Thursday, January 3, 2013

Quiet Book

For Christmas this year I thought it would be fun to make a quiet book for one of my nieces.. set out with grand intentions, I scoured through Pinterest to find what I thought would be the best pages. Little did I know the enormous task that I had set for myself.
 Originally I had planned on 15 pages:
  • A page showing a tree with spring leaves
  • A page showing a tree with summer leaves
  • A page showing a tree with fall leaves
  • A page showing no leaves (for winter) but with snowflakes instead
  • A page with an ice cream cone
  • A page with shape matching
  • A puzzle page
  • A race track page (with cars to play with)
  • A page with a fish bowl (with fish to play with)
  • A zipper page
  • An African safari page (with animals to play with)
  • A page with things to button (and un-button)
  • A page with fake crayons to match to their colored word
  • A page with flowers on it (with a watering can to water said flowers)
  • A dress up doll page
However, after spending 5 days making 7 pages I started to re-consider.
Of the planned pages I was able to get done:
  • A page showing spring / summer leaves
  • A page with an ice cream cone
  • A puzzle page
  • A race track page
  • A page with a fish bowl
  • A page with a zipper (which turned into also a storage page to keep all of the loose bits ie. cars)
  • A page with flowers that can be un-buttoned

And of course, a snazzy cover page.

I think next time (if there is a next time) instead of sewing everything together I'll whip out my handy glue gun and give that method a whirl
(Sorry the pictures are sideways.. formatting them is proving a challenge)
Check out http://hand-mademoments.blogspot.ca/ for page tutorials
Happy Crafting

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Avacado painting from Monica's kitchen

So after scouring the internet for a week or so to find an image of the painting of the avocado in Monica's kitchen in friends (seasons 1-4?ish) I decided to use the poor image from a screen capture I found to re-create it.
It didn't turn out exactly, but I'm pleased with the results.


Thursday, October 4, 2012

Pumpkin Pie Crust Fix

So last night was the worst night ever for my pie crust! Which was more than frustrating since I'm the one bringing pumpkin pie for thanksgiving this weekend.
 My crust wasn't rolling nicely and when I finally got one to roll out, I didn't have enough dough to make it big enough... so I improvised!
 To achieve the braid I cut pie crust into 1/4" long strips and carefully manipulated the strands into a braid
 Then I attached to the crust. You can't see very well (sorry, cell phone pictures) but at the top and bottom there are spaces with no braid. To keep things manageable I made the braid long enough to cover just under half of the circumference of the pie.
 I then added pie filling
 And then cut out leaf shapes to fill in the places that weren't covered by the braid.
I put the pie filling in before the leaves so they would have something to rest on.
So luckily a crisis was adverted... but there's still more to make tonight. Hopefully its a better pie crust tonight than it was yesterday.

Pumpkin Pie Filling (gluten free)
1 can pumpkin puree (make sure that it is just pumpkin, and not pumpkin pie filling)
3 eggs
3/4 of a 725ml can of evaporated milk
3/4cup brown sugar
1-2tbsp chai spices (I just kept tasting the mixture until I thought it tasted right)

Mix all together and place into pie shells (my pie shells were not gluten free, but I will be making crustless pie to achieve a gluten free option for supper)

Chai Spices
Cardamom
Black pepper
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Allspice

I just mixed the above spices into a bowl adding 1tsp at a time in order to achieve my desired flavor/smell.

Monday, August 27, 2012

Weekend Crafts


So this weekend was fairly productive on the crafting side of things.. below are two of the crafts that I was able to complete

The pillow was made by cutting out and tracing around the desired shapes (this time it was the lion's that are on top of the Cummine coat of arms) and coloring them with a fabric marker. Then for embellishment I used a silver paint pen to make the swords stand out more.

The turtle was made purely by accident. Originally I wanted to make a hat for my niece... but ran out of the green yarn before it was deep enough. So I added the head and legs, made a shell bottom (not shown), used 2 buttons for eyes, stuffed it all, and sewed it together. and Voila, a turtle. He's super cute (and customizable!), and the whole thing only took a couple of hours to make.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Gluten Free Flour

So last weekend my sister and I had a baking extravaganza day. Sadly for her, she has a gluten intolerance.. so we were driven by necessity to make the recipes gluten free.
 With the help of some really great cookbooks, we stumbled across a recipe to make a gluten free flour...

Gluten Free Flour: (will produce 6 cups of flour)
2 1/2 cup rice flour
1 cup potato starch
1 cup sorghum flour
1 cup tapioca flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup chick pea flour (aka. garbanzo bean flour)
2 tbsp xanthan gum

All of the above ingredients we were able to find at our local Bulk Barn.
After making our gluten free flour, we proceeded with substituting it into recipes.
My favorite one that we made was the gluten free pizza perogies!
Following the directions on this blog for perogy dough, we substituted in the flour and continued to work the dough up the same.
 For the filling, all I needed to do was ensure that the meats that I bought were gluten free and we were in business!

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Pizza Perogies

Perogy Dough. I made 2 different kinds of dough, one with eggs and one with out. I would highly recommend the one using eggs, as the dough was a lot nicer to work with.

Ingredients (Dough with no eggs) - makes approximately 20-24 perogies:
2 1/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup warm/hot water
Method:
Sift flour and salt together onto a work surface. Make a hill with the flour and form a hole. Pour the water in a thin stream and work in the flour. Mix well and knead until smooth. Rest under a bowl for 15 minutes.
Rolling Method:
Roll out dough to approximately 15mm and cut into circles (I used a pint glass for a template). You can also just cut squares out of the dough, I feel the circles look better, so I use circles. Roll circles so they are approximately 10mm thick.
Ingredients (Dough with eggs) - makes approximately 20-24 perogies:
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup cold water
1 egg, beaten
Method:
Sift flour and salt together. Add egg and cold water. Mix well and knead until smooth.
See above for rolling methods
**NOTE: I found that the dough turned out a lot nicer if it was made in single batches rather than double.
**NOTE: I always do an egg wash around the edges of the perogy before pinching together (and make sure not to get any of the filling in your pinched edge or it will self-destruct in the water)
**NOTE: If you are not planning on cooking your perogies immediately after making them...put the finished perogies onto cookie sheets (not touching each other) and freeze until hard to the touch.


I also chose to go non-traditional in the filling for the particular batch of perogies shown below. I chose to try and make them taste like pizza!

Ingredients (Pizza filling):
1 can crushed tomatoes
1 can tomato paste
1 white onion
6 cloves of garlic
butter (not margarine)
salt
pepper
dill
basil
oregano
Peperoni (or any other kind of pizza meat)
Grated Cheese
Method:
In a large pan (I chose to use a wok, as it provided enough space in order to make all of the sauce in it), saute together chopped up white onion and garlic in the butter.
When nicely browned add in the can of crushed tomatoes and tomato paste. Season to taste with above mentioned spices and set to simmer together. I let mine sit on low on my stove for 2 hours, stirring every now and again to make sure nothing burnt to the bottom. I found my sauce to be a bit watery, so I also added to it 2 tbsp of flour to help thicken it up.
After the sauce is finished, let it cool overnight in the fridge.
After the sauce has cooled, chop up desired pizza meat into small pieces (mine were approximately 0.5cm by 0.25cm by 0.1 cm thick) and mix in with sauce. Mix as much, or as little as you want for a meat to sauce ratio.
Spoon small portions into the centers of rolled out perogy dough, top with cheese and pinch close.
If you are not going to eat the perogies right away, I suggest laying them out on a baking sheet and sticking them in the freezer until they harden up a bit (to prevent sticking). Then put them in freezer bags to finish freezing all the way



Friday, October 21, 2011

10 Favorite Christmas Crafts

Every year around this time I start thinking about what I want to get for people in my family for Christmas gifts. And every year I end up spending way too much money. So this year, I decided that I was going to make a bunch of my gifts in order to put a personal touch in them.
  1. Mittens. Everyone loves mittens, and they are super easy to make. My favorite patten is from www.lionbrand.com search keywords 'crocheted mittens' and it is the "Holiday Mittens Free Pattern". I have used this pattern as a base many times changing up the type of stitches to suit my mood for the day.
  2. Scarves. Another super easy, super customizable project. You can make scarves of any length, width, color, texture, stitch pattern... the possibilities are endless!
  3. Toques. If we have mittens and scarves, might as well have toques! There are many different styles of toque patterns out there. Once again, some of my favorite ones are from http://www.lionbrand.com/, however once you get the basic pattern they are easily customizable (maybe even to match the mittens and scarves!)
  4. If there are new babies in your life this list (especially for them) got even easier! You can do...
    1. Baby Blankets
    2. Sweaters
    3. Booties
    4. Rattles
    5. Teddy Bears, or toys in general.. the possibilites are endless!
  5. Couch blanket. These are my favorite! I always make sure to have at least 2 blankets readily accessible while sitting on the couch. A super easy pattern can be found at http://www.lionbrand.com/ search key words "5.5 Hour Throw".
  6. Holiday baking is always a hit, and can be wrapped up in small boxes to make excellent stocking stuffers, to add the finishing touches to gifts, or as hostess gifts. Some of my favorites include:
    1. Fudge. This is always a hit. Check out the fudge recipes at http://www.allrecipes.com/ for ideas
    2. Chocolates. These are super easy to make. All you need is: Melting chocolate, chocolate molds, a new clean small synthetic painting brush, and any desired fillings. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler (or we always used glass jars sitting in a frying pan that was filled with water and kept at low heat to keep the chocolate melted but not cooked. Be sure not to get any of the water into your chocolate, as it will ruin the consistency of it), when the chocolate is fully melted drop a small amount into the mold. Using the paintbrush (or just swirling the chocolate around) make sure that the mold is nicely coated. Place in the fridge or freezer (or we would always do ours in the winter so that we could stick the molds outside to cool off) until hardened. Place desired filling into the hardened chocolate molds and top with more chocolate. Place in cool environment until chocolate is hard again. Turn mold upside down on a hard surface and lightly tap to loosen the chocolate out of the mold. Keep chocolates in a cool place (my mom would always hide them in the freezer so that they didn't all get eaten at once!)
    3. Poppycock. It would not be Christmas in our home without poppycock. You can find recipes for this online, or if your family has an old recipe get a hold of that one. The old recipes are usually tried and true and work the best. Make sure that you get not only the recipe, but any small tricks that your granny/mom uses as well.
    4. Peanut Brittle
    5. Chocolate Truffles
    6. Anything peppermint
  7. Depending on your skill level (and ambition), you can also make soaps, bath fizzies, aromatherapy oils or salt scrubs. Using bring colors and vibrant scents, wrap them up in re-usable jars or containers.
  8. Beaded jewelry. You can pick up all necessary earring backs, clasps, string and beads at a local craft store.
  9. Candles
  10. Ornaments. Pick up the appropriate craft paint, sparkles, ribbon and blank ornaments from your local craft store and create customized ornaments.