Fun and exciting news!

L-O-V-E

I am amazing at many things.  I am NOT amazing at punctuality or decorating.  No one comes to my house and says wow I want my house to look like hers.  Don't get me wrong you will love being at my house.  It is full of laughter and love and great food, but my blank walls and hand-me down furniture don't scream copy me.  I have been trying to change that, but if I am going to put things up in my house I want them to be family oriented.  So enters family project number #1.  

Last time my dad come to visit he brought me this old window frame from my grandparent's farm house.  It is almost 100 years old! I love it and have been wanting to do something with it.  

Recently I decided that I wanted to make something for my home for each season and/or holiday.  So my goal is to do something with this window every couple of months. Easy enough, right!?  And because it is February I chose a love theme for project #1.

My girls love art projects.  So I enlisted their help.

I have seen tape resist painting but, I wanted something less ummm square.  I have made freeze paper stencils (on onesies) before and I decided try the freezer paper method on canvas.


Supplies:
Freezer paper
letters*
pen (for tracing)
scissors
iron
paint (we used acrylic)

*for letters I used what I had around which was cardboard letters but, you could always printout some letters (or images) onto your freezer paper. (tape your freezer paper to a piece of cardstock and send it through the printer)

I traced and cut out letters to spell LOVE.
Be sure to trace and cut shinny side (waxy) down and dull side up.
The wax is what sticks to the canvas.

Next, I ironed on the letters. 

And got everyone and everything ready to paint.

Here are the girls painting. I told them to cover all the white with paint.
Remember that everything looks WAY less messy in pictures.  Have a few old wet rags around. Don't be afraid messes are fun and cleanable.

Check out their finished work. Look close and you can see the letters. 

Once everything is dry (really dry, like next day dry) peel off the letters 

exposing the canvas underneath.

My girls are AWESOME painters and they work really hard, so amazing that some paint seeped under the freezer paper. Yeah, I blamed their painting skills and not my ironing skills. So I went over the letters with some white paint.  

*this step is not necessary but I wanted to have some fun painting too, so this was the perfect excuse. And painting was way more fun than folding clothes.

Finished product!

I added some ribbon and hung them in the old window.

So come over, you can admire this one (and only) thing on my mantel.  Then I will pour you coffee and give you a cookie fresh from the oven and we will sit on my hand-me down furniture and have a wonderful conversation and you won't even notice all my blank walls.

Pear Bread

My designated days to bake are Sunday and Wednesday. The love of my life likes a pastry to go with his coffee in the morning. I love him and I love to bake so setting aside time on these two days keeps something on the cake stand all week.  

There are a few things that I never baked with until I had children. Pears are one of them.  My oldest loves pears; she still calls them apples. We are working on it!  We will be heading out of town soon so I am trying to use up items in the fridge that might not last until we get back.  Pears were at the top of the list.  

This recipe is adapted from Smitten Kitchen. I have make a few tweaks for our liking. I decreased the sugar by 1/2 cup, added 2 teaspoons of ginger, and swapped 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla for almond extract.  I also do few lazy busy mom sort cuts; I cut up the pears instead of grating them (partly for time and partly because my pears are nice and ripe) and I do not ice it or sprinkle powered sugar on it. We do smear a little butter on it after we toast it in the toaster over.

So try it...it does get better as it sits which makes for a great breakfast bread recipe.  

Pear Bread
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons of ginger
3/4 cup butter, softened (1 and 1/2 sticks)
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 and 1/2 cups sugar
2 to 3 pears chopped finely. (2 cups chopped)
1 and 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Heat the oven to 350 degrees and prepare a bunt pan.

Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and ginger in a large mixing bowl.

Peel and core pears, then finely chop them and set them briefly aside. In a medium bowl, combine the butter, eggs, sugar, grated pear, vanilla,and almond extract. Scrape the pear/butter mixture into the flour mixture and stir just until the flour disappears and the batter is evenly moistened.

Quickly scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake at 350°F for 60 minutes, or until the bread is browned and firm on top and a wooden skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool and then place on your cake stand for all to enjoy.

What do you do with your treasures?

During a visit with my grandparents, my grandma and I went though some old letters and recipes. I loved every minute of it. I felt like I got a glimpse of my grandma's life before she was a grandma. It was a sweet time and a memory I will treasure forever. Before we left she gave me a few recipes. Her recipes included: some she had written down, some her mother-in-law had written and one in my mom's handwriting (I thought that was funny).

These recipes are a GREAT treasure to me. I guess I am sentimental like that. I like having something that my great-grandmother made. So what did I do with my treasures....I buried them in our filling cabnit, granted I thought it was a good idea to keep them safe, hidden away. I knew exactly where they were, but then I realized what good are they doing buried away. So I got them out and put them on my counter...risky I know, because I am sure they have gotten a few more stains on them and could get lost, BUT having them out is worth the risk. When they are out they get used! When they get used they bless others. Blessing others is the whole purpose of a recipe written down isn't it!?!

Even though I am tempted to try to eat a whole batch of cookies myself it is impossible. So I share them with my family, friends, neighbors. A cookie says: I'm thinking about you and I care about you and usually helps fuel a good conversation. What do you do with a batch of cookies?

So here is the recipe for you to try. It makes a large batch so be thinking about who you can bless with some cookies and an encouraging note.

Refrigerator Nut Cookies (from my Great Grandma)
These are my Grandpa's favorite

2 cups brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup soft butter or Oleo*

3/4 cup crisco or spry* (vegetable shorting)

1/4 # (pound) chopped nuts

3 eggs mixed into above one at a time

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon salt

4 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon soda (baking)

After mixing divide into rolls and chill. Slice (1/4 inch thick) and bake about 10 -12 min in 350 oven. Should be light brown when done.

*I confess I had no clue what Oleo and spry were. At first I thought the recipe said spray crisco and I was dumbfounded. But after a little research and a call to my amazing grandma (who found my questions very funny) I learned that they were name brands from when my grandma was younger.

Even though these are slice and bake cookies they still allow for creativity so have fun! Be creative so they fit your holiday or theme. These I made for Valentines Day.

Here is one more funny story about this recipe. On the top right corner it says (over frosting) so I made the Quick Butterscotch Frosting on the back. I ate a few cookies with the icing...mmmmm they were yummy. Then I decided to call Grandma to ask exactly how Grandpa's mom used to ice the cookies. After explaining my situation to Grandma, she just laughed and said those cookies don't have icing that is just another recipe on the back, they don't go together.

Happy Birthday to Jesus

What does your family do to celebrate the birth of Christ? Now that we have a family (well, we have always been family, but now more than husband and wife) we wanted to start some Christmas traditions that would help our children (child for now) understand what Christmas is all about. So one tradition we started this year was to make a birthday cake for Jesus (excluding candles of course). My husband asked for Chocolate Stout Cake. Once we decided it was OK to make a cake for Jesus that had stout in it, I went shopping for the ingredients. Actually, I only needed to shop for 1 ingredient the stout, because I had all the rest on hand.

This is a dense, rich, chocolate cake covered with a smooth ganache. You will be tempted to go out and buy another cake pan for this 3 layer cake, but you don't have to, you can just bake the layers in batches. You do need cake pans that have straight edges. It says that it makes 12 servings, but in my experience it will serve WAY more. I am a chocolate lover and I can only eat a sliver of this cake. So plan on sharing this cake unless you want cake every night for 2 weeks.

Chocolate Stout Cake

from bon appetit Desserts

Cake:

2 cups stout (I use Guinness)

2 cups unsalted butter, diced

1 1/2 cups of unsweetened Dutch processed cocoa powder

4 cups all purpose flour

4 cups sugar

1 tablespoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

4 eggs

1 1/2 cups sour cream

Icing:

2 cups heavy whipping cream

1 pound bittersweet or semisweet chocolate (about 1 1/2 packages)

Cake: Preheat oven to 350. Butter your 8-inch cake pans. Line the bottoms with parchment paper; butter paper. Bring stout and butter to a simmer in a large saucepan over medium heat, whisking to melt butter. Whisk in cocoa until smooth. Cool to lukewarm.

Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in large bowl to blend. Beat eggs and sour cream in a stand mixer. Add stout-chocolate mixture and beat to combine. Add flour mixture and beat 10-15 seconds at low speed. Using a spatula, gently fold batter until completely combined. Divide batter among prepared pans.

Bake cakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 35 minutes. (Check at 25 and 30 min b/c for me 35 is too long) Cool cakes in pans on a rack for 10 minutes. Cut around pan sides to loosen cakes. Turn cakes out onto rack, peel off parchment, and cool completely.

Icing: Bring cream to a simmer in medium saucepan. Remove from heat. Add chocolate and whisk until melted and smooth. Refrigerate until icing thickens to spreadable consistency, stirring frequently, about 2 hours. (2 hours has never been long enough for me. Sometimes I refrigerate the icing over night and place on the counter top to warm up enough to spread about 2 hrs)

Place 1st layer on plate. Spread 2/3 cup icing over. Top with 2nd layer. Spread 2/3 cup icing over. Top with 3rd layer. Spread remaining icing over top and sides.

**If you are going to put your icing in the refrigerator

over night make sure to hide it or threaten your family to keep out or it will all be devoured before you can ice the cake. Especially if my father-in-law is around. The good news people will be fighting over who gets to lick to bowl uhh I mean wash the dishes.

What are some of your family traditions that help you focus on the birth of Christ?