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Showing posts from August, 2010

Obsession

My hubby has been talking about getting the new iPhone4 for a while. Since I was happy with my 3G version, I paid no attention to it. Until I saw it in real life, that is. It has the most beautiful screen from all the phones out there. Camera on the front and back, and well, it's the hottest iPhone right now! Let's just say I like looking cool too. So I quickly became obsessed with it and since I am already able to upgrade through my Rogers plan, why not? It's Tuesday morning. Here I am, sitting on the floor in the middle of a mall in front of the only Apple Store in the city which won't be open for another hour an 20 minutes, with 14 people ahead of me and many more behind, typing this post. Will it be worth it? I'll let you know!

How To Make Butter

In my previous post I mentioned that I was going to make butter for my cookies using my KitchenAid. How cool is it to make your own butter?! Well, I assume that a lot of people doesn't know how to do that, because I didn't know until one the moms in Winnipeg Baby Wearers Group forum shared it. It's so simple yet satisfying! All you need is whipping cream. 1 litre will give you about 1 lb of butter. A good mixer like KitchenAid would make your job a lot easier. First, whip the cream until stiff. Make sure it's cold to start with. Keep beating until the whole cream separated to liquid and butter. Strain the butter using cheesecloth. The liquid is the 'original' buttermilk. You can save it for drinking or baking. Rinse the butter with cold water and you can salt it to preserve, or you can use it right away if your recipe calls for unsalted butter. Tip: For organic butter, you can buy organic whipping cream.

Muffkies Recipe

Chocolate Chip Muffkies With the Taco Soup success a couple days ago, I felt adventurous enough this afternoon to play with my baking skills. Well, sort of. The hubby requested cookies a while back and so I bought whipping cream to make unsalted butter for the cookies. Silly me, I forgot that my good ol' KitchenAid is already sitting in my sister's future kitchen in Vancouver. There goes my plan! Well, I didn't want to make muffins again, so I decided to make a hybrid muffin-cookies with what I have. It turned out pretty good, I think. It works really well with the Kahlua Icing from the Stout Cake  that I posted a while back. Ingredients (makes a dozen) 1 small egg 1 cup pancake mix (I use 6-Grain Pancake Mix from Costco) 1/3 cup whipping cream (not whipped!) 1/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips The How To: Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit In a medium bowl, beat egg. Mix in pancake mix and whipping cream. Mix in chocolate chips. Drop by the teaspoonf

Easy Taco Soup Recipe

Rrriiiiing! "Hello?" I answered my iPhone. "Baby this soup is soooo good it's going to make me fat!" said my husband over the phone of the taco soup that I had left for him on the stove. "Well, I'm glad to hear that!" no, not about that he's about to get fat, but because my taco-resenting husband actually likes my taco soup! Well, Babe, the key is LOVE.... and the rest of it are: 1.5 lbs lean ground beef 1 medium onion, diced 3 large tomatoes, diced, or 1 can of diced tomatoes with juice 1 can (10 oz) condensed tomato soup 1 can red beans 1 can kernel corn 1.5 cup water 1 pkg taco seasoning salt and pepper grated cheese (tex mex or cheddar) nachos/tortilla chips First you cook the ground beef, stirring often. Drain the oil, add the onions, continue cooking until soft Put everything else in, stir, and add salt and pepper to taste Let simmer for 15 minutes. Serve hot with grated cheese and tortilla chips over top Enjoy! ps:

Tutorial: Laptop Sleeve 'Red Maloo' Style

What you'll need: Exterior fabric (it's a great way to use medium fabric like canvas or upholstery, but pretty cottons work well too). Interlining (fusible fleece works fine, you can double it up for more padding. Or you can use an old towel). Interior fabric (flannel or cotton would work well) Optional decorations like rhinestones or appliques. The how to: Measure the length (L), width (W), and height (H) of your laptop. My sister's netbook has different heights on the front and back and it has supporting legs too. Note both heights and make sure you include the legs. Cut your exterior, interlining, and interior fabrics according to the diagram below, with 1/2" seam allowance. Attach the interlining fabric to the wrong side of the interior fabric. If using fusible fleece, simply follow the instruction that came with it (usually steam ironing). If using something else, baste circumference with 1/4" seam allowance. If desired, you can top stitch the whole

Laptop Sleeve 'Red Maloo' Style

Red canvas on the outside, flannel on the inside, felt Paul Frank applique. As a laptop mat. Update: Here's the quick link to the tutorial Since I bought my new 13" Macbook Pro, I've been searching for the perfect laptop sleeve for myself. I wanted one that looks unique and suits my personality. After many visits to the malls and computer stores, I considered making my own and came across this cool Red Maloo laptop sleeve that can be opened and used as a laptop 'mat' and mousepad. My search was almost over... Originally, Red Maloo made these sleeves from kimono fabric, only available in Japan. Now they make them using thick wool felt. Since none of the local fabric stores carried thick wool felt and I didn't have enough patience to order online and wait for it to arrive, I decided to use regular fabric interlined with fusible fleece. I really liked the way it turned out and my sister was quite impressed she asked me to make one for her as well.

Solar Dress (Indietutes)

If you haven't checked out Indietutes yet, you should. This is a fun blog to read with a lot of ideas. I would say that this blog is one of my inspiration to start my own. Maybe one day my blog will be as good. They just posted a free pattern for a Solar dress so I tried making one right away with the fabric that I had available. I think it's a bit too long for Miss Kiki so I'm going to chop it off tomorrow to make it shorter. It's very easy to make so it's good for a starting project!

On The Road to Recovery

I've been MIA for over a week now because I caught Miss Kiki's viral infection. It hasn't been fun at all. It started with a fever on the long weekend, and when we got to the doctor three days later, she diagnosed strep throat. Due to a possibility of penicillin allergy, I was prescribed prescribed a $40 antibiotic, which didn't help at all. A whole week later,  the swab test result finally came out and it was NEGATIVE. It was viral infection after all, and at this point, the infection was already in my mouth, which caused the gums to swell and bleed. I was so miserable. I thought back to what Miss Kiki had to go through if this was the same thing, she sure didn't look as miserable as I was! I was the spoiled one, I guess. I'm now on day 12 of being sick, but it seems to get better the past two days. Regardless, I'm so sick of being sick so here I am composing a post here. So here are a few things I learnt these past couple of weeks. If your baby's

Baby Love

4 days of fever, and 2 days of antibiotics. Can't be fun for anyone, especially for a wee one under two. My poor Miss Kiki still had a high fever last night and this morning, despite the Tylenol and Advil we had given her. Since her body weight was borderline the dosage brackets we decided to up her Advil dosage and it seemed to have worked. This afternoon she was playful and smiling again, although still fussy for most of the day. This whole illness and worry and fussiness have been wearing all of us thin, and things can't seem to go back to normal soon enough to me. The constant whining, crying, wanting to be carried everywhere and screaming is normal for any kid, sometimes they don't even have to be sick. But Miss Kiki has been an exceptionally easy going girl that we, as parents, were very spoiled. We're not used to this crying baby business... On top of that, our home was upside down, laundry had been neglected, and I had a long list of 'to do' things. W

Sick Miss Kiki

Poor Miss Kiki had a fever since Wednesday. I noticed her warm body since that afternoon, but I had blamed it on the hot car, hot air, and the overall hot everything that day. Then that night, in our cool air conditioned little apartment, we were surprised to find her still warm. Aaaah! I went straight to the thermometer and took her temperature. Over 38 celcius! Good ol' non-dyed Infant Tylenol usually helps. Lucky that she actually likes taking it. Fever went down. Phew! Thursday afternoon. Fever is back. This time almost 29 celcius. Time to call the doctor! Not sure what's wrong. Ear slightly red, throat seems fine, no rash, no swells. Doctor prescribed antibiotics and urinalysis. It's pretty cool how they do it for babies. The Lab lady gave me a plastic pocket with a sticker to stick to the baby to contain the urine. 3 am Friday. "Mama, jusss, jusss...." Cried Miss Kiki asking for juice. My wonderful husband got out of bed to get her juice. She almost fini