Purple Lizard Design

Pattern: Little Felt Puppy

2011-03-30T08:17:00.001-04:00

Yep, getting creative again! Little Felt Puppy pattern is available in the store. Next up, Little Felt Bunny!

Little Felt Puppy pattern.

Pattern: Little Felt Kitty

2011-03-13T07:12:00.003-04:00

A simple little pattern for a little stuffed felt cat. It's about 6 1/2 inches tall, very easy to make. The kids were circling like sharks when I was sewing them, they couldn't wait to get their hands on one!

Pattern is for sale in the Etsy shop.

This will, time and energy permitting, be a series. Next up, puppy.

Easter gifts part 1

2011-03-07T22:47:00.003-05:00

Pattern from Bugga Bugs on Etsy. Very cute!

Now I need to make another set for the other kiddo. And I've (finally) got some new patterns in the works...

Mmmmmm, cookies...

2011-02-21T13:22:00.003-05:00

That would be an oreo stuffed inside a chocolate chip cookie. Great fun to make with kids, although it tastes...pretty much exactly how you would expect. Like an Oreo and a chocolate chip cookie.

They'd be a lot of fun to take to a party, though!

Recipe: Veggie stuffed twice baked potatoes

2011-01-30T20:28:00.003-05:00

My kids go to a great daycare centre. One of the things I like is that they have a full time cook, and since my kids apparently eat everything they are offered at daycare, she must be doing something right!

Last week the bigger kiddo told me I just HAD to make 'the yummy potatoes we had for lunch today'. After some consultation with the cook, I came up with these, which I guess were close enough to be eaten today at lunch with great enthusiasm.

Twice Baked Vegetable Stuffed Potatoes

Bake however many potatoes you want until they are done (it's handy to start them in the microwave and then finish them in the oven if that will take too long). Let them cool off a bit, then slice in half and scoop out the interiors of the potatoes, reserving the insides in a large bowl. Put the skins back in the oven for about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, mix the filling. I didn't really measure, but for 5 potatoes I used about a tablespoon of butter, about a half cup of grated cheddar cheese, a few tablespoons of grated Parmesan, a half cup of thawed frozen corn, and a half a cup of thawed frozen peas. Mix all that together with the potato interiors.

Dump the veggie mixture into the potato skins and bake another ten minutes or so. Serve with some grated Parmesan on top. Kid friendly! Carrots or spinach or broccoli would work nicely for the filling as well.

The Seasonal Table. Shelf. Whatever.

2011-01-08T14:51:00.004-05:00

Our little seasonal shelf, assembled from various things around the house and some of the kid's Christmas presents. The snowflake garland was made from a tutorial at Wee Folk Art.

The gnomes have a house made of Lincoln log type things, with the wooden cat cutout from Clickety Clack on Etsy. The trees and the rainbow stacker are also from Clickey Clack.

Closeup on the snowflakes. Plus a few pine cones, of course!

Now I need to track down my red felt to start on a Valentine's gnome and appropriate Valentine's decorations...

The Winter Gnomes

2011-01-01T10:44:00.004-05:00

When I cleaned up the Christmas stuff, I was looking at the two empty shelves that in the past have always been major junk magnets. They were the home of the Christmas village until yesterday. And it occurred to me, I've always wanted to do a sort of nature table type thing, and here I had two empty shelves that would be perfect!

I don't have good photos of the whole thing yet, but here's a closeup of the two gnomes I made last night, Mr. and Mrs. Winter. They're drinking hot chocolate out of some acorn cups.

From behind:

The idea is to add and subtract items based on the seasons, so they'll be here for a while. Probably a heart gnome or two will join them in time for Valentine's day...

(not calling this a nature table - there's a lot of synthetic up there, because I don't particularly like working with wool and I'm putting things together based on what's in the house. Pretty sure the silver 'snow' fabric is about as removed from nature as you can get! Call it a seasonal table instead. Seasonal shelf. Whatever.)

Why hello there!

2011-01-01T06:21:00.004-05:00

Wait, I have a blog?

So life got really, really busy there, and blogging went out the window for a while. And I've got such a backlog of things to write about, not the least of which is the new baby that took the above photo, my Canon Rebel XS that is making me completely obsess about photography.

So, more posts to come! Most likely with a lot of pictures! I did some epic Christmas crafting this year that I am very very pleased with, and decided to get all Waldorf and set up a seasonal table, with associated crafting for that, along with lots of cooking and zhu zhu pet clothing making (never thought I'd be making hamster clothes...).

Here's to 2011!

Week 25: Egg and Cheese Pie, Again

2010-07-03T07:25:00.004-04:00

The first veggies of the year were ready from the garden this week! That tiny tomato (an heirloom variety called Matina) was delicious. Hoping for lots more of those, that real tomato flavour is just impossible to get anywhere other than your own garden, unless you are willing to shell out the big bucks.

I forsee many tomato recipes in the future, but for now, I wanted to do something with the zucchini and the broccoli. So I decided to modify that Moosewood cauliflower cheese pie.

Egg and cheese and veggie pie:
I am really in love with this recipe, you can pretty much alter the fillings to suit whatever you have lying around. It's easy and delicious!

The crust is made of potatoes and, in this case, shredded zucchini. And a bit of salt mixed in. Toss with one beaten egg and a tablespoon or two of flour(you can also leave these out, this crust I actually forgot both the flour and the egg!). Grease a pie plate with butter, then line with the mixture (this is maybe 2 medium potatoes and a half a zucchini? you want to be generous, since the potatoes will shrink as they cook), bake at 425 or so for about 20 minutes. Brush lightly with olive oil and return to the oven for another 10 minutes or so to brown.

(anyone have any tips for how to get the potatoes to not turn kind of gray? I think it might have been the particular potatoes I was using, but next time I'm going to try tossing the shredded potatoes into cold water before I make up the mixture).

When the crust is nicely browned, shred cheddar cheese over top, and add in your veggies. You'll want to pre cook the veggies a bit, just to start them off and maybe get a bit of colour on them. This is garlic, broccoli, and zucchini lightly sauteed with some garlic. Onions are great in this, but I wanted to have a fighting chance of my kids eating this, so left them out.
Top with more cheese.
Pour in a mixture of eggs and milk. I used 4 eggs and maybe a scant quarter cup of milk. It's really guesswork, based on the size of your pan and how much you piled in the veggies!

Return to the oven and bake until the eggs are set:
About 25 minutes for this one. It was really yummy, and yes, the kids ate it! A slice of this makes a great lunch at work the next day, too. It also freezes pretty well, so worth doubling the recipe and putting one in the freezer.

Now I just need to solve the grey potato problem...

Garden explosion!

2010-06-24T21:46:00.002-04:00

My garden is very, very happy.

The weather has pretty much been ideal, so everything is growing like crazy! Plus there's been enough rain I haven't really had to worry about watering.

Tomatoes! Ripen! RIPEN!!!

OK, probably not yet. But soon enough!

I've lost control of the tomatoes, again. I tried, I really did, but man, you miss a couple of days and bam, the tomatoes are out of control.

Week 24: Rainbow Peanut Noodles

2010-06-22T06:46:00.002-04:00

This recipe? Awesome. I don't know why it took me so long to discover the deliciousness of peanut based dressings. This is a terrific recipe for using up the random vegetables you have stashed in the fridge, too, there's lots of things that would work really well.

http://splendidtable.publicradio.org/recipes/pasta_peanut.html

I made a batch of this and stuck it in the fridge to eat for lunch at work this week. I tossed everything together, including the dressing, which in retrospect I wouldn't do again - the noodles wind up absorbing the dressing, and they are good, but I think I would like it better freshly dressed. So next time I'll toss together the noodles and veggies, but pack the dressing seperately.

Instead of chicken, I used tofu, which works very nicely (I'm not really a tofu fan, but for me it works here because frankly you don't even really realize it's there). I also cut way back on the garlic, since 8 cloves of raw garlic seemed like a good way to scare the hell out of my new coworkers. I increased the soy sauce in the dressing, but I didn't really measure the ingredients and so wound up I think adding way more peanut butter than the recipe calls for. Which meant on the first taste, it was too peanut-y. More soy sauce balanced it out nicely. Oh, and I used rice vinegar instead of the called for vinegar.

Definite keeper recipe!

Week 23: Cauliflower Cheese Pie

2010-06-19T22:58:00.003-04:00

Wow, being back to work full time is taking some definite getting used to. I'm going to be making a lot of quick cooking recipes, I think, as I try to get dinner on the table within a half hour of getting home from work. And making lots of recipes that make large quantities of leftovers for lunches.

This week, I tried out a new recipe that was recommended somewhere or other as working well in the freezer. So I made it Sunday, froze it, and we ate it for dinner on Thursday.

Moosewood's Cauliflower Cheese Pie

Verdict? OMG SO GOOD. The potato crust is absolutely brilliant, and I plan to adapt it for other savory pie type things. The only change I would make is another egg or two, my version didn't have quite enough filling, but that's the sort of thing that's easy to play by ear when putting the pie together.

I'm making another version this week, a broccoli/carrot/cheddar one. Hopefully my new camera (YAY!) will be up the task and I can start posting pictures again!

Week 22: Baked Gnocchi in Tomato Gorgonzola Sauce

2010-06-09T17:31:00.002-04:00

I have two words about this recipe: NOT GOOD. Canadian Living, you are usually so reliable! But, yuck!

Gotta get ready for work; hopefully I can blog properly in a few weeks once I get settled into a routine.

Week 21: Baked spring rolls

2010-06-05T07:33:00.002-04:00

No photo this week, my camera appears to be on its last legs.

This week I made spring rolls, but baked instead of fried. They came out surprisingly well done that way. I used this basic recipe, except left out the meat: http://www.recipezaar.com/recipe/Baked-Spring-Rolls-39000

I baked them on a Pampered Chef stone bar pan. I've discovered recently that preheating the stone is a great way to get things super nice and crispy in the oven. Get the stone nice and hot, and then dump, say, lightly oiled potato slices on it, and in about half an hour you will get amazing oven fries. So I tried the same thing with spring rolls (putting them onto the hot stone instead of a cold stone) and it worked extremely well, they were very nicely browned and crisp (I turned them halfway through cooking).

And hey, I guess this marks the halfway point! Yay! I am hoping to be able to continue - I am starting a new fulltime job next week, so there's going to be some big changes around here, and a lot less time for cooking. I'm going to be looking for a lot of recipes that I can toss together very quickly when I get home from work. And recipes that make large amounts of food for leftovers.

Gnomes!

2010-06-04T07:47:00.004-04:00

Pattern for these is found on Wee Folk Art. I painted the faces the same way I do the fairies, and added hair because I have a huge bag of wool fleece, so why not add hair?

I'm actually not entirely thrilled with the hats; I think I'm going to experiment with much smaller ones. I'd like to do a snow white/seven dwarfs set at some point, but I have a rather large lack of time at the moment!

Week 20: Mattar Paneer

2010-05-31T09:59:00.004-04:00

Another Indian curry this week. Not too bad at all - I really liked the sauce on this one, and I finally got my act together to make naan, so it was overall a pretty delicious meal! (that's butter chickpeas in the background)

Recipe can be found here.

It's that time of year again...

2010-05-23T21:18:00.002-04:00

Yep, doing the community gardening thing again! Got my plot all organized and planted today. Now, the waiting. Man, I cannot wait for tomatoes! I'll detail some of the specifics as things grow more - I've planted some very interesting heirloom tomatoes this year.

Week 19: Tabbouleh

2010-05-22T11:05:00.005-04:00

Vegetarianism (at least at home) continues. I'm not sure I'd ever tried tabbouleh before. Turns out I love it! And very easy to make, which will always net a recipe a spot in the 'make this again' binder.

This was last Sunday's dinner - Tabbouleh, obviously, and in the background two half pitas. One spread with an olive-mushroom tapanade, the other with falafel, tomato, cucumber, and tzatziki (ha, the firefox spellchecker hates all those words).

The tabbouleh was also really good combined with hummus on a pita, with some feta and black olives scattered over the top. In fact, I'm having that again for lunch in a few minutes.

I used this food network recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/kathleen-daelemans/tabouleh-recipe/index.html

Except I couldn't find mint anywhere, so left that out. And I only used one bunch of parsley - 3 bunches seems completely insane to me, unless they are very small. Also, the second time I made it instead of using the bulgur I cooked a cup of quinoa, and I actually liked that better. You wind up with way more grains that shown in the picture, and the parsley flavour is a bit less intense, but the quinoa works really well with the dressing and tomatoes.

A few more fairy tale people

2010-05-20T12:37:00.004-04:00

My first attempt at Robin Hood, which had a number of issues. Once again, my children wind up with the toys that didn't quite work out properly. They don't seem to be complaining, though.

Queen. Her tunic came out very well, I'm quite pleased with it.
Pink witch, or a princess, or a lady, or, or, or! I haven't quite worked out the long dresses to my satisfaction. This one was supposed to be sort of 'floor length', but it's rather cute even though it didn't come out long enough!
I'm really into embroidering the little flowers! This is the green lady, forest spirit, goddess of summer, maybe the mother - many different ideas! To me she's the green witch.

Tabouleh recipe coming up later! It's not all tiny people around here.

More Fairy Tale People

2010-05-19T07:20:00.004-04:00

Yes, I'm getting obsessed with these. They appeal to me on so many levels, not the least of which is the chance to create a bunch of archetypal figures. I've always loved fairy tales and fantasy novels, and the chance to make figures from fairy tales that look pretty darn awesome, if I do say so myself? I can't resist.

This is the hunter, the green man, the woodsman, who shows up in so many stories. A young Robin Hood, perhaps? Or maybe the common figure from so many of my favourite fantasy novels - the young woman who disguises herself as a man and goes off to seek adventure.

Also another witch (I love making witches, which probably says something about me) and a king. These three figures are all available in my shop.

Drop everything...

2010-05-18T16:55:00.002-04:00

...and go make these cookies. Just do it.

Well, unless you think you might someday be in a cookie exchange with me, in which case DON'T make these so that I can impress and amaze you with them.

Recipe Here. (Mine are lighter because I only had golden sugar, not dark brown sugar. Probably be even better with the brown sugar!).

Week 18: Parmesan Chickpeas

2010-05-16T11:06:00.002-04:00

Oh my.

I could eat this all day long.

I found this recipe on Dana Treat's blog, and it is SO GOOD.

And best of all? Ridiculously easy. Use the best quality ingredients you can, and prepare for deliciousness!

I do think it's important for this one to cook the chickpeas yourself, instead of using canned. Canned chickpeas are great for dips and dishes where they are cooked in a sauce, but here the actual taste of the chickpeas is very central to the dish, and I think canned ones would taste kind of funny.

I used a good quality (expensive!) Parmesan, because that's what I had in the fridge, but any sort of hard grating cheese would work, I expect.

Parmesan Chickpeas

2 cups (or so) cooked chickpeas
juice of one lemon (some zest from that lemon would be a nice touch, too)
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
3/4 tsp kosher salt
ground pepper to taste
1/4-1/3 cup ground hard cheese - I chopped up some parmesan and then whizzed it around in the food processor for 20 seconds or so to grind it into small chunks.

Mix all ingredients together. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Serve room temperature.

Long overdue: The Fairy Tale People

2010-05-11T10:43:00.004-04:00

These were a present for my five year old's birthday. I'm so thrilled with how they turned out! For these, I painted the faces (except for the baby, that was a pre-painted bead). This is the king and the queen, with baby princess. These two are my favourites, I love the way the colours work together.

For these, unlike the fairies, I used embroidery thread for the hair. I really like how it looks.

The fairy godmother, witch, and wizard. Although the witch could be a wise woman or healer or nurse too. And apparently the fairy godmother is the evil queen, according to my daughter. Hey, they're her toys! In retrospect I wish I'd put some hair on the wizard, but other than that, they came out great. I think the witch is particularly delightful.

The prince and the princess. These are a bit smaller than the others, of course. I was losing it a little bit on the embroidery with these, it's kind of uneven and all over the place.

Altogether, these are sized about the same as the plan toys stuff from her dollhouse, so she can play with them in the dollhouse and use the dollhouse furniture.

I'm really enjoying making these to a perhaps unreasonable degree. I need more beads to make more heads, but I've got the body done for a Robin Hood type figure, and I've started on a maiden/mother/crone trio and another king and queen. I'll probably pop them into the store when they are done.

Edit: The five year old insisted I add this picture she took. For some reason the people are currently living in plastic cups.

Week 17: Spinach and Lentil Dal

2010-05-09T15:02:00.002-04:00

This one is a winner! Spinach and lentil dal, served over brown rice, with some grilled paneer cubes tossed in. I also served it with diced cucumber and plain yogurt, and those two additions are really key - without the yogurt it was kind of OK, but adding the yogurt made it really yummy. Best of all? Super, super easy to make. I added some onions and garlic because that's what I do, but otherwise I followed the recipe as written.

Find the recipe here.

Week 16: Baked beans attempt #1

2010-05-03T07:33:00.004-04:00

Dismal failure, in my opinion.

The beans turned into mush, the flavour was all wrong, it just wasn't good. Although the kids did eat some of it, so maybe I should count this as a win? Ha.

I may have to give up on the whole cooking beans from scratch thing - I have been trying, and trying, and trying, using all sorts of different soaking methods (and not soaking at all!) and I just can't seem to get beans to come out cooked, but not mushy. They seem to go from just slightly undercooked to mushy in the blink of an eye.

So I think I'll cook beans from scratch for things where they are being pureed or mashed anyway, like bean dip or refried beans, but stick to canned for dishes where the beans are supposed to stay relatively whole. I just like the texture of canned beans better.

Not sure where I found the recipe, but here it is:

1 lb. navy or kidney beans
6 c. water
1/3 c. molasses
2 tbsp. brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. dry mustard
1/2 c. butter

Precook beans in boiling water for 2 minutes. Cover and let stand 1 hour. Then simmer for 1 hour until tender. Drain, reserving liquid. Place beans in crock pot. Mix 1 cup reserved liquid, brown sugar, molasses, salt and mustard. Pour over beans and dot with butter. Cover and cook for 6-12 hours on low setting.

I think the molasses was an issue for me, taste wise. I'm going to try and hunt up another recipe that doesn't use it, see if that's the flavour I didn't like.

Rainbow Bundt Cake

2010-05-02T17:18:00.002-04:00

Birthday cake for my 5 year old (man, that's weird to type. I have a five year old! What?)

inside....

Surprise!!!

This is awesome because the WOW factor is massively disproportionate to the actual amount of effort it takes to make the cake. It takes maybe 5 minutes of extra work to make the rainbow effect, but everyone thinks you are Martha Stewart.

how to make it?

Make your favourite white or yellow cake recipe. Or boxed mix. Whichever.

Divide the batter equally into six bowls.

Use gel food colouring to dye each bowl a different colour.

Pour the batter, one colour at a time, into a bundt pan. So start with red, pour it in (this will actually be easier with a boxed mix, since they tend to be runnier - I made a from scratch cake and it was pretty stiff batter, so it was a bit trickier). Then pour the orange on top of the red, the yellow on top of the orange, the green on top of the yellow, etc. Eagle eyes will spot the error I made when I poured in my batter, I accidentally reversed two of the colours! Try and pour each colour into the middle of the last colour, that will push the previous colours out a bit and create the arched/curved effect.

Bake as normal, cool, invert onto your serving tray, frost, enjoy!

Flower Fairies

2010-05-01T15:29:00.005-04:00

These are made with instructions from Salley Mavor's Felt Wee Folk. The instructions are very easy to follow, although I did make a few modifications! Mavor is very attached to acorn hats, for example, and I just couldn't get acorns big enough, so I improvised felt hats instead. And my aesthetic definitely tends a lot more towards bold primary colours.

For these, I used prepainted beads for the heads I found at Micheal's - I wasn't sure I wanted to tackle painting faces, and they were actually the only wooden beads I was able to find locally that were even remotely suitable.

I definitely highly recommend the book if you want to try making these yourself.

I decided to try my hand at some creative photos with these. Fortunately they are so cute they make it easy.

My older daughter is having her fifth birthday party tomorrow, so I actually made 11 of these dolls for party favours - we're expecting 6 guests, so this way everyone will get to choose one, with a few left over.

And the whole gang:

Tomorrow, the fairy tale grouping I teased yesterday. Need to retake the photos of that one, they came out a bit blurry for some reason.

Sneak peak: Wee Fairy Tale Folk

2010-04-30T11:03:00.003-04:00

More details on these coming tomorrow.

Week 15: Kashmiri Paneer

2010-04-25T12:49:00.003-04:00

Yep, we're still eating vegetarian. This week I decided to experiment with paneer, a sort of pressed cheese - basically it's like taking the curds from cottage cheese and pressing them into a solid block. To be honest, it's kind of tasteless, but it has a texture I really like, so that makes it a great vehicle for sauces. I expect it to be using it quite a bit more. It also browns quite nicely, adding that bit of flavour.

I got this from here, a great blog on quick Indian cooking. I'm finding Indian vegetarian to be really great - the sauces are so flavourful that it kind of compensates for the lack of meat.

This week, baked beans. It's not that I've never made baked beans before, it's just that I'm still looking for a really good recipe. I've found one that seems promising, so we'll see how it turns out! And it's a great excuse to make cornbread.

Stuffed Pony

2010-04-20T13:07:00.002-04:00

I realized I never posted a picture of my eldest daughter's Easter present! This is the pony, made from the same pattern as the elephant.

I have to say, the pony was WAY harder. Sewing the nose was not fun, and sewing on the mane wound up being an enormous pain in the butt. Not sure I'll ever make another one of these, although man, is it ever cute!

Pattern is available here.

Week 15: Butter Chickpea Curry

2010-04-13T19:07:00.003-04:00

Our vegetarian adventures continue, with this week's star being Butter Chickpea Curry. Basically, I was thinking I really like Butter Chicken, so surely there's a version that uses the delicious sauce but without the chicken? And yes, yes there is.

Now, I forgot to photograph the finished dish. So I figured, no big deal, they'll be lots of leftovers, because no way are the kids going to eat this stuff!

Yeah, three servings later, DD1 was finally satisfied, and the baby ate her fair share too. Who knew?

And then a certain husband took the rest to work for lunch, so no photos until I make it again! Which will probably be soon, because it was awfully good.

I did change the recipe slightly. The version I made:

Butter Chickpea Curry

Ingredients

4 medium potatoes, cubed
2 tablespoons butter
1 medium yellow onion, diced
3 cloves minced garlic
2 teaspoons curry powder
2 teaspoons garam masala
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup crushed tomatoes
1/2 cup plain yogurt (full fat, please!)
1 (12 ounce) can chickpeas, rinsed and drained

In a large pot of boiling water, simmer potatoes until tender. Drain, and set aside.

Heat butter in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in onion and garlic, and cook until the onions are soft and translucent. Stir in curry powder, garam masala, ginger, cumin, and salt. Cook for 1 or 2 minutes, stirring. Pour in crushed tomatoes, yogurt, and chickpeas. Stir in potatoes. Keep warm until you are ready to eat.

Tastes best the next day, IMO, when the flavours have had a chance to meld a bit.

Week 14: Spinach and cheese empanadas

2010-04-09T21:48:00.004-04:00

Didn't get the best pics this week, but these are quite yummy! A spinach and cheese mixture wrapped in pastry and baked until golden.

The recipe I used can be found here: http://southamericanfood.about.com/od/snacksstreetfood/r/spinachempanada.htm

I did make a couple of alterations - for the dough, instead of using all flour, I substituted in one cup of masa for one cup of the flour, just to add that bit of corn flavour. And for the filling, I skipped the melting cheese and tossed in a handful of feta instead, because spinach + feta is fabulous.

Getting ready to roll out the dough.

Rather than making small ones like the recipe suggests, I used a large bowl to make big empanadas. I like to have lots of filling, so I think you get a better filling-pastry ratio when you make a big empanada rather than a little one!

Dump on filling and brush water on the edges of the circle.

Fold in half and use a fork to seal. I also like the roll the edges over a bit after pressing.

Bake until golden! And I cheat a little bit - I like to stick 'em under the broiler for about a minute after they are cooked to get that nice brown on the top.

These are really good, and can be filled with anything you like (I think a mushroom filling would be fantastic, and for the kiddies, you could easily knock off those pizza pop things). However, they are a lot of work, with the rolling and the filling and so forth, so not exactly something I will be making every week. They are terrific for lunches, since they are pretty good cold, and they actually heat up not too badly in the microwave if you don't go too overboard. Also great for dinner if you put a big pile of veggies or a salad on the side.

I made a bunny cake!

2010-04-04T19:51:00.002-04:00

Happy Easter!

I've never made a fancy cake before. Not bad for a first timer, I don't think! Of course, the bunny cake mold made it fairly easy, but I'm still impressed it didn't completely disintegrate.

Week 13: Welsh Rarebit

2010-04-03T15:16:00.002-04:00

OK, really it's just fancy cheese sauce, but damn, is it ever tasty! Loved this dinner.

Welsh Rarebit, made from this recipe, served over homemade whole wheat baguette slices. Yum.

And since although one could just eat that, it probably wouldn't be the healthiest idea, there's also some steamed cauliflower and broccoli, and a zucchini/carrot/quinoa patty I invented. Basically, one shredded zucchini and one shredded carrot and a cup or so of cooked quinoa mixed together with an egg and a couple of tablespoons of flour. Season with salt and pepper, fry it up, easy as can be. Also great with the cheese sauce!

The Easter Elephant

2010-04-01T14:57:00.003-04:00

I was trying to think what I could make for the kid's Easter baskets, and not really coming up with anything exciting. So I was idly browsing sewing patterns at Etsy to see if I could find one for a stuffed rabbit, and I stumbled on this vintage stuffed animal pattern. And I just had, HAD to have it, if only for the elephant. Something about the elephant just screamed SEW ME NOW.

So, I bought the pattern, and raided my fabric stash, and I'm rather impressed with how it turned out.

I can't slip stitch worth a damn, so there's a lot of visible whip stitching where there really should be invisible slip stitches, but I'm just going to say that makes it more charming. And the pattern had a few tricky bits (like the instructions for attaching the elephant's ears made not a lick of sense, although somehow as I muddled through and made most of it up I think I actually stumbled across the correct method purely by accident), but overall the pattern wasn't that hard. I wouldn't recommend it for a beginner, I don't think, but if you fairly comfortable sewing this pattern is very cute.

The elephant will be going in the baby's Easter basket. Tonight, for my older daughter, I'm going to tackle the pony pattern (I have the pieces all cut out and ready to go), and if that turns out as well as the elephant I will be very happy.

The set also includes patterns for a bunny, a kangaroo, a pig, and a penguin. And two incredibly creepy looking dolls. The picture in the pattern kind of freaked me out. I don't think I'll be making those!

Week 12: Vegetarian Week (recipe: Tomato and Black Bean Quinoa)

2010-03-26T14:11:00.003-04:00

So, we're going (sort of) vegetarian. At least for a while. Kind of. We've been steadily decreasing the amount of meat in our diets anyway, so it's not that big a leap into trying to go meatless, at least at home. It'll be a fun experiment, and I have no intention of being a permanent vegetarian. We'll see what happens. If someone drops a source of locally grown ethically treated low cost chickens in my lap, I'll probably change the plan!

Sunday was our first official night, so I did a spread of pita, hummus, falafal, tzatziki, all that good stuff. I did make two delightful discoveries: my homemade pita bread makes amazing pita chips (just cut into chips, brush lightly with melted butter, sprinkle with salt, and bake for 3-4 minutes until crisp), and you can make an awesome dip just by tossing a can of (drained) white beans into the food processor with a head of roasted garlic, a couple of tablespoons of melted butter, and enough water/bean cooking liquid to thin it. Super yummy, and also great warm.

Monday's dinner:

Pita chips with the white bean dip, a small green salad topped with leftover falafal and tzatziki, and the back bean and tomato quinoa you can find here. Delicious, although the cooking method for the quinoa is insanely complicated. Just cook it like rice, it'll come out just as well. Also, it makes an absolutely enormous amount, way more than the four servings the recipe claims.

Tuesday:
More pita chips (what can I say, they are SO good) topped with bruschetta-type mix and some balsamic vinegar, asparagus, and a mushroom patty that I made out of mushrooms, onions, and a generous scoop of the leftover quinoa from Monday. Added a bit of flour to help bind it together, fried it up, and topped with some crumbled blue cheese and a poached egg. Delicious! Since the husband type person doesn't like mushrooms, for his I mixed together some quinoa and some white bean dip. He said it was good.

Wednesday:

Stuck pot brown rice with ginger, sesame seeds, and almonds (good, but I put in too much ginger), and pita chips (again!) topped with a chick pea/tomato/cucumber/bean sprout salad that was tossed in a basic vinaigrette. Then I chucked some feta on top, just because.

Thursday was pasta with tomato sauce and cheese, and tonight is our usual Friday night pizza night.

All in all, I did not miss meat at all this week. I think Mark Bittman is right, when he says in How to Cook Everything Vegetarian that the secret to a good vegetarian meal is to stop thinking about having a main dish - instead, think about every part of the meal as equally important. So you have a few bites of this, a few bites of that, and the next thing you know you are full, satisfied, and you haven't missed meat at all. So, in addition to the food above, every meal also included a veggie tray with dip and usually fruit as well, just to add that little bit of extra variety (and get more fruit and veggies into the kids!).

Speaking of the kids, they did great. The baby just eats anything anyway, and the 4 year old was surprisingly willing to try almost everything, although I did save her plain portions of things like the quinoa, and I made a big batch of plain brown rice that she worked through over the week. I do have to do a bit of research on getting them both adequate B12 and iron, and I'm sure they will both eat meat at grandma's house and when we go out to restaurants, so I'm not particularly worried about them getting enough nutrition.

Week 11: Cavatappi with Sundried Tomatoes & Cannellini Beans

2010-03-19T09:10:00.003-04:00

Recipe from the lovely Elly Says Opa!

Review: eh. Not something I think I'll make again, although we ate it and it was certainly filling, with the addition of the beans. But alas, the recipe does not win a coveted place in my recipe binder. It was just kind of bland. I think some caramelized onions and a handful of feta would have been called for. Or maybe I didn't put in enough parmesan.

I did have an amusing moment in the grocery store, where I couldn't locate cannellini beans, and remembering that in the pictures they looked like kidney beans, I bought white kidney beans.

It turns out white kidney beans ARE cannellini beans. So I learned something!

So overall, this week's recipe was a bit of a dud.

Next week, however, I'm getting excited about. I have unilaterally declared it vegetarian week (hey, when you do all the cooking, you get to do stuff like that), and I'm going to be trying something a little different. Rather than thinking about each meal independently, I'm planning to set out 5-6 dishes every night and let people choose what they want. So I'll make a bunch of stuff on Sunday (pita, hummus, tzatziki, falafel, dal, that sort of thing), then the leftovers will continue to reappear all week and new dishes will be added. And the money I would normally spend on meat will most likely go on fancy cheese, because lord do I love cheese.

Should be fun, and I have a whole bunch of recipes I want to try. I will try and take pictures of each night's meal and do a big wrap up post next Friday.

More little people

2010-03-18T21:54:00.004-04:00

Black outer, rainbow batik inner.
Rainbow outer and rainbow inner:

Red cord outer, rainbow inner:

Rainbow paster inner, black outer:

Yep, those are little people rolls!

In Defense of Food

2010-03-14T12:26:00.007-04:00

I've been ruminating over this book for a week or so now. I'm not going to get into a whole lot of specifics about the book itself (it's been out long enough there's a zillion better reviews out there and easy enough to find!), but I'm finding I just can't stop thinking about it and it's having a pretty profound effect on how I feel about food.

Which is kind of strange, because in this book (In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan), he doesn't say anything I didn't already know. Really, it's like he went into my head, extracted everything I know and believe about nutrition, and put it down on paper. But somehow having it all laid out coherently was absolutely mind blowing.

Or rather, it wasn't particularly mind blowing, initially. Frankly, I was reading it and feeling rather smug. Nutrition science doesn't really know jack? I knew that. I've known that since the time I was a gym rat and discovered this whole subculture of people who weren't buying the low fat dogma - and they were making sense. Avoid processed foods? Hell yeah, we've been eating like that for years. Fruits and vegetables as the basis of your diet? Yeah, I knew that. And so on and so forth.

So, I'd just finished the section of the book where he talks about how you should 'Eat Food', meaning avoiding processed food. Seems simple enough, but he argues that the problem is a lot of the stuff you might think is 'food' is really more a food type substance (ever looked at the ingredient list on a standard loaf of supermarket bread?). And yeah, feeling smug, I went to the fridge to get myself a snack.

And what should catch my eye:

That's the ingredients on the sour cream (full fat, thank you!) I've been buying for years. All that time, I never looked at the ingredients. I assumed, because I was buying, you know, sour cream, that it contained, say, milk, cream, bacteria.

WHAT THE HELL IS ALL THAT STUFF?? Why is there corn starch in sour cream? Guar gum? Carrageenan??

Now, this stuff may all be completely harmless. But it's not sour cream.

This was where my mind got totally blown. And I started reading ingredient labels of everything in my kitchen (cottage cheese? basically the same ingredient list as the alleged sour cream). And man, there's a hell of a lot more processed food in my kitchen than I thought.

What am I going to do with this? Well, for starters, I'm reading ingredient lists. I've found a brand of sour cream that contains only cream and bacteria, and a brand of cottage cheese that's the same. I'm going to be making some other changes, here and there, and focusing on keeping a wide assortment of fruit and vegetables available at all times.

But to be honest, I'm kind of pissed off about this. When and how did it become okay to say something is sour cream when it really isn't? Why should I have to obsessively read ingredient lists just to make sure that the sour cream I'm buying is, in fact, sour cream?

--

guar gum, carob bean gum, and carrageenan are thickeners, as is corn starch, of course. Sodium citrate is a preservative, as far as I can tell, as is, I assume, the citric acid. is this stuff bad for you? I don't know, but one of Pollan's arguments is if you have to start adding this kind of stuff to food, what have you taken out that makes them necessary? Processed food is often processed in ways that wind up removing a lot of the stuff that is good for us, which then has to be added back in. Frankly, I want my sour cream to be thick on its own, not because it's had a quartet of thickeners added to it.

No, this is not a food blog

2010-03-12T10:21:00.004-05:00

I do still sew! This isn't a food blog, even if it's sort of turned into one recently. Ha. I have another food related post planned, too.

Older daughter had a birthday party to go to last weekend, so I put together a crayon case to give the birthday girl.

It came out really nicely, I have to say. I need to order more of the batik fabric I used, I love the way it coordinates together with the solid cord.

I also put together this one, with a black outer and red inner, for the Etsy shop:

Buy it here!

Week 10: Butternut Squash Ravioli

2010-03-08T21:35:00.003-05:00

I really like butternut squash ravioli, so decided to try it this week. Butternut squash ravioli tossed in sage browned butter with spinach, pumpkin seeds, and blue cheese. Yum!

I want to try making pasta, but wasn't up to that this week (also, I want to get a pasta roller, since rolling out pasta isn't something I really want to do by hand). So I found a recipe that uses, of all things, wonton wrappers. (recipe is here)

Basically just cut eat wrapper in half, top with filling, fold in half, and crimp with the tines of a fork:

They were good, although the wrappers aren't exactly pasta like. I want to make these again with a proper pasta dough, once I get myself a pasta roller! I actually think these would be fantastic fried rather than boiled - I have leftover uncooked ones, I may try that tomorrow, with some sort of dipping sauce, maybe.

The brown sage butter/spinach/pumpkinseed/blue cheese combination is fantastic. Although I'm afraid I'm the only one who liked these! Next time I'll probably make a couple of different fillings, like a ricotta and cheese filling, which I think my family will enjoy more.

This picture is making me hungry.

Week 9: White Chicken Enchiladas

2010-03-06T10:50:00.002-05:00

This is probably cheating, since I have, technically, made these before. However, the first time I made this I couldn't get the key ingredient, the canned chiles, and so I declare this to be a new recipe.

What? It's my blog project, I can get away with that. And, frankly, the chiles do rather change the dish completely.

The recipe is from The Pioneer Woman (find it here), and the results are very good. I used homemade flour tortillas instead of corn, which was the only substantial change. Oh, and milk instead of cream, which works OK but the resulting filling was a bit on the dry side. They were still pretty damn tasty!

One other change - I used cheddar instead of Monteray Jack cheese, because I accidentally bought WAY too much cheddar. I think these would be better with the Jack cheese, so next time I make them hopefully I won't have a kilo and a half of cheddar in the fridge. Just couldn't justify buying even more cheese when there was already over a kilogram there!

(the homemade salsa is key - just finely diced tomatos, onions, some crush garlic, salt, and cilantro. and a bit of diced up canned chile).

Week 8: No Knead Pizza Crust

2010-02-27T19:37:00.005-05:00

Friday night has lately been pizza night around here, which is just fine with me - pizza, even made from scratch, is easy, and everyone likes it. Win-win on a Friday night!

But plain cheese pizza (which the kids prefer) gets boring. And I wanted to try a new kind of pizza crust, using a no-knead dough. Now, making pizza dough isn't exactly a hardship for me, thanks to my shiny KitchenAid Mixer, but no knead dough sounded interesting, and it's supposed to give a better texture.

The main issue with no knead dough is that you have to start it really far in advance - it needs to rise for at least 12, preferable more like 24 hours. So when I'm making dinner on Thursday night I through together the dough and let it sit on the counter until Friday afternoon.

I forgot to take the first photo, but this is what the dough looks like after about 24 hours:

It's very, very, VERY soft and sticky. When you peel it out of the bowl, you have to cover your hands very well with flour, and it'll still probably stick!

dough turned out:

Stretched out on the pizza stone:

I find this dough both easy to work with, in that it stretches nicely, and immensely difficult, in that it's so sticky!

I like to pre bake the dough for about 15 minutes so I get a nice crispy crust, then add the toppings and just heat until they are warm.

So the kids got the plain cheese pizza, but for me I got a bit fancy, with caramelized onions, roasted garlic, sundried tomatoes, olive oil, black olives, feta and bacon. Yum!

No Knead pizza crust (makes two pizzas):

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon yeast
1½ teaspoons salt
1½ cups warm water

Stir together; I usually knead it one or two times just to make sure it's well mixed. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit in a warm, draft-free place for 12 to 24 hours.

Turn out onto a well-floured surface and shape into two rough balls. Cover with a clean tea towel and let sit for about 2 hours.

Stretch or roll out the dough. I like to pre-bake the crusts in a very hot oven (450 or so) for 10-15 minutes, then top, and return to the oven for about 5 minutes. let sit for 5 minutes, slice, and enjoy!

Could it be? More little people?

2010-02-26T23:26:00.002-05:00

Yeah, yeah, more of these. I've been too distracted by the Olympics to do much sewing.

This week's cooking post is up tomorrow. No knead pizza dough, yum!

Week 7: Tofu in Black Bean Sauce

2010-02-18T19:50:00.003-05:00

Ahhh, tofu. One of those foods I feel like I should like, but it's always so boring and underwhelming and, well, not chicken. But one of the things I want to do with this project is try new things, so why not take a stab at tofu?

This recipe is from the Moosewood Restaurant New Classics cookbook, slightly modified. The tofu was about as meh as I remembered, but the sauce was very tasty and I will certainly make it again. Probably to marinate chicken!

Start with a block of firm tofu (actually, I think this was extra firm). The first step in the recipe was to weight the tofu for 20 minutes, but I think because I used extra firm the weight didn't really seem to do anything. Cut the tofu first horizontally into 4 pieces, then cut from the top as shown, so you get 32 triangles.

The sauce: 2 tablespoons black bean and garlic sauce, 1/2 tsp chili paste, 1 tsp sesame oil, 4 tbsp soy sauce, 2 tbsp rice vinegar. Mix together, pour over the tofu and let it marinate for a while.

I could have used an additional tablespoon of the black bean sauce, in retrospect.

Heat some oil in a pan, and saute 3 garlic cloves, minced, and 1 tbsp fresh grated ginger just until fragrent, then add the tofu. Cook the tofu until golden brown (about 5 minutes), flip, and sear the other side. Keep the marinade, and while the tofu is cooking add to the marinade 1/3 cup of water, vegetable stock, or chicken stock, and 1 tablespoon of cornstarch. Whisk well.

Once the tofu is ready, dump in the marinade/stock/starch mixture and cook until it thickens into a nice sauce.

Serve over rice with steamed veggies on the side.

I really liked the sauce and will definitely make it again. Tastes very similar to a ready made PC sauce I used to buy. The tofu, eh. Still not a fan. The baby ate a few pieces; the older kid took the tiniest bite you've ever seen in your life then just ate the rice and the vegetables. Oh well, they can't all be winners!

Tofu in Black Bean Sauce

1 block firm or extra firm tofu
2 or 3 tablespoons black bean and garlic sauce
1/2 tsp chili paste
1 tsp sesame oil
4 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp rice vinegar
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon fresh grated ginger
1/3 cup stock or water
1 tablespoon cornstarch

Cut block of tofu lengthwise into 4 slabs. With the slabs stacked, cut from corner to corner and then once lengthwise and once widthwise to create 32 triangles.

Mix together black bean sauce, chili paste, sesame oil, soy sauce, and vinegar. Pour over tofu and allow to marinate.

Heat some oil over medium, then saute garlic and ginger briefly. Add tofu in a single layer (reserve the marinade). Cook until golden brown (about 4 minutes), turn, and cook the other side.

Mix the marinade with stock and cornstarch, whisking well. Pour over the tofu and cook until the sauce thickens. Serve over rice with veggies on the side.

Valentine's Block

2010-02-15T15:32:00.003-05:00

I did manage to make the baby a Valentine's present. Just a basic stuffed block with some shapes appliqued on the sides. It's cute!

Circle, heart, triangle.

Not fancy, but nice! I will probably make two more in smaller sizes (the sides measure about 7" on this, making it fairly large). It would be nice to have a set of three in different sizes for stacking. Add it to the to do list...

New prototype: crayon and notepad case

2010-02-13T19:28:00.004-05:00

I realized last night I didn't have any Valentine's presents for my kids, and what's the point of knowing how to sew if I can't whip something up at the last minute? Plus I've been meaning to make kid #1 a crayon case anyway. So I made this up for her.

Came out nicely! There's one flaw in it I will correct if/when I make more. My poor kids, always stuck with the flawed prototypes...

Exterior. you can see the error here; I didn't realize I need to do the line of stitching to make the pockets for the crayons shallower until I'd already sewn the whole thing together.

Pleased with it. I think the kiddo will like it, too. And I love the batiks in the interior, I need to see if I can get some more of those.

I also made the baby some simple stuffed hearts, but they honestly didn't turn out that well so I didn't bother taking pictures. Might head back to the sweatshop shortly to see if I can make something better for her...

Week 6: Chicken Crack

2010-02-09T22:05:00.003-05:00

This tastes a lot better than it looks in the picture! Actually, it didn't exactly look the most appetizing in real life, either. Very beige. But tasty. Very, very tasty. I've seen the recipe pop up in a couple of places online, always referred to as 'Chicken Crack', with the idea being it's so good it's addictive like crack.

I wouldn't go quite that far. It's quite tasty, but also a little boring for my tastes. Basically it's chicken risotto. My kids enjoyed it, however, so the recipe makes it into the make again pile, although I think next time I'll probably, at the very least, include some mushrooms in my portion. And something green. Some sauteed mushrooms and zucchini mixed in to the adult servings would be delicious. Maybe a handful of peas for the kids. Or at least a bit of parsley on top to relieve the beigeness!

All the pictures of the process wound up very beige (beige beige beige did I mention beige?), so I won't inflict them on you. They really aren't that appealing. But the final result is pretty tasty!

The recipe for Chicken Crack:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (2 is plenty)
3 tbsps. olive oil
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups uncooked long grain rice (doesn't have to be Arborio)
6 cups chicken broth (low sodium, or it might wind up too saltly)
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1 tbsp. butter

Keep chicken broth warm and covered in a pot on the stove.

Cut chicken breasts into 1” pieces and sprinkle with salt and pepper. In a heavy deep pan, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic, and cook until tender. Add chicken and cook until it begins to brown. Add rice and stir to coat.

Add 1 cup chicken broth, reduce heat to low, and cook until liquid is absorbed, stirring frequently. Continue to add broth to keep rice covered, stirring frequently. Keep cooking and adding broth until rice is tender. Add cheese and butter just before serving.

Served with broccoli and cheese sauce, just because there wasn't quite ENOUGH beige, apparently, that I had to dump more beige on top of the only green
:
Note: I used home made stock for this, which I think probably makes a big difference, if only to the salt content. Commercial stock would change the final taste quite a bit, I suspect. Also, this recipe requires a lot of attention, which isn't exactly ideal with a couple of little kids! Fortunately the baby was taking a nap when I started cooking, and didn't wake up until it was almost ready. I'm not sure I would have wanted to be making this with her underfoot.

Product Review: Poach Pods

2010-02-09T21:36:00.004-05:00

These are poach pods, which I bought from Lee Valley as a belated Christmas present to myself. I love poached eggs, and I love poached eggs for breakfast in particular (nothing else works quite as well as eggs in terms of being filling first thing in the morning!), and over the years I have tried many different ways of poaching eggs, and never really been satisfied with any of them. These looked like exactly the sort of thing I wanted - a way to easily and quickly poach eggs that, most importantly, would be easy to clean! After having used them for the last month, I can say these are the egg poaching solution I was looking forward. They're pretty much perfect.

You spray each pod lightly with something like PAM, or a bit of olive oil, or grease them in some way. You can get away without doing this, but the eggs will stick. A quick spray of oil and they come out much more easily. Crack an egg into each pod.

Set the pods in about an inch and a half of boiling water. The cover with a lid and let them cook until done. It takes a bit of trial and error to figure out the timing; I find 5 minutes gives me eggs poached the way I like them.
Finished! then you just lift out the pods, run a spoon around the edge of each egg to release them, and turn them out. Perfectly poached eggs every time.

(actually, I overcooked these ones slightly because I was messing around taking pictures - normally I prefer a runny yolk).

The poach pods clean up very easily, and can even go in the dishwasher.

I give the poach pods two thumbs up for sure. I'll probably buy another pair, actually, so I can make six eggs at once. My children love eggs, and very soon I suspect I'm going to find four eggs just isn't enough...

Week 5: The Ultimate Burrito

2010-02-03T22:20:00.004-05:00

Ugh, the photos this week are just not good - a certain small child got fingerprints all over the camera lens, and I didn't realize every picture was sort of blurry and weird until it was too late.

At any rate, I have been on the search for the ultimate burrito, and I think I've created it. Actually, I've been craving a really awesome burrito for weeks, and this was the first time I got a chance to create one, and it came out just fantastic. My husband agreed, declaring it to be his favourite thing he's ever eaten. Now that's some high praise!

This involved a couple of new recipes, and some old favourites, all put together in one big wrapped up pile of awesome. The homemade flour tortilla. The long slow cooked pork shoulder. The red chile rice (the one part I'm not 100% happy with, I'm going to tweak that part the next time I make these). The burrito sauce. The salsa.

It is, as the kids would say, epic. I got every pot and pan I own dirty, plus the food processor and the stand mixer. It was a mess.

But so, so worth it.

Making your own flour tortillas takes a bit of time, but is fairly easy. The dough is 2 cups water, 2 tablespoons of lard, a pinch of salt, and about 3/4 cup of water. Knead together (I used my stand mixer) into a smooth dough, then let it rest at least a half an hour before you roll out the tortillas:

I have discovered that this very thin rolling pin is much, much easier to use than a standard rolling pin for rolling out tortillas and pitas and such things.

Seperate the dough into roughly 5 equally sized pieces, flatten each one slightly:

Roll out using short strokes, from the center out. I like to make the tortilla as thin as possible.

Fry it in a hot skillet or on a hot griddle for about 2 minutes per side. Wrap the finished tortillas in a clean tea towel - this will trap the heat/steam and keep them moist and pliable.

The major component of these burritos is the pork. I used a pork shoulder. Rub both sides with salt, pepper, and chili powder.

Cut slits in both sides and insert peeled cloves of garlic. I used six of them, because garlic rocks.

Fry up some onions until soft, then stir in a cup of salsa verde and cook for about two minutes. Dump into a crock pot. Then sear the pork on both sides until nicely browned, and add that to the crockpot. DON'T add any more liquid. Cover and put the crockpot on high for about 4 hours or low for about 8.

You know it's done when just touching it with a fork causes it to start to disintegrate! Once that happens, shred the pork and then cook for about another 30 minutes with the lid off to evaporate some of the liquid. Unfortunately, none of my photos of the finished meat is worth sharing. they don't do the flavour justice anyway. Mind blowing. Seriously. Use to fill tacos, burritos, or just toss on some rice and eat as is.

The rice for this burrito is a Rick Bayless Recipe from Mexican Kitchen. It's the one component I'm not happy with; I'll type up the recipe tomorrow and append it to this post, along with the ways I think I screwed it up (namely, using the wrong dried chiles!). The overall burrito was still amazing because frankly the other parts totally overwhelmed the flavour of the rice!

Also included are my burrito sauce (1/3 cup mayo, 2/3 cups sour cream, 2 tbsp salsa verde, and a dash of hot sauce) and some fresh salsa (diced tomato, onion, cilantro, garlic, salt). Both of these should be made ahead of time so the flavours can develop. Add some cheese, and you are ready to eat!

It's also especially good if you can wrap up the burrito and then grill it before you eat it to crisp up the tortilla a bit and meld things together.

Yet more Little People

2010-02-03T09:33:00.002-05:00

Not much doing, creativity wise. Working my whole two days a weeks is a lot more draining than working only one day a week (I know, cry me a river)! And my shop is so dead right now there might as well be tumbleweeds blowing across the screen.

But, in the interests of being prepared in case of some sort of Easter rush, I've made up a few more of these little people sets. Next up, I want to get a half dozen or so pencil crayon and notepads cases done too.

These will be up in the store in the next day or two.

Week 4: Red Chile Chicken with Black Beans and Rice

2010-01-28T18:37:00.005-05:00

This recipe? Big win. Tasty, the kids ate it without complaint (although the bigger one did insist on putting soy sauce on it, the weirdo), and best of all, the main part is all cooked in one pot and can be put together fairly quickly. A definite keeper!

This, like with last week, is from Rick Bayless's Mexican Everyday. First I made his chipotle salsa. It's supposed to be made with tomatillos, but good luck finding those in Ontario in the dead of winter.

A couple of roma tomatoes and 3 peeled garlic cloves, all in a hot frying pan on top of some tinfoil (for easier clean up). Pan roast until the tomatoes and garlic are nice and soft and hopefully at least a little bit caramelized.

Flipped over to do the other side.

Dump it all into a food processor with 2 chipotle chiles. In retrospect one would have been plenty for my taste; this came out pretty spicey, although super tasty!

Blended up and left to sit for a while. The flavours blend more the longer you let it sit.

The main dish! Sprinkle chicken breasts with salt and a tablespoon of chile powder, preferably ancho chile powder. Pan sear until cooked:

Mmmmmm. Smells good. Take out the cooked chicken, add some more oil if you need it, and add diced onion and once cup of rice.

Stir the rice and onion in the oil until the rice starts to turn opaque. Add four minced cloves of garlic (one thing I love about Bayless is the he seems to feel the same way about garlic as I do! Lots is always good!) and a tablespoon of chile powder. Stir for a minute until it gets nice and fragrent. Add 1 1/2 cups of chicken broth. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat, and let simmer for 10 minutes. Cut the chicken into bite sized pieces and add them to the pot, along with one can of black beans (drained and rinsed). Recover and cook another 12 minutes.

Taste the rice; if not done yet continue cooking. Otherwise, cover and let sit for 5 minutes. Mix it all up, serve with the salsa, and enjoy!

Recipe can be found here.

Little Wooden People!

2010-01-26T22:11:00.002-05:00

I've made a few more of these little people rolls, with more on the way!

I've decided to just go with the larger people, I like the sizing on them better than the tiny little babies and boys and girls.

Each set has three 'men' and three 'women'.
I'm also playing around with different outer fabrics!

These will be up in the store soon.

Week 3: Red Chili Enchiladas with Turkey and Melted Cheese

2010-01-18T22:26:00.005-05:00

I'm not sure words can even express how delicious this was. I was planning to make fajitas or quesadillas or something later this week with the leftover chicken from tonight's roast chicken dinner, but now I'm thinking I might have to whip up another batch of these enchiladas instead. Possibly tomorrow.

SO delicious.

The recipe is from Rick Bayless's Mexican Everyday, a cookbook I always intend to cook more from and then run into problems getting ingredients. Fortunately, there's now a Latin food store in downtown Milton that stocks things like the essential dried peppers. I expect over the year quite a few Bayless recipes will be making an appearance in this series.

Start with 1 ounce of dried guajillo chiles, stemmed, seeded & torn into flat pieces:

Toast the pieces in a dry hot frying pan, about 10 seconds per side, just until they get fragrent - too long and they might burn, and you don't want that.

Then, pull out the FOOD PROCESSOR your darling husband surprised you with:

Isn't it pretty? I just love KitchenAid. It's powerful and surprisingly quiet, and I never would have tackled this recipe without it.

Put the chiles in the processor along with 2 cloves of peeled garlic, 1 28 oz can of diced tomatoes with their juice, 1/4 tsp ground cumin, and 1/4 tsp ground pepper. Blend that up very thoroughly.

The can of tomatoes I used was actually too small (damn grocery store shrinkage), so I wound up with less sauce, which is important later. Next time I will make sure to use the full 28 ounces.

In a large saucepan, heat a tablespoon of oil over medium-high heat. Put a mesh strainer over the pot, and dump the blended sauce into the strainer. Press through so the sauce hits the hot oil. This took a fair amount of work to get the liquid through (while leaving the solids in the strainer); I actually found it useful to mix in a couple of tablespoons of water as I was forcing the sauce through the strainer.

Cook the sauce until it reaches the consistency of tomato paste (Bayless says 5-7 minutes; possibly because of the added water it was more like 10-15). Pour in 2 cups of chicken broth, reduce heat, and simmer for 10 minutes. Taste and season with 1/2 tsp of sugar and salt to taste (I used about a half teaspoon).

This tastes so incredible. Nothing like canned enchilada sauce, it's a whole different world. It's sweet and smokey with just a hint of heat. Major flavour.

Warm a dozen corn tortillas (Bayless has a complicated method for this - I just sprinkled them with water and stuck the stack in the microwave for 20 seconds, then wrapped in a tea towel). You could do this with flour tortillas instead of corn, although in this dish I think the corn really works nicely (and I say that as someone who spent months perfecting homemade corn tortillas before finally coming to the conclusion that I don't really LIKE corn tortillas. But in this recipe they work well).

Spread a half cup of the sauce in the bottom of a baking dish. I'm using a small dish here because I had less sauce than I should have and decided to only make 9 enchiladas rather than 12.

Take 2 cups of shredded cooked chicken (I used turkey instead, because I got a cheap turkey breast when I went shopping) and toss with another 1/2 cup of the sauce.

Fill each tortilla with the chicken (or turkey!) mixture, roll, and place seam side down in the baking dish.

Sprinkle with 1 cup (or more!) of cheese, and top with the remaining sauce.

Bake for 10-15 minutes in a 350 oven, until warmed through and the cheese has melted.

Seriously, SO GOOD. Next time I'll make a double batch.

(someone else has typed out the full recipe, you can find it here. also her blog is just very cool.)

I'm probably going to try some variations on the enchilada sauce, like making it with chipotle peppers or ancho peppers instead of the gaujillos. I bet the chipotles in particular would be amazing.

Bean Bags #1

2010-01-16T13:58:00.003-05:00

Daughter #1 came home from school very enthused with bean bags the other day. Apparently they played with them in gym class. I asked if she'd like me to make some, she said YES, and these are the result. Not fancy, just 7" cotton squares turned and topstitched and filled with some Romano beans I bought by accident (I thought they were pinto beans). They were a hit this morning, especially with the baby, who is now at that age where putting things into things and then taking them out is jolly good fun. A bucket and a couple of bean bags and she was in baby heaven.

So these aren't that exciting, but making them has given me some ideas, which will be showing up here and probably in the store soon. For one thing there's the issue of washability, and for another I don't really like the feel of the beans in these bags, they're really too big. Rice would have a better feel to it, I think. Plus then they'd double up nicely as microwavable heating pads!

At any rate, I think my motivation is back! I'm gradually restocking the store and I have ideas to mull over and play with. All is right in my creative world again.

Now, I just have to find a recipe to try this week!

Party time?

2010-01-15T19:15:00.002-05:00

I had my 200th Etsy sale today! Go me!

New sewing stuff coming tomorrow, I hope. Need to drag my lazy butt off this couch first.

Week 2: Falafel and Pita

2010-01-12T14:51:00.008-05:00

So, not the greatest picture, you really can't see the deliciousness here. This is a homemade pita bread filled with 'falafel' (sort of) and topped with tzatziki (which I cannot spell, ever) and fresh tomatoes. Really, really good.

I don't know what possessed me to try making pita. On the one hand, dear god, if you've never had a fresh home made pita, you are SO missing out. Those cardboard rounds they sell at the grocery store are basically an entirely different food. So, yay for home made pita!

On the other hand, I can't stop eating them. This is the same problem I have with all bread, actually - home made is just so much better you find yourself polishing off a half a loaf in one sitting. You don't do that with store bread!

Still, I'm not sure I can go back to store pita. Now that I know what I'd be missing...

Pita bread is essentially made like most other breads, just baked a little differently. After some experimentation and reading a ton of different variations on pita recipes, I've settled on what seems to work pretty well for me:

1 cup white flour
2 tsp salt
2 tsp yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup hot water

Mix together.

Add, a half cup at a time, 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour and mix until it hangs together as a dough, then knead for about 10 minutes until smooth and elastic.

I use my kitchenaid. I love my KA. I wouldn't make bread if I didn't have it to do the kneading for me.

The finished, kneaded dough. It will be a bit sticky, which is good - for pita you want a slightly sticky dough.

Dump the dough into an oiled boil, flip it over to oil the whole thing, then cover with a clean tea towel and put somewhere warm to rise for about 90 minutes (if using all white flour, I only rise an hour, but I find the whole wheat needs a little longer). I like to proof my dough in the oven, since you are pretty much guaranteed no drafts. I just turn it on for about 3 minutes to warm up the interior a bit, stick the dough in, and go on with my day.

Although that does mean you have to NOT plan to use your oven! There have been incidents in the past...

The dough after rising. I could probably even have left it longer. Bread is really very forgiving, so I don't get too hung up on exact times.

Punch down, shape into a rough circle, and cut into 8 pieces. If you want to be SUPER picky, you can weigh the dough and figure out how much each piece should weight so they'll all be identical, but I just don't care that much.

Shape each piece into a rough ball (I could have done a better job of this part) and let rise a half hour or so.

Lookit those! The dough becomes delightfully soft and workable after this rise.

Roll each piece out into a nice circle, 6-8" wide. Or so. I didn't measure. I'm guessing. Fairly thin, anyway. After rolling them out, start preheating your oven (this way the rolled out rounds get a little rest before baking) to very very very very hot. Around 500 or so. On the lowest rack, stick a pizza stone or piece of stoneware or something so it gets nice and hot too.

Once the oven is hot, take out the stone, slap a couple of the rounds on top, slide in, and bake for 3 minutes. They should within a minute or so start getting all puffy, forming the pita pocket:

(I am so not competent with a rolling pin, in case that's not obvious already. Those are some weirdly mishapen pitas. Fortunately, they still taste awesome!).

After three minutes remove the pitas, and wrap them up in a tea towel (the steam will help keep the pitas nice and soft and pliable), then repeat with the remaining rounds.

Try not to eat them all at once, OK? You do want to get them into a storage bag fairly quickly so they stay nice and soft.

OK, so having figured out the pita thing, what to put in them? My lunch today involved stuffing a pita with a mixture of crumbled bacon, diced tomato, sliced avacado, and mayonaise, and hot damn, that was tasty. I wish I'd made two, I'd eat another one RIGHT NOW. Ahem.

But for this post, I wanted to try something involving chickpeas, and since I really like falafel, I decided to make falafel-esque patties, only in a nod towards not having a heart attack any time soon, I grilled them instead of deep frying them.

1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed:

Mashed up:

Add in:

1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 parsley
2 cloves garlic
2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp red pepper (didn't have any, just used regular ground pepper)

Process until smooth:
Taste, adjust seasonings (ie you might want to add salt - i didn't because the canned chickpeas were plenty salty enough to start with).

Stir in 2 tablespoons of flour:

Form into patties, fairly thin, let stand for 15 minutes.

Here is where you would deep fry them, but I don't really do the deep frying thing (good lord, the mess!), so I pan fried them on my griddle. I did butter the griddle up a bit, but basically I just cooked them about 4-5 minutes a side until they were nice and brown and hot:

Not to bad! Not the same as a real falafel, of course, but good enough for an easy and cheap lunch or dinner.

mmmmmmmm. Home made pita, topped with tzatziki and falafel and tomato. A little hummus on this wouldn't have been amiss, either.

the tzatziki recipe was a total disaster, since it left out two key steps, and also I forgot to photograph it. Still tasted pretty good, though. Recipe (with the missing steps included!) is below.

I'm thinking I might be experimenting a lot with different things to stuff in pitas over the next few weeks...

Pita Bread

Mix together:

1 cup white flour
2 tsp salt
2 tsp yeast
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup hot water

Gradually add in 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour. Knead dough 10 minutes until smooth and elastic (will probably be slightly sticky). Let rise 90 minutes. Punch down, divide into 8 pieces, form into balls, let rise 30 minutes. Roll each piece into a disc. Heat oven to 500 degrees with a stone on the bottom rack. Bake each round for 3 minutes, and wrap the finished pitas in a tea towel until ready to use or store.

Falafal

1 can chick peas, drained, rinshed, and mashed.

Mix in:

1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 parsley
2 cloves garlic
2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp red pepper

Process until smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning. Mix in 2 tbsp flour, form into patties, and fry until brown and hot.

Tzatziki

1 cup plain yogurt, drained
1 cucumber, peeled, chopped, seeded and drained (put chopped cucumber in a colander, sprinkle with salt, and let sit for 20 minutes to drain)
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 lemon, juiced
salt and pepper to taste
1 tbsp chopped fresh dill
1 clove garlic, peeled

Put everything except the yogurt into a food processor and process until smooth (or, put into a large bowl and use a hand/stick blender to process). Mix in yogurt. Cover and refrigerate one hour for best flavour.

Where'd my motivation wander off to?

2010-01-08T19:11:00.002-05:00

Man, I am so tired in the evenings, I'm not accomplishing much sewing. Hopefully once the term gets into full swing I'll feel more like sewing!

I did make this up:

It's in the store. Hopefully lots more to come!

Week 1: Mushroom Lentil Burgers

2010-01-04T19:42:00.006-05:00

For the first recipe of the 52R project, I chose Mushroom Lentil Burgers from The Complete Canadian Living Cookbook. I like this book because the ingredients and sizes are suited to the Canadian kitchen, like giving can measurements in milliliters and sizes that are actually available here. And I've always had very good luck with their recipes.

Some of the ingredients. My camera was being annoying and having trouble focusing; I hope to improve the photos through the year.

In a large skillet, heat 1 tsp of vegetable oil over medium heat. Add one medium onion, finely chopped, and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 4 minutes or until soft. (I added a couple of cloves of crushed garlic, which weren't in the original recipe, because I always add garlic). Add 1 cup finely chopped mushrooms and 1/2 tsp thyme (I used Italian seasoning because I was out of thyme); cook, stirring, for another 4 minutes or until just starting to brown. Let cool slightly.

The mushroom onion mixture. I added probably more like 1 1/2 cups of mushrooms, rather than the called for one cup, and I still didn't think the end results were mushroom-y enough.

In a bowl, coarsely mash 1 can (19 oz/540ml) of drained and rinsed lentils. In future versions I will cook my own lentils rather than using canned.

note the unmashed lentils. Forgot that step until after I'd added the next ingredient (1/2 cup oats). I mashed them at this point, but probably not quite enough. Actually, I wish I had a food processor, I think I would have pureed the lentils, which would possibly give a smoother texture to the 'burger'.

In addition to the oats, stir in the mushroom mixture, 3 tbsp Parmesan cheese, 2 tblsp chopped pine nuts or pecans, and 1/4 tsp pepper. I couldn't find pine nuts when I went grocery shopping (what's up with that?), and I don't really like pecans, so I substituted cashews because I love cashews.

Once it's all mixed together, shape into four patties. You can then refrigerate on some waxed paper if you want to cook them later.

I tasted the mixture at this point, pretty good.
The formed burgers.
Cook over medium heat for 3-4 minutes per side or until golden brown.

Looking good!

Serve on a bun with toppings of your choice.
I used some thinly sliced cheddar cheese, fresh avocado, fresh homemade salsa, and some chipotle hot sauce.

Verdict: Excellent. A definite keeper recipe. I'm usually not a fan of burger substitute recipes because they just make me want a real burger, but mushroom based substitutes are the exception, since I love mushrooms to a perhaps unreasonable degree.

For future versions, I'm going to increase the mushrooms to more like 2 cups and probably try and use a smaller onion, I thought the onion taste was a bit strong, especially with the onions in the fresh salsa on top of that. And I want to try this with the lentils more pureed. But really, very good, nice mushroom flavour, and a very satisfying and filling sandwich.

The baby also really liked it! The four year old was unimpressed, and since my husband doesn't like mushrooms, I made him something different which I will put in a future 52R post.

Recipe: Mushroom Lentil Burgers

1 tsp vegetable oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 cup finely chopped mushrooms (I used more like 1 1/2)
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 can (19 oz/540 ml) lentils, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup oats
3 tbsp parmesan
2 tbsp chopped pine nuts or pecans (I used cashews)
1/4 tsp pepper

1. In large skillet, heat oil over medium heat; cook onion until soft, about 4 minutes. Add mushrooms and thyme, cook another 4 minutes or until just starting to brown. Let cool slightly.

2. In bowl, coarsely mash lentils; stir in mushroom mixture, oats, cheese, pine nuts, and pepper. Shape into four 3/4" thick patties.

3. In same skillet or on greased grill over medium heat, cook patties for 3 to 4 minutes per side or until golden brown. Serve on buns with toppings of your choice.

52 Weeks, 52 Recipes: a 2010 project

2010-01-03T20:28:00.003-05:00

I have been in a major cooking rut lately. Chicken. Chili. Pasta. Chicken. Pancakes. Chili. Stew. Pasta. Pizza. Chicken. Pasta. And so on. Sitting down each week to write the meal plan has been kind of depressing, because I fill out 4 days (chicken, chili, pasta, pizza) and then run out of ideas.

I've also been thinking about some sort of 2010 project. I was initially thinking about Project 365, where you take and post one picture per day, but after the 24 days of Christmas thing I just don't want the pressure of having to post every day, and the added pressure of keeping my camera charged (more challenging that it should be, really).

And then it hit me. A project that I think I can do for a whole year, and will force me to expand my cooking horizons. For now I'm calling it 52 Weeks, 52 Recipes, where I will try a new to me recipe every week, and post about it on the blog. I'm going to start by focusing on recipes involving beans and lentils, since I'd particularly like to add more meatless dishes to our menus, both for health and monetary reasons.

The rules:

1) One post a week, with a recipe, photos if they turn out OK, and my thoughts on the recipe and results.
2) If I make more than one new recipe in a week, I am allowed to 'bank' the spares for a week where for whatever I reason I don't make something new
3) Failed recipes may be reposted later if I make major changes to improve them. Minor tweaks to recipes I will edit the original post with my comments.
4) Main course recipes only. Desserts don't count.

And it will let me practice my photography skills, too. Taking food pictures and having them look good can be tough, especially with the sun setting so early these days, by the time dinner is ready the sun has vanished.

First recipe post goes up tomorrow!

The Vegetable Book - by my mom!

2010-01-02T14:09:00.004-05:00

I did NOT make this! My amazingly talented mom did. Thanks, mom!

The images are all part of a series of vegetable etchings and prints she did (I think have the terminology right there). Aren't they fantastic? I want copies to frame and hang in my kitchen!

The bottom of the garlic looks funny here because I blurred out my mom's identifying information.

I think my mom should look into getting prints made of these, they're really terrific.

Ah, the new year...

2009-12-29T13:37:00.003-05:00

...when immediately after I get the Christmas stuff down, I am overcome with the urge to clean and declutter and get rid of EVERYTHING.

No sewing for a bit, I'm going to sort and purge my sewing room.

I did recently finally set up something I've wanted to do forever. Kiddo #1 brings home a lot of art from school, and makes a lot of art at home, and it kept winding up in random piles and was just generally a big pain in the butt.

So I went to one of my favourite places (IKEA, of course) and picked up a couple of wire curtain hangers, mucked around for a while with a drill and some wire cutters, and voila, art gallery:

The clips even came with the wire rod! Now whenever she makes something new she wants to display, she chooses which old piece to get rid of. And it makes it easy for me to grab a few photos of her work here and there, so that I can have pictures without having to save the actual pieces.

Very pleased with this solution to our overabundance of kid art problem.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T19:09:00.002-05:00

It was a very good day!

24 Days of Christmas: Day 24. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

2009-12-24T22:35:00.003-05:00

The children are nestled all snug in their beds, and everything is all set for the morning.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

24 Days of Christmas: Day 23. Gnome playscape

2009-12-23T14:19:00.004-05:00

I love this needle felted playscape! Needle felting is one of those crafts I'm sure I would love, so I refuse to try it because I do not need another time sucking craft in my life right now. So the playscape was obtained via a craft swap.

I made these gnomes with some wooden people forms I had left from the little wooden people rolls I made for my store. They're not too bad, if I do say so myself! Just felt, glue, and thread. Or maybe they are wizards, not gnomes. I might make a few more of these if I have time. The 'trees' are some wooden cones I got in a mixed lot of wooden shapes a while ago and painted green.

I'd also like to come up with some sort of case for this stuff, along with the gnomes I got via an Etsy swap, but that will have to wait until after Christmas.

24 Days of Christmas: Day 22. Deam bars/Angel bars.

2009-12-22T18:34:00.004-05:00

Oh my, these are awfully good. And easy to make. Dangerous stuff, that.

(I am going to need to undertake one of those crazy detoxes in January where you drink, like, nothing but mushroom juice for three weeks)

The recipe is from the Joy of Cooking; I made these following the recipe exactly, except I omitted the nuts it called for. Also I wonder if there's an error in the recipe. It calls for an 11 by 7 pan, but using one made these quite thin bars. I'm going to try another batch in a square pan to give a thicker bar, and I think they will be even better.

The taste is like a caramel-y macaroon. SO YUMMY. I think I might drizzle a bit of chocolate over the top of the next batch, too.

Dream bars (Angel bars)

Line pan with foil and grease lightly.

Blend together until very fluffy:

4 tblsp butter
2 tblsp sugar
1 large egg yolk
1/4 tsp vanilla

Stir in and knead until well blended and smoother 3/4 all purpose flour.

Firmly press dough into pan to form a smooth, even layer. Bake for 10 minutes at 350 and set aside to cool.

Beat on medium speed until well combined:
2 large eggs
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 1/2 tbsp all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Stir in 1 cup flaked or shredded sweetened coconut. Spread mixture evenly over the baked layer. Bake until top is firm and golden brown, 20-25 minutes. Remove to a rack to cool slightly

While cooling, stir together:
2 tablespoons butter
2/3 cup powdered sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp vanilla

add enough milk to yield a spreadable consistency. Spread evenly over the bars; allow to stand until complete set. Cut into bars.

24 Days of Christmas: Day 21. This year's Christmas ornament

2009-12-21T10:16:00.002-05:00

So after yesterday's post, I realized I was rapidly running out of time to add any new Christmas ornaments to our collection this year! So I dug through the craft supplies and came up with this happy little peace dove. Everything for it came out of the stash, which considering just how much craft stuff I have, is a good thing (New Years resolution - do a SERIOUS reorganization of my sewing and craft room!).

Fairly quick to make, so I hope to make a few for our tree and a few to give away.

24 Days of Christmas: Day 20. Christmas Tree Ornaments

2009-12-20T15:12:00.004-05:00

Every year I try to make a couple of new ornaments for the Christmas tree. These are a few of the ones I've done in past years. I haven't figured out this year's ornament yet! And I'm running out of time...Clothespin angels are very easy. I have a whole bunch of them, and they are some of my favourite ornaments. Simply wrap a clothespin with yarn to make the body, then glue ribbon into place for wings, and add something pretty to the front. And you are done!

You can draw in a face if you like; I actually prefer to leave them plain. The possibilities are endless! Mine are all variations of white/silver/gold, but I'd love to add some red/green/gold ones to the collection. I keep an eye out for discount wired ribbon, it makes the best wings.

The lizard was made of salt dough a few years ago, dried, then painted. I like lizards. Obviously.

The star is a plain wooden shape, painted, covered in glitter, with beads wrapped around. I have quite a few of these, they add a nice sparkle to the tree.

Salt dough again - dead easy to make, and you can paint them an infinite number of ways! For this one, after the paint dried, I also added some puffy paint around the edges for dimension.

Finally, this Christmas tree is made of beads and wire. Not hard to do if you can find the right beads and wire!

I'm thinking this year I'd like to sew some ornaments, but I haven't figured out what just yet. Maybe some felt doves, those are fairly easy and fast. I might have to go dig out my felt later tonight!

24 Days of Christmas: Day 19. Bracelet

2009-12-19T12:07:00.002-05:00

This is from an Etsy trade with this seller. Very sweet! This will be a stocking stuffer.

24 Days of Christmas: Day 18. Chickens!

2009-12-18T12:59:00.001-05:00

Maybe I should be saving these for Easter! A set of adorable knitted chickens from the same super talented knitter who made the frogs.

Inside each chicken is a plastic egg, and inside each egg...
...is a chick! How cute is that?

These will most likely be a stocking stuffer for my older daughter.

24 Days of Christmas: Day 17. I Spy Bag.

2009-12-17T11:03:00.003-05:00

This sweet toy is from this Etsy seller. I traded...something I can't remember for it. Very simple - a small bag filled with beads and other small objects with a clear window. The child can manipulate the toy to discover the various objects inside. Great for car trips!

And it come with a super cute laminated list of everything inside. I'll tuck this into one of the girl's stockings!

24 Days of Christmas: Day 16. A long overdue dollhouse update!

2009-12-16T13:41:00.004-05:00

I haven't forgotten the dollhouse! After all, this is kiddo #1's big present. Here's the completed exterior - I've been debating some additional decoration, but I think I'll leave it like this. Simple yet pretty!

The interior is starting to come together. I made a couple of little beds for the kid's room, and picked up the box at the dollar store, I guess we can call it a toy box. It'll be useful for storing little bits and pieces. I'm going to keep the furniture relatively minimal, on the theory we can always provide more furniture for birthdays and such later on. So there will be a mix of home made furniture and some store bought Plan Toys and Educo stuff (my parents are providing a kitchen set and a household accessories set; I think I will get a dining room set).

(this blogging every day for 24 days thing is getting tiring! But I think I'm going to make it...)

24 Days of Christmas: Day 15. Gnomes

2009-12-15T14:37:00.002-05:00

These little cuties are from an Etsy trade with this seller. Aren't they adorable?

Going to pop them in the kiddo's stocking, I think she'll really get a kick out of them!

24 Days of Christmas: Day 14. Tiny Shiny Things

2009-12-14T14:23:00.004-05:00

This is something I got in a craft swap. Basically a jar full of stuff, suited for a 4 year old girl. Also known as Jars of Whimsy, they idea is basically to collect a bunch of interesting stuff together in a jar. I think my daughter will have a fabulous time seeing what treasures are hidden in her jar, and I think it will be very interesting to see what she does with the actual things.

It looks to me like there's lots of stuff in there to encourage creativity and imaginative play, which I am all in favour of doing! And I'm pretty excited to open it up with her.

(I got my jar from this Etsy seller, although her shop is not active right now)

24 Days of Christmas: Day 13. Placemats

2009-12-13T13:41:00.002-05:00

I'm making a set of placemats and napkins for...well, someone. I think they might read this blog, so I'm not saying who! These are the first two placemats, and I'm just thrilled with how they've turned out. Two more to go, then the napkins!

The center is string pieced, with brocade, red dupioni silk, a couple of different kinds of black cord, and some black satin stuff I had in the stash. The frame and back are both heavy black cord, very soft. There's also a layer of fleece inside for sturdiness.

If I have time, I'll try and do some coordinated coasters, too.

24 Days of Christmas: Day 12. Salted Caramels

2009-12-12T09:02:00.003-05:00

These? These are definitely a new Christmas tradition. Also, possibly a new Sunday tradition. And a new 'man, I really need something sweet and caramel-y' tradition.

Just so good. The salt with the rich caramel is amazing. Spent much of last night lying on the couch in a sugar coma, yet couldn't stop eating them!

Recipe from Canadian Living.

A few notes on the recipe - I pulled the caramel when it was still a bit under 250, since I like softer caramels. When I make them again I think I will pour the caramel into a larger pan, probably a 13 by 9, because these are actually on the thick side, in my opinion, and the hit of salt gets kind of lost in the sweet.

Also, the whole score after 30 minutes thing was a complete bust. They were easiest to cut when completely cool, using a hot knife (hold the knife under some hot water after each cut).

24 Days of Christmas: Day 11. More capes!

2009-12-11T11:05:00.003-05:00

I was volunteering in my daughter's junior kindergarten class, and her teacher told me that she'd had to throw out all the class dress up clothes because they were in terrible condition. So I decided for Christmas to dig through my stash and buy some cheap shiny fabric and make her some dress up capes.

From left to right: black velour with red fleece; purple velour with black tablecloth fabric, purple sparkly black bats with plain black; green with gold stars with yellow tabelcloth fabric, and silver with white.

I'm going to see if I can make a couple of crowns out of some of the leftover fabric. Because I don't have enough to do already!

24 Days of Christmas: Day 10. Colorfarm Playsilk

2009-12-10T10:34:00.003-05:00

AKA the most incredible tie dye you've ever seen. This is from The Color Farm, and it's just stunning. There really aren't any more words than that!

And BIG. After Christmas I'm going to see if I can put it up as a sort of canopy in DD's room. For Christmas, I'm going to 'wrap' the dollhouse in it on Christmas morning.

24 Days of Christmas: Day 9. Glass straws review

2009-12-09T12:34:00.003-05:00

These were kind of an early Christmas gift to myself, so I'm including them here even though I bought them, I didn't make them or trade for them. Shut up, it's my blog, I can break my own rules if I want. Although I guess technically I didn't make any rules. So there. At any rate, today, glass straws! These were purchased from Glass Dharma. They are handmade in the USA. Shipping was quite fast - I actually ordered twice, and both times my order arrived within 5 business days.

I would claim that i bought these for environmental reasons, since kid #1 insists on only drinking through a straw and goes through plastic straws at an alarming rate, and that's part of it, but mostly I just think they are really, really pretty.

I bought two sizes. The short size is perfect for the kiddo to use in those ubiquitous IKEA kid's drinking cups. The larger size works great for me! Although admittedly if the kid decides she wants an orange dot, well, then, by gum she'll use the big straw. Choosing a straw colour is rapidly becoming a key part of every meal.

I like the coloured dots. Because, you know, pretty! And these straws are very sturdy - they are made of something very similar to pyrex, and while I wouldn't take them and go drumming out a merry tune on your cast iron frying pan, I think they should stand up to normally use (and occasionally being dropped, which, yes, has happened a few times already) with no breakage. The company will replace them if you break them during the course of normal use.

Cleaning is straightforward; since they are glass you can easily tell if they are dirty. I give them a quick rinse after use, then put them in the dishwasher. Easy as pie. When you buy a set of four you also get a small cleaning brush, which if anything ever gets dried on to the inside would be useful, although I haven't had to use it.

What really surprised me is that I swear water actually tastes better when drunk through one of these straws. Something about the cool glass of the straw? I don't know, but I know I'm drinking a lot more water since they arrived!

24 Days of Christmas: Day 8. Shape Sorter.

2009-12-08T12:35:00.007-05:00

HOW COOL IS THIS??? I love it so much, and I can't wait to give it to the baby for Christmas! It's a fabric shape sorter. Kind of similar to the cube, but with 100% more awesome. I volunteered to test the pattern that this etsy seller designed, and it's really, really great. ~~She doesn't have the pattern listed yet, but I'm sure it will be available soon!~~ Now available!

Other side. More shapes.

And you take the shapes out! And then put them back in! And take them out! And put them back in! Seriously, it's so neat.

Interior shot.

The shapes. I actually made two sets of shapes. These are the smaller set, included in the pattern, which can be tossed in through the top or shoved through the sides. Because I stuffed the sorter VERY full, the shapes in the sides of the sorter body wound up a bit larger than intended (the original version is loosely stuffed), so I also made a larger set of shapes to fit into the holes:

These are the ones that go in and make it into a box! I basically added about a 1/2" all the way around each shape pattern. Super easy.

Fabrics used are blue minky, blue cat pattern flannel, and fuschia corduroy, so there's lots of textural interest as well (LOVE the minky, it's so soft).

It was very fun to make, too, even if it did involve evil interior seaming like the cube. Of course, now I'm getting pretty good at it!

24 Days of Christmas: Day 7. Dress up capes

2009-12-07T13:16:00.004-05:00

Finally, I'm getting some Christmas presents done! Same pattern as my nephew's cape, these are for my older daughter and my niece. I skipped the applique this time, just couldn't face that headache, so they are plain. Sparkly pink on one side (the pictures really don't capture just HOW sparkly), plain on the other.

Fit for a couple of super hero princesses. They look great when worn, but since my only model can't see hers until Christmas, you'll just have to believe me.

24 Days of Christmas: Day 6. Pencil Crayon Rolls

2009-12-06T12:50:00.003-05:00

These were made by custom request for an Etsy customer. I love this coloured cord for the exterior.

They are bigger than the ones I usually make, with a pocket for a small artist's sketch pad. The extra, wide spot next to the white pencil crayon is meant for a pencil sharpener. I love it!

I'm not going to accept any more pre-Christmas custom orders via the shop (although I will of course continue to sell and ship anything that's currently listed!), since I have a ton of sewing for Christmas presents to get done. I had been planning to start on that a week ago, but one of my pencil crayon rolls got featured in an Etsy Gift Guide (YAY!) and I got a whole bunch of orders. Which is fabulous, dollar wise, but I'm looking forward to sewing something else for a while!

After Christmas I'm going to make more of these, and also write a pattern for them.

Now, on to the Christmas sewing! First up, the capes for my niece and my daughter. Hopefully I can get those done tonight, they're a nice easy warm up project before I get into the more complicated stuff I have planned.

24 Days of Christmas: Day 5. Knitted frog stocking stuffers

2009-12-05T09:10:00.002-05:00

Aren't these just the sweetest things? I love them. I got these in a craft swap from this amazing knitter, and it took a LOT of willpower to put them away for Christmas rather than giving them to the kids right away! Alas her Etsy shop doesn't appear to be active right now. I'll be using these as stocking stuffers.

This one is my favourite. If I had an office, I'd so keep this one for my myself and perch him on top of a pile or books or a computer monitor or something.

24 Days of Christmas: Day 4. SO MUCH BAKING.

2009-12-04T14:01:00.005-05:00

So this was the scene in my kitchen yesterday. 18 dozen bars, packed up and ready to go. I couldn't go to the actual cookie exchange, so I dropped my cookies off and then this morning I picked up the goodies:

Note small child who REALLy wants to just dive on in there head first. She's rather in awe of the whole thing.

So what did I get? Cookies and baked goods galore! I have to get on repacking them into sets to give away, lest my ass wind up with its own zip code.

SO CUTE.

Yum.

I don't know what this is (since I missed the actual exchange), but I'm betting it's yummy!

The kid immediately ran off with this snowman. And then wanted to know when we could make some snowmen. Like we don't have enough cookies already!

I need to open these packages to get a better look! Pretty sure the white ones are lemon fudge, which I'm very excited about trying.

The kiddo also made off with a cupcake. I admit I ate one too!

Yeah, I don't think I'll be losing weight any time soon...

24 Days of Christmas: Day 3. Lemon Bars

2009-12-03T00:52:00.003-05:00

Today is the cookie exchange I'm in - 10 dozen each of two different recipes. That was a lot of baking! Recipe number one was, of course, yesterday's Chocolate Glazed Toffee Bars. Recipe number two is a classic: Lemon bars. Sweet shortbread, tangy lemon topping, what's not to love?

There's about a zillion recipes for lemon bars out there. This is the one I used for the exchange - normally I like my lemon bars to have more filling, but then they tend to be a bit goopy, which wouldn't be as good for a cookie swap. These are a little more subtle.

3/4 cup ( 1 1/2 sticks) cold butter, cut into small pieces
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus 3 tablespoons
1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp confectioner's sugar
2 large lemons )
3 large eggs (room temperature)
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350. Line a 13 by 9 pan with foil, and grease the foil lightly.

Mix together 1 1/2 cups flour and 1/2 sugar icing sugar. Add butter, and using a pastry cutter or two knives, cut the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs. Press mixture into bottom of foil lined pan, spreading evenly. Bake until lightly browned, about 15 minutes.

While the crust is baking, zest one lemon and squeeze 1/2 cup of juice. Beat the eggs and granulated sugar together for 3 minutes. Add the lemon juice, lemon zest, baking powder, remaining 3 tablespoons of flour, and salt, and beat until combined. Pour filling mixture over warm crust, and bake until filling is set and the top is golden brown around the edges, about 15 minutes. Dust the top with remaining tablespoon of icing sugar. Set on a rack to cool. Cut into bars.

24 Days of Christmas: Day 2, Chocolate Glazed Toffee Bars

2009-12-02T05:32:00.005-05:00

Can't. Stop. Eating. These.

And they are super easy to make, too. Very very dangerous. Recipe from the Joy of Cooking, with a few modifications (the original calls for pecans; I decided to leave them out).

Preheat oven to 350. Line an 8 by 8 pan with tinfoil (the easiest way to do this is turn the pan upside down, mold your tinfoil around the back of the pan, then take the tinfoil off, turn the pan over, and set the tinfoil inside). Grease the foil.

Whisk together 2/3 cup of flour, 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar, and 1/8 tsp salt.

Add 4 tablespoons cold butter, cut into pieces, and using a pastry cutter or two knives, cut the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse bread crumbs. Press the flour mixture into the foil-lined pan. Bake for 10 minutes, set aside to cool slightly.

In a heavy bottomed saucepan over medium heat, melt 5 tablespoons of butter with 1/2 cup light brown sugar, 2 tablespoons honey or corn syrup, 1/8 tsp salt, and 1 tablespoon of milk. Bring to a boil and boil uncovered for exactly 3 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in 1 tsp of vanilla. Pour sugar mixture over crust.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, until sugar mixture starts to turn dark around the edges. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes. Sprinkle 1/4 cup of milk chocolate chips over the top, and let sit until the chocolate chips have melted (4-5 minutes). Use a knife to spread the melted chocolate across the top of the bars.

Allow the chocolate to cool until thickened but still slightly soft (I generally wait about 10 or 15 minutes or so), then cut into bars. Cool completely before removing the bars.

24 Days of Christmas: Day 1. Vanilla Sugar

2009-12-01T12:35:00.003-05:00

I am going to attempt to post something handmade every day leading up to Christmas. We'll see how well this goes! I'll probably have to cheat and post other people's handmade stuff a few times, I have a whole pile of things I got via trades I haven't blogged yet.

Today's post is a very simple but lovely gift that is easy to make. Take a nice jar. Fill halfway with sugar. Add a vanilla bean. Fill the rest of the way with sugar. Let sit for at least 2 weeks. Bam, you have vanilla sugar.

The really nice thing is if you use fresh vanilla beans, they will continue to flavour the sugar for up to year, you just add more sugar as you use it. The smell when you take off the lid is just amazing - great for adding a bit of vanilla flavour to coffee or tea. Or in a recipe that calls for vanilla extract, replace 3 tablespoons of regular sugar with vanilla sugar to replace 1 tsp of vanilla extract.

You can buy bulk vanilla beans on eBay (really!), and if you happen to have a collection of empty mason jars, this is an inexpensive gift. I'm going to print information about vanilla sugar and how to use it on cardstock and use these for a few people on my Christmas gift list.

Handmade Christmas: Supplies

2009-11-30T09:59:00.002-05:00

It was a fun shopping trip this morning. A trip to the bulk store for chocolate is next, and then the epic baking shall commence.

Handmade Christmas: Superhero cape

2009-11-29T10:01:00.002-05:00

If you are my sister in law, don't let your kids see this post!

Seriously!

Make them leave!

Now!

OK, if they are gone:

A superhero cape for my nephew. My skills with applique are just as bad as always, but it's pretty cute, if I do say so myself. Mostly the problem was the fabric I choose was a real bitch to work with.

From the front. It can also be reversed with the plain blue side out.

This is a very easy little project - I'd say it took me about an hour altogether. You could whip these up super fast if you didn't want to do the applique! I used these instructions, although once I drew out the pattern I thought it looked short so I added a few inches, and I did the actual sewing part completely differently because the written instructions seemed overly complicated and I am all about fast and simple.

Something new: cloth pads

2009-11-28T16:02:00.004-05:00

This is the post where half of you decide I've lost my mind. Just to warn you.

Now, I know these tend to make a lot of people go what the fuck? and/or EWWWWWWWWW. I know, because I was one of those people as little as a year ago. But I have a lot of fabric left over from making diapers for the baby, and I've really been focusing a lot lately on reducing the amount of garbage our family puts out into the world, a little bit at a time, and these are kind of a natural step, especially given that I have to wash diapers anyway.

Cloth menstrual pads*. I was skeptical, but you know what? I like them so much better than disposable pads. And not just because they don't get thrown out. They are actually more comfortable to wear, they don't have any weird perfumes in them (and whoever came up with perfumed menstrual products needs a slappin', because, talk about EWWWW), and I swear, I never would have believed it until I tried them, but I swear my cramps and other unpleasant symptoms are actually less since I started using these.

Because I like the high tech stuff, these are about as high tech as you can get, at least when talking menstruation. PUL for the outer, totally waterproof, so your clothes don't get wet or stained. Fleece on the wings for softness, and they fasten with a snap (two settings to adjust the fit). The absorbant bit is made of 2 layers of flannel with a layer of Zorb in between. Zorb is probably about the most absorbent material you can get, it's amazing stuff. Topped with an athletic wicking fabric so that moisture passes through and is moved away from the skin. And the wicking fabric is also surprisingly stain resistant.

So while I know these aren't going to be everyone's cup of tea, I like them, and they are a great way to use up some of the excess fabric I have lying around. Look for sets in the store soon.

Now I'm going to hurry up and write another post to get this one off the top. Also I'm sure I've managed to convince at least half my regular readers than I'm nuts. Come back! I promise the next post won't have anything to do with menstruation!

*I refuse, refuse, refuse to call them 'mama pads', which seems to be the term most people use. Sets my teeth on edge.

Dollhouse renovation part VII: Exterior and furniture

2009-11-23T13:00:00.004-05:00

Progress on the house exterior! Windows are framed and painted purple, and I've painted some grass along the bottom. I'll be adding in some flowers as well. Also, note the hook and eye set ($1) to keep the doors closed when not in use. Paints are from my craft supplies.

I have to figure out what to do with the roof. It looks kind of wrong to leave it just plain.

I also painted grass along the bottom of this side, and added some vines and flowers. Painting is not where my talents lie, clearly, but I think it's prettier than the plain white, and it was fun to paint!

Close up. This actually looks a lot better in person. Really, I swear.

The interior is fully painted. I'm not happy with the curtains, so I'm going to change those. I'll post more about the curtains when I get them figured out.

I picked up these dolls a couple of weeks ago. My brother and his wife will also be supplying a set of dolls, so the kiddo will have a nice big family to play with and live in the house! It's handy to have these ones here to provide scale as I start building furniture. While I would love to furnish the house completely with Plan toys stuff, it's expensive! So for now most likely just the kitchen will get purchased furniture, and the rest I'll make enough for ongoing play. Further sets can be birthday presents later on.

This is the bed I made for the blue room.

Mattress and pillow were made out of my fabric stash.

The bed is super simple - just popsicle sticks glued together.

On the bottom, I drilled holes into the popsicle sticks for legs made out of some dowel from the dollar store, glued the dowel into the holes, and stuck some tacks in the bottom just for the heck of it. This works surprisingly well! Now I have to make a couple of similar beds for the kid's room.

Total spent this post - $1 for hook and eye.
Total spent to date: $17.

Trades #3: Name banner

2009-11-21T10:02:00.002-05:00

Isn't this cute? A name banner for my younger daughter's room. I love the rainbow flannel for the letters; pretty sure I actually used to have some of that fabric, although I used it all up. I wonder if I can get more, it would come in handy for quite a few things, given my whole rainbow obsession.

This was made for me by this lovely Etsy seller. She's not taking orders for the name banners again until January, but keep her in mind, she does good work (and is just an all around dynamite person!).

Pencil crayon and notepad case

2009-11-20T09:37:00.002-05:00

Put together a final version last night. I love this so much, I really do. Big Kid has already tried to steal it from me about 10 times this morning. The slots will also work with the skinny markers; I personally would prefer it with markers so you don't have to deal with the whole pencil sharpening aspect, although you could add a small single pencil sharpener to the notebook slot, there is enough room.

How it looks closed. I like the simple black outer, although I will probably make a few with crazy rainbow stripes, because crazy rainbow stripes are just what I do.

Requisite arty shot for Etsy listing, because to fit in on Etsy, you gotta do the pointless artsy shot. Goofy yet true.

Buy it!

Prototype: Pencil and notebook case

2009-11-19T11:09:00.003-05:00

This is something that I was asked if I thought it would be possible to make, and I said, what a great idea and got to work. This is the prototype and it has some issues, first off that I really don't like the black and grey fabric, but for some reason I have a ton of it so it's good for making prototypes.

Reverse side. Very similar to the little people rolls, obviously.

Inside! Pencil crayons and a notebook. I think this is such a great idea, and after i work out a few more details I'm definitely going to make a bunch of these. I need to make the whole thing about an inch taller, and the pockets need to be a bit snugger because right now a couple of the pencil crayons really want to slip right out. Both of those are easy problems to solve, however.

Close up. I think these would actually be really nice with a plain black outer and the crazy rainbow inner. And what a great thing to have tucked away in your purse for child entertainment emergencies! the number of pencil crayons can easily be increased, too, although more colours makes matching up the background fabric a bit of a pain. I shall have to experiment a bit more with that. And this could also be made with crayons or markers, too, although that will require working out the specific sizing for each one.

Perhaps I should take a nap.

2009-11-18T16:32:00.003-05:00

Made a few more of these for the store. Can you spot the problem with this next one?

Clearly, I need more sleep.

Dollhouse renovation part VI: Interior almost done!

2009-11-17T08:06:00.004-05:00

A reminder of what I started with on this rapidly becoming epic project.

How it looks right now! The interior is almost done - the trim in the green room needs one coat of paint, but that's the last thing, other than the curtains, which I'm still figuring out.

Aren't those chairs cute? I got them from an Etsy seller, and very reasonably priced. I'm not including them in the cost, for that I'm just accounting for anything used on the dollhouse itself. The other thing in the blue room is a folding screen I made out of popsicle sticks and some elastic from my sewing stash.

I found this set of wooden painted letters at the dollar store and just couldn't resist using them to decorate the kid's room.

This doesn't look much different in the picture, but in real life you can tell! Two coats of white semi-gloss paint from the paint cupboard. And now that that is done, it's time to figure out decorating the outside! I'm going to trim the windows in popsicle sticks (of course!) painted lavender and see how that looks. Also I have to install a hook and eye to hold the doors closed, as they tend to swing open.

Spent on wooden letters: $1
Total spent to date: $16

Tutorial: Making Crayons

2009-11-13T16:00:00.006-05:00

I'm pretty sure every family with kids above the age of about 4 or so has a bucket or a bin or a jar full of broken crayons. And because who wants to colour with the crappy broken crayons, the jar just keeps getting fuller!

This is a great way to put those broken crayons back into use. And have some fun craft time with your kids! Essentially all you do is pile the broken crayons into a baking mold of some sort (you can even just use a muffin tin, to make nice little hockey-puck type crayons), and then stick 'em in a hot oven until they melt. Wait until they cool, and bingo, you have some big fat crayons your kids may be willing to use again. Or they'd make a terrific gift for the toddlers in your life. Or at least you'll have spent an hour of quality time with your kids.

First up, you need crayons, and lots of them. Peel off the paper (it helps to score the paper with something like the tip of a knife to make them easier to peel), break the crayons into small pieces, and have your child helper sort out the crayons by colour. My helper refused to help with the paper peeling part, but she did enjoy the sorting.

Decide what you will bake them in. This is a Pampered Chef silicone cake pan that I have never actually used, so I figured if the crayon residue doesn't come off, well, at least I used it for something! I found the crayons do leave a residue, so I'd bear that in mind when choosing your pan. If I was going to do these in a muffin tin I wanted to use again later for muffins I'd probably do them in paper cups (the paper should just peel off the finished crayons).

I gave the pan a quick spray with some spray oil, then my helper got to work piling in the crayons. We decided for the first batch to go with blue/purple, red/pink, and yellow/orange. Fill up the molds, then stick in a warm oven (I used 300 degrees) for about 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, the crayons had mostly melted. Once they're melted, there will be more space left, so we added more crayons.

Adding crayons to the melted ones. Then I put them back into the oven for 5 minutes, and then checked every 2 minutes or so until they were completely melted.

We probably shouldn't have put quite so many crayon pieces in the second time! Here you can see why perhaps you shouldn't fill them up completely. Or at least keep the tray completely flat as you take it out of the oven.

Then, let them cool, resisting the temptation to take them out before they are completely, 100% cool.

The really nice thing about the silicone pan is it's super easy to turn these out, just push 'em from the bottom.

Having achieved such great results with the first three, who could resist making more?

So fun! We have now exhausted our crayon supply. Whenever we make these again, I think I will chop up some of the crayons into very small pieces, and put those pieces in the bottom of the molds. Especially for the blue, where it would have been nice if I'd made sure more of the light blue and lavender crayon pieces wound up visible in the finished product.

One other suggestion - try not to put too many low quality crayons in any one mold. The lower quality crayons seem to have a lot more wax than colour, and you may find if you use a lot of low quality crayons you get a layer of largely colourless wax at the top of the mold. And that's very frustrating to try and actually colour with!

This is a super easy activity to do with your kids! Highly recommended.

Edit: since we made these, my kid has spent about 3 solid hours playing with them. Not so much colouring with them, but stacking them, sorting them, pretending they are people having adventures. I'd call that a success, anything that can keep her busy for an hour is fine by me!

NOT the dollhouse: making coasters

2009-11-13T09:10:00.004-05:00

I found these on Etsy and have been totally inspired. What a great way to use up scrap fabric! I had a big piece of fabric I'd strip pieced together a while ago; it was one of those ideas that worked better in my head than it did in real life, so I'd tucked it away in the UFO ('unfinished object') pile. Every craft person has a UFO pile, where things that just aren't working languish until, hopefully, someday, inspiration strikes and you salvage something great from the wreakage.

This is one of those times I managed to make it work! I cut up the fabric into 5" squares, backed each one with some scrap black cord or some black denim, sewed 'em together, turned, and topstiched. I think they came out really well!

I'm probably going to keep this set, but now I have all kinds of ideas for coaster/placemat coordinated sets (the etsy seller I linked above also has these fabulous coordinated placemats that are also inspiring me). I have a couple of people on my Christmas list who will now be getting coaster and placemat sets! I'm thinking the leftover fabric from the Laurie bag could be worked into a really gorgeous set...

Doll house renovation part V: STILL working on the interior

2009-11-11T18:15:00.002-05:00

It's coming along! I'm actually surprisingly close to finishing the interior. The floors are all installed, and the windows have all been framed.

The blue room has had two coats of dollar store white acrylic applied to the trim, and I think that's plenty. ($1 spent on paint; the small paintbrushes I'm using for trim work I have a ton of already). Which means there's actually only one more thing to do here - install the 'curtain rod' and make the curtains. I'll cover that in a separate post.

Floor installed in the red room. I like it!

I've started putting in the trim in the yellow room. I'm hoping tonight to get all the remaining trim glued down in all three remaining rooms so that tomorrow I can apply the wood filler to the cracks and then get it painted. The window frames in the yellow and green rooms are both fully painted, so I can get the curtain rods installed there too; the red room window frame needs at least one coat to cover the wood filler. If I can find some craft varnish for a reasonable price I would like to make the trim semi-gloss, just because I think that would look nice, but I may not get to that.

Then it's on to the outside! Right now I am thinking I will paint it white with some semi-gloss pure white paint I have leftover from when we painted our house. Then I'll trim around the windows with the popsicle sticks, probably painted lavender. I'd also like to paint vines and flowers on the outside, but we'll see.

I would like to figure out at least a little bit of furniture (I don't plan to go overboard here, as I figure dollhouse furniture will make good gifts for birthdays and that sort of thing over the next couple of years!). I picked up a few things from the dollar store that will be useful in furniture creation, I'm going to play around with any leftover popsicle sticks, and I'm hoping to maybe get my hands on some Barbie furniture - I have some paints especially for plastic so I could paint the Barbie furniture to be a little less bubblegum. Assuming I can find some, of course!

Spent on paint: $1
Total spent to date: $15

Doll house renovation part IV: More interior progress

2009-11-09T08:37:00.005-05:00

Coming along! The swine flu appears to be on its way out, finally, which will hopefully mean more craft time (and a kid who isn't sick, of course).

The green room is painted ($2 spent on craft paint from the dollar store), and the floor laid. The floor in the green room is made of wooden coffee stir sticks ($1 at the dollar store). I'm not 100% thrilled with it, but the important thing is it's DONE.

Shot of the green room, with the window framed.

Blue room with trim added. I'm making 'baseboards' out of the popsicle sticks leftover from making the floor here - it took slightly more than 1 bag to do this floor, so I have a TON left, hopefully enough to do the trim in the whole house.

Framing the door. Here you can kind of see the 'seams' between the popsicle sticks, which I've filled in with some wood filler I had on hand.

Close up.

I have wood filler lying around, so I'm using it to smooth out the seams. I think I'm going to paint the trim in the whole house interior white to kind of give the whole thing a unified look, even though each room has a different colour and a different floor. Pure white trim throughout should sort of pull it all together. In theory. Actually painting it is probably going to be a massive pain in the ass - I think I might paint a whole bunch of the popsicle sticks white tonight. They'll need a final coat put on after being installed, but it'll make the trim painting in the other three rooms significantly easier if most of the sticks are already white! Should have thought about that before I starting gluing trim pieces all over the place.

The red room is the kid's room, so it'll have this crazy multicoloured floor. Dollar store again, these popsicle sticks come prepainted in lots of colours. $2 for two bags, with a ton left over that I can use for other things, like maybe some popsicle stick furniture. I used some clear varnish from the paint closet to finish and seal the popsicle sticks.

Total spent for this post (paint, popsicle sticks): $5

Total to date: $14