the age of 2 and Lora and I are both pregnant again so there will be lots of kids next year!

Emma counted to 10 all by herself on Sunday! It was pretty exciting. Usually she stops at three but she kept on going this time! Now is just have to get her to count objects to ten so she will understand what it means to count. She is so much fun and I love playing with her. She also played outside yesterday for 3 hours!! I kept asking her if she wanted to come inside and she told me no so I said great I can get more stuff done! I remember when she was smaller just waiting for the day that she would go play on her own and now it's FINALLY here!!

Jacob is working in the office for heaven knows how long. Hanford just had a switch in who the major contractors are. Fluor was the major contractor which is who contracts out Jacob's company but CH2M Hill offered a better price I guess so now they are the major contractor. Anyway, the Fluor people are trying to figure out how many contractor jobs they are going to miss out on so everyone is kinda in limbo right now. It's nice that Jacob is able to still work in the office though. A much better change from living in Grand Junction!