Category Archives: Uncategorized
St. Patrick’s Day Fun!
We used a cookie cutter as template/border for pouring our sprinkles onto our St. Patrick’s Day pie! It’s a Jello brand no bake cheesecake that we tinted green with food coloring! Yummy!
My nails are also painted sparkly green for the occasion! Haha! Can’t pinch me!!
I may update this post with a few more pics, tomorrow!
We hope you enjoy your St. Patrick’s Day, too!!
Your Friend,
~Amber Hamilton Henson
King Cake!
Mini-Me(s) & I made tomorrow’s breakfast! We looked for them at two stores, but who needs purple sprinkles when candy coated chocolate purple beads are available?! 😃
Yep, that’s about a pound of cream cheese icing melted across our cinnamon bundt cake. Love it!
~Amber
Real Butterfly Necklace!
Real Butterfly Necklace!
Here is my new butterfly necklace that I assembled this week … just in time for Spring!
I am so pleased with how it came together!
It is assembled using silver chain, real butterfly wings encased in resin, little stainless steel butterfly charms, lots of jump rings and a lobster clasp.
I’ve taken photos in various light to try to showcase the depth and variation of color of these beautiful butterfly and moth wings. It’s amazing to me how different the wings appear depending upon whether they’re in natural sunlight, indirect light, or under a lamp!
The details: (click on photos to enlarge into a new window)
If you’re interested in seeing more of the jewelry I create, you might like these links of mine:
I Make Bracelets
I Make Necklaces, too
You can also find thumbnail links to many of my other unique craft projects, here:
Amber’s Decor & Craft Tutorials
What do you think of my real butterfly necklace creation?
Please, feel free to be social and share this post via Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter or other!
🙂
Your Friend,
~Amber Hamilton Henson
Happy National Margarita Day!
Happy National Margarita Day! Feb 22, 2014!
Margarita Night!
5 rings fresh pineapple
3 Tbsp Orange Liqueur
3 Tbsp simple syrup
2 Tbsp Agave nectar
4 Tbsp lime juice
8 Tbsp tequila
3 cups ice
Blend in blender, thoroughly!
Drink. Repeat as needed!
(Please, drink responsibly!)
Sriracha Fig Jam Wings!
Sriracha Fig Jam Wings: Is there anything better than sweet and heat meets meat? Mmmmmmm!! I let my chicken wings marinate all day, coated first in a dry Sriracha seasoning and then slathered generously in a blend of fig preserves and more Sriracha seasoning! Then, this evening baked them to perfection at 375*F! Soooo yummmmm!
If you can’t find dry Sriracha seasoning in your local grocery store yet, no worries, you can buy it online, here at this link, and have it delivered to your door! It’s still new to me, but I’m loving experimenting with it. Having the option to add Sriracha flavors into recipes without adding extra moisture is fantastic!
Side note: I’m a bit of a jelly snob, I think. I am drawn primarily to local, artisanal jams and jellies that aren’t widely available in big box stores. Peach/Lavender Preserves, Strawberry/Jalapeño Jam, and Blackberry/Habenero are a few of my faves. And fig. As much as I love the fig preserves that I buy, I’d been searching for a fig preserve that was amped up a bit. This dry Sriracha seasoning is my answer! I mixed a few spoonfuls into my fig preserves and SUCCESS!! DIY Sriracha Fig Preserves is now among my faves for everyday use! Mmmmmm!!
🙂
Your Friend,
~Amber Hamilton Henson
SMOTHERED CABBAGE
Smothered Cabbage:
Some things you just grow up eating, never referring to a recipe, just cooking it the way it has always been cooked. This is one of those things for me, but here is my best attempt to give you my recipe and directions for preparation of “Smothered Cabbage.”
1 medium to large head of green cabbage
6 slices bacon, each cut into 8 pieces
1 yellow onion, chopped
1-2 Serrano pepper, finely diced
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp black pepper
1 Tbsp sugar
Discard the first few outer cabbage leaves. Cut your cabbage into bite sized pieces.
Fry bacon in a large pot until it is *almost* crisp. Add onions and Serrano pepper into the pan with the bacon; sauté for 5-7 minutes, until onions are translucent. Add the cabbage and sprinkle with s&p and sugar. Toss and stir, coating all pieces of cabbage in the bacon drippings and onions. Cover, and simmer for 40-45 minutes, or until cabbage is tender, lifting lid to toss and re-coat the cabbage every few minutes. Keeping the cover on as much as possible is important to keep it from drying out.
* This is my best estimate for seasonings—I always taste and season while cooking. You can adjust heat by using more or less Serrano peppers and including seeds or not to preference. 🙂 In most cases, I’m not a fan of adding sugar to vegetables, but I do LOVE it here. It makes all the difference in this cabbage!!
Your Friend,
~Amber Hamilton Henson
Please feel free to share!! 🙂
PS
This post will link! Please, visit the links at your leisure:
arkansaswomenbloggers’ sunday-link-up
Herbal Tea!
Herb Tea in a Brandy Glass? Yep. Why not? Yep; hold it by the stem while the tea is really hot, then move upward when comfortable. Cold hands = not fun. Warm hands? Yes, please!!
Hey! It’s freezing here. Literally. With lows in the 20s, here in Arkansas. Brrrrr, RABBIT!
How do you keep warm when it is this cold outside (or colder)?
Me? Hot Tea! Love it!!
I make my own peppermint tea, usually. It is just dried mint leaves (sweet mint, orange mint, and peppermint) that I grew this summer. The plants are pretty dormant with minimal green leaves, right now, but they’ll be back this coming Spring! This fall, I harvested lots of leaves and flowers, let them dry on a screen, and now I’m using them for tea all winter. Love.
As much as I love my homegrown mint tea, it is awesome to have variety!
On that note, today my daughters and I went downtown to visit a new store downtown, Dandelion Tea & Spice Company. Find them, here. It is a GREAT little shop that is stocked floor to ceiling with teas, spices, & medicinal concoctions. The proprietor tells me that soon they’re going to stock essential oils, too! Yay!
We bought 3 neat tea blends and a crystal / ammo casing necklace from the neighboring shop, Freckled Frog.
The 3 tea blends that I bought from Dandelion:
“Mad Hatter”: sarsaparilla root, cinnamon, orange peel, ginger root, licorice root, cloves
“Hibiscus Heaven”: Hibiscus, Rosehips, orange peel, lemon peel, lemon grass, lemon oil
“Blueberry Green Kukicha”:
Pics: click on photos to enlarge
I’ll be here trying to be warm during the middle of winter. Herbal tea. 😉
Your Friend,
~Amber Hamilton Henson
Trifle
Some of y’all sure make pretty trifles! This isn’t so pretty, but it was certainly a yummy enough dessert for my daughters’ New Year Eve sleepover party last night, apparently, since it is all gone now! Every bit! Love.
Large glass bowl.
Layer of Crumbled brownies.
Layer of Jello Chocolate Pudding.
Layer of Cool Whip.
Layer of Heath brand toffee bits.
Repeat layers. Refrigerate. 🙂
Happy New Year, today!
I’ve got black eyed peas for good luck in the new year cooking on the stove, right now! See my recipe for annual Black Eyed Peas, here and on my recipes page!
🙂
~Amber Hamilton Henson
2013 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 23,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 9 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Sriracha Brussel Sprouts!
So, I found this amazing recipe. Rather, it’s creator found this blog via WordPress. I, then, found the Nerdsteak.com site and this recipe for Sriracha Brussel Sprouts. Readers, I don’t know if you know or not, but WordPress is its own neat community these days! When I first started blogging a year and a half ago, I always felt like I was talking to myself, but finding other blogs to read and realizing that others find this blog is pretty cool, now!
As soon as I saw his recipe, I knew I had to make it! I couldn’t find the exact spice blend that he uses at my local grocery store (I’ll look into buying it online; it looks like a cool brand of spice products), so I used what we, in this house, refer to as “Rooster Sauce.” It is the Huy Fong Foods SRIRACHA. The results were incredible!! AND, it was super easy to make!!
Directions:
Cut Brussel sprouts into halves or quarters
Coat in olive oil, tossing in a bowl
Drizzle and coat in Sriracha in the same bowl (1/2 cup or so)
Spread onto baking sheet and add s&p, to taste
Bake at 350F for about 20 minutes
Stir in more Sriracha and coconut (1/2 cup or so) and almond slivers (1/2 cup)
Return to oven for an additional 5-8 minutes!
Sooooo good!
Pics: (click on photos to enlarge)
I served lamb meatballs with these Sriracha Brussel Sprouts tonight and LOVED it!
Thanks, Nerdsteak.com!
Your Friend,
~Amber Hamilton Henson
PS
This post will link! Please, visit the links at your leisure:
arkansaswomenbloggers’ sunday-link-up
what AMBER loves 