Back to the Bay!

Squid taking down a ship

I've been feeling very uninspired lately, which is the reason for my blog slacking. I'm not exactly sure where my time has been going but I've been staying busy. I've been working on some art including sketching up a wood box that I plan on burning a design into. I'm pretty excited to see how it comes out.

In other news my boyfriend and I went to the Bay area yesterday and spent the day at the beach and went by this little coastal town called Sausalito. We hadn't had a chance to go out of town in a couple months so it was a long overdue trip. We usually go to Stinson Beach when we head to the ocean which is where we headed this time, only this was the emptiest I've ever seen it. I guess because it was the day after a three day weekend so everyone had already had their fill of the beach. It was like we had our own private beach for the day!

There are only a couple of restaurants in Stinson Beach as it's a small little town with a population of about 500, but the restaurants they do have are really good! We tried a new restaurant this time called Breakers. The menu is somewhat limited in terms of seafood which is what I usually like to eat when I go to the ocean but they did have have a blackened salmon sandwich which was delicious! It had a really big salmon fillet and the bread was out of this world! The sandwich was served with crinkle cut fries (my fav) and coleslaw which was really good too. I don't usually like coleslaw but this one hit the spot. (Come to think of it i should've taken a picture of this scrumptious meal!) Last time we went to Stinson Beach we tried this one restaurant  Parkside Cafe and the food was really good too, I would recommend the crab cakes! I kind of liked Parkside Cafe a little bit more than Breakers because they have more seafood selections, but Breakers definitely had bigger portions and their salmon was just as good.

Sunset over the bay, Saulsalito

After the beach and lunch we headed to Sausalito. It was around 5:30 or so when we arrived there and a lot of the shops were already closed but we did get to go into a couple of our favorite shops downtown. Not only are the shops, and galleries amazing in Sausalito but they also have a really good ice cream shop!  Although I can't recall the name of it offhand, they offer a make your own ice cream sandwich with homemade cookies and all kinds of exotic flavors of ice cream, including Egyptian pistachio (which is what we ordered). After we had enjoyed an awesome view of the sun going down over the bay and our yummy ice cream sandwich we headed back to Sacramento. And although it is always nice to get out of town and see something new there's really no place like home.

Dorothy was on to something.

LeFou, I'm afraid I've been thinking...

A dangerous pastime I know!
- Gaston, Beauty and the Beast

While the quote is a silly childhood memory, the meaning behind it rings true.

We live in a world of our own making.
One in which we create everything, the earth, the air, the sun, the sky... This world is unique and different for each of us, yet we never recognize these differences.
We fight, we bicker, we laugh, we cry.
We find others who are like us, call them Democrats, call them Republicans.
We group, we coup, we charge on.

What is this world we live in?
Is it real, or is it a falsity of our imagination?
Do you really want to know the answer, or are we always seeking more.
Why not accept what is our fate, a destiny spent within our own minds.
A world in which we seek answers, and draw conclusions.
A world that is perfect in all its imperfections.
Why must we always question it, rather than enjoy being in the moment?

Thinking is dangerous.
It persuades us to escape from reality into our own perfect universe.
I can spend hours with myself, thinking, imagining, wishing, longing, dreaming.
Who is to say this world is not as real as the one outside my imagination?
I live just as much as a being within myself, as I do amongst the populous.

Today, I have been listening to spoken poetry and think I've fallen in love.
I began listening to Sarah Kay a few months back and again today.
I am in awe of how beautiful her words are, and the stories she shares.
I wonder if I am able to do the same, or if I am destined to be another amongst the crowd.
I want to know this beauty that she holds, this ability to make words come to life.

If interested, please watch her spoken word poetry below.

I promise you won't be disappointed.

http://www.kaysarahsera.com/

Mashed Banana Snack

As you're all well aware I have a bit of a sweet-tooth, an addiction to ice cream, and try to eat healthy. So for the past few weeks I've been creating recipes for making my own frozen things; it began with the frozen fruit, moved into mashed banana, and now has manifested into a new concoction I'd like to call "banana frozen treat."

This new frozen treat is awesome, flavorful, and healthy. I have 2 different versions depending if you want to eat it immediately or if you'd like to freeze it.

Ingredients

Banana

Cinnamon

Honey

Milk (I use coconut, but any milk will do)

Directions:

1. Mash bananas

2. Add cinnamon (to taste)

3. Add honey (to taste)

4. Stir

* if you're eating it immediately stop here, if freezing continue *

5. Add a gracious amount of milk

6. Stir

7. Freeze

You can add any additions you please, chocolate, caramel, nuts, etc.

My only issues have had to do with the amount of milk, if you use cows milk, cream, or yogurt it should turn out creamier. When you use any non-dairy milk it comes out a little bit icy.

I've been washing and saving the packaging from Steve's Ice Cream, which has come in handy when I am this, but any type of freezer friendly plastic Tupperware should do the trick.

Personally though, my favorite is eating it immediately without milk. The flavor is much more intense, plus I'm impatient.

Halloween Treats!

Tasting the spirit of Halloween!

This has been the first Halloween in years that I've really gotten into. That being said I decided I wanted to make some Halloween cookies for the neighbors. What initially gave me the idea to make cookies was the fact that I found a pack of 18 Halloween cookie cut outs for sale at Michael's for $1.99. Not bad. I'm sure they are even cheaper now as Halloween is almost upon us. (On another note not related to cookies, Michael's has a 40% off mobile coupon available on their website, which is always good to know..your welcome ;).) Anyways back to the mission of these Halloween cookies, I wanted to make sugar cookies but didn't have a good recipe that's were good ol' Google came in. Found a simple sugar cookie recipe and away I went, the recipe stated it would yield 24 cookies, but I ended up with 42 which worked for me.

Fresh out of the oven

Simple Sugar Cookies

Ingredients:

1 Cup Butter

1 Cup Sugar

1 Large Egg

1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

2 Teaspoon Baking Powder

2 3/4 Cup Flour

Directions:

Cream butter and sugar

Add egg and vanilla

Mix all dry ingredients, slowly add butter mix, stir

Roll out dough on floured board

Cut out and bake at 400 for 7-10 minutes

Cookies will be light in color with light browning along the edges

Cookies galore!

Now before we start talking about frosting let me forewarn you be sure you have plenty of time on your hands before beginning the frosting part of this venture, especially if you're planning on mixing more than just a few colors worth of frosting. It took me about 2 hours from start to finish to make and mix all of the variety of colored frosting and to frost the cookies themselves.

Typically when I make homemade frosting I just mix powdered sugar and water but wanted to see if there was a different variation on this and of course there was. Found a recipe for frosting which was pretty much as the same one I had been making except it calls for milk instead of water. I ended up liking the milk better than the water as it made the frosting thicker. The frosting recipe also called for vanilla extract which gave the frosting a nice taste, but I did not like the off white color the vanilla gave the frosting. I ended up using this off white frosting for my colored frosting, by simply adding food coloring to it. To create a nice bright white I cut out the vanilla extract, and just used powdered sugar and milk, which worked great. I really liked this frosting recipe as the frosting was thick, and it set quickly which made it easier to do my designs. As the frosting does set fairly quickly I would suggest only making a small batch at a time, and to only do one color of frosting at a time if that's the case. I would also suggest to only decorate one cookie at a time as it does set quickly. I tried to frost a few cookies at a time and had to work against time to spread the frosting before it set. Learn from my mistakes :)

Off white frosting due to vanilla extract

Bright white due to no vanilla extract

Simple Cookie Frosting

Ingredients:

1 Cup Powdered Sugar

1 1/2 Tablespoon Milk

1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Directions:

Combine all ingredients until smooth.

As I stated I used food coloring to create different colors for the frosting and learned a few new things about mixing colors with food coloring. Being as I was making Halloween cookies I needed a good black frosting. I hadn't thought about it until after I got home (as they do sell black food coloring at the store) so I decided to try my hand at creating some black frosting, boy was that an experience. I did some searching online to see if anyone else out there had concocted a good recipe for black frosting, and found one recipe to try which entailed of 4 drops of red & blue, and 2 drops of green and yellow. I followed the directions as is but the color initially turned out to be an army green. I found I had to add a bunch more red and blue to finally achieve a dark dark brown, which became blacker as it dried. I was happy with how my black came out but if I require a lot of black frosting in the future I will definitely just buy the black food coloring as it would save me time and irritation lol. I found a good recipe for orange turned out to be 2 parts yellow, 1 part red. The rest of the colors I created were pretty straight forward just using the primary colors of the food coloring with some frosting. 

My black frosting

The perfect Halloween orange :)

 Although it did take some time to make these holiday cookies I am super proud of my first ever Halloween cookies, and I know the neighbors were happy with them too ;)

**Enjoy and Happy Halloween! Cheers!**