ShortcakeScraps

blueberry oatmeal bars (a recipe)

Posted on December 20, 2011 | 1 Comment

I’ve been watching a lot of the Food Network shows lately — I think Ina and Giada are my new best friends. I saw Giada make some apricot oat bars one morning and decided to try making a batch using things I had on hand, so here’s my rendition with blueberry jam instead of apricots. It’s a really simple recipe and I think it would work well with any fruit jam you have in stock. The key thing is to use old fashioned oats and not the instant stuff; she mentioned on the TV show that the instant stuff won’t hold it’s shape once it’s baked.

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Posted in baking, bar, blueberry, dessert, food, recipe

Tagged food network, giada de laurentis recipe, oatmeal

peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies (a recipe)

Posted on December 8, 2011 | Leave a comment

Apologies for the gap in blog posts lately but I guess you can say I’ve been a little busy lately with the arrival of a new family member.

I needed to make some shortbread cookies to soothe my craving for something sweet (yes, I am still having occasional cravings post-delivery I suppose), so I decided to make something that my husband would enjoy too (he was, after all, holding baby to help free up my baking hands). I started with an old-time favorite easy-peasy recipe I’ve used time and time again: a three ingredient peanut butter cookie that seriously only takes one egg, one cup of sugar, and one cup of peanut butter to make. I had a box of unsweetened chocolate in the cupboard so I rough chopped 4 of the one ounce squares and added it to the batter, along with 1/2 a cup of flour and 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder.

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Posted in baking, chocolate, dessert, food, recipe

Tagged peanut butter

treasuries

Posted on November 18, 2011 | Leave a comment

One feature I’ve always liked on Etsy is the ability to create a treasury. It’s basically where you can select 16 items from crafters’ shops from around the globe and showcase them all at once. Some people make wish lists this way, some people do it to show off their friends’ work, and some people do it just for fun. I like to do them when I’m bored and also to make my time spent browsing through the site seem semi-useful.

It’s a good way to find inspiration, gift ideas, or just to see how talented some people are. Click on the photo above to check out my “seeing orange” treasury. And if you have time here are more recent treasuries I’ve curated by specific colors: can never have enough green; red white teal and sometimes gray; and black white gray and yellow all over.

Happy browsing!

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Posted in crafts, etsy, gifts

Tagged orange

knitting :: tummy warmer baby sweater

Posted on November 15, 2011 | 1 Comment

I am in love with this baby sweater pattern! I found it on Ravelry and decided to try it out since it’s knit in one piece (I hate seaming!) and I liked the look of the buttons on the shoulder. It’s knit from the top down and the honeycomb pattern along the bottom was easy to figure out once I got the hang of it.

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Posted in baby, baby clothes, crafts, knitting, sweater

Tagged baby sweater, bamboo, cotton, free knitting pattern, southwick yarn, tummy warmer

lord hobo (cambridge)

Posted on November 8, 2011 | Leave a comment

After running around doing a bunch of errands on Saturday with my husband, we were famished and shared a craving for beef (particularly a good burger). It was fun being able to actually “go out” with him after being cooped up at home for about a week, so we wanted to try some place we’ve never been to before. I remembered hearing that Lord Hobo had good food, but I also remembered the one time we tried to go there a night a few months ago and not being able to get a seat because it was so crowded. So since it was only about 5 pm we headed over (and after I found their menu on the Blackberry and started drooling over the choices) and luckily managed to find a parking spot nearby (that was another reason we never really were able to go there before this day – it’s mostly residential parking and the metered spots are like gold).