Granola Bars!

Tried making homemade granola bars tonight for the first time. They were not cheap to make (about $20 for the pan) but they are a lot cheaper than the individually wrapped fresh ones that Whole Foods has by the cash registers and Will has recently tried and really likes.

I looked around the internet today and looked and the ingredient list on the ones we have been buying and came up with my own recipe...they are in the fridge setting up now so I don't have a final outcome but what I have tasted was good!

Nutty Chewy Granola Bars
Dry Ingredients
1 cup Rolled Oats
1/2 cup shredded coconut (unsweetened)
1/2 cup sunflower seeds (hulled)
1/4 cup hemp seeds (hulled)
1/4 cup flax seeds
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds (hulled)
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1/4 cup wheat bran
3/4 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
3/4 cup almonds (I left mine whole)
3/4 cup dried fruit (I used a mix of cherries, blueberries and cranberries)
1/4 cup chocolate chips

Combine the dry ingredients into a large bowl and set aside.

Wet Ingredients
1/2 cup brown rice syrup
1/2 cup golden syrup
1/2 cup honey (I used local wildflower honey)
1/4 cup coconut oil

Combine in small sauce pan and bring just to a boil. Cook at a very low boil for 4 minutes stirring constantly.

Remove from heat and mix is 1 tsp vanilla.

Pour over dry ingredients mixing in thoroughly. Pour mixture into a lined cookie sheet size pan and press into pan. I scored mine for cutting at this point then place the pan in the fridge to set up.

I will update this when they come out of the fridge!

Update- ok, so they taste great but are really sticky! I am thinking that next time I will reduce my golden syrup and honey a bit and maybe cook the syrup a bit longer. The will definitely be eaten and will be made again!

Sunday * Gratitude

I'm going to continue with my Sunday theme this week...gratitude. This morning we were able to open our home to our friends for brunch. I am so grateful that we have a home where we are able to welcome our friends and family. The house is an ongoing project (and probably will be for years...) but it is slowly getting to where we want it and I am thankful that we have friends that feel comfortable here and share it with us. I am grateful everyday for the amazing man that I share this home and my life with. Today was a beautiful, sunny, spring feeling, day. I am grateful for the time I was able to spend outside soaking up that sunshine before the cold and rain come back this week....

Gratitude*Sunday

A New Challenge and My Projects

The last few months I have been enjoying participating in swaps that I have joined through the Ravelry website. This month I will be not only a member of but moderating the monthly swap. The swap will be based around a project bag and a one skein project to go into it. I am really hoping to have good participation and that everyone has fun!

I have also signed up to test knit a couple of new patterns for designers through Ravelry. I am casting on the Family Tree Cowl  tonight and love the color choices that I will be using. I'm really hoping it will turn out well and Danielle has already claimed it! I have signed up for a few others also that I will share soon!

I am still working on Samantha's scarf. It has been a challenge because the yarn catches on every little piece of dry skin on my hands, and with it being winter my hands are really dry, so it has been a slow going process.

Til next time...I'm off to knit!

Pic Of The Week

My pic of the week was taken Saturday as we celebrated Grandma Sara's 96th birthday. She is an amazing southern lady and I am grateful to have the privilege of knowing her.

Gratitude * Sunday

Well, in 10 minutes I have changed my weekly ideas. :) A friend has joined Taryn at Wooly Moss Roots with Gratitude * Sunday. I am inspired by this and have decided to join in. So, on Sundays I will take a few minutes to just reflect on my week and what I am thankful for... if you would like to join in, just click on the link at the bottom of this post.

This Week I Am Grateful For:

• My family, the one I am related to by birth and the one I have found here with Will. Saturday was his Grandma Sara's 96th birthday. I am thankful for the time I have been privileged enough to spend with her.
• My friends, last weekend we had a dinner and game night with friends Saturday and had a small birthday get together for another friend on Sunday. I am grateful for the time we get to spend together with everyone's busy schedules.
• The time I get to spend with Dani. After having her not living close for so long I am enjoying the time I am getting with her. With work schedules we still don't get a lot of time together so dinner last night as a family and shopping this morning mean a lot.
• That spring is on it's way. I am looking forward to getting a few herbs and veggies growing and to weekends at the lake.
• The puppy curled up next to me...

Gratitude*Sunday

It's Been A While...

Wow, I can't believe it's been almost a year since I've updated here. I had really hoped to be better at updating and it just didn't happen and so much has happened in the last year that I really wish I had been better about updating...

Some recaps of the last year:
1. We welcomed our sweet puppy, Sara,  into our life last April. She just turned 1 on Saturday and I love her to pieces!

At the shelter the day we met

 Cuddling with her toys at 6 months old

She likes the middle half of the bed!

2. Danielle moved home. I love having her here and am proud of how well she is doing. She is working full time and will be going back to school this year.

3. Will and I have both changed jobs and are much happier in our new jobs. Will has a much shorter commute and no more traveling for work which is really nice.

4. We are continuing to work on updating things around the house. It is slowly but surely getting to what we want.

I really seriously going to try to get back to this and stick with it! The plan is to have different themes that I update each week and to use this as a journal for myself and to share with anyone interested.

Ideas for my themes:
Sunday - Photo of the week
Monday - 
Tuesday - What I'm reading
Wednesday - 
Thursday - Current Projects
Friday - 
Saturday - Recipe of the week

More later... :)

Bread - Round 2

When I made bread a few weeks ago there was also another recipe/method I wanted to try and it took me until today to get a chance to try it. This round was based on The Master Recipe from Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a Day. The advantage of this recipe is that it makes enough dough for 4 - 1lb loafs, you can store the dough in the fridge for up to 14 days so you don't have to bake it all at once, it is much quicker (2 hour rise time vs 18 hours) and it says in the recipe that you can use a heavy duty stand mixer with a bread hook instead of mixing it by hand.

 

 

The Kitchen Aid was definitely up for the challange!!!

 

 

 

 

 

Basic bread ingredients are pretty much the same...water, flour, yeast and salt...

3 cups lukewarm water

2 packets of yeast

1 1/2 Tbsp coarse salt

6 1/2 cups unsifted, unbleached all purpose flour

 

 

 

 

 

First the water, salt and yeast go in the mixer.

 

 

 

Then the flour is added all at once.

 

 

 

Mix it until everything is moist without any dry patches. Only took my mixer about 90 seconds.



 

Then allow to rise for 2-5 hours lightly covered. After rising the dough can go into the fridge or be baked.

 

 

 

To bake at this point you sprinkle the dough with flour and using a serrated knife cut off a grapefuit sized piece. Then after flouring your hands you form the dough into a ball by stretching the dough down to bottom so that the top is smooth and the bottom is a gathring of the edges. The loaf then needs to rest for 40 minutes.

 

 

 







 

 

20 minutes into this rest time, the baking stone and a steam pan go into the oven and preheat for 20 minutes with the oven preheating to 450 degrees.

 

 

 

 After 20 minutes, even if the oven isn't up to 450 degrees, add hot water to the steam pan and place the bread on the stone. Bake for 30 minutes.

 

 

 

And you have bread!!!

 

 

 

 

After tryng both methods of the no-knead bread, I think I prefer the Artisian Bread in 5 Minutes a Day for the time factor. When I bake the rest of the dough (tomorrow?) I am going to try the baking method I used with the other recipe using the cast iron dutch oven and see how that compares. Over all I am very happy with how both methods turned out and an looking forward to trying more recipes out of the Artisian Bread in 5 Minutes a Day book.



 



 

 

 

 



 

 



Adventures in Bread - Part 2

 

From the time I got up today I was looking forward to fresh from the oven bread. So I was excited when it was time to get back to the dough.

 

 

 

After sitting for 18 hours the dough had risen significantly and had the bubbles the recipe told me to expect.

 

 

 

Then working on a floured surface, the dough is folded twice and covered for 15 min.

 

 

The next step was to form the dough into a ball and place it on a cornmeal dusted towel to rise for 2 hours.

 

 

1 1/2 hours into this rising time the oven and cast iron dutch oven get preheated to 500 degrees.

The dough has roughly doubled in size during this 2 hour rise time.

 

 

And into the preheated pot it goes!

 

 

Now for the wait for it to bake...

 

 

The recipe called for baking it for 30 min then removing the lid and baking an additional 15-30 minto brown the crust, but when I took off the lid the crust looked perfect and I really felt if it was in any longer it would have been over done.

 

 

The crust is perfect and crisp and the inside is moist and chewy. :)

 

 

Yum!!!

 

 

Overall this bread turned out great, the only disadvantage to it was all the waiting time. I am hoping to try the other recipe this week to see how they compare.  Maybe tomorrow :)

Adventures In Bread - Part 1

When I went to the library this week a book caught my eye and inspired me to try making some homemade, from scratch bread. The book I picked up is Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day by J. Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. After going through the book I got online and started doing more research and found another recipe, No-Knead Bread from Jim Lahey,  that is similar but does have some differences. After reading the reviews of both and since the ingredients are the same I decided to try both and decide which we prefer.

The ingredients for both recipes consist of unbleached all-purpose flour, salt, yeast and water, the Artisan Bread recipe makes a large batch of dough that is meant to be stored in the fridge and baked off over a span of days where as Mr. Lehey's recipe is for 1 loaf and does need a longer rising time. I decided to start with Mr.Lehey's recipe tonight and plan to have it with dinner tomorrow.

Starting the dough was very simple, first the dry ingredients are combined:

 

 

3 cups of flour

1 1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp instant yeast

 

 

Then the water is added and things get sticky!

 

1 1/2 cups water

 

 

And the dough goes into an oiled bowl.
 

 

 

 

Then it gets covered in plastic wrap and left to rise at room temperature for 12-18 hours.

 

 

Tomorrow it will go into my cast iron dutch oven and get baked, looking forward to trying it!

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

Cake!!!

A few weeks ago a good friend asked me if I would make her a cake for her 30th birthday and told me that the theme if the party was going to be a Mad Hatter's Tea Party. She gave me a couple ideas that she had and I did some sketches and yesterday I got to work.....

The cake itself was alternating layers of chocolate fudge and almond cake with buttercream frosting. The original plan was 4 layers but when I stacked the cake 4 wasn't tall enough so 6 it was!

 

 

   Then after chilling and a bit of sculpting the cake went into the fridge while I made some of the decorative elements.

 

 

After good coating of buttercream it was time for the fondant....

 

 

 

Then some embossing, petal dust and things are starting to come together!

                                            

    The hat band and patch went on next...

  

 And for the final touch some roses that were painted red!

Taking the cake to the party was a bit nerve wracking, luckily it was a short drive with a great driver. :)

And the cake looked great when it got there and the birthday girl was very happy!

 

 

Books...

Well, so far I have not been as productive as I had hoped this week. But laundry is pretty much caught up and put away in the newly organized closet and I have watched hockey every day this week. :)

On the reading front, I am hoping to get Beautiful Creatures on my Kindle this week and have just started, the actually real book,  Her Fearful Symmetry. I love my Kindle but there is just something different and special about holding real book. I was reading quite a bit for a while but have not been recently, need to start again...goal for the next week 30 min a day.

Sunday - Weekend and the week ahead

Started out with a great productive morning today, made a great sausage/potato/egg scramble for breakfast today then used the leftovers to fill crescents and made some baked Scotch eggs that basically have breakfasts covered for the week. Started a pot of soup for this week and got some cleaning and organizing done then somehow after 2, I don't know where the day went. Always more to do then there is time to do it...
 Going to be busy with the house and baking over the next couple weeks, have 2 birthdays at work that will be getting cupcakes and a friend's 30th birthday that I have been asked to make a cake for (which I am looking forward to :) ) and I have also had 2 other people ask me about cupcakes in the next couple weeks.
On the to do list for this week is to work more on getting kitchen put together and playing with my new airbrush, getting some organization going in the bedroom with the new closet organization system we got in this weekend and working on the living room and my office/craft room. Company next weekend so I have to stay motivated this week!!!

Plan for the week-
Monday - laundry/bedroom (and watching hockey)
Tuesday- extra bedroom and office
Wednesday - living room and maybe some baking :)
Thursday- clean for the weekend
Friday- relax!

2013

Really seriously going to try to get back to this and stick with it! The plan is to have a different theme for each day of the week and to use this as a journal for myself and to share with anyone interested.

Ideas for my themes:
Sunday - ponderings
Monday - photo of the week
Tuesday - what I'm reading and want to read
Wednedsay - recipe of the week
Thursday - current art and craft projects
Friday -
Saturday -

Still have a couple days without themes and some days may move around but this is my general plan.

Garden 1 Week (well, almost...)

I won't be around to post this weekend but wanted to post a garden update before leaving tomorrow...It is amazing what can happen in 6 days!!!

 At first glance, the plants all look healthy and a bit bigger...

and then when you look closer....

 there are itty-bitty baby tomatoes !

 And the green beans are starting to poke up...

 along with their trellis-mates the sugar peas.

 Even the spinach is poking up to say hi!

The little blue gnome and the garden fairies are doing great so far! I think I'm going to enjoy this little garden.

Wednesday Recipe

This week in keeping with the trying to work out and eat healthier theme I have decided to share a recipe that has become a breakfast staple for me. The great things about this recipe is that you make it ahead and can vary it in so many ways...

Basic Overnight Oats
1/2 cup Oats (not instant or quick cook, I prefer Country Choice Multi Grain Hot Cereal from Trader Joe's)
1 cup Vanilla Almond Milk

Combine the oats and almond milk in a covered bowl and place in the fridge overnight. Add desired mix-ins and enjoy!

The basic recipe has 220 calories, 3.5 grams of fat, 45 grams of carbs, 6 grams of fiber and 6 grams of protein.

Some of my favorite mix-ins are:
1/2 banana
blueberries
1 tbsp nut butter
fruited Greek yogurt
cinnamon
vanilla extract

Hope you enjoy!

5 Favorite Pics from Falls Park

Last Thursday I had the pleasure of spending the evening at Falls Park with my camera. It was a beautiful day with great company (Thanks Aunt Linda!) and I hope you enjoy a few of my favorite pics from the day!

It was a great day in the park and I am looking forward to going back soon!