16. Strawberry Pie

When Journie finds something she likes then she WILL eat it until she gets sick of it and hopefully she'll find something else before then. Right now strawberries are the go- to food and luckily there in season- strawberry shakes, strawberries for breakfast, lunch and dinner and strawberry dessert!

This recipe was taken from Guilty Kitchen and although I love her cooking the recipe for this crust was not my favorite so instead I thought I would share the best pie crust recipe ever - not only for desserts but a wonderful rosemary infused crust would taste delicious for a pot pie or quiche!

CRUST: (The above crust is how not to make it...note to self - follow gut instinct and never use crisco in your pie crust recipe. Below recipe is flawless.)

8oz Cold butter, cut into small pieces
12 oz all purpose or pastry flour
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup buttermilk

1. Cut into small pieces and chill butter in freezer

2. Mix dry ingredients and mix in cold butter

3.Dump dry mixture and butter onto work station and roll butter with rolling pin until it becomes flakey

4. Put ingredients back into bowl and refrigerate for 15min.

5. Take out of fridge pour in buttermilk and smush it all together until you are able to form and divide dough.

6 Refrigerate dough for an hour.

7. make your pie!

Top with ice cream and enjoy!

April showers bring May flowers.

Latest album purchase- perfect for curling up on the couch with a glass of wine and a blanket while baby is in bed OR while you let your Dry Remedy hair masque sit on your head and burn your AVEDA earth month candle...DO IT!

21 Day Challenge

1. Initially...it's hard.

2. You save a ton of money not buying cheese

3. I eat a ton of cheese.

4. You loose weight

5. Soy milk is better than regular milk

6. Almond milk is even better- especially when it's Vanilla

7. Tell someone you went vegan, they will feel sorry for you and buy you cupcakes.

8. Vegan cheese is gross- don't do it.

9. QDOBA is awesome!

10. There is nothing healthy about Vegan cupcakes.

11. Alterra has the best soy lattes.

12. Vegan chicken nuggets are better than regular chicken nuggets

13. Vegan margarine is a necessity.

14. You can still eat mac and cheese, gyros and philly cheese steak sandwiches- go to COMET!

15. Coffee is your best friend.

16. shhhh....you can still eat fries....

17. Being vegan is hard to do at 1am the night before your 21 day challenge ends having had a few cocktails and a best friend takes you to a pizza place.

18. Vegan Mexican food, tasty.

20. Hummus and chips.

21. It's possible and delicious!

Insta - Easter

Happy Easter!

Super Easy Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes

I LOVE this recipe from the NY Times and Journie Loves it too! Quick and easy vegan chocolate cupcakes that you can make in the middle of the day even while chasing a one-and-a-half year old around the house.

Cupcakes:

1 cup soy or rice milk

1 teaspoon vinegar

3/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

Icing:

1 cup confectioners’ sugar

1/4 cup cocoa powder, sifted

3 tablespoons soy or rice milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in one bowl. In a second bowl mix soy milk, vinegar, sugar, vanilla extract and vegetable oil. Slowly add in dry mixture to second bowl with a beater. Ration batter into 12 cupcake liners. Bake for about 20 min. Let cool. Mix ingredients for icing. Drizzle on cupcakes. EAT.

Chocolate kisses

XOXO

15.Potato (gnocchi) Dumpling- Pel Meni Style

Only in Wisconsin will we have 60-some degree weather and snow the next day. I was about to break out the flip flops! Needless to say I wasn't in the mood to make a Metro Market run-instead I pulled from my pantry and from past recipes and meshed vegan Italian gnocchi with my favorite Russian dumplings to create...wait for it... spicy gnocchi! I have to say these gnocchi dumplings are so versatile you could top them with anything so I figured I would share this poor man's dinner recipe with you (as in- whomever is taking the time to read this...).

Ingredients/Tools: mixing bowl, masher, potatoes, flour.

*Bake 6 Russet potatoes at 350 degrees for about an hour.

*Peel the skin off and mash them ASAP.

* Let mashed taters cool for 10-15min and put a big pot of water to boil

*Add about a 1 1/2 cups of all purpose flower and work together until it becomes a solid piece of dough- work in more flour if needed.

*Roll dough into snake like pieces about an inch in diameter

* Cut snake into half inch pieces and press fork lightly into pasta piece.

*Drop serving size portions of dumplings in boiling water and let rise to the top.

* Spoon out and eat right away with your choice of sauce and toppings.

Picture taken with my new phone/toy that I totally didn't need.

Spicy Pel Meni Topping: Vegan Margarine (Earth Balance), Siracha, splash of Rice Vinegar, Curry Powder, chopped Cilantro, dolup of Tofutti Sour Supreme.

ENJOY!!

Back to playing my "Words With Friends" scrabble game and downloading unnecessary apps on my new toy...

Bonjour le printemps!

Listen to this and imagine yourself by some body of water laying in the grass in some French village after a paddle boat excursion with the French guy singing this song....Awesome right?! I love SPRING and EUROPEAN MEN! I mean... I love this song.

14. Potato Pancakes

I'm a week into my vegan kick and still going strong! (I'm not going to lie I almost broke down and had to down a pot of coffee and eat a bowl of veggies to shake my cravings). For the past week I have been eating only quality food and have been trying things I would have never ordered or would have thought to make. Last week the bebe and I ate lunch at Cafe Manna in Brookfield. It was- ok- not my flava...I ordered potato pancakes that were heavily spiced in curry with what tasted like bland chimichurri drizzled on top so I decided to make my own version this week and spiced it up a little....

"where birdie? maaam, where birdie!?"

I think I'm going to end up with a pet bird soon.

Tonight's meal:

Potato pancakes lightly seasoned with salt, pepper and marjoram topped with Tofutti sour cream and habanero sauce with a spring mixed green salad on the side.

Green Goodness: This smoothie is perfect anytime of day, super healthy and you can personalize it however you want...

Put the following in the blender:

1 bananna

1 cup of spinach

1 cup of coconut milk

a bunch of pineapple

pour orange juice on top (enough to fill up the blender)

You can substitute any of the fruit options for different ones or use pineapple juice instead of orange juice.

playing with shadows...

Have

A Beautiful day!

Buenos dias!

This has been my soundtrack for the past uh 25 min, recently discovered by my sister and overplayed by me-- enjoy!

13. Mac & Cheese

Due to my lack of preparation for my 21 day vegan challenge- day one was nothing exciting. There is only so much coffee you can drink in a day and salads are boring, for the most part. So for day two I decided to go with something a little more exciting and used ingredients I've never heard of before to create...MAC AND CHEEZE! Cheese? Sort of. Thanks to a recipe I got from Vegan YUM YUM I made a mac and cheese using no cheese or cheese substitute, rather soy sauce, tomato paste , soy milk, miso, tahini and a ton of nutritional yeast.

Did it taste like real mac and cheese? Not really- but absolutely delicious and added cauliflower and broccoli made it an exceptional hot dish.

There is a butter substitute!

Madison trip - getting the salon tour...

Children's museum excitement

Tonight's meal was prepared with help from ABBA. Thanks to Journie's music class "Mamma Mia" will be on repeat for the next few days...

PS. If you are inspired by any of these hurrstyles- you know where to find me.

From Journie with LOVE

Last week I popped into Hummingbird a new boutique that opened up in Shorewood- a cute arts and crafts studio with handmade little gifts, and amongst these little gifts adorable hair clips. Some had beads attached to the ends of bobby pins and others were made out of pin curl pins with colorful patterned ribbon glued to them- so simple and so cute. I CAN DO THIS! So I took another run to Jo-Annes and grabbed a stack of felt for 29 cents a piece, 12 snap clips for 2 dollars and some colorful thread at 37 cents annd look... cute hair clips- Journie style!

I'm so pumped to possibly start a little hair clip side bizzz- nothing huge maybe an Etsy page or maybe this new Hummingbird Boutique. The final product is still being refined but heres a sample of my first design rocked out with a little Tracy Chapman...

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