Make Something Daily

Happy Halloween!

2013-10-30T17:40:00.001-07:00

A Spooky Spiderweb For Halloween: Easy Halloween Yard Decorations

2013-10-22T12:05:00.004-07:00

For years my Halloween decorations consisted of a few carved pumpkins and the fall leaves I hadn't managed to rake out of the yard yet, but as the kids have gotten older they've goaded me into more and more decorations. Thus the pumpkins were joined by a skeleton, and a ghost, and a few ceramic pumpkins. This year we took our display up a notch, moving it from the front porch out into the yard with our giant spider web. This web is so easy to make - as long as you've got a tree or large bushes to use as an anchor it goes up quickly (and cheaply)!

Start by stringing the support/scaffolding lines of the web. I used regular old jute garden twine (I have a spool that I bought like 10 years ago and it's seriously never ending - I don't know what I have to do to use this stuff up). String up 5 support lines - 4 diagonal crossing lines and one vertical line that all meet in the middle. I secured the lines to branches of our big oak tree across the top, and to metal stakes (just big nails, really) stuck into the lawn on the bottom. If you don't have branches in quite the right spot you could string a line across the top to start with. Start with your outer diagonals, then the two inner diagonals, then use the vertical line to join them all together in the middle by wrapping it once or twice around the other lines where they meet.

Next, start your spiral. I started on the outside and worked my way in, but you could go the other way as well. Try not to make it so evenly spaced, that will make it look more natural. I pulled off a large piece of twine and started wrapping it through the support lines, giving it a turn or two at each line to hold it in place. Tie it off at the end and start another line (it was too unwieldy to pass the whole spool through the web, but if I'd had a smaller spool that would have been the easiest thing to do).

Finally, add a spider or two for that final creepy spooky touch (these were from our local pharmacy - nothing fancy but they look great on the web). Our house is ready for Halloween! Of course we only get about 5 trick-or-treaters a year, but we're ready for them all the same. Do you decorate for Halloween? What's your favorite decoration? And, full size or fun size?

International Food Bloggers Conference 2013: A Lighthearted Best Of List

2013-09-24T22:39:00.001-07:00

This past weekend I attended the IFBC (International Food Bloggers Conference) in Seattle, and while I'm still digesting (hah!) the things I learned there, I thought I'd post a personal "Best Of" list of my weekend at the conference. Stay tuned later this week for more posts about this inspiring event.

Best Thing I drank at IFBC: Sipping Caramel with Mescal from the good folks at Hot Cakes was unbelievable - so good!

Best Overall Event at IFBC: The Urbanspoon Secret Supper I had at Luc in Madison Valley was the highlight of the weekend - the company was fabulous, the food was exquisite and Chef Thierry Rautureau was an absolutely welcoming and charming host.

Best Quotable Quote of the Conference: "The quality of the wine is twenty percent where you're at, twenty percent who you're with, and the rest is the wine" - John Sarich, Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery Culinary Director.

Best New Beverage Discovery: Fever Tree Ginger Beer from Fever-tree Drinks.

Best Snack Food: The paper thin dried fruit from Simple & Crisp was beautiful and delicious; just begging to be set out on a platter with cheese and something sparkling at a party.

Best Piece of Swag That I Thought Were Earrings (But Were Actually Wineglass Charms): Adorably dangly chateau wineglass charms from Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery . In my defense, I didn't actually try to wear them and they are made with earring hoops.

Best Bit of Pre-Conference Advice: Keep a bunch of business cards tucked in behind your conference name-tag for quick access. The night before IFBC I met Heather from HeatherLikesFood.com at a reception and she gave me this tip which I implemented first thing Friday - Thanks Heather!

Best Aha/D'uh Realization: Everyone has a blog, and everyone likes talking about their blog, so asking someone to tell you about their blog is a no-fail conversation starter.

Disclosure: This post was written in part to take advantage of the IFBC discounted rate for bloggers - but all opinions are my own! For more information about the IFBC blogger program, check out the Registration page from this year's conference.

Watercolor Paintings with Black Glue Outlines

2013-09-04T09:00:00.000-07:00

Another one of our summer projects, inspired by a project from my daughter's school art program - watercolors with an outline of black glue. This gives the picture the appearance almost of stained glass, and keeps the colors from bleeding over the lines. I loved doing this project and the kids did too! It takes a bit of prep work, but it's worth it.

Start by preparing the glue. I used regular Elmer's school glue for this and it worked fine - probably any white glue would work. Pour all the glue out of the bottle into a disposable bowl and add black paint. I used a liquid craft paint, but I think powdered tempera paint would work much better to keep the glue's consistency. Once the glue is tinted black (it can look dark grey and will still dry black) carefully add it back to the bottle and put the lid back on.

Next sketch out the image you'll be painting on watercolor or other stiff art paper with a pencil. Try not to use too many lines - now is not the time for careful shading. You'll add shading and detail to your picture with the watercolor paint.

Once your picture is drawn in pencil, go over the lines with the black glue, using light pressure to avoid big clumps or blotches of glue. At this point you'll need to let the glue dry, and depending on how thick and dark the lines are it might need to dry overnight.

Now comes the fun part. When the glue outline is dry, use watercolor paints to finish the image. You can see it looks great with vibrant or muted colors.

Tilapia with Quinoa Mango Cucumber Salad

2013-09-02T08:30:00.000-07:00

This was a fun meal to make - my daughter helped me make the salad and the whole time she kept commenting on how beautiful the produce was, how delicious the cucumbers and mangoes were, and how I had to be sure to post this on my blog because it's such a yummy salad.

It's always so gratifying when anyone likes what you cook, isn't it? Especially when it's your child, who has emerged from the picky preschooler years into a much better eater. Of course my son is right in the midst of not eating anything that doesn't have a face (he's a total carnivore) so he turned his nose up at the salad. Someday he'll eat it though, I'm sure.

This was a total throw-together salad, so there aren't hard and fast measurements for it - here's how I made it. Cook 1/2 cup quinoa according to the package directions while you chop the other ingredients. Cut up a mango (I like to use a slightly underripe one so it's a bit firmer and not quite so sweet), an avocado and an english cucumber into cubes, and dice half a red onion. Juice two limes into a salad bowl, add some olive oil (a few glugs), a generous pinch of kosher salt and some grinds of black pepper and beat it all with a fork to combine it into a dressing. Add the veggies to the bowl, stir them around and let them marinate while the quinoa cooks. When the quinoa's done, add it to the veggies in the bowl, mix everything up and then chill it in the fridge until you're ready to eat.

I served the salad with a sauteed filet of tilapia, seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic and cumin - of course the kiddos eat that like candy so all in all a successful meal.

Wild Lime Iced Tea Cooler

2013-08-31T14:39:00.002-07:00

Aaahhh, the end of summer is here. We're enjoying this last official summer weekend, working in the yard, playing outside, riding bikes and grilling. The weather is beautiful - deep blue sky, no clouds, and yet not too hot to spend the day outside.There's something so bittersweet about Labor Day Weekend though. The kids are back to school next week and fall's around the corner but I'm not ready to say goodbye to summer yet.

Well, we can't stop time but we can make the most of the time we have, so we're outside as much as possible and eating all our summer favorites this weekend. We're also enjoying a great refreshing beverage I came up with earlier this summer - Wild Lime Iced Tea Cooler. It's perfect for a day in the garden and non-alcoholic so you can drink it all day long with no problem.

Start by making a batch of tea - I make sun tea using a bit less than a quart of water (you want to leave room for the lime soda) and about 5 teabags (whichever black tea you'd like to use - I use Lipton) in a pitcher set out in the sun on the patio for 20 minutes or so. Sun tea always reminds me of my mom and my childhood summers so I brew iced tea that way, you could of course brew it with hot water and then let it cool. Once the tea is brewed, add some ice, a cut-up lime, and a bottle of Dry Wild Lime Soda. I love this stuff - it's not too sweet and doesn't have anything artificial added. The soda sweetens the tea a bit and adds some carbonation too. This cooler is just great as is and is sweet enough for us, but you could add more sugar to taste, and it would happily pair with any number of spirits as well. Serve it over ice with a slice of lime as a garnish, and be prepared to drink a pitcher before you know it!

Cheers! Salud! Prost!

(Disclosure: Please know that if you make a purchase using a link on this page, I may earn a commission and I am very grateful for your support of this site. Thank you!)

Homemade Blackberry Lime Jam

2013-08-24T15:11:00.001-07:00

The other day I made blackberry jam from berries we picked at our secret spot. The flavor was delicious - the lime gave it just a hint of tartness - but I overcooked it so that when it set up it was way too stiff to spread well. We're still going to eat it, and it works fine on toast since the heat loosens it up a bit, but I'm thinking I might need to make jam thumbprint cookies or something similar to use it up so that I can have another go-round and get the jam to the right consistency.

I'm gearing up to do some water bath canning - maybe more jam, and I'm thinking the way my tomatoes are growing (or not growing) I've got some green tomato relish in my future as well. Are you canning anything this year as harvest time comes around?

Notecards Made From Natural Found Objects

2013-08-22T12:21:00.001-07:00

Ok, back in the saddle again. The summer's winding down, most of our crazy busy days are over, and its time to start back up with this blog - I've been having terrible writer's block, but I think the way over it is just to jump in and post something, so here goes!

We've done a few really fun crafts this summer, using new ideas courtesy of friends and school, and this one (the notecards above) was great fun and simple too. You start by going outside and collecting anything that looks interesting (the flatter it is the better - think leaves, flower petals, pine needles). The kids love this part - its like a treasure hunt for them. Give each kid a bag for collecting and see what they bring back.

Next, prepare the notecards by folding a sheet of paper in half (heavier weight construction paper or card stock) and affixing rows of double sided tape to the front. You'll get a different effect depending on whether your rows of tape are touching each other or have some separation.

Now comes the fun part - stick your found materials onto the tape in whatever pattern or arrangement you'd like. Once you've done that put a piece of parchment or waxed paper over the card and roll over it several times with a rolling pin to press the materials into the tape firmly.

Finally, to finish the cards take them to your nearby beach (or sandbox) and cover them with sand. The sand will stick to the exposed pieces of tape and not to the natural materials or the card, and you'll be left with a lovely sandy background. If you'd like the cards to be more durable, spray them with an acrylic topcoat to seal everything down, and if you'd like them to be really durable, skip the tape and use a more powerful adhesive. However, if you do that make sure your sand is nearby so that it doesn't dry before you get the sand stuck on. With our crew of 4 little ones, the tape worked easily and we were able to troop down to the beach to put the sand on with no problems.

Wordless Wednesday: Manzanita Edition

2013-07-24T02:00:00.000-07:00

I'll Be Back . . .

2013-07-14T00:10:00.000-07:00

Just popping by to say I haven't abandoned this blog - I'm just immersed in family and summer fun. Think of it as a summertime hiatus. I'll be back soon with more posts and a recharged battery. I hope your summer is as fun as ours - check back later for updates!

Happy Independence Day!

2013-07-04T00:00:00.000-07:00

Ah, the Fourth of July - time to go to a parade, grill a hotdog and watch some fireworks (or light some off, depending). It's a fun day; it's summer's big holiday, after all. I love this holiday with all of it's red white and blue and down home Americana and patriotism.

But if you have time, take a few minutes today to think about what the day is really about - here's the first part of the Declaration of Independence (see the document and read the full transcript here):

". . .We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. . . . "

Powerful words that should hold meaning for us even today, 237 years after they were written.

Grilled Bananas with Vanilla Ice Cream

2013-07-02T16:05:00.001-07:00

O.M.G. was this a good dessert! Whenever I cook food on the grill I end up looking for other things to grill after the main meal is done (I just hate to waste those hot coals). Guess what? Grilled bananas are So. Good. Then, if you add vanilla ice cream on top (I'm partial to Tillamook Ice Cream's Old Fashioned Vanilla - and I just checked out their page to see they have a new flavor - Fireside S'mores! What?! I need this right now) and top that with a drizzle of caramel sauce it's really heavenly. We're grilling again tonight and I think I might try to perfect this. . .

I've been slacking off on this blog lately - it turns out that kids out of school plus gorgeous beautiful Seattle summer weather means not a lot of time or energy for blogging. If I've gotta choose between playing with kiddos or writing blog posts I'm gonna go for playing with the kids (usually, unless they're driving me absolutely batty in which case all bets are off). I'm still around and I'll keep posting, but it'll probably be more sporadic for now. If you'd like to keep up with me and not miss my occasional posts you can follow the blog via email or any number of social media platforms - see the signups in the header (social media) or in the right sidebar (email).

How I Organized My Kid's Artwork Using Homemade Books

2013-06-25T10:45:00.002-07:00

My daughter loves to make art. I'm pretty confident that not a day has gone by since the first time she picked up a crayon that she hasn't drawn, colored or painted something. She also has a bit of a tendency to want to save every little drawing, which means we end up with piles and piles (reams) of paper around the house. What we've done since preschool is to save everything in boxes or bins for the year and then sort through it at the end of the school year, which makes it a bit easier to deal with but still leaves us with the dilemma of what to do with the artwork that makes it into the 'save' pile. Plus, having a whole bin worth of space means she's tempted to put most everything into that save pile, whereas knowing we were making a book helped her to recycle some of the less important pieces.

This year I made homemade books out of the assorted drawings and paintings from the year. It was a very quick and easy project - it took much longer to round up the paper and sort through it than it did to bind the books. To make it even easier on myself I only used art that was standard letter-sized (or a bit larger for the covers) so that I didn't have to trim it to fit, but you could make larger books if you had a lot of bigger paper, or crop it down.

I gathered up a stack of artwork, squared it all up so it was in a neat pile and stapled it once in the middle of the left side, very near the edge of the paper (I did this to keep the sheets together while I lined up the covers). Then I added a front and back cover and stapled it at the top and bottom and near the middle again. For some of the books I used her art for the covers and for some I used construction paper. I finished the books with a strip of washi tape covering the staples as a binding.

Now, I know some people like to scan their kids' art and make photo books out of it, and I think that's a cool idea but we would have volumes of photo books of art by now, and that's not practical for our family. Plus, this way allows my daughter to curate her own art so that she can keep as much of it as she wants, and as she grows we can even re-evaluate it to keep a smaller sample in a new book. We're both pleased with the way these turned out and I'm glad to finally have a system in place to corral all the paper!

I'm sharing this post at some of these great link parties - check 'em out!

Fabric Bags for a Moving Up Ceremony

2013-06-19T21:14:00.002-07:00

My daughter's teacher is kind of amazing. I'm so grateful that we had her this year! She started the year under difficult circumstances (long-term sub) and has done a really stellar job with the class. The year's finally wrapping up this week, and as part of the class moving up ceremony she's giving out these fabric bags, filled with some sort of surprise. My project was to write each child's name on the bags and then they were able to decorate them in school today. I was a bit dismayed to find out I had to use puffy fabric paint for the names, since puffy paint is really not my craft forte. I was also bummed to see that I only had two spare bags in case of mess-ups, but luckily I didn't need to use them. I can't wait to see how the kids decorated their bags, and what's inside them!

Happy Monday!

2013-06-17T11:20:00.001-07:00

Of course after I took this picture I added five more things to the list.

Happy Monday y'all! I've got a busy week ahead so I sat down this morning to write out a to-do list (no fancy printable to-do list for me - its the back of a junk-mail envelope because c'mon) and it's long. Holy cow is it long. It's the last week of school which means there's end of the year things to do, and beginning of summer things to do, and we're heading right into the midst of birthday party season so that means gifts to buy . . . plus the usual household chores. I think I might have felt better before it was all written down.

How I Used Extra Bamboo to Make A Decorative Bamboo Ladder for a Plant Trellis {Tutorial}

2013-06-13T16:13:00.002-07:00

I planted a bougainvillaea last week in one of our patio planter boxes, and it needed something to climb and wind around. I also wanted something in that area that would help replace the look of the fig tree and fill up some of the vertical space and big expanse of the shed wall. The space behind the plant is quite small so it requires a narrow trellis or ladder and since I'd generally rather make something than buy it I decided a homemade rustic ladder would look nice.

As I've mentioned before we have a grove of black bamboo in our backyard that benefits from an occasional thinning. That means I've got quite a stack of long bamboo canes laying around ready to be used (I've got to thin it again so if anyone in the area wants bamboo for a project or for staking things in the garden, let me know). I found two thick long canes to use as the legs of the ladder, and laid them out on the ground. I just eyeballed the length and the spacing - since I was going for a rustic look I wasn't concerned about it being perfect.

Next I took another cane of bamboo and laid it across the legs for the first rung. I marked where the cut should be and then sawed off the length with a pruning saw.

I put a bead of wood glue under each end of the rung on the ladder legs, and then tied the rung tightly with garden twine.

I continued up the ladder, spacing the rungs more or less evenly and gluing and tying them as I went. When I was done I put a bit of glue over each knot to help hold it in place, and when the glue was dry I trimmed the ends of the twine close to the knots.

Once everything was dry and the ladder was in place against the wall I added more glue to each joint for extra strength. This ladder wasn't designed to hold up anything more than the branches of a plant, so it doesn't need to be all that secure - I just want to keep it together if the twine starts to decay in a year or two.

I can imagine doing this again for other areas of the house - how about a skinnier ladder in the living room for a magazine rack?

I'm sharing this post at some of these great link parties - check 'em out!

Caramelized Onion and Mushroom Pizza with Trader Joe's Herb Pizza Crust

2013-06-11T11:19:00.000-07:00

You have to try this - herbed pizza dough topped with caramelized onions and sauteed mushrooms. Wow was it good, and so simple to put together too. I cooked the sliced yellow onions over medium heat in a cast iron skillet until they were soft, sweet and deeply browned. Meanwhile I sauteed the sliced mushrooms (I used shittake and crimini mushrooms) in olive oil until they were soft and browned as well. The dough I used was Trader Joe's refrigerated herb pizza dough - I rolled it out into a rough rectangle shape and spread a very thin layer of greek yogurt on top to give a little tartness to the pie - then topped it with the onions and mushrooms and baked it for about 12 minutes at 450 degrees. So so good!

We ate the pizza alongside steamed artichokes and it seemed like such an elegant meal for very little actually cooking. As for the kid report: One loves artichokes but had to be coaxed to try the pizza while the other ate up the pizza and had to be coaxed to try the artichoke (which he said was a monster). They ended up eating and enjoying both things by the end of dinner, so another successful meal at our house.

I'm sharing this post at some of these great link parties - check 'em out!

Needing to Find Some Motivation

2013-06-09T22:16:00.002-07:00

Do you ever just feel lazy and unmotivated? Man do I have a case of the lazies lately. It's not that I can't think of anything to do, it's that I can't bring myself to do anything. I've been crazy busy with the end of school for the kids so I think that has something to do with it - sometimes when I've got down time I just want to zone out in front of the TV or with a good book (speaking of good books, I read a great one recently: The Favored Daughter by Fawzi Koofi. This woman is amazing - she's had an incredibly hard life in Afghanistan. Now she's the speaker of parliament there and running for president in 2014. Reading this book certainly put my little problems into perspective). (Disclosure: The book link above is an affiliate link and if you happen to make a purchase through it I'll receive a small percentage - at no cost to you!)

I'm trying to think of ways to jump start my creativity again. I'm going to put together summer journals for my kids that combine road trip journals with field journals, so I did a small watercolor map of our beach trip this summer. I scanned it and I'll print one out for each journal and paste it in.

OK, the map is not quite to scale, obviously.

I did also manage to put together the flower arrangement at the top of this post, and isn't it so happy-looking? It makes me smile just looking at it. Otherwise I've been puttering around the house but not doing anything much of consequence.

Do you have any advice to get unstuck and get busy?

Easy Apple Blueberry Crisp

2013-06-06T22:32:00.004-07:00

I ended up with an excess of apples in the house the other day and made Apple Blueberry Crisps to use some of them up. I mixed up apples, blueberries and vanilla and topped it off with an oatmeal crumble. So good! Ok, here's the deal: Fruit crisps/cobblers are so easy to make it's almost criminal. You don't even need a recipe - seriously. Here's how it goes:

Choose which fruit to use. Firmer fruits work better, so think apples, pears, peaches, plums. Berries are delicious in crisps too, but add some firm fruits as well for better texture. Cut your fruit into bite sized pieces - you need enough to fill whatever container you're using to bake the crisps. You could use a pie plate, a cake pan, a baking dish or individual ramekins. Add some flavoring; think cinnamon, vanilla or almond extract, bourbon, rum or other liqueurs. Sweeten the fruit with sugar or honey, not too much, about 1/4 cup and adjust it for how sweet the fruit is naturally. Add a spoonful of cornstarch, mix it all up and pour the fruit and juices into your baking dish.

For the topping mix up some uncooked oats, a bit of flour, some brown sugar, a pinch of salt and a few chunks of butter. Crumble the butter into the other ingredients until its into little pieces and evenly combined, then dump the whole mix on top of the fruit in the baking dish and bake it at 350 degrees until the fruit is soft and bubbly and the topping is browned.

That's it! No measuring, no fuss, just a yummy fruit dessert.

I'm sharing this post at some of these great link parties - check 'em out!

Tomato Plants are in the Ground!

2013-06-05T11:08:00.002-07:00

Well I finally got my tomato plants in the ground - it's probably super late for most of the country but just fine for the northwest. I actually plant them in planters because the least shady spot in our yard is up against the side of the house so they sit on a gravel strip with a nice southern exposure. I planted a roma, a supersweet 100 cherry tomato, and 'champion' which seems like a slicing tomato. I also put in a few jalapeno peppers and pot of sugar snap peas.

The big project of the day was pulling the fig tree out of the planter box next to our patio - we always loved to eat the figs at the end of summer until last year, when we happened to notice the rats enjoying the figs too. That pretty much ended our enjoyment of the figs, so the tree had to go. There happen to be a lot of other plants in that planter I wanted to save, so I had to dig and cut out the fig just around the bottom of the trunk and then pull out as many roots as I could. I had to cut through a few of the roots with a pruning saw they were so thick. Look at this thing!

I planted a bougainvillaea in the fig's spot, which will look nice against the shed wall and will complement the Mediterranean herbs that are growing there now (rosemary, lavender, marjoram and sage). It normally won't overwinter here, but I've got it in a little microclimate so I'm hopeful. I still need to fashion some sort of lattice or ladder it to climb.

I also had a fuchsia to pot up so I planted it in an old watering can that belonged to my grandfather. I think it'll look really great once the fuchsia starts to flower and droop over a bit.

Finally, here's a peony that's just bloomed - beautiful isn't it?

I hope you're all enjoying your June gardens! What's blooming in your yard?

Peppers and Onions with a Plancha on a Grill

2013-06-02T21:36:00.001-07:00

Yum, we had pork loin chops on the grill tonight and I cooked up a batch of peppers and onions to go with them. I read in a magazine recently (Sunset maybe?) about cooking steaks on a plancha on a grill (a plancha is a heavy cast iron griddle) and as I was getting the coals ready I remembered we had a plancha stuck in a cupboard somewhere around here so I pulled it out and dusted it off.

Peppers, onions pork and the plancha - before and after

It's so nice to cook outside and if I can cook more of the meal outside it's even better. I let the plancha heat up over the coals, put a bit of oil on it and then dumped a whole pile of peppers and onions on top. They didn't need any precise cooking time - just an occasional stir as the chops cooked and by the end they were soft and caramalized and smokey and delicious. Alongside the grilled pork and a scoop of white rice they were excellent. I'm already dreaming up what else I'll cook on the plancha this spring and summer.

I'm sharing this post at some of these great link parties - check 'em out!

Cook the Collection #7: The Art of Simple Food

2013-05-31T08:00:00.000-07:00

(Disclosure: The cookbook links below are affiliate links and if you happen to make a purchase through them I'll receive a small percentage of your purchase - and of course would be so grateful!)

I've been craving potato leek soup for a few weeks now, and thought I'd better get to it while the weather's still cold and dreary and calling for warm soups (such is the end of May in the Pacific Northwest). When I went to the bookshelf to find a good recipe I knew just which book I hoped would have one: The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters. Hooray - happily there was a potato leek soup recipe and I was good to go. Its such an easy soup with just a few ingredients but with great flavor, and the family loved it and ate it all up.

All of the recipes in this book really highlight individual ingredients and let the flavors of each shine through. This is a book that encourages the reader to not just cook but to be a cook, by offering lots of potential variations on recipes and by honoring the cook's intuition and skill. For example in the potato leek soup recipe one of the handful of ingredients is salt, but there is no amount listed. Its up to the cook to add the amount of salt that they feel the recipe needs. This book is a great read and also great to cook from - a winning cookbook combination!

I'm sharing this post at some of these great link parties - check 'em out!

Turn Old Jeans into Jean Shorts

2013-05-29T08:00:00.000-07:00

I had a pair of jeans that had seen better days, and recently one of the knees gave out. My kids were a little too obsessed about how I ripped my pants and made a deal about it every time I wore them, so I figured the time was right to transform them into something new.

Ok, I don't want to insult anyone's intelligence by offering a tutorial about how to make jean shorts from old jeans. I mean, step 1) cut the legs off the jeans above the knees. There, done! Although not quite done - think of this as the midway point since I want to do something else to the shorts. I can't decide if they need to be more distressed, or have some patches or something. I'm going to have to mull it over some more.

Cook the Collection #6: The Bread Bible

2013-05-26T21:39:00.000-07:00

(Disclosure: The cookbook links below are affiliate links and if you happen to make a purchase through them I'll receive a small percentage of your purchase - and of course would be so grateful!)

I had the chance to hear Rose Levy Beranbaum speak years ago at a reading and book signing and she was just what you'd expect a baker to sound like: warm, witty, compassionate and helpful. She took questions well past the scheduled end of the talk and was thoughtful and thorough in her replies.

"The Bread Bible", her companion book to her popular book "The Cake Bible" is just like that - a serious book, just like you'd expect with 'bible' in the name, but thoughtful and warm as well. It's comprehensive and thorough, covering breads from quick breads and muffins, through flatbreads, sandwich breads and rolls to hearth breads, sourdoughs and brioches. All the recipes include three types of measurements: cups and spoons, metric and imperial weights. I like having the choice of how to measure because weighing the ingredients gives great results, but sometimes I'd rather be less fussy and just toss everything in.

So we made scones from this book and OMG they were the best scones ever! We usually just use the Fisher Fair Scone Mix which is quick and easy and makes pretty darn good scones, but these scones blew those scones right out of the water. These were amazingly good scones, like 'eat too many in one sitting' scones. These scones were so good they made me want to immediately bake from another recipe in the book. Of course I probably won't do that right away because I have so many more cookbooks to cook from (on that note - my lovely children got me a cookbook for my birthday ("Kids Parties!" - I think there was a bit of self-interest at work) so now my collection total stands at 153.

Look at this mint leaf - I think its prettier than the scones!

TV Tokens: Teach Your Kids to Limit Their TV Time On Their Own

2013-05-24T16:06:00.005-07:00

Sometimes I feel like I'm locked in a never-ending battle with the TV. My kids will whine and whine constantly to try and break me down and get me to let them watch another show. I try to limit their screen time to two hours a day (which seems like a ton) but man is that hard some days. Things around the house always seem to go more smoothly when the kids know their limits and the house rules, and we definitely need those when it comes to the screen (Netflix is my nemesis, seriously).

Last year I came up with TV tickets as a way to limit their viewing time and those worked reasonably well, but I got tired of printing out tickets (or writing out tickets) every day. Plus the tickets were using up a ton of printer toner so I needed to find a better way. I wanted to find something durable and permanent so that I could reuse them every day, but also so that I could customize them to cut down on the chance of forgery (my daughter became quite a dedicated forger when we used paper tickets).

I decided to use plastic poker chips: they're cheap, they come in a box of 100 so I had lots of spares for mess-ups or other projects and they'll be durable. Plus they come in three colors so I could color-code them for each child. In our system each chip is worth 30 minutes of T.V. ("one show") so each child gets two - if they each watch each others' shows it is two hours of screen time, but sometimes they don't do that for whatever reason and that cuts down on the T.V. time. I also made two bonus tokens - if they have an excellent day behavior-wise I have the option to give them a bonus 30 minute token but that's not a regular thing. Of course if your kids are less devious than mine or you toss out the rest of the box of poker chips then you really don't even need to label them - just assign each kid a color and you're good to go!

The tokens were super simple to make. I used PicMonkey to create images for the labels on each side of the chip. I started with a blank PicMonkey image, cropped it into a square and then used a circle overlay and stretched it to fit the size of the square. I then changed the background of the overlay for each separate chip color (green for the blue chips, purple for the red chips and blue for the white chips) and added text for each chip as well. I have a 3/4" craft punch, which happened to be just the right size to make the paper labels for the center of the chips (you could just freehand cut the circles with scissors).

1) Plastic poker chips, 2) Mod Podge, 3) your token images printed on paper, 4) craft punch or scissors. Not pictured: paint brush.

Now there is probably a better way to print the images out so that you can attach them to the chips, but this is how I did it: I opened a text document and inserted each image into it, then resized them to be a bit more than 3/4" in diameter, saved and printed it out. I punched out the images using the punch and then used Mod Podge to affix the circles to the poker chips.

Clockwise from top left: Put Mod Podge in the center of the poker chip; Add the paper image; Cover the image with more Mod Podge; Let dry.

The Mod Podge took about 20 minutes to dry and I only used one coat. The directions say you can seal it with acrylic sealer to keep it from feeling tacky but I didn't need to do that - they dried clear and glossy and smooth. So far we're back on track with the new system and it really works to cut down on the whining and begging since they know that when their tokens are gone they're done.

I'm sharing this post at some of these great link parties - check 'em out!