Root Beer Floats, Anyone?

Sunday afternoon we went on a little hike, spur the moment. Afterwards we stopped at XXX Root Beer, for what else other than root beer! Some of us actually went with root beer floats this time and they were delicious, as usual.

There's a giant sign on top of the building that looks like a giant barrel. The whole place is themed like an old drive-in.

We also got the "Tool Box", which is all sorts of fried foods. My favorite is the curly fries. Only four of us could eat it, since Tiana and my mom are gluten-free, and we could barely finish it.

What did you do this past Sunday?

Chocolate Fudge

One day while browsing Pinterest, I came across a chocolate fudge recipe. It looked simple to make and I had all of the ingredients on hand, so I went of to the kitchen to make some. We had family visiting us from out of town and it was a hit with everyone.

The directions were to make it in the microwave, but I prefer to use the stove, so that's what I did. I also added chopped up pecans, cause I like the crunchy-ness it adds.

Chocolate Fudge

Recipe from About.com

Ingredients:

12oz semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 14oz can sweetened condescend milk

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon milk
a couple handfuls of chopped pecans or other nuts (optional)

Directions:

1. Combine all of the ingredients in a small pot on a medium heat. Stir until completely melted. If using nuts, add them and stir to combine.

2. Pour the fudge into a well greased 8x8 pan. Let sit until the fudge is hard (I placed mine in the fridge after it cooled down a bit), then slice into bit sized pieces.

First Time Canning: Strawberry Honey Jam

Sunday we arrived home from a trip to Oregon, which I shall be posting about sometime soon. We drove down of the fourth and spend several days there afterwards. I've also been busy doing different things for my homeschool graduation at the end of the month, which is going to be a big Contra Dance with lots friends. I'm super, duper excited for that, cause dancing is one of my most very favorite things to do! But right now I'm here to share some yummy strawberry jam I made.

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At the end of June, we went strawberry picking for the first time in quite a few years. Even though it was cloudy, it was fairly warm out and soon we were ready to leave, after we had picked 35lbs of berries!

Jam had been something that I thought would be neat to make, but always seemed a bit intimidating, because of all the boiling of the cans and lids, keeping them sterile, etc.. Another thing I didn't like was all the sugar that was used in the recipes. I always try to make my food low to no sugar or use something like honey or maple syrup instead. So after finding a recipe online with just four ingredients, plus it used honey instead of sugar, I decided to can some jam for the first time.

The recipe was quite simple and preparing all the jars wasn't that bad. Since I didn't have a canning rack (or whatever they call it) for in the bottom of the pot, I used a few old towels so the jars didn't touch the ground or rattle against each other. I also just used regular tongs since that was what I had. The only thing I would want next time is a canning funnel, cause that would make getting the jam into the jars way easier.

And how does it taste? It's delicious. Everyone likes it and Daniel, who uses jam pretty much daily, has only been using this stuff every day instead of the store bought jelly from Trader Joe's. Now I call that a success!

Summertime

Ahh, summer is here. We've been having a lot of cloudy and rainy days, but we've been getting some warmer, sunnier days sprinkled in as well.

Some of the things I've been doing this month:

Sewing things like aprons and pajama pants...

...baking things like chocolate chip cookie dough truffles...

...watching Emma, the 2009 version, for the first time...

...reading Tintin...

...guest posting on a friend's blog...

... and photographing (and editing!) my friend, Sarah's, wedding.

What have you been doing this summer?

Catch Up

Three weeks since I last posted? The time sure has been flying by! 

Last month we bought a fire pit. And fire means shmoes, aka s'mores. Mmmmm!

Aviation day was a couple of weeks ago. We were all volunteers in the morning and got to hang out afterwards.

For Memorial Weekend we visited Mt. St. Helens. I planing on posting pictures from our trip, I just need to edit them.... I'm a little behind on that. Below was our view from the cabin we stayed at.

Cookies & Milk, Anyone?

Who doesn't love a good chocolate cookie? I know I sure do. Cookies are good and chocolate makes them even better.

I hadn't done any baking in quite a while, which is quite unlike me, so I though I'd remedy that by baking these tasty treats. It wasn't long before the house was filled with the yummy smell of chocolate. 

Chocolate Brownie Cookies
original recipe via Pure & Yummy

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter

19oz chocolate chips

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 eggs

1 1/3 cups sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

Directions:

1. Melt butter and half of the chocolate chips in a pot stirring constantly until butter and chocolate is completely melted.

2. Beat eggs, sugar, and vanilla in an electric mixer. Gradually add the flour, baking powder, and salt until combined. Add the chocolate mixture, then the remaining chocolate chips.

3. Scoop dough onto greased baking sheets at 350°F for ten minutes. Let cool five minutes before moving to a wire rack to cool completely.

It's a Winter Wonderland Outside

Ya know how I mentioned in my last post how the snow wasn't sticking? Well, it wasn't very long after I published that post when it really came down and it decided to stay. Now, four days later, we have a seven and a half inches of snow covering the ground.

Sunday Tiana, Daniel, my mom, and I went on a walk around the neighborhood, which is one of our favorite things to do when it snows.

Oh, and just before we left, Tiana made this tiny little snowman.

I though the fire hydrant looked pretty cool covered in snow.

After walking our usual route, we thought it would be fun to walk across the street to Starbucks for drinks. We ended up getting chocolate doughnuts as well.

Daniel eating his doughnut and peppermint hot chocolate.

Yes, I did decided on a cold drink, even tough it was only thirty degrees outside.

At the table outside the store, someone had build this snowman on the table.  The eyes, mouth, and buttons were all coffee beans.

Catching Up

My family had a great Christmas. We all decided to open our gifts on the morning of Christmas Eve instead of Christmas day this year, which was fun. We all woke up while it was still dark out and my mom and dad had gone out to get some doughnuts, which was a fun surprise. 

I made these yummy chocolate pretzels which we all munched on throughout the weekend. The M&M's on top are the coconut ones.

The day before New Years Eve our whole family went to a ball that our friends put on. It was a really fun night filled with lots of Ceilidh Dancing (Scottish and Irish social dancing) and even a little Waltzing at the end.

On New Years Eve we decided to go inner tubing in the snow at night. We went with some friends of ours and we had lots of fun speeding down the hill.  And at the end they let us go down in trains. That was awesome.

It was quite sad when last week the dSLR died. It was quite sudden as it was working fine earlier in the day. There is a bright side to that, though, because since we don't have a dSLR in the house anymore, I was able to purchase the camera I've been wanting, the Sony A580, last night! I'm super excited about it and I can't wait for it to arrive this week!

So, that pretty much sums up my last couple weeks. How was your Christmas and/or New Years?

Christmas Link-up: Foods & Tasty Treats

Week three is here! It's hard to believe it's only two weeks till Christmas is here. Today week three of a Very Merry Christmas Link-up begins, but remember, you can still join any of the themes trough the end of the month. Themes that have already started: Christmas Decor and Christmas Lights
(If your new, or would like more info about the link up, you can visit, this post.)

Week 3 - Christmas Foods & Tasty Treats

There are so many tasty things made this time of year: cookies, gingerbread houses, candy canes, and my personal favorite, eggnog. Mmmm, my mouth is watering! If you bake something yourself, you could share the recipe as well! Anything that is edible will work for this weeks theme. And remember, composition is an important key to getting a great food shot.

*Update* The linky doesn't seem to be working, so please leave your link in the comments.

Joining is easy. Just put together a post with a photo(s) that fit with this weeks theme, Christmas Lights, add my Christmas Link Up button, and come back here and add your post to the linky. Remember to post a link to the post, not your main blog address. Also, go ahead and check out all the other posts that are linked up. That's what makes this fun!

<center><a href="http://sereinasphotography.blogspot.com/search/label/VMCL%202011" target="_blank"><img alt="Very Merry Christmas Link-up" src="http://i992.photobucket.com/albums/af49/sereinalovesvintage/Blog/VMCL2011Button.png"/></a></center>

Cranberries + White Chocolate + Oats

For Thanksgiving, we bought a big bag of cranberries from Costco for cranberry sauce. We had tons left over, so I searched the internet for baked goods with cranberries in them, and came up with these cookies. They're pretty much oatmeal cookies with cranberries and I also added white chocolate chips.

The recipe called for dried cranberries, but just used the fresh ones. They taste really good, but the cranberries were a little sour. Next time I'll add some sugar, or something.

I found the recipe on the Food Network website.

I shot these photos out in the cold on our back deck. I plugged in the lights inside and brought them out on the deck, a few feet from the cookies, to get some nice bokeh.

Oatmeal Cookies

Although I've baked snickerdoodle, chocolate snowballs, and chocolate chip cookies many, many times, I rarely make oatmeal cookies. I love anything with oats in it, though, and I really love oatmeal cookies. 

I don't like to add any thing like nuts or raisins in them. For me, plain is the way to go!

I used the recipe from Smitten Kitchen. It's a great, simple oatmeal cookie recipe, which is just what I like. And as usual, I substituted the all-purpose flower for whole wheat flower.

Chocolate Truffles

Last week was one of my good friends birthdays and for a gift, I made her chocolate truffles. Chocolate chips and sweetened condensed milk are the only ingredients needed, so they're really simple to make. They can be rolled in whatever you like. Next time I make them, I want to try adding some mint extract and see how they turn out.

The recipe can be found at Eagle Brand.

Project 52: Week 38

{38/52}

Aren't these candy corn cookies cute? When I ran across the recipe, I knew I wanted to make them this fall. I used whole wheat flour, like I usually do, so the colors aren't as bright, but more natural looking. I think they actually look quite nice that way. They're really easy to make, so I'll most likely be baking some more soon. The recipe can be found at Land O'Lakes.

Project 52: Week 35

{35/52}

I did some baking on Wednesday and made these yummy coffee cake muffins. I've modified the recipe a bit, cutting down on the sugar and using plain yogurt instead of sour cream. Below is my modified recipe and long with a link to the original.

Original recipe from Martha Stewart

Muffins:

1 stick butter, softened

1 3/4 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup plain yogurt

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs

Streusel Topping:

1/3 cup brown sugar, packed

1/3 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1teaspoon ground cinnamon

3-4 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces


Directions:

1. Streussel Topping: Combine brown sugar, flour, salt, and cinnamon. Cut in the butter.

2. Preheat oven to 350°F and grease a muffin tin with cooking spray.

3. Combine together yogurt, butter, sugar, and vanilla until well mixed. Add the eggs and mix together. Add the flour, baking powder, and baking soda and stir just till combined.

4. Fill the muffin tins about 1/3 of the way with the batter, then sprinkle some of the streussel topping on top. Then add another 1/3 of batter on top, and sprinkle with streussel topping again.

5. Bake for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. 

Beach Vacation: Daniel's Birthday

We celebrated Daniel's birthday at the beach house, just like we did last year. He also chose the same kind of cake that he had last time as well, which was gluten-free chocolate cake. To make opening presents a bit more fun, we hid the gifts in different places around the house and had clues leading to each on. Daniel had lots of fun figuring out the clues and searching for his gifts.

We had a little trouble lighting the candles, hence the two lighters.

I love blowing out the candle shots.

Project 52: Week 21

This week I baked toaster pastries from scratch for the first time. I followed the recipe from Smitten Kitchen, but made them with whole wheat flour. The cinnamon filling was really tasty and want to try filling them with raspberry or strawberry jelly next time.