#77 | Make Pizza from Scratch

Check out the recipe here.

January Daily Photo

January Daily Photo

Day 1:  Cinnamon Rolls for New Years...Yum!

Day 2:  Petsitting.  Waiting for his dog buddy to come back inside.

Day 3:  I was watching a movie and Abby decided she wanted to cuddle.  No worries--I don't need the use of my arms.

Day 4:  Revenge and Pinterest.

Day 5:  Flags at the funeral home.

Day 6:  Sunrise, new lens (graduation gift to myself), sorting through photos of my grandpa Bailey

Day 7:  Mom.  Doestn' look like January at all.

Day 8:  Having a hard time getting to sleep and then staying asleep...

Day 9:  Going to grandpa's visitation.

Day 10:  Celebrating grandpa's life, flowers from his funeral, graduation gift from She-she.

Day 11:  Hot chocolate

Day 12:  She is needy today.

Day 13:  Babysitting, playing and cuddling.

Day 14:  Chicken Pot Pie. 

Day 15:  Mother/Daughter day with some friends.  We made v-day cards.

Day 16:  Clouds

Day 17:  New socks
Day 18:  Visiting my aunt and her kittens
Day 19:  Finished reading The You I Never Knew by Susan Wiggs
Day 20:  Hearts.
Day 21:  The one who did it and what she did...
Day 22:  Scarf
{Day 23}:  Finished this book in 3 days.  (Finished on the 22nd.)
Day 24:  Believe
Day 25:  KC with dad, sunset, and The Stinker.
Day 26:  Streeeetch
Day 27:  Lazy Day
Day 28:  The sweet gift I got from a friend!
Day 29:  My guard dog.  She is something fierce!
Day 30:  65 degrees in January.
Day 31:  Errands with dad, natural hair day, dad survives Wal-Mart, and another warm January day.

Cinnamon Rolls

I've had a few people asked about the cinnamon rolls I made from my scavenger hunt post.  So I thought I'd share.  However, I can't take credit for them.  I found the recipe on pinterest.

1 cup warm milk

2 eggs, room temperature

1/3 cup margarine, melted

4 ½ cups all purpose flour, sifted

1 teaspoon salt

½ cup white sugar

1 package active dry yeast

Filling:

1 cup brown sugar, packed

2 ½ tablespoons ground cinnamon

1/3 cup butter, softened

Frosting:

3 ounces of cream cheese, softened

¼ cup butter, softened

1 ½ cups confectioners’ (powdered) sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon salt

Directions:

1.       Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk in a large bowl. Mix in the sugar, margarine, salt, and eggs. Add the flour in quarters and mix well. It will get a little tough, but keep at it until it’s well mixed! If it starts to get way too hard to mix anymore, dust your hands with some flour and finish mixing it by hand.

2.       Knead the dough into a large ball and put it back into the bowl. Cover it with a dish cloth and let it rise in a warm place for about an hour, or until doubled in size.

3.       Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).

4.       Roll dough into a large rectangle (Make sure not to roll it too thin, or it will rip when you roll it up). Spread dough with the softened butter and sprinkle the brown sugar and cinnamon mixture evenly over it. Roll the dough up and cut into 10 rolls, discarding the two end bits. This will leave you with 8 good sized rolls.

5.       Place rolls in a lightly greased 9x13 inch baking pan. Cover and let rise until nearly doubled, about thirty minutes.

6.       Bake rolls in preheated oven until golden brown, about 15 minutes. While rolls are baking, beat together the ingredients for the frosting. Spread or drizzle it on warm rolls before serving.

I hope you enjoy!  (We sure did!)

Scavenger Hunt Sunday | January 15, 2012

I apologize, these photos don't have much variation.  I took all but one in the kitchen while I was baking.  But hey-that is kinda what a scavenger hunt is, finding random things in your surroundings that you won't necessarily notice.  

These are my week 2 findings.

Hope you enjoy!

Stacked Up

Winter Wonderland

We have not gotten much snow this year, well scratch that, we haven't gotten any snow this year.  And by year I mean this winter season.  However, we did get just a few snow flurries this week and they were beautiful! 

Sweet

Baking cinnamon rolls from scratch for the second time this year.  They are heavenly!

(I know I shouldn't put in my opinion, but this is by far my favorite photo in the set.)

Hole

Frozen

I know--it's cliched, but I kinda like it.

Acorn Cookies

I made something from Pinterest!

Acorn Cookies!

They were very yummy.

I brought them to both of our Thanksgiving dinners.

And we didn't come home with any.

I'd call it a success! 

Even though these cookies were easy, they were a little time consuming.

Having to unwrap a bag and a half of chocolate kisses is a lot.

Ingredients:

1 bag of Hersey kisses

1 bag of nutter butter cookies

1 bag of chocolate chips

Directions:

Melt some chocolate chips in the microwave.

Dip Hersey kiss into the melted chocolate and attach a nutter butter cookie.

Dip a chocolate chip into the melted chocolate and attach to the other side of the nutter butter cookie.

Note I put them in the fridge before I added the small chocolate chip on top.  This made the chocolate harden and made it less messy.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday | October 8, 2011

Landscape

A photo I took while photographing a wedding.

Color Wheel

Black and White

I know this doesn't follow the typical black and white photo, but I had to leave it in color because I loved the little spec of green grass in his mouth.  It was there the entire photo shoot and I thought it brought a lot to his personality...I'm assuming.  (I'm counting this as black and white because the cow is black and the background is pretty much white.  I figured that counted!)




 

Food

Recipe found here.

Blank Space

Week 40 | October 7, 2011

In the blank space and vast openness of a pumpkin field.





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Tomato-Bacon Cups

Ingredients:

1 can Pillsbury Golden Layers buttermilk biscuits (not Grands)

6 slices cooked bacon, chopped

1/2 cup chopped Roma tomatoes

1/4 cup chopped white onion

1 tsp basil

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup grated Swiss cheese

Directions:

Mix bacon, tomato, and onion.  Add basil, cheese and mayo. Set aside.

Spray mini-muffin pan.  Cut each biscuit in half.  Flatten each biscuit half and form into a cup shape in the tin.  (You will have 20).

Fill cups with tomato mixture.

Bake at 350° in oven until biscuits are golden brown.  (20 minutes).  Serve warm.

Linked up here.


*If you try this please come back and let me know what you think!

12 of 12 July

01.  Morning kisses from Abby.  She likes my hot, stinky morning breath :)
02.  Spent the entire morning at the hospital...
03.  ...in this department.
04.  Plants that were potted in Aprils 12 of 12.
05.  Clouds.  Leaving the hospital.
06.  Getting the last bits of fabric for my quilt I started a 3 days ago.  I think the colors in this picture will be for my next one.
07.  Parents.  Dad was working on the hardest puzzle in his soduko book while mom supervised.
08.  The swallows that like to build nests on our front porch.  They had 2 babies this year.
09  Reading The Island by Elin Hilderbrand.  So good!
10.  Bed.  I took a 3 hour nap this afternoon.  Guess the hospital wore me out-I never take naps.
11.  Super hot today.  Feels like 106 degrees!
12.  Made sugar cookies for dad.  He loves trains and I found this awesome cookie cutter the day before.  (He loved it!)

12|52

March 24

Lately I've been looking up a bunch of recipes to try.  The first one I tried is a fresh pasta with bacon and peas.  This is the first time my family has tried a new recipe and the entire family liked it--at least from what I remember.  This was a big step and I found the recipe!  (Bonus points for me!)

A few days later I tried this Bird's Nest Cookie recipe.  Everyone liked this too, but hey, it had chocolate!
-Note: I altered the recipe a little.  I didn't use the entire bag of chow mein noodles.  I eye-balled it to how much I wanted the noodles to be covered in the butterscotch chips.

If you try any of these recipes, let me know what you think!

12of12 March 2011

01.   Good Morning.  I was up before every one else in the house, which is rare!

02.   Finished the newest installment of the Lakeshore Chronicles by Susan Wiggs.  They are my all time favorite books! 

03.   Dad putting in the new faucet. 

04.   Abby watching all the commotion.  A few minutes later she was snoring.

05.   The new faucet.  Looks much better than the rusty old one.

06.   Grapes.

07.   Watched a lot of news the past 2 days about the earthquake/tsunami that happened in Japan on March 11^th.

08.   Self portrait.

09.   Sunset.

10.   Me and Abby.  She was sniffing my chin.  What a goof!

11.   Macaroni Grill in minutes (from the freezer).  Yum!

12.   Tonight’s Oscar winning movie is Shakespeare In Love.

22 Accomplishments

 I got this idea from a friend, but I'm modifying it :)  I have created a list of things to do by the end of the year.  And because this is my 22nd year, I am going to [try] to accomplish 22 tasks.  Some of them are real things I'd like to accomplish, while others (most of them) are just fun things to try or do.  Stay tuned for updates!

1.  Make dinner for a family who is going through a tough time. (January 22, 2011)
2.  Get back to my ideal weight.
3.  Finish college.
4.  Get a 'big girl' job.
5.  Go a day without getting on the computer (or getting on the internet via iPhone.)
6.  Send birthday cards to all my good friends.
7.  Make a Christmas advent tree like this one.
8.  Fix and paint my desk chair in my room.
9.  Try 5 new foods. (Soy beans)
10.  Create (and do) a cleaning schedule to keep my room better organized.
11.  Take a family photo each month for a year.
12.  Do a 52 week portrait challenge.
13.  Feel more comfortable cooking, especially meats.
14.  Plant tulips in mom's garden.
15.  Do a painting.
16.  Clean out my closet.
17.  Finish the quilt I started 4 or 5 years ago.
18.  Learn to make French Toast.
19.  Reach $2100 PCV  in my Silpada sales for 3 2 months. (February)
20.  Go on a family trip.
21.  Read 20 books.
  Here is the list I've read so far:
    1.  Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin (I love this author!  She is one of my favorites.  I've read every single book by her.)
    2. Between Sisters by Kristin Hannah (Good, but wasn't expecting the last last twist.  Hit a little close to home.)
22.  Watch every movie that made 'Best Picture' in the Oscars.
 Here is the list: I've marked off the ones I've already seen.  There are a few that I've already seen, but I need a refresher before I check them off the list.  (Too bad, I could cross off anther 6 movies...)

Wings The Broadway Melody All the Quiet on the Western Front Cimarron Grand Hotel Cavalcade It Happened One Night Mutiny on the Bounty The Great Ziegfeld The Life of Emile Zola You Can't Take It With You Gone With the Wind Rebecca How Green Was My Valley Mrs. Miniver Casablanca Going My Way The Lost Weekend The Best Years of Our Lives Gentleman's Agreement Hamlet All the King's Men All About Eve An American in Paris The Greatest Show on Earth From Here to Eternity On the Waterfront Marty Around the World in 80 Days The Bridge on the River Kwai Gigi Ben-Hur The Apartment West Side Story Lawrence of Arabia Tom Jones My Fair Lady The Sound of Music A Man for All Seasons In the Heat of the Night Oliver Midnight Cowboy Patton The French Connection The Godfather The Sting The Goodfather Part II One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Rocky Annie Hall The Deer Hunter Kramer vs. Kramer Ordinary People Chariots of Fire Gandhi Terms of Endearment Amadeus Out of Africa Platoon The Last Emperor Rain Man Driving Miss Daisy Dances With Wolves The Silence of the Lambs (February) Unforgiven Schindler's List Forrest Gump Braveheart The English Patient Titanic Shakespeare in Love American Beauty Gladiator A Beautiful Mind Chicago The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Million Dollar Baby Crash The Departed No Country for Old Men Slumdog Millionaire The Hurt Locker The King's Speech

Randomness

I finally uploaded some photos from my camera to my computer so I apologize for all the random ramblings...

In case you didn't believe me when I said we got a lot of snow...we did!  This was in the Target parking lot during one of the first snowfalls we got...and I thought this was supposed to be a light winter?!

I've been taking a ton of photos of these tulips I bought last week.  I thought it would be fun to document how they change each day.  I only missed one day.  Luckily they hadn't really changed the from the day before.  More on that later....

The night before my birthday, my family and I went to Macaroni Grill.  We go there every year for my birthday since it's my favorite restaurant.  As we were paying for our food and getting ready to leave, mom had said, "Happy Birthday!" Our waitress overheard and she turned around and asked who's birthday it was.  I told her it was mine and she said, "wait a minute!"  A few seconds later she returned with this piece of cake.  She said they were out of chocolate so she got lemon.  How did she know that would have been my second choice anyway?!  For anyone wondering, this cake was phenomenal!  SO much better than the chocolate (and I like chocolate!), I would recommend it to anyone who likes lemon even just a little bit.

Can you tell we LOVED it?!  YUMMY!

Family photo at my 22nd birthday!

This was on my real birthday, on the 4th.  When I was little my dad used to get these ice cream clowns every year for my birthday.  (They had to be the green kind a.k.a. mint chocolate chip.)  Somewhere over the years the tradition got lost, but this year it made a comeback.  I know it may seem kind of funny or childish, especially for turning 22 years old, but it brought back such good memories of my childhood.  A time when things were much different than they are now (and I don't mean that because of the many years that have passed).  I am so glad I associate these ice cream clowns with my dad.  It is something I know I will never, ever forget and I hope we continue to tradition again!

The cake mom made and decorated for me the day after my birthday.  Enjoy!