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Holiday Making

12/21/2011

Butter and Sugar and Chocolate, Oh MY!

This is but a small sampling of the holiday treats I made last week. Partly because I ate a lot of them.... but also partly because I have to keep some secret from some certain people who might see this post. If you have any last minute gifts to be made, any of these three would be lovely (to receive, but also to make!) The best part? All of these recipes are available on the internet! With more pictures than I ever would have been able to take while boiling sugar!

Peppermint Bark

I made this one first. It was really pretty easy- I actually did it all in the microwave. I only heated the various chocolates for 30 seconds at a time and always stirred very well to prevent scorching. You can find the recipe here on Orangette.

English Toffee

I will tell you that I LOVE to eat toffee, but did not EVER think that I would make toffee. Ever. But, I found a recipe that didn't require a candy thermometer, so I thought I MIGHT be able to do it. It is sooooo delicious! It has whole almonds and cashews in the candy part, plus toasty almond bits on top. It turned out perfectly. The recipe is here on GirlsGoneChild.

Lavender Caramels

Sounds fancy, right? Right. This was by far the fanciest recipe I made- I saved it for last. I DID go out and get a candy thermometer, and I did wrap each one in wax paper. At just over an hour to make, this was way the longest recipe to make.. but totally worth it. The lavender is steeped in the cream and then removed, leaving such a fancy pants lavender flavor I feel like I should wear a hat when I eat them.
I got the recipe from the digital 2011 Winter Gift Guide Edition of Anthology- I think it's page 27 or so, but the whole thing is worth a read (or at least check out the pictures).

I will be taking a week off from blogging to accommodate lots of driving, followed by fantastic family gatherings. Wishing you a cozy holiday week full of camaraderie of the best kind!

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Catching up with the Little Dude

12/19/2011

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I realized the last few posts have been reprehensibly short on 5 pics. Well, I'm here to share with you that he is still around and still ridonkulously adorable.
Last week I made a pineapple garlic cilantro sauce to go with one of our meals. 5 was a little mad that I ruined good pineapple with grody cilantro, so he and Dad ate the last few good pieces over the weekend. Good times.

You can see here that the teeth are coming in all over the place! He got his first one just 2 months ago and now he has 6. Crazy.

I got WAY behind on posting holiday recipes, but hopefully I'll have some good ones to share on Wednesday. It's just silly how hard it is to take nice pictures when it gets dark at 4:30.

Besides looking cute while eating delicious tropical fruits, 5 is also obsessed with cleaning. He likes to help Dad sweep, wipe the counters, and he LOVES to help load the dishwasher (but is not allowed, boo).

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Evidence of the Season

12/14/2011

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This is a painted pinecone ornament that my husband made as a little boy. Cue the collective "awwww". It's one of my favorites.

I'm now prepared to admit that the arrival of this tree has done something to me. For the last two days, 5 and I have been listening to Christmas music while we work on finishing up our gifts.
This is not something that's ever happened to me before. I don't even own any Christmas music (but Last.fm is awesome- I can type in "indie pop christmas" and get a playlist that goes on forever.)

Fred, who is WAY more of a humbug than I am, went out and got us some LED lights. I like them, but Fred thinks they vibrate, or flicker, or something...

Spiced Cheese Scones

These scones are SO tasty yummy good I just HAD to share them with you. Fred requested savory scones for breakfast this week, so I was shopping in the cheese section... and I found some Norwegian cheese (made in WI) spiced with cumin and cloves! Weird! And yum! So then, because two spices does not a party make, I decided to add some nutmeg and lemon zest. Party in the mouth!

Ingredients
3 Cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 stick of butter (chopped into biggish chunks)
8 oz cheese, grated (cumin clove, if you can find it, something else fancy if you can't)
1 1/2 Cups buttermilk

Put all the dry, powdery stuff into the food processor, add the butter chunks and give 'em a whirl. A few seconds should get the butter down to pebble size or smaller.
Dump all that good stuff into a big bowl and stir in the cheese.
Add the buttermilk and just mix it together- no extra stirring!
On a lightly floured surface, pat your dough into a inch-thick (or so) round and cut into wedges. However many wedges you want! Or make circles, or whatever!
Put your scone dough shapes onto a parchment papered- cookie sheet and bake for 30 min at 375- they should be browning on top.
Enjoy!

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Big Boys, Amazing Boys

12/12/2011

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On Saturday, I bought enough flour for all my recipes this week. Today, I had to buy more flour. Can you guess why?
Because my husband made sourdough wheat/rye crackers! What!
Best reason for buying more flour ever.
Fred and I are not really exchanging holiday gifts this year, but I had already started making a gift (or 2) for him way back in September before we decided this so I told him I would finish it. Then I said that if he wanted to make me a gift, he could get a sourdough started...
Lo and behold, the sourdough has been started!!
He started it about 2 weeks ago and it's just now finally getting some lift. I am SO excited. I can't eat commercial yeast so I have to eat naturally leavened bread and let me tell you, it doesn't come cheap.
These crackers are so beautiful and delicious, I wish I could share the recipe with you, but, alas, I have NO IDEA how he made them...

He looks like a little dude, doesn't he?
5 officially (in my head) moved from baby to boy when Fred caught him picking his nose and eating it this weekend. Ahhh, I'm sure I have all kinds of this stuff to look forward to.
In the swirling chaos of the background, you may be able to discern our Christmas tree. I put it up and decorated it this past weekend. It was my first time. I am 30 years old and I (still) have never purchased a Christmas tree. Honestly, I'm not big into decorating, and I hate dead trees in my house.
It took my Mother-In-Law finding and gifting me this lovely vintage aluminum tinsel tree to kind of get me in the spirit of things. That, and the FREAKING GORGEOUS snowflakes she crocheted for us. Really, how could I resist such a thing?
I will share pictures this week. Promise.

Come Wednesday, there will be pictures of decorations and delicious recipes!

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The Mother of Invention

12/9/2011

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Sometimes the mother of invention is more like desperation than necessity...
We (and by "we" I mean I) had a dessert emergency today.
Perhaps you don't know, but I have a bit of a sweet tooth, and let me tell you, staying up half the night with a sick baby makes it a big mean monkey of a sweet tooth...
The other thing you might not know is that I'm what you might call a "fair weather errand runner". That's right, if it's snowing (and I mean SNOWING) and I'm already (ok, maybe never got out of) my pajamas, I am not going to the store. End of story.

So, that's the preface, here's the situation: tomorrow is grocery shopping day, we're out of chocolate and there's nothing to spread Nutella on.

I DID have a graham cracker crust and a package of chocolate pudding mix. This is boring, you might be thinking, but just wait- here's the interesting part.
We only use milk for baking, so we don't usually have much in the house. Turns out, only half a cup tonight, but we need 2 cups for pudding. What to do? Well, we did have buttermilk (for scone-making of course)...
I said to Fred, "chocolate pudding made with buttermilk would be good, right?"
He answered, "uh, yeah" and then apparently realized what I said and immediately took it back. Too late.

So, I made chocolate pudding with 1/2 cup milk, 1 1/2 cups buttermilk, plus about 1 Tablespoon cinnamon, put it in the graham cracker crust, and threw it in the freezer. I could only wait an hour before tasting it, it needed another hour to really set up pie-like but

so good

I will mention at this point that not all of my bottom-of-the-barrel-concoctions turn out this well....

Thanks everybody for the holiday recipe favorites! Next week, I'll be making something different every day (and hopefully I'll have some winners to share with you!)

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Stinko Holiday Baby!

12/7/2011

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We have had SUCH an eventful week! There are of course the boring grown-up things like finishing and sending off my Swedish commission, as well as the craft sale last weekend, but then there are the more important things like 5 perfecting his stinko-face, walking, talking, and general miracle-of-nature type things.
This picture above is an example of all the hard work 5 has been putting into getting that wicked stinko baby face just right.

The rest of his increasing awake time is spent:
a) walking
b) saying his 4 words- dad, hat, hot, dog
c) putting on and taking of his hat
d) gnawing on things (like the rock in the picture on the right)
e) doing the above things in endless combinations

I thought I'd share a little snapshot of my booth at the Poor Artist's Sale in Calumet from last weekend. Not that it is so amazing or anything (I've seen the pictures from the quilt market, I know what can be done...), but it was awfully fun and I finally had my product kind of organized.
The table on the left held all of my baby products. All that stuff in the middle is accessories, and on the right are my home decor items. The pillows looked so lovely I had to show a close up-

So pretty! Yes, the pics are terribly overexposed and I am sincerely apologetic for inflicting them upon you, but, well, have you ever been in a high school gym? Have you ever taken a decent picture in one? Yeah, I didn't think so....
The show itself was wonderful. Such a great event put on by the Copper Country Art Center- it's one day, 6 hours, no distractions. Everyone is there to shop, there's no milling about to various jam bands or fried-something-on-a-stick eating, just bring your holiday shopping list and do it up. Also, nearly everyone I know is there so I can take care of all my socializing for the year at one time!
Now I can focus on holiday cooking! Yay! I'll be sharing some of my favorite seasonal recipes over the next few weeks.

What are your favorite holiday recipes?

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Fashion Plate Fred

12/5/2011

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No, that's not some cool, European jet-setter on his way to the latest hip event- it's my husband Fred modeling some of my creations at the Finlandia University Student and Alumnae Fashion Show! I'd never dressed him in anything I'd made before, so it was quite a showstopper. I originally got him to agree to model a much more boring outfit... and then changed it up at the last minute! I think he got into it though, he seems happy enough on the runway...

This is one of the outfits from the costume commission I've been working on for a few months. I'm finishing up the last piece tomorrow and it gets shipped off to Sweden by the end of the week! Yay for (nearly) finished projects!

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Holiday Making

Butter and Sugar and Chocolate, Oh MY!

Peppermint Bark

English Toffee

Lavender Caramels

Catching up with the Little Dude

Evidence of the Season

Spiced Cheese Scones

Big Boys, Amazing Boys

Come Wednesday, there will be pictures of decorations and delicious recipes!

The Mother of Invention

Stinko Holiday Baby!

What are your favorite holiday recipes?

Fashion Plate Fred

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