travel & adventures - settlers park, co

Settlers Park - Boulder, CO 

irish soda bread

Recently, I got a random craving for Irish Soda Bread, so I retrieved my favorite recipe from my mom & made it the next day. We have been enjoying it for breakfast ever since & I definitely plan on making ti more frequently instead of once a year for St. Patrick's Day. Also, I am addicted to grapefruit juice & have at least two glasses in the above glass (purchased at a thrift store) daily.

Ingredients 
*all organic 

1 cup sugar
1 1/2 stick butter
2 eggs
2 cups buttermilk
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
5 cups flour
(2 cups raisins if desired, I prefer mine without)

Directions 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Cream the butter & sugar
Add eggs & mix until light & fluffy
Add remaining dry ingredients & mix until everything is incorporated
Add buttermilk & once again mix until all incorporated
Grease your baking medium (i.e. cake pan, angel food pan, or le creuset which I used) with butter
Spoon the batter into the baking medium
Cut a cross on the top of the batter with a knife & sprinkle the top of the batter lightly with sugar
Bake for 50 minutes
Remove from pan 15 minutes after removing from oven

Slice & serve with butter &/or jam - Enjoy!

daily life

Our tree is gone now, but we did keep it up for quite a long time. Also, Jon loves organizing Milo's toys in aesthetically pleasing ways :) 

Our new 2015 calender with seasonal fruits & veggies for each month, we purchased it on etsy here. 

Beeswax candles are my favorite <3

Food & drink books new & old that we use often.

From the bottom - The Flavor Bible, Tartine Bread, & Juice 

spicy buffalo chicken dip

Milo guarding the food :) 

This is my favorite dish at my families Superbowl parties, & despite watching on our own this year the event for me is really about the food :) so we undertook making the dip ourselves for the first time. It was delicious as always & we plan to make it more regularly in the future. Enjoy!

Ingredients 
*all organic 

3-6 chicken breasts - the recipe originally called for 6, but I got an organic pack of three that were quite large & organic chicken is quite expensive, so I decided to see how I fared with the 3 - it ended up working out perfectly with the ratios of the other ingredients
1/2 a bottle of blue cheese dressing - this was surprisingly hard to find in an organic version, so I ended up getting a nice blue cheese from Europe + a bottle of asiago dressing
6 oz of monterey jack
1 bottle of hot wing/buffalo sauce
Serve on the side 
Tortilla Chips
Chopped veggies i.e. carrots + celery

Directions 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
Grill the chicken, then set it aside to cool a bit
In the meantime combine the remaining ingredients in your baking medium
Chop the grilled chicken into tiny pieces or shreds
Add the chicken to the backing medium with the other ingredients & stir until incorporated
Place in the oven & bake until the dish begins to bubble, the cheese is melted, & everything is warm
Serve hot with tortilla chips & veggies

colorado - denver - snow day

We woke up this Sunday to a beautiful blanket of snow coating everything outside our window. It was something we weren't expecting, but delighted by. I have officially decided that I don't mind winter & the snow - I actually love it. There is such a peacefulness & beauty to the winter season. So, Jon, Milo, & I headed outside shortly after waking up. It was quite early, especially for a Sunday, so the snow remained untouched pretty much everywhere we went & it was wonderful. Plus, we didn't see anyone in the park we went to, so despite being in a city it was quite & we felt alone which is nice sometimes - I'm a country girl at heart & can't wait to settle on land & create a homestead in the future. Milo had a blast running around & playing in the snow too as I'm sure you can gather from the images above :) Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend as well <3