For her b-day, well.. we forgot to give her half her presents. Whoops. We gave them to her today, but we gave her the big one. Her very own sonic screwdriver. Once the batteries were installed, it became her favorite thing ever. Seriously. I was napping, and apparently at one point she came to the living room where Mike was playing one of the hitman games, and she pointed it at the screen and announced she was fixing it for him.
She decided she wanted to go to the zoo. Yay. I love the zoo. So we went and walked and looked at animals. After that, we met Dad and William for dinner. William got her a Star Wars lego set. There was much rejoicing. Of a very geeky kind.
We made a chocolate coeur a la creme. Well.. dome de la creme. I don't have a heart mold because it's an item with too few uses.
( coeur a la creme recipe )

As I've mentioned before, this summer has been the summer of smoothies. With the heat, I haven't felt much like cooking, and it's hard to get E to eat nearly enough fruit and veggies. So a lot of our fruit intake has been smoothies.
But recipes for smoothies sort of amuse me. I never use a recipe. I keep a big bag of frozen berries, mangoes (when they are just edging on too ripe) and other fruit in the freezer, oj, homemade yogurt or store bought kefir in the fridge and just grab and go.
I need to get some kefir cultures and make it from scratch at some point soon. But Helios Organic Vanilla Kefir is a favorite of mine. Straight from the bottle it's thick, like a not quite set right yogurt, and satisfies my sweet tooth nicely. Blended with frozen milk cubes it's sort of milkshake-y. I've heard you can culture kefir from coconut milk, and I'm curious about that for virgin pina coladas.
So.. this is probably the only time this will happen. I'm going to write down a recipe for a kefir version of a childhood favorite. I think I've mentioned before my mother was anti-sweets for my brother and I. Really not fair with a dad who thinks chocolate is a food group, but we got all those old health food store snacks. Yogurt covered raisins, rock hard candies made with sesame seeds and honey, carob (which I STILL hate).
But when my face still had all the stitches in it, I couldn't eat, so mom made me smoothies until I got the stitches out of my mouth. My favorite was her creamsicle smoothies that she made with honey, orange juice concentrate, ice cubes, vanilla and plain yogurt. Now occasionally I make them for my family.

Orange Vanilla Smoothie-
1 tray of ice cubes
3/4 cup frozen oj concentrate- undiluted
1 cup water
2 cups vanilla yogurt or vanilla kefir, for the yogurt, just add vanilla and sweetener to plain yogurt to taste. In my case, it's enough vanilla to tint my yogurt tan. I LOVE vanilla. (and the homemade vanilla in homemade yogurt.. YUM!)

Blend until smooth. Makes 3 servings.
Soft set yogurt rocks for smoothies, so if it didn't set up quite as thick as you like for yogurt, use it for smoothies.
If you mix prepared oj and vanilla yogurt half and half and pour it into an ice pop mold, you have homemade orange vanilla pops that are low-fat (if you used low-fat milk for your yogurt) and full of vitamin c and happy beneficial bacteria goodness.

But I do let my kids have chocolate and have never tried to convince them that carob was the same thing but better.

Saturday, the first day of Mike's vacation, we went to the Bear Paw Festival. I bought a bunch of ride tickets for the kids, gave them the tickets, then Mike and I went and found a nice patch of grass to sit in under a tree while they used up the tickets. They had a blast. I got seriously too warm. The first time we walked by the fire truck spraying water for the kids to play in, I didn't follow E in, I just held her purse for her. On the way back though.. I needed it too much. So I limped in with my cane and all the kids and just stood under the downpour of water while Mike held my purse and E's so we could do that. Thank goodness he had his hands too full to take a picture!

A few from Not Martha.
Homemade Maraschino Cherries, I must do this soon. Really soon. Yum yum!
3D Sheep Crackers at Design*Sponge
A No-Knead Bread Recipe at Kiss My Spatula that looks fantastic

A current favorite of mine:
Food for the Boiler: A Steampunk Cookbook

A couple mochi recipes
Welsh Cakes, perfect for the guy in your life who's decided he's Welsh and wants to replace your shed with a police call box. Unless of course that only happens to me.
You can also download a pdf scanned version of Brown Bag's new idea book with lots of recipes here, you'll want to go to view-rotate clockwise to read it.
On that note.. I really really want the British Isles shortbread pan

Well, it's been about 8 hours. The package said it would be set in 4, but I had my doubts and it wasn't. That's fine, generally working from plain yogurt for the culturing it can take 8-12 hours to set.
It's set up nicely, and it smells wonderful. I didn't follow the package instructions exactly because well.. generally I won't. So here's how I did it. (my notes follow, part of this is going up as a review)
( cut for the people who really don't care )

W got me a few books I wanted, all craft related, so I'll be telling you about them.
We picked up my cake, and dropped it and the veggies off at my dad's with the bread for my Uncle. Then we headed up to the Saturday Market and I found a perfect gift for a friend of mine.. you know.. those times you see something and it's so completely perfect.. there is no way to resist.. we also got soap from Gladheart Acres, the Tupperware seller there DID have the ice tups I wanted. (Tupperware is made in the U.S. and better construction. So I wanted Tupperware brand specifically for my frozen pops). We bought a couple pints of cherries and munched sweet sweet cherries, and listened to a lady playing a hammered dulcimer, and just had a lovely time.
After that, we headed to my dad's house. Mike burned zucchini and mushrooms beautifully. Lamar told me the chocolate banana bread was amazing. He had one small piece before running some errands with Dad, then complained because he left the rest behind and wanted more. He effusively complimented Mike's mushrooms. Well.. they deserved it. The main course was sausage and hot dogs we picked up at the Saturday Market. Oh it was so good. I'm so stuffed. Double cardio at the gym tomorrow, but it was worth it. Every bit of caloric orgy.

Sugar Free Chocolate Banana Bread
4 large ripe bananas, a little overripe is fine for this. Mine were just edging into "banana bread" only stage.
1 egg
1/3 cup melted butter
1 cup Splenda
2 Tbsp vanilla extract (your mileage may vary, but I like a lot of vanilla)
pinch of salt
1 Tbsp. baking soda

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 1/2 cup flour I used whole wheat pastry flour

Preheat oven to 350°F.
Mash up bananas well with a wooden spoon. You don't have to be too picky, you can see banana chunks in mine. Mix in butter, Splenda, egg, vanilla and mix it to a really disgusting gloppy looking mess.Stir in baking soda and salt, then mix in the dry ingredients. Cocoa first to get it well mixed in, then the flour.
Pour into greased loaf pan.It will just fill a greased loaf pan to 2/3rd full or thereabouts.
Bake for 1 hour. Let rest for about 10 minutes, and turn out.

I used more Splenda than I use sugar in my regular recipe because it's a lot harder to make a sugar free icing. I got some whipped cream cheese for him to spread on it, but he thinks cream cheese will distract from the goodness of the bread. He *really* liked the bread.

Yeah.. it was a really happy birthday.

I made pancakes for breakfast using a slight modification of the classic cottage cheese pancake recipe and.. YUM. If you've not had cottage cheese pancakes, they are rich and moist and amazing with fruit. Or if you're lazy like me, still pretty good with maple syrup!
( cottage cheese pancake recipe )
I also made up some chocolate banana bread for my uncle using Splenda, so I'll let you know what he thinks of it and post the recipe modifications I made to it when I get home tonight. I also asked if he'd be willing to try vanilla infused Splenda in his coffee. Since he uses it regularly, he's a better judge then I am about how it turns out. I mixed 1 vanilla bean, with about half the caviar in it with about a half cup of Splenda. I'll let you know next week what he thinks of it.

Threadless just got done posting the results of their going green contest, and has a bunch of green themed teeshirts and are donating 1.00 per order this week to Plantabillion.org. Which is very cool, and one of the new shirts has an octopus, always a good thing. Except on sushi. Ick.
They are also running a green contest on Twitter and Facebook, take a picture of yourself doing something green, caption it. The prize is 1¢ per fan on Facebook or follower on Twitter to be split between Plantabillion.org and the winner. So go fan them. Right now, that makes the pot about 4000 dollars, or 2000 for whoever wins, and 2000 for Plantabillion.org.
( the picture I posted )
Slushies are super easy with drink mix. Drink mix, sugar, water, ice. Blend. No corn syrup, you control how sweet it is, and most drink mixes are vitamin C enriched. If you pay 3.00 for 5 lbs of sugar, and 20¢ a packet for brand name drink mix, it costs about 40¢ for 4 8 ounce servings. And hey! No plastic cups from the convenience store. We usually add in some frozen berries or fruit of some sort, but even with that, it costs less than buying slushies from the convenience store, and I don't feel like it's quite as bad for the kids.
I made meringues today to check out my vanilla now that it's been a bit over a month. They were good, but I tried Egg Beaters egg whites for them.. and wow.. no. I don't think that's going to work. The rest of the package will wind up in omelets this weekend.
Must post birthday wishlist. I'll work on that tomorrow. My poor family thinks I'm impossible to shop for.

The last few days, I've been doing some spring cleaning type things. Really.. not blog worthy. Just annoying.
This year I let E pick out her chocolate and her brother's chocolate for Easter, and she got herself an unsweetened chocolate bar. Whoops. Then got Mike to try it telling him it was just "too dark" for her. No kidding? It was pure chocolate. No sugar, no nothing but... well.. chocolate.

So yesterday I used it to make some hot chocolate.
( recipe behind cut )
We took a long walk yesterday, but by the time it was over, I was in pretty serious amounts of pain. It wasn't just the walking, the day before I'd tried the regular stationary bike at the gym instead of the recumbent or the elliptical (they were in use) and my back doesn't much like the seat or position of a regular stationary bike. Ouch!
Mike picked us up at the grocery store, and we had a lovely evening at home. It's turn off your television week, and well.. he's not turning it off, but he did agree to cut back, and actually is cutting back further than I asked, and said "We should do this all summer." HOORAY!!!!
Yesterday someone told Mike he had glitter on his cheek. Mike just sighed and said "I've got glitter on more than my cheek. I live with 2 crafty ladies who use glitter, and it winds up everywhere."

OOOH OHHH! I got my copy of Stolen Sharpie Revolution 2. Wonderfully packaged in a bit of a map, so E asked me for the wrapping. *loves* I also got my copy of Alternation, which is a good book. My only issue with it is that the section on hand sewing doesn't include illustrations, but there are lots of great sites on the net for that.

The plan was for a loaf of bread that tasted something like French toast. But I used my homemade vanilla because it smelled good, but it hasn't quite completely matured, and I only had 2 raw eggs. So it turned out to be maple-y sweet and cinnamon-y and very good, but really not what I had in mind.
( recipe and pictures )

Mike suggested just putting a bunch of spare coffee cups on a ring together and hanging them where I hang my measuring cups since I tend too often just to grab whatever is handy and eye measurements. He was pretty suspicious when he saw me actually measure out amounts for this loaf, I think he thought I was working from a recipe until I went out to grab my notebook to take notes.
( Nut and Honey Bread Recipe )

Very cool sale.. signed copies ofAlternation for 8.00 each including shipping. Better? Craft Magazine has a coupon code for 1.50 off.

Making yogurt from scratch-
You can find really detailed instructions on Little House in the Suburbs. So the only tips I have to add are if you have a gas oven with a non-auto pilot light, that will probably be warm enough to incubate. I turned my oven on a couple times to the lowest temp for about a half hour,then turned it off, and my yogurt was thick and perfect in about 10 hours. Also, if you pick up a 32 oz starter of plain yogurt like I did, just freeze the rest, you'll be able to use it for starters for your next batches. I used 1/2 cup containers, so it's already portioned and ready to go, but you can also use an ice cube tray and freeze it, then put the cubes in a bag and just use a couple cubes for your next batch, when you use it, let it defrost at room temp, don't heat it. You want all those cultures to come back and zapping it or otherwise heating it could kill the cultures. Sweeten with whatever you like,flavor how you like, or add savory if that's what you prefer. My son actually prefers ranch dip made with non fat yogurt to the usual high fat alternatives.

Creme Fraiche is even easier. 1 cup of cream and 2 Tablespoons of butter milk in a lidded jar, shake it up to mix them, then just leave it some place warm for about 10-24 hours until it's nice and thick, chill. Or... *grins* in our case, we mixed a bit of maple syrup and the caviar of one vanilla bean in it. Sure.. it's fattening.. but it tastes amazing on that nut bread.

Well.. time to order pizza for dinner. I was planning to bake a pie in my entirely too nifty Pi pie plate, but time got away from me.

"Well, to expound on the meaning of expound, I could use it in a sentence example such as 'I'm going to expound on the meaning of expound' and by doing so, I've expounded on the meaning of expound."
E giggles.
Mike says "Exponentially."

We made some root beer, and it turned out very good. Not from scratch, we used this extract after trying a few mixed with sparkling water and a touch of sugar to see which one we liked best. We used regular yeast, water, sugar, the root beer extract and a bit of vanilla. I think when we make it completely from scratch we will toss in a vanilla bean or two, or maybe just the caviar. It carbonated up really well, really.. too well. I had to keep cracking it to let off carbonation, and it kept welling up over my hand. E thought it was hilarious. It's got a touch of yeasty flavor from the type of yeast I used, but I like that. Mike hasn't tried it yet.

I decided to give my cabs an extra day. They are click hard, but still have that sweet scent. I also think I want to do some herbals and possibly some teas with typed names in them with the flakey glitter, they are SOO shiny. E is thrilled with her glittery blue WHAT? cab, so I have to decide how I'm going to finish it into a necklace for her.

Last night when we got home from the gym, Mike started hunting for the cheese I made this weekend to snack on while waiting for dinner to get done. He had it on the bread with olives. I guess that cheese recipe is a hit. :) Haven't tried it on W yet, but W loves all sorts of cheese. I think next time I may try a peppery garlic for them.

To Scarborough Fair?
( all done )

I'm in serious gadget lust over the new Kindle. I was able to avoid the serious whining "BUT I WANT ONE" when Alaska wasn't in the coverage area, but now Anchorage is. So.. "WANT!!!" Really seriously super muchly. Mike asked me if I thought I'd really use it, and I pointed out the joy of having less hard copy books being bought monthly. Since they let you re-download books you've bought, I can delete, then redownload a book if I want to re-read it. Plus.. I admit it.. a huge part of it is my love of sci-fi. See, I always loved the idea of automatically downloading a daily newspaper to read and having it not take up the space of laptop. I'm sort of overly impressed with how many things which were science fiction 20-30 years ago are now a part of every day life. And I want a Kindle.
( Cinnamon-Raisin Bread Recipe )

( Another Bread Recipe )
What kind of bread will we make next week I wonder? I really need to actually write out how to make a bread from scratch without a recipe as well as the recipes E and I come up with.

I was talking to jehanna about vanilla extract, and a little bit of research revealed that cinnamon extract has been proven to be helpful to people with type 2 diabetes. We talked about adding a bit of cinnamon to a vanilla extract, and then talked about making a rum for eggnogs. Sort of an adult version of flavored creamers that could be mixed with milk/cream/eggs/sugar for a strong rich flavor. Since vanilla extracts improve with age, it stands to reason if you started infusing flavor into a good rum now, by Christmas it would be amazing, and if you wanted to make it extract strong, you could make a low alcohol egg nog as well. Decanted into smaller bottles with a label printed up with an eggnog recipe on it, it would make a nice hostess gift. I'm thinking nutmeg, cinnamon, and vanilla to make the extract, after 6 months, strain and bottle, and when you gift it, bag and tie some pieces of vanilla beans and cinnamon around the neck.

Since the micro sd card and adapter worked so well with my phone, Mike checked his to see if he had a spot for a micro sd, and it did, so he did the same thing to finally get the photos off his phone. Hmm.. one warning/possible trigger. A plastic spider.
( he hadn't downloaded them off his phone since he got it )
What's on your menu today? For the first time, I let the kids pick. So we are having marshmallow crisped rice cereal treats, hotdogs, and veggies with dip. This is also probably the last time I let them pick.

I think I stopped trusting money when I realized it was a concept corrupted by it's administrators. I was about 12 I think, and I never really outgrew that. The more I see what people are willing to do to get ahead, the less I trust the vehicle of that advancement. But the idea in itself isn't bad. It's almost like it's a mental gun, it's only dangerous in the wrong minds.
Anyway.. xtalcy wrote about banks, money and the Federal Reserve here.

I need to write a few people back, write a tutorial on how to use porcupine quills in beading which I *thought* I wrote before but apparently I did most the work on it then never actually *wrote* it. And go to the gym. I haven't been at all this week. Yesterday, dinner took longer than I expected.
Sunday, I made my mom's old recipe for porcupine meatballs. It's super simple, and it was definitely a comfort food for me. Yum yum. Mike and E loved them, and I think Mike wondered why I hadn't made them before. I just didn't think of it until I realized that was what I wanted.
( recipe )

Today we decided to bake bread. Working without a recipe.
( yum yum! )
Talking to E, her favorite part of baking bread is.. well.. eating it of course. But while making it, she loves kneading the dough and punching down the dough best.
I've got some soup frozen, homemade chicken and rice with a ton of veggies, so I think for lunch tomorrow I'm going to have some of that soup, and some of that bread. Yum!

There are a couple more posts to follow so I can keep them all separate. A review of a book, and some stuff for Browncoats.