Our small family Thanksgiving Dinner didn't call for much to-do about anything, but my 9 y.o. insisted on fancy napkins. So we found this cornstalk design that was not too hard to make. They turned out so cute and really dressed up the table. Finally discovered the Moscow Mule. In love. With the drink and the mug!

For St. Patrick's Day, my kids demand green food, just as they demand to wake up to hearts leading the way from their bedrooms to a great Valentine's Day surprise and glorious Easter baskets, etc. The aftermath, I now suffer for doing cute things on holidays when they were younger that I may not necessarily feel like doing anymore. But, anyway. I made the obligatory green pancakes this morning. I got away with the inclusion of lettuce for lunch. And for dinner, I decided to try the Spinach Pasta in the Blendtec Twist Jar recipe book. I had a bunch of spinach from my Bountiful Baskets that I recently started to participate in that I needed to use. The pasta looks really appealing in the Blendtec photo, but I wasn't too sure it would turn out so well. No, I don't think you're supposed to have to put this much flour on the pasta dough, but I had to. It wasn't too hard to mix. The ingredients are pretty simple: spinach, white whole wheat flour, egg, and water...

End Date: Feb. 28, 2014   ** Winner: Shoumita F. ** Prize:   (1) MELT Organic prize package which includes:                    1 cutting board,                    1 spreader and                    2 VIP coupons for free MELT Organic Spread ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OK, I'm kind of a bread junkie.  I don't go for chocolate or ice cream.  I like bread!  Especially warm, homemade bread with butter. We have been using Smart Balance butter for a while and we've looked for butter replacements when one my kids was allergic to milk.  He's now outgrown this allergy but we have recently found out that my youngest boy, Super D., is lactose intolerant.  Needless to say, I'm always looking for the healthiest butter spreads and ones t...

So, I got a bread machine a few months ago. Bread machines were one of those things I didn't comprehend the need for. My grandma used to make bread by hand and I always thought that was the way to make bread.  Well, I got sucked into looking at an e-mail with some deals on it and next thing you know, I'm buying a bread machine.  Nevermind the fact that my kitchen is bursting at the seams and has no more room left for appliances. I started out with a couple of recipes from the machine recipe book. But my real interest is to continue to eat the whole wheat bread we've finally become accustomed to.  I ended up buying the Kindle book, The Bread Love'rs Machine Bread Cookbook . And, I've made bread just about every other day since then! Here is some of the bounty. Whole Wheat Hamburger Buns - Delicious! Squaw bread - was good until I figured out I'm allergic to rye. : ( The first, only, and most decadent sticky buns I have ever made. They are...

So I haven't been sewing much lately, but I have been baking. I got a sudden urge to buy a bread machine. Yup, I'm way behind the times but that's OK. So, I've been making bread just about every day for the last two weeks. However, in order to do so, I've pretty much had to give myself the equivalent of a college course on wheat, yeast, all the various ingredients and the history of bread making in general.  I've obviously underestimated bread all my life. Today, I actually made this bread in the KitchenAid mixer and baked it in the oven, but the recipe was from the bread machine recipe book I got last week.  The bread machine was already occupied with another bread treat I'm going to try to freeze for Christmas. Maybe it's because I'm Hispanic, but I don't understand why cake is called bread just because it's baked in a loaf pan.  "Pan", "queque", "torta". "Bread", "cake", "cake...

I know. A half-eaten plate of food probably doesn't photograph as that appetizing.  I always decide to take a photo of my plate after I get a taste of it and it's so delicious, I want to preserve it visually. Zucchini is about the only thing that is thriving in my little square foot garden, probably because the huge leaves are killing everything else off. I had leftover lamb and rice from my husband's requested birthday dinner and I thought I would add some zucchini fritters to it. I just Googled a recipe and kind of modified it for what I had on hand. These are sooooo good. Probably too good. Everything fried is good, isn't it. I don't fry stuff often. I even pulled the never-used iron skillet out for these. I shredded the zucchini in the Cuisinart. Super easy. Everyone loved these. I also made the Savory Zucchini Pie last week. Probably a little more healthy and super delicious too.

Yes, I've been a zucchini bread making machine this week. Here's blueberry, banana, and banana with almond butter.

This is our third year of our square foot garden. It's a fun thing to do with the kids. Teaching them where food comes from. They think it's pretty much akin to magic when they see it grows from a seed and doesn't come from a box. So this year, we planted a couple of zucchini. I don't eat zucchini. I was born a finicky, picky eater. You know, like those weird people on that TLC show Freacky Eaters that only eat potatoes. It's only been a couple of years that I started eating lasagna (before this, it kind of struck me like vomit) and most recently, I've learned to eat oatmeal. Yes, oatmeal. This took several tries as I couldn't get over the slimy texture at first. I'm still not that fond of water. Enough of my weird eating habits. I could go on and on. The point is, I don't want my kids to turn out this way, so I try my best to introduce them to healthy foods. OK, and in this case ... chocolate. Anyway, now the zucchinis are reall...

This is currently my favorite breakfast: - Kodiak Whole Wheat Flapjack mix pancakes - with fresh mangoes - and Kodiak Raspberry syrup (there's also a Marionberry syrup that is equally good) Delicious! And if you eat this outside, it's even better. If you're trying to make the switch from white flour baked goods to whole wheat, like I've been trying to do for a few years now, this pancake mix is a sure winner. This also helps explain, why there are less posts about sewing and crafting. I've been concentrating my efforts on eating yummy things.

Summer has been getting in the way of blogging and well, uh, sewing lately. I have, however, been making plenty of use of my Blendtec for healthy smoothie snacks. I was even motivated enough to buy a popsicle mold and make semi-healthy fruit pops. My kids are always begging for treats like this in the summer and I'm pretty stingy when it comes to buying candy, junk snacks, ice cream and anything else kids really like a lot. So I thought I would pre-empt their whining for popsicles by making them in secret. I've made the pineapple ones from this Blentec recipe and yesterday I concocted my own mango recipe. This is what I used, it will make more than you need, but you can always drink the rest. My three-year-old, Super Disgusting, kept asking me for these one day for about two hours. I couldn't figure out --What the hell he wanted!!! - "Mom, can we have some pachios?" - "What?" - "Mom, can we have some pachios?" - ...

Blendtec is having a Smothie Stash Contest on their facebook page.  Vote for our photo or enter your own for a chance to win a Blendtec blender. I've been making smoothies for the kids for about a year and recently ventured into hummus. I even made my own tahini yesterday (for the hummus). Ironically, I didn't even know what tahini was before yesterday. I also made sun butter for my nut-allergy guy. It's a great way to ease your way into a healthier eating lifestyle.

For  Monkey Pants eighth birthday, I did a smallish party.  I'm not much for all out theme parties, but I like to have a general idea to motivate the cake design and colors.  I decided on Lalaoopsy .  Keeping the cake simple is always a goal these days. I used a couple of ideas from Pintrest like the rainbow colored fruit ca bobs and I couldn't resist the milk bottle drinks with ridiculously expensive paper straws. I couldn't resist OK! [Tip: Novelty milk bottles are ridiculously priced. I used a coupon and bought Starbucks coffee in these glass bottles for a lot cheaper. My husband didn't mind drinking all the coffee. I'm more of a tea person.  The labels came off easily.  I used these contact paper chalk board labels for names, which also come off with no residue]. For lunch, I made pigs in blanket with croissants (I don't know why they're not on that orange tray), sweet potato fries in individual containers, and some assort...

Two years ago, I decided to make a small square foot gardening area in our back yard.  (If only I could find the pictures).  We're not huge lovers of vegetables, but we try.  This was our second year of tomatoes, and this time, I planted less and decided I would try to can them instead of trying to eat them all once they were ripe.  It was the year of canning, I guess.  I ended up canning apricot jam from my mom's back yard (also hurt my back for a month after picking those), apple sauce from my mom's back yard, and marina sauce from our tiny garden.  It was a hot process.  Next year, maybe I'll try freezing instead.  Time for involved things like this is scarce.  It usually comes down to, "Oh no, the tomatoes we picked last week are going to go bad.  We need to do this today!" So, I found a simple recipe online. You put the following ingredients: tomatoes, onions, garlic, basil, salt and pepper in the oven and...

...so fun.

I made this on a bit of a whim for Easter dinner: cornish hens, artichokes, and golden potatoes with steamed carrots. Yum.