little owls

i've been making lots of these little guys lately.

and i can't stop wearing them. what could be more awesome then a cute little owl brooch pinned to a cowl scarf or a cardigan? few things, my friends, few things. i'm hoping to be at the downtown indie market in may, so if all goes well i'll be selling them there!

stuffed peppers!

i spent an afternoon this past sunday making vegetarian stuffed peppers with a friend of mine, this was her first time making stuffed peppers without meat and she was delighted to find she didn't miss it at all! they were super delicious. we stuffed the red peppers with black beans, rice, peppers, onions and of course lots of oregano and basil and a little parsley. topped with tomato sauce and cheese and baked to perfection, they were absolutely scrumptious.

spring!

it was so gorgeous today and i didn't have to work, i spent some time this afternoon outside at the park. i was pretty giddy about the weather.

peanut butter cups!!

i made peanut butter cups this past weekend. they were absolutely delicious. more delicious than peanut butter cups you can buy, i thought. a bonus was they were really quite simple. took maybe 3o minutes, max, and not at all complicated. i just melted chocolate chips in a double boiler, spread some chocolate at the bottom of a dozen cupcake liners, popped em in the freezer for about 10 minutes so the chocolate would solidify faster, put the peanut butter filling on top of the bottom chocolate shells, and spread more chocolate on top of that. the peanut butter filling was super easy, just natural peanut butter mixed with powdered sugar until it was stiff and dough-like. i made my own powdered sugar by throwing raw cane sugar in the blender for 5 minutes or so, but you can use whatever.

anyway, very easy and so so so good. i'm already plotting when i can make them again.

burrito bowl!

i frequently order a delicious black bean burrito bowl at my favorite local restaurant, i love it so much i decided it was time to try my hand at recreating the tasty mexican dish. despite a bunch of common ingredients, it still didn't really taste like the burrito bowl i get at fishbones, but it was pretty tasty nonetheless.

kurt halsey

i recently found this artist's work, and i LOVE it. all of it is just so sweet and soothing.

http://www.kurthalsey.com/

kale chips

kale chips are a delicious, really nutritious snack or side, that i tell pretty much everybody about. i like kale ok steamed, i think it's pretty tasty as a salad, but when you bake it into chips, it's absolutely amazing.

they are super super easy to make, and really only require a couple of ingredients.

all you need is kale, olive oil, salt, and i like to add nutritional yeast with the salt. but you don't have to.

first you just break up the pieces of kale, avoiding the stems(those don't bake well), into chip size pieces. put the kale pieces in a bowl and drizzle olive oil over them, be pretty generous, and then use your hands to get the olive oil evenly coating the kale. sprinkle on your salt and, if you're using it, your nutritional yeast, and spread the kale out onto a pan. bake for about 20 minutes, or until fully dehydrated and crispy, at 325.

seriously, try it. it's so easy and they're so good.