Easiest-Ever Nutella Mousse

Happy World Nutella Day Everyone!

For those unaware, Nutella is a super-delicious chocolate hazelnut spread.  World Nutella Day was started in 2007 by Sara from Ms. Adventures in Italy and Michelle from Bleeding Espresso

and has grown to be a huge event in the past few years. I'm excited to participate this year! 

In celebration I'm sharing my really easy, really tasty recipie for mousse.  It only has three ingredients, and doesn't require any boiling, whipping... etc, etc.  It took me longer to type this post out than it takes to make it - no lie! 

The full recipe is after the jump, and if you want to participate today, just follow the directions here!

Oh Happy Day!

Today is Ash's birthday, and I made her some smiley twenty-first birthday cookies.

And also, I got a very nice blog review from Tays Blog,  4.5 out of 5 stars! How nice, you can read the review here.

Pre-Quarter Crafting

I returned to school on Friday, partly to prepare for the upcoming quarter and partly to just sit and relax somewhere without feeling guilty for not visiting family.

I also spent some time cleaning up the apartment for the quarter, and organizing things! One thing I did was do this spiffy wall art above my bed, using contact paper.

I plan to spend a day making some paper snowflakes to further spruce up my room.  I'm not a big Christmas decorator, but I do love decorating for the winter season with snowflakes and of course, warm throws.

Also on the list of things accomplished were these: Oreo truffles, which I am quasi-famous for :) 

My Christmas knitting is reaching a bit of a paniced state.  I know I can finish everything, I just have to TRY HARDER, darn it, and not get so distracted by shiny things.  For one, I underestimated the size of my brother's feet, his socks look like Christmas stockings!

I'm knitting them in Plymouth Yarns (a worsted weight) on size 5 needles, that I bought at the Yarn Crawl. He told me he wanted "slipper socks."  What are slipper socks?  Slippers? Socks? These are more sock-slippers, I guess, because they're just thick socks. But he tried them on before I left (to make sure the heels are in the right place) and he liked them! So good!

Oh, did you notice the cool stitch marker? It was an odd earring, then I was inspired by Jordan at In It To Knit It! You should check out her tutorial here.

There's another project I'm working on, but it's still in the planning-esqu stages. I'm sorry to say that I'm hoping once again to get into Knitty - and I'm close to actually submitting this time :) So, if I get rejected, it will just be a for-sale pattern, like Borneo.  

Also, W is working on a stop motion puppet for his two quarter, who need clothes! So, I taught him how to use the sewing machine! I'm also knitting him a scarf and a pair of miniature mittens, but I figured I could do another post on that later :)

But, as part of W's sewing machine training, I made him he made this pencil case.  At least... part of it.  The seams were a little uneven, and I tried to fix things but just ended up screwing things up even more when I added the zipper.  So the result was this.

Hey, it still holds my pens and pencils... so so what if it's a little different? It's my pencil case, made with love from W :) 

My Week So Far

I've been knitting a lot in my spare time (as opposed to cooking...) and I'm very happy with the progress I'm making!

First off, I'm over halfway done with my current WIP, a scarf for the second Knit Princess book! I'm really pumped at this chance to get one of my patterns published, and this scarf is a very easy knit. It's in seed stitch, and after I'm done knitting the body I'm going to embroider pinstripes down it :)

I'm also making progress on my mommy-inspired socks.  I'm almost done and I can't figure out a pattern to use... I want something lacy, of course, but I'm torn between two patterns.

The one on the left is Mermaidia, from Purdy Peas. (Photo from Purdy Peas!)  The one of the right is Spring Pools, a ravelry pattern by the Lovely Linda. (Photo from MomofTwins on Flickr)  Right now, I'm leaning more towards Spring Pools, just because of it's gorgeous but simple look! My mom is not a knitter, so she will have a very small idea of the amount of time that gets put into a pair of socks, so I don't really know if I need to go all-out. 

Oh, also, delicious thing of the week in my kitchen:

I made these cheesy biscuits with the mountain of leftover cheese from a taco night we had.  I also thre in a bunch of leftover thyme and a whole clove of garlic, and, well, they are delicious.  I improvised a recipe that I found online, which is basically a biscuit without bisquick or buttermilk! I made about 20 and all but 3 were gone in twenty minutes.  Success!

Hope you guys on the internet have a not so stressful week... the rest of the week is easy for me, it's practically the weekend already in college-land :)