2 crafty r's

Chocolate Chip Toffee Oatmeal Cookies

2011-02-18T12:34:00.001-06:00

I made these cookies last week and wasn't planning on posting them for a bit. When I saw that Love & Olive Oil posted similar cookies yesterday, I decided to just put it up now. I got the original recipe from my oldest cookbook The Best of Country Cooking 2003 (it was a wedding present). It's a fantastic recipe (Toffee Malted Cookies) and I've only tweaked it a bit. Years ago, a friend gave me a tip to grind the oats in a food processor or blender. It's brilliant! You still get the nutty taste but don't have as lumpy a texture. I do it for all oatmeal cookies.

What you'll need (plus eggs *sigh*):

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 (3.4 oz) package instant vanilla pudding mix
1 teaspoon vanilla paste (or extract)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 - 2 cups regular oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup toffee bits

1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips (the original adds 1 cup chopped Whoppers instead of chocolate chips. Both taste divine.)

Pour oats into a food processor. Pulse until powdery.

Combine with flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl.

In a separate large bowl, cream butter and sugars together until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Add pudding mix and vanilla, beat well. Add flour and oat mixture to creamed mixture, mixing until completely combined. Fold in toffee and chocolate chips (dough will be stiff). Spoon onto parchment covered baking sheets. Bake at 350 degrees F for 12-15 minutes. Let sit for 2 minutes before cooling on wire racks. Yields 5 or 6 dozen.

(These are actually a different kind of cookie that I'm working on...but I wanted a "ready to freeze" picture)

Whenever I make cookies, I bake a dozen or so and freeze the rest. I scoop the dough into cookie sized balls and freeze them on a tray before transferring them to a ziplock freezer bag. This way I can have fresh cookies for the husband and kids in ten minutes, and cookie dough instantly for me.

Zucchini Bread: FAIL

2011-02-15T10:09:00.000-06:00

Note to self: use more cooking spray and cook a lot longer than recipe says. The husband said it still tasted good and ate most of a loaf. Maybe not a complete failure?

Apple Cinnamon Parfait

2011-02-09T15:29:00.000-06:00

Two weeks ago I was down with the flu. It was awful. Food lost all of it's appeal. That's how I know I was really sick. I lived off of diet Coke (does anyone else out there love the feel of carbonation on a sore throat?) and apples.

Over the summer I got into a parfait rut. I was eating one each morning. Yogurt, berries and granola = super yummy. A friend told me that apples, cinnamon and yogurt were also a delicious combo. She was very right.

Apple Cinnamon Parfait:

Your favorite kind of apple (I used Gala), chopped
Vanilla yogurt
Granola (our favorite is Cascadian Farm but I didn't have any)
Cinnamon, to taste (I use maybe 1/2 - 1 teaspoon?)

Just toss whatever amount of each into a bowl. I put it in the cup so it would actually look like a parfait in the picture. Usually I dump it all in a bowl and have at it. I normally eat this minus the granola. The apple makes it crunchy and filling. One of my favorite breakfasts. Enjoy!

Dusting off the ol' blog

2011-01-19T18:07:00.002-06:00

Yesterday, I was running at the gym. I run. I'm a runner. Anyway, it was a very difficult run. I was trying for 5 or 6 miles and barely made it over 4. And that was with the distraction of What Not to Wear (Possibly my favorite TV show. They make me laugh.). I'm beginning to see why treadmills and any run over a mile don't go together. Running is boring (news flash, right?). Running on a treadmill is pretty much torture. You're stuck with annoying, repetitive commercials as your eye wanders between the stop button and watching your distance sloooowly creep towards your goal. When I run outside, there's the knowledge that the quicker I get through my miles the quicker I can eat something and take a nap. As I was spiraling downwards yesterday, unable to give myself a decent pep-talk, my show ended and I switched to the Food Network. Lucky for me, the Barefoot Contessa had something delicious up her sleeve:

Chicken Chili

adapted from here

I knew I had most of the ingredients on hand but I still had to change it up quite a lot. It turned out fantastic! Seriously yummy. A little on the spicy side. You can tone it down easily enough by using smaller amounts of the spices. We ate it with chips, sour cream and cheese. Here's the recipe:

1 onion, chopped (the original says yellow, I used white. I don't think it makes a difference either way.)

1 tbsp olive oil, plus more for chicken
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 yellow bell pepper, chopped
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp kosher salt, plus more for chicken
2 cans (10 oz each) RoTel (diced tomatoes with chillies), puréed
1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, puréed
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Rub chicken breasts with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake for 30 minutes or until done. Chop into bite-sized chunks.

Heat olive oil in a large stock pot over medium-low. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent, 10-15 minutes. Add garlic, stir and cook for 1 minute. Mix in bell peppers and spices. Cook for another minute. Add puréed tomatoes, RoTel and cilantro. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add chicken and continue to simmer another 20 minutes. Serve with or without toppings.

PS. I'm actually about to sit down and eat the leftovers. And I never eat leftovers. Ever. Well, except for this. But really I normally hate leftovers.

Soda Can Jewlery

2010-07-30T11:15:00.003-05:00

I saw a picture in a magazine where someone had used soda cans to make necklace, so I decided to figure out how to put my own spin on it. So far I have made flower hair clips and rings. I am so proud of these silly things I feel like a dork. They look so cute in peoples hair and they are not as heavy as you would think. the rings are alot of fun too.

funny story: the can that the big flower is made of came from a crazy old lady that was walking in the middle of the street. I was on my way home from grocery shopping and was going around her but stopped when she waved her cane. I rolled down the passenger side window and she asked if I would give her a ride to her doctors office for five bucks. Apparently her appointment was moved and she couldn't get a hold of her ride so she decided to walk but about killed herself walking up the hill. I didn't have anything too perishable so i said yes. After talking to her for a little bit I found out that she was only in her fifties and can no longer do the outside activities she used to due to a hip replacement. When I dropped her off I asked for her can instead of the five bucks. I thought it made adorable hair flowers. I'm alot braver at asking people for their empty drink cans now because of it.

Anyway please let me know what you think of what I did. I do enjoy getting other peoples opinions(positive and negative).

Tahini-Free Hummus

2010-07-08T10:43:00.000-05:00

I got this recipe from a friend at church. She adds sesame seeds instead of tahini (sesame seed paste), which can be expensive. I changed the spice amounts a little and you can do the same to get the flavor you want.

Hummus:

2 (15 oz) cans garbanzo beans (or chick peas), drained (save the liquid)

4-5 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

1 tsp ground cumin (missing from picture. Oops.)

1/2 tsp paprika

Dash of chili powder

Juice of one lemon

1 1/2 tbsp sesame seeds

2 tsp salt

2 tbsp olive oil

Put all of the ingredients, except for the reserved liquid, into a food processor or blender (be warned: I killed my blender after making this a few times). Process/blend until smooth. Taste and adjust seasonings, if needed.

Serve with pita chips (my three year old likes it with apple slices) or make a delicious wrap:

Hummus Wraps:

Prepared hummus

Flour tortillas

Bell pepper slices (we like yellow or red)

Feta cheese (this is very salty cheese so go easy on the salt in the hummus if you don't want it super salty)

Lettuce

Warm a tortilla, spread with hummus, add bell pepper, feta and lettuce; roll up like a burrito.

Enjoy!

An {L} Birthday

2010-07-02T15:37:00.004-05:00

My baby is two as of yesterday. Crazy. We had a big party for her inside our church building (originally to beat the Houston heat and humidity, but we also avoided having a rain-soaked party.). For food we had chocolate cupcakes, using the same Martha Stewart recipe I always use. It made 36 cupcakes and around 13 mini-cupcakes. For the frosting, I beat 2 cups (4 sticks!) of softened butter with about 2 teaspoons of vanilla paste (you could use extract too). Then I added enough powdered sugar to make a really stiff icing. Finally, a few tablespoons of milk to get it to piping consistancy. I split it into thirds and colored each with Wilton icing colors (leaf green, pink, and violet). I made the frosting the night before the party, so in the morning I pulled it out of the fridge and let it sit at room temp for a bit, before beating in a little more milk. Then I piped it on:

I also made sugar cookies, using cousin Brenda's recipe:

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 cup shortening

2 eggs

1/4 cup light corn syrup

1 tsp vanilla

3 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350*F. Beat sugar and shortening together. Add eggs; beat. Add corn syrup, vanilla, baking powder, soda and salt; mix. Add flour and mix until combined. Chill dough for an hour. Roll between lightly floured wax paper to 1/4 inch thick. Cut out cookies with cutters. Bake for 7-10 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

I found a tutorial for flooding cookies with royal icing. I used Wilton Meringue Powder and the royal icing recipe included (I added some almond extract; around a teaspoon or two).

It was surprisingly easy to do, though it will take some practice to make them look as good as the ones in the tutorial. I need a steadier hand but they turned out just fine (and really tasty):

And finally, as if that weren't enough for a two year old, I made suckers. Same reciped from this post, just some different flavors (grape, watermelon and cinnamon):

I had some issues with the colors. Above are the cinnamon flavored ones. They're supposed to be pink......yeah. Orange happened because I added the flavor before the color. As I started dropping the coloring in, the steam caused by the flavoring hit me square in the face. Think about it: hot, cinnamon-infused steam....my eyes immediately teared up, my throat started burning, it hurt to breathe......it was awful. So I cranked the kitchen fan on and opened the nearest window. I stirred as fast as I could and slopped it into the molds, before retreating to my bedroom (the furthest away). Luckily the girls, who were already down for their naps, remained unscathed. And that's why we have green, purple and.....orange:

We invited a lot of kids (24 + older/younger siblings), so I knew we'd need some good, entertaining games. Going with the theme of "L", we had the kids "Pin [tape] the Spot on the Leopard":

My husband drew this. Pretty awesome, right? After that, it was time to "Leap Across the Lily-pads":

I traced the lid to our cylindrical ottoman on a roll of green art paper and then cut out a pizza slice.

And lastly, we made Lion masks:

My poor husband spent nearly two hours cutting out these masks. He deserves a medal (and a hand massage). We tied some elastic through punched holes and:

ROARRRRR!!!

S'mores Bite

2010-06-21T12:45:00.000-05:00

I found a S'mores Cupcake recipe on Tasty Kitchen and immediately printed it out, they looked so yummy. After a little thought I decided to change it up (I thought it might be too sugary with the frosting.). So I came up with these:

S'mores Bite (I picked this name because it cracks me up. Be assured that these are delish.)

The cupcake batter has very few changes; just size and ingredient order. Next time I make them, I'm going to use all honey rather than half sugar.

Ingredients:

2 whole eggs, separated

1/3 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/4 cup honey (*or 1/2 cup, but don't add sugar)

1/4 cup sugar*

1 teaspoon vanilla paste or extract

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup graham cracker crumbs

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/3 cup milk

Marshmallow fluff

Milk chocolate chips

Extra graham cracker crumbs

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 325*F.

Combine graham cracker crumbs, flour and baking powder in a small bowl; set aside. In large bowl, beat butter, honey, sugar*, vanilla and salt until well combined. Mix in egg yolks.

In a separate bowl, beat egg whites on high until stiff peaks form; set aside:

Alternately add crumb mixture and milk to butter mixture, beating well after each addition:

Gently fold egg whites into batter until completely combined. It takes a minute, so be patient:

Spoon batter into a greased mini-muffin tin, 2/3 full.

Bake for 10-12 minutes. Keep an eye on them. They seem to brown quickly. Remove from tins to wire rack and cool completely.

Fill a pastry or ziplock bag with marshmallow fluff. Cut off tip and pipe onto cooled cupcakes.

Place "frosted" cupcakes into the freezer for 5 minutes. While they chill, melt chocolate chips in a deep bowl. Take the cupcakes out of the freezer and dip each one into the chocolate, completely covering the marshmallow.

Sprinkle with extra graham cracker crumbs.

Return to the freezer or refrigerator to set the chocolate. Serve at room temperature.

Enjoy!

Octopus Earrings

2010-06-17T17:58:00.000-05:00

A post! After 4 months of "Homemade Tortillas". Can you believe it? Neither can I.

Several months ago, I visited my family in Utah and I spent a day with Rachel (the second crafty r). She showed me how to make some simple earrings. I'm not going to pretend to know any of the proper terms or tool names, so bare with me...

Rachel had these nifty loops, some wire (22 gauge? maybe?), and a bazillion beads to choose from. I went with green beads, in two different sizes, and octopus charms (to hang in the middle). I took the wire and started wrapping it around the loop, adding a bead every 3 turns:

Once all of my beads were added and the extra wire cut off, we wiggled the wire until it was centered:

Pretty pretty, eh? Finally, I added the charm and earring piece and voila!

Not a great picture, but you get the idea....

I have a recipe post coming soon. Be excited.

Homemade Tortillas

2010-02-16T13:13:00.001-06:00

One of my new favorite food websites is Our Best Bites. They have fabulous and simple recipes. A few days ago I tried the homemade tortillas:

As you can see, I had a hard time rolling out a circle:

I figured they'd taste the same (and they did). Maybe I'll invest in one of those pie crust measuring mats... Cooking them was trickier than I thought.

I over-cooked several and they were pretty much inedible, but the ones I thought would be undercooked were perfect (they're the ones on the bottom of the pile in the first picture). I also made the taco chicken, black beans(I didn't add the coriander because I didn't have any and I used water rather than broth, but it still tasted fine), lime cilantro rice (I used left over brown rice warmed up in the microwave and skipped the pineapple) and creamy lime cilantro dressing. We put that all together with romaine lettuce and mozzarella, for a fantastic dinner that I'll make again.......soon.

Chocolate Pomegranate Meringue

2010-01-06T09:36:00.001-06:00

I bought a pomegranate on a whim a while ago and it sat on top of my fridge for a long time. I finally decided that something had to be done with it and I came up with this:

chocolate pomegranate meringue

meringue:

6 egg whites, at room temperature

1 cup sugar

3 oz bittersweet chocolate shavings

3 tbsp cocoa powder

1/4 cup pomegranate juice (I'd suggest buying a bottle of it rather than trying to juice the fruit yourself. I stuck about half the seeds in the blender before I'd thought that far ahead and after several unhappy tries, I ended up using a new pair of my daughter's tights to strain the juice out.)

Refer to the Chocolate & Berry Meringue recipe for step-by-step pictures. Preheat oven to 350*F. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper, draw a 10 inch circle and set aside. Beat the egg whites on med-high until soft peaks form. Continue beating on high and gradually add sugar, a tablespoon at a time, until stiff peaks form and sugar is dissolved. Gently fold in chocolate shavings, cocoa and juice. Spread meringue onto prepared sheet and place in oven. Immediately reduce heat to 300*F and bake for 1 hr. Remove from oven and cool completely. Carefully peel off parchment paper and place meringue on a large platter. Top with freshly whipped cream, extra chocolate shavings and pomegranate seeds.

r's Random Tip #1

2009-12-14T17:27:00.001-06:00

Months ago, we had an ant problem. Thousands of teeny-tiny yellowish ants crawled around our apartment. (I don't think that we're particularly dirty, but with 2 kids the floor is often covered in crumbs right after vacuuming.) Eventually they made it to the pantry. Oh the horror! It was awful. I had to throw away many boxes of cereal. We had someone come spray but they must of missed a spot, by the pantry no less. So, I took matters into my own hands. I picked up several cans of Raid and proceded to empty the pantry:

Yes, my kitchen is the size of a closet. Seriously. Anyway, I got fancy plastic cereal containers, as well as one for each of the sugars. I filled up the granulated sugar container and had about half a bag that didn't fit. So I stuck it in the freezer with the flour. Bad idea:

These are the shards of sugar that have formed. Sugar to shard ratio is about 1:3. Apparently what works well for flour, does not work for sugar.

Tip #1:

Do not store your sugar in the freezer. (though I would guess that most of you are smart enough to have figured that out already)

Gingerbread Mix & Cookies

2009-12-11T16:00:00.000-06:00

My mom would make these cookies each year, starting around Halloween. I remember her making this mix and rolling out the dough while listening to enya or Manheim Steamroller. Good times. These are still some of my favorite cookies. You can even tweak the recipe a little to make gingerbread houses (I'll post about that later when we make some next week.).

Gingerbread Mix:

2 cups sugar

8 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tbsp salt (if you use kosher, make it slightly heaping)

1 heaping tsp ground cloves

1 heaping tbsp ground ginger

1 1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon

2 cups shortening

In a very large bowl, whisk together the first eight ingredients:

Once combined add shortening:

Using your hands (or you could use a pastry blender, I guess. But where's the fun in that?) work the shortening in. It should look a bit like cornmeal:

This makes about 13 cups of mix. Store in an airtight container (or several, if you don't have anything large enough to hold it all). It will stay good for about 3 months, perfect for the holidays.

Gingerbread Cookies:

3 cups gingerbread mix

1/4 cup flour

1/3 cup molasses

1 egg, slightly beaten (Funny note: when I cracked the egg below, it was one of those crazy ones with 2 yolks. Crazy!)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Make a well in mix, add other ingredients:

Using a fork, preferably the one you used to beat the egg, mix everything together as much as you can:

Sorry for the blurry pic. I need a new camera in a bad way (cough-cough-hint-hint, Grant). Back to the cookies: time to use your hands again. Knead the dough together until it forms a nice smooth & soft dough:

Now it's time to roll it out on a lightly floured surface. (As I sprinkled flour on the table, my 3 year old came up to me and said, "Mommy, you making a big mess! That's not fair!" She let me get away with it when I told her it was for the cookies.) Roll dough out to a 1/4 inch thickness and cut into desired shapes:

Bake for 8 minutes on parchment covered cookie sheets. This was the perfect amount of time to achieve a beautiful and soft cookie. If you want a crunch, cook for a minute or two more. Really, these cookies are good either way. Remove to a wire rack to cool.

What? Do I suffer from OCD? No, why do you ask?.......Ahem....Anyway, you could serve these as is or glaze them:

Almond Glaze:

1 cup powdered sugar

2 tbsp hot water

1 tsp almond extract

Whisk all ingredients together until smooth:

Brush onto the cooled cookies with a pastry brush or just drizzle back and forth with a spoon:

Let the glaze dry before stacking. Enjoy!

Spiced Rice Crispy Treats

2009-11-27T12:09:00.003-06:00

I found a recipe that added cinnamon to rice crispy treats and thought that some ground cloves wouldn't go amiss. And it didn't, these are tasty:

Spiced Rice Crispy Treats:

4 cups mini marshmallows

1/2 stick of butter

1/4 heaping teaspoon ground cinnamon

a pinch of ground cloves

5 cups rice crispies

Over med-low heat, melt marshmallows and butter. Stir until smooth. Remove from heat and mix in cinnamon and cloves. Add rice crispies, stir until evenly coated. Press into greased 8" square pan. Let set and cut into squares. Enjoy!

Chuy's Dip

2009-11-21T09:09:00.005-06:00

I made the most delicious dip. It's very similar to the Creamy Jalapeno dip that Chuy's serves. Somewhere online, I found a recipe that claimed to be a copycat but after reading the ingredients I knew it wasn't even close (there are no tomatoes in the restaurant version). The comments were much more helpful. I tweaked the one that sounded the closest and I think this is very close to the real thing...Creamy Jalapeno Dip:

16 oz [light] sour cream

1 packet Ranch dip mix

2-3 large jalapenos, finely chopped (about 1/2 cup)

2-3 cloves of garlic, minced (I used 2 but next time would probably do 3, I really like garlic. Just taste as you go.)

1/3 cup chopped, fresh cilantro
Juice of a lime

Milk, optional

Mix the first 6 ingredients together. Use the milk to thin the dip to whatever consistancy you desire. I added maybe a couple of tablespoons. It was thicker than Chuy's version, but I was OK with that. Serve with tortilla chips. Simple. Easy. Delish.

Sweet Cuppin' Cakes?

2009-11-20T12:51:00.006-06:00

Never fear, dear readers! I'm back. Of course, I never actually went anywhere. I'm not really sure why I haven't posted for so long. But here's a doozy for you: Yesterday, I made these Chocolate Balsamic Raspberry Cupcakes from Love and Olive Oil. The cake part was sooooooo good. Moist, light and fluffy, and chocolaty. mmmmmmm. I didn't have any almond meal or soy milk, so I just added more flour and used good ol' regular cow milk. The frosting.........well, it was a bit tart but good.......I just didn't love it with the cake. Too make it more pipe-able, I doubled the butter and added a bit more powdered sugar (I also used frozen raspberries rather than fresh).
And it has to be said: looking at this picture makes me think of this Cake Wreck. Just scroll down a bit, you'll see what I mean.

New Ring Designs!

2009-11-04T16:16:00.003-06:00

These are a few of the designs that I have come up with so far. I'm selling them at the Gitalia Boutique in Pleasant Grove (UT). I'm so proud of them it's dorky.

These are the kid rings, or any size smaller than a size 5.

These would be the adult rings, or any size 5 and up.

The materials include (but not limited to) wire, plastic, glass, metal, or Swarovski crystal. Kid rings are all $2 and the Adult rings range from $3-$6, depending on what you want.

I'm so excited about the Ideas that i have come up with so far and I hope that I'm going to keep coming up with more. Have I said that I'm excited about these rings?

Chicken Chili Soup

2009-10-29T14:13:00.004-05:00

A couple weeks ago, I got a recipe for Southwestern White Chili from a friend and finally, a couple days ago I tried to make it. If only I had checked the pantry first. After realizing I was missing a few ingredients, I decided to wing it. What I got turned out very tasty, but more like a soup than chili:

Chicken Chili Soup:

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 medium onion, diced

1 large jalapeno, diced

2 1/2 cups cooked chicken, cubed or shredded

1 (10 oz) can Ro-Tel

1 (5 oz) can green chilies

2 (15.8 oz each) cans white beans

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon chili powder

Juice of 3 limes (about 3 1/2 tablespoons)

Chicken broth

Toss everything into a crockpot. Stir and cook on high for 4 hours. We had it with sour cream and cheddar cheese, and it was delish.

Not-So-Creamy Spinach Alfredo

2009-10-20T10:00:00.004-05:00

I love the frozen Bertolli pasta meal Chicken Florentine & Farfalle and I've been trying to recreate it at home. I didn't think it would be too hard, I just needed a creamy Alfredo-type sauce. I found a recipe and this is what ensued: Looks scrumptious, doesn't it? {heavy sarcasm} I'm pretty sure things went badly because I used whole milk and butter instead of cream. Let me share this tragedy with you.

Not-So-Creamy Sauce:

4 cloves of garlic, minced

4 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 cups whole milk

10 oz package frozen spinach, thawed and drained

parmesan & mozzarella cheeses

cooked pasta

Melt butter with olive oil. Add garlic and cook for a couple of minutes. Add milk and simmer. Start getting nervous when the butter doesn't combine with milk and the sauce refuses to thicken. Think that the parmesan will save the sauce. Add it and the spinach. Watch it get worse. Desperately ask your husband for suggestions. Listen to his idea and throw in a bunch of mozzarella. Once the spinach and cheeses have clumped together, toss with pasta. Choke it down while apologizing profusely. Try to believe your husband when he says that it tastes fine.

Enjoy......or not.

Birthday Cupcakes & Fruit Dip

2009-10-13T11:11:00.007-05:00

My oldest is now 3. Old enough to show preferences for things like movies. Originally, I had planned on doing a Toy Story themed party, but life got in the way and before I knew it, I'd run out of time. Instead, her birthday turned into a pink-and-purple-fest. It started with my daughter picking out Tinkerbell plates, cups and napkins. Then she wanted pink and purple balloons. So I got matching streamers and the p & p party was born: I used the same chocolate cake recipe from Martha Stewart that I used for my brother's wedding cake. I made the full recipe and got 48 mini cupcakes and 21 regular sized cupcakes. I had to tweak the cooking time. The recipe said 25-35 minutes for the mini, and they were done in about 15 minutes. Cupcakes were finished in less than 20, rather than the 35-45 minutes. I used this buttercream formula for the frosting. I made one batch but only had enough to frost half of the cupcakes. I took half of the frosting and colored it purple with vanilla extract. The other half I colored pink and flavored with cherry extract. They were delish. I loved the cherry frosting with the chocolate cake. This is kind of funny to me because I hated when my mom would add cherries to chocolate cake batter, blah! I still think that's nasty, but the cherry frosting was wonderful.To dress up the cupcakes, I melted white chocolate chips and wrote out 3's and H's on parchment paper. After they hardened in the freezer I peeled them off and plonked them on the cupcakes: Next time I'll use a mold. They were OK, but, well I like things to look nice and neat. That does not describe these H's:
Oh well. I also made a super yummy fruit dip. I love this stuff. It's fluffy and just the right amount of sweetness.

Fruit Dip:

1 7 0z jar marshmallow cream
1 8 oz tub of strawberry cream cheese
1/2 cup whipping cream, whipped and sweetened to taste (you could use Cool Whip if you wanted)

Mix the marshmallow and cheese together until smooth. Gently fold in whipping cream. Serve with any kind of fruit you have on hand.

Making Stars

2009-10-08T21:42:00.009-05:00

Materials Needed

*needle and thread

*35 main color beads (mc)

* 5 accent color beads (ac)

STEP 1

Tie 10 mc into a circle with a square knot finish, leaving a one to two inch tail. Go through 3 to 4 beads pulling the knot and tail into the circle to hide it. Cut off any of the tail that is still showing. Go through one more bead without pulling the knot through. (doing this keeps the knot out of the way)

STEP 2

String two mc, one ac, and then one mc. Skip the last mc strung, and go back through the ac. (the string will be on the outside of the end bead)

Then string two mc, skip a bead in the ring, and go through the next.

STEP 3
Repeat step 2 around the ring for a total of 5 points. To make the points stronger, go through them again in the same way.

STEP 4

To end the thread, go through one or two beads on the ring and tie a half hitch knot. Do this a couple of times. End by going through a couple of beads and cut off the extra thread.

YAY!!! A STAR!!!!
(for the bracelet I made nine stars and hooked them together with jump rings. If you do it, make sure the beads(I used size 11 seed beads) at the top of the points have big enough holes to fit the jump rings, I made a necklace in the same way. Other ideas I had for these were to make them out of crystal and hang them from a ribbon on a Christmas tree. I made some plastic ones that my two year old likes to pretend are the stars on Dora. She throws them in the air and catches them.)
This is the first time I've written instructions for anything, so let me know how I did.
I would also like to hear/see any ideas you came up with. It is always fun to see what awesome things people do with something so simple.

Pillows & Cookies

2009-10-01T16:25:00.004-05:00

Finally, after almost two months I got my sewing machine out. I wanted to revamp the pillows in the living room. I found this beautiful fabric online and decided to go with it:I love them: The colors feel fall-ish to me and fall is my favorite season, so that's a good thing. On another note, I made some interesting cookies yesterday- RootBeer Cookies:

I found the recipe on Make and Takes and decided to give them a whirl. They were really good, especially cold. I did feel like they needed a little more root beer extract and actually doubled it in the frosting. Next time I think I'll double it in the batter as well. Click here for the recipe.

Orange Cupcakes

2009-09-24T10:34:00.004-05:00

Cupcake Batter:

1/2 cup butter, softened

2/3 cup of sugar

1 1/2 cups self-rising flour*

1/2 cup orange juice

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 eggs

zest of an orange

*You can buy self-rising flour:Or you could make it. Just sift together all-purpose flour with baking powder, 2 teaspoons baking powder for every cup of flour.*

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Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a 12-hole muffin tin, either with paper liners or grease. In a bowl, combine butter, sugar, flour*, juice, vanilla and eggs. Beat with a mixer on low until it's mixed well. Increase speed and beat for 2 minutes, until the batter is pale and smooth:

Stir in the zest and spoon batter into prepared pan (I ended up with enough batter to make an extra 10 mini-cupcakes). Bake for 20 minutes (10 minutes for mini), until golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Frosting:

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

2 tablespoons orange juice

In a bowl, cream butter, then add half of the sugar and all of the juice; mix well. Add the rest of the sugar and spread over the cooled cupcakes. Add more zest on top if you want.

opinions needed

2009-09-15T13:30:00.001-05:00

So this is my first post on Ruth's crafty blog, and I'm in major need of opinions. I spent somewhere between 4-6 hours working on this pendant and I'm wondering if it was worth it. I made a similar one in blue and brown and I love it, which makes me think its the colors that I don't like. I would love any input, good or bad, it all helps.

I also had a friend suggest making it into a ring. To give you an idea of how big it is, imagine wearing it on your middle finger, it would cover your index and ring finger as well. Thoughts?

Thanks for letting me be on your blog Ruth!

Introducing Another 'R'

2009-09-15T13:21:00.006-05:00

My little sister, Rachel, is joining me on this little craft/cooking blog. She is wonderfully talented at beading. The craftiness oozes out her pores and turns into gorgeous things like this: and this:and this:

and this beauty:I'm excited to see what she has in store for us!

Stripes

2009-09-02T13:11:00.000-05:00

I finished this quilt over a month ago, but since it was a present for my new little niece I decided not to blog about it until after I'd given it. I'm very proud of this quilt. I didn't have a pattern, I had just seen a similar quilt at a baby shower and decided I could do my own version. So I worked out how big I wanted it, the number of rows, and width and length of the fabrics; and I wrote it all down. Sadly, that piece of paper was lost in our recent move. And now that it's been so long since I sewed it, I can't remember any of the numbers. I do remember that it took me about 2 days. I cut, sandwiched and sewed the first day and snipped the second. Luckily, this was such an easy quilt pattern. I could easily make another and I probably will. . .

Piece of Cake

2009-08-27T11:57:00.001-05:00

I did it. It's done. And it looked good! It was such a relief to finish. I tried hard not to stress out but I couldn't help it. Let me take you through the creation of my brother's wedding cake. . .
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A few days before the wedding, I pinned down my brother and almost-sister-in-law to ask some questions, trying to nail down the last couple of details: 3 slanted layers, maybe a topper, maybe not.
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I finished making flowers, adding purple to the yellow, red and blue: I also made some leaves to act as filler just in case my sister was right when she said, "I don't think you have enough flowers.":

I then got the styrofoam discs for the bottom two layers and baked the top layer. The bride requested chocolate cake, so I looked up recipes and made Martha Stewart's Chocolate Cake. It's the first cake from scratch that has worked for me! And it was an easy recipe too. Next, I made my husband cut the styrofoam {I can't stand that stuff. The sound it makes when it rubs against anything. . .ughhhh! Gives me chills and makes my teeth ache.}

It made the most horrifying noise. I could barely stay long enough to take a picture. So, thanks again, Grant! The wedding was going to be Monday evening, so I decided to put the cake together in the morning, not really the smartest idea, but, thankfully it worked. Well, that morning came and I was trying hard not to freak out. My mind was racing through all of the worst-case scenarios it could think of: too few flowers, melting icing, cake layers sliding off of each other, crumbs in the icing, etc., etc. I was so nervous that I kept breaking flowers, which made me more flustered, leading to more dead flowers. . .anyway, my sister helped me by putting the finishing touches on the purple flowers. I moved on to cutting the cake top. My brother told me when I got there that they didn't have a topper. Now the pressure to have a level top layer was gone. So I cut the cake and put the layers together:

Then it was time to frost. I made the Creamy White frosting from my Homemade Oreo post. I tripled it and had just enough. Lucky for me, they {the bride and groom} didn't care if the frosting was smooth or not, so I didn't even try and I actually like what I did better:
For the cake layer, I preped it by freezing it for a few minutes and then doing a thin 'crumb layer' and freezing that again, before doing the final icing layer. So there were no black flecks to be found. Finally, the moment of truth! Time for the flowers:

I started at the top and I have to say that once I put those few on top all of the anxiety went away. My sister and I then finished putting the flowers on. We didn't go all of the way round the cake, but we could have {there were tons of flowers leftover} and looking back, we maybe should have. We were running short on time, I think it was past 5pm and the wedding was scheduled for 6. It still turned out fabulous:

Sweet Peas

2009-08-11T12:18:00.003-05:00

I've been too busy the past couple of weeks to make any flowers. Yesterday, I finally made some headway. Behold, the sweet peas:Once I got the hang of them, they were easier than the roses and faster too. I really need to get cracking though. I have less than a week to finish.
I'm planning on doing one more style of flower, in purple fondant. And then I'll just need to make sure I made enough of each. . .

A Wedding Cake Update & Casualty

2009-07-25T13:17:00.004-05:00

Since my last (and only) post on my brother's wedding cake, I've learned what they really want for their cake. A 2-3 layer chocolate cake, with white (!) buttercream frosting and colorful fondant flowers going down the side. Kind of a big change from original black and white idea, but funner for me. First, I colored some fondant: And last night, I started making the beginnings of 2 flowers:Tiny, blue forget-me-nots and red roses. This morning I put the finishing dot of royal icing onto the forget-me-nots and I was able to make one full rose and one rosebud:I thought I'd get a lot further along with the roses, but this isn't the same method I used for my sister's cake and it takes a lot longer. I'm hoping it'll speed up once I know what I'm doing. Sadly, I lost a little flower:

But one isn't all that bad.

Homemade Playdough

2009-07-22T20:34:00.003-05:00

Growing up, my mom would often make this playdough for us. I loved playing with it, especially when it was freshly made, it's so soft and warm.

homemade playdough

1 cup flour

2 tsp. cream of tartar

1 cup water

1/2 cup salt

1 tbsp. oil

food coloring

Mix all of the ingredients together in a saucepan:and cook over medium-low heat, until the dough forms into a ball. Here's a halfway picture:and here it is fully cooked:
Let it cool for a couple minutes, then knead until the lumps are gone:
There you have it. Good for hours of fun. Store it in a ziplock bag in the refrigerator. It should last at least a month. Have fun.

It's Official. . .

2009-07-19T15:12:00.007-05:00

. . . this is my all-time, most favorite dessert. EVER. Chocolate-Berry Meringue:

The chocolate meringue tastes like a brownie, but is less heavy. And with the whipped cream and berries, it's such a delicious, summery {not to mention gorgeous} dessert.

chocolate berry meringue

for the meringue:

Start by placing 6 egg whites in a large bowl. Let them sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 350°F. Cover a large baking sheet with parchment paper and draw a 10-inch diameter circle, leaving a 1-2 inch margin outside the circle {I just trace a spring-form pan on the paper}:Take 3 oz of bittersweet chocolate:and using a grater, finely shave it down:

Go back to the egg whites and with an electric mixer, beat eggs on medium-high until soft peaks form:

Add a cup of sugar, 1 tablespoon at time, beating on high speed until stiff peaks form and sugar is dissolved. The meringue will be very thick and glossy:

Gently fold in chocolate shavings, 3 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder and 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar:

Now spread the meringue onto the prepared baking sheet:

Place in oven and immediately reduce heat to 300°F. Bake for 1 hour. Remove from oven; cool completely on baking sheet on rack:

{This picture was taken right after it was pulled out of the oven.}

{This was taken several hours later. Cracks happen. It's OK.}

for the toppings:

You could, I suppose, use a tub of Cool Whip, but I would strongly suggest spending 3 extra minutes making the real stuff. I used 2 cups of heavy whipping cream, a few tablespoons of sugar and a dash of vanilla. I'm not sure how much sugar or vanilla I used, just add it to taste. Mix those all together {with an electric mixer} until the cream thickens and stiff peaks form:

Clean about 6 cups of berries; raspberries, blackberries, strawberries {sliced} and, if you like them, blueberries:

Remove the meringue from the parchment paper, carefully, and place on a platter {or, if you don't have one, put it back on the baking sheet}. Spread the whipping cream on and top with the berries. Finish it off by adding bittersweet chocolate shavings or curls and voilà!

enjoy!

Another Quilt

2009-07-15T10:56:00.003-05:00

I finished my second quilt the other day. This one came together much faster than my first one. I only had to pick stitches out once and I caught the mistake before I had gone too far, so I didn't feel the need to hide my mishap.

I've also mostly finished my third quilt. I used the same fabrics as the second but the placement of the four-square blocks is slightly different.

I thought this picture was funny. See that lonely blue block? I cannot figure out where it came from. I've held onto it expecting to find where it belongs, but I think that somehow I just cut one extra blue square. Weird. You'll also notice in the upper right hand corner, my sewing machine manual. I'm not quite to the point where I don't need to refer to it when I have to refill a bobbin or change the tension, etc. I do have to say, I'm much more comfortable using my machine. It's nice to not want to cry when I need to re-thread it and not worry about how fast it will go when I press on the pedal.

Wedding Cakes Are On My Mind

2009-07-08T20:36:00.004-05:00

Three years ago, I (with lots of help from my mom and older sister) made this wedding cake for another sister. It turned out really well, despite our having no clue. We made all of the obvious mistakes: cooking and decorating the cake the day before the wedding, having the butter cream frosting and fondant soften too much in the heat of the kitchen, etc. About the only thing that went without a hitch were the sugar roses. I spent a solid week making dozens of them with fondant and they turned out beautiful.
I was also pregnant at the time and very emotional. When the fondant was tearing and the frosting was melting, I was freaking out. Around this time, (9 or 10 pm the night before the big day) while I was contemplating throwing the cake to the floor and crying, my older sister came up with the idea of putting the ribbon around each layer to hide the not-so-smooth areas. It worked and we liked the color it added.

I'm pretty sure I told myself that I'd never do something like that again. Three years does a lot to soften memories. My older brother is getting married in the middle of August and my mom and I offered to make their cake. They don't really have any preferences other than having it be black and white, and having room for the topper that they are molding out of clay. I'll be keeping you posted on what happens. . . .

A Little Birthday

2009-07-02T13:30:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was my daughter's 1st birthday. I decided to make her a small bumble-bee cake and had a brilliant idea on how to make wings for it. I made them using this rock candy recipe:

Almond Rock Candy:

2 cups of sugar; 1 cup water; 3/4 cup light corn syrup; 1-1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract

In a heavy saucepan, combine sugar, water and corn syrup. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Cover and cook for 3 minutes. Uncover; cook, without stirring, over medium-high heat until a candy thermometer reaches 310°F (hard-crack stage). Remove from heat; stir in almond extract.

At this point I spooned some onto a greased cookie sheet and tried to spread it into a wing shape. It was pretty difficult at first, all of my 'wings' were spreading too much and touching each other, but once the candy started to cool and thicken, it didn't spread as much and the wing shape stayed. I put the rest of the candy into greased lollipop molds:

Most of them I made into lollipops:

Others I just made into candies, I had to pinch the clips closed since I didn't use a stick (if that makes sense):

I made two batches of the candy. The first, for the wings, I didn't use any food coloring. For the second, I used Root Beer flavoring (not extract but hard candy flavoring) and added food coloring.

Back to the birthday cake: I used a cake mix because I'm rarely able to make a cake from scratch work. I frosted it with yellow butter cream frosting and dark fudge frosting and placed the wings in:

Pretty darn cute, if I do say so myself. Instead of making a large cake for the guests, I made mini cupcakes. Some were chocolate:

I frosted them with a butter cream frosting and added chocolate curls to make them pretty. Here's a link to Pioneer Woman's tutelage on how to make chocolate curls, it's really quite easy. The other mini cupcakes were white cake: I topped them with freshly whipped whipping cream and raspberries.

Strawberry Shortcake Cake

2009-06-22T12:25:00.003-05:00

For Father's Day, I made this cake:

It was superb! Not too difficult and worth every minute of work. For Pioneer Woman's detailed how-to, click here.

Homemade Oreos

2009-06-21T18:20:00.008-05:00

I usually make these with a chocolate cake mix, but I found this recipe on smitten kitchen. I had everything on hand, bonus, so I made them. They were just as easy and tasted better than the regular version.

Cookies:

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour; 1/2 cup cocoa; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1/4 tsp baking powder; 1/4 tsp salt; 1 cup sugar; 1 1/4 sticks of butter, softened; and 1 egg.

Whisk together all of the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa, baking soda, powder, salt & sugar). Add butter and egg. Mix until dough sticks to itself. It takes a while so don't give up if it stays crumbly longer than you think it should. Eventually it will look like this:

Next, form the dough into balls and place on parchment paper-lined cookie sheets.

Use a cup to slightly flatten each ball. Bake at 375° for 9 minutes:

Let them cool completely on a wire rack and make the frosting. I used a different recipe than the one posted on smitten kitchen. It's the Creamy White Frosting from Cousin Brenda's Out of the Pan and into the Fire: A Cookbook for Missionaries.

Frosting:

1 cup shortening; 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla; 1/2 teaspoon almond extract; 4 1/2 cups powdered sugar; and 3 to 4 tablespoons milk. {This makes a lot of frosting, you could easily half it}

Cream together the shortening and extracts. Add powdered sugar and milk.

Now sandwich the cookies together with the frosting and enjoy!

Bottle Cap Necklaces

2009-06-20T11:09:00.004-05:00

I got together with some friends, last week and again on Thursday, and we made these cute bottle cap necklaces: k hick explains how to make them here. After the epoxy has hardened, just drill a hole and add a loop and chain. Very cute, pretty easy!

Oatmeal Wheat Bread

2009-06-18T15:00:00.001-05:00

I love making this bread. It's delicious and {almost} always turns out just right. I've doubled the original recipe and I freeze three of the loaves {these measurements yield 4 loaves}. Here we go:

Mix 1 cup of warm water with 4 packets {10 teaspoons} instant dry yeast in a large bowl; set aside. Melt 1 cup of shortening in 3 cups boiling water:

Once the shortening is melted, add 1 cup of honey:

Let the mixture cool down to 115°-120°F {I use a candy thermometer to check}. Stirring speeds up this process:

Add shortening/honey mixture to the yeast and then add 4 eggs:

2 cups regular oats:

2 tablespoons of salt:

1/2 cup of wheat germ:

and 6 cups of wheat flour {to start, you'll need more later}:

Mix until dough is smooth. Continue to add flour 1 cup at a time, until dough starts pulling away from the sides of the bowl {I never keep count, but it's probably another 4 or 5 cups}. Dough will still be a little sticky, but workable:

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead until dough is smooth and elastic. Pour a couple teaspoons of oil into a clean bowl and put the dough in, turning it so that it's coated in the oil. cover and let the dough rise {I cheat and put the bowl into a sink that's half-filled with warm water to speed up the rising process, 20 minutes, rather than 40}:Once the dough has doubled, punch it down, turn it out onto a floured surface and divide into fourths. Form into loaves and place in greased pans:Using a fork, poke holes in the tops of the loaves:Melt 2 tablespoons of butter and brush the tops of the loaves with it:

Sprinkle with more wheat germ, if you want. Then cover and let the loaves rise. Once they've doubled, bake them at 350°F for 30-35 minutes. Let them cool on a rack. To freeze, wrap the loaves in cling wrap or Press'n'Seal and then aluminum foil. To thaw, leave a loaf out over night. You could also 'refresh' it by putting it in the oven for a few minutes.
enjoy!

Blanket & Pillows

2009-06-15T13:19:00.002-05:00

Back in March, I finished my first quilt. It was just a 'simple' rag quilt. I wrote a fairly exhaustive post about the process here.

In April, I made some throw pillows for the living room. Read about them here.

I have a couple more sewing projects in the works and will post about their successful birth or mournful passing.