Kinda Vegan Cupcakes.

I bought a dozen and a half eggs while I was at the grocery store getting the dinner supplies me and my sister needed to make dinner at my mom's house. Me & Abby were going to do some baking! She had the baking itch, and I kinda did as well. I planned on going through the Martha Stewart Living from February which featured a ton of awesome cupcake recipes. I made one awhile back and was looking forward to trying something less complicated, but just as delicious.

And then I left my mom's house and the eggs in her fridge. *sigh*

So, out comes the good ol' "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World." I swear, that is the greatest cupcake book ever! I wanted to try the chai latte cupcakes, but the three-year-old won. She just wanted chocolate cupcakes, so that's what we made.

I didn't feel like making frosting, so I decided to dip some super delicious and sweet strawberries into those freakishly unnatural candy wafers that are sold at the craft stores. (I have a lot left over from the shower cake I made last month.) I topped the cupcakes with the dipped strawberries and viola! A delicious Abby-pleasing cupcake.

Flower Power.

My mind is continually spinning thinking up different ideas for stuff to do with the child; it's quite the challenge, really. Today while making coffee, I decided it would be a good idea to do something with coffee filters. I mean, it's a pretty awesome craft supply because they're cheap and you can get 10,000 for like .40. Well, not really, but I'm feeling hyperbolic today.

So, we went outside in the horrific August-is-here-in-Philly-and-it's-kicking-everyone's-butt weather, and sprayed coffee filters with water. We then painted them with water colors and let them dry. It didn't take long in the heat. We then assembled flowers.



Fun craft. Playing with water outside. Sweat dripping down neck and back. Time to go inside to the air-conditioning.



















To make the flowers:
1. Insert a pipe cleaner (I guess green would be the appropriate color since it's supposed to be a stem; but in our house, we get visits from fairies, so any color will do. We used pink.) in two just-off-center spots of the coffee filter. One side should be longer than the other. The shorter side should be about 1" or so.
2. Twist the small part of the pipe cleaner around the longer side a couple of times.

3. Gather the bit of the coffee filter that is attached to the pipe cleaner and wrap the pipe cleaner up a bit. (You're kind of making the stamen of the flower.) I know this sentence if completely unclear, but I'm not sure how else to word it!)

4. All finished!

Thought for the Day.

There's no need for a piece of sculpture in a home that has a cat. ~Wesley Bates

Fairy Cottage.

Yesterday as I was cleaning up breakfast, the child asks, "Now what?!" It was 9:30am. My mind quickly scans our usual non-TV activities: painting, coloring, drawing, matching games, candy land, gluing things to other things. These things usually last about 10 minutes (at most) each. *sigh*

I don't know where this thought came from, and oddly, it was coming out of my mouth even before my brain realized it was: "Let's make a fairy house!" And so we did. We went outside and collected twigs, pinecones, the spiny parts of the coneflowers, pieces of bark, and acorns. Inside, we gathered an old birdhouse (that oddly enough, I decorated with fairies a few years back), feathers, pompoms, glitter glue, paint, ribbon and beads. (The perk of being a crafty collector is that you have all this cool stuff laying around!)

I was surprised when the outside collection process lasted about 45 minutes. During this time we were wondering what color fairies like, and what they eat. I could not believe she was so into this!

As she started to paint the house, I burned the tips of my fingers off with the glue gun while applying twigs. She painted little rocks and I (more carefully) glued them on. She used the glitter glue to attach the pom poms and ribbon. This took just about an hour! A record!!!

We wrote a letter to the fairies. Happily, this morning we found a letter from a fairy named Rose. She thanked Abby for the beautiful cottage and asked her if she could move in some of her stuff. Rose also told us her friends' names: Lily, Daisy, Persephone & Violet.

We were suprised to find out that fairies disguise themselves as butterflies during the day! Who knew!? Yesterday we actually touched Rose's yellow & black wing as she was feeding on our butterfly bush. Rose commented that she liked it when we pet her.

Abby was very upset that the Rose & her friends didn't stay around for her to see her. We'll write her another letter tonight and hopefully she'll give us an explanation.

Thoughts.

Sometimes (all the time) I think too much. I can easily dwell on things that I don't like about my life: my weight, my lack of money, my family crisis (not to sound cryptic, but those of you who know me, know the situation).

When you open your eyes and the first thing your husband tells you is the balance of your checking account, and you already realized that you have to email some one back about when he can see his grandchild, and last night you realized that you weigh almost as much as you did before you lost 56 lbs., it makes your mind feel heavy and your heart ache. You feel as if, if another person says something even remotely snide, your eyes will well with tears.

And then you decide to look at pictures and you see pure joy. You realize you're a damn drama queen and that it's possible to be gloriously happy just swinging on a swing.

Adapted.

Last summer I made a polenta tomato tart from the Whole Foods website. It was pretty good. A light summer dinner. I was going to make it again last night. Then I went to the grocery store and refused to pay $7.99 for sun-dried tomatoes. And then were out of basil.

I adapted. I created a polenta caramelized balsamic-rosemary onion tomato and goat cheese tart. It was delicious.


Polenta Caramelized Balsamic-Rosemary Onion, Tomato and Goat Cheese Tart

Polenta (I used pre-made polenta that I crumbled and smooshed into a greased tart pan)
2 large onions
4 oz crumbled goat cheese
3-4 plum tomatoes (seeded and diced)
olive oil
pat of butter/margarine
1-2 garlic cloves
2-3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1/8c sugar
spring of fresh rosemary
sea salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 350.

Crumble and smoosh prepared polenta into a greased tart pan. Splash some olive oil on top and sprinkle with sea salt. Bake for 20-30 minutes until a little golden brown.

While polenta is baking, thinly slice onions and saute in pan with sea salt, olive oil and pat of butter. As onions start to sweat, add sugar, balsamic vinegar, and rosemary that is removed from stem. Continue to cook onions until they are a rich brown color and the vinegar has evaporated. (About 20-30 mintues)

When polenta is golden, remove from oven and spread caramelized onions over top. Sprinkle goat cheese on top of onions and then layer with diced tomatoes and freshly pressed (or chopped) garlic. Drizzle with olive oil and put in oven for 10-15 minutes.

Let sit for 10 minutes. Serve and enjoy with a fresh salad!

Gelato-Fabulous.

I've been wanting to make some ice cream. Actually, I've been wanting to make peanut butter, banana, honey ice cream, since my recent favorite snack is Wasa crackers with natural crunchy peanut butter, honey drizzled on top of that, and then sliced banana on top of it all. I don't know what's going on with me, but I'm changing. I used to not like peanut butter, now I can't get enough. I used to intake about 8 splendas a day, now more than 1 and I get nausea and a headache. I know. Don't say it. I'm getting older.
Anyhow, since my daughter doesn't like peanut butter, I didn't make it. On a whim, I went to the epicurious website and searched on gelato. Lots of delicious things came up, but this one caught my attention, mainly because I had everything but the chocolate & the whole milk.
It was a time consuming process, but very much worth it, if not for the end-result gelato, but for the realization that, if you don't put the mixture in the ice cream maker, you have a kick-ass nutella-flavored pudding. The possibilities!!! Cream pies, a dollop (I hate that word) over strawberries, or just not-so-plain old chocolate pudding. YUM!