Happy Easter!

Loose Pastel Pink & Purple Watercolor Tulips - 8x10 140 lb cold press

Loose Pastel Pink & Purple Watercolor Tulips – 8×10 140 lb cold press

HappEaster!

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

Those days…


Those days…

Sun shiny,
cerulean blue skies,
buds bursting,
warm earth,
soft green grass.

When you just have to
lay down
and look up
and breathe in
slow and deep.

Then exhale
just as slowly…
relaxing,
feeling gratitude,
and cherishing the moments.

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

Raspberry Dark Chocolate Shortbread Cookies

Raspberry Dark Chocolate Shortbread Cookies.

Is anything more divine than tart, sweet raspberry and velvety, dark chocolate?

Then combine it with a flaky, buttery shortbread cookie?!

Heaven in a bite – right?!

These little gems are the most recent cookie baking project for the wedding cookie table.

I think you might want to make some of these too!

Raspberry Dark Chocolate Shortbread Cookies

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup butter, softened
  • 1 1/3 cup sugar
  • 2 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 4 cups flour
  • 1 cup raspberry jam
  • 16 oz. dark chocolate, melted

Directions:

Cream butter, sugar, and vanilla until creamy with electric mixer.  Gradually add flour and combine until dough forms.

Refrigerate dough at least 2 hours.

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Roll dough into 3/4″ balls.  Place on baking stone about an inch apart.  Press small indentation in center of dough with your finger.  Place a 1/4 tsp. raspberry jam in indentation.

Bake for approximately 12 minutes until lightly browned on edges.  Let cool 5-10 minutes on baking stone, the remove to cooling rack to cool completely.

Once cooled, melt chocolate and spoon into plastic bag.  Snip corner and drizzle on top of cookies.  

Enjoy!

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

Easter & Spring Carrot Vegetable Tray

Easter & Spring Carrot Vegetable Tray.

It’s not always that hard to be creative and fun with your food for holidays and special occasions.

For our Easter celebration this year, I made a veggie tray in the shape of a carrot with carrots and other vegetables.  A meat serving platter is a great shaped tray for creating this “design.”

We dipped our veggies in hummus.

You could also make a ranch or dill or spinach dip or whatever you like, but have fun with your food and make it a little festive with quick and easy simple touches like this!

My favorite is the sugar snap peas.  What is your favorite crudite?

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

 

23 Ways to Spend your Tax Return that can Make you Happy and the World a Better Place

23 Ways to Spend your Tax Return that can Make you Happy and the World a Better Place

My Money Cake was featured in a recent issue of Upworthy as one of the ways to spend your tax return that can make you happy and the world a better place.

Are you getting a refund?  Hope so!  And if you do, how do you plan on spending it?

Wouldn’t it be fun to make this money cake and give it to someone in need as a surprise?  So much more fun and creative than simply writing a check.

Check out Upworthy’s great list of ideas.  There are really some great ones that I plan to do.

How about:

  • Buy individual sets of flowers and visit a senior center to pass them out.
  • Find a cool and important project helping teachers and students on DonorsChoose.
  • Donate to a local nonprofit helping your own community.
  • Pay it forward in the drive-thru or grocery store line.
  • Buy new socks and feminine hygiene products to give to a homeless shelter.
  • Donate to Meals on Wheels, then grab a friend and volunteer.

It was such an honor to be featured in this great Upworthy article.  Thank you for reaching out Michael Calcagno.

If you haven’t heard about Upworthy, you should check it out.  Their mission is to change what the world pays attention to by featuring great stories about important issues to connect us and sometimes even change the world.  Because “we’re all part of the same story.”

Thanks for being part of my little story here at the creative life in between.

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

Potted Blue Lavender in Watercolor

Potted Blue Lavender in Watercolor - 8x10" - Fabriano 140lb Cold Press

Potted Blue Lavender in Watercolor – 8×10″ – Fabriano 140lb Cold Press

Potted Blue Lavender in Watercolor.

Oh what fun I had splashing this blue – Cerulean, French Ultramarine, and a splash of Red for some violet tint.

This painting was inspired by one of my favorite watercolor artists, Andrew Geeson.  I love Andrew’s loose style and his fun Youtube tutorials.  I like to watch him do it, and then walk away and try to create it in my own way.  Mine usually look quite different, but that is the beauty of everyone’s personal style.

I love the smell of lavender!  For my soon-to-be daughter-in-law, Liz’s bridal shower, her sister made favors for everyone of lavender sugar scrub.  I use it almost every day!  She made it from coconut oil, sugar, and lavender essence.  It is so heavenly to rub between the palms and fingers of my hands and on my feet, making everything so much softer and smelling beautiful.

Lavender can also be used in gourmet cooking.  I’m excited to try a recipe one of Liz’s aunts has made for the wedding cookie table.  She made earl grey tea bread with lavender butter!  Doesn’t that sound amazing?!

So no wonder I am thinking of lavender.  I think I will look into buying a lavender plant and seeing how well it does in my little corner of the world.

In the meantime, I thoroughly enjoyed painting lavender in watercolor with a short little half hour break at life in between.

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

 

 

 

 

 

Kicked Up Scalloped Potatoes (with Roasted Tomatoes, Peppers, & Onions)


Kicked Up Scalloped Potatoes (with Roasted Tomatoes, Peppers, & Onions).

Our family celebrated Easter a week early this year by getting together yesterday.  With the traditional ham, I made a kicked up version of scalloped potatoes.

Roasted tomatoes, sweet yellow, orange, and red peppers, and sweet onions….

layered in with creamy, cheesy potatoes

made for an amazing potato casserole!

To add a bit more “zip,” I kicked it up even more by using jalepeno havarti cheese instead of plain gruyere or havarti.

We loved it!

If you are looking for a new way with potatoes to go with your Easter ham or with roast beef or pork or chicken or even by itself for any other special occasion (like Monday night dinner), this scalloped potato recipe is worth the little bit of extra effort.

Hope you’ll give it a try.

Kicked Up Scalloped Potatoes with Roasted Tomatoes, Peppers, & Onions*

Ingredients:

  • 4 large egg yolks
  • 3 cups half & half
  • 1 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp pepper
  • 5 cloves minced garlic
  • 4 bay leaves
  • 2 lbs. yukon gold potatoes (or your favorite) sliced thinly
  • 2 cups jalepeno havarti cheese (or your favorite), grated
  • 8 campari tomatoes, sliced 1/2″ thick
  • 2 sweet bell peppers (red, yellow, or orange or combination), cut into strips
  • 1 large sweet onion, cut in half and sliced 1/2″ thick
  • 2 Tbsp. olive oil
  • 3 Tsp. herbes de Provence (sweet French herbs and flowery lavender with Italian herbs and fennel that includes: rosemary, cracked fennel, thyme, savory, basil, French tarragon, dill weed, Turkish oregano, lavender, chervil and marjoram.
  • 1 cup Panko bread crumbs
  • 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated

Directions:

Whisk egg yolks and 1 cup half and half in small bowl.  Set aside.  In large pot, combine 1 1/2 cups half and half, nutmeg, salt, pepper, garlic and bay leaves.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to medium-low, add the sliced potatoes.  Simmer until halfway cooked, about 8 minutes.  Remove from heat.  Stir in egg-milk mixture and cheese.  Cover and keep warm.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.  Put the sliced tomatoes, peppers and onions on a baking sheet in separate piles.  Drizzle with olive oi and sprinkle with salt, pepper and herbes de Provence.  Bake 10-15 minutes until tender and charred around edges.

Reduce oven to 375 degrees F.  Spray 9×13 baking dish with Pam cooking spray.  Sprinkle half the panko bread crumbs in bottom of the baking dish.  Spoon half of the potato mixture into the dish.  Top with half of the roasted vegetables.  Layer the remaining half of potatoes then remaining roasted vegetables.

Bake until potatoes are tender – 50-60 minutes.

Remove from oven and drizzle with remaining 1/2 cup half and half.  Sprinkle with remaining panko bread crumbs and 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese.  Return to oven and bake for an additional 5 minutes or until cheese melts.  Let rest for 10-15 minutes before serving.

Enjoy!

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

*slightly adapted from Food Network

Star Gazer

Stargazer Oriental Lily (from my 35th Anniversary bouquet) 4/3/17

Stargazer Oriental Lily (from my 35th Anniversary bouquet) 4/3/17

Star Gazer

A philosopher once asked, ‘Are we human because we gaze at the stars, or do we gaze at them because we are human?’

Pointless, really…

‘Do the stars gaze back?’

Now, that’s a question.

-Neil Gaiman

Something to think about – eh?

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

Into the Woods in Watercolor

Into the Woods Watercolor 9x11" Arches 140lb Rough

Into the Woods Watercolor 9×11″ Arches 140lb Rough

Into the Woods in Watercolor.

As I dream and wait for the trees in our backyard woods to transform into their Spring and Summer beauty from their current state of brown dormant sticks (recently covered in snow yesterday!) , I found a tiny bit of time late one evening this week to spend in my art studio painting a simple “spontaneous” landscape watercolor painting.

I haven’t had much time for art lately, so it was fun to create this little scene by completely wetting down the paper first and just throwing on some Cerulean Blue, Olive Green, Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna and Quinacridone Gold and then twisting and turning the paper to allow it to form a soft background.

Once dry, I used a rigger brush in the same colors to add a bit of definition here and there.  The total time spent on this was less than 30 minutes, but it felt great to paint.  I was inspired by Steve Mitchell’s Spontaneous Watercolor Landscape to try this technique and hope to do it again.  This is the kind of painting I really love to do – spontaneous, somewhat abstract, and very relaxing.

Happy Weekend!  Hope you find time to do the things you love!

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

Pecan Sandies Shortbread Cookies

Pecan Sandies Shortbread Cookies.

Wedding Cookie Table baking continues as we approach the last few weeks until the wedding!

I couldn’t resist trying a Pecan Sandie Shortbread Cookie to add to the selection given that I overbought pecans for the Pecan Tassie recipe.

And Oh How Gloriously Buttery, Nutty Deliciouso these turned out!  Be still my nut-loving shortbread heart!  (Oh Rob – you are going to LOVE these!)

Anyone who loves Keebler’s Pecan Sandies, you are in for SUCH a TREAT with this recipe!  Can I get an Hallelujah?  Can I get an Amen!

Hope you will give this simple, yet extraordinary recipe a try!

Pecan Sandies Shortbread Cookies

  • Servings: approx. 6 doz.
  • Print

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup butter, softened
  • 1 cup vegetable oil
  • 1 cup confectioner’s sugar
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp cream of tartar
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 4 1/4 cups all purpose flour
  • 3 1/2 cups toasted pecans (Coarsely chop 3 cups and reserve 1/2 cup whole)

Directions:

In a large electric mixer bowl, combine softened butter, vegetable oil, and sugars until creamy.  Beat in eggs, one at a time, then add vanilla.  Continue beating at high speed until light and fluffy.

Add cream of tartar, baking soda and salt until combined.  Add four one cup at a time and slowly combine.  Remove from mixer, and fold in 3 cups chopped toasted pecans.

Place dough in Ziploc bag in refrigerator and chill for several hours or overnight.

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Roll dough into 1 inch balls.  Roll top half of ball with sugar, flatten slightly, and add a pecan half to center.

Place on baking stone or cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, and bake for 8-10 minutes until lightly golden brown.  Do not overbake.  Remove to cooling rack to cool.  

Enjoy!

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi