2014 - Book 7

"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" - Kansas

I think this is the kind of story that you either love it or hate it, and that is probably based on the movie, because I don't know if I've ever met anyone who actually read this book. To be honest, I don't like the movie, but I loved "Wicked" so I was pretty undecided about this book. It was better than I thought it was going to be, but to be honest, it was rather boring. That might be because I knew most of the story already, but it also might be because it's a very young, young adult book. It was in the children's section which confused me at first, but that was definitely correct. It is as G-rated as it gets, and I did appreciate that, but it just seemed like the conflicts got resolved too easily every single time. It would be a great book to read to your younger kids or for an early reader to dive into though. I liked it better than the movie (isn't the book always better than the movie?), but not as much as "Wicked", I might be a bit partial to musicals though ;) It was cool to hear the original story and see how some of the aspects of "Wicked" that I thought were deviations from the movie were actually true to the book. But what does everyone have against the Good Witch of the North? I don't think she was in the movie or "Wicked", I don't think she was even in the most awful recent retelling, "Oz the Great and Powerful". Someone needs to get on writing her story soon :)

For my recipe to share this week, I present these interesting-looking Raspberry Neapolitan Cupcakes.

Vanilla & Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Frosting

The cupcake was good, although I may have overfilled my pans and only got 36 cupcakes instead of the promised 48. Also, the frosting was super runny for me, even after chilling it and adding probably close to 5 and a half cups of powdered sugar. I was going to be late for work if I didn't start frosting though, so I ended up with this interesting starfish shaped frosting job. It actually gave a pretty good amount of frosting per cupcake, in my opinion, and after sitting out for a little bit, got a nice crust on it that was pretty tasty. So, they may not have been the prettiest things in the world, but they tasted pretty good. I probably won't make them again, but it was good to try.

Have a great week :)

2014 - Book 6

"The Fault In Our Stars" - Indiana

Okay, I realize some of you might have strong feelings about this book because it is very popular right now, but bear with me. First of all, I did like this book . . . it is one of the better ones on the US of YA list that I've read so far. However, I was not a fan of the premarital sex (which seems to be in every book these days unfortunately, at least it was very minimal in this one) or the view that a belief in God or heaven implies that you are unintelligent. I happen to believe in God and heaven and I don't think anyone would classify me as an unintelligent individual. But, apart from that, and the few bad words, this was a pretty quality book.

The basic premise of the book is that it is a love story between two teenagers battling cancer. I think this book is so relevant and popular now because everyone, it seems, has been personally affected by cancer in some way. This was particularly moving to me because one of my best friends in grade school died of brain cancer when we were only in 6th grade. The emotions are raw and run pretty high in this book, but not in a bad way. It's a very real book and I enjoyed that aspect of it. Also, part of it is set in the Netherlands so I felt like I got to go on a journey with the characters too, which I always enjoy.

Supposedly this is coming out as a movie this year, but I'm not so sure I want to go see it. I did enjoy the book, but I have a feeling the movie will be a bit disturbing. Cancer is ugly and I'm sure actually seeing the damage it's having on these young bodies will be even more emotional than just reading about it. Also, I'm not entirely sure I buy the casting of the male lead because that is not how I pictured him looking at all, but that's open to each person's interpretation I guess.

So, all in all, it was a good book, one of the better that I've read so far this year, but there was a little room for improvement. I'm interested to see what comes of it after the movie.

Apart from reading, I promised you more recipes this week, and I will provide those in the form of my second crock pot freezer meal prep extravaganza :)

Before I tell you about all of the recipes I made this time, I feel the need to clarify something about one of my previous recipes. My favorite of my first batch of freezer meals was one that I dubbed "nacho soup". It was a taco flavored black bean concoction of yumminess, but I think I had my recipes switched up. When making this 2nd batch, I thought I made it again, but then realized I had used a different recipe so here is the break down:

Chicken Taco Soup

This is the real recipe: "Chicken Taco Soup"

This is the recipe that I thought I was using until I realized that the real one had chicken in it, and the one I made during my 2nd batch was with hamburger: "Black Bean Taco Soup"

That's what I get for using two lists that each have a "taco soup". So, because of that mix-up, there are no repeat recipes in my 2nd batch of meals from the first batch of meals, but that's okay I guess :)

This is what I made:

Enchilada Wraps (x1) (I omitted the olives)

Sloppy Tamale Pie (x1) (Again, I left out the olives, because I just don't like them)

Chunky Chili with Veggies (x1) (I'm looking forward to trying this one because of the nice beef in it (I used a chuck roast), I think I may have ruined it by cutting with the grain though instead of against . . . I didn't know which was the right way and it was the last one I made so I was tired and ready to be done. Hopefully cooking it in the slow cooker with keep it tender)

Black Bean and Corn Salsa Chicken (x2)

Mom's Slow Cooker Chili (x1)

Chicken Curry with Cabbage and Peppers (x2)

A sample of what the meals look like

Black Bean Taco Soup (x1)

Teriyaki Chicken (one recipe makes 2 batches)

Think I bought enough groceries?

Almost all of the ingredients (minus some spices and garlic that I already had) came to $84.48. Not too bad for 11 full meals that will feed us for at least 2 - 3 meals a piece I'm expecting. If each only fed us both for two meals, that's only $1.92 a meal / person. Better than the Dollar Menu if you ask me :) Also, the meat was by far the most expensive part, so if you find some that are vegetarian, or reduce the amount of meat you add, you could save even more money.

Again, I'll keep you posted as we try them out and let you know which ones are keepers :) I'm happier with the variety of ethnicity of meals this time . . . there is some Asian and Indian, not just a majority of taco flavored things like last time . . . I think that will be an improvement :) Oh, and since I made these all by myself (my husband cut up all of the meat for me last time) it took 5 hours, but for the amazing amount of work I've saved in the kitchen after my last batch of freezer meals, one Sunday afternoon is a small price to pay. Try it out with your family and let me know how it works!

A well stocked freezer :)

Let me know if you give any of them a try and what you think . . . talk to you later :)

2014 - Book 5

"The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" - Washington

Here I thought Washington would be the "Twilight" saga . . . oh well, I already listened to those in book-on-CD format, so it was good I didn't have to "read" them again.

This book was just okay for me. It was one of the only books I'd actually heard about on this list, so I was expecting a little more from it that it just didn't deliver. Perhaps I was just a little weirded out by being in the mind of a teenage boy, who knows? While I enjoyed learning about his life, family, and tribe, I could have done with less personal boy puberty stuff. So, I wouldn't recommend this book for a girl, but I could see boys liking it quite a bit. The cartoons in it were entertaining, but the story was over-all sort of sad. It wasn't a bad book, but not my favorite either . . . hopefully the next book I read will be better.

Sorry I don't have any recipes to share this time . . . I'll make up for it in my next post ;)

2014 - Book 4c

"Front and Center" - Wisconsin (again)

This was the third and last book in the "Dairy Queen" series. I enjoyed it . . . it was good to get more details on the life of D.J. Schwenk, but I wasn't too happy with the ending. I mean, all of the details were nice, but it could have used just a bit more, and the way it was written was kind of an abrupt stop in my opinion. Overall though, I still enjoyed the series and I'm glad I read all three of them. It gave me a greater appreciation for farmers and student athletes . . . two groups of people I don't really know very much about. Have any of you read them . . . what did you think?

In other news, I made this insane caramelized onion mac & cheese. My aunt shared the recipe with me on Pinterest and it just sounded so fantastic that I couldn't pass it up. Caramelizing the onions took quite a bit of time (WAY TOO MUCH) plus all of the chopping . . . check it out: that is a lot of onions!

Three pounds of onions chopped into 1/4 inch slices

After 1 hour

After 2 hours . . . according the recipe, they should be done by now

After 3 hours . . . perhaps I should turn the heat up a bit?

After 4 hours . . . I'm getting very frustrated

Yup, after 5 hours . . . grr

About 5 and a half hours in . . . finally done

Finished masterpiece

While it was good, it turned out to be very heavy tasting. Not bad, just a bit much for a main course. It would make a stellar special side dish though. I still think I taste and smell like onions the next day ;) Also, the sauce was really salty on its own. The sweetness of the onions balanced it out well, but it was a little disconcerting knowing how much sodium was in the dish. Oh well, it was good to try :)

I also made the 2nd batch of crock pot bean soup. It was much improved by soaking the whole batch overnight in 3 cups of water and the addition of 1 tsp. baking soda before cooking. I also did half and half water and chicken broth to reduce the salt level. I don't really know which it was, but the soup was much better this time around . . . thanks for the suggestions!

Hope you all have a great week :)

2014 - Book 4b

"The Off Season" - Wisconsin (again)

I must say, I quite enjoyed this one too, maybe even more-so than the first book in the "Dairy Queen" series because it's written more like a book and not quite so much of a narration. The story is good, the characters are developed more, and it was a good, clean book. I'm looking forward to finishing the trilogy sometime soon.

I have decided that I am definitely a sucker for a happy ending. This book wasn't "full of fireworks" happy, but it still had a good sense of closure and promise for a bright tomorrow. To illustrate my love of a good ending, I have decided that pretty much every story has to have one. I made up a happy ending for Javert in Les Mis. I was inspired after seeing Norm Lewis, the guy who played Javert in the most excellent 25th Anniversary Concert edition, on a Cialis commercial. See, it turns out that Javert didn't die when he fell into the river, he just floated along until he found his house and his wife. He decided that Valjean was right all along and he should really stop being such a workaholic and take life easy. He moves with his family to the U.S., loves to watch his son's play little league, and now he has a good job as a commercial actor. Brilliant, right?

Well, I made this up after we'd just finished watching "Coriolanus". I was intrigued by the Shakespeare tragedy after seeing that Tom Hiddleston is currently starring in a production of it in London, and thanks to modern technology, it is being broadcast to movie theatres in the U.S. If you know me, you probably know that I'm a sucker for pretending that I live abroad, so whenever these events come up, I'm pretty excited to go see them. (Anyone want to go with me?) I'm not the hugest fan of Shakespeare though, so I wanted to make sure the story was decent before I paid money to see it in the theatre. I rented the 2011 movie rendition starring Ralph Fiennes and Gerard Butler. It was rather violent and weird (mostly weird because they tried to put it in a modern setting but still used all of the old English language), and of course, depressing because it's a tragedy. Anyways, after thinking up this crazy ending to Les Mis, I figured there was no way I could come up with a happy ending to Coriolanus . . . he is, after all, (SPOILER ALERT) very dead in the end.

But fear not, I did manage to think of something. I know it's kind of silly, but I thought it was fun. So in the story, Coriolanus is a war hero who gets pushed into politics even though he's got pretty poor people skills. He tries to maintain his ideals, but eventually the people (lead by some nasty power-hungry politicians) turn on him and he is banished from Rome. He joins forces with the rebel fighters that he used to oppose in order to fight back against Rome. Delegations from Rome are scared and try to reason with him, but in the end, only the delegation of his mother, wife, son, and some other random lady manage to get him to agree to make a truce. That doesn't sit very well with the rebel leader and when Coriolanus comes back after signing the treaty with the Romans, the rebels kill him. So, I decided that  Coriolanus has a secret identical twin. He is kind of a psychotic sociopath, so he's been imprisoned (and his exsistance hushed up by the family) for most of his life . . . funnily enough, in Azkaban (the wizard prison in Harry Potter). The twin brother bears a striking resemblance to Lord Voldemort, but that's besides the point ;) Anyways, when Coriolanus goes into Rome to sign the treaty, his wife, brilliant detective woman that she is, manages to get the twin brother out of Azkaban and into the waiting car to take Coriolanus back to the rebels. The manipulative mother, not realizing this is her other son (because she's just so caught up in "saving Rome" and the brother is rather in shock and confused about what to do) tells him exactly what he should do . . . go back to the rebels and live with them. Who knows what her real motives are, but he does so, because he really has no idea what else to do. So the real Coriolanus escapes to Sicily with his wife and son and lives happily ever after and the man the rebels kill was evil anyways, so everyone is happy, right? So there you go . . . didn't think I could make a happy ending out of one of the most tragic of tragedies, did you? :) I know . . . I have quite the imagination ;)

Anyways, back in the real world, I made some "healthy" maple pumpkin muffins today . . . aren't they pretty? They taste pretty good too (although the whole wheat flour does make them taste healthy, so it depends on if you like that or not). Here is the recipe: maple pumpkin muffins. I used a little over one Tbsp of water to make the glaze just right. Have a great weekend :)

2014 - Book 4a

"Dairy Queen" - Wisconsin

Okay, so I might be a little bit biased, but this was my favorite book so far. The bad language was at a minimum, there was no inappropriate romantic stuff, and not a single werewolf or vampire. Amazing, I know. It wasn't my favorite book of all time, to be sure, but I did enjoy it. It is a story about a teen girl who has to do almost all of the work on her family's dairy farm and a lot about her family dynamics. Oh, and football . . . a lot about football. It's written like she is speaking it all, and the author did use the word "annoyinger" once, which was well, annoying, and a negative in my opinion. For some reason, her voice in my head sounded like she had more of a southern accent . . . weird. But it was pretty good, and since I don't have any of the other books from the library yet, and my friend who lent me this book also gave me the other two in the series, I just might read those as well. 

We got a winner of a frozen crock pot meal tonight too. It was cilantro lime chicken tacos. Of course, they were improved with lots of avocado, salsa, and cheese in the taco shell, but the chicken mixture was pretty good. I had to add a little bit more salt and some southwestern seasoning to spice it up a little bit more, but it's a good base recipe. You could add whatever other seasoning you wanted and adjust the spice level to your taste as well. . . I highly recommend it. 

Until next time :) 

2014 - Book 3

"Everybody Sees The Ants" - Arizona

Okay, this book was not so bad, but I still don't think I really liked it. The amount of swear words was off-putting, in my opinion. Other than that, it was at least a real story with morals and characters that seemed real, so that was nice. It even had some pretty good messages about standing up to bullies and being engaged in your family-life. I don't really get the whole premise of the ants that cheered for the main character and told him what to do, and it was a little odd (but fascinating at the same time) that he had dream adventures with his POW/MIA grandfather, but still, miles above that last book. 

Other than reading, I wanted to give you a crock pot meal update. I haven't had to make too many lately because of so many generous people (my mom especially) who made us lots of food over Christmas and New Years. That being said, I only really have one to report on: tortilla soup. It was not as good as the taco soup, but it had just the right amount of spiciness. It was a bit too watery, so maybe next time I'll put less water in it, but it wasn't too bad. If I had to choose between the two to make again though, I'm definitely making the taco soup. I'm getting excited to compile my next list of freezer crock pot meals to try . . . Pinterest, here I come ;) 

Hope you are all doing well . . . talk to you soon :) 

2014 - Book 2

"Where Things Come Back" - Arkansas

Okay, I started reading this US of YA list with the assumption that these were actually good books. I sure hope they improve because I did not like this book at all :(

I feel almost guilty for being so harsh on the last book, because compared to this one, I loved "Shiver". I never, ever stop reading a book that I've started, and I was about ready to give up on this one by page five. It was nothing like what I think a good book should be, and granted, that is my own opinion, but I enjoy books because they can transport me to another time and place and introduce me to new friends and, in the end, give me some sort of joy, hope, and satisfaction in a happy ending. This book was just crude (foul language), scatterbrained and depressing. Not that it didn't have a "happy" ending, but I had no sense of closure or completeness when I finished this, I was just glad it was over. So sorry, Arkansas, I didn't like the book that was picked for you. Here's to hoping the next book is better!

Other than that, I tried a new recipe tonight . . . homemade crab rangoon. I got a cute little Fry Daddy deep fryer for my birthday and finally broke it in tonight. It worked well even though the control freak in me was a little stressed that it had no temperature control dial. The filling didn't really taste like much, and once they were cooked, did not fill very much of the rangoon at all. That might have been my fault for just using up scraps of egg roll wrappers and making crab rangoon sticks instead of the traditional star/cluster shapes. Oh well, I'll try a different recipe next time I guess, and not over cook them . . . oops. I'll get a hang of this deep fryer yet :)

Crab rangoon sticks

Black hole award

To ensure that this post is not entirely depressing (sorry about that), and because I can't believe that I forgot to share this recipe with you guys . . . I present something good and wonderful: crockpot cinnamon almonds. . . YUM. In the midst of all of the rest of my Christmas baking frenzy, I somehow forgot to mention these. They turned out perfectly and are super good. Give them a try, you won't regret it :)

MMM . . . cinnamon almonds :) 

Okay, I'm off to try and redeem the US of YA now with another book . . . I pray that it's better than the last one.

2014 - Book 1

"Shiver" - Minnesota

Well, my first book of 2014 was aptly chosen. I was indeed doing a lot of shivering during the time that I was reading this book. I experienced some -40 wind chills, I think the coldest I've ever felt in my entire life. 

As for the book . . . it was just okay. It started out rather "Twilight"-esque because it's a story about werewolves, although instead of being really warm all the time, the outside temperature causes the wolf-human transformations. I'm really hoping the majority of books on this list aren't like that. Not that I didn't enjoy the story, but I just hope YA novels are a bit more diverse than just werewolves and vampires nowadays.

It was interesting going back and reading YA fiction now that I'm not in the age group that it is targeted at anymore. I found myself more frustrated with the parents for being irresponsible and clueless to what their daughter was going through than identifying with the teenager. I would say it should be aimed for a bit older YA crowd since there was more romance in it than I was expecting for a YA book, but it was still PG-13. I don't want to give too much away, but essentially the protagonist has an unhealthy obsession with the wolves in her backyard after she was attacked by them as a child. She is "in love" with one of them and ta da, he turns into a human when the weather is warm enough and they find each other for a few moments of bliss before strife comes into the picture threatening it all. There is an interesting resolution though, and if you're a high school biology teacher out there an assign your class papers on diseases, if this book gets popular, I would expect lots of girl's papers to be about bacterial meningitis . . . just saying ;) 

So, I wouldn't buy this book, and I probably wouldn't read it again, but it was entertaining for the most part, and I can see some of it's appeal to the YA crowd. I think another book on the US of YA list is by the same author so we'll see what else she can come up with. 

In other news, not book related I made the baked oatmeal again, this time a cherry/apple/walnut version and it was really good. I just doubled the recipe and baked it in a 13" x 9" pan for about 50 minutes . . . yum :) 

Okay, well that's all for now, I'll keep you posted. Hope you are all staying warm :) 

The End of 2013 & The Beginning of 2014

Hello everyone from the beginning of 2014. Did you all have a nice New Year's celebration? Any closing thoughts on 2013 or new resolutions for 2014?

I can't believe that it's been two years now since I started this crazy life experiment blog. I sure have done a lot more than I thought I could or would. It's been a great growing experience and I think has molded me more into the person that I want to be. I'm involved in a lot more things and capable of way more than I thought I was. Although 2013 was not quite as crazy in terms of challenges as 2012 was, I still got a lot of things accomplished, just perhaps not what I originally set out to do.

On the negative side, I didn't finish my children's book or get anywhere on scrapbooking (oops), although I did get quite a bit of knitting and baking accomplished. But hey, in the big picture, getting a house isn't so bad ;) Things like that just kind of came up and I tried to roll with them and just do what I could do, and that theme will continue into 2014.

My husband has decided that my phrase of 2013 was "I'm busy", so my 2014 goal is to learn to relax a little bit and not be so hard on myself. One of the reasons I started this blog was because I found that I had a lot of free time and I didn't feel like I was filling it with very productive things. Now, after two years of solid productivity challenges, I think I've altered my habits enough that idleness will not be a problem anymore. At the same time, I do want to just be able to veg out and watch a movie if I want without feeling guilty about all of the self-imposed things that I have to do . . . it's time to find a more healthy balance :)

As for this blog, I will still keep it up for my faithful readers (you know who you are ;)) because I know how much I enjoy reading my friend's blogs, but I won't hold myself to one post a week. If I didn't do anything noteworthy, I don't have to write a blog about nothing . . . but if I have a very productive week, maybe there will be more than one post . . . who knows :)

I will also keep exercising because that's just a good idea for my health (especially if I want to keep baking ;)). My goal is still one hour a week, but one and a half would be more ideal, and seriously, that's really not that long.  

And of course I can't go a year without some sort of challenge, so when a friend posted this list on her Facebook, it seemed to be fitting for 2014: The United States of YA. Also, another friend did a "read at least 50 books in 2013" challenge and I was rather jealous of her, so they were both inspirations for my 2014 challenge: read all 50 books represented by the United States of YA map. I adore reading, and was a little surprised that I hadn't read a single book on this list. Granted, it's been a while since I was the YA target audience, but after reading some adult books, I'm more than happy to go back to YA literature . . . less graphic, gory, etc.

So, I'm going to aim for one book a week, but if I have more or less time, it's flexible, and if I don't finish, oh well (or so I'm trying to convince myself) ;) In addition to the reading, I do want to continue learning new knitting things, cooking and baking experiences (of course!), work harder at my job as my church's special music planner, and personally devote more time to my musical instruments (now that I don't have to worry about disturbing my apartment neighbors :)).

While I aim to relax more, I will not be idle, I promise :) Any one want to join me on any of my tasks? I look forward to a new year of adventures, thank God for all of the blessings He brought me in 2013, including all of you, and wish you all of the best today and for the rest of the year :) Talk to you soon :)

2013 - Week 52

Hello from Week 52, the last full week of the year. My, this year has sure flown by.

Being as it was Christmas this week, I didn't have time for much exercising, but I did do a little Wii boxing, now that we have our TV all set up and then there was a lot of moving things around and cleaning to get our house ready for company, so I'm going to say that counts :)

We had a fantastic time with our families and celebrating the birth of our Savior. I hope you all got to spend some time with loved ones as well. If you happen to be baking a breakfast for those you love, might I suggest this really tasty and tropical recipe: Sunshine Baked Oatmeal.

It really brightened up our cold morning and it was very good :)

My only other cooking was to make the amazing Truffle Mac & Cheese again (you can get the recipe and see my original attempt here), oh so good. I hope you'll give it a try sometime too (or at least petition Noodles & Co. to bring it back on their menu ;))

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to every one of you :) See you next year!

2013 - Week 51

Hello from Week 51 :) Now that I've given all of these treats away as Christmas presents, I can share them with you all on my blog. I was just baking up a STORM this week . . . whew, it was exhausting, but so nice to be able to share things made with love (and butter) with those I love :)

Some of these recipes were old favorites: shortbread and royal icing cookies, and others were not as familiar or first time trials: peanut brittle, cranberry treasures, toffee, and trail mix bites.

The shortbread was one of my one-day challenges last December and it was such a hit last Christmas that I decided to make it again. I made three batches and I found that the first two (in which I just microwaved my butter slightly to get it to approximately room temperature) turned out much better than the batch where I properly left it out on the counter to acclimate on its own. I don't really know why that is, but there you go, one example where not planning ahead actually improved the results.

Shortbread and 105 cutout cookies :)

The royal icing cookies were the most time consuming project, but thankful my lovely friend (who I gave the first knit headband to) helped me with the decorating, and provided the recipes for me to use. We didn't quite follow the "10-second rule" that is described in the link for the royal icing recipe because we didn't want to have to make two consistencies for each frosting color (one for outlining and one for filling in/flooding) and it still worked out beautifully. This is the recipe for that cookies that I used and they were really tasty:

SUGAR COOKIES

1.5 cups powdered sugar

1 cup butter, softened

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

0.5 teaspoon almond extract

2.5 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

~     Mix powdered sugar, butter, egg, vanilla, and almond extract.  Mix in flour, baking soda and cream of tartar.  Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours.  Heat oven to 375.  Divide dough into halves.  Roll each half on a lightly floured surface.  Cut into shapes.  Bake until edges are light brown, 7 to 8 minutes (or a bit longer depending on your oven). 

I'm not quite sure who to give credit to for that recipe, but whoever created it did a nice job :)

Sorry I don't have a picture of the rest of the treats . . . these guys were the stars ;)

Inspiration for the light bulbs: Inspiration

Reindeer using gingerbread men shape with mint M&M noses . . . so cute.
(Thanks to footballgrl16 for the idea)

For the peanut brittle, the recipe is very simple, but written for someone with a 700 Watt microwave. Mine is a 1000 W, but I don't know how old it is or exactly how much power it's still giving out, so it was a bit of a guessing game. I found a 700 W to 1000 W cooking time conversion chart and just kind of went from there. The recipe calls for a 6 - 7 minute first cook and a 2 - 3 minute second cook and after three batches, I determined that 5:15 and 2:15 worked out pretty well for me. I could have done it a bit longer because it wasn't quite as golden as I was hoping for, but even the paler batches (I started with 4:45 / 1:45 cook times) tasted just fine and were enjoyed by everyone who ate them.

The cranberry treasures are a recipe that my in-laws make every year . . . with a little bit of a twist. They usually make "raisin treasures", but since I'm not the hugest fan of raisins, last year I suggested that we substitute dried cranberries instead . . . mmm, instant improvement in my book :) The little cookie bits were kind of putsy to make, and my husband did the coating and clustering of all of the other bits (they are basically chocolate covered clusters of mini-marshmallows, tiny cookies, and dried cranberries . . . yum) so I can't comment on that, but they turned out great. Give this recipe a try and let me know how you like it:

CRANBERRY TREASURES

1/4 cup butter, 1/4 cup sugar, 2 TBSP cream, 1/2 tsp vanilla, 1 cup flour, 1/4 tsp salt, 1 cup raisins or dried cranberries (optional: add marshmallows and nuts as desired)

1. Cream butter and sugar. 

2. Add cream and vanilla and blend well. 

3. Mix in flour and salt.

4. Shape dough into long 1/4" rolls. Place on ungreased cookie sheet and cut into 1/2" lengths. Bake at 325 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Cool.

5. Prepare Glaze:

6 oz. chocolate chips, 3 TBSP light corn syrup, 1 TBSP water. Melt these in microwave or over hot water for glaze. Stir together.

Stir together cookie pieces, raisins, nuts, marshmallows, etc. with glaze. When all is well coated, drop onto waxed paper and allow to cool. May be refrigerated to speed cooling.

On a not so pleasant note, I'm fairly certain the Devil possessed my toffee (not really, but boy was it frustrating, and I'm ashamed to admit that I skipped our Advent church service to keep stirring this blasted toffee). I suppose after all of the success of the other recipes, something was bound to go wrong, but this toffee just went very, very wrong. I should have known it was going to happen, because the same thing happened last time I used the recipe, but I was hoping for better results this time . . . insanity, right? Here is the recipe, in case you dare try it:

1 lb. butter (I always bake with unsalted)

2 C sugar

1 - 12 oz. bag chocolate chips (I used milk chocolate this time)

1 C chopped nuts (I used pecans)

Butter jelly roll pan. Cook butter and sugar in heavy saucepan over moderate heat (stirring constantly) until hard crack stage (310 F on candy thermometer). It will be caramel colored. Quickly pour into pan until hardened. Melt chips over hot water or in the microwave. Spread half the amount of chips with knife. Sprinkle with half of the nuts. Let set and then turn over and spread remaining half of chips and sprinkle with the remaining nuts. Let set and then break into pieces using a knife.

The premise of the recipe is good, but be warned, it will most likely "break" on you. After 3.5 hours stirring and breaking at least 7 times, I don't think I will ever use this recipe again. I'm still willing to try another toffee recipe because I like toffee a lot, but this one is very finicky, if you ask me. I love the lady who gave it to me, and her toffee is fantastic, so it's probably just me, but you have been warned. I think a new candy thermometer would have helped a lot too because mine is one of those old fat ones and therefore it impeded my stirring in the section of the pot where it was clipped. If your toffee does break, you can fix it by adding a tablespoon or two of hot water, but I did that so often that I had ended up with way too much water in it and as a result had to cook way longer than I should have to get it to come together nicely. Eventually I just took my candy thermometer out and stirred it steadily until it was all back together again and used my digital thermometer every once and a while to check the temperature. It was probably not the best for my nice thermometer, but at least I fixed the toffee . . . that was so frustrating. 

Last but not least is the simple trail mix bites. They were very easy and tasty. I wanted to make something at least sort of healthy for my health conscious brother . . . I think they turned out rather well. I might have made them bigger than the blog called for, but oh well ;)

Finally, in addition to all of this baking and cooking, I also did some Power Yoga and finished another knit headband (the same pattern as I made last week). I think I'm getting the hang of cables now and I'm anxious to try something new . . . maybe learning to knit in the round? Sounds scary, but I found a hat pattern that I want to make so I guess I had better learn :)

I hope your week was not as busy as mine and that you are never in need of any Christmas treat recipes ;) Talk to you next week.

2013 - Week 50

Hello from Week 50 :)

More power yoga for me this week, and I definitely needed it for all of the treats that I'll be eating in the coming weeks ;)

Happy (and warm) knitter

The biggest news this week is: My Scarf Is FINISHED :) Yay :) I like it a lot and I hope that you do too. This is the pattern that I used: Bella Lana scarf. I thought 32 stitches was a bit wide though, so I dropped it down to 24 and it still worked out great. I used almost 3 complete skeins of yarn because I like my scarves a bit longer. I ended up repeating the pattern of 18 rows sixteen and a half times I believe. I didn't do the best bind off because I didn't know how to do a rib bind off, but if you make this, I would recommend figuring that out because my bound edge looks a little flared. Oh well, I still love it :)

Isn't it cool?

Yay sparkly :) 

Since I loved my scarf so much, I decided to try my hand at a new cable knitting pattern, this time a headband though, for a few of my friends' Christmas presents. I used this pattern: Fraga Headband. It was interesting trying to learn a few new knitting skills, the crochet provisional cast on, and the kitchener stitch bind off, but I think I did okay for my first attempts. Luckily the yarn was a bit forgiving and any mistakes easily blend in :) Both the the recipients loved them I think.

Cozy

Lovely lady in a lovely headband :) 

I did try two of the crock pot meals this week too. The beef stew was just okay, but the black bean taco soup, which I will dub "Nacho Soup" was really yummy (especially after the addition of some sour cream and cheese and scooped up with chips . . . mmm). Sorry there aren't any pictures . . . we ate it too fast ;)

One more thing to share this week . . . cornmeal tree cookies. You may remember from earlier this year (see blog post here) when I made these cute cornmeal sugar cookies for Valentine's Day and I'm pretty sure that mine were prettier than Martha Stewarts (although she gets all the credit for this awesome recipe). I wanted something relatively easy that still looked impressive for some cookie exchanges that I was a part of. My cousin Sara also made these for her Christmas cookie exchange . . . great minds think alike :) I decided to change it up a bit though and turn them into glazed trees. Here are the results:

Mmm . . . glazed trees :) 

I think they turned out nice, and they really do taste good. I hope all of my fellow cookie exchangers enjoyed them :)

I hope you are all having a wonderful time preparing for Christmas. Stay warm, and I'll talk to you next week :)

2013 - Week 49

Hello from Week 49. I have to make this quick because I'm super busy in Christmas mode now . . . ah.

First of all, more Power yoga this week. It's getting easier (probably because I've been going every week) and I'm liking it more, even if I still wish it were warmer in the studio ;)

I made the bean soup recipe (one of my frozen crock pot meals) and it was another disappointment, I'm sorry to report. The beans were still a tad hard, the rice kind of disintegrated, and it was too salty for me. I think if it had gotten a chance to cook longer and the beans had gotten done it would have been better. I made two of those, so next time I'm going to try for a longer cook time and maybe add some more rice. I guess that's one of the issues with making the same freezer meal twice . . . if it's good you get to enjoy it again, but if it's not then you have to eat it again ;) I'm keeping tabs on which ones I really enjoy and when I do my next round of freezer crock pot meal prep, I'll make those again and discard the recipes for the others. And yes, there will be a next time . . . I've saved SO much time by not having to cook and just making these for weeks now. There have been a few other things I've cooked here and there, but I've been spending a lot less time doing it these days. I don't think it will work out so well in the summertime when we don't want to be eating hot soup every night, but on these chilly winter nights, having a hot meal ready when I get home is awesome :) If you'd like to try it, check out my blog here for the recipes that I made, and if you have any freezer crock pot meals that you love, please share them because I'm trying to put together a list of recipes to try next.

My new thing for this week was that my husband and I got our first real full-sized Christmas tree now that we have a nice house to put it in.

The proper way to carry a tree ;) 

Our tree :) 

Isn't it lovely? I hope you and yours are enjoying the excitement surrounding the upcoming Christmas season and remember to keep Christ in Christmas :) See you next week!

2013 - Week 48

Hello from Week 48 :)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Due to the holiday week, we had a few fun firsts. It was our first Thanksgiving in our new house, and although I woke up with a migraine, it still ended up being an awesome day. Some of our lovely friends brought over their Thanksgiving leftovers when I was not feeling well enough to go to their house, so even though I felt lousy all morning and slept most of it, I still got turkey and all of the fixings, and got to spend a whole day in our new house. I did get quite a bit of laundry done too . . . hooray for having a washer and dryer in my house :)

Thanks Bill & Kathi for all of the tasty food :) 

We also ventured out for our first ever Black Friday shopping experience. I don't like to give in to the consumer culture too much, but there were some great sales at our local home improvement store :) We clipped the items out of their weekly flyer before we went and knew exactly what we were getting, so it was pretty painless. We didn't even have to get up early :)

Since our TV is still not set up, I counted the walks that we went on with my in-laws over Thanksgiving weekend as my exercise for the week. It wasn't too cold out, so the walks were rather nice :)

I did make a few recipes this week, but nothing too exciting. I made the roasted cauliflower that I had made before (still good as ever) as well as the Panera Bread focaccia bread recipe (I use 2 tsp. active dry yeast and 1 Tbsp. Italian seasoning mix) and my mother-in-law's pumpkin pie recipe. My husband is the king of pie crust, so he made some wonderful crust while I whipped up the filling. I convinced him to try the braided edge on the pie, and it looked nice until, during baking, half of it fell into the pie . . . oops. Next time we'll have to attach the braid to the rest of the crust better, but it still tasted wonderful.

Braided crust

Pie when it was still beautiful ;)

As far as my crock pot meals good, we had the pork with veggies this week, and it wasn't very good. It was a little mushy, but I guess that is to be expected as it cooked 12 hours (8 hours on low and 4 hours on warm). We still have another one of those, but that's okay...it was filling when served over rice.

That's it for this week . . . see you next week :)

2013 - Week 47

Hello from Week 47 :)

This week was full of unpacking. It's so nice to be getting settled in our new house. I did take some time to do some yin yoga to stretch out my muscles that were pretty sore from moving boxes around. It's just not as good because it's not in a heated studio, but it was still a good practice.

The following picture is of the first real meal we had in our house. It was the chicken broccoli alfredo crock pot meal that I prepped a few weeks ago. Overall, I would just review it ask okay . . . it needed more salt and some crushed red pepper and the sauce was very thin. The recipe said to "salt and pepper to taste" but considering the mixture contained frozen raw chicken, I was not tasting it, so adding it afterwards was okay. The second day we ate this, I put the sauce on the stove and thickened it with a cornstarch + water solution and it tasted better that way. The meal was rounded off with garlic bread and salad . . . not too bad :)

The better crock pot meal came later in the week with our first trial of the chicken taco soup. It was actually really good, just a slight kick, and full of good flavor and healthy ingredients. I added a bit of sour cream and topped it with some shredded cheddar cheese . . . yum. It was especially tasty scooped up with tortilla chis too :) I'm glad we have another frozen meal of that recipe to look forward to.

I did a little baking too and made some mint chocolate cookies from this recipe. I didn't really want to make cookies, I was more in a cake mood, but I had the chips to use, so I made them, and they were pretty good. Not my favorite (even though I do love mint chocolate), but good nonetheless.

Okay,  back to more organizing now . . . have a great week :)

2013 - Week 46

Hello from Week 46 :)

Now that we are all moved in, it's time to unpack and do lots of work around the house. That was my exercise this week . . . raking leaves and hauling boxes. Thankfully, I think we have most of the boxes moved to where they need to go now, so we just have to unpack, sort, and put everything away.

I did manage to find a little time (mostly for a few minutes before bed) to do a little knitting this week, even though we were so busy. Sadly the scarf is not done yet, but it's close. One of these days I'm going to be done, but for now, we've been spending most of our time cleaning, unpacking and organizing.

Speaking of, my new thing for this week was deep cleaning the washing machine that we were so graciously given by a friend. It came with their house and they already had one so they gifted it to us. I think the previous owners didn't clean it very well, so it was kind of gross, but I followed the directions on page 14 of this cleaning guide (with the addition of a load with the bleach container filled with vinegar and a rinse load of just hot water at the end) plus scrubbing in every nook and cranny I could reach. I think it's much better now and if I just keep doing the cleaning cycle about once a month it should stay nice and clean :)

In other cleaning news, the lights above our sink in our bathroom were frosted glass . . . or so I thought. Upon closer inspection, it appears they needed some dish soap and elbow grease. Which one of these is not like the others?

So much better :) 

Now, lest you think it was all work and no play for me this week, I present you with Snickers Apple Salad :) I actually forgot to take a picture of it once it was done, but it was beautiful and tasty :) I couldn't really remember how I'd made this in the past, so after looking at various recipes, I decided to try a combination of Candy Bar Apple Salad from Taste of Home and Snickers Caramel Apple Salad from chef-in-training.com. My recipe (which is a double batch of those recipes, of course) was:

2 - 8 oz. containers of lite whipped topping
8 medium Granny Smith apples (I know there are 9 in the picture . . . I got hungry)
16 fun sized "snickers" bars
2 - 3.4 oz. packages of vanilla pudding mix
2 C skim milk

I combined the milk and the pudding mix while I chopped the apples and candy bars up. Then I added them in turns with the whipped topping, folded it all together, and served it with caramel ice cream topping drizzled over the top. Yummy, and I didn't even have to turn on my oven ;)

Anything that starts with these ingredients is bound to be tasty :)

Well, I think that's all I have for this week . . . let me know if you have any other cleaning or organizing/unpacking tips for me. See you then :)

2013 - Week 45

Hi from Week 45 :)

This entry is going to be rather short because I don't have a whole lot to share. We were really busy all week packing and then on Saturday we had our big move. A huge "Thank You" to all of our friends that helped us move . . . I am so thankful I didn't have to move all of those boxes of books myself :)

I did manage to get my hour of Wii boxing in before we packed up the Wii and the TV and I'm still making progress there. I don't think I'll ever "beat" the game because the sensors aren't quite sensitive enough to pick up all of my movements, but it's definitely still good exercise.

Knitting is still going well too . . . the scarf is almost done :) Stay tuned for pictures of it soon. The only picture I really have to share with you this week is a brilliant Pinterest find that made moving my clothes much easier:

Wrap garbage bags over your clothes in the closet and move them "as is" to your new closet. I packed all of my hanging clothes in less than 10 minutes :) Hooray

Alright, I'm off to go unpack some more . . . talk to you all next week :)

2013 - Week 44

Hello from Week 44 :) This week has been very hectic as we prepare for our big move :)

My Wii boxing is still going well and my husband is starting to think I'll be able to beat up anyone that tries to mess with me ;) I'm not too sure about that, but it's a good workout at least. My task of knitting is still going well too . . . I started my third skein of yarn for my scarf and I think I should be able to finish it very soon. I can't wait to post pictures, I love it.

For my recipe this week, I'm sorry, but I can't actually give you the recipe. I had some leftover carrots, celery, an onion, some hamburger and some red potatoes from my Crock Pot Meal Prep Extravaganza last week, so I thought shepherd's pie would be a good option. I perused various recipes, and after finding so many that included things that I didn't have or didn't want to use, like canned soup or gravy, I finally decided this one sounded the best: Zippy Shepherd's Pie. I felt like doing it my own way though, so I basically just used that as a guideline (and that is also why I can't give you the recipe . . . I don't really know what I did). I browned the meat, drained off the fat, and then added various seasonings like Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, Pampered Chef red curry rub, salt and pepper. For the veggies, I cooked the onions in a bit of olive oil and then added some chopped up raw carrots and celery, a generous amount of garlic (have you figured out how much I love garlic yet? ;)), and two cups of beef broth. I let that cook, covered, until the veggies were done. Then I fished out the veggies with a slotted spoon and brought the broth to a boil and thickened it with some cornstarch + water. While I was doing all of this, I also had the potatoes (I don't even know how many . . . sorry) boiling and then my husband mashed them into red potato garlic goodness. I mixed all of the meat, veggies and gravy together and divided it between a 9" x 13" and an 8" x 8" pan, then he covered that mixture with the yummy potatoes and I topped them off with grated sharp cheddar cheese (Shh . . . I almost used a whole 8 oz. block of cheese . . . it was worth it :)). I placed them under the broiler for a few minutes until the cheese had melted and slightly browned in a few spots. Looking back, I think I would have preferred it without the browned spots, but it was still really good. This was WAY better than my last attempt at shepherd's pie. So, be brave, add flavors that you like, and make up your own shepherd's pie . . . let me know what you come up with :) 

Mmm . . . Shepherd's pie :)