Ice Crystals- Beauty in the details

Jack Frost has been nipping at my nose.... and my window. Mr. Sir, James and I watched "Rise of the Guardians". It was a really adorable movie. So when I saw this frost on my window I immediately thought of that movie.

Sometimes beauty really is in the details. I had to take pictures and share.

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Plaid Diaperness

My sisters mother-in-law gave me an old shirt to upcycle. I was originally going to make diaper soakers with it. But I am a sucker for plaid, and what is cuter than a little plaid tushy. So here is a plaid diaper cover that I made for James.

I played around with diapers, but so far I still like just using prefolds with covers.

Here's the cute tushy.

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The socks are hand dyed by Wendy Richardson owner of Quilt Tapestry Studio. Aren't they adorable?

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Rendering Lard, Fatty Pigness

I love pies, I love pie crusts. So does Mr.Sir, he practically begs me for pumpkin pie year round. I just strongly dislike rolling out pie crusts. I will just squish it into the pan before I clean off the counter to roll out one pie crust. So what I do is I will make 5 or 6 crusts and freeze them. After making a few crust with oil recipes and one with a lard recipe. I am a believer in Lard. Lard is a super fattening ingredient but if you are having pie, you are splurging on calories anyways so might as well make it good. Everything in moderation.

I went to Wal-Mart to buy lard for my pie crusts , found a box and brought it home. Mr. Sir read the box and said "Uh, Honey? Why did you buy hyrdogenated lard?" I had no idea, I just saw the word "Lard". I was using lard for the flakeyness and to avoid hydrogenated oils to begin with, yet here I was buying hydrogenated lard. So Mr. Sir and I agreed that we would try the real stuff.



When we went to pick up our beef from the butcher I asked to buy some lard. He gave me this big bag full of white and pink stuff. I've never seen unrendered lard before.



I got home and used this tutorial on how to render it by My Humble Kitchen. Mr. Sir helped me chop it up and we stuck it in the crockpot.

After a couple of hours, I strained out the cracklings and poured it into mason jars.



 4.6 pounds of unrendered lard got me a quart and half a pint of snow white lard. It is going to last me ages, but its the good stuff!

 Mnmmm Pie

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Cheese Potato Egg Breakfast Pie

One morning I had a lonely pie crust sitting in my freezer. I thought to myself "This must be used!!" (Mostly because we had 3/4 of a cow to go into our chest freezer in meat form. But also because I was really hungry. ) So I dug through my fridge and freezer and came up with Cheese Potato Egg Breakfast Pie. It consisted of

1/2 a bag of Bob Evans Breakfast Potatoes
3 Eggs
a handful  of frozen cauliflower
1/4 cup cheddar cheese
1/4 cup of velveeta stye melty cheese
a couple of spoonfuls of cream cheese
salt
pepper
herbs of choice

mix the eggs, cauliflower, salt, pepper, and herbs. Put potatoes in pie crust, pour egg mix over potatoes, cover with cheese and throw the slabs of cream cheese on top. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or until eggs are done. Yum. I usually just cook by eye and handfuls so do what works best for you.

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