Day 11, whaaa?!

A day overdue and the drunk milk looks the same, mostly:

Madame Charnushka say "You will get tipsy tomorrow".  Prophetic!

Purple and yellow water marbles. They do not freeze well.  Go figure.

I plan on straining the supposed amber nectar from the jar tomorrow.  Pictures will be eagerly shared as soon as possible.

I worked out today, after which I usually have a craving for something sweet.  The only sweet things we have to snack on are a big bowl of halloween candy (yes, I realize it's January), so there is really nothing for me to snack on.  What to make, what to make...?  How bout THIS!

The upper right ones were made with the thinner chocolate and almond butter, bottom left with thicker chocolate and peanut butter.

Frozen chocolate-covered nut-butter banana bites!  I used nomnomnomblog's recipe here, but even following the recipe as closely as I can (I heart tweaking), it was still really messy.  Here are some of my findings:

• First, I needed to add waaay less liquid to the chocolate dip than the recipe called for.  I discovered this *after* following the recipe, so I had some extra chocolate left over.  Happy accident.
• I used almond milk to thin the chocolate, so I thought it would be a good idea to use almond butter.  Not such a good idea.  Even after pouring off extra oil and stirring the heck out of it, the almond butter was still oily, which made the chocolate slide off.
• Be sure to 'butter' all the banana slices before dipping in the chocolate.  It might even be a good idea to freeze the peanut buttered bananas before dipping, so you're dipping something hard instead of something mushy.  Personal preference on the freezing, serious suggestion on the pre-buttering.

Concoction #2:

Still contemplating a color for the table.  Maybe we should just sand and bleach it.  The options still boggle my mind.

Not quite solid so the breaks weren't perfect.  It tastes perfect, though.

Paula Deen's Pine Bark.  Wow!  I followed her recipe almost exactly, using milk chocolate chips instead of bars, and adding 2 drops of doTERRA's Wild Orange essential oil instead of almond extract.  Tweaky tweaky delicious!  The orange flavor was subtle, I would even use three or 4 drops next time for a stronger taste, reminiscent of homemade chocolate covered orange peel.  I should add that to my list of things to make, haven't made it since, well, pre-marriage.  And we're celebrating our 10 year wedding anniversary this June - go us!

• Side note: I tried to find a recipe to post here as a possible chocolate covered orange peel candidate, but all the initial results included the white pith from the peel.  And a lot of boiling in plain water.  Blech.  The white pith needs to be removed as much as possible.  This makes the end product much, much tastier.  And the recipe I used in the past had you boil the de-pithed peel in increasingly sugarier pots of sugar water, not plain water.  I'll find the recipe and post the results when I'm done.  Honest.

Well, I have little boys that need refereeing.  Maybe I can bribe some good behavior with these treats then send them home hopped up on sugary goodness and covered in chocolate.  There are worse ways to end a Friday the 13th.

Not feeling superstitious at all,
Mary

Day 8 and I haven't lost track yet

On the eighth day of fermenting my drunk milk said to me...

"The future loo-ooks clou-ou-ou-ou-dy"

Just in case we haven't mind melded lately, hum that sentence and caption to the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas.  It goes together perfectly.  Really.  And yes, I do reference Christmas the whole year long.

The milk seems to be fermenting normally, no discoloration, and the jar hasn't exploded, thankfully.  Yet.

The other, decidedly more yummy looking product of my cooking efforts is sitting on my counter top right now - vanishing oatmeal bars!  The recipe calls for raisins, but my children run screaming from raisins (force fed too many as toddlers, perhaps), so I subbed in chopped walnuts and chocolate chips.  And if you couldn't tell, I do the bar version, not the cookie version, because the bars seem to stay moister (aka yummier) longer.

Oh look!  The Ghost of Drunk Milk Past!

The craft front is quiet, which means a storm is brewing...  I have this old table, that we got for a steal about ten or eleven years ago.

Look away from the cookie crumbs

It's a solidly built table, but the plaid seats?  Yech.  I'm loving slip covers lately (Miss Mustard Seed has a great how-to here, and Screaming Meme has some adorable examples here, and Kristi at Pink and Polka Dot has really cute stuff, too), and have you heard about using drop cloths to reupholster/slipcover tired furniture?  Fabulous and inexpensive!  Love it!

Now that the seat covers are planned (drop cloth slipcovers, of course!), what to do with the yellow wood? We *could* sand it and restain in a dark wood color, but I'm afraid that the dark wood trend is coming to a close.  I'm seeing the most interesting (in a good way) painted wood furniture all over the internets and DIY blogs.  And our neighbor painted an old thrift store table and chairs a nice cream color and they are just adorable!  Cream table and cream slip covers...?  Too creamy.  Our counter is a dark green, so maybe a dark green, with a semi-gloss coat of poly-urethane to protect it?  Or dear husband might like a dark navy blue.  Or I'm really, really liking orange lately, so maybe a slightly burnt orange with the cream slipcovers...?  A quick search on google images didn't give me any inspiration photos to go from (or persuasion material for dear hubby), so I'll have to use the pictures in my head for inspiration.  Oh, the possibilities!

What do the pictures in your head look like?  Do share  :-)

Hugs,
Mary

What day is it again?

It is day 7 of the drunk milk experiment.  I guess it isn't really an experiment since I'm following a recipe, but it sure looks like a chemistry experiment.  Check it out for yourself:

Madame Charnushka says "Take no long walks off short piers."

The alcohol isn't separating from the rest of the stuff anymore, and bits of citrus pulp are now floating freely in the jug.  This has been the status quo for the last two days, and we've been busy, so there haven't been any updates over the weekend.  'Busy with what?' you ask..?

Cowabunga!

Busy-ness #1:  It snowed!  And we were the first ones at the sledding hill!  Notice how dark the photo is?  It was just after 8am.  The boys were raring to go at 7, but I made them wait.  Mommy needs a few moments to get going, especially on cold snowy mornings.

Busy-ness #2:  Friday nights are movie and pizza nights at our household.  This past Friday was a Digimon marathon, and to keep my sanity I tackled one of the projects that has been on my mind - a plastic bag organizer.

A bag bag!

I originally saw this on Martha Stewart ages ago, read the how to, then promptly did something else.  I recalled the basic instructions and winged it Friday as digimon were battling each other.  Here's what I did:

• Grab a clean dish towel.
• Using scissors, cut the two long seamed edges off.  I did not cut the corners off, thinking that the piece would be sturdier if I left the short seamed edges completely intact.  Save the seam pieces.
• Fold in half, right side in, cut sides aligned.
• At this point I hand stiched the cut sides together with about a 1/4" seam allowance.  I bet this would go much quicker with a sewing maching.
• Make one slit on the inside of the bottom seam, at both ends, big enough for a small button to pass through. 
• Using 1/4" satin ribbon left over from the Christmas stockings, I tied one end of a 2' length to a small button. My helper Nathan threaded the button in one hole, through the seam and out the hole at the other end.  We untied the button, cinched the seam so it was gathered up and had a smaller diameter than the rest of the bag, and tied the ribbon in a bow to hold the cinch.
• Take the reserved seam pieces that were cut off and tie them into a bow, leaving long tails at one end.  Sew the tails to the top/uncinched part of the bag.
• Turn bag right side out.  Fill with plastic bags.  Hang someplace conveniently useful yet out of sight.

I didn't do any of Martha's ironing or pinning, I used ribbon instead of elastic, and I didn't use cotton tape for the hanger.  Oops.  I still love it.  This will hang in the pantry as soon as husband puts up a hook. I was going to do it, but he wants to help, so I wait.

Busy-ness #3: A neighbor across the street had a baby last week, and I helped make dinner for her and her family.  Someone else brought meatballs, and I brought a salad and biscuits.  Not being able to make small portions of anything, there was enough for their family and ours.  I used Erin's Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuit recipe at mythirtyspot.com, and they were delicious!  The salad had spinach, diced prunes, chopped toasted walnuts and asian dressing.  I meant to put mandarin oranges in too, but I don't have any cans of them, so they got the salad as-was.  After I brought the salad over, I realized I could just peel some cuties and throw them on top - it really made the salad.

Busy-ness #4:  I saw this on Pinterest, a post at Alphamom about making bento box lunches for kids.  Then I googled it and found so many images and links and whatnot, I was a little overwhelmed.  So this is what I accomplished this morning:

Nowhere near the cute perfection of Alphamom, but still tasty looking.
Now I have to get cute basic cookie cutter shapes to prettify my bento lunches.

Hasta la chow chow!
Mary

Drunk milk, days 3 and 4

So drunk milk progress day 3 looked like this:

Ewww.  Coagulation.

That white wall really needs a backsplash.

And I captured this this morning:

Day 4, bright and early

The concoction is slowly mushing down and getting nastier.  The citrus pieces used to be almost to the top of the jar, but they're slowly giving up.  The clear liquid at the bottom is becoming a little more amber colored each day.  The really interesting/gross feature is the chunky mess that clings to the top of the jar.  I wouldn't be surprised if there's an old gypsy out there somewhere that could read my future in that nastiness.  I haven't opened it - ugh!  Image what it smells like right now...

I will trust in the process and see this through to January 14.  Assuming the world doesn't end by then.  What is the last day of the Mayan calendar again?  I have a lot of crafting/cooking to do by then. Have you see Miss Amy's butterbeer cupcakes?  They look absolutely Delicious!  Delectable!  Delightful!  I MUST get to these before the world ends!

The world isn't ending today, unless I don't get snack made for the boys before they get home.  Today, it's apple slices and white-girl quesadillas.  Simplest thing going, these tortillas.

You'll need 

• Flour tortillas
• Shredded Cheese (mozzarella, co-jack, cheddar, mexican blend - your call!)

Put tortilla on a microwave safe plate.  Spread cheese on the tortilla.  Cover cheese with another tortilla.  Microwave for about thirty seconds.  The cheese should be stringy and sticky, holding the tortillas together.  Cut into quarters and serve.  Done.

Just about anything could be added.  Husband likes to use a mexican cheese blend and add some ground Penzey's ancho pepper before microwaving.  I like it with mozzarella, garlic pepper and slices of avocado.  The kids like just co-jack.  What would you eat on it?

No craftiness today, but I did pick up instruction packets on how to lead Meet the Masters at my children's school in two weeks.  We'll be imitating Faith Ringgold by creating multimedia masterpieces.  Now to buy some oil pastels so I have samples to display during class.

Onward!

Mary

Drunk milk, day 2

This is day 2 of the Great Drunk Milk experiment.  How's it going, you ask...?

The milk wants to separate from the vodka, like church and state.

Guessing milk would be 'church' and vodka would be 'state'.

A quick shake mixed everything back up.  I seem to be shaking the jug (which I got from Ikea, by the way) about once every 12 hours.

Post shake.  Can you see the Mexican coke bottle on the sill?  A perfect place for it.

Now I'm off to peel potatoes for mashed potatoes.  Easiest thing, but in case you don't know how to make mashed potatoes, here's quick instructions.  It's really flexible too - use more milk for creamier spuds, less for thicker.  Use white pepper if a co-diner is averse to black pepper - it has a milder taste and isn't as visible.  

Ingredients

6 medium idaho potatoes

4-6 tablespoons butter

2 teaspoons of salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

1/4 cup milk (we use 2%)

Water for boiling

First peel and slice potatoes into 1/2 inch chunks.  As soon as a potato is sliced, place in a pot filled with about 1 inch of cool water.  Once all potatoes have been peeled and sliced, swish them in the cold water to remove the starchy potato juice,  Drain the starchy water and refill with clean water to cover the potatoes by about an inch.  Place the pot o potatoes over medium high heat and bring to boiling.  Boil over medium heat about 20 minutes, checking the potatoes for doneness after 15.  The potatoes are done when they can be easily mushed against the side of the pot.  Once mushable, but not falling apart, drain the cooking water and leave the potatoes in the pot.  Add the butter, salt and pepper and mash.  I usually use an old fashioned potato masher, but my family loves when I use the hand mixer to make the potatoes extra smooth and creamy.  When the potatoes are about halfway to your consistency preference, add the milk and finish mashing/mixing.  Et voila - potatoes acompli (I do not speak french.  Never had one lesson!).  Dish them up in a fancy bowl, or put the pot on a trivet on your dining table.

Bon appetit!

Craft and a recipe, two bits

Happy new year!  TOOT!

Any good resolutions out there?  I never make em because I never keep em, though I'd like to try skiing.  That can be my tentative 2012 resolution - to try skiing.  Cross country is more my speed, I think, and a neighbor mentioned the beginner slopes at Snowbird are free!  I thought equipment rental was super expensive, but he set me straight, should be less than $20/person/day.  The boys have a half day this Friday - I should make an effort to get us there right after school ;-)

To recap Christmas, I recorded myself reading to the far away niece and nephews, one book each (you can see one bedtime story here).  On the crafting front, the stockings got to niece and nephews *just* in time for Christmas morning - hoorah!

Noah's stocking got extra love

They got stuffed with candy, toys and a bundle of yarn for my sister.

Shipping was over $100 to get them there in time, however, so now I plan on crafting with time to spare.  Which leads me to my current project...  VALENTINES!

I'm working a Pinterest obsession right now, and I found these cutie patootie crayon hearts to make for valentine's day gifts.  They're pretty simple, but a little messy.

You will need:

• one heart shaped mold (I got mine at Ikea, but I saw some at Target, too.  Can't find them on target.com tho.)
• a tray for under the mold, to catch drips
• crayons (according to several reviewers, crayola works best.  And metallics work really well.).  I'd guess I used about two crayons per mold, but that would depend on the mold used
• oven
• cooling rack

Instructions:

• To make peeling the paper off of the crayons easier, soak them in water overnight
• Cut out and decorate paper on which to mount the finished hearts.
• Once the crayons are peeled, break them into thirds or quarters.  No need to mess up a cutting board or a knife ;-)
• Preheat oven to 250 degrees fahrenheit
• Place 1-2 crayons (3-8 pieces) into each heart shaped mold. It's OK if they are little mountains of crayons right now - they will melt down and fill in their own nooks and crannies.
• Place filled molds on a jell roll pan (or some such), 
• Bake 10-15 minutes, or until liquid
• Remove from oven and let cool in the molds for, oh, 5 minutes or so.
• Put in freezer for 10 minutes (I can be impatient...)
• Remove molds from freezer.  Remove crayons from molds.  Repeat until you have all the hearts you want.
• Hot glue hearts onto prepped paper 
• Give to happy recipient!

Do NOT chop with a knife and board.  Unnecessary mess, and the  finished product is prettier with larger crayon pieces.

Nathan and the unglued valentines (the glitter glue wasn't dry yet).  I used small squares of white cardstock and smaller squares of red glitter construction paper.

While the valentines dry, I thought it would be fun to make this hooch recipe.  Today is day one and it looks like this:

Surrounding the jug are all the ingredients I used:  2 oranges, 1 lemon, 2 cups of milk, 2 cups of vodka and 2 cups of sugar.  Seal.  Shake once per day for ten days.  Strain and enjoy.  I'll try to post one picture per day to document the progress.  January 14 will be the final test.  Hmm...  what to serve it with...?  I'm leaning toward dark chocolate croissants.

TOOT!

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy

• 2:00 am today, dog is sick.  Tries to puke on cream colored carpet so I toss him (with love) into our hard floored bathroom.  I take care of the mess, let him out, give him bread to settle his tummy and we go back to bed.
• 3:00 am today, older son is sick.  Pukes in bathroom sink til full.  That hole at the top of your sink that prevents it from overflowing?  It's called a porcelator, and mine is now disgusting inside.  Nathan was also disgusting so he took a quick bath and came out smelling like my little boy.  Drank some water, ate a saltine and two chewable kids pepto tabs.  Sound asleep until...
• 3:40 am today, older son sick again.  Made it to the toilet this time - yay!  Oh look, pink saltines.  He no longer smells as fresh.
• 4:30 am today, older son sick...  Repeat every 30 minutes until 9:30 am or so.

In celebration of this morning's lack of wellness, here's a list, in no particular order, of wellness products on my mind.

• DoTerra Oils!  Neighbor Kathy across the street has become an independent consultant for them and I really like the idea of wellness via herbal cures and aromatherapy.  I gave her a call and she hooked me up with a few drops of DigestZen heavily diluted with water for Nathan.  He kept it down for about 15 minutes, but that was the last episode he had today!  Kathy also gave me a few drops of OnGuard and peppermint oil that I rubbed on his feet and now he spells amazing!  Seriously, I could hang his socks on my tree and guests would ask what smells so wonderful.
• Lemon Water!  Yay vitamin C!  Yes, it's acidic, but it has an alkalizing effect when digested, making your body less hospitable to viruses and bacteria and creepy crawlers.  Here's a list of 10 reasons why you should drink lemon water, but seriously, just google 'lemon water' and you'll get all sorts of responses.  And I can get a bag of ten, admittedly small, lemons from Walmart for less than $2.
• Probiotics!  Intestines are easy to forget about, but whoa nelly if you neglect them.  If you've neglected your gut, taking probiotic supplements can help alleviate skin problems, boost the immune system, improve digestion, alleviate hay fever and asthma.  Supplement your diet, or just eat some yogurt.
• Chocolate!  It makes me happy!  It has antioxidants to keep me healthy!  It's yummy! (I'm ignoring the fat and sugar demons)
• Red wine!  See chocolate, minus the fat and sugar demons, plus alcohol demons.
• Larabars!  Grain free, and some varieties contain chocolate - whoopee!  I found out in 2009 that eliminating grains from my diet (I tested wheat, corn, rice, oats) made me feel worlds better.  So what to snack on...  Larabars!  I brought along about 20 varieties on a cross Iowa bike ride that year, so I was able to taste test a bunch.  Peanut butter cookie is my favorite.  I'm also averse to soy, and these are soy-free as well.  Good stuff!  
• Red meat!  B vitamins, niacin, iron, zinc and loads of protein in a delicious mouth-watering package.
• Sunshine!  Thank you Mr. John Denver.  Sunshine on my shoulders DOES make me happy, and it does look so lovely on the water.  And that vitamin D boost does wonders for me, too.
• Bleach wipes!  Just in case Nathan's illness is a bug and not food poisoning, I wiped most of my hard surfaces down with these.  Am I helping to create superbugs?  No, I'm trying to keep my family healthy and any bugs that get past the wipes have to deal with our lemony-scented bodies.  Good luck jerk-bugs.

I'm wondering what wellness tricks are out there that I haven't heard of yet...  If you've got a good one, please leave it in the comments.

We finished a few projects and started a few more in the past weeks.  The tables Scott and I refurbished:

The black coffee table, the motley sofa table

We got both of these from the local Deseret Industries (just like Goodwill), for I think $10 each.  The black table was covered in gunk, and the sofa table had a really bad paint job, bad color and bad technique.  A little sanding, stain, paint, polyurethane and they are beautiful!

I saw a post in another blog about a homemade garland made of paper circles and thought it would be wonderful made with the Sunday Comics.  A lot of cutting, and a lot of glue dots, later I have this pretty garland.  Nathan did almost all of the assembly, I was the worker bee cutting dozens of little 2" circles.

The comics garland

Fireplace mantle.  Dog butt.

And I loved this, my lima bean wreath!  I got the idea at All Things Thrifty.  I accidentally used large limas instead of baby limas.  I think it still looks so pretty.

The house with outside Christmas decor.  Love it!  Can't see it here, but the baby trees out front are covered with colorful ornaments.

The big projects in progress:

• Stockings for family.  How to embroider their darling faces onto the stockings...?
• Paint first floor bath.
• How to get the puke smell out of my nose.

Thanks and God bless!
Mary