Riot and Frolic

The Chair and Other Nifty Gifties

August 13, 2011

My friends are neat. Not only has everyone and their mother (quite seriously, I've gotten a bunch of everyone's mothers) wished us good tidings on the new bairn (look it up; we don't live on a farm), but they bring us neat stuff, too!

Gah! Look at it! It's so pretty!

I've been wanting a wood high chair forever and guess what? My bestie found this ultra-fab old-school high chair at an antique store up by her fam's cabin, so she nabbed it, chucked it in her car and hauled it down here for me. She is really only lending it to me until she has some little babes of her own, but who needs a high chair after your kids are grown anyhow?

It's even better than I could imagine because of some sort of "oxidized wood" that's involved that makes it even cooler to… wood nerds. And the metal tray is sweet. And the tray swings all the way around to the back of the chair, just in case you need the tray behind your child and upside down. So cool.

Besides that nifty gifty, the bestie also made this cute wall hanging…

Fabric flowers and buttons? I approve!

It seems my pals were all about helping me decorate the ladies' rooms, because my other friend, America, (who claims she doesn't have a crafty skill up her sleeve) (who also brought us dinner, so extra props) made these awesome pillows for the oldest babes…

So cute! Oooo, I do see a problem here for the future, though. The first two Bratt ladies have nouns for names and #3 does not. We could go for meaning, but "war-like" might not look so good embroidered on a pillow. But who knows!

Me ma also made a really cute bumblebee dress for V (to which she says, "it's not a Transformer, but it has a bumblebee on it"- the G is so proud), but I'll get a picture of that later.

In any case, thanks to all you crazy folks for all your congratulations and well wishes on the new family member. And whoever is new to the blog, and it seems as if there are a lot of you, hello! Nice to see you!
The Pinterest Project- It’s Like A Puzzle, But It Isn’t

August 12, 2011

This week's project is Saltine Cracker Toffee from The Girl Who Ate Everything. What isn't to love about the idea of it? I love Heath Bars; it's a salty-sweet treat; it has four ingredients; little ladies can help make it; it's quick to make. And look at it!

So, if you click on the recipe name above, you'll find the recipe and some really lovely pictures of the process. The Girl Who Ate Everything writes a delicious blog with lots of good treats and foods on it. I highly recommend you checking it out.

Anyhoo, you get a cup each of butter and brown sugar, 2 cups of chocolate chips (I did 1 cup of chocolate and 1 cup of butterscotch chips and I swear it's the only way I didn't exactly follow the recipe) and a bunch of saltines. You also get a three year old to help you. I can lend you one.

Put the saltines on a cookie sheet in a single layer. I now can recommend that you use one of those cookie sheets with sides, like you see here. I'll get to why later.

Now is when I teach my lady about "rows" and she tells me "it's like a puzzle, but it's not." She is very wise.

Boil the brown sugar and butter for 3 minutes. I might go longer than that next time, just to make sure the sugar is completely melted and the mixture will get nice and hard when it cools off.

The following is my "lesson learned" in the kitchen:

If you melt chocolate chips too fast, they get… not gooey.

To make the chocolate topping, I decided to melt the chips in a pan, since it was already dirty, instead of sprinkling them on top of the toffee and letting them melt. 'Cause that would be easier, right?

Well, duh, the pan was very hot from the butter and sugar mixture and I dumped the chips in to melt them and they got all, dense, or something. I really didn't know this was a thing, but guess who did? Yes, the G. He has magical knowledge sometimes.

After you pour and spread the toffee goo on your saltines, you pop that in the oven for 5 or 6 minutes at 400 degrees. It bubbles up pretty good, which is why I recommend a pan with edges. Elsewise, you'll be checking out that "self-cleaning" feature on your oven pretty soon. Be vewy careful taking it out of the oven. (You were supposed to use your best Elmer Fudd voice there. Did you? No? Go back and read it again!)

Hopefully you don't have to goop on your chocolate, but here's mine.

Just because, I also sprinkled some chippies on top and let them melt. That worked well, just so you know. (Fascinating; the recipe as written works great!)

This morning, I was most curious to see how these bad boys were going to come out of the pan. I cracked them out fairly easily. Once again, had I boiled the toffee a bit longer, I think they'd be crispier and would have come out a bit easier.

They weren't exactly pretty, but a monster stopped by the kitchen and said they were delish.

In conclusion! I will definitely be making these for years to come and bringing them to all sorts of events and situations so I can lull people into a sugar coma and make them do my bidding.

GAH! I have forgotten to post the winner's from the Pinterest Project's Flowers (Doilies) week:

Stephanie Griffith and JeDiane9, please email me your mailing addresses and you will receive your magical (not guaranteed) coasters in about a week! riotandfrolic@gmail.com

Thanks for entering, everybody!
Can’t Name This Post

August 9, 2011

As promised, but a day late, is the most-wanted recipe for the Fabulous Fudge Bars from the St. Paul bakery, Bread & Chocolate. I'm having a hard time naming this post since I've had other naming responsibilities this week…

This picture does not do it justice. Nothing can do it justice but a huge glass of milk and a fork. Yeah. A fork. It was voted one of the top 100 dishes in the Twin Cities by City Pages newspaper. Another fun fact? They used to be called, politically incorrectly, "suicide bars," but clearly, they thought that one out a bit since.

This was printed in the Pioneer Press newspaper a couple days ago. I actually copied this whole recipe from the newspaper, and then discovered it's on their website. *Sigh.*

BREAD & CHOCOLATE'S FABULOUS FUDGE BARS

Ingredients:

– 1 cup (2 sticks) butter

– 2 cups brown sugar

– 2 eggs

– 4 cups old-fashioned oatmeal

– 2 cups flour

– 2 teaspoons baking soda

– 1 teaspoon salt

Filling:

– 3 tablespoons butter

– 1 can (about 14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk

– 2 cups good-quality semisweet chocolate

– 1 cup pecans

– 1 teaspoon vanilla

To prepare oven: Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

To make dough: In large bowl, beat butter and brown sugar, scraping bowl as necessary. Beat in eggs. In another bowl, combine oatmeal, flour, baking soda and salt. Stir well to combine. Add oat mixture all at once to egg mixture. Mix until combined, scraping bowl.

To make fudge filling: In saucepan over low heat, combine butter and sweetened condensed milk. Cook over low heat, stirring carefully to avoid scorching, until butter melts. Add chocolate, pecans and vanilla. Remove from heat.

To assemble and bake: Press one-third of dough on bottom of 9-by-13-inch pan. Top with fudge filling. Crumble remaining oat mixture on top. Bake for 15 minutes. Reverse pan. Bake for 15 minutes or until top is slightly golden.

Eat.

Oh, why is this a day late?

This little girl wanted to escape, finally. She says hi. Welcome to the world, little Z!

Thanks to all you wonders who wished me luck and prayers and witty comments over the last couple days. You're all nuts. Mwah! And thanks to all the crazy-awesome nurses and midwives at St. Joseph's Hospital. Wow, you ladies are amazing.
List of Last Week’s Labors of Love

August 7, 2011

– actual labor. Well, sort of.

I'm 42 weeks pregnant (hello, 10 and a half months!), so I'm in the process of being induced. So, I'm chillin' with some monitors and doing some crochet. Also watching, simutaneously, Wanted with James McAvoy and She's the Man with Amanda Bynes. Such a great combo!

James McAvoy is amazing. I didn't know he was Scottish until I saw him in an interview and I couldn't understand a word he was saying. Totally thought he was American or even English until then. Love him.

– a very happy birthday girl. She fell asleep at the table eating dinner and I couldn't resist her curled-up, dirty, little toes.

– one birthday party. Three melons, one melon-baller. One plate full of delicious caprese salad skewers. With proscuitto. And tortellini. I'm just sayin'. I did pretty well throwing together a party I didn't think I would be at.

– a blue birthday cake. In the store, we ask V, "What kind of cake do you want- chocolate, white, or yellow?" "I want blue." Of course. Good choice. Enter food coloring. I was a little sad since the G actually made the cake and got to do the food coloring, but the end result reminded me of the Cookie Monster for some reason, so I was happy. V loved it.

– lots of new patterns in crochet to while away the hours.

– a few fluffy hair pieces. V actually let me take her picture!

– a challenge. Check out the link and vote for #37 "Headgear for Pregnant Ladies."
Headgear

August 5, 2011

Earlier this week, I told you about the headband challenge that was going on over at Little Miss Momma. I was on it. What else am I going to do while waiting for this baby but put on some sassy headbands and head out on the town?

Well, I do a lot of this…

So, this little project was just what I needed.

Here's the results of the challenge:

I possibly feel more ballsy wearing my huge headbands right now because I know people are more concerned about my ginormous midsection exploding and not my headgear. I might have to try this again when I have smaller proportions.

The headbands I have bought over the years are not subtle.

I basically always wear my hair up, so I was surprised when Ashley at LMM said she tried the headband/ponytail for the first time during the challenge. How do you ladies wear your hair down? It is a skill that is lost on me.

Taking self-portraits is not my favorite thing.

The first day was Church Day, AKA Sunday. I felt sassier than usual in our quite-conservative church. Big flower. Big… Never mind.

Next day was Clean Hair Day, which doesn't happen very often. Celebrated with jewels!

I broke down and made my own. So fun. So huge.

I love the flowers/hair-up combo for summer. Does this count as a headband?

Sleepy face; early morning run to Target with my fancy feathers.

Bringin' out the big guns. Felt like I should be going to a ballroom and dancing the Charleston.

The Alice in Wonderland band. V loves this one and keeps stealing it from where ever I put it down when it starts causing a headache.

I am loving the hair-holding capabilities of these doodads and am going to wear them more often. I had a growing-out-my-hair streak a couple years ago where I'm pretty sure I wore one everyday.

I'm linking up to Little Miss Momma on this final day of the challenge and you can join too by clicking here. I wouldn't mind if you visited that link and voted for my post. I called it "Headgear for Pregnant Ladies" and if I get a bunch of votes, I could get featured on her site. Neat!

Questions:

Do you wear headbands?

Do you get headaches from headbands? I have stretched out a couple of the metal type ones on purpose, often to no avail. Any tips?

Have you found any elastic-type headbands that stay in place? I have a pretty good one from Lucy, but it's the only one I found that sticks around through a run.

Oooo, running. Miss you. Odd.
It’s Not Dancetastic

August 5, 2011

Today is usually "dancetastic" day, but I cannot think of a thing to write on the subject. It must be because I'm out of the game. Two weeks and suddenly I'm lacking an opinion on something which I usually love to opine? Maybe I should have this baby, so I can get opiniated again… *crickets chirping…*

I will try to satiate you with a photo.

Old school, yo. This was 2007 at Minnesota Madness. [Thanks for the pic, Sandra Colson!] This is what smooth dancing looks like when done by a rhythm dancer. Nice turnout.

Okay, enough self-deprecation!

Exciting things today…

I found the Milwaukee Avenue neighborhood. I know, that means nothing to you. Ten years ago or so, my bro-ski took my folks and I on an outing to this really cool old neighborhood lined with railroad houses. The houses don't face a street, but a sweet sidewalky-boulevardy thing. No cars! So pretty! So quaint!

I found it again about five years after that, but this street seemed to be in a wormhole or something. I would stumble upon it, but I could never find it on purpose. It was elusive. Mysterious. Cagey, even. All I could ever remember was that it was off Franklin Avenue (if you're not a Twin Citian, that reference doesn't help much, but Franklin runs pretty much all the way between the fantastic Minneapolis and St.Paul areas).

Well, I was hot and the girls were sleepy, so we went a-drivin' in the A/C'ed car. I decided I was going to find that place if it took all afternoon. It didn't take that long.

We went for a "walkie."

Mae Cake was amused by the little train-themed playground. And the construction boys.

See? Sidewalk! No street! It was once called 22 1/2 Avenue, which amuses me.

It was a lovely day for a walk.

Except for the monster mosquitoes (not pictured).

We collected lots of sticks and leaves. Because we needed to sweep. (V really likes to clean. She is not pictured here because she "cannot be bothered with pictures." True story.)

This tree looked as if it was eating this house. *NOM!*

A neighborhood cat wandered by. V went to go see it. Mae Cake went to attack it.

Kitty smartly hid under a bush from crazy, small-animal-loving small child.

Good times. Pretty houses. Happy ladies.

Also exciting, our nice neighbor who owns a couple turtles delivered us a free newspaper and in that newspaper happened to be the recipe for Bread & Chocolate's Fabulous Fudge Bar, of which I just delighted in yesterday! EEEEEEEE! Seriously delicious treat here, people. Guess what's hittin' the blog on Monday?… The recipe.

[Source: Anne Rucker]

Other thing to get excited about today?

This…

[Source: VMan #18 by Inez & Vinoodh, Summer 2010]
The Pinterest Project- Experiment Cookin’

August 4, 2011

This week- make your own glitter.

Really? Neat!

The first time I saw this, I said, "No way! That is so cool!" But then I thought about it. Isn't glitter punched out of super-thin sheets of colored metal? Why yes, says Wikipedia:

"Glitter describes an assortment of very small (roughly 1 mm²) pieces of copolymer plastics, aluminum foil, titanium dioxide, iron oxides, bismuth oxycholride or other materials painted in metallic, neon and iridescent colors to reflect light in a sparkling spectrum."

Hmmm… I'm suspicious of this project. Supposedly, you mix salt and food coloring together, bake it, and it becomes glitter. Okaaaaaayyyy…

This is glitter.

This is not.

Pinterest Project=

Here's the dealio:

Pour some salt in a bowl and add a couple drops of food coloring. Stir. Preferrably by a sweaty toddler being watched by her crabby sister.

It looks really cool once mixed. Spread it out on a baking sheet.

Put it in an oven at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Crabby sister is intrigued.

This is what appeared. Um, it's blue salt. It's about as sparkly as a vampire.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Plus, when I used this "glitter" with some glue, it turned into wet, blue salt.

Speaking of fails:

The bar-soap-to-liquid-soap experiment is not my fav. Maybe if I'd followed the directions, I would be happier about it. As it stands, I either have soapy water or supersaturated bar soap in a bottle. It's a mystery every time I take a shower! Fun! Sadly, I'll probably try it again.

Okay, you all actually read the directions (who does that?) for Special K Bars and noticed that there are butterscotch chips in them. After I had you convinced that there was nothing "scotch"-y about them, I understand you are confused. But the butterscotch is not IN them, it's ON them. It's like calling a cake "a chocolate cake" because it has chocolate frosting on it, even though it's white cake. Yeah? What's up? Still the winner! Woop woop!
Bow Down!

August 3, 2011

Now, the fun part of today's title is you can either read it as "bow down" [as you would to royalty] or "bow down" [as in that hair bow you made just fell on the floor]. Ooh, you crazy homonyms.

Whew, now that I've gotten that nerdiness of my system (for now- bwahahaha!), I will move on to my nifty how-I-made-that-thing, as promised. Today, it is for the swanky hair doodad I crafted.

Really great picture, I know.

*Warning* All the pictures in this post were taken in the wee, small hours of the morning in my badly-lit dining room… They are not great.

THE GREAT HAIR BOW: vague instructions

Anyhow, I crocheted a flower. Really, any flower will do. I will, someday, write up a how-I-made-that-thing for the flower, but not now. Still, short attention span for me.

Then, I got out my new fun-time project, the covered button kit.

I also got out my fav old jammie shirt (read: pajama top, not shirt full of preserves), which has a bunch of little holes in it.

And I made a covered button. Um, covered buttons are awesome. They are very easy to make and strangely fulfilling. Like putting out the recycling ("I saved the Earth!").

I cut off the bottom edge of the shirt about a half an inch wide and made a running stitch all the way across it. Hence, ruffle.

Then, I got over my hand-sewing-is-better funk and started gluing it all on a piece of felt.

Glued the flower on. Glued the button on the flower. Those layers aren't movin'. They are wind- and rain-tested as of today. Finished project…

Artsy view…

I totally love it and plan on making, like, a million more of them. Every part was fun to do, so this is what you're getting for Christmas. Even you, Hollister.
It’s So Fluffy I’m Going to Die!

August 2, 2011

The other day, I mentioned how I made up my own crochet pattern. It's not the most original thing, but since I made it up myself, I feel okay making doodads with it and maybe selling them. Or at least telling you how to make it (not today, peeps- I have a short attention span today).

Not too shabby, eh?

I was completely inspired by Ashley over at Little Miss Momma when she wrote this post about wearing headbands. It was hilarious and sounded just like me. She writes about how she has all these great headbands, puts one on, but then takes it off before she leaves the house because she feels uncomfortable. Yes.

One of my last days of work, I wore a headband that I've had for about four years and never worn. It has huge white flowers on it and looks a bit bridal-ish. But, I'm 20 months pregnant and what is anyone going to say to me? "Your headband is too big"? Yeah, it balances out my belly, so shut it.

After breaking the ice in a big way with that head piece, I decided I was up for the headband challenge- wear a headband everyday for a week no matter what else you're wearing or doing (wearing sweats? why not add a floral fascinator?).

I also checked out a bunch of Etsy shops that had some BA headbands and decided to make a couple of my own.

So…

Here's my nifty crochet flower with some accoutrements. I'll show you how I made it tomorrow!

This is the inspiration for the title of today's post.

Tulle.

Fluffy.
Arguing With My Brother-In-Law

August 1, 2011

No, not that one. Not the other one either. (Why don't I have a picture of you, Huge?)

This one.

The one that is, what, 20 years my junior? The one that, maybe because of our age difference or my maturity level, I would choose not to argue with? Oh, no. We've argued. About desserts. Because that's how mature I am.

My littlest bro-ski is a miniature version of the G. Like, frighteningly so. A) G totally looked like him when he was younger. B) They have the same personality. It's probably why I like, and choose, to argue with a 14-year-old. (Oh, Lord, I've just discovered he was born the year I graduated from high school. Hahahahahaha!)

This young man insists that one of my favorite desserts is called "scotch-e-roos," which is just false. The "scotch" part implies "butterscotch" of which there is none contained in the delicious dessert. So, I win. Though we have continued to passive-aggressively fight about it for five years. FIVE YEARS!

And now, a recipe for "not-scotch-e-roos", that are aptly named…

Special K Bars

They're no-bake!

1 cup of each of the following…

– light corn syrup

– packed brown sugar

– peanut butter

– chocolate chips

– butterscotch chips

and

– 5-6 cups of Special K cereal

In a big pot, combine the corn syrup and brown sugar and heat it just to a boil. Take it off the stove and mix in the peanut butter.

Throw in the Special K and get them all covered in peanut buttery goodness.

Dump that out in a greased 13" by 9" pan. Smush it out, so it looks nice and even. In the same pot (or a microwaveable dish, if you have one of those microwave contraptions), melt and mix the chocolate and butterscotch chips together. Pour that yum over the pretty bars and then let them cool off. Then eat them.

This will probably be the only picture I get of these, since my fam is not awake yet, and once they wake up, I give these buggers, like, ten hours.

Peace out.

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