Soda Can Jewlery

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.