Cinnamon Roasted Almonds

I'm really sorry to anyone that checks my blog. I have been wanting to post for days now. If I'm blogging it's usually on my personal blog and even then that has slowed down. Child 1 had the swine flu and I can't get my husband healthy. He is going on 2 weeks of feeling awful. Urgh!

However I will post this awesome recipe for cinnamon roasted almonds. These are really really good!

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon cold water
1 egg white
4 cups whole almonds
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup white sugar

preheat oven to 250 and grease a cookie sheet. Preferably one with edges.
Mix the egg and water until egg becomes frothy. Add the nuts and mix it around until the nuts are coated with the egg. Mix together the sugar salt and cinnamon and then sprinkle it over the nuts. Toss until nuts are evenly coated. Spread into the greased pan and bake for 1 hour. I stirred mine every 20 minutes or so.

Tip: I think the nuts are a lot better once they're cooled. They're good warm but I liked them after they've cooled so the nuts aren't so soft.

Store in a air tight container.

Zucchini Bread

This recipe is amazing. Really it is! It's really moist, fluffy and filling. I don't think I'll ever use another recipe for plain ol' zucchini bread. Sooo good! I found it online and changed it a little to cut out some sugar. Here's the recipe...

3 C flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
3 tsp cinnamon
3 eggs
1/2 C olive oil
1/2 C applesauce
1/2 C white sugar
1 C brown sugar
3 tsp vanilla
3-4 C grated or chopped zucchini. I actually used close to 5 cups.

preheat oven to 325.
sift flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda & cinnamon together.

In separate bowl, beat eggs, oil, vanilla, applesauce & sugar. Add sifted ingredients. Mix well. Add zucchini. Bake in 2 greased pans 50-55 minutes. I think mine were done in about 60 min.

Tip: some recipes for zucchini bread say to squeeze all the water out of the zucchini after it has been grated. Don't do that for this recipe. All the water in the zucchini is what helps keep the bread so moist and keeps it from drying out.

If you're looking for a different zucchini bread recipe try this.

Here's a way to [Re]beautify something, give a fun gift and help keep kids germ free during this flu season. O.k. there is no such thing as a kid ever being germ free but you know what I mean.

These are going to Theron's teacher...

The funny thing is that This popped up on my google reader this morning. No way! Someone was totally on the same wave length or something. We have to be friends. I need to meet her! Our projects look way to much a like for us not to be friends. How cool is this?

Easy home made potpourri

This stuff will make your whole entire house smell soooo good. So good, you might just start licking your walls.

Here's what you need:

• 1 lemon
• 1 orange
• 3-3 inch cinnamon sticks
• 6 bay leaves
• ½ cup whole cloves

Combine all ingredients in a pan with water and simmer on low all day. Keep filling with water as needed.

One of my favorite things about this time of year is all the yummy smells. The cinnamon, vanilla, sugar cookies, fall, pumpkin, spice, fire places, hot chocolate, thanksgiving turkeys, Christmas trees. All of it. I love it! This is the perfect scent to welcome fall. Even though it's still in the upper 90's here, I'm doing everything I can to make it feel like the summer weather is almost over.

Thanks Jackie Lee and Stacey for the recipe!

Last fall I was busy with my enrichment calling and other things. I didn't get anything done that I wanted to. So, this year I'm starting early, to make up for lost time. First off, pumpkins...

Go here for the tutorial. Holly is so cute and creative. In fact go to her blog anyways so you can see how the pumpkins are supposed to look. Good thing I was going for the homemade look and not perfection. Mine turned out so ugly they're cute.

Hooded Towel Tutorial. Grab a full sized towel and a hand towel and [re]beautify it.

I'm leaving for the weekend and I should be packing and getting ready to go but I'm not. I'm sitting here on my big rear typing away & stressing about everything that still needs to be done. I'm excited about this tutorial though.

Here's how I did it...thanks to my friend Beth.

Start with a font you like and enlarge it to the size you want. I chose this font but it wasn't thick enough so I printed it and then drew an outer line to make it even thicker. Cut out your letters

Then I got some iron on adhesive. The one I used was Heat N Bond but there are others like Wonder Under. Make sure you get the one that allows you to sew after it's been applied. Next you're going to adhere your fabric to the heat n bond. Place together the bumpy side of the heat n bond and the wrong side of your fabric. Iron over it until it's stuck to the fabric. Here's a picture, bumpy side of adhesive and wrong side of fabric...

Next, you take your cut out letters and trace them backwards on the other side of your heat n bond. This way, you letters come out facing the right way. You'll see what I mean in the next step. So, trace your letters backwards on the paper side of the heat n bond and then cut them out again.

Next, get a hand towel that matches the towel you'll be using. Cut the hand towel in half.

Now, fold up the end of your (half hand towel) towel so that the letters will fit. This is where the letters will be sewn so make sure you give them enough room. Space them out and remove the paper side of the heat n bond. If you look you'll see there will be a shiny residue on your fabric and this is what will make your fabric stick to your towel so you can stitch it on there. Remove the paper and lay the letters back down on the towel...

and then iron those bad boys on there.

then you're going to stitch the letter to the towel. The zig zag stitch is probably the easiest to use, I think. Don't look to closely at my stitching, my poor old ancient machine has been giving me heck. My pedal has started sticking so my stitching gets a little crazy. Before you start stitching, make sure you unfold your towel. You don't want to stitch it folded yet. Stitch all your letters on!

Once all the letters are stitched on, then fold your towel back on the line and pin. Then stitch along the top of the letters like the photo. Don't worry about stitching straight. You won't even see your thread once you're done.

You're almost done with the hood of the towel. Now take your towel and fold it with the letters on the inside like so. You're going to stitch the top of the hood. Pin along the top and sew straight across.

Here's another photo. See the pins on the top? The letters are also on the inside of the fold. Stitch right across the top.

Remove the pins and fold the towel right side out. You made the hood. There is only one more step. You just have to attach it to the towel.

Okay, take your full sized towel and fold it in half. Pay attention to the half way point of the towel because that is where you're going to line up the hood. You want to attach the hood in the center of the towel. Put a pin or something there to mark it. Then take your hood and line up the center of the back bottom of the hood to the pin that marks the center of the towel. You'll line them up with the letters on the hood facing up. Pin it so it will stay in place while you stitch. Your machine will be sewing through a few layers of towel so it will be thick.

Here's another photo...

Of course I forgot to take a photo of the towel all done and unfolded so you could see it. I did however take a photo of how I like to fold them after they're finished. I made 2 towels. I bought 2 full sized towels and one hand towel. I just used the other half of the hand towel after it was cut for the other hood. I also buy all my towels at target when they go on clearance. I stock up.

They also look cute with a bottle of bubble bath tucked in there too!

There might seem to be a lot of steps and I hope I didn't make it too confusing. They're actually really easy. let me know if you have any questions or if I need to explain a little more. Go make one and send me pics. I'd love to see your creations!

Also, I took some good advice from Beth. I made a towel for my 10 year old niece too. Since she was so tall the hooded towel wouldn't really fit right. Her bum probably would have hung out the bottom. So, when I made hers I just put her name at the end of the towel instead of making a hood for it. Still so cute!

p.s. are you as excited as I am to get those picture of my toilet off the top of my blog?

If your toilet seat become loose, do you know how to fix it? I had no idea. After watching a plumber come and fix it for me and look at me like I'm stupid for not knowing how to fix something so easy, I learned. I'm going to spare you the embarrassment and share how to fix it. I'm convinced that after fixing things in the home all by yourself you should be called "queen of the castle".

You pop off the plastic cover to the thing on the back of your seat. I never even knew these things came off. I took the screw out in this photo because I was cleaning it off. Apparently it is a major trap for pee from a 5 year old that has a really bad aim. Gross! Just pop off the plastic cover so you can see the screw head.

(sorry, I didn't get it as clean as I wanted for the photo, and I scraped the crap out of it as I didn't realize there was a nut on the underside so I was trying to pop it out insetaed of unscrewing it. oh well!)

Then reach around the underside of the toilet and there will be the bottom half of the screw hanging down with a nut attached. I didn't realize in this photo my nut is missing because I took it off and didn't put it back on before I took the photo but there will be one there. (there was pee on the underside of the screw too) Just grab the nut and hold it tight while tightening the top part of the screw with a screwdriver.



Who knew it could be so easy? I'll be removing mine regularly for cleaning.

I'll post more about becoming the "queen of my castle". I have a feeling I will have to learn more as Ben will be gone a lot this year for rotations and I'll be on my own for repairs. This could get ugly!