Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Summer Accessories
So which ones do you like best?
-kala
p.s. if you like this post, please don't hesitate to the click the twitter button below to share it!
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Homemade Strawberry Jam!
Last night I finally learned how to make and can jam! My friend Flannery offered to teach her friends how to can, and when a MN state fair ribbon winner offers to teach you to can, you get your butt over there and learn! And learn I did. I've been scared to try canning for years, it just seems so intimidating, like if you do one thing wrong you'll create a botulism monster that will crawl into your bedroom and kill you in the night. But seeing everything done by someone whose been doing it for over 20 years made it way less intimidating.
Flannery will be teaching a canning basics class at EggPlant next month, so if you're in the Twin Cities area, I highly recommend stopping by the shop or calling in to reserve your spot! Info about class times and how to register can be found on the EggPlant site.
For our lesson, we made two delicious kinds of strawberry jam, a basic jam and a batch of strawberry vanilla jam made with real vanilla beans. We used this recipe from Food in Jars and it came out amazing, I can't wait to crack open the jar and inhale it, my husband will have to act fast if he wants any!
Of course, now that I know the basics I've been going through all of my canning books picking out what I want to make. Unfortunately, I seem to want to make EVERYTHING!
So what's your absolute favorite kind of jam or jelly?
-kala
Monday, June 27, 2011
Bag Giveaway!
Again, the giveaway isn't on my blog, it's at the Student Knitter's blog, so hop on over for a chance to win, she's doing a series of giveaways to celebrate her blogiversary so be sure to check out her last few posts as well!
-kala
Friday, June 24, 2011
Coffee in a Jar!
Since I might by slightly obsessed with mason jars, I was super excited when I read about making cold brew coffee in a jar on one of my favorite blogs, Food in Jars. Cold brew coffee is magic because you don't need any hot water to make it, you don't need any fussy machines, and it's much less acidic than regular brewed coffee, so there's less chance of yucky heartburn. I really recommend the method described on Food in Jars, it made for some very yummy cold brew!
I don't drink coffee very often and when I do, I have some rules:
1. decaf only, caffeine affects me like CRAZY and I can't handle the full powered stuff.
2. iced only, hot coffee is gross.
3. never drink it black - I like lots of almond or soy milk, and chocolate sauce in my coffee, if it doesn't taste like melted ice cream, I don't want it! Coffee is a treat for me, so when I do have it, I like to indulge :)
So what are your coffee rules?
-kala
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
My Week With Wilton
I signed up for Course 1: Decorating Basics which ran for 2 hours a night for 4 nights in a row. I really liked this set up because there was no break in which to forget any skills or lose my cake decorating enthusiasm. The first day of the class, the instructor (who was sweet, charming, talented, and a really great teacher) went over the basics of baking a cake, making frosting, tools...and then we got to practice a bit with some of the tips in our kit. By the end of the night, we were decorating the sugar cooking we brought in with cute little star tip designs.
Over the next few nights, we learned how to use all of the tips in our kit, how to properly crumb coat and frost a cake, make frosting leaves and flowers and the fundamentals of cake design. On our final night, we decorated a cake that we brought in. My cake turned out kinda cute, but you can tell that I need a bit more practice on my flowers ;)
I would totally recommend Wilton classes for anyone looking to try their hand at cake decorating. Even if your only goal is to have the ability to decorate birthday cakes for your family, the basic class is worth it, it provides you with the skills you need for all sorts of frosting decorations and you won't have to depend on store bought cakes for celebrations. I don't always take classes when I want to learn a new skill, but cake decorating success depends a lot on thing like angles of your pastry bag and consistency of your frosting and those things are great to see in person. And fellow vegans or folks with food allergies, don't worry, you bring in all your own baked good to decorate and are encouraged to make and bring in your own frosting so you don't have to worry about working with any non-vegan ingredients!
Have any of you taken a cake decorating class?
-kala
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Blueberry Lemon Freezer Jam Recipe
My latest obsession: freezer jam. While I still haven't used my canning kit to make processed jam (or big girl jam as I call it), I've been all about the freezer jam lately. The nice thing about freezer jam is that it doesn't require any cooking, great for those hot and humid summer days. And it keeps for a pretty long time, 3 months in the fridge or 1 year in the freezer! Last night, my husband and I made a batch of blueberry lemon jam that turned out amazing, so I thought I'd share the recipe with you guys, enjoy!
Blueberry Lemon Freezer Jam
Ingredients:
-enough blueberries to yield 4 cups of mashed berries. You can use either fresh or frozen for this, you'll need about 4 pints of berries.
-the zest of one large lemon. If it's at all possible, use organic since you'll be using the skin in your jam. Wash and dry your lemon before zesting.
-1 1/2 cups sugar. I like to use vegan fair trade cane sugar from Whole Foods.
- One 1.59 oz package of Ball freezer jam pectin. Do not use any other pectin than the kind made especially for freezer jam (also called instant pectin)
-You'll also need clean jars (I used 5 8oz glass jars), a funnel, and a potato masher, and a measuring tool.
1. Wash your berries well and mash them together in a large bowl with the lemon zest. After your berry mixture is as mashed as you'd like, measure out 4 cups of your berry mash into a large bowl. If there is extra, use it for something else, if you add too much fruit to the pectin it might not set correctly.
2. In another bowl, combine the pectin with the sugar and whisk well.
3. Combine the sugar/pectin with the berries and stir for 3 minutes. Yes, really 3 minutes, set a timer!
4. Using the funnel to cut down on mess, pour your jam into your jars, leaving about 1/2" headspace (measure 1/2" from the top of your jar to the jam in your jar).
5. Let your jars set out at room temperature for 30 minutes so the pectin can do it's magic.
6. Keep your jam in the fridge or freezer and enjoy! Your jam will keep for 3 months in the fridge or 1 year in the freezer. Do not store your jam in your pantry at room temperature, it will go bad! If you give your jam as a gift, please remind your recipient to keep the jam in the fridge or freezer.
-kala
Monday, June 20, 2011
E Book Review: Recipes by Very Zoe
When the author of Recipes by Zoe, a vegan e-book sent me her work to review, I was thrilled! I love handmade zines and this one is filled with all sorts of yummy vegan recipes. If you're not familiar with zines, they're usually diy booklets that are printed on a small scale, although these days it's common to see zines that are available as pdfs too.
This e-book was a lot of fun to read through, it's written by an Australian so there were a few ingredients I had to google (like nuttelex) but that just adds to the fun! Also be aware that some of the measurements (and oven temps) are in metric, so you'll have to do some conversions if you don't have a scale that has metric reading options.
The recipes I'm most looking forward to trying are the spicy quinoa salad, pesto couscous salad, coconut whipped cream, mum's banana cake, and chocolate mousse. The recipes in the zine are almost all on the simple side which is nice for quick and easy meals. My only complaint is that Recipes by Zoe is on the expensive side for a zine (just around $14 US) that contains just about 30 recipes (that number is counting variations on recipes). Other than that it's a fun little zine, thanks Zoe! Be sure to keep up with Zoe on her blog too!
-kala
Friday, June 17, 2011
Blueberry Anticipation!
This morning, I also purchased a Living Social deal for Ace Hardware. No, I'm not looking to get into home repair or anything like that, Ace is a great place to buy canning supplies! I've picked up jars and a canning kit (that I haven't used yet) at Ace, and they also have a wide assortment of fun cooking/baking stuff. I may or may not have a selection of dinosaur cookie cutters that I bought at Ace :) So if you're local, check out today's Living Social deal, especially if you're into canning, cooking, gardening, or even home repair/diy!
-kala
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Busy Pants!
On Saturday, we made classic hummus, chipotle hummus, chocolate chip banana bread, chocolate sauce, oatmeal cookies, and jalapeno corn bread. We came home with homemade pickles, gala apple dressing, taco seasoning, bbq rub, watermelon syrup, and more.
Yesterday, I finally go to meet one of my blogger/knitter/ravelry friends, Yoel of Yoel Knits! We did a bit of yarn shopping at Depth of Field and then had dinner at the downtown Pizza Luce. She was super nice and it was great to finally meet her:
The rest of the week looks like it's going to be quite busy too, I have cake decorating classes for the next 4 days. I'm really looking forward to that, I'm hoping it'll be super fun and my decorating skills will be elevated to at least a little bit above Cake Wreck status :)
-kala
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Finished Knit: Sweetie Pie Socks!
By some sort of miracle, I actually finished knitting something! OK, it's sort of cheating though, because this pair of socks was a UFO that only needed a few rounds on the foot and a toe on one sock to be done. But I needed to have that accomplished feeling of "yay, I finished something" so I knocked these out while catching up on Game of Thrones.
It will be months (not as many as I'd like though) before it's cold enough for handknit socks, but these will come in handy on chilly Fall and Winter days. The pattern is a free one I designed a while ago, the Sweetie Pie Socks. I used some Panda Cotton I had in my stash and US size 1.5 dpns. I think this is the third pair of Sweetie Pies I've made, I love the simple four round stitch pattern and they fit me really well, gotta love that!
Finished anything lately?
-kala
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
Making Stuff and Doing Things
Let's start with the sprouting. I picked up a big glass sprouting jar from Whole Foods, a packet of mung bean seeds (I picked these because I read that they sprout really fast), read a bunch of articles on sprouting, and watched a ton of youtube videos. After my brain was full of way too much sprouting info, I set to work. Here's how the little guys looked the second morning:
And today, the third morning:
Cool, eh? As soon as I sprout a few more things and taste what I've sprouted, I'll put up a detailed sprouting post with what I've learned. It's a ton of fun though, especially if you're the kind of person who would get a kick out of seeing daily progress, I'm thinking this would be really fun to do with kids too!
I've also been gardening! Parking lot gardening to be exact. We don't have any outside space to ourselves in this apartment, but last year I saw some tenants growing tomatoes out back in the parking lot area near the picnic bench and thought I'd give it a try. We picked up a patio yellow cherry tomato plant at Menards (I didn't want to chance starting from seeds this time, I'm not a very experienced gardener) and the little guy is doing quite well:
I also have a basil plant that I picked up from Trader Joes of all places, and a teeny jalapeno plant that I got at ACE.
On the kitchen front, I've had the chance to try a few cool new things, chia seeds being my favorite. The pudding that I made using this recipe was eaten too quickly to get a picture, but chia seeds are amazing enough that they'll get their own post eventually. I also made vegan horchata:
If you haven't had horchata before, it's a delicious drink made from rice, cinnamon, sometimes vanilla, and sometimes some sort of milk. I used this recipe because it didn't require any cooking (perfect since it was literally over 100 degrees yesterday). I left out the vanilla extract and used vanilla almond milk for the "milk." It was really delicous and I encourage everyone to try making horchata, it's really refreshing!
So what have you guys been making and doing?
-kala
Monday, June 06, 2011
Things I Love: Crazy Rumors Lip Balm
I might not wear any makeup, but I'm a bit of a lip balm junkie! I always have a huge stash on hand in all sort of flavors, what can I say, I like variety :) Crazy Rumors, a vegan lip balm company, recently had a huge sale so I knew I had to pounce since I can't find it locally and I've been dying to try it. Or rather, since it was our wedding anniversary on the first, my husband had to pounce! I ended up getting two lip balm collections: A La Mode (ice cream flavors) and Soda Pop (duh, soda flavors). Right now I'm wearing Raspberry Sherbet from the A La Mode collection.
The first thing I did when the package arrived was pop the tops and give everything the smell test. I was very impressed, everything smelled awesome without being overpowering or too sweet. Over the days since the lip balm arrived I've tried almost all of the flavors and I'm in love! It goes on smooth and keeps my lips soft without feeling greasy. I'll definitely buy from Crazy Rumors again, I have my eye on the Gumball and Fresh Squeezed collections.
Which collection or flavor looks the most tempting to you?
-kala
Sunday, June 05, 2011
Summer = Grain Salads!
I also love that grain salads make awesome leftovers for lunch the next day!
What kinds of grain salads do you like?
-kala
Saturday, June 04, 2011
Spicy Gluten Free Noodle Salad
I don't eat a gluten free diet, but I think a little variety is nice so I like to try gluten free recipes from time to time. Tonight I tried Spicy Asian Noodles from a recipe from the Healthy Green Kitchen blog. I originally stumbled upon this dish on foodgawker, that site is really great for food inspiration.
My husband and I prepared this dish together, and we ended up following the recipe pretty closely. We used rice noodles made from black rice just for fun :) We also subbed tahini for the almond butter because that's what we had in the fridge. The salad came out really yummy and I'd definitely have it again, it's a great warm weather meal!
-kala
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
Finished Knit: Clapotis!
It's the ever popular Clapotis by Kate Gilbert! I knit this cutie with Sock Candy from Blue Moon Fiber Arts in the Otterpop colorway, and I didn't even end up using the entire 800 yards that I had. The drape of this shawl/scarf is really nice and it's very soft too, I look forward to wearing it in the Fall and Winter as a bright scarf and in the summer as a cover up for when I'm feeling chilly.
-kala
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