Competition

Okay, I might have lied in my last post.

Molasses cookies now have competition.  This weekend I made Chocolate Chip-Mint Cookies from the same cook book as the molasses cookies.  A-mazing.

The bottom two racks are the cookies - the top is cornbread muffins (didn't really have a decent photo of just the cookies unfortunately). 

Check out the sweet stackable cooling racks too

Cocoa powder, chocolate chips (Ghirardelli chips in this case) mixed with a bit of peppermint extract lends itself well to the Christmas spirit!

Tastes like Christmas

Mrs. Buerschaper's Molasses Crinkles from Still Life With Menu Cookbook by Mollie Katzen might be my favorite cookies.  At least my favorite Christmastime cookie (it's a tough call between these and my mom's peanut butter chocolate chip cookies).  I made some last night.  I love them.

Bread

Last week Michael and I travelled to South Carolina for Thanksgiving.  We did a little thrift store shopping while there and it was in one store that Michael happened to notice a box under a table.  Come to find out, inside the box was a breadmaker with what seemed to be all of its parts as well.  Once we were done looking around we headed to check out where we found out the breadmaker was only $10.

I love thrifting.

I've tried out the breadmaker twice this week.  The first loaf I made wasn't too bad but it rose too much and needed more salt.  I tried again yesterday with a different recipe and it was great.  It got very done on the outside and could have gotten a little more done on the inside but it still wasn't bad at all.  Last night we carb-loaded with the bread (and butter) and Creamy Slow Cooker Potato Cheese Soup. 

The beginning of Christmastime

The house is a mess and I have paperwork to do; however, I would rather blog right now.  It's been a while and I'd rather not be one of those people who creates the blog, publishes a few eager, initial posts and never shows up again.  Therefore, rather than doing the dishes, vacuuming the floors, sweeping, or filling out paperwork, I'm typing away at this computer.  (Granted - I do currently have a few sweaters in the dryer that are hopefully finishing up the felting process.)

I LOVE Christmastime and this is mine and Michael's first Christmas being married.  We got our Christmas tree last night and now the living room smells wonderful.  I love the smell of real Christmas trees.  Growing up, my siblings and I could hardly wait to decorate the tree once it came into our house.  My parents would usually try to talk us into waiting a day in order to let the limbs fall down a bit and open up.  The kids often won, however, because once the ornaments were out, how were we supposed to stand the excitement and temptation of decking out the tree?? 
Well - Michael and I must be growing up.  The tree is not yet decorated.  It's simply sitting bare in the living room as the limbs fall open.

Here it is!  (please excuse the printer, bag, box and other miscellaneous items in the photo...)

A couple nights ago, we won a Christmas tree topper off of ebay.  It's a 1979 angel that has a stained glass look about it.  Can't wait for it to arrive in the mail!  I'll post a photo once the tree is all made up.

A week or two ago when Michael and I went grocery shopping at WalMart we saw the mixed nuts (with shell on) for sale in the produce section.  Though we did not own a nutcracker, we bought some.  It seemed like a nice holiday thing to have a bowl of nuts sitting on the coffee table; however, we got home and didn't even have a good bowl to put them in.  Thankfully, yesterday at the pottery, I was able to land not only a bowl for the nuts, but also a nutcracker.

Not only that, but before going to the pottery yesterday, I found some great Pyrex mugs (I bought 4 but I think there were 8 for sale) and a mustard colored sweater at Goodwill.  So last night, after we got the Christmas tree situated we drank Silk Nog out of our new mugs.

Also, last night before going to get our Christmas tree, Michael and I went to Target to get a Christmas tree stand (we figured that was a fairly vital item to have before purchasing a tree); however, we also ended up with Christmas tree lights, a menorah and candles (for the menorah).  We are going to celebrate Hanukkah this year.  Even though we are not Jewish, it is a great reminder of God's faithfulness and I'm excited to partake in this special holiday.



Well, since beginning this post, I've gotten the sweaters out of the dryer.  I'm afraid the water that I washed them in wasn't hot enough...  might have to try to felt at least one of them again.

Okay, to the cleaning now - perhaps!

Breaking the Rules

Today I broke the rules.

I had a cup of coffee AND I have been listening to Christmas music.

Granted, I should hardly be allowed to call what I drank a "cup of coffee."  It was not a whole cup of coffee and it did have a very liberal amount of soy milk mixed in; however, it was good.  Quite good.  I stopped drinking coffee about a year ago due to anxiety that I had been experiencing - hoping that the lessening of caffeine and acidic substances in my diet would, in turn, decrease the amount of anxiety that I was going through.  I'm not sure if this hypothesis proved itself true or not but Michael has been wanting me to try a cup for some days now and today I caved.  I do like coffee very much and decided that if I just had a little bit and diluted it enough with soy milk I should be okay.

As far as the Christmas music goes....  I believe I usually make myself wait until after Thanksgiving to let myself listening to it.  This year, however, I just couldn't wait.  Perhaps it's because it's mine and Michael's first Christmas married?  I'm not sure, but I do know that I love Christmas music.

Maybe it's because of the upcoming Christmas season - or maybe not - but I have been in the mood to bake a lot lately.  I've made beer bread twice since I posted about it initially and, today, I made pumpkin bread and muffins.  I LOVE pumpkin bread and one of my contributions for Thanksgiving this coming Thursday is pumpkin bread; however, since I don't eat sugar I wanted to experiment making it with agave nectar today (rather than experimenting on the masses later this week).  It turned out fine though not as sweet as usual.  You're supposed to used 2/3 cups of agave per 1 cup of sugar but I didn't have quite enough agave, but it's still okay (great with some butter spread on it).  I think I might experiment with honey also before making the final batch (which is fine with me - it makes the house smell wonderful while it's baking!).

Yesterday, at Goodwill I found this great pitcher along with two glass containers (I had been wanting two glass containers for cotton balls and Q-tips after reading this article in one of my Country Living magazines) and FOUR blank canvases.

It's been a good weekend.  :)

Beautiful Day & Grace Ponderings

Today was a beautiful day.  Sunny and warm for the week before Thanksgiving (of course, not necessarily unusual for this part of the nation).  I went for a run in the middle of the day and it was fantastic.  Gotta get ready for a turkey trot next week! 

The open window and the happy plants.  (It's not raining, the window is just dirty)

Sometime after my run, I decided it was time to eat something so I went to the fridge and found celery and ranch.  We really need to go grocery shopping but I do very much like celery and ranch so that worked out.

I also really like bread and cheese.  Fortunately, there were leftovers from last night.

_____

On another note, it struck me a few weeks ago, (sometime after this wisdom was given to me by my pastor) that apparently I didn't have a full grasp of the concept of grace.  I would feel guilty over any little thing that I possibly did that could have even possibly been wrong.  Hm, something's wrong with that picture.  I am (meaning, even now, at present) a sinner saved by grace so what was the problem?  I went to Bible college.  I took a class on Romans.  I will never be perfect.  I "knew" all these things.  Why was (and am) I stuck in this cycle of fear and guilt?  I'm still figuring it all out, but at least I can strive to rest in the grace that God has given to me.  Christ's death covers all of my sins - from my past, present, and future.  I cannot earn my way into heaven or out of guilt.  He knows that I can never be perfect and that is why He offered to save me. 

Just something to chew on.

The Wreath

Here are photos of the wreath that I mentioned making yesterday:

Note the slight egg-shape.  All of the burlap tends to fall to the bottom of the wreath (hm, gravity), thus making it bottom-heavy and not quite a perfect circle.  But I'm okay with it.  (Also, be warned, this project does take a lot of burlap.) 

I made a couple flowers with different materials and jewelry.

Again, I got this tutorial here.

Creativity & Cooking

I'm currently sitting in the eating nook of my kitchen with a loaf of beer bread baking in the oven, content after a productive, creative day.  This morning I made a burlap wreath using this tutorial.  Pictures to follow.

Sunday evening Michael and I made this curry and coconut milk soup.  Amazing.  We added sauteed tofu as well as green beans.  We also used a wonderful broth found at Big Lots costing fifty cents for a 32 ounce box.  It's College Inn Culinary Broth, Thai Coconut Curry.  Perfect as the broth in this soup.  The Maesri cans of curry paste also work well as the curry.  (Just don't use too much!)

So good.



On another note, one year ago today, Michael asked me to marry him.  We were on the beach in Charleston, SC and, at sunrise, after worship and communion together, he got down in front of me as I sat on his guitar case and asked me if I would marry him (after he waited for the shirtless man to pass by because I asked him to).  Of course I said yes (in a less discernible way on account of my emotions) and we got married June 12th.

The morning we got engaged.

This evening, I asked him to stop by the store to pick up some cheese (I wanted to have it with the bread that I was planning on making but didn't tell him that).  He did and he bought me flowers too.  (Though neither of us had necessarily remembered since this morning that this was the one year anniversary of our engagement.) 

My lovely flowers.

Also, since I wrote the beginning of this post, the beer bread came out of the oven and most of it has been eaten.  It was delicious.

Mmmm.

Persian Dinner

Last night, Michael and I had an amazing dinner.  Persian steamed white rice and KooKoo-yeh Baadenjaan.  I got inspired to try this when I was looking through A Set Apart Life's blog and saw her post about making Persian rice.  Needless to say, it looked great!  I went to the website that she had gotten the recipe from and use the same one.  It takes a while to make (about an hour or so) but it's so worth it.

I knew that the rice in and of itself probably wouldn't be quite satisfactory for our dinner so I searched for Persian recipes and found KooKoo-yeh Baadenjaan.  I substituted tumeric for saffron (simply because I don't own saffron at this point) and it turned out great!  We enough had enough left over to enjoy it for lunch later today!

Wedding Day

Here are just a few photos from our wedding. I was so happy with how everything for the wedding came together perfectly. From the weather (wonderful for mid-June in eastern North Carolina) to the clothing to the cakes the day was just right.


The MOH and three other bridesmaids wore handmade dresses as well as the two flower girls. My dress and veil were made by my amazing MOH. We spent hours milling over the options of lace, fabric, and patterns for all of the dresses. I LOVE the end result.

This cake buffet was created by some dear family friends. SO many wonderful cakes covered this table. The different kinds consisted of chocolate espresso, carrot, lemon, strawberry, coconut, and banana!

Croquet was one of the games that we had at the wedding.  Bocce ball was also an option for guests.