tasty tuesday: roast your own garlic!

Garlic is one of my favourite flavours to cook with.  It adds a punch of flavour to almost any savoury dish.  You can buy fresh garlic, dried garlic, garlic powder, garlic paste, or garlic salt!  There is a garlic for everything. 

I love using roasted garlic in soups, hummus and pasta dishes.  Roasting mellows out the flavour and will add depth to your dish.

First cut the skin off of the top of your head of garlic (as seen in the photo below).  This allows each clove to be exposed.

Then cut a piece of tinfoil big enough to fit all the way around your head of garlic.  It doesn't matter if it folds up on itself a little bit.  You want your garlic to fit snuggly inside the tinfoil.  Wrap the head of garlic in the tinfoil, leaving the top exposed.  Drizzle a couple teaspoons of olive oil over the head.

Cook the garlic in a preheated 400 degree oven for about 30-40 mins, until golden brown.

When the garlic has cooled a bit, remove the tinfoil.  You should be able to easily squeeze the roasted garlic out of the skin.

Ingredients:

1 head of garlic
2 teaspoons of olive oil

Tinfoil
400 degree oven

Bake time: 30-40 minutes

Happy cooking!

ps: jordyn ♥

in ♡ with : masha sardari

I am absolutely in love with the young American photographer, Masha Sardari. Her photos are so hauntingly lovely and inspiring, and I love that each of them tells a story. 

Sardari is only 17, but it certainly hasn't stopped her from achieving international renown in the world of photography. I love her surreal style and the depth of her photos, I could look at them forever.

I can't help but think of this beautiful quote when I look at these photos...

...beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse 

of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time...

{ a l b e r t . c a m u s } 

& some ear candy to accompany all this lovely eye candy...

enjoy!

ps: clara ♥

weekly wrap up : belated mother's day

I had a fairly busy week on the farm.  Kelsey was in Kananaskis until Wednesday, so I had to pick up the slack.  Spring time = planting galore for pumpkin/apple/rhubarb farms.  I spent this week planting pumpkins, apple trees, squash, rhubarb, and well...not taking photos.  

So most of today's pictures come from our belated Mother's Day adventure.  Kelsey was gone last Sunday, so we made up for it today by visiting Granny and Grumpa's Antiques.  It was a crazy farm with about six barns full of antiques.  I will just give you a sneak peek of some of the things we found, look for a full post about it later this week!

First off the card we got for our mom!  Which she did receive on the real Mother's Day, along with a hand made bird house we found at Ten Thousand Villages.

So when we got to Granny and Grumpa's we kind of just wandered into one of the barns and started taking pictures...

I made a new friend...

....and got to go on a crazy flight!

We found some awesome antique books. 

Canadian Geography for Juniors for the Geographical Biogeoscience student, and Essays and Essay-writing for the English student!

We finished off our trip with a visit to Starbucks!  Where the barista spelled my name right and Kelsey's wrong.  This never happens, so we decided to get photographic evidence!!

We had a great time together!  I am so glad I got to spend the day with these two :)

ps: jordyn ♥ 

outfit of the day : florals & lace

I am absolutely in loveee with all things lace & floral, so when I found these incredible pieces at some local Edmonton thrift stores, I was ecstatic! The top was a find by my wonderful husband, and the floral maxi skirt was a treasure I found when searching for long skirts for our trip to Africa (since I'm not allowed to wear any shorts/show off any leg!). 

I have a feeling flowing maxi skirts paired with cute tops are going to become my summer staple :) 

What's your summer style? 

ps: clara ♥ 

diy : jam jar votives

My mom found this great DIY project on a blog called Artsy VaVa, so we decided to spend Mother's Day together collecting materials and making them!  We had a lot of fun picking out tissue paper with fun patterns, and interesting charms to go on the votives.

We used empty leftover jam jars and they were the perfect size!  A taller olive jar would also work really well, especially if you wanted to make it into a vase.

Our supply listed included:

We found some really cute tissues to use that have the Eiffel tower on them.  They came in white, green and purple.  We also got some with owl patterns and peacock feather patterns.  We weren't able to use all of them this time, but we will definitely be making these again!

The first thing we did was pull apart the tissues that we wanted to use for the outside of the votive.    You want to glue on just one layer of tissue.  At first I didn't realize that some of the tissues were three ply, so even though I had separated one layer, two still remained, so on my test jar the layers started separating, and fell apart.  So make sure you are only glueing one layer down.

Once we had one layer of tissue ready to go we started applying ModPodge onto the jar covering a little bit at a time.  As we covered the jar with ModPodge, we wrapped the tissue paper around the jar.  One piece of tissue wasn't quite enough to cover one jar, so we cut a piece from another tissue and overlapped them a tiny bit.  My mom also used tissue paper (rather than facial tissues) and she said that it worked great! The ModPodge went on easily, and there was no tearing).

The top doesn't need to be perfect, as it will be covered with jute, but make sure the tissue wraps around the bottom.  For the very bottom of the jar we cut out a little circle and ModPodged it right on.

As soon as we had all the tissue stuck on, we let it dry for about 5 minutes, and then put a layer of ModPodge over the entire thing.  I found the easiest way to do this was to stick my whole hand in the jar so I didn't have to touch anything sticky.

Then using thin metal wire we attached a charm.  In this case it was a little bird.  We twisted the metal around the back of the jar.

Then starting at the back, we wrapped the jute around the top of the jar 6/7 times (we tucked it into the metal wire at the beginning to get it to stay).  When we were happy with how it looked we glued the jute to itself at the back of the jar.

We put a tea light in it, and it worked so well as a votive.

They also work great as flower vases!  We used paper napkins for the jar below, and we decided it was probably too thick for light to shine through, so voila! A new vase!

This is definitely a project I will do again!  It is fun, easy, and would make a great gift!

ps: jordyn ♥ 

wanderlust : spirit of adventure

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Yes, I am in Africa currently, and yes, I am still dreaming, thinking, hoping, talking, and breathing of more adventure in different countries, with other peoples, eating strange foods, 

learning new languages, experiencing beautiful cultures, and trying out anything new! 

(& to give myself a little credit, I did write up this post before I left for Africa...)

I love my life, I really do, but life is so much better when every day is an adventure. 

Check out this short video by NIKE it's sooo inspiring and wonderful and I just want to get up, grab a pack, head over to the airport, and go on an adventure now! Luckily, I'm sitting in the Nairobi airport about to head to Zurich for 2 days, so I can fulfill this desire NOW! (&& lots more posts to come about my trip as soon as I'm back home in Canada!)

How do you "make it count?" 

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One of my favourite pixar movies is "UP" & I adore that it's all about the spirit of adventure, new discoveries, and big, BIG, BIG dreams. Plus, Ellie and Karl are the cutest animated couple ever!

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Where would your "spirit of adventure" take you in the world?


ps: clara ♥ 

tasty tuesday : oatmeal coconut raisin craisin cookies!

This recipe has it all: hearty oatmeal, chewy dried fruit, and crunchy coconut flakes!

I was inspired to make these one day after using Bath and Body Works' Oatmeal Raisin Cookie hand soap.  The soap made my hands smell delicious all day! And it also made me hungry for oatmeal raisin cookies.

A quick tip when baking with raisins (and in this case craisins too), first soak them in a bowl of hot water for about 10 minutes.  They will absorb some of the water and make you cookies nice and moist.

I used a small ice cream scoop to create uniform balls of cookie dough.  It was quick and easy, and saved me from getting my hands too sticky!

The coconut flakes are one of my favourite things about this recipe.  They create a wonderful crunch texture to go along with the chewy raisins.

This recipe is simply to die for!

Oatmeal Coconut Raisin Craisin Cookies

adapted from: allrecipes.com

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice 
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups rolled oats
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup craisins
• 1/2 cup large flake unsweetened coconut

• Directions:
• 
  
• 1.  In a large bowl cream the butter and sugars.
• 2.  Add the eggs, mixing in one at a time.  Mix in the vanilla.
• 3.  Mix in the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and salt.
• 4.  Mix in the rolled oats.
• 5.  Stir in raisins, craisins, and coconut.
• 6.  Spoon onto cookie sheets in one inch balls.
• 7.  Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

These cookies will make your entire house smell wonderful!  Everyone who gets a whiff of these will be begging for a taste.  Be careful if you make them when you are hungry, they might all "disappear" before you know it!

ps: jordyn ♥