Breakfast Bowls, Round Two

In an earlier post, I made bowls out of bacon for a delicious and pretty breakfast treat.  Here, I've used a Martha Stewart guide for another breakfast bowl- this time made out of bread- and it couldn't be easier!

For four servings, you will need:

3 slices of bread (white or wheat)
4 eggs (medium size works best)
4 slices of bacon
salt and pepper to taste
and a muffin pan

Preheat your oven to 375.  Then, all you have to do is cook the bacon until it is floppy-done.  It will finish cooking in the oven.

About like this

While the bacon is cooking, butter four muffin tins.  Take your bread and mush it flat.  Then cut it in half and use one half to partially line one muffin tin.

Use one quarter of the slice to finish the bowl.

Once the bacon is done, lay it inside the bread bowl and top it with an egg.  Salt and pepper if you'd like and then pop in the oven!

If you like your eggs cooked like a normal person (runny with the whites set), bake for 20 minutes (slightly longer if you've used large eggs).  If you like your eggs more on the done side (like me!), leave them in the oven for 25 minutes (longer for large eggs).  They should pop out pretty easily, but if they do stick, run a knife around the edge of the pan.  Toast, eggs, and bacon all in one!

We had these for breakfast last weekend, and liked it so much we made it again for lunch!

Tea Wreath

I found this project on Pinterest, and even though the lovely kojodesigns blog has a great tutorial, I couldn't help but share my own experience with this tea wreath project!

I used:

1 piece corrugated cardboard
2 pieces of scrapbooking paper
Elmer's glue
a handful of clothespins (the number you use will depend on how big your wreath is)
tea  (the same number as your clothespins)
ribbon

Use a template to measure a circle on your cardboard.  I used a large mixing bowl and traced around it.

 

Cut out the cardboard and then measure off a clothespin's width all the way around for your center circle.  Cut out the center circle.

 Trace the wreath onto one of the scrapbooking papers.  Cut out the paper and glue it to the cardboard (I glued mine to the decorated side, leaving the blank side as the back).  Leave a margin on the inside ring so you can fold the paper around the edge and have a pretty inside.

Then, cut out the complimentary paper and cover the clothespins.  Glue the clothespins around the wreath so they open to the outside.

Wait at least several hours for the glue to set before using the wreath.

I brought this to my parents as a thank you for hosting Thanksgiving dinner.  I think it would make a great Christmas card holder once the tea is used up!

And the Winner Is....

Congratulations to Cliana on winning the earrings from Sheyna!  Random.org spit out number 11 and you are our winner!  Send me an email @ Holly(at)GoesLightly(dot)com with your mailing address- congrats!!

Thanks to everyone who entered- I'm so happy to have hosted my first giveaway.  Hopefully you will see more in the future!

From crazied.com

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving and is blissfully recovering from a food coma.  As for me, I had my first Black Friday shopping experience this morning at midnight.  The Target nearby wasn't too terribly packed, so John and I picked up a vacuum we had been considering for a while and a few Christmas gifts.  A total whim to try it and a total success!  I've got holiday fever....

From Unskinny Boppy

How to Make Lefse

A tutorial from a gal with real Norwegian blood, this lefse is a simple version that saves a lot of time and effort compared to the traditional method.

For those of you who haven't had lefse, you are missing out!  It's a sweet potato flat bread, kind of like an oversized potato tortilla.  It's typically served buttered, sprinkled with sugar, and rolled up.  For as long as I can remember, my granny and grandpa would make lefse for all the big family dinners.  When my grandpa was still alive, they would make lefse from whole potatoes.  After my grandpa passed away, my granny started using potato flakes instead (much easier and MUCH quicker).

Here is what you'll need:

4 cups potato flakes
4 tsp. sugar
3 tsp. salt 
3 cups boiling water
1-1/3 c. whole milk
1-1/2 c. margarine  (I used butter...)
1 cup Half & Half

Put the dry ingredients into a large bowl.  Bring the water, milk, half & half, and butter to a boil.  This works best if the butter is cut up into chunks.

Once it is boiling, stir it into the large bowl until it is smooth.  It should look like a big bowl of really fattening mashed potatoes.  Refrigerate overnight.

To make the lefse dough, take 2 cups of the potato mixture and work in a cup of flour.  Add more flour if it's especially sticky.  Divide this mass into palm sized balls and then roll out the dough on a well floured surface as thin as possible.

Here's where the Norwegian equipment comes into play.

Lefse turner and lefse griddle.

Use your lefse turner and place the thin circle of dough onto the lefse griddle on high heat (or around 400 degrees). 

Leave it until it bubbles- you want little brown blisters all over.

 Then use your lefse turner to flip it until it browns on the other side as well.

I actually prefer it even darker than this

Ideally, you would have lots of little tea towels to wrap the cooked lefse in to help keep some of its moisture.  Refrigerate the cooked dough in a stack.  Then when you're ready to eat it, spread on some butter or margarine, sprinkle it with sugar, roll it up tight, cut it in half, and enjoy!

If you don't have a lefse griddle and a lefse turner, you could definitely use a regular griddle and a spatula.  If you go this route, be sure to get a large cookie cutter or coffee can to cut out circles of lefse to make it more manageable.

It's so so good and a holiday tradition for me :)  enjoy!

Only two more days to enter my earring giveaway!!

Pumpkin Pie Bread

If the title doesn't make you drool, check your pulse!  I found it on Pinterest, which led me to its source: a cute blog called be different act normal.  I made this recipe over the weekend with a few modifications.  Here's what you'll need:

• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups white sugar (told you it had some calories!)
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 4 eggs
• 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
• 1/2 cup water
• chocolate chips 

(I added the chocolate chips because everything is better with chocolate, right?)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees (I might advise baking at a slightly lower temperature- our bread got a little well done on the edges but the insides were a little gooey) and grease two baking pans.  I didn't have two loaf pans the same size, so I did one 9x5 loaf pan and one 9x9.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, and salt.
 

In a separate, large bowl, beat together the sugar, oil, eggs, and canned pumpkin.Alternate adding the water and dry ingredients to the mixture and beat until blended.

It should look like this when you're done stirring

Split the mix between your two pans.  I then added in some chocolate chips to the 9x9 pan.  If you wanted, you could add in chocolate chips to the whole mix.

Then, bake your loaves for 45 minutes (9x9) and 60 minutes (9x5) or thereabouts.  I use a piece of spaghetti to see if the bread is done- it should come out clean.

Yum!

And don't forget to enter the jewelry giveaway!  Cute earrings for a lucky winner :)

New Front Door

It's been a while since John and I did a major bit of home improvement, but we recently installed a new storm door.  And by we, I mean John and his dad.... I supervised ;)  The door is a gorgeous etched glass with a black edge and nickle hardware.

The old door- flimsy aluminum that has seen better days

The new door- and it's snowing!

It's amazing what a big difference one change can make!  Now all we have to do is figure out what to do with our house numbers...  Next though, I'm on the hunt for some holiday ideas to spruce it up a little bit.  What do you think of these?

I love the lanterns!

The sled!

The color here is great, but I'd have to go fake with our cold winters!

...feeling festive!  (images via pinterest)  And, don't forget to enter in the Sheyna Jewelry earring giveaway!

Jewelry Giveaway!

It's my very first giveaway and I'm very excited!

The lovely people at Sheyna Jewelry would like to give one of you this beautiful pair of earrings:

This is a fabulous site with tons of great pieces (I'm especially partial to the "LOVE" necklace).

Another great thing?  You can even design your own custom pieces!!  It's a pretty amazing site :)

If you'd like to enter to win the carnelian drop earrings, here's what to do:

1)  Follow my blog

2)  Like Sheyna Jewelry on facebook

3)  Post a comment here telling me your favorite piece :)

Good luck!  The winner will be picked randomly and announced 11/25!  The winner has been announced!

(ps, this giveaway is International!!  So US and non-US readers can both enter!)

Mulled Wine

(photo by the lovely OnSite Photograhy)

What do you do with all the extra wine from a wedding?  When I visited Soren and Bai in Frieburg, Germany last year, one of my favorite things was the Christmas market.  And in the Christmas market, they had mulled wine.  It was so tasty!

Well, after the wedding, John and I had a ton of leftover wine.  I'm a big white wine drinker, but the red wine gets emptied quite a bit slower.  So, I decided to see if I could make some mulled wine myself.  With a package of mulling spices, it couldn't be easier!

I recommend using less spice mix than the package directions.  It calls for a 2 bottles of wine to one package of spices ratio.  I used more like 3 bottles to one package.  It tasted a lot like my memory of the "glow wine" at the Christmas market.  I can't wait to use some of the spices in hot apple cider!

Does anyone else have a mulling method? :)