Wrapping stocking presents and making peppermint meringues

Mountain Lemons

Lemon harvest. Lymon the Lemon has been doing so much better in Colorado than California!

Not having to buy a new oven: score one for renters.

Yeah, that's right. RED mustard. It's cranberry mustard from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving book.

This was today's project while waiting for the building maintenance guy to come by and fix our broken oven. This is now the last thing the current oven/stove will ever produce. Apparently all the wiring in back is melted together in a giant nasty electrical mess. Great... At least we didn't burn the building down. A new oven is being ordered and should be installed tomorrow.

I bought a similar product a while back, 'wichcraft cranberry-apricot chutney. It retails for a comical $14.oo, but I got it on sale after the holidays for about $3.50. I'm thinking my homemade version is better. The 'wichcraft is cloyingly sweet and the mustard seeds aren't ground up so they get stuck in your teeth. My version is a lot less sweet and the allspice makes it more savory.

Left: The allspice, ground mustard, and sugar waiting to go into the simmering pot of cranberry (leftover and frozen from Thanksgiving) and ground mustard seeds.

I'm planning on using it on turkey sandwiches as a combination cranberry sauce/mustard deal.

Flakey cheese-filled triangles with herbs = YUM!

Phyllo dough... Where to start...

This is the first time I've used phyllo dough. I've always been a bit intimidated by it due to the extra instructions regarding how to keep it from drying out. (I'm in Colorado, everything dries out in a matter of seconds.)

It turns out that phyllo isn't hard to work with at all. It's just shoot-

yourself-in-the-head tedious: remove damp cloth from pile of phyllo, take one strip, re-cover pile, brush with butter, remove damp cloth from pile of phyllo, take another strip, re-cover pile, brush with butter, repeat...

After folding up the first one, I decided I'd already had enough of the project and that I wanted to be done. The 3-inch strips of phyllo became 5-inch strips and the teaspoon of cheese filling became a heaping tablespoon.

I have endless patience for some repetitive tasks, but this was not one of them. I could easily imagine some chubby Food Network chef saying, "this is a great project to get your kids involved in the kitchen!" Um, only if you want to your kids to hate you...

I was ready to chuck the remaining phyllo in the trash, but Aaron rescued it a few seconds before it entered the panda's mouth. (The kitchen trashcan is shaped like a panda.) He's going to try making baklava over the weekend.

Despite all the whining, the cheese triangles turned out great and were delicious. The herbs (mint, dill, parsley, chives) and pine nuts helped make the feta cheese seem very light. And despite all the whining, I'll probably make these again. Just not for several months.

The recipe is from, From Tapas to Meze, by Joanne Weir. There is tons of herb chopping in each recipe, but this is one of the best cookbooks ever.

Thank you, Erica!

Homemade tomato soup from a recipe inside of my head and mini-grilled cheeses on seeded baguette. Yum.

And a special "Thank You!" to Erica for giving me the soup and sandwich plates for Christmas last year. (Or was it my birthday? I forget.)

From deck to table

My jalapeno plant has been working hard. Despite the cloudy and rainy weather, it has made four baby jalapenos, one of which went overlooked for long enough that it turned red. Due to their diminutive (one inch) size, they became a garnish for tonight's green curry.

In their garnish state next to some Thai basil.

Yummy Thai green curry with eggplant and tofu.

Mini-footballs

This evening I set about making some hard boiled eggs. Most people would call them "Easter Eggs", but those of you that have spent lunchtime with me over the past few years know that died eggs show up year round.

The box of egg dye comes with nine colors, three of which do not require vinegar to fully dissolve. These three colors are quite nice: strawberry, pink, and purple. The dye pellets are divided into two pouches, one with three, the other with six. I naturally assumed that the pack of three contained strawberry, pink, and purple. Not so. It has brown, green, and some other color I haven't tried.

Brown? Really? They sell brown eggs at the market, why would I pay money for a dye pellet and then invest time in dying an egg when I can purchase in a pack of a dozen? I am pretty pleased with how they turned out; I have three mini-footballs. However, I would have been even more pleased if they were one of the other colors in the dye box.

On a different note, I have been working for the past three weeks. Upon starting, I commented to Aaron that my unemployed days were filled with Sponge Bob and Rachel Ray and that I was unlikely to encounter such cheerful and optimistic people at work. Unfortunately I was right. However, the job is temporary so I'll be back to days filled with Sponge Bob and Patrick Star at the end of May.

What do I think of the pie?

Goodness gracious it's delicious that's what I think of the pie!

I thought I had everything I needed to make a cherry pie except pie crust.

Aaron was getting pie crust on the way home from work: pie crust - check. There was a bag of frozen cherries in the freezer that were intended for Aaron's chocolate cherry stout: cherries - check. The rest of the ingredients are staples right? Sugar and cornstarch: we have to have those. Except I discovered a bit too late that we don't have cornstarch.

Here is a brief listing of some the baking ingredients I found in the cupboard:

- Unbleached flour (plus one extra unopened bag)
- Granulated sugar, extra fine granulated sugar, AND powdered sugar
- Corn syrup
- Cornmeal
- Glutenous rice flour AND non-glutenous rice flour
- Baking powder and baking soda
- Table salt, kosher salt, sea salt, pink Himalayan sea salt, AND salt smoked in chardonnay oak barrels

But no cornstarch. So instead of cornstarch I used arrowroot. I also used Amaretto instead of almond extract.

Six mini-pies for Pi Day! Happy Pi Day!

Clementine?

Overall this shirt turned out better than the previous shirt, but I think I like the other one better.

I made Simplicity 4077, blouse E without the ruffle on the button placket. The pattern directions for the button placket were so insanely confusing that I originally just tried making it up. I finally realized that in the pattern's convoluted language and the diagram that magically goes from not sewn, to sewn with the buttons attached was instructing me to sew on the placket and then turn it inside out. (Why not just say this, why show the button facing sewn on two of its four sides and not just say: "turn inside out"?) The pattern calls for five buttons, but I used eight buttons in four groups of two. I hate how blouses puff open at the chest, so I tried to avoid that by adding an extra button in that area. It seems to have worked so far.

The fabric is brown with white dots from JoAnn. It was super cheap and says, "do not use for children's sleepwear". I assume this means that it isn't sprayed with anti-flammable chemicals rather than doused in lighter fluid...

Do you remember how Will Ferrell in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, didn't know what to do with his hands during his first post-race interview? I feel like that when taking pictures of shirts. I've taking some pictures without something in my hands but my arms just hang there and look out of place. Hence, this time: would you like a clementine? They're delicious.

Also, two shirts means I can get a serger now, right?

That person's trash is my treasure

Hooray for blue snowflake pyrex casserole dishes!

My views on used/vintage items are quite simple: disgusting. But there is one exception to the rule: kitchenware. This mostly because a lot of baking and dish items I like are no longer being manufactured, including blue snowflake pyrex casserole dishes and oddly large pretzel containers.

There is a flea/antique market that has had the same pretzel jars for $42.50. So when I saw this one for $13.00 I grabbed and hugged. Note to self: you lose all bargaining power when you're caught hugging things.

The pretzel jar will likely hold thread. I'm not too excited about having to reach in and dig around for the desired color, but I just did a strength test on my current thread box, and no, it does not support my own weight. 

Haute Couture

What?! This isn't haute couture?! It's hand sewn, made to order, and I altered it to fit me!

Huh?! "Hand sewn" doesn't mean on my cheap sewing machine?! But I did all the ruffles and gathering by hand and put on five buttons! (Although, the buttons were a mistake. When I was finishing the last one I remembered that I could have set the sewing machine stitch width to match the button holes and saved myself some swearing.)

Fine. It's Simplicity 2854 made out of charcoal gray Kona quilting cotton. 

The shirt comes with a four inch ease, which I tested with the measuring tape and it was crazy big, so I went down a size and gave myself a two inch ease. Have you spotted the problem yet?

Crappers. There is a four inch ease because the shirt has to be pulled on over my head and big ol' shoulders. Let's just say I won't be wearing this shirt to the gym or anywhere where changing in public is called for. But it looks good on, and it's the FIRST non-skirt garment that I've successfully made that fits onto my body. Now if I can only get the sleeve ruffles to head downward instead of straight out...

But otherwise, SUCCESS! I can now cross off, "make a shirt that fits" from my goals for 2008 list. 

The four hour bag

Aaron and I are heading down to Denver this evening to have dinner with his family and give his aunt her new quilt (shown in a previous post). At the last minute I decided that wrapping the quilt up in a used Amazon box didn't do it justice so I made up a quick bag to present the quilt in. 

The bag is made with extra quilt fabric. The solid blue is the same as the quilt's background, the honeycomb blue fabric is the quilt's backing, and the charcoal gray fabric is the same as the quilts connecting lines. The bag is fully lined and has an external pocket on each side. 

Aaron also put together a poster using the photos originally intended for the quilt. I put a snap on two scraps of fabric and wrapped that around the poster. 

Cutest wallet ever!

Or at least it's the cutest one that I own. And it holds valuable things like my popcorn frequent buyer card. The importance of this wallet cannot be stressed enough because I lost my previous popcorn card when I had one more stamp to go before getting a free popcorn. 

The pattern I made had whiskers that I forgot to stitch on before sewing on the pocket panel. Ah well, I guess my bunny shaves.

Once upon a time: Finished!

It took me a while to remember to ask Aaron to help hold up the quilt for a photo session. Unfortunately, Aaron had some issues with holding up his arms for any period of time which resulted in a lot of giggles and quilt waggling. Many of the pictures were quite blurry due to Aaron jiggling the quilt and whimpering and/or me laughing at him.

I am always pleased with the transformation of quilt top to quilted top. The quilting lines give it such a nice texture. The puckering that resulted from the washing and drying helped mask some of the bunching that occurred while quilting. 

Once upon a time...

This is a "Once Upon A Time" quilt from The Modern Quilt Workshop by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr and it is for Aaron's aunt. She's going to be spending some time in the hospital so this quilt is for her to take with her. Hopefully it will brighten the room and offer her some comfort while she is away from home. The original plan was to use family pictures. However, there were some problems with the iron-on transfer paper -- the photos didn't always transfer and the fumes made me sick. It was decided that it would be easier to use "fun" fabric instead of photos.

Here it is all ready to be basted. The first quilt I made I sewed into the carpet. It was pretty discouraging to have to cut it off the carpet and re-baste it... And this was at my old apartment where the carpet had a very short pile. Foreseeing that I was doomed to baste this quilt into the shag carpeting, I made a large cardboard "sheet" to put between the quilt and shag carpet. Worked like a charm!

I've finished the quilting and the binding so I'll post a finished picture in the next few days.   

Project put on hold

I finished up this quilt top last week.

I wanted a simple yardage quilt top because I really like the Amy Butler tree fabric so I didn't want to cut it up into tiny pieces. I started piecing the back, but really didn't like it. I was piecing the scraps into squares and it ended up much too complicated to be sandwiched with the top.

I am putting this quilt on hold to start a different quilt that has a more pressing "gotta finish" because its "gotta" get to its new owner as soon as possible. This will give me some time to figure out what to do with the back. The picture is a bit dark, but isn't washed out: there isn't much contrast on the top. I'll probably add some deeper colors to the other side.

The #1 cause of felt-lung: Felt

First: Blogging is hard. Or something. I am having a hard time of it. At first I even kept checking back to see if it had been updated... Oh wait, that's my job.

Second: Something new! Unlike the previous three updates these are brand new and flying second class to Minnesota to be passed out as gifts (there are a few more not pictured). Aaron even went out to pick up some last minute red felt squares yesterday afternoon. The pattern is from Zakka Life, but I did it free hand (no printer). They are made of felt and then embroidered. As I found with last year's felt advent calendar pouches, felt likes to lose its fluff straight into my nostrils, resulting in felt-lung.


The birds are hanging from Lymon. Who is thriving in Colorado. He is actually doing much better here than in California and is in full bloom. This picture is from our kitchen window with a blured view of Flagstaff Mountian.

The cuter the biscuit, the less flavor it will have

This is the second time I have purchased Moomin biscuits. It's not like Safeway has them -- I have to go all the way to the Pacific Ocean Market in Broomfield to get them and they taste like children's teething crackers. Oh, but look how cute the are (you can see their faces better if you click on the picture to enarge it). There's Moomin Papa, Moomintroll, the Snork Maiden, Little My, Moomin Mama, and Snufkin.

I made the mug a couple of years ago at the UC Berkeley ceramics studio.

Yes Jenne, you DO have to read it!

An Amy Karol quilt I made from the pattern in
Simple Contemporary Quilts.

A close-up of the super cute little red riding hood fabric. The green chalk lines are still visible, but I'm too afraid to put the quilt in the washing machine so I'll just wait until they wear off.

Just for Jenne

This is a quilt I made last winter.

Well Jenne, here goes. Aaron wants to know if this blog is going to be about sewing or the "cute" things he thinks he does. After this post's photo upload, I am pretty sure this blog is going to be about poor photography and cursing Blogger and Picasa.

To start: I uploaded this picture four times and it only appeared on the page once. Where did it go those other times? Curses on Blogger and Picasa because I am pretty sure each upload counted as space used from my allotment.