Silicone Baking Cups

These are the coolest new things I just got! They are silicone baking cups! No more buying the paper ones to throw away once you eat the cupcake, muffin, etc. I love them! I got to use them for the first time yesterday when I make Banana-Blueberry Muffins.

A Christmas Bloom

This is a picture of my Christmas cactus that my friend gave to me for my 22nd birthday! Yes, its getting quite old! It has even survived a move half way across the country! It had a little rough spell when it first moved here but since then its gotten some new spoil, a new pot and a new spot closer to the window. I am SOooo happy that it bloomed this year. It hasn't every year so when it does it's super exciting!

Yarn

OOhhh the many colors of yarn! For the past couple of weeks I have been taking a crochet class on Tuesdays and I love it! It's at Teresita's Sew Creative(http://teresitasewcreative.vpweb.com/). It's so much fun...just fun! I love picking out neat yarns to start a new project with. So far in the class we have learned how to crochet washcloths (dishcloths), hot pads and this week we will be making a dual colored scarf! I am very excited for that one. After that, the plan was to make a coordinating hat, however, the double crochet on the hot pad slowed us down because we were all a little slow in picking it up. Anyway, we are learning all the lingo so we will be able to pick up a pattern and make a hat on our own. The last two classes will be making Christmas coasters with matching placemats. I will try to post some photos of the projects I have completed soon.

UPDATE: Darling Iron Board Cover

Things are coming along rather well. I have been taking my time on the iron board cover as it's not quite a necessity - even though the board is so dumb to iron on (seeing that there is practically no backing on it at all....) right now but I am getting there. Yesterday I was able to get all the strips sew together. After I laid them out on the board, to make sure I had enough to cover it, I then had to decide if I wanted a stripped one (cause it was darling looking with stripes!) or whether or not I wanted to continue with the more true to quilt look by cutting squares and making it look more quilt like.... ah decisions, decisions! Well, I decided I liked it with the stripes and it would surely be a much easier way to make it but I decided I would regret not going further if I just stopped with the way it is. So, I am going to continue making it more quilt like. I can't wait till its finished but am glad I've decided to put that little bit extra in it...it's kinda like well it tastes good with a pinch of salt but would taste even better with a dash of garlic! :)

Here's what it looks like (and would have looked like if I kept the stripes) all laid out:

Truly Blessed

I am so truly blessed to have such good and true friends in this life - God is so good to me....

Lenten Reading

Here are a couple of good books to read for Lent. The St. Francis de Sales on has a reading for each Sunday and Thursday of Lent (and one for Ash Wednesday). The Saints & Sinners of Calvary one, I've read every year for as long as I can remember, is a good one to suppliment it with on the other days of the week. The Saints and sinners one is more of an easy read - story like - book telling of the lives of those who had a prominent part in the time of Our Lord's Passion. It's definitely worth reading! The book on sermons is good, more lengthy and in depth but takes simple subjects like, fasting, temptation, faith, etc. and gives examples of how to better them, get rid of them, and gain from them in simple - weak human ways. "In these sermons the Christian attitude toward life comes into clear focus on every page. All who follow the wise and holy counsels of St. Francis de Sales as presented here will indeed be on the true path of holiness and salvation, measuring all things in terms of eternity and advancing steadily toward Heaven, our only real home..." (taken from the back of the book)

Sewing Project: Cute lil Bags

The other afternoon I went through some of my scraps of material and decided to make a couple little girl bags. I wasn initially thinking the would make a good missal/prayer book bag for little girls to take to church with them, but really they could be used as any type of bag. I just think they are darling! They only took me a half hour each as well... so, scraps and half hour of time?! Not bad, if you ask me!

I like how the handles turned out with the quilted look to them. Adds a little something extra. Plus, polka dots are always fun!
I am making myself a bag, bigger than the small ones. I have the bag part finished but I have not finished or sewn on the handle part yet. I love the fabric I used! It will be a bag I can keep in my car so when I go grocery shopping we don't have to buy the stupid brown paper bags everytime...we NEVER remember to bring any back with us so we always have to buy more with each grocery visit...kinda a pain. So, I thought that if I had a bag designated for groceries I would remember more easily than a paper bag... not sure if it will work or not but its definietly a bag I will want to have around! Otherwise, I'll use it for any purpose really, as I LOVE neat bags! Here's a clip of the fabric I used for the bag.

The green - paisley is the body of the bag and the brown is the fabric I used for the bottom and the sides. Can't wait till it's finished!

I have also begun to sew some of the pieces for the iron board cover. That project is taking a little more time than just an afternoon because of the quilting aspect. However, I am sure it will be worth it in the end... even though I was having second thoughts about it, ONLY, because I was like, man these fabrics and patterns would make an awesome quilt! But, I planned for it to be used for the iron board cover so I am going to stick with it. Anway, thats an update on Sewing Project: Quited Iron Board Cover.

Until next time... Ciao!

Pasta Anyone?

On Friday afternoon Dom came home a little early and we made spaghetti and fettucini with our new pasta maker attachment for our kitchen aide! We had some pre dinner drinks as well. :)

Here is my darling husband, looking so adorable - and being a good sport for letting me take pictures, who mixed the dough together.

There are lots of variations of pasta, which I am SURE you all know, so we added rosemary, basil and red wine for our pasta. Here I am holding the first sheet we made.

Ahhhh, we have spaghetti!! I was so estactic when I saw it come out of the roller!

Here's Dom making the fettucini!

Doesn't it look so pretty?!

All cooked!
Yum! We had homemade spaghetti and homemade fettucini alfredo with a homemade cheese bread that Dom made the day before! It was delicious!

We had a lot of fun making a delicious Friday meal together - it took less time to make it from mixing the dough to cooked pasta then it would have taken to boil a pot of water and cook boxed pasta! It was very easy and simple and we both definitely like the idea of making our own pastas more often. Besides, we can make it according to what we want - like spinach pasta...i can't wait to try that one. Our fettucini we decided was a little on the thicker side and we will take it down a notch next time but the spaghetti was perfect! Hope you get to try it someday, if you haven't already!

My First Quilting Project: BABY QUILT

A long time ago, my mother gave me a quilter's kit, which had a rotary cutter, pins, a measure board, etc. I got it for my birthday one year and I was very excited to get it but have never had the chance or opportunity to open it and use it till now.

I decided, (Shhhh to those who know them! I haven't given it to them yet...) I wanted to make my brother and sister a baby quilt for their first baby they are expecting next month! I wanted to give them something special and I remember having a couple handmade blankets (which is terribly sad but no idea where they ever wound up....) made for me when I was born/little... one was a croceted blanket with white and pinks and yellows with tassels on the end and the other was a delicate blanket with blues, yellows, pinks and green in it. Anyway, I decided it would be my first quilting project. I have been wanting to make a quilt for many a year and after seeing the quilted iron cover and deciding it couldn't be that hard to do... I finally took a deep breathe and faced the fear of a complicated quilting project!

Here are some pics and steps of the quilt I made!

I got everything all together (yes, I used the kitchen floor - no worries I cleaned it that afternoon!)

Then I cut out all the fabric pieces to thier appropriate sizes

I sewed the four pieces to frame out the center piece

Then sewed all the side squares together and layed them out

*smiles* It's starting to look like a quilt!

Then pinned, pressed and sewed the sides together! Look below, almost done!

Yay! The top part is done!

Now time to lay out and prepare the top to be attached to the backing

Here it is! All finished!

It was a lot of fun to make and very easy! I got a beginner's quilt project as I have never made one before and thought it would be easy to start with something that had simple steps. I would definitely make another without buying the kit next time. It was not too time consuming either. One night, about 2 hours I spent reading through directions and cutting up the fabric pieces (prob normally wouldn't take that long but I was taking my merry ole time) and then I spent about 2-3 hours another afternoon sewing and pressing and putting it all together. So, if you're interested and fear it will take forever - it's definietly something it seems like you could do a little here and there and it not be a big deal at all and the overall time to be spent is merely a couple hours.

I am really excited to do another quilting project.... if you remember one of my lasts posts about the ugly ironing board cover... yup! I have already begun to gather scraps for it! I can't wait to start it and share it with you! Until then.... Ciao!

An Early Valentine Treat

On Friday, the hubby brought home a cute lil bag and said I could pick one thing out of it. Amoung the other things in it was this D.e.L.i.C.i.O.u.S. Sweet Potato Butter.... mmmmm it was so good, seriously I could have eaten it by the spoonful!

Up Coming Project: Darling Iron Board Cover

Do you have an ugly ironing board cover?! I do.... and have been thinking about making one for the last few weeks. Well I stumbled upon a new cool site that has just how to make one! Isn't it darling? I love it... I am going to attempt to make one after the next visit to the fabric store! I will let you know how it turns out!

Beef Stuffed Ravioli - What a Wednesday!

This morning as I pondered what I wanted to accomplish today, I thought of what to make for dinner. I decided I wanted to make some Ravioli's! I looked up some recipes and read through how they are made and how time consuming they were etc.... I thought about it and was like, it can't be any harder (and or very similar) than making pierogi's! So, I went to about my day then this afternoon I got to start preparing dinner!

First I took the flour and made a well:

Then I mixed the eggs, water and oil together:

And added them to the well in the flour:
After I mixed it up I laid it out on a floured surface to hand knead a little:

Then I cut it up into eight pieces (the recipe called to cut it in quarters but since I don't have a pasta press I did it in eighths to see if it would make it easier for rolling out the ole fashioned way with a wooden rolling pin). I then let it rest while I prepared the filling:

I browned the ground meat in a frying pan and added some minced garlic and chopped onions as well as some grated parm & romano, colby jack and pepper jack cheeses. I put it all in a bowl and then added an egg and mixed it all up. Then into the refridgerater it went to chill:

Then I came back to the dough to roll out the pieces into long, rectangular shaped pieces... I did not make perfect square shapes - I was more just whatever...

I did two pieces at a time, one bottom & one top piece. I maked the bottom so I would know where to put the filling:

Then added the filling and prepared to add the top piece of dough:

I then pinched the tops to the bottoms and cut around the ravioli's - aren't they so cute:

Here's most of the finished and resting (the recipe said to lay them on a floured cloth to dry out a bit... I just kept turning them on the pan):

All done cleaning up! Shwew! That wasn't so bad! Only took a total of less than two hours from start to finish!

MMMMmmmm yummy, homemade beef stuffed ravioli with sauce and a piece of garlic bread! Yum, YUm, YUM!

Limited Time Only!

Isn't it so sad that the soda companies give us "limited time only" bottles of soda made with REAL sugar, instead of the high fructuse corn syrup? Isn't that so sad? I LOVE the kind made with REAL sugar - so, so, so yummy! Yesterday I was in the Pharmacy and saw it so I grabbed a bottle and mmm it was yummy! Just crazy though huh? Can't the give us the REAL sugar all the time? I mean they have already put extra taxes on soda because people are too obease - why not cut the crap and give us the real sugar instead of the artificial junk! I mean soda isn't the best for you in general, really but why not make it better instead of just taxing extra for the junk its made with!?

LIVE, LAUGH, LOVE

WHAT YOU THINK OF MY ARTISTIC CREATION?

The Teacher

"The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires."

(William Arthur Ward)

Do you or did you ever have a great teacher who has or does inspire you?

Who Wants to Make Pierogies?!?

I DO! So, I am! I have been thinking about coming home all morning and making them. So far I have the dough made and chilling and am preping the filling... yes, I am blogging and making pierogies! I am sooo excited to make them and hope that they turn out right and taste good! I want to be able to find a good recipe and make some in bulk so I can freeze some (I do that when I make meatballs as well and pizza dough). It makes life easier every now and then...and easier for nights you don't feel like doing (or have the time) all the prep thats involved in some meals but makes it better than just store bought frozen food (which I dis-like, most of the time). So, this is the story of my day - making pierogies and going to share the process with you! A lot of people I have talked to say its so hard or not necessarily hard but time consuming to make them and I want to see where the time consuming part comes in... I hope to find that it isn't hard or time consuming... Also, (I have a lot of hopes today! :) hehe I am just a hopeful person I guess!) I hope to maybe incorporate it into a tradition for my family to have the pierogies on Christmas Eve and the Eve of Easter. We didn't do it this year but I did think of it - actually, we DID have pierogi's on Christmas Eve - that were homemade by a friend of ours. I forgot about that...anyway, but I didn't make them - which isn't a big deal either way but... Regardless, I have Easter to look forward to making them and hopefully I will find that this recipe that I am using now will be a winner!

The Process:

In a mixing bowl, or mixer (which is what I used), take 2 cups of flour and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Beat one large egg and add to the flour mixture. Add 1/2 cup sour cream and 1/4 cup butter (which has been cut up into small pieces). Mix ingredients together making sure not to mix too much (not sure what too much is...but thats what the original recipe said).

(the beaten egg, sour cream and chopped butter)

Just mix until the ingredients are incorporated - dough will still have a slight stickieness to it. Wrap in plastic wrap and refridgerate for 30 minutes (Or overnight and can be stored up to 2 days). While the dough is chilling you can prepare the filling. You need 5 potatoes peeled, boiled and mashed. I had a container of leftover mashed potatoes (about 3 cups) which I am using. I love finding new ways to use leftovers besides just re-heating (how boring is that! lol).

(Me :) wanted to make an appearance while cooking up some onions!)

Sautee up some onions (I took about 1/4 of a large onion) in some butter. Add to the potatoes with a pinch of salt (to taste), a dash of pepper (to your liking), and any other ingredients you would like to be creative with. You could add some bacon bits and chives. I was considering using some hamburger meat to hearty up the pierogies but decided against it - just because. Oh and don't forget the cheese! I added four different cheeses, just because we had some bits here and there and thought it would add a nice flavor to the traditional cheese flavor.

There's Cabot's Tuscan Cheese (mmmm its soooo delicious!), a bit of orange cheddar (I believe its a sharp one), a smidge of a smoked cheese (thought it might add a very subtle flavor of smokieness), and there was a small handfull of a colby jack we had left lonely in a bag.

Add it all together and mix - I put it in the fridge while I rolled out the dough and got everything else ready.

NEXT:

Roll out the dough on a floured surface and use a cookie cutter or the bottom of a glass and make circle cut outs. It should be about 2 inches in diameter or so. It makes about 12-15 pierogie - I think I cut out 22. It varies depending on how thin your dough is, how far you stretch it, etc. Use your own judgement. (I actually rolled out the circles a little bigger after they were cut out. This helped a little since the circles were on the smaller side. I also found that I needed to rub a little water on the edge to keep it closed a little better. They sealed OK without doing this but MUCH better once I got them a little wet.)

All cut out!

Then add your filling, fold circle in half and use a fork to krimp the edges! OOOO LOook how pretty!!!

After you are finished making all the pierogies, boil a pot of water and drop the pierogies in. They should cook for about 6-10 minutes depending. You will know they are done once they float on top of the water. Take out, rinse with cold water (to prevent them sticking together), and let dry. Then fry up in some butter with some onions and serve with some yummy sour cream. Enjoy! I will share a picture once they had been fried... have to wait till dinner to fry them up, as I made them ahead of time. Hope you like the recipe and enjoy making it as much as I did!

UPDATE: Here they are plated with some veggies and some sour cream! YUM!!! They were DELICIOUS!