Today I’m linking up with the WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

As if I haven’t posted a WIP Wednesday since I got to LA! The last one was in early March and those socks are finished!

I casted on for these babies, Hedgerow Socks almost a month ago! I had a serious issue lining up the pattern after I broke off for the heel. Ugh. I knitted and knitted and then ripped back daaaaays of knitting and then? Then?! I did it again. This time it has lined up and I’m keeping my fingers crossed the second sock lines up too!

Pattern syncing issue notwithstanding, these socks are a quick and painless knit. The pattern is a four row repeat, but really it’s just two rows repeated twice it’s even easier!

The effect is a pretty but not too fancy sock that hopefully my husband’s Grandmother will love (and wear).

I’ll also show off the finished sock from March’s WIP, the lovely Bintje. These are pretty special socks because while just like a lot of the socks I’ve made in the last two years, they were cast on in the woods of Central Ontario, but theeeeen they were knitted on across the United States. I knitted on these socks in ten different states (Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California – for the curious). The recipient of these socks will absolutely love that little trivia about them so she’s the right person to have them for sure!

I know I have been singing serious praises for this cookbook all year but it really is everything I’m hyping it up to be and no one is even asking me to do it!

Another winner from this book, this time a breakfast treat. Even one of me wee ones that isn’t really into pears was down with this. You probably have everything you need for these already and if you don’t own a waffle maker (aside from this recipe being a good excuse to buy yourself one), I’m betting you could easily make pancakes from this batter as well.

So what’s so great about pears? Well, let’s get into it. They’re high in vitamin c and copper, which are both antioxidant nutrients. Aside from that, vitamin c is mega important for general immune function, it’s the boss guy that gets your white blood cells ready to fight infections and kills off bacteria and viruses. That’s pretty serious! It also helps to regenerate vitamin e (an antioxidant for fat-soluable areas, as opposed to vitamin c being an antioxidant for water-soluable parts of the body). Pears also pack a good fiber punch, and fiber has been shown to lower high cholesterol levels. It also binds to cancer-causing chemicals in the colon, preventing them from damaging colon cells. There are also studies that suggest that fruit fiber as a whole helps prevent post-menopausal breast cancer and macular degeneration (aka, your eyes). So eat up!!

Today I’m linking up with Giggles Glitz and Glam, A Bowl Full of Lemons, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Mommy by Day, Crafter by Night, The Kurtz Corner, and Reasons to Skip the Housework. There is so much inspiration packed into those links it makes my head spin.

There are about eleventy billion ways to make soap yourself. You can go the super simple route and buy a melt and pour kit, or you can use one of several recipes for hot process or cold process soap. We decided to do cold process, and the four of us (my husband, his friend and his friend’s girlfriend) took on this hilarious project. We were in charge of ingredients and they were in charge of gear. It worked out pretty well I think considering we ended up with everything we needed! We actually ended up with unmatched amounts of what we needed (tooootally my fault whoops), but the guys are both good at math so we were ok! A little recipe altering and away we went!

Most cold process soap recipes I’ve seen stop where this post stops, but this is only stage one for us. We are going to shave down and melt these bars of soap and add to them. Oatmeal perhaps? Poppyseeds maybe? Oils, for sure!

The recipe we used was from an old book our friend found at a second hand store and that we quickly became a little obsessed with. I will leave you to find a soap book or website with a recipe on it because there was a lot of changing of things going on in my kitchen when we did this so I don’t want to lead anyone down the wrong path!

Also, we opted for a vegan soap instead of a traditional soap and that changes the recipe as well. Having said that, we used:

Olive Oil
Coconut Oil
Cocoa Butter
and of course, Lye

You’ll also need safety goggles, gloves, a plastic container to heat the lye in, two tall pots, wooden spoons, a scale to measure it all out on and two candy thermometers.

Gather your ingredients and gear, cover your table and then do any recipe math you need on your table covers!
Now following the directions on the lye packaging, add water slowly, pop in the candy thermometer and wait for it to heat up (it’ll do it on it’s own – like magic).
Now pour the oilve oil and coconut oil into a tall pot and add your cocoa butter, poke at it here and there until it’s all melted and then mix it a bit but you don’t have to really get into it yet.
Fill a second tall pot about halfway with water and once it gets hot, set the plastic container of warm lye and water in it. You’ll need one candy thermometer with each pot. One IN the soap mixture, touching the melted oils and cocoa butter and one IN the lye and water container (not in the pot it’s sitting in). The necessary temps are different depending on the recipe, so check yours to be sure!
While we waited for our concoctions to reach their desired temperatures, we gathered and set out all of our soap containers. Remember that we’ll be popping the soaps from these containers and then grating them down and remelting them so we can add to them. Our final containers will be much prettier!
Once both mixtures reached the right temperatures, we poured the lye into the soapy mixture and mix, mix, mixed! It starts to thicken up a bit but is still runny, and that’s how it’s supposed to look so we’re all relieved!
It’s a slightly messy process but that’s why we covered the table before we started, right?! We filled almost every container we pulled out for this project and then covered each one with tinfoil and set them on top of our kitchen cabinets to dry for a week! Stay tuned!!

Today I’m linking up with Organizing Junkie and The How To Mommy.

Tater tots are really just rolled up mashed potatoes and everyone knows mashed potatoes go with pretty much anything! Whatever they don’t work with french fries or scalloped potatoes can totally stand in for them. It’s potato madness. So once I discovered how to make tater tots myself, a whole world of weird culinary (I use the word extremely loosely) adventure opens up. Tater tots IN a casserole? sure, why not? Wrapped in bacon? What isn’t there to love?! I have also recently stumbled onto, but haven’t tried, Tater Tot Pie, Cheeseburger Tater Tots and some kind of insanity called Tater Tot Hot Dog Casserole?! What?!

I’ll stick to wrapping or stuffing mine, thanks.

This Week’s Menu:

Saturday & Sunday – Cooking with Visitors! We’ll let them pick!

The tater tot recipe I used in this recipe is the same one I used when I made The Duggar’s Tater Tot Casserole last year.

From here, it’s painfully simple. Just roll each tater tot in a single strip of bacon and secure with a toothpick. Cook at 375 for about 30 minutes, give or take (check on it). Make these for a crowd, take some to your neighbors, whatever you do – share them!

I’m not going to lie to you here, these are going to take the better part of your afternoon to make – but not all at once. There’s a lot of chilling and rechilling and setting and chilling again. So make sure you make this for someone who will really appreciate it, or someone you’re really down with – or both! I made these for our friend Steve’s birthday this weekend. He’s got a bit of a serious sweet tooth. His cake was even more epic than these – more on that later this week. I’m happy to report he loved them, his girlfriend loved them and their guests loved them too! Winning all over the place.

So, they are labor intensive because they’re made in four separate steps and they need to completely set up and cool off before you pour the next layer on top or you’ll totally wreck it. No pressure though haha. Also, I should note that even if they set up properly, they’re a pain in the ass to cut free from the pan and this whole production might have gone a lot smoother (and prettier) if I had made them in chocolate bar molds. When I made Twix Bites a few months ago, I made a mess and then I used molds. I’m about 4200km (or 2609 miles) from all my cool kitchen gear so I had to make due, however I’m totally ordering chocolate bar molds like, right now.

First you’ve got the base chocolate layer, then the nougat, then caramel (I reeeeally recommend you make this from scratch) and then of course the top layer of chocolate. So let’s get to it!

Homemade Snickers Bars – via How Sweet it Is
1 1/4 cups chocolate chips
1/4 cup peanut butter
             *
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup evaporated milk
1 1/2 cups marshmallow fluff
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 1/2 cup salted peanuts chopped
1 tsp vanilla extract
             *
Homemade caramel (or 1 14-ounce bag of caramels & 1/4 cup whipping cream)
             *
1 1/4 cups milk chocolate chips
1/4 cup peanut butter

So first, melt 1 1/4 cups chocolate chips with 1/4 cup peanut butter over medium low heat until creamy and then pour/spread into the bottom of a well greased 9 x 13 pan. You can use a smaller pan, up to about 9 x 9 (each layer will be thicker but there will be fewer pieces overall and it will take longer for each layer to set). Let this cool and then totally set in the fridge. Now, onto the nougat.
Melt the butter and the sugar in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat and stir in the evaporated milk.
Add the marshmallow fluff (sadly it has to be the crap from the store or it wont set right) and once that’s incorporated, the peanut butter.
Chop up the peanuts roughly so there are still some big chunks in there! Stir that into the saucepan.
Let this cool off a bit before you pour it over the bottom layer! The bottom layer will be cold and set in the fridge by now, but if you pour crazy hot nougat over it, you’ll melt it! I let it cool for about 10 minutes or so before I poured it over the chocolate. Pop this back in the fridge and set your sights on caramel!
I made Amish Caramel (the only real difference I found between Amish Caramel and the Microwave Caramel I made in February for the Twix Bites is that Amish Caramel takes longer and is a bit of a pain in the ass). I will explain Amish Caramel in a different post, so in the meantime, either use about 1 3/4 cups of the Microwave Caramel or melt a 14oz bag of caramels with 1/4 cup of whipping cream. Either way, let it cool off some before you pour it over the nougat! Put it back in the fridge while you prep the top layer of this ridiculously amazing treat. The top is the same as the bottom, so again melt 1 1/4 cups of chocolate chips with 1/4 cup of peanut butter in a saucepan and pour it over the caramel layer.
Let these babies set up overnight in the fridge and they’re ready to be attacked the next day! You can probably get away with just a couple of hours in the fridge but they’re worth the wait! We dug into the tray while I was at their house, and hours after I left I was getting texts that they were still being devoured and loved. Best compliment ever.
This pic was taken the next day as they sat down with the tray – and a spoon. Love!!

Vegans, or I guess I specifically mean vegan cookbook writers (or vegan recipe thinker uppers in general) are pretty magical. How can a diet that is free of cheese hand you cheesecake, or even ‘cheesecake’? Even low fat cheesecake that’s made from actual cream cheese tastes like crap most of the time, so how does cheesecake that’s extremely low in fat that’s not even made from actual cream cheese taste so amazing?! I’m not really looking for an answer, because Mama Pea has this dip on deck, so it’s all good in the hood. Or wherever, you know.

Ahem.

What I love about this dip is it works just as well as a base for an oatmeal parfait concoction – which we have used the second half for every time I’ve made it so far. Wee One #3 basically eats it like pudding, not so patiently dealing with the bits of oatmeal and flax and berries in her way. It’s a rough life, right?

Again, no recipe for you, just buy the book, it’s totally worth it I swear.

First, put a buncha stuff in your food processor! Then dip berries in it!

Today I am linking up with Kate Says Stuff, Obviously Marvelous and Saved by Love Creations.

This is one of those lunches that you MUST serve with a salad or else you’re staring down the barrel of a seriously sad meal, nutrition-wise. Taste wise? I hear it’s amazing! I’m going to defend myself a little here and say that when I do make something like this these days, all the ingredients are as healthy as I can get my hands on. So the chicken is local and grain fed, the bacon is low sodium, the cheese is local and rBST-free, the flatbread is all multigrainy and the ranch is homemade. The entire family gobbled these down and that pretty much never happens.

Chicken-Bacon Wraps
4 pieces flatbread
2 chicken breasts, cooked and chopped
4 strips bacon, cooked and crumbled
1 cup cheese, chopped or shredded
1 green onions, chopped
1 batch ranch dressing

So painfully simple. Lay out the chicken in the middle of the flatbread, top with cheese and bacon.
Then drizzle on some ranch dressing and sprinkle the green onion bits over top. Roll them up and baket at 350 for about 15 minutes (so the bread is crispy and the cheese has a chance to melt).
Each wee one asked for a second wrap when they were done! Miracles!

Today, I’m linking up with Polly Want a Crafter, Skip to my Lou, Brassy Apple, Boogieboard Cottage, Craftomaniac, Between Naps on the Porch and Making the World Cuter! So many creative projects on this link ups!!

One of those genius ideas I’d have no idea about if I didn’t read blogs! All you need is sandpaper (the finer the better), crayons, an iron and some paper towels – and something to iron the image onto. I came across this idea on Alpha Mom last summer and knew I had to try it with the kids.

The finer the sandpaper the clearer the image so depending on the look you are going for, a coarser grit may be better.

Draw whatever masterpiece you’d like with crayon on a piece of sandpaper.
Once the drawing is finished, place the sandpaper image side down on the fabric you’re ironing it on to, with a piece of paper towel between the sandpaper and the iron. If you’re ironing onto a shirt, slide a piece of cardboard inside of it to keep the image from transferring right through to the back of the shirt! If you’re ironing it onto something else, place a piece of cardboard under it to protect your ironing board. I also ironed it over it again with a paper towel on top and then I set it by running it through the dryer (alone) on high heat for about 30 minutes.
We made this one for my dad, it’s so cute and he totally wears it!