belated ta-dah

Ohayo  from Sapporo, or just good morning!

I'm so amazed we're here and you can read more about my adventures on our travel blog: www.springinsapporo.blogspot.com

Since I'm writing a second blog, I doubt there is much time or subject matter for this little crafty, cooking, gardening, "lifestyle" blog. 

What I'm getting at: a small 3 month hiatus. 

Before that though, let me share what I was up to those last hectic 2 weeks before we left!

Spring had sprung!

Family dinners of bacon topped pork tenderloin roasted on carrots and onions. Yum!

Dessert was creme brulee. Yummer!

 

Enjoying my orchid before we left.

Chasing this muffin down who has learned to stand on her own so quickly!

 

That hair!

 

 We miss this guy a whole lot.

And this naughty kitty.

Oh wait, what's she on?

I finished my blanket before we left!

 

TA-DAH!

 

80 squares, 8x10 rows, a thick border.

I didn't measure it but it's spread out on our queen size bed if that gives you an idea.

 

The border is just hdc around.

 

I tried fitting it in the frame (too lazy to switch lenses) by putting it on the floor and standing on the couch. Muffin didn't get it. But at least you can see how big it is in comparison to her!

 

the back.

 

I'm super in love and it turned out better than I could have hoped for.

I can't wait to use it next fall and winter snuggled on the couch. :)

And now I can start my white border sunshine starburst here!

I hope you'll check out our other blog linked above.

Have a great spring!

Sneaking a moment...

I'm sneaking a moment to share my latest going-ons... I feel naptime might be running out so I'll make it brief!

 Meal planning.

It sounds boring and tedious to decide what you're going to eat for the next week. I used to think so anyway.

We've been doing this for a month or two and it's changed the way we cook (healthier!) and the way we spend money at the grocery store (less!).

Here's a spaghetti dinner we made. I just love the look of the pasta :D

Pussy willows. 

The first sign of spring. I can't believe the winter we've had and how fast spring has come.

(even though it's snowing outside at the moment, it's supposed to melt by Friday).

 

I haven't gotten around to crocheting or knitting much since last time. 

Unfortunately! 

But my knitting machine Aunt whipped out TWO pairs of baby socks for Elisabeth while she was in town! :)

 

The border is growing. Slowly. 

I made a whole row of sc in the light gray... only to get about 15 stitches from the end of the WHOLE ROW and run out of yarn! GRRRR!

It pissed me off enough that only today have I picked up the hook again. 

Now I'm just going to do hdc rows of green and the dark gray. 

This blanket is already getting used though, even with some ends hanging off. It's perfectly large and thick!

As an anniversary present from my aunt, we got a pot of pansies. 

(I had just complained about how I will miss out on pansies on my balcony this year). 

They are so very pretty!

 

My muffin is growing at warp speed and now she can stand up all by herself against any table or chair that she chooses. 

 

This face is so cute that I can't even handle it.

I have this photo as my background on the laptop and it makes me smile every time. 

Just over a week left until we are headed to Japan... 

I can't handle that either! 

There is so much still up in the air about living there AS WELL AS after we get home... 

If ever, now is the time to just say, what happens happens and hope for the best!

Life's an adventure, right?!

Valentine's recap and handicrafts and so on

Happy belated Valentine's Day! ;)

Ok, so I really did mean to post something for then, but understandably, time gets away from me. I had a great Valentine's Day though, spent with my two most favoritest people eating good food! We made homemade chicken pizza from scratch (including the crust!), topped with lots of fresh veggies. We ate the pizza with arugula (rocket) on top. I've seen it on pinterest like that before and the idea stuck. It was definitely delicious that way! 

Dessert was heavenly fudgy thick peanut butter swirl brownies. Yeah. Yum! (just not very photogenic...)

Obviously Valentine's Day = flowers. 

I bought myself pink and purple tulips this year, since we were at the store a  few days before and I couldn't decide which color I wanted more. Hubby's answer: get both. Ooooooh twist my arm why don't ya! ;) 

  (blue inside the purple ones!)

My sister bought Elisabeth a beeeeeeeeeautiful (and surprisingly a little fragrant) pink rose. Ah. ♥

I've been crocheting and knitting quite a bit when I get a chance... It is my stress/anxiety medication. 

I have made more owls. (check out my last post).

 Not pictured is the blue on blue one I made for my sister.

I've been knitting more of this simple garter stitch scarf. I love the stripe. I love variegated yarn. I love blue. So um, yeah. There's a love thing going on with this, even if I do find it a little repetitive. 

I have all my blues and greens used up for my starburst blanket. I got to 80 squares! My mom and her friend came over last Monday, and she actually crocheted I think the last 4-5 squares while I knit! I have them assembled in piles to be crocheted on... but suddenly I'm stalling! I don't know why. I guess because crocheting them together and sewing in the ends is so dreadful? :D 

I have a major yarn swooning thing going on with these here.

I bought them for my next big blankie. I am so in love with the starburst pattern, that I'm doing a brighter version with a "classic" white border. The white is actually more of a cream but you get it, right. 

Anywho, I am sooooooo in love with these jewel tones. Ah, perfect! ♥

This will be the bright sunny sister to my shadowy blue and green blanket. :)

 We had a sushi night on Sunday with the family... It was super fun and was our late Valentine's celebration and kind of sorta a celebration because we bought the tickets and it's 100% sure we will be living in Japan from the end of March-late June!! 

:) 

(my roll was a little heavy on the rice...)

But yep, Japan. Us three. Three months. 

Spring! 

I'm so thrilled, happy, excited, scared, nervous, happy, excited, well I think you're getting the idea.

A lot for us to arrange but when adventure comes knocking, we aren't the type to tell it to go away. I think there is probably a meme with Bilbo out there that describes this situation right now. ;)

We will be on the North island, Hokkaido and living in Sapporo. I am kind of torn as to whether or not I should 

a)blog about the life there

b) blog about our life there on this blog

c) start a travel blog?

I'm kind of leaning towards option C because I kind of like my personal little blog and I think of this as my (private) journal where I log in all my makes and eats and flower pictures for me to look back on. :D 

And I think I'd like to share my travels more openly (=linking on facebook) and possibly do it in both Finnish and English so that everyone could read it? 

If you have an opinion, leave and comment or send me a message! 

Well, it's dinner time for a muffin I know. I'm surprised I managed to get around doing this to the end, seeing as she woke up half way through! 

I'll leave you on a cutie pie note:

Benjamin the British Blue. ♥ 

I super mega love this kitten and might just steal him when my friend's not looking ;)

Thanks for reading.

Until next time, cheerio!

Thanksgiving 2013

OK, so I have some catching up to do... 

Thanksgiving was SUPERB. I must say, I blew my own socks off with how good the food was!!

I had roasted and pureed and frozen a pumpkin earlier this fall from our garden bust since I was making two pumpkin desserts, I knew I had to get more pumpkin. Since they don't sell convenient canned pumpkin here... the process is always the same. This time I used a "red kuri squash" or "Hokkaido pumpkin" as they call it in Finnish.

It was the most vibrant orange that I had to take pictures. 

I saved some seeds in case we can grow some of our own...

The table was festive. Thanks to my sister for lending her tablecloth! 

 

Green bean casserole. The mushroom sauce was delicious and the crispy onion topping even more so!

The recipe can be found here from smitten kitchen

 

Whole turkeys here cost more than anyone was willing to spend so I opted for a turkey roulade (recipe here from the cozy apron.

I was unpleasantly surprised at the grocery store when the turkey filet section was cleared out. So we went with good ol' chicken breast. I think because I wasn't able to buy skin on breasts, the chicken was a little dry. I could have and should have not had them in the oven for the full time. But hey, hubby and I didn't care as we prefer dry chicken. I know, weird. 

Anywho, the recipe made a really delicious main course and I would eat this and make it a 100x again.

(Didn't hubby do a good job of rolling those up?)

 

This got a little torched in the hub-bub of the last 30 minutes. But this is a sweet potato sage butter casserole. My sister and her husband went nuts for this and it's the one casserole I made two of because I knew it'd be popular. We love our starchy carbs in this family. 

Martha's recipe here. 

By the time everything was ready, we all charged at it ravenously so I forgot the picture of the stuffing but you can see it in the corner on the left of the plate there. And the cranberry sauce was orange scented and super yummy and fruity. I used frozen lingonberries since they were cheaper than cranberries and it turned out just fine. I also reduced the sugar somewhat. 

Martha's orange cranberry sauce here.

Martha's cornbread stuffing here

(I omitted the chestnuts and instead of baking a cornbread, I bought a nice loaf of gluten-free bread)

Dessert was the traditional pumpkin pie. My nephew has said many times that it's his favorite so I took it seriously. I don't think I mentioned it before in this post, but everything you've seen has been gluten-free because of my dad's celiac disease. 

Hence the pie crust looking so dark. I didn't burn it! It is made with half buckwheat flour and half gluten free flour mix. Gluten free pastry doughs have been my downfall many a time baking for my dad, so I was pleased to make a half way decent one! 

Finns can see the recipe I used here at pirkka.

It's tough to find a recipe without evaporated milk and canned pumpkin! (things we don't have here)

 

The grown-up dessert was a pumpkin creme brulee. I'm really into them right now since I splurged on a set of ramekins and a brulee torch a couple months ago. 

These were a SUCCESS and we all practically licked the ramekins clean. 

Recipe here at love and olive oil

All of these recipes and the ideas for the pie and table setting can be found here on my thankgiving pinterest board. 

 

And because no post is complete without a flower picture, here is my amaryllis that was in perfect bloom for the occasion. It's already wilted now. But it was glorious while it lasted!!!

 

Ah, now on to Christmas feast plans...

First snow and lots of food

Since last time...

We had snow! 

It came and went twice. And lasted a few days where we are (lots of tall buildings and shade keeping the ground cold). My baby's first snow! :)

School going folk had last week off for autumn break.

My nephew stayed with us for a couple nights and watched the (old and best) Star Wars trilogy, made homemade fluff (!), popcorn balls and ice cream. 

We invited some friends over for coffee last Saturday so I made red velvet cupcakes.
The recipe called for 2 tbsp of red food coloring but I had only paste/gels so it was hard to gauge how much I needed. As seen, they didn't turn out nearly red enough, but they were still delish.

Having grown up in the 90's, I associate carnations and baby's breath with being "garbage flowers". I remember them always looking tacky and cheap and stuffed EVERYWHERE. Yeah, I'm a flower snob (even as a kid)... But wasn't that always obvious?

Anywho, never were they my favorites. 

However, they've really grown on me lately. Mainly because I have torn apart cheesy bouquets and made my own little arrangements. 

Like below. 

I think this little posy is so cute. And over a week later, it's still looking so nice!

....so my bad carnations and baby's breath... it seems I was wrong!

With the leftover cream cheese frosting, I made carrot cake. Yum. 

The lighting of this photo (and the rest) is pretty horrendous since they were taken after sunset in our home's artificial light. 

Oh well. The food was still amayzazing!

On my culinary kick, I decided I wanted to try my hand at making my own pasta. 

It actually turned out really well!

It was a bit thick the first time (as in this spaghetti dish) because I didn't roll it out (old fashioned with a rolling pin!) thin enough and I cut it rather thick... Didn't realize it plumps when cooking! 

But since we made egg noodles essentially (eggs + flour), we were inspired the next night to create a homemade chicken noodle soup!

Hubby did the rolling out this time with his man muscles and got them far more perfect than when I did it :D Go figure!

Also this week, I have made raspberry muffins ("healthier" than cupcakes and without frosting = muffin). 

Didn't get around to pictures though.

And dinner last night was a chicken pot pie. It was so yum, we didn't get pictures of that either!

In a frying pan I sauteed: garlic, onion, carrots, celery, and small chunks of rutabaga. Oh and chicken!

In a pot I boiled small chunks (to cook faster) of potatoes and rutabaga. 

(Trying to use the rutabaga bag we bought, hubby loves them!)

Then I added to the chicken mixture some seasoning that sounded good (salt, pepper, herbs). A dash of cream and dumped it in the casserole dish.

I made mashed rutabaga and potatoes and dumped that on top of the chicken and baked it until it was looking golden brown and delicious. 

Leftovers for lunch!!

I am just loving getting back in the kitchen! 

I like hubby's cooking and he's taken good care of me the past year as head chef, but man, I love having time to chop and peel and stand at the stove.

I'm one of those people that enjoy creating with food as well, I guess. 

Hmm... what else to ramble on about... :D 

I guess that's it for me.

This post took me two days to write since it's hard to get a chance to sit and upload pictures and think of what I want to say etc all at one go.

Thanks for stopping by!

Until next time, au revoir!