Boy's room update

The grandson is now three - and although I love how we did his room originally, he's gotten a little older now and it's time for engaging his mind and imagination.

Here's his room before:

It was fun to paint and such a cute design.  My DD and I had fun doing it.  But, as I said, it's time for a change!  Bring on the critters!!

My first critter.  Doesn't everyone need a cute little worm in their room?

The next two I put on the wall inside a bookcase.  I told him these little guys were moving in to get out of the rain!

Then of course, the bigger guys followed:

I'm nowhere near done and it's been so fun!  Check back for more updates!!

With the fast approaching holiday season, I spent some time yesterday doing what I love to do:  Googling and Pinteresting!

My goal?  Find something fun and easy to do with my Grandson!

I found.....butter.

Yes, butter.

I know, I know, butter is not the healthiest food to make.  But it's fun.  After all my googling, I'm pretty sure I am the only person on the planet that has not made this.  Until last night.

  I apologize for the lack of photography, I just didn't think of it at the time.

The How

Half pint of heavy cream

Some form of beating the cream (I used my immersion blender with it's blender-like attachment)

Salt

About 10 minutes-ish

Beat the crap out of the cream until it moves from the whipped cream stage to the butter stage.  Drain off the buttermilk.  Squeeze out the juices.  Rinse with water to remove all traces of buttermilk.  Mix in salt, or perhaps herbs for an extra treat.  Squeeze out the juices.  Place in a covered container, or into cute little molds.

I intend to experiment with the herbed butter for Thanksgiving.  I'll let you know how it goes.  

Here's the best page I found, and she used photos!!

http://www.thehungrymouse.com/2010/03/22/homemade-butter/

Bon Appetit!

T-Mobile complaint

I've decided to add a gripe I'd posted on my facebook, just to give it more views.

I've had a day to fume, so now I think I can tell this and keep it fairly short....History: I've been a t-mobile customer since the mid 90s, it was voicestream and another name (can't remember) before finally t-mobile. Needless to say that makes me a pretty darn loyal customer. My daughter's phone croaked and I called to see what to do. We are still "contract" customers. My phone was available to upgrade, if I changed plans. Changing plans would save me HALF my bill! Good deal, right? Wrong, in order to change plans, I'd have to pay a $550 "migration" fee on my next bill. Migration fee? It's new since t-mobile supposedly went non-contract. Google "t-mobile no contract" to see the scam this has become. Long story short, stuck into our contracts until 2014, can't get a better deal on my bill without forking out half a grand, all while new customers get the perks. Disgruntled? Yeah, just a bit. — 

My Crazy Animals

Couldn't figure out how the goat kept getting out of the enclosure.....

Hmmm...

Dinner under fire.....

I look around the internet quite a bit for recipes for dinner, just to keep things from getting boring.  The problem I have is that most recipes are either over-the-top (like I'm a french chef!) or obviously plain and boring.  I usually end up morphing what I find into something of my own, so I'm going to start adding these here so I can both share, and remember what I did in case I want to do it again.  That's another big problem of mine, I just don't remember a lot of my creations!

For my main course I made Chicken Wellington Casserole - turned out great!  I mixed up rotisserie chicken (the breasts), cream cheese (3-4 oz), cream of chicken and herb (a few spoonfuls), garlic (a bunch), green onion (2-3), black pepper, then encased the mixture in crescent roll.  Baked 350 for 20 minutes.  Yum!

Next (this was the under fire part) I cooked pan-fried corn.  For this one I added olive oil into a pan to brown the corn ears.  Please note that as the corn heats up, the steam in the kernels makes them go POP!  Then the juices hit the hot oil and suddenly you and your kitchen are under attack!  I kept turning it down, but it kept firing!  After sopping up as much excess oil as possible, I added 1/2 cup of water mixed with 1 Tbs of apple cider vinegar, some onion and garlic and VERY quickly covered it. Cooked it until the kernels were done (toothpick in a kernel  should be soft, not crunchy) about 10-15 minutes.  I came out relatively unscathed and the corn was great!

Easter Fun!

So, yes, I am a ridiculously bad blogger.  You know, I look at all kinds of great blogs everywhere and realize that I will never be that organized.  

Today is May 1st and I am now ready to share with you my Easter creation!  

This is one of the panoramic eggs I made this year!  I'm a horrible photographer, but this one is light blue.  I made every part of this egg except the bunny rabbit - that I bought from Michaels, with my 40% off coupon.  This egg is 100% edible.

This is incredibly easy to do, just need a little time and patience.  Here's what I did:

For the egg - Mix 2 cups sugar, 4 tsp water and 1 tsp meringue powder.  If you want to color it, use either a bit of food coloring in the water.  You can use icing paste (gel) instead.  It should be the consistency of  damp sand - the kind you build sand castles with.  OOh, what a thought....may need to make a sugar castle next!

Smoosh (this is the official term...) the sugar mixture into an egg mold powdered with corn starch.  You want to pack it in as tightly as you can.  Wilton discontinued their plastic egg molds (why?) but you can find plastic eggs in either craft stores or Walmart (especially during Easter).

Once the sugar mixture is packed into both halves, even off the tops and invert onto a pan, or plate, or countertop, or wherever works best for you.  I put mine onto a piece of cardboard covered with baking paper.

Next, using a knife or piece of string (dental floss works great), cut into both egg halves at the pointy end, but leave the piece in place, like the picture below.  This will be the peep hole!

If your egg mold doesn't have a flat side for the bottom, cut one now.

Leave the eggs out for a couple of hours, or overnight.  The outside will harden, then you can pick them up and scrape away the insides.  The longer you let them dry the thicker the walls will be.  Work carefully, scraping the sugar away until you have it where you want it.  

Now for the fun!!

Royal icing - 3 Tbs meringue powder, 4 cups sifted confectioner's sugar (powdered sugar) and 6 TBs water.  Again - to color it use either icing paste of food coloring.  If using food coloring, add it into your water measurement.

Now to be totally honest, this makes a ginormous amount of royal icing.  I halved it with no weird results.

First, I made my decorations for inside and out:

I added apples and a knot hole with food edible markers.

Next I added grass inside the bottom half, loaded up the bunny rabbit, tree, carrots etc.  I put the two halves together with royal icing, then decorated the outside!  Viola!  Eggs done.  The royal icing takes a couple of hours to set up, but then your done.  BTW - did you know those royal icing decorations will last FOREVER!  I just put them in a plastic food thingy with a lid and I'll use them on cookies and such this spring and summer.