we baked some cupcakes, we had some laughs, we did a little dancing...

photos from this weekend's craftastical wedding - recipe for raspberry mojito cupcake to follow.

Oh, hey...it's the third one.

I made things! Crafty things! Crafty things worthy of posting on this blog, which I have been sadly remiss in contributing to. Apologies to those who care.

Waaaaay back before Christmas, my sister commissioned me to make a painting for her (then unborn) baby. Now that he's here and sleeping in his nursery, I figured I should get a move on before he's old enough to be snarky about my painting skills.

I decided to do a pair of paintings (measuring about 8 x 11 inches each) to hang in the baby's room. It took me forever and a day to decide what to paint. I went back and forth quite a bit. I finally decided to do a pair of animal portraits, kind of in the style of a Victorian portrait. My sister and her husband are big KState fans, so I decided one of the subjects should be a wild cat. Now what to do for the other one? Hmm...

The final decision was to pair the wild cat with a dodo bird. Yes. A dodo bird. I figure it could serve as an obscure and slightly odd reference to KState's rival, the KU Jayhawks. It works, right? Amirite? Well, I think it's funny. I've come to terms with the fact that my sense of humor doesn't exactly work for everyone.

Well, I finally--after working on them sporadically for the past few months--completed the paintings this afternoon and what else should I do but post them here on the interwebs?

Here we see the illustrious Mr. Tewksberry:

Is there nothing better than a dodo in a waistcoat? I think not.

...and Niall:

Niall's a smug fellow.

I look forward to my nephew being old enough to ask my sister what kind of crazy lady painted these for him. She will say, "It was your aunt...you know, the one who does theatre." And he will sigh, shake his head, and be heartily embarrassed to be burdened with such an aunt. It will be epic.

...And I made this hat:

...And a whole bunch of these:

Tube scarves!

They're much cooler when they're not all tangled around my neck. I've been crocheting them in the evenings when by brain is fried from researching all day.

So look! I contribute!

Though it will probably be another bazillion months before I post again. I am not a responsible blogger.

attempted urban gardening, take 3:

THINGS!
yesterday, i moved my green beans into the RealAndActual ground, because they were begging for more dirt and room to grow. yesterday, they looked like this:



today, it looks like THIS!



that's my little shining glory on the end. it is Taking Over. in capital letters. :)



friday morning i got up at 6:30am and took my mom to the airport to visit my father for their 30th wedding anniversary. i got back around 7:30am and really should've gone back to bed, but instead i got a little manic, went to lowe's and bought pots and potting soil and repotted all of my plants. black seeded simpson lettuce and mixed greens.



well, almost all of my plants. i am trying to not overdraw my checking account by purchasing flower pots, so some of these guys will have to wait. the left three big peat pots are zinnias for my mom, the small one is spinach, then black seeded simpson and another thing of mixed greens on the right.



repotted spinach and arugula. i'm hoping that they will flourish and spread when given more room...but considering i'm making all this up as i go along, we'll see. :)



aaallllllllll thooooooooooose plaaaaaaaaaaaants. welcome to my backyard garden spread all over my table.



update on the shoe hanger: i added spearmint to the top right pocket. i also changed out all the dirt for both of the bell peppers and they seem to be growing better now. i also added some better soil to the tomato.

i've had one ripe strawberry which gavin and i split...it was excellent. and i think now i want to make a little compact garden box and fill it with strawberries, because my two little plants aren't producing quick enough for me.

i've also been working on a baby blanket for my new little girlcousin...i don't have any photos of it yet, because i'm teaching myself the stitch as i go along.

okay, actually it's because i'm lazy and it's always downstairs. anyway...the garden is coming along nicely. and i am a little obsessed. *shrug* it happens.

j.me

Rhubarb: Pt. 3 - Return of the Pie

Star Wars Nerd. yes. that's me.

The last thing I made with rhubarb was pie. Rhubarb-strawberry pie. Mommer and Pops liked the rhubarb mocktails and the cooked rhubarb mash. tomorrow - pie for breakfast. yum.

recipe below.

Rhubarb Strawberry Pie

2 cups chopped rhubarb

2 cups chopped strawberries

2 cups sugar

1/2 c flour

1 tblsp butter

desired pastry crust for 1 pie.

put pie crust in oiled pan.

combine sugar and flour - cover pastry with a fine layer of the mixture.

add fruit on top of flour/sugar mix.

cover fruit layer with rest of flour/sugar.

dot topping with butter.

cover with remaining pie crust and bake at 450 degrees for 15 mins. then decrease oven temp to 350 and bake for an additional 20 mins. this helps insure that the bottom of the crust doesn't become a soggy mess.

PIE! PIE! PIE!

and that concludes our three part rhubarb saga.

KN - out.

Rhubarb: Pt. 2 - The Syrup Strikes Back

Rhubarb is so pretty. and delicious.

the trilogy continues. I made some rhubarb simple syrup, which is fantastic! Add a little lime, some soda water OR some potato vodka. your choice.

Consider this a serving suggestion.

Rhubarb Simple Syrup

3 cups Rhubarb

1 cup Sugar

1 cup Water

Mix all ingredients, bring to a boil. Allow to boil for about 15 minutes. Taste. If it's not sweet enough for you, add more sugar and return to medium heat to simmer. Once it's to your liking, strain, and then can, or refrigerate.

Rhubarb : Pt. 1 - A New Jam

The first time I cooked with Rhubarb was last year when I helped my soon to be married friend, BARgal , bake a strawberry-rhubarb pie for her rehearsal dinner. I still maintain that it needed a lot more sugar.

Almost exactly one year later I'm standing in a kitchen in Washington, making rhubarb jam and rhubarb pie from rhubarb I just picked outside the kitchen door. awesome.

Rhubarb Jam

5 cups chopped Rhubarb

4 cups sugar

1 packet strawberry jello

cook together, allow to boil, put in a jar. simple! : )

kitchen ninja out.

attempted suburban gardening, take 2:

MAN. i can grow things. who knew this? certainly not me. i've added basil to my hanging planter, started arugula and spinach [for the second time, thanks kansas wind], zinnia's [for my mom], mixed greens and green beans [which are to be transplanted into the actual ground. yayfreshgreenbeans!]



my little tomato plant. i speak kindness and joy to it daily. and strawberries! not big, but hopefully tasty. and my basil plant. it's a little cranky right now, but is still growing. just to spite me. :)



update on the plant hanger. it's still working okay...my green bell peppers are growing, but all the leaves look gnarly. but it's growing. i may switch out some of the soil and see if that helps.



black seeded simpson explosion! to the point where i've already transplanted them into bigger peat pots. the smaller pots are my restart of spinach and arugula. it's been crazy cool weather here in kansas, so this stuff is growing like mad.



lemon balm...and the no-longer-living aloe vera plants. sad story, i've had these plants since high school and have transplanted them several times. they've come with me to college (back and forth, back and forth), post-college and kansas city...and now, the suburbs killed them. bastard suburbs. or maybe it was because i can no longer grow plants that require hardly any care at all. the lemon balm is already acting like it wants a bigger pot, which is fine by me. yay! the first picture is the day i purchased it, the second is from a week later - explodoplant.



the left three are zinnias for my mom, the next three are mixed greens and the five on the right are greeeeeeeeeeeeen beans.



aaaaaaaaand, part of my mother's day gift to my mom. petunias and some kind of vine. i hate petunias. i know it was her gift, but the compromise i made was that she couldn't get any more pink ones that she already had. so they're [mostly] purple.

i've managed to not scorch my little plants in the wicked kansas sun so far. truly, the weather has been a little ridiculous here and i'm lucky that the tornado-like conditions haven't eaten everything i've grown so far. but it's all thriving for now.

j.me

Bacon Stuffed Honey Corn Muffins

oh man...these are magic.

I bake a ton of cupcakes. I bake them for meetings, I bake them for fiscal discussions, I bake them to try out new recipes, I bake them to impose order on a world full of chaos. I bake.

Tomorrow is another meeting morning, so instead of overdosing everyone on sugar at 8:30 in the morning, they're getting a heaping serving of bacon.

Here's the recipe - I had to make a lot, so you're going to need to 1/4 the recipe if you only want to make a dozen.

Bacon Stuffed Honey Corn Muffins

4 boxes of jiffy corn muffin mix

2 8oz containers of cream cheese

2 cups grated cheddar cheese

1 lb of bacon, grilled until crispy then drained and chopped into bite size pieces.

1 1/3 cups of buttermilk

1/3 cup of oil

4 eggs

1 can creamed corn

5 tblsp of chives, chopped

2 tblsp basil, chopped

2 tblsp parsley, chopped

1 1/2 cups honey

1/2 stick butter

Base:

Blend muffin mix, eggs, creamed corn, buttermilk, cheddar cheese, oil, and 2/3 c. honey.


Filling:

Mix cream cheese, herbs, 1/3 honey, and bacon.

Glaze:

Mix remaining honey with butter, and reserve until later to glaze muffins right after they come out of the oven.




METHOD:

Fill muffin cups 2/3 full, then add one dollop of the filling mixture. cover filling with more muffin mix. Bake for 15 minutes at 400 degrees.

Glaze immediately after taking out of the oven, so that the hot muffins suck in all the glaze.

best served warm. Just pop in the microwave for a few seconds and they'll be amazing.


Kitchen Ninja Out.

Kitchen Ninja's little bit of green.

BEFORE: no arugula. AFTER: Arugula EVERYWHERE.

BEFORE: FEB NOW: MAY

LETTUCE! SPINACH! SNOW PEAS! ZUCCHINI! BUTTER LETTUCE! ARUGULA!CHIVES! and more tomatoes than i should have ever started back in feb. I got so excited after seeing j.me post a fantastic urban garden idea, that I had to post an update on my little garden out here in PDX.

L - R: chives, zucchini, butter lettuce, parsley. Front to Back: Heirloom tomatoes, cilantro,basil, strawberries and more heirlooms.

It may be small, but it's doing pretty well, and i've been having some pretty great salads since March. Hopefully the zucchini makes it, but they're looking pretty weak sauce.

It's totally a learning experience, and it's nice to know that my tiny piece of earth is a little greener.

~kitchen ninja