Tea Bags for a birthday girl

Tea Bags Aug 2010
Originally uploaded by DDN and friends

Here is the 3rd type of tea bag and so far, my favorite. The last ones used cotton embroidery thread which was breaking down so I tried ribbon this time. I like it a lot better. These are for a 2 year old's birthday.

One of my favorite recipes... though I totally screwed it up tonight. Don't cook the glaze for too long or you get hard cherry candy. I usually use the glaze on pork or chicken.

Cherry-Glazed Pan-Seared Lamb Chops

Cherry preserves and balsamic vinegar combine for a quick, tasty glaze. Pair with couscous to soak up any extra pan sauce.

Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 2 lamb chops and 3 tablespoons glaze)

Ingredients

• Cooking spray
• 2 teaspoons dried rosemary
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, divided
• 8 (4-ounce) lamb loin chops, trimmed
• 2 teaspoons bottled minced garlic
• 1/2 cup fat-free, less-sodium beef broth
• 1/2 cup cherry preserves
• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• Parsley sprigs (optional)

Preparation

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Combine rosemary, salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper in a small bowl, stirring well. Rub spice mixture evenly over both sides of lamb. Add lamb to pan; cook 5 minutes on each side. Remove lamb from pan. Wipe pan clean with paper towels.

Return pan to medium heat; recoat with cooking spray. Add garlic to pan; cook 30 seconds. Add remaining 1/4 teaspoon pepper and broth; cook 1 minute, scraping pan to loosen browned bits. Stir in preserves and vinegar; cook 3 minutes or until slightly thick. Return lamb to pan; turn to coat. Cook 1 minute or until desired degree of doneness. Garnish with parsley sprigs, if desired.

http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1634751

2 Year old birthday girl

Our little friend is turning two tomorrow so I made a little apron and craft bag (with paint and brushes inside). The pattern fabric, ribbon and zipper are from Arts and Scraps (the purple fabric is something from another project).

Beer Battered Fish Recipe

Not bad!
http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/beer_battered_fish_tacos_with_tomato_avocado_salsa.html

• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or to taste
• 1/3 cup beer
• 8 ounces tilapia fillet, cut crosswise into 1-inch wide strips
• 2 teaspoons canola oil

1. Combine flour, cumin, salt and cayenne in a medium bowl. Whisk in beer to create a batter.
2. Coat tilapia pieces in the batter. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Letting excess batter drip back into the bowl, add the fish to the pan; cook until crispy and golden, 2 to 4 minutes per side. Serve the fish with tortillas and salsa.

Grocery Bag for 2 year old Birthday Boy

Our 2 year old friend is having a kitchen themed birthday and I made him this little grocery bag. It's my favorite of my bags yet. I used the good ribbon that I bought a while back for a puppet theater (it was the wrong color) which I think just made the bag.

Sea Shell Project

Oma sent along some beautiful sea shells from the beach and the moment Lillian saw them she exclaimed "I have to make a project!" So we talked about the different ways to hold them onto something and agreed that modeling clay would probably work best. Because I didn't have any on hand I was able to convince her to wait for a day. This morning I looked up a recipe and came across this sawdust clay Well, sawdust is something we have plenty of around here. So we whipped up a batch of sawdust clay & Lillian put her shells in it. As she started to place them we noticed that the clay color was very similar to a beach- how perfect!
The sawdust:



Ok, it sorta looks like a cookie too. But as Phoebe can tell you, it doesn't taste any good.

Oatmeal Cookies

This recipe is a keeper:

1.5 C Flour
1 t Baking Soda
1 t Salt
(mix, set aside)
3/4 c Canola Oil
1 1/3 C Sugar
(cream)
2 T rice milk
(mix)
2 egg replacer eggs (Ener-G works great)
(add slowly & mix)
1.5 T Vanilla (yes, that is right- TABLEspoons)
(add & mix until constant color)
2.5 C Quick oats
Chocolate Chips
(add & mix)

350 for 9-15 minutes- don't wait for them to brown, they won't.