Never fail coffee cake

I think its easier to share recipes here and post the link so by request:

Best coffee cake

2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
4 tsp baking powder
4 tbsp shortening
2 eggs
1 cup milk
Put all the ingredients in a bowl and beat for about 3 minutes on high. Pour in a greased 13x9 pan. Top with topping:
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp flour
2 tbsp butter
mash together and sprinkle on the cake before baking. Bake at 350 F for about 40 minutes. You can add nuts to the topping and vanilla to the cake batter, you can sub in buttermilk or even swap the fats out. It's a good forgiving recipe, you can even multiply by 4 and have it turn out the same :)

Pasta dinner

One of our go-to dinners, Pasta with bacon and peas. We do make our own bacon, but I think you could use most any quality smoked meat and be fine. A sorta recipe:

Fry your bacon and chop it up, you should have about a double handful.

Boil one pound of pasta, I like fettuccine but spaghetti is good too, add one package of frozen peas at about the last 5 minutes. Drain, reserving about 1 cup of pasta water.

Add the bacon to your now empty pot on low, maybe with some butter or olive oil if it is very lean. Add pasta and peas and grate over about 1/2 cup hard cheese, grind on pepper. pour in the cup of pasta water and stir in about 4 beaten eggs. 

Stir like mad, adding milk or pasta water of it gets too thick, until the eggs are set. 

If you have pre-cooked bacon in the freezer, this dish can be on the table in about 20 minutes, one pot dinner, popular with everyone I cook for :)

Some Halloween Fun

Loot! They didn't eat toooo much!

Abbie and her two friends at the Pioneers Home. They also came with us to trick-or-treat and spend the night.

All dressed up at Lily & Kory's. Liam was dressed as The Dread Pirate Roberts but had school/rifle till 7:30 then a birthday/halloween party at a friends house with his GF.

Mummy pizza for dinner! Its become a tradition :)

Halloween Pumpkin Carving 2016

Bacon

Brine ready for pork. Apple cider, brown sugar, salt, pepper and water. The pork bellies hang out in here for about 10 days.

After brining, the meat has to dry to form a pellicule so the smoke will 'stick'. Dried about 4-5 hours with a fan this time. then smoked for about 6. We haven't tasted it yet, but it doesn't generally fail me.

Go Nooks!

This photo makes me awfully proud. For all you non Facebook folks, a re-post of the Alaska Rifle full team promo picture that was posted today. Liam with his team from University of Alaska Fairbanks, ranked 6th in the nation right now. They will compete in the season opener this weekend against Air Force (7) and Texas Christian University (3).

Kim-chi

I tried my hand at some Kim-chi, its very garlicky and strong this time! Time to make some more bi bim bob...