May You Have...

   A while back someone posted a link for making your own stenciled pillow. I love typography styled stuff. It's simple, clean, and just nice to look at. I really like reading, so maybe that has something to do with it as well. LOL. Anyway, I decided to try my hand at making one last night!

   It actually wasn't too bad, just time consuming to do. I really wish I'd gotten a better paint marker though. I'll use this one up, but I'm definitely going to have to either order a better one or pick one up next time I'm shopping in a bigger city. This one did the job, but it took for freaking ever and toward the end I was really having troubles getting it to do more than one letter before I had to put the cap back on and shake it again and I managed to get a few ink/paint splatters on the case. Ooops! 

   I found the quote I wanted to do, printed it off, then I got to stenciling it out on my pillowcase. I put a bit of poster board in the pillowcase so that the marker didn't bleed onto the other side. 

   After getting it all stenciled in with pencil, I then went over it with the marker. I managed to freehand it since I had the penciled in bits to guide me and I don't think I did too bad at all! 

   Now I just need to heat set the paint, stick a pillow in it and all will be well. :D I'm trying to decide if I'm ambitious enough to trim the excess on the one side down and add a zipper to it. I have no sewing skills whatsoever, so I probably ought to leave well enough alone. Maybe. LOL.  I have another pillow case to use, so now I just need to decide on a quote for it! I'm really contemplating using the one in the tutorial link, but that's a huge quote and I'm not sure I have that much ambition.  We'll see. It took me about 2.5-3 hours to stencil in with pencil, then go over with the paint marker. Now that I've got the hang of it, it should go a bit smoother next time!

Deutschland?

   To preface this post-- Man, it's been awhile! Ahem. Now onto the good stuff.

   In 9 days (May 5) I'll be getting on a plane and flying to Germany. I'm quite excited about this since I've only ever been out of the US once and it was to Canada. Saskatchewan is just beautiful, by the way, but it's still close enough culturally that it didn't really feel like it was a "foreign country." Germany, well, that'll be a different sort of endeavor. Grocery stores aren't open on Sundays (not that I foresee that being an issue for me. lol), you pull up to the light you're stopped at (as in "right under the blasted thing," not pull up to the line on the other side of the intersection like we do here), most people there speak another language... and a few other things like that. It'll be fun, interesting, and exciting! And before you ask, yes there will be many pictures taken. I think everyone I know has told me that I have to take them. Rest assured. There will be photographic evidence of a trip. LOL.

   So, that's it for now. Yeah, a bit of a floppy ending to such a post, but it's all I can think of for a conclusion. LOL. I probably won't be online much while I'm there, but check out my plurk account  to keep up with what's going on. You'll have to add me as a friend since my timeline is private, but plurk is actually a really fun community. :D

 

Rocking the Boat

    Do you ever have those moments when you're idly browsing a social network or scouring the web for something and come across a gem that you really needed, but didn't know you didn't know you needed it until then? I just had such a moment. All it took was seeing a link to a blog post on Facebook and boom! I had a figurative slap to the face with a large, blunt object.
    This one, simple quote was the main reason-- "In short, we cannot grow, we cannot achieve authentic discovery, and our eyes cannot be cleansed to the truly beautiful possibilities of life, if we simply live a neutral existence." Wow. How often do we settle for not “rocking the boat?” How often do we stand by and watch life pass us by, simply because we're comfortable (or at the very least not totally uncomfortable) where we're at? How often do we close our eyes or our ears so that we don't have to acknowledge something because it's too hard, too painful, too inconvenient? I'm not saying that being neutral is totally bad—it's not—but too often we use it for an excuse, a reason to not do more or be more than we could. Sometimes, we use it to hold back.
    Life is a choice and everything in life is hinged upon the decisions that we make. It's what helps us to grow and to learn. So if we're totally neutral all the time, do we grow and learn? My guess is no. We might grow some and learn a few things, but nowhere near as much as we could have. It makes us like a stagnate pond with very little influx of new stuff and no outlet for everything else.

May You Always...

    Not sure what it is about the past couple of weeks, but they haven't been that easy on me. Not bad, just frantic, busy, and occasionally overwhelming. Some of it is the holiday season and some of it is work. Don't get me wrong on the holiday bit, I'm not a Scrooge, I just miss my family this time of year.  Today on twitter I saw someone retweet a tumblr post: "May you always have walls for the winds, a roof for the rain, tea beside the fire, laughter to cheer you, those you love near you and all your heart might desire." Something about it just touches my heart right now. And you know what? I have walls for the winds, a roof for the rain, tea in a warm house, laughter to cheer me, and some people I love near me. What more can I desire?

Aeble-what?

   I've been known to find some different (and on occasion, bizarre) foods. It was when I was doing some searching for Aloo Palak that I found--by a rather circuitous route-- Aebleskivers. To be honest, I'm not a fan of pancakes at all. Not sure why, I think it's something about the flavor and texture, but something about these little round Danish pancake balls really sounded interesting. So for kicks and giggles I found a cheapish pan, scoured the web for recipes, and gave it a whirl. Happily, I rather enjoyed them and have made them rather often for a quick brunch or snack to have on hand. After some time, I was a bit tired and bored with just the plain ones. After yet more scouring of the the web I found a winner-- Cheddar Jalapeno Cornbread Aebleskivers. I can't seem to find a reference to the first recipe I used (I'm beginning to think maybe I just made cornbread and added stuff to it), but tonight while satisfying my Cornbread Aebleskiver craving I found a keeper. This tasty little recipe comes from the blog "The Other Side of Fifty".

  First whisk some flour, cornmeal, salt, brown sugar, baking soda and powder, cayenne and black pepper together in a medium bowl. I really recommend adding a touch less than the 1/2 tsp of cayenne called for if you're not a fan of spicy stuff. This was almost too much for me and I love spicy stuff, so I'd probably do a scant 1/2 teaspoon the next time.

   Next, whisk some buttermilk (this will help tone down the cayenne quite a bit), melted butter, and eggs in a small bowl. Not the most appetizing look concoction. Now dump that lovely stuff on the dry ingredients and mix until combined. You don't want to overmix it, just get everything moist.

  Done with the combining? Now add your diced jalapeños to the mix (if your using them) and give it a good stir. At some point in time, you'll want to melt some more butter and heat up your aebleskiver pan. It usually doesn't take too long to do that, well at least with my little cast iron pan it doesn't anyway.


   Now you're going to want to brush the wells of your pan with some butter and add a Tablespoon or less mix to it. Add a chunk of cheese, add a little more mix (try not to overfill) and let the sides brown, flipping once each side is done. There are a couple ways to flip these things, but my personal favorite is using a knitting needle or bamboo skewer and flip them a quarter turn each time the side is brown and holds together. This takes some practice, so don't worry if they look funny. The first time, batch, and attempt with new recipes usually do look funny until you get the hang of it. The other way to flip them is to brown one half and flip it all the way over and cook the second half. Oh, and if you have an aluminum pan use a bamboo skewer so you don't scratch the non-stick coating. I have better luck with a knitting needle on my cast iron one, so it's just a matter of trying one and seeing which suits you better.

   Once you're done browning the little lovelies and making sure they're cooked all the way through, enjoy! I love eating these with a bowl of chili. It's just a different variation of cornbread, but I think that's what makes it fun. :)

Foggy Musings

   One wouldn't think that Nebraska would get pea-soup thick fog some mornings, but it does. Coming from South Central Montana, I'm not really used to seeing fog, let alone that much of it. Sure, every once in awhile there'll be those pretty little wisps that wreathe the mountain tops, but that's usually it. In the panhandle of Nebraska on the other hand, there are times that I'm lucky to see a car length in front of me because the fog is so thick. That's not an everyday or "every time it's foggy" sort of thing but it happens. This morning was one of those mornings. I could see about a car length, maybe two, in front of me and that got me to thinking about stuff. I knew the road would take me to where I needed to go, but I really couldn't see well enough to know what was more than 20 or 30 feet in front of me. I had to trust that the road was going to be the same it usually is and lead me to work. When you think about it, life is the same way. God gave us a direction to take. We can't see the big picture about where it leads, or all the bumps along the way, we just have to trust that He'll take us where He wants us to go and that He'll be there for us when we need Him. Now, we don't have to follow the road He set for us since that's a matter of free will, but that's like getting turned around on a country road in the fog. You know it leads somewhere, you just don't know where or if the road is washed out or a bunch of other things like that. You're trusting in your own strength to bring you through and that that road is leading you to where you want to go. I don't know about you, but I'd much rather take the route where I know I have help if I get a flat tire in life.

   Yep. Those are the kind of strange musings I have when driving 26 miles to work in the morning in the fog. Sometimes it puts stuff in a different perspective for me.

Pumpkin Gnocchi

     It’s not quite fall yet, but I’m starting to see pumpkins and Halloween candy in the stores, Thanksgiving decorations, and cooler mornings and evenings. I love this time of year. I’m not sure what made me think of pumpkin gnocchi earlier, but it sounded like the perfect thing to do for dinner tonight. I didn’t exactly plan it out too well because all I had was regular spaghetti sauce and Kraft Parmesan cheese to put on them. ::lol:: That’s OK, they turned out pretty dang tasty anyway. :)
     I wasn’t sure if I still had the pumpkin gnocchi recipe I used last year, so I did a little internet scouring to see if I could find it (which I did), but I found this recipe as well. I decided to give it a whirl and I’m glad that I did. It was excellent! I’m currently assuming that you want to see my photos, so here you go!

   First, I dumped a 15 oz can of pumpkin (*not* pumpkin pie filling!!) into a bowl. If it’s watery, make sure to drain the water off of it first. You can use homemade pumpkin puree, but I was going for quick and easy tonight. Especially since I didn’t want to turn the stove on when it was about 90F out.


   Next, dump your spices and flour in there and mix it up until you get a soft dough. You don’t want it too sticky, but not too dry either. The recipe called for a dash of nutmeg, pepper, and salt. I added a little bit of cardamom just because it sounded perfect for it. Don’t get too carried away with the nutmeg (or cardamom) though. This isn’t a pumpkin bar. ::lol::


    You’re going to want to divide the dough into 6 pieces and roll them into a 1 inch diameter log. Cut into 1 inch pieces, and if you feel so led, use a fork to imprint them so they look more like potato gnocchi. It doesn’t change the flavour any, it just makes it look cool. I think. Heaven only knows the real reason behind gnocchi imprinting. LOL.


     Gently place your gnocchi in a pot of lightly salted boiling water. They’ll sink to the bottom when you first put them in there, so don’t worry about them. Keep an eye on them though, because when they start floating in a few minutes, they’re done. 



     As I said, all I had was spaghetti sauce and Kraft Parmesan. LOL. Personally, I like mine with pesto and freshly grated Parmesan, but you really could use anything.
   If you by some chance won’t cook all the gnocchi at once (say, if you’re single like me), place them on a cookie sheet or something lined with parchment paper or wax paper and stick them in the freezer for a little while before sticking them in a freezer bag to use later. You want to freeze them on the sheet first, so they don’t stick together. or all you’ll have is a frozen clump of gnocchi that tastes goopy if you just stick them in the bag and freeze them.

Buon Appetito!