Thanksgiving Dishes: Caramel Apple Pies & Vanilla Custard

Happy Thanksgiving Eve all.

I hope things are going well for your in your kitchens and you have only suffered minor burns (if any) and that your baking/sauteeing/roasting is going smoothly.

Here in the Pacific NorthWet, the fiance and I are preparing for our usual double Thanksgiving - dinner at his Grandmother's house with his entire mother's side of the family- and supper at my parents house with my immediate family that's within reasonable driving distance. Sadly, all of my siblings are out of the state or out of country this year for Thanksgiving - as they have been for the last few years which is what happens when you are the older sibling I guess.

This year, unlike years past, I have been home long enough before Turkey day to secure the rights to a dish at each family feast. For my fiance's family I was selected to prepare the stuffing and my family asked that I prepare some sort of dessert.

Well, I am one for tradition and like most families, mine is particular about which stuffing we make. So like any good daughter, I called my mother and asked her recipe. She emailed it to me and included the footnote: this was your grandmother J's recipe. When my mother finds a recipe that works, she sticks to it and only varies it when she knows the variation will work.

I don't know about you all, but I prefer my stuffing warm and fresh. Not reheated and day old. So I've prepped all the ingredients - the two loaves of torn french style bread (laid out to get stale), the celery, the onion and the drumsticks. Tomorrow, like many of you readers, I will get up early and assemble the ingredients into a roasting pan and home the timing works out for when dinner at my family-in-laws is ready. Unfortunately for all you readers, you won't be around to enjoy my grandmother's stuffing and unlike most other things on here, I am not sharing this recipe. Family tradition stays in my family.

For my parent's house, we are traditional except for some years when we elect not to have the usual apple or pumpkin pie. My fiance is not a pie fan either. This is year is nothing different. I put out feelers to see what my parents wanted, their current houseguest/family friend, and what my fiance might want after carb-agendon occurs. The three options: caramel apple pie, vanilla bean baked custard, or baked double apple pie. All three recipes are courtesy of Cooking Light and the latter two are slow cooker recipes. (If you didn't catch it earlier, doing a double thanksgiving means timing things carefully and I hoped to make sure dessert was 1) cooked thoroughly and 2)still fresh, hence the slow cooker options) My parents and their house guest said that they would want the custard but pie would also work.

We are a family who has learned to prefer over the years to have things in single serving sizes. Which is why I ended up doing both the custard and the pie. But wait, pie is really hard to serve individually without making a giant pie and having left overs.  (I'm not saying I don't like left overs. I am a big fan because it means I have lunch the next day prepared already) Yes, I still managed to make pie and used the majority of the Cooking Light recipe referenced above. I just modified it to work for my muffin tins. :)

Rather than make my own crust, I do believe in saving myself some time and bought a Pillsbury Pie Crust package this year. Like most of you would, I rolled it out flat. I just used a glass to cut smaller circles that would fit in my muffin tins. From there, I filled them with the apple pie filling mix, baked in oven but shaved off some of the cooking time. Instead of the first time being 35 minutes, I turned that down to 22 minutes (give or take); the second round I cooked them for 8 minutes. From there, I followed the recipe and let things cool on a wire cooking wrack.

*By making the mini-pies, I ended up with a great deal more apples than pie crust. I did not want to make yet another trip to the store, so I asked my future mother-in-law (who lives nearby) if she had an extra pie crust. She said she did not have one but suggested making apple crisp. Love it when she suggests thing like that. So while the pies cool, I am making an apple crisp in the oven. Same temperature, about 25 minutes of baking time and I added some granola to the topping. *

The recipe for vanilla bean baked custard was rather simple as long as I wasn't doing five other things at once. This is a recipe meant to practice your timing skills my friends. It is also designed to test your Janga or Tetris skills because you have to actually have the right sized crock pot, ramekins, canning jar bands and not knock things over as you place the ramekins in the crock pot. Luckily, my mother loaned me her crock pot and my grocery store carries a wide variety of ramekins and I found the right ones.

If you have made your way over to the Cooking Light website, you'll note that this only makes enough custard for four people. You will also note my game reference above. Combine this with the number of people at my parent's house and you might note a dilemma: there will be five people there.

So like any typical American, I had to make a second trip to the grocery store to make a second batch of custard. At least this way, my fiance and I will get a chance to try the dish before we serve it to others since there will be three extra dishes.

Currently everything is cooling and waiting to have a taste test. When the fiance wakes up from his nap, perhaps we will sit down and try out the mini-pies and custards. I will let you know how it goes.

Happy Thanksgiving readers.

Young Lady's Make-Up

When I was little, my mom would NEVER let me play with make-up. She gently discouraged it and appealed the athlete inside of me. Still, my friends had play make up and my aunts and grandmothers would periodically send some play make up (and eventual real make up) my way for birthdays and holidays.

I was busy perusing my favorite website for other people's ideas and thinking about my fiance's nieces (Well, let's face it. At this point they are my nieces too and I love making them things). Usually, I send the same type of gift to both girls and intended to do the same this year. Of course, I checked with my future mother-in-law to see if she thought tutus would be appropriate for both girls. While the kindergartener would certainly appreciate the tutu and wear it around the house until it was no longer cool, perhaps the nine year old would not want to wear such things. Considering how I was more interested in the US Women's National Soccer team than ballet and princesses when I was nine, I heeded her advice. My mother-in-law is full of great suggestions sometimes and today proved to be one of them. She suggested either sending beads to make jewelery or sending kid friendly make-up. The latter would also appeal to the girl's mother since she sells make-up.

So, once again I went parusing around the interwebs and came across LuBirdBaby which showed how to make play make-up out of nail polish and empty make up containers.

Well, I hate to say it but as a fully grown woman my nail polish and make-up container supply is rather limited. So I headed to the local store and purchased the following:

1 Compact mirror
1 Custom Compact
Both are made by Elf and were $1/each.
Additionally, I picked up:
5 bottles of nail polish in appropriate colors. The nail polish, by NYC and was their rapid dry, ran about $1.75/bottle. I also made sure to pick colors that in the coming spring I might be tempted to wear.
1 package of eyeshadow sponges

What I love about this project was it took about five minutes to actually get it put together and then I just let it sit overnight to dry.

So here's what you do:

 For the compact, I took a nude/fair colored nail polish and simply poured it slowly into one of the compact mirrors. I tried to not fill it too much but it did end up filling the spot where the compact closes shut. When it dried the next day, I took my craft knife and carefully carved the polish out. The compact closes nicely now.

 For the "eyeshadow" container, I took my four shade and simply poured slowly each cavity with the polish.

 For this container, there were little low spots between each area. I filled to just below those areas so they polishes wouldn't blend in the middle.

 Simply repeat the filling process for each cavity.

 Finally, you will end up with two pretty "make-up" containers. I left them to dry overnight.

I won't know until Christmas if my niece will like them or not but I am sure her parents will appreciate that this is non-spilling, not real, and still not toddler style make up.

Tips: Choose colors that are appropriate and you think the child will like. For the compact, I would have actually gone a little darker because of the skin tone of my niece. However, for the right price and since its play make-up, I was not so picky. Additionally, my niece really likes pink and purple. However, if the child you are thinking of prefers blue and green or yellow and orange, or super glittery polish, than by all means go for it. 

Oh and yes, I will post soon about how to make the tutu for my five year old niece. :)

Chalkboard Coasters

This time of year proves rather busy for me. Not just because of the holidays. No, that would be too simply.  In addition to the usual celebrations my best friend's birthday is usually within days of Thanksgiving and my fiance and I celebrate the anniversary of our first date. For both occasions I was craving to create something meaningful for both of them. The idea for my fiance's present will be the focus of another post sometime next week. This particular post is in specific regards to two popular themes I see on pinterest: chalkboard paint and custom coasters.

My best friend of 20 years has been playing rugby since her freshman year of college. She still plays today with the local metropolitan Division II team which recently made their first trip to Nationals. I was so excited about the opportunity that she earned with all her hard work, that I kept almost up to the minute tabs on the tournament - or as much as I could. What she failed to mention in all of our numerous conversations leading up to the tournament was that she had become team captain. I found this out by reading a rugby magazine's article focusing on her team's trip to the tournament.

So needless to say, seeing that her birthday was just about two weeks after the tournament I was looking to link her love of rugby and some creative projects together. I settled on doing chalkboard coasters with a rugby design. Admittedly she is not the first to receive this gift but her's was a great deal more perfected than my first attempt.

Here's what I did and yes, you may take it, tweak it and make it work with your supplies.

My supply list included:
Acrylic paint in however many colors you need
Three plastic containers for mixing paint and grout
An exacto knife/craft nife
Scotch or 3m (or whomever you choose) felt adhesive
Sticker maker - this is key if you are doing a design like I did

 A specific design - I took the outline of a rugby ball and then the logo for my friend's team (they are the lady pigs). Yes, there is a reason there are two of everything. In fact, there ended up being three.

 As many 4x4inch ceramic tiles as there are coasters. I bought a box at Lowe's or Home Depot for about 44 cents each. This project is one of my favorites because it tends to be low cost and easy to do.

 I used my sticker machine, Xyron 5" inch with removable adhesive. I used permanent adhesive the first time I made these style of coasters and it cause some heavy clean up which I will address later. This time, I tried the removable adhesive and it went a great deal easier. Furthermore, if you do not have a sticker machine do not, I repeat DO NOT, go out and buy one just for this project. You can tape down the designs and you will just need to take care to go around the edges.

Finally, you will need non-sanded or unsanded grout. I also picked this up at Home Depot or Lowe's. The sticker price is a little high - $4.35 or something - but worth it if you plan to make a lot of chalkboard paint. Which, if you are looking at pinterest right now for chalkboard anything, you can see there can be a lot of crafty projects involving it.

Anyway, essentially pick your design, your colors and pick up your supplies at your local craft store. Lay out your supplies on an even surface where you have some room to work. When I first started crafting, this was usually my parent's dining room or coffee table. Now, I have a craft desk and sewing desk but that's because my fiance and I have the space for it. Use what you have. :)

Cut out one of your nifty designs using the craft knife. I highly recommend putting something underneath your paper so you don't scratch you work surface. Unless you are looking to age your work space sooner, then go for it. The craft knife allows you to cut precise lines and give a nice clean edge. No craft knife in your supplies? Use scissors! Your decal/design could turn out like mine:

 I then placed it through the sticker making machine. Again, if you do not have one you can just tape the design.

 I love this sticker machine because I can turn any paper product into a sticker, like the rugby ball above.

From here, I simply repeated the process with the other paper pieces. The key here is to also run the outlines of the decals through the sticker machine. You will see why below.

Carefully place your stickers on your coasters. Mine are generally as close to the center as possible. This picture above is to simply show you the process that you will have to go through for both the design and the outside of the coasters. I placed these down and then went to work on mixing paint. To give credit when needed, I borrowed my recipe for chalkboard paint from Salt Tree. Of course, I did not need to make a cup of paint at that moment, so I scaled back my amounts to about 4oz of paint and 1.5 teaspoons of grout. I mixed them using good old popsicle sticks in my clear containers.

 Slight warning: this paint can smell because of the grout. If you have candles or the ability to open windows, I recommend using them. From there, just paint your desired area.

Since all of the paper areas were removable stickers, I just went ahead and painted over them. I would be peeling them off later.

I repeated the process of mixing the chalkboard paint and the painting process for each tile until I got to the stage above. From here, I simply let the paint dry for about ten minutes and the removed the sticker'ed area. 

If like me, you ended up with a residue, have no fear! Simply use the handy solvent you have your in your bathroom to remove other paint. By this I mean, dig out your nail polish remover (that includes acetone) and some cotton swabs or balls. Soak the swabs in the acetone and then rub it on the adhesive to remove. This also works well on areas that you might have smudged or messed up on.

Once you've removed your adhesive, you can move on. Since I wanted to expedite the drying time and finish the coasters in about a day, I put the coasters in the oven at 250 for fifteen minutes. I removed them carefully from the oven and let cool on wired racks for about 20 minutes or until they were cool enough to handle. I began the painting process over again but simply finished painting the opposite area from the first time. If you have the sticker machine, you can do a second round of stickers or you can simply paint very carefully. My recommendation, if you have a steady hand just go for it. If not, then do the sticker method.

 Clearly, I do not have a steady hand and went with the sticker method.

Again, use the acetone if you want to remove some of the adhesive. As a final step in the paint process, I filled in some of the finer details. You can tell, painting pigs is not my strong suit. In fact, I took advantage of the fact that my fiance took art in high school for the second pig and had him paint it.

Finally, I used the scotch or 3m felt adhesives and attached four to the bottom of each coaster - for a total of 16. OH! You will need to find a piece of chalk somewhere and attach it to this gift. Sort of defeats the whole purpose if you don't attach it, doesn't it? Box it up nice and pretty (they sell plain 4x4 inch craft boxes at your local craft store) or put it in a bag.

Some side notes: I ended up with a lot more chalkboard paint than what I needed for this project which is why I used the plastic containers with lids. I sealed them up, labeled them and now I have paint for the next time I do chalkboard coasters. Which as, you can see, are really cool and a repeat gift. My friend loved them and couldn't stop admiring them at her birthday lunch the other day. She loved that even my fiance got in on the painting and squealed (like a little piggy) in excitement. Her mom has a picture of her reaction but I have yet to acquire it. When I do, I will edit this post and add it in.

Hope your holidays are keeping you busy, jolly and appreciating the relationships you do have. All this gift making certainly makes me appreciate the time I spend with my friends and family. :)

Introduction

Hey readers and fellow bloggers.

This blog is designed to show and display different ideas and creative projects I have done over the past few months (and sometimes years). Yes, some ideas can be found on pinterest and then others I've been testing out of my own creativity.

I will make a special note here: some of these projects I did not have the tools to use when I first started "being crafty". In fact, the majority of tools were either gifted to me (through volunteer work, holidays or birthday celebrations), were hand-me-downs (like my trusted sewing machine, named Betsy), or were purchased because they were related to wedding projects.

Oh yes, this too should be noted. I am getting married. Hence many of the projects on this blog, might in fact be wedding related. I do plan to post periodically non-DIY wedding ideas on here so that after my wedding it might provide inspiration to other brides (and grooms) out there.

I'll post some pictures soon of a recent project - chalkboard coasters when I've uploaded them. For now, check out the inspiration for a different project that is in the works: Our Adventure Begins Now map