Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Not a Food Blogger: Yummy Bread Roll

Obviously I am not a food blogger, but I do cook a lot and enjoy baking immensely. Once in a while, I come across a recipe that I have great success with, and I think to myself, "I should share this on Vively, just so that if I ever lose this recipe, I have it documented online". Hehehe :)

This recipe is based of a recipe given to my by a friend, and I have tweaked it so many times that it is now my recipe!
These make sweet bread rolls that are absolutely delicious. I have doubled the recipe for dinner parties, and it always manages to impress.

Ingredients
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup  milk
1 egg
1/3 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 package bread machine yeast*
3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1) Add milk and water in a microwave safe bowl and microwave on high for about 1 minute

2) Dump the milk and water in to a stand mixer. Add all the other ingredients except the flour and yeast. Give it a little stir

3) Add one cup of flour. Stir to mix

4) Add the yeast. Stir to mix

5) Add the mixing the remainder of the flour, about 1 cup at a time. (I use a dough hook on my Kitchenaid). I like to mix until I get a slightly elastic consistency to the dough, and that probably takes about 1-2 minutes.

6) Cover bowl with tea cloth, and let rise about 1 hour.

7) Punch down and divide the dough into rolls about the size slightly smaller than a tennis ball. Place on cookie sheet and cover to let rise for about another hour.

8) Bake at 375 Fahrenheit for about 12-15 mins until golden.

*If you have regular yeast, add the yeast into warm water with a little bit of the 1/3 cup of sugar dissolved in it and wait until the yeast gets foamy, about 10-15 mins.  Then add it to milk and water and proceed with the recipe





Monday, March 5, 2012

DIY Scarf Hanger

I have been trying to deal with my jumble of scarves, and in the spirit of trying to consume less, I made my own scarf hanger.

I'll let the photos do most of the talking:

Freestyle wrap and twist, any design you like:

Cover with yarn, ribbon, fabric.. etc. 

I used strips of torn fabric. Fist pump for using up scraps!

Tada.....!

My scarves are now neatly now hung up and I can actually see them. When I take one scarf off the hanger, the rest don't get dragged out along with it.

This project was made with stuff I already had hanging around. Since I did not have to buy anything to make the hanger, it goes along wonderfully with my plans to reuse and reduce. I'm kind of pleased! Now I'm off the make another one with smaller loops for my belts.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Casual T-Shirt and Trying my best to look Presentable!

I realized that I did sew something not so very long ago, but forgot to blog about it. I had a go at making a very basic t-shirt pattern, skipping the use of sleeves inserts. The whole idea was to see if I can adapt the pattern to refill the very meagre wardrobe. I know, it seems that I should have a lot of clothes to wear, but I've been very good at whittling down my wardrobe so that I only keep things that I would actually wear. 
Also, I want to have more casual clothes that I can throw on and still look presentable.

So, this was my first attempt. Very simply, this pattern was made by placing an existing t-shirt on top of paper and tracing it out.

It's a very basic t-shirt top, with rounded collar and an adjustable band at the bottom.

I can see how versatile this pattern will be. I can change the collar and make it wider, or v-neck. I can also switch up the sleeves into dolman-style or kimono.
Did you notice the fabric necklace? Do you like my attempt to be more "put together"? Hahaha.... I'm trying my best to look more, er.... polished. I do teach yoga, so most of the time, I'm decked out in my yoga attire, which makes me feel like such a slob. Any tips for me?