Decor: Flatware upgrade

Flatware was never taken lightly in my house when I was growing up. When my mom decided it was time to update her's after 20 some years of use, it wasn't a joke. We spent countless hours in the kitchen/china departments of stores. Where we would balance the flatware on our fingers to find the center of gravity. Hold two different styles in each hand too feel weight and which just felt "right". Then, there was the test to see how it sat on the edge of the plate. That was probably the most important test to my mom.

Fast forward to now. I'm standing in TJ Maxx, having just found what I think is awesome flatware (even better then the style I just recently bought because we needed it). Only I can't hold it and mess with it and frankly it's killing me. Apparently my mom has passed on her quirky OCD. Don't you worry, as soon as I got home with the boxes of flatware, I opened one an ran it through the tests. They passed. After a few months of waiting to be cleaned and put into use (we forget to do things sometimes). They are freshly washed and now being used in our home!
























Balance from Gourmet Settings


We also were able to pick up some serving pieces, though sadly they didn't make them in the Balance style.
























Cabaret Serving Set from Gourmet Settings

Recipe: Beer Bread

I am Ashley's wonderful husband, Nate, and I am honored to write a guest post on her blog. Since I'm the baker of the family (she's the cook) I thought it might be fun to write a regular feature on her blog. It might end up changing, but I thought a recipe every Saturday might be fun.

I've gotten very accustomed to using a kitchen scale in my baking endeavors, so I will always use mass measurements in the recipe for the main ingredients. For those of you without a kitchen scale, I will also include the volume measurements that they are based on, but note that because I use mass I may have tweaked the recipe slightly from the volume-based recipe. It's easy to do that when you can deal with 2 gram increments.


Today's recipe: Beer Bread

I learned about beer bread from my older brother (if my memory serves me correctly) and have always loved the flavor of it. It's also as easy a bread recipe as you'll ever make that doesn't require a bread maker.


Here's the required list of materials:
  • 350 grams (3 cups) all-purpose flour, sifted
  • 3 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 50 grams (1/4 cup) granulated sugar
  • 1 12 oz. can or bottle of beer*
  • 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, melted
  • 1 bread loaf pan, greased
  • 1 oven
(Note: Though I haven't tried it, you can apparently omit the baking powder and salt if you use self-rising flour instead of all-purpose flour.)


Directions:
  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit
  2. Mix together all ingredients (except butter)
  3. Pour the bread dough into the greased bread loaf pan
  4. Pour the melted butter over the dough
  5. Bake for 1 hour!
For best results, let the bread sit for about 15 minutes after you pull it out of the oven. When you pull it out, there will likely still be boiling, liquid butter at the bottom of the bread pan, but it will get absorbed into the bread slowly. That's what you get by waiting those 15 minutes - your bread will be even more buttery.

I originally found this recipe here.

*Final Note: I've discovered that lighter, lower-end beers actually make for better beer bread. You can try using darker or higher-end beers, but you'll find that the bread will start to taste less like bread and more like the beer - which is not a good thing in this case. For this particular beer bread, I used Blue Moon's summer Ale, called Honey Moon. We originally bought it because I typically like Blue Moon, but this one just didn't taste very good to me. Luckily, it still proved useful in my beer bread!

Life: The Loot

Hope everyone had a good Christmas and is recovering from all of the family and food!

As much as the holidays are about spending time with the one(s) you love it's also about gift giving.


I got a wonderful candle from my Elfster, C, this year. I am in love with it. In fact I may have to pester her for where she got it, because this candle is going to get used up quickly. It has a great woodsy smell, which I adore as a scent, as well as a fresh citrus note. Lets just say it quickly got lit and has been used quite a bit since then! Thank you!

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This year Nate and I stuck to a small budget. We didn't really need or want anything, but still wanted to give each other something. He did very well this year!



The Miraculous push-up bra from Victoria's Secret is just simply an amazing bra. If you want/need to go up two extra cup sizes this is your bra! No I didn't really need this bra, but come on, it's too much fun to pass up! Nate got me the more subtle nude color, so I can wear it with more!


What can I say, I'm a sucker for shimmery and shiny things, especially on my bras! I wanted this Secret Embrace, fromVictoria's Secret bra from the moment I saw it. Not only did Nate get it for me, but he also got me the matching underwear! He must love me or something.


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This is the most amazing tool of all time! I found this little beauty a few years back and I always loved it. I have no way to use it for what it's meant for, but dang it I wanted the Stanley FatMax Xtreme FuBar Utility Bar. If for nothing else but keeping it next to my bed for safety. Nate must really love me and trusts me not to come after him with this thing!


Hahaha yeah, so...ummm where to even start with this. The LeapFrog Alphabet Pal was this normal everyday toy that has a few functions. It teaches you colors (all four of them), sings songs, sings the alphabet and teaches you each letter's phonetic sound. The phonetic part is what sold me, because one day some friends and I sat playing with this thing and noticed it would oddly giggle if you pressed certain letters together. After some thought we realized that it was not letting you spell out certain words. Cuss words to be exact. Lets just say this lead to well over two hours of us trying to figure out naughty words to make it spell. In the end it was quite interesting to see what this toy company things are okay words and bad words. Thanks to Nate, this entertainment is back in my life!

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I have a love of all things makeup. I like playing with different colors and seeing what I can come up with. So the Sephora Ultimate Blockbuster pallet was just a great gift from Nate! With everything that's in it, I may never come out of the bathroom again!

LIfe: Merry Grinchmas



For everyone that wasn't quite feeling the holiday spirit this year (I know I sure wasn't feeling it at all).

Merry Grinchmas to one and all! Even if your heart didn't grow 3 sizes today.

Life: Merry Christmas Eve




See where Santa is right now! Don't forget to leave out the milk and cookies, even a carrot or two for the deer!

Sleep tight and I hope Santa brings you everything you wanted!
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