Streusel Sour Cream Coffee Cakes

Hands down best way to start a week?  A cup of a coffee and a muffin.  Or a donut. Or a scone.  You get the picture:  Monday morning comes around, go get yourself a baked treat and a cup of coffee.

Streusel Sour Cream Coffee Cakes

2 1/2 cups flour

1 cup packed light brown sugar

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 tsp salt

2 sticks cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

1 tsp cinnamon

1 1/2 cups pecans, chopped

1 cup sour cream

1 egg

1 egg yolk

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp finely grated orange zest

Stir together flour, 3/4 cup brown sugar, granulated sugar, and salt in a large bowl.  Blend in 1 1/2 sticks of butter with a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal, with some pea-sized lumps of butter.  Transfer 3/4 cup of mixture to a medium bowl and blend in cinnamon, remaining 1/2 stick of butter, and remaining 1/4 cup of brown sugar with pastry blender until crumbly.  Stir in pecans.  Refrigerate streusel topping for 15 minutes.

Whisk together sour cream, egg, yolk, vanilla, baking soda, and orange zest in a bowl.  Stir into remaining flour mixture until just combined (batter will be stiff).

Generously butter 18 muffin cups; butter tops of muffin pans as well.  Divide batter among muffin cups, filling them about two-thirds full.  Sprinkle each with streusel topping and press it lightly into batter.  Bake at 350 degrees until cakes are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about 20-25 minutes.  Cool in pans on racks for 30 minutes.  Loosen cakes with a sharp small knife, then carefully remove from pan.  Makes 14-18 cakes.

source:  recipe from The Gourmet Cookbook

#19

...on my summer bucket list is done!  That's right, I have taken the plunge and joined

via

So I have no clue what I'm doing.  Any tips from you seasoned Pinterest users? Let's be Pinterest friends (here)!

Piña Colada Dip

I saw this fruit dip the other day and knew I needed to make it.  It was a cinch to put together and now I can't stop eating it!  Thankfully it's a healthy snack because it's half fruit, right?!

Piña Colada Dip
1 pkg (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
1 jar (7 oz) marshmallow creme
1 can (8 oz) crushed pineapple, drained
1/2 cup sweetened flaked coconut

Beat cream cheese and marshmallow creme together until fluffy.  Fold in the coconut and crushed pineapple.  Cover and refrigerate until serving.  Serve with fresh pineapple, strawberries, grapes, and other fruits of choice.

source:  recipe from val so cal

Vacation Recap: Days 4 & 5

Friday morning we decided to take a tour of the Old Faithful Inn.  I love learning the details and the history of places, so Caleb was gracious enough to agree to take the tour.  We thought the tour was really interesting, and if you have the time during a visit at Yellowstone, I would suggest you take it!  At the very least spend some time walking around the Inn - it is a national historic landmark and is quite fascinating.

the fireplace is made of 500 tons of rhyolite!

love all of the lodgepole pine beams everywhere

this was our view of the lobby from the bench we sat on in the evenings

from the porch of the Inn you can watch Old Faithful 

one of the original rooms of the Inn (built in 1904). you can stay in it for
$96 a night, but you have to use a public toilet and shower down the hall!

After our tour, we headed out to do the last few things we wanted to do before leaving Yellowstone.

this is taken from the parking lot of Old Faithful Inn.
Everywhere you look in Yellowstone is beautiful!

On our way towards the trail to Mystic Falls, we walked by a ton of geysers and hot springs.  This one is Sapphire Hole.  Possibly the most gorgeous one in Yellowstone!

beautiful.

at Mystic Falls

After Mystic Falls we went to see Fountain Paint Pots, another geothermal hot spot (haha get it) in Yellowstone.

Fountain Paint Pot

In the area around Fountain Paint Pot there were geysers as well.  This one I think was called Spasm Geyser, and it just kept shooting water!  It must have gone on for at least 10 minutes.

in front of Spasm Geyser 

Next we drove down Firehole Canyon Drive.  We stopped at the cascades because we just have this thing for watching water. 

Firehole Cascades

loving every minute together

Friday afternoon when we got back to the Old Faithful area, a storm was moving in.  We watched Old Faithful go off (for the 7th and 8th times of our trip!) and then it started pouring and hailing!  We spent the rest of the evening chilling out in the Old Faithful Inn lobby.  I made a list of random things to look for in the lobby (someone laying down, a set of twins, a bottle of wine, etc.) so we people-watched and checked things off the list.  It was nice to just relax.  

Saturday morning we left to drive back to Salt Lake City.  We stopped in the Tetons to look upon their beauty once more.  It was such a long trip back to SLC.  Somehow we ended up on the scenic byway (why do we always do that?!) and I felt like I was never going to get out of Idaho.  Once we made it back to the city, we shopped and ate at The Gateway for the evening.  We took a red-eye and finally got home at 2 pm on Sunday.  It was such a wonderful trip!

goodbye Yellowstone!

goodbye Tetons!

Vacation Recap: Day 3

On Thursday we spent most of our day around Yellowstone's Canyon.  There are two waterfalls in the Canyon:  Lower Falls and Upper Falls.  The Canyon follows Yellowstone River and is 20 miles long, 1000 feet deep, and 2500 feet wide. There are a lot of trails that take you close to the top of the falls, or you can take different trails to give you more of an overlook view.  We did a lot of them, but here are just a few of the views we had of the waterfalls and canyon.

standing right next to the top of Lower Falls

view of the canyon from Lower Falls

overlook of Lower Falls

ok in this next picture I've put arrows pointing to this diagonal line (maybe click on the picture to make it larger) that is a very steep set of stairs.  This trail and all of these steps is known as Uncle Tom's Trail.  It takes you 3/4 of the way down into the canyon to give you an awesome view of Lower Falls.

the steps of Uncle Tom's Trail from across the Canyon

Later in the day we went to the other side of the canyon and hiked down Uncle Tom's Trail.  The steps were SO steep and basically hanging over nothing! Which was really scary!  Going down I just looked at my feet so I didn't freak myself out. It was totally worth it once we got to the bottom, though!  Going back up was a different story: it was so steep and there were so many stairs, and climbing hundreds of stairs at 8,000 feet of elevation was a bit much for me.  I was literally gasping for air and my legs were still burning like two days later.  But it was fun, and we would definitely recommend it to anyone who goes to Yellowstone!

view of Lower Falls from Uncle Tom's Trail

we were so close to the falls!

After Uncle Tom's Trail we went to Artist's Point, which we heard was the best view of the canyon.  We would have to agree!

view from Artist's Point

After we left the Canyon area we went to Tower Falls.  We were disappointed that the trail to the bottom of the falls was closed, due to water and the trail being washed out.

Tower Falls

my first time seeing elk!

On our way back to the inn at the end of the day, we drove by Yellowstone Lake to get a view of something different.  It was very pretty, but basically your typical lake.  We decided we didn't want to spend any time there because we've been to other lakes.  We did stop at this mud volcano though - so weird!

mud volcano

We hadn't originally planned to spend so much time at the Canyon, but once we were there we decided we wanted to keep going down different trails!  There are beautiful views everywhere we looked!

(see part 1 of our trip here and part 2 here!)

Summer Bucket List

I've had this summer bucket list in my head for months and on paper for weeks; time to officially document it, now that July is almost half-way over!

Summer Bucket List 2011
1. Get a good tan and keep it all summer
2. Make homemade jam  (here)
3. Start running again
4. Go berry picking (here)
5. Make s'mores inspired desserts (here)
6. Spend a day at the river
7. Get creative with our grilling
8. See books-into-movies:  The Help, Something Borrowed, Water for Elephants
9. Buy an SLR camera and learn how to use it
10. Go to a drive-in movie
11. Catch a jar full of fireflies
12. Drive the MG around town
13. Go on an awesome vacation with Caleb (here & here)
14. Make popsicles (here)
15. Find a new game for the two of us to play (here)
16. Go to the beach (here)
17. Meet our first nephew!  (He's due July 30) (here)
18. Go to the Not Wedding (here)
19. Jump on the Pinterest bandwagon....maybe (here)

20. Read a classic

21. Learn how to make good iced coffee (here)
22. Attend my friend Katherine's summer potlucks
23. Incorporate braids into my currently boring hair routine
24. Figure out something really fun to do to celebrate my birthday! (here & here)
25. Take advantage of the pool down the street

What have you done so far on your summer bucket list?

Vacation Recap: Day 2

Wednesday morning we woke up and drove to the top of Signal Mountain to see the Tetons from up there.  We were so excited about the view!

the Tetons from the top of Signal Mountain

these yellow flowers are everywhere out there

Before we left Grand Teton National Park to head to Yellowstone, I wanted to go back to a turnout we had passed the day before to get some pictures.

this is one of our favorite pictures of us from the trip

After a few pictures we started the drive north to Yellowstone.  Along the way we stopped several times around the lake to take more pictures of the Tetons.  They're just so pretty we couldn't help it!

this is the picture I had been waiting for!  Love the reflection!

I think it took us about two hours to get to Old Faithful from where we were in the Tetons.  We also stopped several times once we got into Yellowstone - at an overlook of a river and then we also hiked to a waterfall.  There are so many places to stop and get out and look around that you could spend your entire day doing just that!  Once we got to the Old Faithful area, we spent some time walking around looking at all the different geysers and hot springs.  There are so many of them!  Everywhere you look there is steam coming out of the ground - it's crazy!

my favorites were the ones that were this beautiful blue.
the bluer the hot springs are, the hotter they are.

After we walked around looking at a bunch of the hot springs and geysers around Old Faithful, it was finally time to watch Old Faithful go off!

just getting started

it goes up so high!

Afterwards, we walked a couple of miles in the opposite direction of Old Faithful to look at more hot springs and geysers.  I have SO many pictures of all the different ones but this one is one of my favorites!

this is Morning Glory.  I prefer to call it Rainbow Hole.

We walked probably four or five miles in the general Old Faithful area looking at all of the hot springs and geysers.  And let me tell you: they smell SO bad!  Old Faithful didn't really smell, but as you're walking on the sidewalks/boardwalks by all of the littler ones, the hot steam hits you in the face and about knocks you over with the sulfur smell.  On our way back to the inn to get ready to eat dinner, we came across this guy!

our first view of bison!

Seeing all of the hot springs and geysers was pretty incredible.  Yellowstone has the largest concentration of them in the world, and it really is fascinating to see steam coming out of the ground, or to watch these huge puddle-like things gurgling and bubbling with hot water!  We stayed at the Old Faithful Inn the entire time we were in Yellowstone, and it was fun to watch Old Faithful go off several times a day and watch the other geysers going off around us.  In the evenings we always spent time in the Old Faithful Inn lobby, watching people, eating ice cream, and listening to this cute little old man playing the grand piano!