Delicious Cottage Cheese Bread

Don't worry, I'm still here and the baby is still baking! We had a really bad storm over the weekend, lost power AGAIN, and our basement flooded. It was a blast : ) We're still recovering and cleaning up from the mess, but we're okay and I'm glad the baby didn't have to witness the mess!

Anyway, this sounded a little strange when I first heard about it, but we had some leftover cottage cheese and I decided to give it a try. It was surprisingly good and very moist! I definitely recommend it!

Ingredients:
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 cups cottage cheese
• 2 T margarine
• 1 egg
• 3 cups bread flour
• 1 T sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2.5 T yeast

This can either be made in a bread machine or in the oven at 350 degrees. Mix all ingredients together and bake according to machine guidelines.

Very good and the perfect consistency for bread. I pigged out!

Embroided Initial Pillow for Nursery

I love the bedding we picked out for our nursery, but I thought it needed a few extra accessories. The pillows that went with it were really expensive, so I figured I could make my own for much cheaper. Go here to see the first pillow I made with a quilted look.I took the bedding for the crib to the fabric store and bought some new solid pieces that matching pretty well. I used a light blue for the front of the pillow, but I also added some fusible fabric on the backside to make it a little more stiff. I've found that embroidering on the sewing machine works much better when you have a little thicker fabric so it doesn't move all over while you're trying to sew.
I printed out the letter C in a font I liked to use as a template.
For the C fabric, I also added some fusible webbing to the back to thicken it up. I traced the letter on and cut it out.
Then I pinned it onto the solid blue fabric.
I used a really tight zig-zag stitch to sew it on. Doing this always makes me nervous, but it came out great!


I added some quilted fabric for the backing of the pillow and stitched it up.

Go here to see the patchwork pillow that matches!

Quilted Pillow for the Nursery

I know a lot of you have been asking about nursery pics and I'm working on them! This is the beginning of the nursery craft posts and there's a lot more to come. Working on decorating the baby's room has been so much fun! I'm having a great time coming up with fun crafts and ways to add color to the room.

The bedding we chose is mostly red, blue, and yellow plaids and stripes, but I wasn't a fan of all the little accessories that went with it. Some of the accessories have sailboats on them, and while they're cute, it's not really my thing. So, of course, I had to make my own! One of my first crafts was designing and sewing two throw pillows for the glider.
I loved the idea of a patchwork-style pillow, so I took a sample of the bedding to the craft store and picked out matching fabric. The solid colors were easy to match, but the plaids are a little more difficult. My secret: the two plaid patterns are actually from two pairs of boxer shorts I found for 50 cents each. Score!
For the back side of the pillow, I went with a quilted-style navy fabric.
I pinned the squares in a pattern I was happy with and then sewed everything together with a .25" seam allowance.
For the actual pillow form, it would have been super cheap (or free) to recover some old throw pillows. I decided against it just for this project since it would be in a newborn's room and I wanted to buy hypo-allergenic and washable pillow inserts. At 40% off, they were only about $6 each so that wasn't too bad anyway.

So here's the finished pillow! It looks so cute!

Sweet Apricot Kugel

My family has a few kugel recipes that have been passed down through the generations. I love them, but I wanted to try something new. This kugel was fruity, sweet, and really good! And you don't have to be Jewish to enjoy kugel...who can resist cinnamon noodles?

If you've never heard of kugel, check out this info from Wikipedia. It's basically a baked pudding or casserole that's usually made with egg noodles or potatoes. It's noodle kugel is almost always sweet, but still served with the meal rather than a dessert.

Adapted from here
Ingredients:
• 12 oz. package of egg noodles
• 1 cup apricot jelly
• 1 cup orange juice
• 7 egg whites
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 2/3 cup chopped dried apricot

Topping:
• 4 teaspoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Cook noodles according to package directions. Drain and let cool.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Lightly grease a 9x13 baking pan or spray with a non-stick cooking spray.

In a large bowl, mix jelly, orange juice, egg whites, vanilla and almond extract. Beat with a wisk until blended.

Stir in chopped apricot. Add cooled noodles and mix well.

Spoon mixture evenly into baking pan.

Mix sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl and sprinkle evenly over the top of the kugel.

Cover tightly and bake 15 minutes. Uncover and continue to bake 20 minutes more until set.

Some people like kugel warm and some people like it cold. Serve your favorite way!

Cute Fleece Dog Bib

I might be going a little overboard with the bib crafts, but they're all so cute! And maybe this isn't the most practical bib, but I couldn't resist trying it when I saw it!

Adapted from the book, Sewing for Tiny Tots by Susan Cousineau. My bib design is based on the book, but adjusted slightly to make it my own.

I mentioned in a previous post that it's way cheaper to buy an old piece of clothing from a thrift store rather than off the bolt at a craft store. Plus, I love that this is already worn in and won't pill as much right away since it's been washed multiple times already.
The book gives you a pattern that you can copy and enlarge to the size you want. The book suggests enlarging it 400%, but that seemed huge to me, so I cut it down to 300% for a newborn.
I cut out all the pieces from the fleece shirt and a scrap of felt.
I used a blanket stitch to outline the felt pieces for the spots and nose. The book suggested basting all the felt onto the dog face, but I felt like fusible webbing would work much better. I traced the felt pieces onto the fusible fabric and ironed them onto the face and ears.
Sewing the mouth onto the dog was a little tricky for me and I forgot to take pictures because I got so frustrated. I couldn't come up with a good way to get the lines onto the fleece so I would know where to sew. My final solution was to use a piece of tracing paper with the face drawn on it. I pinned the tracing paper to the fleece face and sewed right through both pieces. Then when I was done, I ripped the tracing paper off.

The eyes were another tricky thing. The book suggested using embroidery stitching or felt to make them. I really didn't want to mess with that after the tracing paper fiasco above. I found these doll eyes at the craft store and they worked great. Hubby cut off the ends with a pliers so they didn't stick out so much. Buttons would have worked well also.

I thought it might be fun to use some ribbon as the closure at the back of the bib rather than the usual velcro. Then the size can also be adjusted as the baby gets bigger.

A LOT of work for a bib that's just going to get dirty, but it was fun!