Strawberry Shortcake with Sweet Yogurt-Cream

When I was walking through the Farmer’s Market on Sunday, I passed a stand and was drawn by the sweet scent of strawberries.  Just what I needed to try the recipe I saw on The Pioneer Woman, Mixed Berry Shortcake, except I was going with an all-strawberry version.

But first I want to show you the adorable apricots I got.

These strawberries are pretty big but I don’t think I’ve ever had apricots this tiny! I could have made Strawberry Apricot Shortcake if I hadn’t eaten all the apricots.  They were so sweet and wonderful, I couldn’t resist eating them unadorned.

But today I’m telling you about a yummy Strawberry Shortcake recipe.  It would make a wonderful Mother’s Day dessert.  The only thing is that though  the biscuits were good in the recipe at The Pioneer Woman, I love the Buttermilk Biscuits from Smitten Kitchen even more.

This is a combination of those two recipes, adapted (barely) because I hardly ever use unsalted butter unless I buy it specially, so I made the biscuits with salted butter.   I also found the ratio of biscuit-to-topping in The Pioneer Woman recipe was not as generous as I like. Using the Smitten Kitchen recipe yields fewer biscuits which is more in balance with how I loaded them up with strawberries and Sweet Yogurt-Cream.

This Sweet Yogurt-Cream is what really knocked my socks off.  It doesn’t whip up as stiff as whipped cream but it is silky, rich, but not quite as rich as full whipped cream, tangy and sweet and seems healthy because, for heaven’s sake, it has yogurt in it! Rem said it reminded him of cheesecake when he tasted the whole dessert.  Even if you want to skip the buttermilk biscuits and slice up some pound cake, do try the Sweet Yogurt-Cream.

Strawberry Shortcake with Sweet Yogurt-Cream

(adapted from The Pioneer Woman and Smitten Kitchen)

Ingredients:

BUTTERMILK BISCUITS

Makes 6 Large Biscuits

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tablespoons  sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

9 tablespoons chilled butter, cut into small chunks

3/4 cup  buttermilk

STRAWBERRIES

2 pints strawberries

1/3 cup sugar

zest and juice of 1 small orange

SWEET YOGURT CREAM

1 tub (7 ounces) plain Greek yogurt (I like the regular Fage yogurt, not nonfat)

1 cup cold heavy whipping cream

1/2 cup sugar

2 Tablespoons brown sugar

Directions:

BISCUITS

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cover baking sheet with parchment paper or nonstick spray.

Put dry ingredients in the bowl of a food processor (or in a large mixing bowl).  Add butter and pulse until butter is cut into the flour and mixture resembles coarse cornmeal (if mixing by hand you can use a pastry cutter for this step or your fingers and rub butter into the flour – as above).

While pulsing processor (or stirring), slowly add buttermilk just until mixture barely comes together.

Turn onto counter and knead together a few times until dough holds together and is no longer crumbly.

Drop by 1/4 cup onto baking sheet, 2 inches apart.

Bake until golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes.

Confession: I over-mixed my biscuits.  Don’t be like me.  They were still delicious.

STRAWBERRIES

Wash, stem and slice strawberries and put in a bowl.

Add sugar, orange zest and orange juice and stir.

Let macerate for 15 to 30 minutes until juicy.

SWEET YOGURT-CREAM

In a large mixing bowl, combine yogurt, heavy whipping cream and sugars and whip with mixer until stiff, though it won’t be as stiff as regular whipped cream.

You can split the biscuits or just pile the sliced berries on top and dollop on the cream.  Now doesn’t that look good? And, by the way, this is delicious for breakfast.

Thanks for the visit.

More for Mom

Here are a few more ideas for Mother’s Day from past posts.

A beautiful, rose-covered Mother’s Day Hat Card.  The tutorial has lots of pictures, directions for making the swirled paper roses and a template for the hat card.

Last year, I made a Mother’s Day Butterfly Card: a bouquet of stamped and cut out flowers with a vellum butterfly embellishment.

A Glass Tile Pendant would make a pretty gift.  Consider a photo in place of decorative paper used in this project.

Speaking of  a photo, these Glass Marble Magnets use just that – and what mom (or grandma) wouldn’t enjoy a set of magnets for the fridge with photos of her kids or grandkids?

The classic Mother’s Day treat is breakfast in bed.  In bed or at the table, these Buttermilk Lace Pancakes are beautiful and delicious.

If Mom wants to sleep in on her day, she should be allowed that luxury.  Serve her Baked Feta with Greens and Avocado Salad for lunch instead of breakfast.

Thick, Chewy Granola Bars are easy to make and would be a nice make-ahead for either breakfast or a treat later in the day.  A flexible recipe means lots of yummy possibilities when making these oat bars, loaded with dried fruit and nuts.

Thank you for stopping by.

Watercolor Heart Card for Mom

It’s May and Mother’s Day will be here before you know it – Sunday, May 12, to be specific.

Here is a beautiful card you can make for mom, that looks harder than it really is.  I was inspired by this stunning card  at oh so very pretty, complete with intricate calligraphy, but knew my version would be a little simpler.

With the right tools and tips, you can make one too!  It isn’t just for Mother’s Day either -  I’ve already done a version of this card for a retirement and a birthday and I think it would be perfect for a wedding.

Supplies:

Watercolor Paints or Watercolor Crayons like the awesome Neocolor II Water-soluble wax pastel by Caran d’Arche.  You can buy individual crayons at art supply stores.

Brushes

Watercolor Paper

White Ink Pen  – mine is the Uni-Ball White Gel Pen and the label says it is pigment ink

Colored Card Stock to complete the card

Scrap Paper for making a template

Scissors

Adhesive I like Tombow mono adhesive

Paper Trimmer (optional)

Heat Tool (optional) This makes drying time really short, but if you have more patience then me, you can still make this without a heat tool.

Directions:

Determine the size of your card.  I often use a half-sheet of 8.5 x 11 inch paper, scored and folded in half to make a 4.25 x 5.5 inch card.

I actually just started with my white watercolor paper and painted the heart then built a card using that.  But my card is not a standard size and I will need to make an envelope to match.  So it might be easier if you start with the card.

Determine the size of your watercolor paper piece for the card front.  If using a 4.25 x 5.5 inch card, a piece that is 3.5 x 4.5 will work well.

Cut a heart out of a piece of paper, creating a heart-shaped template for your card front.

I recommend painting more than one heart on separate pieces of watercolor paper, because in addition to being fun and very satisfying to make, the results are lovely and work beautifully for other occasions.

If you DO make want to paint more than one heart, it’s really a good idea to make a new template for each one.  The edges of the template get wet and painty and it is very easy to smear the edge of a second heart since your template already has paint on it.  Take it from me.

Put a few dabs of the mono adhesive around the backside of your template – I put one at the v in the center and at the point of the heart at the bottom plus a few around the edges.

Center the template on your piece of white watercolor paper, tapping gently to adhere it but don’t press too hard because you want to pull it off when you’re done.

Now use your watercolor paint or watercolor crayons and fill the heart with color.  I love the rich pigment of the watercolor crayons – it isn’t really obvious until you add some water.

You can scribble bands of different color than go back with a wet paintbrush and paint it over the crayon.

I experimented with different brushes and color combinations.

Watercolor paints work very well too – I swirl water into one color until my brush is loaded then I paint overlapping bands of different colors.  I think it looks best using analogous colors so it doesn’t end up getting muddy.

I was having so much fun, I decided to try some small hearts.  I used a heart-shaped punch for the template.

I painted a row of hearts and then cut the heavy paper into individual little cards.

But I’ve gotten off track.  These next steps are very important: when you finish painting, carefully lift off the template. If the edge of the painted heart is a little uneven, you can use a small brush and a little paint to even things out.  On the other hand, I think the raw edge of paint adds to the finished project.

Now let the paint dry.  This is really important.  If you have a heat tool, you can use that to dry the paint.  If your watercolor paper is really wet, be cautious how you aim the heat tool so you don’t end up spraying paint around.  Just keep moving the heat tool around until the paint is dry.  I found the paper started to curl so after awhile I flipped it over and heated the back.

If you don’t have a heat tool, you will need to use your patience.  If you try and write with the white pen on the heart, and your watercolor is still a bit damp, you won’t end up with white ink.  So be sure the paint is dry.

Now is a good time to rub off any bits of adhesive that were left behind from the template.  I have a little rubber square for this purpose, but a clean fingertip will do the job too.

Use the white pen to write a sentiment on the heart.  Go slow and easy.

I found that even when the paint is dry, the pen tip scratches into the watercolor and needs to be wiped off.  Having a paper towel handy made it easy to wipe the tip of the pen.  Other times I scribbled onto scratch paper which helped to keep the white ink flowing. With most of the blue paints I was happier when I wrote over the letters a second time so they looked white and not light blue.

My hand-writing isn’t the best so I referred to a sheet I printed showing a font and used that as a guide.  This is called the Vimala Alphabet and I found it in the quirky yet fascinating book Your Handwriting Can Change Your Life  by Vimala Rodgers.  That is another project that so far hasn’t really gotten off the ground for me.  If nothing else, it is an interesting font.

Let the white ink dry then trim the piece of watercolor paper to the size you want.  If desired, you can paint on “Dianne Dots” a little row of three dots.  For this I made a template using a small hole punch and painted the dots to the right of the heart.  Again, lift off the template and let the paint dry (or help it along with the heat tool) before proceeding..

Cut card stock for the card and another color for a layer and adhere the watercolor to the layer and adhere that layer to the front of the card.  Keep the watercolor theme going, and take a small brush and use paint to paint a message on the inside of the card.  I pasted a piece of white watercolor paper inside for this purpose.

Scribble with the watercolor crayons onto scratch paper to make a little palette. Swirl a wet brush through it and pick up the pigment to paint the greeting on the inside of the card.

Here is another card I made using the same technique.

I think the sentiment written in white ink looks as if the white paper is showing through the painted heart.

Even without any text, the watercolor heart is beautiful.

I don’t even know how old I was when I first put brush to paint, but my mom was almost certainly the one who washed my blue and purple fingers when I was finished.  Happy Mother’s Day, Mom, with lots of love.

Thanks for the visit.

San Francisco Ferry Getaway

It was Spring Break this past week at the community college where I work, so students and faculty were off, but the campus was still open and the staff were still at work.  Until Friday.  After four quiet days of catching up on undone tasks including typing evaluation comments, filing a towering pile of paper and reorganizing my filing system, I decided to enjoy a vacation day.

I’ve been wanting to take the Larkspur Ferry to San Francisco and wander the shops in the Ferry Building Marketplace, and Rem was game.  It was a beautiful, sunny day and it was so nice being off work on a week day, I enjoyed it all the more.  Hooray for last minute days off!

Our destination, the Ferry Building Marketplace, is a beautifully renovated, landmark building with lots of little shops, cafes and restaurants with a major focus on food, plus beautiful and useful things for the home and garden.

First stop, Sur La Table, where I saw these little cake stands, or maybe cupcake stands.  They were very sweet and also very small.

I love the artwork on this tin of Merula olive oil from Spain.

I admit, I wouldn’t have known that Pioppini and Nameko were mushrooms.  They are only two of the many, many mushrooms we saw at Far West Fungi.

A beautiful set of nesting bowls made from olive wood was only one of the many items  at The Gardener that I would be delighted to have in our home.

You can pick up a cute little knit critter.

Or a book on how to knit your own.

We already have our own little dog, LLP (Little Little Pup), which is good since I don’t knit.  He came along on our adventure and met a small crocodile.

Succulents – I like their pretty soft greens and purples.

The high ceiling of the Marketplace is topped with skylights.  A few pigeons have wandered in and made themselves at home, adding to the Farmer’s Market feeling.

We sat outside on the esplanade to eat our lunch, overlooking a docked ferry and the Bay Bridge.

My spring rolls and peanut sauce were from Out the Door, the take-out counter for the Slanted Door restaurant.

Rem enjoyed a hot BBQ Pulled-Beef sandwich from Golden Gate Meat Company.  We went back later and bought some steak to bring home and grill.

I could have done more shopping but I didn’t want to schlep it all home on the ferry.

Bright, colorful produce at Farm Fresh to You.

Pretty shopping bags caught my eye.

As did this striped and ruffled pasta at Village Market.

After more strolling we stopped at Gott’s Roadside for a cup of soft serve vanilla ice cream to share.

Back outside into the sunshine, this time we sat on the street side of the building to people watch.

I enjoyed the line of pedicab drivers as they hustled to get customers.  These two were at the end of the line.

We made a relaxed visit to Book Passage where I picked up one new and one used book.  The new one is An Everlasting Meal, Cooking with Economy and Grace by Tamar Adler.  What an appealing title.  The used one is Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes, a book I loved and read several times included while on a trip to Italy that was inspired, in part, by the book.

I lost my well-thumbed copy and hadn’t thought of getting another until I saw this one. I started reading it right away while sitting on a bench in the marketplace.  It was like sitting down with an old friend.

Soon enough it was time to board the return ferry and head home.  I went out on the deck and took one more shot of the building as we departed.

We had a splendid day!

A day like that reminds me how lucky we are to live where we do.   I am grateful.

Thanks for coming by for a visit.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Shamrocks, Sea Ranch, March 2011

Daffodil, Filoli, Spring 2012

Irish Soda Bread (recipe here)

Fennel Fruit Juice (recipe here)

Emerald City Salad (recipe here)

I’ve been humming this Irish Blessing in my head today and send it out to all of you and your loved ones:

May the road rise up to meet you.

May the wind be always at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face.

And may the rain fall soft upon your fields.

Thank you for the visit.

Valentine Recipe’s

Here are a few recipes from past posts that would be lovely for Valentine’s Day.

Icebox Cupcakes: stack chocolate wafer cookies with whipped cream, garnish with raspberries and mint leaves, chill, serve.

These are more involved, but the results are worth it.  Mocha Guinness Cupcakes combine a moist chocolate cupcake from batter that includes cocoa powder and Guinness, filled with semi-sweet chocolate ganache and topped with coffee buttercream.  Swoon.

Breakfast in bed is an idea and these Muffin Cup Quiche can be made ahead and reheated. They’re also nice for supper with a salad.

This pretty Buttermilk Lace Pancake is just made for Valentine’s Day.  Delicious buttermilk batter is swirled into the pan from a squeeze bottle.

Thanks for stopping by.

Valentines Inspired By…

The other day I followed a link on a friend’s Facebook page and found A Bit East-Coast, a blog by Keisha Campbell.  She had posted about having the flu and starting to make valentines.  As I’m still struggling with a bad cold and starting to make my valentines, I felt a kinship.

Actually, it was the cards that got me first.  Her photography is lovely and I was really inspired by her color scheme (grey, pink, & red with gold & silver accents) and love her designs.  I immediately started looking through my paper for grey and pink but decided I didn’t want to use red so found some turquoise and a little brown, with pink and grey as my primary colors.  I LOVE how these colors look together and like how the grey keeps the pink from looking too sweet.

I also pulled out my embossing powder because the sentiments embossed in gold looked so stunning on Keisha’s cards.  Instead of my usual card stock I found a pad of Strathmore heavy weight water color paper tucked beside my desk and collected some other embellishments and tools.  I cut the cards from the water color paper and I’m really pleased with how the heavy, textured, white paper works as a base for many of these cards.

So: first inspiration: Keisha Campbell of A Bit East-Coast.

I thought of Pinterest and decided to look through things I’d pinned.  I don’t often make the jump from pinning to actually making the things I’ve pinned.  But I loved how the first card turned out and liked getting away from my usual methods, so off to Pinterest I went.

This cute card by Kristina Werner (her blog is K Werner Design Blog) inspired this valentine.  I didn’t have the computer at my crafting desk so when I looked back at the picture I see how she raised the top layer with the heart cut-out, so I’ll try that when I make another one of these cards.

On my first go-round I punched my heart through both the top layer and the card front and then realized I only needed to have the heart punched out of the top layer!  Doh.  Oh, well.  I made it work.

This beautiful scalloped card on Pinterest linked me to Flickr and cheironbrandon’s Photostream.  The card uses lots of different paper and a circle punch with all the little circles layered like shingles or fish scales.  She has lots of other great cards pictured on her Flickr site.  I put on the bottom row and trimmed around the edge of the circles but decided on the next card I’ll try putting the circles down off the bottom edge – seems easier than trimming around them.

Another idea from my pins on Pinterest is this dry embossed little heart.  I followed the link and read the great tutorial by Arrounna at Bookhou at Home.
I followed her excellent directions but punched the heart with a small punch rather than cutting it with a craft knife.  I recycled a piece of a cereal box, punched out the heart than used my bone folder to dry emboss the heart onto the card. Check out her tutorial, her site and her shop.

I love how all the white space with the one little heart balances the busy collage tag.  I wrote about the tags here.

Here is my little template for making the dry embossed heart.

Hold the template and your card up to a lamp or window to get the heart aligned where you want it.

Here is the resulting heart close up.

Further inspiration was right at home.  Rem and I have a folding screen that I use to display cards we’ve received (or given each other).  It had been collecting cards (and quite a thick layer of dust) for some time. Dusting it and winnowing down the collection, I saw one of my favorite valentines came from my friend and fellow crafter, Jean.  The screen looks much better now, and we have room for new cards.

Here is the card I made (on the left) inspired by Jean’s valentine.  I love all the details her original has: the tiny circle tag with silver border hanging on the thread, the little red safety pin and the scrap of paper it’s pinned to.  I used a few staples, some washi tape, and added Dianne Dots as an embellishment.  I didn’t have the large heart stamp, so I copied the swooping design freehand.  I’m delighted with the results.

One last inspiration for this post, but this didn’t result in a card.  Instead it was a little tip that I love and have been using since.  I recently crafted with my sister Kathleen and her friend Michelle.  Michelle creates beautiful Art Journals (more on that in a future post) and she showed me something that seems to obvious and you all probably are doing it and I’m the last to know.  She uses an open magazine to work on.  As soon as her work surface gets wet or sticky with paint or glue, she simply turns to a fresh page!

Like this…

I’m constantly sticking part of my project upside down into some adhesive and this way I just turn the page and I have a clean surface to work on.  A friend passes the New Yorker on to me and I like how the slim magazine lies open (of course I read them first).  Inspirational!

I have more Pinterest ideas to try, like this and this and this too, and a month to go before Valentine’s Day is here.

I hope you have found this inspiring.  Thanks for stopping by.

13 Valentine Craft Ideas

For 2013, here are 13 valentine card and craft ideas from past posts. I also have new projects in the works, so stay tuned.

Fluttering Hearts Valentine Card. Double layered hearts adds dimension to this valentine.

Heart Strings. I love how these move in the slightest breeze. I used vintage sheet music to make them.

Crayon Hearts  – chunky and colorful, these hearts are a great way to use up old, broken crayons.

Alphabet Valentine

Decoupage Map Heart in Art From The Heart II post.

Punched Heart Garland with Vintage Paper. One of my first Pinterest-inspired projects.

Doodle Heart Background – add a poem or quote of your choice, a sentimental message or simply “Be Mine”.  This is an easy project.

My very first valentine post, this Paper Strip Heart Valentine is still a favorite.

Itty Bitty Banners – these are a great embellishment for a card and would be adorable as a little pennant for a cupcake.

Warm, fuzzy Felted Heart Garland.

Masterboard Valentine’s Tags – this is a method for making multiple tags (or card fronts) in a short time.

Itty Bitty Valentine’s – little cards with the same double-heart design as the Fluttering Hearts Valentine’s.

Crayon Wax Paper Hearts – just like you made when you were a kid.  If you haven’t made these before, you should give them a try now.

Happy Crafting!  Thanks for stopping by.

Day 24: Buttermilk Lace Pancakes

This post has a recipe for delicious buttermilk pancakes from Noreen at Picture the Recipe.  You can make these in the traditional round pancake shape or follow the technique also shown on Picture the Recipe (and plenty of other sites) and make them into lace pancakes.  The technique would work with other pancake batter (including Bisquick) but this recipe makes such good pancakes, I recommend using it.

I made these in our new pan from Ikea but it would be easier making them on a griddle.  The edge of the pan made flipping them a little bit tricky.

Once you make up the pancake batter…

Pour it into a squeeze bottle.

Spoon the batter into a glass measuring cup and then pour it into the bottle.  It is thick batter so I ended up with some on the outside of the bottle but it was easy to scrape back into the bowl.  I cut off a little bit of the tip of my squeeze bottle so the hole would be larger for the batter to come out.  Other sites suggest putting the batter into a large Ziploc bag and, after squeezing out excess air and zipping the bag closed, snipping a small hole from one corner.  I haven’t done that and imagine it would be a little more difficult to control than a squeeze bottle, but I think it would work.

Set the temperature for your burner or griddle on medium-high heat.

Update: I read on Not Martha, on her great post about making Flower Pancakes, to turn the heat down a notch to allow time to draw the batter into a fancy shape.  Great tip!

Once your pan is hot, spray it with nonstick spray and squeeze your design out onto the pan or griddle.  Do the outline first and any dots or frills around the edge, than add loops, flowers, squiggles, lines or zigzags to fill in the rest of the space, making sure you have all the parts of a particular pancake connected with lines of batter for structural integrity.

Carefully flip your lace pancake and brown the other side. Serve with fresh fruit, syrup, powdered sugar or whatever toppings you like.

We had them for Sunday Lunch but they would be wonderful for a romantic Valentine’s Day breakfast or a pretty Mother’s Day treat.

Buttermilk Lace Pancakes

Adapted from Picture the Recipe

Combine dry ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

5 Tbsp. sugar

In a separate bowl combine wet ingredients:

2 eggs

2 cups buttermilk

5 Tbsp. melted butter

Pour the dry ingredients in with the wet ingredients and combine but don’t over mix.  There should be some lumps in the batter.   Cook on griddle over medium high heat.  Spray griddle with nonstick spray before pouring batter.  A 1/4 cup measuring cup is a good scoop if you are cooking traditional, round pancakes.  Cook until top has bubbled and bubbles have popped, flip the cakes and cook the other side until golden brown.  Serve and enjoy.

Fresh fruit from the Farmer’s Market made a delicious topping, dusted with powdered sugar.

I had a break for project #24 last year: Gnome made some cute file folders out of old calendar pages.

Thanks for the visit.

Day 17: Chocolate Bowl – Fail!

The theme for today’s 30 Days of Creativity project was “Pop”.  I’d originally planned to make Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake Pops over two days but the weather was too hot for baking a cake, the first step.  I looked at my list of possible creations and saw the chocolate bowls made from dipping small balloons into melted chocolate.  That sounded good and would fit the theme well enough since you use balloons and pop them after making the bowls.

After my Magic Shell Chocolate Sauce wasn’t so magical, I don’t know why I still wanted some kind of chocolate shell, but this looked pretty straightforward…and I do love chocolate.  Which is how I ended up with chocolate in my hair.

The idea is to blow up small, round balloons, spray them with non-stick spray, dip them in melted candy melts and let the chocolate set.  Pop the balloon and gently peel it away from the resulting chocolate bowl.  I saw it on Can’t Stop Making Things and marked it for a future attempt.  Attempt Failed!

Maybe my balloons were of poor quality.  I coated them with nonstick spray after blowing up.  Mine were more pear shaped but I was only going to dip the bottom.  The chocolate candy melts were melted and I’d cooled them off before dipping.  I dipped and pop!

It looked slightly gruesome.  Chocolate splattered across the kitchen, up on the walls, down on the floor.  It was a mess.

Rem and I agreed I was done with my creation for the day.  I had failed at my chocolate bowl making attempt but succeeded at defining the word pop!

He helped me scrape and wipe and sponge chocolate off of the stove, the sink, the floor, the walls, the cupboard doors and off of me.  I changed clothes.  And ate a bowl of mint chip ice cream.  I drizzled some of the remaining melted chocolate over it.

Last year on Day 17 I did a photo montage in San Francisco’s North Beach.

Another definition for the word pop is dad or father.  Today was my first Father’s Day without my dad.  A friend suggested doing something he enjoyed.  I went to Rodeo Beach with Molly.

Now I have to scrub the chocolate off of my clothes and take a shower.

Thank you for your visit.