parisian delights + recipe + new print

here's a few belated photos from our trip to Paris/ post-Hugglets. we stayed with our friend Melanie and her 2 cats in her petite apartment.  i know it is SO evil of me to post these pictures of a typical French breakfast...but a healthy alternative follows :) from her neighborhood bakery: fresh croissants, pain chocolat, pain aux raisin, the made-by-the-devil Nutella (spread on crepes, bread), soft brioche (similar to callah here in the states), juice and coffee. the manufactured Nutella isn't very healthy (as i said, made by the devil) plus it has nuts which i'm allergic to...but that chocolately smooth texture had me jonesing to make my own version soon as we got back to chicago.

  

viola! healthy, vegan, better-than-nutella! i substituted with almonds. made in a matter of minutes. recipe via chocolate covered katie. it is heavenly spread on multigrain or sourdough toast, with a lot less guilt.

the ladies swooned over the macarons at Laduree. the rose & caramel were my favorites. i never had a macaron before, so where a better place than Paris to try my first!

which inspired my new print: elephant eating macarons! there are a few more fun elephant prints now available in my etsy print shop.

enjoy the weekend! it's rain, rain, rainy here. ☂

seven year granola

i've been making our own granola for a while now, a very simple recipe with no oil and just sweetened with honey. though Rob enjoyed it, he requested if i could make it with clusters. well, i figured that to get clusters it's gonna have more sugar and oil to make it stick, right? my cluster curiosity was picqued however, and after a google search i stumbled upon "seven year granola" by The Traveler's Lunchbox. it's accompanied by an hilarious story about the "Lip Lady's secret granola" you must read! when i saw cinnamon, cardamom and nutmeg, i hit "bookmark". it's the best granola i have made so far... and Rob agrees! recipe here

**the recipe was way to sweet for me (i want granola, not cookies-lol) so i made some adjustments:

• increase oats to 3 cups
• use half the amount of butter
• reduce brown sugar to 3/4 cup instead of 1 cup (could even go to half cup)
• add about 1/4 cup of ground flax meal
• i went with chopped dates in todays batch

what could be better than the aroma of freshly baked granola on a chilly autumn morning? try not to eat handfuls of it while it cools :)

urban homesteading

thought i'd share with you a little about our urban homestead in case any of you are curious! here's the organic veggie bed in early-summer. this year we laid down the square foot grid and it's a lot more organized and productive. we planted a variety of salad greens, kale, scallions, herbs, broccoli, mustard greens, and peppers... all in this one raised bed! this year we also built a second raised veggie bed for zucchini, tomatoes and whatever else. we potted 17 or so tomato plants to free up space in the beds.

veggie garden in july. cool weather-loving salad greens are all gone and peppers (carnival mix, red/green bell, jalepeno) are starting to produce. the little strawberry plant (below the veg bed) had only one strawberry which a squirrel ate.

yum. basil basil basil.

turned it into nut-free pesto. easy recipe here.

the pesto is great on pizza. i make our own pizza dough (whole wheat) and love my pizza stone. i bake bread and baked potato wedges on it. it changed my life! every kitchen needs one of these.

whole grain bread made in cast iron loaf pan.

same recipe baked on pizza stone. i amend the recipe by using all whole wheat flour and adding 2 TBSP of wheat gluten, sometimes adding ground flax meal, raisins, sunflower and sesame seeds, what have you. my studio is a few feet away from the kitchen so i can hear the oven timer go off :) and that about does it cos it's time for me to make dinner! have a great night. xoxo

preparing the palette

step 1: mohair inventory

step 2: hand dye mohair

step 3: bake bread (recipe here)

step 4: thank god there are mushroom burgers in the fridge, cos i am beat!

sewing (re)commences tomorrow!
have a nice evening...xoxo

happy birthday virgos!

hey there. sorry i've been posting so sporadically lately. just been busy doin' rather than writin'. this past week was my mom's and rob's birthdays...2 days apart! i made vegan carrot cake for rob from a moosewood recipe, substituting vegan butter for cow butter. carrot cake spices are just perfect for this time of year. though these tie dyed cupcakes would be pretty awesome too! via glutenfreebaking.com.

in other news: just finished up special orders, sent orders to shops, and knee deep working on new fall creations! the plan is to have a bear/spooky monkey update by end of this month. can i do it?? best be getting back to sewing! have a fabulous weekend :)

honing my homestead skills

what you see here is our organic veggie garden with cantaloupe on the tee pee, heirloom roma tomatoes, and a single basil buried under there. i went a little overboard with seeding cos i wanted to be sure something would grow, and thus it got pretty crowded! the salad greens are gone and time to replant for fall crop. in the background are wildflowers, absentee clematis on the trellis (way too slow growing, we'll plant something else in fall), and morning glories + moon flowers along the fence. everything we planted from seed, except the clematis. i'm all about the seeds :) keep in mind this was nothing but a lumpy barren yard of grass and weeds when we bought the house. now it's plants and weeds, lol.

couldn't resist a georgia o'keeffe moment with the moonflower... gosh they smell nice.

i wrote that note for my husband, cos i didn't want him shaking the jar like a science project while the lids sealed. well, it was my first attempt at home canning! here i was prepared for a huge canning project, then seeing my 2 colanders-full of tomatoes reduced to only 2 jars (i was expecting 4 jars). i even had to top off one jar with some water. it was nothing short of a miracle the lids sealed properly- hallelujah! it gives me motivation to plant more veggies next spring.

well, that's my little "homestead minute"! we haven't been doing much in the yard (read: borderline neglect!) in july or august... too hot. as the summer wanes i'm looking forward to fall clean up and fall plantings. and seeing how tall the sunflowers grow :)

Easy Homemade Organic Rice Milk

When a neighbor/ busy mom of 3 told us she makes her own rice milk for her family, I had to investigate. I discovered it's SO easy and economical to make: 1 cup of rice = nearly half gallon of rice milk. So here's my first batch! Needs some tweaking, but overall I'm fairly impressed with it. For baking purposes (like the 1.5 cups I used in pancakes yesterday), it's impossible to tell the difference between homemade rice milk vs. manufactured. There's a few variations of the recipe out there, but I tried this one first. Goes well with homemade nut butter :)

10 minute Homemade Almond Butter

This recipe for homemade almond butter is so easy I'm just bustin' to share it with you. I buy almonds in a big bulk bag since I'm allergic to other nuts (except peanuts) and use almonds as a substitute in many recipes. You can use other nuts with this recipe to make your own natural nut butter.

2 cups of almonds=10 ounces almond butter.

• Roast almonds on baking sheet @ 350 degrees, about 8-10 minutes. Let cool.
• Grind in food processor on high, about 10 minutes until the nuts release their oils. Be patient, it WILL happen.
• Add a teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil if tastes too dry.
  

Can you believe how simple it is? One less thing on my grocery list :)