On Saturday Tim and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. Tim got a Darth Vader replica light saber from Force FX. I got knives.
I am so excited. It's a 17 piece Zwilling J.A. Henckels classic block set from BB&B. I haven't really had a chance to go to town yet, but that day is coming.
Hopefully I won't need any of these.
Today I'm double posting. For a couple of reasons...it's been a long week and there really isn't a reason to hold on to this because brownies are the perfect stress reliever. Also, Tim and I are heading out on a mini-vacation to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary so I won't be around until later next week. Thirdly...did I mention that these are brownies? How could I withhold brownies from you guys...that's just not right.
So last year I signed up for a subscription to Martha's Everyday Food. My cousin was selling magazine subscriptions as a fund raiser, I was interested, the price was good...anyway, I've got a lot of Martha now. Thing is, while I've got a ton of ear marked recipes I haven't made all that many and the few I have made were...rather, "eh". Granted, I wasn't real sold that I'd like them in the first place but a girl's gotta try and expand repertoire every now and again. So on Saturday night I pulled out the newest mailing and flipped through trying to find some inspiration for our Sunday picnic dessert. I wanted to try something that I knew I should LOVE, really see if my $18 was doing me any good.
I settled on the featured Reader Recipe and set to brownie making.
Now brownies and I, we have a troubled past. They fall squarely into the foods I should not attempt at home. But I love a good brownie and my past failures were, well, in the past. This recipe felt right and I'd watched enough of the Alton Brown episode on brownies to know I tend to over beat the batter and over or under cook them. With all this in mind I decided these brownies were not going to kick my ass, I would persevere. It also didn't hurt that this recipe is freakishly simple...brownie idiot or no, it's pretty hard to screw up.
I'm glad to say, there was no ass kicking this time around...they turned out great. Which means you should go make them. Make yourself feel better...have a brownie.
Yum.My friend Sharon had a baby in July. This would be her third baby and by the very nature of my staunch position that "every baby needs a blanket to call their own" this is also the third crib blanket I've made for Sharon's family.
The first one was a Noah's Ark theme, something I knew the first time mommy would love because she'd always wanted a nursery in that theme and it worked for her new little boy. The second one was a pastel and bunny blanket, sweet and darling...just right for the sweet little girl that was baby number two.
This blanket wasn't really made for mom, though I'm pretty sure she likes it. It's not baby bunnies, cute bugs, childish stick figures or polka dots (all patterns I've found in the past). This one surprised even me with how bold was. When I buy the backing fabric I don't go in with any ideas, I know what colors are in the tops because I always finish the top before I buy the back. I just go in, look-see what on the shelves and buy the one that says "I'm exactly what your looking for". This backing didn't exactly say that, it beat me over the head and shouted I am THE ONE.
From what I've heard this will fit baby number three just fine...she's a bit on the feisty side.
I think I've said it about a hundred times. Fall? My absolute favorite season.
Warm, but not sweltering days. Cool, crisp evenings. The occasional rain shower and the colors. Oh, how I LOVE the colors of fall. Vibrant, showy yellows. Bold, attention grabbing reds. Splashy, sunny oranges. Deep plums, warm coppers. The colors of fall are amazing.
We're just beginning to see the colors dust the trees. Yellow is always the early arrival...birches, cottonwoods and the elms have all begun to blush sunny yellow. Red comes next...the fire bushes, buffalo berry bushes and sumac in fiery, scarlet red. Orange is the last and rarest, the few oaks and maples in town usually hold out till long after the first hard frost. The few leaves that have already fallen are like dark yellow butterflies when they flit by on the breeze.
This past weekend Tim, Lilly and I packed the car with our typical picnic accouterments, hit the road and spent most of Sunday enjoying a gorgeous fall day. Sunny, breezy with the Hills just getting into the fall swing.
It was pretty much a perfect day.
We have REALLY hard water. Like, we nearly have to chip it off a mineral block hard. It's been hell on our new appliances and a water softener is an imminent purchase just as soon as we can afford it. All of this is just to prove the point that our dishes? Absolutely nasty. White filmy, cloudy nasty. It's not like they're really dirty, just that dishwasher just can't cope with the hard water and manages to bake a really nice mineral layer on to each dish every time it passes through the wash/dry cycle. I really dislike giving company a glass and immediately promising, "It's not dirty, I know it looks icky but it's really just that we have hard water." It's embarrassing.
So, last weekend my boss's wife (yay for company BBQ) mentioned that they have water that is even harder than ours (I believe rocks come out of their faucets.) and that after the 5th trip out there to fix the dishwasher the repair man mentioned that she should really try Lemishine. Sunday morning Tim and I gathered our fortitude and headed to the lion's den (W*mart) for some of this magical powder. We've done 3 loads of dishes since then (Hey, I've been doing a lot of baking!) and each time we've taken turns being absolutely amazed that we have navy blue, shiny plates, clean cups and shiny stainless steel. Seriously. This stuff is freakily effective at what it does. It's also so good at what it does that I can mix it in in a 50/50 blend with regular detergent and still get awesome results.
Anyway what I'm getting at is that, while I'd love to be getting paid to tell you all of this (To the folks at Enivrocontech, feel free to pony up at anytime.), I just really, really like this stuff and found that it actually does what it says. Dishwasher+hard water+lemishine+detergent = Yay! Clean Dishes!!
This weekend was my architectural firm's annual BBQ. Let's digest that for a moment. We had our summer BBQ in September, in the dark with 30mph wind and cold, cold rain. We maybe need to plan better next year.
I've spent the last week trying to figure out what to take...I kind of wanted something fallish, but I made an apple dish for Tim...carrot cake would use up all the carrots languishing in the fridge but I took that last year...no, no, no. What I REALLY wanted was a lemon tart. A "fare thee well" to summer, but with six languishing apples and some woe begotten carrots it wasn't justifiable. But then Tim's office mates saved me by asking for baked goodies, they could reap the benefits of carrot cupcakes and I could make my tart guilt free. The apples...well the apples are still languishing BUT I have plans for them and that makes it all okay.
So, I went in search of a lemon tart...the crust was easy and after a few minutes I had it copied down and ready to use. The filling on the other hand was a bit trickier...no whole lemon tarts, just...ick. I wanted something smooth, something with a lemon bar like filling...but different...creamier and maybe a bit more tart. I hemmed and hawed and drug my feet all the way till Saturday morning and after blind baking the crust I still wasn't settled on how to fill it. The internet just didn't seem to have what I was looking for. (And in my defense, I forgot that I had this bar recipe that would have adapted well.)
*Sigh and mourn and whine*
Then I remembered I have these things called cookbooks and cooking magazines and photo copied recipes that I could also consult. And lo there was exactly what I was looking for in The Good Housekeeping Cookbook I've had for about 4 years. It was right there, sitting blandly between Sweet Potato Pie and Lemon Meringue Pie. Lemon Tart. Duh.
I mixed it up, slid it in the oven and was soon on my way to a creamy Lemonhead like tart. It was perfect and I wasn't the only one who thought so. As far as marks of success go, bringing home a perfectly empty serving plate really can't be beat.
I've never wound a center pull ball of yarn...
...now that I've FINALLY gotten my box of fun, now I've wound six. Five of them went smoothly and for the record I'd recommend never dropping a loose hank of yarn after you've removed the securing ties. Just sayin'...ball #6? Didn't go so smoothly.
This is the ninth crib quilt I've made.
This is also the first one I've ever gotten decidedly wrong. Not a bad record that has been somewhat helped by the fact that a few of completed quilts have been a bit more neutral than others. Other than being very wrong this is the second time I've failed to have the quilt finished before baby made his or her grand appearance, which considering it was for a boy and Miss Natalie Jean is decidedly a beautiful girl, is probably for the best.
Last weekend I pulled apart the top I had pieced together, removed the red squares and put in plumy/pinky ones. There is still a lot of blue, but since the new backing fabric I picked up is very girly graphic pattern with blue accents, it will still work just fine for the little lady awaiting her quilt.
I've gotten the top reassembled, the liner sewn in and the backing fabric selected and seamed to the right size. All that's left is to sew it together and tie it all up. This will be my favorite one so far and I'm really looking forward to sharing the finished product.
I just hope little Natalie has a bold personality to go with this bold quilt. And to Natalie's wonderful mommy...dear, I think you'll like this one; it definitely won't get confused with Ben or Sarah's. : )
Well, hello there!
I do hope you've been out, about and enjoying these final dregs of summer. I am some how convinced that we've been collectively robbed. Spring lingered and lingered and summer was only really summery for a few short weeks. Or at least in these parts that's how it felt. And while the respite from the previous FIVE summers of crippling heat and drought has been beyond delightful...it feels odd not spending four+ months in near misery. We actually only ran our air conditioner for three weeks...total...all summer. This is huge. At least for our climate it is. The weather here has taken the Labor Day reputation as "end of summer" quite seriously, the weather instantly cooled off and a crisp fallish breeze has taken residence. Fall isn't just on the way...it's here, beating down the door.
Things have been all odd n' ends these days. I have a new craft project I want to share...but need to finish first. It may or may not be a pair of socks. I knit (am knitting...two feet = two socks). By myself. WITH MY OWN HANDS! I maybe very proud of myself. I have an amazingly exciting box of yarn goodies s-l-o-w-l-y (Oh, God...soooo slowly) making their way from Ohio to the Great Plains. I plan on using it's contents for Christmas making fun. And despite evidence to the contrary, I have not ceased cooking. I've been experiencing some SPECTACULAR failures that we won't discuss here or I've been making yummy things with out taking pictures. Bad Girl.
In lieu of any real content I offer you the following:
While I hate to admit it, winter will soon be here. If you're anything like me this does not mean swishing down hill shooting up plumes of snow or careening haphazardly over the sparkly white landscape on some mechanical beast. It will mean a rather large reinforcement of sweaters, socks, blankets, steamy warm beverages and lots of time to burn after sunset. I generally spend my winters in a trifecta of activity...fun cooking, crafting and reading. There's television/movies too...but that kind of ruins the whole trifecta analogy.
These two sets are what I read last winter/prolonged spring. The Little House set (9 books) by Laura Ingalls Wilder and the "All Creatures" series by James Herriot. While they seem like wildly different things...a series chronicling the life of a pioneer girl in the late 1800's and a series chronicling the life of a country vet in pre/post WWII England...they also both offer a detailed peek into a life that very few of us know or recognize. Both sets are light reads with heartening story lines that are based on the authors' real life experiences. And both sets are quite a bit of fun to read...from Laura's revenge on mean Nellie Olsen to Herriot's anecdotes of recalcitrant cows, gruff farmers and his slightly madcap business partners Sigfried and Tristan Farnon.
Both series are readily available, though Herriot's books are issued under different titles than pictured above in the US. On this side of the pond his series is generally 5 books...All Creatures Great and Small, All things Bright and Beautiful, All things Wise and Wonderful, The Lord God Made them All and Every Living Thing. As for Laura Ingalls Wilder's works...well, I'd hope that we'd all be familiar with them but in case your not...Little House in the Big Woods, Farmer Boy, Little House on the Prairie, On the Banks of Plum Creek, On the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie, These Happy Golden Years, The First Four Years...are generally considered the main body of her work. If you can finagle your way into a set that is illustrated by Garth Williams...all the better. His pen and ink sketches are the same that have been running in the books since 1953. Newer sets have been re-packaged with photographic cover art, stills from the television series or new drawings, but don't always have Williams' art.
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