Unicorn rainbow mandala

Every so often I tell my husband that he is my rainbow unicorn snowflake. It's my way of telling him how very special I think he is. His usual response doesn't fit the G rating of this blog.

Anyway, here is a rainbow unicorn snowflake mandala. For people who really love unicorns, rainbows and snowflakes.

Color it in or embroider it. 

Paisley Mandala Coloring Page

Hopefully your colored pencils are fairly sharp. This has got some fine detail.

I hope you enjoy it!

Click the image for a bigger version, and have fun coloring!

There are a lot of mandalas to color in my blog, just click on the mandala label at the bottom of this post.

Pickled Peppers

Recently I made a batch of pickled peppers for my pepper loving family.
I used Lucy Norris's recipe here with some modifications.

For the brine I used
1 cup of water
3 cups of vinegar
1 tsp. cumin
1 Tbsp. kosher salt

Brought to a boil in a stainless steel saucepan so the salt dissolved.

I packed my jars with
1.5 lbs green jalapenos cut into rings
half of a large red onion sliced thin- mix these two.
In each jar:
1 head dill
1 cloves garlic
1/16 tsp. Ball's Pickle Crisp (a calcium chloride additive to make pickles crunchier)
Pour the brine over the packed jars leaving 1/4 inch head room.
Packed in half pint jars and processed for 10 minutes. Makes approximately 6 half pint jars. The basket in the Ball Home Canning Discovery Kit set will hold 5 half pint jars.

One jar I put into the fridge. The other half was processed.

The Pickle Crisp made the fridge jar super crispy. Even the thin onions snapped when bit. The processed jars weren't as crispy.
Because of the cumin and garlic,it has a definite taco-ish flavor. These would be wonderful in omelets or quesadillas.
Since I'm a complete wimp when it comes to spicy, I tried bits of the onions. For less spicy pickles, you can remove the seeds from the peppers. I didn't because other than me, my family loves spicy.
The pickles are a hit. I think today I'll do some refrigerated pickled green beans with the pickle crisp and see if they get crispy.

Cookie box- new template!

My cookie boxes are pretty popular but I haven't posted one in a while. Here is a new one that uses a brand new template. It will fit 4 Oreos, even the mint ones which are just a little thicker than regular Oreos, in the photo above, the plain ones are the ones in the front. A craft knife will work best to cut out the notches, but if you don't like using them, I suggest using a hole punch in the middle of the notch, then using small scissors to cut it out.
This is scaled for US Letter sized paper, it should print at exactly 8x10 inches.
Click on the images for larger versions. One version says Sweet Treats as pictured, the other has a blank spot to personalize how you wish.

The blank template is available for sale in my Etsy shop.