Jack-o-lanterns

             Happy Halloween!  M and I carved jack-o-lanterns to celebrate the holiday. 

M's Meatloaf

M made a delicious meatloaf with our leftover carrots, celery, tomatoes, and bread among the other usual ingredients and spices.  He blended everything in the food processor, placed the meatloaf a glass loaf pan, and glazed it with ketchup, mustard, bbq sauce, and brown sugar. Next he placed the pan in a bigger 13x9 pan with one inch of water and cooked it for over an hour.  It was super moist and flavorful.  How wonderful to come home to a homemade dinner made with love!

Let Go

My east coast, yogi friend and I are doing a yearlong post card project.  Each month we make and send a postcard to one another.  We learned about this project from our mutual friend A. who's creating and sending 52 postcards (one/week) to her friend in the Garden State.  That seems overly ambitious to me because one postcard/month is challenging enough.

This is my October postcard, which reminds us all to breathe, let go, be present in the moment, and let God. I used newspaper, permanent markers, Modge Podge, and a blank postcard.

Thanks to Keri Speidel's dictionary art over at creativegeniusart for the inspiration.

Glue Line Pumpkin Note Card

This weekend I made a Halloween card for Baci and Dziadziu from a  glue line pumpkin project I saw on Pinterest. I drew the pumpkins in pencil on watercolor paper. Then traced over the pencil lines with Elmer's glue.  Once the glue was dried, I painted the card with watercolors.  Voilà! A Halloween pumpkin card!  I'll definitely use this glue technique to make other note cards. 


For This Project You'll Need: watercolor paper or watercolor note card, pencil, Elmer's glue, watercolors

Pumpkin Yogurt

I bought some Trader Joe's pumpkin butter and have been thinking of different ways to use it.  My colleague made pumpkin Greek yogurt with hers and I thought I'd do the same with nonfat plain yogurt. TJ's pumpkin butter isn't really butter, but a pumpkin puree.  It's fat free and cholesterol free and has less sugar; this pumpkin yogurt has less sugar than many of the pumpkin yogurts in the stores.  I mixed about 6 ounces of yogurt with a serving of pumpkin butter - one tablespoon.

What will you make with your pumpkin butter? I'm sure I'll have more recipes to share in the upcoming weeks.

Folk Art Heart Cross stitch

I borrowed a bunch of my Mom's old cross stitch magazines and have been stitching away.  Here's my latest creation. This folk art heart is from the April/May 1990 edition of Cross Stitch Quick and Easy.

Italian Sub

Look at this ginormous Italian sub!  Last night M made this grinder with all Boarshead products including: roast beef, Genoa salami, hot capicola, mortadella, and provolone cheese on a soft, fresh French loaf.  He also added olive oil and balsamic vinegar, thinly sliced onions, leaf lettuce, and tomatoes lightly salt and peppered.  We had enough for dinner and lunch.  It was even better today because the flavors had more time to develop. 

Matryoshka Doll

M's Bapchi celebrated her 89th birthday this month!  Sto Lat! (May you live to be 100 years).  In honor of this milestone, I used the matryoshka ornament pattern and presented her with a handmade gift.  Doesn't this nesting doll look so content on the Ukrainian tea towel?

Banana Nut Muffins

Today I turned our overripe bananas and left-over coconut milk into healthy, wholesome banana nut muffins. 

For this recipe you'll need:
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup ground flax seed meal
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder 
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 ripe bananas, mashed
3/4 cup coconut milk
5 tablespoons melted butter
1 egg
Optional - about 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and 1 teaspoon sugar mixed with a tablespoon of melted butter 

Makes 1 dozen muffins.

Directions: 
1. Preheat oven to 400°F.  Add paper liners to muffin tins.

2. In a large bowl, mix flour, walnuts, ground flax seed meal, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg.

3. In a separate bowl, add mashed bananas, coconut milk, butter and egg.  Mix together.

4. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Mix just until blended.

5. Evenly place the batter into the paper tins - filling about 2/3 of the way.

6. Bake for about 20-22 minutes. 

7.  (Optional) When the muffins come out of the oven, immediately top with cinnamon/sugar/butter mixture.

Kale and Potato Zuppa

Looking for a new kale dish?  This was a delicious and hearty soup. Last week,  I ate it for lunch everyday.  The potatoes absorbed most of the broth, so I might add more chicken broth next time.  Here's the recipe.

Cooking Notes: I added salt and pepper, which wasn't in the recipe and used russet potatoes, not Yukon Gold, because that's what we had in the pantry.  Also I didn't sprinkle any cheese on top and it was still tasty.