The 10th recipe we made from Linda’s Collister’s Baking with Kids cookbook and Wee One #2 totally took over! I was so impressed with her! She has really become a mini domestic goddess in training and it’s so sweet to see!!

Chocolate Cupcakes – from Baking With Kids (p. 17) Cake: 1 1/2 cups four 1 tsp baking powder pinch of salt 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa 3/4 cup sugar 7 tbsp unsalted butter, softened 2 extra-large eggs 1/2 cup whole milk Frosting: 3 1/2 oz bittersweet chocolate 1 tbsp light corn syrup 2 tbsp unsalted butter
Preheat your oven to 350F. Mix together the flour, baking powder, salt, cocoa and sugar.	This little miss is very precise, dontcha know.
Add the butter to the bowl, and crack your eggs into a small bowl first to be sure you don’t get any shells in your cupcakes (this is especially important when your helper is under 10 years old).	Theeeeen dump them into the mixing bowl.
Now add the milk!	Mix until you have a nice, smooth batter.
Divide the batter between 12 muffin cups – either grease the pan or use cupcake liners. Bake for about 20 minutes and voila!
For the frosting, break up whatever chocolate you like, (just make sure there’s about 3 1/2 oz of it), with the syrup and the butter. Melt it all together over a pan of hot water and mix till it’s all melty.
Wee One #2 attacked all 12 cupcakes with frosting and then covered them in jelly beans, life savers and whatever other candies she could get her little hands on. So cute and way too yummy!

Watching Miss America was always a yearly thing for me but it wasn’t an ‘event’ until one of my besties confessed a few years ago that she loves pageants – of course out came the champagne and plastic crowns! Since living in the woods for Miss America this year (& last year), I’ve made it an event with Wee One #2, who adores all things pink and girlie and glittery and pretty and omg she’s such a little diva I love it.

We usually have a big spread and make a whole night of it, but she was practicing her embroidery and I had been helping Wee One #1 with homework for a good part of the day – so we settled on popcorn but of course only pink popcorn would do for such a girlie occasion!

I’ve made loads of different caramel corn and I swear this recipe tastes just like the junk at the mall – the junk at the mall that you LOVE!! DON’T LIE TO ME! Ahem. I plan to try this recipe out with drink crystal flavors and different colors!

Old Fashioned Pink Popcorn – from Cooking Classy 2/3 cup unpopped popcorn kernals 2 cups sugar 2/3 cup half & half 1 tbsp light corn syrup 1/4 tsp salt 1 tsp vanilla 6 drops red food coloring / dollop food coloring paste
Pop your popcorn and set aside. In a saucepan, whisk together the sugar, half & half, corn syrup and salt.	Cook this until it bubbles and looks all scary and you’re sure you’ve done something wrong. Use a candy thermometer to be sure your mixture gets to 232F.
This is when you take it off the heat and stir in the vanilla and food coloring. If you’re experimenting with other colors and flavors, switch them up now!	Mix the color in or the popcorn will be streaky.
Pour your neon goo over the popcorn. Mmm. Neon goo.	This works best of you divide all your popped popcorn in half first for easier mixing.
Spread out the shiny, sticky popcorn onto parchment paper and let it dry (if you can stop yourself from picking at it).
This stuff is addicting, so I’m glad I made it for a crowd!

These are so good it’s alarming. Yeah I know, it’s not a huge surprise that something Miss Nigella cooked up would turn out so good, but man these are so close to a peanut butter cup – without actually being a peanut butter cup, you know? I’ve been trying to find recipes for all our most loved treats so I can whip them up without a zillion added chemicals in them and this is defiantly a favorite we can all agree on. So good with coffee or hot chocolate – or really, whatever.

I used regular brown sugar instead of the muscovado because I honestly didn’t think it would make much of a difference. I’ve read since then that using muscovado sugar can make a huge difference – so clearly, I have no idea. I will make them again with the muscovado and report! Also, I didn’t convert measurements to cups because it could totally be argued that it’s not exactly the same.

Peanut-Butter Squares – from How to Be a Domestic Goddess p. 223 Base: 50g dark muscovado sugar 200g icing suger 50g unsalted butter 200g smooth peanut butter Topping: 200g milk chocolate 100g plain chocolate 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
I’m always so pleased with myself when I weight out all my ingredients without having to play around to balance it out! Lucky!
Mix all of the base ingredients until well combined.	It’ll be a little crumbly, just press it into a 8 x 8 (or whatever, really) pan.
Weigh out your chocolate!	Now melt it, along with the butter till it’s all creamy and lovely.
Pour the melted chocolate over the peanut butter base.	Smooth it out, or make little swirlys or whatever you like with the chocolate layer.
Let the chocolate set up in the fridge for a while before you take it out and cut it into pieces. I suggest 48 pieces because, as Nigella warns in the book ‘more-ish as it undeniably is, it is also very rich’. So amazing. If you are fortunate enough to be able to bring peanut-stuff to your work or school (or your kids’ school), bring these. Everyone loves them and they disappear fast!

I’ve been silent for a week because I’ve been trying to figure out what to do about the whole ‘am I a site with a blog, or am I a blog with a site to organize my posts?’ dilemma. I have come to decide that this is in fact a blog, and I will be using the headers up there as a way to organize all the content. So today for example, I’m going to post about Potato Chip Cookies, and after the post is up, I will link to it on the ‘domestic’ page with a little thumbnail for the recipe. Simple. Clean. Organized. Insert contented sigh here. This means though that for a little while I will probably be posting twice a day, because I have so many amazing recipes and crafty tutorials and makeup fun to share!

Potato Chip Cookies are what happen when you tell your 6 year old it’s her turn to pick the cookie recipe. She sat down at my laptop, cracked her knuckles, and Googled this. Not bad. They sound awful and there certaintly are not gourmet, but they’re awful at all. Since I’ve made these, I have discovered potato chip cookies with pecans from My Baking Addiction! It came down to this one from Emeril or Baking Bites. We went with Baking Bites.

Officially, we made these on March 13/11 and they were the 12th cookie of 2011 – Cookie Year.
  

Potato Chip Cookies – Baking Bites 2 cups all purpose flour 1 tsp baking soda 1/4 tsp salt 1 cup butter, room temperature 1 cup sugar 1 large egg 1 – 1 1/4 cups crushed potato chips
Preheat your oven to 350F, line your baking sheet with parchmet paper. Cream together the cream and sugar. Add the egg.	Mix flour, baking soda and salt, then tip into the butter mixture.
Crunch up potato chips.	Stir in potato chips.
Drop one inch balls onto baking sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes.	Voila!
You can drizzle chocolate over them or drop them in chocolate.

Christmas vacation is officially over, so I have to officially go to bed at a decent hour. Ugh. All this ‘in bed before midnight’ stuff really cramps my style. Ha. The school bus carts off the wee ones just before 8:30, and the bus stop itself is about a 10 minute walk from our house. Anyhoo, I have been busy with the site this week and am now settling into actually adding useful content.

The site sidebar is a little different now, I love me some lists (as if that isn’t fairly obvious by now) so naturally I figured what better to fill the one thing that seen on every single page on the site! There are about a zillion links to fun and useful (and frequently updated) blogs and websites on my links page but my actual favourite blogs are over there in the sidebar —> I listed them alphabetically! No favourites among the favourites!

Freshly Pieced is written by Lee, a very talented (and adorable) quilter. She hosts a weekly ‘Work in Progress’ link up day for all kinds of handmade treasures! I post my in progress knits to this link up.

The LaMay Bakery is my friend Sammie’s blog, chronically life as an army wife with her wee one and her husband. She. Is. So. Sweet.

Mutant Supermodel and I live strangely parallel and often opposite lives! We are about the same age, have the same number of kids all in very close age ranges to each other and we both have a love for fiber (I’m a knitter, she’s a crocheter) – and while I’m coming into my 12th year of marriage, she is freshly (and happily) divorced. Her blog has a wonderful collection of resources for single mothers – and great posts in general from getting over a breakup to managing money.

Peas and Thank You is a veggie mom who made the transition from a pretty standard diet of meat and Diet Cokes. What I love most about her blog is that she is just so normal. She’s even a lover of bad television! I’m smitten. She’s the author of the cookbook I’m working through this year!

The Purl Bee is an endless source of inspiration for sewing, knitting, and crochet. Plus her blog is just so pretty!

Romi is a dear friend whose writing never fails to crack me up! This year has been very exciting for her because she has published two books and written a screenplay. The Book of Awful came first and then The Year of the Chick!

Snarkable is written (or I guess I should say will be written) by one of my bestest friends in the whole wide world. I have little doubt that it’ll be deliciously snarky and witty and will likely make your eyes water.

I can’t get enough of What I Wore. Jessica has been taking photos of what she wears pretty close to every day since 2007. She’s a designer and a pro blogger and is very sweet about answering questions from helping with an outfit to advice on working in the fashion industry. I droll over her daily photos. Love!

I also added a set of smaller goals to the sidebar as well that I’ll go on and on about tomorrow! How do you go about resolutions? I made 7 big ones and have 10 smaller ones. Thoughts?

Just a few days ago, I proclaimed to one of my best friends that I will not be making resolutions this year. Actually, it went more like this.

May: Did you see my new boots on Facebook?
Talea: I did, way to upload pics right away.
May: I know, right?! That’s my only resolution.
Talea: That’s it?! That’s your only resolution?! I’m sitting here racking my brain for more things to list!
May: I’m going to keep up my healthier eating, I’m going to work hard on my blog, but uploading pics quickly is my only actual reaolution.
Talea: Pfft.

Pfft indeed, Talea. Pfft indeed. So after thinking about it a little, I realize it is pretty lame of me to not make resolutions. Not because the idea of not making resolutions in itself is lame, but I always make resolutions and most of the time I do ok. One or two fail before spring – always. A couple more make it to summer/fall, and there are usually at least 1 or 2 that make it all the way into the following year and become a regular part of life.

Last year I didn’t make any public resolutions but privately I resolved to save as much money as humanly possible and be well on the road to buying a house in 2011. We ended up saving more than I ever thought could be humanly possible and we bought our first house on August 2, 2011!! Mission accomplished!

I’m feeling really ambitious about 2012, because so many exciting things about my husband’s job and his goals are really coming together and as much as I would looooove to go on and on about them here, it’s not really my place to talk about it all. I will say however, that I am incredibly proud of him and it makes me want to work so much harder on my own goals – especially goals I have come close to touching in the past but for whatever reason allowed myself to back away from. Some of my resolutions are to keep up past resolutions I’ve succeeded at, because if they fall off the list, I may stop being mindful of them! So first, things that need changing, followed by changes to keep up.

1. Maintain a vegetarian diet and take steps toward cutting out as much dairy as possible. I have said so many times that I could never be a vegetarian because I love certain foods too much to give them up or because there are some foods that are so ingrained in my life and our family’s traditions that I just can’t imagine what those traditions would look like without those foods. However, I have also said so many times that it’s just not possible to un-know stuff, you know? I’m not at all out to turn anyone else into a vegetarian – at all. My husband and kids eat meat and I will still prepare meals with meat for them and I will still blog about those meals, so while I am going veg, this blog/website is not.

2. Get down to my goal weight. Sadly this is one of those goals I’ve come close to hitting! I lost 50lbs last year and fell off the wagon when my Granny passed away. Once my emotions leveled out, I never got back into positive eating habits. I’ve been limping along again for the past two months and have lost some of that weight again. It looks like there is a very exciting move happening for our family in the nearish future that will keep me on track. More about that as details unfold here.

3. Blog, blog, blog!. There are hundreds of photos waiting to be posted about – really hundreds! Decadent desserts, healthy mains, super fun crafty projects, heaps of makeup photos and random tutorials. Partly it’s about finding the time to post about it all, but I have no doubt that I have that time, I just need to take it from somewhere less productive! I also have a pretty intimidating/impressive idea list of things that will end up being blogged about too. Even though this is technically #5 on my list, it’s defo one of the most important resolutions this year.

4. Keep up positive parenting. By this I mean keeping the kid’s feelings and hopes in mind when making decisions as well as the obvious not screaming and yelling and generally lashing out at them when they are, let’s say, difficult. I think it’s fair to say I have been developing this skill for the last 11 years but of course I can always get better. I’ve been being really mindful since I read How To Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk and even more so since I went to the workshop. Yes, I dig parenting classes. Anyhoo, treating our kids with respect is an ongoing resolution.

5. Keep up the domestic goddess habits. This is a goal I achieved a couple of years ago, where I have manged to keep cleaning and kitchen routines going – regardless of vacations and babies and visitors and moving and head colds and all the things that I used to allow to derail me. It’s an ongoing process though because messes happen every day and meals need to be prepared everyday. So I’m keeping it on the list!

6. Keep up the hair and makeup everyday. I know people think it’s funny (or maybe a little crazy) that I wear some pretty alarming makeup, including gorgeous lashes, out in the woods in my town of 300 people (maaaaaybe, probably less). On an average day, I see one other mom and two other dads at the school bus stop. I see my next door neighbor when he waits for his kids to get off the other school bus and 3 other people who walk their dogs past my kitchen window. That’s it. But they are not why I take the time to get snazzy everyday, I do it for my husband and kids. They claim I look adorable even without doing my hair and makeup and that’s incredibly sweet of them to say, but we all know how much more adorable I look with effort.

7. Help my husband with his goals. This goes without saying really, and my husband has said this shouldn’t be a resolution because I’m always supportive of his goals BUT, just like with the kids and the house, there is always room for improvement and I think it should always be on the list. He’s also way more supportive of my hilariously big dreams than pretty much any other husband I’ve ever met, so I think that calls for above and beyond, right? Right. <3 I feel like I should have 3 more for a rounded out list of 10, but 7 is where I'm at this year. I honestly wish everyone success in 2012 so that when we all sit down to write out our 2013 lists we are full of optimism and have a nice list of completed goals under our belts! Onward!!

Greetings!!!

I’ve been gone far too long, I know. I was doing a little web design, and I was doing a little home child care and you know, that whole ‘life getting in the way’ thing. Things have calmed down a bunch though. I’m not doing home child care anymore and have a much smaller list of web design work to do. The good news is I’ve been cooking and baking as usual – maybe even more than usual lately, so there are heaps and heaps of recipes to add to the site and talk about. With Christmas coming at light speed I’ve been doing a lot of crafting but I’m a little nervous to post much of that until after everyone has already opened their gifts because I know a lot of my friends and family read my blog (thanks guys). You can expect a parade of deliciousness and hopefully some crafty inspiration around here in the weeks leading up to Christmas. I’m also thinking about breaking ‘Domestic’ into ‘Kitchen’ and ‘Cleaning’, because while they’re both domestic maybe someone looking for a homemade cleaning solution recipe doesn’t care about chocolate covered Oreos (but really, who doesn’t care about chocolate covered Oreos – what’s not to love there people?!). I may also add a ‘Kids’ section for the same reason. I don’t love when a site has too many sections but I think these additions make it easier to filter out what you’re not looking for. Yes? Good, I thought you’d agree.

Before I get to changing anything around, here’s a few new additions to the site!

Pink Fudge

PB Stuffed Cookies

Fairy Headbands

There has been a lot of cookie baking going on around here and actually, a whole lot of other treat making and painfully-from-scratch cooking going on as well. So much that I’m going to just have to post a heap of my queue as thumbnails to get through it all so I can post the new stuff. It’s not that my kitchen creations (and my craftyness) this past winter/spring/summer are not amazing, because naturally I think they are lol, but there is so much more amazingness on the way!

	As with many of the whimsical creations coming out of this kitchen, these adorable little creations are courtesy of Bakerella! They could not be easier and as usual, these are amazing. I made them as Valentine’s Day treats for Wee One #1’s class party. I wrapped them in foil and made little tags that said ‘Happy Valentine’s Day’ for him to give to his classmates with his paper cards. I wasn’t there, but he said they were a hit – despite not looking at all like the kisses I had intended them to look like. Whoops.
	There are so many cute smore-themed ideas for end of school year gifts for teachers. I actually made this one for our principal, because she has really gone out of her way for us more times than I can ever properly thank her for. I first saw this idea over at Back Porch Creations and I loved it, but I needed my packaging to be a little more girlie than that.
	I made these (recipe #14 from Jessica Seinfeld’s Deceptively Delicious) alongside the Italian Meatloaf from the same book. The meatloaf was ok, but I had seconds of these rice balls! They’re not a quick fix though, they take some effort to make, but just like everything else in life, when does quick and easy usually equal amazing? Alonst never, especially in the kitchen. These rice balls are actually loaded with chicken, sweet potato and either spinach, broccoli or butternut squash puree – I used spinach. I also used whole wheat breadsrumbs instead of whole wheat cracker crumbs.

I also just found out a few minutes ago that today, August 30, is National Marshmallow Day. What?! How did I not know about this?! I will whip up something with marshmallows in it for dessert – what are you making to celebrate now that you know? 😛

I almost posted about homemade bacon wrapped tater tots, but I realized I didn’t take photos of the actual tater tot process, just the bacon wrapping bit. So I will fix that and get those up this week. Instead, I went with Nutella. My girl Sammie made a batch too! Her post on that is here, and she did a great job!! She really is my kitchen soul mate. She used this recipe from Su Good Sweets and I used an adapted version of the recipe she wasn’t crazy about. Both of our batches turned out well and our husbands and children (and maybe us too) ate enough to prove they were both delicious!

Here are a few pictures of the process:

More baking and cooking and crazy fun to be had around here this afternoon. I’m working on a slow cooking pork shoulder for pulled pork sandwiches later. I wanted to try the Pioneer Woman’s Spicy Dr Pepper Shredded Pork but my husband isn’t a big fan of anything too ‘unusual’ in the kitchen lol.

I was pretty proud of myself with today’s updates for you. I added some really amazing Rolo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies to the Domestic section, then wee little Post It Packages from scrapbooking paper (which are really, really cute, I have to say) in the Crafty section and I even managed to get my Deceptively Delicious Banana Bread post up in the Healthy section – all long before my self inflicted deadline. Then I got to the Pretty section, and there are a couple of hair tutorials I was going to post, but I’m not too happy with the photographs so I decided to do a Window Shopping post on Apothica instead. Oh boy. I got sucked in. I adore makeup and shiny things and girly colors (and even matte things and dark colors) and before I knew it, I was almost late to post this!! Ack! Way to be distracted by shiny things, May.

Moving on.

	These cookies are a lot easier to pull together than they seem but so so so much yummier than photos can possibly get across to you. Imagine. It’s a chocolate chip cookie, which is already pretty great and then BAM, you’re hit with a mouthful of caramel. Right?!
	This is the post that assisted in making me late today. Apothica is now accepting PayPal and for me, that’s cause to celebrate! Lipglosses that are so shiny they rival MAC’s Lipglass and shimmering face powders so pretty they’re right up there with Too Faced’s Candlelight Powder. Color me in love.
	This banana bread tastes just like banana bread! So what? So it’s made with pureed cauliflower! Hello serious vitamin boost with no questions asked!
	This was an end of school year gift for the hard working secretary at my kids’ school. All elementary school secretaries work hard, I have on doubt, but they so often are overlooked when all the teachers get well wishes and mugs!

I would love to get some photos up of my new kitchen, but every time I think to do it there is something more pressing that needs to be done. The whole fridge to sink to oven kitchen work triangle is great in this house – for sure the best and easiest I’ve ever had. My husband has serious issues with clutter so I try to hide most of my kitchen power tools and this kitchen has decently deep cabinets so my blender, food processor, bullet, slow cooker, etc are all tucked away. At first I thought it would be a pain to pull stuff out when I wanted to use it, but as long as all the cabinets are kept tidy (so far, so good) I just grab the gadget I need when I need it. It also frees up space for rolling out dough or cooling things on racks. I’ll put it on my to do to get pictures of the kitchen today so I can have them up tomorrow.

I promised Wee One #2 that today would be a crafty day. At the end of the school year, her report card was as perfect as a report card can be without your child being an alien. So we told her she could choose her ‘passing gift’ (who came up with that phenomenon anyway?!) and she chose a book on learning sewing crafts, Made By Me (See all Children's Crafts & Hobbies Books), a sewing basket with the essentials and fabric. She picked out some from Fabric Closet and tulle in 3 different colors from Fabricland. Her favorite thing so far has been embroidering and today she wants to attack a tshirt for the first time, so far we’ve stuck to plain squares of fabric to practice on. Wish us luck with this little project!