Chocolate Raspberry Pistachio Dessert (adaptable!)

 

Okay y'all, I was not going to post this recipe because it was a spur of the moment "What do we have on hand?" thing that I jotted down and then we tried it. 

But! It's so very, very good. 

We know that fruit/pistachio cream and chocolate work well together and I love cheesecake flavors. 

I don't know what to call this, PLEASE leave suggestions. 

You will need: 

• 2 cups of plain Greek yogurt + 1/2 cup water (what I used) 
• OR 2 1/2 cups of regular plain yogurt 
• 1 box instant pudding mix- sugar free is fine. I used Jell-o Chocolate Fudge
• 3 Tbsp black raspberry powder* 
• 1 jar prepared pistachio cream
• whipped cream
• vanilla wafer cookies

Mix yogurt, pudding, and raspberry powder well. Portion into dessert dishes or tins.

Add a couple spoons of pistachio cream on top. 

Chill until set. 

Serve with whipped cream and vanilla wafers. 

Just THAT easy- but also pretty adaptable. 

The yogurt gives it a cheesecake flavor, tangy and good, and because it's so thick, it sets up a lot firmer than pudding would. More like cheesecake filling. 

If you don't have powdered fruits of any sort in your kitchen or easily available, there are substitutions available. 

You can use a 1/2 cup of fruit juice instead of water with Greek yogurt, OR you can use a packet or two of unsweetened Kool-aid. 

For that matter, you can also use this basic formula for non-bake desserts. I'd suggest using cupcake wrappers in a muffin tin, put a cookie in the bottom of each one, then use yogurt+juice with a good pudding flavor. 

I also think the color of the pudding and black raspberry powder inspires a graveyard dessert for Halloween, use dried devil's food cake crumbs or Oreo crumbs to make it more like dirt, cut out rectangles from paper and lay them across the top, sprinkle with a green sanding sugar for grass, remove the rectangles, and now you have freshly dug graves. Make cookie gravestones. 

Heart Mosaic- less complex version

 

I said I would do a simpler version! I talked to a friend of mine to work out the scale for this one. 

I hope you enjoy this a lot.

Click the images below for larger versions to download, print at fit to page. 

Small jpg version- Heart mosaic coloring page:

Large transparent png version- Heart Mosaic coloring page:

Heart Mosaic Coloring page

 

I'm going to do a post soon about what I've been doing for the last couple of months, and tomorrow plan to post a simpler version of this. But!! 

Please let me know what you think of this idea for ways to play with color. 

You can download and print the images below! Right click to save, print full page. 

Small jpg version of the heart mosaic coloring page: 

Large transparent png of the heart mosaic coloring page: 

National Native American Heritage Month Bead Coloring page

 

Do'inta? Se uzra Shala Kerrigan.

How are you? My name is Shala Kerrigan. 

I only have a handful of words in my language, which is Lower Tanana Athabascan. 

This coloring page is based off the style of bead embroidery done by Athabascans up here in Alaska. 

I hope you enjoy it! 

Click the images below for larger versions to download/print/color. 

Small jpg version of bead work coloring page: 

Large transparent png version of bead work coloring page: 

 

Another Love coloring page!

 

I posted a coloring page just to my FB page recently, and then after talking to one of my readers, promised one that said love soon. So here it is! I hope very much you all like it. I'll post the hope one tomorrow. 

Click the versions below for larger versions to save and print. Print on landscape mode. 

Small jpg version of love coloring page: 

Large transparent png version of love coloring page: 

Vote coloring page

 It's that time of the year! 

I voted by mail for convenience and didn't get a sticker. I'm a little sad about that but will stop by one of the voter locations and ask for a sticker. 

Anyway! Click the images below to save and print to color. 

Small jpg of vote coloring page: 

Large transparent png of vote coloring page:

Quick Basket Decor Craft with Fall Flowers

 

Oh the crisp cool days of fall! A lot of hustling, last minute garden harvests, berry picking, apple picking. 

And a moment for a bit of simple crafting with one of my favorite plants. See the picture above? The little nosegay off to the side is a bundle of dried yarrow I picked earlier this year and wrapped in pretty yarn and hung to dry. 

Yarrow dries beautifully, means a lot of things to a lot of cultures, has been used as medicine everywhere it grows and I always have a bundle hanging by my door. 

You will need: 

• An open work basket with an edging big enough to thread flower stems through
• a plant you like the look of that dries well 
• a pair of sharp scissors
  
  

The basket I used was made by my son. He wasn't really happy with how he finished the edge of this one. That said, any basket with a decorate edge or a bit loose weaving towards the top will work. 

Cut the yarrow so the stems are about 5 inches long, but shorter will work for some sections. You just need them long enough to weave them in a bit. 

Get comfortable, and start weaving the yarrow into the top. Pull it as close to flush with the basket as possible so looks nice and full. 

Weave the ends in a couple inches. As you add more yarrow, you can also weave the ends into the other ends of yarrow and the basket. 

After the edge is completely filled in, go around and snip off any pieces of stem that are too long. 

Hang, and enjoy it while it's drying. 

You can also tie a ribbon or piece of fabric in a bow under it, but if you do that, do it before the yarrow dries so you're not breaking off the yarrow. 

Dried yarrow has stayed nice looking for me for a couple years. Since I'm not sealing this, when it does start fading in a few years, I'll carefully break off the dried yarrow and replace it. If you don't want to do that or if you're giving the basket as a gift, you can use a clear spray sealing spray on it after it dries completely to preserve the colors. 

DIY Craft Foam Crown Headband

 

I really meant to get in progress photos but it's harvest time up here and my family is doing a LOT of harvesting of wild plants and stuff. 

I've started selling some of my salves in partnership with a good friend. You can follow her page and see what are doing together at Da Love Bazaar on Facebook. 

So instead of in progress photos, you get the printable pattern and a written explanation. That said, I plan to do more styles of these and will get photos of them in progress and it's the same method. 

You will need: 

• The printable pattern! 
• Sheets of a flexible but firm material to cut them from- I used craft foam
• appropriate glue for your material- hot glue works well with craft foam
• sharp scissors
• a blank headband 
• stuff to decorate it with- I used rhinestone tape with this one 
  
• clips to hold it while glue is drying if necessary
• pen that will mark on your material
• bottle or narrow glass that the base of the crown will fit on. 
  
  Click the image below and print it out at 100% or fit to page. This is pieces to lay out two crowns to cut them.

Cut out the pieces, then lay them out on your foam and trace them. 

Cut out the foam. 

Glue the two disks together, if you're using a glitter or textured foam, it's better to have the smooth/wrong side against your hair. 

Curve the crown piece around, and use the small tab to connect the edges in a circle. 

Trim a SMALL amount off the disks so they fit tightly in the base of the crown piece and run a bead of glue inside the crown to attach it. 

Now is where you need the bottle that it fits over. I used a tall amber pill bottle. I put the crown upside on that, then used the larger tab to attach the headband. That protects the points from being crushed while you're attaching the headband. Align the headband on the crown base so the seam/connecting piece is in the back. That puts the center point in the front. 

After all the glue is set, it's time to decorate it!! 

It's really easy to make one of these. 

The rhinestone tape is really easy to use and it's fun. It cuts easily with scissors and I have a lot of it because I use it for props frequently. These are Amazon affiliate links. Using them will not affect your cost but will help support this site. 

Rhinestone Tape
Multi-colored Tape Set

I've been having a "Tiara Tuesday" on my FB page for a few month now and plan to have more crown and tiara projects this next year. 

Super easy air freshener hack

 

I keep forgetting to post this really easy scent hack.

Bar coasters are made out of blotter paper- just like most paper type car fresheners.

So you can put your favorite perfume oils on them and either put them in a pretty bowl or punch a hole in them and hang them.

The coaster in this photo is one that came as a sample with some stickers from Sticker Mule and if you use my link, you can get 10 dollars off an order AND I'll get a 10 dollar credit. More than that? Coasters on sale right now.

Sticker Mule

Perfume is one of my favorite LE's from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab and was a gift from a friend- sooo.. I'm pretty stingy with it. But my newly anointed coaster will let me enjoy the scent in my room OR it can be used sachet like in my underwear drawer.

But hey, you don't need custom coasters. Seriously, just pocket them instead of throwing them away if you get them with a drink while you're out.

Color By Shape! Coloring page

 

I'm still working on getting back in the habit of drawing and this was an idea I had recently for coloring by shape. There are 6 different shapes in the circle, and my example was colored in using rainbow colors for each shape. 

It's fussy and hopefully calmly meditative for people who like coloring in simple designs with a lot of small areas.  

Click the images below for larger versions to print and color. 

Small jpg version: 

Large png version: 

Love and Hearts Coloring Page

 

OH! It's been a while since I drew and posted a new coloring page. I'm learning how to use the graphic program on a different computer and this is the first one I've done on that computer. 

Click the images below for larger versions to print and color. 

Small jpg version of Love and Hearts Coloring Page- 

Large transparent PNG version of Love and Hearts Coloring Page- 

Smoking Cheese - Electric smoker

 

Oh! It's been a long time. Sorry about that. 

But hey, it's that season again and my family is gathering food and doing summer stuff and one of the big summer things is smoking cheese. 

We don't have a cold smoker. Our smokers are both electric, and both are Smokehouse Products smokers. One was bought off season at a heavily discounted price- but honestly, it would have been worth full price for how much we use it. The other one is smaller and I got it from a garage sale for free. 

The primary thing we use our smokers for is CHEESE. My family loves smoked cheese but it's expensive. Locally it's about 17 dollars a lb. With a coupon, I can get cheddar cheese for about 3.00 a lb. 

So when it comes to smoking cheese, I've used green apple wood that my son and I whittled into chips, purchased chips, and purchased hardwood for smoking and grilling- also whittled into chips. 

The Chief line of smokers from Smokehouse Products use chips in a small pan on top of an electric element. Fairly low voltage at 450W in my Big Chief model. You set it up on a non-combustible surface for smoking. 

The big issue for smoking cheese in this kind of smoker is that it is NOT a cold smoker. In fact, it runs about 165F, and cheddar melts at 150F. Well, that's kind of a big problem if you want pretty and yummy blocks of smoked cheddar. 

So what we do is get blocks of cheese and cut them down to the sizes we want and put them on the top two racks ONLY. Then under that on a shelf, we put a big pan of ice. The ice helps cool the smoke- and we leave the top open an inch or two so it draws the smoke out of the top across the cheese. 

We like our cheese a little smokier, so we run 3 pans full of chips through it then let the cheese cool a bit before wrapping it in plastic wrap. 

I can do 4 or 5 lbs of cheese this way at a time, and it might be 3 dollars worth of wood chips if I used purchased chips instead of apple wood or other types of woods that are good for smoking that I can get for free, and at 450W, for a full 2 hours costs less than 20 cents to run the smoker. So if I get the cheese for 3 lb a lb, and do 4 lbs, finished cost is less than 4.00/lb to smoke it myself. 

My youngest LOVES our smoked cheddar. So it does get more expensive that way. She eats about twice as much cheese when it's smoked! 

The Amazing Turnip Girl's Very Special Birthday Cake

 

Oh that's a mess isn't it? It's also very delicious. 

See, for the Amazing Turnip Girl's birthday, being in July, we do either ice box cakes or ice cream treats. 

This year has been well, interesting. To say the absolute least. 

She asked for a "Twinkie Cherry Cheesecake". And I was going to give her whatever she wanted. 

So that meant coming up with a recipe for an icebox Twinkie Cherry Cheesecake.

Recipe first! Then all the story. 

TG's Twinkie Cherry Cheesecake

• 1 box of Twinkies, sliced in half across the top, lengthwise. (so both sides have the round top and flat bottom and creamy filling) 
• 1 can cherry pie filling
• 1 can tart cherries packed in water (drained
• 1 box cheesecake flavored instant pudding
• 1 8 oz brick cream cheese
• 1.5 cups of milk
• whipped topping or whipped cream

Mix cherries. 
Blend together milk, instant pudding and cream cheese. 

In a 9x13x2 inch pan, put a layer of twinkies, cream side up. 

Spread cherries on top. 

Second layer of Twinkies

Spread cheesecake layer on that.  

Cover and put in the fridge for at least 4 hour. Serve with a spoon and add whipped topping as you like. 

It's honestly just that simple. No cooking involved. 

So icebox cakes, as per the name, started before refrigerators were affordable and common. Most recipes are teeth achingly sweet though. Which makes sense. When it's very warm, we want sugar for the energy rush, or at least that's the theory. 

That said, I definitely needed this cake to not be too sweet, which is why I added the can of tart water packed cherries to the pie filling layer and the whole brick of cream cheese to the cheesecake layer. That helped balance out the sweetness of the Twinkies. 

Honestly, it was DELICIOUS. I was kind of impressed. TG was thrilled of course, and the rest of my family enjoyed it a lot. 

Spiced Crab Apple Jelly Recipe

 

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. It's harvest season. The berries, the mushrooms, all those other things wild and cultivated that my family picks and creates the jams, sauces, syrups and jellies we use through out the year and give to our friends. Also, I'm going to do something weird and give you the recipe before the back story.

This is actually a TECHNIQUE and a recipe both. The technique is for easily juicing the crab apples. 

Juicing the crab apples in an Instant Pot

This method will not be as clear as traditional juicing methods, more of a "cider" than a juice.

You will need: 

• 10 lbs of crab apples- ornamental are fine, we used ornamental for this batch
• water to cover
• strainer
• Instant Pot or other electric pressure cooker

We have a Ninja pressure cooker that's large enough we did this in 2 batches, which wound up being 2 cups of water per batch to cover the apples. 

Prep apples by removing stems. For larger crab apples, you can cut them in half too. Seeds and skins will be discarded with the pulp, but can add natural pectin to the finished jelly. 

Bring up to pressure and cook for 8 minutes. Natural release. Using a bowl to catch the juice, strain out the solids. A mesh strainer will work, you can line it with cheese cloth if you want a clearer finished jelly. We just strained and smooshed it through. The pulp and the discarded stems all went into our compost heap. 

Juice can be frozen to keep to process into jelly later. Also if you really, really like sour, go ahead and try it. It is sour though. 

Jelly Recipe (makes 12 half pints with a little leftover)

You will need:

• 9 cups of juice. Measure out your juice, add water to make 9 cups if necessary
• 1/4 cup of lemon juice
• 11 cups of sugar
• pinch each allspice, cinnamon and either mace or nutmeg (we used mace, I'm very fond of that vintage spice) 
• 2 packages of pectin- we used powdered Sure-Jell

Mix crab apple juice, lemon juice, and sugar in a large heavy bottomed pan. Add in spices. Stir, heat slowly to mix completely and dissolve sugar completely. Stir in 2 packages of pectin. Bring to a rolling boil (a boil that can't be stirred down) and boil for exactly 1 minute. 

Skim of foam and put into prepared jars with a half inch headroom. Water bath process for 10 minutes.  

Crab apples are pretty new in our harvesting. Last year at a virtual plant symposium, someone told me approximately where her Dad had planted crab apple trees decades ago. My daughter went out exploring and found them and also found out that other people weren't picking them. Over the course of the next few weeks, she and her brother picked about 30 lbs of them. They were dried, used in pie, used for jellies and apple butter. 

Those trees aren't ready yet. But a friend of our offered to let TG and William pick at her house and they got 16 lbs total! We gave some to a friend, and used the rest to make this jelly. 

It's delicious. This would be amazing with moose, caribou, or if you're down south, venison. It's also a natural for pork. The sweet, tart, spiced combination is a natural with sharp cheese too. 

Coloring page- chess board

 

Oh it's been a while. Sorry. This has been a good summer for my garden and I've been spending a lot of time out there. 

Anyway, here's a new coloring page. The big blank spot at the bottom of the chess board is so it can be personalized as you wish as a sign for a bedroom or whatever you'd like to do with it. 

Click the images below for larger versions to print and color. 

Chess board coloring page small jpg version:

Chess board coloring page large transparent png version:

Stick Figure Saturday- Dance Hard

 

It's Stick Figure Saturday again! Simple coloring pages with a lot of room to play with techniques, backgrounds and colors. I hope you enjoy this week's installment. 

Click the images below for larger versions to save/print/color! 

Stick figure dance coloring- small jpg

Stick figure dance coloring page- large transparent png

Stick Figure Saturday- Stick Cat!!

 

It's Stick Figure Saturday!!! Sorry I missed last week. Life got in the way. 

Today's is a cat, because I found out that this year is going to be the 40th anniversary of "Built for Speed" by the Stray Cats and it just made me smile thinking of it. It's such a fun album. 

I hope you're enjoying this series. Any suggestions for future installments? I'd love to know. 

Click the images below for larger versions to save/print/color

Stick figure cat coloring page- small jpg:

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Stick Figure Saturday- Angel of the Morning coloring page

 

Good morning! It's time for a brand new Stick Figure Saturday coloring page!

This one was inspired by my love for coffee obviously.  

I hope you enjoy it. Click the images below for larger images to save, print and color.

Small jpg version of Angel of the Morning coloring page:

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Stick Figure Saturday- Planting seeds

 

It's Stick Figure Saturday again!!! That day where I post a simple stick figure coloring page with lots of room to play with shading and different techniques. 

Since I've been getting seeds started for my garden, I thought that would be fun. I hope you enjoy it. Click the images below for larger versions to save/print/color. 

Small jpg version stick figure planting seeds-

Large transparent png version stick figure planting seeds-