Pottery Barn, You Light Up My Life

Now how's that for a cheesy title? We're shopping for some lighting for our side entranceway and eventually (hopefully soon) an exterior light to go beside our new door. Yes, Alex is chopping a whole in the wall of our house and installing an exterior french door. I know he will do a great job but what if a critter or an evil burglar sneaks in when there's a hole and no door!?!?!??

Anyway, I wandered to my favourite site of all time, Pottery Barn, and found these lights that I am in love with. All of them. In love.

There are many others but these are the ones I've been obsessing over lately.

Dreamy.

Cinnamon Bun Attempt #1

I will say attempt because they didn't quite turn out how they were supposed to.

Regular cinnamon buns: fluffy.
My cinnamon buns: flat.

Wah wah.

This little experiment happened last weekend. It was rainy and cold and it just seemed like "the day" to bake homemade cinnamon buns.

First I got all of the ingredients together. I vaguely remembered buying some little pouches of yeast a while back so I didn't bother buying any. I dug through the cupboard and found this:





If you look closely on those yeast packets you will see the year 2007. Oh that was awhile back alright!

I took a drive up to our little corner store (grocery store is too far on a Saturday morning while in your pajamas with ridiculous bedhead). The store only had this kind of yeast: regular.

I tried to ignore the fact that the recipe said rapid-rise yeast not regular. I googled it. It said it would be fine. It said it would be fine!!!!

So I dusted off my trusty Kitchen Aid Mixer. Not a good sign when you have to dust it before using it. Add that to the list of things to improve on. Baking more goodies.

So then I mixed and made a mess. The recipe said I had to knead the dough for eight minutes. Holy batman that was a good arm workout.

Then I set it out to rise. In my simple brain I thought that by covering the dough with a cute tea towel, the chances of the cinnamon buns turning out would increase. Cute tea towel:

All of a sudden I had these:

All of us (Roary, Alex, and I) were drooling. Literally. And then, finally, after about 6 hours of rising, punching, rising, rolling, sprinkling, and cutting, I baked them.

They just didn't rise in the oven and were flatty flat flat flat.

I blame the corner store for only having regular yeast. They should know better!

Anyway, even though they were flat they were pretty tasty. We gave away a few and devoured the rest by the end of the weekend. Yup. Healthy eating over here.

I don't have a picture of the finished product because I'm embarrassed but hopefully attempt #2 will be fluffier and photo-worthy.

:)

Cheddar Cauliflower Soup - Al's Favourite

For some reason unbeknownst to me, Alex requests that I make this soup for him all the time. When I say all the time I mean every time I am on my way to or from the grocery store and any time I ask, "What should we have for supper?" His answer is always CAULIFLOWER SOUP!

So tonight I made it for him. It's so simple and yummy that I really shouldn't complain. The recipe is from one of those old Milk calendars. Here it is in case you enjoy soup as much as my friend does:

Cheddar Cauliflower Soup
Makes: 4 servings
Source: Milk Calendar 1995

Ingredients:
2 tbsp Margarine

½ cup Onion, chopped

3 cups Cauliflower, coarsely chopped

1 (10 oz) can Chicken broth

¼ cup Flour

2 ½ cups Milk

1 ½ cup Cheddar cheese, shredded

Directions:
1. Melt margarine in large saucepan; saute onion until tender.
2. Stir in cauliflower and chicken broth. Bring to a boil.
3. Cover; reduce heat and simmer for 12-15 minutes or until cauliflower is tender.
4. Smoothly combine flour and milk. Add to saucepan.
5. Cook and stir over medium heat until mixture boils and thickens. Remove from heat.
6. Add cheese and stir until melted. Add salt and pepper to taste.
7. Ladle into 4 soup bowls; sprinkle with extra cheddar cheese.

Notes:
I like to add a pinch of nutmeg and some fresh parsley. Oh yeah, and a loaf of homemade bread. By that I mean the instant homemade kind from Costco that I must say is wicked.

Something About Spring....

.... makes me want to buy/plant/look at/take care of greenery. We just got a strange spring snowstorm so our yard is all wet and mucky. So instead of working out in the yard I decided to find some plants for these Ikea flower pots that I got a few weeks ago. Thank you, Lowe's, for having something girly for me to look at (and buy, hee hee).

Fabric Addiction

Uh oh. I hope this online-fabric-shopping-thing doesn't get out of control. I just ordered the cutest fabric ever.

My rationale is that the ugly fabric from my local quilt shop costs about $15 / metre, whereas the cute, super-awesome fabric from Etsy in the States costs about $8 / yard. So according to my calculations, it works out to about the same. I'm obviously not a mathematician so if I'm way off, please tell me.

I ordered a half-yard bundle of 8 different fabrics (Summer Song in Orange by My Minds Eye for Riley Blake Designs). I also ordered a yard of another really fun print (Love U - Flowers in Rosy Red by Deb Strain for Moda Fabrics).

I ordered both from The Sproutz Store on Etsy.

Sneak Preview

So here is a little sneak preview of the doll I'm working on. She is currently faceless and bald but her body is pretty cute. I attempted a scarf this time instead of a necklace. Woah! Livin' on the edge!

I'm getting better and faster at sewing the body together. The small details at the end are tedious, though. And the hair. Roary and I track black fluff all throughout the house as soon as I start working on a hair-doo. I still love the sixties afro. It's my favourite.

Yup. Love it.