It's a Blizzard - Lets Eat Some Muffins!

Haha, I know my titles are terrible...but they are accurate! A few weeks ago I was on Pinterest and occassionally I see some really delicious things show up in my main feed. I just so happened to see some pastry dishes which got me thinking: Can you make muffins with strawberries? I'm no chef, so I don't know these things. But I was curious so did a Pinterest search. And lo'! You can! I found one for coffee cake strawberry muffins. Seeing as how I'd frozen some strawberries from a farmer's market outting earlier this month I decided to give it a go. :)

 This was my batter. I used my mom's KitchenAid stand mixer for the first time. Let me just say it made things go faster! (It took me 3 hours to make these darn muffins though...ugh). I am a VERY slow baker. Actual prep time is something like 10 minutes with 30 minutes being the total time for these muffins. I doubled the recipe and altered some of the ingredients so this could be why my time was much longer. If you're more experienced it will probably go faster.

 Next came chopping up the strawberries. Mine were thawed but still very cold from the freezer. I used A LOT more than what you see here. (About 2 cups worth I think).

I spooned approximately 1 tablespoon worth of batter into each cup. The recipe said it made 18, but that would never last in my house! I actually ended up having extra batter so I had to spoon what was left into loose cups to bake after the first large batch was done. I had 4 extras, plus the 30 I did first. I did go back and spoon extra mix into some of the cups. My muffins never come out evenly...

 And here are my finished muffins! They actually look quite close to the photos from the recipe I'd found. And I am told by my brother they're very good too. I'm holding out until after dinner before I try one. But they do smell amazing so that was a hard temptation to fight. :)

I had a few susbtitutions for the recipe. it originally calls for milk and large eggs, but we only had jumbo eggs and I always use soy milk (organic) instead. I think because of that it caused the cook time for these to go from the estimated 18- 20  and spike to be around a half hour.

If you'd like to give the recipe a try you can find it here.

And if you want to see more delicious recipe ideas check out my Pinterest Board: Yummy Snacks. I put more than just sweets there!

I pin lots of nifty things I find, lots of handmade but on occasion when I see other things that catch my fancy I pin them too! So be sure to follow all my boards. :)

Last little thing I wanted to share with you all was the gorgeous snow "storm" we had on Saturday starting in the very early morning. I was still up around 3:30am so I snuck out to bask in the glory of it. I just love how super quiet it is during and just after a fresh snow.

 My front yard looked so serene! There weren't any animal tracks to be seen yet and aside from the neighbors front lights being on there was no sign of anyone around. It was truly amazing. :)

I also couldn't help but to snap some photos of the two prominent trees in our yard. There was at least 4 to 6 inches of cover by the time I got outside. And it was still snowing and coming down harder while I was out there. :)

Anyway that's all I wanted to share. We are also expecting more snow this Monday through Tuesday. We may get something like 2 feet worth. I honestly can't wait! It just hasn't felt like winter until the snow came.

If you're going to get hit by the blizzard stay safe and maybe make some muffins while it snows outside.

Have a great week. :)

Happy New Year + Share Your Shop/Craft!

Hey all! Wow, can't believe it's been several months since my last entry. I missed this place and you guys! 2015 is already here and it's nearly halfway through January. 2014 flew by so quickly it's hard to believe. I do hope you all had a wonderful new year and a lovely holiday regardless of what you celebrate. :)

I have been super hard at work these last few weeks. As winter has officially set in some time ago (and it's just so dang cold out) I'm no longer able to pop outdoors and take pictures. I've also come to see my old spot inside I used to try and take photos in wasn't doing my work any favors. So I've been making all these wonderful things and have had no way to share them. Only people who have seen me at my last few shows of 2014 ever got to see these new works! Recently I began to change all that.

I got together with my mom and she helped me whip up a nice big light box complete with 4 clamp lights. It's nothing fancy, but I have been so stoked to finally see that little glimmer of progress appearing on my horizon. Sadly it wasn't as easy as just point and click with my camera. It's been about 2 going on 3 weeks now I am just recently seeing results.

Below are a few little previews of what is to come.

I will be working to revamp my shop as time goes on and I look forward to using some of my new techniques come spring when I get to go outside again. :)


I would love to see what you have to share too~ Please post in the comments a little something about your craft and include a link to your shop. Be sure to check out other's posts as well and spread the love a bit. :)

Have a wonderful weekend everyone, I look forward to seeing what you have to share! :)

Music Monday for August

So it's Monday (I think) and I'm running around like a crazy person. I've got many many craft shows happening. One is just two weeks away (I really need more hours in my day...) and I have not one now, but TWO shows in September for back to back Saturdays. The first one is one I just found out about and will be shooting my application off to later this week. The other one is the one I did back in May. I also heard back from the Wayne, NJ show I've been dying to get into and my spot has been reserved. That application will be on it's way later this week as well. I'm super excited! I'll be busy busy busy from now into the foreseeable future. :)

Anyway! I will make announcements for these independently as they grow near. Expect another blog entry for the August show on the 23rd either later this week or  early to mid of next week.

Enough of that though. I know I shared this band a few months back. But I really love them and listen to my Pandora radio station for them almost every night I work my day job. They're having a concert at a great little venue on Black Friday this year. I'll miss going but I'm hoping maybe next year I can see them!

Anyway I hope you enjoy!~

Halestorm - Here's To Us (Contains some explicit language!)

Halestorm - Freak Like Me (Contains some imagery not for kids!)

Halestorm - Bad Romance by Lady Gaga Cover

I hope you enjoy the music! I'll see you all in the next post. :)

Throwback Thursday - Late Music Monday Edition!

I had promised to get you guys a post on Monday with some old, classic music that I love. But I got so busy this week I never had the chance. I apologize! So for this beautiful Thursday night heading into Friday morning I bring you a little Throwback. How far back? Well scroll on down to see...:)

Fun Fact: I share a birthday (month and day only of course) with this wonderful music icon.

Strangers in the Night - Frank Sinatra

Come Fly With Me - Frank Sinatra

(Bad, Bad) Leroy Brown - Frank Sinatra

Luck Be A Lady - Frank Sinatra

I hope you enjoy these songs as much as I do! I'll see you all in the next post. :)

An Epic Quest for Tasty Thai! (Secret Awesome Chicken Recipe also Within)

Boy am I so glad it's the weekend! This whole entire week has, regretfully, not gone as planned. I'm torn between whether I enjoy the extra down time to plan and do things as I like or whether I prefer being super busy like I was this whole week with pre-scheduled tasks. I definitely think I may just been leaning toward having a more "lax" schedule. It drives me a little batty when I reach the weekend and look back on my week and go "Nothing got done!!!"

Have you ever had just one of those weeks? I think you know by the second day in a row that it's not just "one of those days" any longer and it's just going to be a loooong crawl to the weekend. lol

Somehow most of my lost time seemed to have gotten dumped into food related errands. Monday it was a family chicken dinner fiasco. I have this fabulous recipe for healthy "fried" chicken but the prep time can be a little lengthy. Trust me though, it's more than worth it. I'll share the recipe at the end of this post in case anyone is feeling up to treating themselves! :)

The second food related blunder this week was on Thursday. One quick errand to two stores turned into an epic (mis)adventure. Anyone who knows me can tell you I LOVE Thai curry. A good friend of mine got me absolutely addicted a few years ago. So naturally when I found a way to get it at home without having to spend a fortune going out to eat I was ecstatic. Now I've sort of brought my family along for the ride. My mother tells me on Wednesday night about how a friend of hers was making this amazing shrimp curry. Naturally she wants to give it a go and I offered to grab the ingredients we needed since I was going out for errands on Thursday. The list was super short. But one, tiny item held me up for HOURS...Curry Paste.

Apparently anywhere you go in Wayne, NJ people will look at you funny when you ask them if the store they work in carries this stuff. Trader Joes was my first stop. They have a wonderful Red and Yellow curry sauce (bottled) that I adore. Sadly they don't carry the paste I needed. They are two very different things! So my next stop was all the way in the complete opposite direction. I arrived at our local Shop Rite thinking they MUST have curry paste. Their entire aisle 13 is dedicated to foreign foods after all. I believe I was in there for a good half hour and the first two associates I found to ask for help had no idea nor interest in helping, though the second directed me to customer service. I do work retail so I thought perhaps they could at least look this up in their system if they even carry it. Quite naturally when I have these adventures I get back to the front of the store only to find it completely swamped with people. Luckily I landed on the help desk line next to a lady who happened to know the manager on duty and called her over. Thankfully she was able to help me out. They didn't end up having any curry powder, but she did recommend one other place for me to try...Corrado's.

I don't know if you have one near you but Corrado's is a weird little market. They are kind of like a grocery/supermarket store only they have some more ecclectic variety. The selections are supposedly healthier or at least this is the purported rumor. By the time I leave Shop Rite I'm a bit disgruntled. Corrado's was back in the direction Trader Joes was, quite literally down the street from them. So back across town I shlepped....

I am not a frequent customer of Corrado's. I don't find their selection all that much better than other super market chains. They are also rather expensive. But as I search and cannot find what I need I do locate an associate. Just my luck they spoke very little English and I don't think he understood my inquiry other than to ask if he could flag down someone else to help me. So he does...and this guy didn't know anything either. He also didn't look like he worked there at all! Frustrated I just thanked them and left to turn down the next aisle....and lo! There was my curry paste no more than a few yards away.

So how was this curry shrimp we had? Well, sadly it wasn't all we had been hyping it up to be. I'm leery of recipes on pre-packaged food containers. They never turn out as delicious as what the recipe says it will. In the end it was, I think, the curry paste to coconut milk ratio that wasn't working out. I didn't get the taste of the curry as strongly as I did coconut milk. It's my opinion that you should avoid following Thai Kitchen brand food recipes. We even added extra curry paste than what was called for and it didn't help. We'll have to keep tweaking and I'll let you guys know when we come up with something successful!

But now for something that was definitely a delicious success. This chicken recipe I have is for making your own "breaded" chicken tenders. You bake it instead of frying. My entire family loves it as do my two best friends. These chicken tenders go excellent with French dressing or your fave hot sauce with blue cheese/ranch. It's a much better alternative to getting that pre-packaged stuff or getting greasy fat filled take out.

Rice Crispy Chicken

You will need:

• 4 cups Rice Crispies (I usually need at least double this)
• 1 Tsp Garlic Powder
• 1 Egg
• 3/4 Cup milk (I substitute Vanilla or Original flavor organic Soy milk, but you can use Almond or Coconut)
• 3/4 Cup All Purpose Flour
• 1 1/2 Tsp  salt (I typically use Sea Salt but this last time used Pink Himalayan)
• 1/4 Tsp Pepper
• 1/2 Tsp Paprika
• 3 pounds of boneless & skinless chicken - Wash & pat dry (You can do wings or thighs too if desired)
• 3 Tsp Melted Butter

Steps:

1. Take the rice crispies and put them into a shallow dish. I use a pie plate. Take a potato masher and grind up the cereal until most of the crispies are broken up. There will be some powder but not all of it. There should still be chunks of the cereal. NOTE: The original recipe does not say to mash them. I didn't do this the first time I made this and I ended up using almost quadruple the rice crispies.
2. Stir in your garlic to the rice crispies you just mashed.
3. Take a mixing bowl (a medium one should do unless you need to expand the recipe for extra servings for large families/gatherings) and combine your egg and milk slightly.
4. Now add in the flour, salt, pepper, and smoked paprika. Mix everything until smooth. NOTE: I add salt, pepper, and especially the smoked paprika to taste. The first time I made this we couldn't taste the smoked paprika so I added a ton extra into the batter to bring out the flavor more.
5. Now take some baking sheets/pans and grease them with cooking spray.
6. Take your chicken (be it tenders, wings, thighs, pieces, etc) and start dipping them into the batter. Then coat them with the cereal/garlic mixture until they are covered. Lay the battered & coated chicken onto the pan and repeat until finished.
7. Optional: The original recipe calls for melted butter to coat the chicken with once you have coated it in cereal. I did this the first few times I made it but I always ended up needing way more than 3 teaspoons of melted butter and there is no noticeable difference in taste with it added.
8. Optional but RECOMMENDED: This last time I made this chicken my brother added extra seasoning on top of half the batch. He used more smoked paprika and some other dried herbs like oregano/basil, and some pepper and a little extra salt. The chicken with the extra flavoring on top had a more distinct look and flavor when compared to the ones not seasoned extra. 
9. Bake your chicken at an oven temperature of 350 degrees for 1 hour or until the chicken is tender, no longer pink inside, and juices run clear. DO NOT COVER OR TURN CHICKEN WHILE IT BAKES. Just leave it be. The only intensive hands on thing about this recipe is the prep.

And then you're done! I like to serve mine with a fresh salad, biscuits, and mashed potatoes. I have been making this recipe periodically since October last year when I first found it in an article in Relish magazine. I promise you it's something everyone loves. We barely have any left overs and those don't last through the 12 hours after dinner. I'd highly recommend this to picky eaters. One of my BFF's is picky about her food and she really loved these with hot sauce. You can even take any leftovers and make your own crunchy chicken wraps for lunch or dinner the following day. If you can manage to keep your family from eating them all the first night anyway. lol

I've rambled on enough. So I will see you all in the next post. Have a fabulous weekend everyone. I know I will! :)

Craft Shows! Late but Better Than Never

I've been so hard at work getting things situated in my shop but I haven't forgotten about my Blog readers. :)

Earlier this year, just two months ago in May, I attended the Skyline Lakes Fire Department Annual Mother's Day Weekend Craft Show. This was their 9th year! We were a bit nervous about the weather. Just like last year we were supposed to get terrible roaming thunderstorms and just overall generally crummy weather as far as craft shows are concerned. But the morning of the weather did a complete 180. It was sunny and there was a fabulous turn out.

 My friend Michelle attended the show with me and was a wonderful help and great company during the down times. It was nice getting a chance to sneak away from the booth with her watching the shop while I was away. I hope she is able to attend my future shows with me! :)

Despite the scorching heat a lot of people showed up and the Threaded Chains outdoor booth was a big success compared to last year. I'm so glad to have given this venue another chance! I plan to continue going back and hopefully next year will be just as wonderful.

We did eventually get some rain but not until the end. I was so busy I didn't get a chance to take photos until just before the rain hit. I had very little time to prep the table for photos so some things are a little disheveled from shoppers.

I've made some progress in how to lay out the tables and I hope my next one turns out even better. I'm VERY pleased with the white table linens. They'll be good until I find some permanent cloth ones of the proper colors to match my shop logos. :)

I am planning to do a bunch of craft shows this fall as well. One is being held in Wanaque and I'll be submitting my application before the end of July. As I am very much looking forward to attending the Packanack Mother's Club annual November Holiday craft show which is held right here in Wayne, New Jersey, my home town! :)

There was also one other show I had my eye on so once I have finalized dates I'll be sure to update everyone! And as always you can tune in to my Facebook and Google+ pages for updates.

I hope everyone has a Happy 4th of July tomorrow and a great weekend. There will be a Christmas in July special coming up in my shop within the next few days so keep your eyes out for that!

I'll see you all in the next post.

More Music Mondays - June 2014

It's been a while since I last updated. My apologies! Things have been rather hectic. Threaded Chains appeared at the Skyline Lakes Fire Department in Ringwood, NJ for their annual Mother's Day weekend Craft Show. It was a huge success! Much like last year the weather forecast was for severe thunderstorms, rain, basically anything other than your ideal weather for outdoor craft show shopping. But by some small miracle the morning of the forecast completely turned around. While it was incredibly hot and humid the turnout was fantastic. I am hoping next year will be even better. I've got a few pics I snapped of the Threaded Chains booth that I'll post up within the next few days. :)

Other than that I've been working hard to try and get myself outside on sunny days to take photos of new items both for jewelry and vintage alike. It seems that much like our winter where it snowed almost every day our summer is in store for much the same only with rain. We are in for a humid, muggy summer...or so I hear.

If you haven't stopped by the shop lately please come take a look. A lot of items have been updated with brand new photos. As well new vintage and jewelry items are up. And there is just one week left to get 15% off your vintage item purchases of $10 or more. Be sure to enter promo code Vintage15 at checkout!

Now without further ado here is what I'm listening to this lovely, sunny Monday. :)

One further thing I want to mention is I am currently working on thinking up some things to celebrate Christmas in July which is also fast approaching. Keep your eyes peeled for that as well! :)

Music Mondays - The March 2014 edition!

So last year I wanted to start being more consistent. We all see how well that turned out...haha. Well, last year I shared a musician I really love on a Monday. I thought it would be fun to share someone I like to listen to every Monday or every other thereabout.. So since I'm getting back into this whole blogging thing and seeing how it is once again a Monday, I am going to share with you another band I have come to love.

Nothing fancy but I hope you enjoy it! :)

 Monster by Skillet (Lyric Video)

 Hero by Skillet (Official Music Video)