Christmas Things

Phew! Ok, I admit it. I overextended myself this holiday season. Right in the midst of Christmas shopping and baking, Isabel had two skating competitions that we had to travel for. Next year I plan to tone the baking down a little bit. Maybe. I think in lieu of a few items, the kids and I will instead make a gingerbread house. I am already planning out what it will look like....

Here is a little view into what we've been doing at our house this month:

Caramels... there are always caramels to make. However, I wasn't as happy with them this year. I'm blaming my inexperience of using an electric range on why my caramels didn't turn out perfect this year.

Candy cane cookies. These are always a hit. Isabel helped me with these.

Lime crescents. My husband loves these in a crazy way, so I make them every year just for him.

Ahh... marshmallows. The store bought ones don't even compare to these.

Isabel made ornaments for the grandparents. Here they are, finished. Aren't they adorable??

...and to wrap the ornaments in, Avery did some potato stamping on big sheets of paper and I cut it into squares and wrapped the ornaments in them.

Yeah, more marshmallows. The peppermint ones were great in coffee and hot chocolate.

Are you tired of seeing marshmallows yet?

Jam thumbprints. Some with pecans and some without. These were excellent.

This picture is tiny, not sure why. But these were cutouts that I made for Isabel's class Christmas Party. Excuse me, "Holiday Party".

And cut-outs that the kids and I made with my step-mom Cheryl. This was a lot of fun, we even forced my dad to help decorate. He's pretty slow at decorating. I think he might have enjoyed it a little bit. Not sure...

That's all that I'm doing for Christmas. I have a few more gifts to wrap for Isabel, and after that I am just going to enjoy my vacation. The kids and I have off until January 4th and we're going to just go do whatever we feel like doing for the day. I think it'll be fun.

Merry Christmas everyone!!

Button Ornaments

My daughter, Isabel, is not exactly crafty by nature but once in awhile she does get an itch to do something crafty - that is, when it's not volleyball season, basketball season, figure skating lessons, or snow on the ground, or a nice dry ground for bike riding.... Hm, ok...so about 1% of the time she is crafty. She is one of the most creative, imaginative kids that I know though, so she does like it when I come up with something fun for her to do.

Every Christmas since she was 4 years old, we've had her make ornaments for the grandparents and great-grandparents. She really likes doing these for some reason. This year I found the cutest, easiest ornaments on Martha Stewart's website. They are button ornaments, and essentially you just need buttons, pipe cleaners and a little bit of felt or fabric.

Pipe Cleaners

Felt

Buttons. My grandpa gave me all of my grandma's buttons because she isn't able to sew anymore. Literally I have at least 1,000 buttons. You can usually find button "stacks" at your local craft store, and these are nice because they have color themes.

Isabel making a funky snowman.

Complete! Isn't he cute? He has a little top hat and everything. Adorable.

She has 5 ornaments complete so far. She's doing a great job. Once she has them all done, we are going to put ornament hooks on the top, and Avery is going to do potato stamped wrapping paper for them, so they could both take credit for the gifts.

Hats

Wow, it's been awhile since I've blogged. Sorry about that. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, cooking, baking, decorating....I haven't had a whole lot of time to blog. Also, my daughter's Synchronized skating team has been competing a lot lately. We went to Michigan last weekend and all three of our teams that went placed FIRST! Very exciting. I have made some time for knitting, however, since I've had lots of orders lately. People love to purchase knitted things when it's cold out, particularly hats.

Here is what I've been working on:

This is the Inca Snowflake Hat from Susan B. Anderson's book Itty Bitty Baby hats. I changed the top to a standard decrease.

My son's "A is for Avery" hat. He said he wanted a blue hat with a big red A on the front. This is just a standard beanie hat pattern. I used duplicate stitch for the A because I didn't want to carry my yarn around the inside of the hat. Yeah, I'm lazy. You'd do it too.

And some matching mittens to match Avery's hat.
(there's my thumb)
And a cabled hat from this pattern for my husband, to match his Avast sweater I knit. Which he loves, by the way.
Another hat from Susan B. Anderson's book, the striped stocking cap.

And another one. These are for a brother/sister pair. They turned out extremely cute. I used KnitPicks comfy worsted for this.

I love Susan B. Anderson patterns. I have found though, that I need to go down a needle size in the majority of her patterns, the hats seem to run quite large. But they are well written, and very cute and fun to knit.

I am working on an octopus right now, my own original pattern. I've also started the Whisper Cardigan for myself. I'm not sure I'm happy how this is knitting up, we'll see...

Whoopie Pies

Whoopie Pies are some kind of wonderful. They are like a cake, a cookie, and something else amazing all mixed together. My friend Kelly came up from Indiana and we made them together. We share a love of baking (as well as lots of other similar interests, and the same sock monkey pajamas) and so we planned when she came here that we'd make whoopie pies. They turned out great! And it was fun to bake with a friend.

Whoopie Pies
cakes:
2 cups flour
1/2 cup dutch-processed cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
8 tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk

filling:
12 tbsp butter, softened
1 1/4 cups powdered sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups marshmallow creme

1. For the cakes: line 2 baking sheets with parchment. whisk the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl.

2. In a large bowl, beat the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla.

3. Slowly mix in half of the flour mixture into the butter/sugar mixture, followed by half of the buttermilk, repeat with half of the remaining flour and the remaining buttermilk. Add the remaining flour mixture until combined.

4. Scoop generous 1/4 cup mounds of batter onto the prepared baking sheets, about 2" apart. Bake the cakes until they spring back when pressed, 15-18 minutes. Let cool completely before removing from baking sheets. (Modification: We didn't do 1/4 cup, we thought this would be HUGE so we used a cookie batter scoop and made them the size of regular cookies)

5. For the filling: Beat the butter and powdered sugar together with a mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla and salt. Beat in the marshmallow creme until incorporated.

6. To serve, spread 1/3 cup filling (or less, if using our mods) evenly over the bottom of the cake and then make a sandwich by pressing the bottom of another cake onto the filling. Repeat with the remaining cakes and filling.

Here's the filling, which is a mixture of marshmallow fluff, butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla

And here is the end result. I didn't take pictures of the process because we were just too busy and I had two kids in the kitchen as well. But they were so easy, it's actually a fun thing to do with kids.

Here's Kelly and me, about to dig into our first whoopie pie.

And of course Isabel, always willing to pose for the camera.

Mmmmmmmm.

I heart you, whoopie pie.

What Have I Been Doing?

I have been busy. I am the type that likes to keep busy, but the extent of my busyness lately is making me feel overwhelmed. So, what better to do than push all obligations aside and blog?
So, this is what I've been up to....

...Knitting donuts...

...Knitting a FAIL hat...
(meaning, it turned out awful, wouldn't fit a horses head and is just all sorts of ugliness)

...apples up to my eyeballs. Want some?...

...sewing scrunchies to match the synchronized skating outfits that Isabel's team is wearing to competition next weekend. Lots of giggly little girls in hotel rooms, pizza for dinner, make-up, glitter....ACK!...

...cleaning up messes. I went through 3 microfiber towels today dusting my house. That happens when you only dust about 3 times a year...

...knitting, with beautiful yarn that looks good enough to eat...

...no, not painting. No, not cleaning up after the previous owner's messy paint job. RUNNING. This is the hinge that I concentrate on when I am running and don't think I can run one more second. Sort of like labor, you find a spot and focus on it and don't think about anything else other than that one spot. This hinge is my 'spot'...
(note to self: clean hinges next year)

...baby showers! Around Christmastime I will be an aunt again, to a little girl who's name will not be disclosed until birth...

...baking! Always baking...cupcakes for my step-sister's baby shower...
(pumpkin cupcakes with ginger creme filling and chocolate ganache frosting)

...more baking for baby shower. These are chocolate cupcakes with strawberry chocolate filling and a layer of ganache underneath buttercream frosting...

This weekend I have a guest staying at my house. My friend Kelly, who writes this blog. We have never met in real life before and I am SO excited to meet and spend time with her. We're going to gain a few pounds together this weekend. I guess I'll have to stare at that hinge a little more often next week.

Happy living!!
xoxo

Baby Hats

Baby hats are one of the most gratifying things to knit. They knit up fast, they use up pieces of 'stashed' yarn because they don't require much yarn at all, and they are adorable. My step-sister had a baby shower last Saturday and is having a girl. So within the week, I quickly knit up two hats for her soon-to-be baby.

The bottom hat is a ten-cable hat from this blog. I went down a needle size and added another inch or so to the hat by adding another cable round. It turned out perfect for a 6-12 month head. The yarn for the cable hat is from Knit Picks and is the swish comfy worsted yarn which is great for baby items. The yarn for the Clochette hat is Lana Gatto Wool Gatto and the green leaves is just some random scrap yarn I had laying around.

This one is called Clochette.

I was most impressed with the leaf pattern. A series of yarn overs creates a beautiful design on the leaf and a vein that runs up the middle.

Happy Knitting!

Fried Apple Pies

A friend of ours has some apple trees and gave us a ton of apples not too long ago. I wanted to use some of them up, and came across this recipe for Fried Apple Pies. You'll notice that it only uses two apples but the recipe piqued my interest so I made them anyway, despite the fact that I was originally looking for a recipe that uses a ton of apples.
I can't believe how good these turned out and I'm sure it's not just because they are fried in oil. The crust turned out great, the filling was delicious, it was just all around a great little after dinner treat. I think with a scoop of ice cream it would be even better.
The only modifications I made to this recipe was that I used Whole Wheat Pastry Flour instead of white flour because it's healthier for you. You know, to balance out the "deep fried in oil" part of the recipe. The other modification I made was that I didn't cut circles, I cut squares and placed two squares together and sealed them with fork tines. I did this because I have a big junk cabinet in my kitchen where I shove a thousand things and I knew my circle cookie cutter was at the bottom of that big junk cabinet.

Recipe:

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour (I used Whole Wheat Pastry Flour)
  
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup cold water
• 2 apples
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup vegetable oil

Directions

1. Peel and dice apples. Add sugar and cinnamon. Cook in a saucepan on low heat. Cook until soft, then mash with fork to form a thick applesauce.
2. Sift flour and salt together. Cut in the shortening. Add water and mix with fork.
3. Roll out to about 1/8 inch thick on a floured board. Cut with a large cookie cutter (4 inches in diameter).
4. In each round, place 1 heaping tablespoon fruit. Moisten edges with cold water, fold and press edge with a fork.
5. Heat oil in a large skillet on medium-high heat. Fry pies, a few at a time, 2 to 3 minutes on each side; cook until golden brown. Drain on paper towels. Sprinkle with confectioners sugar.

Here are said apples. And knife.

Apples, cinnamon and sugar before cooking it down.

The dough seemed crumbly but once you get in there with your hands
and meld it together it is perfect.

Cut your shapes, do this all at once so you aren't cutting, filling, sealing each one and then having to go back and do it all over again for the next...

Filling. I could have done a bit less, but it still worked out great.

My helper (and daughter) Isabel did most of this part.
Wet the edges to seal it more completely.

Before frying

During frying. If you don't have a cast iron skillet, GET ONE! Everything tastes
better when cooked in a cast iron skillet.

Put all sorts of sugar on top. The crust doesn't have sugar in it so I think
this is a vital step. I think a cinnamon sugar combo would work great or even an icing or glaze.

Mmmm. Deliciousness.

These are a bit putzy but definitely worth the time it takes. Actually, I made these while dinner was in the oven. They didn't take too long at all. These are very reminiscent of those apple pies you can buy in the store. You know the ones...about 500 calories and 50 grams of fat - 2/$1.00. But these are so much better, especially when they are warm, and healthier too!