Today, I’m linking up with KD Buggie Boutique, Mom Blog Monday and Tough Cookie Mommy for Mingle Monday.

Don’t forget about our giveaway with Keeley Behling Studios! Like the Keeley Behling Studios Facebook page and leave a comment there about something in her Etsy shop to enter. It wouldn’t hurt if you liked the So Very Domestic Facebook page too. 😉

I mentioned a few days ago that I borrowed one of my neighbor’s pro cook books and that I was overcome with joy at the concept of baking and cooking my way through a book he used in culinary school?! Insert dramatic gasping here.

This recipe is from that book and it’s one of those recipes that was so weird I had to try it. I mean, I’ve been around a few kitchens in my day (omg who says that?!) and I’ve never seen this or even heard of it. It was super weird to wrap a roast in a big, heavy (but still pliable) sheet of pastry, but it turned out really well! It was extremely moist and juice. Easy to carve and the kids ate it up and asked for more – always a win in our house!

Salt Dough-Wrapped Roast via The Cook’s Book

1 cup fine table salt
3 cups coarse sea salt
7 cups flour
2 egg whites
2 1/2 cups lukewarm water
large handful of mixed thyme, rosemary, lavender flowers, and sage, chopped
cut of meat, your choice
+ egg wash (2 eggs + about 3 tablespoons water)

Mix all but the spices and water in a large bowl. Then stir in the spices.
Work the dough on a floured surface for a few minutes until it’s smooth. Then wrap it in plastic wrap and let it rest at least 2 hours before rolling it out to wrap your roast in. Season your roast as you normally would, I cut slits in it and poke small pieces of garlic inside. Once your roast is spiced up, wrap the salt dough around it.
Use an egg wash to secure the salt dough around the roast.
Bake at 400F for about an hour. Let it rest for about 20 minutes after coming out of the oven to it can finish cooking.
Then crack it open and toss out the crust.

Coming in about a week late, we had so many fun projects happening for Valentine’s Day I have to document them, late or not. The week of Valentine’s Day, I was excited (though honestly not surprised) that my oldest wee one (he’s 8 ) wanted to make his class valentines this year instead of buying those boring generic ones. We had a great time looking around online and in books together to come up with something a little different, but not so crazy we couldn’t get 21 of them done in four days.

We went with paper weaving construction paper into heart pockets! We’ve all been on an origami kick lately, and this was so close to that (still no glue, but obviously, some cutting – here is the video we used). We made some pink and purple and then red and purple ones for the girls, and blue and red ones for the boys. We picked up some heart shaped lollipops and had time to make another little treat to tuck inside!

Salt dough valentines! I love making salt dough ornaments for pretty much any occasion. They’re so easy to whip up, and though there are a few steps to making them pretty once they’re out of the oven, the steps are so quick these are pretty easy little treats. It was his idea to make put everyone’s initial on them, and to put the girls’ trinkets on ribbons. Cute!

He took this tray along with a vanilla-banana cake for his party and we tucked a few knitted hearts in his teacher’s package. He said everyone in his class loved them, and is now plotting what to craft for next year!

With his school fete taken care of, I focused on our Valentine’s Stitch n Bitch that weekend. These wee bags first appeared in Martha in February 2004 and I have made them over and over again since then. They’ve been used as gift bags for tiny treasures, they’ve held small Easter chocolates and at one point were even used as tree ornaments. They’re really fun to make because the scale can be adjusted so easily and the theme changes with the paper you choose. Simple!

I filled them with mini lipsticks, a heart shaped brownie and a lipgloss inside a lipgloss cozy! The lipgloss cozies were so silly, but cute – essentially just a tube large enough for the lipgloss to fit into.

Here are four of the six of them pictured, made with Valentine’s themed scrapbooking paper and red embroidery floss. I also made a heap of origami hearts and wrote everyone’s name in the corner of them as tags. I had them scattered on the table as well, which was so festive and handy when we unexpectedly had a few extra friends over (always so much fun!). The video tutorial for those is here, and super easy for folks who haven’t done much origami at all.

This week’s pie was Pear-Strawberry, adapted from the Pear-Raspberry that ran in this month’s Martha. I had intended to go with raspberries, but when I was at the market the selection was pretty sad and I went with the beautiful strawberries instead. It was insanely good. I also made a tray of cupcakes and brownies and even cupcakes with brownies stacked on top of them, because as you know, that’s just the way it is around here. The brownie-topped cupcakes are also from this month’s Martha. The others, both the regular cupcakes and the tiny ones are all standard chocolate cupcakes with pink-tinted vanilla frosting and a cinnamon heart on top.

We hosted a birthday party here last night for our dear friend Andrew, and it was hilarious. Full of fantastic food, crafty decorations and even some knitting! I’ll let you digest the Valentine’s post for now though.