Cooking notes: biscuits and quiche

Made a couple of recipe innovations(?) that I'd like to remember.

1) Quiche with a mashed potato crust.
     I used left over mashed potato, added salt and pepper and a little green onion. Oh, and an egg. The egg made them too soft. I don't know if that's because the potatoes were too wet or if I might permanently omit it in the future. The potato crust was delicious though, so definitely worth more work to get this one right.

2) Biscuits with mix ins. This time I used 1/2 C sharp cheddar cubed small, 4 green onions, and 2 small jalapenos minced. These might be the tastiest biscuits that I've ever made.

Cari's new nightlight

This weekend is turning out to be 'Sara finishes three projects'.  It's good to have those weekends.  The ones where instead of adding half finished projects to the heaps, you take those things down a notch!

This is one that I've had going for...oh, probably nearly 6 months.  It's story actually begins several years ago.  One frosty cold fall(?) day, a friend and I decided to drive to the other side of DFW to go to a hot air balloon festival.  We got up at some unholy hour (That hour wouldn't be as odd for either of us any more...but I digress.) and drove all of the way over there to discover that the weather was too windy and there weren't going to be any hot air balloons.  Bummer.  Ever since then, however, I've had hot air balloons in my head.  I want to to see them!  I don't know why, maybe I saw something on Pinterest?  But I hatched the idea to make Cari a night light in the form of a hot air balloon.  The light cord/outlet I got at Ikea and the balloon is built over a paper lantern frame.  I wasn't feeling super mathy ( I have enough of that in my real life.) so I ballparked some wedges for panels and put together a cloth balloon covering. The white and teal fabric are stylistically tied together with silver print patterns.    The wicker basket is attached with silver/white cords.

All in all, it wasn't super hard.  I probably should have been a little more mathy- as you can see some wrinkles in the fabric.  I'm just going to ignore them and move on with my life for now...you see my reward for finishing these projects is that I get to start a new one!  I hereby declare this one done!

Frost in Texas

Baby clothes shoot

My mom gave me a bunch of my old baby clothes.  Instead of just mentally saying 'what am I supposed to do with these???', I actually asked.  She thought I should take some pictures of Cari in them.  So here are a few of my favorites.  She is such a patient baby!

These two pictures are very special.  On her right thumb is my grandma's baby ring.  She is sitting on my mom's baby blanket and wearing my baby dress.  

Chicken Chili

I make this recipe fairly regularly, but not enough so that I have it memorized.  I'm afraid that some day its author might decide to take it down, so I'm going to transcribe it here.  It is originally from Budget Savy Diva though I've made a few edits.  The original recipe was less "I have 30 seconds to prep dinner for tonight 'cause I'm already going to be late for work" appropriate.

1 can beans (black, kidney, white - sky's the limit)
1 can corn - undrained , sometimes I add a second can
1 can Rotel or other salsa
1-2 chicken breasts
1 pkg ranch dressing mix
1 tsp cumin
1-2 Tbls chili powder - when in Texas add more chili powder ;)
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp minced garlic
4 oz cream cheese - Add ~10 min before serving or it makes the sauce have a curdy texture.

Directions: dump in crock pot, give a half-hearted stir, set crock pot for 6-8 hrs, go do something else.

Christmas Lights

I don't care what my husband says.  It is NOT creepy to photograph the neighbor's Christmas lights from the street.  (while wearing a hoodie and glancing about a lot)

Moon

Ever since we moved (a year ago!) I've been in a photo-slump. I can't seem to find anything that inspires me artisticly.  So this evening, I was appreciating the moon and really wanted to take a picture of it.  This is the best one - don't zoom in too much ;)