Snow!!!

It snowed yesterday and last night! Center of the city does not have much snow, but the outskirt gets plenty. Someone mentioned it as a donut hole! iPhone does NOT work for this blog! I can write now but the sentences does not look good. I cannot load up my pictures or even post it when I tried last year. I gave up. Perhaps, I'll try again soon I have very interesting pictures and I met many good vendors during this holiday! I could barely see the mountain while driving to my parents house which was around 2-3pm. When I went home around 5pm, it was clear; no snow, fog, or even rain. However, it was cold! Everytime almost everytime I fill gas for my car, I am in a middle of the wind, rain, or snow! Ugh We finally get white Christmas! Happy holiday everyone! May yours be merry and fill you with love n hope!

Sewing! Sexy apron. Hot/cold wrap

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday! I has been thinking to hone my skill on sewing. I sewed a romantic huge pillow which was eight years ago! I have not done much sewing since. There is a school to teach people just to do a home decoration such as decorated pillow, small drape, or throw blanket. The money goes to charity. My sister is the best tailor who can just sees the picture or someone wears it, she can make a replica of it. She may be mad cause I do not practice on my free time instead just go to a one time school which won't help a helpless person like to get better. Practice practice practice! One has to practice one's craft in order to be good and do well at it. I will need sometime to adjust to my new sewing machine before sewing anything expensive or real stuffs! My sister and I had stock up many interesting fabric over the years. I believe now it's time to make a good use of them! At least. My new products will somewhat cost less on my part so I can sale them at lower price to get customers who will tell their family and friends to get them. There are a few Asian fabric flower style, romantic in victoria area, old country, farm house, and holiday festive fabric. I love the sexy apron. There's a reason to call it sexy! You will spice this apron even more than just sexy! You make it smoking HOT! I like the hostess apron which is not only modest but make you the center of attention. Rather than your food which ask only to steal your recipe. People will gather around you to ask about you! I found a very good source for my buckwheat hulls for my cold/hot wrap! I'm designing the fabric and gather ideas for my new products. I hope they will be a hit for Valentine Day & Mother Day. Yes, they will be ready for sale around Feburary 2012! I'm so excited that I can hardly wait! I have been searching for a few good website to learn sewing. I found a few. Morgan Moore is good starter easy few basic sewing technique.

Soap Collecting Info

I just want to make sure that I will remember where to find my information and will not lost in time. The BEST people who know and have much experience in making soap than I am who still learning.
Salt Soap Tutorial by Ladybug Soapworks
Coat Hanger Swirl Tutorial

Surprise!

I was surprised to see this lovely flower to bloom at this time of year. I guess the weather has been wackiest of the year to cause this fragrant bulb to bloom out of season. At least the hyacinth thought it was the right time with all the hot and a long season of cool then cold then cool so it was time to bloom. I felt bad to see it is out of season but I was please with the fragrant it brought with it. I have tons of bulb in my front yard! I cannot have enough of fragrant plants and flowers.

Guess What Fruit is This?

My parents harvested Asian pears, plums, nectarine. They have only this plant left. The fruits are still hanging and ripping. If they are big as apple then the skin won't be much a problem but they are small. We eat these fruits while we take care of the garden. They are pretty like water droplet.
If you have not be able to guess what it is, then I guess you never hear of jujube.
Ziziphus zizyphus (from Greek ζίζυφον, zizyfon^[1]), commonly called jujube, red date, or chinese date, is a species of Ziziphus in the buckthorn family Rhamnaceae, used primarily for its fruits. Common names in Arabic are nabq, dum, tsal, sadr, zufzuuf (in Morocco) and sidr, the last of which also means Ziziphus lotus.^[2] In Persian it is called anab or annab , a name also used in Lebanon.
It is a small deciduous tree or shrub reaching a height of 5–10 m, usually with thorny branches. The leaves are shiny-green, ovate-acute, 2–7-cm wide and 1–3-cm broad, with three conspicuous veins at the base, and a finely toothed margin. The flowers are small, 5-mm wide, with five inconspicuous yellowish-green petals. The fruit is an edible oval drupe 1.5–3-cm deep; when immature it is smooth-green, with the consistency and taste of an apple, maturing brown to purplish-black and eventually wrinkled, looking like a small date. There is a single hard stone similar to an olive stone.^[

Update zuccchini bread

The Zucchini Bread was good. A friend's comment was it tasted very healthy which translated it was good but not for someone who is NOT into healthy kind of food. ;) I thought it was funny. I chopped most of the zucchini into small pieces but the recipe wrote grate which made it big chunk. I couldn't grate it into tiny pieces so I did it wrong. Zucchini is hard to grate small like cheese so I grated and then chopped.
It did taste healthy. The graham flour made the bread taste nutty without the walnut part. I put less sweet so my bf did not like it because he expected treat to be sweet and he did not like to see chunk of zucchini in it. Or should I said he hate vegetable! I will try to make it again next year.
I did not put any all purpose flour in it just the graham flour so you could imagine it was very wholesome and goodness pack in a loaf of bread.
I put a whole zucchini instead of direction. :) I guess that made into two loaves instead of one; however, one and a (little more than) half loaf. I don't know, but I prefer to weight by pound instead of cup or Tsp/TBSP because the scale is more accurate than uneven pack into cup.
It was fun to bake and cook something everyday; that is, if I have the time and the change to do.

Graham flour

Graham flour is a type of whole wheat flour named after the American Presbyterian minister Rev. Sylvester Graham (1794-1851), an early advocate for dietary reform. According to the Larousse Gastronomique, Graham despised processed white flour and believed that bran was the cure-all for the bad eating habits of his compatriots.

Rather than simply grinding the whole grain wheat kernel (bran, germ, and endosperm), in graham flour the components are ground separately. The endosperm is ground finely, initially creating white flour. The bran and germ are ground coarsely. The two parts are then mixed back together, creating a coarse-textured flour that bakes and keeps well. Graham flour is used to make graham crackers and pie crusts, among other things.

Graham flour is not available in all countries. A fully correct substitute for it would be a mix of white flour, wheat bran, and wheat germ in the ratio found in whole wheat. Wheat comprises approximately 83% endosperm, 14.5% bran, and 2.5% germ by mass.^[1] For sifted all-purpose white flour, wheat bran, and wheat germ having densities of 125, 50, and 80 grams/cup, respectively, one cup of graham flour is approximately equivalent to 84 g (~2/3 cup) white flour, 15 g (slightly less than 1/3 cup) wheat bran, and 2.5 g (1.5 teaspoons) wheat germ.

Plain whole wheat flour can also be used as a substitute in recipes, but the resulting baked goods' textures will differ from that of examples where graham flour was used.