Stop What You're Doing

That's it. No preamble. No long-winded story about my childhood. No self-reflection.

Just stop what you're doing RIGHT NOW and make these Salted Brown Butter Crispy Treats from Smitten Kitchen.

They are the lazy person's version of The Best Thing I Ever Made. Only 4 ingredients. And they are extremely delicious.

Not pictured: butter.

That is all.

P.S. This recipe easily doubles which is good because God help you if you only make a single 8x8 pan of this goodness. I could eat an 8x8 pan of them all my myself. Which I may or may not have done for dinner last night.

Since August

It's not that I haven't been doing bloggable things. It's that I haven't sat down to write about them. Well...it's kind of both.

To be honest, the blog slowdown began during glutenfest. Yep, I'm blaming the grain. Man, that sucked. Imagine how you feel when you get the flu. There's always one day that is the worst. And then, the day after that, you feel a little better...but still not good. That's how I felt. Like it was the day after the worst day of the flu. Every day for 10 weeks.  It was not a happy place to be.

The thing about having no energy and just wanting to lay your achy joints down and take a nap (God, how old do I sound?! But really, that's how I felt! Instantly OLD.) is that it's hard to be motivated to cook, or make crafty things, or take photographs of any of it. And then, when the horror of glutenfest ended and I was able to start eating normally and began to feel better, I had a lot to do. A backlog of tasks. And not much time for blogging.

Here we go...and apologies in advance if you follow me on instagram because there are going to be a lot of familiar photographs here.

I made a bunch of meals. 

 And I baked a bunch of treats.

I made a new Valentine's wreath, constructed entirely from scrap materials I had laying around my craft room/office/pantry/chaos closet.

I preserved some things in the refrigerator because the prospect of actually "canning" anything freaks me out. Some jalapenos (not pictured). Some meyer lemons.(Ok, a LOT of meyer lemons.)

Some kumquat marmalade.

Oh, and hey, I got a new job! IN WHICH I ALMOST NEVER TRAVEL FOR WORK.

I know.

It's amazing. Revolutionary. I hardly know what to do with myself. But one thing I am doing is decorating my (shared) office, now that I spend so much time here. Luckily, my officemate is a dude who cares not at ALL what the space looks like. Which is excellent because you know I love free rein when it comes to these sorts of things.

The monkey lamp from CB2 is my FAVORITE. As are the drawings from Penelope - "You're the best Kate ever." How cute is that? 

In more recent office decor developments, I am super excited about the window seat, which fits so perfectly it almost looks custom. (It's not.) I absolutely love sitting here and working. The current pillows are no-longer-used leftovers from home for now but I'm pinning more pillow fabrics and other items for the office so you can probably expect an office decorating blog post from me in the future.

And yeah...that's about it. Kind of a sorry showing for an entire half a year.
Will try to do better between now and this August!

It's the Little Things

I know I've been away for a really long time. I feel so guilty. What I want to do is prostrate myself in front of you and beg forgiveness while you read this post on whatever screen you're looking at.

But that would be awkward. And I try not to be awkward on purpose.

Well, most of the time, anyway.

But I have the most amazing little thing to share with you. I just read about it on The Kitchn.

Are you ready?

Take the stupid ring off your measuring spoons and keep them out on the counter in their own little jar by your other most-used utensils.

I love this. This has changed my life. Not in a big way, but in a nice, little way.

Now I don't have to go digging in my utensil drawer for my measuring spoons (which are the most often used item in my drawer save for the citrus reamer, and also the smallest item in the drawer, inevitably buried under the garlic press, the can opener, the measuring cups, two thermometers, an ice cream scoop, two cookie scoops...you get the picture).

The small jar hardly takes up any counter space. Now my measuring spoons will not ever accidentally nest in the dishwasher, preventing all of them from getting clean, because they're all being washed individually, no longer tethered to each other by that pesky ring.

And if I need one of the regular round measuring spoons and one of the rectangular "spice jar" spoons for the same recipe, I don't have to wash every single measuring spoon I own. It's so easy to just grab the one or two measures I need for a recipe. The efficiency is mind-boggling.

I am so happy every time I look at this little jar of spoons.You should try it!