This same time, years previous: a boy book, chicken and white bean chili, peanut butter cream pie, my apple lineup, horseback riding, my year of homeschool torture

I was the last one up this morning. My husband had already left to go work at my parents’ place and the kids were putzing around the house. I thought my older daughter was still asleep—she was burning up with fever when my husband carried her up to bed last night—but then I went outside and discovered her sitting on the porch bench. She was watching the dogs.

They were in fine form, spinning in circles, nipping at each other, tails wagging.

So I went back inside, got my camera, and joined her on the porch.

Francie and Charlotte have become pretty good friends. Sometimes I look out the window and see Francie lying in the sun, Charlotte curled up right underneath her chin. They still sleep apart, though. I think Francie is a little possessive of her dog house. Can’t say I blame her, really.

Over the last several months, Francie has lost seven pounds. Charlotte gets all the credit. She is a taskmaster. She’s constantly jumping up at Francie. For some reason, she always goes for the mouth. She chomps down on Francie’s lips and hangs on. Francie doesn’t seem to mind.

Until she does. Then Charlotte goes flying.

She comes right back for more. There is no stopping that puppy. It must be the collie in her.

Or the beagle.

Or the terrier.

Yeah, probably the terrier.

The other place Charlotte goes for is Francie’s under-the-chin skin. She practically swings from it. Makes me crazy. Not because I think it hurts, but because of all that stretching. When you get to a certain age, you don’t even touch the under-the-chin skin for fear of making it saggy waggy.

It appears Francie doesn’t share my hang-ups. She doesn’t even flinch.

Francie’s toes are another Charlotte specialty. Francie tries to politely disengage by stepping over and away, but Charlotte just clamps down. It reminds me of when I had babies and I’d tried to get up off the floor and they’d lunge for my ankles and hang on.

The dog elbows are another attack point. Charlotte will run right up under Francie and grab hold. Francie’s tried all different techniques to discourage this behavior—the side step, the speed walk, the trip-hop, the ear bite. None of it works. Charlotte still loves to gnaw on those joint bones.

And you know what? In spite of all the chin-skin hanging and elbow-bones nipping, I think Francie secretly likes the obnoxious little twit.

P.S. Charlotte has been catching and eating moles. Sometimes she gets two a day. And when Francie gets one, Charlotte runs up, steals it, and gulps it down. I bet she’d be as good a mouser as a cat. Maybe even better. 

This same time, years previous: Halloween candy-infused brownies, a teacher’s lesson, mashed sweet potatoes

In yesterday’s post I offhandedly mentioned that I made a pumpkin cranberry cake. I learned later that that was a really cruel thing to do. It made a certain reader about die of dehydration by drooling. Naughty me.

Even before I received the desperate plea for the recipe, I was already working on yet another cranberry pumpkin cake recipe. Both cakes were good, but the second one was better—it’s a combination of Julie’s recipe and one I found in the local paper (that they, in turn, got from Epicurious).

It goes like this:

1. Roast a giant butternut squash or pumpkin, or simply toss a couple cans of pumpkin puree in the cart the next time you go shopping.

2. Mix up a pumpkin cake batter.

3. Enhance the pumpkin cake batter with a cup of chopped, frozen cranberries. Fresh, not dried.

4. In a separate bowl, make the cream cheese filling.

5. In cupcake-lined muffin tins, put a dollop of cake batter. Add a dollop of cream cheese filling. Put another dollop of cake batter and smooth it out so most of the cream cheese filling is covered. Dollop, dollop, dollop.

7. Sprinkle the muffins with demerara sugar.

8. Bake and eat. And eat and eat and eat.

Julie says these muffins are better than Starbucks. I’ve never had a Starbucks pumpkin muffin, but I’ll take her word for it.

Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins
Adapted from Dinner with Julie and Epicurious

These muffins would be fine without the cream cheese filling. And in that case, I bet they’d be good iced with a cream cheese and pecan frosting.

If you have a couple oranges hanging about on the premises, think about adding the zest to the batter. Just a thought…

This recipe makes about 18 muffins. I made 12, plus two loaf minis. If you’d rather not deal with the muffin hassle, make a sheet cake a la the earthquake cake method.

For the cake batter:
1 14-ounce can (about 1 3/4 cups) pumpkin puree
1 cup sugar
1 cup canola oil
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 tablespoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
pinch allspice
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup frozen fresh cranberries, chopped
demerara sugar, for topping, optional

Beat together the pumpkin, sugar, oil, egg, and vanilla. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well. Stir in the cranberries.

For the cream cheese filling:
6 ounces cream cheese
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons flour
pinch of salt
½ teaspoon vanilla

Beat ingredients together till creamy smooth.

To assemble:
Fill lined muffin tins one third of the way full with the cake batter. Top with a dollop of cream cheese filling. Top with another dollop of cake batter and smooth over the top, trying to cover most of the filling. Sprinkle with demerara sugar.

Bake the muffins at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until brown and set. Eat warm or at room temperature. If eating within a couple days, store at room temperature. If waiting longer than that, wrap and freeze.

This same time, years previous: let me sum up: the pie party!, lessons from West Virginia, brown sugar icing, no zip, sausage quiche with potato crust