Holiday Crafts

I'm always trying to simplify Christmas, I don't know why. I should probably just accept its complexities! One great year was when my mom and I didn't get a tree, but strung lights on the coffee table and put our gifts beneath that. Craziness! These days, with children and an extended family, I'm still trying to make things easy yet special. Last year my equation was that each person would get: one homemade thing, one purchased thing (modestly priced), and food. I collected ideas from blogs and my ancient stash of abandoned projects. Here are a few examples of DIY gifts from last year. I've been waiting since then to share them!

Project: Stuffed Ornaments
Sometime in the early 80s someone gave me fabric that had Christmas toys printed on it. You were supposed to cut them out and sew them together with ribbon to make cute stuffed ornaments. Fast forward about 30 years to when I rediscovered this fabric with my sewing stuff. Santa brought two for each child--stuffed toys are excellent stocking stuffers!



Project: Boxer Shorts
Is it too much information to share that I make all of a certain person's underwear for him from a worn and loved Butterick boxers pattern? The best part about homemade boxers is the mad fabric choices that are possible. One year I made boxers with adorable otters on them floating in a sea of blue. Another time I made boxers sporting multicolored jalapeños. Here, please note one pair has an idyllic village pattern with little houses and copses scattered about.


Project: Painted Spoons
Design Mom inspired me to encourage our older child to make her own presents for family members. One of our first (hopefully of many) projects was to paint these spoons with spots and stripes. We left the stirring part of the spoon plain so nobody would have to eat paint. We also sealed the painted section with a coat of non-toxic clear stuff. (I will have to dig around to figure out what it was called...)


Project: Road Rug
I'm not sure if I like how this turned out. It is just some traffic fabric from the quilting store that I backed with plain blue cloth and sewed together. Cool, except with our hardwood floors it slides around and is really hard to play on. But it could be a good roll-up road to use outside or where there's carpeting.


Project: Porcelain Pens
I am most proud of this one. I got the basic idea from Design Mom, who explains how to make monogrammed mugs using porcelain markers from Michael's and plain white china from the thrift store. I made my own trip to Michael's and sure enough, found these neat markers that are like thin sharpies for ceramic. The best part is: everything is totally adjustable and erasable until it's how you want it, then you bake it briefly to set.

For this mug for Grandpa, we decided to add his grandchildren's hands as part of the design. First I traced the hands and cut them out.

I taped the hand stencils to the mug.

We traced around them with black porcelain pen.

Here's the basic tracing. I may have been the main handler of the porcelain pens up until this point.

Then I handed the pens over to Miss Monkey, who did her own decorating (with some help when requested).

All three grandparent gifts. If you like the ancient Greek egg-and-dart motif on the bottom of the slim vase, I take all the credit.

Project: Embroidered Tea Towel
This was also a satisfying project, many many years in the making. I got these tea towels to embroider when I was about 10, and did not finish them until my second maternity leave.

Project: Homebrew
I posted a photo essay about this early in the year -- great gift for some special uncles.


Project: Baked Goods
We packed up a bunch of lovingly recycled Christmas tins with a selection of holiday treats baked by 3 generations of ladies, me being the middle generation. (Thanks mom!) We made:

• lebkuchen
• fruitcake
• shortbread
• my signature oatmeal coconut chocolate chip cookie recipe
  

Thanks for reading! I have some more ideas for this year, though not being on maternity leave I will not be as prolific this time. What are your fave DIY gifts to make--or receive?

Butternut bake: Savory holiday side

This Butternut Cranberry Bake that I blogged about back in 2008 would be a great side dish for a family holiday meal. This recipe always reminds me of the K2 lunch spot in Kendall Square, Cambridge, which had a version in their salad bar circa Fall 2000. It was so yummy that I experimented at home until I figured out a pretty good replica. Here are some new things I've learned about this recipe.

The recipe is a simple affair of cutting up and rinsing a big handful of cranberries,
then sautéeing in a bunch of butter with half an onion or so.

One thing is that if you don't have brown sugar or brown rice syrup, maple syrup will also do very nicely. Just pour it on over the cubed squash before stirring in the sautéed onion mixture.

Arrange a small cubed butternut squash in a baking dish with some sprigs of thyme
and water that goes about halfway up the squash pieces.

Another thing is that very small children love this, but larger ones may not. Our kindergartner who hates "mixed up food" thought this was completely revolting. She does not care that it tastes like delicious squash candy!

Cover and bake for about 40 minutes, stirring halfway through.

The best brownie mix?

At my new job, unlike my old job, there is no coffee cart that comes by at 2:10 every afternoon to sell gigantic and perfect chocolate-chip cookies for 75¢. So I bring brownies to make up for it. Making brownies at home has turned out to be a cool mother-daughter activity on Sunday afternoons--it's not hard for a kindergartener to help crack an egg, measure and pour oil and water, stir it all together and scrape into a baking pan. Here are some tasting notes I scribbled on torn box-fronts in search of the perfect brownie mix.

Duncan Hines Chewy Fudge Brownies, 13x9 family size

Touted as "extra thick and fudgy!" these did not deliver.
"Not very chocolatey or chewy. Plain."

Ghirardelli Double Chocolate Brownie mix
Has "Chocolate chips in the mix." This was "very moist & fudgy.
Good. Maybe too moist--got clumpy."

Pillsbury Dark Chocolate 13x9 Family Size
"Dark color & moist texture, but not very chocolate-y tasting"

Betty Crocker Ultimate Fudge (8x8 only)
with "Hershey's Fudge Pouch & Melt Away Chips"
"Wow, very dense & moist & chocolate-y. Not cake-y. Almost like underdone but not--just moist!" It appears that I liked these, but they were actually so rich & sweet they became a chore to eat. They were still around the following week, and we took a break from brownie-baking for a few more weeks just to recover.

Ghirardelli Chocolate Supreme (8x8 only)
"Chocolate Syrup pouch included"
By this point I was wary of add-ins like a pouch or chips, but I think this mix is a winner! "Chewy, chocolate-y, but not too much of either. Could be the one?!"

Are you a brownie-holic? What's your favorite recipe? Do you believe in from-the-box, or insist on from-scratch? Any secrets? I have a friend who places walnut halves on top of the batter before baking for the total illusion of homemade. Yum.

Braised Turkey

Look at that gravy. It sparkles.

With the days getting darker (read this good post about it at Door Number 8), the evenings are getting really long. It seems natural to make the best of things by cooking up nice Sunday dinners. Here's another one where we actually invited guests over—first time in a long time! The main dish: braised turkey. This happened earlier in November, but since it's Turkey Day I'd like to share it now!

Personal trivia: I had never cooked my own turkey before this.
My whole life, female relatives have always done all turkey cooking.
For my first turkey dinner I even bought a roasting pan!

The idea of braising a turkey is from a Cook's Illustrated recipe that, for a CI recipe, was actually quite doable and simple. The basic premise is that you brine the turkey (of course! It's Cook's Illustrated!) and then chop it into 3 main pieces, then cook it in flavorful liquid for a couple of hours until it's completely moist and tender.

I like when there's a secret ingredient that makes a recipe go from pretty good to amazing, and this recipe definitely had one. Dried porcini mushrooms. $49 a pound. This selection cost less than $2 though.


These get mixed with a mirepoix on the bottom of the roasting pan, then the turkey is browned in a hot oven.

Here's the bird basted and ready for browning. One of my favorite parts was getting to butcher (as in "cut up") the turkey the night before--cutting off the wings, carefully carving off the drumsticks so I don't 1. miss the chef's oysters and 2. injure myself. I made a slow-cooker stock with the pieces I cut off, plus giblets. I used to love dissecting things in anatomy class. Sorry Alicia Silverstone.

After browning, the recipe says to add wine and chicken broth for the braising, cover, and turn the oven down for 2 hours.



Another fabulous part of this recipe was the amazing gravy. Here's where the power of the porcini really blossomed forth. It was savory, and because I bothered to strain it, also silken.

The braising liquid, strained and ready to gravy-fy.

The gravy hardly needed any salt either. (The turkey probably contributed enough, since I rubbed it with salt the night before in lieu of brining. Why? It was self-basting, and the recipe said that's what I should do.)

To serve I cut dark meat and breast meat onto a platter, and gave the drumsticks to the people who like that sort of thing. Since it was 2 weeks before Thanksgiving, I was trying to ignore the usual conventions, and served with roasted fingerling potatoes and buttered kale. No stuffing, no cranberry sauce. Our guests brought an amazing bread.


Do you always roast turkey, or have you tried other methods? I've heard of the mysterious deep-fried turkey, but I don't know anybody who's invested in the equipment. I'd eat it though!

I started using Pinterest

This is all your fault ACB! I do find Pinterest quite soothing actually. It's social, but I can show instead of telling. Nice relief for a professional tell-er. I also found that "liking" things makes a whole new board/list for me, without me having to actually repin and claim these things as my "own." If that makes sense. Anyway, join up! Follow me or someone cool! It's fun! I'm at http://pinterest.com/profkitty/

(Mom, Pinterest is like an online bulletin board where you can "pin" just about any image that you find on the Internet. Then you can go admire your collection of pins, and look at other people's too. It's kind of like the wall of postcards taped over my bed in college, except easier to look at.)

Source: designsponge.com via K. on Pinterest

New England Boiled Dinner

I bought a big head of cabbage at the farmer's market and a bunch of little potatoes at the coop, planning on a dinner party. But the week turned out to be too busy for guests, so the cabbage and potatoes were still around. I was thinking of making my milk-braised pork chops or maybe frikadellen, and ran these ideas by my life-partner. Basically, tell me what kind of pork you want. His response was "My favorite kind of pork is... corned beef."


Oh no. I don't think I like corned beef. But I figured it would be easy. I could throw it in the slow cooker. What is it called when you put potatoes, corned beef, and cabbage in a slow cooker? Oh. It's called New England Boiled Dinner.


Here's part of my problem with corned beef. It is funny looking. It has a lurid reddish color that doesn't go away when it's cooked. It has disturbing fatty bits and quivering connective stuff. It looks like it should be inside of something alive, not glistening on my counter. The guy at Price Chopper kindly halved a $19 piece of corned beef so I didn't have to deal with a gigantic piece, just a big piece.


So I plopped this in the slow cooker with the cabbage, 2 large chopped carrots and about 5 potatoes. It was already past noon, so I cranked it to "high." I also added a bay leaf, about 10 peppercorns, and enough water to cover the meat so it could really braise.


Six hours later it was done. I only had to intervene once, to push the cabbage down into the liquid so it could get all properly floppy.


To serve, I spooned out all the vegetables, then put the corned beef on its own plate. LOOK AT THIS. This is what I'm talking about with the weird grossness of corned beef. What is that tripey bit???


I bravely scraped off the fat and gaggy stuff, then sliced what remained. It started to look normal. Even edible.


So we ate it. And guess what, New England Boiled Dinner is really good! This truly is a boiled dinner, nothing else was needed except maybe mustard. One kid loved the meat the best, the other only wanted to eat the potatoes.


For dessert we had a half-recipe of yummy apple crisp, liberally squirted with whipped cream.

I'm not from New England, but I guess this is a regular thing that people's moms make, kind of an eye-roller of a dish like meatloaf. But I recommend it! Have you ever had it or made it?

Roasted Vegetables

It seemed like a good idea for a Sunday evening.
Slow-roasted vegetables. Two hours in a low oven.

Look at this tangle of autumn goodness.

Spaghetti squash buttered up, delicata squash with maple syrup & cinnamon

I put olive oil & Bragg's all over the rutabaga, carrots, & parsnips. Then I chickened out and also put spice rub on the rutabaga, and honey all over the carrots & parsnips. They were lush.

Dinnertime! Just squashes and roasted roots people. Enjoy!

Brown Rice Ginger Croquettes

I invented these with my daughter one weekend evening. We just started mixing things together and ended up with these yummy croquettes. The batter is quite runny and chunky so kind of falls apart. I wonder how the Brattleboro Food Coop gets their Indonesian Rice Cakes to stick together? Our secret was just heat--cook one side thoroughly before flipping, and they don't fall apart as much.


Recipe in brief: Mix together in a bowl tamari, cooked brown rice (maybe 2 cups?), grated carrot, grated ginger, 2 eggs, flour (1/2 cup or so), sunflower seeds, and 1/2 onion that you have sautéed. Form into rough patties and put on hot cast iron pan or non-stick pan. Cook one side thoroughly before flipping (peek to see if it's browning). Flip carefully and cook the other side.

Serve with more tamari for dipping.

"Slaughtered": EP from Memory Tapes

You know how some people choose a perfume or cologne, then purposely wear that scent every single day so that it becomes their scent? And every time you get close to them, you can smell it? And every time you smell it somewhere else, you think of them?

Here's what I'd like to do. The same thing, but with audio. I want to hook up tiny speakers and perpetually broadcast music, very softly but very constantly, so that whenever someone is close to me they can hear it. And if they hear something like it elsewhere, they'll think of me. I also have the music selected, it is Memory Tapes. Particularly the new Modular People EP release called "Slaughtered." I just want this on around me all the time, rising off me like a signature scent.

The track is over 22 minutes long, but here's a tiny taste someone posted on Soundcloud. If you like, go download the whole thing! It is delicious! Thank you Memory Tapes for this damn fine free EP.

Memory Tapes - snippet of Slaughtered by jobsmit

How You Like Them Apples?

The death of Steve Jobs, when I consider it from a purely selfish, personal level, feels like the death of John Hughes to me. It feels like the end of an era, and it's my era. I grew up on these computers. My brain is wired a certain way because of them. They are such intuitive, comfortable products that they don't seem like gadgets or accoutrements or "products," they just seem like logical extensions of what I want.

I can never bear to get rid of them. Each Mac is a monumental and significant part of my life when I'm using it, so I keep them around even when I'm not. Do you do that? I think about the papers written, the games played, the fonts selected, the avatar badges built pixel by pixel, the terrible Photoshopping attempted. The flight simulators. The desktop photos I have loved. With the iPod, the miles I've driven and run in its musical embrace. These products are alive--from the 512K to the iMac, from the iMac to the Mac mini, from the Mac mini to the MacBook (wait, I still use both of them, one is for sitting and one is for lounging in bed). I have to keep them, and other family members seem to feel the same. We collected all of the Apple products in the house and did a photo shoot.

Pictured, clockwise from left: MacBook, Macintosh 512K, Applewriter printer, a "dual G5 MacPro" (that silver thing isn't mine so I have no idea what it's called), a ruby iMac, in the middle 2 Mac minis and an iPod.

Not pictured: A blue iMac exactly like the ruby one on the right. An Apple Newton that we decided was un-Jobs. A Touch that is probably lost in a pile of papers somewhere.

The Macintosh 512 K is the most meaningful of these, and was the most useful and fun for years. Like 16 years. We got it in 1984, and this computer got me through high school, college, grad school, chef school, and 3 years after that, until I finally was given a new computer in 2000. (Thanks Mom!) The "p" key on the keyboard was not in good shape toward the end. The 512K still worked the last time I tried it, but I fear it doesn't work any more so I don't want to turn it on again and be crushed. My favorite thing to do on the Macintosh 512K was play this labyrinth game that I could never win. I played it for years and years. In college I also got a copy of Tetris. Of course everything had to be on disc because the thing only had 512K. That was a GREAT COMPUTER. (The printer was great, too.)

Old school.

Woodworking Studio

There's something about autumn and studio tours that goes together so well. If you're driving around looking at foliage anyway, why not stop and visit some creative people in their habitats? I highly recommend the annual Putney Craft Tour, happening every Thanksgiving weekend (this year it's November 25th-27th). Do not miss Ken Pick's pottery studio, where you can trace ceramic finger labyrinths and enjoy hot cider from the top of the wood stove while you chat with the artist.

This weekend the Vermont Crafts Council put on their Foliage Open Studio Weekend and we stopped by Jason E. Breen's woodworking place in the Brattleboro hills. It was a neat place and nice to meet Jason and learn how planes work. Here are a few vignettes.

Tools! That lighting makes it like some olde oil painting.

Clamps (?)

Bits!

Well-used brush, scissors