Vote For Me!
Hi Friends, our furry family member, Hayley, has been entered into the Muttroplois photo contest. You can click on each photo once a day, per pet, between now and Dec. 17th to vote. The pet with the most votes will win the $1,000 grand prize. Hayley is really hoping to win so we will buy her even more goodies! Thanks for your support, visit the link below to cast your vote today!
Click here for Hayley’s page:
Stones Into Schools
We met Dr. Greg last night! I was so excited to meet him, that my very patient husband and I waited in line for over an hour to have our copy of his new book signed. It was worth the wait! Our local bookstore, Warwicks, along with several other local groups organized an evening with the best selling author of Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson. His latest book, Stones Into Schools, was released on December 1, 2009. After reading Three Cups of Tea this past summer, I was eager to read Greg’s new book. Stones Into Schools picks up where Three Cups of Tea left off in his journey to promote peace.
There are several things that I took away from the presentation and book signing event yesterday evening. First of all, hearing Greg speak and meeting him in person reinforced his message for me. Change is not created by addressing the negative, it is inspired by hope. And in this case, the hope for peace specifically.
Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time
He spoke specifically about the subtitle of his first book. And talked about why the subtitle reads “one man’s mission to promote peace…” and not “one man’s mission to fight terrorism…”. What I also appreciated about meeting Greg in person is that I got to fully experience his brand. Let me explain. If you have read the books you know that Greg is a modest and often quiet person. He is not one to place emphasis on the material things in life and he does not particularly take pleasure from the sales aspect of his profession. Hearing him speak last night I took note of his mannerisms and appearance. He was dressed nicely but he did not dress the part of a well polished business person in a well tailored suit. That just isn’t part of the Greg Mortenson brand. Nor should it be, after all this is a man who gives tirelessly and selflessly to a higher cause. His work has been so influential that his books are now required reading for many military personnel and he has even recently been nominated for a Noble Peace Prize.
Image from Three Cups of Tea, Greg reading to school children
But appearances aside, the biggest illustration of the Greg Mortenson brand is the smile that he is always wearing and his strong bond with children. At last night’s event there was a group of school children in the front row. The children had raised over $2,500 for Greg’s Pennies for Peace organization. You could tell by the way that he spoke to and involved the children in his presentation that he truly does draw strength and inspiration from working with kids.
I also appreciated his message that we all can make a difference in our communities, and that there has been a bigger movement in recent years to make our communities a better place. One such example that he gave was about an 11 year old boy from Florida who created a non-profit called The Little Red Wagon Foundation. He raised thousands dollars to bring awareness to the issue of homelessness among kids in his city. Next year he plans to walk across the country to raise a million dollars to bring awareness to the issue across the country. He sounds like a truly remarkable kid.
Me with Greg Mortenson in La Jolla
When I finally got to meet Greg at the book signing, it was well worth the wait. I shared with him that as someone from Montana, I also appreciated hearing about his time in Montana as well. Even though it was almost 10pm and the line was still hours long behind us, he took the time to shake our hands and make us feel important. I think that is the charm of Dr. Greg, he has a calmness to him and an ability to connect with people on a very basic level. And in these days where we are all rushing from place to place and communicating mostly in digital worlds, Dr. Greg reminds us of the importance to actually spend time with people in person and build relationships. Thanks Dr. Greg, for all that you do.
Oh, and my apologies to the Warwicks crew, we told them we wanted to have my husband take a non-posed picture of Greg signing my book for me (posed pictures were not allowed), and somehow it turned into a posed photo. My face turned so red, I felt like I was breaking the rules! Sorry Warwicks! But while we are on that note, I have to say that Susan McBeth and her team that helped organize last night’s event are owed a huge round of thank yous for a fantastic evening. Here are the links to buy the books from Warwicks, as of last night they still had some signed copies of the children’s book Listen to the Wind, you may want to contact them to see what signed copies they might have left:
Stones Into Schools (hardcover)
Three Cups of Tea (paperback)
Three Cups of Tea- Young Readers Version (paperback)
Listen to the Wind (children’s edition of Three Cups of Tea)
Enter to win a handmade coffee cuff and coffee gift card!
The talented team at the Domestic Nest is conducting another fabulous giveaway this week.
Visit their blog post here for the giveaway and submit your comment before December 15th (12AM PST) for a chance to win.
The Domestic Nest
Besides being unique and creative, these coffee cuffs are the eco alternative to the paper ones. These would be a great gift for that ‘hard to buy for guy’ or your favorite latte lover.
Coconut Snowballs
Looking for an easy, creative and fun way to have ice cream already scooped for a party? Looking for an easy kitchen activity to make with your kids? This is super easy and saves you time when you are ready to serve the ice cream. And you can even offer “on the side” options at serving time to make these even tastier. Try a de-constructed Almond Joy by offering chocolate sauce and chopped almonds as toppings.
Recipe adapted from Real Simple. Makes 15-20 snowballs.
Ingredients
Preparation
Place the coconut on a plate. Using a 1 ½ inch ice cream scoop, scoop the ice cream into balls and then roll the balls in the coconut. Place the balls in foil or mini muffin liners and set on a tray. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the freezer until ready to serve. Serve along with chocolate and caramel sauce as optional toppings for your guests.
Creative Cookie Packaging
We can’t all be like Martha Stewart, or can we? There are some really simple and creative ways to package your baked goods for friends and family this holiday season. Some of these tips are inspired by the Queen of crafting herself and others are from our own favorite gifts we have received recently. I used this simple wrapping to bring some of the festival crescents I made to my Mom’s house. It looked so much fancier than plain Tupperware. Happy crafting!
Cookie Packaging Ideas, A 5 Step Easy Gift Wrapping Project
Step 1: Visit your local art supply store and purchase some basic white or brown boxes of varying sizes.
Gather Supplies Like Unused Scraps of Wrapping Paper, Scissors, Ribbon and a Plain Box
Step 2: Use those scraps of wrapping paper that you have lying around your house that are too small to wrap a package, but are the perfect size for the top of the cookie boxes.
Cut The Paper To Fit Your Box, Use Double Sided Tape to Adhere
Step 3: Line the boxes with parchment paper, and/or muffin liners if the box is large and you are including several varieties of cookies. The muffin liners will help ensure that the cookies don’t mingle too much on the way to your host’s home. You can separate layers of cookies with a sheet of parchment paper cut to size for your box.
Line The Box and Fill It Up
Step 4: Purchase, or use ribbon you already own, to tie the boxes as gifts. I save pretty ribbon that I receive throughout the year and recycle it for projects like this, it is a great way to dress up your cookie boxes.
Tie It With a Simple Ribbon
Step 5: This step is optional but if you are looking to add a little more “bling” to your package, consider creating gift tags that either simply have a greeting, your recipient’s name on them, or detail any cookie names or food warnings such as “may contain nuts”.
Creative Cookie Packaging
That is it, you’re done and your cute cookie boxes will leave your friends wondering where you got your Martha inspiration for the day!
Have you ever wondered why the holidays stir up memories of the smell of baked goods wafting from the kitchen? There is something about November and December that just makes some of us want to spend more time in the kitchen. Perhaps it is not only the sweet taste of sugar, but the memories that cookies create.
As a kid I can remember spending time in the kitchen helping my mom make cookies. There was something so magical about being asked to help with the oh so important Christmas cookie. Everyone had their favorite cookie. My dad loved the powdered date balls, and I think he still does. My favorite was the thumb-print cookie, which was a bite-size cookie covered in nuts and had a maraschino cherry or large chocolate chip pressed into the center of it. Those were super fun to make as a kid, I had a fabulous time and felt great responsibility when given the task of placing the cherries onto the cookies.
Now that I have a kitchen of my own, I am in the cookie driver’s seat and recently found myself with the profound decision of what cookie traditions to start in our home. With pride in my own roots and an exploration of my husband’s Greek heritage, I decided to try some ethnic recipes. I noticed some similarities between a Hungarian nut horn recipe and a Greek festival crescent recipe that I had been given. Deciding that those recipes would be a good blend of our family tree, I started baking.
Making the nutty crescent cookies was surprisingly simple. You simply combine all the ingredients in a mixing bowl, shape them, bake them, and then coat them with sugar. It also was a welcome distraction from all the other holiday stresses, like shopping, creating holiday cards and planning the side dish recipes for the holiday meals. Realizing that the cookie production had taken my mind off of everything else is when I decided that making cookies is great therapy.
Some recipes require your complete concentration. Have you ever made a batch of baked goods while attempting several other household tasks, only to find that the finished product is sub-par? Either because you did not take the time to measure evenly, forgot an ingredient, or baked the items at the wrong temperature or for the wrong time? If you had just let yourself live in the moment you could have ended up not only with a better baked good, but possibly with a happier state of mind.
There is something so sublime about getting lost in baking cookies or frosting a cupcake. It becomes less about the anticipation of eating the sweets and more about the pride in a job well done, perhaps while enjoying the baking journey along the way. And if you can employ the little helpers in your life in the kitchen, you are creating a wonderful bonding experience and lifetime of holiday memories. Happy baking!
Festival Crescents
Just in time for your holiday baking! This is a super easy recipe and can be served as a accompaniment to coffee in the morning or as a sweet anytime. These cookies are subtly sweet, so they are sure to please any crowd. Makes 12-15 cookies.
Ingredients
Easy and festive
Preparation
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, or lightly butter. In a food processor, chop the nuts finely but without reducing them to ground nuts. In a mixing bowl, cream the sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolk and brandy, then stir in the nuts. Sift the starch and flour over the mixture and stir. Add more flour if necessary in order to create a firm dough. Remove the dough from the bowl and place on a clean working surface. You may wish to lightly flour your hands. Break off a small piece of dough and roll into a small ball, then place the ball on the clean surface and roll into a 3 inch log, tapering into pointed ends. Shape into a crescent and place on the baking sheet. Repeat until all the crescents are made. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until the cookies are firm but not too brown. Transfer to wire racks to cool.
Pour the orange-flower water into a small bowl. Place the powdered sugar into a large bowl. Dip the crescents into the water quickly and then into the sugar to coat them completely. Store them loosely in an airtight container.
Babycakes NYC Chocolate Cupcake and Chocolate Frosting
Babycakes NYC Cookbook (More than just cupcakes!)
Well after months of experimenting with the recipes from the new Babycakes NYC cookbook, (which by the way would make an excellent holiday gift for any baker in your life) I have finally successfully made the famed frosting! The frosting is gluten-free and vegan, so the only ingredients include soy milk, coconut oil, vanilla and a few other ingredients. It is the most unusual frosting I have ever made. For starters it only involves a blender and refrigeration to make the frosting.
I called this my Goldilocks frosting attempt because the first time I made it, the frosting was too runny. The next time I made it, the frosting was too thick. And the third time I made it, the frosting was just right! If you are new to vegan baking, the ingredients can be hard to find. The first time I made the frosting I could not locate the dry powdered soy milk which the recipe called for, so I substituted powdered goat’s milk. Hence the sub-par results in texture. It tasted good, but it didn’t set up right no matter my efforts to follow Erin‘s tips. I think the goat’s milk must not have the same properties as the soy milk perhaps. I’m not sure, I unfortunately wasn’t into the science of it, I just wanted it to work!
I finally found dry powdered soy milk at Whole Foods, although it was not my first time looking there. I found it in a display by the produce and at a different location than the La Jolla store that I usually frequent. I found it across town, in Hillcrest (San Diego). Anyway, with the excitement of my find at Whole Foods, I hurried home to make the frosting again. This time the frosting was too thick. No matter how long I left it at room temperature, it never became smooth enough to use as frosting. I’m not sure what I did wrong this time, my only guess is that I might not have used the correct measurements. You see, I have a bad habit of loosely measuring items when baking. So I put the soy milk aside and didn’t think about frosting for awhile until I had a birthday in the family and a request for vegan cupcakes. As I started setting the ingredients on the counter I remembered my past lessons. I was obsessive this time about measuring accurately. And guess what? It worked! The frosting turned out just right.
It has a creamy texture and distinct coconut flavor. It does not have butter, but it does use coconut oil so it is not completely fat free. But I like to think it is a healthy version of frosting, or at least a safe option for mixed diets. The best part is that it tastes delicious! A little warning though, you do need to store the frosted cupcakes in the fridge until about 15-20 minutes before you plan to serve them. Otherwise the frosting might melt as it comes to room temperature. That is the only thing that makes this frosting a bit of a challenge. The best plan is to make the frosting the day prior and bake the cupcakes the morning of your event. Allow them to cool completely. And then frost just before serving. This way the cupcake does not become dry from being refrigerated.
P.S.
Babycakes NYC is getting closer to opening their LA location, stay tuned to their blog for updates!
Thanksgiving day has come to mean so many things to Americans. Eating turkey, watching football, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, consuming way too many calories in one day and the start of our holiday shopping season the day after Thanksgiving. But what is Thanksgiving Day really meant to celebrate? Have we gotten lost in all the sports watching and pumpkin pie eating to really appreciate the true meaning?
The origin of Thanksgiving as an American holiday dates back to 1621 when the Plymouth colonists and the Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn feast in celebration of the harvest. The early celebrations are thought to be a feast in thanksgiving for the harvest and an early cooperation between the two peoples. The harvest part would explain why the holiday has become so heavily expressed through food consumption. But at the heart of it is the word thanksgiving. And it is that aspect of the holiday that leads us all to stop and have a moment of gratitude. Well, we should anyway somewhere in between the turkey and the pumpkin pie.
Somehow turkey seems to have waddled into our history books and staked a steady claim on the holiday. According to one figure in a 2007 survey conducted by the National Turkey Federation, nearly 88 percent of Americans said they ate turkey at Thanksgiving that year. And since the average weight of turkeys purchased for Thanksgiving is 15 pounds, that means some 690 million pounds of turkey were consumed in the U.S. during Thanksgiving in 2007. But when did it become all about one bird? At the first Thanksgiving feast they are believed to have served many types of meat, and possibly no turkey at all. So why the turkey now? One theory is that wild turkey was native to northern Mexico and the eastern United States, and thus more readily available than the geese that the English were used to eating back home. Somehow it became the bird of choice for the holiday.
The early settlers at the first Thanksgiving are thought to have served more protein than vegetables and possibly no sweets at all. They also had a very active lifestyle and required that extra protein in their diet. Today we really pack on the calories at holiday meals, maybe even twice our 2,000 daily calorie limit. And some of us are not exactly very active that day. So what can we do to enjoy the day and not feel guilty? Well it has a lot to do with the choices we make about what we put on our plate, than it does with quantity. That slice of pumpkin pie might only be 180 calories, but when we start adding whipped cream and ice cream it can start to add up. So enjoy the day but maybe do without some of the extras if you are watching the numbers. And take time to go for a walk that day, walking at a brisk pace can actually burn a lot of calories. Try visiting a calorie calculator from a website such as Sparkpeople.com to calculate how many calories you will burn while walking based on your weight and how far you walk. For example, if you weigh 150 pounds and you walk 2 miles at a 3mph pace (about a 20 minute mile) you can burn 160-180 calories, that equals one piece of pie! (Now that is tasty math!)
Whether eat you eat your turkey roasted, grilled or fried, or if you even eat turkey at all, I hope that this holiday you take a moment to consider the true intent of the holiday. To give thanks for the blessings that have been bestowed on our lives. Because after all the turkey is gone and the last piece of pumpkin pie is consumed, the real craziness of the holiday season begins with black Friday, the Friday after Thanksgiving which is typically a day when our holiday shopping begins. Gobble, gobble!
Update: These offers expired, so I took them down.
With the push by retailers to stimulate holiday shopping starting even earlier this year, I started doing some online research today to gather ideas for holiday gift giving. I stumbled upon some great offers that expire soon, so I wanted to share these with you quickly:
Domestic Nest
Happy Find
Happy Find, pursuing the art of craftiness
Heather Ivy Designs Heather Ivy Designs
Megan Just
Rustic Rooster Interiors
Stephen’s Website
The Animal Rescue Site The Domestic Nest
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