The Best Thing I Ever Made? (A Blog A Day #7)

Back in October, Food Network started a new show called "The Best Thing I Ever Made".  As soon as I watched the first episode, I knew I wanted to try these recipes and see if they're truly as great as they're made out to be.  I've printed and saved a bunch of them, and I'll get to those eventually, but the first one I really wanted to try was Anne Burrell's Spaghetti alla Carbonara.  The response from both the husband and I: it's alright, and I'd eat it again, but it's not really worth the effort.

I apologize for the TERRIBLE photo - we were ready to dig in when I realized I hadn't taken one yet, and I grabbed my camera phone for a quick shot, right there on my counter, in our dark apartment.  : (

It tasted good enough, but requires pancetta, which is not especially cheap, and means you have to plan ahead, because that's not exactly a refrigerator staple in our home.  I enjoyed it, and probably would have really enjoyed it if someone else had gone to the trouble, but for my own experience, I could take it or leave it. 

Verdict?  NOT the best thing I ever made.



Christmas Cookies! (A Blog A Day #6)

The last two years at Christmastime, my friends and I have gotten together to decorate cookies.  We split up the shapes and bake them ahead of time, then gather to prepare the icing, and sit around the table decorating until they're all done.  Here are the cookies from 2010:

In 2010, we made the icing using Wilton's Color Flow.  It worked well, but our second batch was very clumpy, which made it difficult to decorate.  In 2011, I bought Wilton's cookie icing, hoping it would save us some time.  Unfortunately, it was too runny to use for outlining, so we ended up having to empty it into bowls and add more powdered sugar to thicken it up.  Kind of defeated the whole "time-saving" effort.  In the end, though, we had fun, and got lots of great cookies!

Christmas Baking (A Blog A Day #5)

For the last few years, my dad's side of the family has split up the Christmas dinner, instead of putting all that burden on my grandmother.  I have volunteered for pies and cookies every time, since I prefer baking over cooking, and I can make them ahead of time and take them up to Detroit with me.  My grandma has always made several pies: chocolate with chocolate crust, chocolate with graham cracker crust, pumpkin, and coconut cream.  One of my cousins wanted to make the coconut cream this year, so I made the other three.  These were pretty basic - I followed the pudding pie recipes from the Jell-o boxes and used store bought crusts for the chocolate pies, and I followed the Libby pumpkin pie recipe from the can of pumpkin puree.

The cookies took a lot more time, but were so worth it!  Grandma uses the Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe, so I just used mini chips and made them smaller so there were more to go around.  I've made Grandma's fruitbasket cookie recipe before, but for some reason they cooked really flat this year, and weren't really "baskets" at all.

For the first time ever, I pulled Grandma's Peanut Butter Cookie recipe out of her recipe box and used that, instead of the one I had pulled up online a couple years ago.  The online recipe was good, but they weren't quite Grandma's.  I got ready to make the cookie dough, and read through the recipe, and I got really concerned.  This recipe has no egg anywhere in it.  I re-read the recipe several times over, thinking I had overlooked it - then I started thinking that Grandma wrote it down wrong - but I decided to go with it and see what happened.  These cookies were awesome!  I had no faith in this recipe, but they turned out soft and chewy, and exactly as Grandma's used to be!  Trust me, make these, you'll never need another peanut butter cookie recipe.

Peanut Butter Cookies (origin unknown)

2 cups brown sugar
2 cups shortening
2 cups white sugar
2 cups peanut butter
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 teaspoons baking soda
6 tablespoons hot water
6 cups flour

Cream the shortening and sugars.  Add the next 5 ingredients, then gradually mix in the flour.  Cook at 350 for 9-10 minutes or until just starting to brown on the edges.

Learning to Knit (A Blog A Day #4)

In September of last year, I decided that I wanted to learn to knit.  I have tried my hand at crochet a couple times in the past (and would like to give it a go again, sometime), but I really didn't know a single thing about knitting.  I signed up for a couple classes at Jo-Ann - Knitting 101 and a 202 class they called "Cowl Gone, Take Me Away"...Jo-Ann, trying to be clever!

Anyway, the 101 class taught the basic knit and purl stitches, and not much more.  I know you have to learn the basics first, but I like to make something, not just play around.  Luckily, it was only 3 days until I took the second class.  I finished about a third of this cowl in class, and worked on it the next 3 days until it was finished.

From this project, I learned that I am a very tight knitter - I can fit this over my head, but as you can see, it's very long but not very wide - so it looks pretty funny, and it's not comfortable at all.  Oh well, I was happy to finish my first knitting project, and I have learned to go up a needle size when starting new projects.

It's all everyone's talking about (A Blog A Day #3)

I saw this fudge recipe floating around on several blogs that I follow in December.  First Dana featured it on MADE, then V and Co. (who actually had guest posted it on MADE) blogged it, then Kristina whipped it up on Sir Bubbadoo.  With all this buzz, how could I go wrong.  I only had chocolate chips and toffee pieces at home, so I went with 24 oz. of semi-sweet and one can of condensed milk for plain chocolate fudge, and stirred some toffee chips into half of it for a little Heath bar twist.  I made this on my lunch hour, and had time for it to set up and get cut and wrapped up to take back to work for the afternoon.  Seriously, that's how easy this stuff is.

I decided I needed to make this for my family for Christmas (much easier than the decorated sugar cookies I was planning on bringing as my "dish to share").  So, the day before Christmas Eve, I tried two versions, and wrapped them up for my mom's family's Christmas Eve celebration.  This tray of half Andes mint flavored fudge, and half Reese's peanut butter fudge traveled to Michigan, and was gobbled up by my family.

This recipe is a keeper, for sure.  My family definitely preferred the mint version, but maybe I will try out a few kinds next time.  Walnuts, plain chocolate, butterscotch, the possibilities are practically endless!

Birthing Kits for Craft Hope (A Blog A Day #2)

A couple weeks after making the Cassie Barden totes, the same group of friends got together to put our newfound skills to work for a good cause. 

From Crafthope.com: Craft Hope is a love inspired project designed to share handmade crafts with those who need them.  It is our hope to combine our love for crafting and desire to help others into a project to make a difference around the world.

C emailed us all to invite us to participate in Craft Hope Project 11 - Birthing Kits for Konbit Sante.  You can read more about the project at the link - but basically we were making delivery kits for trained birth attendants in Haiti, helping to make the child delivery process a healthier and cleaner time for the mother, baby and all involved.  Craft Hope provided a list of items needed, all inside a gallon Ziploc bag, plus we needed to make a small stuffed animal, a receiving blanket, and a small tote to put everything into.

We made 6 kits one weekend, then got together again a few weeks later and made 6 more.  C shipped off our dozen kits, and we had so much fun donating our time and craftiness for such a great cause!

Cassie Barden Totes #1 & #2 (A Blog A Day #1)

It only seems fitting that my first real blog post would be dedicated to the project that kicked off my current love, sewing.  I have a friend who sews all the time ("C"), and my other friends and I were jealous of her skills.  Finally, she invited us all over for a sewing day, and said she had picked out a pattern that she thought she could walk us all through in an evening, and we'd all end up with a tote to take home.  She even let us pick fabric from her stash to use, we just had to bring the thread and webbing for the straps!

The tote we all made was designed by Cassie Barden, in her book The New Handmade.  It's called the Dinner Party Grocery Bag.  C successfully walked us through the cutting and sewing, with only a couple minor flaws (One of my seams on the lining was sewn the wrong way, and therefore is visible inside the bag, and M's pocket ended up upside down).  I'm not saying we didn't all become best friends with our respective seam rippers that night, just that I'm pretty sure those are the only flaws that stayed a part of our final products.

I had such a great time, and felt so proud when we were all done - but that visible seam was really nagging at my perfectionist mind - so I decided the very next day that I needed to try it again.  The husband (then boyfriend) and I headed out to Jo-Ann, and I purchased a rotary cutter, self-healing mat, fabric, and all the other little necessities I needed to re-make this bag. 

I did skip the bookboard bottom for the bag, so my second version is a lot floppier and more lightweight - which I prefer, most of the time.

I also added additional pockets on the inside, and a sewn-in snap, just to try it out.  In hindsight, I would have preferred the fabrics switched so that my lining was the outside of the back, and vice versa, but I use it all the time, so I guess I'm not too concerned with it.  I have modified this tote for a purse (coming up in a week or two), and I have plans for a knitting tote that will have a lot more bells and whistles, but be based on this basic design.  I love that once you know this basic shape, you can adjust it and end up with many different bag styles!

A Blog a Day Keeps my To Do List at Bay

Once again, I have let this blog fall to the wayside.  I have come up with a plan to keep that from happening again (at least for the month of January!).  I've gone through my photos and my calendars and pieced together a list of projects from the last year that need to be blogged.  It includes:

14 Sewing projects (5 are still incomplete)
5 Recipes/"Cooking projects"
7 Knitting projects (4 incomplete)

That's a total of 26 blog posts that need to be written, (with 9 projects that need to be finished before I can blog them).  If I start tomorrow, and write one post a day, that will take me right through the end of the month.  Then I'll have projects completed, photographed, and written up, and I'll (hopefully) feel caught up on things by February 1.  That's my goal, let's hope I can stick to it.  Until tomorrow!