Actinidia arguta

We have kiwi vines on the side of our garage.

Yes, you read that correctly: kiwis.

They're small, not fuzzy and look just like a 'regular' kiwi when you slice it in half. Here's one of the bigger ones next to a cherry tomato (that we grew, too):

They're delicious, but you do suddenly find you need other uses for them, especially when your crop is pretty darn good. So Chip asked me to do a search for more uses. I found lots (and lots) of recipes for fruit salad. And one that we haven't tried yet that involves wild rice--it sounds intriguing, so I'm going to try to make that happen this next week.

I also found a couple that mashed the kiwis and made quick bread. Most were the same, so I went ahead and made up the first one I found straight up, no changes. It was good, but I knew it could be better.

One of the other recipes said to add lemon zest and juice, but as we ate the first loaf, I kept thinking the bread could use lime zest in the batter and a lime glaze...

So loaf number two got a few tweaks, and I even made it a little more healthy! Without further ado:

1½ c flour
½ c whole wheat flour
1 t baking powder
¼ t baking soda
¼ t salt

½ c butter, softened (1 stick)
2/3 c sugar
2 eggs
zest of 1 lime
1 c mashed kiwi

½ c powdered sugar
juice from ½ of a lime

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Grease and flour a bread pan.

Whisk the first 5 ingredients together in a small bowl. Set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, beating until incorporated each time. Add zest and kiwi and beat until completely mixed. Add dry ingredients and blend until mixed (it will be thick).

Pour into pan and bake 40 minutes.

Let cool a bit, then turn out onto a wire rack. Pour glaze on if you'd like it to soak in a bit; otherwise, wait until completely cool and pour glaze over the top.

My notes: To be completely forthcoming, I need to tell you I used one whole egg and one egg white* and it turned out just fine. A little heavier than the first loaf, but that also could be due to the whole wheat flour. I'd like to try this yet again, adding some pulverized coconut to the batter. This means I could potentially reduce the sugar a bit, too. My glaze is very thin--if you want it to be a bit thicker, use more powdered sugar.

*Chip and I didn't compare notes before starting to use the kitchen... he also decided to bake...

dare

The gauntlet has been thrown.

The need for Nutella marshmallows was stated and I was given the challenge to attempt such a feat. The first thing I did was a little research. I knew using the actual spread would be too thick, so I had to find out its actual components and work from there.

I decided two things: 

1. incorporate cocoa powder somehow
2. find hazelnut flavoring

Then I waited for a day with low humidity.

Then I waited for some time to actually do this.

Then the friend GOT ENGAGED and I really had to get these done!

I chose a chocolate marshmallow recipe that is pretty similar to my usual standby, as I know I get great results from that recipe. This also would make a few more than just half a recipe, which I deemed necessary for the purposes of sharing.

For the shortness of this post's sake, I'm just going to give you the ingredients here--if you'd like to make these yourself, pop over to the chocolate recipe and follow the instructions there, adding the flavoring to the gelatin in step 3.

⅓ c cocoa powder

¼ c + 2 T water

1 c water
3 envelopes unflavored gelatin
hazelnut extract
2 c sugar
¾ c light corn syrup
¼ t salt

½ c powdered sugar
3 T rice flour
2 T cocoa powder

My notes: I didn't specify how much extract because it depends on what you've got. Mine is pretty powerful, so I only used a smidgeon. I had a lot of coating powder left over, so if you want to reduce the amount of powdered sugar to a third cup, you'd still be fine to cover a 9x13 pan of marshmallows.

#48

sweet lilli

It's an Anything Goes challenge over at TiddlyInks! I've been eyeing up several new digis, but the one I'm using today wouldn't get out of my head, so I bought her.

Here she is in light blue jammies.

The stamp in the background is my own.

aeipathy

It may have seem like our adoption process has stalled: not true! It's buried in paperwork!

Our homestudy is just about updated--we need to hear back about our background checks and then it's off to Living Hope for final approval. 

In the meantime, I've started making lists of all the paperwork yet to come and it's a bit daunting. China is a Hague country, so several things are a bit different, especially on the front end of things. The approval process is tighter, thus we have to get more ducks in a row* as we pull together our dossier**. 


Figuring out a timeline is very hard, but our agency has given us a general outline:

• I-800A application and approval + compile dossier - 5 months
• Dossier audited and approved by Living Hope - 1-2 months
• Wait time - ?
• Referral and I-800 filed - 5 months

I'm hoping the I-800A process will go smoothly--that's where I had fingerprint trouble last time and had to return twice...

*Yep, that means our paperwork costs are higher, but we only have to compile one dossier. Russia needed two... plus we'll only be traveling once! 
**I really miss our very first agency... I still believe God directed us to Partners for Adoption, even though everything exploded on us. Everyone we talked to there was warm and reassuring, and they helped us every single step of the way, including putting together much of the dossier for us.

coaptation

A chocolate chip peanut butter cookie recipe recently caught my attention, so I made sure to pin the original recipe to my dessert board on Pinterest.

These cookies kept bothering me, so I finally gave in and made them. 

Deliciousness!

I tweaked the recipe a bit as I was creaming, mixing and measuring, wanting to decrease the sugar and salt a bit, so here's a revised version of these cookies.

1¼ c flour
¾ t b. soda
½ t b. powder

½ c butter, softened (1 stick)
¾ c smooth peanut butter
¾ c br. sugar
½ c white sugar
1 egg
1 T milk
1 t vanilla

chocolate chips
sea salt for garnish

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.

Whisk the first three ingredients together in a small bowl. Set aside.

Cream the butter and peanut butter until smooth, then add sugars and cream again until smooth. Lower the mixer speed and add the egg, milk and vanilla. Beat until combined. Add flour mixture and mix until combined. Add chocolate chips and stir.

Bake for 10-15 minutes. Once removed from the oven, sprinkle sea salt on each cookie. Let cool on a wire rack.

My notes: besides the alterations I've included in the recipe, I should mention that the amount of chocolate is up to you--I ended up using a bit more than half a bag. I also used commercial PB, so you may wish to add a pinch of salt to the dough if you use natural PB, especially if you skip the sea salt garnish. I let mine bake the full 15 minutes, resulting in a crunchy cookie.

The texture is very similar to a straight-up PB cookie.

Book recommendation: Solstice by P.J. Hoover
Recipe recommendation: PB Chocochip Cookies
Restaurant recommendation: Il Ritrovo

#47

pamphagous

Year five of National Bundt Day! And that means it's a lemon year!

A couple of years ago, Chip's sister got us a subscription for Midwest Living for Christmas--we ended up enjoying this magazine so much we extended the subscription. This is where I found this year's bundt recipe.

I didn't alter anything in the recipe (linked below), and it's pretty easy to follow, so I'll just barrage you with photos. This is a very tasty cake (even if you're not a big fennel fan, like me).

Want more bundts? Here's a big list!

Book recommendation: Altered by Jennifer Rush
Recipe recommendation: Toasted Fennel-Lemon Cake
Game recommendation: Kingdom Rush

canitude

We had our first snowfall of the season yesterday!*

So this morning, Chip said, 'be sure to get a picture of the apples covered in snow!'

I did, and then decided to play with several of the filter/editing apps on my phone... I'll just make you see a couple results.

*If you want to see it in action, pop over to my Instagram: I took a couple videos at different times.

#46

tasty

Remember that random gift thing I tried to do several years ago? Well, here's a project that I started in JUNE of 2009 (!) that finally got delivered.

Betsy and I became friends a long time ago, lost contact, and then found each other again thanks to FB. She mentioned wanting to make a cookbook scrapbook for her daughter, so I thought a cookbook clipboard would be a neat project to try. I combined a few ideas to get this final project--some from Donna Downey, some from a random idea sheet I found in my stash and a fun website.

Here's what I began with:
Then I created the background, made the cover and worked on dividers and blank pages:





Want one of your own? I promise it won't take years to get it to you. Just shoot me an email with the theme you'd like and I'll get it set for you!

You could also feature photos in the clip.

Book recommendation: Juniper Berry by M.P. Kozlowsky
Recipe recommendation: Butternut Squash Cassoulet
YouTube recommendation: Cups via Tap Dance

traboccant

#45