Kids' art

I love the artwork my nephews & niece make for me.

It is so funny to see what their little minds are thinking (via crayons, paint, colored pencils, etc) and it absolutely warms my heart to hear my oldest nephew say "Aunt Lizzy, this one is for you to take home & show Uncle Chris". 

The little man loves the fingerpaints his "Bo Bo" (aka my mom, his Grandma) gave him & wants to play with them all the time. Now that he's in preschool he's been giving the paintings as gifts every now & again.

LizzardLoves.My nephew's fingerpainting

LizzardLoves.My niece's really funny drawing & explanation

Being an aunt is just awesome, I guess you could also say I love being an aunt.

In case you can't read the "explanation" page that came in the envelope from our niece (who lives on the east coast) here is what it says:

"Uncle Chris

Favorite Animal Moose

Favorite color green

Middle name Brian"

We assumed this was part of a school project or larger idea.........it wasn't! Our niece just got the idea to draw these pictures & send the details along with them. We have had this hanging on the fridge for months. Its awesome.

Happy Monday everyone, hope you have some kiddo art hanging on your fridge today!

PS- yes, I hung my nephew's painting on the fridge with magnets I made out of beer bottle caps I wanted to save........hm. Hope that isn't too much of a contrast!

Waking up early

I love waking up early.

Lizzard Loves wheat (L) & Asiago & black pepper (R) bread

The time in the morning when it feels like I have the whole city to myself is easily my favorite time of the time. Its quiet, there are so few distractions & I can use the time to do the things I want to do. Some favorite morning activities include running out to the lake path & enjoying the sunrise over Lake Michigan, catching up on my blog :), prepping for the day (laundry, dishes, making breakfast/lunch) so I don't feel rushed once Chris wakes up, and cooking. Oh, coffee- of course there is coffee throughout the early morning time....who are we kidding?

Today it is bread baking that has me awake early. My wonderful friend from college & her husband own a copy of Jim Lahey's "My Bread" (link is to the book's Amazon page) and I was flipping through it during a visit to their beautiful home last fall. Sidebar, I love visiting my friends & family in their homes. It makes me so happy to see how they've chosen to decorate, what foods they keep in their fridge & what books they are reading. I hate to live far from friends & family, but the visits make up for the distance; a little bit anyway. So "My Bread" is a beautifully photographed cookbook all about the "no knead" method of baking bread. I was hooked & ordered myself a copy so I would have it when I got home.

Lizzard Loves.Half wheat, half cinnamon raisin walnut bread

I'm finally experimenting with different flavors in the bread (its only taken me 4 months!) and this morning I have 1 loaf of wheat & 1 loaf of asiago & cracked black pepper. Over the weekend I made cinnamon raisin walnut for the first time and it made for stupendous toast (and that is not hyperbole - although I know I could be accused of being hyperbolic sometimes.........the toast was REALLY great!). Here is a photo of last weekend's effort.

Lizzard Loves.Asiago and black pepper (L) and wheat (R) dough

Here is the today's dough finishing its second rise (with the "no knead" method, you need to let the dough rise for 12-24 hours - so I made the dough yesterday morning & I bake it today!).

The bread is making my kitchen smell so darn good. I can add that to the list of things I love I suppose.....I love the smell of baking bread. I'm waiting for my bread to finish baking and I've been perusing Jim Lahey's bakery website it is a bread lovers eye candy for sure!

Yikes- I'm running the risk of being late to work- bread is done! Hooray!

Snow!

I love snow.

I love a white Christmas. I also happen to love Christmas :)

It was spectacularly awesome to be sitting in my parents' sun room opening Christmas presents with Chris & my sister, brother in law & my parents and look outside to find it SNOWING. Not just snowing (teeny dry flakes) but SNOWING (big fluffy pretty flakes!).

It made me so happy, as did some of my photos from Christmas Day. Merry (belated) Christmas & Happy (belated) New Year to everyone! I resolve to be more consistent in my blogging in 2013......

Baking supplies; from a wonderful baker

I love baking. 

Twin loaves fully cooked in the pan

The dough fully risen ready to bake

I also love when someone thinks of me as "someone who loves baking" because it somehow legitimizes my love. My great friend, CC, is moving in a matter of days (she is an accomplished professional dancer as well as a wonderful baker of extreme deliciousness) to take a new job on the other side of the world. It warms my heart to see someone I hold so dear embarking on such a great adventure. But, as usual, I digress. 

Crusty twin loaves ready to be e

As I mentioned, CC is a wonderful baker, but she is also a very thoughtful friend. She was beginning to pack up her apartment to move her worldly things to a storage unit and realized she was the proud owner of A LOT of baking supplies. Not wanting them to go to waste, but rather to a happy home, CC emailed me to find out if I would like the supplies. A quote from her email that made me smile from ear to ear: "you're the only one i know who may bake as much as i do. i certainly don't want to be throwing away precious baking supplies." CC is right; baking supplies are indeed precious & I was to become the proud owner of a plethora of them! Please don't think that I was lacking in the department - my cabinets stay chock full of the makings for bread, cookies, cake, and scones but that wasn't important to me. The important thing was that CC was giving me a piece of her kitchen that she couldn't store, nor take with her on her new adventure. She knew by giving them to me, the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and decorations would come to life as wonderful treats rather than be thrown in the garbage. 

So to appropriately honor my love of baking I baked a "twin" loaf of bread using some of the new supplies. I formed the dough separately, but cooked them together in 1 pan.....so its sort of a two for one type of boule :) I am looking forward to sharing other baking creations soon. Thank you again CC for sharing your bounty with me!

Chalkboard paint

I love chalkboard paint. 

There is White Castle, my home for 2 years!

Who knew back in 2003 when I moved into a college house called "White Castle" (with 11 other people) that I would have my first experience with chalkboard paint? Some forward thinking college woman before me had painted a large portion of the living room wall with chalkboard paint & hung a frame around it. It was our house's place to track bills/expenses & it worked perfectly. You may wonder why it took me so long to try it out! I don't have a great excuse although since I own my home now; it is much easier to do painting projects of any kind. (I have owned my condo for 4 years.....so it still has taken me awhile to get going on this!)

Paint & primer are on!

Chalkboard paint drying

Fast forward 9.5 years to now & chalkboard paint is everywhere! My brother & sister in law painted 2 of the walls in my nephew's bedroom with the stuff and it provides him with some entertainment when he wants it. Pinterest is overflowing with chalkboard paint ideas, which is where I got the idea to paint the inside of my pantry cabinet doors with the stuff.

Almost out of list on the left

Ongoing projects on the right

A moment of love for my pantry cabinets; my Dad gave the cabinets to me, stained them to match my other kitchen cabinets & helped haul them up to the 2nd floor walk up I share with my husband. They give me so much additional storage in my kitchen, which I desperately needed (not to mentioned wanted.......because I love my kitchen and spend lots of time there; I want it to be orderly.)

Pretty colors of chalk

So over the course of a weekend, I taped, primed & painted the inside of my doors. I had the benefit of a recessed area in each door, which gave me a perfect outline of where to paint. I like the natural border or frame the door style gave me. Once I had painted the second coat of paint, I needed to wait 3 days for the paint to be ready for writing. All in all, the project took less than a week, including all of the drying/waiting time. In terms of supplies, I spent $20-$25 on 1 small roller brush set (which included a tray), 1 roll of painters tape, 1 small can of primer (only necessary if you plan to paint on unfinished wood; which the insides of my cabinet doors were), and 1 small can of chalkboard paint. I regret not asking for a paint stir stick at the hardware store........so do my wooden spoons :(

As you can see in the photos, I am using the left side of the pantry for a list of things I'm almost out of and the right side as a place to track ongoing cooking/baking projects. 'Tis the season for stocking up on cookie dough for my freezer and I like to have a list so I don't have to dig through the Ziploc bags in my freezer to remember which dough I've already made! The completed doughs have a check mark in the box (I don't want to erase them until I've finished them all; lest I end up with 4 batches of plain peanut butter cookie dough & no chocolate chocolate chip dough :)

Reused a preserves jar for my chalk!

Please let me know in the comments what you think & if you have any questions about how to do this relatively quick project at home.

I will have another post soon about the pantry reorganization (specifically baking supplies) that happened in the same weekend!

I love fall.....part II

I love fall enough that it warrants a second post!

Lizzard Loves Fall.Walking on the Geneva Lake path

Lizzard Loves Fall. Fire in the fireplace. Perfection.

Lizzard Loves Fall. Jack-o-lanterns keeping watch from our place

Lizzard Loves Fall. Trick or Treat!

There is just something magical for me about fall;

the weather

the coziness

the hot drinks (spiked apple cider anyone?? I used Apple Pear Brandy last weekend and it was delicious)

the curling up by the fire, the chilly walks along the water

the Halloween costumes on my nephews & neighborhood kids

carving pumpkins & the resulting pumpkin seeds

making Pumpkin Pie Almonds (obviously I found the recipe on Pinterest- here is the link; http://kneadtocook.com/?p=2151)

there are so many reasons this season is the best one there is. 

I hope you all are enjoying fall this year!

Popcorn on the cob

I love Fall.

Before.....

It is the season of cool weather, my birthday, beautiful leaves, pumpkin everything, squash, jeans+boots, crisp days & nights, fires in the fireplace & (for me at least) popcorn.

I also love farmer's markets & farm stands of all stripes. I bought an incredibly fun treat at Pearce's Farm Stand over my birthday weekend in Wisconsin. This is a family run farm stand which comes fully to life in the fall; they have an annual customer appreciation weekend with live music, corn, bratwurst & kettlecorn. Amazing small town fun for everyone! You can find them on Facebook, you'll see what I'm talking about; http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pearces-Farm-Stand

Cob in the bag, bag in the microwave - getting cooked!

As I lose my train of thought; I should be reminded to get back to the popcorn! I saw dried corn on the cob for sale at Pearce's last month and figured I should absolutely buy them, because of my aforementioned love of popcorn in the Fall. 

After! So awesome.

I giggled like a schoolgirl while this was popping in my microwave! Well, to be perfectly honest, the popping took about a minute and a half to start and being that I am more than slightly distractable; the explosions from my microwave scared me so much I jumped and yelped quite loudly at the same time. (the good news is I was at home & didn't need to explain myself to Chris) The minor fright was followed my unadulterated childlike happiness at the silly feat of popcorn coming off of that dried cob after only a few minutes in the microwave!

It tastes delicious - I didn't add any butter/oil/salt/flavoring, yielded a full bowl of popcorn & all of it has been eaten less than 24 hours later. 


Needless to say, I am back in Wisconsin today, went back to Pearce's and bought 6 more of these. They are just too fun. Happy Fall everyone!