Crepes!

So my husband went out on a whim for Easter and decided to make a carrot cake. But not just any carrot cake. He made a mango-infused carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. I took a leftover portion to work as a sample and boy, did we get big praises! The cake was a hit at his sister's house on Easter, which is what we were going for. He came home with an empty cake stand. Just what I like to see. :]

So we have a good portion of leftover cream cheese frosting that I keep dipping a kids' size spoon into. So I figured instead of being a double dipper, I'd just make something to eat the frosting with. So I've set my sights on making crepes for me and a special little three-year-old girl for lunch today. I can't wait to let you know how it turns out!!

-UPDATE-

The crepes with leftover cream cheese frosting were a BIG hit. I've made them a few times since first posting and oh-my-stars were they good!

Sadly, I do not have any pictures. So, this will be a picture-less post. And that saddens me a bit.

In my family, we LOVE pancakes. And french toast. And eggs with toast. And cheese. And cereal. Cereal gets us through some bad times. So making crepes fit in was not that hard. They're the perfect mix between the french toast taste (egg-y) and the disc shape of pancakes. Crepes, though, are a bit more versatile. We've had them with mostly cream cheese frosting, but I've decided that Greek God's yogurt would be pretty delish, too. And I'm not a yogurt fan. So that says something.

Once I'm prepared and I make another batch of crepes, I will post the recipe. Along with pictures. :]


-Erin

Party Planning!

I feel at home when I'm planning. Especially if I get to craft or decorate. Baking and food prep is pretty exciting, too. I planned all the time when I lived in Alabama. Whether it was for my daughter, a friend, one of the groups at college, anything really. Right before I moved to Minnesota, I was the assistant director for our college's theater group. I was in heaven; I was being recognized and appreciated for my bossiness. Haha! ;]

Moving to Minnesota, not working, having a second child, and moving around two or three times has really put a kink in major party planning. I always did what I could for birthday parties. Working at my local Wal Mart (there, I admitted it) doesn't really give me the income needed to REALLY get down and dirty with the planning.

Recently a co-worker (and I like to think friend) found out she would be having a baby; a little girl. Instantly, my brain went into overdrive. Then she announced the baby's shower and room theme would be owls. It was over before it started. I declared myself shower planner and got the ideas rolling.

Here are some pictures of what is taking up the better part of my days:

These are the super cute owls that I used my new Cricut to make. They're on 

clothespins to use during the baby shower as part of the "Don't Say Baby!" game.

 Pretty common game. Pretty sure that I will win, seeing as I only 

call the baby by her name anyways. :]

What's left of the owls to make...

These next two pictures showcase the one thing I'm most proud of: my owl 

diaper "cake". No, it is not solely my idea, I did find this lady on etsy who 

makes and sells all sorts of diaper cake animals.

I did, however, figure out how to assemble it all on my own. And my diaper owl 

contains more diapers than hers. My husband teases that she (yes, she) looks like

 a certain cartoon movie robot. 

At least she's cute. :]

The pink things are homemade tile coasters that I put together. 

Those are picture here:

And why, yes, that is an Instagram photo! :]

The following two pictures are of some super cute cupcakes I made!

Made out of a onesie and a sock as the cherry.

I painted a chunk of coffee filters and tied them up with some raffia.

Probably also a favorite. I wish I could make more. :[

The last picture is of some cans wrapped in scrapbook paper that we plan

on using to put utensils in on each table, along with other cans that will have

cupcake liner flowers in them.

That's all I've got, for now. However, I'm excited to finish things up; the baby shower is five days from now!! I also took some pink index cards and stamped the words "wise advice" across the top, stamped owls in the corners, and bordered the card up. Those will be in our baby shower game packet for the guests to write down their wisdom to share with the mother-to-be. I bought a cute iron birdcage and we'll toss the cards in that during the shower. I have a ton of other ideas and a couple more projects up my sleeve, too. But I don't want to share all of my secrets just yet!!

-Erin

A New Office!!

Wow! I am actually posting on this blog! Two months in a row! Oh my!

But we have been very busy over here, moving around our rooms and setting up shop. In our teeny tiny house, we've bundled things away and moved our room into our old den and now have a legit office! Although I'm still working on it, like...all of the time...I'm very happy with where things are headed. :]

This picture is from the night that we put up those shelves. It was dark, I only had a lamp and dun-dun-dunnn: this is an Instagram photo. I'm good at those, ya know?!

My husband and I almost got divorced over those shelves. We had quite a time trying to get them set up. Nevertheless, we're still married and my shelves are more fabulous than ever now.

And I must be behind the times. Because I felt like I struck pure gold and oil when I discovered worldmarket.com. I mean, really. That place is heaven to me.

Then I found that there were actually stores.

-dreamy sigh-

So I sucked my husband into taking me out to Bloomington, MN to go "window shopping"

This is what I came back with:

Omg. Really. Oh My God. 

My husband made fun of me because he thinks I should have just made half of that. I told him that sometimes buying it from a store really is just best. I'm too much of a perfectionist. Really.

Then we went again. This time:

-dreamy sigh-

I really. Really. REALLY. love that place.

The second trip was also good for buying my favorite wine. For like $12 a bottle. I mean, really.

Also, gifts were bought for other people from that second trip. Pretty proud of myself. :]

So all of these things are sitting in my new office, just making me so happy. I mean my husband and kids are pretty great, too. But to be creative and inspired, my space has to be totally me. You know? I know you know. Nothing can really bother you when you're in your space. So, slowly but surely...I'm getting there.

I think often times, having wine will also help. :]

-Erin

An Etsy Shop!

I have never been able to fully committ myself to ANYTHING in my whole life. I'm surprised I got married. No, really. I am totally surprised. I become uninterested in a lot of things. I cannot focus or remember an important detail needed to succeed. I could never keep a journal because I'd get tired of having to write in it. My grades in school were nothing to brag about because I was uninterested in the material, so I began to not care. This blog should be enough proof, as well. I am ashamed at how often I don't post. I mean, it's pathetic.

But, I digress.

Last night, right before going to bed, I opened my very own Etsy shop.

-GASP!!-

Yes, I did. It's called...wait for it...wait. 

I have very few listings and I am awful at making graphics so my banner really sucks. I have no idea how to run an Etsy shop, so I'm relying on help from some friends. But. I am so excited. But I'm not going to jinx it by saying I'll keep up with it. 'Cause the good Lord knows I won't. :]

It's called AHankeringFor. Check it out!!

-Erin

Homemade Lasagna (finally)!

I'm going to try to ignore the fact that I haven't posted since May. Can you? For me...please?

I'm going to do a quick post (to make myself feel better) on how I make my lasagna. I cheat a bit.

So we'll need:
1 16oz tub of cottage cheese
1 16oz tub of ricotta cheese
1 egg
1lb to 2lb hamburger (I try to use 97%)
1 26oz jar of preferred spaghetti sauce in preferred flavor
1 box of no boiling required (oven ready) lasagne noodles
2 to 3 8oz bags of shredded cheese in preferred flavor
Salt and pepper to taste

Hmm, I think that covers everything. We'll see.

Set your oven to 425F.

So, start out by cooking your hamburger. You can broil it or fry it up in a pan. We've always plopped the hamburger right into a pan, pulled it all apart with a spatula, seasoned it (we use Lawry's seasoning salt with some garlic salt) then added a lid to the pan and cooked the meat over medium heat.

While the hamburger is sizzling in the pan, mix your cottage and ricotta cheese in a large mixing bowl. Add your egg, salt and pepper and continue to mix. The egg helps the cheeses stay together as your lasagna is baking...little tip I took from my sister.

Because the noodles do not have to be boiled, it cuts the prep time in half. These no-boil noodles are the best things invented. They're still just as soft and noodle-y because they soak up the moisture from everything else.

Once your hamburger is done, drain it as much as possible. When that's done, add in your spaghetti sauce and cook it over low heat to warm the sauce up to the hamburger. Here is also where you would add any additional seasoning, making sure to get a great marriage of flavors and smells.

While that is getting to a simmer, pick out the baking dish you'll be using. I like using the clear glass because you can see all of the ingredients cooking together, layer by layer.


So by now, I'll have my bowl of cheeses, bowl of meat/spaghetti sauce, and box of noodles out on the counter. I'll have opened my bags of shredded cheeses, ready to be used. I do it this way (dirtying up all these dishes) because I have limited counter space. This way, all of my things are right there together and I can access them each quickly to make my layers.

Start layering the ingredients:

Hamburger 

Cottage/ricotta cheeses

Shredded cheeses

Noodles

So obviously I never put too much shredded cheese in the layers because I wanted it all for the top. I'm greedy like that.

Pop that in the oven for anywhere between 30 minutes and 45 minutes, depending.

It should come out looking like this:

We love the crunch of the cheese. It's fabulous.

Serve this with homemade garlic bread and cheese sauce, it's sure to become a family favorite!

-Erin

Burlap Wreath!

 So I made this wreath a few months ago, it was my first project I'd tried in a while and actually my first wreath. I love all things burlap and a wreath just seemed like a perfect accent piece to our front door.

I searched and searched pinterest and other blogs I personally follow for their means of making a wreath. I finally decided on a wire wreath from from Jo Ann's and tied the burlap strips around the wire form.

I really didn't know if I wanted to tie around all four wire circles or just three, but when I tried it any other way, it just look funny to me. So I ended up tying around all four, starting with the wiring that attached all four circles. Then I crammed as many tied burlap straps between the previous ones as I could.

My burlap strips were approximately two inches wide and eight to 10 inches long. They weren't all cut perfectly at the same exact size for, you know, like...authenticity. Or whatever.

I also had to decide which section was going to be the top for my wreath hook to sit. That was fun. I want everything to look symmetrical, so making sure I picked a good spot was important. Laugh all you want!

Once the burlap was all on and the ends were sitting like I wanted, I also had to decide where my fabric rosettes were going. Again, symmetrical and whatnot.

These fabric rosettes were made from some scrap fabric. A friend of mine gave me the green/gray colored fabric and the orange is from an old maternity shirt. It's hard to tell by the picture, but the orange is actually white and orange striped. Don't ask why I had a white and orange striped maternity shirt.

I used brown construction paper as a base for my rosettes. I glued the end of the fabric down with my hot glue gun. Once that was set, I twisted the fabric and then hot glued the fabric to itself and the construction paper and let that set. Once to the end, I made sure that was glued down really well.

I also used alligator clips for the rosettes. I glued the flat part of the alligator clip to the construction paper, let it set. Then I just use the clip to attach to a knot in the burlap.

Now, let me tell you. As cute as this thing was, and yes I mean WAS, it just made me so mad. The hot glue didn't keep the alligator clips attached to the construction paper to keep the rosettes on the wreath. Currently, there is just this sun-stained ugly burlap flopping around on what is considered a wreath on my front door.

I'll fix it eventually.

-Erin

Homemade Playdough!

I have always steered clear of playdough. I'm not sure why, seeing as I absolutely loved it as a child. I loved when my mama would just set me loose in the kitchen and on the table with a flour/water mixture and all of the cookie cutters in sight. Favorite past time as a five year old. Ever.

So although I'm a bit late on this, I made some for the girls. I looked and looked at recipes online until my eyes couldn't take it anymore. After seeing that this recipe had such great success and was pinned and repinned on Pinterest, I decided on it. And, well, I just am in love with adelynSTONE and everything that it entails!

 Ingredients:

 1 cup flour

1 cup water

1/4 cup salt

1 tbsp vegetable oil

(I used safflower oil)

2 tsp cream of tartar

Food coloring

(I only had neon)

Here comes the tricky part:

Mix all of the ingredients together, warm over medium heat on the stove, stirring as you go. When the dough starts to form, remove from heat and knead by hand.

That's it. That's all there is to it.

But I hate that it's so simple, so I'm going to break it down for you. Not that you can't figure it out, but because I like to be thorough. :]

This is Miss Claire. I had her help me a bit before sending her pretty little head to bed. I just want to pinch her cheeeeeeks.

Back to the recipe, though.

You can add the ingredients in any order, I always tend to mix my dry ingredients and then add a wet, mix, then add the next wet ingredient, etc. Baker at heart, you know. Once the ingredients are well mixed with minimal clumps, I added my food coloring.

 

   

 Claire couldn't stop giggling, then gasping, then acting scared. She really had every range of emotion during this. She just wasn't sure. After the dough was done, it took her about thirty minutes of sitting with me next to her with the dough for her to touch it. It was a funny experience.

Mix the colors thoroughly and then move the pot over to the stove. I used a larger stove eye for more coverage of the bottom of the pot. Who knows if it makes a difference. That's just the way my mind works.

 Don't stop stirring. Not even to take a picture. Have someone else there. Because when I stopped for a photo op, this is what happened:

And so I panicked! I didn't want it to burn! But, of course, I had used my old crappy pot. So it was bound to happen anyways. So I just worked quickly to scrape the bottom and the sides, making sure to mold the dough together a bit.

  

Once formed and there were no liquid-y parts, I plopped the dough out onto my counter. It looks rather ugly at this point. Not very desirable. 

I kneaded like my life depended on it. Why? Because it was hot! Although it felt good at first, it became way too hot. I looked like a crazy person trying to knead this hot dough.

 See my poor hand! It was a rather interesting experience, I'll tell ya that much. It was somewhat therapeutic. Like the whole hot stones on your back thing. I'm guessing it's like that. I wouldn't know. (Hint hint, husband...)

 

Over at adelynSTONE, KristanLynn used baby food jars to store the dough. I used color coordinated plastic kids' storage. Go figure.

We have our playdough sitting in our hall closet, hidden by our tower of towels. We have a very sneaky six year old and I wouldn't put it past her to find it and play with it in the mornings before we get out of bed. So. Hidden, it is.

P.S. I know there was mention of glitter over at adelynSTONE but glitter and my husband just do NOT get along. :]

-Erin