Tis the season of the pre-Christmas rush. When deadlines pile up, tho not nearly as fast as assorted gift swaps and secret santas. When days keep getting shorter and to-do lists keep getting longer. When you have a dozen or so holiday parties to attend in the 20 days before you fly back to Ontario. When you might strangle yourself in the pile of yarn waiting to be knit up into gifts.
Any ways, my day planner has filled up, and so my blog has been collecting some dust. Throw into all of that binge watching my way through Gilmore Girls on Netflix in every one of my spare minutes, while developing early arthritis in my hands from the frantic knitting, and you have a justifiable reason for my lack of posts over the last couple weeks.
Never fear tho, this weekend I am taking some real down time, just for me, and promise to have some exciting posts just for you too!
Happy American Turkey Day, and don't forget to take some down time for yourself on this rush towards Christmas.
~Sara
Thursday, November 27, 2014
Friday, November 7, 2014
Super Easy Chunky Peanut Butter Cookies
I whipped up these cookies the other day for three reasons.
1. I picked up a new silicon baking sheet and wanted to try it.
2. Kevin gave me a jar of chunky peanut butter (I always buy smooth) and he insisted it was better.
3. I was having a kind of blue day, and well coookies make everything better.
So here they are:
Super Easy Chunky Peanut Butter Cookies
Prep Time 5-10 min
Baking Time 13 min
Makes 35 small cookies.
In a large bowl, cream together 1/2 cup butter and 1/2 cup chunky peanut butter.
Add in 1/3 cup granulated sugar and 1/4 cup brown sugar, mix.
Add in one large egg and one teaspoon of vanilla extract. Mix.
Add 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda. At this point you can continue to mix with you mixer, or as I inevitably need to do with cookie dough, flour up your clean hands and get right in there.
The dough should be able to come together in a ball, then you're ready to portion it out. I shaped my cookies into about toonie sized circles, and spaced them evenly on my baking tray. They will spread a little when they bake, but not too much.
And into the oven (preheated to 350') they go, for 13 minutes. When you take them out you can just slide the silicone sheet with the cookies off the baking tray and onto the table to cool.
Throw the cooled cookies into a tin, and deliver them to your boyfriend who is stressing over CaRMS applications, and enjoy!
Verdict on the silicone baking sheet, nice alternative to parchment paper, prevented burning of the bottoms of the cookies, pain in the arse to clean in the sink. (Nothing sticks but the buttery cookies left little oily circles behind).
Verdict on the chunky peanut butter? If it's all you have, go ahead and use it. The effect is similar to adding chopped peanuts to a regular recipe. I'm not a fan tho, and will stick to smooth in the future!
Happy Friday!
1. I picked up a new silicon baking sheet and wanted to try it.
2. Kevin gave me a jar of chunky peanut butter (I always buy smooth) and he insisted it was better.
3. I was having a kind of blue day, and well coookies make everything better.
So here they are:
Super Easy Chunky Peanut Butter Cookies
Prep Time 5-10 min
Baking Time 13 min
Makes 35 small cookies.
In a large bowl, cream together 1/2 cup butter and 1/2 cup chunky peanut butter.
Add in 1/3 cup granulated sugar and 1/4 cup brown sugar, mix.
Add in one large egg and one teaspoon of vanilla extract. Mix.
Add 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda. At this point you can continue to mix with you mixer, or as I inevitably need to do with cookie dough, flour up your clean hands and get right in there.
The dough should be able to come together in a ball, then you're ready to portion it out. I shaped my cookies into about toonie sized circles, and spaced them evenly on my baking tray. They will spread a little when they bake, but not too much.
And into the oven (preheated to 350') they go, for 13 minutes. When you take them out you can just slide the silicone sheet with the cookies off the baking tray and onto the table to cool.
Throw the cooled cookies into a tin, and deliver them to your boyfriend who is stressing over CaRMS applications, and enjoy!
Verdict on the silicone baking sheet, nice alternative to parchment paper, prevented burning of the bottoms of the cookies, pain in the arse to clean in the sink. (Nothing sticks but the buttery cookies left little oily circles behind).
Verdict on the chunky peanut butter? If it's all you have, go ahead and use it. The effect is similar to adding chopped peanuts to a regular recipe. I'm not a fan tho, and will stick to smooth in the future!
Happy Friday!
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Spontaneously Registered for Mud Hero 2015, Red Deer!
I was just reading through some blogs by fellow Albertans and noticed there were a stream of posts the other day about Mud Hero 2015, in Red Deer. Looks like Becky over at the Bex Factor had the great idea to get a bunch of us bloggers out for a run come August. Since I ran with her once here in Calgary ages ago, and had a great time! I thought of course I'll sign up for this.
Colour me Rad, Calgary, 2013...they rescheduled it due to the flood, and my whole team
dropped out, lucky Becky was happy to invite me out with hers!
So you can check out the details over at The Bex Factor, we're running Saturday August 8th at 10AM, and if you don't register soon (before the 14th, the price will go up).
Can't wait to see you all there (August is soooo far away tho!)
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
3rd annual pumpkin carve off
Every year we gather friends, pumpkins, beers and shots and partake in a carve off, complete with shot gunning beers, and half time mystery shots.
The first year in, I went simple, with an elongated pumpkin.
That first year there were only six of us, we carved on the back deck at Kevin's and the weather was even kind of nice.
In 2013, we stepped up the game, and went from 6 to 12 carvers. We all planned in advance, scouring the internet for inspiration pumpkins. I even experimented with shaping and two toned carving.
Producing this masterpiece! The rest of the feild looked pretty awesome too. I've opted to sensor some of the pumpkins, alcohol and boys in their 20s often leads to NSFW pumpkins.
This year we faced a potential set back, as Kevin and I drove from store to store on Halloween looking for pumpkins that were nowhere to be found in the all of Calgary. Lucky for us a friend new of a farm that was getting rid of pumpkins cheep on November 1st, and they picked up 15 for the carve off.
I decided to go art pumpkin, and freehand carved a pumpkin version of Vincent van Gogh`s The Starry Night.
Which looks O.K. unlit, but with three candles inside and in the dark, it really shines!
And the rest of the pumpkin feild looked great too! Complete with a couple minions, tinker bell and grumpy cat!
After all that pumpkin carving, we thru our Halloween costumes on and celebrated. You can find some of my past costumes here and here. This year, on short notice, I decided to celebrate the Turtle BackPack that Kevin got me for Christmas last year, and went as Raphael!
You can find an amazing how-to video on making your own Ninja Turtle costume on the Thread Banger youtube channel... not that I followed it, but it did inspire me!
And what did Kevin go as? A Taco! Not really a couple costume, but oddly enough the colours matched!
Hope you all had happy halloweens! What did you dress up as?
The first year in, I went simple, with an elongated pumpkin.
That first year there were only six of us, we carved on the back deck at Kevin's and the weather was even kind of nice.
In 2013, we stepped up the game, and went from 6 to 12 carvers. We all planned in advance, scouring the internet for inspiration pumpkins. I even experimented with shaping and two toned carving.
Producing this masterpiece! The rest of the feild looked pretty awesome too. I've opted to sensor some of the pumpkins, alcohol and boys in their 20s often leads to NSFW pumpkins.
This year we faced a potential set back, as Kevin and I drove from store to store on Halloween looking for pumpkins that were nowhere to be found in the all of Calgary. Lucky for us a friend new of a farm that was getting rid of pumpkins cheep on November 1st, and they picked up 15 for the carve off.
I decided to go art pumpkin, and freehand carved a pumpkin version of Vincent van Gogh`s The Starry Night.
Which looks O.K. unlit, but with three candles inside and in the dark, it really shines!
And the rest of the pumpkin feild looked great too! Complete with a couple minions, tinker bell and grumpy cat!
After all that pumpkin carving, we thru our Halloween costumes on and celebrated. You can find some of my past costumes here and here. This year, on short notice, I decided to celebrate the Turtle BackPack that Kevin got me for Christmas last year, and went as Raphael!
You can find an amazing how-to video on making your own Ninja Turtle costume on the Thread Banger youtube channel... not that I followed it, but it did inspire me!
And what did Kevin go as? A Taco! Not really a couple costume, but oddly enough the colours matched!
Hope you all had happy halloweens! What did you dress up as?
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