Friday, January 31, 2014

...how to un-tarnish stainless...

...some of my stainless steel everyday flatware was beginning to look a little tarnished...

...so of course I did a quick search on the internet to find a remedy...
...you just line a pot with aluminum foil...add 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp baking soda and boil for a few minutes...

...what could be easier...
...before...
...after...
...before...
...after...

...some of the pieces responded better than others...maybe we need to do another treatment...

...all in all it was a pretty productive 5 minutes...the stainless is much shinier now...

~Have a lovely day!

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

...W.I.P. Wednesday...Michael's Warm up America Project...

...I wound up some Pull Out Skeins of some old yarn...
...and used them to knit a block for Michael's Warm up America Project...
...they have a bunch of patterns on their website...but I just did a simple stockinette stitch block...
...just cast on 35 stitched and knit until the block measured 9 inches...

...and you can see that I was apparently not even paying attention as I knit 4 rows of grey in the middle...
...and then I just dropped it off at our local Michaels...they'll be putting the blocks together on Saturday...so maybe I'll get another one done by then and help to put them together...we'll see...

...Have you participated in a Warm Up America Project?

~Have a lovely day!

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

...bok choy soup...

...it's definitely soup weather here...it's not going to get above zero today...and there's no school...

...and this soup came about because we went to a new (to us) International Grocery over the weekend...it was a lot of fun browsing all the interesting items on the shelves...I'll show you some more finds later...including bulk tofu at 50¢ a block...fun!...

...this is sort of just a thrown together soup...but I'll show you what I did...
...I started with some Not Chicken broth...and water...
...this was my baby bok choy...
...I just gave it a rough chop...
...and added it to the broth...
...then I added 1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder and a 1/2 teaspoon of onion powder...
...a dash of soy sauce...
...and a dash of sesame oil...
...this soup was so yummy and warm...
...we'll definitely be making it again...
...delicious...

Vegan Bok Choy Soup

Ingredients:

Servings:3

3 cups water
1 cube Not Chicken Bouillon
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon soy sauce
one bok choy

Directions:

Add Not Chicken to water.
Roughly chop the bok choy.
Add Bok Choy to broth.
Add Garlic and Onion Powder.
Simmer for 10 minutes.
Add Soy Sauce and Sesame Oil.
Simmer for another 2 minutes.
Serve.

...What yummy things have you been throwing together lately?...

~Have a lovely day!

Monday, January 27, 2014

...this snowy weekend...

...to start out the weekend...we made Overnight Waffles...
...I didn't put in the ground flax seeds...after the boys told me they didn't like it - I did use flax seed goo though...
...they were delicious...
...then Scout left in a snow squall/thunder snow for the Winter Formal...
...and the snow piled up while he was gone...
...of course this is on top of what we already had...and it snowed again this morning...and it's an early out for school today...

...this is such a crazy winter...

~Have a lovely day!

Saturday, January 25, 2014

...How to wind your own pull out skeins...without a ball winder...

...remember the box of yarn-y goods my sweet sissie sent me a couple of months ago...

...well...I wanted to use some of the yarn for a mini project...and it was sort of a tangled mess...

...so I decided to wind it into some pull out skeins...problem is...I don't have a ball winder...

...but just by looking a photo of a ball winder...I can see how it works...it just wraps the yarn around a plastic tube and then you slip it off the tube and pull the yarn from the center...so I'm going to do the same thing...manually...
...so I got an empty cardboard from a roll of tissue paper...
...flattened it...and laid the end of the yarn in the middle...this will be the center pull out piece of yarn...
...then I pinched it flat over the yarn...
...and started winding the yarn around the center of the tube...
...I sort of used a criss-cross pattern...
...and tried to keep everything nice and tight and neat...
...and in no time at all I was all done...
...here's the center pull end of the yarn...
...then I just slipped the cardboard tube out...
...ta-daaa...it works perfectly...
...now all I had to do was tuck in the other end of the yarn...
...so I just pulled up a few threads from the outside of the ball and tucked that end under...

...I'll show you soon what I made...

~Have a lovely day!

PS...it's snowing again...hoping the Winter Formal doesn't get cancelled...

Friday, January 24, 2014

...tea and tofu and a veggie spread...a miscellaneous food post...

...this is just a miscellaneous post about a few things we've been loving lately...
...this tea that my sweet sissie sent...Tazo Iced Passion...it's a gorgeous ruby red colour...it's specifically an iced tea...but of course I drink it hot too...
...I was making a scallop dish the other day...and I used my tea ball to cut little circles out of the tofu...it was just the right size...and I scrambled the leftover bits...
...I used the sour cream recipe at My Vegan Cookbook...
...and just added a packet of this dip mix...it's in the kosher section at the grocery store...
...stirred it in...
...and left it overnight in the fridge...what could be easier?...
...then we had it slathered on toasted bagels for brekkie...it was delicious...

...what miscellaneous things have you been loving lately?

~Have a lovely day!

Thursday, January 23, 2014

...Za'atar Bread...

...we have dear friends at Church whose families immigrated from modern day Lebanon...this article from the WVEncyclopedia sheds some light on their immigration for religious reasons...
...and they gave us some of their homemade Za'atar Bread...the article says that the chief ingredient of the spice mixture is usually Thyme...but that some varieties may add savory, cumin, coriander or fennel seed...
...I just wanted to share this interesting bread with you...I don't (yet) have the recipe...
...but I'll get it soon and share it with you then...it's delicious!

~Have a lovely day!

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

...and an A for me...

...this week's W.I.P. Wednesday...
...Remember the 3 M's and an H...I couldn't let everyone in my family have one...
...and not make one for myself...
...in other news...we stuck a ruler in the snow on the table on the deck...this was the snow last night before dark...
...but it was still snowing...
...and this is the final depth this morning...as you can see it's a nice sunny 1° day...so it's pretty cold out there...and guess what...no school again...

~Have a lovely day!