What I Did on My Mini-Vacation

The last few weeks have been a little stressful at work so I decided to take a couple of days off. My friend/office-mate is going on maternity leave starting March 19. As there are only 2 people who know how to do our job (Wen-Shu and me) it will be a little difficult for me to take a real vacation over the next year so my plan is to take mini-vacations which should give me a break without making it too difficult at work.

Anyway... in photo essay form: here is how I spent my extended weekend/mini-vacation:

-experiment in faux batik dyeing. I first saw this idea on the Craftzine blog last week and obsessed about trying it all week. It works well, but I don't know how practical it would be for a large piece of fabric. (Instructions found here: http://thatartistwoman.blogspot.com/2008/07/kid-friendly-batik.html) I used a scrap of white cotton and some Rit dye. It washed out a lot (somehow I don't have a pic of the finished product).



-baked bread. Over the past year or so I have been discovering how much I enjoy baking bread. I inherited my Mom's Bosch Universal Machine (not sure if that's the proper name for it). For the last 15 years or so Mom always made her own bread and we all were the happy recipients of it. Since we cleaned out Mom's house in August, her Bosch machine has been in regular use as has her bread recipe.



-sewing a secret project for my friend Wen-Shu's baby. She occasionally visits here (GET BACK TO WORK WEN-SHU!!!)(hahahaha) so I'll only give you a glimpse of the secret. This sewing gave me such a feeling of accomplishment and stress relief, this alone was a vacation for my brain.

(full project details & pictures to come when the gift has been given)

-more baking. Onion studded hamburger buns this time. I used this recipe from Coconut & Lime. These buns are so delicious and sturdy without being tough. I made pulled pork in the slow cooker today (but forgot to take a picture) and these were perfect for pulled pork sandwiches.


I feel sad that my mini-vacation is over now but I am so glad I decided to take the time off. I needed a break. I needed to just sew and bake and read and... breathe. Here's hoping I can continue to breathe when I get back to work.

What Summer Tastes Like

Rhubarb Cobbler with fresh homemade vanilla ice cream.

I was inspired (made to drool, really) by this post) at Balkan Style. I had some slightly freezer-burnt rhubarb from my Mom's freezer. Coincidentally the recipe specifically mentioned freezer-burnt rhubarb as a good choice for the fruit in the cobbler. And let me tell you, it was.

It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas

I don't bake that often, but the smell of baking cookies & buns is one of my favorite things about Christmas. I decided to take on the baking task this year, since Mom isn't doing any this year.


Gingersnaps (recipe from here). mmmmm. That is all I have to say about that. mmmmmm.


If the Gingersnaps earn an "mmmmmmm" then these earn an "mmmmmmm" with an added Homeresque drooling sound on the end.
Mom's Magic Cookie Bars. No idea where the recipe comes from but Mom made these every Christmas for as long as I can remember. These are addictive and good and..... Suffice to say I immediately put them in the freezer out of temptation's way as soon as they were cooled and cut.

It's not all sweet baking around here, I made these at Mom's request:

The recipe was called "Mini Frittatas" and I've been making them for a few years. I don't remember where I got the recipe or even when I came across it. The recipe calls for them to be baked sans tart shells in mini muffin cups. At some point along the years I started using the tart shells (unsweetened... one year I accidentally got sweetened tart shells... not good) and I like them this way a lot.


More Spiced Candied Pecans. I must have left something out when making these because they taste different than the first time around. However, they are still really good and they still need to be hidden away or there won't be any left and I will be unable to attend Christmas due to eating too many pecans.

Finally, my biggest accomplishment: Buns. My mom is an expert bun maker. I grew up watching her make them every couple of weeks and she had this unreal way of pinching off dough and squeezing it through her hand and, poof, there's a perfectly formed bun. I can't do that. But I am pretty happy with these. I've never been particularly fond of working with yeast dough (sticky, frustrating, etc) but I'm getting the hang of these (I made some last weekend as a test).




The hard part now is not eating them...

I think I'm done now, but we don't leave until Wednesday so there may still be another batch of something to come... Or maybe I should just do some knitting...