Tag: puns

Sewing

Handmade Presents

LSiehLeave a comment

Hello again! Now that everyone has finally gotten their gifts, I can finally share what I sewed this year. It took forever for our Christmas presents to reach people this year. It’s a good thing we celebrate the 12 Days of Christmas! The Husband said he was told at the post office that the building had been so full of packages that you couldn’t actually walk inside! Crazy times we live in!

Here’s some hats I made. The one with the hippo was for my Dad and the plain red one was for my friend.

My dad one year when I was little, kept singing the song “All I want for Christmas is a Hippopotamus” and we ended up finding him a clay hippo statue at the local thrift store which made us all giggle. I thought it was time for him to have a nice warm hippo hat to remember his daughter. The hat for my friend is lined, although I forget what I lined it with. I think a dbp maybe? He’s outside a lot and I made neck warmers last year for him, so I thought a hat would also be useful. He is married to K1.

For K1, I made a nice Cocoon Cardi and I might have to make a matching one for me. It’s so elegant looking! I did forget pockets though, although sometimes they don’t look nice in dbp if it pulls funny.

The boys got Viking shirts, which was really fun! I had virtual tea with both Ks today and the older boy was wearing his. It warmed my heart!

My younger brother got another set of pjs. This one had flannel pants with food puns and a plain blue raglan shirt.

I made the pun pants in memory of my Grandpa Ollie, who could clear the room with a few well placed puns. My brother says they both fit nicely and are very warm.

Everyone got microwave bowl cozies and a soup mix from Motown Soups. They were a hit! When we had our family zoom with my inlaws and sister in law, the inlaws opened theirs first and my sister in law was so impressed that I had to suggest she not go looking for any until her package actually got there. 🙂 The inlaws got bowling pin fabric. These two below are my parents’ set and my sister in law, I believe. My aunt got lemons and my brother got the same “basgetti” ones that we have. I really need to make a couple more to take to work as they would be extremely helpful there.

The Husband also got one of the pj pants that I have said I’d make him and then didn’t… Whoops! In my defense, the pattern I used first was not comfortable and I couldn’t find another one for a while. Since I’ve found a good pattern now, I can hopefully catch up. This pair has bears in sweaters. The Husband has a thing for bears in sweaters.

Piggy got a few handmade presents as well, although not by me. My inlaws made her some adorable bandanas and a little coat that will need some adjustments. She is still a chonky one.

She also got food treats from K1 when we got our cookies and gets so excited for them!

It’s so funny because she is so little on the face and then opens her mouth and it’s like you can see to Australia! I’ve actually compared it to a Tardis from Dr. Who- much bigger on the inside. 😉

I made these cute ornaments from toilet paper and paper towel tubes, because 2020 may have been sh*t, but I could at least make something pretty with it. 🙂

Behind it you can sort of see the Lego Christmas Village, which has a new home in the china cabinet. What? You mean other people actually display their china in the china cabinet? That’s some small imagination right there it is! Legos look much better there!

We missed the Lego Christmas Village set this year, unfortunately, but did get a really cool A Christmas Carol Lego book, which will look very neat in the village next year.

For my work people, I made a few spa things- peppermint sugar scrubs and green tea peppermint bath salts. I don’t have pictures, but they were both super cute. I packaged them in a zipper pouches. My parents got fun masks too. My dad got a soaring eagle and my mom got pianos that she can wear while teaching.

Although I didn’t make as much as I wanted to make this year, I’m pretty happy with what I did get done. The bowl cozies were super well liked and I gave a lot of people books too. I hope to start earlier this year and make more of Christmas handmade.

For now, I’ll leave you with a peaceful Piggy picture. I don’t know about you, but I could certainly use some extra peace on Mondays!

Gardening · Recipe Roundup

Things We’ve Eaten

LSiehLeave a comment

I’m still not sure what I want to do with the food portion of the blog. It’s a little hard to write about it when you don’t actually want to make food most of the time. Here’s some pictures of our meals lately and some food puns, because they are hilarious!

We had fried chicken and “velvety mashed potatoes” for dinner tonight from Fried and True. It was a Tyler Florence recipe, so we watched Food Network while eating. 🙂

I think we’ve decided we don’t like the texture of purees. They end up feeling funny. This one tasted good, but not enough for me to make them again. The chicken had a little bite to it and was delicious. 

We had lo mein last night. I tried to use a recipe, but ended up just making one up. The sauce from the recipe wasn’t good, so I made my own with soy sauce, a little sugar, sesame oil, rice wine, and garlic powder. Oh, and a little water. It was enjoyed by all. Fancy freaked out and then napped, since we had a friend over for dinner. 

We had caramel or macaroon brownie cupcakes. Okay, now, I have a super secret here… The brownies are the triple chocolate Ghiradeli box mix! I love them. The macaroon recipe was on the side of the box and I have been meaning to try it forever. The Husband doesn’t like coconut, so I added caramel bits to half of them instead. The brownies separated in the wrapper, but still tasted good.

Spaghetti and lasagna made an appearance as well. There were garden tomatoes, oregano, and basil in the sauce this time. 🙂

This was my tomato haul today, so I had plenty of them for the sauce too. I’m contemplating the multiple ways to use up the tomatoes. 

I think this is a 2 or 3 quart bowl? Mr Stripey has give us a few,  you can see one at the edge. They are very pretty!

We had herbed french bread to go with the spaghetti. 

Carbs on top of carbs! 

The Husband had pork this week and I made an alfredo sauce with mushrooms, garden tomatoes, fresh parsley and garlic to go over noodles. Mine looks much prettier! I picked out all the tomatoes for the Husband. 

I made a roux and then added the veggies, cooked them all down, added the cream and cooked it until it was all bubbly. Added grated parm too, for extra fanciness!

One last pun, just because… 🙂 Have a great night!

Recipe Roundup
Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

LSiehLeave a comment

I’ve been actually going to bed early this week and we had some car trouble, so I only made a few new recipes. I am hoping to make a few more new ones over my little break from work.

My clients were amazed that I was coming back to work on Wednesday, but the Husband doesn’t have time off anyway, so I don’t need the extra time. I’m sure Fancy would love it if I were home to snuggle her, but I didn’t really have much planned. A friend and I are going to get together to do some Zumba, I think, but it should be a relaxing couple of days.

I do need to make this cherry fudge for the Husband’s work people. They’ve been asking for it since I made it last year. The problem is, I dislike the fudge itself and it’s a pain to make. The recipe list includes cherry jello powder, white chocolate, and marshmallow fluff… It’s too sweet for me and that should tell you all you need to know about it. It was, apparently, the best thing I made though, so they’ll get it on Wednesday, I think. I have all day Tuesday to make myself do it.

I made two more cookie recipes from the December Food Network magazine, Lemon Spritz and Walnut Cardamom Crescents. They were both good, but I liked the lemon ones better.

1- Lemon Spritz from FN December 2017

I used my Grandma Florence’s cookie press to make these, so that was special. I actually have cookie presses from my side of the family and from the Husband’s dad’s side. Oddly enough, I was gifted both of them for Christmas the same year, I think, from my mom and M-I-L. Now I have to use my second one for another recipe to honor both sides. Oh darn… will have to make another spritz recipe… 😉

These were good, nice and crisp, with a hint of lemon. I had gold sanding sugar too, so they were all sparkly. I brought an entire tin of these to my work, which only has about 7 of us, and when I went back in the afternoon to see how they had gone over, the entire tin was almost empty! The office manager said she had been eating them all day. 🙂

One of the cookie presses has a dog shaped form and I may try to pipe some dog cookies for Fancy with the biscuit recipe I have. Would that be weird though? “Here Fancy, eat this other pumpkin flavored dog…” :p

2-Walnut Cardamom Crescents from FN December 2017

I may have toasted the walnuts for slightly too long. They didn’t look brown, but had a very strong flavor. I couldn’t find the cardamom in them after they were baked. They are a very delicate cookie and kept breaking  when I tried to roll them. I might just stick to my traditional snowball cookie recipe.

3- Stovetop Mac and Cheese, by me.

This version had shredded pepperjack and cheddar cheese in it. It was pretty good, nice and gooey. We used small shells for it.

4-Tacos, by me

No picture, too hungry! I browned a pound of hamburger, drained it, added about a 1/3 of a jar of salsa, cumin, garlic and onion powder, and salt and pepper. I used the leftover meat for quesadillas the next day. Mmmmm…

5- Sweet Chili Chicken and Carrots from Sweet Pes and Saffron https://sweetpeasandsaffron.com/7-chicken-marinade-recipes-freezer-friendly/

I added the carrots so there would be a veggie. We used leg and thigh pieces instead of breasts. We had it for lunch one day when we were both home. It was good. I was having trouble with meat texture, but the taste was good. We had it over rice. I may use the leftover chicken in stir fry for lunch tomorrow.

We are just headed out for a lovely Friendsmas party. I’m wearing my annual Christmas pun shirt. It features a large mustache and says “Staching through the snow.” It is my very favorite holiday shirt. 🙂 I may need to look for another punny holiday shirt though, so I have an extra one. Maybe I’ll find one on clearance!

Have a wonderful day!