31 Days: Day 1 Bavarian Beer Soup

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Hello!  If this is your first time here, please scroll down to see Day 1!

31 Days: Day 2 Spooky Silhouette

31 Days: Day 3 Mummy Cookies

31 Days: Day 4 Candy Corn Centerpiece

31 Days: Day 5 Decoupage Jack-o-Lantern

31 Days: Day 6 Sunflower Bouquet

31 Days: Day 7 Spider Cookies

31 Days: Day 8 Subway Art

31 Days: Day 9 Jack-o-Lantern in a Jar

31 Days: Day 10 Fabric Wreath

31 Days: Day 11 Pumpkin Bread

31 Days: Day 12 Start Your Day Off Right

31 Days: Day 13 Pumpkin Dip

31 Days: Day 14 Apple Cider Cups

31 Days: Day 15 Cinnamon Rolls

31 Days: Day 16 Make Your Own Pizza

31 Days: Day 17 Pumpkin Gingerbread Trifle

***

Guten Tag!

Danke für Ihren Besuch!

Ok, my German is pretty limited, so unless you want me to continue by naming all of the vegetables and beers I know, we can stop there!

Today is my first day of my 31 Days series!  

I'm kicking it off with a tribute to Bavaria and everyone's favorite…Oktoberfest!  

So go change into your favorite lederhosen or dirndl, pour yourself a liter of your favorite Pilsner, Hefeweisen, Helles, or Dunkel, and follow along as I show you how to make Bavarian beer soup.

Prost!

This is me at Oktoberfest a few years ago.  We've been down to Munich for the festivities two of the four years we've lived here.  It's an absolute zoo…and it's so much fun!  

Today is October 1st and you probably think I'm starting my 31 days project with beer soup to coincide with the beginning of Oktoberfest.

Almost.

Oktoberfest started on October 12, 1810 with the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig (later King Ludwig I) and Princess Therese.  Citizens of Munich were invited to attend and celebrate.  The next year, it was held as an agricultural show…and now, in its 178th year, it is the largest festival in the world.  About six million people attend Oktoberfest during its 16 days and drink 1.5 million gallons of beer.  Oktoberfest used to be during the month of October (hence the name!) but it was moved to September for warmer weather.

So, this is actually the LAST weekend of Oktoberfest this year.  The fest will end on Monday, October 3rd this year.  (Normally it would end on the first Sunday of October, but October 3rd is a national holiday…so the party continues for one additional day!)

We have a favorite German restaurant nearby that makes the most delicious beer soup.  I was hoping to replicate their soup with this new recipe I found.  It was definitely delicious, but it was actually nothing like the soup we know.  We enjoyed it anyway!

I found this recipe on Suite 101 and decided to give it a try.  First, I chopped up the onions...

Then, I got my handy-dandy spice bag ready. We have a few of these in our house at all times for when we make glühwein.  (Don't worry, I'll show you once the weather gets cold!)

I filled the spice bag with the spices.

I also borrowed one of Romas' Pilsner beers.  It's from Sperber Bräu - the restaurant that serves the beer soup.  They actually have an entire meal made with their beer!  It's pretty yummy!  They make a Pilsner called Rosenberger Pils and it's Romas' absolute favorites.  I used it in the soup.  

I caramelized the onions in the saucepan - they smelled delicious!

Then I added the beer and the broth.  

About 30 minutes later it was ready!  It was pretty tough to wait while it was simmering.  It smelled SO good!  It was delicious, although it tasted nothing like the beer soup from Sperber Bräu!  This soup reminded me a lot of French Onion Soup, so much so I was tempted to put bread and cheese in it!

Guten Appetit!

Click HERE for the printable recipe.

Come back tomorrow for another Fun, Fall Project!

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Wordless Wednesday: Deep in Thought

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Vegan Chocolate Cake

Pin It I was asked recently to make a vegan chocolate cake for a birthday party where the theme was dragonflies. I'm definitely not a vegan and have never made a vegan recipe in my life!  (My 7 year stint as a vegetarian doesn't really count because all I ever ate was cereal and pancakes!)

I started researching recipes for vegan cakes and frostings but I was pretty skeptical about it.  I mean, what cake could taste good without eggs and milk?  I found out that not only was it easy to make the cake, it was actually pretty darn tasty too!!

You start by sifting the dry ingredients together...

The instant espresso needs special attention at the bottom of the sifter.  It was impossible for me to sift all of the pieces, but it was close enough.   

Set the dry ingredients aside and get to work on the wet ones.  In another large bowl, beat sugar, oil, and pumpkin until well blended.  

…beating...

Now add the soy milk mixture and blend together.

Add the flour mixture to the liquid mixture and beat until it's smooth.  Pour into cake pans and bake for approximately 30 minutes.

While the cake was baking, I set to work making the chocolate icing.  I absolutely love my KitchenAid mixer…I use it for EVERYTHING!  If you don't have a stand mixer, you're seriously missing out! 

 I creamed the soy margarine and powdered sugar until they were combined.

Then I added the soy milk, cocoa powder, and vanilla to finish the frosting.  

Once the cakes were baked and cooled, I leveled them.  This was my biggest mistake when I was first playing around with cake decorating.  I used to try to stack whatever came out of the oven - which always meant a heaping, domed pile with huge empty spaces around the sides!  In order to stack cakes, you must first level them.  I have a small leveler from Wilton, but you can do it with a knife if you are careful to be accurate.  Level both cakes the same height to create two equal (and flat!) layers.

I added some frosting and stacked my cakes.  Notice that the top layer is actually upside down.  The bottom of the layer is a much nicer edge than the top where you have just cut.  When stacking, always put the bottom layer right-side-up and the top layer upside-down.  (Any additional layers in between can go however you want!)  This will help you get clean edges for icing.

I frosted the cake with my angled spatula and let it sit.

I whipped up a batch of vegan vanilla icing and tinted it yellow - remember, I still need a dragonfly somewhere!  I filled a silicone pastry bag with the icing and used a #12 Wilton tip.  (I just recently learned about silicone pastry bags and I LOVE THEM!  I think they're so much better than your standard bag and they're about the same price.  I'm never buying a regular bag again!

I piped dots on the cake, using more icing and pressure for the head and gradually less as I moved towards the tail.

I switched tips to a #5 and piped the wings.

Romas decided the little guy needed eyes, so I used small sugar pearls.  With a toothpick, I dotted a little blue food coloring gel to make the pupils.  (Do dragonflies have pupils?)

This was not a complicated cake to make.  Don't let the word "vegan" scare you away!  It was really tasty and I wouldn't hesitate to make it again.  In fact, the icing recipe is going to become my go-to recipe for chocolate!  It was delicious!

Click HERE for the printable recipe.  Happy {vegan} baking!

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Wordless Wednesday: Bathing Beauty

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Weird Hotels

Pin It Where's the weirdest place you've ever stayed?  Do you have a hotel that pops into mind the second you ask yourself that question?

We spent Labor Day weekend in Amsterdam and we stayed at a pretty weird hotel.  When I was writing my post about our weekend, I decided that our weird hotels needed a post of their own.

I should start this post with a disclaimer: We do not intentionally stay at weird hotels!  For the past four years, we have been stationed in Germany with the US Army.  It has been, at times, like a paid vacation.  We have access to Europe by car, train, plane…and within a few hours, we can be at our destination.  The Army gives its soldiers a 4-day weekend every month in order to compensate them for the long hours and frequent weekend assignments.  We love these 4-days.  We rarely spend one at home.  Instead, we bop around Europe, exploring city after city.

Spending four days a month on vacation in Europe can get pretty pricey.  Airfare, gas, hotels, food, souvenirs…it adds up quickly.  Have you looked up the conversion rate lately for dollar to Euro?  It sucks. For every one Euro you spend, you're actually spending roughly about $1.50.  And traveling in Great Britain or Scandinavia?  It's almost DOUBLE.  So a 4-day weekend in Europe, even with the thriftiest budget, can easily end up costing $700 for the two of us.  Easily.


So I, as our travel agent, always look for deals on hotels.  I'm always looking for a great location but at a great price.  I've come up with a lot of great hotels that way!  We've stayed right in the heart of a city, in a nice hotel, for relatively cheap.  I have plenty of examples of that…but we'll save them for another day!

Today I want to show you a couple of my mistakes.  Epic fails, if you will!

I'll start with Amsterdam.

City Partner Aalborg Hotel is a three star hotel, according to Booking.com.  They describe the hotel as having "modern rooms" with "private bathrooms and TV." (Can you believe in Europe you could still book a hotel with a common bathroom??)  The hotel also has free WiFi throughout.  It says you can request a balcony, room with a view, flowers, champagne, even a massage!  And it's only 500 meters from the nearest tram stop.  Sounds great, right?  We paid about $525 for a 3-night stay…and this is what we got:

I'm pretty sure this qualifies as a closet and not a room!  Certainly not a room that costs $175 a night!  Our TV remote didn't work, but then again, most of them don't work without batteries.  It didn't matter, though, because our TV didn't work anyway, which probably had something to do with the wires hanging out of it.  The bathroom (see the dark shadow on the left?) was small, but not bad…as long as you ignored the fact that the cold knob on the sink didn't work.  Cold water is overrated anyhow.  It was also pretty warm in Amsterdam that weekend - almost 90 degrees during the day - and the hotel had no air conditioning.

When I was looking for a hotel for our trip, I called this one and asked if they would put a crib in the room for us.  The woman said, "Of course!"  So I added a crib request to our online booking form.  When we arrived, we were amazed that we could fit ourselves and our bags in the room.  A crib was certainly out of the question…which meant the Bee was sleeping with us.  

Not quite the 3-star hotel we had envisioned.  It's just another reminder of how little you can get with American dollars in Western Europe these days.  At least it was very conveniently located near public transportation.

***

My other epic fail in hotel bookings was in Bratislava, Slovakia.  We drove to Bratislava last March for a 4-day weekend.  I found what I thought was a great hotel.  It was centrally located - literally just across the street from the old historic town.  It was really affordable and had on-site parking (something we always have to be careful of with our SUV in these small, European towns).  I was so excited because this hotel was listed as "retro."  How cool is that?!?!  

You know the saying: Hind sight is 20/20?  Well, here is where I should have stopped and remembered some of my AP European history from tenth grade.  A "retro" hotel from the 1970's in Slovakia…?  Oh, Andrea.  Nothing built during the Soviet era in Eastern Europe would be a good place to stay!

We arrived at the Hotel Kyjev at almost midnight, parked, and went inside to check in.  The lobby was very old looking and it was starting to dawn on me that maybe "retro" wasn't the way to go.  (Had we arrived during the day we would have seen the outside of the building and probably kept going!)

We took the elevator to our room and I was scared to death.  Romas said that elevators need to be inspected often, so I shouldn't be so nervous.  (I kept looking for the "passed inspection" sticker with the date, but I couldn't find one.)  We got to our room and we were amazed.  Our room was tiny and probably hadn't had new paint or carpeting since it was built.  We had a little cement room, with a window, and two beds (gotta love the European idea of a "double bed").  There was no other furniture and certainly no TV.  Romas made the executive decision that we sleep on top of the blankets and I decided that socks were a must.  Sounds charming, doesn't it?

This picture is from their website…we didn't have a TV, but look at the one in the picture!!  Do they even make them like that anymore??  I guess you get a "retro" TV as part of your "retro" room now! 

Again, I had found a hotel with an incredible location…but the accommodations were less than stellar.  At least in this case we really did get a good deal on our room!    

These are two of the less than great places we've stayed in while traveling.  We've definitely had more good experiences than bad though.  Maybe I should write another post about some of the amazing hotels we've found along the way...

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We're Going PAPERLESS!

Pin It Paperless?  I know…seems a little drastic.  But think about it: how many paper towels do you go through in a day?  What about paper napkins?  We go through a lot of each.  I even started buying those half-sized paper towels in an effort to use less paper.

But guess what?

Now I use 2 or more sheets at a time!  Eek!!  That totally defeats the purpose!!

And then there are napkins.  We go through at least two paper napkins each night at dinner.  We've tried to use cloth napkins, but the napkins I bought were supposed to be for holidays and special events.  I never want to use them - especially since they haven't really held up to repeated washings.  They weren't cheap and I don't want to keep replacing them.  Plus, let's be honest, having to iron them after every wash is a MAJOR turn-off.  

But we live in Germany, the land of "bring-your-own-plate-and-silverware-to-a-BBQ-to-avoid-making-paper-and-plastic-waste" and after spending years of recycling virtually everything, the paper waste is really getting on my nerves.  It's been really bothering me but I think I've found our solution!

Love For Earth is an Etsy shop with so many great handmade items.  I found her during one of my countless sweeps of the Etsy world.  (Did you know I'm hopelessly addicted to Etsy?)  I bought reusable napkins from Kara to replace the thousands of paper napkins we use.  And at less than $1 a piece, they are WAY cheaper than the cloth napkins I was using.  And…drumroll, please…they don't need to be ironed!!  Just fold them up and put them in your napkin holder.  Ta da!!

While I was shopping for napkins, I started thinking about our dish towels.  I don't think I've ever been satisfied with the dish towels I buy.  Most aren't absorbent - so why even bother using them when they just smear the water??  I love how cute some of them are, but when they don't actually absorb any water, they're pretty useless.  Right now we have a couple Martha Stewart towels that we like.  But they're getting old and they cost over $3 a piece.  I've been avoiding buying new ones yet we're getting pretty desperate!

So...I ended up getting dish towels from Kara, too.  She solved my dilemma!  The towels are roughly 18x18 inches big.  She surges the edges to keep the towels from unravelling. When you order, you can request the color I wanted her to surge with.  I chose red.

Two towels fit nicely side by side on the oven handle.  I guess I should probably iron those huge creases out though…hmmmm.  Bummer!

The napkins and dish towels come with instructions on how to take care of them.  They're made of the same cotton material used to make cloth diapers, so they're easy to wash and brighten but soft and absorbent.

Think of all the money we'll save by not buying paper towels or napkins anymore!  

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Simply Shaklee Saturday - Cleaning the Drainboard

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Do you have problems with hard water?  We have terribly hard water here in Germany.  It's awful!  Within a day or two, our entire drainboard is white from the deposits.  I've tried CLR.  I spray it, let it sit, and then scrub the heck out of it.  It works…kind of.  I've had some trouble with it because it doesn't actually scrub the deposits.  I switched to Soft Scrub.  I figured it would work better because of the little granules in it.  And it works…kind of.  I think it works better than CLR because of the scrubbers in it, but in the end, I'm still left with it all over my hands and some residual hard water stains on my drainboard.

As you know, we recently switched to Shaklee products in our home and I was anxious to try their Scour Off paste.  It's made from all-natural abrasives and biodegradable cleaning agents, so I don't have to stress when I get it all over my hands.  But as great as all-natural and biodegradable sound…would they work on these mineral deposits on my drainboard??  I decided to give it a shot!

Here are a few "before" photos I took:

Ewww…look at this one!

The water always seems to settle in the corners.  It's gross.

So I got to work with my Scour Off and scrubber pad.  It took some elbow grease, but I needed very little Scour Off!  Remember, Shaklee cleaning products are ultra concentrated so you always get more for your money!  Instead of paying for something that's already been diluted, you add the water yourself.    When I use soft scrub, I always end up squirting it all over because it's too watery and I need more oomph.  I only had to use about the size of a marble when I used Scour Off!  And look at the results!

No more crusty deposits!!

I was able to clean the drainboard in about 5 minutes without any toxic chemicals.  I'm so glad that I can throw out my CLR and Soft Scrub now!  

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Quitting Cold Turkey

Pin It One of the milestones I was definitely not looking forward to was weaning Maia off her bottles.  I bought a variety of sippy cups, in hopes that she would eventually like one and stick with it.  I expected weeks of tears (both hers and mine!) and an ongoing battle.

We tried a few times but had issues with the thickened formula.  She was frustrated because she couldn't get any out of the small sippy holes.  I don't blame her!!  I hate when my milkshake is too thick for the straw!!

One morning I decided not to use any more cereal.  We have Thick-It, a thickener that makes the liquid thick but not chunky the way the cereal does.  I filled her sippy cup instead of her bottle when I heard her stirring in her crib and then added the Thick-It.  I brought her down for breakfast and well, I think the photos say it all!!

That was it!  No more bottles!  If I had known it was going to be that easy, I would have done it a long time ago!  Now the bottles are in storage and our little Bee is on her way to being a big kid! Pin It

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Wordless Wednesday: I *heart* Mum

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Erin Condren is my hero!

Pin It Have you heard of Erin Condren?  Her products have gone viral on the internet recently…and for good reason!

Ok, let me go back and start at the beginning.

I love using a planner.  It helps me stay organized more organized than normal.  Without it, I have a bunch of lists floating around the house and in my purse, along with random thoughts floating through my head.  I used to laugh at my mom for always making lists and writing things down, but now I completely understand!  Being a little disorganized was always an issue, but once I got pregnant I went from a little disorganized to a complete scatterbrain.  And unfortunately, I have yet to recover.

I've had a lot of trouble finding planners that I like: Some are too small and leave no room to write.  Some come with a zillion other accessories that I just don't need.  Many are based on a school year calendar and run from August until the following July.  And some don't have numbers written inside so you're always guessing the date and day of the week.

I used to go into Staples and wander around looking through each of their planners, never quite content with what I bought.  Now that I live in Germany, my choices are very limited.  The PX carries planners, but you can imagine they sell out pretty quickly.  I've found that the majority are based on a school year, which I hate, and the rest are left without dates, which is what I ended up purchasing last year.

I bought it because it has lots of room to write notes and daily events, although it's confusing if you don't go ahead and write the days of the week next to the numbers.  When I make an appointment, the receptionist will ask, "How about the 13th?" And I have to ask, "What day of the week is that?" even though I'm staring at my calendar.  It's obnoxious.

I started searching about a month ago online for a planner I could actually *love* more than *tolerate* - which brings me back to Erin Condren.

Her planners are AMAZING.  Yes, they're huge.  Maybe even a little too huge…but I can forgive her for that because what lies inside is better than any other planner I've ever seen.

First, you can pick the cover.  No more choosing between the lame red fake leather and the lame black fake leather.  It's also personalized with your name.

Then, each month is tabbed so you can easily flip from one month to the next.  No more searching!  The first page of each month is the calendar, complete with holidays.

The next two pages are for notes and then the rest of the month is a week-by-week calendar.  Each day is set up with a "morning", "day", and "night" box for easy organizing.  There is also a "goals" and "to do" column for each week.

There are a ton of blank pages in the back for notes, an "Important Numbers" page with contact information for airlines and credit card companies, and lastly, a page labeled "My Important Numbers" (for when you forget your cell phone!)

The back few pages contain stickers with "Party!", "Wedding", "Date Night", and "Birthday", to name a few.  There are also blank stickers so you can label it with whatever you need.  There is a folder and a zipper pouch in the back to hold loose papers, receipts, and pens (or pencils if you're like me and learned from your mom to always write in pencil…)

The website updates to give accurate information about when your order will be processed.  When my package arrived, my planner came with coupons!  One for $25 off as a thank you for being patient while they "grow and improve."  Hmmm…I think it's time to go shopping!

I'm in *LOVE* with this planner!  It has everything I could ever want and I just wish I had found it sooner!  I'm hooked and I will never buy another brand as long as Erin Condren is in business!!  Go to her website and check her out! Pin It

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