Merry Christmas 2014

Hoping for the best holiday season ever as you celebrate with your family and loved ones.

I'll be seeing you in 2015!

Lots of love,

Heather

Last Minute Christmas Favorites

Now's the time for anything that's lickity split. These are all tried and true and if made, your praises will be sung from the tops of Christmas Trees.

Appetizer


Best Mini Pigs In A Blanket w/ Cheddar and Sausages

Dessert


Homemade Cranberry Bliss Bars


Heath Bits Toffee Butter Cookies


Triple Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies with Fresh Cranberries

Main Dish

 
The Best Shrimp...Ever

Warm Beverage to serve your visitors


Dirty Chai

Quick Projects...in case somebody is bringing you an unexpected present.  Gulp.


Deer Pillows


Dresden Plate

Happy Holiday-ing!

Heather

No Chill, Easy as Pie (easier) Sugar Cookies...And they're delicious, too!

Tis the season for cookies. It just is.  I can't imagine the Christmas season without inhaling several dozen varieties of this sweet delight.  Cookies are just about the perfect treat, too.  They're little, but they have such a huge variety that you can never get bored with a cookie.  One of my favorites is one of the simplest, sugar cookies.  Soft and pillow-y, sweet but not too sweet (until you add the frosting) and comforting as can be.  Plus they're dang fun because you get to cut them out using fun cookie cutters and decorate the heck out of them.  They're a good time.

There are several reasons my sugar cookies are the best.
* You don't have to chill the dough before baking.  This means when the need for sugar cookies arise, you can have some made in less than 30 minutes.
* They are so yummy!
* They're fun to decorate...I guess this is the case with any sugar cookie, but trust me, mine are the best.

* They always turn out perfectly.
* You don't have to get your giant mixer dirty.  They're so easy, you make them by hand and don't even break a sweat.  You do need your mixer for the frosting though....

Making sugar cookies is a no-brainer for me, I just happen to almost always have the necessary ingredients in my pantry and my family just, really loves them.

EASY NO CHILL SUGAR COOKIES
Makes approximately 3 dozen cookies, depending on thickness of dough and size of cookie cutters **see above picture**

Preheat oven to 400 F.
Line cookie sheets with parchment paper

5 C. Flour (have more on hand for flouring your surface, and I always need more to get my dough stiff enough)
2 C. Sugar
3 tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 tsp. Salt

Combine the above ingredients in a large bowl.

1 C. Shortening

Cut this into the above flour mix by hand. I just mush the shortening around in the dry ingredients with my fingers until there are no large chunks left. Make a well in the middle of your dough mixture

3 Eggs, beaten
1 C. Milk
1 tsp. Vanilla

Combine the above ingredients together and then pour into the well in the dry ingredients

Gradually blend the flour mixture to the wet ingredients until all flour is incorporated. The dough is likely to be very sticky now.  I place the dough onto your very clean and liberally floured counter top and knead flour into it until it is no longer sticky and won't adhere to your surface when rolled out and cut. 

Grab your rolling pin. Roll your dough to 1/8" - 1/4" thick.  Test if it is sticking at this point. If it is excessively sticky, grab up all the dough and knead in some more flour. If it's just a bit tacky, pick up each corner of your dough and toss some more flour under it. If your dough sticks at all to your counter top, the shapes you've cut will not come off cleanly and will not be as beautiful...oh, they'll be tasty, but we're after looks too with these cookies.

Cut dough using your favorite cookie cutters.  Re-use the scraps!!  This dough is very forgiving and doesn't get tough.  I have rolled and re-rolled my scraps many times and the results are delicious every single batch.

Place on parchment-lined cookie sheets. Don't get them too close to each other, but don't worry either, these cookies don't really spread much. So you can get away with an inch between.

Bake for 8-10 minutes. They should not be brown at all, but remain lily white on top and lightly golden underneath, but not gooey in the center.

Allow to cool on paper towels completely.

Decorate with Frosting. YUM!

VANILLA BUTTERCREAM FROSTING
3 C. Powder Sugar
3/4 C. Salted Butter, softened

Combine the above ingredients in the mixer until well mixed

1 1/2 tsp Vanilla
1-2 Tbl. Milk

Add to creamed mixture and beat until smooth and fluffy and spreadable. Add food coloring and mix well. Pipe or spread this on your cooled sugar cookies.

It's fun to personalize these cookies with names or just by tossing on as much frosting as you think acceptable in fun designs.  This frosting is so good, please don't buy store-bought frosting any longer.  This one is easy and delicious, but I would say use regular, salted butter as it lends a bit of complexity to what could be overly sweet if there was no salt in it. 

Make these, everyone will thank you.

Thanks for reading!

Heather

Homemade Christmas

I thrill at an after Christmas sale as much as the next person.  The opportunity to buy a holiday gem at half price and get to add it to my holiday decor the following year.

What I love even more than sweet savings, though, is to create my own Christmas crafts during the holiday season....as long as they're simple and I won't tear my hair out trying to figure out something complicated.  The Christmas season is not the place for complicated.  I want to be able to enjoy the process and make it start to finish in an evening or less.

Here are my favorites.  Most use simple felt, thread, embroidery floss, ric rac and the occasional button embellishment.  Oh, and a pile of beads and wire, and some serious help from the bead lady.

Santa has special stockings that he puts goodies in for my crew.  They are ones that Mama personalizes and sets aside Christmas Eve for him to fill

Construction is simple enough.

Cut out two pieces of felt in the shape of a stocking.  This took me a few times to get the size just right, so they were big enough to fill with presents...or coal.   So, draw out a stocking template bigger than you think it will need to be. You can always cut it down if too big.  I would also say practice filling it to make sure you have enough space. 

Decorate the front of the stockings with whatever adorable felt pictures your imagination can come up with....or in the case of Daddy's stocking (and you are tired and just want to get it done), a Christmas tree and dots.  Embroider a name at the top, embellish with sequins, buttons, ric rac etc...whip stitch the front and back sides together and call them done.

Back in the days before I had any money to buy Christmas decor at half price, I made my own ornaments, again with felt. The Mister and I have been married a significant amount of time, but I still enjoy putting our first Christmas ornaments up on the tree each year.

The mittens are just two pieces of felt, blanket stitched together, with a piece of faux fur glued to the top.  You really could just use a single piece of felt and sew the blanket stitch around the edge for aesthetic reasons.

The stocking ornaments have ric rac sewn decoratively down the front.  Easy and cute. I sewed the front and back pieces together using the sewing machine.  If you don't want to stitch the ric rac on, a hot glue gun is your best friend.

Eventually you graduate from felt and move on to beads.  These are our Christmas spiders.  There's a lovely story behind them: They say an impoverished family had nothing to decorate their tree with one Christmas, and so a family of spiders spent the entire night, Christmas Eve, weaving and spinning their webs all over it to make it beautiful.  Santa came in and knew how hard the spiders had worked, but that the people might not see the beauty of a tree covered in spiders web, so he touched the web and it turned into tinsel.

Everyone, please have a Merry Christmas this year and if you don't celebrate Christmas, please have a wonderful holiday season.  And get out the glue gun and your pile of felt and see what you can come up with.

Happy Crafting!

All because I learned how to knit...Merry Christmas

Look, if I am taking the time to teach myself something new and crafty, you better believe I am going to show it the heck off to everybody I know.  And that means give it to everybody I know.  Merry Christmas, have some fingerless gloves.  Love, Heather

What's that, Dad, you don't think you'll wear fingerless gloves?  Aw, give them a try.  You might like them.

I'm sorry dear, I didn't hear you correctly, did you say there's no way in H-E-Double Hockey Sticks that you're going to wear a pair of fingerless gloves to work, that the fellas will MOCK you?  Don't worry about that, I made them all a pair as well.  Wish them a merry Christmas for me, will you?

 Girly, Brother?  You think these gloves are girly?  Haven't you heard the term metrosexual?
 

Thanks Grandma, I love you, too.  sniff sniff.  I'm glad you think the gloves will help with your arthritis.  Oh, and tell Grandpa not to wear his shoveling snow, they're not water proof.

Maybe they're not for everybody, I dunno.  But, I am making a bundle of them and love them more each time.  This may be because every time I make them I get just a teensy bit better at knitting.  The first few I made....let's just say they are a bit questionable.  That's why the teal ones are mine.

The thing I like about this pattern, is using the beige yarn for the main body of the gloves and the lighter gauge, gray yarn for the frilly top and for the bow, it gives it a sort of antique-y look that I really like.  And then I get to have fun with the cuffs.  Plus I love the combination of knit and crochet.  Knitting might never take the place of crochet for me, but I sure am glad to have the know-how.

This is the free pattern I used. Thanks, Creative Yarn.

Thanks for reading!

Heather

Pie so cool, you don't even know how cool it is

Thanksgiving is nigh.  In fact, I told my kids what we were going to be doing on Thanksgiving Eve, and they informed me that there's no such thing as Thanksgiving Eve.  I guess they know better than I do.  FYI, on the eve before we give thanks, my young and I will be making pecan pie, and so should you.

This is my slice of pie du jour.  The gourd pie may get all the glory, but this is the unsung hero, if you ask me.  Made correctly, pecan pie is a pleasantly sweet, caramelized fusion of velvety custard and lightly toasted pecans.  Made incorrectly, pecan pie can be a gelatinous, overly sweet mess.  Let's do it right, shall we?

There are a couple things you need to know before you make pecan pie.

-Watch for over-browning.   If you are moving past golden brown and delicious, but your pie is still too jiggly in the center, throw on a piece of foil to keep it from browning further. Once the pie filling is no longer liquid, and the crust is nicely brown, throw on the foil.  I usually do this with about 25 to 30 minutes left of cooking time.

-Take the pie out of the oven before it is completely firm.  You want the tiniest bit of give in the middle, but no wiggle on the sides.  Got it.  Because it's all about the bass, 'bout the bass no treble...Darn, catchy song.

-Do not pre-toast your pecans.  I have made many pecan pies in my time and have tried a lot of different methods.  If you toast them and then bake them in the pie, in my opinion, you end up with dry nuts.  Ew.

Pecan Pie
1- 9" pie crust, unbaked (I use store bought.  Shhhhh don't tell)
6 Tbl. Butter
1 Cup corn syrup (I use light because it's what I have on hand and it tastes great, so why mess with anything else?)
3/4 C. Sugar
3 eggs, whisked
2 tsp. Vanilla
1/2 tsp. Kosher salt
2 Cups, chopped pecans

Heat oven to 350 F. Place a cookie sheet in to get hot.  You are going to put the pie on the cookie sheet as it cooks just in case any filling bubbles over.  You don't want that in the bottom of your oven.

Put your pecans in the uncooked pie crust.

In saucepan heat butter, corn syrup and sugar over medium-low until the butter is melted

In another bowl, combine your whisked eggs, vanilla and Kosher Salt.  Here's the slightly tricky part.  You are going to add your melted butter mixture to your egg mixture, but you do not want to cook your eggs, so make sure the melted butter isn't at all hot when you're pouring it into the eggs, whisk constantly.

Pour your filling over the pecans in the pie crust.

Bake for between 60 to 80 minutes (I know that's a big time difference, you just have to watch your pie carefully.  I cooked mine for about 67 and it was pretty perfect), in the center of the oven until (like I said above), the pie is nicely golden and just a bit soft in the middle.  Let it cool completely (I am cooking it the night before which is perfect if you don't have a lot of time on the day of the feast).  Probably better would be to cook it same day, just make sure you give yourself plenty of time to bake it and let it cool for at least 2 hours before eating.

Serve with a dollop of lightly sweetened whipped cream and you will be the hero of the day.  The pie is quite sweet, so take it easy when you're adding the sugar to your homemade whipped cream. 

Thanks for reading and Happy Thanksgiving!

Heather

Because it's cold outside...Pantry Hot Chocolate

I frequently run out of prepared hot chocolate mix.  This is primarily because my children and their friends love hot chocolate.  After an afternoon of running and playing in the snow, there's nothing better than coming in to a warm mug of cocoa.  And of course, my kids usually have the whole neighborhood with them, everyone needing a mug of cocoa, so I have to be on the lookout for how to make it from scratch just in case the worst should occur.  No hot chocolate?  NOOOOOO!  Luckily I always have the following ingredients in my pantry for just such an emergency.

 Everybody line up for the good stuff

 Homemade Hot Chocolate
4 Cups Water
3 1/2 Cups Milk
1/2 C. Unsweetened Cocoa
1-14 oz Sweetened Condensed Milk
1 tsp. Vanilla
1/4 tsp. Kosher Salt
Flavored syrup of your choice, to taste (I used 2 Tbl. coconut syrup and it was sooo good)

Combine all ingredients in heavy bottom pan.
Cook over medium heat until everything has dissolved, stirring constantly.
Bring up to heat; but be careful as it gets very hot very fast and you don't want to burn little mouths.
***Make sure to scrape the bottom very carefully as cocoa can get stuck in the edges of the pan and may burn.
Serve with marshmallows.

Now time to wash all the mugs.

Thanks for reading!

Heather

Awwoooo, werewolves of...Salt Lake?

I think I officially have a tween now.  Oh, heaven help me.  My Oldest is turning nine which is a hop skip and a jump away from the days when I am despised and scorned by my own flesh and blood.  Luckily we're still in the days where I am loved and for the most part listened to.  If I think back to when I was a teenager....nope, don't even want to fathom it.  My girls are going to be soooo much better than I was....echo....echo....echo....

I am also still in the days when my children ask me to make them things for their birthdays.  Love it.  Can I always make my babies crocheted dollies and have them like them?  I suppose this day may come to an end and I will have to make amigurumies for complete strangers and hand them out on the street, and like it.

My Oldest asked me for a wolf, this year.  A wolf, right, I can totally come up with a great wolf pattern all on my own.  I mean, I did whip up a African Guinea Fowl for her presentation on animals who live camouflaged. But, turns out, nope.  I couldn't.  Luckily I found The Craftery Cattery, and she has a free wolf pattern that is righteous!  When was the last time you used the word righteous in this context?  I'm bringing it back.

Her pattern is well written, easy to read and results in the cutest little ankle biter.

And its adorably long snout.  My, Grandmother, what a big nose you have.
 

This was a very quick to make and I know my daughter will love it.  If you have any experience with crochet, making amis is fun and easy, all you need is some yarn, fluff and eyeballs and you are on your way. 

Thanks for reading!

Heather


Other amis I've made
Girl Ninja Turtle Amigurumi

The Yummiest, No-Fail Corn Bread for a crowd

My Youngest asked me if I will make her corn bread instead of cake for her birthday, next year.  That's how good, and how much she likes this corn bread recipe.  It's super low-fuss and I have modified it from the recipe on the Quaker cornmeal package, just a touch.

I like to make a heaping amount of corn bread and use a 13 X 9 inch pan.  For the obvious reason of my ravenous corn bread eating young and husband.  I have been known, on days when we are having left-over soup and have run out of corn bread, to whip up a second batch because it is loved that much in my household. 

So light and moist (dry corn bread=ew) and it works out EVERY TIME.  No fuss, no fancy stuff, just good, simple corn bread.

Corn Bread
3 1/2 C. Flour
1 1/2 C. Corn Meal
1/2 C. Sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. Kosher Salt
2 C. 2% Milk
1/2 C. Canola Oil
2 eggs, whisked

Heat oven to 375 F.
Using butter, grease a 13 x 9 inch glass casserole dish.
Combine flour, corn meal, sugar, baking powder and salt in medium bowl.
Combine milk, oil and beaten eggs together and add to dry ingredients.  Mix until the wet and dry ingredients just come together.
Pour batter into greased dish.
Bake for approximately 25 to 30 minutes until the top is lightly gbd (that's golden brown and delicious) and a wooden skewer, when inserted in the middle comes out clean.
Serve while warm with a generous slathering of creamy butter and sweet honey.

 

Serving suggestions that go perfectly with corn bread:

OMG Beef and Vegetable Soup 

Left Over Ham and Bean Soup

 

Easy Chilli

2014 Halloween Showcase

We don't do masks, we do face painting here.  My Oldest was Hermione/an animal witch, so she got a cute little owl on her forehead.  She actually gave me free-reign to paint whatever I wanted, as long as it was an animal. 

My baby was a snow witch.  I think this is partly because she wanted to be Elsa and a witch and so we met in the middle.

My little witchlings trying to keep their hats on in the wind. 

Thanks for reading!!

Heather

Witchcraft-ing :) Did you see what I did there?

Last year I had the girls design their own Halloween costumes and we ended up with the cutest Princess Leia and Ariel, two princesses with VERY different aesthetics.  Luckily, My Baby let me get her a princess nightgown and call it a costume, and My Oldest was cool getting creative with an outfit that Leia could possibly wear, even though she doesn't in any of the shows.

And then I got busy with my bad self and gave them some wicked awesome face painting.

This year I'm going to have a couple witches on my hands and I had them design their own hats and let them pick out some tulle for witchy skirts.

My Baby wanted to go with a, mainly skull and spider theme with a few gorgeous gems thrown in and a purple, sparkly veil with one big flower in front.  I wielded the hot glue gun with authority and she pointed and directed.  She was very excited to place one of the tiny skulls in the flower.

My Oldest decided on a few additional spooky touches, bats, skulls, rats as well as gorgeous flowers and a turquoise, spotty veil.  She was particularly happy with the rats climbing over the skull and having placed some of her bats upside down, they are resting.

This was a fun project because it allowed them to pick a few crafty embellishments and get creative.

Their puffy witches skirts.  I let them each pick 3 colors of tulle and some satin blanket binding and got these skirts made up in a couple of hours.  So, if you need a quick tulle skirt idea, this is it.  It's so simple because it ties in the back like an apron!!  I tried to figure out where this genius idea originated, but no idea.  If it's yours, I love it.

I had nine yards of tulle per skirt and that was too much. I cut the tulle into 6 inch strips and layered, oh, about 4 pieces of doubled up tulle together and then just alternated the colors.

Happy Halloween!

Thanks for reading.

Heather

A deer gift

The Mister recently went on a business trip to Tennessee, where he didn't even TRY some Nashville Hot Chicken.  I mean, come on!  If you're somewhere new and fancy (not sure Tennessee counts as fancy), then you try the local cuisine.  One of his lovely co-workers, out of the goodness of her heart crocheted me this gorgeous cashmere, cowl-neck scarf.  LOVE IT.  I feel so Claire from Outlander when I wear it.

So, I want to send her a gift, one crafty lady to another; and The Mister, who is a hater, says she will not know what to do with it.  I say pshhbbttt.  So my question is this: is it wrong to send somebody a crafty, hand-made gift if you're not sure it'll go with their personal style.  Because, I guess quilted deer heads might not be for everybody. le sigh

Naw!  I really do feel that a quilted, miniature wall-hanging of a deer head can go anywhere.  Even if it's just in somebody's closet.  Or, if she really feels it'll clash, she could re-gift it....or, let's be honest, trash it because I doubt I will ever find out.  And if I ever do make it to her house and start wandering around searching for it, she can just tell me she lost it in a house fire.  Who am I to know differently.

Tell me true, friends, should I send this to her, assuming as I do, that she'll at least think it's fun to get something in the mail and find it interesting at the very least, or should I listen to The Mister and make her something else?

It even has a little bit of French on one of the fabrics because she's originally from Quebec.  Come on!  I think it's a good gift.  She likes that my kids are learning French.  That reminds me, must have kids write her a thank you card on my behalf en Francais.

Let me hear it.  What's your opinion on this dilemma.

Thanks for reading!

Heather

Another one bites the dust...

Au revoir mon portable.  That's French for, see ya laptop. At least that's what Google Translate tells me.  I could probably ask my kids...

What I'm really trying to say is this: My laptop bit the dust.  Hard.

Kid, I feel your pain.  So that means I'm using The Mister's POS computer that he bought simply to experiment on.  See, he's in school for computer-y stuff and needed something we wouldn't feel bad about if it started emitting sparks and smoke.

I thought I'd give you a quick peek into what I've been up to even though it pains me to use this computer any more than necessary...

If you've ever wanted to see what happens when a chicken molts.  Yeah, not a pretty sight.  I had no idea how many feathers these girls actually  have.  They are absolutely everywhere!

It's alright, Dolly, all the ladies will have to go through the change sooner or later.  You're just an early bloomer and all the other girls will be jealous of the cool, heroin-chic look that you're bringing back,  The 90's are so in right now.

It's only going to get worse from here.  She's looking pretty good, still.  I'll keep you updated on the molt situation.

 Thanks to my ladies, I've had a surplus of eggs.  That means frozen quiches.  Yum!
 

  Oh, and this, my worst quilt idea ever resurrected into something I sorta, kinda love.  Resurrection...quilt style.

My Oldest in her first ever swim team competition.  She's at the far side of the pool.  So much fun to watch.

What My Youngest wants.  I love seeing her figuring out how to spell.  Do you notice she wants a unicorn...right, I'll get right on that..  A cat, The Mister has something to say about this: No.  An earring.  Just one? I wonder if she's turning pirate on me.  A hors, see unicorn because it's just as likely she'll get this as that.  And a tevey.  We have two teveys in this house.  One that has actual TV, and one that's just hooked up to a DVD player in the basement where I send the girls to watch Monster High for the 800th time, and we are capped out on numbers of teveys allowed in this house.

I think the only one she's got any chance at, is the singular earring.

 I'm adding pockets to things for very important reasons.

I made this and sung my own praises. Bread Salad.
 

 I am probably going to be stuck with this computer as I made the choice to not get a decent one....yet. I'll try and resolve myself to just get over my hatred of it, pull up my big girl panties and just use the dang thing.  We'll see.

Thanks for reading!

Happy Anniversary Mr. Beating Hearth...This is Your Life...on my Blog

Eleven years have come and gone in a blink.  Because I have the best husband around (definitely top ten), I am going to devote a little love to him by showing my favorite posts featuring him....or at least him as a doll.

The Mister's Mini Me

Alright, I did it.  I made a doll in the likeness of my husband...as Lord of the Dance.  With itty bitty nipples and chest hairs and a be-sparkled belt.  One of my favorite things EVER!  Not so much HIS favorite thing.  But let me tell you, those nipples make me chuckle every time.

The first and last time I ate a banana boat.

One of his favorite treats from childhood.  Banana boats.  Pass. But, how cute is he?

Snort, The Mister reveals his nerd past

Pssst....D&D nerdery in this post...need I say more? Lots of nerdery and giggles.  This post is one of my faves because he is so sincere and I am so wicked.

The baby booty fiasco

Once upon a time The Mister gifted me with some REALLY WEIRD CRAP...and by that I mean, awesome craft supplies that anybody would love to own...except for me, I mean, definitely me.  If you are in the market for wicker baby booties, drop me a line.  They are going for cheap!  I mean, really cheap.

Kale

The Mister's favorite plant.  He's asked me to make sure I plant several next year so he can enjoy their beauty all over again.

Deer quilt

What he thinks is a man quilt.  It's really a girl quilt disguised as a man quilt.  Very tricky, I know.

VW pillow case

What to get the man who thinks the VW Camper is the best way to take a family vacation.

Love you The Mister.  

Maple Leaf Patchwork Fun

I found myself with a little spare time this last week and knew I needed to make an autumnal wall-hanging for my living room.  I have a Halloween Wall Hanging.  I have a Christmas one.  I have a Valentine's Quilt, and who knows how many more, but dang it, I need one with falling leaves...for Fall.  That's now.  I need it now!

But it had to be pretty, falling leaves.  I am partial to the maple leaf.  I have several friends who are Canadian.  The lovely, Feral Turtle, comes to mind, so that could possibly be why I love the maple leaf as much as I do.  The Mister loves hockey, so that could be it...naw, that's not it at all.  I'm sure it's because of all the lovely Canadians in my life.  Or maybe the maple leaf is just a naturally pretty leaf?  Whatever reason, the maple leaf was what I desired.

Quilting a maple leaf is a bit tricky, though.  It has this long, pointy bit in the middle, and a stem.  I mean, to be fair, most leaves have a stem, and I guess they would cause just as much trouble as a maple leaf stem, but forget about all that.  My point is this, it's tricky with patchwork quilting.  Trust me.  Maple leaf or birch.  Even an elm...

So, I did what any quilter would do.  I  got an idea, and I made it my own.  I decided to design my leaf using half paper-piece for the middle pointy bit and the stem and patchwork for all the rest.  Half -Square triangles to the rescue.

Pretty good!  Need to change the stem up a bit, but by George I think I've got it!

I assembled all my prettiest, fall-ish fabrics and got to work.  I wanted it to be scrappy and fun.

Because I'm wild, I decided to use burlap for my trim.  But then realized I wanted a kind of, white on white effect and so put corner squares in using my main fabric.  I think I love it.

p.s.  burlap loves to unravel.  Be aware.  I would recommend using a 1/2" seam allowance, except I didn't have enough burlap to accommodate that.  Living on the edge over here!  Unraveling bedamned.

Uggghh!! Now I need new pillow cases.  Hi, cute niece.

I hope you like my new Fall wall-hanging.  I'm pretty darned pleased.  If you are interested in buying this pattern, I will have it up on My Etsy soon

Thanks for reading!

Heather

My Favorite Yogurt

I have been known...once upon a time, to make home-made yogurt.

I have actual proof.

That's MY yogurt that I made my own self.  This yogurt-making tutorial has GREAT pictures but, I changed up how I made yogurt and did another post on it.

This post has a better technique, but read it at your own risk, because there's a bit of a rant there and no awesome pictures

So, what's a girl to do?  I could continue making my own yogurt or..

I could eat this. I have been waiting for this yogurt.  Waiting for a yogurt that isn't 0% fat and isn't Whole Fat.  This is Chobani's 2% Greek yogurt and it is amazing.  It doesn't have the off texture of non-fat Greek Yogurt and doesn't have the calories of full fat yogurt.

I am writing a love letter to this yogurt because it's that good.  Smooth and yummy (except for Mango, eww), that's a treat to gobble down.  The passion fruit is good, but strange because the seeds are in it.  I actually had to Google if my yogurt was supposed to have seeds.  Yup, turns out they have lots of healthful antioxidants.  These three are maybe my favorites.

They have done studies again and again about the healthfulness of yogurt.  This yogurt has 12 grams of protein.  The most recent study I heard was that eating low-fat milk products help you stay slim. Low fat, so it can't be whole fat.  So this 2% yogurt is my dream because I am not a non-fat yogurt kind of gal.  Sour Cream, either.

I eat this yogurt every day for lunch...in fact, this is what I had to do today.  Yup, eat it with a fork because all my spoons had been used in a picnic adventure gone awry last night and are currently in the dish washer.

I hope you don't mind this public service announcement.  I just found a product I really love, and wanted to share.

Thanks for reading!

Heather

September 11, 2001

Spanish Rice...or lasagna rice, whatever

My Oldest has felt for most of her life that rice is not her favorite thing to eat.  In fact, there have been flat out refusals and tears over rice.  Her tears, not mine.  All I ask is that my kids try a bite of everything I've prepared them for dinner.  If they don't like it, fine, I call it good.  But rice has always been that one thing that I've had to coax and convince my first born to take her bite, and this kid'll almost eat anything.

I am happy to say that we've reached a turning point in the rice saga, and it started with this dish. Spanish rice, the recipe my mom has made since I can remember.  I made it to accompany tacos and portioned out the girls' servings and then waited, breath held for the inevitable I don't like it.  

After the first tentative bite, her eyes lit up.  Then she went for another forkful.  What is this?  My heart jumped in my chest.  Is my child actually voluntarily eating rice?  She was pretty enthusiastic about it, too.

Mom, I love this lasagna rice!

Lasagna rice?....right...lasagna rice.  That's what it's called.

It tastes so good just like lasagna, all tomato-y and flavor-y.

Since this fateful day she has since eaten rice with her chicken tika masala, at our favorite Indian joint and has even had a bite or two of fried rice.  I think we may have had a break through.  Thank you, lasagna rice.


Spanish Rice
1/2 onion, diced
1 small green pepper, diced
2 Tbl Vegetable Oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp chilli powder
1 quart stewed tomatoes, homemade...you could also go with store bought, I won't judge...much.  You need about 28 oz of tomatoes, give or take, so I don't use the entire quart.
3/4 C. rice, uncooked
1 small can diced green chiles.  I have used both 4 oz and 7 oz
salt and pepper to taste
1 C. water
A couple dashes of hot sauce if you want to sass it up
Shredded cheese to garnish, a mix of cheddar and monterey jack is always nice
cilantro, optional

In large skillet over medium heat, saute onion and green pepper together until softened, about 5 to 10 minutes.  Add garlic and chili powder and cook approximately 1 more minute until fragrant.

Stir in tomatoes, rice, canned chile peppers, water and salt and pepper.  Season this to taste.  About 1/4 tsp to 1/2 tsp salt (I'm a salt lover so I lean towards the 1/2).

Bring this to a  boil and then reduce heat to low.  Let simmer, covered with foil or a lid, 20 minutes or until the rice is tender and most of the liquid has been absorbed.

Serve with a sprinkling of cheese and cilantro and enjoying the awesome lasagna-iness of this rice.


Recipes to try with this dish:

Fish Tacos

Ground Beef Enchiladas

Thanks for reading!

Heather