A bit of knitting.

Brooklyn Tweed's Porom.


A sock-almost completed.

First blooms.

I noticed the crocuses coming up yesterday. They may not look so pretty today since the temperature has dropped considerably.

A favorite recipe.

These are our bake sales best sellers, along with a family favorite.

Giant Sugar cookies
from Martha Stewart Everyday Cooking.
I usually double the batch. This is the original recipe.

2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 stick butter (unsalted, room temp.)
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Whisk dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl.

Mix butter and sugar 2-4 minutes. Add egg and vanilla. Then alternate adding sour cream and dry mixture.

Spoon (3 tablespoons) onto baking sheet. Bake 20-25 minutes. Rotate in oven half way through.

* Also, if you aren't going to frost the cookies, the recipe recommends sprinkling sugar over the tops. I usually make a cream cheese/powder sugar frosting.

Valentine love.

Some Valentine love from my dear husband. There are more lovely roses, I just split them up so I could enjoy them in more places around our home.


I am giving Porom another go. My first one I knit, blocked, and frogged. This time, different/lighter yarn, and smaller needles... The pattern is lovely, I think the size issue was all my doing.


This week I am working on my seed order. I am hoping to have onions in the ground by March, along with seeds started inside near the same time. I honestly am not ready for all the outside work to begin again, but it is getting closer.

Linzer cookies.

I love how this...


becomes something like this...


I am sure there are a lot of great recipes out there, mine came from Country Home magazine Feb. 2008

1 c. butter, softened
1/2 c. sugar
dash salt
2 egg yolks
1 1/2 tsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. apricot jam, cherry, seedless jam (I also used some blueberry)

In a large bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on med.-high speed for 30 seconds. Add sugar and salt and beat until combined. Add egg yolks, lemon juice, and vanilla. Beat until combined. Add flour and beat until combined. Cover and chill for 2 hours or until easy to handle.


On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough 1/4 in. thick. Cut with a cookie cutter. With half of the cut-outs, use a smaller sized cookie cutter, or a knife, and cut out the center.
Place 2 in. apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes, remove from the oven before the edges brown. Cool on a cooling rack, powder sugar the top cookie (the ones with the cut-out centers). Add 1 tsp. jam to the center of the bottom cookie. Place together to form sandwich cookies.

You can make the cookie dough ahead and freeze in a freezer for up to 1 month (thaw in refrigerator). Store filled cookies in a storage container at room temperature up to 2 days.

I really never liked marshmallows...

The obsession with marshmallows began last year when I found the recipe on the Martha Stewart website. Alli and I tried some pink ones for Valentine's Day preschool. My next attempt I bombed on so I put them out of my mind for awhile and focused on making better soups and breads. That was until I found Whimsy and Spice. They have carmel and  maple infused marshmallows. Marshmallows made with cardimom-all which are fantastic. They are also cute enough to look at to make me give them another go. So we did, and I'm ready to try another batch as soon as more cookies are finished and ready for a group of preschoolers and my own Valentine's. 

*I also ordered the recipe cards from Whimsy and Spice and they are super cute. The recipes print nicely and are not too complicated so I feel like I can even give them to others that don't enjoy the kitchen as much as I do. ;)

*The heart on the marshmallows is a copy of the ones I spotted in a recent "Country Home" magazine. I don't have a small cookie cutter, so I used a stamp punch. After the heart was out, I just placed the outside (the paper I usually discard) on top of the marshmallows and spread a bit of cocoa powder in the centers to make sure the entire heart shape would be there when I removed the paper. I know those are very unclear directions, hopefully you can make some sense of them.

Simple things... like homemade marshmallows.