Week 15: Orange

 Week 15.  F1 is the size of an orange.  To celebrate Orange week I decided to make an Orange themed dessert.  I only had one orange for photography purposes.  Orangeya glad we're having a baby.

 Orange Bars

Just like lemon bars, only different.

1 cup flour
1/2 cup room temperature butter
1/4 cup powdered sugar
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp grated Orange peel
2 Tbs orange juice

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix flour, butter, and powdered sugar.  Press in ungreased square pan (8 x 8 x 2 or 9 x 9 x 2 inches, building up 1/2 inch edges) Bake 20 min.  Beat remaining ingredients until light and fluffy, about 3 min.  Pour over hot crust.  Bake until no indentation remains when touched lightly in the center, about 25 min.  Cool; cut into squares.

 The first thing I did was zest and press my one orange.

 Mix flour, powdered sugar, and butter together and press into a pan and bake for 20 min at 350 degrees.

 While I was waiting for the crust to bake on the orange bars I realized I had more orange juice left.  This meant I could do a second dessert!

Whip together eggs, sugar, orange juice, salt and baking powder and pour over the hot crust.  Put it back in the 350 degree oven for 25 min.

Orange Crisp Cookies

Just like chocolate chip cookies, only different.

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 brown sugar

1/2 cup room temperature butter

1/2 cup shortening

2 tsp grated orange peel

1 Tbs orange juice

1 egg

2 and 1/2 cups flour

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

Heat oven to 375 degrees.  Mix sugars, shortening, and butter.  Mix in remaining ingredients.  Roll dough into balls and flatten on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake until edges are light brown, about 10 - 12 min.  

 Cream together sugars and soft butter and shortening.  I can sample the dough at this stage.  I am a notorious dough eater, so it has been very hard for me NOT to eat the dough once raw eggs have been added.  I can't eat raw dough when pregnant.

 Add the rest of the ingredients and mix.

 Orange bars are done.  Dust with powdered sugar.

 Bake cookies are 375 degrees for 10 - 12 min.

 An Orange themed desert.  TWO orange desserts with ONE Orange.  Served on an Orange plate with an Orange mug.

 Enjoy.

J and K's F1

F1 generation, for first filial, referring to offspring.  F1 (genetics) the first filial generation which is comprised of offspring(s) resulting from a cross between strains of distinct genotypes.  The F1 generation is the generation resulting immediately from a cross of the first set of parents (parental generation, P1).

J and I are pleased to announce, August 23rd, 2015, that we have a bun in the oven.

J and I will have been married for 9 years this November 2015.  This event has been a long time coming.  Our first few years of marriage I thought we would have children within 2-3 years, like my siblings.  When that did not happen I went through a phase that we were never going to have children, that we did not even want kids.  Then I went through the baby obsessed phase and really wanted to have one of our own.  Now that this is finally happening I am terrified and kind of excited.  Terricited.

I first suspected that I might be pregnant the 1st of June, 2015.  It was when I started my resolution to increase my running distance and look into running a marathon.  Nope.  I could not jog on the treadmill anymore.  My breasts hurt.  My body hurt.  I hurt.  Everything felt slightly off.  We started calling my "yucky-hurt" condition the "Maybe Baby".  I took the pregnancy test June 23rd, 2015.  The results were no surprise, just a confirmation.

July 14th, Week 9.  I had my first ultrasound.  Baby is the size of a kidney bean and due 

February 14th, 2016.  

I went through 3 months of morning sickness.  It was awful.  The worst was the entire month July.  I was throwing up every day, multiple times a day.  I had caught a bad head cold and could not take any medicine for it.  I could not breathe.  Then I went and spilled hot soup on myself in the lunch room at work, thus scalding my chest, tummy, and lap (inner thighs).  I had both legs wrapped with second degree burns and it hurt when I walked.  There was one point where I could not even drink water without vomiting.  I lost 5 pounds in 3 weeks.

August 11th, Week 13.  Second ultrasound, this time with my husband.  Baby is the size of a lime.  We now call it a limey and talk with an English accent.  (Though I still refer to baby as kidney bean.)

I have a bit of a baby bump going.  This was the last week I could comfortably wear my skinny jeans.  Sigh.

Since I was finally out of the first trimester, you know the scary miscarriage probability time, I was through the worst of the morning sickness, and I was starting to show, we decided that now would be a good time to announce our decision to become parents to my parents.  August 22nd is J's birthday.  We invited my parents and siblings over to celebrate. Only one sibling made it, but she had 4 kids with her.  I made porcupine meatballs, bacon risotto and yellow cake with orange cream frosting.  We picked out a "Congratulations on becoming Grandparents" card and gave it to my parents after dinner.  It was the best reaction I could have hoped for.  They had no idea it was coming.  They are happy for us.  I love my parents so much.

Since one of the four children at the birthday party was a 5 year old we knew we could not keep our secret much longer so we had to tell everyone.  Charlie took the news the hardest.  He was pretty upset.

  Once he forgives us and comes out from under the bed I am sure he will be a great older brother.

J and K.