Summer is coming soon...

Summer is coming soon...I hardly can't wait for it...I was mood for summer food from those long winter time...

I went to the store yesterday and get supplies for the week and dinner on Wednesday night. I saw the poppy seed in spice aisle. I never thought how much I really love poppy seed. I just don't know why but I cannot explain the taste of it. I do not know what to cook with poppy seed. I was really mood for summer dessert or breakfast. Whatever you wish for. I came across to this pinterest.com and one image came up in my sight. It was the poppy seed bread, but later I saw the lemon poppy seed bread. I click to one of their image to get the recipe and I saw that it was kind of complication to do those things. However, I remember that I made Lemon bread two year ago. I decided to give a try with my own recipe. I made it and baked it. It did came out really good. I really love it a lot.

The lemon poppy seed bread is very simple and easy to do. Here is the recipe:

Lemon Poppy Seed Bread

Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup butter (softened)
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 TBS lemon juice (fresh or not)
- 1 TBS grated lemon peel
- 1 1/2 cup flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup milk

Glaze:
- 2 TBS lemon juice
- 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar

Directions:
1. Preheat at 350 F degree
2. In big bowl, add butter (softened) and sugar, mix together until cream. Then add the eggs, lemon juice, and grated lemon peel and beat all together.
3. In small bowl, add flour, baking powder, and salt; stir together and then add into cream mixture with milk
4. Pour into greased loaf pan and bake for 45 minutes.
5. While waiting for bread to be baked, mix the lemon juice and confectioners' sugar together.
6. Take the bread out when it is done and quickly add glaze on top of bread soon as the bread came out of oven.
7. Let it set to cool it off and Enjoy!

Cross-stitch Part 10

Come at last with Part 10...I started on this part 10 on March 28, however, I become lose interest in it. I did not work on it that much of it. But until last week, I was bored and decided to go back to start cross-stitch. I thought that I would not finish before that date to make it into every month to finish one part.

However, I did finished it much earlier than it was. I did finish it today April 22 so it was pretty much earlier. Maybe, I become more of speed cross-stitch because my skills have been improved a lot.

Now, I will be start focus on part 11 tomorrow, and there are still about 9 or 10 parts left to go or maybe less than that.

Here is my part 10 cross-stitch...

And here is the whole thing....

Part 9 of Cross-stitch

Here I am again with my cross-stitch project, I am finished with part 9. There is still more to go and I think I have 7 or 8 parts to go. This part 9, I have took a break for a while because I ended up get a lot of needle point in my fingers but not too bad. Also sometime, I just need to give my hands a break because it is a lot of work to go and also let my eye rest too. But the results that it look amazing and it start to become more clear with the image. I really enjoyed this project a lot. Here is the image of Part 9 and more will to come.

You could see the part 9 had been to add and here is another image of the whole thing of cross-stitch...



It is Springtime...

The winter season is over as the spring season began. But it is not happen in my hometown where it is still wintertime with all of those strange weather. I cannot wait for the spring to come when the weather is so nice and beautiful. Some day, we do have really nice weather but then next day it complete change. I cannot wait for warm day.

I came to this idea when I looked through my recipe book. I was really in mood for berry. I found one in my recipe book. It is called Blueberry bread. But since the blueberry is too expensive right now so I cannot wait until summer when it is cheaper and plus when they are in season. I looked around to find right price. I really want to use fresh, not frozen because I am really in mood for fresh. However, I found good price for one specific berry. It is blackberry. They are about right in season but little too early. But the price was reasonable. So I changed the name to called "Blackberry Bread". I cooked it up and it came out look really good and plus it tasted really good.

Blackberry Bread

- 1/3 cup melted butter

- 1 cup sugar

- 3 TBS lemon juice

- 2 eggs

- 1 1/2 cups flour

- 1 tsp baking powder

- 1 tsp salt

- 1/2 cup milk

- 1 cup blackberry (fresh or frozen)

Direction

1. Preheat oven to 350 degree, lightly grease an 8x4 inch loaf pan. (I suggest to lightly flour so it won't stick to the bottom)
2. In a mixing bowl, beat together butter, sugar, juice, and eggs. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt; stir into egg mixture with milk. Fold in blackberries. Pour batter into pan. (You can cut blackberries in half to make it more reasonable bite size)
3. Bake in oven for 60 to 70 minutes until toothpick come out clean. Cool bread for 10 minutes.

Enjoy!

Cross-stitch Part 8

Back to Cross-stitch that I have been doing since. This time, I finished part 8 and still a lot of parts to go. I spend a lot of time on cross-stitch more than anything. Someday, I just cannot stop and some day, I do stop because I need to finish my errands and also look for job. So I had limited myself to do 2 to 3 hours of cross-stitch. Because it is take a lot of focus on it. Sometime, I forgot to drink to keep myself hydrated. So it is kind of hard to do those things, I might think that I might have to take a break for a while and find other things to do.

I have another hobby that I do as well. I do the scrapbook. Right now, I have this huge project that I have been doing since last January. It was my Ireland trip scrapbook. The reason why this project is huge because I have 40 pages to do. Mostly, the scrapbook are 20 pages, but it is 10 page but if you use both side so it is more. So it is huge project and it will take a while because I need to print pictures, get supplies to decorated around it, and also have to make the plan by where to put the pictures in the scrapbook. But someday, I will share with you with all of the scrapbook that I have created.

I am sure you remember about the part 7 in other blog, that I told you that it was unfinished because I was not able to find the floss that I need. However, it was done as well. Here is finished Part 7

Here is the cross-stitch part 8

Here is the Part 1 to 8 as all together...



There will be more to come...

Mood for Fish, Bean and Rice...

It had been a while since the last time I wrote on blog. It was about the cross-stitch, but this time it is different. I am here to write about my cooking. I have cooked a lot but kept forget to take picture and share with people. So now it is time for me to take advantage of it. I cooked today and it came really good. I cooked salmon the first time in oven and it came out perfectly. It was really simple. Then I looked at the cupboard and tried to think what to cook for the side. I saw that I had can of red kidney bean. It came to my mind is that I was planning to cook bean and rice together. It must be good. The only thing, I cannot decided how to cook all together to make it much easier. I found this recipe from this Chef named Robert Irvine. His recipe is called Red Beans and Rice, here is the website of it: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/robert-irvine/red-beans-and-rice-recipe/index.html .

So in results, I decided to change it up a little bit to make it a lot easier and delicious at same time. Here is my recipe that I fix it around...

Items
1 TBS olive oil
garlic cloves or minced garlic
1 large red onion, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
2 cans of red beans
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1 Tbs hot sauce (any kind)
2 cup Chicken stock or Chicken broth
1 cup white rice (suggest you to use 5 minutes quick rice)
1 TBS Butter

Direction
1. Heat olive oil over medium heat in a large saucepan. Saute garlic, onion and bell pepper until tender. Stir in kidney bean, onion powder, salt, pepper, and hot sauce. Stir and add one cup of chicken stock and let it boil. Then drain but leave liquid behind a little bit. Reduce heat to low and let it simmer.
2. While it simmer, add one cup of chicken stock, and one cup of express white rice. Cook in microwave or stove. It should take 5 minutes. When it done, add it into the saucepan. Stir together gently and let it simmer little more until there is no liquid left.

Tips: I did not use butter to add rice but you can if you like to. The only difference with the recipe with website is that I did not use celery. Plus to cook rice will take 20  minutes, so I decided to use quick 5 minutes rice, if you want it quick and simple.

Enjoy!

I know it is not a lot, I just forgot to take picture so I hurried to take picture of it.

Cross-stitch Part 7

I know it had been long time since I posted other one. I have been busy doing things around the house, but not always. I took break on cross-stitch for a while because I have been involve volunteer at Sundance Film Festival for the last 10 days. I have been really busy for 10 days with different schedules.

Now, I am finished with the Sundance Film Festival. I do really enjoyed it a lot. I would like to go back next year if I could.

So here is my cross-stitch part 7, it is not finished because I am missing four colors to this. I did went to store last Friday and they were out but I am able to buy rest of it. Then again I decided to go back on Sunday because I am expecting this store to restock, but again, it is not there. So I just decided to go ahead to do part 8 because I have no patience. But I will go to other different stores to find those color thread to complete part 7. So you will see the picture that it is kind of complete. So now, I am going to start my part 8 of cross-stitch.

This is part 7.

This is the whole section of part 1 to 7 of cross-stitch.



By the way, I started my cross-stitch part 7 on Jan 15th and half finish on today Feb 12th.  So Enjoy!