Spanking New Blog

I just wanted to drop you a quick note to chat about my new blog.  Yes.  Another blog I'll be writing for.  We're up to 3 now, folks.  This new blog is a companion to my Sarandipity website (that's coincidentally undergoing a major facelift with a sprinkling of Botox here and there).  I'll be using the Sarandipity blog to post photos that don't make it into my shop and to make announcements.  Oh, and to host giveaways, weeeee! 

Both the blog and the website are still getting updated and squished around and second coats of paint, but please swing by and let me know what you think!

Ze New Bloggity Blog: 
SarandipitySweets.blogspot.com

Cooking with Sara: Congo Best Friends

I've lovingly dubbed these treats Best Friend Makers.  They're so perfectly yummy without being over the top, that anyone who eats one will be your instant best friend.  And if they don't love them to bits, well, you didn't want them as your best friend in the first place.  

Best Friend Makers on From Blah to Ta-Daa

Brown sugar, coconut, pecans, and white chocolate... Raise your hand if that's on your best friend criteria list!

Birthday Photo Recap



Valentine's flowers and birthday cake, courtesy of Mr. Bo-tacular.





Note to Bo: When you swirl the frosting like that, it makes it super duper easy
for me to steal swipes of it when you're not looking :)



Happy Birthday, Dear Saraaaaaaa.  I totally turned 5 years old this year, guys!

Oh.  Hello.  No, you can't have any of my cake.



Post birthday dinner, posing in front of the Anthropologie store.
That store is my version of heaven.





That Anthro display dress is made out of paper!  It's seriously gorgeous.



 

Keyboard Cake Pops!

My newest shape is a simple square, but it lends itself to a gojillion customizations!

Y?  Because I like you! ;)

Catching Up

Whew!  Where on earth has this week gone?  It certainly wasn't wiled away in my sleep, because I can tell you right now that sleep has been a stranger this this week.  But what have I been up to since last Friday?  Because I love lists so darn much, I'll make one.  Hummm..

I finished a book ("Water for Elephants").
I tried out four new recipes from my new favorite blog (see below).
I made a bunch of cake pops (we're not shocked).
I whipped up Valentine's dinner for Bo chalk (chock?) full of dairy because I'm so nice and loving.
I made a bunch more cake pops.
I whipped up a food blog recipe.
I went running 5 times with Rory - a major accomplishment for me these days.
I finalized design details for a custom necklace - one for me, and one to give away (!!).
I discovered a nondairy, nonsoy "cheese" that's freaking amazing (definitely more to come on that front).
I started a new book ("Born to Run") that's due back at the library in exactly 29 hours. 

Ok, so that blog I love?  I tried out new recipes for cake and frosting from my latest blog obsession, "Can You Stay for Dinner?".  The author's posts are stinking cute (while the photos are stinking beautiful), and I'm pretty sure we were meant to be best friends in some other life.  But the real reason I tried out the recipes last weekend is because I wanted to bake a virtual birthday cake for my fellow food blogger, Mellisa.  (Virtual cake for her, but definitely not virtual for me and my thighs.) 

Mellisa's birthday is tomorrow, yay! 

As I'm sitting here typing, I have to say - putting all those things down as a list makes me feel like this past week has been way more productive than I realized.  I always have a running to-do list in my head, and as soon as I knock one item off, three more wiggle their way on.  Getting it down like that definitely helped me put some perspective on this past crazy week; I need to make a habit of reminding myself of my accomplishments so that I can give myself credit.  I'm fairly aware of my workaholic tendencies, but I rarely see myself as productive because of my exponentially growing to-do list.  I really need to learn to be more proud of myself and not just dismiss items I do accomplish.  Note to self - check!

Oh, and guess what?  Sunday is my birthday... :)

Cooking with Sara: Overnight Oatmeal

It's Thursday!  So, it's my day to cook for the food blog!

Dear Steel Cut Oats,

I love you.  I want to have romantic, cozy breakfasts with you every morning for the rest of my life.  You make my heart all fluttery, and you make my mornings sunshiney and good.

Do you think you might love me back, too?

Forever Your Girl,
sara

Overnight Oatmeal on From Blah to Ta-Daa

Cooking with Sara: Valentine's Sugar Cookies

Those of you who've known me for a long while have seen these cookies up close and in person.  Oh yes, I make them fairly often, and especially for the holidays I have cookie cutters for :)  And then at Christmas, we get all kinds of fancy and sandwich them together with seedless raspberry jam and call them the exceedingly fancy name of "Jam Cookies."  My my, how I love these babies.  Which is 15% of the reason why I'm reposting the recipe today.  The other 85% is that I was way too busy to get a new recipe whipped up this week, and rather than post nothing, I thought I'd drag out my very first Blah post because it's festive and cute and who doesn't love cookies with frosting?  Also?  Cookies and frosting.  There's really nothing more to say.

Valentine's Sugar Cookies on From Blah to Ta-Daa

Clap Your Hands

I'm right smack in the middle of making a jillion and a half Valentine's orders for Sarandipity, so it goes without saying that I'm exhausted, distracted, and muttering about an ouchy back. I tend to listen to tv while I'm in the kitchen, because it helps erase all the song clips that are forever (forever ever) stuck in my head. I listen to everything from "American Pickers" to "Wheel of Fortune" to "The Daily Show" to "Dr. G." But lately, I've been throwing on some music before the fruit punch mixture of tv shows begins. And I've been listening to Sia.

Sia is probably best known for being fairly kooky and for her song, "Breathe Me" - a painfully beautiful song that I'm determined to find the piano music for. But her latest album is actually kinda fun. It's really fun, to be honest. The first handful of songs begin with strange beats or sounds (or both) and then quickly transition to a catchy hook that has me bopping around the kitchen, while covered in cake and dipping chocolate and every kind of sprinkle imaginable.  Her songs definitely contain an element of odd, but I can't help but be happy as I'm slaving away.  And that says a lot.

I've already shipped out 132 cake pops this week, and I still have another 75 to go.  And you can bet that, in my delirium, I'll have Sia on repeat until Bo sighs and begs me to let him turn the tv back on.

 

(Tell me that I'm not the only one who totally sees "Chilly Down" in this video?)

Front Page News

I haven't yet blabbed in my blog about my whopping two minutes of fame, so I'm playing share-n-tell today.  Yes, I realize that many of you saw all of this last week when I posted to twitter and Facebook, using an obscene number of exclammation points.  And if you have already seen all of this, please just nod your head and smile politely, as if I'm the old lady in the house on the corner of your street with crazy hair and a never-ending supply of warm cookies. 

I should apologize for such pride and boastfulness, I really should.  But after having my photos routinely rejected by other "fancier" food sites, this was real boost to my photo-esteem.  I work so, so hard to take photos that are pretty, and it's no easy task in a kitchen with lighting that always casts an ugly shade of orange and gray to my pictures.  Orange and gray casting does not make for appetizing pictures of food.

Most of the time, I smush myself up into the corner of the wall under our dining windows, so that I can use our benches as a "table."  One day, I'll have Bo snap a picture of me sitting on the floor, smashed up against the wall, with half of me under our table, and cursing to high heaven about my large head blocking the wee bit of natural light coming in the window above.  It's the opposite of glamorous.

I got smart and snapped my Strawberries photo in the kitchen window.  Which required me to climb on the counters and balance my knees on the 2" strip of granite at the front of our sink.  And then use the window sill as a balance to steady the wobbling that occured due to my kneecaps perched on that narrow strip of granite.  I may also have cursed a few times.  But I'm thinking it was worth it, for..... this!

This was Saturday's main page on Allrecipes.com:

Feast your eyes on this particular photo, here:

This one:

Submitted by some girl called "skeddy."

Das Bigger Photo:

Cooking with Sara: Stuffed Strawberries

It's Thursday!  So, it's my day to cook for the food blog!

Ohhhhhh yeahhhhhhhhh.  You know you want strawberries and cream cheese now.  With pretty little vanilla bean flecks. You so totally do.

These puppies are super duper yummy, quick to throw together, and taste fancier than they actually are.  And you can sub in lowfat cream cheese or Tofutti to health 'em up however you like.  Or you can pretend that drizzling Dove dark chocolate over them is good for you.  I certainly did.

Stuffed Strawberries on From Blah to Ta-Daa

And while I originally made them for a Valentine's idea to share, I'm now thinking that they'd be really great with just about anything or as a small and light dessert.  Of course, I ate three of them without even blinking, so maybe "small" isn't the best choice of words.  But, you'll forgive me, right?