Just like it says, a whole lot of garlic. Sprinkle on grilled meats and veggies, coat baked potatoes, make garlic dip, top savory baked goods, add to burger patties and keep away vampires!
4 parts dried minced organic garlic
4 parts fine sea salt
1 part dried granulated organic garlic
1/2 part coarse ground white peppercorn
Ever had an everything bagel? Our version of this yummy, crunchy topping works great on baked goods, but we also love it sprinkled on salads, sandwiches and one of our favorites, seared tofu buttered pasta.
2 parts organic white sesame seed
2 parts minced organic garlic
2 parts coarse sea salt
2 parts organic toasted minced onion
1 part organic black sesame seed
1 part organic poppy seed
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| Avocado, Summer Tomato and Cottage Cheese |
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Buttered Noodles and Tofu with Everything Spice |
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After 18 years, sure seems like time to make some changes here, right? It is definitely a case of teaching a very old dog new tricks, so bear with me while I figure out which direction this blog and business are going - please join us on the journey by following our Instagram or Facebook --------->
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| Baked Chicken, Spinach Fettucine and Fresh Tomato Sauce |
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| Grogu Sugar Cookies for May the Fourth |
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| Nachos for Alex's Birthday |
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| Panko Chicken, Angel Hair Pasta and Arugula |
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| Pork Tenderloin with Roasted Potatoes and Brussels Sprouts |
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| Roasted Beets and Feta with Mixed Greens |
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| Rotisserie chicken from Costco, Rotel and Smokin' Southwest |
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| Why yes, that is a margarita. |
This is me.
Fifty years old! My generation abhorred being labeled, and yet applied them to ourselves and others with reckless abandon. Nerd, jock, stoner, freak, popular, dweeb...the list goes on and on. Of the many labels I have assigned myself in the last 25 years: wife, daughter, granddaughter, mother, driver, event planner, volunteer coordinator, homesteader, work at home business owner, cook, janitor, and a myriad of other titles as needed, the largest over looming identity has been sixteen years of identifying as a homeschooling mom. With the graduation of my youngest on May 28th, that role has run its course. It is so surreal to not be starting fall semester. It is beyond strange to not be looking at curriculum or signing up for museum events or considering what travel we might do that will also take us near someplace interesting and educational.
Not that all learning stops, of course, that will never be the case, but just that I'm not really responsible for what it looks like going forward is giving me some very odd vibes. I'm trying to be careful with myself and my known tendency to jump into things before thinking or looking closely and not just jump from one frying pan into a different fire. Which also feels weird. Oddly grown up? It's only taken fifty years for me to consider self-limitations before committing to whatever anyone asks from me. No real point on this post, just ruminating a bit as I change profile pics and descriptions in all these places on-line that have stayed the same for years before because I had been the same for so long. The last three years have been life-changing, most of the time not in any way that I would have liked to be changed, but that is life itself - never predictable, always turbulent, ride atop the waves or crash below them.
I know I say this every year, but maybe with my new-found grown-up-i-ness I will actually make it happen and post here more often. Maybe. At the very least one of the big things I want to do with my new free time (huzzah!) is get back into my shop more, so expect some bits about that, and hopefully I will have websites to share soon.
It is so much harder this second time around, in a weird way. When I started Flutterby Designs over 20 years ago, I knew nothing, and just jumped in with both feet and hands without much thought except that I wanted to work for myself so that my family could come first. I made an absolute ton of mistakes, but that central principle always came through, including when we put it on hiatus for the middle/high school years because something had to give and my work was the thing that could be sacrificed the easiest.
Now, trying to revive it is so much harder than I expected - there is so much more focus on on-line and social marketing - the last go around we were lucky to just have a website, as janky as it was, and a online shop that another work-at-home mom hosted. Luckily, no one expected perfection, we were just barely out of the days of geocity sites and a huge amount of my early business correspondence was done on AOL messenger. I still have a handful of AOL and MSN avatars I traded embroidery work for, created by one of the dozens of work-at-home moms I bonded with while typing one handed with a nursing babe on my lap. My first logo was clipart combined with Kristen ITC font and a little
half circle swoop that took me hours to make in MS Publisher and even
longer to make into a .gif using a free program one of those moms suggested. My first business cards required me taking the printed out and mocked up layout for them into the company that would be thermographing them in person, after establishing myself as a wholesale account with them. Everything was both much harder, and in some respects, so much easier. We didn't know how much we didn't know. To say that it was a different world doesn't really do justice to just HOW different it is.
Tools of today's work! I have been having a blast coming up with spice mixes to offer up at Fleischer Farms' stand the last several weeks and finally remembered to snag a pic today. Slogging away on a website revamp, ordering packaging supplies, designing...it feels like I am slowly coming back to life. That which doesn't kill us, blah, blah, blah. There is a whole lot of truth to it anyway, and I hope the stronger part is true, too. Lots and lots of changes coming up in the next two months, I hope to get back in the habit of gabbing here more often to sort out my own thought processes. Bear with me, or absolutely feel free to scroll by and get just the tidbits you need! I will be sorting out recipes and other informational things into a better searchable format so if you don't need the ramblings of a middle-aged mama, you don't have to wade through them. Blessings! bz
