Crepes for Dinner

Being a grown-up means that you can choose to have whatever you want for dinner.  So D and I had crepes!  We had savory crepes first, then dessert crepes.  I ate the dinner ones so fast, I forgot to take pictures of the first ones.  But these are the dessert crepes with my favorite sweet filling.  Here's the recipe:

Easy Crepe Recipe (that I use for any crepe craving)
Makes 4 crepes (or 2 huge crepes)

1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup of milk
1/4 lukewarm water
2 large eggs
1/8 cup melted butter
1/8 tsp of salt
for dessert crepes add 1 tbsp of sugar

Mix all ingredients, and whisk until smooth. Let sit for 30 mins to get rid of bubbles. (I have used the batter right after mixing, and the crepes turned out fine).  Heat a non-stick frying pan.  Lift the pan off the heat, and pour in enough batter to cover the bottom of the pan thinly (about a 1/4 cup of batter) and rotate the pan so that the batter covers the whole pan.  Put back on the heat and cook until set, about 1 1/2 minutes.  Flip using a spatula or finger tips, cook for a minute on the other side.  Done!  And fill!  Store between wax paper in an airtight container in the fridge.

My favorite fillings:

Dinner crepe: Baby spinach; brie; sliced turkey; cranberry sauce or honey mustard

Dessert crepe: bananas; Nutella (chocolate hazelnut spread); peanut butter; pecans

But you can fill them with almost anything.  Please share if you have any amazing fillings.

Relaxed

After a tough day I like to...

Do a little of this;

cuddle up under this;

and play with this guy.  And then the day seems better.

What do you do to relax?

What is your bag?:

This is my bag!  Its a good one, not too big, and virtually indestructible.  The best part is that I can put buttons on it!  Why am I showing you my purse?   Amanda at Apple Blue did this cool post where she photographed what was in her bag.  The voyeur in me loved this idea, so here is what's in my bag:

 1. Keys with my I love New York lanyard that my friend just brought back from New York (duh) because I couldn't go with them.  I had to work.

2.  My purple leather wallet from Danier Leather (link here.)

3. My day planner.  I love the size and layout.  And the owls.  I love owls.

4. Writing tools.  For ideas, and because I can never find a pen when I need it.

5. My reading glasses.  Read about how I got them here (link).

6.  My inhaler.  I have asthma.

7.  The best lip balm in the world.  BalmWorks Crazy Rumors Spiced Chai Tea.  Get some (link)

8. Pill box with pills and antacids.  You know, the necessities.

9. Mints.  Got to have something to chew on.

10. Camera in case there is blog inspiration on the go.

11.  Smartphone.  Its been on the fritz lately, so I am unimpressed with it.

12. My elephant make up bag.  I don't wear a lot of make so I don't carry a lot around, so a little bag does me.

So there it is!  What I carry with me everyday!  I try to keep it to just the essentials otherwise I would be carrying around everything but the kitchen sink.  And maybe even the sink too.  Now off to knit a little before dinner!

Made: Ripple Stitch Afghan

This blanket has been 2 years in the making.  Usually, I lose interest in a project this big a long time before I can finish it.  But this blanket was fun to crochet.  It was meditative to do.  And it used all my half balls of yarn.

Doesn't it look so pretty on my bed?  I love it there.  But now, its on the back of the couch ready to keep my feet warm this lazy Sunday afternoon.  The pattern was very easy and you can find a version of it here.  It was super easy to memorize, and once I got into the flow of it I didn't even need to count or look at the afghan.  I did a lot of this blanket watching movies.

The colors I chose had more to do with what I had on hand, rather than what I wanted.  For most of the yarn,  could tell exactly which project that color came from.  Its a pretty cool timeline of my knitting and crochet history!  I know that people sometime use a random color generator but decided to just crochet at will and see what happens.  It was kind of exciting really because I had no idea what the blanket would look like when I was finished.

All the stripes and the gentle ripples make me really happy.  Hope your Sunday is relaxing!

I love a busy day.

Today the weather was great, so it was a great day to get some errands done!  I love a busy day like I love a list; its so satisfying to get things done and cross them off the list.

1.  On the go breakfast from McDonald's.  I know a lot of people talk about hating McDonald's, but I love their breakfast sandwiches.  If loving them is wrong, I don't want to be right.

2. I needed to look for some teaching tools, so we went to a new educational toy store.  I seriously considered buying the giant piano mat (like from the movie "Big"!)

3.  Needed caffeine.  Got coffee.

4. D needed a haircut.  I got to sit and make fun of him.

5. Groceries.  I actually like grocery shopping.

6. Top it off with photo shoot for the show at the studio.  More to come on that.

There were a few places that I forgot to take pics at:  we got more yarn for a baby sweater I'm knitting, and we went to a music store to get me some new guitar strings.  Now its 11:00 pm and I feel accomplished enough to go to bed.  Good night!

Upcycled hankies

Lovely hand-stitched goodies.

My friend Julie read about a jewelry sale in the newspaper.  A group of women in a church group were selling their old jewelry!  For a crafty gal like me, I couldn't just not go. We went and the sale was small, but there was some fun stuff.  Some costumey stuff that I didn't have many ideas for. What caught my eye were the hand-embroidered hankies and napkins.

There were lots of napkins and hankies that had lost their set, and they were so cheap.  I bought this one for 10 cents.  I loved him!  He's such a cheerful little dude.

Click on the picture to make it bigger.

...So I up-cycled it into some embroidery art for my cross stitch wall!  He's chilling below my Dia de los Muertos cross stitch, and my position on children.  This hankie even inspired to do another cross stitch. 

Recipe: My Favorite Potatoes

 

We're trying to eat healthy in our house.  Trying very hard. But every now and then, I crave french fries.  I need them.  They become the monkey on my back.  But they are so very unhealthy for us, but so tasty that we usually eat more than the surgeon general would recommend.  So I made up a new way of satisfying my french fry crave.  They're baked, so they aren't as bad (so I'm told) but they are still oh so good.

Stephanie's Fake Fried Fries

Ingredients:

4 medium to large potatoes, scrubbed with the skin on

2-3 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

2 tbsp Lemon Juice

Salt and Fresh Ground Pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Cut the potatoes into french fry shapes.  I like the long wedges myself.  In a bowl, toss the potatoes with the EVOO, Lemon juice, Salt and Pepper.

Lay out the fries on a baking sheet in one layer.  Bake on the middle rack for 25 mins.  Flip the potatoes over and bake for another 15-20mins until they are the desired crispness.  I like crunchy fries, so mine took 40 mins.

Eat with ketchup, if you must.

Showtime!

I did it!  I finally got the nerve to get back into musical theatre.  The first show that I did was "Sweet Charity."  That is why I've been MIA lately.  I've been rehearsing and our show ran from December 2-11 2011.  It was stressful at times,  but fun.  I played Nickie, Charity's best friend.

It was a fun show.  And I loved being on stage again.  So I'm in another one!  This is also a comedy: "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels: The Musical."

The winter is back!

It snowed today.  Hard for a teacher to complete with the first snow of the season.  It is exciting though, we've been waiting for it.  We've had nice weather for a while, but its November, you know?  Time for snow!  And it came.  But it didn't last.

I can't wait to get out my snow boots!

Invasion of the Bronchitis Baddies (or more appropriately, I'm sick.)

I'm sick.  There is no denying it- which I have been trying to do.  I went to the doctor's office, and its official:  I have bronchitis.  I begged him to make into just a cold.  He said that's not how medicine works.

Why does he make all the big bucks?  Al I wanted was a simple cold; a couple days off; legit naptime, and some homemade soup.  Nope.  Not me.  I like to go big or go home.  When I get sick for the first time in a season, I like to get sick.  I make sure I need anti-biotic medication, and 2 weeks in bed!

I've been told that I'm fairly competitive.  I wonder if my mind thinks that there is some weird competition: who can pile in the most mucous into on lung?  Or how much can my sinuses hold until thy explode?  A neighbour broke 2 ribs from her pneumonia- I think my body wants to beat that by coughing so hard that my sternum breaks!

Other great effects of illness?  Face sores? Check!   Back pain?  You betcha!  Stomach ache from medicine?  Or course!  Fatigue?  Oh my, yes!  I had to take 3 breaks from writing this blog post!  And its not even that good!

Send m some good vibes, I would love to be better.  Like yesterday.