Saturday, January 3, 2015

Winter fun

Wind dropped & temperatures rose to a lovely -17, so time for a sledding meet! There was already a fire started & spruce boughs laid when we arrived. So by the pale sunset & darkening skies we took a few runs then settled by the fire with hot chocolate to keep the chills away. Enjoying the amazing view over a frozen solid Great Bear Lake & Little Lake; watching skidoos making way back towards town. 
 

Sunday, December 14, 2014

OmNom mittens begin.....

Beaded OmNom mitts - black outline to start, more to fill in.  

Went to the town craft store yesterday. This store is only open sometimes - you must check if the padlock is undone & that there is smoke coming from the chimney. A small log cabin with a wood stove in the middle & the ceiling dripping with peeling paint. Surrounding shelves built into the wall house hanks of seed beads in most sizes, stroud, needles & other beading & sewing treasures. 
These are the beauties I picked up :) 

Saturday, December 13, 2014

Sugar cookie time!

Making cookies with the kidlets & for their classes at school😊
Tried 3 different recipes & found that the Vanilla Roll Out Cookies from epicurious.com is the best. The cookies do not alter too much through baking, the other recipes I tried spread to much for my liking. 

Topped with Royal Icing & sugar sprinkles  = some happy little kidlets!! 

Monday, November 24, 2014

Chilly Chilly Brr Brr with Pecan Toffee Cookies


-33 degrees Celsius with -43 wind chill. Brrrrr!! The kidlets got to stay home from school as it closes with -40 windchill.
A frosty frosty doorknob inside the mud room. Not too fun having to put ones bare hand on that bad boy as I couldn't turn it with my mittens on :( 

So needless to say it has been a keep cozy day with freshly baked yummy chewy Pecan Toffee cookies  :) 

Chewy Pecan Toffee Cookies
 375 degrees – 10-12min.

Cream together til light & fluffy:
1 cup shortening
1 ½ cups sugar
2 eggs
2tsps vanilla
Stir in & blend well:
2 cups flour
Pinch of salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 nutmeg
Add:
¾ cup toffee bits
¾ cup broken pecan pieces

Roll into 2 logs, wrap in saran wrap & freeze for an hour or up to 1 month.  Cut into 1.5 – 2 cm slices while waiting for oven to preheat to 375 degrees. Place cookie rounds on parchment paper & bake for 10 to 12 minutes. When they are removed from the oven they will still be a tad gooey & fragile, let sit 5 – 10 minutes before moving to cooling rack.

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Start it up

Winter chill is setting in with a crispy day of -29 & a wind that stings my face. I am lame & only went outside today to find that my car would only click in response to my plea of battery life. So instead it was a day of letting the kidlets paint & & for me to continue working on my Xmas tree ornaments. Every year I make ornaments as presents for my family, they make the best presents!!

This year it is small moosehide & stroud bead bordered hearts. The moosehide is locally tanned from locally hunted moose :)
Just need to make a whole heap more then string to hang them :)

It was also a weekend of bagel making!!! Using the recipe from Great Breads by Martha Rose Shulman :)
 Plain
Pumpernickel