Nut and Seed Butters

I spent yesterday afternoon at Christina's house making peanut butter and sunflower seed butter in her food processor.  Thank you for the lesson, Christina!  It was as easy as could be, and cheaper than buying natural butters in the store.  

I made peanut butter first, using 2 cups of roasted peanuts:

Just add the two cups to the food processor, put the lid on, and let it run:

The first stage you will see is the crumble stage:

Next, the crumbles will form themselves into a ball:  

Continue processing and you will see the butter begin to form.  When it starts sticking to the sides like you can see below, it is almost done.  

It took about 3 minutes total.  

The sunflower seeds had less oil in them and tended to stick to the sides more during the crumble stage.  I simply had to stop the processor and scrape down the sides several times throughout the process.  Both butters were delicious!  You can add a little salt and sugar to taste if you don't like it plain.

Garden Poundings

I went to the Bothell Arts Festival with my mom and aunt the other day, and came across a booth where the artist was demonstrating her garden pounding technique using various plants, a hammer and some cotton cloth.  I had to try it myself!  

 Check out Pederson's Garden Poundings here.  

 I ventured out into the garden on this rainy morning and collected these flowers and leaves for my first pounding experiment.  

I taped the first leaf to the back of my cotton fabric:

 Then, flipping the fabric over, and using the edge of the hammer, as was demonstrated by the artist, I hammered away until the entire leaf showed through:

 I think it worked fairly well for a first attempt.  The yellow buttercup borders were not a well-defined as the others, but that's ok.  I like the pop of yellow.  Pederson would take this design and scan it into the computer for printing, since the colors do not stay vibrant long after they are pounded into the fabric.  I think it would be neat to print out the designs onto fabric and use it in a quilt, on a bag, or other crafty type of thing.  

Day Tripping

Today is my birthday!  Happy birthday me!  Every year on my birthday, my RN license is due for renewal, and this year I forgot to mail the form in on time!  This meant that I got to take a lovely little drive down to Olympia to do it in person.  Daniel and I decided to make the best of it by doing a little touring around.  After the licensing business was done, we stopped at Coffee Central and were on our way.

 We drove across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, through Gig Harbor, Silverdale, and Poulsbo.  Then took the Kingston Ferry to Edmonds and made our way to my brother's house for a delicious dinner.  

There is a little bird hanging out on the rump of the white horse.  It is difficult to see in this photo, but it was so cute!

 That is Seattle behind us:

It was a nice trip!  Maybe I'll have to neglect mailing in my renewal next year too!  

Mushroom Winner!

We just did a random drawing, and the winner is..........Carrie! 

Congratulations!   

Please choose from these six mushrooms.  Email me a mailing address and your mushroom choice at crownhilldaybyday(at)gmail(dot)com

I'll get the mushroom sent to you right away!

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2.

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4.

5.

6.

Krispy Panini

I'm back!  I think this is the longest break I have taken between posts since I started this blog six months ago.  I'd like to say that I was busy coming up with all kinds of fun and exciting posts, but I wasn't.  :)

  The following snack idea is a far cry from fibrous garbanzo bean snacks or whole wheat muffins.  Amy and Mike came over for panini sandwiches and they brought two dozen Krispy Kremes.  There was a special sale.  Anyways, I had the brilliant idea to put a doughnut in the panini pan and fry it up!   

 It stuck to the top of the pan, but was easily pulled right off.  

 A delicious new way to eat a Krispy Kreme doughnut!  It was amazing.

Grilled Pizza

Amy and Mike's gas grill was perfect for making these pizzas tonight.  First we grilled up these vegetables:

Below are the steaming eggplants.  They were delicious on the pizza!  

 I bought ready-made Trader Joe's wheat pizza dough, stretched it out, brushed some oil onto each side, and threw it on the grill.  It cooked on one side for about 4-5 minutes.  

 Then we flipped it onto the other side for another minute or two:

 Next, we took the crust back into the kitchen to get dressed up with, marinara sauce, the chopped grilled vegetables, feta and parmesan cheese, and that's it!  Back on the grill for another 4 minutes or so, until the cheese is melty warm, and the crust is finished cooking.  

Bon appetite!  

In the Garden

This is my mom's clematis!  It's so beautiful in full bloom!  

I'm about to start crocheting a new sweater from a pattern that I'm borrowing from my sister.  It will be the second long sleeve sweater I have started.  Hopefully, I will make it to the end of the pattern with this one.  The last one sits in my room waiting to be finished, yet I have no desire to pick it up.  

Hope that the week is coming to a peaceful close for everyone!

Mushroom Giveaway!

This happy little mushroom may soon reside in your garden!  To enter this giveaway, simply leave a comment on this post.  One comment per person pretty please.  On June 20th, I'll announce the winner (chosen at random) in the most current post at that time.  Don't forget to check back to see if you have won!  

Here's a link to the DIY if you haven't seen it.  

Treasure Box

I love this little treasure box that Cindy gave me last year for my birthday.  I'm somewhat famous in this house for forgetting where I put things, so it's nice to have this fancy box for storing my camera memory cards.  I absolutely love everything about it.  The shape, the zipper, the color, the decorative stitching on the top.  

 The writing inside says Rosenfeld * Israel.  

Enjoying this rainy day indoors.  

More From the Cabin

These are the last pictures I'll post from the past weekend trip to the mountains.  

 Healthy meals:

 Our long woodsy walk on Memorial Day.  

 Black licorice ice-cream from Das Sweet Shop in Leavenworth is to die for.  

 Back home with McGuirk.  He didn't get to go this time, but maybe another time.