Dining Room Art

For Christmas I might have picked out my own gifts. Maybe. Okay, well, I did. I wanted art for the dining room and found some that I liked and were fun. They lightened up the possible formal feel.

I really wanted one more but the others had weird sayings on them.

Now I will have to make an FHE chart in the same style. Any suggestions?

Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut

and sometimes you don't! A friend and I made Mounds a couple of weeks ago but they didn't turn out great. I brought mine home and Jim really liked them but the kids said, "Meh.". Well, I decided I would try to make them better. I read up on about 15 blogs, 30 recipes and picked out what I thought would work better and came up with these. They are a little less sweet and stick together really well.


Homemade Mounds or Almond Joys

1 package sweetened coconut flakes
3/4 of a bag of powdered sugar
3/4 cup mashed potatoes (make the instant as directed)
2 Tablespoons melted butter

1 package semi-sweet chocolate chips
3 Tablespoons shortening (NOT oil!)

For Almond Joys: toast about 45 whole raw almonds in the oven at 400' for 10 minutes
1 package milk chocolate chips
3 Tablespoons shortening


Fill a double boiler as directed and place powdered sugar and butter over boiling water. Stir constantly until a thick liquid. Stir in mashed potatoes until smooth. Add the coconut flakes and stir for about 3 minutes. Take off stove and place in freezer for 30 minutes stirring half way through.

Spread out 1/4 of the coconut mixture on a wax paper sheet. Put the rest in the refriderator. Flatten mixture to about 1/2" high and cut with a very sharp knife so the pieces are about 3/4" wide by 1" long. I wanted something that was 2 bites. (If you are making Almond Joys press toasted nuts into the top now.) Place these on a baking sheet on wax paper. Repeat until done with coconut mixture. Place molded pieces back in the freezer for 30 minutes.

About 5 minutes before you take the molded pieces out of the freezer boil water in the double boiler and melt appropriate type of chocolate and shortening for dipping.

Working quickly dip each molded piece in the chocolate. (Note: I used two forks and would dip, tap off excess, drag back of fork over edge and replace on the wax paper.) Once completely done it will take about an hour for the chocolate to be set. These will last nicely for about 4 days and, if you are desperate, for about a week.

The recipes that call for sweetened condensed milk are too sweet and mushy. I like this one because they don't fall apart due to the starch in the potatoes and the potatoes cut the sweetness just enough to make me want to eat more than one at a time.

Paula Dean's Prime Rib Revisited

I have read Paula Dean's Prime Rib recipe several times and just couldn't bring myself to do it until this year. I did decide to add my own herb crust but the cooking was all her doing.

Prime Rib

3 to 7 bone prime rib Frenched

1/2 cup coarse ground pepper

1/2 cup kosher salt

4 large cloves garlic

2 tablespoons fresh rosemary

2 tablespoons fresh thyme

1/2 cup olive oil

Garlic salt (Lawrys) optional

Preheat oven to 375'. Combine all herbs in a food processor and pulse until combined well. Add olive oil and pulse until combined.

Rinse prime rib and pat dry. Rub herb mixture all over prime rib. I added garlic salt at this point but I know how I like my crust to taste so you may want to play with this a bit.

Place rib in baking pan with rack rib side down. Place a meat thermometer where you can see if from the oven window.

Place in oven for 1 hour. (NOTE: This is for a 3 rib roast. For each additional rib add 5 to 7 minutes up to 1 1/2 hours for a full 7 bone prime rib.) Turn oven off. DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN DOOR!! Leave the prime rib for at least 3 hours. 3 long hours. Approximately 1 hour before you want to serve the meal turn the oven back on to 375'. Now you need to watch the meat thermometer - DON'T OPEN THE OVEN DOOR. Remember the end pieces will be more done than the middle pieces so where you place the thermometer is important in a larger cut. Think about how you like your meat and if you want any rarer pieces and then place the thermometer closer to the middle the more well done you want the entire cut. If you want it rarer overall then place the thermometer closer to the ends (between rib 1 & 2) but remember the middle will be more rare than that area. Take the rib out of the oven and let it rest for about 15 minutes. Serve with au ju and horseradish. Enjoy!

Christmas 2011

My kids were pretty happy with Christmas. You will notice that I am not in any of the photos. Somehow holding on to the camera makes it appear as if you weren't part of the festivies. Not true.... :-)

A Pirate-y Winter Book Fair

Water fall with treasure cave with cannon
Mermaid reading
Pirate ship with mast & sail

Sometimes I like being in charge so I can just run with ideas and not have a bunch of meetings that suck my life away. One of the people who help with the book fairs at school wanted to do a pirate theme. Every year at Christmas we do a "holiday" theme. Every. Single. Year. And every year we get grief from the administration about being "inclusive" and "sensitive". Seriously? So, avast ye hardies we were feeling the effects of scurvy I'm sure and abandoned all thoughts of a holiday theme. We turned the library into a pirate ship and a castaway island. Much fun was had by all and with the sales being the final result and they were up me laddies!

Master Bedroom

I want a large piece of art with yellow in it and to add a yellow fringed pillow to my bed. The far wall to the left is where the atlas art will go.

I am finally getting to posting pics of my master bedroom. I still have quite a few things that I'd like to do but I am being thwarted by the lack of a good atlas and time. I am on the hunt so when I get that part done I'll post again. Here is the work so far...

I need a lot of help on the top of this dresser. I spray painted several giant oak leaves silver but they aren't doing it for me. I just bought another taller version of the silver vase - now what to put in them.

In A Twist

I have been trying to make new bread recipes more often. My willing and able assistants were Lauren and her best friend Sydney. Our first batch was a little bulky (think fat pretzels) and needed to be slimmed down. We finally figured out that we needed to work in smaller batches, keeping about half the dough refrigerated until we had the first batch in the oven. We decided that we could lighten up on the salt it called for but over do it a little on the butter. They are much better serves fresh and hot but reheating in the microwave is okay.

Pretzels - modified from about six sources so really I'm calling this one new...

1 1/2 cup warm water

1 1/8 tsp active yeast ( 1 1/2 packages)

3 tsp brown sugar

1 tsp salt

1 1/4 cup bread flour

3 cups white flour (add or subtract a bit depending on how sticky the dough is)

4 cups hot water (almost scalding)

4 Tablespoons baking soda

Coarse salt

4 Tablespoons butter melted

Add yeast to warm water in a large mixing bowl; stir until dissolved. Add sugar and salt; stir until dissolved. Add bread flour then add white flour until dough is no longer sticky. Turn out onto floured surface and knead until smooth, about 5 minutes. Return dough to greased bowl and cover with light cheese cloth. Place in warm area to rise until double about 1 hour.

Pinch off pieces of dough about 1/2 cup size and roll into long ropes about 15" long and less than 1/2" thick.

Dip pretzel in soda solution and place on greased non-reactive baking sheet (Metal sheets will leave a bit of a metallic taste to the pretzels. You can also use parchment that you brush lightly with butter.) Place pan in a warm place to rise again for about 30 minutes.

Bake pretzels in a 450' oven for about 10 minutes until lightly browned. Brush with melted butter immediately and serve warm. You can add other toppings after you brush with butter such as: coarse salt, cinnamon/sugar, Parmesan or finely shredded cheddar cheese.