Hope your day is filled with family, friends and fun.
We made some Ukrainian-style Easter eggs today. Lindsay made this beauty.
Category Archives: Holidays
My Winter Baby Turns 10
My sweet girl turned 10 today. Each year I make a special cake for her. This year she asked for a chocolate cake with chocolate feathers on it. I used a recipe from One Girl Cookie’s cookbook for the cake part (it was amazing).
For the feathers I thought I would drizzle melted chocolate into feather-like shapes. I was trolling the internet for chocolate decoration and decided to type in how to make chocolate feathers. I found a woman who made amazing chocolate feathers. Go figure. I followed her instructions and made these. Pretty wonderful if I do say so myself.
Fabric Gift Bags
Every year on Christmas I have a mini freak-out. It usually passes without notice, but this year I’ve decided to pre-empt it. The freak-out is about the big recycling bag filled with wrapping paper. We usually wrap our gifts the night before, so this colorful paper is only “in use” for a few hours. I’ll spare you my rantings on the subject.
Anyhow, this year I decided to do something about it. Inspired by my new serger sewing machine, I have been making fabric gift bags. It’s been a lot of fun to use fabric scraps that have been sitting in a box for ages. So much fun that I even ordered some holiday-themed fabric. As I see it, we will be able to use these bags for years and alleviate the need for wrapping paper. I have been plugging away at them and searching the web for different tutorials. Rather than make my own tutorial, here are some links to good ones that I used:
Drawstring bag by Kitty Baby Love. I used their instructions to make the larger muslin bag in the photo above. This bag has french seams and drawstrings on both sides of the bag.
Fabric Gift Bag by Positively Splendid. I used their instructions for the bag shown below. It has a drawstring on just one side, which is nice if you are running low on ribbon.
I made the bag below with instructions from the book Ready Set Serge.
Making drawstring bags uses a heck of a lot of ribbon, which can get pricey. When I ran out of ribbon, I wanted to keep going instead of having to shop for more. What do they say about necessity being the mother of invention? I decided to take out my bias tape-making gadget and turn 1″ strips of fabric into bias tape. Then I chose fun stitches and thread to sew the seams closed.
And what comes after all these drawstring bags you ask? How about a bunch of these cute zippered bags? So perfect for storing my knitting notions!
Father’s Day
I hope everyone had a nice weekend. We decided to celebrate Father’s Day by going on a bike ride. Lindsay has just gotten comfortable enough riding that we went on a rail trail. We rode on the North County Trail way in Westchester, NY. It runs along the old Putnam Division line, which is parallel to the Saw Mill River Parkway.
It was a very pretty ride through the woods and past swamps and rivers. One stretch had loads of frogs announcing themselves. We dubbed that frog alley. We made many stops to rest tired little legs (she had a bike with no gears) and enjoyed a picnic lunch, a beautiful view from a bridge, and a cookie and cherry break.
We lucked out with the weather as well. It seems as though we now live in the tropics, and get an afternoon downpour every day. But on Sunday, we had the perfect temperature and no rain!
This last view is looking down from the bridge, which had a sign that said “No jumping”. This bridge is low enough to the water (not for me!) that I guess it attracts yahoos. The sign by the much higher Tappan Zee bridge says “Life is worth living” and has a phone number. Yikes!
Oh, and now Lindsay has upgraded from a pink bike to a fierce new black one with gears.
Ukrainian Easter Egg Dyeing
Here’s a fun thing we did a while back that somehow got pushed to the blog’s back burner. Yup, it’s seasonal, but it was really fun and I wanted to share. I’ve been waiting to do this with the kiddo until now because you work with permanent dyes and lit candles. She did a great job.
My sister holds a Pysanky (that’s what you call this) party every year at her painting studio. It’s the perfect space to get down and messy/creative. You can see a great post on her blog here.
You can find all the supplies you need here.
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- Blowing out the eggs
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- Black dots are wax plugs.
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- Draw your design with pencil.
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- The kit comes with some designs for inspiration.
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- Tool called a kistka and beeswax.
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- Heat your kistka over a candle to be able to scoop the wax into it.
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- Draw with the melted wax that comes out of the kistka.
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- You can make very intricate designs.
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- In green dye. You can see the wax resisting the dye.
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- It’s fun, but messy, so cover your table and floor well.
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- We had some friends come over for Easter dinner and some egg dyeing.
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- There are about 3-4 layers of wax and dye on this egg.
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- These eggs are done and are waiting to dry.
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- Filling in some larger areas in wax.
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- After the eggs dry, hold them up to the flame to melt the wax. Wipe it away and voila.
Passover in the Berkshires
Last week while Lindsay was on break, we went up to the Berkshires for a few days. We had a nice low-key seder complete with matzo-ball soup, brisket and macaroons. 
The next morning my father-in-law and daughter made matzo brei. Matzo brei is basically a form of scrambled eggs. You take matzo crackers, run them under warm tap water for a few seconds. Then you crumble them and add to beaten eggs. The ratio is approximately 1 cracker for every 1 1/2 large eggs. We sauté onions and asparagus first and then cook the eggs. I think last year we used mushrooms instead of asparagus.
Happy Easter
Hope everyone is enjoying their Sunday! We are busy dyeing Easter eggs in the Ukranian style. Photos to come.
Potatoes and Pine
We are a family who celebrates many different holidays. So it comes as no surprise that during Hanukkah, we do Christmasy things as well.
On the first night of Hanukkah, we made potato latkes. My recipe is based more on feel than measurements, but this is basically it.
- 4 idaho potatoes, peeled and chopped to fit in the food processor
- 1 small onion
- 3 eggs, beaten
- 1/4-1/2 cup of flour
- corn oil for frying
I purée half the potatoes, adding the onion at the end, so it gets finely chopped. I grate half the potatoes. This gives me a nice mixture of soft insides and crunchy outsides. The onion adds a little sweetness. After I’ve processed the potatoes, I squeeze excess moisture out of them and then mix in the eggs and flour. You can add salt and pepper to taste.
I heat the oil until it’s ready to sizzle and then drop a serving size spoon’s worth of the potatoes into the pan. I turn them when they are golden brown.
I also have a pan in a 200 degree oven that has paper towels on it. When the latkes are done cooking, they go in the oven to drain and keep warm until we’re ready to eat them.
We had skirt steak and salad with the latkes. And the next day we had eggs over easy on top of the leftover latkes! Yum.
Lindsay has been very interested in making cake pops, so we gave her a cake pop maker for Hanukkah.
And of course, we visited the tree at Rockefeller Center!
