Feedback Friday!

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Okay, I've seen a few blogs do this before (most notably Hope Studios), and I'm ready to give it a try.

What do you want to see here? In this little area where you read a post. What would make my blog something worth coming back to?

I'm taking requests, leave your order in a comment below, and I'll do my best to serve up. What would you, as a reader, like to read?

While you're thinking, I'll give you a quick and easy recipe I half made-up yesterday.

5-minute Tuna Melt (aka Super Easy)
Ingredients:
2 cans tuna (chunk, solid, doesn't matter)
1 egg
salt and pepper
olive oil
4 slices of cheese

Directions:
Open and drain both cans of tuna, and empty into a bowl. Add the egg (minus the shell!) and mix with a fork. Add salt and pepper to taste. Form into patties about the size of your palm, and drop into a pan over medium heat, being sure to add olive oil to keep them from sticking. Cook until golden brown, then flip and repeat. Place one slice of cheese on each patty, allow to melt, and remove from heat. Tastes great on toast or pita bread, and by itself. Makes about 4 patties.

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Almond Rice Pudding (tart)

I'm not sure why this is called a tart, but it is good. A twist on your traditional rice pudding, my mom found this recipe after starting a diet program. We made it the other night, and I'm making it again right now, and oh my goodness is it delicious!
We actually ended up changing the recipe around a bit to fit what ingredients we had, so here it is:

Ingredients

	3 tbsp slivered or shopped almonds, toasted
	4 cups) low-fat milk
	1 cups uncooked white, long-grain rice
	1/8 tsp ground cinnamon, or 1 cinnamon stick
	1/2 cups sugar
	1/2 tsp almond extract
	1/2 cup raisins
	cherries for garnish (optional)

Instructions

• Coat bottom and sides of a 9-inch springform pan with cooking spray. Spread almonds in a single layer in bottom of pan. Set aside.
  
  
• In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat milk to boiling. Stir in rice and cinnamon. Reduce to simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, 15 minutes. Add sugar, raisins, and almond extract and cook, stirring often, 12 to 15 minutes longer or until rice is cooked through and mixture is thick.
  
  
• Gently spoon rice mixture into pan and spread evenly, keeping almonds intact on bottom. Cool to room temperature. Cover and refrigerate just until firm, about 40 minutes.
  
  
• To serve, remove sides of pan and invert tart onto serving plate. Lift off bottom of pan (almonds will now be embedded on top of tart). Garnish with fresh cherries if desired, and serve.

Mint Tea

Sometimes, after nights like last night (Winterfest, I'll explain later), I just like to sit back and relax with a nice hot cup of tea. Currently my favorite tea is black currant, but sometimes a more traditional tea is what I need. I found this altered recipe a few months ago and I was very excited to get a chance to try it out.

Marvelously Different Mint Tea
Juice of 2 lemons
3-4 1/2 inch coins of fresh Ginger
1 clove of garlic (trust me on this)
3 sprigs of Mint (approx. 7-10 leaves)
2L. Filtered water, boiling
Honey

Place Ginger, Mint and Garlic (peeled, but not crushed!) in a cheesecloth and tie off. Add to boiling water and cook for 5-7 min. Turn off heat and add lemon juice. Remove spices and transfer to an insulated tea pot. Into each cup, add a tsp. of honey (or to taste).

I got this recipe from Middle Earth Recipes, where it is originally called Aragorn's Athelas Tea, but for the sake of all the non-obsessed out there I changed the name.

Snow Day and Cram!

So... I woke up this morning. Got ready for school. My ride didn't pick me up, so I asked my dad for a lift. When we got there: empty. Simple as that. So now I'm stuck here at home all day long with nothing to look forward to for today, not even play practice! But I do have to admit, it is pretty nice! I can just relax here at home without having to worry about my score on my math test I took yesterday.... So nice!

Well, since I have almost nothing better to do today, I think I might as well make some cram. So what is cram? Well, for all of you non-geeky over obsessive Hobbit/Lord of the Rings fans: a traveling food. Made by the men of Dale, and given to Bilbo and the 12 dwarves he traveled with while they were in Lake-Town. Here's what we (I) know about cram from the book itself:

'...it is biscuitish, keeps good indefinitely, is supposed to be sustaining, and is certainly not entertaining, being in fact very uninteresting except as a chewing exercise. It was made by the Lake-men for long journeys.'

And, in HOME (History of Middle-Earth) V, cram is defined as a 'cake of compressed flour or meal (often containing honey and milk) used on long journeys'.
So there we have it. It sounds like what they made was a very hard, biscuit like thing, that would keep almost indefinitely, and was flavored with milk and honey. It almost sounds like hard-tack, except that almost all hard-tack recipes call for a mixture of flour, salt, and water. No honey, no milk. But, after some long hard searching, I found something that just might work. It's called Swedish Hard-tack, and after looking at the ingredients, I decided that this is the closest we'll ever get to the real thing.

Swedish Hardtack/Cram

* 1 cup water
* 3 tbsp. vegetable oil
* 3 tbsp honey
* 3 cups rye flour (or 1 1/2 cups rye & 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour)
* 1/4 tsp. salt

Mix liquids together. In a separate bowl, mix dry ingredients. Combine the mixtures, stirring to moisten throughout. Form a ball. On a floured surface, flatten the dough, and roll out thinly. Cut into squares and prick each cracker with the tines of a fork a couple of times. Transfer to lightly greased baking sheets. Bake at 425° F for around 8 minutes, checking to be sure not to over-brown.

Lovely Lavender

I love lavender! It smells so beautiful, and not only the flowers, either! The leaves on the lavender have their own unique scent, similar to and just as lovely as the buds. At home I grow my own lavender, and often cut some which I use fresh, or hang up to dry for future use. In these cold winter months, I often find myself making excuses to pull some out and make something, so I decided to post some of my favorite crafts and recipes that use lavender, that I have found all over the web.

~Lavender Mint Tea~
This calming tea is complemented nicely with mint, and is sure to relax.
2 teaspoons dried lavender buds
8 teaspoons dried mint
900 mL water
Boil the water. Combine the lavender and mint into a tea pot and pour boiling water onto organic herbs. Leave to brew for 3 - 5 minutes. Strain and serve.
~*~
~Lavender Ink~
This ink will give a delicate, intangible fragrance, which will waft out mysteriously when the letter is opened.
1/2 oz. dried lavender buds
6 tablespoons water
small bottle of ink
Crush the lavender and put in a saucepan with the water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes, or until there is only 2 tablespoons of brown, opaque liquid left. Stir into ink.
~*~
~Lavender Honey~
Yum!
8oz Light Honey (such as clover honey)
4 tablespoons of Dried Lavender buds
Heat honey in double boiler till fully heated, add lavender and stir. Continue over heat for 30 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to partially cool. Place in sun for 3 hours (optional). Strain out lavender. Put honey in jar.
~*~
~Lavender Perfume~
A delicately fragrant perfume, that I love so much!
1 cup distilled water
1 cup fresh chopped flowers
Line a bowl with cheesecloth and fill it with one cup of any flower blossoms you like such as lavender, lilac, orange blossoms or honeysuckle. Now, pour water over the blossoms until they are completely under water. Cover it and let it remain overnight and the following day, pull it out of the bowl, using the edges of the cheesecloth. Squeeze out the scented water into a small pot while allowing the water to simmer until one teaspoon remains. Cool and pour into a small bottle and you will see that it lasts a month.
~*~
~Lavender Dream Pillows~
1 oz (25g) lavender flowers
4 bay leaves, crumbles
1/2 oz (15g) lemon thyme
1/2 oz (15g) sweet marjoram
2 tbsp rosemary
1 tbsp crushed cinnamon
1 tbsp orris root powder
Combine ingredients, and put in sachet bags.
~*~

Well, those are my favorites, but I have many more to come!