oh the weather outside!

is so delightful!  welcome back winter!

soft pretzel bites (and where I talk about my sweet tooth turning salty)

I most definitely made pretzels last weekend.  And they were goooooood!  I have been really focusing on getting enough protein for the past few months (we herbivores need to make an extra effort!).  And I've noticed the most interesting thing happening...my giant sweet tooth (teeth?) is turning into a salt tooth.  I know.  I find it fascinating.

So normally, when hunkered down at home on a weekend afternoon, I would probably make a giant cake, I found myself making pretzels instead.

YUM!

The only problem was the cheese sauce recipe I used wasn't exactly what I was hoping for (but hey, at least it was made with real cheese!).

And so the next time I make these little gems I need to find another recipe to try.

Soft Pretzel Bites:
recipe from whatmegansmaking.com

ingredients:
1 1/2 c. warm water
2 Tablespoon light brown sugar
1 pkg. active dry yeast
3 ounces butter, melted
2 1/4 tsp. kosher salt
4 1/2 to 5 c. all purpose flour
vegetable oil
3 quarts water
3/4 c. baking soda
1 whole egg beaten with 1 Tablespoon water

directions:
In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the water, sugar, yeast, and butter and mix with the dough hook until combined. Let sit for 5 minutes. Add the salt and flour and mix on low speed until combined. Increase the speed to medium and knead until the dough is smooth and begins to pull away from the side of the bowl, about 3 to 4 minutes. If the dough appears too wet, add additional flour, 1 tablespoon at a time. Remove the dough from the bowl, place on a flat surface and knead into a ball with your hands.

Oil a bowl with vegetable oil, add the dough and turn to coat with the oil. Cover with a clean towel and let rise in a warm spot until the dough doubles in size, about 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 425. Bring the water to a boil in a large pot over high heat and add the baking soda.

Remove the dough from the bowl and place on a flat surface. Divide the dough into 8 equal pieces and roll each piece into a long rope measuring about 22 inches. Cut the dough into one inch pieces. In small batches (about 15 at a time), boil the pretzel bites in the water solution for about 30 seconds. Remove with a large slotted spoon and place pretzel bites on a baking sheet that has been sprayed with cooking spray. Make sure they are not touching. Brush the tops with the egg wash and season with coarse sea salt. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove to a baking rack and let rest 5 minutes before eating.

These are best warm, but are still good at room temperature. They are best served the day they're made.

Gesso the giant

80 lbs later...

my oh my how they grow!

on my mind:

::  It won't stop snowing (I'm not mad).  

::  Gesso ate his new bed.  He had been dragging his other bed into the living room every day to lounge on, so we thought he was trying to send us a message--that he wanted a living room bed.  We took the hint and got him a new one (I guess it wasn't the one he wanted).

::  Our good friends moved to Australia last week.  It was super sad.  And then they gave us this awesome vintage classroom map.  Which made it a little less sad.

::   I made this soup last night (good!).

::  I took a photo of the food wall.  I started working on a giant waffle painting last night.  It definitely won't fit on that wall with the other paintings.  I think it's time to move.

::  Two people dropped by this week and I wasn't wearing pajamas (pajamas are my hibernation outfit of choice).  I was so proud of myself!

::  I showed Evan these helpful hints for talking to crafty ladies.  He really took them to heart and has been trying out a few of his own!  So funny!

wishing you a warm Wednesday!!

tomatoes in january

I have a small collection of food paintings that hang on my kitchen wall (I must remember to take a photo of that!), and this is the latest installment.

Tomatoes.  I love them sooo much.

While I was working on this, I couldn't stop thinking about how nice a cherry tomato would taste.  And the next time I was at the grocery store, I accidentally bought a small container of them.  I'm actually not even sure I did it on purpose.  I got home and there they were!  Sneaky little tomatoes.

They tasted like water.  And the texture reminded me of chewing on a balloon.  It was kind of the worst tomato ever grown.

So now I have this painting to tide me over until summer.  When I can finally eat sun-warmed tomatoes that taste like tomatoes.

p.s. It's SNOWING today!  We have been having the weirdest winter ever.  60 degrees in January??  What?  Okay.  I had never experienced a mild winter before, and at first I hated it.  And then I started to really like it.  And then when I was going on walks without a coat or gloves on I absolutely loved it.

  It has been softly snowing all day and I have to admit, I am relieved winter is back.  Turns out, I had been missing it.   I just got home from a walk with my giant sled dog and when we came inside I couldn't get his collar off (frozen to his neck fur).  Hooray for winter!!

around here -- january edition

 

winter wonderland

 

I feel bad for January.  Christmas has come and gone.  February means Valentines candy and hearts.  And January means...new year?  Cold outside?  Gloomy?  Diet?  This year I decided that I would celebrate January.  Because if you have the right attitude, January can be quite the winter wonderland!  So I hung some bedazzled snowflakes in front of the windows.   And then I whipped up a simple garland that reminds me of snow.

I found the sparkly snowflakes at an after Christmas sale (they are actually ornaments) and for the garland I cut up bits of natural quilt batting and fed them into the sewing machine (watch your fingers!).  Evan thinks it looks like a potato chip garland (men!).

Happy January to you! :)

hello 2012

I surprised Evan with some Alfajor cookies on New Years Eve.  We thought they were just okay, and we shared them with some friends who thought they were super amazing.  So I guess the jury's still out.  In either case, they were pretty cookies. 

I am feeling ready for this new year.  A fresh start.  There is a big pot of change simmering on the stove at our house and I am hopeful and excited about what's to come. 

Seinfeld Christmas take 3

It was Jerry's turn this year.

(past years seen here)

stitched.

I was getting a little bit tired of my usual car activity (a girl can only have so many cranes), and to mix it up a bit, I recently completed my first ever cross-stitch(es)!!  It was funner then I expected.  I think I will make them into little lavender sachets.  Or maybe I'll sew them onto the back pockets of my jeans.

postcards from christmas

We stayed home for Christmas this year, and to keep all things merry and bright (and not so lonely), we were sure to fill the break with lots of our favorite things--good food and pretty scenery :) 

Merry Christmas!

wrapping it up

 

Thank you so much for all the sympathy hugs!  It was just what I needed.  I'm feeling much better today and I even cleaned the shower!  That almost never happens.

I try to get all my holiday chores done a few weeks before Christmas (shopping, post office lines, and the like), so that I can actually enjoy this magical time of year.  Since I make almost all the gifts I give, I slowly check things off my list all year, and by the time December hits, I am finished.  I'm so glad I figured out this system, it is the only way I could do it I'm pretty sure (me + stress = ugly mess).

This was a project I did right after Christmas last year, and had kind of forgotten about.  Surprise!

I had seen fabric wrapping paper floating around the blogging world and really wanted to make some of my own.  I hit up the after-Christmas-sales last January and bought a few yards of holiday fabric, for like a zillion percent off.  I made the bags with french seams, so thread wouldn't get everywhere and hopefully they would be a bit sturdier.  I still used paper wrapping to give to family and friends (I'm not that on top of things!), but I am definitely going to get some more fabric this year and make more (you should too).

christmas crazy

{5x7 watercolor and micron pen on bristol paper}

 It has been so crazy at our house this week.  And I am losing my fight with a cold.  I stopped at the store after work on Thursday and I think the cashier wanted to give me a sympathy hug when she saw sniffling me and all of my purchases lined up (bubble bath, cough drops, echinacea tea, and breathe-right strips).  But I did find time to finish this little painting and make prints of it to give to the girls I teach at church.  I love this scripture.   And I love this time of year, craziness and all.

christmas baking

I woke up this morning to the sound of neighbors shoveling snow.  I love that sound.  I didn't have anything on the agenda yet, so today was a day for baking, I quickly decided. 

Even though I make them all year round, Ginger Snaps remind me of Christmas. I made them extra small this time, a bite-sized delight!

I was looking for an excuse to make peanut butter eggs again (they're that good!), so I decided that calling them 'truffles' made them more of a holiday treat.  I'm pretty smart like that.

 

I grew up with a mom who had cookie cutters for every occasion and often hosted cookie decorating parties for the neighborhood kids.  So it would just be weird not to like sugar cookies, you know?  I used a new recipe this time which was outrageous.  The secret ingredient is sour cream!  Oh yes!

 As I was trying to decide on which colors to dye the frosting, I looked outside at the piles of fresh snow and decided to leave it white.  Because white is pretty.

My kitchen is a disaster.  And I have a stomach ache from too much sugar.  But it was so nice to stay home and bake and have the Anne of Green Gables marathon playing in the background (thank you PBS!)

As soon as the frosting sets on the sugar cookies, I am going to package everything up and wait for Evan to get home so we can fill up our sleigh...er...car and go out and deliver them to friends (just in case you were worried that I was going to eat all this by myself.  Because I definitely could!).

Recipe Links:   Ginger Snaps   Peanut Butter Truffles  Sour Cream Sugar Cookies

hope you're having a delicious holiday season!!

poppy painting

When I graduated from college I told my parents that I wanted to paint them a thank-you present.  For all of their financial and emotional support.  And for never telling me how impractical an art degree would end up being (they are good people).   Anyway, I finally got around to it this summer (keep that in mind if you ever ask me to do something: it make take a few years ;).

 My mom had recently remodeled her kitchen/family room and wanted a nice big painting to go over top of the sofa.  Of cheerful poppies.

I painted it last July, after an unsuccessful eye-surgery attempt, with my left eye having a hazy scar right over top of it.   I was really nervous while painting it, mostly because I couldn't see that great, but in the end I really liked how it turned out.  And it was loads of fun to do something totally different than my usual style of painting, something very whimsical.

crafting christmas--peace garland edition

I just love garlands, what can I say?  This is a project that I made a few years ago and have never shared.  And I really like it.  So I am sharing it now.  I simply cut dove silhouettes out of white felt and then stitched felt 'peace' letters on top.  I put letters of both sides, so it could be hung in a doorway or window.  I then used a cozy blanket stitch to make it come together, adding a little stuffing to the middle as I went along.  While I was going through photos to see if I had any of the garland hanging in the window (I sometimes leave it up all winter long), I came across this picture of me and my cute mom posing in front of it when she visited our rad farmhouse a few years ago.

 And yes, whenever we are together we make sure to wear matching colors :)

Peace!

crafting christmas--project mantle

I love having a mantle.  Especially at Christmas.  And last year it turned out okay, but I wanted to do something else this year to really take advantage of our mantle-having status.  So I went shopping.

And then I remembered that, technically speaking, it wasn't really our mantle.  Because we are just renters.  So that's when I decided to just make something instead.  

First up, I needed a garland.  So I went pine-cone-hunting, having seen this picture and wanting to sort of copy it.  Once you have a good bag of pinecones (+ spiders), you tie little knots around the tops (or bottoms) of them.  It's actually not hard at all.

The next item of business was to make some trees.  I saw a nice idea here, but mine turned out way different and way less cool.  Oh well.

I found bags of really inexpensive bay leaves in the 'ethnic cooking aisle' at our local grocery store, and bought four bags (the cashier thought I was a chef).  I took them home and used my glue gun to attach them to foam cones.  I was going to take step-by-step photos, but then I remembered that you guys aren't stupid.   So my instructions for this one: glue bay leaves to foam cones.  *sidenote, I am pretty sure I will never eat something with a bay leaf in it ever again.  Ruined me.

Ta-da!  I have since added some candles to the mantle and am on the hunt for tiny wreaths to hang on either side of the painting.  Or maybe I'll just make those too :)

Hooray for mantles!