Greg's choice...Bread Pudding.

Greg has this thing where he will become obsessed with something and will learn about it/eat it/drink it/watch it until he finds something new to cleave to. It is one thing I find so endearing about him.

I often hear him saying things like "This is the best _blank_ that I have ever had! Let's buy a flat of this at Costco"

I swear this guy is one Costco flat away from turning our guest room into a stock house of Peace Tea and Mexican Fruit Popsicles (just 2 of his current favs)

So he has been obsessing over bread pudding lately so I figured this was an easy one to make happen for him. So here is my recipe!

*DISCLAIMER - you have to let the bread soak in the mixture for 1/2 hour and it has to cook in a water bath*

These are things I would like to know before starting a recipe. : ) Just in case I don't have time or don't have the knowledge of how to do something.

Ingredients

1. 3 cups whole milk (I used 1% and it was fine)

2. 3/4 cups milk

3. 4 large eggs

4. 1 tsp vanilla

5. 1/4 tsp grated nutmeg

6. 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

7. 5-6 cups of stale (not hard, I left mine uncovered on the counter for about 8 hours) ripped into 11/2 inch cubes

8. Raisins (optional, I did not use)

I used individual ramekins so I set my measured bread aside in a large bowl. If you are doing it one large ramekin, then line bottom of the ramekin with the bread.

Add all other ingredients to a large bowl

Whisk ingredients well until fully combined and the sugar doesn't feel "grainy" on the bottom

Add liquid to the bowl (or large ramekin) on top of the bread. Using a spatula or large spoon push the bread down into the liquid until all bread absorbs liquid. 

Leave bread and liquid alone for 1/2 hour pushing bread down into liquid occasionally to make sure it absorbs correctly -This would be a good time to PRE-HEAT oven to 350

If using individual ramekins spoon the pudding into each ramekin equally making sure not to overfill, as they will puff up in the oven

Place large cookie sheet in the oven and pour hot tap water into sheet, filling it just enough to add ramekin(s) without it spilling over.

Set timer to 50-55 minutes

When finished the bread pudding should be puffy and slightly brown on top.

And smell so good you have to have one before Greg even comes home from work...wha?

Serve along side vanilla ice cream, a fruit compote or alone. 

Good food, good friends

We had our good friends over the other night, who just happen to be the parents of our ADORABLE god-daughter. We made dinner together and sat outside in the fading light to share a meal and good conversation. Pardon my cultural insensitivity but I love Indian summers and the warmth that lingers into Fall!

On the Menu

Appetizer:

Sliced tomatoes with fresh mozzarella, basil, topped with balsamic, extra virgin olive oil and cracked black pepper.

Main course:

Spinach salad with cranberries, candied pecans and bleu cheese (thank you Trader joes!), quinoa with Aleppo, salt and pepper, grilled Ahi tuna and chicken. My husband the grill master!

Dessert:

Brownies with vanilla bean ice cream with an espresso shot on top.

Vanilla bean ice cream with an espresso on top only for our favorite gluten free friend! : )

It was a great night, something we have to do more often!

Also don't forget to check out yesterday's post to win a Pinterest invite..and then be my friend and share your pinboards with me!

Pinterest Invite Give-a-way

So I know like everyone and their mother is on Pinterest these days...but I have 4 invites that I would like to give out...so leave a comment below about what inspires you the most and I will pick 4 winners on Friday to get a Pinterest invite!!

PINTEREST

It is a place to catalog inspiration that you find on the web, and to be inspired by "pins" other people put up.

It is perfect because your pin is linked back to the original site, giving credit where credit is due to whomever inspired you! I LOVE it and use it as a sort of home/life/craft inspiration journal online.

If you don't Pinterest you should. 

So leave me a comment about what inspires you the most and 4 lucky winners with get an invitation to Pinterest!

Love, Sav

A Mini house tour

So finally after a month of being married and Greg moving in we have finally started to make everything feel like OUR home and not just my home. I know that was something that was hard for Greg when he moved in after the wedding, the feeling like he was just spending the night at my house, cause I have lived in this house for a year with one of my sister's and my best friend.

So we decided to spend our labor day doing just that...laboring over cleaning the house and making the house feel like home. I wanted to share some pictures with you of some of my particular favorite spots in the house.

Living room. Don't mind the glare coming off the wall...my camera is out of commission and the only lens I have is a zoom lens which gives me pictures of about 1/3 of my living room even with my back against the back wall. iphonography will have to do until I get a new lens!

The perfect marriage of industry and crafting. Old WWII canisters from Greg's dad and my vintage egg basket filled with yarn.

My Anthropologie inspired TV stand display. The white vintage owls were a gift from my great-grandmother before she passed away. She was an owl FREAK. She had an entire hutch full of them, I snagged a couple amazing vintage pieces before it because trash. 

Again sorry for the crappy iphone shot...but I love this shelf in our house! We both don't like clutter, but we also have a tiny house and a lot of stuff...so this gives us an opportunity to display it nicely without it looking kitchy and cluttered. Thank you IKEA.

Here is another one of my favorite pieces in the house. Again we have a tiny house with no storage, so we decided to invest in some glass containers to keep rice, beans, flour, etc in and have it look nice enough to sit out on a shelf and not have to be hidden in a cupboard...which would not be a possibility with our limited space. We also had huge bags of spices from when I went to Morocco that we needed to do something with so we went to our local spice shop and loaded up on some cheap glass containers. 

You are probably noticing a theme here...tons of open storage. That is just the way it is around these parts! It is a bit intimidating because it forces up to be cleaner. We can't just shove stuff in drawers or cupboards! 

Here is a terrible picture of our dinning room. The table and chairs were $130 from IKEA. Booyah.

Greg & Savannah. We are currently working on a His & Hers hobby room. The biggest room in our house is a converted garage turned into our dinning room/hobby room. One half is a table and chairs seen above and one half is a crafting/design workshop. Will post pictures soon. 

Last but not least our guestroom/office. The quilt was made by my great-grandmother in the 60's. It is a hand embroidery quilt featuring a square for each of the states along with state flower, bird, capital and year it became a state. I cannot imagine how long it must of taken, but it is one of my "grab if there was a fire" treasures. We have a lot of "slash" rooms in our house because have I mentioned our house is tiny? : ) But on a serious note we are beyond blessed to be living in this amazing house  as poor newlyweds and we love every little square inch of it!

And the office portion of the quest room. Still a work in progress, but I am working on making a big calendar to be hung on the clipboard so I can keep all of our appointments/weddings/babyshowers/birthday parties/etc straight! I am loving Emily's idea of color coding the members of her family and her free calendar template download is fab! Since there are only currently 2 people living in the house and Greg is pretty easy to keep track of so I am not sure I am in a place in my life where color coding is necessary...but it is just so fun!

No pictures of our bedroom yet I'm sorry. It is super boring right now. Grey walls, white bed spread with grey pillows. I pretty much took all the wall art out of every room to be hung in the living room for the wall collage so our room is extra boring right now. It is a work in progress and pictures will be up soon when it is completed! I love a good productive weekend!

What did y'all do for Labor Day? I hope you didn't clean like we did!

Love, Sav

Thank you, thank you you are too kind!

So the lovely Lindsay over at Little Mudpies awarded me the versatile blogger award...and to be honest I was ashamed, but of course also extremely thankful and honored!! I had not updated my blog in about 2 months and I still got nominated! Well you will thoroughly enjoy her blog...go read about her son's new obsession. It had me laughing for quite a long time! : )

After accepting the Versatile Blogger Award, the blogger must

Thank the person who gave the award and link back to them in your post.

Share 7 things about yourself.

Pass this award along to 10 recently discovered blogs.

So here are 7 things about me...some silly, some serious, and some embarrassing (couldn't resist!)

1. I raised silk worms when I was a child. Yes, silk worms...and I LOVED it. I always was sad when they died.

2. My husband and I did not have sex until our wedding night. Quite the feat...let me tell you what. ; )

3. My entire childhood I rocked a bowl cut-mullet. You tell me how that is possible and I'll tell you how 6th grade was for me.

4. My husband is the funniest person I know and we are ridiculous together. We stayed up until 1am the other night  laying in bed and playing Angry Birds on my iphone. We were literally fighting like 2 year olds over whos turn it was to hold the phone. 

5. I am in nursing school and I love it! I can't wait to be a nurse for realsies, I want to be an OB/GYN nurse.

6. I love to craft! I would craft myself into a corner in our house if Greg didn't make me spend some of our money on say clothes and food.

7. I have a TON of pet peeves, like seriously way too many for a normal person, and none of them make any sense. Like middle aged women in mickey mouse shirts, and the way children smell when they wake up from naps. Yuck!

Anyway so now let me nominate my ladies!!

Natasha's Creative Confections

Kiwi Freckles

A Red Envelope

Lovely Chaos

Little Lulu's Nesting

Maggy Living Tall - 

She also is small with a tall husband. Love it!

To Make Love Stay

Randomness and Life

Ballpoint + Pen

Ok so I can only think of 9. Sorry!

Love, Sav

I'm back....and a HUGE Update!

So....I'm back. It has been a whirlwind couple of months but I am back in the bloggin' bitness...and I have a few new titles to throw around...

My most important new title is MRS. Yes its true I am a married lady and I am sure you will get bored with the many wedding updates/pictures and crafts I have to throw at you for the next couple of posts!

My second new title is Nursing Student. I get married, go on a honeymoon, quit my job, and start nursing school all in the same month! Holy Moly Mi Oh My!

No wonder I haven't been blogging. But that ends. right. now. I love to blog and I have a TON of inspiration and lovelies to share with you. My camera is chocked full of goodies and projects waiting to be shared with you!

I've missed you. I've missed this!

Also check out my Versatile Blogger Award acceptance and nominees tomorrow. 

Thank you Lindsay from Little Mudpies

Her blog is great, and her little family is to die for! Swoon!

Chocolate French Macaroon Recipe

Believe it or not this was another recipe that I made using only the contents of my cupboards...no grocery store trip here. It seems so hard to make, but I had everything on hand already!

Ingredients

Macaron Batter

1 cup (100 gr) powdered sugar
                 ½ cup powdered almonds (about 2 ounces, 50 gr, sliced almonds, pulverized)
3 tablespoons (25 gr) unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
2 large egg whites, at room temperature
5 tablespoons (65 gr) granulated sugar



PRE-HEAT OVEN to 350
using a food processor grind whole almonds to a coarse powder. It calls for it to be a fine powder, but you will blend it again with the rest of the powdered ingredients!

add the coarse almond powder, powdered sugar, and cocoa powder to blender or food processor and blend away! The almond powder tends to make the mixture stick since it contains oils, so you may need to shake the blender a bit to get it all going and mixed up.

Transfer mixed dry ingredients to a bowl, as you have to carefully fold it into the egg mixture and transferring it directly from the blender or food processor cup would make it more difficult.

At this point blend you egg white. I used a stand mixture but I actually prefer to use a hand mixer as you can control it more. Whip the egg whites until they start to rise and hold their shape. Do not whip them long enough to see peaks or the bright white color. I don't think I whipped mine enough though.

Add granulated sugar and whipe egg whites until they are very firm and hold their shape.

The recipe I looked at said about 2 minutes, but mine took longer!

GENTLY fold dry ingredients in 2 batches into the egg whites. Fold JUST enough so that no egg white streaks are visible in the mixture.

Put blended batter into a pastry bag or a ziplock with the tip cut if you are poor lazy thrifty desperate!

I always fold my pastry bags or ziplock over a tall glass cup to put the batter in so it doesn't get everywhere! Works for me! : )

Pipe those suckers onto a cookie sheet with parchment paper or no stick tin foil down.

The first batch I made I piped the batter into a spiral kind of thing, and the second batch I pushed the ziplock onto the cookie sheet and slowly pulled up as the batter came out and those cookies turned out SO much better!

Cook macaroons in the oven for 18-20 mins and leave them to cool completely on the pan (I moved them onto a cooling rack and they were fine) fill with frosting of your choice when they are completely cool and

ENJOY!

Honestly I ate some the next day and the day after and they just seemed to get better everyday, so I dunno whats up with that...but I guess just know you can cook them a couple days ahead for a party!

2 things

1. I folded the the dry ingredients into the egg white too much and the inside of my macaroons were just the slightest bit chewy.
2. When I spiraled the batter out of the piping bag the macaroons cracked in weird places, but when I piped the batter out slowly they cracked right where they were supposed to on the bottom edge.

Hope you have success with these little French wonders!

Clean out the fridge week! Egg scramble.

To say the least my life is CRAZY right now! Summer is in full swing around here and for people working at a summer camp...you know what I mean! Wedding planning in coming down to the wire and I am preparing for nursing school starting August 15th. Whew!

So needless to say grocery shopping has not been a top priority, but Greg came over for breakfast the other morning and I was determined to make him a delicious breakfast using only what I had in the cupboards!

So here was my creation:

Everything in the cupboard Eggs

&

Simple Bisquick Pancake

with apple butter. yum yum.

Grab whatever you have in your fridge leftovers, veggies, eggs, etc

I had:

4 eggs

1/2 white onion

jalapenos

tomatoes on their last leg

Feta cheese

 (which I did not end up using, I found a block of sharp cheddar instad!)

Crack eggs into large bowl, as you will be scrambling them all together before cooking!

Make your egg "base" whisk your eggs, add milk, and spices like you were making plain scrambled eggs

Chop all your veggies and grate your cheese

Put everything into the egg base except the chesse and whisk again

Scramble that scramble! Use a spatula to scrape off the sides and to keep eggs moving around. There is nothing worse than a burnt egg smellin' up your kitchen!!

When the egs are almost done sprinkle in the cheese to melt...yum!

Make pancakes as directed on back (or side rather) or bisquick box...I am quite the chef I know...

add chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, bananas, blueberries...you name it!

Serve with Apple Butter, Syrup, or whatever you have around the house. I scored and found an avocado in the fridge at the last minute so I cut that up and put it on top.

Brew a little coffee to go with your homemade, delicious breakfast and you might just have a date right there in your own little dining room!

I made all of this from ingredients I had in the cupboards after swearing "There is NOTHING to make for breakfast"

I find that when I get creative I am a lot thriftier and throw out less food.

Tomorrow I have a FABULOUS recipe for you for:

French Macaroons

also made from the contents of my cupboards.

Enjoy my lovelies!

Brown bag wrapping paper DIY

I love giving gifts. It is one of my favorite things to do. Searching for that perfect thing to get someone, or making something for them that you know they will love.

Well I pretty much spend so much time pouring over the actual gift that the wrapping of said gift becomes an after thought. I frantically run around before heading out the door to that birthday party/wedding/baby shower/etc. trying to find a useable bag or pack of tissue paper to stuff it into.

That is exactly how this DIY was born!

I was off to my lovely little friend Amber's baby shower when in horror I realized I spent the entire day making Vintage fabric teething rings, and no time getting something to wrap it in.

This is what I came up with. I was pleased!

Supplies

1. Brown paper bag
2. Stamp of your choice
3. inkpad
4. scissors
5. Twine

Cut one side of the brown paper bag and some of the bottom until it opens up flat. If you want the more smoothed look, stick it under your mattress or on the table with a couple books on top overnight.

I didn't have time for that.

Pick a stamp. Mine was a Poppy Flower stamp, which apparently is determined to be photgraphed upside down. Sorry about that...you get the gist.

Stamp the plain side (duh!) of the brown paper bag with a repeating pattern.

VIOLA. Beautiful and handmade wrapping paper.

I didn't have time (imagine that!) to take pictures of the final products before flying out the door for the baby shower. But the end result was so pretty! I used the twine to tie the little packages and give it a little more "loved" look. Anyone can pick up a gift bag at target and toss their stuff in, but this was simple and cheap!

Hello, my name is Savannah...

I don't know if we have met before, but my name is Savannah. Oh wait we HAVE met? It is has just been FOREVER since I posted anything? Hmm...

Sorry folks.

Pictures of new livingroom and new projects coming soon.

Here is a little peak at what I have been up to lately...

Breakfast at Midnight

w/ homemade vanilla sugar...DIY coming soon!

we fed like 30 people!

pancake batter.

Wedding Stuff

Invitations are finally...finally done! It was a labor of love stamping, typewriter typing, designing (Greg), cutting, gluing, twine-ing, stuffing, stamping. But they are in the mail.

I am attempting to copy a cute set of bird cake toppers I saw online using felt, tulle, and vintage sewing patterns. Haha...we'll see.

At our church was have to make a board to give info about my church bridal shower and wedding date.

This is what I came up with. A little Hodge Podge, but I like it!

Our first home...in progress

New living room! More house pics coming this weekend! Greg will move in August after the wedding and I don't care how 1950's housewife it sounds...I am preparing the house for my husband! : )

Yum!

Cheesecake frozen yogurt with slivered almonds, chocolate sauce and cheesecake chunks. Yum!

Have a wonderful week. I will blog more I promise. I have been pulled in a million different directions lately!