Our Anniversary & Guest Posting

I never remember my wedding anniversary.  It's not just me, CG usually doesn't remember either.  The thing is that we'd been together for a while, and lived together before marrying.  So we felt married before the ceremony.  You'll notice that WD, in all his ringbearer finery, was present at our wedding.

Sorry about the picture quality.  It's a scan of a picture, because we didn't have a digital copy.  This year, we both remembered our anniversary.  CG realized that he had a double header(he plays volleyball) and told his team he wouldn't make it, and we went out to dinner.  I'd like to say we spent the whole dinner not talking about the kids, but they did creep into the conversation a little.  Still it was a very nice evening.

I'm taking the day off over here, but you can find me guest posting over at DIY by Design today while Judy's in Italy.  I'm sharing an easy personalization project.

4th of July Pinwheels

The kids have spent much of this week in the pool, but it hasn't been sunshiney all week.  I like to pull out scissors and glue when thunderstorms roll in.  With the 4th next week, we made some Patriotic Pinwheels.

Here's how to make these.  I pulled out red, white, and blue paper, glue, ribbon, and stickers.

With my paper trimmer, I cut the paper into squares.  SB only wanted to use blue, so he got an 8.5" square of blue.  I wanted a multi-layered color effect, so I cut squares of 8.5", 8", and 7.5".  I marked the center and penciled diagonal cut lines.

I folded in one corner of each cut wedge,

and poked a hole through all the layers with a pin.  I threaded the paper layers on a pipe cleaner, and wound the pipe cleaner around a bamboo stick, then embellished it with stickers and ribbon.

SB embellished his with paper star cutouts and glitter glue.

Thanks for popping in and crafting with us.  I'm linking this up to A Glimpse Inside's Catch a Glimpse Party, Design Dazzle's Kid's Party, and these other fun parties below.

Outdoor Tea Time

It's officially summer.  I realize the summer solstice was last week, but summer doesn't actually start until both kids are out of school.  Yesterday was the first day of having SB home on what would have been a school day.  Summer means entertaining outdoors, so I made a simple runner down the middle of the table with some bamboo placemats, and put out some fun fruit plates.  I love these bavarian dishes that used to belong to CG's great aunt.  Underneath them are some ironstone dishes that I snagged from HomeGoods.

When it's hot, our tea of choice is iced sweet tea & lemon.  I served this in my amber cut glass pitcher last seen filled with peonies here.

The iced tea glasses were these collectible Pom glasses.  I loved the glasses so much, that I had to buy a Pom juice everytime I was at the grocery just for the glass.

You can't have a high tea without some tea sandwiches.  These are served on a Limoges tray.

There were also fresh homemade doughnuts,

blueberry muffins, and chocolate doughnut holes.

I kept this tablescape pretty simple, because this is who was enjoying the high tea:  SB

and his best friend, the Princess.  Yay, to the first day of summer and 2 more months of swimming, playing, and goofing off.

Yes, she has lettuce in her teeth, but she was also very appreciative of the "fancy" meal.

Incidentally the Princess asked what I was doing when I was taking pics of the iced tea, and I responded, "I'm taking pictures for my blog."  SB piped in with, "Yeah, she does that a lot."

Thanks for popping in and having tea with me & the kids.

Mmmmm...Donuts

I haven't made traditional doughnuts since we went gluten-free.  I've made beignets and churros which could be considered doughnuts since they're yummy bits of fried dough, but they aren't the traditional Homer Simpson "mmmm....donuts" Doughnuts.  So it was high time for me to make some.  All I needed was a push.  That push came in the form of a new cookbook.  Gena who writes A Bluebonnet in Beantown hosted a giveaway for Joanne Chang's new cookbook Flour.

You might ask why someone who cooks gluten-free would even want a cookbook named Flour, but I'm one of those people who just loves to read cookbooks.  I like the science and artistry that goes into cooking and baking, and I very rarely use a recipe as written, so making adjustments are a matter of course.  As soon as this cookbook arrived, I read it from front to back.  The 3 pages she devoted to her Vanilla Cream filled doughnuts were just the push I needed.  Here's my version of Joanne Chang's doughnuts.  I started with 2/3 cup of warm milk, 1/3 cup sugar and a packet of yeast in the bowl of my stand mixer.  She uses a dough hook, but I find that a paddle works fine for gf baking.

In a separate bowl I whisked together 1 cup sorghum flour, 1 cup potato starch, 1 sweet rice flour, 1/4 cup coconut flour, 1/4 cup brown rice flour, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp baking powder.  She uses 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour and no baking powder, but I find that baking powder will help to lighten up the gf flours as will the potato starch.

Add the flour to the mixing bowl along with 3 eggs, and beat for 2-3 minutes.

Add 7 tbsps room temp butter, a tablespoon at a time.

Continue to beat for 5 minutes.  The dough should be very light and sticky.

Wrap tightly in plastic,

and refrigerate overnight.

In the morning, it will have puffed up.

Roll it out on a floured surface(I use sweet rice flour on my counter) to a 12 inch square.

Using a biscuit cutter, cut as many circles as you can.  She got 9, I cut 12.  I pulled together the scraps and added 1/4 cup cocoa powder for some chocolate doughnut holes.

Let these rise for another 2-3 hours.  They will be puffed up and pillowy.

Drop these in a saucepan of oil at 350.  Let them brown for a couple of minutes on one side before turning and letting them brown on the other side.

Remove to a paper towel lined rack.

After a minute when they're cool enough to handle, roll in a cup of sugar in a bowl or cake pan.

Let them cool completely before filling with pastry cream.  These were really good both filled and unfilled.

Thanks for popping in and cooking with me.  If you love food as much as I do, you should check out Gena's blog.  She has such an incredible appreciation for good food and terrific photography that it's hard not to run out and try her recipes immediately.  I'm linking this up to Home Stories A to Z's Tips and Tutorials Party, Gluten-Free Homemaker's Gluten-Free Wednesdays, and Lady Behind the Curtain's Cast Party as well as the parties below.