Sweets, Shopping & Bread

An odd post today, a mix of what I’m doing and what’s on my mind. 

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This week I discovered Biscoff spread.  Have you ever heard of it?  When I first saw it in the supermarket, I thought it would be like peanut butter – a protein.  It’s not.  I don’t even know what to call it – dessert?  And I don’t think I’ve ever talked about a packaged food here before, but this is really freaking awesome.  Like cookie flavor in a frosting consistency.  It’s dangerous.  So, of course I have to share it.

Lots of cleaning and reorganizing at my house lately because from here on - Mr. Tamdoll will be working from home.  I’ve been emptying storage bins and cabinets and trying to make room for his office supplies and it’s been quite the discovery.  Which has led to much purging…. and a week-long listing on Ebay of the oddest collection of paper memorabilia, advertising and educational materials from the 1960’s and 70’s.

 

Collectors may cringe, but I’m thinking that if someone doesn’t value these for their historic factor, they’d make awesome materials for paper crafting, collages, mixed-media and altered art.

There is: pottery, magazines, NASA, General Electric, IBM, "Sardineland”, Peanuts characters, space and electric car promos, and some of my favorite text is about the emerging computers “Mighty New Servant To The Mind of Man”.

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And last but not least, I’ve tried a new bread recipe & it was GREAT!  I heard about Schrafft’s Cheese Bread from my MIL, and found the recipe online at Four Pounds Flour.  Made the recipe as described, but in place of boxed mac&cheese powder, I used King Arthur Flour’s Vermont Cheese Powder.


Next time I will add a strip of parchment paper to the bottom of the pan to prevent the bread from sticking when the cheese melted to the bottom.  Oh yes, there will be a next time.

3 comments baking, food

Sheep Shaped Cookies

Baked some delicious “sheep” cookies last week – recipe for "Royal Icing (sort of)" & Sugar Cookie can be found at {the decorated cookie}.  If you like your shaped cookies to stay the shape you cut them in, this is the Sugar Cookie recipe to use!

Much better looking than my attempt at “yarn” cookies a month ago.  Those can be seen at the CraftFail website, one of the funniest sites I’ve been privileged to contribute to.  The only one that makes me laugh harder is Cake Wrecks.   Do you have any favorite websites that make you laugh?

Update 8/2016: For the faces, I melted some chocolate and piped it through a pastry bag onto waxed paper, creating the heads/ears. After they cooled & hardened, I was able to peel them off and stick them to the cookies with a dab of Royal Icing, then added the eyeballs with a drop of Royal Icing. When that was all set, I used an edible marker to make the pupils. 

14 comments baking, food

A Cookie Recipe

I’ve been keeping busy helping out at the yarn shop and knitting.  Will have to get pictures and update everything at least at Ravelry (I’m ‘tamdoll’ there).

Had an adventure trying to create some themed cookies for opening day – you’ll find that post with pictures at CraftFail.  They might not have looked great, but they were delicious and here’s the recipe:

For the white icing, I used the King Arthur Flour Royal Icing recipe but instead of meringue powder, I used egg white powder.  For the colored cookies that I later made, I used canned frosting and dye.

Thanks to freeprintablesonline for the cute recipe card I always use.  It reminds me of when I was younger and had a typewriter.  Pretty sure there are some of those typed index cards in my recipe collection somewhere.

3 comments baking, food

EtsyBloggers Carnival – Fall

I’ve been so neglectful of the teams I’m on, jumping back into the swing of things with this fall carnival.  EtsyBloggers team members have answered 1 or more of these questions:

1) Do you have a favorite fall recipe? 

2) Have you been working on any new fall designs? 

You can read all their entries at EtsyBloggers Team: EtsyBlogger Carnival: Fall.   Randomcreative is hosting this month, stop by and see what everyone is writing about!

1) Here is a favorite fall recipe I’ve been making since 1999 without fail, delicious results each time (click for larger view): 

 

2) And here is a project I’ve been attempting… a little Halloween amigurumi cat.  I still need to finesse it, not thrilled with how he looks so far – but working on it:

 

I didn’t realize the week had passed so quickly!!! Lots of projects to photograph and get blogged about soon.

9 comments crochet, food, plush animals

EtsyBloggers Carnival – National Ice Cream Day

Here are the topics to choose from:
Topic 1:  The third Sunday in July is National Ice Cream Day? Are you celebrating it?
and Topic 2 which I didn’t even notice after reading that one.

Will be hosted by StoryBeader and appear at the EtsyBloggers site on 7/18/11.

I think every day is an Ice Cream day.  Today’s indulgence, brought out of the freezer for a quick photo:

Just ignore the [healthy] container of tomatoes and the [no-fat] pineapple in the background.

I haven’t tried it yet, but it sounded intriguing: Bonnaroo Buzz - Coffee & Malt Ice Creams with Whiskey Caramel Swirls and English Toffee Pieces.  You have to love the names of Ben & Jerry’s flavors, too.  Chubby Hubby used to be my pick, Late Night Snack is another recent fave: Vanilla Bean Ice Cream with a Salty Caramel Swirl & Fudge Covered Potato Chip Clusters. 

If I hadn’t read about Ben & Jerry’s just this morning, I might have resisted the pull when I passed the freezer section of the grocery store today….. Check out Crafty Richela’s Pint Challenge creation!

In case you know me… yes, I have a lactose intolerance.  I’ve given up most things that have dairy in them, but this is a treat I can’t give up entirely!!

Near my house is an ice cream stand that sells Blake’s Ice Cream.  I go there way, way too often, although lately I’ve been having a dairy-free sorbet… my all-time favorite flavor there is Graham Central Station - Graham cracker flavored ice cream with a graham cracker swirl & chocolate covered crisp candy.  It is so subtle and delicious.

What’s your favorite ice cream treat?  Most unusual flavor you’ve ever tried?

7 comments food

EtsyBlogger Carnival – Favorite Summer Recipe

Cool, refreshing, fruity – perfect.  There are NEVER any leftovers of this one:

My husband loves to bring this to parties.  I could be happy with fresh summer fruit, but this is really irresistible.  Enjoy the posts of all the Carnival entries, see them here!

Do you have a favorite summer recipe that you like to bring to parties?

6 comments food

Baking Bread, The Movie

Title sounds dramatic maybe?  It’s just a montage of photos and a short video of me from last week, kneading some bread.  And since Passover starts this evening, it’ll be at least 8 days before I’m doing this again, so I hope you enjoy the little film:

7 comments baking, food

Monday Morning Crafting and Baking

I’ve been brainstorming for the crown challenge – you’d think since I initiated this that I’d have some ideas ahead of time, right?  Well, at first I wanted to make a costume fabric crown.  Then I started thinking of making a crown pin/brooch.  But since I really like to make cuff bracelets, I thought I’d do a crown shape of that.  I haven’t really gotten very far with anything:

I gave up embroidering the crown onto felt when I couldn’t get my transfer pen to work on it, and stitched it on my sewing machine.  I’m not thrilled.  Then the cuff bracelet, cut out of paper, was too pointy and long, wouldn’t be very comfortable.  Maybe I’ll let this simmer another day and try again.

There’s already been a few entries here, including an embroidery pattern.  At the end of the month, I’ll be sure to show all the pictures of what people have submitted.  Join us!

Of course I’ve also been baking.  Last week I had a request for focaccia bread -

But I don’t think Ms. Peanut Butter & Fluff had thought too much about this one – the salt and garlic just didn’t go well with her usual lunch combo.  It was great with some homemade veggie burgers, though.

Next, there were a couple of loaves of sourdough bread that went fast, I’ll have to make more tonight:

And in the oven right now are some banana bread muffins from a recipe on CraftyRichela’s blog.  I usually don’t bake just for myself, it’s always something for the kids – but they aren’t crazy about bananas.  Actually, that’s an understatement.  My oldest actually has a severe aversion to them which I find very odd.  When she was little she ate them, but as she’s gotten older, can’t stand the smell of them at all.  She also developed a latex allergy and bananas are related somehow, so maybe it’s her body’s natural way of avoiding things that will make her itch.  Interesting, but I’m going way off on a tangent. 

A week or so ago I mentioned a hand-sewing project.. that was a big craft fail.  They were sock-bunnies and were really scary looking (picture will be online soon at craftfail.com).  So, next time I try that idea, they will be sock-monsters.

I’m hoping muffins and coffee help me focus on what I’ll do the rest of the day and that posts this week show some more productivity than today’s did.  What are you up to?

12 comments baking, challenge, creativity, food

Winter Baking

Earlier in the week I was putting together a blog post and had some pictures of snow: 

(Tried to capture the flakes as they fell.)

A picture of bread baked during the snowfall (naturally, half eaten before I got my camera out):

Didn’t get to post it.  Was home yesterday and took more pictures of snow:

Took pictures of more bread that I baked while 10 more inches of snow fell:

Do you see a pattern?

My family loves sourdough bread, so with all the baking I’ve been doing for them lately, I decided to get a sourdough starter from KAF.  It’s much healthier and more economical to supply the kids with bread this way (vs. buying commercial organic bread) – they eat quite a bit of it each week.  The second loaf pictured was a multi-grain bread.  I added whole wheat, flax, oats, wheat germ, sesame seeds and pumpkin seeds.  Maybe multi-grain isn’t the right word for it – but I added a bunch of stuff.

Sometimes I’m not sure how much of these photos, or baking pictures I should include here.  It’s a “crafty” blog for me; trying to capture snowflakes on film, and baking bread are creative, so I think they fit. 

Next time I’m stuck indoors I have to finish knitting the new scarf I’m working on.  What do you like to do when you’re stuck inside?

3 comments baking, food

EtsyBloggers Carnival – February is American Heart Month

This EtsyBloggers Carnival is hosted by Lois  at http://foxygknits.com. 

February is Heart Health Month*. What is your best heart healthy recipe?  What do you do to stay heart healthy?  How do you promote heart health?

I think I missed the deadline for this carnival, so going to do a quick post.  A recipe!

Roasted vegetables:  Wash and dry veggies, cut into bite-sized pieces.  Toss with salt, pepper and a dash of olive oil.  Roast at 425°F until brown, 20-25 minutes.  Some of my family’s favorites: cauliflower, celery, onion, red peppers, green beans (beans look kinda gross after they’ve gotten brown and shriveled, but taste really great).  I like squash, yams and potatoes roasted, too.  Then there’s eggplant, cherry tomatoes… I think I’ve roasted every vegetable that’s ever been in my kitchen.  It’s surprising how sweet everything tastes after it’s been in the oven – sometimes it’s hard to get these to the table if everyone starts snacking on them before the meal is served!

What’s your favorite way to serve (heart healthy!) vegetables?

* February is American Heart Month

6 comments food

EtsyBloggers Carnival – Recipe for a Sweet Treat

 

Today’s Blog Carnival is being hosted by: Spotted Cow Soaps.

“Share your favorite Holiday recipe and tell us why it has become your favorite Holiday recipe.”

My favorite recipes are ones I can share or gift!  The recipe I make every year and that I’m most frequently asked the recipe for is one I often gift to teachers and friends – Frosted Walnuts; followed closely by requests for Rolo Pretzel Treats.   Here it is:

It’s nice packing these in a tin and giving the whole bunch to someone special, too.  Why is it my favorite?  Because it’s easy, so good and makes people smile.

Enjoy!

3 comments food, gifts

Blogging, Knitting

According to [some people on the internet that make up all sorts of rules] good bloggers have consistent posting to keep their readers engaged and coming back for more.  I read so many blogs in my feedreader that if someone isn’t posting regularly, I hardly notice – there’s always 100 or more posts to keep up with.  I usually email subscribe to the most inspiring and check my reader a few times a week.

Personally, I keep ideas in LiveWriter, plan ahead and pre-write some posts – have tons of pictures not yet uploaded here or at flickr… and still I can’t always get my act together.  Hopefully, you’ve subscribed to my updates and are getting these automatically so you know when I’m back online (see upper left-hand column for a subscription box). 

Hmm.. So, what have I been doing?  Keeping up with two teenage daughters.   Baking lots of bread because I can’t justify shelling out $4+/loaf when half of them have additives I’m either allergic to or simply can’t pronounce.  Knitting.  Sewing.  Thinking about baking some holiday treats to give as gifts – check out these two - Saucisson au Chocolat et aux Figues and Ale & Pretzel Soft Caramels.  Last year's caramels were a huge success so I’m ready to try it again.

Been knitting up some fingerless mittens in my spare time – when I’m in waiting rooms, helping with homework, etc…  They’re really mindless to do.

These were a gift and I wasn’t sure the recipient would know what they were without the thumb, so I cut out the back of the box of crackers to make holders for these.  Added “Fingerless Mittens” to the cardboard later on, too.

Pretty simple pattern, just k2,p2 in the round, on dpns for as long as I wanted them to be.  Then for the thumb hole, I stopped at one needle, turned to the wrong side and k2,p2 for 7 or 8 rows until I had it as large as necessary.  Once that was done, I just continued round, joining again, until the top (about another 6 rows). 

How are you handling this holiday season?  Have any “to-do” plans left for the next two weeks?

2 comments food, gifts, knitting

Baking in the Midnight Kitchen

I had a request for potato rolls, so baked up a batch late at night.  Couldn’t resist ripping into one … just to check to make sure they came out right…

Recipe from Yankee magazine, here.

Leave a Comment baking, food

Boo!

Cookie recipe and design from Family Circle magazine, 1996.  Made by Tamdoll 2010.

3 comments food, holiday - halloween

Autumn Applesauce

I usually make pink applesauce by cooking the fruit with the skins on.  It’s just easier that way and the peels separate easily after cooking.  This time, Mr. wanted “regular, chunky” so he peeled enough for me to get four jars of sauce with enough leftover apples to bake a pie this weekend. 

It’s pretty easy canning fruit, I don’t have fancy equipment – a spout to get it into the jars and a lifter to hold the hot jars in and out of a giant pot full of boiling water.  The hardest part was prepping the apples, so I’m glad I had someone to help out this time.

It’ll be nice to open up one of these on a snowy winter day and remember the summer flavor.   Kind of like a squirrel hoarding nuts for the next season.  Do you do anything in the fall to hold onto the summertime?

3 comments food

A Mystery – Was it YOU?

I received a package in the mail with no return address or city/state markings:

I can’t wait to find my View-Master (I know it’s around here somewhere) and check it out, reading the story along with the pictures… but it’s a little creepy.  Not because it’s vampires, but because I don’t know who it’s from!  Please leave me a comment or send an email if it’s you (tamdoll – at – comcast – dot – net).  (Please don’t think I’m ungrateful if this was a purely crafty sharing package, but I’ve had stalker-ish things happen in the past and it freaks me out a little to not know where this is from.)

And because last week I had terrible pictures of the completely flat bread I baked, here’s a shot of this week’s bread for you – much better this time:

 

No Artful Thursday this week for me.  I’m working on a half-dozen projects (as usual) and will take pictures and post more as soon as I can!  Thanks for all your comments over the past week, I love reading your messages and visiting those of you who have blogs, too. 

Looking forward to squeezing in some crafty time this weekend.

8 comments baking, food

Artful Thursday – Adventures in Baking Bread

Update! 9/24/10:

The bread came out flat as a biscotti, but airy, light and really tasty!

Instead of cutting the bread in slices, all I had to do for lunches was cut a chunk of bread and slice it horizontal – perfect!

Thursday 9/23 post:  Today’s post is going to be updated tomorrow.  Because I’m baking bread.  This one is going to take a while since I finally (at 7:30 pm) read my recipe &  the next step will take another 2 hours to rise. Wasn’t planning on late-night baking, so I’m not real thrilled about this.

What’s so special about this bread recipe?  It’s an experiment.  Lots of my cooking is.  Thank goodness my family has endless patience and a good sense of humor.  Last week I tried to put frozen ravioli in a Panini press.  (I don’t suggest it.) 

Yesterday I made oatmeal for breakfast, added craisins, a dash of cinnamon… and there were leftovers.  So, I threw a pinch of yeast in the pot and then put it in the fridge (with a big: “Do Not Eat” note – just in case someone got hungry).  Took it out this afternoon and estimated that there was about a cup & a half of slightly bubbly oats in the pot and followed the recipe for King Arthur Flour’s Rustic Country Bread recipe.  Well, mostly.  It didn’t call for oats in the starter, or in the extra flour that’s added, but I threw some in anyway. 

Picture looks kind of yucky.  But there it is.  The beginnings of some [hopefully] yummy bread.  The recipe isn’t on their website, it was from a pamphlet I got at one of their classes once – they have a rustic bread recipe that’s similar there.

Right now they’re slightly sticky, in oblong baguette shapes, rising on my kitchen counter for the next few hours.  I’m hoping these come out good so I have something tasty to take to work tomorrow.  I’ll update with a picture here when I can.

Have a happy Thursday!  Stop by and visit all the other crafty folks participating in the Artful Thursday project, too:

1 comment Artful Thursday, baking, food

Tea Bag Wisdom

Leave a Comment food

Fall Knitting, Cute Crochet and a Linzer Torte

Been busy, thinking of new ideas, cleaning and organizing my space, finishing old projects and getting my kids ready for the start of the school year.

Embroidered some embellishment onto the wrist of these mittens and have set them to block now (been “almost done” since June!).  The plan is to have a collection of one-of-a-kind fingerless mittens to sell locally this fall.

Tweaking bear ideas as I use up stash yarn.  Thinking of making the body smaller and adding some details like hats, scarves, bows, buttons:  

Thwarted, by my talented kids, from my dieting plans.  This was the scene last night at midnight on my kitchen counter:

I resisted nibbling on it then, but come morning, it disappeared with my coffee. 

5 comments crochet, food, knitting, plush animals

One Day Sewing Frenzy

Saw this great tutorial at The Purl Bee on Friday night and made it the next day:

Took a break to make some treats for Lion’s Club volunteers working on a project:

Then whipped up a messenger bag that had been requested a few weeks ago – I am not a fan of these fabric choices but the girl who wanted them is thrilled:

Thanks to mmmcrafts for her how-to.

Lining fabric:

and cargo-pants pockets for the reverse – I think it would have been cuter if these were more square… but I will work on that for the next time:

I was going to add velcro or snaps to the pocket flap, but since they are so long, decided not to – nothing’s going to fall out of these!

I think there will be many, many more messenger bags in my future.

8 comments bags, food