Highdesert Stamper – Artistic Inkspirations

Here are a couple more of my bamboo pages… so you can see how the backgrounds vary…

Visit my ETSY SHOP for handcrafted items. All items displayed are in stock and will ship the next day!

It was still too cold in my stamp room today.. I wanted to get out there and put things away, take some pics, clean off the table, create some new things… but 61 deg and arthritis don’t go too well together. SO I made some Chocolate crescent cookies (very similar to the little Russian tea cakes I used to make only these had chocolate along with all the ground almonds and butter).. and I made some cinnamon rolls. I have been craving cinnamon rolls!! I mixed up my bread dough.. and it took forever to rise… my kitchen was too cold.  So.. after a few hours they doubled, so I started rolling out the dough to make the rolls. I only have a very small space to work, so had to make the rolls in batches.. then put them all on a baking pan and baked them. I finished them off with an Almond glaze instead of the traditional vanilla glaze. The taste reminded me of the “bear claws” we get at a local bakery. But so yummy!!! Here they are.. before they were eaten on!!

They didn’t rise as much as I would have liked… but they sure taste good!! My mail man will be getting a few in his Christmas box of cookies (if there are any left by Monday!!)

I’ll try to go retrieve the photos of my bamboo pages and get them posted later.. so be sure to come back!!

I am also working on new things for a January class. Hearts and Flowers!!

As I write this… the temperature is dropping and it’s currently 15degrees F. ITS COLD!!!

Orecchiette Pasta or “little ears” is a good pasta to cook to “hold the sauce” well. It’s one of those pastas that just loves to grab the sauce. I like to cook EASY dishes, since I can’t stand very long and prep a lot of things. I saw a recipe in one of my emails calling for any kind of pasta and a quick pesto sauce with chicken. I had a jar of pesto, so I gave it a try.  Pesto is one thing I’ve found, that if you find a good ready to use brand… go for it. Trader Joe’s here in town has some wonderful pre-made sauces.  They have “tastings” so if you want to try something before buying it.. wait long enough and they’ll serve all their new things in the back of the store in their “tastings”.  This Pesto sauce I got was one such item.

My recipe called for some sun-dried tomatoes which I didn’t happen to have, but I had some cherry tomatoes. So I buzzed them in my little bullet to grind them up and threw them in the pan with the chicken. I also modified the given recipe a bit and added some “It’s a Dilly” seasoning, and some onion powder. The rest I left the same with about 1 1/2 TB garlic ground up, 3 large boneless chicken thighs (the recipe called for breasts, but I had thighs which have much more flavor), and the pesto.  I did add a can of artichoke hearts. I’ve had artichokes in many dishes in restaurants and I know it goes well with pestos.  So here is what my Orecchiette Pasta dish looked like all sauced up..  My daughter says she wishes I’d learn how to cook…. I guess if I did learn how to cook any better…they’d have to roll me out the door!!

Try it… it’s yummy!!! And a very quick and easy main dish!