Wisdom of the Moon

Day of the Dead Sugar Skull Costume

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 17:34:00 +0000

Here's something we threw together before school in like 20 minutes.

Hope you all have a fun and safe day!

My Not So New Job

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 13:56:00 +0000

Ever since I started this job, Joey's been giving me grief for not telling you all about it. I think she feels I'm somehow being dishonest for not sharing such an important aspect of my life (and the possible reason why my posts are sometimes months apart).

So what is it that I do?

I'm on the ground crew for an airline, babysitting planes and chauffeuring baggage. The pay isn't great, but my whole family (Jeff, kids, parents) and I can now fly for free. Once we can synchronize our schedules, that is. Since I got out of training 6 months ago, Jeff and I haven't had a single day off together.

(Last plane of the night, getting ready to push)

In theory, I got this job so we can fly for free. In reality, though, Jeff is the only one who's actually gone anywhere.

It does give me a chance to take pictures with my phone, most of which are of sunsets. Cause man we have some nice ones out there.

(After a particularly fierce rainstorm, when they called a ground hold for lightning.)

(Leaning out the galley door. This is the place where I most often crack my head.)

(Pulled over while running bags to photograph the sunset. Because I have my priorities.)

(While gassing up my tug. I love how the sun is shining straight through the windows on the closest plane.)

(Waiting for international bags in the bowels of the airport. Just out of frame is a family of chuds.)

Jaden and Joey

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 20:12:00 +0000

I'm not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I've always been a freak. So I've been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I'm one of those people.
-John Lennon

Homemade Mozzarella

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 21:07:00 +0000

I made cheese!

And served it with the first tomato of the season.

Note- Despite a couple of hailstorms, our garden's still growing. Not going crazy or anything, yet not completely dead. And as I read about Finny's first tomato(es), I began to think that maybe I ought to be making special plans to welcome mine.

So I ordered myself a cheese kit. As one does.

When I told my brother (all excitedly I might add) that I had successfully made my own mozzarella, he asked if that was before or after the barn raising.

He thinks he's funny.

But I get it. It does seem old fashioned and maybe somewhat pointless. Cause you know, Wendy, they do sell cheese at the store.

But I have to say that as the milk transformed into actual curds it felt like magic. Like I should have been waving a wand over the pan to create such a miracle. It starts as milk, then I add a couple spoonfuls of special ingredients, wait patiently (or not very patiently, in my case) and BAM, it's cheese.

The English language (well, every language really) should have a word specifically to describe the satisfaction involved in curds/whey separation. I'm just sayin.

(this is totally what it was supposed to look like as it separated.)

It's that simple.

Except when it isn't.

(This is not at all what it was supposed to look like.)

This is one of my early attempts without the kit. The stench of failure was so great that it took me almost 3 years to give it another shot, despite a very thoughtful (and moderately optimistic) present from my love.

"One of these times it's gotta work."

Anyway, back to this time. The one that did work. Once it's been cut and heated on the stove, you ladle it into a bowl, heat it in the microwave and then stretch it.

And then you form it.

It looks like cheese, smells like cheese and tastes like cheese.

I'm almost entirely convinced that it was actually cheese. It may not look as smooth as what you get in the store, but it smells and tastes much better.

Next time, I plan to make at least a double batch. One for me and one for everyone else to share.

Nighttime Pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 13:13:00 +0000

Joey decided to take pictures last night. Outside. In the rain. Under an umbrella.

Deconstructed Sushi Bowl

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 16:53:00 +0000

I've been reading Heidi Swanson's blog for years. And I've been cooking from her book Super Natural Cooking for even longer. And this recipe, her sushi bowl (with a few minor changes), has been in our weekday meal rotation the entire time (though, funnily enough, it was my brother in law who originally found it online, right as I was becoming smitten with her cookbook).

We have it at least once a month, if not more. Not only do the kids love to eat it, but it's also a great recipe for them to help make. My nephew Kam (4 years old) especially loves to help with the oranges.

When I started to make it for dinner last week, Joey offered to do all of it herself, if I took pictures of the process. We made a video too, but apparently none of our programs are up to the task of processing digital movies of any kind and keep crashing.

Ingredients
2 oranges
1 lemon
2 T. brown sugar
3 or 4 T. soy sauce
2 T. rice vinegar

package of extra firm tofu
salmon
canola oil (a couple of tablespoons or so)
avocado
nori (I buy the pre crushed kind at the Asian Mart, which saves the steps of toasting and cutting. Strangely, this is a favorite of Joey's friend, who is super picky, but loves this recipe anyway. Also, I can't tell you the brand, because it's written in Japanese. If you can't find this, just crumble the regular Nori you'll find at Whole Foods.)
a bunch of green onions (washed and chopped... we forgot to do those for this batch. I'm the only one who eats them anyway.)
rice (cooked however you cook it)

Instructions
-Halve and ream out all the citrus through a strainer into a saucepan. The original recipe has you first zest them (and add the zest after the sauce has cooked), but Joey prefers it without the zest and she was the one making dinner. Do as you see fit.

-Add the brown sugar, soy sauce and rice vinegar to the pan. Bring to a boil, making sure all the sugar is melted.

-Remove from heat and let cool.

-Drain and slice the tofu. (This is a great job for the kiddos, especially considering that you don't need too sharp a knife to do it. Joey, however, wanted one of the big ones.)

-At this point, we decided to put the tofu back into it's original container to hold some of the marinade (maybe a third).

One less bowl to wash.

-Then we used another third of the marinade to soak the fish in. (No pictures. I'm sure you can imagine what it looks like.)

-After a half hour or so in the fridge, we poured some canola oil over them and brought the tofu and fish to the grill.

(Oh, there's a picture of the fish in the background. Too blurry? Well, maybe just go back to your imagination.)

-Cook over high-ish medium heat, flipping once, until nicely done (and a little crunchy on the edges).

(I bought one of those little vegetable grates and it works so well for stuff like this.)

-Now spin your avocado around on the cutting board.

(I'm not entirely sure that this step is necessary.)

-Cut your avocado.

-Put everything out (including the third of the marinade that you didn't do anything with. You did save that, right? No? That's too bad. It tastes really good over the rice. Also, do I need to tell you not to eat the marinade from the fish and tofu? Cause, don't do that.) and let people assemble themselves. (I mean assemble the food themselves, not like pull themselves together. Though for some, that may be necessary, depending on how excited to eat they are.)

(Joey wanted to show the avocado half she mangled next to the perfect one she didn't. I would like to draw your attention to those little crisp bits of tofu, which I ate immediately after taking this picture. All for Wendy.)

-Eat up.

Yum.

Kenzie's Graduation Present

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 15:50:00 +0000

Among the jewelry skills that I'm learning from Jenny and our Grandpa is how to solder.

I used Jenny's camera to take these pictures as she showed me the process.

(apply flux)

(grab tiny bit of silver solder)

(place solder on joint)

(heat until it flows)

It's amazing how, if you do it well, the little piece of solder sucks right into the joint.

After we soldered all the rings, I filed and hammered them, purposely going a bit wonky because I liked the look of it. Then I created a place to set Kenzie's birthstone, an opal.

Most of the process went undocumented. Eventually I made this.

Each girl will eventually have one of her own.

No, it isn't perfect. And it came very close to being late. But I made it myself, out of love, with hands that once held Kenzie's little girl hands. At 18, she may not fully appreciate that. But I'm sure she will.

One day.

Weird Kid Wednesday- New Camera

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 18:46:00 +0000

On Mother's Day, Joey used my awesome, fantabulous present to capture this.

Which I think is a pretty great present in and of itself.

OCD Seed Sprouting

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Sat, 28 May 2011 15:41:00 +0000

When I start seeds inside in those little containers, I have anxiety. If I only plant one seed per pot, I worry that it won't germinate and I will waste space. If I plant more than one seed, I worry that they will all germinate and I will need to thin them and waste perfectly good seeds.

And so I stare at the pots for 10 minutes, trying to make up my mind, doing nothing.

But, no more!

What I tried (and had a rousing success with) this year was getting the seeds to germinate before I ever put them in dirt. Remember kindergarten when you sprouted beans in paper towels shoved in a plastic bag? Yeah, I basically used that method.

(how cute are these little boogers?)

In a seed starting tray, I put the seeds on various sections of paper towels (I bet newspapers would work too), with several layers below and just one layer over top. Then I added enough water to thoroughly moisten the paper (but not enough to pool) and put on the lid.

(this picture has the top layer pulled back for your viewing pleasure)

Keep an eye on them and as soon as they sprout, put them in dirt, either directly outside or in individual pots inside. If the seeds are big enough, you can plant them individually (only the ones that have sprouted- wasting nothing!).

Note- at this point, because the peas are legumes, I should have applied inoculant to them. But I forgot. And had to come back later and dig it into the soil.

If you can determine which part is the root and which is the sprout, plant accordingly.

If you're not entirely sure which end is which, just lay it on its side. It'll sort itself out.

(this guy grew just fine. in fact 100% of the seeds that I planted this way have grown.)

And if they're tiny, you can put them out directly, still on the layer of paper beneath them, and cover it (leaves and all) with a thin layer of soil.

In a few days, they'll have popped through.

This worked really well for my second batch of pea seedlings. I'd better get them something to climb on soon.

This method also seems to work especially well for plants that you're supposed to plant directly in the garden because they don't like to be transplanted. The problem with direct seeding in the garden is that it's more difficult to provide the right moisture and temperature during germination, which allows the seeds to germinate faster and in higher percentages.

In fact, I found this chart that shows the optimum soil temperatures for various types of plants. For example, lettuce can get a 98% germination rate at a soil temp of only 32 degrees. But it will take 49 days to do it. At 77 degrees, you'll get 99% germination, but in only 2 days.

The chart also helped me figure out why most of my spinach failed to germinate on the first go round. At 68 degrees, you can expect only a 52% germination rate and at 77 degrees, only a 28 % rate. It does best at only 50 degrees, the average temperature of our garage. Like lettuce, it will sprout at 32 degrees, but will take 63 days to do so.

So, you know, just something to keep in mind.

Kenzie

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Tue, 24 May 2011 13:58:00 +0000

Our oldest daughter, Mackenzie, graduated from high school last week.

At Red Rocks.

In a two hour ceremony.

The temperature was hovering right at about 40 degrees.

And it started raining about half way through.

Did I mention the fog?

It was wonderful.

Mexico City Style Tacos

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Wed, 18 May 2011 13:20:00 +0000

Let me first start by saying that my kids love these tacos. One day Miranda, when she noticed that I was making them for dinner, said, "Sweet, I was thinking about those today at school and was hoping you'd make them tonight."

Secondly, this is one of my less meat recipes (as opposed to meatless), though I'll give options for all versions- from full meat to vegetarian.

For health, moral and environmental reasons I try to reduce the amount of meat we consume, cooking at least one meal a week that is completely vegetarian and the rest of the time making most meals around the concept of less meat, where the meat takes up less than a third of the meal.

Quinoa (pronounced "keen-wa") is awesome for doing this. And if you've never used quinoa this recipe is a great place to start. Also quinoa is really good for you. And tastes great.

My brother in law figured out the original, full meat recipe for these, using ground pork. They are great either way.

So let's get started, shall we?

Ingredients-

-1/3 pound of pork (you can buy it already ground or do what I do and just use one pork chop and grind it in the food processor)
-4 to 6 jalapenos, deseeded and chopped
-3 limes
-1 cup chopped cilantro
-1 and 1/2 cups uncooked quinoa (you'll most likely want to soak in cool water and drain before using... it has a coating that isn't always washed off in processing)
-3 cups water
-1 or 2 avocados
-tortillas
-optional- 1 t. bouillon or stock (I use beef Better Than Bouillon)

Note- The full meat version would use about a pound of ground pork and no quinoa, water or bouillon. The full vegetarian version would use about 2 cups quinoa, 4 cups water and no bouillon.

Instruction-
-If using the pork chop, cut it into 1 inch pieces and toss them in the food processor. Pulse 5 to 10 times, for one second intervals, until it looks like ground pork (cause um, yah, it is ground pork now).

-Add the pork, 1/2 cup of cilantro and 1/2 cup of the jalapeno to a pan. (Save the rest of the chopped cilantro and jalapenos for serving.)
-Cook, breaking up the clumps with your spoon, until the pork is no longer pink.

-Add the juice of one of the limes. (For the full meat version, you're done. Well, except for a bit of salt to taste, which you won't need if you're adding the bouillon with the quinoa in a moment.)
-Now add the quinoa...

-the water and the bouillon. (Or for the vegetarian version, start here, adding the cilantro, jalapeno, lime juice, quinoa and water.)

-Cook at a low simmer for about 15 minutes, until the quinoa has absorbed all the water and become tender. You can tell it's done if the little curlicue part of the seeds have opened up. It will look like this.

-While it's cooking, I usually cut up the rest of the limes and the avocado and put all the toppings in individual bowls. I roll the warmed tortillas up in a damp dishtowel. Then everyone gets to make their own.

I just noticed the time stamp from this picture, where Joey's eating her first taco...

is exactly 3 minutes prior to this picture, where she's already making her second one.

Whether these are all pork, all quinoa, or somewhere in between, they go fast.

Luminarias 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Wed, 11 May 2011 16:10:00 +0000

I love my plain luminarias very much.

But change is good too, is it not?

(you wouldn't believe how many tiny maple leaves I have from yesterday's post)

I've tried all kinds of different methods of adhering these puppies. And the one that, I think, gives the best results involves melting them ever so gently with the tip of a very low temperature iron (like so low that on the scale, it's below the first number). I just hold the leaf in place with the thumb of my left hand, while I maneuver the iron with my right.

I'm not gonna lie. You will get wax on it. You probably will want to use a separate iron (hopefully found cheap at a yard sale?) devoted to crafts for this project. (Heh hem, this is definitely a case of do as I say, not as I do. I just keep wiping the iron clean with a spare rag. Jeff hasn't complained that his shirts are covered in wax yet.)

Also the plants with the little leaves are really tedious to get stuck down.

(plants, left to right: sweet woodruff, catgrass, purple vetch)

(this guy in the front is maidenhair fern)

But despite all those cons, I think the results are pretty fun.

Spring Pressed Leaves

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Tue, 10 May 2011 12:35:00 +0000

Normally I start thinking about pressing leaves in the Fall, when all those pretty leaves are hard to ignore. Though recently I realized that Spring leaves are equally lovely. And they have the added bonus of being tinier than fall leaves, just mini versions of their more mature selves, which makes them perfect for using in projects when regular leaves are just too big.

Sometimes, before the chlorophyll has made it all the way up, they're even a bit red.

For some of you this will be way too late. For some, it will be perfect timing. But don't wait too long to cut yourself a branch. In the time between when I first pressed these (4 days ago) and today, the leaves on our maple are at least 50 percent larger and completely green.

My favorite way to press flowers and leaves is in books. I've been pressing bits of nature between the pages of Little Women since I was a kid. Strangely, I've never read the entire thing. Though anytime I open it there is usually one or two folded pieces of white paper, sandwiching something or other, little presents from my past self, sent forward into the future.

Those are maidenhair ferns, a plant I have never been able to keep alive for long in our dry climate, but I do love to press them flat. Today I plan to put these to good use.

I'll be back tomorrow with pictures.

What You've Missed

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Mon, 09 May 2011 00:46:00 +0000

Whenever I see something wonderful in this world, I often think that it's a huge bummer that my mom (who passed away 14 years ago) isn't around to enjoy it.

(Yep, that's her in the middle with her head thrown back laughing. She looked like that a lot.)

(And those are my little brothers on her lap.)

It would be ridiculous to list everything she's missed. There's just too much. However, I can think of a few things she would have especially loved.

These are for you, mom.

- Thanks to the internet, it is super easy to share all kinds of wonderful ideas. You can find hilarious and inspiring stuff. Like Flash Mobs. Mom, you'd totally love these. Sometimes I wonder if that's how you imagined the world to be, full of people suddenly bursting into song and dance with you. I think this one would have been your favorite.

And then there's this poem. Thank you for never implying that I would somehow be better if I were prettier.

Really.

Thank you.

- Oh and guess what, Jenny and I made babies and then pushed them right out into the world. Can you believe it? I whined a bit when I had Joey, but not overly so. And Jenny was pretty badass when she had Kam. Neither of our labors came anywhere close to your record setters of less than two hours each when you had us, but we managed just the same.

- Not only did Tommy finally come out of the closet (yes I know you probably knew he was gay even though he never said it out loud), but he marched in the Pride Parade. We were all there to cheer for him.

If given the chance, I'm sure you would have been marching along with these people.

-I know you never really got to see any of the four of us as adults. But I think we're doing a pretty good job.

We miss you, though.

Happy Mother's Day.

Kittie Proof Vases

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 18:25:00 +0000

I've found another trick in the war against kitties who like to knock things over. Simply keep everything up on the wall and out of their reach.

I used 22 gauge floral wire, two eye hooks (attached at studs) and various containers with pronounced lips on them (to loop the wire under before you twist it tightly close in the back).

One important note- the wire is one use only. I suggest that you don't go untwisting and retwisting it. I promise you. It will break. Or you could use a thicker gauge wire (which strangely has a smaller number), but even with that, I think there's a limited number of times you could do it before it looses all tensile strength.

Spring Planting in Raised Beds

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 13:35:00 +0000

Last year at this time I was publishing post after post of Easter egg tutorials. (click here, here, here and especially here to see what it looks like when I'm on my holiday crafting A-game.)

This year I have other things* going. Things which don't involve writing for this blog, apparently. Luckily, I was able to scrounge a few moments when I wasn't actually doing those things in order to write about them. And put together a video too.

I know, right?

One of the things is gardening. Which I'm basically obligated to do after last year when we built beds for the garden so late that there was no time to plant anything that season.

In an effort to reach a personal goal I set for myself (wait, I haven't written about that either! Gah.), I am attempting to grow upwards of 200 pounds of produce in our garden. In one season. It's a somewhat random number I picked out of the air, based loosely, and optimistically, on Finny's amazing harvest.

That is despite the fact that while her bed looked like the picture on the left on Feb 7, my bed looked like the one on the right on Feb 8.

California vs Colorado, no one should be surprised here.

First thing's first, we had to fill up the empty beds.

This happened back in October during a two week long burst of energy. Everything we used came either from our yard or for free from craigslist. The only thing we paid for was gas to pick it up.

And look! I put all the pictures I took back then into a real and actual video. With music, even.

The important gardening lesson I've learned in the last 24 hours is that the wind is not your friend. The wind rips covers off of cold frames and flattens seedlings.

But that's ok, because it just gives me more material for my new blog where I celebrate all the wonderful mistakes in my life and invite you to join with me.

*The other major time suck has produced no usable pictures and so I refuse to write about it until I have at least one good one. Joey has informed me that I am letting my readers down and even offered to write up the post for me. We'll see if it comes to that.

New Skill- Jewelry Making

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 14:15:00 +0000

We are especially lucky to have a family member (mine and Jenny's Grandpa, Joey's and Kam's Great-Grandpa) who makes jewelry as a hobby and generously offers to share his time and resources.

(This picture was from awhile back. Just look how short Kam's hair is.)

Between Jenny (who took a jewelry making class in high school) and Grandpa, the kids and I have no shortage of teachers. Jenny lets the kids use her wax gun to make designs, which she and Grandpa then cast for them.

Jenny helped Joey make me a beautiful and simple little ring. I love how it looks like a twig wrapped around my finger.

(As I'm looking at this picture of Joey holding my ring, I'm struck by how much her hands look like mine. She looks so grown up here. Which I realize is a strange thing to say about a picture of a hand. But it's true.)

And Kam made a design that became this necklace for his Gram's birthday.

And yes, we let the kids work with the wax gun even though it is pretty damn hot.

This is mostly because we agree with Gever Tulley when he encourages parents to let their kids try moderately dangerous activities, "Trust me, they are going to learn things that you can't get out of playing with Dora the Explorer toys." (Note- head over to that link if you want to hear his Ted talk on the subject. It's a good one.)

They also love to use the flex shaft for polishing the piece after it's been cast.

For now, though, the adults sprew up the pieces and do the actual casting.

Yes, I too am working on some pieces, but since they're gifts, I'll be sharing them a bit later.

New Shavees for St. Baldrick's

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 13:20:00 +0000

Well, it's March. And that means St. Baldrick's! If you've been a reader for any length of time here, you might have stumbled across at least one post about this awesome organization.

(Me and Joey 3 years ago at St. Baldrick's)

No, I'm not shaving my head again. But my nephew and niece are. When our friend Raven shaved her head last year, Jenny's son, Kam, decided that he would be doing it this year.

Since then, Aurora's daughter, Jaden, joined the team, along with her friends, Sara and Maisy. All four of them will be going under the clippers this Friday afternoon. (Maisy isn't in the pictures because she decided to do it after Jenny had taken all the pics.)

A week ago Joey and the shavees got together to film the video below. Then Jenny spent a massive amount of time putting it all together with pictures she took and voice-overs that the kiddos did. I love how it turned out.

One note- The Odd Little Monkeys started as an weekly crafting group, but it's evolving in a way that lets them use their creativity to make a positive difference in the world. This is the first of their endeavors and I couldn't be more proud.

Odd Little Monkeys Presents: IT'S JUST HAIR from Jenny Gay on Vimeo.

(If, for some reason, you have trouble viewing this through Vimeo, you can see the YouTube version here.)

St. Baldrick's is a great organization that provides funding to fight childhood cancer. At last year's event, we listened as one incredibly grateful mom told the story of how her son was alive thanks to the funding efforts of this organization.

So please consider making a donation to St. Baldrick's. And if you feel so moved, we'd love it if you emailed a link to all your friends and family or posted the video up on facebook. The more people who see this, the more kids we can help!

And if they are having one of these in your neck of the woods, it's not a bad way to spend an afternoon, even if you aren't getting shaved yourself. Here are some of the pictures from last year's celebration in downtown Denver.

Homemade Peanut Butter Cups

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 14:21:00 +0000

These are so worth the effort. And what's more, they're so rich that you won't really want to (or be able to, for that matter) eat more than one.

I did these based on the recipe at Have Cake, Will Travel, but I've made enough modifications (mine are lighter on the peanut butter and heavy on the chocolate) that I thought I'd just share the recipe here.

Ingredients for Chocolate Mixture

2 cups chocolate chips (splurge here and get the good ones)

1 tablespoon natural peanut butter

pinch of salt

Ingredients for Peanut Butter Filling

1/2 cup natural peanut butter

2 or 3 tablespoons powdered sugar

pinch of salt

Instructions (Simple)

-Chocolate part

-Peanut butter filling

-More chocolate part

Instructions (specifics on what works best for me)

-Melt the chocolate chips in a glass container in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time, stirring well in between. You'll want it to be smooth and sort of thick, not too runny.

-Add the tablespoon of peanut butter and salt. Stir.

-I found that using individual silicon cups in a muffin tin works perfectly for this, but use paper cups if that's all you have.

-Using a half tablespoon measure, scoop chocolate into each cup and smooth up the side about a third of the way. This part can seem really messy, but don't panic, they'll still be pretty.

-Pop in the fridge for 10 minutes or so.

-Mix up the peanut butter, sugar and salt. I've found that these work much better if this mixture is fairly stiff at room temperature.

-When the chocolate is set, add about a teaspoon or so of the peanut butter mixture to each cup, smoothing down with the back of a clean spoon.

-Put the container with the chocolate in it back in the microwave for 10 to 30 seconds. You want it to be thin and drizzeley now.

-Using the same half tablespoon measure as before, add more of the chocolate mixture.

-When all cups have the top layer of chocolate, feel free to bang the pan up and down on the counter. It will smooth and settle all the chocolate. Pop any air bubbles with a toothpick if you're feeling overwhelmed by OCD.

-Put it back in the fridge until set.

-Pop them out of the silicon cups and give to your favorite people.

A Quandary

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 16:02:00 +0000

Note- At one point, I read the following, "Don't have anything in your portfolio that you need to make excuses for." It was from Patti Digh's book Life is a Verb. And I think it's great advice.

Sometimes.

Lately, though, I've felt that sentence hanging over me every time I work on something to post about here. And I have to say, it's caused a fair amount of creative drain, causing me to hold everything I want to post against my highest standards. I am still creating a bit, just not taking pictures and not sharing the story. And every day that passes that I don't post, the bar gets higher and higher and my creative urges get fewer and fewer.

Which is sad because my underlying goal here is to encourage people to try things. To start badly and then improve. To do it for the thrill of making. Of trying. Luckily I found this post by Paul Overton reminding us of the importance of not being too attached to the wonderfulness of what we produce. Noah Scalin referred to it as "letting go of preciousness."

So what follows will not be that wonderful. It isn't a helpful tutorial or a rousing tale of success and it only has a couple of pictures, way down at the bottom. It *is* a little story about me trying something new. Which might be just as worthwhile.

I recently figured it was time to knit a sweater. I realize that not everyone comes to this decision at some point in their lives, but well, I have.

Up until now I mostly knit just for the sake of knitting. I actually enjoy the feel of making the stitches. I just rarely make anything practical (other than the odd giant headband). Just knitting and frogging, over and over.

Weird. I know.

So after hours searching on Ravelry, I finally found a pattern and yarn. Yarn, it turns out, that no one carries in an actual store in my neck of the woods. So I chose something else because the idea of buying yarn that I hadn't been able to rub against my face just seemed crazy. Yes, I am that weirdo next to you at the store who cuddles with the merchandise.

The process of buying yarn was so involved (should I get this one? yes. no, wait. how bout that one? ya know, I think I like that first one after all) that by the time I'd left the store and walked to my car I felt like punching my fist into the air like Judd Nelson as if to say "Take that, yarn store! Your plethora of choices and lack of what I'd actually wanted to buy did not defeat me!"

I didn't do it, but I wanted to. As I drove away, I wasn't even dismayed at the immense distance between the thousand or so yards of fiber in my bag and the sweater I would be attempting to twiddle it into with a couple of bamboo sticks. Clearly I was delusional. But I'd at least managed to procure the raw materials for the project.

Surprisingly, the knitting gods were smiling on me (well, other than the wreck I created while trying to wind my first center pull ball, but I'll get to that). I cast on the right number of stitches on the *first try*. And my stockinette stitches were nice and even and also (get this) the correct gauge right off the bat, even though I forgot to knit a test swatch.

Now normally I knit like a child, handing it over to a more experienced knitter (my little sister, actually) whenever I mess something up. I'd recently joined a knitting club in which other grown women do this same thing with no embarrassment whatsoever.

But this project would be different. *I* was going to do it all by myself. And I knew that if I dropped a stitch, I would pick it up myself.

Unfortunately when I dropped that stitch, I'd been drinking a bit. And the alcohol made it difficult to understand the video I found here about how to remedy the situation. I would watch it a couple of times, hold my work up to the monitor and completely fail to see how the two were related. (Turns out I was looking at the purl side and merely needed to turn it backwards.)

I also realize that this is quite possibly the lamest drinking story ever told.

Eventually, I simply put my work on a shelf in the closet, next to my first attempt at winding a center pull ball, which was currently a knotted up pile of sad.

(right side= nicely wound center pull ball, left side= complete rudding mess that I can't even bear to look at. I will work on it when I have run out of the rest of the yarn.)

But boy howdy, the next day? The next day I pulled that sucker out and fixed it! Yes, I realize that using a crochet hook to pull a couple loops of yarn through other loops of yarn probably doesn't necessitate the exclamation mark. But this image from this post came to mind and I cracked up because I felt the same sense of purpose and accomplishment.

This is what I have so far. About a hundred yards of yarn fooled into thinking it's a 1 x 2 foot piece of cloth.

Now if I can just convince that cloth that it's a sweater.

So, what do you think? Do you prefer finished projects with lots of pictures or did you enjoy this glimpse into the crazy?

In My Life

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 20:36:00 +0000

In lieu of the ubiquitous Best Of post, how about a mind-blurring, possibly twitch-inducing video of all my flickr pictures (made over at Pummelvision). Which, ya I get it's still a Best Of of sorts. Just a recap of the last 5 years of my life (actually now that I think about it, some of my pictures are over 10 years old, but really there are some scanned pictures of my mom's from before I was born).

The first time I watched this I actually got a bit teary. In a good, I-really-like-my-life sort of way. It goes way too fast to focus on much of anything, but I think I like it like that. And each time I watch it something different catches my attention. Like in the letter from my mom, I can see the word "stubborn" very very clearly. It makes me smile.

Has anyone else tried this? I'd love to see yours if you do.

Update- I took the liberty of making Jenny's pictures into one of these too. Unsurprisingly there's more of me in this one.

Peace out, y'all.

The Best Bread Pudding. Ever.

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 14:03:00 +0000

This is our friend Peter.

He used to be a chef.

In fact, we worked together at a restaurant almost 20 years ago. He was good friends with my mom and we've since adopted him into our family.

This is Peter's bread pudding.

It is very delicious. And super easy. Peter agreed to make up a batch and share the recipe with you all.

One Word of Warning- Do not make the full batch unless you have many people to share it with. This stuff is impossible to say no to. And I'm pretty sure that, though it has the same ingredients as french toast, it doesn't have the same number of calories (a fact which has not stopped me from eating it for breakfast).

So, there's that.

Ingredients

-1 loaf white bread (the cheaper the better. really, it's ok, go for that 79 cent loaf sitting there)

-2 & 1/2 T. vanilla extract

-1/2 t. cinnamon (you can double this if you really want it to taste cinnamon-y)

-6 large eggs

-1 & 1/2 cups sugar (though when I made my batch of this, I went with just 1 cup and it was still very good- don't tell Peter, but I actually prefer it a bit less sweet. You make the call.)

-1 & 1/2 cups half and half

-1 & 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream

How To Put It All Together

-Tear up the bread into pieces. These don't need to be either uniform nor perfect. Lay them on a cookie sheet with sides (I believe this is technically called a jelly-roll pan, but I have never called it that). Put in a 225 degree oven for 5 or 10 minutes, stirring it around occasionally, so the bread gets dried out somewhat. You're not going for crisp-dry here, just day old stale.

-After it has dried, pull it out, let it cool (possibly using this cute yardstick trivet) and pile it in a buttered baking dish (about 9 by 13 inches should be good).

Like so.

-Turn the oven up to 325 degrees.

-In a largish bowl, mix the vanilla and cinnamon with a whisk.

-Add eggs, sugar, half and half and cream.

-Whisk until the sugar is dissolved (when you can no longer hear or feel the scritch scritch noise of the sugar crystals against the side of the bowl).

-Pour this mixture evenly over the bread.

You may or may not use all of it. But apparently it's good enough to drink. If you have no fear of raw eggs, that is.

I think my Uncle Doug found it a bit too sweet.

-You don't need to completely submerge the bread, just up about three fourths of the way.

-Let it soak for about a minute and then push the bread down into the mixture (your hands are clean, right?)

-You don't want any of the bread to still be dry, but not an excessive amount of pooled custard either.

(pretty much like this, though it could have a teensy bit more liquid, in my opinion)

-Now comes the only slightly difficult part. Put that dish inside another, larger one (no duh, huh? like you're going to put it in a smaller one) and add water to the bigger one. This water bath helps to moderate the temperature so you don't get scrambled eggs.

-Cover loosely with tinfoil and carefully put it in the oven.

-Let it cook for about an hour (maybe longer), till it's no longer jiggly. Then pull off the tin foil and cook another 5 minutes or so.

-Be really, really, really careful when you pull this out of the oven. That water likes to splash. But if everything goes well, you will be rewarded for your efforts with this.

-You can drizzle with caramel sauce (either homemade or store-bought), but honestly, I don't think it needs it.

You can also make these individually in ramekins. The only difference is that they don't need to cook as long.

Note- special thanks to Jenny and Brad for volunteering their house for the bread pudding party and to Jenny for taking all the pictures.

Update- I made another batch of this last night (for a New Year's Eve party) and after eating one bite a friend said, "That's the best thing I've ever eaten."

Iced Gingersnap Tags

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 20:56:00 +0000

A couple of weeks ago I ran into a blog post that really started to get under my skin. The longer I thought about it, the more irked I became. Essentially, Chile referred to people who can successfully ice a sugar cookie as over-achievers.

And that got me to thinking because (A) I don't like to think of myself as an overachiever, (B) My kids and I have been successfully icing sugar cookies for many years and (C) I believe that most projects like this are totally doable, there are just usually some tricks to learn (and maybe you just need to give yourself once or twice to get good at it). Calling it an overachievement gives people an excuse to not try. It means you expect perfection, which takes all the fun out of it.

And it is fun. Once you've got the icing made, this will entertain the kids for hours. Seriously. This year I made up two different batches (once with a 12 and 4 year old, the next time with an 18, 16 and two 12 year olds) and each time they decorated cookies for at least two hours.

Originally I started a batch of cookies and set about writing down all my cookie icing tips. And then Buster wrecked them, which prompted an idea that is much simpler and even cooler.

Skip right to the cookie icing and then turn your creations into tags.

At this time of year we always have a tin of gingersnap cookies from CostPlus around. These are perfect for this project because most of them are unbroken. We tried it with nilla wafers, but they were pretty banged up.

To start with, we drilled little holes in the cookies using a toothpick.

There is a lot less breakage if you keep the cookie flat on a plate and twirl the toothpick as you push it in. And there will be breakage. But that's fine by me cause I get to eat all the broken ones.

Now let me explain something about icing. The way to get a smooth surface is to create flood icing. But if you only use flood icing, it'll run off the side of your cookie. So you need to mix up regular royal icing to create a dam.

Tip: I suggest seriously limiting your palette. I always use white and two or three coordinating colors. That way, no matter what kind of icing job you do, at least they'll all match. It's surprising how much this helps.

See like here. Even Kam's little piles of icing look cute all together.

Usually I make up one big batch of royal icing using the recipe from Cookie Craft, the one for piping, not flooding. (If you click here and go to page 16, you can see the recipes.) I've always used the pasteurized egg whites in the past, but this year tried Martha's recipe with meringue powder because I know how people freak out about eggs, even if they're pasteurized. I think I prefer the egg whites because this year's icing was a bit grainy in texture. But, like I said, we aren't aiming for perfect.

This works best if you have a standing mixer because you'll want to mix the icing ingredients for 3 to 5 minutes. You want it nice and thick, so that it'll hang from the paddle.

What you have now is a batch of thick icing for piping. In several places, I've read that you should mix two batches (one for piping and one for flooding) and then tint them to match each other. But that's not how I do it because I am terrible at getting the same color more than once.

What I do is take this batch, divide it into 4 roughly equal parts and tint them individually.

After I tint each one (using gel food coloring), I take half of it out and put it in a pastry bag. (Yes, I cheat and close these up with rubber bands. Also, I always put a piece of damp paper towel at the bottom of a glass and then stand the bags up in that. It keeps the icing at the opening from drying out.) I usually mix the color into them in the standing mixer, but I think next time I might try doing them directly in their individual jars.

Then I add one, maybe two, teaspoons of water to the remaining icing. Voila! This is now flood icing. This can go into squeeze bottles, which they sell at Michaels.

Now use the piping icing (in the pastry bag) to make a corral for the flood icing like so.

Fill it a little more than halfway with the flood icing.

And spread it out with a toothpick.

(Notice how there are bubbles in this? Well, there shouldn't be. It's a sign that I added too much water. That's okay, though, because remember... fun, not perfect. They turned out fine.)

Now to add designs that lay flat with the background, go ahead and add flood icing right now. I find the way it self levels to be terribly satisfying.

You might want to taste one or two, just, you know, to make sure they're okay.

(Oh, Little Cookie, I am so going to eat you.)

You can drag a toothpick through these (before they start to dry) to get fun designs.

Randa made this one by making a bunch of circles and then dragging it out in a starburst pattern.

You can also skip the flood icing to let more of the cookie show through or just create some texture (I think the brown of the gingersnap looks really nice with these colors).

Now, these need to dry on a cooling rack, for about 24 hours, I'd say. Once you've verified that they are solidly dry, you can flip them over and use the piping icing to write people's names on them. (BTW, go ahead and stick the piping bags and their glasses into the fridge when you're done after the first day. The icing will keep at least 24 hours, maybe 48. When you pull them out again, just squeeze some out to clear the tip a bit and begin piping.)

Once that side is dry, you can string em up (I used hemp) and tie them on your packages.

And I'm guessing that once you get the hang of icing these guys, you'll want to make your own sugar cookies to create larger- and customized- canvases on which to work.

Water Balloon Luminarias

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 14:19:00 +0000

These are some of my favorite gifts to make. They're fairly simple, inexpensive (less than a buck each) and lovely. Each one has a unique, organic form that I can stare at for hours.

They would also make gorgeous table decorations for a wedding reception.

The Simple and Abbreviated Instructions are as follows...

-Fill balloons with water (not water balloons, regular ones).

-Dip them in high melt wax until desired thickness

-Pop balloon and drain water

-Smooth top on hot cookie sheet

As usual, though, I've included a much more detailed version. And pictures. Lots of pictures because Jenny helpfully offered to photograph this project.

These really only require just a few Supplies to make.

-high melt wax

-a large screwdriver and a hammer

-recently purchased, high quality 12" balloons (Don't buy actual water balloons. You don't want the kind that break easily. Fill a couple test ones way overfull to check their strength.)

-a double boiler, which consists of the following...

*an inner container for the melted wax (at least 5" wide and 8" tall)

*an old pot for the water (the outer container)

*something to lift the inside container up off of the bottom of the pot (a metal cookie cutter will work)

-an old cookie sheet and parchment paper (not shown)

I also always pick up a pack of soy, tealight candles, the kind in plastic containers, not metal. I linked to some on Amazon so you can see them, but they've got 12 packs of them at Target for only 4 or 5 bucks. This kind won't ruin the luminarias because the soy melts at a lower temperature than regular wax and also because the kind with metal containers will conduct too much heat and melt right through the bottom.

Obviously, a battery operated LED tea light would work too, but I prefer real candles.

OK, so On To The Making, shall we?

For our first attempt, we used a saw to get small enough pieces of wax. And by "we" I mean Jeff. Because I didn't have enough patience for that nonsense. But since Jeff is immune to nonsense (or at least has learned to pretend to be during our 13 years together), he volunteered. This took a really. long. time.

Luckily, in later years, I found a much better solution. Using a screwdriver instead of a handsaw will save you about 45 minutes and a huge mess.

I took a couple of wacks at it, working the screwdriver partially in and removing it, lining up the holes in a straight line. After a few, a nice sized chunk easily broke off.

Next time I'll do it on a folded up towel on a slab of concrete or something, though. You run the risk of gouging whatever it's on. Which is something I didn't notice until the next day.

Then I melted the wax in the double boiler. The picture below shows my set up, with wax in the inner container and water in the outer container. If you want, you can use a much smaller outer container for the water, like shown here. In fact, I'd check that link for more information about safely melting wax. If you are attempting this, DO NOT put the wax container directly on the stove; it can create a very interesting fireball if overheated. Also, it's a good idea to have a fire extinguisher on hand, just in case.

A couple tips for this bit.

-The water only needs to be at a bare simmer. Boiling isn't necessary or helpful.

-The water level only needs to be a couple of inches up the side of the inner container, not at the same level as the wax inside.

-Make sure to add more water as necessary to account for evaporation. DO NOT let this boil dry.

-Only add enough wax so that the level is about 3 or 4 inches from the top. The water balloon will displace lots of wax, so you don't want it filled to the top.

-Try to keep the wax at 180 degrees (F) while working.

While the wax is melting, I fill up the balloons with water, letting as much of the air out as possible before tying them closed. Make sure that these are small enough to fit down inside the inner pot without touching the sides.

Since some of these seemed somewhat misshapen and a bit too squatty, I adjusted their shape, rolling them back and forth like so.

It can make a difference.

If you care about that sort of thing.

Note- I definitely should have unrolled my sleeves down to my wrists, for a bit of protection. Just sayin.

Once the wax is liquefied, I slowly dip one balloon 3 times and then place it on a parchment paper covered cookie sheet, pushing down gently to make the bottom flat. On the last dip of the three, I try to pause for a few seconds, shaking it a bit and letting as many of the drips as possible fall off before setting it down.

Note- if you forgot to remove all the air from the balloon, just make sure that you don't dip it any further than the water/air line. In fact, don't get near it. The water inside regulates the temperature and, you know, keeps the balloon from exploding. Also, be sure to keep the balloon from touching the side of the container.

Then I dip two more balloons the same way. I only have three going at a time because it's easier to keep track of the number of dips.

Then I repeat. Total, I do anywhere from 5 to 8 sets of 3 dips (15 to 24 layers total), depending on how thick I want them. This time they were on the thinner side, only 15 layers.

After they are completely cooled, I empty them over the sink.

The tops will be raggedy at this point. I've considered leaving them this way, but I'm worried they'll get mangled.

Now I remove the parchment paper and place the cookie sheet on top of my double boiler. After about 5 minutes, it gets hot enough to melt the rim smooth.

If you're using a smaller double boiler, you can put the empty cookie sheet in a low oven and heat it that way. Just rub the top of the luminaria around on it until it's smooth.

Add a tealight and you're done.

One final and important note- The idea originally came from Peak Candle Supply, where I bought my wax. I've made these on many occasions and have never had any problems. But if a balloon were to break during the dipping process, it would be very bad. So this project is very much one to do at your own risk.

Sugar Cookies Past

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 20:15:00 +0000

We were woken last night with a large crash from the kitchen. JJ Stinkerbuster must have been trying to help himself to the un-iced sugar cookies and had sent the cooling racks tumbling off the counter. Only one cookie survived unbroken. Jeff got out the dustpan while I tried not to cry.

Which is my excuse for sharing pictures that Jenny took 2 years ago.

I have no excuse for not sharing these at the time, though.

Kenzie, our oldest daughter (18!), is the one who reminded me that we needed to make and decorate sugar cookies this year. I love that this is something they ask to do every single year. And even though it takes some time (I always bake the cookies on a different day than we ice them), it is always worth the effort, even when naughty kitties interfere with my plans.