The Audrey Files

New Year's Fun

2011-12-26T09:12:00.001-08:00

I hope you had a wonderful holiday! Ours was just plain magical.

Christmas began at our house at 4:45 a.m. -- that's when my 8 year old, who'd apparently been up for hours, couldn't wait any longer and came and got us to go check if Santa had been there!

There are very few things that would actually get me out of bed at that hour, but a cute kid wearing a Santa hat is one of them!

So we got up early, opened some amazing presents, and nearly 3 hours later we watched the sun rise. I'm usually sound asleep when the sun comes up, so that was actually kind of nice. Of course, waking up at 9 would have been nice too!

But Christmas was great, earliness and all. The best quote of the day: my husband commented that the living room was really full after we'd opened all our presents, and my son said, "It's full of dreams -- dreams come true." Awwwww! :)

So now that Christmas is a wrap, I'm looking ahead to New Year's.

I did something so fun last December 31st that it's now become an annual tradition: I set up little treat bags for every hour from 8 p.m. to midnight to count down to the new year, one for each family member. That's what's pictured at the start of this post.

Some bags contained little prizes like gum, or Hot Wheels, or dollar store novelties (glow sticks, etc.) Noise makers were in the midnight bag, which we opened a couple minutes before 12.

I included a new game early in the evening (the card game Uno, which we've played about a million times since then).

Also super fun was a new family DVD and movie snacks (popcorn, a big box of movie theater style candy) strategically placed in the 10 p.m. bags (the movie was 90 minutes long, I made sure it would end before midnight!)

And of course the bags are totally rigged -- my kiddo gets the ones with the toys, games, and movie in it, my hubby and I get the other bags!

You might want to try a New Year's countdown with your family, and start a new tradition!

I got the cute little gift bags in a big multi-pack at Target, but inexpensive lunch sacks would work just as well.

To decorate the bags, I printed little clock faces from the internet (just type 'clock faces' into Google, you'll get a ton of choices to print, some with hands, some without).

I paper-crafted moving hands onto the clocks I printed, because I'm a scrapbooker and I can't help myself! I cut triangular hands from cardstock and stuck them on with a snowflake embellishment and a brad. You could totally simplify it by just writing the times on each bag, it's totally up to you.

I was smart enough to keep last year's clocks, so I can reuse them on this year's treat bags!

However you celebrate it, I hope your New Year's is happy, healthy, and just plain wonderful!

Wishing you the joys of the season!

2011-12-22T15:55:00.001-08:00

This is a photo of our "Elf on the Shelf," Dinky, trying to abscond with an armload of candy canes! This is our first elf year, and I'm glad we started doing this before my son outgrew it -- we've all been having a blast!

Yes, I've been M.I.A. all month, but I wanted to pop in and wish everyone a happy, healthy holiday!

So where have I been? Enjoying the holiday season!

I've tried to cultivate a zen-like approach to the holidays this year -- what gets done, gets done, and if it doesn't that's ok too.

And you know what? Even without stressing myself out, somehow it's still all gotten done -- the gifts are wrapped, the packages got mailed, the tree is loaded with ornaments. All is merry and bright.

I'm doing a bit of baking this week, preparing to have my family over this weekend, and getting ready for the big day on Sunday. But even that I'm doing in moderation.

My one concession to my do-it-all mentality is that I'm trying to make a gingerbread house from scratch. We'll see if it actually wants to stand up this year!

The house is trying its best to shatter my zen-like calm...but I'm doing it because I like to make gingerbread houses and choose to do it, not because I feel I have to.

I have had to keep reminding myself of that, especially when one of the main walls cracked the moment I touched it...so it'll be a gingerbread house in earthquake country! It'll still be fine!

Oh, and then there was my brilliant moment of putting wax paper in the oven instead of parchment paper! Here's a tip: don't do that! lol! I wasn't paying attention, and these things happen. And in case you didn't know:

wax paper + oven = bad

So there have been a few hiccups, but all in all, I'm feeling good about this holiday season. And I hope you are too!

From my home to yours: Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Holidays one and all! I hope your celebration is magical.

Gear up those Advent Calendars!

2011-11-28T18:34:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting to kick into full Christmas mode for a couple weeks now. But (fortunately) we try to hold the line at my house and give Thanksgiving its due -- so the Christmas decorations don't go up until Thanksgiving is a wrap.

Which means I'm now free to deck the halls!

The first thing on my plate is setting up my son's Advent calendars. Yes, plural. That's because we have to have a Lego Advent calendar every year (and this year Lego released a Star Wars Lego calendar -- hello! No way I could pass that up for my 8 year old Star Wars/Lego maniac!)

And I always like to put up a hand-made calendar as well so I can fill it with little trinkets and goodies.

Hence the two calendars.

Last year I made the Advent calendar pictured above, the base of which is a mini muffin tin. The little cardstock "doors" are held in place with strips of magnets.

The mini muffin tin cups only hold very small items. This led me to put scavenger hunt notes in some of the cups, clues telling my son where to find bigger prizes hidden around the house. He's still talking about how much fun that was a year later!

I encourage you to make an Advent calendar for someone this year, and they're not just for kids! Maybe your spouse/bff/sister/aunt/whoever would like one!

Also, since you're making it, you could easily customize your calendar to count down to Hanukkah instead of Christmas if that's what you celebrate -- or to any other event, for that matter!

For a whole slew of home-made Advent ideas, check out Better Homes and Gardens' website. All of their ideas are fairly easy and some are super easy. I love the idea of hanging numbered lunch sack-style gift bags filled with goodies on twine with clothes pins. Voila -- instant Advent calendar!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-22T09:57:00.000-08:00

I can tell Thanksgiving is almost here because my refrigerator is stuffed to capacity! I keep expecting the fridge to explode like a cartoon, showering my kitchen with yams and cranberries and butter -- lots and lots of butter!

As of today I'll be starting my Thanksgiving cooking, working on side dishes and casseroles. That's my number one sanity saver for the biggest cooking day of the year: getting stuff done ahead of time!

Sure, you can't do everything ahead of time, but I figure every little thing I do Tuesday and Wednesday will be one less thing I have to do on Thursday. And that means more time to relax and enjoy the day with my family.

Which, really, is the whole point of the holiday, right?

That and giving thanks -- which I hope we all remember to include somewhere in there between the mashed potatoes and the pie coma!

If you're still looking around for a few last minute ideas, head on over to Linda Hopkins' amazing blog, Les Petites Gourmettes. Here's a link to her complete recipe index. She has an extensive section of holiday recipes, and every recipe I've ever tried of hers has been nothing short of delish.

I'm basically sticking to the tried and true this year, but I'll still throw in a few fresh twists. For example, I'll be making my same ol' pumpkin pie recipe, but I'm going to pour the filling into individual tartlets this year, like so:

(photo by blog.catchmyparty.com)

The step-by-step instructions can be found here, at Catch my Party, but the basic idea is to cut flower shapes out of your pie crust with a cookie cutter, put them in mini muffin tins, fill and bake.

They actually made lemon tartlets in their demo, which I'm so going to try at some point in the future, yum! But for Thanksgiving I thought little individual pumpkin pie tartlets would be the way to go. I may make mine in regular-size muffin cups, so everyone has their own mini pie -- I think that would be super cute.

There's one more thing about Catch my Party that you have to check out while you're over at that great site: they have the cutest free printables! And yes, there are some adorable ones for Thanksgiving in several different styles! I just might have to fire up the ol' inkjet....

Ok, I'm off to cook up some cranberry sauce, maybe set the table, then try to figure out why I bought about 3 pounds of butter per person....

Take care, and have a wonderful, bountiful Thanksgiving!

Fun Fall Craft

2011-10-19T17:30:00.001-07:00

I whipped up this cute little fall paper craft today and I thought I'd share it with you. This little pumpkin uses patterned and solid scrapbook paper and goes together quickly and easily.

Here's the project for you step by step:

Step one is to gather up a bunch of different orange papers. If you're a scrapbooker or paper crafter, you probably have lots of orange paper in your stash. It doesn't even need to be fall- or Halloween-themed, any orange (or other Autumn-colored) paper will do.

Next you're going to cut a dozen same-sized circles out of the papers. You can use a circle cutter like this one by EK Success (I love this cutter! I found it on Amazon), or a Cricut machine, or go old-school and trace a small plate onto your paper and cut the circle out with scissors. It's all good! I cut a dozen 5 inch circles.

Next, trim the same amount off one side of each circle as shown (this will make your pumpkin stand up straight). I cut an inch off the 5 inch circles, but when I go to make more I think I'll trim off slightly less.

(Optional step: If you feel like it, now would be the time to ink the edges of your little circles. I didn't ink these, but I think I might do that when I make more).

Then fold your circles in half, printed side in as shown.

Next, using a quick-drying glue like Zip Dry, glue wrong sides together, working your way around until 6 of the circles are stuck together.

Now it's time for a stem:

I used a chopstick. I broke it in half and colored the end with a brown marker. You could also use paint or ink. And if you don't have a chop stick, go outside and find a stick, that'd work too.

Run a line of glue along the center seam of your pumpkin, then lay the chopstick into the glue. Make sure the colored end sticks up from the top of the pumpkin, like this:

Once the stem is in place, continue gluing the remaining paper panels together until you have a completed pumpkin shape:

Now it's time to add a little greenery.

Make curly-cues by twisting thin strips of green double-sided paper around a chop stick, paint brush handle, or skinny pencil.

Then glue the little spirals around the stem.

Next you'll want to cut some leaves. I wanted mine to look kind of organic, so I folded double-sided green patterned paper in half and free-handed some spiky little leaves. You could also cut some from a Cricut cartridge, or hey, trace an actual leaf if you prefer.

Run a bead of glue along the underside of the leaves, then arrange them around the top of the pumpkin.

And there you go! These are fun to make, and your kids can even get in on the act. Best of all, they're not strictly Halloween decorations -- they can take you right through fall. In fact, I can imagine a whole flock of these in various sizes on my Thanksgiving table..... :)

Countdown to Halloween

2011-10-17T20:35:00.001-07:00

Halloween is almost here, and I'm giddy with excitement! I just love all things fall and Halloween, everything from the cooler weather to the changing leaves to the costumes and treats and pumpkin carving.

I really get into pumpkin carving, as a matter of fact. I like to challenge myself to do something a little different each year. Here are a few pumpkins I made in previous years:

I made this Jack Skellington pumpkin because my whole family loves Nightmare Before Christmas. We have an annual tradition of watching it every Halloween after trick or treating.

I made this Autobot and Decepticon logo pumpkin last year to go with my son's Bumblebee costume. That boy loves him some Transformers!

I made that green pumpkin a couple years ago to commemorate my raging Twilight obsession. And basically, just to see if I could do it. The cute little pumpkin to the right, by the way, was carved by my then-6-year-old (obviously not using big sharp pointy knives -- safety first, I always say). The whole family gets in on the pumpkin carving at my house.

And carving isn't just for pumpkins, you know! Here's a quick centerpiece I made for my family's Halloween lunch last year:
It took literally 5 minutes and got the biggest smiles from my kiddo.

This year my son, and in fact my whole family, is dressing as the Ghostbusters for Halloween. We already took our home-made costumes for a test spin at Mickey's Trick or Treat party at Disneyland last week and they were a huge hit, thank you very much! So I'm planning to tie in my pumpkin carving efforts this year by replicating the "no ghosts" logo from the movie onto a pumpkin. I'll let you know how it comes out!

It probably won't be perfect, none of these are. But I know it'll be fun, and I know my son will love it!

Got fall?

2011-09-28T10:47:00.001-07:00

Fall has officially begun, but here in southern Oregon I'm still waiting for cool, crisp days and changing leaves. I suppose I should be grateful for the warm, sunny weather we've been having -- but I'm totally over it!

I'm jonesing to bust out my sweaters and crank up the oven and pile pumpkins all over my house!

But my kiddo is still running around in shorts and eating Popsicles because it's 80 degrees out....

So for now, I'm left to daydream about lovely fall baked goods and decorations and Halloween treats. I just can't make myself go there in this summery weather. It's just wrong, somehow.

But all is not lost! Thanks to my girlfriend Kristi, my domestic daydreams are being fueled by a couple great blogs she shared with me, and now I'm sharing them with you. Go check out:

Cookies & Cups

Confessions of a Cookbook Queen

Fall is in full swing on both those blogs...if not in my neck of the woods! And they'll help tide me over until I can crank up my oven...instead of cranking up the a/c!

Calling All Lego Families!

2011-09-08T10:13:00.000-07:00

Oh man, this is my second unseasonably early holiday post in a row -- you're going to think I've gone off the holly jolly deep end!

But I wanted to give a heads-up to all you parents/aunties/grandparents of Lego kids out there:

The 2011 Lego Advent calendars have just come out, and they always sell out quickly.

Just to add to the frenzy, for the first time ever, Lego released a Star Wars Advent Calendar this year! If you have little kids that love Star Wars and Legos -- like my 8 year old -- this is a total must-have!

I just ordered one for my son, and the Star Wars version is already on back order, but currently just until the end of September.

So for the entire month of December I will probably be awakened at the crack of dawn, because my son will be too excited to wait for his daily Star Wars Lego creation! But it'll be worth it, because he's going to be one happy little Padawan. :)

Labor Day Weekend

2011-09-04T12:33:00.000-07:00

Hi kids! Yup, I've been away from my blog for quite a while. I've been out enjoying every last bit of summer with my family.

And can I just say, that was the fastest summer in recorded history! Boy did it fly. But good times were had, great memories were made, and I have enough photos to keep me scrapbooking well into the next millennium!

So here we are at Labor Day weekend, and I just did something truly nutty, something which has become an annual tradition for me. It's going to sound insane, but -- I just ordered my Christmas cards.

I know! Helloooo, end of summer here! It's positively pathological that anyone would be thinking ahead to Christmas already.

And yet!

Here's what I have to say in my defense:

I love sending photo cards at the holidays, and I use Shutterfly.com for almost all my pictures. Well, lo and behold, every Labor Day weekend Shutterfly runs their biggest sale of the year on cards of all types, and the nice 5x7 folded photo cards I like are 50 percent off, plus free shipping. Fifty percent! That's a nice chunk of change, my friend.

The sale runs through September 7th, just FYI.

And no, I don't work for Shutterfly. I just know a good deal when I see one!

The other nice thing, besides saving money, is that it gets this sometimes intimidating task out of the way, freeing up some time in the oh-so-hectic holiday season. And I am all about de-stressing the holidays!

So, I'm just putting this idea out there -- consider printing your holiday cards early. Like way early. Then when December rolls around, they'll be sitting there waiting for you, and you'll have that much less to worry about.

Happy holidays! ;)

Calling All Cardmakers!

2011-08-11T09:06:00.000-07:00

Here's a heads-up for all you paper crafters out there: Paper Crafts Magazine is having a huge and I mean HUGE contest for World Card Making Day (yes, there really is such a thing)!

They're calling for original card submissions in five categories:

Birthday
Christmas/Season’s Greetings
Hello/Thinking of You
Love
Thank You

And they're giving away 20 prize packages worth a thousand bucks each. Not too shabby, huh? Oh and as if that's not great enough, winning this contest also means getting published in Paper Crafts Magazine. Suh-weet!

Go here for more info. And be aware that original entries need to be received by October 10th.

Are they going to get thousands of entries? You betcha. Should you give it a shot anyway? Oh heck yeah!

A few posts ago I was talking about wanting to challenge myself as a scrapbooker, and contests are an excellent way to do that. Whether you're a paper crafter or devoted to another hobby, I encourage you to push yourself out of your comfort zone and give yourself a challenge.

I'll bet you surprise yourself with just how creative you can be!

Good luck and happy crafting!

Scrapbooking Bargains

2011-08-08T20:23:00.000-07:00

Well lucky me, I got to spend a lot of time last weekend scrapbooking with several wonderful girlfriends. And I was raving to them about a great site I'd found with some real bargains on scrapbook products, so I decided to share it with you as well.

It's called Crafty Steals, and I recently got a great kit of camping/outdoor themed American Crafts products from them (pictured above). It was more than 50 percent off retail, and as of this posting they still had some in stock (note to my girlfriend Diane: I think you would love this kit!)

Crafty Steals does a deal of the day (or "steal" of the day), so I'd suggest either signing up for their email newsletter or following them on facebook because some of the deals sell out quickly. They also have a good selection of past steals on the website, check 'em out.

I will say that shipping is on the high side (mine was $11 and change which I believe is their standard flat rate). But the savings were so great on the products I got that I still came out ahead.

Generally though, I'd suggest either pooling orders with your friends to divvy up the shipping charge or ordering several kits at once, since the shipping fee seems to be flat-rate.

Happy shopping!

Watermelon Granita

2011-08-02T13:21:00.001-07:00

The heat is on here in southern Oregon, and I'm willing to bet it's hot where you are too. So I was super excited to find this recipe for the coolest, lightest, most summery dessert ever!

It's from the Pioneer Woman's website (don't you just love her?!) and it couldn't have been quicker or easier!

All you do is combine 8 cups seeded watermelon cubes, 1/3 cup sugar, and the juice of 2 limes. Divide the ingredients into 2 batches and whirl in your blender.

Then freeze the mixture in a shallow dish until set and scrape it up with a fork. The recipe recommends scraping the mixture every couple hours, but I just scraped it up after it was fully frozen. I'm lazy that way.

It ends up tasting like a fresh, yummy snow cone!

Click here for the Pioneer Woman's original post. And give it a whirl, you'll be glad you did.

My family devoured it, I need to make a second batch!

Little Yellow Bicycle Layout

2011-07-14T21:25:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: I actually won the sketch challenge! Little Yellow Bicycle is sending me some prizes! How excited am I?! It just goes to show that it's good to challenge yourself! :)

I've decided I'm in a bit of a scrapbooking rut -- I seem to make the same layouts over and over. So in an effort to try to snap myself out of it and inspire some creativity, I've decided to start participating in some online challenges.

And hey look, I actually finished one! It was a sketch challenge on Little Yellow Bicycle's facebook page.

The products are all from LYB's new Sweet Summertime collection, which I went slightly crazy for at my local scrapbook store this past weekend.

I thought the line coordinated well with these photos I took last summer (in case you're wondering, the pictures were taken at Dennis the Menace Playground in Monterey, California, and it totally rocks).

Looking at my layout now in photo form, the journaling spot looks like a big white hole. I may reprint that on light colored paper at some point and swap it out....

Overall though I like the design, which is based directly on a sketch by one of the LYB crew, so I really can't take much credit for it.

Now if only I could figure out how to get a decent photo of my layouts! They're too big to fit on my flatbed scanner, and every photo attempt turns out kind of wonky....

Home Decor Project

2011-07-12T18:00:00.001-07:00

I'd finished this cute "printer's tray" frame a few weeks ago, but just now found a place to hang it in my home. Thought I'd share it with you!

I got most of it as a kit from The Button Farm, a really fab woman-owned small business that I'm forever raving about! She has a kit quite similar to this one on her site now.

Then I added a few extra embellishments (more is more, after all)!

If you decide to make your own and don't want to go with a kit, you can find frames like this at your local scrapbook store, craft store, or at scrapbook.com. If you search online, look for "printer trays" (these frames are reminiscent of the drawers used by printers long ago to hold typesetting letters).

As for photos, I decided to theme this project around a family vacation to Chicago a couple years ago. I reprinted a few of my favorite photos in black and white and wallet size, and they worked great, just right for this particular frame. I was able to make both of those adjustments right from the Shutterfly website, which I use extensively.

A few detail photos are included below. I especially love the inclusion of a little tin box that opens to reveal a mini accordion album.

How happy was I that one of the little faux postage stamps in my Button Farm kit actually said Chicago? :)

This was one of the first home decor items I've attempted. Now I want to make more!!

Happy Independence Day!

2011-07-02T10:35:00.001-07:00

Here's one final 4th of July treat before I take off for a weekend of celebration with my family!

I call this one a Crafty Kids' Cooler, and making it is super simple: I used powdered drink mix in two different flavors and colors (blue raspberry lemonade and cherry) and used slightly less water than was called for to concentrate the flavor and color.

Then I froze the red and blue beverages in star-shaped ice cube trays (available in many places this time of year, and pretty much always available on Amazon).

The 2 flavors of ice cubes were tossed in a clear glass, and I poured lemon-lime soda over them. You could use any clear liquid you want. Soda's a big treat in my house, something we don't have around every day, so I went with that. It tasted yummy as the 2 flavors of ice cubes melted into the drink, and my son fished out the cubes with a spoon afterwards and gobbled them up!

And yeah, I used a wine glass for this photo, obviously I wouldn't recommend handing a big, breakable glass to a little kid. But you know us bloggers, we have to make everything purdy for the photo op!

Ok, I'm off! But not before I wish all of you a safe, happy and fun 4th of July!!

4th of July Dessert

2011-06-29T15:40:00.001-07:00

Here's another idea for a quick, easy dessert for the 4th of July: simply make strawberry shortcake and include blueberries in with the strawberries. Add some whipped cream and voila: red, white, blue, and delish!

There are tons of ways to combine strawberries and blueberries for a quick, easy 4th of July-inspired dessert. For example, they'd be a yummy topping on vanilla ice cream, and would look wonderful decorating a fresh fruit tart.

Berries are so good this time of year, and an easy route to a fun Independence Day treat!

Two-Minute Treat

2011-06-28T10:31:00.000-07:00

Here's a 4th of July-themed dessert that just couldn't be quicker or easier! Take washed and dried strawberries, dip the bottom 2/3 of each berry in whipped cream or whipped topping, and then dip the bottom third in blue sanding sugar. Viola! Red, white and blue yumminess.

It's easy to find blue sugar this time of year, by the way. Just look where ever cupcake decorating supplies are sold -- red, white, and blue is everywhere right now. I buy the large 5-compartment canister of cupcake sprinkles at Target for pretty much every holiday, and the canister for the 4th usually includes a nice bright blue sugar. Blue sprinkles would work fine, too.

My 7 year old's response to this dessert: "Mmmmmmmmmm!"

Summertime

2011-06-27T16:11:00.000-07:00

I've been poking around on the internet today, and finding all kinds of cute ideas for the 4th of July. Check out Shindig (her June 24th post) for a great list of red, white and blue beverages, including this cute strawberry daiquiri from MaisonBisson. I think I'm going to go with a kid-friendly strawberry smoothie with this cute topping idea!

Father's Day Weekend

2011-06-17T10:44:00.001-07:00

Father's Day weekend is upon us, and here are a few quick ideas to make the day even more special for the Dads in your life!

First of all, check out the cute free printables over at Shindig:

(Photo c. Shindig)

You can make a banner, cards, cupcake toppers and more from the cute patterns she supplies. Be sure to browse around the site while you're there, she has all sorts of terrific goodies you'll enjoy. Thanks to my girlfriend Janie for sending me the link!

Now then, let's talk about food! Every Father's Day I like to treat my hubby to his favorite dishes. And most years that means starting the day off with Eggs Benedict. Our twist on the classic is to layer crunchy toasted English muffins with poached eggs and ripe yummy avocado slices, then top it off with a generous amount of classic Hollandaise sauce.

Don't be intimidated by the idea of making Hollandaise sauce. I mean really, if I can do it, anyone can! The only thing that makes it challenging is the fact that you really can't walk away from it. You have to stir it constantly as it cooks, but it only takes about ten minutes, so it's not that big a deal.

And the effort is so totally worth it! This sauce is so delicious it would make a brick taste good! It’s very rich and creamy, buttery with a nice citrus note. It’s heavenly on Eggs Benedict as well as veggies like asparagus – or heck, on almost anything!

Classic Hollandaise Sauce

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
3 egg yolks, beaten
1 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
salt and pepper

Cut the stick of butter into 3 pieces and let it come to room temperature.

In the top of a double boiler over boiling water, combine egg yolks, water, lemon juice, and a dash each of salt and pepper. Add one piece of butter and whisk constantly and vigorously until butter melts and sauce begins to thicken.

Repeat with each of the two remaining pieces of butter, stirring in one at a time and letting it melt completely before adding the next piece. Stir constantly.

Cook for one or two minutes more until the sauce is nice and thick. Serve immediately.

Tip: If your sauce ends up too thick, or if it “breaks” (you’ll know if that happens, it’ll look chunky and curdled instead of nice and smooth), here’s what you do: immediately whisk in one or two tablespoons of hot tap water. It’s amazing how this really does bring the sauce right back.

A note on pepper: most Hollandaise recipes call for white pepper, to keep the sauce all pretty and uniform-looking. I never have white pepper on hand, and my family really isn’t the type to care about seeing pepper specks in the sauce – they’re too busy raving about how delish it is! So if you have white pepper on hand, go ahead and use that. Otherwise, it’s not really worth fretting over.

So that's how we'll start the day at our house. And we'll end it with some kind of decadent dessert! I have three ideas for that one, and am still deciding which to go with:

First there's classic pineapple upside down cake (one of my hubby's faves), only with a twist: made as individual cupcakes instead of as a cake! Leave it to my galpal Linda over at Les Petites Gourmettes for coming up with this idea, she's so clever!

The next idea is to simply do an ice cream pie. The pluses of this idea are that it's no-cook and my 7 year old could do a lot of it -- I know he'd love to make a special dessert for Dad, and this one's very easy. All this would involve is layering hot fudge sauce, caramel sauce and softened ice cream in a store-bought chocolate cookie pie crust, then putting it in the freezer to firm up.

The final idea I'm considering: Reese's Peanut Butter Cup-stuffed chocolate chip cookies. Does that sound decadent or what?! This is more of a concept than a recipe, based on something I saw on Picky Palate's facebook page. It basically involves sandwiching peanut butter cups between cookie dough and then baking them up. I haven't tried it yet, but how could the results be anything less than drool-worthy?!

Ok, so Father's Day weekend may see more than one of those ideas put into play at my house!

Have a great weekend, and Happy Father's Day to all the Dads out there!

Wandering

2011-06-15T17:16:00.000-07:00

Oh, I know what you're thinking. Mmhmm. You're thinking, "What a bad, bad, blogger! Surely she's fallen off the planet -- why, just look at how long she's neglected her blog!"

And what's my excuse? Sneaking off on yet another family road trip. The nerve of some people, I know!

But I'll make it up to you, I swear! How about if I show you a bunch of purdy pictures I took on this aforementioned road trip? Hmmm? I'll start by buttering you up with this fine fellow:

Isn't he handsome? And I dig his spiky hairdo! Can you see why I just have to get out there and do the road trip thing on a regular basis?! And no, he was not in a zoo, he was in the wild, if hanging out beneath the Santa Cruz wharf counts as "the wild." There was a fence between him and the dock I was on, by the way, which is a good thing, I'm sure (and there are all sorts of rules about coming within 100 yards of marine mammals -- but obviously no one told him that).

Then there's the majestic pelican. Majestic, I tell you.

Awww, fuzzy bunny! Not just a fuzzy bunny, but a fuzzy bunny chomping on some leaves. Awwww I say again! Apparently it was Wabbit Season in California, because we saw more little fuzzers on this trip than pretty much ever.

Squishy fishie! I do love me some aquariums, the whole family does too. This was at the Long Marine Lab, which is a part of my dear ol' alma mater, U.C. Santa Cruz (go Banana Slugs! Woo!) :)

What about landscapes you ask? Oh, you didn't ask? Well here are some anyway, starting with the conventional postcard-purdy:

I seriously could have spent all day photographing this place. It's the Pigeon Point lighthouse south of San Francisco. Sea, wildflowers, and this great old building all combined -- oh yeah, just turn me loose with my camera for about 24 hours!

To the somewhat less conventional:

A "castle" tucked away in a little mountain town.

To the downright alien:

A living rooftop atop San Francisco's California Academy of Sciences. Love that place!

Wildflower season is in full swing on the west coast, so here are a few flower photos, the first of which even includes a chubby bumble bee:

On an entirely different note, I'll leave you with a couple shots of the oh-so-heavenly Gayle's Bakery in Capitola, California -- and I'll leave you with a promise that I won't stay away so long next time...even though the great American road trip is forever calling my name! ;)

Out and About

2011-05-02T10:22:00.001-07:00

Hi all! I'm out and about on a family vacation right now, here's a quick pic from our trip!

That, as you can probably tell, is a shot I took of the Yosemite Valley -- El Cap is on the left, Half Dome toward the back/center, and Bridalveil Fall is to the right. Yosemite is almost overwhelmingly beautiful, I can't recommend it enough!

I'll be back to blogging when life returns to normal. I hope you're enjoying some glorious spring weather where ever you are!

Easter Basket Cupcakes

2011-04-18T16:36:00.001-07:00

I did a little test batch of Easter cupcakes today. They're going to be a part of the Easter brunch I'm hosting. Cute, huh?

I used a boxed cake mix just to keep it simple. I did make some homemade butter cream frosting, tinted green, because I like homemade frosting better than canned.

You can use whatever cake and frosting you like!

Then I put about a cup of sweetened shredded coconut in a ziptop bag, added 2-3 drops of green food coloring, and shook it until it was a nice light green. You don't need to go too crazy with the food coloring, pastel looks pretty.

Next I put the coconut in a bowl and pressed the frosted cupcakes in to make it look like the grass filling inside an Easter basket:

I had fun finding cute Easter goodies to go on top, including jelly beans, chocolate eggs, colored egg-shaped sprinkles, and mini chocolate bunnies.

I just love those little Lindt chocolate bunnies. I found them at Target. Aren't they just the cutest things ever?!

For the basket handles I used yellow Twizzlers, which I carefully split in half.

I gave them a little twist before embedding the ends in the cupcakes. I found I needed to drill a couple of pilot holes in the cupcakes first, using the pointed handle of a teaspoon (below). That made it a lot easier to get the Twizzlers in place.

The handles were a bit soft and not all of them wanted to stand up. So it really helped to prop them up with the chocolate bunnies.

All in all, these were pretty easy and lots of fun! My 7 year old was delighted with them, and he enjoyed helping decorate them, too.

Viola! Cupcakes, candy and cuteness, together in one dessert!

Quick Springtime Treat

2011-04-12T10:26:00.001-07:00

I mean really, who doesn't love Rice Krispy Treats? They're fun, simple, and a whole lot of yum. And this time of year I like to cute them up a bit, as you can see above.

Simply make a batch of Rice Krispy Treats according to the directions on the box of Kellogg's Rice Krispies Cereal. Then thoroughly butter your hands and form the treats into little nest shapes: first make a ball slightly bigger than a golf ball, then use your thumbs to press an indentation in the center. Put them on waxed paper to set.

They really don't have to be perfect. Just have fun with it!

My son likes to get in on the act by placing either jelly beans or Cadbury mini eggs in each nest. Do this soon after you form the nests, so the candy will stick.

And voila! A cute, fun, and super easy seasonal treat!

Enjoy!

Hard-Boiled Egg Season

2011-04-07T10:46:00.000-07:00

We have a smattering of snow on the ground today in Southern Oregon, and it feels like spring is never going to get here. Yeah, I know, it doesn't do any good to complain about the weather -- but somehow that's never stopped me!

Easter's really late in the season this year, too, just to add to the feeling that spring will never arrive. But at our house we've plunged right in to the Easter festivities anyway, even if it is weeks away.

We're even getting set to color some eggs today! And no, we're not going to keep them around until Easter, ew! That would be bad. We'll make a fresh batch then.

My son and I both love coloring eggs, and we always make more than my little family of 3 can actually eat -- so I thought it would make sense to color the eggs in 2 or 3 small batches throughout the month, rather than in one huge batch of four or five dozen hard-boiled eggs at one time!

I boiled off 18 eggs today, which frankly is still a heck of a lot to eat. I can only think of three things to do with hard-boiled eggs: deviling them, making egg salad, and slicing them up on top of a chef salad. After that, I got nothin'!

I do make fab deviled eggs, though, and they're among my hubby's favorite appetizers, so that'll put a pretty good dent in the hard-boiled egg backlog. My recipe is below.

And while I'm on the subject of hard-boiled eggs, here is a public service announcement: Grey Yolks are Super Gross! At the very bottom of this post I'm going to tell you how to perfectly boil an egg without turning the yolk that alarming shade of Zombie Grey. Just say no to grey yolks!

Thank you. This concludes my public service announcement for the day. Here now, my deviled egg recipe:

Old-School Deviled Eggs

6 eggs, hard-boiled and peeled
1 / 4 cup light mayonnaise
1 teaspoon yellow mustard
1 teaspoon vinegar (plain white works fine)
Salt and pepper
Smoky Paprika

Slice the eggs lengthwise and scoop yolks into a bowl. Mash them well with a fork. Stir in the mayo, mustard, vinegar, and a sprinkling of salt and pepper. Stir vigorously until smooth.

Spoon the filling into the egg white halves, or if you’re feeling fancy, use a large star tip and fill the eggs with a pastry bag. It only takes a couple extra minutes, and the results are worth it, I think.

Sprinkle with a little paprika for flavor and color, and enjoy some old-school goodness!

Some notes on paprika: it comes in 3 varieties: sweet, hot, and smoky. Smoky paprika is a bit harder to find than it's common cousins, but totally worth the effort, since it adds a really nice dimension to dishes like this. Any good gourmet market will have it, and I've seen it at World Market at well. Keep an eye out for it, I think you'll like it!

Now about those grey yolks: if you follow most cookbook instructions and boil the bajeezus out of an egg for 15 minutes, the yolk is going to turn grey. It doesn't taste bad, but it looks disgusting. Don't do it! Your friends and family may not tell you, but I will: grey yolks are grody!

Here's how to hard-boil an egg without turning the yolk grey:

Put a single layer of eggs in a large pot, being careful not to crowd them. Cover the eggs in enough cold water so that they're totally submerged, with an extra couple inches of water over them.

Put the pot over high heat on your stove. Keep an eye on it! Here's the trick: as soon as the water reaches a rapid boil, put a lid on the pot and immediately take it off the heat!

Now set the covered pot aside for 25 to 30 minutes. Leave the lid on the whole time and don't peek, or you'll let all the steam out. Trust me, the eggs aren't doing anything interesting in there, you don't need to peek!

At the end of 25-30 minutes, you'll have perfectly hard-boiled eggs with lovely yellow yolks. Run them under cool water, drain them and refrigerate them until ready to use.

Basically the deal is, for every minute the eggs boil, the yolks will turn a little more grey. That's why you have to keep an eye on the pot and catch it as soon as the rapid boil begins. If you let them boil for even a minute or two, you will have a little greying. Not the biggest tragedy known to mankind, I know, but still, it's an easily avoidable culinary goof-up.

Piece of cake, right? Now go make some eggs -- and remember to just say no to grey yolks!

Warm Weather Treat

2011-03-31T11:38:00.000-07:00

It has been a long -- and I mean looooong -- wet winter here in southern Oregon. Finally yesterday the sun came out, and needless to say, I was thrilled beyond recognition!

I had picked up some big, pretty strawberries at the market, and I decided the sunshine was a good excuse to make a warm weather favorite: strawberry shortcake! It's quick and easy to prepare, and the classic combination of fresh fruit, whipped cream, and sweet, tender cake is always fab!

Here's my recipe. Enjoy!

Fresh and Fruity Strawberry Shortcake

Ingredients:
2 pounds (2 16 oz containers) fresh strawberries, cleaned and chopped
1 / 4 cup granulated sugar

For the Shortcake:
1 / 2 cup granulated sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 stick cold butter
1 egg
2 / 3 cup cold milk

Additional ingredients:
Additional granulated sugar
Sweetened whipped cream

At least 4 hours ahead of time, wash the strawberries and cut them into big chunks. Put them in a plastic storage container and pour on about a quarter cup of sugar (use more or less depending on how sweet the berries are). Put the lid on the storage container and give them a gentle shake. Store them in the refrigerator until half an hour before use.

To make the shortcake:

Line 2 cookie sheets with foil and spray with nonstick cooking spray. Preheat the oven to 450F.

Combine the dry ingredients.

Cut in 1 stick cold butter until the pieces are smaller than peas. I use my hands for this, but you could use a pastry cutter as well.

Beat together the egg and the cold milk. Add to the batter and stir with a wooden spoon just until combined. Don’t overwork the dough.

Use your clean, dry hands to divide the dough into 7 or 8 portions. Scoop up portions of dough and pat into balls. Roll the balls in additional granulated sugar, and place on cookie sheets, allowing plenty of room between the cakes. Flatten each ball slightly with your palm. When all the cakes are in place, sprinkle a bit more sugar over the top of each one in an even layer.

Bake at 450 for 12-14 minutes until light golden brown. Remove from cookie sheets and cool on a wire rack.

To serve: cut each shortcake in half lengthwise and fill with berries; drizzle on some of the berries’ juice as well and let it soak into the cake. Add a layer of whipped cream and put on the top slice of shortcake. Dress it up with an additional dollop of whipped cream and a slice of berry on the top.

Note: when I make this for my family of 3, I go ahead and make a full batch of the shortcake, but I only prepare 1 pound of strawberries. The remaining shortcakes go in a zip-top storage bag for another night. Changing out the filling for peaches, blueberries or another fruit totally transforms it into a new dessert, and now your shortcakes have done double duty!

All Things Scrapbooking

2011-03-23T18:54:00.000-07:00

I'm packing my bags to head to CKC Portland -- the annual giant scrapbooking convention hosted by Creating Keepsakes Magazine. And I'm just a smidge excited about the whole thing!!

Since I have nothing but scrapbooking, scrapbooking and more scrapbooking on the brain right now, I thought I'd hook you up with a few of my fave scrapbooking sites on the internet.

Starting with: The Button Farm. My girlfriends and I make a beeline for this booth at the very beginning of every CKC. It's a small company owned by the immensely talented Angela Moen. Her mini album kits are to die for, and even if you think you're not a scrapbooker, you can do this! The kits come with color instructions and everything you need besides glue. I know the kits look intimidating, but it's cut-and-paste, I'm telling ya. And what you end up with is a gorgeous work of art that will become an heirloom.

The prices may seem on the high side, but the albums are worth every penny. Angela is very generous with the amount of product she includes, and if you tried to make this on your own, I guarantee you'd spend more than she charges -- scrapbooking supplies really add up on this type of project.

Then there are the tremendous bargains to be found at the convention. I've found some good discount sites online as well, including Little Yellow Bargains, a personal fave.

The products are deeply discounted, and I mean deeply! And you always get more than you're expecting in their big kits. As one example, they recently added a wedding album kit, pictured above, that's 50 bucks worth of product for 14.99!! Hello! And that color palette could be used to scrapbook all kinds of events if you leave out the embellishments that are specifically wedding-themed.

My girlfriend Janie recently turned me on to Peachy Cheap, another awesome discount site. Gotta love a bargain, especially given how pricey scrapbooking supplies tend to be!

Finally, I just received an email from Scrapbuck.com, the company that runs the oh-so-popular discount scrapbooking booth at the convention. Many of the items are $1 and there are some deals to be found, lemme tell ya! Check it out.

So I'm off for a long weekend of shopping, scrapbooking, and spending time with some terrific girlfriends. Now that's my idea of a good time!

April Fools Day Fun

2011-03-20T15:35:00.000-07:00

I'm hatching a few April Fool's Day plans around here. I found lots of fun food-related pranks on Disney's Family Fun website, and am going to have to give some of them a try!

I already used the food color at the bottom of the cereal bowl prank on St. Patrick's Day. The milk turned green when my 7 year old poured it over his cereal, which he thought was pretty great!

I also found some candy "peas and carrots" at my local Harry and David store that I'll be springing on my family...and who knows what else I'll have up my sleeve on April 1st? ;)

Consider coming up with a few good-natured pranks for your family and friends -- something fun and silly to get everyone smiling. It's the perfect time to have a little fun and generate some giggles!

St. Patrick's Day Treat

2011-03-14T16:00:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick and easy idea for St. Patrick's Day: a candy rainbow with gold at the end! All you need is a pack of Twizzlers Rainbow Twists, some chocolate gold coins, cellophane bags and some embellishments!

One bag of Twizzlers makes 5 rainbows. Arrange them according to color and put them in a clear cellophane bag (available at Micheal's, Craft Warehouse and other places). Drop in a few candy coins, and tape the bag shut.

Use a few stickers, scrapbooking embellishments, or printables to decorate, and viola! A quick, easy treat for kids, friends, neighbors, or family!

The printables I used, by the way, are the same ones I told you about a couple posts ago. I got them free when I signed up for the How Does She email newsletter.

Check it Out

2011-03-13T14:00:00.000-07:00

I recently stumbled across a fabulous blog and I wanted to share it with ya'all. It's by Cathe Holden and it's called Just Something I Made. Boy does Cathe have some clever ideas!

The link goes right to her DIY projects section. Check out what she comes up with for Shrinky Dinks, I guarantee you'll never think of it as "just for kids" after you see her fab jewelry creations!

Wacky St. Pat's Craft

2011-03-09T14:16:00.000-08:00

I found a fun new website today, called How Does She? I'm a total sucker for cute free printables, and when I signed up for their email newsletter I got access to a bunch of holiday goodies to print out.

Perusing their site also gave me an idea for a fun St. Patrick's Day craft I could do with my son: a Leprechaun trap (pictured above, baited with "gold" and propped open with a green pencil)! He's pretty sure we're going to trap one of the little guys. I like his optimism! :)

And ok, a plain shoe box would have sufficed, but where's the fun in that?! As a paper crafter I couldn't help but get carried away in decorating the trap!

And I used the aforementioned free printouts from that same website on this craft. In addition to cupcake toppers, badges, water bottle wrappers and a bunch of other goodies, the printouts also included patterned paper. Love that! Some of the printouts are pictured below. How cute are those little flags going to be on cupcakes?!

Scrapbookers take note: many of the printouts could be used as cost-saving embellishments on your St. Pat's pages!

Laissez les bon temps rouler!

2011-03-08T12:04:00.000-08:00

Hey, it's Mardi Gras, "fat Tuesday," though here at our house it's "cold, grey, rainy Tuesday" with not a parade float in sight!

I thought I'd do a little something to brighten up the day, so I called my local bakery and ordered us up a traditional Mardi Gras King Cake. No, I wasn't ambitious enough to make one myself, I wouldn't have even known where to begin!

The King Cake is pictured above, and yes, it does look like a giant donut with colored sprinkles on it! And it tastes kind of like a cinnamon roll, go figure. It also looks like a Cake Wreck, but believe it or not, that's exactly what they're supposed to look like!

Speaking of Cake Wrecks, their website covered some hilarious King Cake fiascoes yesterday. And believe it or not, it was this that prompted me to order us up one of these bad boys!

Traditionally, King Cakes have a little plastic baby hidden inside, and whoever finds it is king for a day and gets good luck for the next year.

Well, the fine folks at my local Market of Choice bakery are all about not choking you to death by hiding toys in your food, so they didn't include the baby.

My 7 year old son was super excited at the idea of getting the "lucky" piece of cake, though, so I bought a little perfectly edible chocolate truffle and hid it in one of the cake slices.

The truffle I bought was shaped like a pink pig, how stinkin' cute is that?! It, too, came from Market of Choice, and was made by Moonstruck Chocolatier out of Portland, Oregon.

And yes, the whole thing was totally rigged so my son would find the prize! He's now King for a Day, heaven help me!

My Take on a Classic

2011-03-03T13:49:00.000-08:00

The other day, when faced with far too many apples hanging around my kitchen, I decided to make a classic fruit crisp. Man are these good, and they're really easy, too. As an added bonus, the baking apples and cinnamon make the house smell heavenly -- a great antidote to a grey, rainy day!

Audrey’s Apple Crisp

Filling:
6 cups apples, peeled and cubed
2 cups water
3-4 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 / 2 teaspoon cinnamon

Topping:
1 / 2 cup rolled oats
1 / 2 cup packed brown sugar
1 / 4 cup all-purpose flour
1 / 2 teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch salt
1 /4 cup (half a stick) cold butter
1 / 4 cup chopped nuts

Boil the apples in water for about 5 to 7 minutes, just to get them slightly tender. Stir them occasionally while they’re cooking.

Meanwhile, mix up the topping. Put the oats, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon and salt in a bowl and stir well.

Next, cut in the butter: slice into small pieces and drop it onto the oat mixture. I think it's easiest to use my clean hands and work the butter in with my fingers until it’s well-incorporated (only pea-size or smaller pieces of butter remain).

Mix in the chopped nuts. Use whatever kind you like. I used walnuts in my most recent crisp, but if I’d had pecans on hand they would have been even better.

Now drain the cooked apples and put them in a 9 by 9 baking dish or a deep dish pie pan. Sprinkle with 3 or 4 tablespoons granulated sugar (depending on how sweet the apples were to begin with), and the 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. Toss the apples to coat them.

Sprinkle the topping evenly over the apples, then bake at 375F for 30 to 35 minutes until the topping is lightly browned and the fruit is tender.

If you want to, serve it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It’s yummy this way, but also really yummy on its own.

Enjoy!

Cozy, Comforting Corn Chowder

2011-02-25T12:59:00.000-08:00

The snow arrived as promised here in southern Oregon, and it's plenty chilly out. To me this can be summed up in 2 words: soup weather!

For lunch today I whipped up a big pot of yummy corn chowder. This is a great soup for lots of reasons: it uses ingredients you probably already have on hand. It's easy to make. It's fairly healthy. And most importantly, it tastes sooooo good! The corn adds a hint of sweetness and makes me think of warm summer days ahead. Give it a try!

Cozy, Comforting Corn Chowder

2 cups water
1 1/2 cups (about 2-3 medium) potatoes, peeled and cubed
3/4 cup (about 1 medium) onion, diced
2 vegetable bouillon cubes
3 cups frozen corn
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons butter
3 1/2 cups reduced fat milk
4 tablespoons flour

Bring water to a boil in a medium-sized covered soup pot. Add the potatoes, onion, corn, and bouillon cubes. Reduce heat to medium. Cover and cook about ten minutes, just until the potatoes are tender, stirring occasionally. Add pepper and butter.

Add 3 cups of the milk to the soup pot. In your measuring cup, whisk together the remaining half a cup of milk with the flour until smooth, and pour this mixture into the soup. Bring it to a boil over medium heat, stirring frequently, until thickened and bubbly. Cook for one minute longer once it comes to a boil.

And voila! You've made a big, steaming pot of corn chowder. Now was that easy, or was that easy?!

So, bouillon cubes are fairly old-school, right? But they're a good staple to keep tucked away with your spices. Here's the kind I use:

Most bouillon cubes are already quite salty, so taste the soup once it’s completed and decide if it needs more salt. For me it’s good to go without any more seasoning.

My hubby likes to add a few dashes of Tabasco to his bowl, so you may want to set some out on the table when you serve the chowder. I like it just the way it is!

Makes 4-6 main dish servings that'll warm you through on a cold winter day!

Super Cute Paper Crafting Home Decor

2011-02-23T21:11:00.001-08:00

Ok, how stinkin' cute are those pink floral decorations?! They look like little paper hydrangeas!

If I had a bunch of pearl-tipped pins hanging around, I'd be making one of these right this very minute! Here's the link to the website where I found this darling idea: it's called Pizzazzerie.com. They look super easy to make and that link includes a step-by-step tutorial.

To save some effort, and if you didn't have the right size floral punch, I could see running the paper through your Cricut machine and cutting a gazillion little flower shapes that way.

Here's another site that referenced the same project. She used a really different color scheme -- which goes to show that you could match these to any home decor.

It's supposed to snow this weekend and it's miserably cold here -- no wonder cute little flowers are looking really good to me right now!

Fast, Fab and Family-Friendly!

2011-02-20T16:56:00.001-08:00

It's hailing and all-around icky outside today, so we're cozied up at home. It's getting close to dinnertime, and I'm thinking about making something easy, yummy, and fun: pizza rolls!

They're kind of like stuffed garlic bread -- and doesn't that sound delish?! I got the recipe from Our Best Bites, and last made these at New Year's. They were a big hit with all! Clicking on the Our Best Bites name will get you the super-simple how-tos.

The beauty of these rolls is that you can fill them with whatever you like. Hubby has suggested a shrimp-stuffed version...hmmm. The jury's still out on that one! I'm thinking a vegetarian twist on the classic with veggie pepperoni, mozzarella and black olives will hit the spot.

Just go with whatever floats your boat!

And there's no reason they all have to have the same filling! Change 'em up, do 2 or 3 fillings in the same dish, and hey, you've got the element of surprise along with dinner!

I think I'll skip the shrimp this time, though. That's just a little too surprising at the moment..............

All you do: cut pizza dough into little squares, wrap them around cubes of mozzarella and your favorite pizza toppings and pinch the little packet closed. Then arrange the little balls of goodness seam-side down in a baking dish.

The part that really makes them yummy: brushing them with just a bit of butter or olive oil and sprinkling them with garlic powder and parmesan cheese before baking. They'll remind you of garlic bread!

They bake for 18-20 minutes at 400 degrees (or according to package directions if you're using pre-made pizza dough). They turn nice and golden brown, and the cheese inside gets all melty.

Serve the rolls warm from the oven with a side of marinara or pizza sauce for dipping. This part's key -- use the sauce as a dip, don't put it inside the rolls! If you put the sauce inside, they're going to get all soggy and icky.

So there ya go. Quick, easy finger-food for dinner -- sounds like just the ticket today!

Variations on a Theme

2011-02-18T10:14:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day has come and gone, but that doesn't mean all the hearts and flowers have disappeared from our house!

The decorations will stay up all month -- I figure, February is kind of blah (cold, grey and rainy where I live) so why not make it a little more festive? The next event I'll decorate for is Spring, but that still feels far, far away here in southern Oregon! So for now the hearts and flowers are sticking around!

I'm not done with cute little heart-shaped treats, either! I'm keeping it simple, though, and recombining some things in new ways. Case in point: the chocolate-dipped heart cookies above!

Almost any time I make cookie dough, I make a double batch. The extra dough goes in the fridge if I think I'm going to use it soon, or in the freezer if I'm not going to get to it for a while. This is a good time saver - twice the result for the same amount of effort!

I had two things hanging around the house that I thought would be good together: sugar cookie dough and Hershey's kisses. So I baked off some cookies, then let them cool.

Next I unwrapped the kisses and microwaved them for about one minute and fifteen seconds. I stirred them up and half-dipped the cookies into the melted chocolate (I also ended up spooning it on, this seemed to work well). They cooled for a couple hours and the chocolate hardened up nicely.

The results were absolutely delish! They taste like a totally different cookie with the addition of the chocolate.

Here's my sugar cookie recipe once again, the same awesome recipe I gave you previously. I know you'll enjoy this variation if you too have some kisses to use up -- or hey, chocolate chips work too!

Janie’s Sugar Cookies:

1 cup butter, softened
1 ½ cups sugar
1 large egg
3 cups all purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Beat butter at medium speed of an electric mixer 2 minutes, or until creamy. Gradually add the sugar, beating until thoroughly combined. Add the egg and beat well. Combine flour and next 3 ingredients. Add to the butter mixture, beating at low speed just until blended. Beat in the vanilla.

Roll the dough a quarter-inch thick on a lightly floured surface. Cut with cookie cutters. Place 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 350 for 9 to 10 minutes. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Happy Valentine's Day One and All!

2011-02-14T10:49:00.000-08:00

No matter what you do to celebrate it, I hope today is extra special for you!

My day is off to a great start -- look what hubby had delivered this morning, from my favorite local florist! He did good! :)

And I started my family's day off with French Toast, yummm! It's quick and easy to make but feels special, gotta love that! My super simple recipe is below.

Fast and Fab French Toast

Ingredients:
4 eggs
1 cup milk or cream
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

One nice loaf of bread (Challah or french bread works great!)

butter for cooking

maple syrup and powdered sugar for topping

Prep:

In a shallow pan I beat up the eggs with a fork until they're nice and uniformly yellow. Then I beat in the milk, cinnamon and vanilla. I use whatever milk I have on hand, which is usually 1 percent. You can use anything on up to half and half or cream if you want to, it's all good! I figure, I'm already cooking it in butter, the extra richness of cream isn't all that necessary.

My local market sells beautiful braided loaves of Challah, a rich egg bread, and I like to use that when available. But a nice loaf of french bread works well too! Don't buy it pre-sliced - cut it yourself so you can do nice big 1 inch-thick slices.

Preheat a skillet over medium heat and melt a pat of butter in the pan. Dip slices of bread in the egg mixture and cook in the butter, 2-3 minutes per side until nicely golden brown. Add another pat of butter for each batch of slices, and keep done slices warm in a 200 degree oven as you cook the rest.

Drizzle with maple syrup and sprinkle on some powdered sugar. Yummm!

I just had to try to cute it up a bit for the holiday by cutting some of the bread into heart shapes before dipping it in the egg mixture! :) I tried a cookie cutter - which didn't really work - and ended up cutting around the cookie cutter with a serrated knife. The bread was a bit too crumbly to really pull it off, and the results were a little wonky, but hey, my 7 year old son enjoyed it, so that's a win in my book!

Enjoy the day!

Valentine's Top 5 Treats

2011-02-10T12:15:00.001-08:00

It's almost Valentine's Day! There's still plenty of time to make a sweet treat for your loved ones. Here's my top five list of easy-to-make Valentine's treats:

1. Heart-shaped sugar cookies
2. Cupcakes - pink and white with lots of cute sprinkles, of course!
3. My super yummy brownies, also with pink, red and white sprinkles
4. White Chocolate Peppermint heart lollipops
5. Chocolate dipped strawberries

You can check out some of my recent posts for the lollipops and a killer brownie recipe.

Chocolate-dipped strawberries are a total no-brainer! Get a good quality chocolate chip, melt it in the microwave for one minute and stir. Melt for 30 additional seconds and stir well. Dip washed and well-dried strawberries into the chocolate and allow to cool for several hours on waxed paper. ta da! Soooo quick and easy!

As for the sugar cookies, I have the best recipe, courtesy of my girlfriend Janie. I'm telling you, these rock! They're pictured above, and the recipe is below. I like to roll them out thick and cut them with a big cookie cutter -- one cookie wrapped in a cute cellophane bag is a great gift!

Give em a try, you'll be thanking me --just like I'm forever thanking Janie for sharing this great recipe!!

Janie’s Perfect Sugar Cookies:

1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 large egg
3 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Beat butter at medium speed with an electric mixer about 2 minutes or until creamy. Gradually add the sugar, beating until well-combined. Add the egg, and beat well. Combine flour and next 3 ingredients. Add to the butter mixture, beating at low speed just until blended. Do not overbeat once the flour is in or you'll end up with a tough cookie! Stir in the vanilla.

Roll dough a quarter inch thick on a lightly floured surface. Cut with cookie cutters. Place 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 350 for 9-10 minutes. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Ice and decorate as desired.

Here's all I do to decorate them:

I use a whisk and mix together about 2 cups powdered sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and 2-3 drops red food coloring with enough water to make a pourable icing. Just add a little water at a time and keep whisking until it seems like a good consistency. If you add too much water, no biggie - just mix in a little more powdered sugar.

I put the cookies on a wire rack with a cookie sheet underneath to catch the drips. Then I drizzle the icing over the cookie using the whisk or a fork, and toss on some candy sprinkles before the icing dries.

You can get really fancy decorating sugar cookies, but for those of us without loads of time, this is a good way to go, and they look cute when you're done!

Enjoy!!

White Chocolate Peppermint Valentine Pops

2011-02-07T18:55:00.000-08:00

Ah, Valentine’s Day. I just love this holiday! A day that’s all about love, hearts, flowers and chocolate – what’s not to like?!

Here’s a fun recipe I saw somewhere out in blogland and modified to work a bit better than the original. The recipe is yummy and easy! Peppermint and white chocolate are really good together. Your kids can join in for the decorating. And the results are oh-so-cute. Give ‘em a try!

Ingredients:

Mini candy canes
White chocolate (bars or chocolate chips, about one large 4 oz. bar per 6 pops)
Lollipop sticks (available at craft stores)
Red, pink, and white sprinkles

(the quantity on all of these just depends on how many you want to make!)

Prep:

Preheat your oven to 225. Line a heavy-weight cookie sheet with foil and spray lightly with nonstick cooking spray (note: I planned where I was going to place the candy cane hearts and only sprayed there, so the lollipop sticks didn’t get oily).

Arrange 2 mini candy canes in a heart shape as shown.

Center a lollipop stick between them so the bottom point of the heart touches the stick. You can probably fit 5-6 hearts and sticks on one standard size cookie sheet.

Bake for 9 to 10 minutes at 225 degrees and remove from oven. This softens the candy canes just enough to bend them – any longer and they melt.

Working quickly, spray your thumb and index finger with nonstick cooking spray and gingerly pinch together the base of the heart around the lollipop stick. Then squeeze together the tip of the heart where the 2 curves come together. You can also push out the sides of the heart a bit to make them more rounded, if you want to. Note: this is a job for a grown-up. The candy’s not unbearably hot, but you still don’t want to let a child do this.

After you’ve formed the hearts and the canes have cooled slightly, run a thin metal spatula under the candy canes, just to make sure you’ll be able to remove them later. Leave them on the cookie sheet as they cool.

Next, break up 4 ounces of white chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl (or use white chocolate chips – they’re easier, but I happened to have bars on hand, so I went with that). Four ounces is the size of one of those large baking bars. This easily fills six pops with some left over. I worked in small batches, and you can save any leftover chocolate in its microwave safe bowl and remelt it later for additional pops.

Microwave the chocolate for one minute. Carefully remove the bowl and stir. Microwave for an additional 30 seconds and stir thoroughly. The chocolate should be smooth and melted by now.

Use a small, pointed spoon to scoop melted chocolate into the center of each heart pop, filling in the entire heart and covering the tip of the lollipop stick. I found that shaking the cookie sheet after filling each heart helped the chocolate level out nicely.

Now call your kids in and let them go to town applying colored sprinkles to the melted chocolate. I love the round canisters of 6 different holiday sprinkles they sell at Target, I buy them for every holiday season!

Allow to cool and harden thoroughly, at least three or four hours or overnight. How fast they harden depends on how warm your home is. (Note: I tend not to put chocolate in the refrigerator because it becomes cloudy – plus there’s never any room in my fridge). Just be patient and it really will solidify while sitting out on your kitchen table.

When the chocolate has completely hardened, carefully slide a thin metal spatula under the pops and remove them from the foil.

For gift-giving you can put little cellophane bags over individual pops and tie them with a pretty ribbon.

I made a little arrangement out of them by tying a ribbon around a clean mason jar, filling with heart-shaped candies, and sticking the pops in like flowers in a vase. Cuteness!

Enjoy!

Easy Peasy Game Day Guacamole

2011-02-04T13:28:00.000-08:00

Ya know, maybe that’s not the best name for this yummy dish. It’s making me think of a recipe I once saw for – brace yourself – MOCKamole using mashed green peas as a healthier (and grosser) alternative to avocados. Eeew! I actually love peas, but that’s just so mean: making your unsuspecting victims think they’re getting yummy guacamole and then --- surpriiiise!

This is NOT that recipe.

Instead it’s a recipe for the sheer perfection of classic guacamole. And you know what? Making guacamole is super simple. It literally takes five minutes!

It makes me wonder why anyone bothers with those pre-made pouches of “guacamole” at the grocery store. And yeah, the quotation marks belong there. I read an article recently pointing out that those pouches contain very little avocado, and are loaded with bad things like saturated fat.

Ask yourself, which would I rather eat? The fresh, wholesome ingredients pictured above, or a plastic pouch of who-knows-what? Yeah, kind of a no-brainer.

So without further ado, my recipe for Easy Peasy Game Day Guacamole…hold the peas:

Ingredients:

¼ of a medium-sized red onion
4 T. diced green chiles, freshly roasted or canned
4 large, ripe Haas avocados
Juice of ½ a lime
½ of a ripe tomato, seeded and diced
Generous pinch of salt, to taste
2 T. sour cream, optional
2 T. fresh, chopped cilantro, optional

A note about chiles:
You can certainly use canned green chiles in this recipe. It saves lots of time and gets the recipe down to 5 minutes start to finish. But if you have the time, try roasting some mild green chiles yourself! It can be done a day ahead and adds a really nice flavor that the canned guys just don’t quite achieve. My roasting how-tos are at the end of this recipe.

Guacamole Instructions:

Drop one quarter of a red onion into the bowl of a food processor and pulse 5-6 times to chop.

Carefully cut around the perimeter of the avocados, slicing down to the pit. Twist the two halves apart and scoop the insides into the bowl of the food processor, discarding the pit and the outer shell. Add the chiles, sour cream (optional) and salt. Then squeeze the juice from half a lime right over the top.

No, the sour cream isn't traditional. Sometimes I use it, sometimes I leave it out. It adds an extra creaminess, and you can certainly leave it out if you so choose.

Run the food processor for a few seconds. I think leaving it a bit chunky is the way to go, so don’t obliterate it.

Dump the avocado mixture into a bowl. Then add the chopped tomato and cilantro (also optional, not everyone loves the stuff), and stir it all together (or leave the tomato as a topping, it’s nice and colorful that way). If you choose to mix it in, stir gently -- you don’t want to pulverize the tomato.

Give it a quick taste and add more salt if you think it needs it.

That’s it! It really does take five minutes.

And if you don’t have a food processor, or if you simply prefer chunkier guacamole, it can all be done by hand. Just rough chop the avocados and then mash with a fork. Stir them together with the onion and chiles that you chopped by hand, and stir in the rest of the ingredients.

How smooth or chunky you want it is simply a matter of personal preference. I would say though, if you're leaving it chunky, you may want to omit the sour cream -- it lends itself more to a smoother guacamole.

Serve with tortilla chips and enjoy. FYI, it’s also delish as a topping on burgers, burritos, cheese omelets, quesadillas, and a whole bunch of other foods.

A few words about roasting peppers:

I love freshly roasted chiles, and it’s really easy to do. They’re especially wonderful in the summertime when you have the grill going and can get a nice smoky taste to them, but they’re really good if you roast them in the oven too.

There are tons of varieties of chile peppers out there, and how hot you like them is a matter of personal preference. I like them mild, both for myself and because I’m feeding a child, and they tend to shy away from spiciness.

So I look for large, dark green Anaheim or poblano chile peppers (poblanos are pictured at the top of this post). You can find them at just about any grocery store. If you’re unsure about which chiles to use and are concerned about which ones might be too hot, ask the grocer, he or she will be able to steer you in the right direction.

To oven roast: cut the pepper into quarters lengthwise. Discard the stem and seeds and trim away any white "membranes" inside – much of the heat in any pepper is in the seeds and membranes.

Put the quartered sections onto a foil-covered cookie sheet, skin side up. Stick the cookie sheet on the middle oven rack under the preheated broiler in your oven. Set the timer for 5 minutes and keep an eye on them. They’ll go quickly under the intense heat. In my oven I give them 5 minutes, then rotate the pan and give them 5 more minutes.

After ten minutes total I pull them out and the skins are all blackened and blistered. It looks like you ruined them, but this is just what you want them to look like!

Allow them to cool for about five minutes. While still warm, transfer them to a large zip-top storage bag and seal them up. Leave them in there for at least fifteen minutes, or even over night. They’re steaming themselves in the bag, and once they cool the skins will come off easily. Just peel off the blackened skin with your fingers and discard. Now you have wonderful roasted peppers to dice up and include in all sorts of recipes, including guacamole!

To learn more about types of chile peppers and how to prepare them, here's a link to an informative website.

And lastly, a quick word from Safety Officer Audrey: even fairly mild chile peppers can contain a bit of capsaicin, the stuff that makes peppers hot. This is something you really don't want to get in your eyes, because it stings like crazy. So any time you handle a chile pepper, even a mild one, wash your hands thoroughly with soap and warm water immediately afterward. Or just wear disposable rubber gloves and discard them when you're finished.

Just looking out for ya, my friend!

Ghirardelli Motherlode Brownies

2011-01-28T16:11:00.000-08:00

You're welcome.

What's that? You haven't thanked me yet?

Oh, you will.

Because I'm about to share with you the most scrumptious brownie recipe in the history of ever!

You begin with these humble ingredients:

Plus a few more, and you end up with a little slice of chocolate heaven.

A key to these brownies, I think, is to use the Ghirardelli cocoa pictured above. You can find it at any grocery store. The recipe actually began life on that can, then received a few tweaks from yours truly. Look for the can that says "Ghirardelli Sweet Ground Chocolate and Cocoa." This is something I always have in my pantry. It also makes great frosting, chocolate cake, hot chocolate and lots more, just fyi.

I should mention that I was prompted to bake brownies after a scrapbooking retreat last weekend. We did a white elephant gift exchange, and I ended up with a brand-new-in-the-box as-seen-on-tv "amazing brownie pan." You know, one of these:

The jury is still out on just how "amazing" this pan is. So far I've had a hard time getting the brownies to unstick from the divider, despite liberal use of nonstick cooking spray. It entertains my 7 year old, though, he loves anything gadgety. And hey, it got me to bake brownies, so the pan's welcome in my kitchen.

Here now, without further ado, the recipe for the best brownies ever:

Ghirardelli Motherlode Brownies

2 eggs
¾ cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup (1 stick) butter, very soft
¾ cup Ghirardelli sweet cocoa
2/3 cup flour
¼ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt

mix-ins:
½ cup chopped nuts, optional (I like pecans, but walnuts work well too)
1 cup chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, toffee chips – or any combination that floats your boat (I used mini milk chocolate chips and Heath toffee chips, yummm)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350. Beat eggs with an electric mixer for just a moment to break them up, then beat in sugar, butter and vanilla. Beat for about a minute until combined.

In a bowl, sift together cocoa, flour, baking powder and salt. An easy way to do this is to place your dry ingredients in a medium to large wire strainer and shake it back and forth over the bowl: the sifted ingredients will fall out the bottom, and the lumps stay behind.

Add dry ingredients to mixing bowl and beat with the butter mixture, just until all is combined. A few seconds should do it, you really don’t want to overbeat this dough or the brownies just won’t be as good.

Take a big wooden spoon and stir in the nuts, if you’ve decided to include them.

Spoon batter into a greased 9 x 9 pan. Spread it out evenly.

If using chips, sprinkle over the top of the batter and swirl lightly with the tip of a butter knife. I like a combination of chocolate chips and toffee chips, and I think it’s especially yummy as more of a topping, so I just mix them in a little while leaving most on top.

If you want to doll these up for a holiday, add a few colored sprinkles right over the top before baking. Red, pink and white sprinkles are oh-so-cute for Valentine’s Day!

Bake for 22-28 minutes at 350 degrees. Don’t overbake! A dried out brownie is a sad thing indeed.

Remove from the oven. Let the pan cool on a wire rack and then cut brownies into squares. Ok, so brownies in my house never make it to fully cool before they’re cut up – slightly warm brownies are just so dang good! Be forewarned that they won’t cut as cleanly if you don’t let them cool all the way. But who cares? The warm deliciousness more than makes up for any imperfection.

Linda's Lovely Lemon Bars

2011-01-27T15:33:00.001-08:00

I haven't been doing a ton of baking this month, as you can probably tell by my MIA status around this blog. All that butter in December just about did me in! But when I spotted a recipe for lemon bars over at Linda Hopkins' always fabulous Les Petites Gourmettes blog, I just had to give 'em a whirl.

And I mean that literally, because the whole thing is mixed in the food processor! Love that!

They were delish, such a nice, bright summery spot in grey ol' January. And they're really quick and easy. Linda even instructs you not to wash out the food processor's bowl between mixing up the crust and the filling. Tired Mama that I am, that was totally appealing!

Ok, I have to fess up on a couple things: I didn't make the citrus sugar she suggests, even though I'm sure that would be fab. And -- shhhh, don't tell Linda, but I used bottled lemon juice. I had some Santa Cruz Organic Lemon Juice in my fridge so I went with that.

Normally, I will always argue the case that fresh juice is better than bottled. But on that particular day, my home happened to be devoid of citrus fruit. My family is at risk for scurvy! Hanging head in shame....

Hey, maybe I can count the lemon bars as a serving of citrus fruit!

No? Dang.

Crafty Gift Idea

2011-01-12T15:50:00.000-08:00

The will to bake has sloooowly returned after the butterfest that was this past holiday season! And here is some great motivation to bust out the cookie sheets:

How stinking cute is that?! It's a baking kit put together by my oh-so-inventive and crafty BFF Amy, part of the incredible stash of home-made gifts she sent my way this Christmas.

The really clever part is that this is made out of a recycled 4-pack of Starbucks coffee drinks and their cardboard holder! Gotta love a gift that recycles in such a cool way! She covered the box, wrapped paper around the bottles, and cut circles of paper for the lids, then added cute embellishments.

My girlfriend made this a baking kit with 3 types of chocolate chips (mini, white and peanut butter) and one bottle of pretty colored sugar sprinkles.

I'll bet there are all kinds things to make out of these same little bottles and their holder. How about a Valentine's gift all in red, pink and white, filled with candies? A gardening gift with flower seeds... a savory snack kit with 4 types of snack mix....

These could be themed for any occasion just by changing up the paper and embellishments: Valentine's Day, birthday, a hostess gift -- or my personal fave, a just because present to brighten someone's day!

Use your imagination, and have fun recycling!

Scrapbooking Inspiration

2011-01-05T12:59:00.001-08:00

A couple little FYIs for my scrapbooking friends!

First of all, if you're a southern Oregon scrapbooker, you're invited to join us in the large conference room at the Ashland library all day this Saturday, January 8th. We're hosting our free monthly crop, and the more the merrier (email me if you'd like additional information)!

I also wanted to give you a heads up on a fun blog hop now in progress: Bo Bunny, a company I just love, is hosting 3 blog hops this month, and the first one is today. Start at their website, then visit the blogs of their 8 incredible international designers. Soak up loads of inspiration, and leave comments on the blogs to be entered into a prize drawing.

Enjoy!

Getting into the 2011 groove

2011-01-03T10:16:00.000-08:00

I hope you had a great New Year's!

Ours was so much fun! We have a new annual tradition with those treat bags. They made the evening just fly by.

And yes, my 7 year old easily lasted until midnight! Afterward he still wasn't ready to go to bed. The kid is practically nocturnal!

Today is our first day back to school after 2 weeks off. We home school with a great online program called Connections Academy that provides lots of structure. It's gonna take a couple days to get back in the groove, but I'm actually looking forward to getting back into our routine.

In addition to getting back in the school groove, this month is all about getting organized. I'm losing the clutter battle over here! Over the weekend I did get my closet and drawers organized, boy is that a major life upgrade! Today I'm driving 8 huge bags of clothes, shoes etc. to Goodwill, and saying Good Riddance!

Some time this month I'll also be tackling my scrapbooking space. The horror!! Oh it is bad, let me tell ya. The words for this task are purge, purge, purge! Wish me luck!

A Fun Family Countdown to 2011

2010-12-30T12:23:00.001-08:00

Here's what's happening at our house on New Year's Eve. It's just going to be our little family of 3, but that doesn't mean it won't be fun!

I made little every-hour-on-the-hour treat bags to count down the evening beginning at 8 p.m. (my son's bedtime, so that's why I chose to start counting there -- every hour he stays up late is a big deal to a 7 year old)!

Each bag is labeled with a clock showing the hour to open it. There are tons of clock face printables on the internet, here are the ones I used, printed slightly larger onto white cardstock.

My son's bags have fancy moving hands, held on with a brad, and I added a snowflake embellishment -- because I'm a paper crafter and I can never resist adding just a little extra!

The treat bags for my hubby and me just have drawn-on hands, just to save myself some time. No reason I couldn't have drawn hands on all of them and saved even more time -- but the urge to do something crafty at least for my son's treat bags was just too great!

And the goodies inside the bags are all stuff to be used and enjoyed throughout the night!

The first series of bags are card-game themed: Uno, Crazy 8's, Go Fish.

The next hour will be time to settle in and watch a new movie. My son's bag will contain a new DVD (Despicable Me, a fun family film!), and the other 2 bags that hour will include microwave popcorn and movie theater-style candy (Junior Mints, Red Vines). Hey, we're trying to keep him up until midnight, I figure a little sugar is ok tonight!

After that are a couple hours of general merriment: Hot Wheels cars, a few little inexpensive toys, some sugar-free gum, etc.

The final bags, to be opened at midnight, contain all the noisemakers, blow-outs, poppers, etc. to ring in the new year with a bang!

It'll add just a little pizazz to our "quiet" new year's at home -- not that anything's ever quiet with a little boy around! :)

A quick word on the menu: we're going with easy, family-friendly finger food the whole way! Check out these yummy-looking pizza rolls over at Our Best Bites! I'm going to give these a go, filled with our fave toppings: cheese, black olives, sauteed mushrooms, a little caramelized onion -- you can fill them however you'd like!

The clockface with moveable hands on my son's treat bags. It helps that his are different than the hand-drawn hands on the grown-up treat bags -- this way I know which bags get the toys and the movie! And which grown-up bags get the tequila. Just kidding! ;)

The snowflake scatters are straight from my scrapbooking embellishments! And those clock scatters? Those were my first go-around of clocks for the treat bags. Then I decided I wanted clocks with numbers -- might as well sneak a little learning into it, and it'll be easier for my son to practice telling time with numbers on the clocks! I wasn't going to let the other clocks go to waste though -- not after they'd been cut out already! So I re-purposed them on my tabletop.

Never fear, no way am I lighting those candles -- talk about a fire hazard with all that tissue paper right there! The candles are just there for looks, not to be lighted. I said it before and I'll say it again: safety first, ya'all!

Now go have a fun, safe, fabulous new year's!!

Post-Christmas Post :)

2010-12-27T12:05:00.000-08:00

I hope you had a wonderful holiday! We sure did. It was exhausting (my child stayed up until 1 a.m. Christmas eve waiting for Santa, so we of course had to wait him out!) but you gotta love that holiday magic.

My 7 year old son will now be building Legos into approximately 2042! He's currently working on a Space Shuttle set that's age 16-plus! I was stunned when I saw that age range -- so basically, you need a driver's license in order to build it?!

But he's totally doing it, and yes, I just had to brag about that one! I'm such a proud mama! :)

While I'm at it, here's some more bragging: yesterday he sailed through the 1260-piece Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle Lego set (age 8-14, thank you very much). That's been one of my favorite sets of his so far. Hey, I don't have girls, this is as close as I'll ever come to castles or doll houses!

As for me, I hit the wall on rich foods this weekend. For lunch today I'm making a big green salad and drinking boatloads of water. Clearly a bit of butter de-tox was in order!

And I'm already diving in to one of my perpetual new year's resolutions: to get organized! I started small, packing up all the wrapping paper, boxes and bows that totally invaded my craft space over the last month! My closet is next. Give me strength!!

Upcoming: I will soon be putting together a fun idea for celebrating new year's, and I'll share it with you in a couple days. Here's a hint: it's a cute way for the whole family to count down the hours to midnight on 12/31!

More soon. Go have a glass of water, you'll feel better! :)

May Your Days Be Merry & Bright!

2010-12-23T16:00:00.000-08:00

I finally got the last big component to my holiday baking done today: our gingerbread/sugar cookie "elf house," made from scratch! Whew!

And now I'm settling in for a long, wonderful weekend of holiday merriment with my family. I'm ready. The house is ready. The gifts are ready. My child is certainly ready!

Happy Holidays one and all! Be safe, be well, and enjoy!

Fun Holiday Lunch Idea

2010-12-22T13:31:00.001-08:00

Here's what I made my family for lunch today. Yep, that's a Christmas tree made out of wrap-style sandwiches! I figured Christmas is nearly upon us, might as well do something festive! This'd be a great recipe to put out on a holiday buffet as well - it's easy and it has a great "wow" factor. My 7 year old thought it was really cool!

I'd seen a similar idea somewhere out in internet land...I'm going to say it was probably at Disney's Family Fun website, because there are oodles of fun ideas on there.

It was easy to do! I made a flavored cream cheese spread and chopped up some veggies, then rolled them in green tortilla-style wraps that I found at Safeway. Then I arranged them in a tree shape, decorated a bit, and voila!

Here's what I did:

I cleaned and trimmed up 4 green onions, then threw them in the food processor and pulsed until they were chopped up. Then I threw in a handful (5-6) black olives and pulsed again until all was finely chopped.

I then added two small tubs (8 ounces each) of whipped Philly brand reduced fat cream cheese to the cropped onions and olives in the food processor, sprinkled it with about 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, and whirled it until it was well-mixed.

These are the wraps I used.

I also used one whole wheat tortilla to act as the "trunk" of my tree.

I squared them up with a pizza cutter.

(Note: You can save all those ends you trim off, they don't have to go to waste. You could eat them with hummus dip. If you're feeling ambitious, you can fry them into tortilla chips. Or top em with shredded cheese, broil them until it melts, fold them up, and make mini quesadilla snackers. Use your imagination!)

Then I spread the wraps with cream cheese and added rows of veggies running the long way.

I used different veggies as fillings: shredded carrots, lettuce leaves (with the stems cut out and discarded), thinly sliced mushrooms, chopped black olives. I also added some sliced provolone cheese to some of the wraps. You can add whatever you like. As long as you can roll it up, it's fair game.

I did lots of different combinations of ingredients, but I included the cream cheese spread in each one because that's the "glue" that holds these together.

I rolled each wrap lengthwise and used a few toothpicks to secure them. Turns out I could have filled them fuller and wrapped them tighter...but oh well, live and learn.

The stack of wraps went in the refrigerator for about 20-30 minutes to firm up.

I discarded the toothpicks and sliced the chilled wraps with a serrated knife, into about 1 inch high segments.

Try to keep the segments relatively uniform in size when you slice them, you want them all more or less the same height when you go to arrange them. I didn't spend a lot of time on keeping them uniform, but if I made it for a party I'd try to be a bit neater.

(Note: the first and last segments from each wrap weren't "tidy" enough to use in the tree, so I stuck them in a plastic container for later snacking.)

I stacked the rolls in a pyramid shape on a large serving tray covered in foil, starting with one at the top, 2 in the next row, 3 in the row below that, and so on until my tray was full. I didn't need toothpicks to hold them together. Just place the "loose" end of each roll against the roll beside it, and it won't unravel.

(You can totally tell in this photo that my rolls weren't very uniform. You can take more time with yours if you want and make it purdy. But I was in a hurry and decided to live by the words of famous B movie director Ed Wood: "Nobody will ever notice that. Filmmaking is not about the tiny details. It's about the big picture." In other words, no one's gonna notice if it's not perfect, don't stress yourself out about it!)

I used multicolored cherry tomatoes and sliced star fruit to decorate the tree.

It turned out pretty darn cute!

And even better: it was totally yummy!

Home Stretch!

2010-12-21T10:46:00.000-08:00

Ok, now how is it the 21st today?! Only four days left on the Advent calendars! December always flies by, but this one passed at record speed!

And I'm still baking up a storm over here!

For those of you that recall, I mentioned last week that I had tried out a few new cookie recipes, and had put batches of dough in the refrigerator to bake off this week.

Well, most of those new recipes turned out to be "just ok" so I'm not posting them. Instead at the end of this post is the recipe for a tried and true wonder cookie!

Oh - also this week, we're still going to make a gingerbread house from scratch. I have to. I promised my 7 year old, and once you promise a 7 year old, there's no going back.

We tried to make one yesterday, and the first wall I baked off puffed up like a zeppelin...clearly I need to find a recipe with less leavening if the walls have any chance at all of winding up straight!

We're currently debating the structural pros and cons of a sugar cookie house instead of a gingerbread one...more to come on that!

And today I need to run out to the market for buttermilk, a key ingredient in one of our favorite holiday cookies: rugelach. These are a relatively new tradition, and actually of Jewish origin. I made a trial batch a few years ago, and my hubby loved them so much that now I make them every year.

Rugelach (pronounced roo-GAH-la if you're me and have no idea) is a tender cream cheese dough with some sort of filling. I usually use apricot jam and ohhhh man is it good!

Here's the recipe. It can be halved if you're already up to your eyeballs in baked goods. Be forewarned though: if you make them once, your family just might ask for them every holiday from now on!

Holiday Rugelach

2 cups all purpose flour, sifted
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 sticks cold butter, cut up
one 8 ounce package cream cheese, cut up
4 Tablespoons cold buttermilk

Apricot (or other) jam for filling

1 egg white, lightly beaten
Cinnamon sugar for topping

For the dough:

Combine flour and salt in the bowl of a large food processor. Pulse it a couple times to mix it up.

Add the cut-up butter and hit the pulse button a few times. About 8 to 10 pulses should do it.

Next add the cream cheese and pulse it several more times until the mixture becomes crumbly. Then sprinkle on the buttermilk and give it a few more pulses. Now the dough should hold together when pressed down.

Remove the dough from the food processor and divide in half. Now take each half and break it into thirds. Take each third and pat it into a ball, then flatten it out a bit. Wrap it in plastic wrap and flatten it out a bit more, into a disc.

At the end you'll have six wrapped discs. Stick them in the refrigerator for at least 3 or 4 hours, or overnight. You could even leave the dough in the refrigerator for up to a week if you wanted to.

To bake:

Heat oven to 375 degrees.

Line your cookie sheets with parchment paper or a Silpat mat.

Work with one disc of dough at a time. Keep the rest of the dough in the refrigerator until it's time to roll it out. This dough really wants to get all sticky on you, so keep it cool to prevent that from happening.

On a lightly floured surface, use a floured rolling pin to roll out the dough to about 1/8 inch thickness. Take a bowl with about an 8 inch diameter, invert it onto the dough and trace a circle around it with the tip of a sharp knife.

Use a pizza cutter to slice the circle into 8 pie-shaped wedges.

Place a small dollop of jam in the center of each wedge. You want to go fairly light on the filling because it's going to want to run out while baking.

Roll it up like a crescent roll, starting at the wide end.

Transfer to a cookie sheet.

Brush lightly with egg white and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

Stick the cookies back in the refrigerator for about fifteen minutes to firm up while you keep working on the next discs of dough.

(Note: Ok honestly, I don't stand a chance in heck of fitting a cookie sheet into my overstuffed holiday-ready refrigerator! So I usually skip this step and just put them straight into the oven. This means my cookies flatten out a bit when baking and are slightly less cute than they would be otherwise. If you have the room to chill them, go right ahead. If not, don't worry about it. These get gobbled up so fast any way that it hardly matters if they're picture perfect!)

Bake at 375 for about 17 to 20 minutes, until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack and enjoy!

Happy Hour!

2010-12-17T11:17:00.000-08:00

Ahhh Friday! It's been a long week, so I say it's cocktail time! Here are a couple recipes to get ya going:

Perfect Cosmos
(hey, they have cranberry juice in 'em, we can pretend they're a holiday drink!)

2 oz. cranberry juice
1 oz. vodka
1 oz. Grand Marnier
1/2 teaspoon simple syrup
squeeze of fresh lime juice

Combine ingredients with ice. Stir well. Strain into a martini glass, and garnish with a strip of lime peel. Sit back & enjoy this drink with your girlfriends!

And this next one is my girlfriend Janie's recipe for the best egg nog ever, a Puerto Rican twist on the classic with wonderful notes of coconut. Enjoy!

Coquito

Combine the following ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth:
6 eggs
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 can evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 can Coco Loco or Coco Lopez (also called Cream of Coconut, found with the mixers in most liquor departments)
1/2 a teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 a cup dark Puerto Rican Rum
coconut milk to thin it out as needed

Health Note: Yup, there's a whole caboodle of raw eggs in there. So of course this drink isn't for anyone with a compromised immune system, including the elderly. I said it before and I'll say it again: safety first, ya'all!

Cheers!

Peanut Butter Meltaways

2010-12-16T12:13:00.001-08:00

The yummiest new recipe I've come up with this holiday season has got to be these peanut butter meltaways. Oh man are they good! They're like peanut butter cups but a little softer, so they just melt in your mouth.

And they're relatively quick and super easy to make! Here's the recipe:

Peanut Butter Meltaways

For the outer shell:
1 bag (11 to 12 oz.) semisweet chocolate chips
1 bag (11 to 12 oz.) milk chocolate chips
1/2 a cup smooth peanut butter

For the filling:
3 tablespoons butter, softened
1 cup smooth peanut butter, allowed to sit out a bit to soften slightly
1/2 teaspoon salt

Optional:
Candy sprinkles

Begin by stirring up the 3 filling ingredients (the butter, 1 cup peanut butter and salt) in a bowl. Keep going until all the butter is incorporated and the filling is nice and smooth.

If your peanut butter was sitting out a long time and your filling now seems kind of runny, go ahead and cover the filling with plastic wrap and stick it in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes to firm up a bit. This will make it easier to keep the filling in the center of the candies. If it's too soft, the filling will run out to the sides of your wrapper, and will show through after it's covered with chocolate.

Once your filling is ready, dump both bags chocolate chips and the 1/2 cup peanut butter into a large microwave safe bowl.

Microwave on full power for approximately 2 minutes. Remove from microwave and stir up the chocolate/peanut butter mixture. You will probably have to microwave it for an additional 30 seconds up to another minute to get all the chips to melt. Stir again. When it's all melted and smooth, you're ready to start assembling.

I lined mini muffin tins with mini muffin wrappers (which I found in the baking section at Michael's). I ended up with 30 small and 3 jumbo peanut butter candies (more on that in a minute).

Use a small spoon to put a dollop of chocolate into the bottom of each muffin wrapper, filling it about a third full. Then I used the handle end of a teaspoon and swirled each chocolate dollop, coating the bottom of the paper.

Next drop a marble-size ball of peanut butter filling into each muffin wrapper, on top of the chocolate base. Make sure the top of the filling ball doesn't stick up past the top of your wrapper.

Then go in and spoon more melted chocolate over each peanut butter-filled cup, filling to maybe 1/8 an inch below the rim of the paper wrapper.

When your whole muffin tin is full, give it a little shake. Don't go too crazy, you don't want to slosh the chocolate out of its wrapper! You just want to level out the tops a bit.

At this point you can decide if you want to top the candies with any decorative holiday sprinkles. I did this on some of mine just to doll 'em up a bit! But note that the sprinkles do add a bit of crunch, so if you want the candies to be perfectly smooth, you might want to skip the sprinkles.

I let my candies sit out overnight to firm up. After the tops set, I covered them in plastic wrap (don't do this too soon or it'll stick to the tops of your candy and mess 'em up) and just left them on my kitchen table, and by morning they were nice and firm.

After I made my first batch of these candies by filling one mini muffin tin, I had quite a bit of chocolate and filling left over. So I decided to make a few big kahunas as extra fun Christmas presents! I used a regular-size muffin tin and cupcake wrappers. Now that's an impressive piece of candy!

I wrapped up individual big candies and bags of little candies in cellophane to give as gifts. They've been a big hit this holiday season!

I used Ghirardelli chocolate and Adams no-stir peanut butter in my candies, because these happen to be two brands I love. But use whatever you like! And I combined milk chocolate and semisweet chocolate just to dial down the sweetness a notch.

Giant peanut butter candies? Ohhh yeah!

German Almond Christmas Cookies

2010-12-15T07:00:00.000-08:00

I have an incredible recipe for you today, lemme tell ya! This is my all-time favorite Christmas cookie. And as soon as you bake it you'll see why.

This recipe goes back to my German Oma (my grandmother), and it is simply melt-in-your mouth perfection. It's a tender almond cookie with a hint of vanilla, and it's not overly sweet. As soon as I bake it and the wonderful aroma fills my kitchen, I know it's Christmas!

So here's my Christmas gift to you: this wonderful recipe. Enjoy!

German Almond Christmas Cookies

Cookie Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups slivered almonds
2 1/2 sticks of butter (1 1/4 cups)
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Topping for the cookies:
powdered sugar
2 vanilla beans or one packet vanilla flavored sugar (optional)

Steps:
Place almonds in a food processor and run the machine until they’re finely ground. You want them to be the texture of fine sand.

Combine dry ingredients, including almonds. Stir to combine.

Cut in butter: slice small pats of the butter onto the dry ingredients. Sprinkle with the vanilla.

Then get your hands in there and work the butter and dry ingredients together. Break up the butter with your fingers until it’s all incorporated with the flour, almonds and sugar.

Knead the dough very briefly, just to get it all combined and formed together into a ball. Don’t overwork the dough or the cookies won’t be as tender.

Wrap up the dough in plastic wrap and flatten it out into a disk. Then refrigerate it for about an hour, until easier to handle.

Press the dough between two sheets of parchment paper and roll it out to about ¼ inch thickness. Cut out shapes with cookie cutters.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 11-13 minutes, just until edges begin to turn slightly golden brown.

Cool on a wire rack. Then use a small wire strainer to shake powdered sugar over the top of the cookies.

Traditionally these cookies are dusted with vanilla sugar. This adds an incredible fragrance and an extra boost of vanilla flavor to the cookies.

There are a couple ways to make vanilla sugar. An easy way is to plan ahead and place a couple vanilla beans in a large mason jar along with a couple cups of powdered sugar. Seal it up with a lid and let it sit for a few days or a week. Every now and then, give the jar a little shake.

When you’re ready to use the sugar, take out the vanilla beans and wipe them down with a paper towel. They’re still perfectly good and can be used in other recipes!

The other way to make flavor your powdered sugar is to find a product at the grocery store called Vanilla Sugar. It comes in a little envelope slightly bigger than a yeast packet and will be with the spices if your market carries it. Combine one packet with about one cup of powdered sugar and you’re good to go.

Dr. Oetker is one brand of vanilla sugar I’ve used. It used to be harder to find. I’ve known people to bring it back from Germany, and I always look for it when I’m in a Cost Plus World Market. But these days a fair number of good grocery stores will stock it as well.

Of course, there’s no reason you couldn’t just use plain powdered sugar. This’ll work just fine and the cookies will still be good. But if you can flavor the sugar, these cookies become that much more special!

Here's a photo of the vanilla sugar. I put the sugar mixture into a small wire strainer and shook the strainer over the cookies to give them a nice even dusting. Your kids can help with this part, they'll think it's fun to make it snow on the cookies!

Va Va Va Voom Vanilla Pie

2010-12-14T07:00:00.000-08:00

I'm trying out a jazzier name for this dessert. We normally just call it Cream Cheese Pie, but that name just lacks some oomph, don'tcha think?

The pie looks humble too. Just a smooth pale filling in a graham cracker crust. I've considered ways to fancify it over the years. But in the end, it's good plain.

And just plain good!

This recipe is old school. It goes all the way back to my childhood (cue grainy black and white stock footage of fake dinosaurs)!

And it probably started life on the back of a box of pudding mix.

There's not a darn thing fancy or gourmet about it. There doesn't need to be.

Here's the recipe:

Va Va Va Voom Vanilla Pie

One prepared graham cracker crust

For the filling:
12 ounces (1 1/2 packages) Philly cream cheese, brought to room temperature
2 cups cold milk
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
One package (3.4 ounces) instant vanilla pudding mix

Put the cream cheese in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat for a minute on medium speed to soften it up.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add about 1/2 cup of the cold milk. Beat for another minute until blended.

Beat in the rest of the milk, the sugar, vanilla and pudding mix. Run the mixer on medium speed for a minute or two until everything looks smooth and creamy.

No matter how much you mix it, a few lumps will manage to hide out in there. So pour the filling through a wire strainer on its way into the pie crust. This will catch the lumps. You may want to scrape off the bottom of the strainer with a spatula, as some of the filling will cling to it.

Cover in plastic wrap. Chill for at least two hours or overnight.

A note about graham cracker pie crusts:

Yes, you can totally buy a ready-made crust at any grocery store. I've done this many a time. We're all busy, and there's nothing wrong with doing this.

But if you have a few minutes, a freshly made crust adds a really nice touch to this dessert.

Here's how I make a graham cracker crust:

Put 8 full-size graham crackers in a food processor and smash 'em up along with 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar. Keep going until it looks like sand.

Then drizzle in 4 tablespoons melted butter as you pulse the food processor and get all those crumbs nice and coated.

Dump the crumbs into a pie pan and use your fingers to press them evenly along the bottom and up the sides of the pan. Cover in plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge for an hour or so until it firms up.

Before I had a food processor, I used to smash up the graham crackers and sugar in a plastic zip-top storage bag with a rolling pin. Then I'd dump in the melted butter and shake it all up. That works too!

When we were kids, this was the pie my brother and I looked most forward to at the holidays. As an adult, I still love it. And now it's my son's favorite too. Sometimes the simplest things really are the best!

Recipe Week!

2010-12-13T12:53:00.000-08:00

I'm going to share lots of terrific recipes with you this week as we all gear up for the holidays.

And I warn you: there will be butter involved. LOTS of butter. In fact, you may want to run out to Costco right now and buy enough butter to fill the trunk of your car!

Hey, it's the holidays, people. Remember what I said? Sing along now, I know you remember the words: It's the most butteriest time...of the year!!!!

So let's get to it, shall we?

This first recipe isn't mine. In fact I've never made it! But I got to try this insanely good dessert yesterday at a potluck holiday party, and lemme tell ya: it was heaven on a plate!

I'm talking about that fluffy white cloud of coconutty perfection in the photo above. My girlfriend got the recipe from Throwdown with Bobby Flay (don'tcha just love him?) on Food Network's website.

The only change she made was to leave the coconut untoasted so it stayed all white and purdy. Your call on whether to toast or not to toast, I'm sure it's fab either way.

The recipe's a little bit involved, so I'll save this one for a special holiday dinner. As opposed to just whippin' up one on a random Tuesday just because you feel like it.

Then again, if you're feeling ambitious on a random Tuesday, who am I to stop you?

This was one delish, decadent dessert. And a little goes a long way, so it'll feed plenty of people.

More to come!

So this week...

2010-12-09T15:30:00.000-08:00

The holiday train suffered a minor derailment this week when my 7 year old came down with the flu. He woke with a 103 temperature at 3 a.m. the other night -- why is it always the middle of the night when kids get sick?!

But he's lots better now, and we're back on track!

Aside from the sick kidlet, here's what's been going on this week:

I've been making a cookie recipe a day and sticking the dough in the fridge. I will let you know which of the new recipes are hits and which are misses when I bake them up next week.

Also this week, I tried to save time with my Christmas cards by printing address labels instead of hand-addressing all those envelopes.

What was I thinking?!

Nothing's ever that straightforward with technology, at least not when I'm involved. In the time it took me to get my pc and my printer to play nice and produce the labels, I could have hand-addressed all my envelopes. Twice. In calligraphy.

Eventually I found help in the form of Avery Labels' online site. This is a really useful place to go if you have Avery products and need some help, templates, holiday graphics etc. It really saved my bacon with those Christmas cards!

And also this week: we still don't have a Christmas tree! Hubby's out of town for a few days, but he has this idea that when he gets home, we're going to go out to the forest and chop one down, Paul Bunyan style. hahahaha --- I initially spelled that "Paul Bunion." Which is probably a better description of my family out in the woods!

But anyway, yes, we're still thinking we might head out to the woods like rugged Oregonians and chop a tree down. You can do that in Oregon, you buy a pass that costs just a few bucks and you're good to go.

Though the later in December it gets, the more appealing the tree lot next to the Dutch Bros. coffee stand is looking.....

More to come!

Candied Pecans...Sort Of.

2010-12-06T18:13:00.000-08:00

Today I failed to make candied pecans.

Ok technically, I didn’t fail to make candied pecans…I simply failed to make candied pecans that looked good and didn’t taste gross!

After a busy weekend full of all manner of holiday prep and merriment, I decided I’d better get back in the kitchen. I have a lengthy to-do list full of all sorts of home-made Christmas goodies that aren’t going to bake themselves.

But actually, baking was a bit too much for me today, considering the fact that I’d been awake since 4 a.m.

Why 4 a.m.? Remember my earlier comments about not panicking this holiday season? Well instead of taking my own advice, it seems I needed to panic a little..and apparently 4 a.m. was when I decided to do that.

So I’m tired today, but I still wanted to get at least one gift item done, taking a little pressure off of that holiday to-do list that’s hanging over me like a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon.

I decided to try my hand at candied pecans, because they’re tasty, they’re not a baked good (baking’s just too ambitious on little sleep and waaaay too much coffee) and I figured, how hard could they be?

I went to one of those big online database sites for a recipe. The kind where the reviews go something like this:

“This recipe was perfect, I give it 5 stars…after I made the following 97 changes to it…..”

The recipe I went with resulted in a pecan that tasted bizarre, and that looked like Santa’s reindeer had come through my kitchen and left behind little…

Well, you know.

So it’s back to the candied pecan drawing board, and on to a totally different recipe.

After I go to the store for more nuts.

I was dumb enough to make a full batch of those reindeer piles, and used up a ton of of pecans. These cost approximately $354348674869754 on today's market, so that's a bummer.

Sigh. I should have known to make a half- or quarter-batch with an untried recipe.

I’ll let you know if/when I find a good recipe for these bad boys.

And in the mean time, I hope you heed my advice that I myself don’t seem to be heeding very well: relax…be well…and try to sleep in later than 4 a.m. whenever humanly possible!

Wreath Making 101

2010-12-04T20:59:00.000-08:00

Have you ever tried making a wreath? It's a lot easier than you might think! And if you use cuttings from your garden (or a friend's or relative's garden) it's really economical too.

You can also ask the friendly fellows at your local Christmas tree lot for a few spare boughs, they often have pruned branches laying around that they're happy to part with.

As for me, I attend an annual wreath class at my local parks and rec department, because they bring in a wonderful assortment of freshly cut greenery. And I think the bigger the variety of greenery, the prettier the resulting wreath.

All you need to make a wreath is:

1. a wire wreath form.

You can purchase these at any craft store in a variety of sizes, or even use a wire coat hanger and bend it into a circle.

2. some medium gauge floral wire (also at craft stores)

3. assorted greenery (pine's an obvious choice but use whatever you can get your hands on!)

Start by making a little bouquet of greenery. Wind wire around its base. Use more wire to fasten it to the wreath form, twisting the wire around and around the base of the greenery bouquet and the form.

Then repeat. And repeat. And repeat!

Just keep making little bouquets of greenery, each held together with wire at its base. Working either clockwise or counterclockwise, overlap each new bouquet over the base of the bouquet that you put down before it.

Keep going until the wreath form is totally covered.

Once the base of greenery is down, twist wire around individual pine cones, little sprigs of holly (watch the barbs on the holly though!), or whatever else strikes your fancy. Leave two long ends on the wire and wrap the wire around your wreath, securing the accent elements.

And if my instructions are clear as mud to you, here's a great tutorial from youtube. This tutorial is in 5 parts but fear not, each segment is pretty short!

I will say that the big hearty wreath they end up with in that video makes mine look kind of anemic! But that's ok, there's no wrong way to make a wreath, they all end up with their own personality.

Here are a couple tips for success with this project:

Try to keep each bundle you make about the same size. This'll help you end up with an even, balanced wreath.

And here's a great tip I learned today: if you get all pitch-covered from making a wreath (or from decorating your Christmas tree for that matter), use peanut butter to get the sap off your hands! Take a dollop of peanut butter and rub it into your wet hands like soap, then rinse well with warm water.

I don't know why it works, but it does.

It's another Christmas miracle!

And obviously if you have peanut allergies this is the worst tip ever, so don't even think about it!

Safety first, ya'all.

Now go make a wreath!

The wire wreath form with the first greenery bundle in place

The second bundle, ready to be layered overlapping the first.

Voila, a wreath! Inexpensive and easy. Who knew?!

Happy Festivus!

2010-12-03T13:44:00.000-08:00

Did you finish your Festivus shopping yet? Have you gotten your Festivus cards in the mail?

What's that? You've never even heard of Festivus?

Ohhhhhh that's right, that's because it's a made up holiday!

The name actually comes from a Seinfeld episode (one of the best shows ever if you ask me), and for all I know there could be people that do in fact celebrate it in the Seinfeldian tradition.

But my BFF and I basically totally changed its meaning to suit our purposes!

Here's the story:

Since we're both crafty, we years ago pledged to only send each other hand made stuff for Christmas. We're still going strong with this.

But we needed a loophole! There's so much fun stuff out there for the holidays that we wanted to send to each other -- ornaments and decorations and baking supplies and more! And we really wanted to send all of that good stuff at the beginning of December so it could be enjoyed throughout the holiday season. Makes sense, right?

So clearly the only solution was to make up a made up holiday loosely based on another made up holiday!

This obviously makes perfect sense! ;)

And my Festivus treats arrived today...the same day I sent my girlfriend's gift box to her. She's got her Festivus together more than I do!

I got a whole boxful of goodies, including the cute card above and the most perfect ornament ever, a typewriter key Christmas tree! OMG sooo stinkin' adorable!

My card to her is below -- if you happen to be its intended recipient, scroll no further!

For now Festivus Audrey-style it's the world's most exclusive holiday. But I think it could really catch on! ;)

Bust out the Bundt pan!

2010-12-02T17:33:00.000-08:00

It's been a full week since the food preparing frenzy that is Thanksgiving. All that cooking had wiped me out. I'd been pretty much avoiding the kitchen like white shiny stretch pants since then!

But finally, today my culinary enthusiasm returned. It was time to get on in there and try out a recipe for holiday baking.

Step one was to find my bundt pan. My 7 year old son thought this was hilarious. Bundt pan! He kind of has a point.

My husband had to practically stuff himself -- along with a flashlight -- into the dark nether regions of our kitchen cabinets to find the bundt pan in question for me. I knew it was in there somewhere...I just hadn't actually touched it in about a year.

He emerged victorious. The bundt crowd went wild!

I used a recipe from Disney's Family Fun website that I'd stumbled across while looking for something else entirely. I was both attracted and horrified by the fact that the recipe calls for a stick of butter and a full tub of sour cream! How can anything that fattening taste bad?!

It's a basic vanilla cake with a swirl of cinnamon filling in the middle. Next time I make it I think I'm gonna throw a teaspoon of cinnamon into the cake batter, just to spice it up a bit.

Oh yeah, and the filling has an extra half a stick of butter in it. Well hey, it's the holidays, the -- sing it with me! -- most butteriest time of the year!

I tried to dress it up with a cinnamon glaze and a plain powder sugar glaze. I think this made it uglier, sort of zebra-y. Next time I might just go for a dusting of powdered sugar and not try to get fancy with it!

Also, their bundt pan over at Disney's Family Fun was prettier than my bundt pan. I have bundt pan envy.

But hey, I was just impressed that I even own a bundt pan, and that my husband could find it without needing the jaws of life to extract him from our overcrowded cabinets!

It's the small victories....

Ladies and Gentlemen....

2010-12-01T18:25:00.001-08:00

...start your Advent calendars!

It's December 1st! Can you believe it?!

My son was up at the crack of dawn to get to his calendars -- yes, calendars, the one I made and this year's Lego City calendar!

Suddenly Christmas is feeling pretty darn close!!

Muffin Tin Advent Calendar

2010-11-30T09:37:00.001-08:00

Several of my crafty girlfriends and I made advent calendars using mini muffin tins this year. They were really fun, and they all turned out really different from one another. There are so many ways to personalize these!

Here's mine, I used Crate Paper's 2010 Snow Day line and various numbers, and just went to town embellishing it!

I can't give you a pattern because all muffin tins are a little different. But basically we traced the tins onto heavy cardstock, used rulers to draw lines to create a grid, and cut the paper into little squares to fit over each opening in the tin.

And each of these little muffin cups will be filled with a treat or trinket come December 1st!

My girlfriend Brooke had a question about the magnets I used on the back, so I've included a photo below. A few friends had trouble with the magnets they used, but these were good. Here's what I can tell you about them:

I got them on a roll at the Talent, Oregon Walmart, and I used the one inch wide strips.

I used a really generous amount, as you can see in the photo, and they're holding really well.

The adhesive on the ones I bought worked fine, but if you're using other magnets you may find you want to adhere them with Zip Dry, since some other brands weren't holding as well for some of my friends.

Finally, since the magnets come rolled up, you want to roll them in the other direction before adhering them. This flattens them out a bit, since curling could be a problem. I cut pieces about a foot long and rolled them tightly in the opposite direction, and held them like that for a few moments, and they would lay flat after that.

Good luck, Brooke! I hope you post a photo of your finished calendar on facebook!

And to those of you that haven't made a calendar, there's still time to run out to Target for a pre-made one! It's a really fun tradition. I used to love these as a kid, and my son can't wait for his!

Detail of the embellishments

The back of the little doors, with strips of magnets to hold them to the tin

Here Comes December!

2010-11-29T10:35:00.000-08:00

This Wednesday is December 1st, can you believe it?! I swear it was Halloween 5 minutes ago! And yet here we are, about to embark on another holiday season!

Are you ready? Are you panicking yet?!

There's a part of me that really wants to panic. Like Pavlov's dog, I hear "holiday season" and my blood pressure rises a few notches and I feel I may start hyperventilating.

For pretty much no reason. It's just a learned response from disorganized Christmases past.

This year I've done lots of stuff ahead of time to ensure that I make it through the holidays without at some point needing to breathe rapidly into a paper bag! And you know what? We all have plenty of time. There's no need to panic.

So let's all take a collective deep breath...ahhhh!

And just relax.

It's gonna be great, you'll see. Especially if we all work on letting go of the notion "perfect"...

...and just enjoy.

December Daily Album

2010-11-27T07:00:00.000-08:00

Lucky me! I'm going to be crafting with girlfriends today, which is always a great day in my book.

And speaking of books, we're each going to be making December Daily Albums, inspired by the always amazing Ali Edwards, who has several years' worth of ideas and instructions for these on her blog. Click on her name to go to her website.

The idea is that you take a picture and do a little journaling each day leading up to Christmas. I like that it captures not only the "big" moments of the holiday season, but lots of little ones as well.

And now's the perfect time to make one! It can be as plain or as fancy as you want it to be. The idea is to simply document your December.

I thought that it had been a couple years since I made one of these December albums, so I went and found the one I'd done before (which had been a class at my favorite now long gone scrapbook store, No Bare Pages).

Turns out it wasn't a couple years ago, it was 2006. I came really close to getting weepy looking at the photos of my baby boy at age 3, and reliving all the memories from a holiday season now four years past.

And that's exactly why I scrapbook: because time passes incredibly quickly, our memories are so precious, and our kids get big way too fast.

I know it seems like a lot to take on, adding yet another project to the already-busy holidays.

But trust me on this: you'll be so glad later when you're holding a lovely little book full of memories in your hand.

Plus, most of the work will happen after the holidays anyway, when you have all the photos to put in the album. In the mean time you can just take pictures and jot down events in a notebook that you'll journal from later.

But I do think making the album itself ahead of time is a good motivator to follow through on this project, so I'm glad I'm making mine this weekend!

I'm really grateful for the album I made four years ago, and the memories it preserved. And four years from now -- and ten, and twenty -- I will be grateful for the one I'm about to begin.

I hope you'll give yourself this gift as well!

Black Friday

2010-11-26T10:56:00.000-08:00

Were you one of those dedicated bargain hunters out there in the wee hours this morning? One of my oldest and dearest friends does this every year. She's nutty that way.

I went with her one year, and we actually had fun because she could make even a root canal fun...and this is pretty much the shopping equivalent of a root canal in my book!

This year I stayed in bed.

After sleeping in, I surfed the internet in my pj's, just to see what tremendous deals I was missing. I didn't regret my decision.

Besides, I'm nearly done with my Christmas shopping anyway. Which I realize is kind of insane. I start around September and stash stuff as I find it. It's all part of my ongoing goal to have a low-stress December and really enjoy the holiday season! I have high hopes for actually achieving that goal this year!

Ok, time to go in search of some leftover pie now! Thanksgiving was terrific, by the way. There was much love and loads of great food and we all enjoyed it immensely. The one down side was that my father in law got sick and couldn't make it, and we really missed him. Other than that, the holiday was a delight.

And we have so many leftovers that we won't have to cook for days!

Now to go find that pie........

Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T08:38:00.001-08:00

Wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving!

There's so much to be thankful for. Enjoy your holiday!

It's the day before Thanksgiving...

2010-11-24T14:36:00.001-08:00

...so needless to say I'm in a cooking frenzy at my house. I even began last night with a couple dishes that I thought could tolerate being made way ahead, like cranberry sauce.

And then, because I apparently didn't have enough to do, I decided to make some cookies. It was really cold, the kind of night that just begs for the aroma of fresh, warm baked goods filling the house. So I whipped up some gingersnaps.

It's a really easy recipe. You pretty much just dump everything in the mixer and let it whirl. And my seven year old helped, he rolled the dough balls in sugar for me and put them on a cookie sheet. He thought that was pretty fun.

I made some extra dough and will bake off a few more on Thanksgiving. It'll be worth it just to make the house smell that good!

Simply Yummy Gingersnaps

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
¾ cup butter, softened
1 egg
¼ cup molasses
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Scant ½ teaspoon ground cloves

For coating: Granulated sugar

Combine about half the flour and all the other ingredients down to the cloves in the bowl of an electric mixer. This doesn’t include the granulated sugar, that’s used later. Beat on medium to high speed just until all ingredients are combined, about one minute. Then beat in the rest of the flour.

Roll dough into 1 inch balls between the palms of your hands. Put about ¼ cup granulated sugar in a shallow dish and roll dough balls in the sugar to coat them on all sides. Place the balls a couple inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake: 375 degrees
Time: 9 to 10 minutes until cookies are set and tops crackle. Don't overbake!
Cool on a wire rack and enjoy!

Yay snow!

2010-11-23T09:50:00.000-08:00

We woke up to a glorious white winter wonderland in Southern Oregon this morning. It won't last long, in fact the sun's already come out and it's melting fast. But we ran right out first thing and got in some play time. First snow of the season, gotta love it!

Ok so....

2010-11-23T08:00:00.001-08:00

...for dinner last night I attempted a savory vegetable tart. I say "attempted" because I skipped a few key steps...like buying all the ingredients. I'd seen a lovely asparagus tart over at, you guessed it, my new fave spot of the internet: Les Petites Gourmettes,but didn't think to write down a shopping list. I only got as far as making a mental note to buy asparagus...and then apparently my mental notepad was full, because that's all I bought.

And I remembered to buy asparagus while at Costco...so I now have enough of it to build a green log cabin. And it's not only aging rapidly but taking up valuable fridge space that will soon be needed for all manner of Thanksgiving goodness.

So the asparagus had to go. Tonight. It was time to improvise.

Here's the thing about that...I am not a confident cook. In fact, I spent a great many years of my life avoiding cooking like nobody's business. It's only been quite recently that I've begun to find my cooking mojo, and improvising still scares me.

But tonight my mojo was working.

Below is the improvised recipe I cobbled together using what I had on hand. And you know what? It was so good!

Crust:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold salted butter, cut up
4 to 5 tablespoons very cold water

Put the flour and butter in a food processor and pulse until the mixture looks like coarse bread crumbs. Drizzle in the cold water one tablespoon at a time while you continue pulsing. Form the dough into a ball, then flatten into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Stick it in the fridge while you make the filling.

Filling:
1 1/2 pounds asparagus
1 small onion, thinly sliced
1/2 pack (4 ounces) cream cheese, room temperature (I only had reduced fat and it worked just fine)
1 cup milk (I had 1 percent so that's what I used)
3 whole eggs plus 1 egg yolk
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Ahead of time, I'd roasted the asparagus to add flavor. I broke off and discarded the tough ends, coated the stalks in a drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper, and roasted them on a cookie sheet in a 425 degree oven for 20 minutes. Cooking time varies depending on how skinny your asparagus is, so keep an eye on it. You just want to get it browned, not blackened.

I also caramelized the onion in a saute pan with a little olive oil, salt and pepper. I've been a caramelizing fool lately, it makes everything yummy.

Then I rolled out the chilled crust and lined a round, shallow baking dish with it (a pie pan would work too, as would a tart pan. I don't have a tart pan, so I used what I had).

Also during this process, I dropped my incredibly heavy marble rolling pin on my foot. And now that your confidence in me is totally shattered, I will mention once again that the resulting tart is darn tasty! And it's ok to make mistakes...just try to jump out of the way if your rolling pin starts to head south.

I baked the empty crust at 425 for 10 minutes while I combined the eggs, cream cheese, milk and seasonings in the bowl of my mixer and let it whirl until it was as combined as it was going to get. I probably beat it for 2 minutes total.

Then I pulled the hot pie crust out of the oven and reduced the oven temperature to 325. I put it on a baking sheet to avoid spills, and layered the caramelized onion in the bottom of the crust. Then I poured in the egg filling and returned the crust to the oven.

I baked it for 40 minutes at 325 degrees, until the middle was set. I could have checked it by sticking a knife in it to see if it came out clean, but I didn't want to poke a hole in it. I'm funny that way.

While the tart was baking, I went off and played Bejeweled Blitz on facebook. I'm terrible at this game and totally addicted to it.

I forgot the part where I'd planned to come back to the tart 20 minutes into its baking time and layer the asparagus in a nice circular pattern on top of the semi-set filling. I had a theory that this would get the asparagus to remain near the surface of the filling, and make it look all purdy.

I remembered with 3 minutes left on the clock.

So my asparagus ended up sitting up on top of the tart, instead of being integrated into it. It kind of looked like a bizarre garnish.

(On a side note, while I was neglecting my cooking I beat my all-time high pathetic score on Bejeweled, so it was almost worth it).

And despite the improv and the errors, boy did that tart taste good! My family horked it down. I considered licking the plate. We all had seconds. There were no leftovers to clutter up my pre-holiday refrigerator.

That's a successful dinner in my book!

Holiday preparama

2010-11-22T12:39:00.000-08:00

Right now we're all about getting ready for Thanksgiving. This weekend we were house cleaning fools, a thorough deep cleaning and decluttering were loooong overdue. The place is much better now, and I hope it miraculously stays this way the 3 whole days until the holiday!

Oh and here's an actual comment I got this weekend from someone who will remain nameless due to the fact that I'm married to him:

"Why do we have to clean the kitchen? Isn't it just going to get dirty when we cook for Thanksgiving?"

Now that, my friends, is man logic.

Today I opened my fridge and noticed that it was completely full...and tomorrow I'm doing my big holiday grocery shopping trip. So how's that supposed to work?!

So for lunch today we had bizarre side dishes a la Audrey to use up some of the leftovers and oddities cluttering the fridge. I can actually see light in there now! I'm guessing we'll be having the same for dinner...and breakfast tomorrow...and, oh you get the idea.

To make up for the lunchtime leftovers extravaganza, I made my family an apple cake, pictured above from when I made it last month.

It's just a simple single-layer vanilla cake, here's the recipe I use (though you could certainly substitute half the batter from a box of white cake mix):

Basic Single-Layer Vanilla Cake

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
2/3 cup milk
half a stick (1/4 cup) melted butter
1 egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Combine dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Add the wet ingredients and beat for one minute.

Pour into a greased and floured cake pan.

If you were going to leave it plain, that basic cake bakes at 350 for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Before baking, I top it with peeled sliced apples (3 medium-sized apples sliced about 1/2 inch thick). I boiled the slices with cloves and cinnamon sticks for 10-15 minutes (which makes the house smell super good, by the way).

Layer the cooled, drained apple slices on top of the cake batter, then top with a generous coating of cinnamon sugar (I used 1/2 cup sugar plus 2 t. cinnamon) and a few dollops of butter (about 1/4 cup softened butter dropped down around the cake in about 8-10 pieces).

This topping increases the baking time to 40-45 minutes total at 350 degrees. Again, check for doneness with a toothpick. After it cools a bit, fancy it up with a dusting of powdered sugar and serve slightly warm. Yum!

By the way, I use that same cake as the base for my Super Fab Retro Pineapple Upside Down Cake. But that's another story!

Ohhhh, I almost forgot, actually for dinner tonight I'm going to attempt a "savory vegetable tart" so my family will be spared another meal of random fridge finds. I suspect "savory vegetable tart" is a fancy way of saying quiche...as if "quiche" isn't fancy enough! It's a new recipe and I will keep you posted on the results.

All I can say is, it better be so good that we gobble it all up, because for now the fridge is a leftover-free zone!

Ooey Gooey Goodness

2010-11-19T13:02:00.000-08:00

As promised on facebook, I'm sharing a recipe for the most delicious cinnamon rolls in the history of delicious cinnamon rolls! I just whipped up a batch and OMG!!!! And the house smells heavenly to boot!

I got this recipe from the always-brilliant Linda Hopkins over at Les Petites Gourmettes. I mentioned her website a couple weeks ago, and lemme tell ya, Linda is my new go-to guru for all things delish!

I haven't even told you the best part about this recipe: it's a double duty dough. So last night we had the most wonderful tender savory yeast rolls with the homemade soup I made, and this morning we had these incredible cinnamon rolls out of the other half of the same dough. Gotta love that!

I'm going to make these on Christmas...probably Thanksgiving too since my husband and son are already asking when I'll make them again! Today was just a trial run of the recipe.

Give it a try! You can access the recipe by clicking on the name of Linda's website above.

I will admit that I cut one corner: the recipe calls for 10 minutes of kneading the dough, and I'm far too lazy for that! :) So I let the dough hook on my Kitchenaid mixer do most of the work, then just kneaded it by hand for a couple minutes after that.

Another multitasker: the dough calls for mashed potatoes, so I made extra. I just pulled out a cup of the plain cooked potatoes before I flavored the rest up and served them as a side dish.

If you make this recipe (and you should!) try to remember to save a cup of the water the potatoes cook in, I totally blew that part and remembered right after it all went down the drain!

Have fun, enjoy, and by all means treat yourself and your family to these incredible rolls!

Thanksgiving Ideas

2010-11-11T10:24:00.001-08:00

(Photo c. Amazing Moms)

In my quest for fun new Thanksgiving ideas and recipes, I found this great website:

AmazingMoms.com

That super cute cupcake idea above is theirs. There are lots of kids' crafts too. Check em out!

Thanksgiving Fun

2010-11-08T10:15:00.001-08:00

(photo c. Family Fun magazine)

I'd mentioned this cute Thanksgiving idea to a few girlfriends while scrapbooking last weekend, and several wanted to make this fun and easy project. So here's the link, once again from the oh so clever folks at Disney's Family Fun magazine!

My son thinks it's a hoot, I think we're gonna have to make this too!

Eat, Drink and Wear Sweaters!

2010-11-03T14:24:00.000-07:00

Another Halloween has come and gone, and 3 days later I'm still sooo tired! It was loads of fun, though, and I can't wait to scrapbook the mountain of photos that you know are on the way!

So now the focus shifts to fall, and the inevitable baking and comfort food that goes along with the cooler weather! I've been looking for recipe inspiration, not only for Thanksgiving but in general. As I find cool blogs and websites, I'll share them here, starting with:

Les Petites Gourmettes

She conducts cooking classes for kids, but her recipes are sophisticated and totally delish! Browse through her recipe index, lots of great ideas here!

More to come!

Happy Halloween! :)

2010-10-30T21:32:00.000-07:00

Have fun and be safe!

Pumpkin Pancakes

2010-10-29T10:58:00.000-07:00

If you follow me on facebook then you know that this week has been all about Halloween at our house! This morning I attempted pumpkin pancakes for the first time. I used a recipe my friend Janie forwarded me from Hoosier Homemade (great site, by the way).

I modified the spices slightly (I cut back on the ginger a bit to mellow it out for breakfast) and they were absolutely delish! They got the hubby and son seal of approval, too! The recipe with my changes is below.

So I figured, hey, they're pumpkin pancakes, let's make 'em look like pumpkins. Fail! I tried tinting a bit of the batter with cocoa powder to draw jack o lantern faces and make bat-shaped pancakes (yes, that thing in the photo is supposed to be a bat!), and it looked terrible! But the kidlet enjoyed it anyway.

Pumpkin Pancakes Recipe:
• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• pinch of nutmeg
• pinch of cloves
• 1 cup milk
• 6 tablespoons canned pumpkin (not spiced pumpkin pie filling)
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• 1 egg

Directions:
Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together wet ingredients. Combine them and whisk until smooth. Cook on a hot griddle.

Enjoy!

Free Fabulous Downloads

2010-10-26T07:00:00.000-07:00

I recently discovered an absolutely wonderful website: thetoymaker.com. Her name is Marilyn Scott Waters, and her site is chock full of adorable, whimsical free downloads! Clicking on her site name will take you right to her Halloween printables. She has downloads for many holidays and lots of cute paper toys to print and assemble.

Be sure to sign up for her newsletter: you get super cute exclusive printables sent right to your mail box!

She also has a book on Amazon of her Christmas paper toys, it's less than $8 and I'll bet it's as adorable as the rest of her stuff! I'm definitely ordering it.

Below are a few goodies I printed and assembled from her site for Halloween. My fave is probably that Black Cat card -- pull the tab and the eyes and mouth move. Too cute! My seven year old loves all the goodies too!

Oh and scrapbookers: think about how cute these designs would be if you used flat panels from them as embellishments on your scrapbook pages!!

Enjoy!

Creepy Cupcakes

2010-10-25T15:41:00.000-07:00

We're in full Halloween mode over at our house, and today my son helped me decorate a batch of creepy Halloween cupcakes!

The cupcake stand is by Wilton, I recently found it at BiMart and am just tickled about it!

We found white gumballs and food color pens at Michaels. Voila: icky eyeballs! The oh-so-gross bloody bones were my son's idea, we found them at Target!

Check back tomorrow for a link to my favorite holiday freebie ever! :)

Halloween Garland Freebie

2010-10-22T17:34:00.001-07:00

Hi all! Here's a fun freebie I thought you'd enjoy: the letter garland shown above. Click here for the free download. The whole alphabet's provided, so you can customize the garland any way you like.

This is courtesy of a cool blog called Allsorts, check it out!

Enjoy!

(photo copyright allsorts)

Free National Parks Download

2010-10-20T14:33:00.001-07:00

My family and I are huge fans of our National Parks. And I recently found a fun download to share with you, called 35 National Park Adventures for Kids of All Ages. Click here for the free booklet.

We also love the National Parks Junior Ranger Programs. They're free and such a wonderful experience for kids of all ages. My son has completed eleven of these programs at different National Parks over the past year, and we can't wait for number twelve!

The photos above are my son receiving his most recent Junior Ranger badge on Alcatraz Island, along with the super nice volunteer that helped us. My son had fun, and he -- and I -- both learned a lot!

Calling All Scrapbooking Bargain Shoppers!

2010-10-15T09:52:00.000-07:00

One of my all-time favorite brands of scrapbooking paper and embellishments is Little Yellow Bicycle. And I just found out about this awesome website:

LittleYellowBargains.com

Little Yellow Bargains sells kits of both Little Yellow Bicycle and Deja Views products at huge discounts -- for example, the Sweet Love kit pictured above, 80.00 worth of product, was $23.88!! And if you spend $40 you get free shipping! Woo hoo!!

Happy shopping!! :)

Another of this week's projects

2010-09-23T14:06:00.001-07:00

I get so many fun ideas from Disney's Family Fun magazine, and recently discovered that their web site is a treasure trove of good things -- crafts, recipes, printables and more. I saw this idea for octopus cupcakes and just had to give 'em a try, since that's my son's favorite sea creature. They got a big thumbs up!

Fall craft idea

2010-09-17T17:52:00.000-07:00

I was feeling crafty over the weekend, so I made these cute pumpkins out of coffee filters, and they were really easy to create.

Ok, I can take absolutely no credit for this super cute idea! What I can do is pass it on to you! Go to Sharon Cheng's blog (Just click her name), she is an immensely talented woman who works with Stampin' Up. She has complete instructions to make this on her blog.

My girlfriend Janie forwarded the link to me, now I'm sharing it with you! Thanks, Janie!

My one modification to Sharon Cheng's directions was to use watered down acrylic paint to color the coffee filters. I used Making Memories paint in Monarch for the pumpkins and Evergreen for the leaves, and applied it with a big foam brush. I found it faster and easier than using ink.

Give it a try, they're really easy!

Remembering 9/11

2010-09-11T07:00:00.000-07:00

I hope that you will join me in taking some time today to remember the lives lost on 9/11. My heart goes out to the families forever affected by this tragedy.

To me today is also a reminder to let our family and friends know how much we love and appreciate them. I hope that you'll make a point of hugging your kids and telling them how much you love them -- I think the world could use an extra dose of love today.

(image courtesy of Wikimedia.org)

Calling All Scrapbookers

2010-09-08T11:00:00.000-07:00

Just a reminder for my scrapbooking pals in southern Oregon: we'll be hosting our free crop this Saturday, September 11th from 10 am to 10 pm at the Ashland Library. Come one, come all, and get some pages or projects done!

I'm within striking distance of actually finishing my album from our 8,000 mile road trip this past Spring! So you know I'll be hunkered down and working all the live long day this Saturday.

Hope to see you there!

Happy Labor Day!

2010-09-06T10:13:00.000-07:00

Ah, the end of summer. Hope you're doing something fun to celebrate today!

And for my friends that are lucky enough to live near a Dutch Bros. Coffee: all drinks are just $1 today! How cool is that?! It's a customer appreciation thing they're doing for Labor Day. I love me some Dutch Bros!

So go out, get caffeinated, and have a great day!! :)

Fall is in the Air!

2010-09-01T10:50:00.000-07:00

Hi all - I hope this finds you well and enjoying some cooler fall weather!

Summer sure flew by, and my son started 2nd grade with Connections Academy yesterday. We capped off summer with a trip to southern California and Legoland, we just got back this past weekend.

Speaking of Legos, a little heads up to my friends with little kids: the 2010 Lego Advent Calendar was released today, and they always sell out fast. My son loves these, it's an annual tradition at our house. You can check it out here.

And for my scrapbooking friends: Ali Edwards is doing a HUGE giveaway now through Friday Sept. 3rd. Enter by clicking here and leaving a comment about something you're celebrating. Good luck!!

Take care, more soon! :)

Crazy Days of Summer

2010-07-25T15:12:00.000-07:00

Hi all! Yes it's me, I haven't completely abandoned this blog, even though it seems like it at times! Been running around a lot, trying to make the most of summer despite the heat.

And of course I've been plugging away at scrapbooking my family's 8000 mile cross-country road trip -- no small task!

Speaking of scrapbooking, there are a few events coming up for all you southern Oregon scrappers. The next 3 free crops at the Ashland Library are:

August 14th
September 11th
October 9th

Also, Krop Paper Scissors is hosting a crop for their four year anniversary, which is also on September 11th from 10 am - 10 pm. The cost is 25.00. Click on their name in the column on the right for more info.

I hope you're enjoying your summer!! More soon -- I'll try not to wait a month before posting again! ;)

Crop Cancelled

2010-06-12T09:17:00.001-07:00

Hi scrapbookers! For those of you not on facebook where you would have seen this post: we have canceled the library crop for June since so few people could make it (including me, I'm currently in California). The next one's scheduled for July 10th.

Take care, enjoy your summer!

Happy Mother's Day!

2010-05-07T21:25:00.000-07:00

Hugs to all my Mom friends -- I hope you have a wonderful Mother's Day and a great weekend!! Enjoy!!

The Big Easy

2010-05-06T09:29:00.000-07:00

Decided to post a few more road trip photos this morning, these from New Orleans. I've always been drawn to this city, it's gorgeous and fascinating and unlike anyplace else. We'd spent my 30th birthday there (more years ago than I care to admit), and it felt good to be back. It was quite crowded this time, almost too crowded. But it's still such an amazing place. Enjoy the photos!

The centerpiece of the French Quarter is lovely Jackson Square

Classic New Orleans

Around the French Quarter

The voodoo queen of New Orleans

Another pretty second story balcony

Voodoo shop

Preservation Hall -- a great place to listen to jazz, it's been there forever

Another scene from the French Quarter

Springtime in the Big Easy

So New Orleans

Lunch at the same cafe where we celebrated my 30th birthday, years earlier.

Detail of the gorgeous wrought iron balconies of the French Quarter

A streetcar -- not named Desire, but these are the same ones from Tennessee Williams' days.

Check out the Mardi Gras beads in the tree - we were there weeks later, but the parade route along the garden district was still festooned with trinkets.

National Scrapbook Day....

2010-05-03T18:47:00.001-07:00

....was this past weekend, the big event scrapbookers look forward to all year. Even though our gang was split between 2 locations, we still managed to have a blast. Joining me at Krop Paper Scissors in Grants Pass were Vivien, Laura and Lisa, and the event was a sold-out success. Shop owner Karyn went all out -- great prizes, fun games, great food, and great company. Sign me up for next year, Karyn! :)

Queen Vivien! Oh, excuse me, "Princess" Vivien, because princesses are younger. lol! Can you tell we were having fun?!

Girlfriend Laura was the first person to get to pick a prize at random. And she picked the grand prize -- cuz the gift bag matched her outfit. lol! She won a portable, wireless blue tooth printer. You can take it anywhere and print photos right from your phone. How cool is that?! It was news to me that such a thing was even on the market!

Me with a picture of -- me! Of course we had to try Laura's new blue tooth printer right away!

Lisa with her prize, chipboard shapes by Maya Road. We were super glad to see you Lisa, wouldn't have been the same without you, girlfriend!

Oh yeah, and somewhere in all the fun, I even managed to get a good chunk of my Disney World album done!

Next event is our monthly free crop at the Ashland Library, this Saturday May 8th. Hope to see all my local scrapbooking friends there!

P.S. Didja notice that I FINALLY figured out how to put a custom background on my blog?! About stinkin time! Janie, I used the website you're using on your blog, finally someplace that makes it goof-proof!

Trip Pix part 2: Florida Wildlife

2010-04-27T09:49:00.000-07:00

We managed to see lots of really cool wildlife on our road trip - Florida in particular is just loaded with interesting animals. Lots of these were on the huge wildlife preserve surrounding Cape Csnaveral that we got to explore. Here are a few of my favorite shots:

This little guy was just fascinating. We saw 3 in all while in Florida, and every time we saw one we'd stop the car and I and my camera would go running after them. They were pretty oblivious to the fact that I was about 3 feet away, they just continued looking for whatever it is that armadillos eat.

It was kind of hard to get a decent photo of a wild boar, since I'm afraid of em and didn't want to go too close.

This guy was a very cooperative photo subject. He just stared at me and was like, "Fine, whatever."

We watched this family of Manatees right off our boat at Wakulla Springs - it was absolutely awe inspiring.

We saw a total of 23 gators in the wild in Florida, including this fella.

Turtles turtles turtles!

Baby gator on mama gator's back

Blue Heron looking for dinner. At least, I assume it's a blue heron, since it's blue and heron-shaped. lol. Florida has amazing numbers of tropical birds.

I thought it was really nice of this guy to pose for my camera. It's called an Anhinga, and they sit in the sun like this to dry their wings after catching fish.

Disney World felt kinda exotic with these fellows walking around. It's called a White Ibis, and they're basically Florida's answer to the pigeon.

Trip Pix Part One: Texas and Southwest

2010-04-19T16:10:00.000-07:00

Here are a few photos from the last leg of our road trip. More will follow. Enjoy!

Bryce Canyon, southern Utah

Twin falls at Zion National Park

it was my son's first time seeing the ever awe-inspiring Grand Canyon

The Pataki ruins, outside Sedona

Exploring the cliff dwellings of an ancient civilization

Church by Frank Lloyd Wright, Sedona

Sedona's Coffee Pot Rock

We loved seeing this coyote in Arizona

My 6 year old completing a junior ranger program (with an assist by Dad) -- check out the ancient petroglyph right beside him!

Carlsbad Caverns were huge and amazing

The Alamo

Springtime in the desert

Along San Antonio's riverwalk

Hotel room Easter egg hunt, San Antonio

Easter loot

Back Again!

2010-04-18T15:50:00.000-07:00

Hellllooooo! Didja miss me?!

My hubby, son and I just got back from a month-long, 8200 mile road trip around the US. It was great to go, but wow, is home ever feeling nice right now!

We went through Salt Lake City and St. Louis to Disney World where we spent a magical 10 days. Then another week was spent exploring northern Florida -- what a cool place!

From there it was on to New Orleans, San Antonio, the Grand Canyon, Zion and Bryce Canyon. Those are just the highlights, we saw and did sooo much!

In all we visited over a half dozen national parks, and my 6 year old completed 7 junior ranger programs. I love that he's totally into our awesome national parks, and the programs really helped him learn about and appreciate each of the amazing places we visited.

Photos will be up soon, it's taken me a while to get back in the rhythm of things back home. Hope ya'all have been well and happy! More soon.

BRB!

2010-03-14T18:43:00.000-07:00

The blog's on hold for a few weeks, big adventure in the making! Details will appear regularly on facebook for those of you on there. Take care and enjoy the start of spring!!

Exploring Oregon

2010-02-28T10:13:00.000-08:00

We're home from our mini vacation and had a great time! A few photos of what we saw and did are below. It was great seeing some parts of Oregon that we'd never seen before!

The Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, Oregon. To try to give a sense of scale, that's a full-size jumbo jet parked in front of one of the museum's 3 huge buildings!

One of the 3 buildings at the Aviation Museum is dedicated to space exploration -- Barrett was in heaven!

Having fun with a robot arm

"space planes" including the Blackbird, which Barrett decided was his favorite thing at the museum

The ginormous thing in the background is the wooden sea plane the Spruce Goose, built in 1947 by eccentric millionaire Howard Hughes. My favorite feature: parts of it were stuffed with beach balls to keep it afloat on the water! Really!

We visited the Maritime Museum in Astoria, located where the Columbia River meets the Pacific

This gorgeous house in Astoria houses a museum. Remember the movie The Goonies? It was filmed in Astoria, and this is where the main character's Dad worked. :)

Lewis and Clark's Fort Clatsop, near Astoria. They stayed here for 100 days in the winter of 1805-1806, and it rained for all but 12 of those days. Hey, I learned something! lol

Barrett being sworn in as a junior ranger :)

Barrett loved the carousel in Seaside

the view from our hotel room in Lincoln City

At the Oregon Aquarium in Newport

The Oregon Aquarium was really good, better than we'd expected

Hello from the Backroads of Oregon!

2010-02-26T21:20:00.000-08:00

We decided to take off for a few days and explore some of our adopted home state. We took a gorgeous cut-over from Sutherlin across to the coast, and have spent time in Florence, Lincoln City, Seaside and Astoria. This was the first time any of us had been on the north coast!

Earlier today we visited Lewis and Clark's Fort Clatsop, and Barrett completed the junior ranger program. We love these free programs through our National Parks Service. Kids complete some fun tasks, then are given a badge and sworn in as junior rangers. Check it out next time you're at a national park with a kiddo!

This afternoon we swung inland to McMinnville, and tomorrow we'll be at the Evergreen Aviation Museum, home of the Spruce Goose (thanks gf Laura for the recommendation)! I know my 6 year old is going to be so excited to see all the cool planes!

We're all enjoying this little mini adventure! More soon.....

Look Who Made Honor Roll :)

2010-02-22T19:30:00.001-08:00

Time to brag about my kiddo for a moment! :) Barrett's first semester of 1st grade at Oregon Connections Academy went great! We were so proud when we found out that he'd made honor roll! He felt so proud too. Gotta love moments like these!!

MIA

2010-02-21T10:53:00.000-08:00

It's been not the best couple weeks! I got sick coming home from Portland, with both a cold and a stomach flu. A bit of congestion triggered vertigo -- an inner ear imbalance that I get now and then. Which means I've had a couple weeks of the room spinning whenever I move - weeee! lol

I'm laughing about it because that's about all I can do. I'm taking meds for it, and as soon as my sinuses dry out, the pressure'll be off my inner ear and I'll be good as new.

Two weeks of laying around watching the food channel has, as you might expect, not done wonders for my Project 365 efforts! That's a photography challenge I've been participating in, where I'm supposed to take a photo a day to document my life. Yeah...not so much while in this condition!

I'm going to attempt to save the month by altering it to "28 photos for February." That I can do. No, they weren't taken one-a-day, but close enough.

I'm tempted to spin around in my office chair while taking pictures to simulate the vertigo and capture it on film -- lol!

Anyway, I'm on the road to recovery, and things could be a lot worse. I hope you're doing well and enjoying the early Spring sunshine! More soon!