Party at school today. Pinterest making things easy.
Babybel cheese, gel food coloring, green olives with pimentos.
School Halloween Party
categories: Baking and Food
Month: October 2015
Pumpkin Roll
categories: Baking and Food
It’s that time of year again. Your husband brings home a four-pack of canned pumpkin and you must accept the not so subtle hint that someone would like pumpkin treats.
I keep seeing these delicious looking pumpkin rolls online and in stores, so I finally gave in and decided to make a roll. I have never made a roll of anything. No jelly rolls, or swiss cake rolls. It seemed a little intimidating. I wasn’t convinced that it wouldn’t crack and turn into a crumbly mess, but people online said it was easy. Those online people wouldn’t lie, would they?
I used a recipe that came through my facebook feed one day, found here.
Changes that I made to the cake recipe: doubled the cinnamon and added a ¼ t. allspice. Left half of the powdered sugar out of the filling.
Tip #1. I learned that you should grease the pan before putting the wax paper inside. That way it will stick better. My pan worked okay, but the paper slid around a little while I was greasing it. Next time, I will make sure that paper is stuck!
Tip #2. You will introduce a large cloud of powdered sugar into your kitchen when you dump your cake onto the towel. I don’t know how to avoid this, but be prepared.
Tip #3. Other recipes call for crushed walnuts on top of your batter before you bake. I love walnuts. I think I would have loved the roll even more with walnuts.
Yummy, yummy, yummy. Everyone likes it, and you do not need any extra sugar in the cream cheese filling. It was great with less. Also, while the wax paper did stick a little and pulled some cake up, rolling it up in the towel was quite easy. I’m not scared of rolls anymore. I’m already imagining lemon rolls with cream cheese filling.
It was a rainy day yesterday and I was in a baking mood so I also made a chicken pot pie from scratch for dinner. This is the recipe I used (with homemade crust) and it was very easy and so delicious! I HIGHLY recommend it. I halved the recipe as it is really for two pies. I also used a little less thyme, per other people’s comments. Next time, I will make two and freeze one.
IKEA BEKVÄM Stool Hack
categories: Home Decorating
We have two little girls that always seem to need to put on their shoes at the same time. We used to have one small bench that they both wanted to sit on to do this. “Hello” elbows in the face.
I wanted a stool for each of them. IKEA to the rescue. Enter the Bekvam step stool. It’s plain wood. You can fit shoes under it. It costs $14.99.
I’ve started to embrace those that have gone before in the home crafting domain. I knew I wanted to make the stools special for each girl. There are a lot of IKEA Bekvam stool hacks online. People painting them, using wall paper, washi tape, etc. I figured at $15 a stool, I could afford to experiment a little. Here are my results.
Carys’s stool is spray painted with Rust-Oleum paint. I then used Mod Podge and paper napkins to decoupage it. I sealed the top of the steps with leftover hardwood floor polycrylic.
Helena’s stool is also spray painted with Rust-Oleum paint. I decided to use scrapbooking paper to decoupage her stool. Scrapbook paper is about 100 times easier to decoupage with than napkins. She wanted kitties. She got kitties.
My new kitchen stool, because I’m not as tall as I need to be sometimes. I wanted to try fabric decoupage because other people make it look so easy. Ha! Well, it might be if you do it differently than I did. I cut out my stool shaped pieces and slapped them on with Mod Podge, and they stretched, and they moved, and they did not stay exactly the same shape as I cut them out to be. So, I added a border of napkin decoupage just to torture myself a little bit more. I don’t mind how it turned out. Interestingly, the fabric retained a rough texture (even after many coats of the Podge) that makes the stool less slippery. Perfect for clumsy people.
And now we have dedicated locations for two girls’ shoes. Carys still sits on the floor sometimes to get her shoes on, but I figure that will change as she grows taller. I’m not expecting to grow any taller, so my stool is perfect right now.