sundays are for baking & drawing

Another weekend down. Where does the time go? People have told me that time moves even faster as you age. I can't even imagine!

If you know me, or have been reading my blog for a while, you know that Sundays are my rest day. I like to do a few things, but I love not having any set plans and spending my day doing what I want when I want. I know this luxury won't last forever, so I plan to take advantage of it!

Yesterday, I woke up slowly and chatted with mom on the phone for a bit. Once she told me they were having smoothies, a craving hit. After finishing our phone call, I busted out my trusty magic bullet and threw in some frozen peaches, fresh strawberries and low-acid orange juice. Instant smoothie! Even on a frigid day, like yesterday, a smoothie still hit the spot.

I've already told you before that Sunday makes me want to bake. I've also confessed that baking feeling went away the day we moved into this apartment, with it's seemingly surface-less space. D had been wanting to make for a couple of months now, so yesterday we bit the bullet and made them. It didn't take very long, since worked together. He did the wet bowl and I did the dry bowl. Then mix. They turned out alright from what I could tell. I only had a little bite because I was too busy binging on chocolate I had bought on Friday.

One must-do Sunday activity, unless it's raining, is to take Abby to the off-leash dog park. She doesn't get much (if any) dog interaction during the week, so we try to bring her a couple times every weekend to release some energy by chasing and wrestling the other dogs. When we finally took her inside because our feet were frozen, she looked like this. Man, she knows how to turn on the puppy eyes.

Later on in the evening, after watching a couple episodes of Ink Masters on Spike TV, D & I decided to draw. Inspired by the tattoo designs on the show, we decided to challenge each other. We set up our table so we couldn't see each others' drawings and then described a tattoo we would want to get. We had one hour to create a cool design. The photo on the left is just a sketch I started to make a collage over, the photo on the right is what I came up with after he gave me the following instructions:

I want a bomb dropping into water. You can use blue, red and orange.

A man of few words.

Not bad, for my first "tattoo design" ever. I'm pretty sure that no one would ever get this permanently drawn on their body though. Haha. I asked for a spiral/floral design with lots of detail in blue, green and purple, but he won't let me show you his. It was actually really fun to surprise each other with the design at the end. We'll probably try this again.

The design on the left above is just a sketch I made of an old travel photo my parents took. I'm planning on doing a paper collage over it sometimes this week or next. I'll be sure to show you the finished product.

How was your weekend? Did you do anything fun?

xx Janelle

Baking in a Rental Without Counter Space: Banana Crumble Muffins

For the first month or so of living in our new place (pics soon!) I avoided baking. You see, our apartment's sink is flanked by two laminate counter tops wide enough for one baking sheet on each. Yes, I measure things in baking sheet units. As you can imagine, those counter tops are not clear because we've got the toaster on one side coupled with a few dirty dishes and on the other side we have our knife block and dish rack. Counter space = gone.

I should tell you that this has not stopped me from cooking though, I mean, a girl's gotta eat. I make due with a large wooden cutting board placed over the two burners that aren't in use. it makes for a pretty great prep space, it's cozy and I like it. When the oven's on (ie. when I'm baking) the cutting board is banished from the stove for obvious reasons.

Our solution to the lack of counterspace was to use a 3-tiered wooden shelf given to us by my grandparents. They found it in the garbage room of their condo, still wrapped in the plastic! It's one of those ones that needs to be drilled together and has the slatted shelves.

For my baking set-up yesterday, I brought the cutting board over to the window and popped it on top of the wooden shelf. I blocked off the entrance to the kitchen with garbage bins to stop our nosy pup from getting in the way/mooching and pushed the microwave into the centre of the room so I could plug it in elsewhere since we blew a fuse last week. I pulled my large bin of baking stuff onto the floor along with the canisters of flour and sugar. I hope you're getting the full visual effect of how ridiculous this whole set-up was. Apron on, flour everywhere, my computer perched on the wooden shelf with two mixing bowls, the oven beeping at me. A pretty, pretty sight. Or a hot mess.

Mess aside, I had fun time baking in my little kitchen. I could hear D's reactions to the Raptors' game he was watching in living room and I could see our little nosy dog peeking her head in, hoping to eye some crumbs for later.

Want to see the Banana Crumble Muffins? Feast your eyes on these babies.

I used this recipe from Amy Allen Clark at MomAdvice. My only change was that I doubled the cinnamon for the topping. This is a great recipe for using up bananas that are starting to turn brown. I usually go to my mom's recipe for banana bread, but decided to change things up a bit. I like the portability of a muffin for work and they are easier to share, too. My two co-workers gave them a thumbs up this morning!

I think I'm going to start adding some form of crumble to all of my future muffins. Blueberry crumble, apple crumble, raspberry crumble... It gives the muffin a bit more texture, richer taste and a dressier look - great for when you're trying to impress the in-laws. Haha. Beware of the crumble though! It's kind of like glitter in that it tends to get everywhere when removing the muffins and setting them on the cooling rack. I have my pup for crumbs, but you might need a damp cloth.

What are your go-to recipes for bananas past their prime? If you make any crumble muffins, let me know. I'd love to see them!

Tasty "Thursdays": Peanut Butter Cups

Tasty Tuesdays is Thursday for today.... Two weeks ago I made these little delights for D as an Easter treat. I'm not a huge peanut butter cup fan myself even though I love chocolate and peanut butter separately, but because D is crazy about them I really wanted to give them a go. I used this recipe from All Recipes, but I did regular sized cups instead of mini ones, so I did end up having to use more chocolate than indicated. I've modified the recipe on this page for the larger cups, FYI.

Ingredients

• 2 pkgs milk chocolate chips
• 2 tablespoons shortening
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar
• 2/3 cup graham cracker crumbs (I used storebought fine breadcrumbs and it was fine!)

Do it up

In 1-quart saucepan combine chocolate chips and shortening. Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until melted and smooth (3 to 5 minutes).
*I used a double boiler as you can see in the photo. If you don't know what a double boiler is, it's when you put 1-2 inches in a pot, bring it to a boil, then reduce it. Then you put a metal bowl on top of the pot and melt your chocolate in it. It keeps the chocolate from cooling and hardening because you keep the water boiling at low heat. It makes working with chocolate so much easier & I highly recommend it!

With small paint brush or mini-spatula, coat inside top cup evenly with about 1 teaspoon melted chocolate to about 1/8-inch thickness, bringing coating to middle of cup. Repeat until all cups are coated; refrigerate or freeze cups. 

In 2-quart saucepan combine butter or margarine and peanut butter. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until melted (4 to 6 minutes). Stir in confectioners' sugar and graham cracker crumbs. Press about 1-1-1/2 tablespoon filling into each chocolate cup.
Spoon about 1 teaspoon melted chocolate on top of filling; spread to cover. Freeze until firm (about 2 hours) carefully peel off paper cups. Store refrigerated. 

 

The smooth top ones were made with Chip its brand chips.

This recipe is definitely worth trying. It takes a little while to line the cups but once you get used to it, you can breeze right through. Not to mention, they taste delicious and the texture of the PB filling is perfect. Let me know if you give these a shot!

Thanks for reading,
xo Janelle