Diaper Bouquet

Since I'll be away next week, and JoAnne (my office-mate) will be returning from maternity leave the week after, I thought I'd have a "Welcome Back" gift waiting on her desk for her.

It's a diaper bouquet, made from the diapers that were left over from the diaper cake that I made for her baby shower. I saw some on Pinterest, and I thought it would be a good way to (1) welcome her back and (2) use up the rest of the diapers. It would have looked a lot better if I would have remembered to use different colors of tissue paper to simulate greenery and other flowers, but I worked with what I had, and I'll do better the next time I attempt one.

Beef Jerky

Lately, I've been wanting to make beef jerky, and today was the day! I used my American Harvest Snackmaster Elite, which I haven't used in forever, and the American Harvest Original Beef Jerky Spice and Cure that must have come with the dehydrater.

Tom was a complete nay-sayer when I broached the idea with him - he said he probably wouldn't like whatever I made. Boy, was he wrong, we both loved it! The flavor was great - not too much pepper, and just enough salt.

Ashley's Wedding Shower

This morning, at work, we celebrated the upcoming wedding of Ashley. For the breakfast potluck, I made Eggs Benedict and Eggs Florentine. I combined a few different things while putting them together.
I cooked the eggs in the oven in a muffin tin - it wasn't quite as easy as all of the web sites made it seem. The oven was preheated to 250°C. One tablespoon of water was added to each cup of a muffin tin. Eggs were cracked individually into a small bowl, then poured into each cup in the tin. The muffin tin was put in the oven and the eggs were cooked for 12 minutes - an average of the times from different websites that I researched. The tin was removed from the oven, and the eggs were allowed to cool for a few minutes. Using a spoon, the eggs were removed from the muffin tin. Now, they didn't come out of the tin as easily as I had hoped, and they were done more than I wanted, so next time, I would cook them for less time and use a small spatula to loosen them up before taking them out of the cups.
For the Eggs Florentine, I made Speedy Creamed Spinach, a recipe I got from the McCormick website. I've used this creamed spinach recipe for years, so it just seemed logical for the dish.

Speedy Creamed Spinach

Ingredients

• 2 pkgs (10 oz each) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
• 4 oz regular or reduced fat cream cheese, cut into small pieces
• ½ t garlic salt
• ¼ t onion powder
• 1/8 - ¼ t ground nutmeg
• 2 T butter

Directions

1. Thaw the spinach and squeeze dry, reserving the liquid. Add enough water to the liquid to equal ¾ c liquid total.
2. Place a 12-in skillet over medium heat until hot, add cream cheese, spinach liquid, garlic salt, onion powder, and nutmeg. Whisk until melted and completely smooth, about 2 min. Add spinach and stir until well-blended. Cook 3 min or until thoroughly heated, stirring occasionally.
3. Add butter and cook 1 min longer or until butter is completely melted.

For the assembly, I started with English muffins which were split, toasted and buttered. For the Eggs Benedict, the next layer was Canadian Bacon that had been warmed in a skillet, for the Eggs Florentine, about a tablespoon on creamed spinach. The next layer was an egg, and then each was topped with Hollandaise Sauce. For the Hollandaise Sauce, I used the Betty Crocker recipe, which follows:

Hollandaise Sauce

Ingredients

• 3 large egg yolks
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• ½ cup firm butter

Directions

1. In 1 1/2-quart saucepan, vigorously stir egg yolks and lemon juice with wire whisk. Add 1/4 cup of the butter. Heat over very low heat, stirring constantly with wire whisk, until butter is melted.
2. Add remaining 1/4 cup butter. Continue stirring vigorously until butter is melted and sauce is thickened. (Be sure butter melts slowly so eggs have time to cook and thicken sauce without curdling.) If the sauce curdles (mixture begins to separate), add about 1 tablespoon boiling water and beat vigorously with wire whisk or hand beater until it's smooth.
3. Serve immediately. Store covered in refrigerator. To serve refrigerated sauce, reheat over very low heat and stir in a small amount of water.

The sauce was super easy to make, but a little too lemony for my taste. Either way, it worked well for my purposes. The dishes worked out pretty well, but they were overdone, since I assembled them the night before, put them in the refrigerator and reheated them in the oven while I was getting ready for work in the morning. I would definitely make them again, but not do the make-the-night-before thing.

Toga!

I finished my toga!

Tom and I are attending GeoWoodstock in Cincinnati later this month, and one of the activities is a Roman Festival, where 100 trackable medallions will be handed out at random to people who wear togas. After doing some Google image searches, I decided to lean heavily on the idea of a Doric Chiton. With a large tablecloth (for the garment), some curtain tie-backs (as a belt), gold crochet thread (I crocheted a headpiece), two large buttons (on the shoulders) and a sheer cloth remnant (the sash), I think I've come up with something that I can wear proudly. And even if I don't win a medallion, at least I had fun creating the ensemble!