It's that time already...

Not too much going on around here at the moment but I did start working on holiday cards! Here is my first one but I have a few others in mind that will hopefully be cute. Also I will hopefully have my next tutorial up in the next couple of days! =)

My First Sewing Project!

Sorry for the delay in posts, I ended up with that terrible cold and things just got hectic from then, but I am trying to be betteR  about posting, I promise! So with Christmas coming up I decided that we needed new stockings that fit our Tokidoki Christmas theme so I started my first ever sewing project. I was nervous and it took days but I am pretty proud! I know it is definitly not perfect but I don't think it is super terrible for my first shot! Now onto the second stocking =)

Snow and Ornaments Yay!!

Sorry for not posting for a bit, That cold was brutal! I'm not at 100% yet but definitly better then before. So currently it is snowing pretty good and here is a picture of what it looks like out my window right now. Pretty huh?







As of right now I sadly don't have too much to report in terms of making things but I did actually add two more ornaments to our Tokidoki Christamas tree collection. I started this project last year because I wanted to make a Christmas tree that was truly ours and also because ornaments are really expensive and the cool ones are so cheaply made! So here are the newest additions, Buletto and Ninja! I'll put up picture of the actualy tree after Christmas.

Sick... =(

Ugh I'm so sick I hate it! I'm all stuffy and sound like a gopher =(  I guess I will make this a short post and go lie down and  finish Professor Layton and the Curious Village (it's so hard!) but I wanted to show off my new notebook! I just like the colors =) Anyways I will go but I hope all is well with anyone reading this blog, stay healthy!

My little babies are growing!

So about 3 weeks ago me and Chris planted some herbs from seed to see how they would grow on my windowsill. I know it's the middle of fall but Colorado is awesome because we actually get more sunshine then any other place in the U.S (something like 300+ days) So we planted the little seeds in soil in these awesome handmade cups Chris made in pottery class and put them on top of the fridge with plastic bags over them for a couple days. I never grew anything before so it was sooo exciting to watch them grow! So now we transplanted them a few days ago (I want to do a tutorial on how to do this later on) and they are rocking!!! I just had to share, I'm so proud of my little plants =)

So here is the basil 

Cilantro

Chives

and Majoram

Cookie Failure...

    Ok so it was more sort of a semi failure and they definitly don't look pretty... Yesterday for some reason I just kept thinking about black and white cookies. I used to get them as a kid at Peaberry Coffee until Starbucks took them over. Peaberry actually still has a couple locations open but sadly I no longer live near one. Anyways so I just had this huge craving for one of those delicious cake cookies from my past and decided yesterday at 11pm that I would bake my own!

      I scoured the net looking for a good recipe and came across this one from epicurious and really the cookie part was fantastic, it was just the icing that killed it. To me it tasted really powdery and overwelming. I thought that the lemon would make it refreshing but it just made the powdery taste even worse. Chris tried it though and thought it was good and the reviews on this recipe were pretty positive but maybe I just have in my head what the icing should taste like. It also dried kind of transparent which doesn't make for a pretty cookie either (not that my oddly shaped cookies would have been beautiful in the first place) I will try this cookie recipe again though and try to find a different icing recipe and post the results another time =)

How To Make Baguettes - My First Tutorial!!

Ok, so I have tried these about 3 or 4 times now and they have always turned out really good. It takes a really long time to make but most of that time you are just waiting for the bread to rise so you can do other things. But if you can make baguettes, I pretty much figure you make any type of bread so why not try a harder one first and others will be easy! =) So here goes my first tutorial, I hope it helps.

 What you will need

* All Purpose Flour  3.5 cups + 1 cup for starter
* Salt (not pictured, I apologize!)  1 teaspoon
* Dry Active Yeast - 1 teaspoon + 1 pinch
*Water  -  1 cup + half cup
easy huh?


Step 1 - The afternoon before you want to break the bread, you have to create a starter. I usually make mine at about 4 or 5 pm the previous day. To create a starter,

mix 1/16th of a teaspoon (or just a pinch) of dry active yeast to half a cup or warm water. Stir it.

 Then add the mixture to 1 cup of all purpose flour.

Mix well until it looks like this.

Step 2- Get a damp kitchen towel and cover the bowl. Put it somewhen dark and dry for 14 hours. One good place I find is inside of a turned off oven or a pantry.





*** Next Day!!!

Ok so after 14 hours this is what the starter should look like. Many air bubbles, kind of like a pancake before it has been flipped.

Step 3 -

Alright now the real bread process begins. add 3.5 cups of flour and a teaspoon of salt to the top of the starter. In a separate little bowl mix 1 teaspoon of dry active yeast to 1 cup warm water. Stir the yeast mixture and add it to the flour and starter.






Step 4 -

Time to get some exercise. Knead everything together until it become a dough. Make sure to scrape up as much of the starter at the bottom of the bowl as you can into the dough so that it rises properly. What is really great about baguettes is you don't have to knead the dough until it is completely smooth, in fact you shouldn't. With baguettes you should knead the dough just enough so that all the ingredient are properly mixed but the dough is somewhat lumpy like this. Once it looks like this put some saran wrap over the bowl and put it in a dark place to rise for 1 hour.


Step 5-

Ok so after an hour this is what the dough should look like. See how the rising is smoothing out the dough?

Now what you are going to do is deflate the dough put the saran wrap back on the bowl  and let it rise again. After that you'll do that one more time for a total of three times.





Step 6-

Yay! you are on the homestretch of the rising journey. Once you let it rise and deflate 3 times, you are going to put the dough on a floured surface ( I just put flour on my clean counters) and you are going to take a serrated knife and cut the dough into 3 pieces as equally as you can. (Sorry my picture is not a great example of equal cutting) and let the dough rest for 15 minutes.


Step 7 -

Ok, now its time for some shaping. Take one of the three section and flatten it out into the shape of a rectangle.

Now take the top part and fold it almost in half just leaving about a half inch uncovered.

and push down on the dough again to make another rectangle.

Fold the top part one more time.

Roll the dough up so that the seam is now on the bottom of the loaf and shape the dough to look like a baguette.
Repeat step 7 two more times for the other sections.

Step 8 -

Ok so close now, don't give up! For one final quick rest (it is the last one I promise) you are going to create sort of a flour cradle for your loaves. Get a tea towel and a baking sheet. What you do is shape the towel so that it has 3 big spaces for the loaves to fit in. In those spaces before you put the bread in, sprinkle a good amount of flour in the bottom. (This will create that fancy artisan looking crust on the bottom after you bake.)

Now put the bread in the spaces and cover them very lightly with saran wrap and let them rise one last time for about 30 minutes.

Here is what the loaves should look like now just a little bit fluffier.   







Step 9 -

So now the loaves are nice and fluffed, it is time to prepare them for baking. First of all preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Now gently put the loaves on a baking sheet and what you are going to do is sprinkle or spray (if you have a spritzer around) water onto the bread. This will create that nice crunchy crust. Put just enough water on them so that they look glossy.

After watering them all that is left is to get a serrated knife and create diagonal cuts in the bread. Not very deep ones just about a quarter of the way through the dough, Make 3 or 4 of these cuts depending on how long the bread is. Now just put the bread in the oven for 25 minutes. I know it is tempting but try not to open the oven door while it is baking since it will let a lot of that heat escape.




Step 10 -

Bask in your baking glory and eat.

 If all went well (which it should have) you will have 3 delicious, crunchy, fresh baguettes that you made with your own hands with just 4 simple ingredients. I know it all seems like a lot at first but after a few times you will be able to make these with your eyes closed and will probably never buy baguettes again. Enjoy!

Block Scarf

Ok so I just finished a scarf for my finace to wear around for the winter (I love how he is modeling it in his best beefcake type pose! lol.) I really actually wanted to do a stockinette stitch but I only had two skeins of yarn and even this scarf is pretty short! This is my second attempt at making him a scarf. When we were first dating a few years ago I had made him an awesome striped scarf in Gryffindor colors but had made the stupid mistake in knitting it all in cheap acrylic yarn. He wore it for like a week and it was just to itchy for him to deal with and alas it is now somewhere in the back of the closest only to be seen when I feel the urge to dress our dog Odin up like Harry Potter which happens more often then I care to admit... So anyways long story short this time I made sure to get good yarn (100% merino wool) and all is happy and warm =) So just a word of advice from me to you, I still use acrylic all the time when trying out new techniques because I hate to waste good yarn but learn from my mistakes final pieces especially gifts should be done with the good stuff otherwise pieces you lovingly created might end with a fate similar to my poor dog hair covered Gryffindor scarf.

Oh! also just wanted to add I will be putting up my first tutorial ever in the next day or so be on the lookout! =)

And so the journey begins...

So I have always wanted a blog but could never figure out what I wanted to write about. My interests are so varied and always changing that I figured I could never stay on a single subject long enough to blog about it. This morning though I woke up and for some reason felt this inspiration to completely start my blog over and what I wanted to write about finally came to me! My obsessions come and go but my goal has always remained the same. I want to learn everything! My ultimate goal in life is if I see a pretty dress on a website I can make it, if I feel a craving for a sachertorte I can whip one up, if I am watching a foreign movie I can understand what they are saying and so on... So from this moment on this blog is going to be about my quest to live a self sufficient life! From making new things for my etsy shops to tutorials on how to grow vegetables hydroponically (once I figure that out) this blog will be for anyone who wants to learn to do it themselves. =)