if you’re not a chocolates and flowers kind of couple just like us, it doesn’t mean Valentine’s Day has to be any less sweet.  We’ve found that the secret to a successful Valentine’s Day isn’t in seeking traditional gifts like heart shaped boxes – especially when it comes to most guys.  So if you’re looking for a way to share the love without commercial products or the standard DIY coupon book, here’s a list of ideas wI turn to year after year.

Swing by the office for a surprise lunch date or prepare one at home.

Pop in at your guy’s office with lunch plans – maybe a cozy meal for just the two of you (go to a local cafe or go homemade) or something really light hearted with the kids.  Since Smooch Day lands on a Sunday this year, surprise him a little early (and avoid the love rush at restaurants) on Friday.

Change his computer wallpaper.

There’s nothing more surprising than opening your computer to find a new background because it’s just not something we expect.  Make his wallpaper a picture of the two of you.  Better yet, add a little text bubble and include a message that confesses your love or has you telling a corny Valentine’s joke that’s sure to give him a good laugh.

Do something he’s been wishing for.

Listen for lofty thoughts he throws out.  This gift could be making the homemade pizza he’d been mentioning, getting some of that annoying paperwork on his desk taken care of, or organizing his photo albums on the computer.  Just pay attention to the things he’s casually mentioning or struggling with.  A great gift is making life a little easier for someone.

Try something new together.

Sign up for a class you can take together.  Or experience the symphony one night.  You might walk into a dance class with four left feet between the two of you and walk out of the class with dance skills that are just as awkward.  But it’s a blast trying.  After all, aren’t we always saying that experiences are better than stuff?

Give your guy Settlers of Catan.

To date, we have met no man who dislikes Settlers of Catan.  It’s a strategy board game that’s quickly taking Monopoly down to the #2 spot.  If you didn’t know that was even possible, then you have to try Settlers of Catan.  We can pretty much guarantee that once your man gets his hands on this game, it’s love forever.  Love of you, love of the game.  Psst… girls love it too.

Cook dinner together.

Make your meal prep all about time together.  Try a new recipe – it could be something simple or really challenging.  The best successes (like when we made caramels) incorporate some sort of gadget.  Whether it’s as fancy as a pasta roller or as simple as the electric beaters, guys who don’t traditionally cook get more excited when a gadget pokes its head into the picture.

What other types of things do you like to give to your sweetheart?  Or what do you like to do?  The ideas you all share are so brilliant.  Thank you for making this a place where we can bounce ideas off of one another in the comments so frequently.  So won’t you share?

(Images by Making This Home.)

It’s about time I shared one of my favorite songs with you.

For those of you who remember this post when I introduced you to our all-time favorite band – and yes, my guy and I both rank this band as #1 in our book – this little clip again features Pink Martini.

Folks call this band a little orchestra from Portland, Oregon.  They pull music from all types of classic films and international styles.  But today I don’t want to gush about their music.  I actually just want you to hear their words.  The words in the youtube song below really seem to fit the ideas that you and I seem to have about life and stuff.

So just pause for a moment.  Enjoy Pink Martin’s new rendition of Splendor in the Grass because it’s nice to know that not everyone believes that bigger and more is better:

Do you know of Pink Martini?  Or what is your favorite/most inspiring band or piece of music?  We’re always on the lookout for great new discoveries.

Well so that title’s not entirely accurate.  There.  I said it.  We’ve taken down our Christmas tree, but we haven’t stopped making these cookies.

Hang with me for a second as I explain. Most cultures have traditional Christmas cookies, however when my mother-in-law translated this recipe with me, she was very clear in stating, “These are not Christmas cookies. Czech women begin making them at Christmas time. But then we keep going all winter long. That’s why these are Czech winter cookies.”

I’m taking her word for two reasons.

1. We’ll happily have this cookies for a few more months.  No questions asked.
2. My mother-in-law translated the recipes for me right from this Czech cookie book as I typed, so I’m pretty sure she knows what she’s saying.

Then my own mom and I began testing the recipe to see if we could compare with the cookies my husband grew up with.

European treats are really wonderful.  They don’t have nearly the sugar as is customary in American cookies.  (Have you heard the hysterical story about how my American chocolate chip cookies were rejected at Martin’s office?)  So if you’re looking for a little treat that’s not too sweet, I think you’ll find that these cookies hit the spot just about any winter day.  Plus with descriptive phrases like, “curl so it looks like your pinky finger”, you’ll feel like a classic European baker in an instant.

Oh and for those of you thinking, “Wait a second!  Those are German cookies!”  or shouting, “No, Katie.  Those are Austrian cookies.”  Well yes.  When these cookies were first created, the countries of Europe did not have the same boarders that they do now.  Heck, Czeckloslovakia doesn’t even exist any more.

(You knew that, right?  You’re not going around saying, “Czeckloslovakia” are you?  That’s sooo 1990s.  Now if you don’t know that Czeckloslovakia isn’t a country any more, you either (1) don’t have Czech relatives correcting you or (2) you haven’t seen this tour of a 350 square foot Prague home from waaay back in the Making This Home archieves.  Go check it out.  Err… czech it out!  You gotta take the classic Czech jokes where you can, you know.)

Anyway, back to the cookies because I know it might be your sweet tooth that I should be talking to about now.  Or your semi-sweet tooth.  Whichever.  Basically, these cookies were created in a region of the world that is now divided into several countries.  The Czech Republic happens to be one of them.  This happens to be their version.

And this happens to be my husband’s hand at Christmas.  It’s not certain, but I suspect he is completely dodging my grandmother’s American fruitcake and going straight for his grandmother’s Czech cookies.  Just a hunch I have.

I personally will not be commenting on which treat I chose to reach for.  Okay, Grandma?

What’s interesting about these old Czech recipes is that they really are more of guides than detailed on-the-dot instructions.  I’ve tried to leave it at that while incorporating a few details we’ve picked up through trial and error over the past few months and a certain someone’s picky preferences in Czech cookies (hint: his hand is pictured above).  These cookies aren’t so much baked as dried out, so feel free to play around with the recipe in ways you can’t with typical American cookies.

The challenge in these cookies is knowing exactly when to take them out of the oven if you want to be a true Czech baker.  The best bakers know how to pull these cookies out of the oven when they turn a deep yellow color.  They can’t be brown, not even on the bottoms, to truly master these cookies and make Czech grandmas proud.  So you’re basically cooking until the cookie is dried out enough to hold together.  It’s a very interesting thing to try, especially because it varies so greatly from oven to oven.

My mother-in-law had the difficult job of explaining this recipe to me in English.  The first recipe is good for European kitchens based on the things I know we can find in Germany.  The second version is adapted for American kitchens.  I chose not to convert this recipe into cups and half cups and all that sugary jazz because I have a little secret…

Cooking by weight is so much cooler than dangling measuring cups all over the place and making puddles of flour that catch on the lips of your cups.  You just set your bowl on the scale, clear the weight to zero, and spoon your ingredient right into the bowl until you read the required weight.  You hit clear again and add the next ingredient.  It’s so fast!

Or as a true German would say:  It is efficient.

And it’s true.  If you have never cooked with a scale for anything beyond weighing your apples for a pie, here’s your chance.  You’ll see why the Germans think Americans are beyond ridiculous to fiddle with measuring cups.  Sometimes, I almost want to sit down and translate all of my favorite recipes to the scale system. (If you’d rather stick with 100% cups and teaspoons for your measuring, here’s a handy online converter.)

If you already love your scale, well what on earth am I rambling on for then?

Please pull out your almonds and say this title ten times:  Vanilkové Rohlíčky - ’cause that’s what we’re about to make.

Czech Vanilla Cookies

Vanilkové Rohlíčky

European Version:

140 grams fine flour
160 g butter unsalted
50 g sugar
100 g almonds or other nuts, finely ground
1 egg yolk at room temperature
powdered sugar mixed with vanilla sugar for sprinkling on top

variation:
add a little lemon zest
add several drops of vanilla
swap some of the flour for cocoa powder

1.  Combine flour, sliced butter, sugar, and finely ground nuts.  Mix with a butter knife.  (A knife is traditional; I use a pastry cutter from the US or a fork.)

2. Create a cavity in the center like a volcano and add egg yolk at room temperature.  Let dough sit.

3.  Shape into a log on a clean, floured surface.  Slice.  Then shape each slice into a snake as wide as your pinky finger.

4.  Cut the snake into pieces and shape into crescents to look like your pinky finger bent over.

5.  Grease cookie sheet.  Arrange cookies.  Put in oven and bake until the cookies turn deep yellow, but not brown.  Remember – you don’t even want the bottoms of your cookies brown if you can do it.  I’ve been baking at 300F with good results.  I won’t even suggest a cooking time (well “drying out time”) because this recipe really does vary from oven to oven.  Me?  I seem to have my cookies in the oven for about ten minutes.

6.  When your cookies appear done, remove them from the heat and sprinkle heavily with your powdered sugar/vanilla sugar mixture.  I tap a small strainer against my palm for consistent, heavy sugar on the cookies.

7.  Hold back the men with Czech blood until these cookies are done.  Seriously, this has been the hardest part of the entire recipe at our house.  I need to start making them at 6:00 in the morning for surely we will end up in the ER with a burned tongue one of these days.

_________________

Czech Vanilla Cookies

Vanilkové Rohlíčky

North American Version:

5 oz fine flour
just under 3 tbl butter unsalted
50 g sugar
1.75 oz almonds or other nuts, finely ground
1 egg yolk at room temperature
powdered sugar

*if you make your own vanilla sugar by keeping a vanilla bean in your sugar, use some to sprinkle on your cookies with the powdered sugar

variation:
add a little lemon zest
add several drops of vanilla
swap some of the flour for cocoa powder

1.  Combine flour, sliced butter, add sugar & finely ground nuts.  Mix with a butter knife.  (A knife is traditional; I use a pastry cutter.)

2. Create a cavity in the center like a volcano and add egg yolk at room temperature.  Let dough sit.

3.  Shape into a log on a clean, floured surface.  Slice.  Then shape each slice into a snake as wide as your pinky finger.

4.  Cut the snake into pieces and shape into crescents to look like your pinky finger bent over.

5.  Grease cookie sheet.  Arrange cookies.  Put in oven and bake until the cookies turn deep yellow, but not brown.  Remember – you don’t even want the bottoms of your cookies brown if you can do it.  I’ve been baking at 150C with good results.  I won’t even suggest a cooking time (well “drying out time”) because this recipe really does vary from oven to oven.  Me?  I seem to have my cookies in the oven for about ten minutes.

6.  When your cookies appear done, remove them from the heat and sprinkle heavily with powdered sugar.  I tap a small strainer against my palm for consistent, heavy sugar on the cookies.

7.  Hold back the men with Czech blood until these cookies are done.  Seriously, this has been the hardest part of the entire recipe at our house.  I need to start making them at 6:00 in the morning for surely we will end up in the ER with a burned tongue one of these days.

___________

Happy baking!  And best of all, happy winter cookie eating.

Currently translating a lip-smacking piece of yumminess from this book to share with all of you:

It’s a family favorite.  So stay tuned and grind up some almonds or other favorite nuts for some Czech yumminess.

We spend over four hours in the waiting room at the immigration office today (yes – we had an appointment).  It’s not the most exciting place to be spending your time – too worried that if you go to the bathroom, you’ll miss having your name called or your number appearing on the screen.

Hanging out at the immigration office waiting room isn’t a part of living in a new country that you really think about… until you have to do it.

It reminds me of spending the day at the Denver DMV to get my driver’s license.  But longer.

I feel pretty lucky to report that as I share the good, the bad, and the bits and pieces between in creating a life abroad, it’s gosh darn lucky that the biggest “bad” to date is sitting in a waiting room.

Have a great Thursday.

(Image of park statute for Making This Home)

We love small houses.  You guys know that.  And as it turns out, a lot of you are digging ‘em, too.  Last year, we were touring all kinds of stuff like this chef’s kitchen.

Or remember this chef’s kitchen and his words of wisdom about making good food in small spaces?

We snuck into the mountains.  Literally.

We braved the jungles.

We learned a few green construction tricks at this house.

We ventured into the open country for some old country fun in a silo.

We slipped into closets.

And squeezed into tiny, beloved kitchens.

The list goes on and on.

Then poof.  That was it.  I often joke about being forgetful due to jetlag.  But this time?  I’d say it really was the jet lag of returning to Germany when the ball dropped on these super tours.  So thank you to all of you saying, “Katie, what happened to all those fabulous little home tours you used to share?”  And an especially big thanks to Christine for flat out reminding me how much We Love This Stuff!

It helps to see others living small.  It’s also downright inspiring.  Like that kitchen up there?  It’s Joann’s.  It’s smaller than mine.  It’s her haven.

So I’m jumping up and down, giddy to announce:

The small space tours?  They’re back!

I can’t wait to get started.

And don’t forget… Do you have a small corner in your house or an inspiring find from online about others living small? Shoot me an email because you never know who’s closet we could be crashing next.  We’d love for it to be yours!