Buy Wren Bay In Delaware!!

 

For any of you who live near Clarksville, Delaware you can now purchase Wren Bay at the Hudson General store. I have to say Hudson General looks like the most charming store, brimming with goodies. I am sad I live on the other side of the states (I think I need a road trip!!). It is pretty thrilling to see Wren selling in a store. Thank you Melody and Kim for your love and support of Wren. Hudson General also sells Thistle Dew scherenscnitte. Just beautiful work!! If you are near Clarksville check out Hudson's and Wren Bay.

By the way the image above is how I imagine Wren doing the dishes. Don't you agree!!!

Does A Booty Good Cookies

 

At Christmas my sister, Laurie, gifted me with some gourmet cupcakes but what I loved the most about them was the box. I have it sitting on my scale and knew I needed to create some "Does A Booty Good" cookies. Then I remember these grand marnier cream cheese chocolate chip cookies. These are the first recipe I ever had published (in a small church cookbook), I was 19 I think. Gosh, grand marnier,19 and a church cookbook, well, I will not comment  ;-)

Boy, nothing does your booty better than cream cheese, chocolate and grand marnier!!!!  Now being a spoiled brat that I was at 19 (I did not have to pay for that grand marnier, thank you daddy for letting me use yours for the cookies!!) I thought nothing of using a 1/4 cup. But I am a big girl now (and have to buy my own) and wow, the stuff is expensive. I am posting the recipe the original way I wrote it but between me and you, now, I would NEVER waste good, incredibly expensive grand marnier on cookies. Instead I would use an inexpensive orange liqueur and save the grand marnier to have with the cookie!!. Enjoy xoxo

Does A Booty Good or Grand Marnier Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookies

½ cup butter

6 oz. cream cheese

½ cup evaporated cain or granulated sugar

½ cup rapadura or brown sugar

2 eggs

1 TSP grated orange peel

1 tsp vanilla

¼ cup Grand Marnier (or cheap triple sec or orange juice)

2 cups flour (whole pastry or all-purpose)

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 cup dark chocolate, chopped or chips

 

Pre-heat oven 350

Cream butter, cheese and sugars together. 

Add eggs, peel, vanilla and Grand Marnier; beat well. 

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt; add to creamed mixture. Stir in chocolate.  Drop from teaspoon 2 inches apart on un-greased cookie sheet. 

Bake about 10-12 minutes, until edges start to brown and center puffs up a bit.  

Anchor

 

Happy Valentine's Day dear readers. You are part of my valentines!!!

For my sweet, patient man I printed up the lyrics to this song because it expresses how he is there for me, so much better than I can. Actuality this is Wren and Devlin's song too. I am working on a new book and I have a whole new playlist, to inspire me as I write. This is one of the songs.

I wish each of you a happy day, full of love. Make sure you do a little something for yourself too becuase it is important for you to take care of yourself. Your family and friends need you. So have  a chocolate or take a bubble bath or go see if you can find a flower in your yard. I am actually in OR having a Tasha Tudor Valentines tea with a wonderful group of Tasha Tudor ladies. I will be back in a week but until then, thank you for you love and friendship. My life is so much richer becuase of it xoxo

Anchor

When all the world is spinning round like a red balloon way up in the clouds
And my feet will not stay on the ground, you anchor me back down.
I am nearly world renowned as a restless soul who always skips town
But I look for you to come around and anchor me back down.
There are those who think I am strange, they would box me up and tell me to change
But you hold me close and softly say that you wouldn't have me any other way.
When people pin me as a clown you behave as though I'm wearing a crown
When I'm lose I feel so very found when you anchor me back down.
There are those who think I am strange, they would box me up and tell me to change
But you hold me close and softly say that you wouldn't have me any other way.
When all the world is spinning round like a red balloon way up in the clouds
And my feet will not stay on the ground
You anchor me back down

Inexpensive Medallion Kitchen Backsplash

 

I am a firmer believer in dreaming about what you want, regardless if you can afford. Because if you cannot dream it, you will definitely never have it!

 

Having said that, one needs to hold their dreams lightly, be real and think out of the box. My dreams for my kitchen is about $50,000.00 worth. That is NOT going to happen, unless the kitchen fairy blesses me.

So I have this running tab of dreams in my head for my kitchen:  bull-nose marble counters, professional stove, antique farm sink, old tin panels for the ceiling and back splash, etc ...

 

Well one day this last fall while having a rare treat of shopping in Snohomish, I saw these large heavy-paper place-mats. There is a whole collection of these (the paper cheese serving mats are cool!) but I was drawn to the rosettes because they look like those tin ceiling medallions. Plus they were totally in my price range 50 of them for $19.95!! 50 is a lot, so much so, these are temporary. I wanted th make sure I loved them and I taped them up with double-sided duck tape (this stuff is super sticky). I still adore them so we will wallpaper the extras one and coat them with something (I have not done that research yet) to protect them.

I was thrilled to see Ruth (love you Ruth xoxo) sells them in her shop. Check out all the different shapes and patterns and let your imagination flow!!!

Easy (no egg, no sugar) sour cream ice cream with chocolate bits

 

I am sure some of you cannot think about ice cream in the middle of winter (especially with the winter some of you are having!) but we never get sick of it. Ice cream though can be fussy. You have to cook the eggs, cool it , wait, etc. I like to just be able to whisk it all together, throw it in the machine and 1/2 hour later have ice cream! Easy, peasy. I espcially love to use sour cream (you can also use cream fraiche or yoguart instead) becuse of the tang it adds. It balances the sweetness for me.

Thanks to Angie (who I am always copying) I learned  a cool way to add bits of chocolate to the ice cream, that is solid but still quickly melts in your mouth. Near the end of making the ice cream, you melt some chocolate with a little cream or coconut oil (which I prefer) then slowly drizzle the chocolate in the ice cream as it is going around in the machine. As the chocolate hits the cold ice cream it hardens. If you get big glob of chocolate, it breaks up with a spoon, when you transfer it to the container. It does soften the ice cream up a bit but I run it a few more minutes and then quickly transfer the ice cream to a container and set in the freezer. I think some instant espresso powder or at the end crumbled short bread mixed in would be heavenly!!

 

Easy (no egg, no sugar, although you can use sugar) sour cream ice cream with chocolate bits

1 cup sour cream

1 cup  heavy cream

1 cup half and half

½ cup sweetener (I used three drops of stevia and 1/3 of cup xylitol run through a food processor to make it powdered so it mixes in fast. You can do the same thing with sugar)

Pinch of salt

1 tsp of alcohol, this is to keep the ice cream soft. I use coffee flavored but brandy is great. You can barely taste it or leave it out. Your ice cream will be harder though.

 

Whisk all together and pour in ice cream machine, run ½ hour and transfer to a container and put in freezer.

 

To make bits,

after 20 minutes of the ice cream mixing in the machine, melt ½ cup of chocolate chips with 1 tsp of cream or coconut oil (I like the texture of the coconut oil better). The slowly drip melted chocolate with a spoon into ice cream as it goes around. Let it finishes running the 10 minutes and then freeze.