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