the highlights of 2013 so far

my child started high school

my brother, daughter, niece & nephew

we went to Disneyworld with my family

ninja turned on his lasers

k went to dances

and mauled ninja

it snowed. a lot.

the finding nemo pool at Disney was THE BEST!

the kids threw "gang signs"

k caught some fish

homecoming dance

"How To Respond When Insulted" or "I Really Thought I Was Being Nice"

So my husband and I are on OKCupid dating site. This because he is a very social person who is always looking for new people to tell stories to, and I will not be outdone. I have no interest in meeting or hooking up with anyone. Ever. But, not for the reasons you might think. I know my husband isn't going to cheat on me & has no plans to. He is very open about being happily married & that he plans to stay that way. I keep an eye on him because it's my job to do so.  We mainly use it to send dirty messages to each other & act like we're single & trying to hook up with each other. I don't know why, but it makes us laugh.

Anyway, last night, I received the following email:

Hello! 

I'm a 29 year-old married (Insert Race Here) guy from (Town Withheld) , MA and work near (A Different Town Withheld), MA. I'm an educated, sane, clean working professional looking for a stable discreet nsa (Ron had to explain that this meant "No Strings Attached") with a married woman of your age. I'm hoping you would be open to something similar ;-). Again - not looking for a one time thing but something stable where we can meet as and when our schedules permit. 

I'm looking to do this for the first time and I'm drug and disease free, non-smoker guy. 

I have been with a woman of your age before I got married and ever since then have been craving for more. If you are interested, please reply back so we can chat, get to know each other, share pics and take it from there. 

I hope to hear from you soon! 

Cheers! 
(First Name Only Withheld)

I spent the night thinking about if I should reply & if so, then how. I showed the email to Ron this morning and told him that I didn't want to be mean, buuutttttt.......... it begs for a direct, honest, straightforward response. He told me that I did not receive this email at work and that therefore, I did not have to be nice if I didn't want to be. He went on to say, that I should in fact, have an outlet where I didn't have to be nice at all and that I could just be myself & let it all fly. So, I took his advice and this is how I responded:

Dear (Name Withheld), 

You should probably know, that the quickest way to insult a woman my age is to say that you're attracted to women my age. This is inappropriate to say to a woman of any age, weather she's 19 or 59. A woman wants to be loved for who she is, not for her age. 

I'm pretty sure that the letter you sent is a form letter that you send to every woman within your desired age bracket, and I'm also equally sure, you've had little success with it. 

The reasons for that are as I mentioned above, as well as the fact that it's obvious you gave no attention to my profile, nor have you provided me with any good reason I should be interested in you. 

Also, please allow me to be frank, your letter comes across as creepy and perverted which is not something a woman my age finds desirable. Being sane and disease-free are not things that make a man attractive. These are not perks, they are requirements that should go without having to be stated.

Further more, I am not interested in having a discrete relationship with another man. If you had looked closely at my profile, you would have noticed that I have listed myself as married and looking for friends only. 

I hope that you take this as a learning experience and wish you luck in your future endeavors.

I showed this to Ron before I sent it & asked his oppinon. I told him that I decided to take the middle road, and give a heartfelt but direct answer, without being cruel.

When he was done reading it, he cackled like a hyena and said that is in no way the 'middle road' and is totally cruel, but deservedly so. He said I sound like Maude Lebowski & that wasn't a bad thing.

Clearly, I have a problem & it's that my heart is made of ice, apparently.

Story Time

My husband and I just got back from a trip to my home town of Nashville, TN. He'd never been there before and hadn't met the vast majority of my family, despite the fact that we've been married for 7 years now.

I am incredibly fortunate to be 40 years old and still have 3 living grandparents, but my grandfathers health is failing and I wanted my husband to meet him before it was too late to do so.

So, we took the long journey south, and he got to meet 2 of my 3 grandparents, we toured Nashville and best of all, he got to hear some of my families stories.

It's been a long time since I've told these stories to anyone, or have even thought about them. Some of them, I've heard so often over the course of my life, that they never seemed interesting to me. They were just stories about my grandparents & their lives. But as I get older, these stories grow more fragile and precious to me. My family has a strong oral history and my grandfather has kept detailed records of his parents families, so these stories are as familiar to me as my own name.

However, I would like to have some sort of written legacy to pass down to my daughter, as someday, she may find these interesting as well. My goal is to possibly put these into short story format and maybe into a book.

Eventhough this started out as a cooking blog, I'm cooking and baking less lately & I think this blog could be put to better use. Going forward I think I'm going to use this format to post stories as well as other projects I'm working on.

So, to start it off, I'm going to post a story about me and my grandfather.

                                             
When I was eight years old, my fathers, fathers mother, my great-grandmother Helen, told me a story about her son, my grandfather. She told me that when he was eight years old, just like me, she knew beyond any shadow of a doubt, that he was going to be a pilot when he grew up. She said that he had been so determined to fly, that he had climbed up on the roof of the garage, and like Icarus, threw himself at the sun, despite all logic, risking life and limb, to for a brief moment, be free of the bonds of gravity and be one with the air and the stars and all things heavenly.

He fell, of course, and broke his arm, but had learned from this and went on to go to military school, and when World War II broke out, he joined the US Marine Corps and sure enough, became a pilot. He became a bomber and flew Corsairs in both WWII as well as the Korean War. He became a flight instructor and taught how to fly in combat. After the wars, he was hired by American Airlines as a captain and remained so for many years.

My great-grandmother was extremely proud of her sons accomplishments, and told me this story to illustrate how with hard work and determination, I, too, could accomplish anything I desired.

This story stayed with me my entire life. I always admired my grandfather for knowing what he wanted to be so young in life & going after it with ferocity. I have never known what I wanted to do, and my life and been a long list of figuring out what I DON'T want to do, after it was already too late. I idolized him for this and for years every time I heard the Pink Floyd song "Learning to Fly" a tear was brought to my eye with thoughts of my grandfather and his passion.

Many years later, my grandmother passed away three weeks before my wedding day, and I flew to Nashville for her funeral. The funerals in my family are always full of mixed emotions. Sorrow for the loss, but  joy at reuniting with family members I haven't seen in years.

After my grandmothers funeral, myself, my father, my cousin, aunt, grandfather and his brother were sitting around the living room telling stories to each other, and re-telling old ones and talking about my grandmother.

At this point, I brought up the story my great-grandmother had told me about how my grandfather wanted to fly and how I had always admired him for it.

My grandfather looked at me, cocked his head and said "What the hell are you talking about?". Confused, I related the story I had been told. My grandfather covered his eyes & shook his head. His brother laughed hysterically and said "Tell her what you really did, Harry!"

My grandfather told me, he hadn't been trying to fly at all. He said that he was in a fight with a boy from the neighborhood and he knew that every day, the boy walked through the alley between his garage and the neighbors to get home. He said he climbed up on the garage roof and lay on his belly and waited for "that little bastard" to walk by all day long, and as soon as he did, he leaped off the roof, on to the boy, broke his arm in the fall but still beat the hell out of him and sent him home crying.

I just stared at my grandfather, blinking and my uncle was laughing so hard I thought he was going to have a heart attack. I said "So, your poor mother went to the grave thinking you were a good boy and you never told her the truth?" He said "Hell no! She would've beaten me for fighting!"

It just goes to show, the truth is always the best story.

Spring Cleaning

Starting with the pantry.

So I was making peanut butter cups and realized I was out of peanut butter. After I had already made two batches of chocolate shells. I was fairly certain that I had a full unopened jar in The Pantry of Doom. Somewhere. As I was digging around for it, my hand landed on something thick and sticky. This is never a good thing.

OK, pbcups went on hold as I pulled everything out to discover the bottle of Karo Syrup and been knocked over and spilled all over the shelf.

Clearly, my pantry needed some help in the way of cleaning and organizing. My daughter was doing the same thing in her room and inspired me to pick up some containers.

This isn't exactly a before picture, it's more of a In-The-Middle-Of picture

After cleaning up the syrup, throwing away two trash bags full of outdated sundries, including, I might add, that peanut butter jar I had been looking for to begin with, organizing and labeling the containers, I had this thing of beauty

Complete with a fresh jar of peanut butter.

I realize this isn't a recipe post, but I am pretty darn proud of myself and wanted to share it.

So, I will leave you with a link to one of my current favorite recipes:

Chickpea and Avocado Sammich. I can't get enough of this & it's super easy to make.

http://www.twopeasandtheirpod.com/smashed-chickpea-avocado-salad-sandwich/

Enjoy!

Non-Dairy Banana "Ice Cream"

My goodness it's been a while since I've posted.
But it's because I've been very busy and working on losing weight.

Making a cooking blog & losing weight tend to cancel each other out.
But now that I've lost just about 20 lbs I can kind of start eating normal food again.

As long as it's low cal, anyway.

So here is my newest creation I found at Freestyle Farm and I'm in love!

And thankfully so is my family.

Here's what you'll need:

3 ripe peeled bananas frozen overnight or all day
Honey or Agave Nectar
A food processor

Yep, that's it.

Chop the bananas into 3 parts each.
Put them in the processor with some honey
Chop.

The consistency of chopped frozen bananas is just like ice cream and it's OMG good!

I made 2 batches each a little different than the basic recipe.

For the first one, I added a bit of almond extract and some lactaid milk just to mellow the overwhelming banana flavor. And that was very good.

For the second batch, I used almond milk, almond extract and about half a cup of strawberries. This was also super yummy, but has a slightly different consistency.

While the first batch is ice cream like, the second batch is more frozen yogurt-ish because the strawberries thinned out the thickness of the bananas a bit. However, it's still really good.

 The food processor is super loud, and you may have to stop it a couple of times to stir the mixture to make sure everything gets chopped evenly.

 The container on the right is the plain banana and the one on the left is the one with strawberries. You can see the difference in texture.

If you want something more yogurty then you could add all kinds of fruit to it, but if you really want that thick ice cream like feel to it, then I'd recommend sticking to just bananas.

Of course, if you're dieting, keep in mind that a banana is 100 calories and factor in the calories of whatever else you put into this. For me, this is something strictly for dessert or when something to satisfy my sweet tooth. Although, since I've started dieting, I've given up sweets and so I've gotten to the point where I don't even really crave them anymore. 

In other news, since it's summer i've been enjoying the weather & avoiding my kitchen

Second Beach, Newport, RI

 Celebrating Independence Day

Ninja chillaxing

Have a nice summer!

biscuits of love

this is what i'm doing on my day off. 
 making homemade buttermilk love biscuits
 and working on my quilt

i'm not going anywhere today.
in fact, i may even read a book.

Monkey Bread

isn't it beautiful?

it was most delish, too.

of course, The Picky Hubby wouldn't eat it beause "any food with the word 'monkey' in must be dirty"
sigh.
but me & my daughter ate it and love it.

i found this at Gimme Some Oven and have only made it once. It came out really good, however, I found the measurements to be a little off.

i had a LOT of butter and sugar left over, and let me tell you, i really coated the heck out of the dough bits. So i think that the next time i make this, i'll half the butter and sugar amounts, and it should be just fine.

Cinnamon Muffins

I used the same recipe for these as I use for the Chocolate Chip Muffins.


Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup white sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2/3 cup milk (regular or plain almond milk)
1 stick of butter melted and cooled (1/2 cup) (earth balance)
2 eggs lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup of cinnamon chips (more or less to taste)
1 tsp of cinnamon
1/4 tsp of nutmeg
pinch of ground clove & pinch of vanilla bean

Preheat oven to 400 and line muffin tin with muffin cups. In a large bowl mix together flour, white sugar, brown sugar, baking powder, spices and salt.

In another bowl stir together eggs, milk, melted butter and vanilla extract until well blended. Make a small well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet mixture. Stir until combined and then add the cinnamon chips

Spoon mixture into the muffin cups. Bake for 15-20 mins until ligthly brown on top. Allow to cool before eating or storing.

Vegan Quinoa breakfast yumminess

Recently, my family has fallen in love with Quinoa


I've made Tabuleh for my husband (which I will post a recipe for later) that he LOVES, and today I made this little concoction which both my daughter and I adore.


This is basically this recipe for Breakfast Quinoa and this recipe for Vanilla Roasted Walnuts combined into sweet perfection.

I changed the recipe to my liking and this way it's totally vegan.

Ingredients:
2 cups vanilla almond milk
1 cup of quinoa
pinch salt
3 Tablespoons of agave nectar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp vanilla bean
1 cup dried cranberries
1/2 c. Vanilla Roasted Walnuts (recipe for that is in the above link)

Directions:
1. Bring the almond milk to a boil in a small saucepan. The almond milk works just like cow milk so keep an eye on it. It will boil and bubble over if you don't keep a close watch on it. Add the quinoa and salt, and return to a boil. Reduce heat to low, and simmer, covered, until three-quarters of the almond milk has been absorbed.

2. Stir in agave nectar and spices. Cook covered, until most of the almond milk has been absorbed.

3. Stir in cranberries and walnuts and serve. 

Blueberry Cake

blue berry cake



from Smitten Kitchen of course

i just used blue instead of rasp.

light fluffy

low on sugar

high on yummeh.

Classic Sandwich Bread

I found this recipe on the back of the bag of King Arthur Flour and it's fantastic!

The critics (meaning my husband and coworkers) have deemed this bread to be righteous.

The recipe looks a lot more complicated that it actually is, and there are only 2 things I did differently. 

1. The recipe calls for 3 Tablespoons of sugar, but that was too sweet for my husbands pallet, and really, I just think thats too much sugar for bread. So I reduced it to 1 Tablespoon and he liked that much better.

2. I have to make this bread while I'm cooking other things in the oven because my house is too cold for the bread to rise naturally. So I leave the loaf on top of the oven to rise before I bake it, and right before I pop it into the oven, I brush the top gently with a little bit of olive oil

The bread is dense, but not too heavy and it's very tasty. It really is perfect for sandwiches and grilled cheeses.

Eat My Tattoo aka I Love Shortbread

 

My husband & I don't really do anything for each other for Vday now that we're married. It just seems silly & a waste of money. We get our daughter Valentines but that's pretty much it. So I decided to make some Valentines day cookies for her with my heart cookie cutters.

Then, I realized that I have black food coloring I've never used.

And thought it would be great to make black heart cookies for my husband and red ones for my daughter. Then I thought I would use some gel frosting to add a little red heart to the black heart cookies.

Then I realized that I had a bat cookie cutter.

This meant I could make edible versions of my tattoo!

I was so excited!

So, I used my shortbread recipe I posted earlier, with a couple of  Tbsps of milk added and used 1 Tbsp + 2 tsps of black food coloring and baked.

They came out great! I made heart ones too, and plan to ice "WWJJD" onto those later today.

I gave my husband a tattoo cookie and he laughed his butt off!

Blackeyed Pea Soup with Sage and Lemon

let me tell you

this soup ROCKS!

and?

it's really easy to make!

i'm going to be really lazy and just post the link to the site where i found it, because there's not a darn thing i would change about this!

Blackeyed Pea Soup with Lemon & Sage at Integral Living & Eating

enjoy! 

Vegan Chilli

1 bag of Red Kidney Beans soaked overnight
1 onion
garlic to taste
1 cup of TVP
2 stalks of celery
1 yellow bell pepper
salt
pepper
1 tsp cumin
2 tsp chili poweder
4 cups veggie broth
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 small can of tomato paste

1. cook onion & garlic in pot on medium heat until soft
2. add celery & pepper
3. add beans & stir well
4. add veggie stock
5. add spices
6. add diced tomatoes & paste
7. still well


allow to cook for about 45 mins while stirring occasionally

8. add TVP

cook on medium until it's thick.

serve with brown rice or crackers and freshly chopped green onions on top.

enjoy

Spice Cake Sammich Cookies

Spice Cake is the one box-cake that I lovelovelove. really. srsly. LOVE.

Then, while browsing around the foodie blogosphere, I ran across recipes for Spice Cake Cookies!

OMG Good!

SWEET!!

but GOOD!

I found the one I liked best on The Crepes of Wrath

I liked it the best because it was so simple.

Ingredients:

1 Box of Spice Cake Mix (do not follow directions on box. disregard them entirely)
1 stick of softened butter
1 egg at room temperature

Mix everything up

Roll into balls & then flatten the balls a little

Place on cookie sheet and bake at 350 for about 8-10 mins (depending upon the size of your cookies)

Cool on a rack.

When they are completely cooled, spread butter cream frosting on the bottom of one cookie & stick to the bottom of another cookie.

voila!

Butter Cream Frosting :

(bear in mind that all recipes for butter cream frostings are merely guidelines. there's no exact science to it & what you put in it and how it comes out really depends upon your preference. the following is my general preference, but that's subject to change as well. )

1 stick of butter
a bunch of powered sugar (roughly 2 cups)
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 Tbs of milk

beat with electric mixer until smooth. add sugar & milk until you achieve the consistency that suits you best.

Sunday Cinnamon Rolls

 \

Bread has been working well for me lately & this is my latest project.

I found the recipe I liked at Epicurean Escapism and modified it just a little.

Buttermilk Cinnamon Rolls * now with flour!

Ingredients:

for the dough:

• 2 tbsp sugar
• 2 3/4 cup all purpose flour
  
• 1 1⁄4 tsp baking powder
• 1⁄2 tsp baking soda
• 3⁄4 tsp. salt
• 1 1⁄4 cup buttermilk
• 6 tbsp melted butter

For the filling:

• 2 1/2 tbsp. melted butter
• 2 tbsp. sugar
• 1 tbsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp vanilla
  

For the glaze: (i don't always follow this exactly. sometimes i add cinnamon to this as well. also, i make enough to cover the rolls & the extras)

• 2 tbsp. water
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1/4 tsp vanilla
  

1. Preheat oven to 425°F

2. In a bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt to form the dough.

3. Stir in the butter and buttermilk.

4. Mix well. The dough will be thick and gooey, so at this point I usually knead it right in the mixing bowl to incorporate all the ingredients and little dry morsels, before placing on the floured surface of my counter.

5. With floured hands, gently knead the flour into the dough until smooth.6. With a rolling pin, roll the dough out into a square of approximately 1⁄2 inch thick.7. Spread the surface of the dough with 2 tbsp melted butter, then sprinkle on the cinnamon and sugar.

8.Go to the edge of the dough with the filling as much as possible, then trim off the edges of the dough so that you have a perfect square & the cinnamon filling is right at the edge of the dough. set the extras aside.

9. Gently roll the dough into a log shape with the filling inside. Trim off the ends if they're not even. Then slice off about 2 inches thick

10. Place the rolls in a lightly greased pan, and bake for about 20mins, or until the edges have turned golden brown.

10. Pour prepared glaze onto the rolls while they’re warm, but have cooled for just a few minutes.

After I've removed them from the oven, I roll the extra dough in a separate dish & bake and glaze those as well as I don't like to waste anything.

sorry! i totally forgot to add the flour when i originally posted this! blogger has a new interface i was fighting with & got totally distracted. 

Pizza!

Pizza is one of the precious few things that I can get both my husband and daughter to eat reliably.

And since we're not wealthy, we cannot afford to order out very often, so I usually get the frozen variety.

We've spent years sampling various brands of frozen pizza, and although some are better than others, none have really made all 3 of us happy.

But since I had a smashing success with the pretzels, I decided to have a go at home made pizza.

I was not disappointed.

I used a dough recipe I found at Once Upon A Plate and tweaked it a bit to suit my pallet, and for the sauce I used a portion of my Tomato Bisque recipe, but with a little extra flour added to thicken it up a bit.


Pizza Dough


Yields 1 large, 2 medium, or 4 small pizza crusts

Preheat oven to 500


Ingredients:

1 Tablespoon active Quick Rise

Pinch sugar

3/4 cup very warm (not hot) water

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon dried oregano

¼ teaspoon dried basil

salt and pepper to taste

½ teaspoon garlic powder


In a small bowl or glass measuring cup dissolve the yeast and sugar in warm water, stir and set aside for 10 minutes.

Mixture should begin to bubble and foam at the end of the time

While the yeast is dissolving, in a medium bowl, combine flour and salt, pepper and herbs and set aside.

Add the liquid yeast mixture to the dry ingredients and stir until well combined.

Flour a work surface and knead dough for a couple of minutes until smooth and elastic.

Using a rolling pin, roll the dough into 1 large, 2 medium, or 4 small pizzas.

After the dough is rolled out, gently lay on a pizza pan and add sauce, fresh herbs of your choice, cheese and toppings

Bake in hot oven until as crispy as desired. Usually about 10 minutes in my experience.

Serve and enjoy!


This is something that is actually very quick. Once I had the sauce made up and the toppings I want, the whole process takes about 20 minutes from dry ingredients to on my plate. It takes no more time than a frozen pizza does to cook, and it's much healthier .

So, now, my fam wants this all the time and I'm happy to oblige.

The Best Shortbread Cookies Ever.

That's a pretty strong statement, I know.

But I feel that strongly about these shortbread cookies.

I'm not normally a fan of the stuff, more my mom's thing than mine, but these are good and easy.

I found the original recipe at TSG, and made them the first time as recommended with Nutella.

And they were good.

But then, I thought that they would also taste good with a little strawberry jam instead. So I tried them that way last night, and I actually like that way even better.

Ingredients:

• 2 sticks of butter, softened
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• ¼ teaspoon salt

Preparation:

In a separate bowl, sift flour and salt together. In the mixers bowl, cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer.

Beat in the vanilla extract.

Gently add the sifted flour and salt mixture into the creamed butter and sugar, and mix on low until well blended. When the mixture is dry and crubly, add 2 teaspoons of milk to the mixture, until everything comes together.

Form the dough into a disk, then wrap it in plastic wrap, and chill it in the refrigerator for about an hour (or until the dough has firmed-up).

Preheat oven to 350º. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Take the dough out of your refrigerator and roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface to ¼ of an inch thick. Using the cookie cutters of your choice, cut out the cookies & place on the lined baking sheets.

Bake cookies for about 10 minutes or until the cookies have lightly browned. Cool for 5 minutes on baking sheets before proceeding to cool the cookies on a cooling rack for about 15 minutes.

After the cookies have cooled, spread Nutella or the jam of your choice on half of the cookies, and sandwich the cookies together.

Irish Creme made at home

This requires a good deal of whiskey.

Just putting that out there right off the bat.

My husband got a bottle of Jameson's from his work crew for Christmas, but he never touches the stuff any more. He pretty much sticks to Bass Ale & he's good.

However, I couldn't allow it to just *sit* there. All alone. By itself. Doing nothing. Going to waste. But I sure wasn't planning on doing shots of it any time soon either.

And that's when I ran across this recipe from Cupcake Project. Perfect!

The post's label is 'You'll Never Buy It Again', and I totally agree. This recipe is so simple and quick, that I see no reason to ever buy it from the store ever again. The most expensive ingredient is the whiskey, but this will make enough to last you a while.

I altered it a little bit from the listed recipe, but you can go to that blog to see what the difference is.

• 1 Cup light cream
  
• 14 oz Carnation brand sweetened condensed milk
• 1 2/3 C Irish whiskey (I used Jameson's and you can use more or less to taste.)
• 2 Tablespoons of coffee
• 2 T Hershey's chocolate syrup
  
• 1 t vanilla
• 1 t almond extract
  

1. Combine all ingredients in a blender and set on high speed for 30 seconds.
2. Bottle in a tightly sealed container and refrigerate. Shake before using.
3. Will keep for up to 2 months.

voila.

Couldn't be easier & it's good. STRONG. but GOOD!

Holiday Treats

First and foremost, I would like to thank my mom & stepdad for giving me this beautiful mixer for christmas. I was so excited about it that I started to hyperventilate. My mom didn't know if that I was happy or upset, so my husband had to translate that I was in fact, very, very happy.

Needless to say, I've already used it & it's magical, wonderful and splendid. My mom took the opportunity to point out that she never thought I'd be so excited over a kitchen appliance & that she was pretty sure this meant I was a 'grown up' now. well. really? it's just a big toy for big kids.

And besides, cooking and baking is playing to me anyway.

My second thank you goes out to my MIL (mother in law) for bestowing upon me a full set of Anchor Hocking Fireware Lusture mugs, custard bowls and a baking dish!

She found them in her basement. They were leftover from the last family that lived there & in perfect condition. So perfect, in fact, they're like new. They were obviously never used very much. And that will change in short order. But she didn't want them. Can you believe it?! She didn't want them!

She is aware of my secret love, no, obsession with vintage dishes ( i can correctly identify make, style and patten of depression glass at 30 paces) so she asked me if I wanted these. OF COURSE I WANTED THEM! I'm in heaven! Tonight, I'm making homemade pizza with dough and sauce from scratch. Then, for dessert, I'm going to use these beautiful little custard dishes to make individual chocolate puddings with a recipe I found at Chat and Chew.

But before I get to that, I do want to post what I made for myself for my birthday with my new mixer.

Home made soft Pretzles!

I found this recipe at Picky Cook and didn't alter a thing about it.

It's labor intensive, and eats up a chunk of my day, but goodgod, it's well worth it. My husband wolfed down four without stopping to breathe.

So here it is, try it & you won't be sorry, I promise!

Makes 16

2 cups warm water
1 tablespoon + 2 tablespoons sugar
1 packet active dry yeast
5 to 6 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons olive oil
1/4 cup baking soda
1 large egg
sea salt

Vegetable-oil cooking spray

1. Pour warm water and 1 tablespoon sugar into the bowl of the electric mixer. Using the dough hook to combine. Sprinkle with yeast, and let sit 10 minutes; yeast should be bubbly.

2. Add 1 cup flour to yeast, and mix on low until combined. Add salt and 4 cups more flour, and mix until combined, about 30 seconds.

Beat on medium-low until dough pulls away from sides of bowl, about 1 1/2 minutes. Add another 1/2 cup flour, and knead on low 1 minute more. If dough is still wet and sticky, add 1/2 cup more flour. Knead until combined, about 30 seconds. Transfer to a lightly floured board, and knead about ten times, or until smooth.

3. Pour a small amount of oil into a large bowl; swirl to coat sides. Transfer dough to bowl, turning dough to completely cover all sides. Cover, and leave in a warm spot for 1 hour, or until dough has doubled in size

4. Heat oven to 450 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. ( i used oil greased foil for one batch & they didn't come out very well, so I would recommend the parchment paper)

Set aside. Punch down dough to remove bubbles. Transfer to a lightly floured board. Knead once or twice, divide into 16 pieces

5. Roll one piece of dough at a time into an 18-inch-long strip on an unfloured board. Twist into pretzel shape & transfer to prepared baking sheet. Cover and continue to form the rest of the pretzels; eight will fit on each sheet. Let pretzels rest until they rise slightly, about 15 minutes.

6. Meanwhile, fill large, shallow pot with 2 inches of water. Bring to a boil. Add baking soda (and step back, it foams up quickly) and remaining 2 tablespoons sugar. Reduce to a simmer; transfer three to four pretzels to water. Poach 1 minute on each side. Use slotted spoon to transfer pretzels to baking sheet (I used a drying rack with paper towels underneath - then once they were dry I put them on the baking sheets). Continue until all pretzels are poached.

I'm honestly not sure what this step is about, but every pretzel recipe I've seen calls for this.
7. Beat egg with 1 tablespoon water. Brush pretzels with egg glaze. Sprinkle with salt. Bake until golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Let cool on wire rack, or eat warm.

Pretzels are best when eaten the same day, but will keep at room temperature, uncovered, for two days. Do not store in covered container or they will become soggy. Seriously. I tried to store them in a container later that night & they were immediately soggy. So, I ended up keeping them in the fridge, but the next time I make these, I will absolutely leave them out for at least 24 hours.

Serve & enjoy! I like them as is, but my hubs covered in spicy brown mustard.