Woven paper heart Valentines

Jaime set a high bar for Valentines for the children. Handmade, non-candy, and cute. I remembered helping a class make these when one of the girls was in elementary school. Since I couldn't remember how to make them, I did what we do now. I googled it. I found this great tutorial. I practiced a couple times and then success! Here's what I made: 

I started simple with only 3 weaving strips. I started getting a little braver with the purple and yellow heart. Once you start making them, they get easier and easier.

I put a few packets of fruit snacks inside for the non-candy treat. All the grandkids love them.

Now I just need to get them in the mail.

Organization While Planning

Planning the wedding was not the easiest but it surely contained a lot of lists. I didn't really know where to begin in the whole planning thing so I went online to try to find some checklists. Members of the Latter-day Saint faith typically have shorter engagements than those who are not members which means there's a whole lot to do in a little amount of time. Luckily, this is something that happens quite frequently and I was able to find a 4 month engagement checklist for an LDS bride online; they also have 6 months. (Click here for direct link) This was a good starting point. I wrote on it dates, who was helping with what, who was doing what (photographer, dresses, etc) all that jazz. Then, one week for Family Home Evening, we had a planning session with Brooke included.

 We wrote down all the things that needed to be done from fixing the flooring in the kitchen to flowers to getting my hair done. It was a very full list. And then we assigned dates we would like for things to be done like getting the announcements out by Thanksgiving. So things were on the schedule! This also helped reduce some anxiety by having things laid out and clear as to when they needed to be done. Then, I took a white board I found in my closet and divided it up into 18 weeks...the exact time to when the wedding would be. It was crazy! I wrote down all the important dates in specific colors. Blue was wedding plans, dark orange was home improvements, and pink was random things not exactly related to the wedding. Every Saturday I would fill out the major things I needed or wanted to get done or start doing. It was nice to keep this up and helped me keep in perspective what I needed to do weekly.

(the photo was instagramed, I promise it's a white board not dingy! And oh my, oh my I just realized I put the apostrophe in the wrong spot. How could I???)

Dollar Store Valentines

I've been thinking about sending my nieces and nephew Valentines this year with a small toy rather than candy. I think they'll get enough candy that day, ya know? So I headed to my local Dollar Store, Dollar Tree, and picked up a few small toys for them. I made them into Valentines, with some plays on words.

For my spy niece, a disguise kit

An over-sized pair of glasses for my rock star nieces

And finally, a whoopee cushion for my nephew (sorry, Jordan!)

(Original idea found here)

What fun Valentines do you have planned? 

Liege-style caramel apple waffles

Years ago, I saw an episode of Rachael Ray's 30-minute meals where she made "Liége-style" waffles (pronounced lyehzh). Although they're named after the Belgian city and served all over the country, these are not to be confused with Belgian waffles!

Liége waffles have Belgian pearl sugar mixed the yeasted, buttery dough. The chunks of sugar melt and caramelize. Belgian pearl sugar being hard to come by on this side of the Atlantic, Rachael recommended using cube sugar that you've roughly crushed. I made these waffles a couple times, but cleaning up the iron afterwards was a pain!

Fast-forward seven years, and my family found a local food truck, Waffle Love. We finally got to try more authentic Liége waffles. And they were A. MAZE. ING.

So for Christmas, my husband got me a rotating waffle iron and two pounds of imported Belgian pearl sugar. And for his birthday, my son requested those special waffles, so my husband looked up a real recipe of the buttery, yeasted-dough goodness. We picked the Liége "sugar" waffles recipe from The Whipped Blog, which actually comes from this Liége waffle squidoo.

This is not a 30-minute meal.

After an hour, maybe more, the dough was finally ready. And it really is more of a dough than a batter, and like any good homemade waffle, it contains two sticks of melted butter. My dough was a little too wet to make 2" balls, so I scooped just over 1/4 cup into the iron. The new circular iron wasn't exactly a good fit: the quarter-circles weren't really big enough. But I could fit one waffle on each half (as opposed to one 4" waffle prepared on a square iron). But no matter!

Once they were finally cooking, I encountered a new problem: what to put on top. Although the pearl sugar is the only sweetener, Liége waffles are so sweet that you really don't need syrup. At our beloved waffle truck, they offer such amazing toppings as Nutella, fresh strawberries, fresh raspberries, fresh peaches, Biscoff spread, bananas and whipped cream.

We had none of that. This is really something we should've thought about before they came out of the iron. Or went in.

We quickly scanned our day-before-grocery-shopping kitchen and pantry and fridge. Finally, inspiration struck. I diced up an apple and sprinkled it with cinnamon & sugar, dug out some Reddi-Whip and caramel ice cream sauce (not as good as this caramel sauce!), and voila, as they'd say in Liége.

Caramel apple Liége waffles

I'm not sure what kind of waffle maker the testers used, but on mine, they did best for 3:30 at level 4.5 ish. At level 3, the sugar didn't melt enough and the waffle was kinda spongey.

And what's the verdict over the 30-minute version? These are so much better! However, I'm not sure the pearl sugar is worth the expense vs crushing your own sugar cubes.

But cleaning the iron? Still a pain.

Recipe (as I made it)

• 1 (1/4 ounce) package yeast (2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast)
• 1/3 cup lukewarm water (about 105 degF - too hot will kill the yeast)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons granulated white sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups flour
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup melted butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)
• 1 cup Belgian pearl sugar*

Mix the yeast, water and sugar in a small bowl and let it develop or sit for 15 minutes.

Place the flour in a separate mixing bowl and make a well in the center of the flour (I used the smaller bowl on my stand mixer). Sprinkle with salt.

Pour the yeast mixture into the well and mix until blended on medium speed. It will be VERY dry--in fact, it's like pie crust dough before you add the water.

Add the eggs (one at a time), melted butter a bit at a time, and the vanilla and cinnamon. Be sure to mix well after each addition to the batter. Keep in mind the batter will be thick and VERY sticky.

Remove the bowl from the mixer and let the dough rest until it doubles in volume inside the bowl.

Gently fold in the pearl sugar and let the dough rest for 15 more minutes.

While the dough is resting, heat the waffle iron.

Drop about 1/4 cup of dough into the center of the waffle iron. Waffles will take 3 to 5 minutes to bake. Mine were best for about 3:30 minutes on level 4.5 (out of ten).

Recipe makes 8 - 10 waffles.

Pajamas

This Christmas while Jordan was here, I noticed that her Number 1 Son (and my Number 1 Grandson) had grown out of his pjs. So... I decided to make a few sets for his birthday on Sunday.

I bought a pattern on sale at Joann Fabric and Craft (we are nerds and like to say the whole name when we refer to this store!) for one dollar. Since I only paid one dollar, I decided to throw caution in the wind and cut the multi-sized pattern to the size that I needed. Usually I fold and trace and do all sorts of things to preserve all the sizes on a pattern. I just decided if I wanted to make another size I would just buy another pattern. This was a huge step for me! Does anyone else do that?

So, I made three sets of pjs. Two had purchased shirts that I embellished, and one had I made both the top and bottom.

Set one is consists of camouflage flannel pants and a purchased olive green shirt with sewn in sleeves. Easy peezy lemon squeezy!

Set two is black (or maybe dark blue) polar bear bottoms with a purchased gray T-shirt. Grandson is a hot boy, so short sleeves will be fine for him. I appliqued polar bears from the flannel on the shirt.

I cut out some polar bears, then used a small piece of fusible webbing to hold the applique in place. Then I tucked in the edges and basted on the piece by hand.

Next I ironed  interface on the insde of the shirt behind the appliques and satin stitched around the bears on the front.

Set three has made me question my fabric choice a little. Even though I know it is paw prints, sometimes it looks a little floral. Oh well! I followed the pattern for the shirt, then cut out a strip of the cream flannel and inserted a paw print strip. I finished off the neck and sleeves with ribbing. If you haven't tried ribbing yet, you should!

Finally, I sewed some labels I made with my sewing machine. This will help Hayden tell back from front and stablize the elastic.

Now don't worry, I am not the kind of grandma who just sends pajamas. I got him some underwear, too.
Just kidding! I know he will love the toys we sent, too.
Happy birthday my sweet boy!

Fried Mozzarella

This has nothing to do with the wedding but I just had to post this! Jaime and her husband were able to spend quite some time at home this year around Christmas and the wedding. One day while we were at the mall Christmas shopping, we decided to grab lunch at Maggiano's. Jaime and her husband ordered fried mozzarella and told me I'd love it. Well....they were right. I hope we get to eat this in Heaven it was so good!! My husband LOVES mozzarella and so do I. Last week I decided to buy some fresh mozzarella with no real plan for it. Yesterday, I thought of the perfect plan! I did some researching on the internet and had to experiment some on my own.

You'll need:
Thick (about a 1/2") slices of mozzarella
1/2 cup Flour
1/2 cup Bread crumbs (plain or Italian)
Italian seasoning (if bread crumbs are plain)
a few tablespoons Vegetable or olive oil

My block of mozzarella was already in a sort of rectangular shape so I just sliced it from top to bottom length wise. Mozzarella doesn't always like to be cut to it wasn't the easiest. But I got a good slice and cut it in half so my husband could have one triangle and I could have the other.

Mix the egg and a little bit of water in a bowl. Put the flour in a separate bowl. And in a third bowl, combine the bread crumbs and some Italian seasoning (we have ours in a grinder so it was fresher). Ok now here's where I didn't follow the recipe all too well and I went wayward. The recipe told me to pat the cheese in flour THEN in the egg wash. Well, what I did was dip the cheese in the egg wash then dipped it in flour. Then I dipped it in the egg wash again which wasn't too easy for it to stick to but I covered that sucker. Then I dipped it in the bread crumbs really patting the crumbs down making sure every inch of the cheese was covered.

Now, in 12-in skillet, add the oil at medium heat. You can heat this up while you're preparing your bowls. Carefully place the coated cheese in the pan. Fry each side for about 2-3 minutes or until golden brown. Do not melt the cheese completely. It will be very soft but not completely melted. If it completely melts it will come out of the breading and get all over your pan. Some cheese may come out and that's fine as long as it's not much :) Now serve with some warm marinara sauce (which I added after the picture) and dig in! SO yummy!

Delicious Carmelized Onions and Prosciutto Pizza

So my friend Megan is an amazing cook. She has a blog with some of her recipes on it and I would highly recommend them all! She can see the potential in a recipe she finds and she tweaks it to make it her own. Well last summer she made us delicious pizza and we replicated it on Sunday. We need to do some tweaking of our own but it was so good!

This is where she got the original recipe from.
Here is how I changed the recipe for us:

• Pizza crust ( use the Food Nanny recipe which always turns out great!)
• Olive oil
• 2 medium sweet onions
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 12 ounces fresh mozzarella (get this and the prosciutto in the specialty section of the grocery store if it is in water make sure you drain any extra water)
• Prosciutto ( I used a whole 3 oz. packet- prosciutto is an Italian cured pork sliced in ultra thin slices)

1. Prepare your pizza dough. While the dough is rising continue with step two.

2. Chop the onions into thin long slices. Cook them in a medium pan with a tablespoon or so of olive oil and the brown sugar. Cook until caramelized stirring frequently. Slice the mozzarella in 1/4 inch slices

3. Roll out the pizza dough. I use my pizza stone and bake at 450 degrees for 15-20 minutes. 

Ready for the oven!

4. Take the pizza out and cover the pizza with the mozzarella, prosciutto, and caramelized onions and bake for another 5-10 minutes until the cheese has completely melted.

Enjoy!