Another Day with Julie

Art, Crafts, Cooking, Sewing, Gardening, Reading, Travel, DIY

Recent Posts

  • Apple-Cinnamon Oatmeal

    I was in the process of making my morning oatmeal when it dawned on me. We were out of brown sugar. Oh no! I knew we ran out yesterday. Just did not go to the store to replace it yet. That was not a way to start off my morning.

    But I was not bothered for too long. A thought came to me of how to save my morning oatmeal. I was already making fried apples with cinnamon. Why not top the oatmeal with these instead!

    So, I finished the apples which I was sauteeing in butter with a sprinkling of cinnamon and then decided to add a teaspoon of regular granulated sugar to give it just a bit of sweetness. I usually do not add sugar to the apples, however, since sugar is added to apple pie filling, I thought I would give it a go. I plated the apples and then topped it with my old fashioned oatmeal. Not bad, but I am adding brown sugar to my shopping list.

    As always, Happy Cooking!

  • My Take on Dior by Dior

    I have just finished reading the autobiography of Christian Dior, Dior by Dior. Of course, I love a good autobiography. These are always better than biographies for me, as I get a sense of the person as they tell their tale. Dior by Dior was quite an interesting read.

    For anyone unfamiliar with Christian Dior, he was, of course, a great Couturier. He was the man behind the famous fashion house, House of Dior, in Paris. His business grew to allow houses in New York and London as well. To go to a Dior show was quite a deal. In his book, Dior takes us through his process of designing a collection and what it takes to make the sketches a reality. I was very interested in how a Couture House worked. Dior explained this quite well. He also describes what it is like to attend a show at the House of Dior.

    Dior tells of his early years, the houses he lived in, and how the friendships he formed when he was a young man influenced who he would become. There are a lot of interesting details of Dior, the man, that I did not know. He seemed most humble in his success.

    For anyone interested in fashion or how the fashion industry works, I would highly recommend Dior by Dior. As always, Happy Reading!

  • Coolest Car in the Dessert

    Sometimes when one is out and about they run into the craziest things. Things that make one look twice and then smile. The outrageous, crazy, different, unique things that are unexpected but welcome.

    Such a thing happened a few years back when my family and I drove to the dessert. Expecting to see wildflowers, cactus, and dessert terrain, we had no idea we would be seeing a boat-car. How COOL is that!

    I loved the boat-car. Made from a real boat! I had to have a picture. Afterall, what were my chances of ever seeing something like this again. However, I did not just want to take a picture of total strangers. That would be a bit rude. Oh, these people were used to attention, of that, I am sure; and I do not think it bothered them in the least. The woman was even dressed for the occasion, sporting her white sailor hat. Regardless, I just did not feel right snapping a picture and running. So, I politely asked if I could take a picture and they were totally on board. So I happily snapped my photo to remember my cool sighting of the cool couple in the coolest car in the dessert.

    Ah, the little things that make me happy…

  • Recipe Review: Streusel-Topped Plum Muffins

    I purchased some plums at the store with the intent of making a plum cake. I decided on a breakfast treat instead. A Streusel-Topped Plum Muffin recipe caught my eye. Oh yum!

    The drawback in the recipe for me was that it called for heavy cream, which we try to avoid. But wait! I just found a list of dairy-based heavy cream substitues. This list had more options than I dreamed possible. So onto the muffins…

    Of course, knowing me, I changed a few things in the recipe. First off, I felt that a whole cup of sugar seemed a bit more than enough for me. I dropped that down to 3/4 cup. Next off, instead of the half cup of heavy cream, I mixed together 1/4 cup of plain Greek yogurt with 1/4 cup lactose free milk (or any milk would do). My plums were pale yellow, not purple. For the topping, I left out the walnuts and the coarse sugar.

    Instead of 15 muffins, this batter made 18 muffins for me. Bonus! I LOVED these muffins! They had a wonderful, cake-like, soft, delicate, moist texture. They have stayed perfectly fresh a couple of days now after baking. No need to rush scarfing these down. They are great served with coffee or tea.

    Would I have changed anything else? Well, next time I might add a bit more fruit. Although they are perfectly lovely as they are, I would probably use three plums next time instead of the two that I used. The recipe could also be quite nice with other fruit as well.

    Check-out the recipe at: https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/streusel-topped-plum-muffins/print/

    As always, Happy Baking!

  • Pattern Review: Sewing the Easy Shift

    I follow the blog Maison Bentley Style and found one of Kate’s posts to be quite useful to me as of late. Kate posted a few versions of an easy shift to sew at home. I liked the easy wear style and thought the pattern at This Little Miggy would be right up my alley. So, after a bit of time, I finally got up the nerve to cut out my material and push the pedal to the metal as they say.

    The pattern was simple enough. It consisted of four rectangles that one gets by taking one’s measurements according to the directions provided. It also gave a pattern for a pocket to trace and cut out. All very straight-forward. I cut the pieces. However, I chose to make the piece for the back one piece instead of two rectangles sewn together. Why have a seam up my backside afterall?

    The most challenging part for me was deciding how deep the v-neck should be. The pattern has one decide this themself. So, being conservative, I cut the v-neck. Well, it did not fit over my head. Ha! I went into my closet and got out a v-neck and used that for my pattern. (For me that was 9.5″) My shoulder seems ended up being 9″ each. The pattern had one cut a dip for the neckline in the back and turn under and sew. I chose to add a neck facing to this for a clean seam. It worked well. The sewing was simple. Basically straight lines everywhere.

    Here is my finished dress made of linen.

    I would recommend this pattern. Very easy to make (especially since I just gave everyone a hint on the neckline). If interested in this pattern, check it out at:

    The dress x
    Make || Easy Summer Shift Tutorial

    A special thanks to Kate for her wonderful posts and connecting me to the site for this pattern. Love your blog!!! Also a big thanks to This Little Miggy for sharing this wonderful pattern! It gives me courage to try and design something on my own next time. Who knew rectangles could turn into a dress!

    As always, Happy Sewing!

  • Recipe Review: Zucchini Snack Cake with Orange Glaze

    Yesterday, I wrote about my crazy baking day in the kitchen in order to use a zucchini. I made three different recipes. I decided to put the Zucchini Muffins and the Zucchini Brownies in the freezer. We would have the Zucchini Snack Cake with Orange Glaze for dessert.

    There were two reasons for this decision. One being this was a new recipe and I wanted to taste it while it was at its peak. I have made the other two recipes before and already knew how they tasted. The second being that I was not craving chocolate, or desiring a muffin for dessert (more of a breakfast thing). So cake it would be!

    I picked the snack cake recipe mainly because it did not contain chocolate. It seems as though all the recipes for zucchini cake throw in a bit of chocolate. But I did not want chocolate. Love chocolate, just not all the time. This recipe also contained orange. Bingo! I was sold. We have an orange tree out back and I not only need to use the zucchini but the oranges as well. Then I saw that the recipe came from a familiar blog (Barefeet in the Kitchen) that I have made recipes from before and they were always delicious.

    So here is the recipe:

    https://barefeetinthekitchen.com/zucchini-snack-cake-recipe/

    Did I make any changes? Yes, two very minor changes. The baker said that she prefered to use store bought orange juice as it had more flavor in the cake. Well, I know that the flavor is not in the juice but in the zest. So instead of just using my freshly squeezed orange from our orchard, I also added the zest of the orange to boot. The only other change I made was in the amount of glaze I used on the cake. I wanted to cut down on the sugar content so I reduced the glaze by half and it was plenty. The glaze covered the top of the cake completely. If wanting to cover the sides as well, then use the whole recipe for the glaze.

    The cake was easy to make and tasted good. The aroma of oranges flooded my kitchen as this baked. Wonderful! So, if wanting to use up some zucchini and oranges, why not give this recipe a try.

    As always, Happy Baking!

  • Another Day with the Crazy Baker

    One zucchini can go a long way! I still had one plump zucchini from the garden. Since everyone around my house seems a bit done with sauted zucchini as a side for dinner, I turned into a crazy baker lady today.

    I think I shredded five or 6 cups of zucchini. So, with the oven set to 350 degrees, I just kept turning out the recipes until the zucchini was all gone. I ended up making a total of three recipes. I started with Zucchini Brownies, then Zucchini Muffins, and to finish, Zucchini Cake with Orange Glaze. My kitchen looks like a bakery.

    I plan on popping most of this in the freezer. Some day when I’m feeling lazy, I can take out a treat for the family. I just hope there is room in the freezer, come to think of it… The last time I opened the door a bag of green peppers (also from the garden) fell into my hands.

    As always, Happy Baking!

  • Propagated Lavender Takes Off

    Ah the joys of gardening! Its the little successes that make it all so worthwhile. Back in June, I propagated lavender from lavender I had in my garden. (There’s a post on this in the gardening section.) Now it is early September and there is evidence of success. A lavender bud has formed on one of the propagated plants. Oh joy!

    With the recent success of my blue potato bush and now the lavender, I could really get into propagating plants. I have a vision for where these new plants will be going in my garden. Believe me, I have a lot of space to fill. I plan to have a border of lavender and potato bushes. However, with the propagated plants, it will take a bit longer for them to reach a decent size. Yes, I would get faster results by purchasing more mature plants at the nursery, however, I kind of like this whole propagating thing.

    As always, HAPPY Gardening!

  • Making Fried Donuts

    My son wanted to bake some ‘Donut Shop’ donuts. Since the croissants from the cookbook Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston’s Flour Bakery and Cafe by JoAnne Chang turned out so well, we decided to use a recipe in the same cookbook to make the donuts. We were not disappointed.

    As with the croissants, the donuts did take a bit of time. The time was mostly spent waiting for the dough to rise. The actual making of the donuts was simple enough. We made the dough using our stand mixer and popped it in the fridge overnight to do it’s thing. Before going to bed we set the alarm for 5 am. Oh yah…that went over well. So up I popped and down the hall I went to get my son out of bed. It took a few attempts. In the kitchen, we rolled out the dough and stamped out the doughnuts with a large biscuit cutter. It is important to note that the dough should be rolled on the thicker side of half an inch. Better to make these a bit thicker than thinner as they need to be nice and puffy in order to fill them easily. After stamping out the doughnuts, they were left to rise on a floured cookie sheet covered with plastic wrap for two hours. It is important to flour the cookie sheet well or the doughnuts will stick. Then it was back to bed for a couple of hours while the doughnuts were rising.

    After another knock or two on my son’s door, we were back in the kitchen and ready to fry our donuts. But wait! Frying takes more oil than I realized! I was off to the store for more oil while my son made the custard filling. We chose to make the same custard filling from my blog post on Polish donuts instead of the vanilla filling the recipe called for. When I returned, we got to work on frying the donuts, two at a time. When they were cool we rolled them in confectioners sugar and not the regular sugar that the recipe called for. Then my son poked holes in the donuts with a skewer and filled them with the custard he made earlier. Voila!

    My family sat down for fresh donuts with much anticipation. We all enjoyed them very much. The remaining donuts were for dessert. Hee Hee!

    Recipe can be found in the cookbook: Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston’s Flour Bakery and Cafe by JoAnne Chang

    Note: To “refresh” the donuts, I popped them into the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. Only do this for un-filled donuts. We filled the donuts as we were going to eating them.

    As always, Happy Baking!

  • Ah, the Difference a Day Makes!

    As I was busy baking this morning, I got a little late start on my watering. But I got out there, with hose in hand, ready to give the plants I have been propagating a bath, when low and behold, there is color amongst the green. Are my eyes playing tricks on me? Oh my gosh! I am now jumping for joy, full of excitement. The blue potato bush, that I propagated back in June, has a flower! A beautiful, perfect, little flower. Not only does it have a flower, but another bud as well. I am so excited! So much so that I made my daughter come outside so I could show her.

    The funny thing is, is that when I watered the plant yesterday, there was no flower. I did not even notice a bud. Maybe I missed the bud, but there was not a flower. Ah, the difference a day makes in the garden. It is the little successes that make all the difference. I hope that my green thumb continues with this one. I have now become attached.

    To see my original post on my blue potato bush, see my post titled Propagating Plants. This blog was posted on June 4th. So, about two months was all it took to get to this flowering point. However, not all propagated plants survive, as can be seen in my post titled Propagating Plants – An Update, from July 26. Now that I’ve had success with this propagation, I may try another one to replace the one I lost in July.

    As always, Happy Gardening!

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