Tidbits

Raspberry lemonde bars. 

Obviously the solution to defrosted raspberries sitting in your fridge.

 

Easter photo session outtakes. Because every girl needs to have a butterfly dress like that. 

Super seriously still love it. 

 

As messy, loud, and sometimes obnoxious as this guy is...I'm really gonna miss him.

And those other two buggers.

 

Practicing still life and styling with my fantastic sister.

Much fun!

 

Playing with negative space in composition.

I really love these tete-a-tete narcissi. 

Working on my edge on the blanket. Slowly.

Pondering the packing conundrums.

Hoping no one wakes up my baby while she sleeps on the balcony.

Love that (Finnish) custom of having babies sleep outside.

I want to too!

Also, I should not consume more than two cups of coffee per day for numerous reasons (my coffee maker says I've had 3/4 liter of it so far...) but how I really would love another cuppa! 

One week till Japan!!

Runeberg

Today is Runeberg's Day here in Finland. He was a famous Finnish poet, if you're interested, you can read about him here.

I thought yesterday was Runeberg's Day, so I whipped up a batch of his wife's famous pastry that we eat on that day... 

I guess the upside is celebrating two days in a row? ;) 

And for once, I have pictures to show on the of the holiday for that holiday. Cool!

It's not even 11 p.m. yet either! 

These past few days, I have been working a lot on my blanket and knitted shawl that I just had to take on a little instant gratification project. 

I'm making them for kids I know for Valentine's Day. 

Cute! 

If you want to make one, the pattern and tutorial are here @ bunny mummy's blog 

They are really fast and easy.

The only change I made was for the eyes. I made a magic circle and hdc 8 into it. Then I made french knots for the eyes. 

The pink and green one on the left was for my little muffin. 

It might be me, but she's the cutest thing I've ever seen. ;)

And crawling so fast and all around the house now. She's ever so busy!

Hope you are having a wonderful Runeberg Day. Even if you don't know who he is!

Starburst-sunbursts and possibly the 2nd rainbow reveal

Lots of this again. Yay!!

Link to tutorial and pattern

I've gotten back into the groove with this blanket which has sat in the pile of WIP's since early summer. In fact, last time I crocheted these squares, I was pregnant! :O 

After making what feels like 10000000 crochet Christmas presents, I was definitely wanting to make something stress-free and all for ME. 

What delicious colors, I could play with these all day. 

I've even been a good girl and I've been following a "sew-in-all-the-ends-rule" every 5 squares. 

I've made 33 squares and I'm thinking of making it an 8x11 rectangle...so just a few more squares to go ;)

I took the pictures below for my Ravelry account.

I realized I had never updated the picture there to show the final product even though I finished this blanket before Miss Muffin was born... 

Now I wonder if I ever revealed it here...and I'm too lazy to go back and read so here it is! :)

By the way, I highly recommend having ravelry account if you like to crochet or knit. TONS of patterns there and lots of inspiration. Plus, if you upload the pictures of your projects to your account, it's a nice reminder of things you've made. I post most things to this blog, but to see projects, I'd have to search labels etc... On my ravelry page, I can see them all ka-bang right there!

Other than crochet, I've been baking. A lot.

Scones have been my latest conquest, something I've been trying to perfect. I love them with coffee!

I baked brownies today for a guest and covered them in whipped cream and sprinkles. I love the picture, I just want to swim it or something. Is that weird?

These two!

I loves 'em!

Miss Muffin started crawling this week (super exciting). 

She's still pretty slow though so life hasn't changed all that much. Yet.

Bubba is sweet as ever and hang out with her. She was cracking up at him licking his leg...  :D 

 Well that's it. For now. 

I'm trying to get back into a blogging groove. 

I kinda have missed it.

And it really inspires me to take more pictures of every day life... which is priceless later in life when every day life changes and these small moments are forgotten. 

See ya around! :)

Some things are certain.

What a strange year this is turning out to be!

We have had NO SNOW since mid-December or so. Very weird and made for a strange Christmas and New Years. Now, we have snow again which makes me so very happy as there is reflected light --> even cloudy days aren't so gloomy anymore. Today however (this picture was from yesterday), we have actual blue skies and sunshine. It's lifted my mood a lot and now that I think of it...when was the last time we even had a sunny day?!

One characteristic of this year is that it's totally unpredictable. It increases my anxiety levels but makes for a sense of adventure too. Who doesn't love spontaneity and adventure?!

The last time I had an unpredictable year like this was when I was about 19... And choices I made then, still affect me today (mostly in a good way!), so let's hope that the same can be said later about this year!

Adventure? What adventure?

The possibility of going to Japan again! (lots of reading this book and drinking tea and coffee at the moment)

Adventure of becoming an entrepreneur! It's in the cards and is my resolution. Although, I really don't do resolutions. Hubby and I do mottos. This year we haven't decided on it yet totally, but I think it's getting financially stable. Something definitely related to that! 

One thing that isn't uncertain: we eat well.

This gorgeous cinnamon rolls were consumed in honor of the new year. With cream cheese frosting of course!

This cake was my mom's birthday cake. It was a gluten-free sponge cake with a layer of meringue on top. And in between the layers and on top, a creamy coffee chocolate filling. And on top of that, ganache!! 

Oh. My. Word.

This was totally improvised. Totally delicious.

And it hasn't all been desserts. We've made yummy curries, savory casseroles, and there's a high consumption of these below at the moment. 

We really need the vitamin C now, since we are all a little sick. Poor muffin has her first cold. ;(  

She's still mostly in a good mood.

And no cold is going to get in the way of learning how to crawl!! 

She's 7 months and rocking on her hands and knees. 

We are going to be in mega trouble soon! :D

Another certainty: I will always be taking flower photos. 

This amaryllis has been blooming since New Years. First one stem. 

Now the one below. A nice little surprise too, a THIRD bud is coming up!

:)

For the first time this year, one of my all time favorites: tulips.

I don't think I've ever bought them so early in the year before, but I'm not one to argue with sales. ;) 

And my favorite, flowers on the nightstand. ♥

I got a cute Vera Bradley tote from my sister for Christmas, in which I've been stashing my yarny crafts. 

I gave up on the mittens since hubby broke my bamboo needles! 

So instead I started knitting this thick and chunky basic scarf.

My mom gave me some gorgeous yarn, so after long debate with myself and ravelry, I decided to make another south bay shawlette. I made 3 or 4 of these a few years ago as Christmas gifts, but never with a variegated yarn. I love this pattern and I love how it worked with the yarn!

It's quite big but super cozy.

The last pictures I wanted to share make me giggle. 

The aftermath of taking down the tree a month after having it.

:)

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!