Kwille's Wife Designs Coming 2011...

Merry Christmas!!! If those of you who are viewing this received our family Christmas card, thank you for a taking a look at my blog!! Here you will find recipes, craft projects and some goofy stories about Kwille and our love child Boone!

In the next year I'm going to develop a digital scrapbooking/digital art business so stay tuned! If you liked our Christmas cards just wait until you see what I have coming in the next year!!

In the mean time stay tuned to The Extraodinary Tales of Kwille's Wife, there are more stories, recipes and crafts to come!!

Christmas Wreaths: Razzle Dazzle, Blue Christmas & Bring on the Lights

The Christmas spirit has entered the Kwille household!  This year I have decided to take my stab at creating Christmas wreaths. As usual I entered Hobby Lobby (my love Michael's craft store is equal), with no idea what-so-ever of what I was going to do. I decided to let the various isles of Christmas goodies inspire me!

My many trips around the store and the 2 hours I spent there led me to create three different wreaths:

Razzle Dazzle:

 Blue Christmas:

Bring on the Lights:



Hanging above my fireplace.



Lit up at night with a fire.

Boone's Berry Bread

This is a great "anytime" bread recipe.  I came up with this recipe last year while trying to make blueberry bread. During this time, Boone was in his "hop up on the counter and eat EVERYTHING phase". By this time, he had already eaten an entire loaf of beer bread, some crescent rolls filled with bbq roast beef, baked beans, and the occasional piece of cheese. 

Unfortunately for me I had just finished the batter when Boone decided to jump up and try it. After throwing away the Booney licked batter, I had to improvise with what ingredients I had left.

You'll Need:

• 1.5 sticks butter (melted)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup frozen or fresh blackberries (you can use any type of berry)
• 1/2 cup blueberry pie filling
• 2 cups + 1 tbs flour
• 1/2 cup milk

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Mix the melted butter, sugar, milk and eggs together in a large bowl.
3. Add the dry ingredients to your mixture (2 cups flour, baking powder, and salt) and mix thoroughly.
4. In a ziploc baggie (either quart or gallon size) add 1 tbs flour and the blackberries. Shake baggie until all berries are coated with flour.
5. In the mixture, fold in the blueberry pie filling and fold until batter turns purple.

6. Fold the blackberries into the batter.
7. Place batter in a bread pan and bake for 60-70 minutes depending on the size of your bread pan (the small foil pans take about 60 mins while the larger bread pan takes 70 mins)

Warm You Up Cheesy Broccoli Soup

This is a quick recipe I came up with to get me through the day here at home. We are refusing to turn up the heat so this was a great recipe to warm us up!!

You'll Need:

• 1 can of Evaporated Milk
• 1 bag of frozen broccoli
• 1 can of Cheddar Cheese soup
• 1 can of Cream of Broccoli soup
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1.5 tsp minced onion
• 1-2 tbs of butter (to taste)
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Steps:

1. Combine all ingredients except salt and pepper into a pot. Heat to a boil not a roaring boiling, but a quiet boil for about five minutes.

2. Turn down the heat to medium/low and stir occasionally. Add salt and pepper to taste.
3. Cook until broccoli is tender.

Detective Boone Warren: Sniffing out the criminals or finding your Halloween candy

As promised, I found a fabulous halloween costume for Boone! This also marks the one year anniversary that Boone has been a member of our family.

As usual, I'm laughing hysterically while taking pictures of Boone... Kwille as always chimes in with "He knows your laughing at him". Here, Boone and Kwille refuse to look directly at the camera because of my hysterical laughing.

Kwille's Loaded Potato Soup

Kwille doesn't cook often, but when he does he goes all out. Last year we created Kwille's Chili recipe which was a winner with our families. This year Kwille decided he wanted to make potato soup, so he found a recipe he liked and together we made a few changes to liven up the recipe.  This goes great with my Honey Wheat Beer Bread.  This also gave me a chance to use my brand new stock pot!

You'll Need:

• 2.5 lbs Potatoes
• Half of a large sweet onion
• 1/2 lb Bacon
• 3 Celery Stalks
• 2 cups Carrots
• 10 cups Water
• 8-10 Bouillon cubes (Chicken flavor)
• 3 Garlic cloves (minced)
• 1.5 tsp Salt
• 1.5 tsp Pepper
• 2 tsp Basil leaves
• 1/2 tsp Crushed Red Pepper 
• 2-3 tsp Hot Sauce
• 1/2 pint Heavy Whipping Cream
• 1 cup Cheddar cheese
• 1/2 cup butter

Steps:

1. Cook the bacon in a skillet, while the bacon is cooking you can cut up your vegetables.
2. Once the bacon is done, set it aside, you won't need it until later. Add the celery, onion, carrots, and potatoes to a good sized pot.
3. Add the water (we measured 10 - that gave us plenty of water to boil off without drying out any of the vegetables). Boil uncovered until a rolling boil occurs.

4. Add the bouillon cubes, garlic, salt, pepper, basil, crushed red pepper, and hot sauce. Turn the heat down to create a light boil and cover the pot. Boil for 2-3 hours (until potatoes are soft but not mushy).
5. Add bacon, cream, cheese and butter. Simmer for 30 minutes.

Kwille peeling the potatoes.

Honey Wheat Beer Bread

Kwille loves beer, I love carbs (too much). Why not put together the two things we love? So that's what we did with our Honey Wheat Beer Bread.

You'll Need:

• 1.5 cups of wheat flour
• 1.5 cups of white flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup butter (melted)
• 1/4 cup honey
• 12 oz. beer (This is where it gets interesting, Kwille likes to bring home different types of beer. I've tried Bud lite, Michelob, Miller lite, Hamm's, Boulevard, but my favorite is PBR (it just cooks really well and has a good flavor))

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Combine the two flours, sugar, salt, butter and baking powder in a large bowl.

3. Add the beer and stir until completely mixed.

4. Add the honey (I use Pam on my measuring cup to keep the honey from sticking) and mix.
5. Pour batter into bread pan and bake for 60 minutes

This bread is great with soup and chili.

Strawberry Orange Jello Cookies

This past weekend I needed to make a dessert for a baby shower at work. My killer reading and note taking skills caused this very delicious mistake to occur!

You'll Need:

• 3.5 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1.5 cups butter (softened)
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 pkg (4 serving size each) of Jello - any flavor - for this I picked orange and strawberry (you're supposed to get two of the same flavor, but that's where I goofed)
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. In a large mixing bowl, cream the softened butter and sugar. Add one package of Jello (I added orange) and mix thoroughly. Add egg and vanilla and continue to mix.
3. Add the baking powder and flour gradually to the mixture.

4. On a greased cookie sheet, shape the dough into small mounds. Flatten with a bottom of a glass (I spray Pam on the glass before I flatten - it helps the dough from sticking to the glass).

5. Sprinkle the remaining Jello on the dough (I used Strawberry).
6. Bake for 10-12 min, remove and let cool.

Yields: 3 dozen to 4 dozen cookies depending on your mound size.

With the left over Strawberry Jello, I added it to my morning yogurt to give it some extra flavor.

 

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

Over the eleven months that Boone has been a member of our family, I have taken numerous photos of him sleeping or attempting to sleep.  "Why?" you ask, because 1. he's just too darn cute 2. the positions and places he rests in are pretty funny and 3. Kwille has asked me to stop taking pictures of him (Kwille)... (not of him sleeping of course - that would be weird)

9 wks old - in the car on the way home for the first time - I can actually say he's completely comfortable with me... he's sleeping belly up and we've only known each other maybe an hour

After his first trip to the vet - being violated really tuckers him out

Laying in Kwille's lap is priceless

Laying in Kwille's lap at 75lbs - looks like Kwille is paying the price

Moving pillows, blankets or the occasional mom or dad... that's not Boone's style

Boone's absolute favorite position and place to sleep: Mom and Dad's bed. Once we leave the room, he takes over the bed, laying his head on the pillows and if he's cold he some how manages to get under the covers. We are trying to break him of this habit... as you can see we're doing a great job!

Pumpkin Cookies

Since fall is almost here, I thought it was time to make my pumpkin cookies.  This was the perfect morning to do it - Seven o'clock on a Sunday morning, Kwille and Boone are asleep (Boone has taken over my spot in bed by this point), I make some vanilla biscoti coffee and begin one of my favorite fall traditions.

 

You'll Need:

• 1 stick unsalted butter (melted)
• 1 cup lightly packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup canned pure pumpkin puree
• 1 tbs pumpkin pie spice
• 1.5 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 2/3 cup flour
• **Surprise Ingredient (optional) - see below

 

Steps:

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2.  In a large bowl, mix together the melted butter and brown sugar until smooth.

3.  To the sugar/butter mixture, add the eggs, vanilla, pumpkin, pumpkin spice, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Mix thoroughly.

4.  Fold the flour into the mixture.

5.  On two baking sheets, drop 12 mounds of batter on each sheet.

6.  Bake for 10-12 minutes.

7.  Remove and let cool for a few minutes - **Surprise Ingredient - to each cookie add some freshly grated

     nutmeg (gives a boost of flavor)!

Enjoy!

Makes 24 cookies

R.I.P Chic Apothocary

I recently became the proud owner of an apothocary and couldn't wait to create a spooky halloween scene to go with my fall decorations.

I love Michael's Craft Store, they seem to have the creepiest and cutest decorations for fall.  I usually leave Kwille and Boone at home when I go to Michael's since I end up walking down every aisle looking at everything and filling up my cart. Then I usually change my mind a few times and unload and reload my cart. Funny how you can spend your time coming up with different things, but in the end you return to your first idea.

Matierals:

• Apothocary
• Halloween garland - (black/purple grass)
• Deep purple roses
• Mini Tombstone
• Pillar Candle Holder
• 3 Sparkly spiders

Once I got all of the matierals laid out, I started with the pillar candle holder, since that will hold the tombstone up. Then I began adding my matierals to the apothocary and played with the positions of everything.

Here is the Finished Product:  R.I.P. Chic

Power Plant: 3 out of 10 Sprouts Ain't Too Bad

Well here we are two weeks later and out of the 5 parsley seeds I planted in the Power Plant, only 3 have sprouted and are actually starting to grow. The 5 basil seeds I planted started to sprout... then dried up...then molded.  (Note in the picture: Mold is on the left side of the nutrient sponge)

You may be thinking "this is not a good sign Kwille's wife, you should start over" or "throw the stupid thing away, hydroponics is for fools". Actually this is the best "crop" I've had so far since Kwille got this for me in April.  I'll keep forging ahead and hopefully I will be having a homemade meal with my three sprigs of parsley soon!

Power Plant - We FINALLY have sprouts

Okay, so after a week I finally have some sprouts that have decided to live (for now).  Unfortunately, Boone  ate the paper cover that protects the seeds in the beginning stages, so I've had to come up with my own paper cover. 

My basil sprouted first, but then shriveled up and died. Luckily over the weekend my parsley sprouted and it looks pretty good now.

According to the directions, I'm supposed to add the humidadomes over the sprouts to increase their growth... we shall see...

The Taming of the Spice Cabinet

For years, my spice cabinet has a been a complete mess: doubles and triples of the same spice (cinnamon and ginger are aparently favorites of mine), expired spices, and spices that I have no idea why I bought them in the first place.  Kwille and I have been updating our kitchen and while I was prepping our cabinets for painting, I noticed that my spice cabinet is an absolute mess, plus it doesn't help having glass front cabinets but that's yet another project in my near future.

After doing a thorough inventory of my spices, I found really cute containers at Target and found some clear self stick paper.  Using Photoshop Elements, I created labels and printed them out on the self stick paper and cut each label out.

Then after washing all of the containers, I was ready to fill them up! They turned out really cute, I plan on keeping the ones I use more often out on the counter since and it turns out that the spice colors really go with our new color scheme in the kitchen.