Melted Snowman Cookies!

Our kitchen isn't huge, but it is nice. I love it, it is all glass so it is easy to clean. We have a fantstic stove top and a cute little combi-oven. The oven is just big enough to bake some cookies or a small cake! So, we baked our second batch of cookies in it just last week! Our first batch were these adorable surfing cookies. But, that isn't important right now. What is are these cute Melted Snowman Cookies!

I saw this on pinterest a while back and knew these were too simple not to put in the rotation! I did it pretty much the same way they did over at Somewhat Simple only I used this sugar cookie recipe, from allrecipes.

The sugar cookie recipe from all recipes is delicious and freezes really, really well. I know from experience.

Anyway, here is how we did ours!

Roll the dough into about a golf ball size, 

squish it down in between your palms, and bake according to recipe directions. 

While they are baking mix together this "very scientific" recipe for frosting:

("very scientific" is code for I discovered this once when I was 20 and made cookies the first time, it isn't a science and I usually just dump powdered sugar and milk until it is at a good consistency. This does harden though so it is perfect if you need to stack cookies)

1 cup powdered sugar to 1 Tablespoon milk. Feel free to add to and take away ingredients as you see fit.

We then dipped each marshmallow in the frosting and decorated them with little candy coated chocolate sprinkles!

Watch them because the frosting takes a minute to harden so the face can "spread" so make sure you pay attention and don't let the eyes wander off ;)

Once the cookies were out of the oven and cooled we drizzled the frosting over the cookies until it looked like a puddle. We then put the marshmallow on top and added more candy sprinkles for buttons!

We honestly forgot about adding arms, but thought they were cute enough without them. Next time we will add the arms.

I think these are one of my favorite Christmas cookies: cute and simple! What is your favorite Christmas cookie?

Fall Cold Brew Coffee Concentrate Recipe

So, we love all things fall flavored. Shockingly the Europeans don't seem to have the same obsession with pumpkin everything that American's do! ha! But, have no fear, for we decided to start concocting our own amazing fall treats!

So, my first recipe that we have been enjoying since a warm front came in and we've been enjoying some 70 degree days is a cold brew coffee concentrate.

The idea came to me when I found this recipe on Pinterest (follow me!).

Of course I didn't have all the ingredients on hand, well, because I have no idea what Clove is in Dutch and the guy at the spice stand had no idea what I was saying and told me everything was in alphabetical order. I looked among all the C's as often times due to Greek and Latin roots the words are close, but saw nothing that looked or smelled like cloves...anywhere in the spice stand...so I had to concoct something else, this is what I came up with.

Fall Cold Brew Coffee Concentrate

5 Cups of filtered water (I honestly just use tap water lol)
1 cup of course ground coffee
2 Tablespoons ground cinnamon
1 Teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 Teaspoon ground cardamom

Combine coffee grounds and spices in a large container with a lid and mix up a bit. Add 5 cups of water, give a little stir to make sure all grounds are nice and wet by the water, put the lid on and set in the fridge to steep over night or up to 24 hours. This is what it will look like:

What, this doesn't look appetizing to you?! Well, sometimes things need to get a little ugly before they get better...I promise the results are AMAZING!

The next day line a large bowl or pitcher with a cheese cloth and strain the coffee from the grounds. If you strained it into a bowl make sure you put it into a pitcher with a lid:

Don't judge...our kitchen isn't yet equipped with everything so I use the top of a coke bottle for a funnel #nowaste 

See, my funnel is awesome and it successfully got my cold brew from bowl to pitcher...

***that is a recycled juice bottle by the way. Being an expat and trying not to buy extras has made me quite creative!

Once you are done straining your concentrate store in the fridge and it is good for at least a week. This hasn't lasted longer than a week in our house so I can't vouch for it being good for much past that, but you could give it a go!

How we make ours

This is how we assemble our delicious cold brew. One should note, cold brew concentrate is very strong and high in caffeine, so a little goes a long way.

1/2 cup concentrate

1 cup unsweetened almond milk or regular milk

2 Tablespoons cinnamon brown sugar syrup

3-4 ice cubes (ours are quite large lol), or to taste

whipped cream

Put ice in your cup, add syrup, concentrate, and milk. Stir, top with whipped cream. Enjoy!

Are you a fan of "fall spiced" items? What is your favorite? Mine seriously is this coffee!

Happy Friday!

So, we are finally at the weekend! For some reason, since I became a homemade weekends just haven't been the same for me. I seem to take them for granted. I mean, I enjoy them because my husband & daughter are home with me, but since my week's aren't as busy as they were when I worked, so it's usually just another set of days of the week! But, I've had a bit of a busy week with appointments and what not and the kiddo had a busy week with extra band practices, field trips and hubby had countless meetings and tons of work this week so it just feels good for it to be Friday and having some super fun, relaxing time to spend together.

Today I am slow roasting some ribs in the oven. I have one recipe I LOVE!!! I use the Neely's Dry Rib Rub here. It makes more than I need so usually I just double the recipe so I always have it on hand. I cover the ribs with it then I cover my pan in some foil, place the ribs on it, then cover it with foil (this ensures they will be super tender). Then I had my oven preheated to 400F (204 C) and I place the ribs in there, immediately turn the oven down to 250 (121 C) for a good two hours (checking the ribs as needed). Then, I whip up some of the Neely's BBQ Sauce here (again, I double it so I have extra for the month). I then turn the oven back up to 204C, take the top foil off & cover the ribs in BBQ Sauce while the oven heats back up. Place the ribs back in the oven and baste every 10-15 minutes with the sauce. They turn out tender and sweet, yet spicy! I'll serve it with a little homemade mac & cheese, and some roasted zucchini!! This is a meal that doesn't take much to fill you up, but makes you long for summer! ;) After we are finally making our way to see Iron Man 3. We hear it was amazing so we are really, really looking forward to seeing it!

The rest of the weekend I am dedicating to projects! I really need to get my daughter's room redone in the Moroccan theme she wants so many of the projects on my Pinterest Board is what I'll be working on. Here are a few of my top faves I'm looking to do:

(img credit)

http://thepleatedpoppy.com/2011/02/scrappy-lampshade-tutorial-and-long-story/ 

I have an old lamp & lamp shade and we have tons of old t-shirts that we are going to put to good use for this.

(Img Credit)
I'll use my Cricut to cut similar images. I have some bright orange DMC floss I'll use to hang them from the wall with.

This I found on Pinterest so I don't know how to give an image credit, but I'll post the link to the Pinterest post here.

These ones are my top priority along with dying her pillow cases and bed skirt. I will then also do some elephant embroidery on her pillow cases. I also intend to add a couple of canopies.

So, we have a fairly busy weekend planned here. We are also going out to dinner for a belated mother's day dinner. We were going to check out a French place, but sadly there is nothing on the menu my husband would like & he said he'd go & find "something" but it's just no fun if he can't truly enjoy the meal too ya know??? So, there is a cafe in a cute little neighborhood called Gastown that I've been wanting to try, but there are also several restaurants on Granville Island that we've yet to venture to and I would like to do a little shopping in one of the cooking stores and one of the bead stores so if it's nice hopefully we will catch the ferry over that way.

In any case it promises to be a great weekend and I can't wait to come and share the festivities!!!

Happy Friday & for you Canadian enjoy the long weekend!!!