Category Archives: handmade/homemade

Knitted Gifts

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For the past few months, I’ve been knitting like mad, making gifts for the people close to me. Here’s a selection of what I’ve made. I sent some projects off without photographing them.

Coffee press cosy for Neil

Here’s a cosy I knit Neil for our french press coffee pot. It uses a design called the Death Flake. If you look closely you will see the skulls inside a snowflake motif.

I knit these fingerless gloves for my MIL. I liked them so much, I knit a pair for my sister and am now knitting a pair for another friend.

This little sweater was made for baby Maia. 

This blue sweater was knit for baby Thomas. His mom was Lindsay’s 1st grade teacher.

This little hat is for baby Ray, due any week now.

Here’s a cardigan for baby Ray.

This little green sweater is for an upcoming baby. Here’s a link to the sweater pattern.

This sweater is the latest one off my needles. It’s based on a pattern called Paper Dolls, but instead of having a paper doll motif, Lindsay wanted the death flake pattern. My sister helped talk me down off the ledge when I realized that not only would I need to chart the new motif, but I would have to figure out where to put decreases within the motif. She charted out this version and added the cute hearts at the bottom. Now I really need to take photos better than these iphone ones!

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Homemade Mushroom Ravioli

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For Mother’s Day, Neil and Lindsay got me a ravioli attachment for my kitchenaid mixer. I have had fun making pasta and even made ravioli once. I’ve been eyeing the ravioli maker because it makes such beautiful, perfect little ravioli. I also thought it might take some time off the process.

So that evening we made wild mushroom ravioli. Neil bought a package of mixed wild mushrooms and some organic ricotta. I made the dough. The recipe is based on the recipe in The Complete Book of Pasta and Noodles.

  • 2T good olive oil
  • 2 cloves of garlic,  minced
  • 10 ounces of mixed wild mushrooms. You can see the ones we used, but feel free to use your favorites. Remove tough stems and mince.
  • 1 oz. dried porcini mushrooms, rehydrated in hot water and strained, then minced
  • 1/4 c. minced parsley
  • 1 c. ricotta cheese
  • 1/3 c. grated parmesan cheese
  • 1 large egg yolk
  • salt and pepper to taste

In a medium pan, sauté garlic until golden. Add mushrooms and cook until wilted (appx. 4 minutes). Add in the porcini, parsley and seasonings. Cook until the liquid has evaporated. Place mixture in a bowl and let cool slightly. Stir in remaining ingredients. This can be done the night before.

The pasta is a basic egg pasta, which is made with 2 cups of flour and 3 large (beaten) eggs. You mix the ingredients together. I used my stand mixer, but you can do it in a food processor. Add tiny amounts of water (1 T)  until the dough forms a rough ball. Let the dough rest about 30 minutes. Roll the dough out and fill with the mushroom mixture. Cook the ravioli for 4-5 minutes, or until al dente.

I made a sauce out of sautéd garlic w/ olive oil and then a can of crushed tomatoes. Grate a nice parmesan cheese over the top and you are done. We had fun figuring out the ravioli maker. Lindsay liked playing with and eating the raw dough strips that formed between the ravioli squares.

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Making Seedling Pots

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Last night I pulled out my x-acto knife, cutting board and old newspaper to make pots for my seedlings. Neil and Lindsay gave me this nifty little tool called the PotMaker last year. You wrap 3 1/2″ wide (longer than 9″) around the base of the cylinder. Then you fold the ends under and press down on the small disc-shaped base. I had a lot of fun making them and got a kick out of the pictures that appeared on the outside of the pots. And, yes, I’m a little insane/ocd because I planned some of how the photos would fall on the pots.

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Happy Easter

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Happy Easter for those who celebrate. Yesterday Lindsay and I blew the insides out of 6 eggs and today she and her friend dyed them. They drew the pictures on the eggs and then I traced them in wax. We used the standard Pas dyes, which I thought would be good and not permanently dye them and whatever they spilled the dye on. The technique is based on Ukranian pysanky. Take a look here for traditional eggs.

The first few egg photos are of one egg I did about our family. The light blue/green color is the natural color of the egg. It comes from our hen Edie.

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Slumber Party Mania

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Bed Cake

For my daughter’s 6th birthday party, we decided to host 10 girls at our house to a pretend slumber party. In the past we have rented a space to host the party, which has always been very expensive. I can’t believe my type-A personality didn’t realize having a winter baby would make outdoor (free space) birthday parties impossible!! Our apartment is a nice size, but certainly doesn’t have an extra room like a rumpus room that a house might have. We knew that  having the party here would be intense, so we decided to embrace that.

Neil made a huge blanket fort that took up most of our living room. It had two “rooms” and Lindsay decorated the back part. It looked a little like Jeannie’s bottle from I dream of Jeannie. Neil also set up a video camera to our tv, so the kids could dance to the music and see themselves on tv. Our friend Courtenay came and helped us make cootie catchers and paint fingernails. We played Light As a Feather, Stiff As a Board, which was new to all of the kids. In case you didn’t play that as a kid, here’s how it works. One kid lays on her back and keeps her body stiff. All the other kids kneel around her. They place two fingers from each hand under the stiff kid. Then they all lift their hands up at the same time (we chanted Light As a Feather, Stiff As a Board in a spooky voice) and lift the kid in the air. You wouldn’t think it would work, but it does. And nobody got dropped. They even picked me up.

I think the girls had a great time and loved the cake. I made that crazy cake using marshmallow fondant. The girl on the left is Lindsay and the others vaguely look like some of her friends. The cake was a chocolate buttermilk cake that I got from Epicurious and have made in the past.

Neil and I were pretty much exhausted for the rest of the weekend, but Lindsay and all her friends had a blast.

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How to Make Hungarian Crackers (Pogacsa)

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goodpuff1

This is a recipe that my father used to make for cocktail parties and was usually one of the first things to disappear. My sister and I seem to often be on the same wavelength and just as I was deciding on making these for Neil’s birthday party, she emailed me to ask for the recipe. She confirmed that hers disappeared immediately, so I thought I would post the recipe with directions on how to make them.

The first batch I rolled out to about 1/4″ thickness, which was *way* too thick. You can see from the photos below that they kind of shrink up sideways and puff upwards. The first batch were freakishly high, so I rolled the subsequent batches thinner (and poked them with fork tines).

Pogacsa (sometimes seen as Pogatcha)

Equal weights of:

flour

butter

cream cheese or feta cheese. I used feta cheese for these. I used 8oz (1/2 lb) measures of each and got a nice sized basket of crackers. Several dozen.

I love Hungarian recipes! They are usually quite simple. Okay, so I mixed the butter and cheese together until it was well-blended. Then I added the flour and mixed it with the dough-hook on my stand mixer. The dough is very thick. You can see the bits of feta in my dough.

Generously flour a surface and roll the dough out as seen below. You will fold each edge to the center until you have 4 flaps folded in. Repeat this several times and keep it well-floured. The rolling part is very important, otherwise the crackers won’t puff.

Wrap in plastic and let rest in the fridge for about 1/2 hour.

Roll out thinner than 1/4″ (I have photos of the overly puffy crackers. Don’t let this happen to you!) and cut with a small drinking glass or other cutter. I used a canapé cutter, which I think was too small. So about 1 1/2-2″ across. I also suggest poking them with the tines of a fork to keep the puff factor down.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 15-20 minutes until they are golden brown. You can put them directly on the cookie sheet. There’s enough butter in these that they won’t stick to anything!

They are best warm, but are still delicious room temp. If you have any left over you can always warm them up and have with lunch. I only had extras because I had an insane amount of food at the party where I served them.

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How to Pickle Green Cherry Tomatoes

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Just a couple of weeks ago I was commenting on how unseasonably warm it was. Since then we’ve gotten colder with most nights below freezing and the ground feels hard under my feet. Neil wrapped the chicken’s run with plastic to protect them from the cold wind and they are spending a lot of time in their little hoop house instead of the larger (un-wrapped) enclosure.

I had many green cherry tomatoes left on the vine, which I didn’t want to go to waste. I did some searching online and found a few pickle recipes. I decided to make a recipe that didn’t use water-bath canning techniques, which just means that I need to eat them up sooner.

green tomatoes

green tomatoes2

green tomatoes3

Adapted from John Kessler’s Pickled Green Cherry Tomatoes (or tomolives)

1 quart green cherry tomatoes or quartered large green tomatoes

1/2 bunch of dill (about 6-8 stems)

1/2 c. apple cider vinegar

2 t salt

1 t freshly cracked pepper

5 large cloves of garlic, peeled and thickly sliced

Optional: 1-2 hot peppers. I chose not to put them in because of my daughter, but I think it really would help the flavor.

Pierce the tomatoes all the way through with a skewer and then place in a clean quart-sized Mason jar. Add the dill sprigs and pepper.

Bring 1 1/2 c. water to boil with the remaining ingredients. Pour liquid into the jars and cover the tomatoes. Stir the dill and garlic into the tomatoes. Cover and bring to room temperature. Let the tomatoes absorb the flavor overnight in the fridge.

What I would do differently: The original recipe just said to pierce the tomatoes in the stem end. This made 1/2 of the tomato taste pickled and 1/2 taste like a sour un-ripe tomato. After piercing them all the way through, I let them sit another day. I think the longer they sit, the better. These aren’t “officially” canned, so they will go bad. Don’t let them sit around too long. I also thought they could use a little more flavor, so will experiment with the hot pepper next time. I thought they were interesting and definitely a good use for what would have just gone to waste. There are also recipes for friend green cherry tomatoes (cut in 1/2, dip them in some sort of flour or corn meal and then fry), but it seemed as though the breading just wanted to slip off the smooth tomato skins.

Actually I’m really getting jazzed to learn about canning, pickling and fermenting, so I think I’ll try some different pickling techniques next time.

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Alternatives to wrapping paper

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gifts

In our house we celebrate both Christmas and Chanukah. That is a whole lot of gift giving, which can mean a whole lot of gift wrapping. It bums me out each year to see the clear garbage bags filled with holiday wrapping paper. This year I’ve been trying to reduce the amount of paper we use to wrap gifts. For Chanukah, we give one or two gifts a night. I’ve been putting them unwrapped inside a pretty gift bag. Lindsay doesn’t seem to notice or care that they aren’t wrapped. She’s just interested in what’s inside the bag. In fact she saw the bag today and asked why there was nothing in the Chanukah bag (her comforter wouldn’t fit in it).

Neil asked what I planned to do with the presents for Christmas. The gift bag obviously won’t work, so I’ve been looking at ideas online for gift wrap alternatives. Here’s what I found so far. Please feel free to add suggestions.

  1. Use fabric to wrap the gifts. I’ve gotten some fabric bags over the years when I’ve purchased something at a fancy shop. I always hang onto them because it just seems a waste to throw them out. (I’m convinced that I have a form of mental illness when it comes to throwing things out, but that’s a whole other post). I think putting some of the gifts in these bags would be pretty. If I had more time, I would even consider sewing a few bags from all the bits of fabric I have.
  2. Use the funny papers to wrap kids presents. If your paper has a comic section, this can be a nice option.
  3. Old calendars can be cut up and used to wrap smaller gifts.
  4. Wallpaper
  5. Old maps. NYC subway maps are free
  6. Kid’s artwork. If you don’t want to use their drawings, have them decorate paper grocery bags with stickers, drawings, glitter, etc.
  7. Pillow cases from mis-matched sets of sheets

Here are some factoids that might give you some more incentive. I pulled them off the California government website.

  • An estimated 2.6 billion holiday cards are sold each year in the United States, enough to fill a football field 10 stories high.
  • More household waste is produced between Thanksgiving and New Year’s than any other time of the year–about six million tons of added waste nationwide.
  • Half of the paper consumed in the U.S. every year is used to wrap and decorate consumer products.
  • About 40 percent of all battery sales occur during the holiday season. Consider purchasing rechargeable batteries instead of single-use household batteries. In 2006 alone, more than 40 billion single-use batteries were sold worldwide.
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    Happy Halloween

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    pumpkin-small

    I hope everybody has a wonderful and creepy Halloween!

    I had snack duty today for Lindsay’s class. I couldn’t help myself….those are glow-in-the-dark pirate rings.

    cupcakes-small

    The cupcake recipe is from Magnolia Cupcakes. You can get the recipe at that link. It’s my go-to cupcake recipe these days. It calls for 2 sticks of butter for 24 cupcakes, but I think that can be reduced a bit. I’m going to try 1 3/4 sticks next time and then go down 1/4 stick each subsequent time I make them.

    I got a 2-layer cupcake pod that carries 24 cupcakes. It looks a bit ridiculous, but it’s going to be indispensable for the next 10 years of birthday and school parties.

    cupcakes2small

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    A Raccoon in Our Yard!

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    raccoon

    Last night we were having dinner with friends in our garden. It was about 7pm and our chickens had gone inside their coop for the night. All of a sudden there was a commotion and the hens clamored out of their coop and into the run. I have a larger run attached to their secure run that isn’t 100% predator proof. I lock the door between that run and the secure run every night. I hadn’t done it yet and I have to admit that I have forgotten entirely some nights. I had heard that there have been raccoon sightings in our Brooklyn, NY neighborhood, but never saw one myself. Until now.

    I walked over to the chickens to see what was going on and standing about 5 feet away from me behind the wire run was a raccoon. It saw me and promptly flipped me the bird. It wasn’t scared of me in the slightest. The chickens ran into the larger run and were totally freaked out. Since I wasn’t scary enough to make the raccoon leave, we pulled out our garden hose and sprayed the raccoon with jets of water. It didn’t like that and climbed over the fence. About 30 seconds passed and it climbed back into the yard. We sprayed it again and it eventually went away. But it climbed on top of the secure run and tried to reach through the wire of the larger run. I’ve heard of raccoons grabbing and killing chickens by reaching into a run. Gah!

    Neil threw rocks in it’s direction. He doesn’t think he hit it, but it again casually went away. Actually it scaled the 2-story building that adjoins our yard by climbing up the ivy. It kept peeking over the roof at us. Not only were the chickens freaked out, but our daughter was really upset as well. I was upset because I know that this critter is going to come back. It wasn’t afraid of us *at all*. We also live right along a very popular restaurant row, so there’s really no end to the tasty trash cans filled with food nearby.

    I’ve spent the morning reading various chicken sites and doing google searches on raccoon control. I’ve come up with the following possible solutions:

    1. Get a hav-a-hart trap and bait it with cat food. There are several unsavory outcomes to this solution involving relocating, drowning and shooting. Relocating wild animals is not a very successful endeavor. You are dropping your problems on someone else and the animal doesn’t know the natural resources, so can just starve to death.

    2. Pee around the perimeter of your yard. I’m guessing that the raccoon, who wasn’t at all scared of me, will not be scared of our pee. And besides, I’m already the crazy chicken lady, I don’t need to add another layer to that!

    3. Put down coyote urine. Yes, you can buy predator urine to discourage animals. My in-laws ordered synthesized fox urine online for a groundhog that was digging in their foundation. There’s a website called predatorpee.com. Love the internet! I’m not sure any of these raccoons have seen or smelled a coyote for the past several generations, so I’m not sure if the smell of coyote urine would register fear with them.

    4. Hot sauce bombs. The mad-scientist/cook in me loves this one. You take jumbo marshmallows, poke a hole in one end and fill them with the hottest hot sauce you can find. (Wear gloves) Then scatter them around the yard. The raccoons eat them and then won’t come back. This option appeals to me for a few reasons. I like DIY aspect. I like that I’m not actually physically harming/killing the animal. And I kind of love the immature 15 year-old revenge fantasy part of it.

    In any event, I’ve set an alarm to remind me that dusk is approaching and I need to lock up my hens. Raccoons generally only like to eat the chicken’s crop (filled with yummy grains), so it’s a gruesome death. Plus you get the added bonus of finding a decapitated chicken left behind.

    Wish me luck! Maybe I’ll make Rice Krispy treats with the leftover marshmallows.

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