Sunday Ice Fishing

Had chilling morning went out to go ice fishing with my fishing buddy. It was my first time ice fishing where didn't have huts, pre-drilled holes or any other equipments provided. The weather was perfect to fish sitting under the sun that kept me warm throughout the day.

The snow you see in the photo are huts and people on the lake. It was fascinating to see snow pressure crack where you can see the ice through the crack. 

It was my first time using auger to drill a hole to fish. Easy to use and fun, it felt like larger scale of sharpening a pencil. It was definitely more fun to bring in your own auger, walk around and pick a spot to drill a hole that you guess where fish will be.

I'm still wondering if buying ice fishing rod is necessary when you can probably make something similar to kite spool to ice fish.  

Homemade Chocolate Sauce

There's time where I need chocolate sauce for desserts, craving for chocolate milk, or drizzle on ice cream. But I never want to buy those bottle of chocolate sauce where I only use 20% of it, let it expire and then throw it away.

I found out that you can totally make your own with ingredients you already have at home(at least for people who bakes). With this recipe you can even make half of it or quarter of it if you only need little portion of it. I've made using half of all these ingredient and it makes about a cup.

Tried the sauce with milk and it tastes great.

Simple Chocolate Sauce:
- 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder.
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup cold water
- 1/4 of kosher salt
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract  

1. In medium sauce pan, whisk cocoa power and sugar until blended. Add water and salt and whisk over med hear until boiling, stirring constantly.

2. Continue boiling until mixture thickens(about 3-4min). Taste and stir in additional salt until dissolved(up to 1/4 tsp, if desired).

3. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Then cool.

4. Store syrup in airtight glass container in the fridge, lasts a month.

 

Valentine Card

Trying to keep up with this year's goal to do more art.
Let's start with Valentine theme. I enjoy looking at Valentine cards at Hallmark, Papyrus to see so many cute design out there.

It's not good as those cards but need last minute Valentine card? Here is ready to print card I made. Print out this card on 8.5 x 11 paper. Card size will be 5''x5'' after you fold the paper.

Share the card to someone you care!
Grab it right here.  

Super Bowl Nachos

On Buzz Feed Life, Tim send me this 37 Super Bowl Snacks Better Than Hot Wings.

I got excited with Layered Baked Buffalo Chicken that I would love to try. Sadly I cannot handle spicy food, I even looked up how to make buffalo wing sauce to see if I can alternate with something less spicy but 2/3 of the sauce is made with hot sauce. I've given up that part so I made changes to the recipe that I can enjoy eating.

So INSTEAD, we bought KFC that has 12 pieces for $12.99 deal that's currently happening right now.



Layered Baked Nachos
- 6 pieces fried chicken, pulled/shredded
- 1 bag of Tortilla Chips
- 2 cups of Salsa
- 1 cups of Guacamole
- 1-2cups Cheddar Cheese, shredded
- 4 Green Onion, chopped
- 1 Avocado, diced
- BBQ sauce

1. Set your oven at 325F. Grab large oven bake safe casserole dish.
2. Layer the following: nachos, fried chicken, salsa, guacamole (use only half), cheese, green onion(leave some for garnish).
3. Bake for 15min. Then Broil for 2min or cheese bubbles nicely.
4. Garnish with avocado, drizzle remaining guacamole and green onion.
5. Drizzle across the dish with your favorite BBQ sauce.

Painted Porcelain Jar

I had lot of leftover paints from painting walls and doors so decorated this plain white porcelain jars I use in my kitchen.

Just doing little tweaks makes your kitchen look different!



Materials: 
- Porcelain jar
- Masking tape
- Semi-gloss indoor paint
- Paint brush
- Jars you want to paint on
- X-acto knife

1. Use the tape to mask out any design you like. I love stripes so I'll stick to my favorite design. You can use ruler to measure the thickness of each stripe but I eyeballed it for this project.

2. Go nuts and brush on. I did 3 coats to get the bold color to appear.

3. After 48hour of drying peel off the making tape gently. If the paint is coming off with the tape, use X-acto knife to slice between the paint and tape.    

Homemade Taco Seasoning

Tried making homemade taco seasoning. I really can't handle spicy food so I modified original recipe to make it mild.

Very easy to make. Just mix all the spices into medium size bowl. One batch makes about 2/3cup. Then pour into little jar to store. Depending on your taste, start with 1 1/2tbsp of seasoning for 1 pound ground beef.

This seasoning also work well with Chili too!

Mild Taco Seasoning:
- 2tsp garlic powder
- 2tsp onion powder
- 2tsp dried oregano
- 4tsp smoked paprika
- 3tbsp ground cumin
- 4tsp sea salt
- 1tsp coriander
- (1tsp chili powder if you want a little bit of kick)

Original Taco Seasoning:
- 4tbsp chili powder 
- 1tsp garlic powder
- 1tsp onion powder
- 1tsp crushed red pepper flakes
- 1/4tsp cayenne pepper
- 1tsp dried oregano
- 2tsp paprika
- 2tbsp ground cumin
- 3tsp sea salt
- 1tsp coriander

Funko POP collections

These are collections of Funko's POP vinyl toys of our favorite characters.
It was time for us to display them nicely somewhere so we decided to have them in the master bedroom where we can see them everyday.



I'm keeping a record of materials we used to build this shelves for future reference when we decide to add more. Steps are pretty straight forward, we did spend time sanding off the edges for smoother result and didn't stain the wood. Everything is bought at Home Depot.

Materials:
- 1 pack of 8x1 drywall screws with plastic wall plugs.
- 8 pieces of 8''x36'' pine wood shelves(cut into half from 4 pieces of 8''x36'').
- 16 pieces of 5x6 brackets.

It's so nice to see colorful toys displayed nicely when you wake up in the morning!