Easy plum cake and my happy new kitchen cutie

Today, I needed to use up a couple of ripe plums and plum cake sounded good to me. Never mind the fact that I've only ever heard tell of plum cake and have yet to experience the delicious flavors of plums baked into a soft, moist cake. I spent the five minutes required to put it together, baked it up and now it's cooling on my new little kitchen butcher's block cart.

On Tuesday, I had to exchange an item at Ikea and whilst wandering around the As Is section of the store, I happened upon a lonely looking little item that just looked up at me and asked to be taken home. It was too cute to resist and, ended up being just the right size for my teeny, tiny, pint-sized kitchen. Anyway, it turns out that this sweet little butcher's block cart is the perfect size for just about everything, including holding a cooling plum cake.

wee-est canning jars

 I just have to show off the newest addition to my canning jar collection. While browsing the shelves of my local hardware store, I found a whole flat of these teeny little canning jars.

12 jars is really too many to store in my miniature apartment

You can see these 4 oz. jars are even smaller than a half pint, these are quarter pint sized. So, itty bitty!

 In all honesty, I don't have the space to store even a mouse in my tiny house and would have preferred to buy just 1/2 a dozen of them, but since they only come in a box of 12 I figured I should buy the 12 and hope it encourages me to can and then give away tiny jars of jelly. So cute!!

These would be ideal for canning things like hot peppers or relish that would only be used in small quantities. Foods would stay fresher.

These Raspberries are just average sized so you can see just how teeny the jars are when a half a handful fills up the jar.

I love the fact that the lid is almost the same size as the jar. It makes the jars look very top heavy, as though they still need to grow into their lids.

Yay for lots of color!

I unpacked my souvenirs today, upon returning from England and found that most of the things I purchased are very colorful and fun. This just makes me happy!

Matthew and I didn't buy quite as many souvenirs on this trip to England, which is a good thing considering the size of our apartment, but I also figured that I'd just pick out a few things to post instead of posting a barrage of souvenir photos like I did a couple of years ago. It was kind of terrible and annoying =)



Macarons from Pierre Herme. I tried these in Japan and they were very good. So, when I saw them at Selfridges, I had to buy a few. And, they miraculously survived the trip back in one of the Dr. Who mugs. Yes, more mugs. arg!


Okay, well this isn't very colorful but I'm really, really excited to try it out. I love! chestnuts. What to do with it? I am taking any suggestions since squeezing it directly into my mouth might seem a bit boorish.


The craziest and brightest shoes I've ever owned. How will I ever manage to match these to an outfit? I can barely put together a decent outfit when I'm working with all black and grey. This might be a screaming disaster!


Since there was no way I'd be able to afford an actual dress from Fair, I bought this darling bag with a dress on it. It's just so pretty and fun!

fall flavors, fall colors

Today, I felt like finally admitting the fact that Fall has come and summer is gone. I've replaced my nectarines and canning with rich, warming German dishes; never mind the fact that it will be 90 degrees tomorrow and the next day!



So, in celebration of fall I made Sweet and Sour Red Cabbage to pair with Kongisberger Klopse and Spatzle. I used the recipes from Horst Mager's cookbook "My Favorite Recipes," because everything I've made from his cookbook turns out perfectly every time.

Sweet and Sour Red Cabbage

Copied from My Favorite Recipes by Horst Mager

This is Horst Mager's Mother's recipe and he suggests eating it with sauerbraten, roast pork, duck or goose, or potato pancakes.

2 pound head of red cabbage

4 small onions

4 tablespoons bacon fat or butter

¼ cup red wine vinegar

¼ cup red wine

¼ cup beef or chicken stock

¼ cup sugar

1/8 teaspoon ground clove

1 bay leaf

1 large Granny Smith type apple, peeled, cored and coarsely chopped

2 tablespoons red currant jelly

salt and black pepper to taste

Remove outside(damaged) leaves of red cabbage and cut cabbage into quarters. Cut stem out and discard. Cut cabbage into matchstick sized strips. Cut the onions paper-thin. Heat butter or bacon fat in a heavy-bottomed pan and saute apples and onions until golden brown. Add vinegar, stock, red wine, red currant jelly, bay leaf, salt, pepper, ground cloves and sugar to this mixture. Loosely place red cabbage into mixture and cover with a lid. Braise for about one hour over low heat, stirring occasionally to make sure the cabbage does not scorch on the bottom of the pan. Remove lid and allow to cook for another 10-15 minutes to allow liquid to evaporate.

In addition to making tasty warming foods, I purchased an adorable fall towel at the hardware store because I couldn't bear to leave with only some boring batteries for the kitchen scale. So, this hopped into my hand and only my towel rack and now I love it!

Little Ice Bat

We found this little fellow at an adorable children's toy store in McMinnville, Oregon while we were there to attend my cousin's wedding (back in 2007). As soon as we got into our hotel room in Portland, he decided to take a little nap. He's pretty cute all snuggled up in a giant bed, and he insisted he needed all that room to get a good rest; we believed him.

Little Tokyo Pals

I've realized fairly recently that I never posted photos of the little souvenirs that Matthew and I brought back from our trip to Japan. I know that I have had about 6 months to do a series of cute little souvenir posts like I did after our trip to England but I guess it just hadn't occurred to me until now. We didn't really bring back as many fun, cutie tchotchkes from Japan; it sounds crazy considering that Japan is the land of cute plastic toys(Hello Kitty, San-x, lucky cats) but we can find so much of that for sale in the US as well.

Here are a few photos of my favorite little pals that hitched a ride in our suitcases.


This little octo is from the Tokyo Sealife park. He is very cute and not so useful. But very sweet to look at and soft to squeeze.


Hello! he says. Please don't eat me!


This little turtle is functional as well as cute. See the little hole in the middle of his shell? a stick of incense fits in there perfectly. I use him to hold the wonderful coffee scented incense that a friend sent to me for my birthday. It makes the whole apartment smell like roasting coffee.

I think this turtle wants to go on a little walk. This is the first time I've let him outside to go exploring.


Walkin' along, walkin' along. tum dee dum, dee dum...


Don't hurt your self little turtle, that mossy spot looks slippery and remember that it rained today!


Oh little turtle! you made it safely past the mossy bit only to get stuck in a potted cactus, oh dear! I think I'd better carry you the rest of the way.

Where do you want to go?


A ha! on top of the post, to catch the last rays of sun before it sets. What a nice way to end the day.

Cutie Robot Pillow

During my visit home in November, I found a darling Robot print fabric at a tiny quilting store in Ashland. I just knew I had to have this fabric; I would worry about what to make with it later. The problem of what to do with it was, of course, quickly solved when I remembered that the only things I can sew are aprons and pillows. I knew Matthew wouldn't be too likely to wear an Apron(at least not the style I'd sew with ruffles and RicRac), so I chose the only other option.



As usual, with any of my sewing projects(I should be honest and just call them like they are - messes), I had grand and fantastic visions for this humble little pillow, and not a one of them came to fruition. By the finish, I ended up with an extremely basic and simple pillow, despite several restarts and too many hours of planning(the most misguided of my sewing "career").



Someday, perhaps I'll take the entire thing apart and turn it into a truly worthy pillow, but until then, we'll just feel cheered by the tiny Robots and Robot doggies in the pattern. So Cute!

My Christmas Bami Ballen

My Friend, Anesha, sent me a very old Bami Ballen that she made when she was a girl. Now she wants to know what I found inside.

So, Anesha, this is what was inside:


First a pen and a small crystal heart


Then a hair barrette


Followed by a second hair barrette with only half the clasp still present




Then a half an egg of putty that was stuck to the crepe,
after that, I found a little viking game



In the very middle, there was a pack of cards and a little bear puzzle wrapped back to back.

It was really fun to unwrap the bami ballen. So fun, that I think I might make them for Christmas.

my new mattress pad

As I was changing the sheets on my bed this morning, I remembered that I recently bought a new mattress pad. It was such a nice sight and I realized just how much better this relatively cheap mattress pad looks compared to what we were using before. I love my new mattress pad and thought I'd take a few photos of it to remind me of such a happy thing when, someday, it is no longer new.


The little seals are chatting

images from a long week

Today, I'm catching up on chores that haven't been done for way too long and so in keeping with my theme for the day, I figured I'd post pictures taken over the course of the week. Catch up on my photographs and a blog post, all in one.

This past weekend, we stayed with friends in San Jose who have an incredibly darling sense of home decor and style. We felt right at home because their apartment is very small and cramped with tons of stuff in it, just like ours. They also have too many cute things everywhere you look. It was really a fun place. I didn't want to seem creepy by photographing everything so, I limited myself to the bathroom curtains and their potted garden, which, now that I think about it might seem like odd choices to most people. Oh well, I can't help being a little obsessive when it comes to admiring cuteness.


Such lovely basil


A neighbor's garden whirlie- adds color


So much mint. I'd like such a vigorous mint plant.


The bathroom curtain


Three little curtain creatures


Elephant with a leaf for a tail

The rest of the photos in this post were taken today and have nothing to do with our friend's house.


I love this dress and have worn it for a couple of weddings this summer. It's super cute.



Today, I'm making poached fish with papaya salsa. For the salsa, I roasted a few red serranos under my broiler to tame the heat of those spicy creatures. Tasty.