Baby Addie Luna

The HopeLab family is growing! Baby Addie Luna was born on Monday morning, September 22nd! . Vero is at the hospital that down the street from our office so at lunch I walked to the hospital. I just met the most adorable baby girl that I have seen in a long time! Welcome Miss Addie Luna!

Lace Scarf Continued...Half way done!


Well, its been a few weeks since my first post about this lace scarf. I thought I would share with you my progess. This scarf pattern is very easy to follow, its my first lace with bead scarf, I was very intimated at first. Sure, I have some mistakes in it, but I don't think you can tell! It actually is a easy fast knit but takes long, because of all the detail. I am hoping to finish before November so I can start wearing it for the fall! I think I will try to make a second scarf for a holiday gift.

The Celebration continues


For my birthday I received some really nice gifts from my co workers. Nicole treated me to a nice pedicure and we went out to dinner. Chris a fellow baker got me the Martha Stewart Cookie book, which was on my wish list! My work got me a gift card to Jo-Anns crafts! I also got a gift card for the movie! As a thank you to Chris, over the weekend I made a cookie from the cookie book, Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies! Yum, I think they turned out pretty yummy. It felt nice to bake because I have not baked in a few weeks. This receipe was easy to follow and what shocked me was there are no eggs in this batter. This is the first time I have baked cookies that do not call for eggs. They turned out really yummy, give it a try! Here is the receipe:

Adapted from the book mentioned above:
11/2 cups plus 1 tablespoon all purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoon of ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 freshly grated nutmeg
1 tablespoon unsweetened Dutch process cocoa powder
1 stick of butter
1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup unsulfured molasses
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons of boiling water
7 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
1/4 granulated sugar

In a bowl sift flour, ginger, cinnamon, cloves nutmeg and cocoa.
In a bowl of a electric mixer with paddle attachment beat butter and fresh ginger four about 4 minutes. Add b.sugar until combined. Add molasses beat until combined.

In a small bowl, dissolve baking soda in the boiling water. Beat half of flour mixture into butter mixture. Beat in baking soda mixture, add remaining flour mixture. Mix in chocolate. Place onto plastic wrap, into a 1 inch disc. Refrigerate until firm, 2 hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 325, roll dough into balls and roll in sugar. Place on cookie with parchment paper in freezer for 20 minutes. Bake for 10-12 minutes, rotate half way through. Bake until cookie tops crack. Let cool for 5 minutes then transfer to wire rack.

The recipe calls for balls to be 1 1/2 inches around, but I made mine smaller. I did not use cloves in this because I did not have any! Also, I used light brown sugar instead of dark. These cookies turned out fabulous!

Birthday wishes!


Sunday marked my 30th year in this world! I enjoyed a nice relaxing day driving home from Sacramento for a wedding. When I returned to my house I found a beautiful vase of flowers! My best friend who lives in San Diego sent them to me. I was so shocked because these flowers were so vibrant with different shades of pink. The next day when I got home I checked the mail I received two cards from San Diego! What a way to be thought of on my birthday!

Breakfast Bars

The challenge: My neice, Ava is going into kindergarten this week and my sister wanted me to help find a receipe for some kind of breakfast bar. I found the rasebarry breakfast bars on smitten kitchen and thought I struck gold! I wanted the bars to help my neice and come from me so I added a few tweaks and out comes my braeakfast bars. I brought about half to my work yersterday morning and by lunch time they were almost gone! Terika loved them so much that she ate more than one! I am sure the bars that are on smitten kitchen are much better but here is my version of yummy breakfast bars!

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen:
Here is the receipe with my changes if you want the original receipe go to Smitten Kitchen!

For the crust and crumb:
1 1/2 whole wheat flour
3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 1/4 cups rolled oats
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 of peanut butter

For the raspberry filling:
2 tablespoons of white sugar
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 pound raspberries
2 heaping spoons of raspberry jam
fresh or frozen1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

Make the crust and crumb: Preheat the oven to 350°F. Put a long piece of parchment paper in the bottom of the pan, letting the parchment extend up the two short sides of the pan and overhang slightly on both ends. (This will make it easy to remove the bars from the pan after they have baked.) Butter the parchment.
Put the flour, brown sugar, oats, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon in a food processor. Pulse in short bursts until combined. Add the peanut butter and pulse until combined.

Reserve 1 1/2 cup of the mixture and set aside. Pour the rest of the mixture into the prepared pan and use your hands to push the crust into an even layer at the bottom of the pan. The crust should touch the sides of the pan. Bake until golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let the crust cool. Keep the oven on while you make the raspberry filling.

Make the raspberry filling: In a medium bowl, whisk the sugar, lemon zest, cinnamon and flour together. Add the raspberries, lemon juice toss until the raspberries are evenly coated.

Assemble and bake the bars: Spread the raspberry filling evenly on top of the cooled crust. Sprinkle the reserved crust mixture evenly on top of the filling.
Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, rotate pan half way through the baking process.
Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely, then cut into squares and serve. The bars can be store in the refridgerator in an airtight container for up to two days.

birthday

On Saturday night I went out with a few girlfriends to celebrate my 30th birthday. One of the girls I was with her birthday was the next day. So, I made her a small makeup zippered pouch. With my new fabric that I bought at Whizbang Fabrics! The night was fun, did a little dancing and got to hang out with some really cool ladies!