Slow

Hello Friends! How is everybody doing? Work and School started back up for Little Man and I last week, so we have been getting back into routine and I have been a bit lazy in the evenings. We have had bitter cold and it seemed like everyday there was a little bit of the white stuff falling from the sky.

Last post I talked about getting my sewing table cleaned and i was successful. Less so when it came to pulling out some fabric and cutting it up, maybe this weekend. I have so much fabric and a lot of it i bought because i just like the pattern, so I want to do either strips or squares and make a quilt, something to use my stash up. It’s all fabric that i say “oh but it’s so pretty i have to save it.” This way all my “so pretties” can be in one place and treasured!

I also mentioned Little Man’s new game Forbidden Island. We have played a couple more times and still have not won!! The island beat us every time.

I think Little Man is starting to get a little frustrated. We have been halfway there a couple of times and he gets his hopes up and then an important piece of the island goes under water and the game ends. I have looked online to see if we are doing something wrong and it doesn’t seem like we are but some comments are about how easy the game is or how quick to beat and all i can think is “What are we doing wrong?” I am not giving up yet though! Little Man does enjoy playing it though so i know we will get there eventually.

I have been using my duct tape wallet that I mentioned in the last post and I love it! I don’t normally carry such a small wallet except for work because i don’t like to leave stuff like that in my locker so i just have a small wallet in my pants with the important stuff i need. My duct tape wallet is thin and much more fun than the boring brown one i was using!

I finished my P.D. James book that I was reading for the Bringing up Burns Book Challenge. Now I am on number two: A book that was made into a movie.  I chose Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larrson.

It is the third book in a series, it started with Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I am not sure an English version of the third book was ever made but i know they made a Swedish film. I read the first two books a couple of years ago right after the other and then i needed a break from Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist. If you have not read them, they are great books and I feel like they move right along and are suspenseful. They do touch on some topics that some people might not want to read about and can be quite graphic.

In the past week I finished the puzzle that I you can see started in the last photo. It was a fun one and i love these Sheep World Characters!! I have only seen them in Germany.

Today I made some Oatmeal Raisin cookies. Half of them are a gift for a friend because it is their favorite cookie and the other half are for us to enjoy. I forgot how much i love homemade Oatmeal Raisin cookies. It has been years since I made some.  I had already started when i thought, oh I should share with you guys. I soaked my raisins in warm water while I got the dough together.

Here is the butter, sugar and eggs mixed up and i added the vanilla:

Then i put the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a bowl.

I mixed the wet ingredients with the dry and added the oatmeal and the raisins to be mixed in.

That part was a bit tough.The dough is very thick and sticky.

Then i put my dough in the fridge for about a half an hour so the cookies wouldn’t spread quite so much. Rolled them into balls.

And baked them up for 11 minutes and then let them sit on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes before putting them on a cooling rack.

Yummy!!!! I will be enjoying a couple with my bedtime tea!

I hope you all have a wonderful night or day depending on where you are! I will be back soon! No more long absences like this if i can help it.

Dinner and some weekend stuff

Hello My Friends! How are you today? It was a typical Monday, I didn’t want to get up and out of bed this morning and it dragged in the normal Monday way. Day one of my changes that I wrote about yesterday was successful! I was a good girl when it came to my eating and my water intake so I am really that happy that I didn’t crash on day one! 🙂

On Friday I tried a new product and decided to share my whole dinner with you guys instead of just the product since it was part of my dinner anyway!

I have made this dish tons of times,It’s a basic meat and gravy dish, I don’t really have a name for it and the only thing I ever really change is what I serve it with. It could be rice, mashed potatoes or Spatzle (a German egg noodle). On Friday we went to a local market that carries quite a few European items and I came across something I haven’t had in a super long time.

The best way to describe these is like a dumpling, my grandma of course makes these homemade but a girl has to get her fix somehow! I have gotten something like this before but the didn’t come in their own little dumpling sacks. In the other stuff I got you mixed the ingredients and then made your own balls and put them in boiling water but with these that’s basically all taken care of! you just toss them into a pot with cold water and salt.

And bring them to a boil.

You can see how they have already puffed up a little in their sacks. Then you turn down the heat and let them simmer for 15 minutes.

While those are cooking, we start the meat.

This is turkey loin cut into 1/4 in slices or so and season with a seasoning that my grandma sends me from Germany. It’s from a well-known chef over there called Herr Schuhbeck. This is the steak and grill seasoning. Then you toss it in a pan over medium high heat.

And cook until the turkey is cooked through, it doesn’t take long. Then we are going to add about 2 Tablespoons of Tomato Paste.

Give it a good stir until the turkey is all covered with it and cooks for a minute in the pan. The we are going to add gravy. This is where I cheat and just use a powdered gravy.

Add a splash of heavy cream or milk, whatever you have on hand and give it another stir.

Once everything is warmed through and nice and thick, the meat and gravy is all done. Now back to the Knodel! This is how they look after the 15 minutes and you are supposed to run them under cold water.

The you free them out of their little sacks and put the on the plate.

Lol, I got a bit rough with the one on top but this is how they look all done.

And here is the final product…

Yummy!! it was so good, and one Knodel would have been enough for me, they are very filling. I will be getting these again. Just a note, these are not something you really want to eat by themselves, they need some kind of sauce or my grandma has also put them in a chicken broth and made a soup. Also really good.  So, hope you liked that. If you want to see more, let me know.

Over the weekend, Little Man and I built a Fort in the living room and we really didn’t leave it much. We even slept in it at night.

We played some games.

Memory

Labyrinth, this is one of my favorites.

Also some Battleship and some Rauber Rudi.

I also got some reading done.

That’s Fablehaven by Brandon Mull. I am about 3/4 of the way through. It is a book for kids but its a quick read and sometimes you need that. I was at an activity at the library for Little Man and it was laying on the table by me, so i picked it up and started reading it and didn’t want to stop when it was time to go home, so the book came home with me. It’s about a sister and brother that go to spend a couple weeks with their grandfather and find out he is the caretaker of FableHaven, a sanctuary for mystical creatures. And of course when kids start sticking their noses into things, trouble starts. It’s part of a series, i am not sure how many books there are but I do want to read the others at some point…just making my list longer and longer.

If you remember in my first post back to blogland, I mentioned having to take a break from crafting, most of all knitting because of my wrists. It has been since the end of September and it’s like all i can think about but I am behaving!! I have been wearing my wrist guards at night and trying to watch what i do with my hands during the day. I am giving myself until December and then i will very slowly get back to working something. When i was working on Little Man’s socks my hands weren’t bothering me. It was when I went to a project with bigger needles that i started to feel the ache again. So we will see, wish me luck.

I better get off to bed. Have a great day!