Make it Bake it Buy it Fake it

Kissing The Cook

2012-02-09T13:44:00.000-08:00

Hey good lookin', what'cha got cookin'? Making your own natural lip balms at home kind of blurs the line between cooking and crafting. Think about it: They're made with good-for-you edible ingredients like honey and olive oil, and they're cooked up right there in your own kitchen... only you don't eat them. Well actually, I've seen plenty of stats over the years about how much lipstick and

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Etc. Etc.

2012-01-31T16:30:00.000-08:00

Today was the last day of January. Is it too late to wish you a Happy New Year? Probably. But I will anyway. Here it is almost the middle of winter but as far as my blog is concerned, you might as well call it the dead of winter. No, my blog is not dead. But like much of the plant and animal kingdoms, it has been in a dormant state lately. You might even say... hibernating. Where,

Merry Christmas (I baked you a pie)

2011-12-21T16:00:00.000-08:00

There was no plan to take December off from blogging. It just sort of happened. With so much going on this month (and no posts stockpiled for the winter), something had to give as they say. Blogging was it. Even during a non-major holiday time of year I don't understand how other bloggers can keep the pace they do. It's enough to make my head spin. It's something that I occasionally

I Love Olive Oil Cakes

2011-11-30T08:17:00.000-08:00

I know I have written about olive oil cakes before. In fact, more than once, which is why I hesitated writing about them again. But I simply had to. How could I not, when I keep finding such great recipes for them? Like this one... Heidi Swanson's take on Kim Boyce's Rosemary Olive Oil Cake Click the link for the recipe on Heidi's blog or find it in Kim's (wonderful) book: Good To The Grain

Giving Thanks

2011-11-24T05:30:00.000-08:00

"Ah! on Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West, From North and from South, come the pilgrim and guest, When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board The old broken links of affection restored, When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more, And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before. What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye? What calls back the

Total Concentration

2011-11-12T09:30:00.000-08:00

We were blessed this summer/fall with an abundant crop of tomatoes. I am talking about major abbondanza. Some of the shrubs didn't do very well or produce much, but the ones that did... did so with sheer abandon. Not only did we have enough to stuff ourselves silly with, but we had enough to bless friends and neighbors with too. Such a great feeling. But all good things come to an end as they

Jack-Be-Useful

2011-11-04T14:44:00.000-07:00

What can you do with a jack-o-lantern that never fulfilled its Halloween destiny? That was what I pondered earlier this week. We bought two rather large orange beauties but then got too busy to carve them in time for Halloween. In the past, I would've just called them autumnal decor and enjoyed them as-is until they started to get squishy. Now I'm thinking what a silly wasteful girl I was.

Birthdays Give Me Cramps

2011-10-28T15:51:00.000-07:00

I had a birthday not too long ago. Do you ever get them? They seem to pop up more frequently than they used to. They are also much less welcome than they ever were. Well, the most recent birthday was looming large on my horizon as I chatted with a friend about a concert I'd been to oh-so-very-long ago. And far away. Well, after our chat, I went nostalgia-tripping and looked up the band

Frugal (Yet Manly) DIY Shower Soap

2011-10-21T22:45:00.000-07:00

As I switch over to homemade versions of store-bought versions of homemade household products (it does make sense, let it sink in a bit), I often have to practice a good deal of self-restraint. There are so many amazing ideas out there, and I want to try them all. Self-restraint. Must ask myself "Do we need it?"... or in this case, "Do we need it yet?". And speaking of amazing ideas... have

Delish Dish: Baked Oatmeal

2011-10-14T08:09:00.000-07:00

The truth... I made this fantastic baked oatmeal and photographed it a couple of months ago. We're talking July people. It was summer and though we had an unseasonably cool one, the rest of the country was sizzling hot. So, I thought I'd put off posting about it until the seasons changed and things started to cool off. The whole truth... right now, I don't feel like writing or cooking or

Herb Drying Made E-Z (Weather, Or Not)

2011-10-06T11:37:00.000-07:00

resh herbs never to to waste at my house. What doesn't get used right away, usually gets hung to dry so I can use them throughout the year. Sometimes there's too much humidity in the air though (or not enough patience). Other times, I'll just have a handful of herbs to dry, not really enough to tie into a bundle. That's when hang-drying may not be the best or fastest route. And that's when I

Lavender, Sage, Rosemary & Time

2011-10-04T16:07:00.000-07:00

Gardening was never my first love, I don't think it would even crack the top 20. In my dictionary, "garden" is a noun, not a verb. Nevertheless, I often find myself thinking about my dream-garden and what plants I would put in it.* Perhaps partly due to my aversion to actual hands-on gardening, my dream garden is what's known as a perennial garden. Plants tend to fall into one of two

The Early Bird Gets The Lemon Poppy-Seed Muffin

2011-09-29T14:30:00.000-07:00

When I think back on my years in college, I invariably start craving lemon poppy-seed muffins. They played a big part in refueling my academically exercised brain cells on an almost daily basis back then. Across from the art department was this little place that sold hot dogs and burgers, chips and sodas, candy bars, ice cream treats... and lemon poppy-seed muffins. They had other muffins

While You Were Steeping

2011-09-21T17:46:00.000-07:00

Ordering iced tea in a restaurant shouldn't be a complicated matter. But somehow it is. "Do you remember if we liked the iced tea here?", Hubs and I furtively whisper to each other as soon as we sit down. We love iced tea you see, and there's nothing worse than taking that first sip and finding something stale and old (or even worse, from a mix) at the other end of the straw. Rare is the

An Open Letter To My Summer Houseguests

2011-09-15T15:01:00.000-07:00

Dearest Friends (and family), Please accept my apology for not making this Spinach Strata from Super Natural Every Day for you while you were here visiting. I was remiss. It would have been the perfect thing to make for you and I dropped the ball. My only excuse is that I didn't know how easy and delicious it was at the time. But now I do. So when you return for another visit,

Soup Happens (and sometimes it doesn't)

2011-09-03T07:30:00.000-07:00

This has been the summer of food fails. Some of them I've written about, (the Farro Fiasco) and some I haven't... like the beautiful Plum Crisp, redolent of ripe summer days... yet tasting like bitter betrayal. Then there were the Blueberry-Lemon-Oat Scones that never could hold it together). I can attribute all these fails (and more) to what I like to refer to as "user error". Entirely my

Refreshingly Redundant: Watermelon Melon Water

2011-08-30T15:13:00.000-07:00

For the second year in a row, we have had an unseasonably cold summer. The fog creeps in each evening with its damp chilly mists, thickly blanketing the whole valley and daring the sun to burn it off the next day before noon. Elsewhere there are chart-busting heatwaves... but not here... not in Brigadoon. Because warm sunny days are so few and far between, when we are gifted with one,

My Freezer Is Trying To Tell Me Something

2011-08-26T07:43:00.000-07:00

Is it... Banana bread? Maybe muffins? Or a smoothie? Decisions, decisions... (Uh-oh... smoothies aren't baked... will I get in trouble for not following directions if I make one?)

Strawberry Pots Forever

2011-08-21T07:38:00.000-07:00

We grew strawberries this year for the first time and I am hooked. 100% loving it. Of all the new things we tried to grow this season, the strawberries are far and away my favorites. They are sweet like only perfectly ripe strawberries can be, and red, red, red all the way through. Not like those grocery store impostors with their superficial, only-skin-deep, thinnest-of-thin red veneers. No

Homemade Tortilla Chips with Faux Hummus

2011-08-12T14:18:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago my friend told me about an appetizer she'd had at a local restaurant... she told me it would be super simple to recreate at home and that it was, in fact, incredibly delicious. Then she proceeded to make it for me. (Yea!) This is what she did... she mixed some local lime-infused olive oil and good balsamic vinegar into plain store-bought hummus. And that was all there was to it

August Wish List and the Letter "S"...

2011-08-10T13:06:00.000-07:00

Sun... Not too much. Just enough warmth to remind me that it's summer, but not so much that it makes me long for it to be over. If not for me, then for all our gorgeous green tomatoes just waiting to turn vibrant vitamin-packed shades of red, orange, and burgundy. Sea... I want to go to the ocean. La Mer. I want to sit and stare at it, and listen to it, and breathe its air. Maybe I'll take a kite

All Dressed In Romano

2011-08-02T13:27:00.000-07:00

So, as you may know, I've been plinking around on a ukulele lately and have consequently discovered where all the olde-timey songs have gone... they're in ukulele instruction books. Gems such as Buffalo Gals, My Darlin' Clementine, and Polly Wolly Doodle... just to name but a few. Depressing doesn't fly on a ukuleleMany of the old songs are of the folksy "bad-dudes on their death-bed" genre,

Feeding Your Face

2011-07-28T22:25:00.001-07:00

What do you feed your face with? Do you think about what you put on your face as well as in it? About a year ago, I found the Crunchy Betty blog and I've been feeding my face (and hair) with things from the fridge, pantry, and farmer's market ever since. It turns out that healthy homemade skin care is also fun, frugal... and even a little addictive (in a good way). Who wouldn't like to smear

Blueberry Blues

2011-07-25T17:37:00.000-07:00

or... can my cuter computer keep on keepin' on? Let me explain a bit. I do still dig my groovy Blueberry iMac the most, but more and more my Fellow-Babies, it's getting to be like an LP in an MP3 world: you can still put a record on a turntable and listen to music, but it's usefulness is quaint and limited at best. The latest dust that I've been left behind in is when my e-mail client/program

Cocoa Kisses Melt In Your Mouth

2011-07-18T15:28:00.000-07:00

It's summer. I want chocolate. It's summer. I don't want to bake. It's hot out. And yet, I want cookies. And I want chocolate. The sun is beating down. And I still want chocolate. The thought of dense and creamy chocolate, however, runs contrary to light summer fare. Lately, my life seems to be nutty with contradictions and oozing with bad timing. Apparently my taste buds are no exception. Rich