Tuesday's Kitchen

I'm preparing for my cake decorating class tonight, which involves baking a cake (I made chocolate) and about nine cups of frosting. Seriously, my waistline has expanded since starting these classes. What's a girl to do? Is it really possible to *not* eat cake?



Studio work continues. Yesterday I primed and painted the window trim for the "faux" skylights and still need to add another coat of paint. I also worked on the headboard and filled in the nail holes in the steps and also in the trim work hubs added to the studio a few days ago.

This coming weekend, I hope to get the ceiling painted and the fan and ceiling lights installed after their makeovers. I went to get the paint yesterday for the fan and the one light I have left to do and it was all gone - and was still out of stock today. It is Krylon Brown Camouflage spray paint. Yes, I know...that is quite the choice for paint but I've used this particular paint and color for so many applications and absolutely love it. It is a matte finish and sprays on so easily - and looks very much like oil rubbed bronze. You can add a clear coat as well for protection and sheen. I always hate to run out of it as it is my first choice for anything that I need painted brown. Try it out and see if you like it! (See the topiary in the photos above? The container was a terra cotta color but I painted it with the camouflage paint!)


If you haven't yet, please put your guess in for my studio remodel guessing contest. You all have come up with a lot of great and creative ideas for that antique headboard already! Thanks for playing!

"When the Crape Myrtle Blooms"

When the beautiful crape myrtle blooms
and the bumble bees are still,
I slip outside
(and if the tree abides)
my summer dreams fulfill.

~Me

I always look forward to bringing in a bouquet or two of crape (or crepe) myrtle blooms each summer. They are so beautiful and delicate and oh so aromatic! I tucked into my bouquet a few sprigs of my fresh rosemary and it really adds a layer of aroma and beauty, in my opinion.




I am so embarrassed to say that I didn't have my yard sale this weekend (again!). I will speak of it no more until after it's done and over. Quite frankly, I was exhausted this week from our trip. When I ran out of sticky labels for the items I was labeling earlier this week, I decided then and there that I just needed a break for a few weeks and sufficient time to rest and putz about the house, catching up on neglected chores, frivolities, and such. It was just as well that I didn't have a yard sale this weekend because as I was working out in the gardening beds near the end of this past week and toward the weekend, I came down with the most dreadful case of sun poisoning. Each and every time I attempted to be outside, no matter how little time I spent out there, I broke out in a horrible, itchy, and painful rash. Imagine my horror when yesterday, shortly after arriving at our place of worship, I again broke out despite wearing long sleeves (part of my neck was still exposed - and that's where I broke out). I'm sure all my friends (especially mothers with young children) were not a little concerned - I'm telling you, I looked hideous!

So no more outside activity during the day until my skin is well. I'm coming to terms with the fact that never in my life will I have a beautiful golden tan. I never tanned as a child (had sun poisoning a time or two then, too) and have never tanned as an adult. It's burn and peel, burn and peel... I will work hard from now on at protecting my skin while trying to appreciate it's pasty-like porcelain-like appearance.

In the evenings, though, hubs and I have been able to work on our front full sun landscaping bed and I'm so excited about it! Hubs was a sweetheart and planted most of the new plants this weekend. I laid out the gardening plan and dug many of the holes. My favorites are the new delphiniums (photo to the left not mine) - they will grow to be be over 4 feet high! And I love the color...everything about a delphinium just seems so....cottage, don't you think?! As the garden fills in more, I may share photos if I can keep everything alive. Many of my perennials from last year, like my Prairie Dusk, came back, so that's a good sign! This year, I planted coreopsis, black-eyed susans, daisies, oregeno, ,sweet basil, and I don't even remember the names of the others... Next year, I would like to attempt a very small food garden out back, but I've said that every year, hehe. A few people have told me that food is so much easier to grow that flowers, and if that's the case, I'm looking forward to raising a small kitchen garden!

This weekend, Hubs also replaced our pitiful, poor old mailbox. It came with the house and is probably just as old as the house. I don't know why we're only just now replacing it but let me tell you, the kids were thrilled about it. Why? I don't know. I'm really excited, too. My father-in-law has a machine that cuts vinyl (for decals for signs, automobiles, etc.) and I may try and commission him to cut the words "The Twice Remembered Cottage" for me in a really pretty font, and maybe the lady and bird graphic (that's near the top of my blog) to go on the mailbox.

Right now it's just a blank canvas. It also needs some flowers along the base, don't you think?

One of my kidlets asked me to make apple cinnamon muffins this weekend so I obliged. These are so yummy...the Easy Apple Cinnomon Muffin Recipe is from Allrecipes.com but I changed the topping because the original topping as stated in the recipe didn't seem to go over well with reviewers. If you try this recipe, try the following for a sweet, crunchy, crumbly topping.... (also, double the muffin recipe and topping recipe for 12 or more muffins - the original is just for six)

Crumbly Cinnamon Topping for Apple Cinnamon Muffins:

Crumbly Topping:
1/4 c light brown sugar,
1/4 c all purpose flour,
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon,
pinch of salt,
3 tablespoons of oats,
2 tablespoons of butter

Crumble in 2 tablespoons of butter into dry ingredients and sprinkle on muffins before baking.

Here is how mine turned out....a family favorite for sure!

Cookie Feathers

Because that's what I have on my mind right now...cookies and feathers - or more specifically, cookies and our missing cockatiel named Buddy. I've recently written about how, about a month ago, hubs walked outside without knowing that Buddy was on his shoulder. It only took a second for Buddy to fly away. We searched feverishly for him, canvassing neighborhoods, putting up flyers, placing ads in the paper and Craigslist, calling vets offices and pet stores, going door to door and personally asking folks to keep their eyes open for him - but to no avail. There were a couple of sightings of him in the first week, but that's about it. Until now. Imagine our thrill when several people called and emailed us this week letting us know about a recent Craigslist ad posted by someone who had found a cockatiel matching our Buddy's description! Now, I'm really, really, really trying not to get my hopes up. This cockatiel was found about 32 miles away - which isn't unusual for a bird, but it really could be anyone's bird. Tomorrow (Thursday) I meet up with the person that found the bird so that I can handle the little guy and try to figure out if it's ours. The manager at a nearby pet store is going to kindly let us use one of their rooms. Yes, I'm really trying not to get my hopes up but I guess I'll know by tomorrow evening if our Buddy has been found or not:)

Now about those cookies...

This is the last week of school and of course, the last week of school is filled with fun activities, end-of-year celebrations, and gift giving . My oldest girl requested that I bake a couple of batches of cookies for her school party and she chose M&M cookies and Peppermint Surprise Brownie Bites. The latter are made with York Peppermint Patties and when I went shopping this morning and found that I would have to spend $7.00 for two bags of patties, I decided that I would make Andes Mints cookies instead:) So that's what I've been working on today (reminding myself that these are for the children and teachers - not me!) I'm also baking Snickerdoodles and Chocolate Chip Cookies to go along with some of the M&M and Andes Mint cookies for gift boxes for the teachers. I thought it would be fun to give them a nice selection of four different kinds of cookies. I'm going to be up late, I can tell!

The recipe that I used for today's M&M cookies and the Andes Mint cookies (and the chocolate chip cookies, of course!) was taken from one of the chocolate chip cookie recipes in the book Mom's Big Book of Cookies: 200 Family Favorites You'll Love Making and Your Kids Will Love Eating . Oh.My.Goodness, what wonderful cookies it makes! They turn out to be very soft and moist and oh so yummy. Not puffy, fat, and dry like many of the cookies I've made before, hehe! I will use this recipe time and time again for all types of cookies, just substituting the chocolate chips for whatever we have a craving for!

The Snickerdoodle recipe is just as delicious and is my family's personal favorite. I'll try and post some recipes when I have some more time. In the meantime, check out that book - it's wonderful!

Surprise Party and Cupcake Fun

Last Wednesday was my youngest daughter's last "half day" of kindergarten before starting full days like the other grades. On Tuesday, I was trying to figure out what we could do when I picked her up on Wednesday. The way I viewed it, it was her absolutely very last afternoon of "freedom" before the reality of life set in - before having to go to school - all day, everyday, followed by growing up and being responsible and having to do other things like work and care for a family - all day, everyday. (Overanalyzing? Probably.)

So I wanted Wednesday to be special but it was too hot to do anything outdoors like the zoo or the park. Most of the indoor places we've gone to many times and I was looking to do something different. Finally, at about 10 o'clock Tuesday night, I decided that she and her best friend, who also started kindergarten this year, could frost and decorate cupcakes. Hubs thought it was a great idea, too, and we decided not to tell her of the plans.

But you know how it goes, how one thing leads to another...and I ended up just throwing a full fledged party. I bought all the things I needed Wednesday morning while she was at school but I only had a couple of hours to get home and decorate and setup. It was a whirlwind of a morning but everything was finished by the time I had to leave and pick her and her friend up from school. We had lots of balloons and streamers and SpongeBob decor. Someday I'd love to do a party where all the decorations are vintage-y and classic and handmade, but this time I had no time so store bought had to do. I went a little overboard buying sprinkles and candy and frosting - but the girls just loved it! When all the big sisters came home at 3, there were six girls total and it was so much fun! It was a Wednesday afternoon and though they had homework and I had other responsibilities, we all just forgot about that for a while to decorate cupcakes and cookies, dance, drink punch, eat mozzeralla sticks,raw veggies, oh - and cupcakes! I even let the little kids jump off the furniture, hehe. Everyone was *so* surprised and couldn't believe that they were having such fun on what would otherwise be a pretty boring Wednesday afternoon. My little one was so thrilled that she kept running up and giving me big bear hugs and saying, "You're the BEST mommy EVER!" I can't count how many times she did that - and it just made it all so very worth it:)

I took the above picture a couple of hours after the party was over, when the girls' friends went home and all was quite in the house again. The girls didn't want me to take down the decorations so they stayed up for a few days afterwards:) I decorated the living room, too, and got lots of fun photos of the girls being silly and having fun, but I've grown a little more "afraid" to post many photos of my kidlets online. So instead I'll post some of their cupcake creations...you can certainly tell that an adult didn't decorate these!








After the party, hubs and my little one went out to run some errands and when they returned, my munchkin brought me these beautiful flowers! Hubs said she saw them and told him she wanted to give them to me to thank me for having a surprise party for her...how sweet! They look perfect above my sink. (Hubs recently dunked my kitchen curtains in some dirty dish water when he was removing them to do some work, so my window is naked once again until I put them back up...and maybe soon I'll put a photo in that frame!) So it was such a lovely, lovely day that none of us will soon forget.

Speaking of naked and work, I'm really chomping it to bits to get our crown moulding up in our kitchen. Doesn't it look so bare without it? So that's our next kitchen project as soon as we financially recover from all the school shopping we've had to do lately!

Have a great day, everyone!

Watkins Pretty Herbs / Spice Tins

I'll admit, usually when I need dried herbs and spices, I'll find them somewhere for 2 / $1 . Long ago, I use to buy them at a health food store, scooping out how much I wanted into a plastic bag and then transferring them to glass containers at home. That was a very long time ago and is a habit I'd like to get back into one of these days. As of late, I've been sighing over all the plastic spice and herb containers that have been cluttering up our cabinet. How much prettier and simple it could be if I used little labeled glass containers and these sweet little spice tins fromWatkins.Watkins products have been around for 137 years and one thing, besides their quality, that I love about them are their old-fashioned containers and labels. Take a browse around their site and see what I mean. Between you and me, you can get the organic spices you see pictured cheaper at Wal-Mart for a little over $3.50 each. I picked one up the other day - there are 16 colorful tins in all. I think I'll collect them! Hubs and other passers-by in the spice aisle at Wal-mart must have thought I was nuts, lol, as I was holding the garlic powder tin and saying, "How PRETTY! I just love it! So adorable!" I'm sure they were all like, "It's garlic powder, lady...put it in your cart and move on already!"

What's Cooking & "Ugly Dining Table Turned Cottage Coffee Table" Progress

You may remember a few weeks back I posted photos of the $10 dining room table I found at Goodwill. Though this particular table is a very nice, solid wood, solid as a rock table, we don't need a dining table, and if we did, this one would be way too small. But I thought it would make for a perfect oversized coffee table, which we do need. I sanded it within an inch of it's life, hubs cut the legs down to coffee table height, and then I primed it. Now, I just have to figure out which shade of white to paint it. I guess the exact color isn't too critical because I'll be applying a brown glaze then quickly wiping it off, so the color won't be a white, white anyway. I'm going for...you guessed it...an "aged" look.

And just to show that we are making some progress on the ceiling planks, here's a little photographic proof. Love that shine! Normally I'm not a fan of high gloss but I think on ceilings, it's lovely and and fresh and "clean" feeling. We are painting the first coat before we install and will paint the second coat after installation.


With the colder weather upon us now, I find myself again immersed in reading about the "old days". Specifically, old-timey cooking and pioneer living. I wanted to share with you a few books that I've picked up recently and that I've thoroughly enjoyed. I only wish my grandmother was alive still because she, too, was interested in such things and even once asked me to find her some old-time cookbooks online. She would have loved the ones I found a couple of weeks ago. Along with taking in a bit of old fashioned culinary knowledge, I've been discussing with the kids "the way things were" in the pioneer days and just how different our lives are today. I just find it fascinating and my two youngest kidlets do as well. I've been reading to them Little House in the Big Woods and have already bought Farmer Boy and Little House in the Prairie...I'll buy the other books in the Little House series one or two at a time. One of our favorite things to do is to sit by the fire and read about the old days. The books are very descriptive and I think they do wonders for a child's imagination. To help them learn even more about pioneer times, I also picked up If You Were a Pioneer on the Prairie. It's a fascinating full color illustration, question and answer book for children.

"This new addition to the popular question-and-answer history series invites readers to step back in time and see what it was like to grow up on the Great Plains more than 100 years ago.What kind of house would you live in? What kind of clothes would you wear? What would you do for fun? Would you go to school? The answers to these and 34 more questions give eight-to-ten-year-olds a vivid idea of a pioneer child's day-to-day life as well as the hardships the pioneering family faced as they attempted to settle in the vast and often forbidding prairie lands."

The cookbooks that I have are from Native Ground. Native Ground (as you'll see from their homepage) is a great place to visit and shop if you love everything about the way things use to be...from music to food to manners to folklore.

I picked up what they had available at our bookstore but I see they have many more books online. Just look at these titles! I'd love to have the whole collection! You may also be able to find some of these at Amazon.

The 1st American Cookie Lady
The Lost Art of Pie Making
Early American Cookery
Manners & Morals of Yesterday
Old-Time Farmhouse Cooking (Rural American Recipes, Wisdom, & Farmlore)
Mama's In The Kitchen (Weird & Wonderful Home Cookin' 1900-1950 ~)
Take Two & Butter 'Em While They're Hot! (Heirloom Recipes & Kitchen Wisdom)
*Children at the Hearth (19th Century Cooking, Manners & Games)
*Log Cabin Cooking (Pioneer Recipes & Food Lore)
*Secrets of the Great Old-Timey Cooks
Sing It Yourself! -12 Old-Time Sing Alongs

So, along with reading, I've also been cooking up yummy fall meals like Shepherds Pie, Potato Broccoli Soup, Cheesy Chick Corn Soup with Dumplings, and biscuits, of course! These are great stick to your bones meals (errr, or I should say... "stick to your hips" meals, lol!)

Immersed

Lately, I've been keeping up with the household chores but I've put projects on hold. I've been nostalgic for a time that I never knew or experienced and it seems that every few months I get like this. Just a crazy, bluesy, sadness of sorts, a mourning over the fact that I can't go back to a simpler time. I was just telling a friend that I really need to be a hermit in the middle of nowhere...perhaps out on a farm or deep in the mountains. Just a little old quaint home and a garden and fresh air...

When my folks were visiting from California, I went with them to stake out some new construction homes...spacious and beautiful and perfect. They may be moving here in the next five years so they wanted to see what was available. What is wrong with me that en route to such lovely homes, I couldn't help but to do double takes when passing by all the sad little old, dilapidated, ivy covered, tumbled down and forgotten houses? I swear, it's nearly the same feeling I get when I stumble across a stray animal that needs some TLC. Someone help me.:)

When I visit big box stores, internally I grumble every time over the plastic and mass-produced era that I have to live in now. I groan about the shoddy "craftmanship" (can you even call it that?) of merchandise for sale. I sigh over the lengthy ingredient lists on the foods we buy, half of which are chemicals because I know that way back when, people not only could pronounce the ingredients in their foods, but they knew exactly what those ingredients were and probably produced them themselves. I wince when my children ask for some new fangled plastic toy (that holds their attention for about a day). I'm frustrated that I don't know how to make biscuits or pies from scratch, that I haven't a clue how to garden or can my own foods, that I wouldn't know where to begin making a quilt (or how to operate my own sewing machine, for that matter), that I don't have a woodburning fireplace, that I live on a semi- well traveled street, and so on and so forth.

I was even irritated at Joe Bob Shelf Stocker at Wal-Mart yesterday because he had never even heard of the Farmer's Almanac. "Farmer's what????" *sniff*

Where is that time machine when you need it most?

Oftentimes when I find that I need to "escape" to another world and time, I go to the library and check out many books of the same theme and bury myself in them for days and days. One of the books I checked out recently is called, "A Place Called Sweet Apple - Country Living and Southern Recipes" It was written in 1967 by a very prolific columnist for the Atlanta Constitution (she's been gone for quite a few years now) who discovered a deserted country cabin and fell in love with it at first site.

I knew after reading the first page that this woman, Celestine Sibley, was really me.

Someday I know that my world will be simple and wonderful and for now, I'll work hard be content with sustenance and covering. But, oh, isn't it wonderful to daydream about how things are suppose to be?!

Nothing Says Cottage Like Company for Dinner

I called my mom on Thursday and found out that she and my stepfather will probably be here on Sunday, so that has given me a little more time to get things done around here and to also slow down a bit. Yesterday I spent hours scrubbing all the paint drops off the old ugly kitchen and dining room linoleum and while there are still a few specs that I'm not going to worry about (we're ripping all this up later anyway) the floor looks *much* better. Today I'm even going to add floor shine to it to give it a little sparkle, something that I haven't seen for a year now:)

After I finished scrubbing the floors yesterday, a couple of our dear friends stopped by to drop off their little girl for a couple of hours. She's absolutely one of the sweetest, cutest, most adorable baby I've ever seen in my life (besides my own girls, of course)! My girls essesntially did the babysitting for me while I started on a yummy down home cooked chicken and veggie casserole. We put on some nice classical music, the girls ran around and played, and there was a such great feeling in the house. Another friend had also stopped by and he and hubs worked on his car out in the driveway. I let him know even before he got here that we were having casserole for dinner and I also called up another friend and told him to come and eat if he was able. All was well in our little cottage home:)

At about eight o'clock, little Lexi's mom arrived to pick her up but I was glad that she, too, got here just in time for dinner and joined us all. I hadn't visited with her in a little while so it was nice catching up with her while all the kids played. It was just a very lovely evening hanging out with our friends, who after all, are relatives you choose for yourself:)

So here is the recipe for the chicken casserole I made. This is a great meal for company because it serves a lot and there is plenty for everyone to have seconds (or thirds!). Everyone ate until they were satisfied and we still have a good portion left today. For a family of five, you could probably take half the casserole mix and make a second casserole to freeze. It is *not* lowfat or low carb by any means, but it is very yum and is quintessential comfort food:) To my friend Jason who is moving to California soon, you should grab a pen and write this recipe down:)

One Woman's Chicken and Rice Casserole

5 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
3 cans cream of chicken soup
1 16oz container sour cream
2 bags lightly steamed vegetable medley (broccoli, cauliflower, carrots)
1 can of corn
2 cups cubed velveeta (give or take)
shredded cheddar cheese
milk
salt and pepper to taste
2 cups cooked rice (add about 4 chicken bouillon cubes to rice while cooking for extra flavor)

Heat oven to 400

Cut up chicken into cubes and lightly brown it in a bit of butter. Add some garlic or onion if you like. Drain and add cream of chicken, sour cream, velveeta, a cup of shredded cheddar, and enough milk to make the mixture nice and fluid and creamy. Cook on medium heat while stirring. Stir in steamed vegetables and corn, then cooked rice. Pour mixture into large casserole dish and cover with shredded cheddar cheese.

Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the cheese is melted or lightly browned.

There you have it! Let me know if you try this and tell me how you liked it:)

Today is the day that we hang the remaining *finished!* cabinet doors...photos will be added soon!