they were delicious

And they were delicious. Very juicy little sausages in a perfectly baked roll with just a tiny crispness to the crust. Just to add on a few more calories, we dipped them in a sour cream mustard dip.

bitty sausage rolls

Recently Matthew and I were lured into purchasing teeny, plump sausages from the Japanese market. They were so short, and irresistibly sausagy and cute. Now, before you say "what? Japanese sausage? are you crazy?" All the sausages we've bought from the Japanese grocery store have been really good and made of very high quality meat. These particular sausages are made of beef and look a bit darker because of that.



With bread dough in the fridge and these little guys just waiting to be eaten, it seemed perfectly logical to think of making sausage rolls. I'm honestly not entirely sure that this will work, but I've got to try it because the whole concept is just too yummy and cute. They might fall apart while baking but if nothing else, we can pull out the sausages and eat them all on their own. I'm sure they will be delicious!

past due cupcake post

A valentine gift from my sweet and slightly crazy neighbor. It made my day when he knocked on the door and presented me with this little treat all packaged in an individual cupcake carrier. It was all just too cute.



I know it's been over a month since valentine's day but I still wanted to post this darling little treat(Please know that I did in fact eat it a timely manner, the posting just took a bit longer than it should have. But one never knows with me; I do love to save food).



And below is a photo of the cake we split on valentine's day. Yes we did actually split it and therefore just the two of us ate the entire thing. why? how? it was from the sheer force of our cake-eating will!

pretty in pink and red bows

Just a pretty little picture of some homemade caramels all wrapped up in pretty bows. These sea salt and coaco nib caramels were a gift from my employer for valentine's day. They are incredibly rich and delicious, hence the reason I still have a handfull left three full weeks after valentine's day.

silly little pipe cleaner creatures

My friend Jessica likes making crafts and has a large enough house/table for such activities so I was delighted to visit her and her darling new home for a little pipe cleaner pencil topper fun. These tiny creatures are very easy to make but are incredibly silly due to their wrapped/mummy look and giant poofy heads. So cute!


Everybody says the whiskers really look like a funny mustache but either way, kitty is silly and cute.

yet another bread post

I double, triple swear I'm not turning this into a bread/baking blog. It may seem that way to anybody who has read my last few posts but in all honesty I'm still just really, super duper excited about the fact that I can make lovely little loaves with little to no effort. It's truly grand!

So, today I finally tried my hand at making a different size loaf of bread than whatever the one size ball o' dough usually makes. I wanted to make a few little loaves to use for Matthew's sandwiches and so I split the one pound ball o' dough into half and then split one of the halves into half again to make three pieces, one larger and two smaller. I had promised my neighbor a loaf of freshly baked bread and the larger of the three was intended for him. He, of course, took one of the smaller ones but I don't think Matthew will complain if he gets an extra large sandwich at some point this week. I, of course, had hoped to keep both the teensy loaves because they are just too tiny and cute.



For the most part, this was a very successful batch of bitty bread but I did learn something from this experience; when I want to make and bake more than one loaf at a time I need to put them on the baking stone one at a time. The largest loaf got a bit hung up on his way into the oven and I almost lost him. All worked out in the end, but for a couple seconds there we had a mini crisis in Lynnea's Little Kitchen.

My new recipe book: it doesn't contain any recipes yet

For the past month or so, I've been working on putting together a recipe book. A book that contains only the recipes that I use and love on a regular basis. The recipes that I love because either, I make them all the time, or because they were special recipes from my childhood.



I know that both my mother and my grandmother have their own personal recipe books that they turn to for those basic favorites that they would be lost without and I recently realized that I really needed to start the process of creating my own personal recipe book. My binder o' magazine clippings and mysterious ingredient lists written on sticky notes* was just getting to be more of a nuisance than a useful resource for cooking. I also came to the conclusion that I need to start weeding through all the information that I've saved; I need to throw out the recipes that either I or Matthew wouldn't even touch with a ten foot pole and then attempt to make the ones that I still think sound appetizing.



So, after almost two months, off and on with this project and one full week of weird dinners (Matthew only protested mildly), I desperately need to put pen to paper and write the first recipe in my new, precious book. The problem is that so far I haven't written a single recipe in this book. Now that I've finally started to compile the recipes that I want to include in the book, I'm second and triple guessing each recipe and whether or not it is actually worthy of inclusion. Is it truly important to me? Is it something that I'll regret putting in later? Would it be better to just keep the fragile little magazine clipping that I've kept for years at this point?



Now, I have a personal recipe book that's full of blank pages. Not a thing written in it yet and the longer I wait the harder it is to start. I suppose that one of these days I'll just give in and put the first recipe into my book but until then I just keep sifting through my pile of clippings and half written recipes on sticky notes and sighing because, as usual, I can't make up my mind.



* Many of these mystery sticky notes had to be tossed due to the fact that I wrote the ingredients down and assumed I'd somehow remember the name of the recipe, the type of recipe and the process for turning those ingredients into something meaningful. Rather silly of me!