Oh, you are either going to love me or hate me for this recipe. Think snickerdoodle cookie taste but the texture of a brownie.

I made these the day my parents came into town for a short visit and my dad ate half of the pan on his own. By the next day, they were all gone. I made a second batch, those lasted 3 days. I convinced a chocolate chip cookie loving friend to try these, they are they best sweet of the year at his house. We had plumbing work done this past week and a plate full of blondies was the tip, he was happy. Yes, they really are that good.

Original recipe found here.

1/2 cup butter (softened)
1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup flour
For the topping: 1 tbsp sugar + 2 tsp ground cinnamon

Cream butter and sugar. Add salt, egg, and vanilla, combine well. 1/3 cup at a time, add flour and mix well; batter will be stiff. Pour into a greased 8″x8″ baking pan. Dust top with the reserved sugar and cinnamon. Bake at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes.

Only difference between the two recipes is that I added more cinnamon because I love cinnamon.

The brownie texture is amazing:

But this bar is all snickerdoodle, baby!

Tags: Cooking

Next month will mark 4 years that we have lived in this house. We live in a small house, less than 1250 square feet under roof with 2 bed and 1 bath, but with a huge kitchen. The house was originally built at the end of the 1920s but was added on to about 15 years ago, which is where the huge kitchen comes from.

When we moved in the kitchen was a dark hunter green and a dark maroon red with lots of exposed wood and stark white walls. Very “country” in colors and style. Not bad, just very much not my style. This is the only decent picture I have showing the colors:

We decided to rip out the tile and countertops and do a small scale remodel. The granite we ordered through Home Depot and had them install. The tile backsplash I did. Hubs cut the tile but the installation was all me. It now looks like this (what you see in the background of all my cooking photos):

I finally got the kitchen fully painted last month. A nice warm buttery yellow:

Most of the large areas of green have been gone for a while. The drawer knobs are still green, but we know what we want to replace them with. Thanks to the cost that is going to take a while. (Have you priced hardware lately, outrageous!) There is one little strip of green laminate still left on a small tertiary countertop that is out of the way and I have plans for how to deal with it, too.

There was still this though:

With the walls painted yellow those green doors really stuck out like a sore thumb. Every time I walked into the kitchen my eyes would be drawn, in a bad way, to the doors. So I primed them white, thinking that white doors would go great in a kitchen.

Turns out I ignored the basics of color design. In a kitchen filled with warm tones (the pink of the granite, the brown of the tile backsplash, the wood cabinets, the yellow walls) adding in that much of a stark, cold white was almost as bad as the dark green. And I couldn’t decide what color would go best on the doors. Some friends came over and offered their opinions, which was that the doors needed to be sanded down to bare wood and stained.

No way was that going to happen! The doors are old and need to be replaced so they are getting no extra treatment. Thankfully though I had some Minwax gel stain in Mahogany. It covers really good. Here is how the doors look after one coat of stain:

The second coat will happen this week and then the doors are done, done, done! The kitchen is really coming together nicely. I’m very pleased with it.

Oh, I lied about the no other large green areas in the kitchen. Witness my floor:

But don’t worry, I’ve got a plan for it too:

Tags: Kitchen

Tags: my life, Wordless Wednesday

About this time of year most people with gardens and those who know people with gardens have zucchini coming out of their ears. A garden wasn’t in the cards for us this year but thankfully the local supermarket has had zucchini on sale lately.

Last grocery trip I snagged two medium size zucchini:

I thought about making zucchini bread but memories of the zucchini fries my mom would make when I was younger haunted me. I just didn’t want to stand over a vat of hot oil to get my fries. Enter oven baked zucchini fries, and they actually were crispy!

Cut the ends off of your zucchini, wash them, then halve them. Take the halves and cut in half again. Place the new halves cut side down and slice into fry shape. I ended up with a plate full.

In your breading bowl combine: 1 cup of bread crumbs, 3 heaping spoonfuls of flour, thyme, basil, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, Tony Chachere’s, and Nature’s Seasons.

Set up your work station. Plate of raw zucchini fries, bowl of egg and milk dredge, breading bowl, and cookie sheet that has been sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.

I started off dredging three to four pieces in the bowl, like this:

But quickly switched to doing 7 or 8 in a plastic bowl with a lid so I could shake them around and coat them much faster.

I only filled up my medium sized baking sheet:

So I had some zucchini left over. It will be frozen for later use in something.

Make sure your zucchini is in a single layer with some space around each piece. Place in a 400 degree oven for 7 minutes (if preheated) or 10 if not preheated.

I admit, at this point I was worried things were going to be mushy and gross. But I stuck with it and wanted to see what the final product would be.

Flip and bake for 10 more minutes. They looked like this fresh out of the oven.

And all plated up and ready to be devoured:

Even my zucchini hating husband liked these well enough. I am ashamed to admit that I ate them all. Every last one. But man were they good.

Tags: Cooking

For years I’ve been fascinated with the idea of making my own soap. I never attempted it because the websites/blogs/books all seemed more determined to scare you rather than help you. When I turned 30 last month I decided that my birthday money would be spent on soap supplies so that I could try out the process. And if I didn’t like it, enjoy it, or couldn’t make soap then it wasn’t a big deal.

I made two batches and have to say that I enjoyed it. This likely won’t be anything that I try to make a career out of as I’m so new at it and there are so many amazing soapers out there already. Examples can be found all over Etsy.

I made two batches. One was Hot Process in a Crock Pot and the other was Room Temp Cold Process. Neither batch had scent nor color as I wanted to try out the process and see what I thought of the final product. I didn’t want to chance some additive changing the final soap and leaving me scratching my head wondering what happened.

There are plenty of books out there, each with their backers. I bought a book, Smart Soapmaking by Anne L. Watson, and read lots and lots and lots of websites. Since I was going to be working with a caustic chemical I wanted to be as prepared as possible.

In the end, the buildup of all the books and websites paled in comparison with actually mixing the lye. I expected huge clouds of sickly green poison to billow up thanks to all of the precautions “They” tell you to take.

The reality is that lye is a caustic material. It can react with the moisture on your skin (sweaty hands, much?), moisture in your eye (goggles are a good thing, glasses are not enough coverage), and any spare moisture that has gotten splashed around. The reaction is not smokey or expoldy, it is heat. Lye reacts with large amounts of heat. I wore yellow kitchen gloves and goggles and took the lye and water outside to mix it. I was barefoot and in shorts with short sleeves.

The Hot Process Crock Pot method was used with a recipe from the Smart Soapmaking book. My mold was a silicone bakeware loafpan purchased that week from Bed Bath and Beyond. I accidentally let the bar get to dry when I was trying to scoop it all into the mold. It turned out a rustic bar that won’t win any beauty contests but I’m on my second bar in the shower and am enjoying it.

The Room Temp Cold Process method was my own recipe done with oils that are all liquid at room temp. The mold was a silicone bakeware square pan, also purchased from Bed Bath and Beyond. This bar definately has a much smoother texture. There was more time to work with the soap so if I had wanted to swirl in another color or additives this would be the method to use. I’m waiting for these bars to harden up a bit more before I use them.

Both methods were relatively easy. And in the end I accomplished what I wanted. I made soap! I also learned how each method could be truly useful depending on what outcome I desire for that particular batch. I’m looking forward to making more soap, though next time I’m going to experiment with scents and maybe some color.

This post is not in any way, shape, or form meant to be an all inclusive guide on how to make soap. Please do as I did and read, read, read, and read some more to adequately prepare yourself. Also, take all safety precautions that are necessary.

Tags: craft

Tags: Wordless Wednesday

Blueberries were on sale this week at my local grocery store. So I snagged two 18oz. containers of berries and more freezer jam pectin.

The berries were beautiful.

Everything was done the exact same way as the strawberry jam I made previously. I still think pureed fruit looks kinda gross.

In case you didn’t know, blueberries tend to oxidize and turn brown very fast. The main container of fruit didn’t turn colors but the measuring cup I used, once set aside, was brown in a few minutes.

I ended up with four containers of blueberry jam slightly more full than the strawberry jam containers.

Freezer shot for you: two containers of strawberry left in the freezer and 3 of the blueberry. They will get moved out to the deepfreezer soon.

Part of my breakfast this morning:

I’m not as huge of a fan of the blueberry, though it was tasty. The strawberry seemed to have a better taste to me. Though the blueberry set up more like jam with a stiffer texture, the strawberry was a bit more runny. I’m waiting for strawberries to go on sale again and am also wondering how watermelon freezer jam would do.

Tags: Cooking, pictures

My oldest nephew’s 7th birthday party was last weekend. I needed a present, fast. And cheap.

I turned to Google and asked for ideas. Most of them were not suitable for J (not something he would be interested in) or were not something I was comfortable making and giving. I might have wanted cheap but I didn’t want to give him something just to give him something.

Finally I stumbled on plans for making a marshmallow gun out of PVC. These instructions, in fact. The next morning I went to Lowe’s and picked up the shortest length of PVC pipe I could get, spent 5 to 10 minutes looking through all the fittings to find what I needed. If there is organization with the fittings, I couldn’t figure it out but eventually found everything I needed. Less than $3 later I had all the parts for the marshmallow gun. A trip to Target later I also had all the ammo a boy could need in the form of a bag of mini-marshmallows.

I cut the PVC per the directions on the link and then dryfitted it together to make sure everything fit right and worked. The cat got marshmallows shot near her for her to chase. The dog got shot with marshmallows, he ate them. Hubs got shot with marshmallows, he vowed revenge.

Once I was sure everything worked I painted all the pieces a matte black and then reassembled.

I grabbed a zip baggy and put a few handfuls of marshmallows inside then made a tube out of dessert camo patterned paper. It got labeled “Ammo” in shiny silver pen.

The party was held in a park that is 2 houses down from ours. So we walked down with the dog. He started to overheat so we took him into the fountain.

I think he was one of the coolest ones there that day. The heat index was well over 100 degrees.

As for the marshmallow gun, success! J loved it! Two of the other little boys that were there declared that they want marshmallow guns too. J shot through all of his ammo during the party.

You can just see E’s feet to the left, he is pouting cause he wanted to play with the marshmallow gun so bad and was annoyed that J wouldn’t share. J and E are brothers.

Linking up to several parties listed up top.

Tags: craft, Dax, my life, spray paint

Tags: Wordless Wednesday