Green Smoothie

Since I made my own yogurt, I decided that I needed more things to do with it than just eat it with granola.  So I decided to try out a green breakfast smoothie.

.

.

I have heard a lot about these and following a basic recipe I found online I made one with yogurt, spinach, blueberries, strawberries and molasses.  The spinach is for added nutrients, and in theory you really can't taste it.

.

.

Unfortunately my blender is not very powerful, and I ended up with some not insubstantial chunks of spinach in my smoothie.  It was mostly fine until the end when all that was left was chunks of spinach.  Mmmm yummy.

.

Then I happened to read a recipe that called for blending the spinach and yogurt together first to eliminate the chunkiness.  Why couldn't I have found that sooner?!

.

.

This method worked much better!

.

.

I added the ingredients one at a time, so my blender didn't have to work so hard.

.

.

.

It's a little bit hard to tell, but this smoothie is a uniform color, and chunk free!

Yogurt in the Crockpot!

.

I was recently reading about making homemade yogurt in a crockpot.  We eat yogurt all the time, usually with granola for breakfast.  It sounded fascinating so I decided to give it a try.  I forgot to take very many pictures,  but the one above shows everything that I used.  I used this recipe, although I used my teeny tiny 1-quart crockpot, so I had to monitor the temperature more closely instead of just relying on the times given   The basic steps are:

1. Heat milk up to 180 degrees in the crockpot.  For me this took about 3 hours. 
2. Turn the crock pot off, keep covered and let cool to 110 degrees.  This took me a few hours . . . I don't remember exactly how many!
3. Put half a cup of yogurt (since it was my first time making yogurt I used store bought) and half a cup of milk in bowl and mix well.
4. Put the milk-yogurt mixture back in the crockpot with the remaining milk and stir to combine.
5. Cover the crockpot, wrap it in a bath towel and let sit for 8 to 12 hours.  
6. You should now have yogurt!  Refrigerate for 8 hours for the best texture.

My yogurt was a bit runnier than store bought.  We're about out of the batch that I made last week, so I'm going to be making a second batch today.  I saved half a cup of last weeks yogurt to be the starter for my yogurt this week.  I've been thinking of getting some cheese cloth, and straining the yogurt in a cheese cloth lined colander over a bowl in the fridge to get a firmer texture.  I'll let you know how it goes!

Christmas Gala

David and I went to the Christmas Gala at UP on Friday night.  It's always a fun event, with amazing food.  We got to get all dressed up, and I even wore my red lace "Ishbel" shawl!

.

.

We wanted to get a picture of us.  I know that this one is kind of blurry, but of the 10 or so pictures that we took this was the best one!

Lego Advent Calendar

We enjoyed our Lego Advent Calendar so much last year that we go one again this year!

.

.

On our first day we got a Lego Snowman!

.

New Rug

After painting our bathroom last month, we put the finishing touches on the room with this new rug.

.

.

Even Sprocket likes it!

.

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving!  We had so much fun, that we forgot to take very many pictures!

.

.

Me, showing off my lovely apple-cranberry pie.

. 

.

The table all set for dinner.

Giant Pile of Leaves

 If you thought that the pile of leaves that we found a few weeks ago was big, then you've gotta see this one!

. 

.

There were so many pine needles on the ground that the asphalt path looked like it was a dirt road!

. 

First Snow

It snowed last night.

.

.

But only on the north side of the house.

Lap Dog

Somebody better tell Sprocket that he's too big to be a lap dog.

.

.

He seems to think that he's just the right size!

. 

Getting Ready for Winter!

Last weekend, I got all of our winter outerwear out and organized it.  This is probably the most organized that the coat closet will ever be.

.

.

I hung our scarves on a spare hanger, and put our hats, mittens, and gloves in a basket below.  It's always fun to look through our hats and scarves because so many of them are homemade.  There's the pale green scarf that my mom made me when I was in college, that is still a staple in my winter wardrobe.  There's also the green and gray hat that I made for David the first Christmas that we were dating, that I stayed up half the night to finish.  And while not homemade, I have a red wool scarf and a tan and red knit had that I bought on our honeymoon in Ireland, so they are still full of happy memories.

. 

.

Then we went through our coats, donated a few that we don't really wear, and hung the rest up.

Atomic Escarole

This escarole is giant!

.

King of the Mountain!

Yesterday Sprocket and I got to UP early, and while we were waiting for David to be done with work we wandered around campus.

.

.

It's funny how different pictures turn out with different settings.

. 

.

Sprocket had fun playing on the rocks around the bell tower!

. 

New Coat

David's cousin was getting rid of this coat, and I thought that it was cute, so she gave it to me.  When I got it home I realized that it was just a little bit too big.

.

.

The coat has a belt around the waist that had 2 buttons on it.  

.

.

The coat only needed a little adjustment, so I added a third button to cinch in the waist a little bit.

.

.

I used a neat feature on my sewing machine that automatically sews button holes.

.

.

So now I have a new coat that fits me well, and all I had to do was add a button!

.

Cold Weather

The weather that we've been having makes me want to do this:

.

Birthday Dinner!

I planned a special dinner for my birthday yesterday.  I remembered to take the "before" picture.

.

.

But I forgot to take an "after" picture!

.

We had Beet and Beet Green curry, with Toasted Spices Lentils.  It was delicious!  And fabulously pink!  Here's the closest thing I have to an "after" picture: leftover cake!

. 

Fall is in Full Swing

Fall is now in full swing.

.

.

Sprocket and I took a walk to Columbia Park on Friday, and found that all of the trees have changed colors.

. 

.

We also found this huge pile of dead leaves.  Sprocket wanted to jump into it, but I wouldn't let him!

. 

Downward Facing Dog

Last night while I was stretching my back Sprocket came over to do some stretching, too.

.

.

We call this downward facing dog.  He does it a lot, but somehow we have never been quick enough with the camera to catch it on film before now!

Decorative Boxes

I recently found a tutorial online for making decorative fabric covered boxes.  Then when my mom was down here visiting we went to Fabric Depot and found this great fabric on clearance, so I bought a yard of it and set to work making my own fancy boxes!

.

.

To start I gathered the tools that I would need: cardboard boxes, fabric, a box cutter, and Mod Podge.

.

.

Then I followed this tutorial.

.

.

Voila!  Beautiful boxes that look like I could have bought them at a store!

.

Produce Bags

Each week when we get our bin of vegetables we have to decide where to put them all.  When you get lettuce at the grocery store you just grab plastic bag from the reel and stick the lettuce in.  Well, the CSA doesn't provide plastic bags, and while we do try to save our old ones we frequently run out.  

.

.

So I decided to make some cotton produce bags out of an old bed sheet.  So far I've made four and they are working out pretty well.  My only complaint would be that they aren't see through, so I have to open up the top to see what's inside.  For example, this morning I thought that I had pulled out the lettuce, and went to get some out to put on David's sandwich, but it turns out that I'd grabbed the bag that had bok choi in it!  They sure do feel similar!

.

.

The bags have a casing for a drawstring, but so far I've only made one.  It takes a while to make a cord with my knitting spools!

New Skirt

Over the weekend I sewed a skirt.  This was my first ever project that followed a pattern.  In the past I've done things that are pretty simple like square napkins, and a straight skirt with an elastic waist (no need for shaping or zippers).

.

.

This skirt is an a-line skirt with an invisible zipper in the back.

.

.

The zipper took a few tries, but I got it looking pretty good!

.

.

I also think that the skirt will go pretty well with both of my recently finished sweaters!  The little bit of blue that is the contrast color in the skirt fabric is a close match to the blue short sleeved sweater.

.

.

I think that the brown shrug will go well, too, although this picture makes it look pretty dark.

Knitting Spools

I've been wanting a knitting spool for a while now.  I feel like I used to see them at stores fairly frequently, but as soon as I starting looking for one they all seem to have disappeared!  

.

.

I mentioned my frustration to David and he came up with a brilliant solution.

.

.

David cut off about 3 inches from the end of one of our broom handles and drilled a hole in it.  With 4 nails in the top it works great!

.

.

The cord that my "broom" knitting spool creates is pretty dense.  To make a looser cord the hole would need to be bigger and the nails would need to be further apart.  That clearly wasn't going to work with the "broom" knitting spool" so David made me another one!

.

.

This one is made from a piece of Cocobolo wood.

.

.

The cord that it makes is definitely looser, so now I have 2 knitting spools and 2 options for cord making.  And they are way cooler than the store bought kind!  Thanks David!

.

.

So now the only question is: why did I need to make cords?  Stay tuned: the answer to that will have to wait for another day.