Author Archives: Gingham Apron

Follow me…

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… on Facebook!

I have and iPhone and an iPad, so posting quick updates and photos there is so very easy for me, and I do it quite often. Everything from my recent inability to flip a pancake and my scrambled egg fail to yummy homemade pizza and chicken stock. I have had almost 3,000 unique page views here, so I know people *do* visit my blog.

Here’s the deal… I like giving away books. I especially like giving away cookbooks. If I get to 100 likes on Facebook I’ll do another drawing for a cookbook on my Facebook page. :)

So this means you need to go like my Facebook page, and then share it with your friends.

And yes, every time I put Facebook there is a link to my Facebook page. ;)

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Spring Break

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I took the girls down to Alameda for the first week of Spring Break. They enjoy going to Stephanie’s house because they are a little more free to run around outside there. I enjoy going there because we end up pigging out on something baked, craft, and have quite a bit of fun.

I may also love the Bay Area a little bit…

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Who can argue with that?!

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Homemade Almond Butter

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I’ve heard of all sorts of people making homemade butters – peanut, cashew, sunflower, coconut, and almond. I finally decided to give almond butter a try since I’ve been successful twice now at making almond milk from scratch (which I *still* need to photograph and post). How hard could making almond butter be, right?

Well, after pausing the movie that my sick kid was watching – because I have amazing timing and all – it took a solid 20 minutes of thinking I was going to kill the food processor. There were a few stops to scrape down almond chunks. I stopped a few more times because I just *knew* that a second more and it would give up the ghost. But in the end…

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I had almond butter!!

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Imagine

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David has 3 guitars. One electric that rarely comes out of the case, an inexpensive acoustic that he’s had since before we were together, and a Takamine acoustic guitar that he got last year (it was very much a splurge item that he’s been holding off nearly a decade to buy). Music is kind of a thing here. I fully admit I like it when he plays the intro to Tesla’s “Lovesong”, and just about any RHCP.

The same day he got his Takamine we got Nola a ukelele. It’s not been used much by her, actually David has used it far more. Nola has been wanting to do a myriad of things for “Community Gathering” (a monthly talent show of sorts) at school for some time now, and I have been telling her that she should really practice with her ukelele and get good. She finally told David she really wanted to have a lesson on her ukelele today. <3

She's concentrating pretty hard...

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2013 in 2013

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It’s been awhile since I updated about how my decluttering is going, and I’ll be honest for awhile it hit a standstill. A lot has been going on around here. First it was me who got sick, then Sophia, and just this weekend Nola got taken out by the same thing I had in January. I got quite a bit done awhile back before my parents came, and since then I’ve stalled. This past week I managed to get some more done, but I did not count exact items. :(

I’m going to guess I threw away a good 100 items out of my bathroom. I hoard things I think I might use, but never actually do, like nail polish. My “nail” bin was likely the source of a good 1/3 of my bathroom “haul”.

I also cleaned off the kids bookcase (after I nearly broke it, causing all the books to crash to the floor). I donated 4 Bob Books sets – which are like 20+ books each! And then another decent stack along with them, so I’ll say 100 books. I took a few more to school on Friday, so I think my book donation to the school is like 105. I still have another pile to filter through and see if any are usable for school. O_o

I also finally got rid of my ratty sweat pants. David got rid of 2 very old t-shirts, and I gave 2 pairs of kid shorts and 2 kid tank tops to a friend.

So that’s another 212 items this past week!

My new total for the year is 754 already!

It doesn’t feel like much sometimes, but other times I can tell easily (like my bathroom). :)

Next up is taking down my collection of Cooking Light and Shape magazines. I’m going to clip the things I think are useful and then ditch the rest of the magazine. I also found that I can get digital copies of Cooking Light on my iPad, so I don’t even need to clip! I will not currently fess up as to how many magazines I will be getting rid of. That confession will come another time, when they have met their fate with the big green Waste Management bin. ;)

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Dr. Oz 3 Day Detox

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A friend of mine is doing Dr. Oz’s 3 Day Detox. Today was her first day. I of course was intrigued and decided to check it out. I am becoming quite the smoothie aficionado thanks to my Vitamix. When you can get 2 or 3 kinds of veggies and 4 or 5 kinds of fruit packed into one blender.. AND IT’S KID APPROVED .. well, then you’re going to keep making them. And I have, which I promise I will be posting about, but I’m still working out some recipes. ;)

There is a shopping list on there for you to take with you to the store, and it gives the smoothie recipes as well. I’ve already printed it out to see what all I would need, because I am seriously entertaining the idea.

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Baked “Hard Boiled” Eggs

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Everyone who has been on Pinterest has likely seen the baked “hard boiled” eggs.  Stephanie made them the other day and I decided to do the same.  She said that one batch came out sort of soft boiled, and I cannot do anything short of 100% cooked eggs, so I took her incident as a sign and bumped up my oven a little bit.

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Those dots all over the shell caught me by surprise.  Though I figured it was the many pores in the shell at work, and most of it rinsed off anyhow.

I did 2 dozen eggs, in my normal muffin tins, at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Ice bath as soon as they came out of the oven, and then back into the ice bath after I peeled them.

This is what happened……

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It’s almost here!

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Tomorrow is the start of the Food Revolution “challenge”. I was just putting together my menu board for the month, and I found that I’ve gotten tired of my meals for the most part. I guess it’s time to pull out some of my cookbooks and find some new meals that are healthier, or can be adjusted easily. and simple to make. Because face it, between running the girls to school, Girl Scouts, PTO, household responsibilities (that don’t include hovering over the stove) and my “work” … my time is little and precious, and I don’t want to have to spend any more time cooking than I have to.

I do have the next week already planned because of how payday lands, but the rest of the month is in the air. I think tomorrow will be a pantry/freezer inventory and clean out. It’s a great way to start a month of making better habits. :)

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