- the prudent homemaker -

I am loving this site, The Prudent Homemaker, put on by an LDS (that's short for Latter-day Saint or Mormon, for those of you who are saying, Huh?) woman who, at one point in her married life, had very little money to go on. She learned how to make gourmet and tasty meals on a budget and was eventually inspired to make this site. It has great recipes (with great photos) and lots of useful info on gardening, stocking your pantry, and cooking. You can even visit recipes based on the season. Go check it out!

cute hoot.

Look what Etsy just found for us all: cute white chocolate owl suckers! I don't like suckers. But I love chocolate. And owls. Awesome little party favors from Suckers by Steph.

~ free gardening gift pack ~

I love Annie's products: an awesome company that you can really feel good about buying from, plus cute bunnies on the box. I happened to check out their website just to see if I could get some coupons or something, and I discovered this offer for a free gardening kit. It's just some seeds and gloves, but hey: FREE. You just need the UPC code from two Annie's products purchased between January and April this year. You just enter the codes online. No mailing anything in. My daughter is going to love getting this in the mail.

Yogurt!

Alright folks, the waiting is over. The fear. The doubts. The sheer laziness. I finally made my own yogurt.

Some facts:
1: it worked.
2: 2 quarts cost less than $2 to make*
3: it was easy
4: I have eaten it and am still alive
5: I had all the required equipment on hand
6: it was delicious

*(I get milk for $1.99/gallon)

I'm just putting this out there to plant a seed of encouragement for all of you still eating nasty tasting, sugary, overly packaged, expensive, American yogurt. This is not an attack on you personally, just your yogurt. I have been shoving it down, too, though I am not at all ignorant of what good yogurt can be (you've been to Europe?). I kept saying I was going to start making my own yogurt, but I just kept putting it off. But after watching our recycling been overflow with little tiny Activia and Tillamook cups (I am SO sick of rinsing those things out), I thought, "Enough." This isn't one of those activities that Martha Stewart puts out there as domestic simplicity and then, after using up half your Saturday, spending $89 on supplies, and trashing your kitchen, you realize it just wasn't worth it. This is actually super easy. I used this recipe by Crystal Miller (just don't add as much sugar as they say; way too much).

:: Halloween Sneak Peek ::

So cute you could eat them up! $4.95 for twelve molded sugar cake embellishments, from Fancy Flours.

~~ treats for easter ~~

Williams-Sonoma

Fancy Flours


Paper Orchid

+ shortbread +

Shortbread really is ridiculously easy to make. I thought I'd try it out and it turned out great! I used this recipe from Martha Stewart. I didn't even both with the parchment paper, instead just putting it in a buttered glass casserole dish. Next time I want to use nuts and chocolate.

Ingredients

Makes 8 to 10 wedges

* 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pan
* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 3/4 teaspoon coarse salt
* 1/2 cup confectioners' or granulated sugar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter an 8 1/2-inch round cake or springform pan. Sift together flour and salt in a small bowl. In a large bowl, with an electric mixer on medium, cream butter until fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. Add sugar, and continue to beat until very light in color and fluffy, scraping down sides of bowl as necessary, about 2 minutes more. Add flour mixture, and beat on low, scraping bowl if necessary, until flour is just incorporated and dough sticks together when squeezed.
2. Pat dough into prepared pan. Use a paring knife to score dough into wedges; prick all over in even intervals with a wooden skewer or fork.
3. Bake until firm in the center and just starting to color, about 50 minutes. Transfer pan to a wire rack, and let cool completely. Cut into wedges. Cookies will keep, in an airtight container, at room temperature 3 weeks.

{ fancy flours }

I thought these gemstone candies I discovered on Martha Stewart were so cool, and I followed the link to where you are supposed to be able to buy the molds to make them. The website, Fancy Flours, has so much cute stuff! Cupcake toppers, cookie cutters, and stencils. But I was never able to find the gemstone molds on their site. Sigh.

:) tasty treats (:

How much fun would it be to make all these things out of felt! What a great gift idea for your make-believe-loving child: and no sewing machine required! Visit July Hobby's Etsy shop to buy these do-it-yourself patterns.

.. Tasty Penguins ..

Um...cute! Alright, so I really don't like olives. But a lot of people do and YOU may be one of them. If so, try making these adorable edible penguins. Arrange them around an igloo cheeseball and I'm sure even people who don't like olives will just have to try one. Recipe by Valerie Cuff on AllRecipes.com

Ingredients

• 18 jumbo black olives, pitted
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 18 small black olives
• 1 carrot

Directions

1. Cut a slit from top to bottom, lengthwise, into the side of each jumbo olive. Carefully insert about 1 teaspoon of cream cheese into each olive. Slice the carrot into eighteen 1/4 inch thick rounds; cut a small notch out of each carrot slice to form feet. Save the cut out piece and press into center of small olive to form the beak. If necessary cut a small slit into each olive before inserting the beak.
2. Set a big olive, large hole side down, onto a carrot slice. Then, set a small olive onto the large olive, adjusting so that the beak, cream cheese chest and notch in the carrot slice line up. Secure with a toothpick.

^^ All Recipes ^^

Wheat Germ Whole-Wheat Buttermilk Pancakes


Pumpkin Turkey Chili


Candy Corn Bark


Black Bean Veggie Burgers


Butternut Squash Pizza


Fun Cookie Suckers

Soft Giant Pretzels

I don't use my recipe books very often. It's just so much easier to use AllRecipes.com (especially since you can search by ingredients you have on hand...or don't have on hand). Here are some recipes that I've been wanting to try, but haven't yet. These would be great during the fall season! If you try any, let me know how it goes!

~ Holiday Treats ~

Martha Stewart?...wrong! All these cute ideas come from the Betty Crocker website. The great thing about them (besides being very clever and fun) is they involve boxed mixes and simple embellishments...aka easy. You can browse lots of recipes for creative birthday cakes, Halloween and Thanksgiving treats, and many other holidays. I think I'm going to try the Spooky Brownies.

Old School Frozen Custard

The Daily Candy just sent out a blip this morning about Seattle's newest addition to the frozen dairy treat scene: Old School Frozen Custard. I'm assuming that lots of you who read my blog are in Seattle, and maybe you'll get out there and try this tasty stuff! I know I'm going to.

Easter Treats

Williams-Sonoma



Crate & Barrel


Jennifer Murphy


Lori's Place