Muffin Tin Monday

Back to a normal routine! Yay! Okay, almost... this Muffin Tin Monday was from a few weeks ago since I've been unable to share my pictures for the past two weeks.

This was our mid-day stop on our drive down to California. We stopped of in Albany, OR (where my husband grew up) and had a muffin tin picnic. It was a beautiful day and the kids had a great time. I do have to say, however, that parks with geese made it difficult to have lawn picnics. We set the kids up on top of the picnic table as it was the least contaminated area for eating.

The kids had jelly sandwiches, edamame, banana chips, grapes, Wheat Thins and raisins. My husband and I enjoyed tuna and crackers with a cold tortellini salad I had made from left overs in the fridge. It was perfect. It made for such a nice family picnic and an inexpensive stop along the way.

I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of things this week. I have lots to share, lots to make (my big Mill Creek show is in just 2 weeks) and plenty of ideas for the kids. It's been years since we've been home for most of the summer and I'm looking forward to spending time in our garden, getting the kids signed up for lots of summer activities and maybe even getting some of my projects around the house started.

Step on over to Her Cup Overfloweth for more Muffin Tin Mondays!

** Side note - that blanket that the kids are eating on is one of two blankets I made for my son when he was an infant. When he was learning to crawl, he needed a larger blanket than the baby blankets. My mom and I each made a blanket from our quilting scraps by just sewing the larger scraps together in various shapes - and them backing it in an inexpensive sheet. These blankets are great - we use them for everything! I highly recommend making one or two and keeping it in your car for an occasion just like this one.

Read more...

Another week - and still no photos

Amazing what a disruption no photos can be in my day to day routine. I'm still in California and I have yet to get my photos to a computer in which I can upload them to the net. I could go into details, but ultimately is just comes down to a very frustrating situation for me. Blogging has become a therapeutic activity for me... so two weeks without, I'm getting a bit annoyed.

Other than my computer issues, we are having a great visit with family and friends. The kids have been able to go swimming just about everyday, I've had sushi several times already (and I get it again tonight) and the kids have had lots of cousin time (with both sides of the family). Cousins are one of our main reasons for making this annual trip.

I'm anxious to share pictures here, on Flickr and on Facebook. Unfortunately, its looking more and more like it isn't going to happen until I return home on the 5th. Boo!

Read more...

Stay tuned!

Okay, so I'm "on vacation" (visiting family in CA) and I've been blogging... the only problem is that I forgot my camera cord and can't download the pictures. I think my blogs are pretty drab without so I'm waiting until I get the cord to publish them (should be Thursday). Just a heads up!

I have pictures from the drive to share, a muffin tin picnic in Oregon, the Aquarium and a return to an old childhood memory to share - among other things.

So - be patient! The end of this week I should be doing several posts a day (I hope).

Oh! And I decided to keep the stores open and bring all the inventory with me. I'm so glad I did as I've already had several sales. This is exciting because I do some of my best supply shopping here in San Jose. I'll share pictures of that too as soon as I can!

Read more...

Mini Toasted Ravioili Tutorial

Yesterday we had many commitments - which meant, no Tea Time Thursday. But the kids were happy because I still managed to make them a Bento lunch for them to eat on the way to the preschool playdate.

Contents: Grapes and Carrots (supposed to be trees), dinosaur jelly sandwich on top of sweet potato chips and mini toasted raviolis (tutorial to follow).

I'm not sure the kids got that I tried to make this into a picture - they were too excited to have a bento again as it's been about two weeks since I've made one for them. They devoured it as usual. The toasted raviolis, in particular, were a big hit. I have trouble getting pasta down my daughter so I look forward to trying to find some with meat filling to see if she'll eat them. It would be great to get both pasta and protein down her.

Mini Toasted Ravioli Tutorial

Ingredients:

• Mini Ravioli cooked per directions on package and tossed in a small amount of olive oil (we used some from Trader Joes - they were left overs from the night before)
• Bread Crumbs (I had plain bread crumbs so I added garlic salt, Italian seasoning and pepper but you could use just Italian seasoned bread crumbs)

Step 1: Separate ravioli and drop into a small bowl of bread crumbs. As long as you separate them before putting them in the bread crumbs, you can do several at a time.


Step 2: Lightly coat each ravioli with bread crumbs - because mine came out of the fridge and had been tossed in olive oil, the bread crumbs stuck great. If you are cooking the ravioli specifically for this I recommend cooling them completely and patting them dry as it will take longer to toast them if they are wet.

Step 3: Place them out flat on a cookie sheet. I cooked them in our toaster oven and it worked great - about 6 minutes on each side set to bake at 425.

I toasted them until they were visibly crisp on one side, then I turned them and cooked them about the same amount of time until they turned a light brown. I'm sure I could have cooked them longer for a nice golden brown but I was in a hurry to get them into the Bento boxes (as they need to be cool when put into a Bento box).

Read more...

Remember These?

Remember way back when - I had posted a blog about the onions that started sprouting on my counter??? Well, we have blooms! These things got so big that I had to move them out to my deck outside.

Read more...