Easter Crafts

I have to give credit for this craft to my friend Debbie. She provided the inspiration (and a link to the instructions) all I did was execute it (that seems like an odd word here). Anyhoo - the moment I saw these Easter eggs I knew I had to try and make them. They look so cute!  So I took a quick trip to Michael's and gathered my supplies:

• Styrofoam egg(s) - size and number are your preference
• Fun paper - I used scrapbook paper. I'd suggest sticking to a lighter weight paper regardless of the type you choose.
• 5/8" hole punch (I borrowed this from Debbie, the size is approximate)
• Straight pins (I used short ones but I think you could get longer ones to work too, and they might be easier to hold on to then)
• A bit of glue for the last dot

I'm not going to retype out the instructions, so head over here for a detailed account.

I could only make 1 egg a night because my thumb could not take the pain any longer than that. Next time I'm getting a thimble. I'd estimate each egg took me about an hour or so, depending on how much TV watching I did. 

For my finished project I bought a cheap ($1) basket from Target and some Easter grass ($0.25/bag). I also got a 1/8" dowel and some more paper and alphabet stickers from Michael's to make the little sign. 

 All in all I think it came out looking pretty good and was extremely inexpensive (rough estimate = $10). What do you think?

Out of the Ordinary

On a typical night dinner in the Carlson-Thornewell household consists of what we can whip together in about 30 minutes. We usually fly be the seat of our pants and work without a recipe (I know - this could be dangerous, but no mishaps just yet). Some nights though we like to take on the challenge of a new recipe.  These are those stories:



Almost 2 months ago Tim and I spent the weekend in Seattle. While there we shopped at Pike Place Market and picked up some tasty pasta (dark chocolate linguine and supreme orzo) from Pappardelle's Pasta We finally got around to trying it just last week. Pappardelle's gives you a recipe with each pasta and so after a quick stop at Safeway for some of the more obscure items (and some ketchup, ranch, etc. We were running low on condiments) we headed home to try our hand at Poached Scallops with Supreme Orzo. Now we've never made orzo before. We've never made scallops before. This could have been a huge disaster.

Tim took over cooking dinner while I worked on chocolate lava cakes for desert. He likes to help out and I try my best not to bother him with took many suggestions. He's a good learner and we've had some amazing food thanks to him (see my previous blog about homemade brownies!)

The end result?  A fantastic, fancy dinner on a otherwise normal weeknight!  The moral: don't be afraid to try something different in the kitchen!  A gourmet meal on a Wednesday might be just what you need to make it through the rest of the week.

 

Scenario #2: We've now got a bag full of scallops in our fridge that cost us quite a pretty penny... What are we going to do with them.  After some internet searching I had found a number of scallop recipes, but almost all of them were very involved and I was a little nervous about taking on the challenge. So I started up my internet search once more (utilizing the new Recipes filter from Google) and found a couple of rather simple recipes from The Food Network. I settled on one from Cat Cora for Seared Scallops over Greens Without a stainless steel or cast iron pan I couldn't get the gorgeous (and delicious) sear on the scallops like you see in a restaurant, but they were still pretty tasty and super easy to make.  Tim was worried he'd still be hungry so we added our new favorite side dish - risotto!  Here's a picture of the end result:

Last but not least: I woke up yesterday morning with a fierce hunger. So instead of the usual Saturday morning breakfast (pancakes, bacon, coffee) I decided to go above and beyond. I whipped up a quiche!  Now let me explain - I've never made a quiche before.  I'm not even sure I've ever eaten a quiche before. Come to find out, Tim LOVES quiche!  Win - win - win.  I made a few alterations:  we only had turkey bacon so I substituted that (and you can't tell the difference in the final product) and I'm not the biggest onion fan so I cut that back accordingly. Otherwise I put this together as the recipe states. So after 45 minutes in the over we greeted the morning with the following.  Oh happy Saturday.

Tim's XMen Mug pulled the picture together nicely.

So that's that. Go out and try a new recipe and let me know how it went!

Chocolate Chocolate Cookies

It's late at night and suddenly you've got a serious sweet tooth - what do you do?  Bake of course!  But as you sit down to find a suitable recipe you realize you're out of a key ingredient - vanilla.  Oh no!  What will you do?!?!?  

This is the situation Tim and I found ourselves in the other night. We were both jonesin' for some sugar and had chocolate cookies on the brain. Then I remembered we were out of vanilla and had forgotten to restock while we were at the store. Not wanting to walk to Winco (or lose our parking spot) what were we supposed to do?  And then it dawned on us: we've got almond and peppermint extract - wouldn't those work just as well?  Turns out - they will!  Tim was the man in charge (no really - he did everything, I sat on the couch and read my kindle). Now we've got a delicious bag of almond chocolate chocolate chip cookies on the counter!  These are seriously amazing!  I'm thinking hazelnut or peppermint extract would be amazing here.  

So the next time you get the urge to bake and discover you're missing a few key ingredients - get creative!  What's the worst that could happen?