All sorts of confused today...

Last week I talked about my kiddo and the scare of pink eye. I cancelled all of my appointments, and I'm glad I did - he needed it! The strange thing was, it didn't get worse and it was gone by the next morning. I took him to the doctors anyways. They thought maybe it was just congestion that backed up into his eyes, and they gave us a prescription just in case. He did well. By Friday he was starting to get his spunk back and on Saturday he wanted to get out. By then I was not doing so well, so I went to Urgent Care and I (who couldn't stop rubbing my eyes-me) got pink eye. I put drops in my eye and in no time I was feeling better.

This is why I truly haven't been feeling well. Last summer I was catching every cold, which is not like me. I ended up going to an ENT and he discovered I was having reflux - which was irritating my esophagus and causing me to cough and create mucus. This also left my body unguarded and I got sick soo much. I ran out of my reflux medicine last week and I got sick - which didn't help the pink eye thing. All this sickness has scrambled my brain!

My New Year's Resolution was to be ahead of the game. I was all sorts of confused today. I was set on it being Valentine's Day. It's not. I'm so relieved because now I'm ahead of the game this time. I have brownies baked that need to go into the refrigerator, then be cut tomorrow. I think I will make sugar cookies with Xander, using Beth's recipe on Friday.

I also made really cute Valentine's Day treats for my son's preschool class. The instructions are here.

Even though it has been a rollercoaster of fun and craziness this last week I couldn't be happier. I love my family and I hope you have wonderful Valentine's Day on what ever day you spend it on!

Hand and Heart

I have one more fun craft for Valentines day for you. This one is very easy and all you need is construction paper in any colors, a pen or pencil, scissors and some markers or crayons (if you would like to write messages on them).

To make the Hand and Heart:

Fold a piece of construction paper in half. Trace your hand on the paper with your thumb and pointer finger on the fold line, also trace the space between them. Cut along both lines.

 The two small spaces at the top of your thumb and pointer finger should stay intact.

When you unfold it, it should look like this.

Then, if you want, you can write messages on them.

Happy Valentines Day Everyone!!

Sugar Cookies for my Sweatheart

I have been craving these yummy Sugar Cookies for weeks now, but I haven't been able to get myself motivated until I realised they would be perfect for Valentine's Day.  It isn't like they are hard or take a lot of time (usually), but I wanted to try a couple of different things this time.  One of those things was I wanted to roll them out.  Most people are saying "well duh - of course you roll sugar cookies out" - but I actually hardly ever roll my cookies out.  Rolling out cookies takes more of a time commitment than I usually have - you know with the chilling and the rolling and more rolling and you can only bake a few at a time...I am all about the fastest way to get to eat them.  I don't make cookies when I think I might want some later - I make them because I want them RIGHT NOW.  So most of my cookies are drop cookies - even Sugar Cookies - and I think they are just as good.  The other thing I wanted to try was to freeze the cut out cookies before baking them.  My plan is to make several batches of cut out Christmas Cookies and freeze them so I don't have to do them all at once.  

I love this Sugar Cookie recipe.  I got it almost 12 years ago from a co-worker, and every time I think I've lost the recipe card it magically reappears somehow.  Someday I will get it into a more permanent location!  Alright lets get to it!

Sugar Cookie Recipe:

3 cups Flour

1 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 tsp Baking Powder

1/4 tsp Salt

1 cup Butter

2 Eggs

1 cup Sugar

1 tsp Vanilla

2 tbsp Cream

The first step is to put the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a food processor, pulse to blend.  Add the butter in chunks to the flour mixture and pulse to combine.

 

 

 

The flour and butter should form little clumps - just like a pie crust.  (Can you see the tiny little clumps?)         

Next, combine the eggs, sugar, vanilla and cream in the mixer.  Add the flour mixture and start mixing. 

The mixture will start out looking like it is way too dry - keep mixing!  The dough will clump up into small balls, but will actually smooth out after a minute or so.  This picture is between those two stages - I almost forgot to take a picture - but you can still see the little clumps.

 

 The dough should be thick and moist - but not sticky - with little (tiny) dots of butter in it.  Once it is mixed you can start rolling it out - no chilling or waiting.  If you want to you can chill it, but I wouldn't leave it in the fridge for more than 30-60 minutes. 

Use as little flour as possible to keep it from sticking to your rolling pin and surface.  I like to roll mine out onto parchment paper - less sticking and it makes transfering the cookies to the cookie sheet easier.  I split my dough into 4 balls and rolled them out to about 1/4 inch. 

Then I cut as many cookies out as possible and removed the extra.  This will help keep the cookies in the correct shape.  Since I did it on the parchment paper, I could peel the cookies off and move the cookies to the cookie sheet.

 

Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes.  You want them to be barely brown around the edges for soft cookies.  The ones on the left are a little over done - but still tasty!

  

Let them cool completely before storing or frosting.

For the Frosting:

1/2 cup Butter (at room temp)

1/2 tsp Vanilla

2 cups Powdered Sugar

3 Tbsp Cream

Cream butter and vanilla.  Add powdered sugar until combined.  Mix the cream in and continue mixing on high/medium high for around 5 min.  This is a pretty basic frosting, but I think the cream adds an extra yumminess to it.  You can add any flavors or colors to it - just rememebr to add them slowly so you don't make it too thin.  This frosting should be nice and thick. 

Since I made these for Valentine's day I wanted to do something fun - but not too girly.  I thought the conversation hearts were a great way to have fun with the cookies - as well as make it a little nostalgic.  I did wish I had some sprinkles and I thought doing two different colored frostings would be cute - maybe next time. 

I also froze a few cookies overnight.  I just stuck some on a cool cookie sheet and placed it in the freezer until they were frozen, then put them in a ziplock.  The next day I preheated the oven to 325 degrees and cooked them for around 13 minutes.  They did rise up, but not as much as the unfrozen ones, so I was pretty happy with how they turned out.

I hope everyone has a tasty Valentines Day!

 

Love Bug Craft

I thought with Valentine's Day just a few days away I would share this cute and easy craft.

Whenever I am with Hailey (11) and Harmony (5), two of my nieces, one of our favorite things to do are crafts. We made this love bug out of 1 sheet of both red and black construction paper, glue stick or tape and "shakey" eyes (that's what Harmony calls them).

To make the love bugs: 

Fold both pieces of your construction paper in half draw a half heart with the fold on the inside, you will need one large red heart, one medium and four (or more) small black hearts. Cut along the the line and unfold the hearts. Glue or tape them together and stick on your eyes.

Here are my beautiful nieces on my last trip... 

 

Harmony



Hailey



Have fun making your own love bugs with the kids you love!

Fresh Baked bread in no time...

Mmmm Fresh baked bread with butter..

This is a really quick bread recipe and it's just perfect all around! It was fast to put together and has quick rising times. The texture is slightly crumbly, not too dense and it had a nice crust on it.

I will be making more, it went quickly. Last night I made meatloaf so I need to make more so I can have a meatloaf sandwich!

Here's what I did:

In a big bowl, add 3 cups of all purpose flour

add 1 teaspoons of sugar

Add salt. You can add 1 1/2-2 teaspoons depending on taste,

I added 2, and next time I will probably add 1 teaspoon.

Add 1 Tablespoons of baking powder as well. (optional) 

This is why I may add only 1 teaspoon next time, the baking powder added quite a bit of sodium.

To make the yeast mixture add 1 1/2 cups of milk or water (I did a mixture of both, I used whole milk)

Heat milk to Luke warm 80 F- 90 F degrees

Add just a little bit of heated milk to 1 Tablespoon of dry yeast and 1 teaspoon of sugar.

Here it is after about 10 minutes. It's ready to go!

Add yeast mixture and flour mixture mix with a wooden spoon.

Add a little of the milk and mix, keep doing this until you have a mixture that pulls away from the spoon. I ended up using all of the milk mixture, the air is dry right now where I live. That's why it's important to add a little then check. If you add too much it will look like pancake batter and you don't want that!

Cover with plastic wrap or a clean kitchen towel and let rise for 20 minutes.

Stir again and let rise for 30 more minutes 

Grease your pan and preheat your oven to 400 F

Add your dough to your pan and let rise for 10 more minutes. Next time I want to try and smooth the top before putting it into the pan. 

Bake for 40 minutes.

I got excited and forgot to take a picture while it was in the pan. Take you bread out of the oven and let sit for 10-15 minutes then remove your bread from pan and let rest for another 10 minutes. Slice and let cool completely then store in a sealed container or bag.

I feel like bread is one of those things that I can make while I have a little one running around. There are waiting times which somehow works out perfectly for tending to what my child needs.

I sure hope you try this out and let us know how it turned out!

3 Cups of all purpose flour

2 teaspoons of sugar divided

1 1/2 -2 teaspoons of salt

1 Tablespoon of Baking Powder

1 Tablespoon of dry yeast

1 1/2 cups of Luke milk or water 

Oil for greasing your pan.

In a big bowl add your flour, 1 teaspoon of sugar, salt, and baking powder if using. 

In a small bowl add yeast and last teaspoon of sugar, cover the yeast with a little bit of the Luke warm milk or water let sit for about 10 minutes. 

Add yeast mixture to flour mixture. Slowly add the milk mixture in 1/2 cup increments, mix after each addition until dough pulls away from spoon.

cover with plastic wrap or clean kitchen towel and let rise for 20 minutes. Stir again and let rise for 30 minutes more.

Grease loaf pan and preheat oven to 400 F.

Stir your bread dough and add to your greased pan and bake for 40 minutes.

Adapted from Pinterest Sandra's Easy CookingPinterest