2013 - Week 39

Hello from Week 39 :) Two small things to share this week before I get to the fun stuff: 1. For my exercise I did more pilates and Fit Sugar workouts . . . I really do love the 10 minute workouts . . . it doesn't seem so bad because 10 minutes goes by really quickly and the instructors are very encouraging. 2. I finished my whole dream journal. Since it really isn't enhancing my life in any way, I decided not to start another one, but I thought it was pretty crazy that I had so many dreams that I filled a whole journal with them already. It will be interesting to go back and read through it some time and remember all of the crazy things my mind created while I was asleep :)

Okay, for my recipe to share this week, I made a faux alfredo sauce using cauliflower (creamy cauliflower sauce). I know, it sounds weird, but it was actually really good, didn't taste like cauliflower hardly at all, and it made me feel much less guilty covering my chicken fettuccine with a creamy white sauce :) I added some fresh black pepper and garlic salt to it for extra flavor. Also, I just drained out the water, added the recommended amount back in, and blended it with my immersion blender . . . I thought that was much easier than trying to transfer the hot cauliflower to a blender or food processor. Try it out, I think you'll like it.

For my task this week, since I was still not up to scrapbooking and our house stuff was kind of in a lull, I decided it would be okay if I got back into knitting. I'm so glad I did . . . it was so much fun and I really enjoy making presents for people :) (Family, consider yourself warned about Christmas ;)) I really love knitting because I think the finished products look so professional, and one of my favorite things about knitting is cables. I don't know how many cable knit sweaters I own, but I just love the look of them, so I decided to be brave and give it a try. After watching this video: Knit Mug Holder and reading over this pattern: "Pumpkin Spice" I was pretty certain that even with my basic knitting skills I could complete my first cable knitting project . . . and I did. I would say it only took me a little over two hours and the whole project was complete :)

I wanted it to fit a little higher on the mug, so I put the button closer to the end.
Thank you to my awesome friend Karmen for the button :)

Ta da

If you are afraid to try cables, this is a great project that whips us easily and doesn't require a big time commitment . . . definitely a good place to start.

Now, once I had finished this, I took it with me to show a friend who had recently had a birthday. She seemed to like it a lot, and since it was still near her birthday, I decided to try out another pattern and give it to her as a present (along with the Mr. Coffee mug).The pattern I got from "Purl Avenue" . . . she has some neat stuff on her site. This one was a bit more complicated since it had three cables instead of just one and it was wider, but I still managed to finish it. Because the cables were bigger, my stitches got much tighter at the crossovers, which worried me quite a bit, but I guess that is normal. So, I just focused on keeping them loose and not stressing about it too much, and I think I came up with a pretty good product. I ended up repeating the 12 row pattern six times to get the ~ 9 inch long sleeve.

Finished mug warmer (sewn together . . . no button on this one)

Two finished products . . . sorry, the pictures don't really do them justice

So there you go . . . that's what I've been up to this week. Let's see what we can create next week :)

2013 - Week 38

Hello from Week 38. For my exercise this week, I went to another power yoga class and thankfully, I wasn't as sore this time. My neck was a bit stiff the next day, but that may have been from just sleeping funny too, I'm not sure. But, no one really wants to hear about that . . . let's get to the fun stuff :) I have a few new recipes and tips to share with you this week, so I'll get right to it. First of all, my top tips:

1. This is something that seemed like a revelation to me a few years ago and most people probably already do it, but just in case someone out there isn't doing it, I thought I'd write it down: Whisks are NOT just for wet ingredients. My mindset was always that whisks were for wet ingredients only, but then some recipe somewhere directed me to whisk together my dry ingredients before mixing with my wet ingredients, and of course I always follow the recipe to a "T" ;) (okay . . . most of the time), so I tried it and it was magic. The ingredients were very quickly and easily incorporated, and I didn't toss dry ingredients all over the kitchen like I usually do when using a spoon or spatula. Magic :)

2. This is how you should cook corn on the cob: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-never-shuck-corn-again/?ALLSTEPS Okay, so I can't get 100% behind this method, because I don't like having to chop off the end of my corn like that (it seems wasteful), but it really did work. There were a few strands of silk left, but they came off very easily. No more boiled, overcooked corn, no more taking forever to pick off every little bit of husk and silk, and no more microwaving in plastic wrap that could potentially give off harmful chemicals . . . hooray. Corn cooked perfectly in the wrap God gave it to us in, no mess and tasty corn :) I just peeled off the few outer layers of husk and popped them in the microwave (five minutes for two ears). Once they were cooked I carefully removed the rest of the husk and the silk came off very easily too, even without trying to slide it out of the husk like the method I mentioned above. Sorry this tip is coming a little too late and corn season is pretty much over, but just save this tip for next summer and I'm pretty sure you'll thank me :)

Now for the recipes I made, apple kuchen with custard, armadillo eggs, and petite pumpkin spice doughnuts.

I had gotten a bunch of apples from my mom and this cake looked like the perfect way to use some of them up. It was simple and tasted really good with some Bird's custard that I whipped up in place of the hot cream because I didn't have any cream. I also got to serve it to my friends in these really cute little dishes I got recently . . . a great find at an estate sale :) I felt really fancy with my "professional" plating ;)

Prepared

Baked

Coated

Plated

My adorable little apple kuchen armada ;)

The armadillo eggs were a Pinterest find, and I must say, they didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. That could also have been because I didn't read the recipe carefully enough before making it . . . oops :( I just kind of made it up, so in my haste I forgot the egg and breadcrumbs and of course, my armadillo eggs fell apart (hence, no picture . . . sorry). I also missed the bit about baking them in the oven and put them in my cast iron skillet . . . that probably didn't help either. So they were pretty tasty, but not very pretty . . . I'm going to have to give them another try sometime, although next time, I'm definitely wearing gloves when I cut up my peppers, either that, or use something a little milder than a jalapeno. My hand was burning for hours . . . ouch. Oh and p.s. soaking in milk, olive oil or cold water didn't make it go away any faster I don't think . . . it just takes time (about 24 hours to fully go away I would say).

The final recipe was these adorable little baked doughnuts. Now before you go thinking that they must be a "healthy" doughnut because they are baked and not fried . . . check the end of the recipe where you are instructed to dip them in butter and roll them in sugar . . . yup, there went your "healthy" idea ;) However, I found that a little too overpowering, so just a really light coating of butter (like when I ran out of butter and just swirled the doughnuts in the buttery bowl . . . those were perfect) and then some cinnamon sugar was really good, and they were even good plain. They weren't super sweet without the cinnamon sugar coating, but they still tasted good and I thought they were fun because, in my mind, if you set them in a large bowl with milk in it, they would look like giant Cheerios . . . fun :)

Thanks for the new pan Mom :) 

Adorable

Mmm . . . sugary

They look so little in my husband's huge hands :) 

So, I hope you enjoyed those, now go and try some of those recipes at home, and let me know what you think . . . see you next week :)

2013 - Week 37

This week was rather crazy and I may not have completely met all of my goals, but boy, did I sure do a lot of new things.

To start with, I was away from home for half of the week for work training. That was very new and it was a great training . . . I learned tons. So not only was that new, I also had to drive a work car there, so I learned to drive a new car (not that it's a great feat, but I learned I definitely like my car more). While I was staying at the hotel, I did half of workout by swimming in the pool . . . I haven't done that in a long time :) I also did some more Fit Sugar workout videos and then some Wii Fit when I got home.

Also at home, I remade Annie's Eats baked oatmeal with fruit from last week, but instead of apricots and cherries, I used blueberries and plums. Yum . . . so good. (Just FYI, I toasted the pecans at 350 for a little over five minutes.) I really recommend you go try this recipe if you  haven't yet. And since besides real maple syrup, there is no added sugar, I claim this is a healthy breakfast dish that is so tasty it feels very indulgent :)

We did more house searching too for my task (although I think that was overshadowed my all of my "new" things this week). I did have one other new thing though . . . I finally figured out how to play spider solitaire. Granted, I've never actually read the rules before, and it is rather easy, but there you go, another new thing I learned :)

Hope you have a great week :)

2013 - Week 36

Hello from Week 36 :)

This post will be pretty short because there's not a lot to tell this week. Our house hunting is progressing well, but we still haven't found "the one" yet. It's definitely keeping us busy though. For my exercise, we went on a nice bike ride because the weather was lovely this weekend. I was slightly worried that I wouldn't come up with a good new recipe to share this week, but inspiration struck on Saturday morning and I made this version of Annie's Eats Baked Oatmeal with Fruit. I had a bunch of nectarines and some frozen cherries and they actually went really nicely with the toasted pecans. I thawed the cherries and subbed cherries for blueberries, nectarines (about 2) for bananas. If I do say so myself, it was really good, and would be great with any number of fruit combinations. Give it a try :)

This looks like a good start

Mmm . . . fruit

Ready to bake

Yumminess in a bowl :)