Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

It’s spring in Montana, so that means there are some yummy treats being made with our rhubarb.  This is our plant’s third season planted here, and I love seeing it come back bigger and better every year.

The leaves and stalks are huge, they took up half of our dining room table.  I froze a lot of berries last summer from our garden and some produce farms in WA that we visited, so with the strawberries I stored away in the freezer I’ve been making Strawberry-Rhubarb Custard Pie lately.  So good, I love the sweet and tart combination.

Just snapped some quick shots with the ol’ iPhone cameras, and this was the last piece of pie so it was kinda falling apart and I didn’t get to take one of it glistening when it was hot out of the oven.

Pie is not usually the first dessert I make at home for me and my hubby, even though I come from a long line of pie-making and pie-eating dutch women!  There usually has to be a good reason for me to make it, like Thanksgiving, or an abundance of rhubarb.  :)  The fun thing about pies though, is the more you make them the better you get at it, and it’s good to be familiar with how to make a good dough and master pie crust.

You can find the recipe over at my cousin’s blog, Born in the Wrong Century.  :)

Bun in the Oven

I guess I haven’t mentioned our exciting news here on the blog yet.  Many of you know but some of you lovely blog visitors don’t know yet, we’re expecting our first baby and are due to be new parents in October!  I think it’s about time I show and tell on the blog, since it’s pretty official now that I am 16 weeks along, and this would explain why the blog has been a little neglected lately.  I was completely fatigued and wiped out every day of my first trimester, that pregnancy fatigue is a doozy!  Now that we are in the second trimester I have been feeling more like my usual self, except for the bulging belly, and some random days of tiredness.

This picture is from our second ultrasound, at 11 weeks.  It was so fun to see the baby double in size and have new little arms and legs that sprouted since the first ultrasound at 9 weeks.  It is really an amazing thing to watch the baby move and bounce around on the monitor of the ultrasound, and to listen to the heartbeat!

Well, now that we’ve spilled the beans to everyone, I can say that the baby knitting has begun!  Here’s a little sneak peak on the cute little number I’m making now.  I’ll be posting more pictures of the oh-so-sweet baby knits soon!

 

Will-Built DIY Shelving

Our mud room/laundry room has been getting  a lot of attention lately.  We all of a sudden came up with a bunch of ideas on how we want to improve it.  First of all, we got rid of the old baby blue color, that I thought made the mud room look dingy and it just didn’t flow or blend with the rest of the house.  So we painted the room a nice cheery, pale yellow Benjamin Moore paint called Soleil.  We painted our guest room that color last year, and absolutely love it.  Its pale, soft, cheery, and sunshiny.  And it’s not too dark and not too light.  Perfect.  So we thought this room needed a little cheering up too and the Soleil color did just that.

And, the bigger news is that my hubby just finished building, staining, and installing some awesome custom shelving units.  I LOVE these, they are a great use of the space, and they give me so much more storage and pantry space.

He built them with good quality pine, and we used wood conditioner and then a natural stain.  We got the idea from my Aunt Connie who has shelves just like this in her mud room, then found these Williams-Sonoma shelves.  I printed off the picture for Will, we took some measurements and he got to work!

He has turned our garage into a wood-working shop, and he’s pretty happy out there in his man room/work space.  In fact, he’s out there now working on another project we have for the laundry/mud room.  I’ll be showing some more upcoming DIY improvements later.  But for now, I’ll be enjoying the new shelves!

A Little Spring Break

So I haven’t posted here in so long, I almost forget how.  I have been taking a little unannounced break from blogging lately.  I am in kind of a creative/knitting ‘funk’ these days, and even though I have cooked up some yummy dishes lately that are definitely post-worthy, I’ve been having a bit of a dry spell with blogging and such.  I will start posting again soon, but for now it’s nice to have a little break.

One more little thing to announce and share, there is a fun give-away happening today over on my absolute favorite knitting blog, Tanis Fiber Arts.  Tanis has an amazing blog and her very own line of quality, hand-dyed yarns in the most gorgeous colours.  Her knits and blog posts are always impressive and inspiring too.  So if you are a knitter and love to get your hands on all the beautiful yarn you can, check out her Giveaway today!

Hope you’re having a great week!

Happy Saturday and a Photo of the Week

Just wanted to pop in real quick since I’ve been MIA for the last couple of weeks.  I’ve had the most horrible chest cold/bronchitis this last week that has been a really hard one to kick.  I have been doing a little cooking, and have made several wonderful things that I would love to post so hopefully I’ll get one of them up soon.  It’s just been feeling like a lot of work to blog, and I haven’t had the energy to do much of anything.

My February WIP is coming along slowly but surely.  Yes it’s March and it’s not done yet.  But I think there’s a good chance it would have been finished by now if I wouldn’t have been totally wiped off my feet with the cold this entire last week, does that count for anything?   I feel like I’m turning in my homework late or something.  I do need to finish this project asap though, so I can start my knit for March!

I’ve been making the Stockholm Scarf, pattern by Julie Crawford at Knitted Bliss. I just love this scarf, it’s an infinity scarf/big lacy cowl and it’s going to be so cushy and luscious I can’t wait to wear it.  I’m knitting it in Malabrigo Rios, which is a kettle-dyed, worsted weight, superwash merino wool and it is just gorgeous.  My color of choice is Teal Feather, and it has a touch more of a teal/green-ish tint to it in real life than how it’s shown in the picture.  I’ve really, really been loving so many shades of blues and greens lately, particularly teals, turquoise, and emerald.  So the rich color of the scarf makes this project very enjoyable, although the repetitive stitch pattern is getting tedious by now and is going very sloooowly.

Oh, and yes that is a little peak at the finished Will-built coffee table that I showed you a while ago.  The DIY coffee table, sofa console, and two side tables have been finished and in the house for quite a while now so I’ll hurry and get pictures up soon!  They turned out great and are very well put to use. =)

Broccoli Cheddar Soup and Pretzel Bread

A little while ago I had mentioned that I made some Broccoli Cheddar Soup and some Pretzel Bread, and wanted to share with you since they turned out so yummy.  The Pretzel Bread was found when I was perusing around this cute blog that I recently stumbled upon, The Apron Archives (isn’t that the cutest name?).  I made sure to pin it so I wouldn’t forget about it.  Turns out I couldn’t stop thinking about it and needed to try making some soon.  So I made it to go with a Broccoli Cheddar Soup the other weekend, and the two made for many heart-warming meals.

The bread is a great one for dipping into soups and making sandwiches with.  I think what I like most about it is that it’s a pretty quick and easy homemade bread to make.  Where most homemade breads are nearly an all day process, the process for Pretzel Bread takes only a few hours.  (Your active working time with it is only a fraction of that three hours).  It was fun to make too, as there’s a little excitement when you get to drop your dough into the pot of boiling water.  Now I want to try making pretzels soon. =)

I won’t write out the Pretzel Bread recipe, as you can find it over here and here.  I highly recommend it, especially if you like making bread but don’t like spending a lot of time on it.

::Broccoli Cheddar Soup::

1/2 yellow onion, chopped
2-3 leeks, quarter lengthwise, rinse, then chop
4 garlic cloves, minced
6-ish potatoes, preferably yukon golds, diced
2 large heads broccoli, chopped
1 qt. chicken stock
6-ish c. whole milk
1-2 T fresh parsley and thyme, chopped
grated cheddar cheese

In a hot pot over med-high heat, sauté onions until translucent, about 4-5 min. Add in leeks and garlic and saute another 4-5 min.  Add in the potatoes and broccoli, a pinch of s+p, and let cook and steam until they’re a little tender, about 7 min., stirring frequently.  Sprinkle in the flour, stir and cook for a few minutes to cook out the raw flour flavor.  Pour in chicken stock and let cook until hot, then stir in whole milk.  Let simmer until the potatoes and broccoli are tender enough to eat and the soup has thickened a little.  Ladle about a third of the soup into a blender and puree.  Pour back into pot.  If you prefer a completely creamy and smooth soup, use an immersion blender, take the pot off the heat and puree the soup until smooth.  (For this soup, my hubby and I prefer the chunks of veggies to bite into, so I puree just some of the soup to make it a little more creamy).  Sprinkle in the fresh herbs, season with salt and pepper to taste.  To serve, garnish with a big pinch of cheddar cheese and enjoy.

I love adding the cheese to the soup as it’s dished up and let it melt in the bowl, as I think the cheese flavor just sort of disappears when added into the big hot soup pot.  This is my kind of dinner (and lunch) for all the cold winter days we’re having.  Enjoy!

Photos of the Week {7} : My Valentines Surprise

I have been laying off the internet ‘play time’ this last week, i.e. facebook, pinterest, and blogging, as a little break from it every now and then is nice. The week was taken up with my husband being sick with a cold, and me being busy making desserts at the restaurant for Valentines Day.  After I got all of the desserts done at work I caught his cold, so we both have been laying low.

I did some nice desserts at the restaurant, which I am so wishing I would have brought my camera in to get some pictures of.  I made a lot of the usuals, Tiramisu, Cannoli, and the (almost flourless, gluten-free) Chocolate Hazelnut Torte.  And for all the sweethearts being treated to a special dining experience, I made some Goats Cheese-Buttermilk Panna Cotta (I loved them, they turned out so nice) that went with a Red Wine Apricot – Black Mission Fig Compote and a Citrus Lace Tuille.  The other special was a chocolate lover’s tart: Chocolate Soufflé Tart in a Chocolate Almond Shortbread Crust with a Godiva Sabayon and Raspberries.  They were also garnished with some pretty little edible flowers.

I would love to get some of these desserts on my blog, but I never bring in my camera to work and I just can’t talk about them and post a recipe without some pictures!  =)  I’ll share some of them on here soon.

Anyway, despite my hubby being sick this last week, he still took me out for a lovely dinner, surprised me with a vase of pretty flowers, and… a very nice and unexpected surprise…

First I must tell you that last Fall we did a road trip down to Yellowstone N.P., Grand Teton N.P., and Jackson Hole, WY.  In Jackson I made a point to stop in to a very fine chocolate shop called Coco Love.  (There’s a blog post here on the shop if you’d like to see more pictures).

In this sleek little modern shop are some fine pastries, coffee, gelato, and fine chocolate truffles of world renowned Pastry Chef and Chocolate Master, Oscar Ortega.

I didn’t leave there without indulging in some amazing chocolates, my favorite was the Goats Milk Caramel Truffle- amazing!

Anyway, this last week my husband surprised me with some special Atelier Ortega chocolates for Valentines…

And a surprise it was!  We have been enjoying the divine flavors and amazing velvety textures of these fine chocolates over the week.

They’re so pretty, they make for a great photo subject too.

Well, there’s three left which I must go take care of right now.  =)

Great job to my husband, and many hugs and kisses!