A Teal Wedding Cake

I always find it funny how the cakes that should be really easy to make are the ones that give me fits and leave cake splatters on my ceilings, while the cakes that seem tedious and that I dread making, because I think it will take me forever and a day, are the ones that I find to be the most relaxing to make. 

Case in point: Today's wedding cake!

I was not looking forward to making a whole bunch of flowers. They are tedious and time consuming and I definitely don't charge enough for them. 

But this time around I got into a groove and the monotonous rhythm of it was rather calming, add in some music and it was golden.

My time management was impeccable, no cake was thrown (some fondant was almost thrown but I controlled myself and ate a chunk instead), the older kids played great and Benj played well and then had 4 three hour naps over the two days. (So not only was that enough time to decorating this cake but more than enough time to read 3/4 of a book..BAM!).

This is the cake all set up in the reception hall. I forgot how hard it is to take good pictures in a gym. Of course I remembered the trick of no flash after I had taken this only full table shot.

I hope the bride and groom are happy and enjoy their wonderful evening and a long and happy marriage!

Oh, yeah and while making all the flowers last night, I helped Jason study for his college acceptance math test...which he did GREAT on! We hope it's enough to get him into college without having to upgrade any classes!

Anyway, I'll leave you with one last picture of Jamin sporting some wicked bedhead while sitting with Jason this morning doing some last minute cramming.

Have a great weekend!

Love,
Kat

Free Classes at Craftsy

If you've been on the internet lately (especially my site), you may have noticed some ads for Craftsy.
It's a really cool site that gives you instructor led tutorials for just about anything crafty.

I always drool over the sugar flower and cake decorating workshops, but that's just me...I like cakes.

However there are other super cool ones as well. Like a whole variety on sew, crocheting  knitting, quilting, baking, and even things like metal working.

What's awesome about the workshops is that you can work on them at your own pace, in your own time and there are often forums that you can talk with other classmates about and even the instructor. How awesome is that?!!

What's even better is that on May 18th, you have the chance to sign up for a class for FREE!!
(Totally just made your eyes pop out of you head...especially my fellow Dutchies!)

If Craftsy gets 10,000 class signups then Craftsy will donate $5,000 to DonorsChoose to fund arts education in public schools across the US. Pretty cool eh?!

So if you've been curious how it works (just like me) then now's the time to check it out!

I'm signing up for the "Sewing Texture" class. (I know, did I not just totally blow your mind that I didn't go the cake decorating route?) We'll see how it goes.

Anyway, join me and many others.

Chewy Handmade Tortillas

I have to share one of my favorite things I like to make. 

HOMEMADE TORTILLAS!

They are nothing like the ones you buy in the store. They are smaller, chewy and oh so much fun to make!

What's really awesome about them is that they take very few ingredients and you can get your kids right in there helping along (and the dough won't kill them either!)

Before I give you the recipe: I'm going to force you too look at pictures of me kids. If they weren't so cute, I'd be charged with torture I'm sure!

Here's Brooke and her lightning quick hands, rolling the dough. 

Caleb's turn. He rolled some oblong, space alien type tortillas, which I, of course complimented him on and then....rerolled it when he wasn't looking!

Brooke, always the cheeseball!

Benji got just a "little" possessive of "his" rolling pins!

Just look at that 'don't-mess-with-me-mom" look he's giving me! 

Such serious eyes for such a little boy Benji!

And here was dinner. I grilled up some chicken thighs, and wrapped them up with a little lettuce, salsa and ranch dressing. Mmmm...good!

Okay, Okay, you've waited long enough!

Here's the recipe:
I got this recipe off of allrecipes.com. However, it didn't really work for me. Maybe it was the altitude or something but I had to had more liquid and oil than the original recipe. So here's my recipe (The one I actually use)

Chewy Homemade Tortillas

2 cups of all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup lukewarm milk
1 Tbsp oil

1. Mix the flour and baking powder together in a bowl.
2. Combine the salt, milk and oil. (If you are like me and forget to let the milk sit out so it gets warm, then just chuck it in the microwave for a few seconds/minutes, until it is no longer cold to the touch)
3. Create a well in the dry mixture and pour in the liquid all at one time. Stir together with a fork until well moistened.
4. Dump onto a floured work surface and knead the dough until it is no longer sticky.
5. LET IT REST for 15 minutes. (well, after you snatch off a little snack for yourself and the prying hands all around you). You need to let it rest so the baking powder can do a little magic. It won't rise or anything but just get more workable.
6. Divide the dough into 8 equal portions and roll each portion into a ball. (Like Brooke and her lightning speed)
7. LET IT REST again for 15 minutes.
8. Get out your rolling pins. I like to do this on an unfloured surface so that the dough has a little traction but if yours is sticking, then flour your table! Now just roll your balls as thin as you can humanly get them
9. Warm up a skillet.
10. On a DRY skillet, place the rolled out dough. Allow it to cook until bubbly (see picture below) and the bottom is browned. Then flip them over to cook the other side!

11. Done.

I realize that this seems like a lot of steps, but a lot of the time is just watching it rest (or tidying up your mess while the dough takes a little break from all of its hard work!)

I hope you get a chance to make these.
Maybe, next time I make them I'll save a few and let you in on how I transform them to a tasty treat for after supper. Can anyone say Cinnamon Sugar!

Have fun cooking with the kids! They love to be special helpers and it's a great time to catch up on the day, tell silly jokes and get some tickle hugs in!

Love,
Kat

Bike Parking Sign

I was totally going to share another recipe today...can anyone say "Homemade Tortillas"? But then I thought that you all are getting sick of seeing so much food from me so instead you get a sneak peak of what I am working on for a little corner in our backyard.
(Don't worry, the tortilla recipe will be coming along with pictures of some super cute kitchen helpers during the making of them!)

As I write this, it smells like rain outside. That has to be one of my favorite smells. To me it means refreshment, green grass and hunkering down for a little while and then PUDDLES!

{SIGH}

Anyway...back on track! This is what I whipped up today!

Here's the thing. If you have some of these:

There's a good chance your yard looks like this:

It is riddled with small children's riding machines!

Seriously? How many kids live back there? We have enough bikes for 8 kids the fight over! (Shh...don't tell Jason I said that or he'll make me get rid of some of them. I've seen that "I-just-want-to-chuck-things" look in his eye lately!)

Anyway, here's how I made this sign:
I had one bottom of a crate leftover from all my crate projects. ("Map Joined in Love" art, Crate Drawer, "I Like Love You" sign and the Pallet Kitchen Wall) What can I say.... I love me some crates!

So I had to cut it down, snip off a few nails and then stained it. I would totally share my method for staining but it's probably THE WORST method ever! Imagine me with a wadded up paper towel, a petite can of stain in the other and a constant "pour-wipe, pour-splatter-wipe, pick the paper towel out of the stain, pour-wipe".

Then came the fun. I got on my computer and printed off a stencil I made up in Word on cardstock. (Font: Urban Sketch, size 370). Then I cut out the letters using an x-acto knife. Then dabbed and swirled away.

Then I drew a picture of a bike on a piece of paper and used my Chalk Transfer Method to make the image magically appear on my board.

Then I went over the lines with white paint. Once it was dry I took a damp cloth and wiped off any remaining chalk. EASY PEASY! What's awesome about this method is, that if the placement isn't quite right then you just wipe it off and place again!

Then I freehanded on an arrow and called it a day!

Well, sort of! I hung it on the fence using some L-brackets to see if I liked it first.

I like the sign...but I don't like the haggard looking fence! Somebody's going to need to paint that thing soon!

(That somebody, being me!)

Here's a picture that may give you more of an idea of what we're going for. See..kids park their bikes there at the end of the day! It's a novel idea...I know!

So that's it for now. But I'm thinking of making some friends for it as well! 

Oh, and a place for the kids to hang their helmets!

I was hoping that by the time I finished typing this post up that it would be raining. But the smell outside is proving to be a tease....and I don't like it's sense of humor!

Have a blessed day!

Love,
Kat

Mini Pita Love!

I feel like I've been all about food lately. Especially mini food! Cakes, cookies and now a supper idea. I don't think I've shared a dinner idea since I shared my Meatloaf on the BBQ in the summer, which coincidentally I made Monday night and they were fabulous!

I don't know what it is about the fresh air and being outside but apparently it's when I really like to shared what we're having for dinner!

Here's what we had tonight:

and/or

Both of these were really good! Jason really liked the Chicken & Sweet Potato Pita (but then again, he's a sucker for a little aioli sauce) and I like me some pulled pork!

Both of these were dreamed up in the middle of the morning, with kids running around like madmen, baby snuggling on my shoulder and a whole dishwasher to unload and then it hit me, "I WANT SWEET POTATOES AND AIOLI!"

But then I drove past my favorite bakery of the moment (Lakeview Bakery) and pulled in and got some of their pitas! Mmmms...So Yummy!

I wasn't on time enough to get the mini white pitas, but the whole wheat ones are incredible too and have a little chew to them! LOVE!

So this is how I made them:

Prep:
1. Threw a Pork Tenderloin and a can of Coke in the crockpot and let it do it's magic all day.

2. Peel and slice the sweet potato. Then toss them with some oil and seasoning salt (I used my Epicure Herb and Garlic Sea Salt). Then wrapped them in a foil pack and popped them in the BBQ for about 20 minutes)

3. Make aioli sauce (fancy mayonnaise). I just make it up myself. I mixed together about a 1/2 cup of mayonnaise with 1 tsp of chili powder and a squirt of lemon juice. EASY!

Assembly:
For the Chicken Aoili:
1. Cut open the pita.
2. Spread aioli sauce on the bottom of the pita.
3. Layer sweet potatoes, then shredded chicken (that I picked up from Lakeview's deli) then a few pieces of lettuce.

For the BBQ Pulled Pork:
1. Cut open the Pita.
2. Spread your favorite BBQ sauce on the bottom.
3. Layer Sweet Potato and then pulled pork. (You can add some lettuce for some crunch as well!)

There you have it! An easy dinner for tonight!

Love,
Kat

Chewy Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

Now that Jason's a busy working man again, that means I have to be a busy baking lady again!

(I know! How domestic of me!)

He requested lemon loaf so I made him these instead!

Okay, not completely true. I did make him lemon loaf too but, as Jason put it,  it "was not yellow enough!". It also wasn't lemon enough for my taste either. I'm going to have to ask Oma Vanderwal for her recipe (because they are to die for!) and I bought a bag of lemons from Costco. Some lemon loaf will be made!

But in the meantime I'm going to let you in on this recipe instead!

Chewy Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

Oven: 350F for 9-11

1 1/2 cups butter

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

2 cup flour

3/4 cup cocoa powder (I used Red Ruby from Bulk Barn)

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt 

2 cup chocolate chips

1. Cream butter and sugar. (I didn't soften my butter first but just let it beat with the sugar, like my buttercream frosting).

2. Add eggs one at a time blending until fluffy. Add vanilla. 

3. Combine flour, sifted cocoa, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl. Add to the wet mixture and combine until well moistened.

4. Stir in the chocolate chips.

5. Scoop out a spoonful and eat. Try not to let the kids see or you will have to share. 

6. Drop by tablespoon full onto a parchment lined cookie sheet.

7. Bake until firm but not hard. About 9-11 minutes.

8. Lick the beater and eat a handful of chocolate chips while you wait for the cookies to bake!

9. Take the cookies out and allow to cool on the cookie sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. 

10. Pour a glass of milk and enjoy 1 (or 3 or 5). Maybe let your kids have 1 or 2. 

Yields about 50-55

(Unless you are a cookie dough troll like me, whereas then you will only get about 45 cookies and a chocolate induced coma!) 

There you have it!

I hope you like them!

Love,

Kat

Confessions Part 2: I Threw Cake...Again!

So you may be wondering what that is on my ceiling.

No that is not Yogurt (that would be wiped away and disinfected by now!)

Baby food? ....NOPE
Boogers?....Possible but NOPE
Banana?....NOPE

If you guessed cake then...Ding, ding, ding...we've got a winner!

And it all happened while making this adorable cake for a friend's little guy!

A few weeks ago I had a moment similar, but maybe even worse than this incident from a few years back. 

Men, if you are reading this, you may want to plug your ears and avert your eyes and move down about a half a page because I'm going to use the "P" word!

A few weeks ago, I got may PERIOD!

Really Kat? You are a women. We all know we get them.

However, this is only the third time I've had my period in the last 5 years. {Please refrain from choking me in envy..now}.

I forgot how CRAZY I get when I'm on my period. I'm slightly bipolar on the best of days but when I'm doing the woman thing, I am up and down like a yo-yo! One minute I LOVE your guts and the next minute I could rip your guts out.

So, on cake making day, things were going well. The cakes mixed together quickly. They baked in the right amount of time. They came out of the oven looking pretty. One cake came out just fine and then all hell broke loose!

The second plan slipped off the cooling rack while flipping it over, causing it to crack right down the middle. Normally this is not a big deal but when I went to move it, it cracked even more. And then I got a palm stuck in it.

Then....well, I got really angry.

So of course, I grabbed a handful of the cake and started throwing it and yelling at it and turning into CRAZY mommy! I threw it right at my kitchen window, which whiplashed on the ceiling, backsplash and sink.

I didn't stop there. I grabbed the rest of the cake in two hands and slammed it into the garbage while screaming at the top of my lungs. Some of it missed and landed on the floor in millions of tiny splatters and I remember murmuring something like, "Fine, if you don't want to go into the garbage then you can just stay there for all I care!", as if the cake was plotting some kind of revolt against me!

Then Benji had the audacity to crawl into the kitchen, slip on a piece of cake, land head first into another splatter and cry....like he was the one with the problem. Offering very little comfort to the clearly traumatized little boy, I plopped him into his high chair for the next little while. (Who, BTW, cried every time I looked at him for the next half an hour).

At one point, Brooke came up the stairs, thinking that it was a good idea to ask for a snack. She got the you-better-get-downstairs-right-now-if-you-know-what's-good-for-you look which made her hightail it back down to Caleb and tell him, "Mommy's not going to be able to get us a snack right now."

It took me much longer to cool down than it should have. I slammed together the ingredients for another layer of cake, rushed it into the oven, looked around and thought to myself, "What have I done!"

Failed that one!

I was sinning like a cup of salt in a lemon meringue pie.

I wanted to indulge in all that whipped meringue and lemony goodness of my anger but it was leaving me with  a bitter taste in my mouth because the lemony goodness contained a whole bunch of nasty in it.

The problem with anger is that is breeds so much destruction, not only to just yourself but to those around you as well. My anger, while it felt so good to let it out and throw that cake and make a screaming mess out of myself, was terrifying those around me.

As mentioned before, Benji, cried every time he looked at me for the next half an hour because I had scared him.

The other two had buried themselves in the basement because they didn't want to face the monster that was making a mess everywhere.

Not to mention, that when my tantrum was all said and done, I looked out my window and there were our teenage neighbours, breathing in some fresh nicotine air, looking right into my window. I was just hoping that they hadn't witnessed any of my tirade. I felt defeated in that moment. I saw my window of being a witness to them, go right out the window (just the like the cake should have!)

I looked around at the consequences of my 5 minutes of crazy anger and saw that those minutes had multiplied ten fold and left me standing there in the wake of a sticky mess that I knew would take me much too long to clean up.

Part of me, wants to keep those cake splatters on my ceiling as a constant reminder of what being entrenched in the throws of anger means. If anyone points it out, it can give me a way to testify to the amazing grace of God and show that I'm a work in progress that will never be done until the day my life on earth is finished.

But then part of me just wants to get pregnant so Crazy, Period Kathryn goes away (but then I guess I'm left with Crazy Pregnant Kathryn)...I don't know which is better!

Anyway, long story short...I need to work on my anger and practice a little self-control!

My Name is Kathryn and I have an anger problem!

Hopefully shedding some light on the sin in my life will help me get past it!
Which sins of yours weigh heavily on your heart?

Love,
Kat