Summer Wishes Update: 3 Musketeers!

9. finish reading The 3 Musketeers

I did it!
It took quite a while, but I finished. The ending got very exciting.  I already returned the book to the library and got two film versions to watch. One is a silent film from 1921 starring Douglas Fairbanks, and the other is the 1993 Disney version. I thought that that was the most recent one, but now I see another was made in 2011. I am eager to see how the ending was handled because it's really quite grim.

Also, we are making progress on...

8. find a new couch!
We are using wedding money to buy a new sofa! We are considering an Ikea couch, the Karlstad, but we also want to look around a little more first.

Summer Wishes Update - Pie

#4. bake at least 1 kind of new pie

Completed! And how!

I made two new kinds of pie!

Coconut Cream Pie

 I got this recipe from the Brown Eyed Baker, once again. It is very similar to a recipe in the Cook's Illustrated Cookbook, but the Brown Eyed Baker's recipe has you add toasted coconut to the graham cracker pie shell! Even more delicious of course!  This pie was a big hit. It's so rich though that I couldn't finish the piece I cut myself!

We've already received a few wedding gifts and one of them was a hand mixer!!! I used it for the first time while making the whipped cream (with dark rum in it!!) for this pie. It was incredible how fast it happens with an electric mixer. I could make whipped cream all day long!  hee hee hee
I'm sure I will be the one using the mixer most frequently, but Clayton definitely benefits from all the pie making supplies I've been given!

Peach Crumble Pie

This was absolutely fantastic.

Although I've really enjoyed the non-fruit pies I've made, fruit is without a doubt my favorite. Clay was very iffy about me making a peach pie. He had never had homemade peach pie and was not a fan of restaurant/store bought peach pies. Too sweet.

Anyway, I totally won. He loved it.

We were going to a party the day I made this and I wanted to make a pie, but I didn't really feel like going to the store. I looked around the house and I happened to have peaches, so I looked up the Brown Eyed Baker's peach pie recipe. This one has a oatmeal crumble thing on top which was perrrfect.  I actually didn't have enough peaches, so it had 4 peaches and 2 nectarines. I was a little worried that there would be major consistency problems, but it was awesome. I think the reason that nectarine pies are not a thing is because they don't separate from the pit easily so it's harder to cut them up.

We stopped by the store and bought vanilla ice cream right before going to the party.  Incredibly delicious.

Summer Wishes Update - Artistamps

Accomplished:

#3. make at least 2 new artistamps

Hurray! I did it!  This one of Ms. Frizzle I drew, scanned and designed on the computer a long time ago, but never printed it out. I have to go over to the UPS store across the street to print things. Lazy bones!

And here are the new two:

 Pie stamps, because duh. 

Snickers pie and strawberry pie.

 Instead of writing out Pie Post on the stamp I went for a symbol. I was inspired by the UK's Royal Mail with the silhouette of the queen. See here:

I am quite happy with how they turned out. I think next time the numbers need to be bigger and the stamp itself needs to be smaller. The Snickers Pie stamps were a pretty good size, but the Strawberry Pie and Frizzle stamps were more than twice as big as normal stamps.

And here they are in action:

and a few included inside:

 Ms. Bea posing with artistamped mail art. 

Summer Wishes Update - Cheesecake

June 23rd and I've accomplished 2 of my summer wishes!

#5. experiment with cheesecake

So I wanted to experiment with cheesecake because I am planning to make 2 cheesecakes for my wedding.  My dad can't eat gluten so we want to have something that he can eat. Also, Clay and I LOVE cheesecake and it would be fun to have it at our wedding.  We'll also be having some regular (bought!) sheet cakes for the majority of people there. 

Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures, but shortly after I made my list I made two cheesecakes with two different recipes. I had a party and a cheesecake testing.  People voted on best filling and best crust.

The first recipe I tried was from the Cook's Illustrated Cookbook.

The second was this recipe from The Food Network website. Unfortunately I took this cheesecake out of the oven too soon, and it was a little goopy. The recipe says "The cheesecake should still jiggle (it will firm up after chilling), so be careful not to overcook." and so I took it out before I thought it was ready because of this. Next time I'll wait longer.

I wanted to make a completely gluten free cheesecake so that my dad could eat it. It's not hard to do, because only the crust has gluten to begin with.  I chose gluten free shortbread cookies and smashed them to crumbs for one crust, and then for the second crust I chose a gluten-full shortbread cookie and did the same thing.

So the moment of truth...  

The second recipe from the Food Network won out for the filling. It has more sour cream in it than the other recipe and we thought that this probably lent it the lighter, tarter flavor that it had.

And.... people actually preferred the gluten free crust!!!

Interesting, eh?

I still have more experiments to do.  I'm going to make another cheesecake using the Food Network recipe again. Hopefully I can get it un-goopy. I also want to try it with an animal cookie crust, which Clay and his mom swear is the best. I'm planning on making one larger gluten-free cheesecake and one smaller gluten-full one for me and Clay and whoever else wants it.

Coming soon:   #3. make at least 2 new artistamps

Wishes for this summer

Several of my favorite bloggers share lists of goals. It's something that I love reading! It makes me excited just reading them, thinking about all the fun things there are to do, and the fun of planning events.  I also like the idea of creative lists.... things that aren't exactly goals, but just more ideas for when you are bored and don't know what to do!

Here are a few list links:
Goodnight Little Spoon - 23 before 24
Champaign Toast - Life List
Uncustomary - Personal Goals

So with a summer of vacation in mind I've made a list of things I'd like to do.

1. Paint the front door

2. Paint the kitchen yellow!

3. make at least 2 new artistamps

4. bake at least 1 kind of new pie

5. experiment with cheese cake

6. fix the chair in the garage

7. repaint the chair

8. find a new couch

9. finish reading The 3 Musketeers

10. get rid of the garage junk!

11. Have a mail social

12. Put up hooks for pans in the kitchen.

Most of my goals have to do with mail art or making the house nicer.  Neither Clay nor I are clean and tidy people by nature, but we are sick of being messy so we are making great efforts to keep the house clean.

I'll also try to give updates when I accomplish things!

Do you have a list of goals for life / this year / this summer? If you comment with a link I'll add it at the bottom of this post!