My Sunday at a Glance

Today was (well, still is) HOT. Like 95+ degrees hot. So I stayed inside for all but a few minutes today. Here are a few things that kept me occupied.

Malcom. 

He sat with me for just a little while as I worked on a watercolor e-course. He watched a black bird.

Then got sleepy.

Speaking of watercolor, here are some of the things I worked on/played around with:

I also added some more paint to this canvas.

It's still mostly a mess right now, but I'm seeing some interesting spots. Can't wait to see what it becomes!

And I took some photos of this peony for Dwight.

He's being doing some floral paintings on oak plywood and thought this might be a good future subject.

I'm so glad I have tomorrow off, too! I'm sure I won't get to play as much - yard work to do - but I'm grateful for this long weekend, that's for sure!

UncommonGoods Review and Giveaway!

The awesome peeps at UncommonGoods saw the nice things I said about them and offered to have me do a review and giveaway for my blog. Uh, yes please! I was VERY excited not only because I love their stuff, but also because I love that all their great gifts come with incredible customer service. Just as a personal example, I ordered a tea cup and saucer for my mom for her birthday and unfortunately one of the pieces was chipped. This was at least 10 or 12 years ago, so I can't recall which piece. I sent an email about it and got a response back very quickly. I offered to send the piece back but they pish poshed at the idea and just sent me a whole new set, no questions asked. I was stunned. They were so nice and laid back about the whole thing, I became an instant customer for life.

As part of my review, I was able to have my choice of products (up to $50), so I picked the stainless steel skewers and the stackable lunch pot. First, let's talk about the skewers. (Hint: UncommonGoods has OODLES of Father's Day gifts. If your dad is anything like mine, he's notoriously hard to buy for; they make it a lot easier!)

Photo from UncommonGoods site

Kabobs are something Dwight and I say we should have more of, so I jumped at the chance to try these skewers out.

They can't hold a lot on each tine, but overall, you get at least as much and sometimes a bit more on them than you can on a regular skewer. They're stainless, so clean up is great and the handles are supposed to be cool to the touch... but we screwed that up and had the entire thing on the grill. Don't do that.

Defeats the purpose! The ends are long enough that you hang them OFF the end of the grill. Oh well. The kabobs came out great and the flatness of the skewers made them easy to turn and stay put. Needless to say we had a delicious lunch!

Next up is the stackable lunch pot. I take my lunch almost every day. Way cheaper than eating out, generally healthier, and most days I work through lunch, so I eat at my desk. The lunch pot comes with two containers. The small, bottom one holds a full 8oz/1 cup and the top holds 16oz/2 cups.

This really has my lunch in it. I was about to head out the door and realized I had a good photo op.

I had yogurt and milk in the bottom and a bunch of fruit in the top - smoothie lunch! I keep our stick blender at work and it's AWESOME. I bring frozen fruit, milk, yogurt (and spinach when I remember), then mix it all up with some vanilla protein powder. So. Good.

(This is empty - I took this photo at a different time.)

The lunch pot worked great. Full disclosure: it did sweat a little because of the coldness of the contents. I love the handle and the spork is a great addition. I used the bottom container as a cup for my smoothie. I'm really happy with it! It's BPA-free (YAY!) and microwaveable, too.

As I mentioned, UncommonGoods is a go-to gift giving source for me for just about anything. Summer is nipping at our heels which means lots of graduation and and wedding gifts to buy. I love that the UncommonGoods site has a way to search not only by occasions but price points - I use that feature ALL the time.

Speaking of graduations, my oldest niece is graduating from 8th grade this year. *sniff* While dads can be difficult to buy for what about teenagers?? UncommonGoods to the rescue with an entire section of kid and teen gifts. I already picked out what I'm getting K. In fact, I'm going to buy two – one for her,  one for me. It's the 642 Things to Write About book. She LOVES to write—she's writing a novel!—so I thought this would be just perfect for her. And I thought it would be a fun way to get me writing more, just for me and/or to share here. Win/win!

Now here's the best part. UncommonGoods is letting me give away a $50 Gift Certificate to one of my readers - that's YOU! 

Here's what you need to know:

Mandatory entry:
Leave a comment on this post telling me what you'd get with the $50. Would you keep it for yourself or use as a gift?
Please leave your email in the comment if it's not in your profile - I need a way to contact you! If I don't know where to find you, I'll have to pick another number.

For additional entries:
1. Like UncommonGoods on Facebook
2. Tweet a link to a family page (ie. those gifts for mom, gifts for men, and other links on the left side of the home page)
3. Follow UncommonGoods on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/uncommongoods/

Leave a separate comment for each entry. I'll use a random number generator to pick the winner. You have until May 30 to enter – I'll announce the winner May 31.

GOOD LUCK!

Contest is open to US residents only. Sorry guys!

Disclaimer: UncommonGoods gave me the skewers and lunch pot for the review, but my opinions are my own.


Kelly out!

Chocolate Chip Coconut Coffee Cookies

I'm a fairly recent convert to coconut. Up until a year or so ago, I would have told you that I could kinda-sorta tolerate it, but hated the texture. I'm not sure what happened between then and now, but I'm pretty sure this cake began the conversion...

And this bread sealed the deal.

So when I saw Bakergirl's coconut coffee chocolate chip cookies post show up in my reader, I immediate pinned the recipe and made them the next weekend. While they were very good, I wanted to amp up the coffee flavor and make them chewier. I took her concept, combined it with my go-to CCC recipe, and came up with this. I still think the coffee flavor could be enhanced even more, but they're awesome, regardless. It's a CCC with some extra oompf, since the coffee really gives the chocolate an added boost.

I didn't have the usual shredded, sweetened coconut you find at the grocery store, but I had this unsweetened flaked coconut I found at Menards, of all places. 

Really. In their grocery section—which is just weird to have in a hardware store, but whatever, because the have an entire row of throw-back style candy {Boston baked beans, burnt peanuts, things like that} as well as various baking chips — and I'll take it where I can find it!

I also use this extract from Watkins. I found it at the farmer's market since a women there has a Watkins both. I assume you can order it online or find another maker of caramel extract/flavoring. 

I like the combination of chocolate, coffee and caramel. Oh and coconut. Sounds like a Starbucks drink, right? Great, now I want a frappuchino. I'll settle for this cookie, though!

Chocolate Chip Coconut Coffee Cookies

Inspired by Bakergirl (buddingbaketress.blogspot.com)

Ingredients

2-1/2 cups (350g) All-purpose flour 

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon (optional, but I love a hint of cinnamon in my CCC)

2 Tbsp instant expresso, such as Medaglia D'Oro

1 cup (225g) butter, room temperature

3/4 cup (150g) granulated sugar

1 cup packed (215g) brown sugar

2 eggs

2 Tbsp coffee liqueur, homemade or something like Kahlua 

1 tsp caramel extract

4 oz bittersweet baking chocolate, chopped (like Ghiradelli)

1 cup (170g) mini chocolate chips

1 cup coconut, shredded, or flaked that's been chopped into finer pieces) - sorry - forgot to weigh this

Directions

(preheat oven to 350°F if baking right away)

1. Combine flour, soda, expresso, and cinnamon in medium bowl. Whisk and set aside.

2. In bowl of stand mixer or large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugars until well combined. Don't beat until "pale and fluffy" - you just want it smooth. 

3. Add eggs one at a time, beating well between each and scraping bowl as needed. 

4. Add coffee liqueur and caramel extract. Mix until incorporated.

5. Add flour mixture - all at once - and mix until just incorporated. Add chips, chopped chocolate and coconut and mix until distributed throughout batter.

At this point, you can bake the cookies and they still taste great, but for best flavor and texture, refrigerate at least an hour before baking; overnight is best. Or do what I did - bake a sheet of them NOW, then wrap up the rest for later. It's a total win-win.

If baking immediately, use cookie scoop or spoon to form 1" - 1-1/2" balls. Place on parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing them 3" or so inches apart to allow for spreading. If refrigerating, divide dough into 4 portions and form a log on a length of wax paper. Roll up tightly and refrigerate overnight. You can also put these in freezer bags and keep them handy for cookie emergencies. Come on, we've all had them, amiright??

When baking refrigerated or frozen dough, simply slice in 1/2" portions and space on baking sheet, baking as normal.

Bake 9-10 minutes, depending on your oven and preferred "done-ness". If you like a softer, gooier cookie, keep to the low end. Because the dough is kind of dark from the espresso and caramel flavoring, it's kind of hard to tell doneness, so keep an eye on them and make sure they're no longer glossy and just slightly darker on top.

Let them cool on the baking sheets about 5 minutes before moving them to a cooling rack. 

These are the perfect coffee break cookie. The coffee flavor is not very strong, but you can tell it's a CCC with some oompf.  I think pecans would be an amazing addition to these - definitely doing that next time. I think adding expresso powder to all of my CCC recipes is going to be a given from now on. 

Enjoy!

Digging through my archives

Rather than delude myself that I'll actually ever dedicate a full blog post to the myriad of photos I have on my computer, originally *meant* to be full posts, I decided to dust them off and at least share some of them with you. If nothing else, it's at least proof that I have every intention of blogging far more often than I actually do. Yeah, I think that's a lame excuse, too.

Until I actually do a "real" blog post, here are some snippets to tide you over.



I made these beignets over a year ago. Really. They were awesome. I don't recall what recipe I used - sorry!



I have to say that I'm quite proud of how these photos turned out. Probably some of the most styled of the food photos I've taken.





Again, these photos are from last year. June 5 to be precise. Am I on top of this whole blogging thing or WHAT?! I love the monarchs that flit around our yard in the summer - just gorgeous. This is a different kind of lilac that blooms late and has just gotten huge over the last couple of years. It's right by our deck and acts as a lovely screen and source of nectar for various fauna.





When the final Harry Potter movie came out on DVD, Dwight and I had a little party. I made various HP-themed treats including treacle tarts, butterbeer and these pumpkin pasties.




This was just something funny we saw one day last fall. We noticed our cats going crazy over something outside the front door. There it was - a chipmunk mercilessly teasing our cats. You can practically hear it squeaking, "Ha Ha SUCKERS!" to the frustrated kitties.




And I'll leave you with this. I colored my hair over my birthday weekend, BRIGHT red on top, with purple underneath. I love it and have gotten many compliments. My only complaint is that the purple is still washing out. I now have purple splotched towels and my pillow cases will never be the same again. Oh well.