It's really hard to blog, mainly because that was something H encouraged me to do while he was here. It was like one of "those things" that we had together, and now that he's gone it's hard to make myself keep going with it. It's the reason I don't craft anymore, the reason I can't bring myself to play our old video games, and why I haven't been baking. I just don't feel like doing these things without my husband here, so I've just been ignoring them.
I'm trying to force myself to get back to blogging, because being an Army wife doesn't mean that I have to stop everything just because he's gone. In fact, if anything, that's the time I need to keep doing it in order to keep life as normal as possible. The separation sucks, by the way, but I'm dealing with it. I have an amazing support system that keeps me going, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't counting down the sleeps until we're back together again at his graduation. I know that God's plan is being fulfilled, so I'm trying to stay patient and remember that this time apart is all part of His plan. But some days, it really sucks... :)
So I'm trying to get back on track with the Whole30 program. H sent me pics of him, and he's lost so much weight and trimmed up so much! I don't want him to be disappointed that I'm not losing as much as he has (although his workout plan is way more intense than mine is haha!) so I'm trying to get back on track. I'm going to try to blog it more, too, because hopefully that will keep me focused, too.
Day 1
-Breakfast: egg mcmuffin without the muffin
-Lunch: taco salad with s.cream and jalapenos
-Dinner: crockpot ribs from PaleoPot and corn on the cob
Day 2
-Breakfast: scrambled eggs with bacon
-Lunch: bunless burger, corn on the cob, and fresh veggies
-Dinner: leftover ribs and salad (tentatively, since it's only 3:15pm right now)
So far so good--even though it's only been 2 days. I'd really like to add running, but I'm having a hard time getting my butt in gear. I think I'm just going to have to force myself to hit the gym. I wish I had more determination, easier access to a Crossfit gym, and someone to do it with, but I guess for now I'll have to suck it up and work with my circumstances...
xoxo, M
Showing posts with label recipe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recipe. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
12 Projects of Christmas: Sugared Vanilla-Cinnamon Almonds
My house smelled absolutely wonderful yesterday morning, and H was pleasantly surprised to wake up to sugared vanilla-cinnamon almonds cooking in the kitchen (although I think it had more to do with making homemade presents and the house smelling wonderful, and less to do with the fact that I used most of his bulk-bought almonds...oops...all in the name of crafting/gifting, I suppose!)
We've decided to do gift baskets for a lot of our family, full of homemade goodies. I love sugared nuts, but they are so pricey and I knew that I could easily make them for a lot less, so I started on my search for a good recipe. Most of them were pretty simple, but I wanted to put my own twist on it. So here's what I came up with. The best part? It took 15 minutes at most to make these! So fast and so easy!
By the way, you will fall in love with how this recipe makes your house smell!
This is delicious and makes a wonderful gift, or even a treat to put out for company at your family party
Of course, start off with our ingredients:
1 cup sugar
4 cups almonds (or any nut that you want to use)
1/2 Tbl cinnamon
1/4 cup water
1 Tbl vanilla extract
Start with a large skillet and put all of your ingredients in. Stir it up so that all of the almonds have some sugary goodness on them!
Cook over medium heat. Everything will cook down into a nice, bubbly brown syrup so make sure to stir it every couple minutes to keep things moving and keep the almonds covered. I let it bubble and cook for about 10 minutes, but you can go a little longer as long as you're stirring---the syrup burning to the bottom of the pan would be bad news!
Once the almonds have simmered for at least 10 minutes, you can pour out the entire mixture onto a sheet of wax paper. Let cool for 20-30 minutes, then break the nuts apart and store in a sealed plastic bag/container. They should last in the fridge for about a month, but chances are they won't last that long!!
I made these yesterday morning, stored them in the fridge overnight, and they were so yummy on my oatmeal this morning! (I know they are for gifts, but I had to taste them for myself!) I hope you enjoy them as much as I did :)
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xoxo, Melissa
We've decided to do gift baskets for a lot of our family, full of homemade goodies. I love sugared nuts, but they are so pricey and I knew that I could easily make them for a lot less, so I started on my search for a good recipe. Most of them were pretty simple, but I wanted to put my own twist on it. So here's what I came up with. The best part? It took 15 minutes at most to make these! So fast and so easy!
By the way, you will fall in love with how this recipe makes your house smell!
This is delicious and makes a wonderful gift, or even a treat to put out for company at your family party
Of course, start off with our ingredients:
1 cup sugar
4 cups almonds (or any nut that you want to use)
1/2 Tbl cinnamon
1/4 cup water
1 Tbl vanilla extract
Start with a large skillet and put all of your ingredients in. Stir it up so that all of the almonds have some sugary goodness on them!
Cook over medium heat. Everything will cook down into a nice, bubbly brown syrup so make sure to stir it every couple minutes to keep things moving and keep the almonds covered. I let it bubble and cook for about 10 minutes, but you can go a little longer as long as you're stirring---the syrup burning to the bottom of the pan would be bad news!
Once the almonds have simmered for at least 10 minutes, you can pour out the entire mixture onto a sheet of wax paper. Let cool for 20-30 minutes, then break the nuts apart and store in a sealed plastic bag/container. They should last in the fridge for about a month, but chances are they won't last that long!!
I made these yesterday morning, stored them in the fridge overnight, and they were so yummy on my oatmeal this morning! (I know they are for gifts, but I had to taste them for myself!) I hope you enjoy them as much as I did :)
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xoxo, Melissa
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
12 Projects of Christmas: Ooey Gooey Cocoa Cookies
I don't know about you, but I love hot cocoa, especially during the colder months. And what goes better with hot cocoa than cookies, especially hot cocoa cookies! I saw this recipe on Pinterest and immediately knew it was one I needed to try: it's chocolatey, cocoay, cookie goodness with a marshmallow on top--seriously, what could be better?
So I decided to make these cookies today as one of our 12 Projects of Christmas. H and I went to the recruiter's office today and I thought it would be a nice Christmas treat to take them some warm, homemade cookies, so I woke up this morning and got to baking (even though I'm pretty sure I'm coming down with a cold...boo).
I took the originally recipe and mixed it up a little. I wanted some actual hot cocoa in the cookie, which isn't in the original recipe so I mixed that up a little. So enjoy :)
First, get your ingredients:
1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter
12 oz. chopped semisweet chocolate (bars)
1 1/4 cups flour
1/4 cup hot cocoa mix
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups light brown sugar
3 eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Marshmallows
7.5 oz. of semisweet chocolate chips
Start my chopping up the semisweet chocolate bars. I used Baker's baking chocolate and a big knife. Place the chopped chocolate with the butter (I cut the butter into small cubes to make it melt faster) into a sauce pan and melt over medium heat. DON'T STOP STIRRING or your chocolate might burn! No bueno :(
Once it's all melted and mixed smooth, set it aside to cool for about 15 minutes. In the mean time, mix the flour, baking powder, salt, hot cocoa mix, and cocoa powder with a whisk.
So I decided to make these cookies today as one of our 12 Projects of Christmas. H and I went to the recruiter's office today and I thought it would be a nice Christmas treat to take them some warm, homemade cookies, so I woke up this morning and got to baking (even though I'm pretty sure I'm coming down with a cold...boo).
I took the originally recipe and mixed it up a little. I wanted some actual hot cocoa in the cookie, which isn't in the original recipe so I mixed that up a little. So enjoy :)
First, get your ingredients:
1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter
12 oz. chopped semisweet chocolate (bars)
1 1/4 cups flour
1/4 cup hot cocoa mix
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups light brown sugar
3 eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Marshmallows
7.5 oz. of semisweet chocolate chips
Start my chopping up the semisweet chocolate bars. I used Baker's baking chocolate and a big knife. Place the chopped chocolate with the butter (I cut the butter into small cubes to make it melt faster) into a sauce pan and melt over medium heat. DON'T STOP STIRRING or your chocolate might burn! No bueno :(
Once it's all melted and mixed smooth, set it aside to cool for about 15 minutes. In the mean time, mix the flour, baking powder, salt, hot cocoa mix, and cocoa powder with a whisk.
In a separate bowl, mix eggs, brown sugar, and vanilla on low speed for about 2 minutes. Mix in the melted chocolate until it's just incorporated, then mix in half of the flour mixture until it's just combined. Then mix in the other half until it's just combined. Don't over mix.
Refrigerate for at least 1 hour, then spoon onto a cookie sheet in tablespoon-sized balls, pressing slightly on the top of each one to flatten a little.
Sorry I don't have any pictures of this part. H woke up and came into the kitchen to start cooking breakfast, which distracted me and I forgot to take pictures :(
Bake at 350* for about 10 minutes, until the tops start to crack. While you're waiting for them to bake, cut your marshmallows into thirds, so each marshmallow gives you 3 round disks. When the 10 minutes is up, push 4 to 5 chocolate chips in the top-center of each cookie, put a marshmallow disk on top of each one, and bake for 2 more minutes. Cool on parchment paper on the counter, or on your favorite cookie cooling rack!
I sprinkled the tops with some extra shaved semisweet chocolate and powdered sugar---they look lovely, don't they?
You can see the gooey center from the melted chocolate chips, the marshmallow smushed on the top---mmmm, so good! Serve with an ice cold glass of milk!
Enjoy!
xoxo, Melissa
Saturday, December 3, 2011
12 Projects of Christmas: Holiday Rolls
I don't know about you, but one of my favorite parts of the holidays is the food. Not just the yummy desserts (well hello there, Christmas cookies...) but all the food in general: mashed potatoes, Mom's green bean casserole, turkeys and hams, all of it! My favorites are usually the ones high in carbs--which is definitely no bueno for my waistline. But here's my excuse: if it's only one small period each year, then it's okay to indulge a little, right? :)
Today's project is one of my favorite parts of the meal--the rolls! I know, I know...with all the other delicious food, why in the world do I go for the rolls? Maybe it's the carbs, or the fact, that it's a total comfort food for me, or maybe it's just because I can't resist a warm roll or piece of bread straight out of the oven. But either way, I look forward to a warm gooey piece at the beginning of each meal. So here's one of my favorite recipes. I do mine in the breadmaker because I have no patience for the kneading and rising, but this can be done the traditional way, too.
First, the ingredients:
1 1/4c of milk
1/2c sugar
1 1/2tsp of salt
4Tbs butter
1/4c warm water
4 1/2c bread flour
1 packet (or 2 1/4tsp) active dry yeast
1 egg (not shown)
Whether you're doing this in a breadmaker or not, the first step is to make our warm milk mixture. Over medium heat, warm your milk until it gets a skin on the top that wrinkles when you wiggle the pan. Don't boil the milk, though!! Add the butter, sugar, and salt, turn off the heat, and stir until it's all dissolved.
Set it aside until it's cooled to lukewarm.
Breadmaker: Put the warm water and lukewarm milk mixture in the bottom of your breadmaker inner chamber, then add all of the flour, and finally put the yeast on top. Set your breadmaker to the DOUGH setting (you don't want to bake it in the breadmaker, just let it mix, knead, and rise in there)
Traditional: Combine lukewarm milk mix and warm water in a large mixing bowl and stir in about 4 cups of the flour to begin your dough. Put the remaining flour on the board and knead it into the dough. You should knead until the dough looks like satin--if it's a little too sticky, you can knead more flour into the dough about 1Tbl at a time, but don't add too much flour or your dough will break and not stick to itself. When it's ready, put back in the mixing bowl, cover with a damp cloth and let rise in a warm place (I like to use the stovetop oven vent while it preheats) until it doubles--usually 45-50 minutes.
Turn out onto floured countertop. If you are doing this in a breadmaker, do not punch the dough down. If you are doing it traditionally, punch the dough down slightly, but not so that it's flat.
One recipe will make about 20 rolls, so divide your dough into 20 pieces. I do this by cutting the main dough ball in half, then halving each section until I have 20 equal-sized pieces.
Take each piece and roll until each one is about a 7 inch snake. Take each snake and tie a knot in the middle of the dough, then fold the extra ends over itself and tie in a second not. Place each dough knot in a lightly greased muffin tin cup.
Bake for 10 minutes at 350*, then brush the top of each with an eggwash (1 egg and about 2Tbls of water whisked together) and bake for another 10-12 minutes. The tops should be shiny, golden yellow/brown.
These rolls are slightly sweet and very dense, but so delicious! They go great with my homemade apple butter :) Hope these bring a new flavor to your holiday meals and that your family enjoys them (carb-load and all! haha)
Happy holidays!
xoxo, Melissa
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Today's project is one of my favorite parts of the meal--the rolls! I know, I know...with all the other delicious food, why in the world do I go for the rolls? Maybe it's the carbs, or the fact, that it's a total comfort food for me, or maybe it's just because I can't resist a warm roll or piece of bread straight out of the oven. But either way, I look forward to a warm gooey piece at the beginning of each meal. So here's one of my favorite recipes. I do mine in the breadmaker because I have no patience for the kneading and rising, but this can be done the traditional way, too.
First, the ingredients:
1 1/4c of milk
1/2c sugar
1 1/2tsp of salt
4Tbs butter
1/4c warm water
4 1/2c bread flour
1 packet (or 2 1/4tsp) active dry yeast
1 egg (not shown)
Whether you're doing this in a breadmaker or not, the first step is to make our warm milk mixture. Over medium heat, warm your milk until it gets a skin on the top that wrinkles when you wiggle the pan. Don't boil the milk, though!! Add the butter, sugar, and salt, turn off the heat, and stir until it's all dissolved.
Set it aside until it's cooled to lukewarm.
Breadmaker: Put the warm water and lukewarm milk mixture in the bottom of your breadmaker inner chamber, then add all of the flour, and finally put the yeast on top. Set your breadmaker to the DOUGH setting (you don't want to bake it in the breadmaker, just let it mix, knead, and rise in there)
Traditional: Combine lukewarm milk mix and warm water in a large mixing bowl and stir in about 4 cups of the flour to begin your dough. Put the remaining flour on the board and knead it into the dough. You should knead until the dough looks like satin--if it's a little too sticky, you can knead more flour into the dough about 1Tbl at a time, but don't add too much flour or your dough will break and not stick to itself. When it's ready, put back in the mixing bowl, cover with a damp cloth and let rise in a warm place (I like to use the stovetop oven vent while it preheats) until it doubles--usually 45-50 minutes.
Turn out onto floured countertop. If you are doing this in a breadmaker, do not punch the dough down. If you are doing it traditionally, punch the dough down slightly, but not so that it's flat.
One recipe will make about 20 rolls, so divide your dough into 20 pieces. I do this by cutting the main dough ball in half, then halving each section until I have 20 equal-sized pieces.
Take each piece and roll until each one is about a 7 inch snake. Take each snake and tie a knot in the middle of the dough, then fold the extra ends over itself and tie in a second not. Place each dough knot in a lightly greased muffin tin cup.
Bake for 10 minutes at 350*, then brush the top of each with an eggwash (1 egg and about 2Tbls of water whisked together) and bake for another 10-12 minutes. The tops should be shiny, golden yellow/brown.
These rolls are slightly sweet and very dense, but so delicious! They go great with my homemade apple butter :) Hope these bring a new flavor to your holiday meals and that your family enjoys them (carb-load and all! haha)
Happy holidays!
xoxo, Melissa
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Sunday, November 6, 2011
Tutorial: CrockPot Apple Butter
I swear, nothing smells better in our house than Fall cooking: pumpkin, cranberries, spices, and of course apples! And I LOVE to eat all the yummy Fall cooking (which is probably why my Winter clothes always seem to be a little snug...hmmm...). One of my favorites is apple butter. Every October, my fiance and I go to the local Apple Butter Fest, where they have huge vats of apples and spices cooking down into homemade apple butter. Usually we stand in the extremely long line to wait and buy a jar of the delicious stuff, but this year with a smaller budget and a longer line, we decided to try making our own instead!
For the record, apple butter is something that I have never made before, so I was a little worried about how this was all going to turn out. I pictured it not tasting right or not having the right texture or all of it burning on the bottom of the crock pot and not being able to be eaten. Insert scary apple butter nightmares here.
Reality: It was soooo easy! And it turned out really delicious. And the best part? It's homemade, so it automatically tastes better!
Okay, so here's the tutorial. Honestly, the hardest parts were peeling all the apples and then waiting for the stuff to cook down (You know, when you can smell all that appley-goodness but can't eat it yet?! You know what I'm talking about...). I definitely recommend making this yourself, not just because it's easy, but also because you know EXACTLY what's going into it and you can control the amount of sugar you use. You wouldn't believe the amount of sugar in store-bought apple butter!
First, get your ingredients:
-I used 6 lbs of Jonagold apples for my 8-quart crock-pot, which filled it perfectly to the top--this cooked down to fill 2 large Ball jars. You can use any kind of apple (except Red Delicious or Yellow Delicious), and I recommend picking ones that have a sweet, crisp flavor--you'll use less sugar that way.
-1 tsp ground cinnamon
-1 tsp ground cloves
-1 tsp apple pie spice
-1 1/2 cups apple cider (you can use sugar-free if you prefer, but you'll probably end up wanting to add more sugar to taste at the end unless you like a less-sweet flavor in your apple butter)
-Sugar to taste, added 1/4 cup at a time at the very end of the cooking process
Peel, core, and chunk your apples and put them in the crockpot. I used one of those corer-slicer things to make it go quicker.
Add your spices, then add your cider. Stir it up so most of your apples are covered with the spices and cider.
Now comes the hard part...turn the crockpot to "low" and walk away. Your apples need to cook for at least 16 hours, but you might find that after 16 hours it's still not cooked down to a consistency you like. For ours, we cooked it for 20 hours (yes, that's almost one full day--trust me, the wait is worth it!) to get it the thick and smooth consistency we prefer. Okay, don't totally walk away. Make sure to come back and stir it once in a while. I chose to stir it every couple hours at first, because I was around the house, but after about 5 hours I left it alone and only stirred it a few more times during the rest of the cooking process. Stirring it at the beginning is important to make sure it's cooking evenly.
This is about 8 hours into the cooking process. The apples have started to cook down, and at this point your house will smell ah-may-zing!!
This is after 20 hours of cooking. You can see how much everything cooks down and how the color changes. Stir it up and taste it--now is the time to add sugar until it's got the sweetness you prefer. We added 2/3 cup of sugar total to ours to get it to the right flavor that we like, but this is totally up to you!
You can "can" this afterward if you choose, but it's not necessary. This will last in your fridge up to 3 months (if it will even be around that long--around here, it's lucky to last a month!) and this recipe will make enough for a large jar for you and a large jar for a friend--a perfect, homemade gift!
So enjoy your homemade apple butter and make sure to let me know how yours turns out!
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I'm linked up here:
Not So Simple Housewife
Passionately Artistic
The Artsy Girl Connection
Tatertots and Jello
The Sasse Life
For the record, apple butter is something that I have never made before, so I was a little worried about how this was all going to turn out. I pictured it not tasting right or not having the right texture or all of it burning on the bottom of the crock pot and not being able to be eaten. Insert scary apple butter nightmares here.
Reality: It was soooo easy! And it turned out really delicious. And the best part? It's homemade, so it automatically tastes better!
Okay, so here's the tutorial. Honestly, the hardest parts were peeling all the apples and then waiting for the stuff to cook down (You know, when you can smell all that appley-goodness but can't eat it yet?! You know what I'm talking about...). I definitely recommend making this yourself, not just because it's easy, but also because you know EXACTLY what's going into it and you can control the amount of sugar you use. You wouldn't believe the amount of sugar in store-bought apple butter!
First, get your ingredients:
-1 tsp ground cinnamon
-1 tsp ground cloves
-1 tsp apple pie spice
-1 1/2 cups apple cider (you can use sugar-free if you prefer, but you'll probably end up wanting to add more sugar to taste at the end unless you like a less-sweet flavor in your apple butter)
-Sugar to taste, added 1/4 cup at a time at the very end of the cooking process
Peel, core, and chunk your apples and put them in the crockpot. I used one of those corer-slicer things to make it go quicker.
Add your spices, then add your cider. Stir it up so most of your apples are covered with the spices and cider.
Now comes the hard part...turn the crockpot to "low" and walk away. Your apples need to cook for at least 16 hours, but you might find that after 16 hours it's still not cooked down to a consistency you like. For ours, we cooked it for 20 hours (yes, that's almost one full day--trust me, the wait is worth it!) to get it the thick and smooth consistency we prefer. Okay, don't totally walk away. Make sure to come back and stir it once in a while. I chose to stir it every couple hours at first, because I was around the house, but after about 5 hours I left it alone and only stirred it a few more times during the rest of the cooking process. Stirring it at the beginning is important to make sure it's cooking evenly.
This is about 8 hours into the cooking process. The apples have started to cook down, and at this point your house will smell ah-may-zing!!
This is after 20 hours of cooking. You can see how much everything cooks down and how the color changes. Stir it up and taste it--now is the time to add sugar until it's got the sweetness you prefer. We added 2/3 cup of sugar total to ours to get it to the right flavor that we like, but this is totally up to you!
You can "can" this afterward if you choose, but it's not necessary. This will last in your fridge up to 3 months (if it will even be around that long--around here, it's lucky to last a month!) and this recipe will make enough for a large jar for you and a large jar for a friend--a perfect, homemade gift!
So enjoy your homemade apple butter and make sure to let me know how yours turns out!
Pin It
I'm linked up here:
Not So Simple Housewife
Passionately Artistic
The Artsy Girl Connection
Tatertots and Jello
The Sasse Life
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Tutorial: Bread in a Can
A few weeks ago, while having coffee with my friend from college, Krissy, I told her about how I found this great idea for making bread in a can from this great craft blog. After going on about how it combined my two loves: baking and crafting, and how much I couldn't wait to try this project for my blog, she asked me if I could wait just a few more weeks to do it, but that if I did wait she would pay me for it.
Um. Duh. Of course I will--are you kidding me? I have a million other craft ideas to create and blog in the mean time!
She's a high school teacher who needed a nice gift for her secret pal at work, and thought that bread in a can would be perfect! She told me she'd pay me for the materials, plus for my work (I told her none of this was necessary, but she insisted) and that she's need them at the beginning of October. Perfect! I can make yummy Fall quick breads in cute cans, and it's a great excuse to go crazy with the decorating--I mean, who wants an undecorated, uncute gift? No one! Let the crafting begin!
So this week, I made bread in a can. Again, I can't take full credit for this--it's something that's been going around the crafting world for a while, and I got my banana bread recipe from Chasing Fireflies. What I didn't get from her wonderful blog was a recipe for a pumpkin quick bread (which I already had) and the ideas for how I was going to decorate these beautiful cans.
If you want the banana bread recipe, head over to Chasing Fireflies because she has done an amazing job with the recipe and her own design of the cans.
Here's my recipe for pumpkin quick bread. You can add walnuts to it, but since I didn't know if the receiver of this gift has any allergies, I decided to leave it out this time. But it's definitely yummy to add a 1/2 cup of walnuts to this before you bake it!
Pumpkin Quick Bread
1 1/2 c flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 c sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup pumpkin puree (canned or fresh)
1/2 c veg oil
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 c water
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
First, mix your dry ingredients (including sugar for this recipe) in one bowl and your wet ingredients in another bowl. Super easy, right?
Now is the hard part: mix them together. Okay, I'm kidding; this is not hard. In fact, this might be one of the easiest recipes ever.
Instead of baking them in a loaf pan or muffin pan, I'm baking them in washed out veggie cans! One can for pumpkin, one can for Chasing Fireflie's banana bread, and a third can (not pictured) for the leftovers so that I can munch on them...hehehe...
All I did was take off the lid (make sure to use a can opener that doesn't leave a jagged or sharp edge), take of the labels, and wash them out very well.
Before you pour your bread into the cans, though, you need to make the new pretty labels. Trust me, this is way easier before you bake them than after! I just chose 2 different scrapbook papers that have complementary colors, plus 2 small tags.
Take the paper and wrap it around the can with the pretty side facing in. This way, you can draw on the paper without worrying that the receiver will see it.
Draw around the edge of the bottom of the can so you know where to cut. I used the inside part of the bottom lip so that I'll have a silver can border around the edge of each paper. You can kind of feel where it indents, and then I just used a pencil to mark it.
Cut your paper on the pencil line, and voila! You have a new, much prettier label for your bread cans. You don't want to bake the labels, though, so don't attach them yet.
Next, I traced the tag onto the scraps of paper left over, cut it out, and glued them on so I had matching tags for each can.
You can see here are my 2 labels and 2 tags. Since they are complimentary colors, you can mix and match the tags and labels if you want.
Now, fill your unlabeled cans. I filled each of them 3/4 of the way full. Be careful!! If you fill them too full, they will bake over the top and that won't be a very pretty display--it can also fall off into your oven and make that awful burning smell....not that I know from experience or anything...
Once they come out of the oven, let them cool completely before you try to put the labels on. I put them in the fridge overnight to ensure that they were cool enough. I also then let them warm up to room temp before I tried to put the labels on, so the cold can didn't cool the hot glue too fast for me to put the labels on.
I used hot glue to attach the labels to each can. Go slow, only gluing a small portion at a time, and make sure you line up your label before you glue or your label might be warped when you're finished. I didn't take pics of this because it's hard to hold a camera, a can, and a glue gun all at the same time. But here are the cans after they were labeled:
Next, I cut plastic wrap just big enough to cover the tops of each can with just a little hanging over the edge. This will keep them fresh before you give them away. I used 2 layers of plastic wrap, just to make sure.
I used 2 squares of matching fabric on each can, just laying them on top with alternating points, and then folded the edges over the can lip. I used twine to secure the plastic wrap and material down (to keep them fresh) and then used twine to tie a pretty bow on top with my labels.
Here they are all finished:
How cute are these to give and get?! A great gift for a friend, coworker, teacher, new neighbor--anyone would love to get these!! :)
Totaling up the cost of these is a little harder, because it depends what you have on-stock in your cupboard. This is definitely a project/gift that you can do for under $10 though!
So go ahead and give it a try--even if you don't give it away, and you just make some bread in a can for yourself to eat on a crisp Fall afternoon! Bon appetit!
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Um. Duh. Of course I will--are you kidding me? I have a million other craft ideas to create and blog in the mean time!
She's a high school teacher who needed a nice gift for her secret pal at work, and thought that bread in a can would be perfect! She told me she'd pay me for the materials, plus for my work (I told her none of this was necessary, but she insisted) and that she's need them at the beginning of October. Perfect! I can make yummy Fall quick breads in cute cans, and it's a great excuse to go crazy with the decorating--I mean, who wants an undecorated, uncute gift? No one! Let the crafting begin!
So this week, I made bread in a can. Again, I can't take full credit for this--it's something that's been going around the crafting world for a while, and I got my banana bread recipe from Chasing Fireflies. What I didn't get from her wonderful blog was a recipe for a pumpkin quick bread (which I already had) and the ideas for how I was going to decorate these beautiful cans.
If you want the banana bread recipe, head over to Chasing Fireflies because she has done an amazing job with the recipe and her own design of the cans.
Here's my recipe for pumpkin quick bread. You can add walnuts to it, but since I didn't know if the receiver of this gift has any allergies, I decided to leave it out this time. But it's definitely yummy to add a 1/2 cup of walnuts to this before you bake it!
Pumpkin Quick Bread
1 1/2 c flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 c sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup pumpkin puree (canned or fresh)
1/2 c veg oil
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 c water
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Before you pour your bread into the cans, though, you need to make the new pretty labels. Trust me, this is way easier before you bake them than after! I just chose 2 different scrapbook papers that have complementary colors, plus 2 small tags.
I used hot glue to attach the labels to each can. Go slow, only gluing a small portion at a time, and make sure you line up your label before you glue or your label might be warped when you're finished. I didn't take pics of this because it's hard to hold a camera, a can, and a glue gun all at the same time. But here are the cans after they were labeled:
Here they are all finished:
How cute are these to give and get?! A great gift for a friend, coworker, teacher, new neighbor--anyone would love to get these!! :)
Totaling up the cost of these is a little harder, because it depends what you have on-stock in your cupboard. This is definitely a project/gift that you can do for under $10 though!
So go ahead and give it a try--even if you don't give it away, and you just make some bread in a can for yourself to eat on a crisp Fall afternoon! Bon appetit!
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