Bake Sale!

Maple Bacon Scones, are you kidding me.

I figured since I invited a bunch of people to the bake sale for breakfast, I would need to provide something other than a bunch of cookies and cupcakes (although really for the kids, they thought they were in heaven, surrounded by cookies and cupcakes).

I wanted something that wasn't going to be too sweet, and had some substance to it.

I have a really great scone recipe that I love. So I tweaked it a bit, used Maple syrup and brown sugar for sweetness, and bacon instead of berries... next time I think I will do a brown sugar bacon, and maybe some cinnamon added. They were super good though, I personally prefer the straight up berry and lemon zest version, but always up to try something new
.

Here is the Scone recipe (with the cinnamon added that I think it needs)

• 4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for surface
• 3 tablespoons Brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons baking powder
• 1/2 to 1 tablespoon Cinnamon
• Salt
• 2 sticks cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 2 3/4 cup crumbled bacon
• 1 3/4 cups plus 2 teaspoons heavy cream
• 1/4 cup pure Maple syrup
• 1 large egg yolk lightly beaten with 2 tablespoons heavy cream, for egg wash
• Coarse sanding sugar

Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and 1 teaspoon salt in a medium bowl. Cut in butter with a pastry cutter or rub in with your fingers. (The largest pieces should be the size of small peas.) Toss in bacon. Pour in cream, and Maple, and stir until mixture just comes together. Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface, and pat into a 1-inch-thick round.

Cut into triangles or whatever shape you want. Freeze for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Brush tops of scones with egg wash, and sprinkle with sanding sugar. Bake until golden brown, about 28 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature. Drizzle with Maple glaze.

Maple Glaze

1 1/2 tablespoons Maple syrup

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon milk (or water)

1/2 to a cup of powdered sugar

Combine all ingredients and drizzle over scones.

enjoy!

...watching Create...

Saturday morning, I sat on the edge of my mom's kitchen and helped her make bread for my bake sale. By helping I mean I drank coffee and talked, and talked, and talked. My mom bakes the best bread!

after I was done talking, I did make some more tiny pies.... So I guess I can say I did create too!

Speaking of pies in a jar.... day 3.

I am heading up a Bake Sale this weekend for our Womens group at church. I made individual Strawberry Rhubarb pies in a jar that are frozen, who doesn't love home made pie ready to pop in the oven, and no mess in the kitchen (the pie pictured above is already frozen, that's what they look like when you open them up to bake them, super cute, right?).

I have made these a couple of times to give as gifts, but have had issues with labels not sticking and coming off, or just not looking the way I would do them myself (there are some free downloadable labels here).

So Ollie and I made labels for our lids, they turned out great and so far are not doing anything funky in the freezer.

Here is how we did it.

 Using the ring as a guide draw a circle template, on some nice weight water color paper, with a super fine tip sharpie (I Love Sharpies).

I drew this little line drawing, than used some acrylic paint and water like water color to just add some color and detail. Cut out the circles leaving about a 1/4 inch of white outside the black line of the circle. just did this freehand with scissors, I am sure you could use an exacto if you aren't comfortable cutting freehand, just use the ring again but use the outside line as a guide rather than the inside.

Than we added some random stripes and painted the outside edge with Robins egg color, just cause I like that with the red...

I used Modge Podge to glue these, I dipped my brush in water first and brushed a thin layer of slightly watered down Modge Podge on the back. Pressed it to the lid, and than painted the top with another thin layer of Modge Podge. (make sure your paint is completely dry before you start glueing) I wanted to use a new Modge Podge that leaves a slightly raised clear layer, but this is what I had, and I didn't feel like heading to the craft store... Next time I will try the raised version though.



I love having the boys help me with projects, Ollie jumped in and wanted to do one. He used my design as a template, I must say his is awesome! Who can't resist a handmade label from a little man. I think I might have to make some of these for Ollie's teacher as an end of the year gift, all with his sweet little labels

... Love...

 Next time I do these I am going to make sure I write the heating instructions on the label. For this bake sale I am just going to attach a small tag with the instructions. Really having it right on the label is so much more convenient.

day 2... hippie hair...

About 6 months ago I stopped washing my hair..

I know it sounds weird, I know it makes me more of a hippie than I like to admit. The reason I stopped, I kept seeing articles about how washing your hair on a daily basis just strips your hair of it's natural oils, than we try to replace them with all this synthetic crap that the "Cosmetic Company Man" was telling us we needed to have healthy, beautiful, hair. The constant cycle of trying new shampoos than slathering my head in conditioners, than putting in leave in conditioner, gel or serum, and hairspray.... soooo much crap. Just to get a good curl going, that was going to stay all day. What this left me with is the need to repeat the cycle everyday... or my hair was a big ratted mess (it still kind of is, but at least it doesn't have a bunch of crap in it).

So that lead me to researching natural home remedies to use on my hair, that was going to leave me hair clean, but not stripped. To let it be natural and not all gooped up. So this is what I do.

I use a combination of a couple of different shampoo methods, just whatever I feel like for that day.
Sometimes just a apple cider vinegar rinse. I add 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar to a glass of Hot water, I put it on my hair, massage into the scalp and than rinse with lots of hot water. Sometimes the smell of the vinegar bugs me, but my hair never actually smells like vinegar... just in the shower.

Sometimes when I want the squeaky clean feeling, I put a couple of tablespoons of baking soda in a glass of water and massage the crap out of me head and scalp. This leaves you with a really squeaky clean feeling head of hair. I usually use a small dab of a natural organic conditioner after the baking soda... I have dry hair (i have even used lite coconut milk on my hair for a really deep condition).

What I like most is just half a lemon. I just cut a lemon and take half in the shower with me, I squeeze the juice on my head and massage it in. I like this the most, it smells super yummy and leaves my hair looking great. It is on the drying side, so I don't do this more than once to twice a week.

Than to really kick the hippie up one more notch. I make my own hair gel... so freakin weird, right!

Well I love it. I put one cup of warm water in a bowl and add one teaspoon of plain gelatin, mix well and stick it in the fridge. Once it has set up, I whisk in a couple of drops of lavender essential oil. I keep my gel in a jar in the fridge... it lasts me quite awhile, and seriously it is the best hair product I have ever used on my head. I don't feel all producted up, and it doesn't weigh my hair down like normal gel does, and it keeps the curls nice so I don't have to wash and repeat with the whole hair thing everyday.

So today, I made a batch of hair gel, does this count as creating something... I think so!

..day 1.. sweet treats...

Today I was baking for the Bake Sale I am heading up this weekend...

Super cute little Strawberry Rhubarb pies...

It is not fun when you are baking for a bake sale and you don't get any of the goods.

Seriously though... those pies are so freakin cute!

So Max and I made some little butterscotch pudding tarts to share with Ollie when he gets home.

First we lined some tiny muffin tins with left over pie crust. Cooked them up and than dropped a couple of chocolate chips in each one and let them melt.

Than we made our pudding and let it sit up, I much rather would have liked to use chocolate pudding, or even our Raw Chocolate pudding recipe (kind of on a chocolate kick) but we didn't have any, so butterscotch was our only choice... it did the job though.

and aren't they super cute... seriously I think anything in tiny little measurements is awesome.

It was so easy, and perfect cause we only had to make a couple of them. This actually is a dessert I have made a couple of times, when I just want that little baked something, but am not really in the mood to make a mess or take to much time in the kitchen! Yum! It made this really grey, yucky, rainy first day of June a little better... just a little.

...Max approved...

...30 days of Creativity...

So my friend Sarah, who is always full of awesome ideas and information, challenged me to 30 days of Creativity....

As you may have noticed I have kind of fallen out of the blog-o-sphere. This just may be what I need to get me back blogging.

I hope to be here everyday, showing you what me and the boys intentionally created for that day! Great way to start the summer too (HA... Ha... as it is pouring down rain outside my window!)

.. .grey..

Grey about sums it up...

My mood.

The weather.

This month has been non-stop chaos. I had three shows in three weeks, and in between a week in California, visiting the happiest place on earth, and most importantly Nana Barb.

This week, back to the cold of Oregon... the grey, I am finding my mood and motivation matching the color of the sky.

I keep forgetting to take my vitamins. I keep forgetting to drink my lemon water. I keep feeling overwhelmed by all the crap I get myself roped into. Overwhelmed by the unpacked suitcases spilling all over onto my bedroom floor. The unpacked show crap disorganized in the garage. And the looming bakesale that I am some how heading up.

My poor Max is bored out of his mind. He keeps asking for kids to come over and play with. Than when we do get some kids over here, fights with them, and tells them he needs quiet time from them. I am looking forward to school being out, but not looking forward to it either... cause that means I am going to have to entertain two monkeys. Hopefully I will be feeling better about life by that time. I think a change in the weather for the better would help, I must say the California sun felt great.

Okay done with my Whining.