Little Thunder Lizard

Stuffed Carnival Sqaush Recipe

2013-10-28T16:26:00.000-04:00

I am very excited to share this recipe with you today. I haven't enjoyed anything ad much as I enjoyed this in quite some time. At the pumpkin patch last weekend, I picked up a lovely carnival squash. They're similar to the acorn squash in size, with a slightly sweeter flesh.

They also look lovely!

I didn't know what to do with it at first. I looked around for recipes, but ultimately decided I had to make it stuffed. Many of the recipes were stuffed with sausage, which I just don't care for. Then I remembered a Lean Cuisine I had for lunch recently. They make a very tasty, very fall dish called Apple Cranberry Chicken. I like it a lot, and knew something similar would be the perfect mate for this squash.

I looked it up on their website, to see what they put in it, and sort of extrapolated from there. The only part I really had to guess on was the sauce, and it was simple enough to make with just a little guessing. The wheat berries are delicious, but I had a hard time finding them. I didn't even know the existed before I bought that lunch. I got mine at Whole Foods. You could definitely skip them if you can't find any, but I would recommend you try them if you can.

This is a little complicated to do all at once, so it'll definitely give your kitchen a work out. I would recommend cooking the wheat berries and pasta beforehand, but it's perfectly do-able all at once. You'll just be a little bit busy.

Stuffed Carnival Squash

Makes 4 servings

What You'll Need:
4 carnival squash (acorn squash works, too)
1 apple, any variety
2 carrots
2 cups green beans
1 cup dried cranberries
2 cups apple cider
1 cup dry orzo pasta
1 cup dry wheat berries
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1 tbs lemon juice

The Process:
     Put on a pot to boil 3 cups of water, add the wheat berries, cover, and bring to a boil. Let simmer for 1 hour, until tender.
     Carefully slice each squash in half, lengthwise, and remove the seeds and pulp. Place face down in a baking sheet with 1/4 of water and bake at 375° for 45-60 minutes, until tender.
     Bring a pot of water to boil for the pasta. Cook as directed, then drain. Simmer cider, lemon, and spices together and let reduce. Meanwhile, slice vegetables and apple in to bite sized pieces.

20 minutes before the squash is finished, add vegetables, apple, and cranberries to sauce pot. Let cook on low heat until squash is ready.
Toss pasta, wheat berries, and vegetable mixture together. Spoon into hot squash halves and serve immediately.

I want to make this every day.

Basic Bread Pudding Recipe

2013-10-19T09:52:00.002-04:00

Been a little while, hasn't it? Sorry about that, life has just gotten in the way the last few months. Long story short, I'm a full time student again in addition to working full time. But I think I'm in a good position to get back to blogging (and crafting) regularly again. To kick things off, I have a delightful recipe that I love to make in the fall: bread pudding.

For me, bread pudding is always a fall dish, I rarely make it any other time of the year. My first experience with them was when I made a pumpkin bread pudding, but sometimes you really crave the basics. This recipe is easy to do and you don't need anything special to do it. You probably have all the necessary ingredients on hand already.

What You'll Need:

5-6 cups stale bread, cubed
4 cups milk
3 eggs, beaten in a small bowl
1/2 a stick of butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 Tbsp vanilla (yes, tablespoons, it's most of the flavor)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
1/8 tsp nutmeg

The Process:
Preheat your oven to 375°F. In medium heat in a large pot, combine the milk, butter, sugars, vanilla, and spices. Heat until sugar is dissolved, butter is melted, and spices are well incorporated about 10 minutes. Turn off the heat.

Take a 1/2 cup of your pudding mixture and slowly pour it into the bowl with the beaten eggs, whisking the entire time. Repeat once more. Then add the whole mixture back into the pot and mix well. This tempers the eggs so you can add them into the hot liquid without ruining the texture. It's a cool biology thing involving denaturing proteins, but basically you just don't want the heat from the liquid to cook the eggs. Same principle applies when making custards, too.

Put your cubed bread into a 9x13 or equivalent baking dish. Pour the whole pot over the bread, letting it soak in for a few minutes. Then put into the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes, until set. The top should be a little brown.

It's best to eat it the same day or the day after you make it. Bread pudding doesn't keep too well. You can refrigerate leftovers overnight and heat them up in the microwave.

Now, if you have fresh bread that you'd like to turn into bread pudding, you absolutely can. I like to cube it up, put it on a baking sheet, and bake it on a low heat, 200-250 degrees, for 15 minutes, checking it and stirring halfway through. Dry but not hard is the key here. Let it cool a few minutes and then it's ready to use.

Homespun Honey Quilt: All Done!

2013-06-08T11:05:00.000-04:00

Remember this quilt? I do, believe it or not. It's one of my leftover 2011 (technically started in 2010) projects that I promised myself I would finish up before starting anything new. Please excuse me for a moment while I laugh and laugh and laugh.

Projects with no particular deadline in mind seem to languish on and on around here. I whipped up the Little Hexie Quilt in practically no time compared to this quilt (4 months). But it had a due date. While I will concede that it's much smaller, and should take less time, the design of that quilt was much more complicated. But, taking nearly 3 years to complete a quilt is certainly the longest time I've spent on one.

I made this one for hubby to use on the bed. As I've mentioned before, he's a terrible blanket thief so we don't share blankets, otherwise all my blankets end up no longer on me. He had been using a store-bought quilt I've had for ages, but it's been getting a little ratty. I finished this one just in time.

The pattern itself was fairly simple- just making 6" wide strip sets of three homespun fabrics and then cutting the strips sets into 6" squares. Then I stitched them together, alternating their placement vertically or horizontally. Not complicated, but time consuming. I had the strip sets sew up for a long time before I got around to cutting the squares.

I added a border to it with this nice green plaid that has nice stars on it. That wasn't in the original plans, but I really liked it when I went to pick out the backing fabric. This project, though, since it took a long time, does suffer a little bit in places. My skills in cutting and piecing have increased since I started it, and it was a little frustrating trying to work around mistakes I had made.

I did a simple stitch-in-the-ditch to quilt it all together. Nothing fancy, since I wanted it to keep the rustic feel of the homsepuns. I really like how they came together, I'd like to work on another project with them sometime in the future.

Of course, as soon as I set out the quilt, my "helper" had to test it. This quilt, like all other quilts, blankets, fabric, fabric scraps, and clothes left on the floor, is Piper tested and Piper approved for comfort. I eventually had to lock her out of the room to get a decent picture of the quilt on the bed without interference.

I'm glad this one is finally finished. Perhaps now I'll learn not to let projects hang over my head for ages and ages... but probably not.

Little Hexie Quilt All Stitched Up!

2013-05-25T09:50:00.000-04:00

I usually have 2-3 projects that I'm working on at once, but sometimes (like now) I get a little carried away and it turns into 5-6. That's when I know it's time to pick up the most complete project and put the finishing touches on it.

For about two weeks, this quilt had been sandwiched and half quilted. The binding was even already pressed. So I had no excuse not to sit down for a couple hours and finish up the quilting. Of course, I also had a deadline to finish it by- the baby shower!

I'm very happy with how it turned out. It's my first time making a pattern like this, and I was worried that the corners of the hexagons wouldn't match up. For the most part, though, they matched up very well, it's only a few spots that are noticeably off. I did rip and restitch a few of them that were really bad.

The colors worked together far better than I had thought they would. I had a hard time finding enough bright reds and blues to fill out the quilt, but for the most part, all the colored fabric came from my stash. The white background, as it happens, came from my stash, too. A while ago there was a nice white quilting cotton on clearance, so I bought the whole bolt for almost nothing.

Choosing the binding was possibly the most difficult part. I couldn't find anything that I liked. I ultimately ended up with this stripe because it closely matched the tone of the prints. And I really do love cutting bias binding from a straight stripe pattern and ending up with diagonally striped binding. You can't go wrong with it.

The backing I bought after the top was finished. I wasn't sure which color would have the right feel until the top was finished. I brought it with me to the fabric store to hold it up against several colors. There was also a red that I liked, but ultimately, I went with this blue dot print because it looked better with the binding than the red did.

I really enjoy making quilts, but even better is when I give them away. Here's the happy mama-to-be! I'm endlessly excited for my aunt and uncle- this is their first little one!

Now, only 4-5 more projects are on my quilting table. Time to finish a few of them up! I just started attending classes at night, after a year or so of thinking about it, and obviously my quilting time has diminished. But I have several almost-done quilts that won't take too long to sew up if I dedicate a few Saturday mornings to the effort.

Amaretto Pound Cake Perfection

2013-05-17T16:42:00.001-04:00

While at my Trader Joe's recently, I came across this interesting carton of shelf stable whipping cream. I always seem to want whipping cream, but rarely have it on hand. For under $2, I thought it was worth giving it a try. But then, like magic, all my whipping cream needs vanished. I started stumbling around the internet, looking for interesting and creative uses of whipping cream.

Instead, I accidentally came across this pound cake recipe that says it was a favorite of Elvis Presley's and it looked too good not to try. People say a lot of things about famous people like that, but after having tasted it? Total truth, my friends. It must be. This cake is too good to be a lie.

I made a few small modifications to the recipe and it turned out beautifully. The originally recipe called for 7 eggs and that just seemed like far too many. Plus, I only had 6 on hand the first time I made it. The texture turned out great anyway, so I've been sticking with 6. I also added some amaretto, because all baked goods are better with a little booze.

What You'll Need:
3 cups sugar
2 sticks of butter, softened
6 eggs
3 cups cake flour, sifted OR make the DIY cake flour (see below)
1 pint whipping heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup amaretto liquor (optional, but amazing)

DIY Cake Flour:
You'll need all-purpose flour, cornstarch, two medium bowls, and a mesh strainer (or flour sifter)

Take out a 1 cup measuring cup. Put two tablespoons of cornstarch in the measuring cup. Add all-purpose flour on top until the measuring cup is full. Dump it out into a bowl. Repeat twice and you'll have the correct amount of flour for this recipe. Put your strainer over the second bowl, and slowly add the flour/cornstarch mixture to the strainer as you shake it back and forth, which both sifts the flour and mixes the flour and cornstarch together. And volià! An excellent cake flour substitute.

The Process:
First, cream the sugar and butter together. Make sure your butter is really soft. Then add the eggs and mix well. Add your liquids- cream, vanilla, and amaretto and mix. Add the flour a bit at a time, and mix really thoroughly. The batter will be a little thick. Pour into greased pan, I use one of those baker's sprays. I like using my Bundt pan for this cake, but you could also divide the recipe into two loaf pans for easy slicing later.

This is very important, do NOT preheat your oven! Put your pan into the oven, then turn it on to 350º and let it do its thing. I am not precisely sure why that's the case but it turned out wonderfully. I'm not going to mess with success. It also means you're using less energy and have the oven on for less time, so it's all good in my book.

Bake for 60-70 minutes. The cake will (in my Bundt pan at least) rise about 3-4" above the top of the pan, this is normal. Once it is taken out of the oven and cooled, it will sink a good deal. Let it cool in the pan for a good 30 minutes before you try and take it out.

Now about that flour sifting part. Can you skip it? Absolutely. But, I can tell you from having made it both ways that the sifted flour cake has a better, more pound-cakier (yes, pound-cakier) texture. Either way, it still tastes good!

My favorite way to serve this is with some fresh whipped cream and sliced strawberries. That plus a cold glass of milk- dessert perfection.

Homemade Garlic Butter and Toast Recipe

2013-04-18T10:46:00.000-04:00

I've known about the deliciousness of making garlic butter at home, but it wasn't until recently that I tried it myself. I don't know what took me so long, it's delicious and simple to make!

There are so many uses for garlic butter, chief among them for me is garlic bread. But you can also use it on baked potatoes, to saute shrimp, to make croutons, over steamed vegetables, on steak or an endless amount of other ways. I certainly haven't thought of them all.

What You'll Need:
1 stick softened, salted butter (not melted!)
2 cloves minced garlic
1 tsp Italian herb seasoning

The Process:
Make sure your butter is well softened. With the warm days I've been having, it didn't take long. Mix all ingredients in a small bowl with a fork until well combined. You can use it immediately, but the flavors enhance after it's been mixed a while. I like to line the top half of my butter dish with cling wrap, scoop the garlic butter into it, and chill it in the fridge. After it has hardened, you can pop it right out of the dish and it's stick-shaped and ready for slicing.

You should store it in your refrigerator. It keeps for quite a while, just like regular butter.

My #1 use for it is to make ridiculously good garlic bread. I've been slicing up a baguette, buttering up a few slices, and toasting them in my toaster oven at 400 degrees for 5-6 minutes. That's plenty for just my husband and I to enjoy... or to just make as a snack. For superior garlic bread, use a sourdough loaf.

However, if you're feeding a crowd, you can do it in the oven. Slice the baguette, but without cutting through all the way to the bottom- leaving about 1/2 an inch attached. In each slit, place a generous pat of garlic butter. Wrap the whole loaf loosely in tin foil and bake at 250 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

All this talk of garlic bread is making my hungry for some spaghetti and meatballs. Looks like I know what I'll be making for dinner!

Duct Tape Dressform Blues

2013-03-25T15:35:00.002-04:00

Over the weekend, a friend threw a duct tape dressform making party. If you haven't heard of the duct tape dress form, it's a really cool and cheap alternative to buying one of those more expensive adjustable dress forms. You put on an old shirt, have a friend wrap you up in duct tape, cut the tape/shirt off, seal it up, stuff it with fluff, and voila! An easy double of you.

But it isn't pretty.

It sounded like a fabulous idea. My friend bought all the duct tape and fiber fill in bulk so we could save money and a good time was had by all during the event. About twelve of us participated, we took turns wrapping each other and in the middle, we took a nice tea and cookies break.

But when I got home, I took out my measuring tape and measured my new "me". And it was off. Horribly, horribly off. In some places it was more than 5" too large. I was aghast, but I figured I could still salvage it. I took off the bottom, pulled out all the stuffing, and stored it in two garbage bags for safe keeping until later.

I recut the seam in the back, and cut two princess seams up the front so I could take it in as best I could. After about two hours of cutting, taping, measuring, retaping, measuring, and retaping again, I finally got the form to roughly where it should have been in the first place. Then I ran out of duct tape before I could finish it up.

I went out to get some more, but they only had a black kind that was more expensive. I bought it anyway, but I was feel pretty frustrated by the project so I decided to call it a day and do other things. I woke up this morning, however, to discover that all the seams I painstakingly cut, measured, nipped and tucked had all busted open in the night. I didn't have enough tape to reinforce them completely, so they all popped in the night.

So, I had to tape everything back together again (that's the black tape you see in the image). But somehow, it didn't fit back together the same way. The underbust is too big (I couldn't fit the bra I'm wearing right now on it and I could before) and there's a weird thing going on in the space between my breasts and the neck. It's sort of popping out in a strange way. I remain confident that my actual chest/neck area doesn't do that, but I don't know what to do about it.

I'm strongly considering taking all the fluff out of it again and ditching this entire one and starting over. But that would be a lot of time and a lot of tape, with no guarantee that it'll come out better the second time. For now, I'm too frustrated to even look at it so I'm just going to let it sit for a few days while I figure out what I want to do next.

Guinness Pot Roast

2013-03-18T12:42:00.001-04:00

Nothing says St. Patrick's Day quite like putting beer in all your food. I just opted to add it to my main dish, as I wanted to reserve some of my Guinness for drinking. I decided on a pot roast, since Costco had a good deal on a pair of them recently, I had one handy.

It's a fun St. Patty's Day twist on the usual slow cooker roast. Instead of just beef broth, you add a bottle of Guinness to the cooking liquid. If you don't have any Guinness on hand, you could certainly substitute any beer you like, but I would stick with dark beers like stouts and porters for their strong flavor.

For some crazy reason, it's still winter here around DC, despite being March. I intended to make this pot roast for St. Patrick's Day, regardless of what silliness the weather had in store. However, the clouds spent the better part of the morning dropping snow on us, so now the leftovers will make a nice hot lunch on this snowy afternoon.

Guinness Pot Roast
makes 4-6 servings, depending on roast size

What You'll Need:
2-3lb pot roast
small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 carrots, sliced
1 lb of small red potatoes, halved
12oz Guinness beer
2 cups beef broth, low sodium if possible
1 package onion soup mix
2 tsp thyme
2 Tbs coarse salt
2 Tbs cracked pepper
2 bay leaves

The Process:
   Heat up a skillet on medium heat with some olive oil and let it get nice and hot. Combine the coarse salt and pepper in a bowl and then rub the mixture over the surface of the roast. Sear each side of the roast for 3-4 minutes per side. Place into the crock.

   In the same skillet, cook your onions for 5-6 minutes until soft and then add the garlic. Cook for an additional 3-4 minutes. Make sure to scrape the bottom for the burned bits from the roast. Add to the crock along with the carrots and potatoes.

   Put the onion soup mix, thyme, and bay leaves into the crock. Add the Guinness and beef broth over top and mix it up to combine the onion soup mix. The roast and vegetables should be almost completely covered. If not, add a little more broth or water. Cover the crock and cook on low for 6-7 hours, until the roast is fork tender and the potatoes are soft. Remove roast from the crock and let it rest, tented with foil, for 10-15 minutes before carving.

   If you prefer a thick broth, as I do, remove 2 cups of liquid from the crock and thicken it in your preferred method. I use arrowroot starch, but cornstarch or flour work just fine. Stir the thickened liquid back in with the rest of the liquid and vegetables while the roast is resting. Carve the roast, spoon vegetables and broth onto your plate, and serve.

   Don't forget to have some bread on hand to sop up the broth on your plate!

Feeling Lucky: A St. Patrick's Day Mini Quilt

2013-03-17T12:01:00.000-04:00

In the spirit of the holiday, I made a little luck charm for my house- a four leaf clover mini quilt!

As with the other mini quilts, it took just an afternoon to make. That's my favorite part about them. You start with your uncut fabric and thread and just a few hours later you have a finished product. It's a lovely break from working on the bigger and longer quilting projects.

I really enjoy St. Patrick's Day, as it gives me a good excuse to wear green and make some excellent potato-laden foods. In the crock pot right now is a pot roast with carrots and potatoes, but instead of using all beef broth, the liquid is part Guinness! I'm quite looking forward to the results this evening. If it's good, I'll post a recipe to follow.

Have a lovely day, and if you're going out to raise a pint to Ireland, please be safe!

Little Hexie Quilt WIP

2013-02-26T15:12:00.002-05:00

Lately I've been working pretty furiously on a really cute quilt. How I found the pattern is an interesting story. One of the quilting magazines I follow posted an image of a hexagon quilt, discussing the quilting on it but not the pattern. I asked if they had it, and another woman who follows it responded with step by step instructions on how to make it! I am so thankful to her for that kindness.

So far, I have the top quilt nearly entirely together. You see some horizontal lines going across the colored hexegons? That's because instead of sewing the whole hexagons together and doing y-seams (pain in the butt), you stitch half a hexagon to the one above it, making long strips which you then sew together to make the whole top. Isn't that clever?

I had a few 2" strips laying around from a UFO and I took two, stitched them together, and used them to test out the instructions the woman gave me. It worked like a charm, and the test block turned out to be pretty cool.

The fun thing about this pattern is that depending on how to sew the blocks together, you can get a completely different looking quilt. For the test piece, I simply cut 6 triangles out, flipping my 60 degree ruler as I went and then stitched them all together, alternating center colors. I will definitely be doing a tutorial for this quilt after I've finished it up.

The Little Hexie uses white as one strip for all of them, and I cut enough triangles from each color set to end up with 12. That allowed me to make two hexagons from each strip set, one with the color on the outside, and one with it on the inside like this:

Inverses!

The color combinations and placement choices are practically endless here. I was so inspired by the purple and black test quilt, that I decided to make one for myself using that color scheme. The bright and colorful Little Hexie quilt is being made as a gift.

My First Brew- the Very Heffelberry!

2013-02-19T22:19:00.000-05:00

For Christmas, my father (who has been brewing up a storm in the past year) gifted me a brewing kit to make my very own beer. We brewed it while I was home, and it was just finally finished. I shared it with several friends this weekend because it was ready for the big reveal.

The beer he bought was a Bavarian hefeweizen, because I really enjoy the wheat beers. But, we added a special ingredient and that's why it's such an especially dark wheat beer. We added Elderberries! (insert Monty Python joke of choice here).

The ingredients!

We were lucky to find the elderberries at a local home brew supply shop, but everything else we needed came from the kit. Dad was cool enough to give me the kit a little early so we actually brewed the beer on Christmas Eve because I was already up visiting for the holiday.

Brewin' on up!

It doesn't take too long to do the actual brewing, but the prep and cleanup time makes it an all-day affair. You have to pay special attention that you've sanitized all the equipment properly before you even get started.

The puppies, of course, wanted to help.

Dogs aren't necessary for brewing beer, but they are a helpful piece of equipment to have if you like tripping over things while you work.We only had to shoo them out of the kitchen about thirty times.

Moving it out of the fermentor for bottling.

After sitting in the fermentor for two weeks, it was ready to be bottled. We were able to get 48 bottles out of the whole batch. I took half and Dad kept the other half. They needed to bottle condition for two weeks before they were ready, but mine had to sit a little longer. We didn't have a place quite warm enough to keep them for optimal conditioning, so I let them sit for about another two weeks.

We made some really fun labels to go along with them. I only labeled about half of them since it was a pain in the butt to do. I don't have too many of them left, though, since I'm really happy with how it turned out! Hefeweizens are summery beers, so it's not ideal for the winter but we're planning to make another batch in April to enjoy during the summer.

Apple Cider Steel Cut Oats

2013-02-06T11:59:00.000-05:00

January was a bit of a bust, productivity-wise. I was sick for most of the month and it's a busy season for my job. I did as little cooking as possible, and no sewing whatsoever. But I'm finally feeling better and things have calmed down, so things are back on track with a new steel cut oats recipe.

I love this one because it combines two of my favorite cold weather things- apple cider and steel cut oats. The original recipe is from Bob's Red Mill (who's products I love) but I changed it around to suit my tastes more. I used spiced cider instead of regular to give it a little extra oomph.

Apple Cider Steel Cut Oats
makes 4 servings

What You'll Need:
3 cups spiced apple cider
1 cup steel cut oats
2 Tbs packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp all spice
1/4 tsp salt
1 small-medium apple, diced
1/4 cup chopped walnuts

The Process:
Combine the cider, sugar, and spices in a pot and bring to a boil. Add the oats, diced apple, and walnuts. Cover and reduce to a simmer. Simmer for 25-30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve and enjoy.

Leftovers can be refrigerated and reheated in the microwave. Just add a little water to the oatmeal before microwaving it.

With all the snowy days we've had lately, this has been my favorite way to start the day. Hopefully, though, we don't get too much snow. So far we've been lucky, the majority of the snows coming through the area have missed us.

Blue and Grey Mod Table Runner

2013-01-02T17:44:00.000-05:00

Back in the fall, my mom asked me if I could make her a table runner and matching table topper to go on the buffet table and kitchen table she has in the kitchen. She wanted something for everyday use that matched the colors there but couldn't find anything ready-made. A phone call and a few notes later, I had a good idea of what she was looking for. The result:

I started with a free pattern from All People Quilt that had the basic pattern I liked, but in the wrong proportions and relied on a specific fussy cut fabric to create the interesting effects in the middle of the block. I made it in a totally different size to fit the proportions my mom wanted and I left off the triangles at the end to make the ends pointed (as requested).

For the center of the blocks, instead of fussy cutting fabric, I actually appliqued some crazy cut fabrics onto the teal backing fabric. I took my 5" square ruler and just sort of made a medium crazy rectangle and a small crazy rectangle.

I used a single block to make the table topper for the kitchen table. All the Christmas decorations were still out when I left, so I didn't get a chance to see them in action. Mom promised to send me a photo of them 'in the wild' once the decorations get put away.

2012: Year of the Craft

2012-12-30T16:43:00.000-05:00

2012 was something, wasn't it? I split the blogs into two pages, the original one here reverted back to its intended purpose- quilting and recipes. My new blog became all about wargaming and miniatures hobbying. It's a change I was hesitant to make at first, but certainly was for the best.

If you recall, at the end of 2011 I set some goals for myself for the upcoming year. Let's assess how well I did in meeting them:

Blogging Consistently: I definitely think I kept up a good and consistent pace this year. Now to keep it going for 2013.
Finishing Dwarfs: Well, since I split the blog into two this year, this got covered over there, but no, I did not entirely finish them.
Finish UFOs: I actually did finish most of my Un-Finished Objects that I had laying around.
No new projects: Hahahahahaha. That didn't happen.
More recipes, more photos: I actually had a ton of recipes over the last year and they all had photos to go with them. I even added photos to recipes that lacked them.
Poor Etsy No More: I started up the shop again, added several new items, and had a few more sales. Over all, a good start but still needs improvement.

I would say I scored a 4 out of 6 goals. I gave myself half credit for the Dwarfs (since 80% of them are painted) and half credit for the Etsy page improvements. All in all, that's not too bad. I really flubbed the dog on not starting new projects until I finished all my old ones. But, honestly, that's to be expected.

With those goals in mind, I came up with some things I'd like to accomplish in the coming year. Aside from just keeping on with that I've been doing, I've added a few things.

2013 Goals:

I'd like to work on expanding my quilting and sewing posts. My primary purpose in starting this blog was to catalog my sewing adventures, but 2012 was very recipe heavy. I want to post more evenly in the future.
More for Etsy: I added some new items recently, but I need to work on some more projects to add to my shop.
Mini Quilts: making a set for the whole year, ones for my personal use and ones to turn into patterns for the Etsy page.
Keep my UFOs to a minimum: I don't have that many UFOs right now, and I want to try and make sure that I only have a few (5 or less) projects going at one time. Right now I have 3 projects, so I'm doing well.

This seems like a very manageable set of goals. What hurdles are you setting for yourself in the new year?

Butterfly Applique Wall Hanging

2012-12-28T17:50:00.004-05:00

I am SO glad I can finally share some of the holiday gifts I made over the last two months. You wouldn't know it from the blog posts, bus since November I've really been doing a ton of sewing. I just couldn't share anything for fear of recipients seeing their gifts early. But they've all been given now, so I am free to post about all of them!

First up is the wall hanging I made for my mother in law. She really likes butterflies, so I wanted to make her something that incorporated butterfly fabric. But, I had a hard time finding any butterfly fabrics that I thought would appeal to her (there are lots of cute options for babies, though).

Eventually I settled on making butterfly appliques. The appliques I used came from Lollychops, which has a printout of them available for free. There are a few different styles, and if you wanted to get really clever you could easily resize them on your printer to make them larger/smaller to suit your needs.

It took me a little longer to do this than I thought, because it was what I was working on when it became time to service my machine. It started knocking, so that was my queue to turn it over to the serviceman. It came back a few days later than I expected it to, but it was good as new so I can't complain.

This butterfly fabric was too fun to pass up, so I used it for the backing of the quilt. We didn't get to see her this year for Christmas (it's too far to travel to see both our families at the holidays, and this year was my family's turn) but I mailed it to her instead. She got it just in time for Christmas, and didn't even cheat by opening it early.

I'm happy to report she loved it and even had a space to hang it on the wall. It ended up being a little larger than I had set out to make it, and I was hoping she'd be able to find a place for it. She was kind enough to send me a photo of it hanging in her house.

Merry Christmas from LTL!

2012-12-24T11:15:00.000-05:00

May your holiday be filled will good company, great food, and maybe a few warming libations to keep the weather away.

Be Jolly!

Hubs, Piper, and I have already arrived at our holiday destination, but I hope you all have safe travels. Happy Holidays to you all!

Spent Grain Dog Treats

2012-12-20T21:34:00.000-05:00

My dad has really gotten into brewing his own beer since the summer, and after each batch, he's left with a big pile of spent grains. He tossed them the first few times, but later learned you can save the grains and use them to make things like bread... and dog treats!

We have no shortage of dogs barking around in the family, so I took what he had recently and turned them into dog treats! Piper, my mischievous hound, and Dante, my parent's dog, both really love the first batch my dad made. I took some tips from him when he made them and improved on the recipe to make it possible to use cookie cutters on them- bone shaped cookie cutters!

Baking these was essentially a waking nightmare for Piper, or so she'd have you believe. She knew what they were, smelled them for over 4 hours, and could see them cooling on the counter. I should go to jail for putting her through this kind of extensive torture.

Beer Grain Dog Treats
makes approximately 30 treats, depending on the size of your cutter

What You'll Need:
2 1/2 cups (approx) of spent beer grains that have not been mixed with hops*
1 cup peanut butter
2/3 cup flour (all purpose or whole wheat)
1 egg

The Process:
Mix all ingredients together well. I used a wooden spoon at first and then finished it off by mixing with my hands. If it's still really sticky, add a little more flour. If it's too dry, add a little bit more peanut butter. Chill in the refrigerator for an hour. Preheat oven to 225 degrees. Roll out dough to about 1/4" thick and cut out desired shapes until all the dough is used.

Place cut biscuits onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for 2 1/2 hours, turning them after 90 minutes, until they're really well dried out. Using hot pads, break one in half to make sure they're dried all the way through. Cool completely and store in an airtight container.

*Hops are toxic to dogs, do never use grains have been mixed with hops.

I had three different kinds of grains on hand, so I made quite a few of these (almost 150), but they're getting spread around between four spoiled dogs. Poor Piper has been stalking the kitchen all evening. Too bad she has to wait until Christmas for these.

Colombian Beef with Cane Sugar Syrup

2012-12-18T12:48:00.000-05:00

For the inaugural Supermarket Surprise! segment, I purchased an interesting pancake of compressed cane sugar called panela. I figured I couldn't go wrong with something that was essentially a brick of sugar.

I spent a little time searching around the internet for what to do with it. Almost everything I found at first was called Aqua de Panela, essentially a drink made from dissolving the sugar in water. That felt like cheating, since it wasn't much of a recipe. The search continued.

Eventually, I found a Colombian beef roast recipe called Muchacho con Melao de Panela, from My Colombian Recipes. The roast is rubbed in spices and vinegar and left to marinade for two days prior to cooking then you pour a sugar syrup over it for serving. I made a few changes, the first being that I cooked it in the crock pot.

I can best describe panela as "rich brown sugar". It has a similar color, smell, and texture to brown sugar but the taste is somewhat richer. The panela syrup smelled so delicious while it was cooking. I made more than we needed for the roast, but I brought the remainder to a holiday party and we used it over ham. It was also very delicious.

I accidentally forgot to take a photo until after we had started eating.

Colombian Beef with Cane Sugar Syrup
makes one roast, adapted from My Colombian Recipes

What You'll Need:
3 pounds rump roast
3 Tbs white vinegar
1 Tbs cumin
1 small onion, finely chopped
6 minced garlic cloves
1 Tbs dry mustard
4 diced scallions
1 Tbs thyme
1 tsp salt
2 tsp pepper
2 cups of water
3 bay leaves
1/4 cup melao de panela
     8 oz panela
     2 cups water
     1 tsp cinnamon
     1/2 tsp cloves

The Process:
   Two days ahead of time, mix the white vinegar, ground cumin, mustard, onion, scallions, thyme, salt, and pepper. Rub the mixture over the beef. Place the roast in a dish, cover, and let rest for 2 days in the fridge.
   On the day you want to make it, heat a little olive oil in a skillet and brown the roast on all sides. Place the roast in your crock pot. Add the water and bay leaves. Cover and cook on low for 6-7 hours until internal temp reaches 160 degrees.
   Anytime before the roast is finished, make the melao de panela. Mix all the ingredients in a small sauce pan and heat over medium heat for 30 minutes until well thickened. Make sure to stir it occasionally.
   Once the beef is fully cooked, pull out of the crock and let rest, tented with aluminum foil, for 15 minutes prior to carving. Spoon some of the syrup over each slice and enjoy!

Supermarket Surprise!

2012-12-13T17:08:00.003-05:00

Lately, I've noticed that I eat a lot of the same things, over and over again. It's nice to have favorites, but variety is the spice of life! While I usually take the opportunity to try something new when the chance arises (like when I ate alligator in New Orleans), my kitchen isn't a place where that often happens.

There IS such a thing as too much mac and cheese.

Making the same things is easy (especially when you know the recipe by heart) but it gets boring. No matter how delicious something is, after the fifth or sixth time you no longer look forward to it. In the spirit of livening up my cooking, I've decided to start a new segment called Supermarket Surprise!

I'm fortunate to live near a grocery store that has a great selection of ethnic and Kosher foods, but I hardly ever venture into those aisles. I make a list of what I need and just go to the aisles where list items reside. Very little adventuring involved. But no more! There is a fantastic wealth of food stuffs in those aisles, and I haven't heard of most of them.

So once a month, I will be preparing a dish made with a "surprise" ingredient. Here's where the surprise comes in. I'll look for something that I haven't heard of before and I'll buy it, whether or not I have any idea of how to use it or prepare it. Then I'll go home, research it a little bit, try a recipe I found using that ingredient, and tell you about it.

Sounds easy enough, right? I already bought my first item. It's something a littler "safer" than I could have otherwise chosen, but I didn't want to throw myself into the deep end of new foods right away. I'm making it in a few days, so look for the follow up with my first Supermarket Surprise!

Condensed Cream of Turkey

2012-12-05T09:17:00.000-05:00

Have you ever wondered what you should do with all the turkey pan drippings that's left over after you've made gravy? Wonder no more! I have an excellent use for them: cream of turkey soup.

The original recipe, for cream of chicken, came from Tammy's Kitchen. I adapted it to make some cream of turkey that I'll use soon when I make some turkey pot pie with all that leftover turkey we (still) have. The biggest change I made was doubling the recipe. I had a LOT of turkey broth, so I actually made 4x as much as the original recipe.

I ended up with 7 mason jars worth of condensed soup. It worked out very well, actually. Each jar is 2 cups when filled all the way, but since I was planning to freeze them, I left a little wiggle room in there.

Condensed Cream of Turkey

makes a little over 6 cups

What You'll Need:

3 cups turkey broth*
2 tsp dried marjoram
1 tsp dried sage
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp rosemary
1 small minced onion
2 cloves minced garlic
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt (more or less as you prefer)
1/2 tsp parsley
1/4 tsp paprika
3 cups milk
1 1/2 cup flour

The Process:
Put a little of the broth into a pot with with the onions and garlic and cook down for 5-6 minutes. Then add remaining broth, 1 cup milk, and the remaining seasonings. Bring to a boil.
In a bowl, whisk together the remaining 2 cups of milk with the flour. Putting the flour into the bowl and adding the milk over top worked best for me to get a smooth mixture. Then pour into the pot with your boiling broth and whisk continuously until it thickens. It will take only a few minutes.

*To prepare the turkey broth, I used the neck, giblets, and bits (liver, etc) from inside the turkey and slowly simmered them in a covered pot with enough water to cover them for 6-8 hours while the turkey cooked on Thanksgiving. I poured off this liquid along with the pan drippings into a bowl. Some of it was used to make the gravy, the rest cooled and then I set it into the fridge. It will become gelatinous and you can easily skim the fat off the top. Then your broth is ready to be used in the above recipe.

I'm really looking forward to making this turkey pot pie over the next few days.

Thanksgiving Success!

2012-11-28T15:40:00.000-05:00

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend with your friends and families. I know I did. Dinner here was 100% a success. Despite my fears, no turkeys caught fire, were burned, or otherwise ruined in any fashion. And the rest of the food wasn't half bad either!

I could (and have been) eat this forever. I bought way too huge a bird and I ended up putting much of the dark meat into the freezer for making pot pie later. This is, however, sadly the last of the cranberry sauce. But, I'll be making it again next month so it's not gone forever.

Now that Thanksgiving is over, the apartment has been cleaned and returned to normal, it's nearly time to throw all that to the wind in preparation for Christmas decorations. Time certainly is flying by lately it seems. Speaking of time, is is nearly time for my sewing machine to come home and I'll be working further on my holiday gifts. I should even have enough time left to finish them.

Whole Cranberry Sauce

2012-11-20T14:15:00.001-05:00

Turkey time is nearly upon us. I have brined several birds and I feel I'm heartily prepared for whatever Thanksgiving can throw my way. Bring it on, holiday foods! Since being responsible for the main staples of the meal wasn't enough, I decided I was going to try my hand at making my own cranberry sauce this year.

I have not been known to enjoy the cranberry sauce, which makes some people go crazy for over the holidays. I just never saw the appeal of something that retained its shape once released from the can. But I have seen the light- and homemade cranberry sauce is why. This tangy but sweet combination will now never be missing from my Thanksgiving table.

This is ridiculously simple to make, and the only ingredient you probably don't have is the cranberries themselves. In fact, if you're feeling up to braving the crowds at the store, you still have plenty of time to make this recipe for Turkey Day. It's very quick to make.

Whole Cranberry Sauce
makes about 2 1/2 cups

What You'll Need:
1, 12oz package cranberries, rinsed
1 cup orange juice
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp ginger
2 Tbs amaretto (optional)

The Process:
Pick over your cranberries to make sure there are no rotten or moldy ones in the bunch. In a saucepan over medium heat, dissolve the sugars in the orange juice and bring to a boil. Stir in spices, amaretto and cranberries. Return to a low boil and cook until the cranberries start to pop, about ten minutes or so. Let cool and then refrigerate. The sauce will thicken as it cools. Serve cold (my preference) or warm as you prefer.

You can make it a few days ahead of time and keep it in the refrigerator for up to a week before serving. I definitely recommend you add the amaretto if you have it, it gives the sauce a little extra punch of flavor.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Floral Table Runner

2012-11-18T10:17:00.003-05:00

Sometimes I see a fabric that I just cannot walk away from. This time, though, it was a little fat quarter bundle of floral fabrics that caught me. I picked up it ages ago and for the longest time didn't know quite what to do with it. Isn't that always the way? Two thirds of my stash is "I'll figure out something to do with this" fabric.

I finally sat down and worked out a pattern for this bundle and came up with a little table runner. Originally I had thought to make it for my coffee table, but we have since gotten a new (and smaller) one. Now I don't need it after all.

It quilted up very quickly as it isn't too large. The big white floral pattern is what initially drew me to the bundle. The flowers have just the right amount of whimsy.

I finished it up just before I sent my machine out to be serviced. Ever since I've been doing a lot of cutting for my holiday projects. I also resurrected my old workhorse machine to do a little bit of straight stitching. It can still run a decent straight stitch, if nothing else.

I wish I could post about all the holiday projects I'm working on, but they'll have to wait, lest I ruin the surprise for anyone. But at the rate I'm going, I'll probably be posting about holiday gifts until February. It looks as though I will actually finish them all on time, too. It'll be a Christmas miracle if I do. I hope your holiday projects are going as swimmingly as mine.

Since we swapped our big coffee table out for a smaller one, this piece is available on my Etsy page.

The Coffee Quilt: When Your Mug Isn't Enough

2012-11-14T10:56:00.002-05:00

People love coffee. It's a fervent love, but one that I do not really understand. You see, I am a tea person. I know many die-hard coffee people, though, and there's something mystical about the way their eyes light up when they take a sip of coffee. Maybe it's a cult?

I decided to make a little coffee-inspired quilt when I found the Java collection by Moda. It was too fun to pass up, especially since I managed to get it during a clearance sale (sadly it was a sale from a local quilting shop going out of business). The panels were easy to work with and this stitched up pretty quickly.

It's one of several small projects I've had sitting around for a while and I finally said "enough" and finished them up. It's a good thing, too, because I just had to give my sewing machine up for its annual servicing. Toward the end of my most recent project (a holiday present) it also started making a suspicious noise, so it was definitely time. I must say, now that I can't sew, I miss it more than I thought I would.

I'll have it back in about ten days, and then the furious rush to finish holiday gifts begins. In the mean time, I am cutting out the fabric for these projects. While not as soothing as sewing, cutting fabric helps to slake my sewing urges.

Dragons and Knights and Steeds, Oh My!

2012-10-31T09:30:00.001-04:00

Halloween is my most beloved of all the holidays. Between the food, the weather, and the sheer festiveness in the air, I can't get enough. The fall food alone is sufficient to put me in a jolly mood. I really look forward to giving candy out to all the kids and seeing what fun and creative costumes they come up with.

This year, though, I have a vicious beast in the house- an awesome and terrible monster known as the Beagle-Dragon.

Terrifying, I know.

I made this pet costume several years ago, in high school actually, for my family dog, Dante. I made it for him when he was still a puppy, and it turned out it didn't fit him the following year. Piper, though, is smaller and with a few slight modifications (a few choices snips of the scissors), it now fits her quite well. But who will save us from this terror?

A very stoic savior.

Why, it's Sir Barksalot and his noble steed, Woofyluffagus! They'll keep us (and the trick-or-treaters) safe from the fire breathing creature. My parents are on vacation, so I have two furry friends for a while. I put this costume together for Dante in about two hours yesterday. Would have been less, but certain dogs weren't terribly cooperative.

The Noble Steed costume was very easy to put together. It has a tie around the front and elastic ties around his chest to keep the back half from sliding off. Sir Barksalot wouldn't stay glued in place, so I ended up having to stitch him down with a few hand stitches.

Have a happy Halloween!