A "New" Infant Carseat Cover!

We chose the above sage colored carseat before the clever girl was born.  The actual seat has not expired yet, so we are able to use it for the clever baby when he arrives (sometime in early April)!  I am thrilled to not have to purchase another carseat, but thought the old cover needed some sprucing for the new baby.

A local decorator fabric store is going out of business, so I zipped over there and chose this fabric!  The fabric with yellow, grey, and black dots is called "Candy", and the black fabric with white giraffes is called "Stretch".  I thought they would make a fun carseat cover!  I purchased 2 yards of the "Candy" fabric and 1 1/2 yards of the "Stretch" fabric, and ended up with way more than I needed, but I am sure I can make use of the extra.  I also used some cheap white cotton fabric that I happened to have on hand for the inside lining of the canopy, 3 packages of canary yellow wide double fold bias tape, some small bits of batting, and Wonder Under double sided adhesive. 

I found a tutorial on Make It & Love It as to how she recovered her carseat and decided that was exactly what I would do!   Her actual carseat is a little different than mine, but the general idea is the same.  I took about a zillion pictures of the original carseat cover with all pieces intact, and then as I slowly took deep breaths and ripped apart the original cover, I took a zillion more pictures.  I have to admit that starting to rip the cover apart was probably the most difficult part of this entire project.  As doubt crept in, I bravely pushed it back and reminded myself that I knew I could DO THIS.

Valentine Cupcakes

The clever girl asked if we could bring the cupcakes to the Valentine's Day party at her school.  Of course I said "YES"!  And I immediately thought that Red Velvet Cupcakes would be the perfect treat.  You might recall that last April I made a Red Velvet Cake and found the recipe to be a bit drier than I prefer.  So this time I used a different recipe and it WINS.  Super moist and yummy cupcakes!  If you care for information about the original recipe or the history of Red Velvet Cake, click on my Recipe Index above and go to the Red Velvet Cake recipe there.  Also, that recipe uses cooked icing, whereas this one uses cream cheese icing - a north-south rivalry as to which is "right". 

The clever girl was my sous pastry chef for this endeavor.

T-shirt Dress

When the clever girl goes on field trips with school, she is supposed to wear the school t-shirt.  I get it.  It is much easier to identify all the kids as being in the same group if they are all in the same t-shirt.  However, the clever girl abhors this type of t-shirt.  They are simply not stylish enough for her.  Plus she knows her mom is crafty and can probably do something to make the shirt better.

The clever girl's previous school shirt has gotten too small, plus I made it sleeveless so it wasn't totally appropriate for a field trip in January.  The next sized shirt was a kids 6-8.  The clever girl is a 4 but I went ahead and purchased a 6-8 as I figured it would give me something to work with.  When I brought the shirt home I asked the clever girl to try it on for me.  She immediately started re-designing it.  "The shoulders are too big, Momma", she said, "and it is almost long enough to be a dress!"  (There is nothing the clever girl likes to wear more than dresses).  And when I started taking in the sleeve width, she said "we could put a button there, that would be cute!".  My little designer.

TWD: Baking with Julia - Focaccia

This week's recipe for Tuesday's with Dorie was Focaccia.  The dough takes a long time to rise and I got a later start on it than I intended, thus this post is rather late on Tuesday, but here nonetheless!

The focaccia dough is actually rather simple to make, however it has two short rises (1 hour and then 45 minutes) and then a VERY long rest time.  Long as in 24-36 hours.  And even though I had read the recipe in advance and knew about the long rest time, I somehow couldn't make myself get up and get it prepared so that it would be ready in time for a Tuesday morning post.  Oh well!

The dough itself is made of water, yeast, olive oil, flour and salt.  It is mixed together and then divided into three balls to rest in oiled ziplock bags in the refrigerator.  Take it out of the refrigerator, let it rest on the counter for another hour to get to room temperature, and you are ready to actually bake some focaccia!

S'mores in the Kitchen

 

I used to think I needed a campfire in order to make s'mores.... but not anymore!!  Recently, the clever girl came home from pre-school and told me that she had made s'mores at school.  "Have you ever had a s'more?" she asked.  "Oh, yes", I responded.  It turns out they didn't use a campfire at school, either (thank goodness)!  They used chocolate covered graham crackers and marshmallow creme.  While I am sure that the kids thought that was fantastic, this is not exactly what I think of when I think of a s'more. 

So, the clever girl asked if I could make s'mores for dessert one night.  Hmmm.  I did not have a desire to start a fire in my backyard, nor to thread my mini-marshmallows on a skewer and stand over my gas stove with my 4 1/2 year old.  Surely I could figure something out.

And I did.  Folks, if you are a s'mores fan, here you go! First, line a baking sheet with parchment paper.  This is for easy cleanup!

TWD: Baking with Julia - French Apple Tart

First of all, let me apologize for being silent the past 2 weeks.  This broken fingertip thing is a real issue when it comes to typing!  I only have 2 fingers and a thumb on my right hand (yes, my dominant hand - my broken finger is buddy taped to my pinky finger) and I am used to having all digits available to type.  So, I find typing a bit frustrating right now but I shall do my best!  I must break the silence of my blog!

Our challenge this week for Tuesdays with Dorie was French Apple Tart.  The recipe can be found on pages 379-381 of the book, Baking with Julia, or you can find it on our hostess Gaye's blog, Laws of the Kitchen.

TWD: Baking with Julia - Pizza with Onion Confit

This week's recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie was Pizza with Onion Confit.  Honestly, this almost became a recipe that didn't happen for me.  Besides the fact that I sort of forgot about it until Monday morning, the day before this post was due, it also happened that I broke my fingertip the night before and was not quite sure I could cook.

Now, you may think, "broken fingertip, no big deal".  And the reality is that in the scheme of things, it really is no big deal.  It could have been an entire finger or my entire hand or really much much worse than it is.  However, I am pregnant.  So when I finally decided that I probably needed medical attention (at 11pm) and went to an emergency clinic, I realized how difficult being pregnant made this situation.  No x-ray --- potential harm to the baby.  So though I don"t know for sure that it is broken, the doc seemed pretty certain.  Oh, and pain meds?  Not so much.  Again, potential harm to the baby.  Just Tylenol, sorry,  WITH A BROKEN BONE?!?  Ugh.  Happily, my obstetrician approved something a bit stronger today so maybe I can sleep tonight!  Oh, are you wondering how this happened in the first place?  It was in the process of constructing a "big girl" bed for my daughter, which will be fodder for another post.  A part of the bed started falling over, Mr. Clever Mom jumped over me to catch it, and in the process he landed ON and then pushed OFF of my finger with his foot, crushing it into our concrete garage floor.  Trust me, he feels awful.