Sausage, Lentil, & Kale Stew

This recipe was our first experience with kale. It has such a nice, firm texture. Sausage, lentils, potato, mushrooms, and a little tomato sauce in the broth.... I just want to curl up next to a fireplace with a big bowl of this stew.

Sausage, Lentil, & Kale Stew



(Old picture here.)

Bacon & Cheese Pinwheels

We've made these for several get-togethers now and they are so delicious!
It's hard to wait for others & not eat the whole plate ourselves.

Bacon & Cheese Pinwheels



And here's kind of a step-by-step shot ~

Chicken Satay Noodle Soup

This tasty soup was adapted from a Rachael Ray recipe. I like her ideas but always find myself heavily altering her recipes. The first change was cutting out spaghetti in favor of some actual Asian noodles! Geez....

I shared a photo of it before, as well as a few notes about what we had changed, but it underwent a few more modifications since then. Here is the recipe ~

Chicken Satay Noodle Soup



I think I need to re-arrange my recipe pages to fit these nice big, pretty pictures....

More Recipe Updates

All of my orders this week were due early, so I had a little free-time to work on recipes. Here are two more updated recipes, with brand new pics and some other tweaks ~

Broccoli and Bacon with Penne




Italian Nachos



Here's the old pic of that one, for reference. Apparently a picture of the first one never made it into Flickr, so you'll just have to imagine a worse version.

Next, I have a few new recipes ready to post!

Ambigram Drop

"Alek", "Andoni", & "Amelie" Ambigram Circle	"Caleb" & "Aiden" Ambigram
"Ora Lee" & "When" Ambigram	"Hans" & "Who" Ambigram
"Reagan" Ambigram	"No Excuses" & "No Regrets" Ambigram
"Jamie" & "Mitch" Ambigram v.1	"Jamie" & "Mitch" Ambigram v.2

Snowed in

Last week Georgia was suddenly bombarded with snow. We peeked out the windows before bed Sunday night, but there was no sign of the flakes they kept promising on the news. A few hours later, when I woke to feed Orson, the backyard was blanketed with about 6 inches, yet still not a sign of a flurry.



Snow in Georgia pretty much guarantees that school will be closed for the day. We don't generally have a lot of use for snow plows & road salt around here, and so a small amount might really shut everything down. This time the temperature did not rise over freezing for several days & so the snow stayed, along with the larger danger of ice.



The three of us bundled up and headed outside for a walk that morning. While there were some footprints & car tracks near the road, most of the grassy areas were just vast expanses of smooth & untouched snow. Where were all of the kids that should be out playing? I almost felt bad trekking through the perfect blanket & mangling it with our tracks.



That evening we took another walk over to the Citgo next to the apartments, but they were closed. The next day we ventured a little further, across the street to a Chinese restaurant. We were pretty sure they would be open, since the owners live even closer than we do (we see the delivery car parked in their driveway), but we called just to make sure! By Wednesday Justin was getting a little stir-crazy & was feeling adventurous enough to drive over to Walmart. He said the roads were not bad, but apparently they weren't good enough for the schools to open on Thursday. Friday they finally called the teachers in at 10 for a short work day, but the students got the entire week off. A fine prequel to the three day MLK weekend!

"Dylan" & "Aidan" Oscillation Ambigram

I had a request for my 2nd oscillating ambigram ~ where the words can both be read from the same view (without flipping the design). The blue versions show the names letter by letter ~

"Dylan" & "Aidan" Oscillation Ambigram


I'm not a huge fan of these, since they are generally harder to read, but it's an interesting project. I'm just glad I don't get too many requests for them! (You can see my 1st oscillation here.)

Christmas Cookies

This year we decided to make up plates of cookies for some family members we missed visiting with during the Christmas shuffle. It was a lot of baking, but a lot of fun to put them together.

First up, Molasses Cookies from Justin's grandmother's recipe ~



(Those things are addictive! Recipe to come later....)
No-Bake Oatmeal, Chocolate, & Peanut Butter Cookies ~



A new recipe: Andes Chocolate Mint Cookies ~
(Adapted from this recipe)



And the lovely Snowflake Sugar Cookies ~



Those are actually created with cut & bake cookies & then decorated with a stencil & cinnamon after cooling, which also gives them a lovely Snickerdoodle flavor. I posted directions on how to create those a few years ago but hope to post a new set of directions with a template for next year.

This year we realized that the cinnamon flakes actually darken on the cookie as they sit overnight & the design was even more striking. We only found that out since we were saving them for others ~ normally they don't last that long!

We also added a few Rice Krispie Treats to the plates (Justin's pic), wrapped each plate in plastic wrap & then fancied them up with a little ribbon & pretty gift tags.

Continuing Custom Bokeh

I never did play around extensively with the bokeh filters as I had planned. I did take one more set of Orson shots (Indy was not a willing model that day), a couple of shots here & there & that was it. Mostly I just wanted to sit & do nothing this holiday season. I barely took any photos *on* Christmas. Oops!



(The occasional blue spot is the light hitting an ornament)

Here are the rest of the filters that I cut originally that I didn't share before. Your basic 5 point star ~ I've seen some really great pics with this shape & colored lights on Flickr.



Then some butterflies attacked our tree. I thought this one would be a fun one for pictures of our nieces, but we didn't get a chance to see them this year ~



This leaf shape is the logo of our church, Oak Leaf ~



And, just to see how a word would turn out, I tried "Orson". With the ends of the shapes getting cut off at different angles, I don't think a word it very successful, but it still might be fun to try something like "Joy" another time.

Sock Monkey Hat

One of Justin's sisters took up knitting around the time Orson was born. I can't believe how far she has come in such a short time. She's even made a sweater already! She made Orson this adorable sock monkey hat, which he is know wearing on our daily walks ~

2010 in Pictures

Ambigram Drop

"Bryden" & "Kayle" Ambigram	"Raife" & "Aspen" Ambigram
"Noah" & "Ayla" Ambigram - hers	"Karson" & "Patrick" Ambigram
"Noah" & "Ayla" Ambigram - his	"Todd" & "Collin" Ambigram
"Kristin" & "Matthew" Ambigram	"Self" Ambigram