5 Minute Fix + Sleep = The Hair

So a lot of people liked the overnight hair with the braiding, and this method will get you similar results with even less work.

Which makes it my favorite.

Now.  Understand this.  If you need to look really cute when you sleep...this might not be the version for you :P.  You kind of will look like a goofball until you wake up. But for really thick long mane-type hair, it is a gem.

All I do is with slightly damp hair, I separate the top section of my hair and pull it on top of my head as high as I can get it and tolerate it and put it in a messy bun.  I do my messy buns by starting like a pony tail, not pulling it all the way through the first time to make a loop, not pulling the loop all the way through to the second time to make a looped loop, and then securing the bun in with the third pull.  Loose ponytail holders will likely give you a headache, you need the really good ones that aren't stretched out but aren't insanely tight.  Three is a magic number for me and hair.

With the remaining hair I just pull it in to a messy bun at the back of my head.  So yes, this makes a series of goofy buns and I look like a nerd who messed up a mohawk or something, but it doesn't matter because I go to sleep and when I wake up and take them down and spray the heck of it with quality hairspray, it looks like the picture above.  Sometimes it looks even better if I use Freeze It, which has the best hold.

Sadly, my can is nearly empty.

I pretty much do everything from sleeping in one bun with all my hair to two buns to braids, and it is just really a matter of how much of your hair you want to mess with and what you are going for.  Braids tend to make parts of it more crimpy instead of wavy, especially with two braids in. The single bun tends to give the bottoms a lot of volume but not the top because it is futher back on my head.  The two buns gets the whole top part really wavy along with putting body through the underlayer. 

Or you can put your hair in a high pony and sleep with sponge rollers in it.  The most time consuming but a surefire way to get your hair to have a massive amount of body by the time morning comes.

Now, as a little sidenote.  Obviously different hair is going to react different to this.  My hair, personally, will never fix right if I use conditioner.  It makes it all way too soft and slippery so to speak and it just won't hold anything.  I really only ever use conditioner if I have to get a LOT of hairspray out, like after I have had my hair in sponge rollers.  Freeze It and AquaNet always result in conditioner.

Other than that, I don't use it.  I have never dyed my hair and I eat relatively healthy foods so my hair rarely ever suffers the kind of damage that some will.  I don't own a curling iron or straightener, and probably only break out the blow dryer 3 times a month.  So A) that means I use hair fixing methods like this one a LOT and B) I don't have the heat damage. 

Don't bother trying this with soaking wet hair.  I always let mine air dry for a while before putting it up.  Damp is perfect, wet is not going to work.  If you try to do it when your hair is still wet you will wake up with still wet hair, or even a wet pillow, and your hair will hang in odd little drippy strands.  It's really not good.  A braid is the same way, it will hold water for a LONG time if you start with it too wet. 

People always look at my long hair and ask if it is a ton of work. The answer is no, it is never hard work to take five minutes to put my hair up and sleep all night like I would have done regardless.  Waking up to fixed hair is beyond simple.  I also don't get mine cut until it stops fixing right, which is about 2-3 times per year. When no methods will get me body and volume, it is time to see my hair doctor.  

The downside to this over braids is that if you don't feel like fixing your hair the next day you can wear a braid out.  The great thing about this over braids is that it only takes five minutes in the first place, and if you don't want to spray it the next day you can just take it down and let it uncrimp on its own throughout the day or throw it into a ponytail and leave.  Or you can take an extra five minutes and just spray it. 

A curling iron would take me well over an hour.  Not happening.

Happy crafting! Pin It Now!

A Yoga PowerPoint for Workouts

To everyone thinking "you know they make yoga videos right?" yes, I am aware.  However, I am also well aware of the fact that I have to severely modify yoga programs to even be able to work with them.  I also don't like goofy mellow music.

To give you an idea of my modification needs, I am somewhere between a robot and a steel beam when it comes to flexibility. God blessed me with a body that looks like it could possibly be a dancer or a soccer player, and I did play volleyball and tennis in high school.  However, when it comes to my hamstrings, they seem to be built for a 4'2" person and just trapped in a 5'7" body.  I have really never been flexible enough to sit with my legs straight in front of me and get anywhere near my toes.  Haha, sad but true.

Anyway I also can't do handstands or anything that involves arm strength to hold my whole body up. So far we have ruled out a LOT of yoga poses.  This is pretty much why I refuse to go take a yoga class, even the beginners would be lightyears ahead of me in ability!

So I made a little PowerPoint that I can use as I have yet to get a Kinect game for yoga.  All I did was find a good Pinterest pin that had a lot of moves I could do, copied it and pasted into PowerPoint.  You can really use this same guideline for anything, I just happen to be wanting a yoga mix.

I cropped the collage image down to the pose I wanted for the first slide, then I right clicked on the slide in the lefthand pane and hit "duplicate slide".  On the copy slide it made I clicked on the picture, went back into format and crop, and adjusted the image so it was at a new pose.  For a few starkly different poses I had to readjust the crop lines, but that was simple!  Duplicating the slide kept me from having to copy and paste over and over again.

When I was done with all of those, I duplicated slides where I would also need to do the reverse side pose.  I went into format again after clicking on the picture on the duplicate, and under rotate selected "flip horizontal" to make a mirror image of the pose.

Next, I cropped out the background in the picture format selection by choosing "remove background" at the far left in my version of PowerPoint.  PP has gotten really good at actually knowing what it is you want to crop out in most cases, so very little adjusting was needed on many of the pictures.  If you need to include or remove certain parts, you simply select the option you want in remove background and click the spot of interest.  Sometimes readjusting the boundaries it creates also is a fast way for it to correct itself. 

Finally, in the transition selection, I set a basic transition (cut or similar) and added a whoosh sound, so that if I could not see the screen I woud know to switch moves.  On the far right I selected transition after a set time, and set my time to 40 seconds.  This would be about 5 deep breaths, plus an extra 5 to 10 seconds to adjust or go to the next pose.

There are a few other poses I may eventually also add from various styles of yoga, especially as my abilities increase.  Back when I used my wii and balance board a lot I was somewhat better with flexibility, but it is not really something I think I will ever be astonishingly better at.

I don't see splits in my future basically.  Except banana splits perhaps...

All in all, it is really simple to use PowerPoint for a lot of different things if you get to know it.  For me, the best part about this is that I can do the yoga poses in the order that makes the most sense to me, which is the order that flows the best.  All floor all at once, for example.

A random craft for a random day.

Happy crafting! Pin It Now!

Sweet Potato Casserole Cookies

There has been a long standing tradition in my family that one of my aunts will bring sweet potato casserole.  They have flip flopped a few times on who brings it, but I never mind who makes it as long as it is there.  I love it.  It is my very favorite Thanksgiving dish.  My VERY favorite.

So imagine my suprise this year when NO ONE MAKES IT.  What the heck is going on these days?!?! My most beloved dish was MISSING from Thanksgiving.  The horror...

No matter, I have taken life into my own hands.  I was pondering today, in class mind you so pondering while staring at a PowerPoint, what I was going to do with some sweet potatoes I had bought.  I milled and I mulled, I wondered and pondered, and finally I decided that I would make sweet potato cookies with a maple glazed pecan topping.  And then I realized, hey, that sounds like sweet potato casserole...

 Ingredients:
-1 very large, thick sweet potato, finely shredded, mine was pretty close to the size of a 20oz soft drink bottle
-2 C oats
-1 egg (I used 4 TB of liquid egg whites because I did not want to mess up breakfast, but under normal circumstances I would use 1 jumbo egg)
-1/2 stick butter, room temperature
-1/2 C brown sugar, packed
-1/2 C AP flour
-1/4 C granulated sugar
-1/2 tsp baking powder
-1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
-1/4 tsp ginger
-2 shakes of nutmeg
-Dash of vanilla extract
-Pinch of salt

Topping:
-1 C chopped pecans
-1/4 C Real Dark Amber Maple Syrup
-1 TB brown sugar

I know right? That is quite the list of ingredients.  What makes this different than other sweet potato cookie recipes is that you do not have to cook the sweet potato first.  YES! Exactly as I prefer it.  I make granola bars, muffins, and similar with carrots a lot, which are usually at least as obnoxious if not moreso than sweet potatoes when it comes to getting done.  I figured that since a finely shredded carrot worked in a granola bar, I had a great shot for these which would cook a little longer.

So I peeled the sweet potato and shredded it on the back, smaller grate side of my Kitchenaid box grater.  It is a champ when it comes to pretty much everything, and is one of my favorite kitchen tools.

In fact, Kitchenaid pretty much makes all my favorite kitchen tools...

Anyway, I shredded the sweet potato right into my mixing bowl, added all the remaining cookie ingredients and gave it a good mix.  If you are a little worried that your sweet potato wasn't big enough, add in 1.5 C of oats to begin with and go up after you see the texture of the batter with the rest of ingredients. You can add the rest in if it seems to moist.  It formed a moist batter that held its shape pretty well when I scraped the sides down, as you can see in the first picture.  I plopped spoonfuls of it down onto a parchment lined baking sheet and made little wells in them for the topping.  I would suggest making deeper wells, mine were very shallow.  It resulted in a lot of running over of maple syrup.  But I had planned for things to not go 100% perfectly since this was highly experimental, hence the parchment paper.

Mix the topping ingredients together and spoon about a half tablespoon or so into each cookie well. Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes until the edges are firm and desired doneness is reached.  My pans are dark, so you might end up closer to the 30 minute mark with a light pan.  I baked mine exactly 25 minutes.  Let them sit on the pan for a couple minutes when they come out and then transfer to cooling racks. 

The edges of mine are firm and the centers ended up soft right under the pecan topping.  They are super yummy and really do remind me of sweet potato casserole.  This recipe made 18 for me...some of which were definitely a little bigger than others.  I maybe should invest in a cookie scoop.

My idea originally started as a healthy granola bar, but as you might imagine I am in no mood for healthy things right now.  If you think about it though, a sweet potato cookie is probably a lot better option than a chocolate chip one, so I will use that as my defense.

This was very much a wing it recipe for me, with a little reference to the recipe on the quaker oats lid for what even goes in an oatmeal cookie in the first place.  These are my favorite kind of bakesperiments, know the basic idea and general concept, and then just roll with it. 

And a little secret for whoever bakes these, if the maple syrup glaze does happen to run off, it makes the most fantastically delicious sugar shard that you can eat and not share if you so choose!

Happy crafting! Pin It Now!

Funky, Chunky, and a little Steampunk-y Bracelet

SO I have this tendency to redo things multiple times.  My menu board, this particular steampunk pendant thing I had made, and similar.  This guy was on a necklace but I just did not really enjoy the way it laid, so I revamped it.

All you need to do for this entire thing is find some nuts, washers, gears, of various sizes and wire them together.  I used a large washer as a base and a metal ring that I got off of another necklace.  Then I added in some watch gears and had a pretty cool pendant.  At least, until I decided I didn't want it to be a necklace.

So instead, I bought a 16inch chain from Hobby Lobby with big metal rings. I folded it in half and measured what I needed to take off to have it fit my wrist doubled over. 

I used pliers to open and remove the links I needed off the end, secured that end to the ring before the closure, and attached the pendant on with jump rings.  It was very simple because you can just hook the closure to any of the rings on the other side without needing to create anything else. 

I also hooked the two sides together so that it would all stay in place.  All in all, the bracelet took hardly no time at all to make.  And it is fun because it is like wearing a watch skeleton :).

Happy crafting! Pin It Now!

Lemonberry "Ice Cream": Lemon Chobani meets Shenanigans

If ice cream, froyo, and slushies all got together and had a food baby, this would be its story.

Ingredients:
-1 C heavy cream
-1 container Lemon Chobani Yogurt
-1 C milk (I used Vitamin D milk)
-16.9 oz 7UP
-zest of half a lemon
-1 TB lemon extract
-Small container of blackberries, mashed and strained to get the seeds out with a couple tablespoons of sugar mixed in
-optional 1/2 C sugar (I did not bother with that because I like tangy stuff, if you want a super sweet treat, toss some in)

I mixed all the ingredients except the blackberries in my ice cream maker bowl and gave them a good few minutes of whipping. When I had a fantastic light and fluffy mix, I tossed it in my ice cream maker, simple as that.  Follow your ice cream makers directions and get going!

It's not that I couldn't have mixed the blackberries in so if you want to go ahead and do it.  But if you want the blackberry to be swirled in like it is in some of these pictures, hold them out.  You could turn it into a blackberry simple syrup if you wanted to.

I like ice cream, but I do not like all the fat and heavyness that some ice cream has.  I also would argue that Lemon Chobani is one of the best flavors I have tried of any greek yogurt, and is especially good if you like to cook with greek because it packs a ton of flavor in a mere 6 oz.

If you are a lover of froyo textures, this ice cream would work well for you.  It has a light and bright taste and texture.  It may not be as healthy as some varieties of froyo, but it is packing a lot lighter punch than the Ben and Jerry's I would pick up if I was on the ice cream isle...(Americone Dream, rock it!)

Plus, I don't know about you, but I am ready for some spring time flavor.  I like berries and salads and fresh things, and that is definitely a taste profile that this little mix up follows.  I don't like when things taste heavy and loaded with preservatives, either.  From what I can tell from some very rough calculating, the unfrozen base of all this has about 2.6 grams of fat per ounce. I considered cutting the milk out for another lemonCHO, but opted to keep it in for a reason.

I really adore greek yogurt in the fact that it is a champ when it comes to multitasking and upping the protein content without adding fat in most cases.  It also doesn't have a crap ton of sugar in it like some other yogurt does. My system only runs well on protein and similar, and so whenever I can eat something that has a bit in it I like to take the opportunity.

Also, I think that in terms of dieting, few people can ever really succeed when they have to give up things they love.  If you love ice cream, chances are no matter what diet you are on, you are going to give in eventually if you completely cut things out.  I know for myself I could absolutely never give up sweets if I was on a hardcore diet.  I would cheat all the time!

But what I can do is develop a good base of recipes that satisfy what I am looking for while sneaking in a little extra healthy here and there.  I am not currently dieting, but I do value staying at the weight that I am.  It is important to me still to be able to eat things I love without feeling guilty about it.  This ice cream could easily stem into a pink lemonade ice cream with strawberries instead of blackberries.  So yes, the higher fat milk could have been switched out, but I think this little guy strikes a good balance as a healthier version without straying too far from the thought of ice cream. 

That being said, I am a huge froyo fan and probably would have adored having the second yogurt in there in place of the milk or with through a reduction in the amount of heavy cream, so adjust this recipe as you see fit based on what kind of textures you like.  No matter what you do, if your freezer is like mine you will have to let it sit out for a bit before serving regardless of the fat content.  Mine is always frozen solid. That second little container of lemon yumminess is slated for a different and equally fantastic use later this week ;).

Now.  If only I had remembered to bring back that ice cream scoop with me from the last time I came home....sigh.  Baby steps I suppose.

Happy crafting!

**Update, if you were to freeze this into cubes it would make the most fantastic smoothie base known to mankind.  At least in my biased perspective.  It has a perfect slushy consistency when it thaws! Pin It Now!

Shamrock-arons: French Macarons and Life

I synthesized information from two sites to go a little rogue on these:
http://www.marthastewart.com/319525/parisian-macaroons
and
http://www.yumsugar.com/Basic-French-Macaron-Recipe-21651110

Ingredients (via Martha Stewart):
-1 1/4 cups plus 1 teaspoon confectioners’ sugar
-1 cup (4 ounces) finely ground sliced, blanched almonds
-6 tablespoons fresh egg whites (from about 3 extra-large eggs)  I used liquid egg whites, reasoning to follow.
-Pinch of salt
-1/4 cup granulated sugar
I ground my almonds by hand.  I am not kidding.  I don't have a food processor (I am asking for one for my birthday for sure).  I used my meat tenderizer to crush the pieces.  It took hours, but when I get obsessively set on making something, it has to happen. More on that later, just know that this recipe is possible if you don't have fancy appliances or yuppie stores near you (oh to be near Whole Foods!).

 Anyway I measured out 6 TB liquid egg whites.  A lot of times when I have seen macaron and meringue recipes they have called for aged egg whites, although Martha's seem to work with fresh.  However, I almost literally HATE to touch egg whites they are on the very small list of foods that just really gross me out.  Liquid egg whites were on sale at Meijer, so as far as I was concerned it was a sign.

Yes.  I would rather grind up almonds manually than touch egg whites.  At least almonds would build muscle...

So I let my egg whites sit in the bowl while I ground up the nuts.  This got them room temperature, which I think was a good idea.  I stuck a knife tip down in the Kelly Green Wilton food coloring I bought and wiped it on the whisk blade so that it would dye my egg whites, making them egg greens.

Whip the egg whites with the salt until they are foamy, on a medium speed.  They will be super dark green if you are using this exact recipe and color.  It is pretty cool looking.  This took me just a couple of minutes or so, and then I cranked up my mixer to high and started streaming in the sugar.  Some people add it a TB at a time, but I just let it pour slowly and steadily out of my measuring cup, and the meringue whipped right up in just a few minutes.  In all honesty, I was a little surprised how nice and friendly this meringue was being.  You want it to get to the usual "stiff glossy peaks" stage.  By this point, it was literally the exact color of green I wanted.

Whisk the almond dust and confectioner's sugar together and fold into the meringue.

I lined two baking sheets with parchment paper and put my green fluff in a piping bag.  Everything says to fit it with a tip and to me that's just not necessary.  I just cut the tip off the bag.  If you do shamrocks, or any shape really, you just need to make sure that they are really really close.  I piped out 4 circle blobs for each one, and the more compact shamrocks did a lot better than the spaced out ones.  You might want to poke the little tips down too.  I really did not think of that at the time.

I find it easiest when I am freehanding things to do the first row (somewhat willy nilly) and then make the row below look as close in size and shape.  If there is an odd number of rows like this, I just do my best to make matching pairs in the last row. 

Tap the baking sheets on the counter a few times, as per Yum Sugar's directions.  I did this with my second pan and not my first and more of my second had feet, so I suggest it.  Let them sit out for about 15-30 minutes until they form a bit of a thin crust on top and start to not be so shiny. 

 To get the most out of these with your oven, check out this post http://www.syrupandtang.com/201003/of-ovens-and-baking-and-macarons/ it really helped me understand what my gas oven would do in this situation.  This is the second time I have ever attempted macarons (my first failing for lack of whipping it long enough, long story) and the only time I have ever tried it in gas.

I put both my sheets in, jelly roll pan on bottom cookie sheet on top.  I would have rather had the jelly roll pan on top since it has sides and I figured it would cook them ever so slightly faster (and it did) but the ones on my cookie sheet were far prettier and I was more concerned with their success.

Bake at 280 for 15 minutes.  This is where I abandoned Martha's recipe.  It suggested 350 for the same amount of time and I just wasn't comfortable with a meringue cookie that high.  My mom has made meringue cookies a lot and so I have not only see how finicky they are, but I know they tend to be baked lower than most things.  So I went with the Yum Sugar temperature. Open the door for just a moment after the first two minutes of baking to let humidity out.

 I took them out and cooled them on baking sheets, and I kind of think that leaving them in the oven with the door open a bit and cutting the heat might have worked better.  I noticed a lot of mine cracked.  I don't have my therm up as high as some people might, so that is something I might consider in future batches.

I made a simple vanilla buttercream to go between them and iced them when they were fully cool.  DO NOT make a stiff buttercream for this (I swear its all I can make here) because it will make it really hard to assemble them without crushing them.

 Words cannot describe how proud I was to see some of these little buggers had those classic feet that macarons are supposed to have. 

I have to give a shameless plug here.  Please, whatever you do, go to Meijer and get this legit jelly roll pan I used.  First of all, the Martha Stewart recipe warned of them sticking to the parchment paper.  The ones coming off my dark non stick cookie sheet took a miniscule amount of coaxing, but the ones on my jelly roll pan popped right off the parchment paper at the faintest touch. 

Plus, it has a nifty lid and handle and all of these little buggers fit around the outer edges.  I put some in my freezer, which by all accounts should last for one month, and some are in my fridge, which should last for perhaps a week or so.

They are really delicious, I will definitely agree with that.  I love the texture of them, but I have also always been highly biased toward meringue cookies. 

Now for the rambling story of how these occurred.  I was really frustrated yesterday, and I have always said I have very productive anger in that I either bake or I clean.  Technically I do both because I bake something and trash my kitchen and then have to clean.  But I was a little regretful that I did not go home as none of my friends were available for visiting and I had just had Spring Break last week and tons of fun in the homeland.  A few other things piled on, including a recipe that had a lot of potential but just failed for dinner, and by that point I was a frustrated soul.

So I did my usual, had a little "woe is me" type session of moping around, and then decided that it was completely unproductive.  I love the color green, far more than any other color, and I made up my mind I was going to march right to the store and get some ingredients to make something.  Anything.  Preferably anything unhealthy (though I did get the ingredients for some more granola bar varieties I have in mind!). 

I had said for weeks I was going to wait until the next time I was home to try macarons because there is this great thing called a dishwasher there and I knew how bad my last disaster was in terms of cleanup.  However, as I stood on the baking row looking at various forms of almonds...I decided time waits for no one and I was going to make this happen.

The easiest way to get me out of a funk is by accomplishing something.  And there was just no way I was going to let yesterday end on a bad recipe note.

So I got back around 830 or so and began pounding and flattening and crushing and grinding the almond pieces with the spikey side of my meat tenderizer.  Not only was it incredibly time consuming, but it was interesting to think that somewhere back along the lines that would have been similar to a way that people of ye old days would have had to work with grains and similar.

I am a big fan of trying things the hard way once so that you really know what ALL goes into your food, including time.  Seriously, go make your own jelly.  It is good stuff to know.

So, fast forward to when I have these in the oven, I open the door a microscopic crack when it has about five minutes left to go, and shut it real quick because I did not want a lot of heat to escape.  In that quick glance, I noticed the most perfect one with its cute little feet.  Suddenly, I was back in business.  Woe is me no more, that was for sure.

And when they came out I rejoiced.  They looked GREAT! Sure some of them cracked and some where a little goofy looking but the point is they were amazing in their own right.  I thrive in accomplishing things, and to have a recipe like this come out well without anyone to help was a major boost for me. 

You can sit around and mope, or you can go out and tackle the world.  That is how I see it.  But I leave you with this thought.  If you are going to tackle the world at midnight or later, be prepared for everyone you know to be asleep and you not have anyone to mass text message of your accomplishments...

Happy crafting!  (and Happy St. Patrick's day!) Pin It Now!

Baked Jalapeno Popper-changas

Ingredients (enough to fill 3-4 shells):
-1/2 pack of reduced fat cream cheese
-1 jalapeno pepper, finely chopped
-1/2 can crushed pineapple (small can)
-1/4 block mozzarella
-1/4 C sour cream
-Pinch of salt
-8 inch taco shells

I would not call these spicy.  I would call them delicious, however.  If you want them to be super spicy, consider upping the amount of jalapeno you use.  These were very tasty and had some heat.  Mostly though, they were just delicious.  I love jalapeno poppers, I love chimichangas, and such the popperchanga was born.

I soaked my pepper pieces in warm salted water for ten minutes or so while I got everything else ready (after getting the seeds and such out of the inside and chopping them to bits), goal being to pull out some of the intense oil in them.

Normally, I hate crunchy veggies in things.  For some reason I was ok with them being crunchy in this.  However, if you want to not have small crunchy jalapeno bits, simply sautee them beforehand, I vote for doing so in a little bit of butter.  Personal preference.

Mix up all your ingredients into a bowl until well combined.  Put some filling in the taco shells.  Fold the top and bottom down and then roll it over from the side with the filling to make a nice little chimichanga. 

Place on a baking sheet and brush a little cooking oil over the tops of them.  Bake at 375 for at least 15 minutes, or until desired golden brown-ness is achieved.  I pulled mine out when they were just crispy because I had not really allowed much time before I had to go to class.  They were still pretty good and crisp.  I sometimes like to use the explosion alert system: when the filling starts to burst out, they are done. 

You might want to let them stand a few minutes before digging in.  They will be piping hot coming out of the oven.

For added yumminess, cut up some pieces of ham and toss it in.  THAT would be incredibly yummy as well. Sadly, none was in my fridge. 

I made two, of course, and then could only eat one of them.  I stored the other in the fridge, warmed it up today, and it actually warmed up a little better than I thought it would in the microwave.  Not as delicious as the previous day's because it was not as crispy, but certainly a valid two minute lunch. 

The rest of my concoction will be going in my remaining wonton wrappers this weekend and I might just break out some oil and do some frying. 

Other considerations for this filling includes using it as a spread or garnish on a sandwhich or wrap. Or just plopping it on some crackers.

Happy crafting!


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