The State Fair isn’t until Sept/Oct — somewhere in there, so I have time. I’ve decided that I’m going to give one of these babies away just for fun. The winner gets to choose 1 Angry Bird of their choice from those shown above. I’ll send it out to you Priority Mail and you can have fun throwing it at people.

Here are each of the birds close up…

Angry Bird # 1 – the Yellow, Kind of Squared Off Angry Bird. This is the one that when you “pop” him he goes really fast all of a sudden.

Angry Bird #2, the White Angry Bird — the Egg Layer. This guy has a “pocket” in the bottom of him that allows you to kind of push the egg in, then when he is flying, you can squeeze him and he lays the “Egg Bomb”.

Next, I made the Black BOMB bird. He’s pretty cool.  He’s Angry Bird #3.

Then the RED Angry Bird, AKA Angry Bird #4….

Then I made a set of the little Blue Birds. If you pick this one, you only get ONE of the blue birds, not all 3 of them.  One of the Tiny Blue Birds is going to be called Angry Bird #5.

I also went ahead and made 1 Green Pig.  This would be Angry Bird #6, even though it’s not a bird really.

Rules

The Contest will go for 1 week, from tonight (June 28th) until Midnight CST July 5th, 2011.  Winner will be announced on July 6th.  To enter, simply post a comment on my blog in response to this article stating why you think you should be the one to get to pick one of the Angry Birds or the Pig, something like “I want Angry Bird #2, and I should win just because I’m so cool” is fine,…whatever you want….any comment gets you an entry. Please also say which bird you think is the coolest, it doesn’t have to be the one you would choose, just which one you like right now the best.  If you make a ton of repeat comments I won’t count all of them, just FYI. Please try to keep it to no more than 1-2 a day, and keep each original.  At the end of the timeframe, I’ll see how many comments there are, then use a random number generator to pick the winner. Absolutely, it will be random. I’ll announce the winner here and email you to get your address to send you your bird. That’s it.

Oh, and this is not a private contest, so share the info with your friends. I do not expect or have to know the winner personally. Whoever is the holder of the random # post wins, period.

One thing to note — I get a lot of spam comments on this site, so, new comments have to be approved to show up. Once I have approved you, your comments will show up immediately. I will go in and approve comments a few times a day. Until then, your comment may be in a queue, please just be patient, it is there.

Good Luck!!!!

—–

Update. There were 46 comments. I used the Random Number Generator at Random.Org to generate the number, and the winner is comment #15, Anne.

oh, I think I should learn how to make my own, because I want them all! heehee. I like angry bird #4 to throw at my favorite peeps!

I’ll be sending you an email and then will mail you the angry bird of your choice!

This is a delicious recipe that I have adapted from the new Weight Watchers Points Plus Cookbook that is available at most Weight Watchers centers right now. I have not found it online yet, and it doesn’t have an ISBN on the back, so I am thinking that it is one of those limited books only available through Weight Watchers Publishing.

The recipe is really easy, tastes great, is a good side dish for any meal and low points (only 3 points for an enormous platter that is 1/4 of the entire batch). I like it so much I’ve actually  made a meal of a huge, whopping plate of it a few times.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Ingredients

• 1 – 2 1/2 pound spaghetti squash
• 2 tbsp pecans (or walnuts), chopped
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 2 Tbsp finely chopped fresh sage
• 1 tsp kosher salt (or 1/2 tsp table salt)
• 1/4 tsp black pepper

Instructions

Cut Spaghetti Squash in half lengthwise. This is easier said than done, and half of the time I’m convinced I’m going to cut my hand off. If anyone has a great technique for this I’m all ears. As it goes, I just go at it very patiently and very slowly, not using too much pressure or going for it with any aggression. Slow and steady, and maybe wobble the knife a bit when it is in deep enough to get the thing to split open a bit and help you out.

Scoop out the seeds with a spoon and dispose of them.  The squash is quite “thready”, so don’t go too crazy, just get the seeds out and leave it be.

Next, fill a pan with about 1/4 to 1/2 inch of water, and turn the two halves of the squash over in the pan so they are sitting in the water.  Put the oven at 400 degrees and bake for 40 minutes, or until tender when poked with a fork (fork slides in without too much force).

Meanwhile, chop up some pecans and dry roast them in a pan on the stovetop until they are just barely browned. They should smell nice and toasty, but not burned. Take them off the heat and set aside. This whole process of toasting takes 3-5 minutes max.

Take the baked squash out of the oven and let it cool for 5-10 minutes so that you’ll be able to lightly handle the squash.

While the squash is cooling, finely chop the sage. Use the same pan that you used for toasting the pecans. Add the olive oil and let it heat up a bit. Add the sage and stir fry the sage until it is nice and crispy (about 3-4 minutes). You do not want the sage to be browned, just crisped and kind of fried in the olive oil.

Take one of the Spaghetti Squash halves and turn it over into a large bowl. Use a soup spoon to scoop out the squash, leaving behind the rind/peel of the squash only. It should scoop out fairly easily and be very thread-like, kind of like spaghetti (duh).

Do the other side too. Then take two forks and kind of toss and break apart the squash so that it is nice and fluffy.

Add pecans and sage to the mix. Salt and Pepper too.

Toss.

Serve!

It really comes out so interesting. It tastes like there is butter in this dish, but there is none whatsoever. It is really very healthy, but tastes much better than most “healthy” dishes that I have come across like this.  This recipe makes 4 servings (which is a HUGE plate per serving I may add). Each serving is only 3 Points Plus Weight Watchers points — 111 calories, 5 g fat, 16 g carbs, 4 g fiber, 2 g protein.

For one of the holidays in the last 12 months (I don’t remember which, it may have been Valentine’s Day last year…hmmm..) my husband bought me (at my request) a Zojirushi Bread Maker. I was thinking that I wanted to try making bread, but was intimidated by the kneading and all of the variables involved where it could just go all so wrong.  I must say that this contraption is one of my favorite tools, second only in use to my Kitchenaid Mixer, which I also love dearly. I probably make bread with the Zojirushi at least once a week, sometime twice. I make sandwich bread, dinner rolls and cinnamon rolls, as well as sweeter bread “loaves” like pumpkin bread, cranberry bread and zuchinni bread. One of my favorite things that I have taken on and learned with this machine is to try new flours — kamut, garbanzo (chickpea), teff, graham, oat, barley, rye….it’s been a lot of fun for me.

This is the one that I have (above). It makes a 2 pound loaf. This model is discontinued now, but the replacement one is almost exactly the same (roughly the same price too).  My husband got mine at a local Sur la Table, but they have them available at Amazon.com I noticed, and there the shipping is free and it looks like you can get a good percentage off the retail price.  These babies are super duper awesome, but not super duper cheap just FYI.

Anyway, last night I was invited to an all women potluck for “foodies”, which was cleverly nicknamed “The Hungry Woman” night out…or something to that effect. One of the things I decided to share was my Whole Wheat Flour Olive Bread that I’ve come up with for my bread maker.  This is a recipe that I initially got from online at allrecipes.com, but have adapted enough that I feel I have made it my own.  It’s easy, doesn’t require too many ingredients, makes the house smell great, and is just plain delicious.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup Brine from Olives
• 1 cup + 1 Tbsp Warm Water
• 2 Tbsp Olive Oil
• 3-1/3 Cups Bread Flour
• 1-1/3 Cups Whole Wheat Flour
• 1-1/2 tsp Kosher Salt
• 2 Tbsp Sugar
• 1-1/2 tsp Dried Basil
• 2 tsp Active Dry Yeast (not fast rising)
• 1/2 to 2/3 Cup Pitted, Chopped Olives — if you add 2/3 cup, you will likely need to add maybe 2 Tbsp more flour to keep the dough at the right moisture…read in the recipe about this.

Instructions

Remove Pan from Bread Maker. Put 1/2 Cup Brine into pan.

Add Warm Water to Pan. (with this bread maker, all liquid ingredients go first, then dry ingredients, then yeast — and you do NOT hand mix anything, just put the stuff in and shut the lid, turn it on and walk away, it’s so nice!)

Now add the oil.

OK, now add the dry ingredients right on top of this without disturbing the liquid too much. You want the dry ingredients to just sit on top of the wet ones.

Add Bread Flour.  To measure the Bread Flour you can simply scoop it with a spoon and then “cut off” the top with a bread knife. Do not pack down the flour, just spoon it in, kind of move it around so there are no air pockets, then cut off the top.

Pour that stuff right into the pan.

Now measure your Whole Wheat Flour and put into the pan the same way. I like to use King Arthur Whole Wheat Flour over the generic brands. I have found it to just work better for bread for some reason.  I also have started to store all of my flours in big, glass containers that I purchased at the Container Store (they are really inexpensive). I label them and they look really nice in my pantry, and I feel pretty confident I won’t be getting those darn pantry mites that I got once a long time ago that just annoyed the **bleep** out of me.

So, measure and add the Whole Wheat Flour the same way as the Bread Flour.

Next, we have the Kosher Salt, Sugar and Oregano. Measure those and add to the pan. For the Salt and Sugar, I try to add those around the outside, as I don’t want them directly interfering with what I am going to be doing with the Yeast in a bit (you’ll see).

So, there’s everything in the pan. Now…take the back of a spoon and kind of swirl a hole in the middle of the flour. Don’t go so deep that you hit liquid, but you want to make a little “dry well” for your yeast.

Now take 1 packet (equals 2 tsp) of dry yeast and pour it into the little hole. Do not use the fast rising yeast. Been there, done that…doesn’t work so well with Wheat Flour. I think the Wheat must take longer to absorb liquid or something. Go with the regular yeast that takes a few more hours, it’ll be well worth it.

OK. So now you’re ready to put the pan back into the bread maker, lock it down, close the lid and adjust the settings. You want to choose BASIC and WHEAT for your settings.  You can see here that it indicates this will take a total of 3 hours and 40 minutes to make you a nice, steamy, delicious loaf of homemade Whole Wheat Olive Bread. You can’t really see the setting arrows in this picture because of the shadow, but there are triangles pointing to the words BASIC and WHEAT below, just trust me.

So, the machine will go through some phases, first warming the mixture, then mixing it, then kneading it, then letting it rest, then beating it up some more. Eventually, after about an hour it will start beeping and tell you that it’s time to add the olives. So — at this point (right after you get the bread started), it’s time to start working on those olives so you have them ready.

Get your olives out and measure them. I made the sad mistake of not getting pitted olives this time, so I had a bit more work on my hands. I also went with an olive “medley” which made things a bit more interesting.

Here I went with 2/3 Cup olives.

Set those aside. Now, about an hour into this the machine will start it’s little beeping episode. It only beeps for maybe 10-15 times, so don’t miss it. This is the machine telling you that’s it’s time to add your special extra stuff that you are adding to the bread. Open up the bread maker and add the olives.

You can see in the photo it indicates there is still 2 hours and 47 minutes left in the whole bread making process.

Let the machine beat that around awile (maybe 5 minutes) then open it up and look to see how the dough looks. It should be in a ball, and not so moist that it is spreading all over the pan. If it seems too moist then add 1 Tbsp of flour. Watch what happens. Does it pull together as it beats the dough around? If not, add 1 more Tbsp of flour. That should do it, you should not need more than that. If you were aggressive with the olives this can happen (like if you add 2/3 Cup instead of 1/2 Cup…) the moisture in the olives can require a little more flour. It’s not too hard, just watch it and see it it looks right. Also, at this time you can scrape down any dough that has lost itself up at the top of the pan.

Here’s what the dough should look like (consistency). Note also that I watched the dough cycle be done (prior to the last rise) and used a spreader to make it spread out evenly across the pan. When I haven’t done that I have at times ended up with some lopsided loaves. They still tasted good, just a bit lopsided without this extra step.

This is the bread right before the final rise.

Then after the final rise and right before the machine starts “baking” the dough.

Then the machine just bakes that loaf all by its little old self and then beeps for you when the bread is done. Take the pan out, let it cool about 5-10 minutes, then turn the pan over and shake the bread out of the pan and let it cool on a rack.

Super Yummy, Super Easy, Super Fun.

I love my breadmaker.

For Mother’s Day last year my Husband (at my request) bought me this little, handy gadget from Williams Sonoma called “The Pancake Pen”. I regularly make pancakes in huge batches for my children each weekend and put them in the freezer (mostly for my Son, he’s the pancake gobbler-upper). I tend to make silver dollar sized pancakes, as both children like to take 2 pancakes and sandwich them with some peanut butter in between and then dip them in syrup.  One child will eat 8-12 pancakes at a time this way, daily.  I usually make banana pancakes, but sometimes I get creative and use pumpkin or sweet potato puree. The children prefer banana. I’ve also experimented and used different types of flours (whole wheat (of course), buckwheat, barley, spelt, amaranth to name a few) and come up with a pancake that is healthy and still tasty.

This Pancake Pen gadget has really made it easy for me to whip out large batches of small pancakes with very little mess.

I make the pancake batter using my Kitchenaid mixer and then put the plastic pour guide on the bowl and just pour the batter right into the pancake pen. I have also used a large funnel, and that works just as well. Either way, it gives you a huge amount of control in how you place the pancakes as well as how large they are. No drips, no accidentally spoon spillage. And the price is really good too.

One other thing that I found this Pancake Pen is GREAT for — CUPCAKES! I poured cupcake batter into this little gadget and guess what, easy as pie to pour right into each little cupcake tin with no mess. I like to make the little mini-muffins, so that really ended up being a huge bonus when I discovered the cross-over  use. I wish I had these 2 years ago when I made those Orange Kitty Cat Cupcakes in Ice Cream Cones — the ice cream cones would have been a lot less messy let’s just say.

They have these at Williams Sonoma for about $10 (in stores and online). I also found something similar by Tovolo on Amazon.com for $12.50.  This is one tool I give 5 stars — inexpensive price, high satisfaction.

From the Weight Watchers New Complete Cookbook (Points Plus)

Page 396

Ingredients (ever so slightly altered by me)

• 1/2 cup oats (not instant, the real deal)
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt (I changed this to kosher salt and added a bit more, after tasting the cookies with 1/4 tsp kosher salt both my husband and I agreed it needed a bit more salt to make the chocolate really “pop”)
• 4 Tbsp unsalted butter, slightly melted
• 3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup semisweet mini chocolate chips (these were good, but next time I think I’ll do 6 ounces of 70 percent+ dark chocolate chopped with a knife and see how that tastes).

Instructions

Heat Oven to 350 degrees

Cover baking sheet with a piece of parchment paper

Put Oats in a blender or food processor and pulse until they are finely ground.  This is so cool — it’s like it makes an “Oat Flour” that you use in this recipe. Healthy, low in points, and gives a really nice nutty flavor to the cookies along with the Whole Wheat flour.

Mix Oats, Whole Wheat Flour, Baking Soda and Salt together.

In a mixer, beat butter, brown sugar, egg and vanilla until well blended.

Stop mixer, add dry ingredients. Turn on low and mix thoroughly. Use a scraper to scrape down if needed. Just mix until barely blended.

Add Chocolate Chips. Remove Bowl from mixer & mix these in by hand.

Roll into balls of dough about 1 heaping Tbsp each. Put onto baking sheet. Should make about 20 balls. The balls will need to be pressed together with your hands to stick as the batter is very dry feeling compared to regular batter.

Bake for 14 minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes on sheet.

Remove from sheet to cooling rack and let cool for another 5 minutes.

Enjoy!

Note: Don’t miss my Blog entry on Penguins of Madagascar Birthday Fun (Games & Activities) or Making  a Homemade Penguins of Madagascar Birthday Cake too!

In coming up with the invitations and decorations for my Son’s 4th Birthday party, which had a Penguins of Madagascar theme, I really struggled. There was nothing out there at the time as far as invitations OR decorations that had ONLY the Penguins of Madagascar theme. All the stuff I found was centered around Alex & the other 3 original characters. So — I decided to just get a bit creative and come up with my own stuff. It took a lot more planning, and time, but it did come out so much better.

INVITATIONS

For the invitations, I used Adobe Photoshop to craft a Movie Theater Ticket style invite with the Penguins on it. If any of you want the PSD template, comment here and I can make it available to you. Below is the electronic version. I printed the snail mail invites on glossy photo stock paper using an inkjet printer. I sent multiple invites per envelope — so if it was a family of 4 (2 kids & 2 parents), I would enclose 4 tickets. Nobody really had to bring their tickets to attend, but it was kind of a fun touch, as if they did have to.

DECORATING THE HOUSE

For decorating the house, I went with the Penguins of Madagascar color theme (Blue, Black, White, Yellow) and got table covers, plates, napkins, balloons, etc in all those random colors. We got a tank of helium and blew up the balloons the AM before the party and put them all over the house. I ordered a Penguins of Madagascar Poster off of eBay. Back then, they only had 1 Poster choice. Now (I just looked) there are maybe 6-7 to choose from, so you could get 2 or more posters and go nuts with it. I am glad I got the poster I did because I was able to use it to make the SKIPPER balloons I will talk about next. Here’s the poster I got:

Notice also on the right in the small window — the construction paper penguin. I wanted to get this “down” before I attempted it on the balloons. I ordered some LARGE black balloons — much larger than the normal helium balloon size. I then took tracing paper and traced the SKIPPER off the poster you see above and made parts. Since the balloons were black, I really only needed the have the WHITE and the ORANGE parts in order to pull off the balloon idea I had (or so I thought). It took a few tries, but once I got it right I was able to make 5-6 of these large black balloons with SKIPPER on them and put those strategically all over the house. So basically 2 WHITE pieces of paper, 1 ORANGE piece of paper (draw on it with a sharpie after you cut it out) and some large glue on Googly Eyes that you can get at any Michaels, Hobby Lobby, JoAnn’s Fabric, etc.   The black hands part just “appears” when you put the two white pieces one above another. What you’re actually seeing is just the balloon there.  I used double stick tape to attach the paper (be careful, you get one chance with that, you try to pull it off and you pop the balloon in a snap).

Well, how else was I going to decorate the house for the party? At the time, there were some really cool posters available to download on Nick.com, but right as the party approached, they pulled them.   The posters STILL aren’t available on the site at this point, but lucky thing, I had downloaded them prior to them being pulled! Ha ha ha…..neener neener! I printed up the posters (they are 8.5″ x 11″) and used a curling ribbon and a stapler to make a long hanging banner of pictures of the characters, and hung that between the rooms as a sort of “garland”.  A pic of how it turned out is below.

And a bit closer up pic of a couple of the posters.

POSTER DOWNLOADS

Here are the posters that you can download yourself (right click on any of the images below and choose SAVE LINK AS in order to save the PDF to your harddrive for printing):

GOODIE BAGS

Finding Goodie Bags for the Party was a bit of a challenge. At the time that I threw this party (about 1-1/2 years ago actually), there was very little out there about the Penguins of Madagascar to buy. Everything around them was about the Lion, Giraffe, etc from the movie, but very little on the Penguins. Not sure if it is still the same.  So, I kind of had to come up with my own plan on the Goodie Bags. What I ended up doing was ordering some drawstring muslin bags and then using Iron On decals (from Office Max) that I printed with my Ink Jet Printer, to make custom made bags. They came out really cute.  I got the drawstring bags off of Etsy.com.  I don’t remember the exact vendor, but basically I asked for them plain and specified I wanted blue ribbon in them instead of the string. The gal who made them was happy to oblige and I got them lickety-split (within days).  You can search on Etsy for something like “Drawstring Bags Muslin” and find lots of vendors who sell these.

Making Iron On Decals for the Goodie Bags

The Red Text in the Blue Square says “Operation Codename Kimball” and the Birthday Party date.

Cutting out the Iron Ons

Ironing the Images onto the Muslin Bags

I found it important to put a pillowcase underneath these so that the iron on would go on smoothly (my ironing board is old and the pad is admittedly a bit worn out).  Just follow the instructions on the iron on transfer paper. See the nice, blue ribbon that the gal who made the muslin bags put in there? I tried to match the colors on the iron on decal to the ribbon as closely as I could.  Oh — didn’t mention, I just used Adobe Photoshop to make the Iron On Transfer image. You could use any graphics program though, probably even Microsoft Word if you had to.  I started with this image (master copy, large file — download it by clicking here).  It has a nice white background and allows you a bunch of options.

So, I worked at it for one entire, LONG evening and made a big batch of these things.

Penguins of Madagascar Goodie Bags

Then stuffed them. I had to find fun things to stuff them with, and hopefully with a Penguin type theme. I searched around awhile and came up with some plastic penguins from a Toobs collection:

Penguins Toobs Collection

I found the Toobs Penguins off Amazon.com. I think I buy just about everything there anymore….love them.

STICKER SHEET DOWNLOADS

At the time, Nick had downloads of “sticker sheets”. I used these for the goodie bags as stuff to “stuff” them with. I printed the sticker sheets on my inkjet printer on sticker paper that I bought at Office Depot/Max/Staples — whatever.  Then I cut the stickers out (left the backing on), and put an assorted qty of stickers in each of the goodie bags. If you are interested in the sticker sheets (they aren’t on Nick anymore either…but I grabbed ‘em before they got pulled), you can download them here.

Right click on any of the images below and choose SAVE LINK AS in order to save the PDF to your harddrive for printing:

The other stuff I got to fill the goodie bags was just standard party favor stuff that kids would like. I just looked again too, and you know, there really is just a shortage of POM (Penguins of Madagascar) stuff out there, or even just straight Penguins. I did see some Penguin Gummy Bears, but I feared they were black licorice flavor, which would NOT go well with my particular son.  I really wanted to find POM Pez containers, that would have been awesome.

Anyhow, here is how the stuffed Goodie Bags turned out.

Penguins of Madagascar Stuffed Goodie Bags

So that’s really it. The kids had a lot of fun.

I have 2 other blog entries on this party — one is about making a homemade Penguins of Madagascar Birthday Cake, and the other is about the Penguins of Madagascar Birthday Fun (Games and Activities) we played. I hope these are helpful if you’re planning on throwing a Penguins of Madagascar Birthday Party sometime soon.

Points Plus points….not the old points.  Slightly altered, so I think the points may be even less actually….

Weight Watchers Spinach Spanakopita Triangles

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup fat free ricotta cheese (recipe called for reduced fat feta cheese actually, the ricotta tasted great though)
• 1 package (10 oz) frozen shopped spinach, thawed and squeezed to remove almost all the water.
• 3 green onions, chopped (entire onion, white and green parts)
• 1/4 diced fresh tarragon.  Recipe called for Dill, but I only had tarragon, it turned out delish!
• 1 large egg white
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 8 (12 x 17-inch) sheets frozen phyllo dough, thawed in fridge for 24 hours.
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

Instructions

Cover a baking sheet in parchment paper.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Mix all ingredients above except for phyllo dough and butter.

Lay 1 phyllo sheet on work surface. Spray lightly with canola or olive oil spray.

Lay 2nd sheet on top of same sheet, layering them.

Take a pizza cutter or sharp knife and cut phyllo perpendicular to the long side into 6 strips. (3 each side of the seam). So that you have 6 fatter short strips, not 6 really skinny long strips.

Place about 1 tbsp of the spinach mixture on one end of each strip.

Fold corner of phyllo dough up and over, making a triangle. Continue to fold, flag folding style, down the length of the strip. When you are done you will have a little, encapsulated, triangular spinach package.

Arrange all the triangles onto the parchment covered cookie sheet.

Brush lightly with melted butter.

Bake for 25 minutes.

1 point (Points Plus) EACH. What a deal. Super tasty, filling and satisfying. I ate 7 (whoops, make that 9) of them tonight and feel pretty darn good about it. Yum!  I just made it a whole meal.

From the Jan 2011 Weight Watchers New Complete Cookbook that my Nephew got me for Christmas this year — full of new Points Plus rated recipes. Thanks Kenny!

My newest obsession has to do with Whole Grain Flours and Baking.  It was partially fueled by Kim Boyce’s brand new cookbook Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole-Grain Flours, which is a fantastic cookbook that I am currently baking my way through one recipe at a time (have done 4 of them already…see this blog entry).  Anyhow, going out and acquiring all of these different flours — Teff, Amaranth, Spelt, Barley, Buckwheat, Corn, Kamut, Oat, Quinoa,Wheat, Rye….oh MY! My pantry quickly became a pile of BAGS of flour. What a mess.

I wish I had taken a BEFORE picture….alas.

Anyway. I got this idea in my head last weekend to head on over to the Container Store to see what I could do to make my Pantry a little more pleasing to the eye AND a little more functional with all these flours in hand. I had read in Kim’s cookbook that plastic is not what you want, as the little mites can get right through it. Glass apparently is the way to go.  At the store I found the little beauties shown at the top of this blog article, and they were very inexpensive I may add!

They come in 3 sizes — 1 Qt, 2 Qt and Gallon size. I bought 4 Gallon ones (for White Flour, Wheat Flour, White Sugar and Powdered Sugar), and a bunch of 2 Qt sized ones. I didn’t buy any 1 Qt ones — I save my salsa jars and wash the labels of those and use those for things of small qty.

I am really pleased with how these have turned out in my Pantry. It is so fun and inspiring to walk in there and to see all these nicely labelled jars staring back at me, asking for me to bake something fun. For just around $100 I got a pleasing pantry mini-makeover and a smile on my face each time I open that pantry door that has lasted days now.

Fergie Quixotic

At least right now, it’s my latest fashion obsession. I just saw these new ones tonight, they are called the “Quixotic” and I like them in the color they are calling “Zebra.”  I think these would go great with capri jeans, boyfriend rolled up jeans, skinny jeans, white pants…black pants….quite versatile looking. I also think they look like they would be quite comfortable and casual, but with a dressy flair. Fun!

Fergie Pistol Boot

I’m hoping over the summer or maybe entering next fall I’ll find a pair of these Fergie boots either on a website or at Nordstrom Rack on clearance. I really like them, just not enough to cough up over $150 for them. I want these in black. I think they’d go great with some skinny jeans or tights.

Shoes I managed to get my hands on…

I already have the two pairs of Fergie shoes below. My most recent acquisition was these, the Fergie Jonas sandles. I got them on sale at Nordstrom Rack in Dallas.  The strap in the back was a little big for my foot and I had the cobbler adjust it slightly – but he got too aggressive and now they are a bit to tight. I’m still hopeful I can stretch them out. We’ll see if I end up having to dispose of them or not. Boo hoo! Bad Cobbler!

Fergie Jonas

Oh…and you may recognize these from my post (Mom, those Look Terrible!) about my daughter’s HORROR at me attempting to stretch them out by force, wearing my thickest socks and spending a few hours marching around the house in them one afternoon (to no avail).

And my very first pair of Fergie shoes I acquired, thanks to my friend Torri — Black Fergie Peppers. I love these. They are SO comfortable despite being super duper high. I am so much taller than anyone else when I wear them is what is a little strange (see end of article for pic), but I have worn these and walked and walked and walked, and had no problems. I guess your foot is not really at that much of an incline due to the platform in the front, and then with all the straps holding your foot in, they are just really comfortable shoes. I’ve worn these mostly with boyfriend jeans and a blazer…my favorite outfit to pair them with, but they would go with a lot of things (I’ve also worn them with an understated black dress). Plus — there are lots of pics of Fergie out there wearing them too, so you know she likes ‘em herself (good sign).

Fergie Pepper

And not to be one-upped by Fergie, here’s a picture of ME wearing my Fergie Peppers at our Girl’s Night Out Christmas Gift Exchange this year.  Although it’s pretty darn hard not to be one-upped by her, geez Louise. She’s one hot Mama.

The only negative thing I can say about the Peppers is that when I do wear them, I am tall. Very tall. Much taller than I’m used to being. As long as I’m alone or with my Man, it’s ok. BUT, when with a bunch of gal-pals, all of which are wearing no shoes or flats, it can get to be a little weird. Check out this pic. I had more than one person ask “what is Mindy standing on?” when they saw it. **grin** Kind of funny.

Anyhow, I’m sure I’ll be onto something new and crazy next year, but I’m having a lot of fun with these. The sizing is predictable and seems constant, and I haven’t found anything horrifying yet. And — if you are a thrifty shopper like me, you can really find some great bargains at Nordstrom Rack or even at some of the online shoe stores or Amazon.com.

I went to high school with Kim Boyce’s husband Thomas. I was never really close friends with Thomas in school, but it wasn’t a big school at all (125 in my grade only), so we all “knew” each other even if we didn’t “know” each other. At my 20 year HS reunion a few years ago (ssshhhhh….I’m not really that old, am I?), my husband and I spent a good amount of time sitting at a table outside, enjoying the company of Thomas and his wife Kim. They have 2 children about the same age as ours, and they were just a really nice, pleasant, normal couple to hang out with and to share some stories.

Kim just had a cookbook published that is all about cooking with whole grains – Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole-Grain Flours.  Kim used to work professionally as a pasty chef at Spago and elsewhere in the LA area, and I am certain knows 100X more than I do in the kitchen when it comes to baking. I was really excited when her book arrived in the mail 2 days ago from Amazon.com.

Tonight I tried out the 1st recipe in the book — Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip cookies. I was curious. Would they be a bit weird? Would they be too dense, or a disappointment overall, like other 100% whole wheat substitutions I have tried in the past (to my dismay).

Well, I wasn’t let down. In fact, I am shocked. These have got to be the best chocolate chip cookies I think I’ve ever made in my life. My Father-in-Law, a native East Texan, was over and he gobbled up 3 of them and kept raving over them (I sent him home with 3 more). I only had 1 good chocolate bar in the house, so I had halved the recipe, plus my kids gobbled up 2 cookies and my father in law ate 3, and I ate 1 before I took the pics, so there aren’t many left in the pics below for a good reason. But no kidding, these cookies are out of this world delicious!

Thank you so much Kim for your wonderful cookbook. I can’t wait to try more of the recipes!

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies - page 41

3/7/2010 – Update.

Tonight I tried the Currant Scones on page 162. They are made with Spelt Flour, which I had never used before.   Spelt is closely related to wheat, just much finer as a flour, and much more ancient in origin.  Spelt flour has a natural sweetness to it, while still being mild, (much more mild than wheat flour). This allows it to compliment other flavors rather than overpower them.

I must say, these are a 2nd homerun in a row. This cookbook is really working out very well for me overall so far. I can’t wait to try more things. The only thing I worry about is my waistline!!!!

Here’s a picture of the scones. I substituted raisins, as I didn’t have currants on hand, and the grocery store I shop at wanted me to buy a whole pound of them minimum….which I wasn’t willing to do for just 1 recipe.  The raisins worked just fine.

Spelt Currant Scones - page 162

3/9/2010 — Update.

Tonight I made the Sweet Potato Muffins from page 44.  These call for Whole Wheat Flour, Buttermilk, Plain Yogurt and Medjool Dates. I followed the recipe EXACTLY to the T. The only thing I slightly did at all different was that I made 6 muffins in regular sized muffin tins, and then the balance of them in mini-muffin tins. I cooked all of them the same time, just leaving the bigger ones in for 2 more minutes as I handled the smaller ones. They came out super delicious.  Another home run. This cookbook is amazing.

Whole Wheat Sweet Potato Muffins - page 44

Kim instructs the user to “twist each muffin out, and place it on its side in the cup to cool. This ensures that the muffin stays crusty instead of getting soggy.” I did just that…(pic below). I had never tried that technique before. I’ve read through her book and see it mentioned in a few places, so it may be one of those tricks that the pastry chefs know about that the rest of us just haven’t been privy to. I tried it and it worked very well for me, so I think I have a new technique on my hands.

Anyhow…like I said, these are delicious and well worth making. We’ll see what my kids think tomorrow AM when they get up. My husband already wolfed one of these down. I ate 2 (mini ones) — sssssshhhhhhh…..

3/15/2010 — Update.

Tonight’s recipe —  Figgy Buckwheat Scones from Page 80. Holy cow, these are out of this world good. They remind me of a very wholesome, sconey (is that a word) fig newton. Making the fig butter I knew these were going to be out of this world. I am really glad that my husband bought me a cake lifter, as I used it a lot when trying to work with the dough. It made the dough much easier to work with, as the dough is quite sticky. I used the white flour to flour the surface of my working table, and next time I think I’ll try the buckwheat flour — and maybe not use quite so much. I got a bit of the flour “dustiness” on the side of my finished product. I didn’t change how great they taste, it’s just a visual thing. Here they are in all their glory:

Figgy Buckwheat Scones - page 80

3/18/2010 — Update.

Last night I made the cookie dough for the Buckwheat Poppy Seed Wafers and let it chill overnight in the fridge. Today, I cranked up the oven and finished the process. These cookies are like a Dark, Buckwheat Shortbread. Be forewarned, if you like molasses and like shortbread, these are going to be very dangerous things to have around the house. I can’t wait until next year during the holidays to make bunches of these to share w/friends and family. For now, my husband and I are enjoying them with cookies. I’ll have to give some away of course, as I don’t want to weight 10,000 pounds. My son won’t touch them, (he’s 4 years old) as he is convinced that the poppy seeds on the outside are “dirt”, despite my insisting otherwise. So be it. Poor baby.

Buckwheat Flour Poppy Seed Wafers - Page 84

3/21/2010 — Update.

Today I made the Whole Wheat, Molasses, Prunes and Orange Juice Muffins from page 54.  I found that instead of Wheat Bran as the recipe called for, I had done a “uh-oh” and bought Wheat Germ. I had about 1/4 cup of Oat Bran in the pantry, so I used that and just filled the rest of the cup up with the Wheat Germ. It turned out just fine. The other substitution I did was I substituted Spelt Flour for the Amaranth Flour called for in the recipe. I didn’t have any Amaranth Flour on hand and have had a really hard time finding it. I will eventually get some and try the recipe exactly as it is written, but with those 2 substitutions, the muffins still came out warm, dark and delicious. I made mini-muffins, so that I can put one of these in my children’s lunchbox as a snack when they go to school. These were a bit of work, but so healthy and I definitely see me making them again.

Whole Wheat, Molasses, Prunes and Orange Juice Muffins - Page 54

3/25/2010 – Update.

Tonight I whipped up a batch of Cornmeal Blueberry Cookies to bring to our Girl’s Night Out club meeting tomorrow night. These cookies contain 2 cups of Corn Flour, 1 cup of regular White Flour and 1 cup of Corn Meal — among other things. In addition to that, the “secret” ingredient is 1 cup of dried blueberries. I was glad it was only 1 cup, as I bought these in the bulk section of our local Whole Foods, and they were $19.99/pound! Luckily, 1 cup is only about 1/8 of a pound, so it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. I’ll look at Central Market next time to see how much they are there. These cookies are crispy on the outside, and somewhat like a mixture between cornbread and a scone on the inside. They are not too sweet, which is just how I like my pastries — the type that go GREAT with a cup of coffee. We’ll see what the gals think of them tomorrow.

Corn Flour and Dried Blueberry Cookies - Page 93

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