Hazelnut Liqueur

May 14, 2015April 5, 2018 by Katie | Leave a comment

Nuts are our ingredient of the season. Dips, cookies, and snack bars, are just a sampling of our many nutty posts. Today, we’re finally combining them with alcohol!

It’s been a long time since I’ve had Frangelico or any other hazelnut liqueur, but with nuts as our featured ingredient, it was high time that I tried making my own! While doing some research for this project, I came across a Serious Eats article that encourages anyone interested to make their own rather than buy, and I couldn’t agree more. The pure hazelnut flavor really shines through, and I really appreciate being able to taylor the sweetness to my liking, which is often less than store-bought liqueurs.

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After liking what Serious Eats’ encouragement to make the liqueur, I clicked through to their recipe and also liked the simplicity of that, so I used it and that’s what you see reprinted below. Making this liqueur couldn’t be easier, it’s the waiting that’s hard. While I want to say it “only” involves three to four weeks of wait-time, that’s three (or four) too many, and I think you’ll agree once you see my new favorite treat below. I say four weeks, because I was supposed to go on to steps 2 and 3 while our family was in town, and I completely forgot! As a result, I had about an extra week of the hazelnuts steeping in the alcohol, but the flavor is that delicious and strong that I have no regrets… although I’m not sure if I’ll be able to wait that long the second time I make this.

Everyman’s Guide to Ecological Living: General Rules to Live By

May 13, 2015May 13, 2015 by Sarah | Leave a comment

I’m currently reading a great book called Everyman’s Guide to Ecological Living by Greg Cailliet, Paulette Setzer and Milton Love. I wanted to share their general rules to live by because they resonate so deeply within me. This book was published in 1971 and only cost $.95 at the time! It’s pretty short with a little more than a hundred pages. It is written in a really straightforward and simple manner and while some aspects are outdated (because this was one of the first resources of its kind and the internet wasn’t around yet) the ecological principles hold up. It’s actually pretty quaint to read things like, “Support manufacturers that sell deposit bottles. Write them and express your satisfaction with this policy.” So while some of those suggestions don’t make sense today, the ideas behind the actions the authors want you to take are still important and shouldn’t be forgotten.

I think Everyman’s Guide to Ecological Living is a great text if you haven’t really given ecological living much thought. I’m not sure if I mentioned this on Seasoned yet, but I have dreams of living far away from “the real world” on my own little plot of land. Self-sustainability and off-the-grid living is an attractive fantasy and one day I hope it’s an attainable goal. Not many of these principles are new to me, instead I find myself shaking my head ‘yes’ while I read page after page. For me, this book is a nice affirmation that living simply should and is valued by many, even if I don’t come across those folks every day. I also love the simplistic nature in which all these principles are laid out for the viewer. This text would actually be great required reading for middle school kids. Each page has suggestions for living a more ecologically-sound life; we could all do a little bit better, yes?

Here’s how the book begins:

General Rules to Live By:

Be Constantly Aware of the Interdependence of Man and Nature.

Everything we do has an effect somewhere.
Be alert to the ultimate fate of items you use.
Before using, ask, “What will it do to the state of the environment?”

Tonic Water (& Gin)

May 12, 2015January 18, 2016 by Katie | 2 Comments

I love, love, love gin & tonics! When I was pregnant with Luc, our friends in Boulder (a big brewery town) would ask me if I couldn’t wait to have a beer, and I would always so no, because all I wanted was a G&T. In fact, when I hit week 39 of my pregnancy, I stopped in a liquor store to pick up some gin… I’m sure it looked absurd that a hugely pregnant lady was buying gin with her two year old in the shopping cart, but other women get the urge to nest, and I got the urge for gin.

Meanwhile, waiting at home for me was an awesome homemade tonic water kit that Calder’s sister gave me last July for my birthday. That was days after I became pregnant with Luc, and it killed me to have to sit on it for all those months! While Sarah was in town last month, we finally made the tonic water and broke open some new-to-us gins.

24 Hours in Denver (with kids!)

May 11, 2015May 12, 2015 by Katie | Leave a comment

First to set the scene: As last week was coming to an end, Calder and I knew that we wanted to do something fun for the weekend. Ideally, we wanted to head into the mountains and camp, but the weather was not cooperating. What do I mean? The forecast called for rain/SNOW, and that’s exactly what we got! Recognizing that a few days of precipitation were on the horizon, we didn’t want to force a camping trip of any sort knowing that everyone could end up a bit miserable.

We cut our losses and had a flash of genius on Friday when we decided to get a hotel room in Denver for Saturday night. It ended up being such a great decision because with some simple planning we had a fun weekend away from the house, visited new-to-us Denver attractions, ate great food, and came home without feeling overly tired or frazzled (which can happen so easily when a toddler’s in the mix!).

Today I wanted to share the recipe we discovered for our perfect weekend in Denver (or any larger city), which included:

Welcome May!

May 7, 2015May 28, 2015 by Katie | Leave a comment

On the first Wednesday, or Thursday!, of every month you will find us checking in with what’s coming up on the calendar and what’s going on outside. You can find last May’s post here.

While April was all about settling into our house, welcoming Luc, and hosting a slew of family visitors, as May arrived, our focus has turned to observing the changes (and visitors!) appearing outside our house. Since the flora and fauna in the Rockies is a bit different than what we’ve been used to on the East Coast, I thought it would be fun to focus this post on the changes taking place in our yard in early May.

Creamy Cashew Fruit Dip

May 6, 2015January 29, 2016 by Katie | 2 Comments

Nuts are our ingredient of the season. We’ve been using them for sweets, drinks, snack bars and savory condiments!

Yesterday was the cake, and today we’re going to share a recipe for the cashew cream that we served at the party. If you’ve been paying attention, then you’ve noticed that we published a cashew crema recipe last week. Today’s cashew cream recipe is very similar, but rather than a savory condiment, this is a lightly sweet dip that’s perfect when paired with fruit.

First an aside : two weeks ago while Sarah was visiting, there were many moments when our response to someone or our contribution to the conversation was exactly the same (wether we were responding with a grunt, a laugh, an “ooh”, or with actual words like “no way”). It was equally hilarious and spooky. And our cashew cream recipes are yet another example of us wanting to do the exact same thing at the same moment, let’s ignore the fact that it involved nuts and our mom would suggest that we’re both a bit nuts.

Bulldozer Birthday Cake!

May 5, 2015June 29, 2017 by Katie | Leave a comment

Alex turned two at the end of April, and the timing worked perfectly that we had a house full of family ready to celebrate! Since we weren’t inviting his super cute little friends, we didn’t bother to have a theme party. Plus, how could we pick just one theme for the guy who loves, in no particular order : kitty cats, anything with wheels (and wings!), dinos, tools, and speed? We could have gone with a bike-riding kitty cat holding a screw driver, but without including the dinosaur, why even bother, you know?

Even without a theme, I wanted to make a cake that the little guy would love. I also wanted it to be relatively simple. There are so many awesome ideas out there, just scanning Pinterest can put you into option overload. Want to see my kids’ party board? This is where I’ve become good at putting my blinders on. I have sense of what will excite Alex the moment he sees it, and that’s my first criteria in picking a cake. The second criteria is that it be simple, especially since I had my hands full this year. Once I found “the” cake, I stopped looking. And that’s that.

Seasoned View: Vol. 14

May 4, 2015May 31, 2015 by Sarah | Leave a comment

Each month we share our Seasoned View. Snapshots of nature and daily life taken by the Seasoned sisters. Find last month’s here and past months’ here.

Happy Monday! It’s May! I can’t believe it. This year is flyyyying by. Do you feel that way too? Today we’re sharing our Seasoned View and it happens to be flowers, flowers and more flowers! I guess April showers really do bring May flowers… All these images were shot in Colorado, so know that you’re sprinkling a little bit of the Rockies onto your desktop this month. Have a great week!

You can upload one or all of these photos to use as your desktop background or as phone and tablet wallpapers. Simply click on the download link below each photo and save the image. Enjoy!

Travel, travel, travel: always on the brain.

May 2, 2015March 27, 2016 by Sarah | 2 Comments

I think about traveling every. single. day. Sometimes it’s motivating, sometimes I feel bummed that I’m not off romping around and sometimes those thoughts encourage me to search for travel jobs and update my website. Tonight I did the later and after working a couple twelve hour not-so-exciting days in a row, all I want is to live in a van and drive, drive, drive. Instead I’ll post some photos – a few of these didn’t make the cut for my website. Maybe they’ll give you the urge to get out there or maybe the lottery gods will read this post and my numbers will win tonight 😉

Cashew Lime Crema and Sweet Potato Fries {Vegan Option}

April 29, 2015March 8, 2018 by Sarah | 2 Comments

Nuts are our ingredient of the season. We’ve been using them for sweets, drinks, snack bars and savory condiments!

Happy ~~Monday~~ errrrr Wednesday! We’re not the type to make excuses, but we’ve been busy! This past week I spent my days in Boulder with Katie, Calder and their two boys. It was such a blast! I can’t even think about all the fun I had or I might cry. I’m not sure when my tears started flowing so freely, but I cry A LOT these days. Usually it’s about happy moments or cute videos, but sometimes I tear up when people win on Wheel of Fortune. Yeah, what the hell is happening to me?! Anyway, when I think about how much fun I had this past week and how cute the kiddos are and how far away we live from each other I want to cry, but I won’t because I’m in control, right? Right.

If you want to feel in control like me, you’ll totally make this lime crema because it’s the easiest and tastiest dipping sauce on BOTH sides of the Mississippi and as you’re shoveling spoonfuls into your mouth you’ll think “Holy cow that was easy. I rock. I’m a cuisine queen. I’m in control of my supper and my life.” At least that’s how my thoughts played out as I was dipping my sweet potato fries. Oh and lime crema is adaptable too! It’s basically an equation: cashews, liquid, salt and seasoning. That liquid could be any type of milk, vegan or not, or you could use water; I promise it will taste just as creamy with water. It’s amazing. Don’t ask questions.