Squirrel Picnic

Handmade with Love and Stuff


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Quinoa for Breakfast?

Please note: I promise that the next food article will be about something sinfully decadent to compensate for the healthfulness of this one!

This breakfast idea is for those of us who have just enough time in the average morning to scoop something into a bowl and eat it, but who also want that something to be nutritious and easily modified so we don’t get bored. That something, my friends, is surprisingly quinoa.

I discovered quinoa for breakfast when I got tired of having oatmeal every day. It was last Sunday, and I was looking ahead to the busy week and trying to plan some sort of menu. On a whim and because I had a ton of it that I needed to use, I made 1 cup of quinoa (3 cups cooked) and thought about what ingredients I would like to try with it. I ended up buying a variety of additions so that every morning throughout the week I could just heat a 1/2-cup serving of the quinoa in a microwave, mix in a little dairy and sweetener to taste, throw a few fixins on top and have a fast, satisfying, and completely healthy breakfast. I was so pleased to find that every combination I tried tasted great!

Here are the added ingredients that I experimented with. Mix and match your way through your week, and like me, you might find yourself actually looking forward to breakfast. I’ve found I like plain yogurt, honey, pecans, bananas, and cinnamon. What combination do you like best?


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Make It! Challenge #1: Crochet Turkey Hat

Thanksgiving Turkey HatWhen my friend Diana asked me if I would make a turkey hat she’d seen online for her 11-month-old son, Jack, I admit that at first I wondered why a mom would want to dress her son up like a roast turkey. But after checking out the turkey hats on toddlers across the web, I had to agree that this idea is nothing but cute! I can just see little Jack wearing this adorable hat in his seat at the Thanksgiving table. I was on board and ready to take on the challenge of re-creating it for them. The best part of this project though is that it really wasn’t much of a challenge at all. Even beginning crocheters should have no problem. Continue reading →


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You Don’t Have to Be a Kid to Enjoy a Good Diorama

As you can probably tell from my squirrelly banner here, I’m a fan of dioramas. As a kid, I had to make them for class, but I remember making them for fun too. I’m glad I still haven’t outgrown them. One of my favorite diorama websites is Cuddles and Rage. The small-scale scenes by creators Liz and Jimmy feature the evil yet cute adventures of food (and sometimes animals). They recently found out that their diorama of a fox in a pumpkin patch is a finalist in the DeviantArt diorama contest. Way to go!


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The Tamale: A Tradition Is Born

Every year my aunt and uncle host a Christmas fiesta on their ranch in Longmont, Colorado. The festivities begin as the family gathers around the island in the kitchen to sample appetizers while Aunt Mary mashes refried beans and keeps a watchful eye on the pressure cooker stuffed full of the much-anticipated tamales. Attending this fiesta for the first time almost a decade ago was my introduction into my husband’s warm and loving family. It was an honor to attend then and it means just as much to me today.

This year, I felt especially honored when Aunt Mary offered to teach my sister-in-law, Cindy, and me how to make these tamales using a family recipe that she has worked hard to preserve over the years. Mary told us how her mother, like many family cooks from older generations, never really measured ingredients and didn’t have many written recipes for the traditional foods. She explained that when you’ve made them so many times, they become committed to memory and your eyes and hands naturally intuit the measurements.

That’s why this recipe is so special to the family and why Cindy and I jumped at the opportunity to join Mary in her kitchen on a sunny day in early November to receive her instruction. Continue reading →


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Snow Days Are for Knitters

Snow Days Are for Knitters

This morning’s commute was so pretty thanks to the heavy wet snow draping all the branches. When it’s snowy like this, I’m tempted to fake an illness so I can go home, curl up on the couch, and knit. But there’s plenty of work calling my name, so I’ll just have to make some tea and buckle down.