Whale Onesie

Pattern inspired from the Japanese embroidery book (book purchase inspired by Sharon). I've finally added a onesie tag because, well, we keep making them. As Elana says, "When friends reproduce, I produce. Baby onesies."

Lemon Curd

This recipe from Fine Cooking kind of rocks. Worth trying on crepes too.

Baby booties

These are called 1-hour baby booties. The pattern can be found in Stitch and Bitch Nation. They really only take about an hour. But the straps take about another hour each. Maybe I labored too long attaching them. Tonight I hosted my own Stitch & Bitch, which was responsible for my finally finishing the straps and buttons.

I'm pretty sure there's a reason babies don't wear booties. I'm pretty sure the booties will fall off as soon as the baby moves its legs. My stitch & bitch comrades assured me that it's enough for the booties to look nice in the gift box and displayed in the baby's room.

Bacon Dessert

First there was haut-chocolat with bacon. It was good. Then there were pig lickers. They were only slightly less good. Sometimes I wonder if bacon desserts are to my generation what Jell-o was to the 1960s: "the vehicle for subversive and rebellious expression." 

I have joined the cause. Today I made Love Me Tender Peanut Butter Bacon and Banana Cookies. 

And they were good.

Cook the bacon until it's nice and crispy. For more banana flavor, I substituted 1/4 c. mashed banana for 1/4 c. of the peanut butter. On my next batch I won't bother turning the bacon into a praline. Just use chopped crispy bacon. And I mean cook 1/2 lb. of bacon, chop it up and add it to the cookie dough.

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Sunday Afternoon Earrings

Clothing exchanges have taken Minneapolis by storm and they are fabulous. They involve women I like, brunch, purging unwanted items from my closet, and coming home with free clothes. This is why I love them. Today I scored several items including two necklaces, one of which I shortened to a more flattering length. I made some earrings with the leftover beads.

Panettone

December's Gourmet magazine featured a recipe for panettone that, despite being altogether too complicated, I found to be very seductive. I'll include the link as soon as it's published online. Note to self #1: Read the whole recipe before starting, including the part about the recipe taking 2 days start to finish. Note to self #2: If a recipe requires making phone calls to find more than 2 of the ingredients, abort! This recipe required locating: real vanilla beans (not hard and my new favorite way to use vanilla); panettone molds (slightly harder to find); and candied citron (surprisingly difficult - ending with my picking a fight with an employee at a local upscale grocery. I mean come on, try being helpful.)

Note to self #3: A recipe that calls for "heavy duty stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment" needs such a mixer. My puny handheld mixer nearly blew its motor.
This was my favorite part of the recipe: the upside down cooling process. 
The ingredients weren't the right temperature. The dough didn't mix as well as it should have, nor did it rise as much as it should have. The citron was for Grandma's gelatinous fruitcake instead of the delicious citrusy citron that is my favorite part of panettone. I baked it too close to the heat source in my 1960s gas oven, hardening the bottom 10% of the loaf... but the thing turned out pretty darn well.

And then I borrowed a big Kitchen Aid mixer to try... a second loaf. 

This stuff makes delicious french toast too. We tried it with cream cheese mixed with cherry preserves or cream cheese with marmalade. Now that is the way to eat french toast.

Limoncello

My Italian host family used to talk about making Limoncello. They insisted one had to use lemons from Sicily. I used Lemons from the natural foods co-op. They're probably not from Sicily, but they're organic. I gave them a good scrub anyway.

Martha Stewart's recipe is pretty straightforward. I used Prairie organic vodka (since Everclear is illegal in this state). Make sure not to get any of the pith when peeling lemons, it will make the vodka bitter. I steeped the peel + vodka in large jars for several weeks instead of days.

All that soaking produces flecks of schmutz, so I used coffee filters and a small funnel to filter the lemon vodka. By the way, I can't wait to experiment with other infused vodkas. 

I used organic sugar for the sugar solution, which isn't totally white. The result is a duller, cloudier Limoncello, but still delicious.

One of these bottles had to be re-filtered due to rogue flecks. I tried to ship a bottle to my brother in LA and learned the U.S. Postal Service prohibits the shipping of alcohol. Who knew?

Spiral Rib Hat

Let me document the fact that I was sitting in my car on Christmas Eve day, having just run to The Yarnery for one more skein of yarn, the car was running to keep me warm, and I was knitting. I mean, I was due to arrive at our Christmas celebration and the wrapping for the gift I was finishing was sitting in the seat next to me. Next year I must remember: there are only so many items that can be knit in the few weeks before Christmas.

But this was one of them. And the recipient seems to like it quite a lot.

It's an M.L. Egan design. But M.L. doesn't seem to have a Web site.

Sponge Candy

Sponge candy (or angel food candy, as we call it) has been a Christmas favorite in my family. My grandpa taught me how to make it and, since the process is easiest with two people, I asked if we could make it together this year.

It's basically all sugar, as is the case with any good Christmas candy.

The recipe calls for a tablespoon of vinegar. Once the candy reaches 300 degrees, you add a tablespoon of baking soda. The reaction between the soda and vinegar causes the liquid to start to foam. You have to mix it quickly, thoroughly, and dump it into the buttered pan so it doesn't collapse. This is where two people come in handy: one to hold the hot pan, ready to dump, while the other quickly mixes the soda and scrapes the pan with a spatula.
It heaves and grows in the pan for a while, then hardens as it cools. The result is a hard honeycomb.
Melt chocolate (with a bit of paraffin, of course, to make sure it hardens when cools)
Pure sugar. Pure deliciousness.

Checkbook cover

I experimented with oilcloth for a checkbook cover and it did not sew well. This version was made with the leftover yoga mat bag fabric.