Week 38: New Cookies

These cookies were awesome!



The New:
This week, I made white chocolate raspberry cookies and they were delicious and much simpler than I expected. Here's what I did:

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 sticks of butter, softened
1 egg plus 1 egg yolk
1 cup frozen raspberries
1/2 cup white chocolate chips

Directions:
1. Combine first 3 ingredients. In a separate bowl, cream butter and sugar together, then add eggs and stir until combined.
2. Add flour mixture to sugar mixture and stir just until combined. Fold in raspberries and white chocolate. Then, stick in the freezer to chill for 15-20 minutes. (If you skip this step, your cookies will come out too thin, kinda like mine, because I definitely skipped this step!)
3. Preheat oven to 325. When the dough is ready, drop spoonfuls of batter onto a cookie sheet and cook for 12-15 minutes. Don't let the cookies get too brown on the edges. Let cookies cool 1-2 minutes before removing then from cookie sheet.

The Evidence:

The Verdict:
Yum, yum, and yum! These cookies almost had a cake-like taste to them. They were very tasty and a nice change from traditional chocolate chip cookies. I will definitely make these again, but next time, I'll be sure not to skip the freezer step!

Week 37: New Fruity Tea

So I know this post is about 3 days late, but I assure you I will be all caught up by Sunday!


The New:
I love tea. I love raspberry tea. I love peach tea. I love raspberry peach tea? I do now! Here's what I did:
I have a Mr. Coffee Tea Maker, which I love so so much! So I decided to get a little creative with it and add some frozen raspberries and peaches to the mix. I had quite a lot of these two things in my freezer from earlier this summer, when I was trying to keep them from going bad. So I just tossed what I had left into the pitcher, which was about a cup of peaches and a little more than a cup of raspberries, and then brewed 3 quarts of tea like I normally do. The only difference this time was that I didn't put any ice in the pitcher because the berries were frozen, so I just topped it off with water to the 3 quart mark when it was done brewing. Side note: its better to measure our the water to pour into the brewing part before you put the berries in.

That's pretty much it! Once the tea is done brewing and you've added the extra water, you'll have yourself one fresh and fruity pitcher of tea!


The Evidence:

The Verdict:
This tea was delicious. The raspberries were much more prominent than the peaches, but there was still a subtle peachy taste to it. The raspberries also added a flavorful tartness to the drink, so squeezing lemon into it wasn't even close to necessary. Also, the fruit flavor gets significantly stronger if you let it sit overnight. This was a truly great way to empty out some of the array of frozen fruits I had in my freezer, and I would definitely do it again.

Week 36: New Soup Recipe

Since fall is right around the corner, I am getting super excited about making soup for the next several months. Yesterday, I tried out a new recipe for vegetarian taco soup and it was delicious!


The New:
I made vegetarian taco soup last night for dinner and it was so easy. Let me give you the details:

Ingredients:
3 cans pinto beans
1 can black beans
1 can tomato sauce
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can corn
1 pkg. taco seasoning
1 pkg. ranch dressing mix
1 1/2 cups water

Directions:
1. Add all ingredients to a large pot.
2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes.
3. Enjoy!


The Evidence:

The Verdict:
This is definitely a recipe I will be using again. It was incredibly simple, cheap, and flavorful. I'll be eating the leftover for the next several days, easily. It reminded me a lot of a chili recipe that I enjoy, but the flavor was a little different and it cooks for about half the time. I will definitely be making this taco soup again later this fall, but next time I'll be serving it with cheese, sour cream, and tortilla strips! Yummy!

Week 35: New Purpose for Old Books

The New:
I've always thought that hollowing out an old book and using it as a secret hiding place would be awesome. So that's exactly what I did. I went to a nearby Saver's and searched out the biggest hardback that I could find, and $3 later, I was on my way to getting started on this project!

Materials:
Hardback book (it cannot be paperback)
Water
Glue
Plastic cup and stirring stick
Paint brush
Ruler
Box cutter or X-acto knife


Directions:
1. If your book has a dust jacket, take it off. It will only get in the way for now. Next, mix your water and glue together and make sure that it's wet enough for the glue to soak into the pages, but not so wet that it isn't sticky enough anymore. A 50-50 (ish) mixture should suffice.
2. Using your paint brush, spread the glue mixture onto the pages from the outside. Make sure to leave at least one page at the beginning of the book, separate from the pages you are gluing together. It will make more sense in a few more steps.
3. When the outsides of the pages have been sufficiently glued together, put a spacer (I used a ruler) between the gluey pages and the couple pages that were saved at the beginning. Then your book needs to dry completely before moving to the next step. Place something heavy on top to make sure the pages that were glued stick together. I used more books for my heavy object :)
4. I came back to my book a couple hours later and it was all dried, but it may not take this long. Next, measure 1/2 inch borders on all sides.
5. This is longest, most tedious step: cutting out all the pages. Take your box cutter and start by slicing along the borders that you marked in the previous step. Depending on how big your book is, this step could take a number of days. For mine, I ended up opening the back of the book up (yes, I had to tear through some pages that were glued together) and cutting out pages from both sides. Eventually, I got them all out out!
6. It's easy-peasy from here on out. Take your glue solution from earlier (it may need some more water if its been sitting for a couple of days) and spread it to the pages on the inside. If you decided to open the back of your book, or kept it open from the start, now is the time to glue it closed. Then, take the page that you saved at the beginning and glue it to the top of the hollowed out space. You can use any extra glue mixture to seal up pages on the outside that need it. Once finished with this, close the book and let it dry with heavy objects on top (I used hand weights this time). You don't need any spacers this time.
7. Once dry, open it back up and cut through the top page. This step is necessary because it leaves the top looking clean cut, and not marked up from measuring or torn from ripping pages out too vigorously.
8. Hide all your goodies inside!



The Evidence:

The Verdict:
This project took me a crazy long time, mostly because I chose a large book and lost motivation for cutting out pages about half-way through. So if it's your first time, choose a book that isn't so thick. I also had an awful time at keeping the inside edges straight and pretty. Good thing I'm the only one who will be looking at it up close :) Plus, it still does the job of hiding stuff, so no biggie.
Even thought this project had it's challenges, it was a lot of fun and relatively simple. And now I have something really cool to show for all that tedious work!


Let me know how yours turns out :)

Week 34: New Homemade Ice Pack

I know how veeeery behind I am. I've taken on some time consuming projects that are taking longer than I expected, plus school work is starting to pile up. But it's the weekend (yay!) and I have a very simple and quick "new" post for y'all today.

The New:
Lately, I've been icing my sore self a lot, and to be frank, the frozen peas just aren't cutting it anymore. So I discovered on Pinterest a way to make my own ice pack, and that's exactly what I did.

Materials:
Plastic Zip-Lock bag
Water
Rubbing Alcohol


Directions:
Mix 3 parts water with 1 part rubbing alcohol. Freeze. Use.
In the pictures below, I used 3 cups of water and 1 cup of rubbing alcohol, and froze them in a quart size bag.

Boom! That's it! Pretty sweet, huh?

The Evidence:

Once it's frozen, it has the texture of a very thick slushie. I would imagine adding more water makes it more frozen, while adding more rubbing alcohol makes it more flexible.

The Verdict:
This simple life hack worked out beautifully. I was able to make the ice pack just the right size for my needs, and it was extremely cheap. Also, it never froze solid, so I could manipulate it to make it work more effectively. I would definitely recommend this to everyone, especially athletes or anyone with kids!