Under Construction

2010 calendar

This is what I gave my co-workers for Christmas (but picture it with a binder clip rather than a magnet clip)

 

This is what the pages all look like. These are all photographs I took in 2009. They're not all great but, I'm not a photographer.

 

But I do love September, November and May in that order. The other ones, kinda meh. And with that ROUSING endorsement, here are the pdfs in case you want to download and have your own calendar. Just print on cardstock and cut out. Ignore the fact that one is called "2009." I wasn't thinking

Download Calendar 2

Download Calendar 3

Download Calendar 2009 page 1

Download Real cover calendar 2010

If you trim them inside the lines they fit inside a zip disk case (I am probably the only person who has a stash of these cases, should have made it to fit a cd case. Oh well. Each page is about 4" square)

 

Here's to 2010. I'm running out the door to spend New Years Eve with my in laws. Hope yours is happy.

Testing recipes

After this post, I couldn't resist TESTING some of the recipes from Birds of a Feather. Luckily, my pantry contained many of the essential ingredients and I could get right to work. (By the way, I love Guittard chocolate chips and they go on sale frequently)

 

I tried three recipes from that post:

Marshmallow Strawberries

Summary: Tasty but not worth the effort.

 

Not surprisingly, it is HARD to cover a strawberry in melted marshmallow. One tip, don't burn the marshmallows. 20 seconds in the microwave is plenty--then work quick and be sure to butter your wax paper to set them on.

 

They were a total, freaking mess. But, really, very yummy. Like a fruit filled s'more. Which reminds me, one time my sis-in-law made raspberry s'mores (s'mores with fresh raspberries tucked in) and that's exactly what these tasted like.

 

Next up, the aptly named: Marshmallow Chocolate Chip Bars

Summary: a soggy rice krispy treat with chocolate

 

I popped (and ate) an entire pot of popcorn for this. The recipe called for 2 cups of popcorn but I added about three. The bars looked very nice drizzled in chocolate but the popcorn got really limp. That hasn't stopped me from eating several pieces today.

 

And, finally, the masterpiece, Jello Delight (jello IN jello)

Summary: More hassle than it's worth but Jello is better than I remembered

 

We only had yellow jello in the house so I used food coloring to get a shade of dark orange. I also substituted fresh mandarin sections for the "fruit cocktail" and made the orange jello with 1.5 cups water and 1/2 cup orange juice. See how I'm really going wild experimenting with these recipes?

 

I should have specified in the recipe that the yellow jello be a LARGE box and the colored jello be a SMALL box but, hey, I was 11. What are you going to do?

 

It's exactly how I pictured it. So exciting! I am never making this (or any of this) again.

It's almost midnight and, as he has done the last several nights of vacation, Mr. H has built me a fire and I have a glass of wine and my book waiting so that's it for the recipe testing post. Happy Almost New Year. Be back tomorrow with a free download.

Memory lane is paved with chocolate chips (and marshmallows)

I've enjoyed reading (and cooking from) Orangette off and on for years but I hadn't yet purchased Molly's book, A Homemade Life. It languished in my Amazon wish list until Christmas when my nice dad bought it for me. I've spent the last few days reading it cover to cover and just finished the last page last night. The book is a food memoir that reads a lot like Molly's blog. Each chapter tells a vignette from her life and the story behind a recipe. She then proceeds to share the recipe.

I love Molly's writing style and enjoyed the book immensely but I think it might be better read bit by bit. Pull it out as you want to try a recipe and read the story behind it. Reading cover to cover it started to feel a touch formulaic: funny, well written life story; reference to incredible food; cue recipe; repeat. Then it started to feel really familiar. Then I realized, oh my gosh, I pioneered this style of book in the 6th grade. (But it was 1000 times worse than Molly's.)

That led me to the bookshelf where I still have the single print run copy of "Birds of a Feather Must Cook Together" my story/cookbook written for a 6th grade assignment. As I recall, each of us had to choose an image from a book of mysterious images that, as the story goes, had been submitted to a publisher as images to go with stories the author had written but then the author/illustrator was hit by a bus (or something) so it's just the mysterious images. I know there was one of a knife lowering into a glowing pumpkin. I chose one of a room with bird wallpaper where the birds in the wallpaper images are peeling off and flying away. Make sense? Here's the image (as traced/colored by me):

 

I actually couldn't bear to read the entire dot matrix printed story. It is SO BAD. But a glance did manage to reveal that the main character was named Mr. Hasslehoff. I was a big Knight Rider fan.

 

I also read my forward.

 

And the "about the author" penned by my friend Katie. I totally remember "Pinky the Hippo" by the way.

But the recipes are the best part. I didn't create a chart in Excel (although I'm tempted to now that I think of it) but it seems 80% of the recipes are entirely made up of: chocolate chips, marshmallows and fruit with a bit of cream cheese or breakfast cereal thrown in for good measure.

 

I seriously want to make every single one of these just for fun. But I don't keep THAT many chocolate chips in the house.

 

As I recall, I ran out of time on my project and at some point started making up recipes without actually TESTING them. My guess is the strawberry one above is one of those. How the heck could you dip a strawberry in a melted marshmallow?

 

The best part of this project in 6th grade was getting to visit the book bindery where our books were bound. This was before you could get an iPhoto book with the click of a mouse. The bindery took our original paper and bound it with binding tape and end papers and a canvas-like cover.

 

That was such a cool field trip. I'll spare you images of EVERY page in the book (once I got going I couldn't stop taking pictures) but here's another recipe because they are CRACKING ME UP. 

Speaking of recipes, Molly's book has a number of tasty sounding recipes with ingredient lists more varied and FAR healthier than "Birds of a Feather Must Cook Together." As I was reading the other night I came across "Sliced Spring Salad with Avocado and Feta" and it was seriously as though she had looked into my crisper drawer of random, about to rot, vegetables and wrote a recipe just for me.

I got those endive at work from the farmer that grows most (all?) of the endive in California. By the way, he tells me it's pronounced "on deeve" (not "in dive"). I was feeling really bad about letting it go bad. I also had an avocado from Mr H's stocking, goat cheese (the suggested alternative to feta) from a holiday cheese platter, slightly wilty cilantro, a head of fennel (instead of raddichio) and a large handful of radishes. Random but perfect for this salad. Biscuit loved the dijon dressing, Mr. H loved the whole thing and I thought it was a bit overly goat cheesy but I'm certain that was my fault, not the recipe.

Let's go out with one more original recipe that pretty much sums up the entire book (my book, not Molly's book): marshmallows, chocolate chips (twice!) plus popcorn. These actually could be pretty good.

Four is awesome

Four can also be a giant pain in my you-know-what and I did wake up this morning soaked in someone else's pee (it wasn't Mr. H) but let's focus on the positive. This is going to be a long post because four has been extra awesome this week and I don't want to forget.

Four did NOT want to wear her Christmas dress to the Nutcracker. I agreed on "the purple dress" only to discover she meant the sequined, too long purple dress up dress (thanks, mom). We compromised on this lovely green affair better suited for a summer wedding with a pink pajama shirt underneath.

 

She got a surprising number of compliments on the get up and was SUCH a lady during the Nutcracker. The flower dance in act two (is that the name?) got a bit long and fidgety but she held it together. As we were leaving we happened upon a cast interview and she was rapt in the front row listening to the dancers. For the record, Clara was 12 and Fritz was 11. You have to be 6 to try out for the Sacramento production.

 

Ignore the post-Christmas mess and focus on "Clara" dancing along with the Bolshoi Ballet tonight. She chose to watch the Nutcracker over Word World and even the Tom and Jerry dvd Santa brought her! Then she got dressed in her most Clara-like dress and danced along.

 

Backing up a few days--Christmas morning was hilarious. My parents and sister spent the night for what turned out to be a very anticlimactic morning. This shot of dumping the stocking was as crazy as it got. She was thrilled to receive a pack of gum and expressed general pleasure about everything she received but she was so....controlled. It was almost weird but we were able to enjoy a relaxed morning trading off gift opening and pausing to make and then eat cranberry lemon scones.

 

Another cute thing. We're currently enjoying 2 weeks (!!) off as a family. Gotta love teacher schedules and budget furloughs. Biscuit has taken up the habit of checking for eggs first thing in pajamas and, adorably, red rain boots.

 

Speaking of chickens, Four came up with a joke today. You should know that she is REALLY into potty words and "poopy" is pretty much the funniest word known to human kind. So here goes:

Why did the chicken cross the road? Because he had to poop! (insert laughter)

 

And tonight totally made up for getting peed on this morning (for the record, she has a cold and apparently that makes her a much deeper sleeper than normal. She's snuck into our bed for months with nary a scare of an accident and then I woke up drenched).

 

My mom got Biscuit a second hand kids sewing machine for Christmas and the kid was surprisingly enthusiastic to try it. She even wrote three thank you notes after dinner so she could give it a whirl.

After a test run on cotton, we got to her project of choice, a doll dress for the doll were were supposed to make for her school. (In October. Oops).

 

I helped guide the fabric but she followed the white crayon line surprisingly well and completely controlled the foot pedal.

 

I was so proud but I think she was even prouder. "Look what I made all by myself!" "My doll's dress is perfect!"

Tomorrow we have to give this overdue doll a face and hair. And then I'll make Biscuit a matching dress because I have a lot of that gray, striped knit and her favorite summer dress (oddly) is made from that fabric. Time for a long sleeve winter version.

Yay for four. Yay for vacation!

Glitterific

I got the big size Martha Stewart crystal coarse glitter (thank you, Michaels 40% off coupon). So I have to glitter EVERYTHING this year.

 

There's the church of glitter--a gift for my parent's 40th wedding anniversary which, along with the requisite party, was on Sunday. The pipecleaner wreath is my favorite part of this one.

 

Some prehistoric glitter for a dinosaur obsessed 4 year old we know.

And the glitter lego tree (my favorite) for the lego lover. I should totally make one of these for Mr. H--he's way more into legos than most 7 year olds I know. I glued the legos together, mod podged and glittered. Seems to have worked out well.

Sneak peeks

The handmade gifts aren't done (but they will be). Wish us luck.

 

 

 

Teacher gifts

I sat down to write this post about teacher gifts and instead found myself trying to read the internet cover to cover. Bad habit. But I did come across this Milk and Cookies post which made me laugh because our teacher gifts were really random. At least they will score high on the effort category.

For the classroom we I made a new Share Bag. Each day a different kid takes a bag home and brings back three sharing items that start with the letter of the week.

 

Biscuit wrote ELA (school name) and "share bag" and I embroidered over it. Hello, out-of-focus-we're-running-out-the-door-late-for-school photography.

 

It may not be everyone's cup of tea but it's gotta be better than the holey bag it replaced.

 

Then we gave each of the four teachers a token gift of....peppermint sugar scrub and vanilla extract.

 

So, yes, I spent my morning trying to save our teachers from certain doom. The sugar scrub is for the BATH and the vanilla is real vanilla. Like to cook with. But we made it. With vodka. So, um, I guess we're having a 4 year old give her teacher vodka. So, um, don't consume either of these items directly (although both are technically edible).

ANYWAY. I'm guessing they'll sort it out. I hope.

 

Here is the sugar scrub recipe we used. We used mostly extra virgin olive oil with some veggie oil. Wish we'd used cheapo olive oil--the EVOO was very green so hard to color red. We scented with 1/2 tsp mint extract/container and colored with 4 drops red food coloring/container. They're really orange, not pink, but WHATEVER. The labels are some cut up marble art Biscuit brought home from school this year.

 

After the sugar scrub was packaged Biscuit remembered the vanilla we made and was CONVINCED they needed that too. And thus the very confusing teacher gift giving of 2009. Next year, definitely gift cards!

Another wreath

I was inspired by Blair's wreath and thought Biscuit and I could collaborate on something similar (with a much simpler leaf shape) for her to give her grandmas. She lost interest after choosing the felted sweaters and cutting exactly one leaf.

So I finished it after she went to bed and surprised her with it in the morning. I just gluegunned the whole thing so it went really quick (about half of the new Harry Potter movie to be exact). I actually think it looks really nice in the blank spot above her headboard.

 

The sweater cuff rosettes are my favorite part. I was going to do button accents but that wouldn't exactly be appropriate for my button hating child so the buttons are saved for another project.

The glamorous life of the suburban chicken farmer

Muddy chickens anxious to get out of their muddy chicken run and play in the muddy yard.

 

Muddy, poopy henhouse. But look! Two eggs! (and there's one more that actually made it into the nesting box)

 

So I grabbed the eggs scooped out the poop and wood shavings.

 

While Petey tried to eat my blue jeans

 

Then I added a layer of straw thinking it would 1. provide padding to prevent some of the rampant egg breakage and 2. cut down on the muddy muddiness.

 

So far the straw has mostly just made a mess. Hint: don't go buy a bale of straw in your Accord.

 

Also in the interest of cutting down on egg breakage I got the gals some crushed oyster shells to munch. Doesn't it look pretty in my failed ceramic project pie pan?

 

Yes, it's glamorous having hens. But check out these eggs!

 

Now you're jealous, right?

Party photobooth

The guests seemed to like the food and based on the volume in the house the conversations and company were fine but I loved the photobooth and props I put together.

This is the best shot. Hands down.

 

 

Oh look, it's us. In disguise!