I'm a litle OCD

It's true.

I have a slight tendency towards obsessive compulsive behaviors.

I'm recently finding myself more and more obsessed with jars.

Mason jars specifically. 

I have begun switching out containers in my kitchen for jars. lovely jars. beautiful glass mason jars.

I don't know why but I am kind of in love with them.

Just a little.

Lately though it's not just storage.

I have recently become rather fixated on meals in jars, cooking in jars, food prepping in jars.

There is just something so lovely about seeing the ingredients stacked up in there.

Pastas and nuts and rice and beans, food becomes a decorative element.

 

I've begun food prepping my breakfasts in jars. Above are several bfast starters.

Some slow oats, a few chopped nuts, a pinch of raisins, a teaspoon of chia. In the morning I chop some fruit.......... Then a splash of almond milk and off to work I go.

Today it was mango, strawberry, and apple.

After an hour or two, give it a shake and dive in with a spoon .........

sooooooooooooo good.

You can also BAKE in them. Yea, I know. CRAZY!

(I hear you can then cool, cover, and freeze but I haven't  gone that far yet)

Over the weekend I made a pumpkin spice bead.

Again - oh. my. gosh. so good.

I am not quite sure THIS size is a single serving -- I split it into two, but I have smaller jars that I will try as well.

I also made a 'smores in a jar' but I wasn't crazy with how that turned out so I am going to tweak that and I'll get back to you on it. :)

What about you - do you use mason jars in the kitchen? Cook in them? Store food in them? 

Frosted Strawberries

These strawberries were hand picked by my family at Larriland Farm.

They look a little frosty - don't they?

Well that is because they ARE!

They have been washed

and hulled

and then given a quick freeze

before going into gallon ziploc bags to be used later for smoothies, slushies, other yummy treats.







And there were LOTS of them.

Two huge flats were picked and what is pictured here is only HALF of them!

We'll be eating strawberries for a while. :-)


Thats fine by me. Strawberries are so tastey and they are good for you!

Low in fat and sodium they are a good source of folate and potassium, and a very good source of dietary fiber, vitamin C and manganese. They are high in natural sugar but for most people this doesn't present a problem. So ENJOY!

Those frozen buggers are slippery though, especially on the new granite counter tops, so I did lose a few to the floor - and no, I did not apply the 10 second rule.

I knew when I wrote about the rule that it would be controversial- but I didn't realize until later, as I sat working at my desk, how untrue it really is. I mean, I do practice it - but there are so many clarifications and limitations on it that I began to wonder if it was really a true statement put out there the way it was.

In truth, I guess I am really only comfortable with my own dirt, as in, in my own home, so there is no applying it elsewhere. And even at home the rule depends on what bites the dust - nothing sticky, nothing wet (ewwwwww) . . and on and on, so a few of these lovely ladies did get tossed. Though one or two may have just gotten another good washing. ;-)

I was thinking the other day of a few other little known facts and oddities.

One of them being that I drive barefoot 3/4 of the year AND I often drive with my feet crossed. Strange. I know. I use my left foot under my right to sort of prop up my right foot. Don't know how it began, but its comfy and its how I do it.

Another - I'm a lovely procrastinator. (maybe not a little known fact) On rare occasions procrastination bites. But most of the time it works for me. I'm a last minute kinda gal. Then I just jump in and 'get 'er done'.

Which brings me to the fact that despite having a show on Saturday (come and see me at Gunpowder River Artfest!)

and I should be finishing up last minute items and polishing and pricing (oh my!)

what I did instead was BEGIN some new items!

[In between loads of laundry]

Now I feel compelled to finish these and take them with me on Saturday.

I am not sure that will happen though as I am already behind on a few other obligations which I truly am going to attend to tomorrow.


But, just maybe, if I can squeeze it in..... some of these enameled items will end up as earrings or pendants. And that would be lovely.

The weekend was crazy daisy busy.

We had that b-ball game at 8am on Saturday, then the school fair after that


where we spent almost three hours walking to and fro.

Seeing "Splash" get released from 'jail'

(yea I know - weird. maybe they could have thought of something better like 'release Splash from captivity' or 'release Splash back into the wild!' Then parents wouldn't have heard "Mom, what did Splash DO to get thrown in jail??? Isn't Splash a good dolphin?" truly, I heard this from some little ones more than once!)








There was also a 'toilet' dunking booth.....where my would be pitcher had a great time drenching his teacher.

Unfortunately there isn't a chair, bench, or other place to sit on the school grounds so it was lots of standing and walking.

But it was a good time and the school raised funds for future endeavors.









I ran some errands, had dinner and something else that slips my mind right now, then crashed!

Sunday was church then lunch and laundry and whatnot.

This week:

I have got to put some time into finishing up a few items and packing up for the show on Saturday.

LG has his first playoff b-ball game on Friday night. GO JAYS!

Then it's off early Saturday morning for what I hope is a GREAT show day. Should be a really good experience for me as its my first time at a bigger show. I'm a bit nervous but I 'know' two other vendors who will be there and I'm looking forward to seeing them and having it all be a good learning experience.

What is your week shaping up to be?

Packing, and treating, and etching...oh my!

Appetizing, isn't it?

This was dinner last night. (well, not for me, but for the family!)

More on that later.........

This weekend was a wild whirlwind of cooking, packing, treating, and other regular activities (laundry, grocery shopping,e tc) thrown in for good measure!

Our kitchen is being gutted today (although now they aren't starting until tomorrow).

So we spent a large part of the weekend clearing it all out - pots, pans, trays, racks, bowls, plates, cups, glasses, utensils, tupperware.....foils, phone books, pencils, all of it - ALL OF IT!....appliances (microwave, coffee pots, toaster, etc).

It all had to go. Where did it have to go?

Good question.

Some is in the garage, some in the dining room....I spent the last half of the weekend running up and down stairs and in and out of the garage trying to find what I needed to cook dinner. Fun.

This morning was fun too. Packing lunches, getting my breakfast...actually this morning went surprisingly smooth. yay.

We went treating on Halloween -so that blew, I mean, took...all evening/night - we left the house at 5pm and returned near 9pm.

We met at a friend's house, hung out a while, went out around the neighborhood,

stopped at another friend's house, hung out a while - walked some more...treating along the way.

It was a nice evening - despite some rain.

Tired treaters. :)

On Sunday I made this for dinner: a meathand ala NotMartha. :)

Never having made a meatloaf before - EVER. It was fun. I looked at a recipe in the Fanny Farmer (love that cookbook) and then altered it.

Our family likes a lot of sauce and we use tomato soup for that - so this is how it cooked.

This is how it looked out of the pan, on a tray, with the mashed potatoes all around it.

I also cooked a lasagna,

a sort of groundbeef hash,

some pasta, and hotdogs....oh, the mashed potatoes....

packaged all that for dinners (with the exception of the meathand and potatoes) for the next couple of weeks while I kitchen is being redone.

Also made my first 'nut mylk' - from almonds.

YAY!

That was fun.

I first soaked some almonds - maybe 2 cups, but probably less - than ground them, then strained through cheesecloth.....added more water, ground again, strained again. I was really surprised with how much it made! And now I literally have nut 'powder' too - so I can make something with that. Not sure what - but something!

I really need to purchase a better blender/processor and a dehydrator. I tried to make a squash 'soup' -- umm, ewww, no. It was not creamy AT ALL. It was grainy and nasty and I threw it out. :(

Sunday evening we were blessed with a lovely little viola recital. :)

It was a crazy weekend!!!!!!!

I'm so tired and its only Monday! lol

I still have lots to share from the retreat - here are some etched pieces. We did some electro-etching - these are sterling and they look FABULOUS! No 'bite' marks...just a lovely clean DEEP etch. YAY!

I had never electro-etched before (and I still can't say that I have, as I only observed...) and I was really surprised at how quick and easy - and no nasty chemicals. I still have my ferric chloride and ferric nitrate and will still use them, but will be transitioning to an electro-etch model soon.

More on that later!

~Janice

FF - Got Faves?

I do!!! And today I'm sharing one of my fave faves, though I seriously have debated it. I like to share resources, but sometimes I want to hoard special finds all to myself!!

I'm diggin' deep here peeps to share a favorite cab source. shhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Its just between us. K?


Not long ago I bought some seriously wickedly delicious stones. (wow, is that grammatically correct?) Anyway - I had the nerve to post them - I like to tease. I haven't made anything with them, but I do take them out on occassion and fawn over them. One day I might actually make something with them, but that day may be long off in the distant distant future. Sooo, you just wanna know where they came from...right??

ok, ok, ok....

Pam Chott who makes LOVELY jewelry and also have GORGEOUS cabs for sale. So go see, but PLEASE, if you buy, just save some for me - ok?

Another fave which I've probably mentioned before is.............





its my FAVORITE breakfast






Go Lean Crunch and Dannon Light and Fit yogurt.

MMM, so good -and so good for you!




and its easy to prepare -

the yogurt serves as the bowl -


just pour the cereal right in, stir, enjoy

I actually pour as much as I can, stir, pour some more, stir some more, pour once more, stir. THEN enjoy. mmmmmm.


You can get just about a whole serving in there if you follow my above pour and stir method. ;-)



Today I had lemon, but normally its Orange Mango.

It makes me happy.

See?


So yea, rocks and yogurt. Exciting stuff huh?



;-)


Tomorrow morning we have our second swim meet - its at a pool about 50 minutes away. What time do we have ot be there? ohhh, quarter after 7.

AM

on a Saturday.

Uhhh, yea, we'll be thinking REAL hard before we sign up for swimteam next year.

Hope you all get to sleep in tomorrow - I'll be up at about 5:45am.

oy.

~Janice

Another Marvelous Monday

I know, I'm strange....I don't mind Mondays.

Well, I don't mind them once they are underway. Ask me Sunday night and I might have a different opinion. ;-)

My weekend didn't turn out quite as rushed as I thought. Saturday was pretty much go-go-go, iwe had baseball practice, which was also the rescheduling of our Hits for Kids fundraiser, and since I'm the team coordinator for that - we really needed to be there, so we had to skip the soccer game. I went and visited my daughter in the early afternoon and then back home to change up and head out for dinner. We ate at PF Chang's - YUM. :) Nothing fancy, but good food. Decided I'd have to have bread and water and yogurt all day Sunday to make up for it. ;-)

However, when Sunday rolled around it was such a beautiful day that after church, at the grocery store - we decided to cook out that night - mmm. So for dinner Sunday we had hamburgers done on the grill. So good. I also roasted a ton of veggies (yellow squash, zucchini, and vidalia onions) under the broiler (the grill was too full).

I didn't get to Snafu Sunday again. :( but come on!! It was MOTHER's Day!! I'm a mother! So cut me some slack. ;-)

I was going to try to pull some photos but am having trouble finding them right now - and I need to get back to work.

Don't know what to make for dinner tonight? Try this onion soup I posted here.
(ha, how was that for a total change of subject??!!)


Ohhhhhhhhh, and here is the ring I made for the Giveaway winner, Candace. I had to wait for her to receive it before I could post it. :)

Its lapis, sterling silver, fine silver. Size 7 1/4.


I am THRILLED that she likes it! you can see a picture of her wearing it on her blog.












It looks GREAT on her.

I hope she enjoys it for a long long time. :)










Janice