Yummy Chocolate PIE

In an effort to eat healthier and dairy-free, I've been addicted to a super yummy vegan dessert blog.   I know it's hard to imagine a dessert being yummy without dairy or eggs, but it really is possible.  I've tried several of the desserts on her blog (I'll list them at the end of this post), but here's my favorite:

Ultimate Chocolate Fudge Pie

Recipe found here 

Pics below by me!

Sounds crazy, but tofu is the heart of the pie and really is what makes it smooth and delicious.  I have tried it with "soft" silken tofu (must be silken!) and it turns out more like pudding, but the "extra firm" is more like a traditional chocolate pie.  You can't tell it's tofu, I promise! 

Like I said, this is may fave, but here are a few other recipes I've tried from the same blog:

Cookie Dough Dip (this is okay. I just can't get over the chick peas)

One Minute Chocolate Cake (this is awesome!!!!)

Snickerdoodle Blondies (promise you can't taste the chick peas in this one!)

Happy, healthy cooking!!!!

Healthy Eating

I miss Trader Joe's.  I seriously miss it.  Moving to a city without one made me realize how much I loved it.   This week, in particular, while shopping, I was shocked at the prices of the mediocre groceries at best.  A small jar of Almond butter was over $7 (not even organic) and a loaf of wheat bread was almost $4 (not organic either).  I would consider our family "healthy eaters" but with crazy food prices like this I feel like that's changing.  Unfortunately.  The bottom line is that it's expensive to eat healthy!  I know, I know...health food advocates love to say that eating healthy is affordable and accessible for all american families and the prices will go down the higher the demand, but what am I supposed to do until then?!  Trader Joe's made it easy to shop healthy and stay within a buget.  They claim that none of their food contains high fructose corn syrup or trans-fats, much of it is organic and it's affordable, healthy, quaint and oh so yummy.  I felt good about what I purchased there.  Even the snack foods.  Now I feel lost (and broke).  I want to feed my family healthy, nourishing foods, but feel like it gets harder and harder to do so.  We have a small health food store in town, but talk about expensive!  That same jar of almond butter was $11 (but it was organic!).  Sheesh.
Soooooo......
In an effort to save cash and eat healthy I've been trying to make as many homemade items as possible  (so I know what goes into the food) and we purchase most of our produce at the local farmers market.  I've also signed us up for a local, organic CSA program that starts this spring, which I'm really excited about!  And......
If you know me well, than you know that I eat very little meat and little to no dairy or eggs.  So, I've been doing a lot of research about "plant based eating" (veganism) and it's awesome health benefits.  I recently purchased the book Forks Over Knives which is a book, by the experts who made the original documentary and contains 125 plant-based recipes.  I've already made a few, but am super excited to try some more.  So, I plan to try it for a while and see how I like it.  Soups are very economical and not to mention, easy when it comes to meal time, so I'm sure I'll be making a lot of them.  I'll be sure to post recipes I try and like.  Also, one of my favorite blogs is about "healthy" vegan desserts - so yummy - so I'll post some of those too.  Finding a nutritional and economical balance in a new city, and part of the country, is proving to be difficult, but I'm up for the challenge!

Cake-batter Rice Krispy Treats!

These sound amazing right?  I mean, how can they not be?  Cake mix, butter, marshmallow, rice krispies and sprinkles.  I saw the recipe on Pintrest and had to make them asap.  They were definitely good, but didn't have as much of a "cake batter" flavor as I was hoping for.  I even doubled the amount of cake mix from the original recipe.  To me, these actually tasted like your normal krispie treats, but better - like the flavor was enhanced!  I would definitely make them again.

Cake Batter Rice Krispies Recipe(From How Sweet Eats)

Ingredients:

• 3 Tbsp. butter
• 1 (10 oz.) bag of mini-marshmallows
• 1/4 cup yellow cake mix (I added about 1/2 cup!)
• 6 cups crispy rice cereal
• 1 (1.75 oz.) container of sprinkles

Method:

Melt butter in a large saucepan over low heat and add marshmallows. Stir until they begin to melt, adding in cake mix one spoonful at a time so its combined. Stir in cereal so it is completely coated with marshmallow mixture. Sprinkle in half of the sprinkles and mix. Press into a baking dish (any size will do) and top with remaining sprinkles. Let sit for about 30 minutes before cutting. I find spraying a knife with nonstick spray helps to cut them.

DIY: Argyle Rug

I've been seeing all these amazing, hand-painted rugs on Pintrest lately, so decided to give it a try.  (it was super easy and totally worth it!!!)

This was my regular, boring, old, hall rug.  

It's your basic, flat woven, sisal rug from Pier 1.

I used chalk and a large ruler to trace the diamond shapes onto the rug.

Then taped them with painters tape. 

I used your basic flat, interior, latex paint from Home Depot (the small can) and had it tinted to the color that I wanted.  I also bought a couple cheap paint brushes.  The rug seemed to absorb quite a bit of paint, so it helped to "dab" it with the brush rather than "paint" it on.

The painters tape worked really well.  I was super impressed with the sharp lines.

I let the diamonds dry over night before starting on the contrasting argyle lines.

For the lines I also used basic latex paint, but this time I actually bought the little sample jar of Behr paint from Home Depot.  I also let the contrasting line dry over night before doing the second line.

See!  That was easy, huh?  I LOVE the way it turned out!

I still can't believe how easy (and cheap) this was to do!  For those of you who are wondering, it does feel a little funny to walk on (a little stiff in the painted area), but not bad.  It's been painted for a couple weeks now and seems to be holding up well to dogs, kids, shoes and vacuuming.

This was super fun and so easy!  The possibilities are endless.  It would be a great way to transform any flat-weave rug....I already have plans for our bedroom rug......

Betty White?

This is what my best friend would call an "Andrea thought."  A random, deep thought that seemingly comes out of nowhere and I feel the need to vocalize it.  I have thoughts like these often.  Like, is there a "dough" for Cheerio's?  Why do we have eyebrows?  What do dogs and babies dream about?  What purpose do fire ants serve?  What is my two-year old thinking when I gag and pull my shirt over my nose while changing his dirty diaper?  Just random thoughts.

So, this "Andrea thought" popped up while at the gym the other day.  Apparently I'm the only person under the age of 75 at the gym I pseudo joined.  So, while on the elliptical, with a little Snoop Dogg on my iPod, I started to think....   Will our generation rock the Betty White hair-do when we're 80?  You know, the short, white, puffy hair-style that all old-ladies have (I know you know what I'm talking about).  ALL of the ladies at the gym have this same hair style.  So, do you think Generation X will too?  Can you picture it?  Tattooed, pierced, old ladies, with Betty White hair-do's, listening to Snoop Dogg.  I love it. 

Pretty Please!

DIY: Sterling Silver Cleaner

Since moving to the south, I've had trouble keeping my sterling silver from tarnishing.  Perhaps it's the humidity or the fact that I just don't wear it as often...regardless, it needs to be cleaned.  In the past I've used a recipe that included ammonia, which worked well, but I read that it can be damaging to your silver and actually turn it black!  So, I did some further research and found countless recipes using aluminum foil and baking soda or salt, so I thought I would give it a try.  One site actually called this "the natural and organic way to clean your jewelry."  I think it worked pretty well and plan to make this my new method for cleaning my silver.

What you will need:

-tarnished sterling silver

-small bowl

-piece of aluminum foil to cover bottom of bowl

-baking soda

-boiling water

-wooden or plastic spoon

-soft cloth for drying

STEP 1: Gather tarnished jewelry

(BEFORE)

STEP 2:  Line a bowl, large enough to hold your jewelry, with aluminum foil.

STEP 3:  Place jewelry on foil so it's not overlapping.

STEP 4:  Cover jewelry with boiling water.

STEP 5:  Sprinkle a light layer of baking soda over jewelry.  The baking soda will begin to fizz and produce a sort of sulfur smell (that means it's working!).

STEP 6:  Gently "stir" with the end of a wooden or plastic spoon.

STEP 7: Let sit for about 1-2 minutes (depending on how tarnished).

STEP 8:  Rinse bowl and jewelry thoroughly with cool water (careful, it may still be hot!).

STEP 9:  Dry each pice of jewelry with a soft cloth.

STEP 10:  Enjoy your shinny silver once again!

(AFTER)

Molasses Spice Cookies

Ginger snaps are by far, my favorite cookie!  Yes, I'm serious.  I could eat an entire box of them by myself (and have!).  I don't know what it is about them...the crunch, the molasses or the spicy ginger flavor?  That said, I think these molasses cookies are pretty awesome.  They're soft, sugary and spicy.  I finally broke down and bought some molasses and decided to make these cookies....and they smell AMAZING!

I combined two recipes that to come up with the one I ended up using.  They turned out pretty darn good, if you ask me, and weren't hard at all to make.  Plus, they smell like Christmas and are awesome with a cup of coffee.  The perfect fall cookie....

2 1/2 cups flour                                           1/4 teaspoon salt 3 teaspoons cinnamon                                 3/4 cup butter 3 teaspoons ginger                                        1 egg 3/4 teaspoons ground cloves                          1 cup brown sugar dash allspice                                               1/4 cup molasses dash nutmeg                                                 1 tsp vanilla extract 2 teaspoons baking soda 1/4 cup white sugar for dipping Mix together all dry ingredients; set aside. In a large bowl, beat butter and brown sugar. Gradually beat in egg, vanilla and molasses. Stir in dry ingredients. Refrigerate dough for about 30 minutes until firm enough to roll into walnut-sized balls. Roll in sugar. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 375º for about 10 minutes (I like them a little underdone). Squish while still warm, preferably with something that will make an interesting pattern (I tried a fork, but found the spatula to be the easiest. A meat tenderizer would look cool). ENJOY!!

Cake mix cookies

Where should I start.....?  It's Monday.  I finally got both kids down for a nap and decided to make some lunch.  Leftover eggplant parmesan (made with eggplant from the farmer's market this weekend).  I need to add that we have a crazy, powerful stove!  It's electric and probably as old as I am, but I swear it was the equivalent to those "boil water in just 90 seconds" fancy stoves you see commercials now.  This thing heats up SO fast.  Sooooo, I placed the eggplant in the skillet and put it on the burner on "high" (my first mistake), I sat down to check my email (second mistake) and looked up to see smoke pouring out of the skillet!  The whole kitchen was filled with smoke (note to self: test fire alarms).  The eggplant was fried.  Black on one side.  I was so looking forward to eating that for lunch that I scraped off what I could and ate it anyway (don't want to think about all the carcinogens I just ingested).

I should have taken the eggplant as a sign and stopped cooking, but nope, I decided to make cookies.  I accidently bought two boxes of Jiffy yellow cake mix instead of corn bread mix the other day.  I've made recipes out of cake mix before, so decided to look up some ideas on Allrecipes (my fave).  I decided to make these cookies and add chocolate chips (Ghirardelli, of course!).  BUT, adding to my awesome day of cooking, I forgot to add the eggs and baking powder!  Just cake mix, oil, vanilla and chocolate chips.  Needless to say, they were a little dry and crumbly, but actually taste pretty good (guess you can't go wrong with cake mix).  We'll see how dinner goes tonight..... I think I need a nap.

ETA: Mr. Moe thought these were "perfect, just the way there are."  Maybe he was just being nice  or maybe he was telling the truth...he's a sucker for chocolate chip cookies.

21 days

I pseudo-joined a gym.  Yes, that's possible when they offer a 21 day FREE trial.  I have absolutely no intentions of joining this gym, but I'm super excited about using their elliptical for three weeks.  I have a strange obsession with elliptical machines.  I LOVE them!  After years of running (or at least trying to), three half-marathons, countless shin splints, blisters and new shoes, I've finally found my true love.  45 minutes on the elliptical, a nice cool-down, stretching and strength training and I'm a happy girl!  It's probably a better use of our money to save the membership dues and simply buy our own machine, but that's not financially possible right now, so I'm mooching off a free offer...and loving it.  To make the most of these 21 days, I plan to go every day, but Sunday (I'll be at church, of course).  So far, so good and now that I've put it in writing, I have to hold myself to it!

First post!

Woo hoo!  My very first post on my new....all ME blog!  Can't tell you how excited I am to be starting this blog.  I've been thinking about it for a couple weeks now....what will it look like, what will I write about, who will actually read it....?  So here it is.  What do you think?  (I'm not crazy about the background, so may change that).

I currently keep up our family blog, but use it as more of a baby book to record milestones and memories.  Lately, I've been craving my own outlet.  A place to say what's on my mind, to think out loud.  A place to share crafty goodness and a place to call my own.

SO, who am I?  I'm a mother, a wife, a woman, a sister, a daughter, and a friend and deep down I'm "a free spirit with a creative soul."  I love being creative!  I always have.  Even as a kid, art was always my favorite subject.  As an adult I find it harder to make time for creative adventures, so this is my attempt to do so!  My plan is to share a craft project and tutorial on a weekly basis, along with sharing my thoughts, ideas and maybe even some recipes.  That's the plan, as of now, but with two kids I realize life may get in the way.

My family and I have just uprooted ourselves and moved from Missouri to Alabama so my husband can pursue his dream job.  We have two kids.  Elliot, who just turned 2 and Harper who is barely over three months.  They are amazing children, which I'm sure you'll hear all about every now and then on here.  Though I know we made the right decision for our family, we are ten hours away from family and know no one here.  Good thing I'm an extrovert!

Feel free to follow me on this adventure and maybe pick up a couple crafty ideas or two.  Celebrate with a craft night (oh, how I miss craft nights) or a yummy recipe for friends.  As always, thanks for reading!

~Andrea