Ever since we moved to Alaska, I’ve thought it would be fun to spend the holidays here–avoid travelling, and get to experience an Alaskan Christmas. This year, I finally convinced my mom, and my brother and his family to come join us in Juneau for the holidays. I’m so excited, but I’m also completely unprepared. I . . . → Read More: A Christmas at Home]]>

Ever since we moved to Alaska, I’ve thought it would be fun to spend the holidays here–avoid travelling, and get to experience an Alaskan Christmas. This year, I finally convinced my mom, and my brother and his family to come join us in Juneau for the holidays. I’m so excited, but I’m also completely unprepared. I have done no decorating or shopping or baking since I’ve spent the fall working on graduate school. I now have 10 days to get ready. This means I will probably not be posting new fun holiday crafts even though I truly love to. Instead, I’ll dig through my archives and re-post some of my favorite things from Christmas’s past.

I was walking last week and thought the snow on these rocks made them look like Chocolate Crinkle Cookies… At least I’m thinking about holiday baking.

I really wish December was two months long. Right now I’m on a break between semesters (which reminds me… I’ve got to go register for spring!). So I’ve been getting into the Christmas spirit, with Christmas crocheting and knitting and general crafty fun.

Today, I dropped everything to make some treats. I have a couple of gifts . . . → Read More: Gifts of Food: A recipe for Candied Pecans]]>

I really wish December was two months long. Right now I’m on a break between semesters (which reminds me… I’ve got to go register for spring!). So I’ve been getting into the Christmas spirit, with Christmas crocheting and knitting and general crafty fun.

Today, I dropped everything to make some treats. I have a couple of gifts that need to go in the mail, and they need to go out tomorrow to make it on time. So between dropping the kids off to school and lunch time I made seasoned pecans and candied pecans and rum balls. All three are family favorites.

The candied pecans are so quick, they’re the kind of thing you can whip up while you’re waiting for something else to come out of the oven. They are also incredibly addictive.

I didn’t have time to roll the chocolate into rum balls before I had to rush to the airport to pick up James. He’s been in Juneau all week. I should have called, because the plane didn’t get to land in Cordova. They were stopped by fog and had to continue on to Anchorage. I was glad I made the drive, though because the town is in the shadow of mountains, and even on a clear day doesn’t get direct sunlight in winter. Driving across the delta to the airport, I got to see beautiful frosty view and soak up some rays on this 14 degree day.

I rushed back to town and went to a class Christmas party for Jay Jay, then took the kids and my fifth grade girl scouts over to the high school where the Honor’s Society was putting on Santa’s Workshop and kids get to make crafts to give as gifts. My favorite crafts this year were the very retro clove studded oranges and beeswax candles.

So in case you need a quick treat to make for a party or for a gift, here’s my mom’s recipe for candied pecans.

Candied Pecans
(Makes 3 cups)

1/2 c. sugar
1 t. instant coffee
2 T. water
1/2 t. cinnamon
1/8 t. salt
3 c. shelled pecans.

In a medium saucepan, bring to boil, sugar, instant coffee, water, cinnamon, and salt. Remove from heat, and add pecans, stirring for 3 minutes. Pour the sugared pecans onto parchment paper, and allow to cool (about 15 minutes). Store in a sealed, dry container.

You can double or triple this recipe–just make sure to use a saucepan large enough to easily stir all the pecans. I just did a batch with 2 pounds (8 cups) of pecans and it came out beautifully.

Jay Jay is currently obsessed with Harry Potter. . . . → Read More: Wishing for Deathly Hallows]]> Most of the time I don’t mind that there’s no movie theatre here in Cordova. Going to the movies is a fun part of any trip away from town. But sometimes I just want to be part of a cultural phenomon–like today, when the new Harry Potter movie opens.

Jay Jay is currently obsessed with Harry Potter. Since he’s only five (he’ll be six on November 28th) he’s only been read the first two books in the series. I think they get a little too dark for a wee lad like him pretty quickly after Chamber of Secrets. But he insisted on being Harry for Halloween.

I made the winter wizard cap with ear flaps and convinced Jay that if Harry were to come visit Alaska, he’d probably wear a hat.

Now he wants to have a Harry Potter birthday party. This leads me to wonder–how do I make a Harry Potter party fun for kids who don’t know anything about the young wizard yet? Selma and I have come up with a few fun activities (a sorting hat game, a scavenger hunt for the Sorcerer’s Stone, making wands out of chop sticks, but I’m searching for more).

Got any suggestions?

p.s. In honor of the movie opening, Craftzine has posted a round-up of Harry Potter-themed crafts and they’re featuring my Hermione Tie with a picture of Selma.

On Wednesday night we had our annual pumpkin carving party. We’ve been hosting one each year since we moved away from Seattle where our friends Van and Tracy always had a great party. James has adopted Van’s recipe for Hot-Buttered Rum. This year, the party almost didn’t happen because we’ve had a shortage of pumpkins! Getting . . . → Read More: Cinnamon-Crusted Pumpkin Seed Recipe]]>

On Wednesday night we had our annual pumpkin carving party. We’ve been hosting one each year since we moved away from Seattle where our friends Van and Tracy always had a great party. James has adopted Van’s recipe for Hot-Buttered Rum. This year, the party almost didn’t happen because we’ve had a shortage of pumpkins! Getting anything from the lower-48 to Alaska is a challenge, but big heavy fresh vegetables are probably one of the harder things to get here on time. We found a few on sale over the weekend for $1.00 per pound, but by Monday morning the town was fresh out and some folks we’d invited hadn’t gotten their pumpkins yet. Luckily most of our guests had planned ahead and were ready for Wednesday night.

We transform my laundry (and yarn storage) room into carving central–there’s a formica table in there and concrete floors, so it’s a great place to make a big mess.

I usually avoid the actual carving and sometimes convince James to carve a pumpkin of my own design. This year, I was too involved in salvaging and roasting the pumpkin seeds. With the help of many friends we liberated the seeds from the pulp of all the pumpkins being carved and set about roasting them. Once we started, we were full of ideas for various flavorings–wasabi, Italian seasoning, cocoa powder. But we settled on plain salted seeds and cinnamon sugar. The cinnamon sugared seeds were a big hit.

To make them, rinse pumpkin seeds in a mesh strainer to get off any sticky pumpkin pulp. Shake off any excess water, then spread them on an oiled baking sheet in one even layer. Coat the seeds in a tablespoon or two of vegetable oil, then mix together 1/4 c. cinnamon, 1/4 cup sugar and 1 T sea salt (more or less depending on how many seeds you have). Coat the seeds with the spice mixture and bake at 400 degrees until everything is crispy. You can adjust the salt and sugar after cooking while the seeds are still hot and the additions should still stick to the seeds. Cool on a paper towel and store in a sealed dry container.

One of the carvers took all the pulp and said he was going to make it into a pie like his grandmother always did. I’d only ever heard of using the flesh of the pumpkin, not the pulp–how about you? Have you ever made anything with pumpkin “guts?”

When’s the last time you fixed something instead of throwing it away? I have a love-hate relationship with mending. I can’t stand to get rid of clothes just because they need repair, (so much of our wardrobe comes from thrift stores–I’d hate to end the cycle of re-use) but mending is always something . . . → Read More: In Praise of Mending]]>
photo credit: Kirstea

When’s the last time you fixed something instead of throwing it away? I have a love-hate relationship with mending. I can’t stand to get rid of clothes just because they need repair, (so much of our wardrobe comes from thrift stores–I’d hate to end the cycle of re-use) but mending is always something I say I’ll get to later. So as a result, I usually have a nice big pile of socks with holes, jeans needing patches, etc. (The last time I mentioned mending on the blog was back in 2007. In that case, James was mending my jeans.)

Last week, I decided to clear the decks. (My pile wasn’t too big because my mom whittled away at it when she was visiting this summer–Yay, Mom!) I took care of the little projects that were piled up, and then, as I was doing laundry, I began to notice other clothes that needed repair. Instead of making a new pile, I sat down to fix them right away. “Well, that was easy.” I told myself after I’d finished patching a pair of jeans. It only took a few minutes. I used an iron-on patch, but whip-stitched the edges because those patches tend to come unglued after a few washings.

My laundry room also happens to be the storage area for all my craft stuff, so I have mending supplies right at hand there. If you put off fixing things like I do, it might help to have a small repair kit near where you fold clothes.

My mending basket isn’t particularly tidy, but I’m sentimental about it. It’s my grandmother’s basket, and she got it in Okinawa when she was there visiting my aunt and uncle in the 1960s. It’s full of her old wooden spools of thread, plus needles, patches and other bits and pieces.

Nearby on the yarn shelf, I have scissors, pins, glue, darning egg, etc. in these admittedly overstuffed little fabric boxes I found at Target. I’m hoping that I’ll keep up with the mending, and that last week’s repair frenzy wasn’t just an attempt to procrastinate about doing something else.

Forgive the self-portrait–I had to take the . . . → Read More: New Pattern: Cosmopolitan Cowl]]> Sometimes my designs are inspired by fashion or nature or an idea or problem I want to solve, but sometimes, they are the simple result of harmony between yarn and hook. This cowl is such a design. The quiet undulating texture and soft scalloped edges developed organically as I worked.

Forgive the self-portrait–I had to take the photo while there was still some acceptable level of daylight, and there was no one around but me. This was at noon, but it seems like nearly dusk. The sun is at such a low angle these days, we never get bright sunlight, but the sunrises and sunsets are spectacular.

At TNNA, Eileen and Carl, the owners of Bijou Basin Ranch asked me to come up with a one-skein pattern using their luscious Yak-Cormo yarn. This yarn is a bit thick and thin, and it’s soft and light as a cloud, and extremely warm. It was certainly one of the exciting yarns at this years’ show. Clara wrote about it in her recent TNNA recap. I had first envisioned using it for a lace pattern, but the yarn wanted to be more of a solid fabric. I was chatting with Jess, who helped me wind the yarn in the bar/lobby of my hotel on Saturday night, and she mentioned she had been thinking of a feather and fan cowl which is the idea that eventually lead to the textured stitch you see here.

I checked in with Eileen on Sunday morning, and she liked the direction the cowl was going, so I proceeded, happy to have something non-teddy-bear-related to work on. The plane ride home was all it took to finish, and I put it to the test today. It did a great job keeping me warm in Cordova where it was crisp and in the high twenties today. (It didn’t help me remember that it takes extra time to scrape off the car before going anywhere so I was late to work at the yarn store this afternoon. By the way, nowhere else I have lived have I found frost INSIDE the car. Does anyone else have that issue?)

In the spirit of momentum, I wrote up the pattern today, but I’d love to test it out before releasing it. So, I will give a free draft of the pattern to the first five people who request one in the comments. The pattern uses about 150 yards of fingering (sock or slightly heavier) yarn and a 2.75mm crochet hook (USC). Please don’t ask for the pattern if you don’t think you have time to test it in the next week. Thank you!

I don’t know if you’ve ever decided to make a yummy looking recipe and realized that it had “chocolate wafer cookies” as an ingredient. They are a tasty simple cookie, that I think used to be readily available in stores, but now are limited to gourmet shops (Gourmet shops don’t exist in Cordova). These . . . → Read More: The Elusive Chocolate Wafer Cookie]]>

I don’t know if you’ve ever decided to make a yummy looking recipe and realized that it had “chocolate wafer cookies” as an ingredient. They are a tasty simple cookie, that I think used to be readily available in stores, but now are limited to gourmet shops (Gourmet shops don’t exist in Cordova). These little cookies can be used in cookie crusts or in sandwich cookie desserts or pies or tarts or anywhere a bit of chocolate crunchiness might be a welcome addition–i.e. crumbled on top of pudding or ice cream or used to decorate the sides of a cake or as one layer of a trifle. At any rate, I had typically avoided such recipes because I didn’t have a ready source for chocolate wafer cookies, and I also don’t like to use a lot of processed foods in my cooking because, I’m a little perverse that way.

This weekend, I needed to make a dessert for a progressive dinner and I was devoid of inspiration. I felt tarted and pied and caked out from all of the fall fruit I had baked and birthdays I had fêted over the last few weeks. So it was time for something new. Thumbing through my cookbooks, I got a little obsessed with cheesecake. I had never made a cheesecake with actual cream cheese–In my days as a vegan chef I’d made plenty of delicious “cheesecakes” with tofu. But we’re in using things up mode since we’re travelling over Christmas, and I had a bunch of organic neufchatel cream cheese in the fridge from a bulk order earlier in the fall (when Jay was big in a bagel eating jag). Selma said, “Make a graham cracker crust!” But that didn’t really appeal to me. I definitely wanted chocolate involved. On top of that, my spring form pan has gone missing, or more likely didn’t make the move because the movers left my house without taking any of my baking pans, and tho’ I rushed a box down to them at the warehouse, it wouldn’t surprise me if something got left out.

One thing led to another, and I only had about three hours left before the party, so I got to work making the batter for some mini chocolate cheesecake bites, in tiny mini muffin tins with no crust. While the cheesecakes were cooling, I improvised this recipe for chocolate wafer cookies which served as the base or “crust” for the cheesecakes after they had cooled.

Chocolate Wafer Cookies

1 1/4 c flour
1/4 c. cocoa powder
1 T baking powder
1/2 c. canola oil
1/4 c. blackstrap molasses (important for giving the cookies a nice dark color and rich flavor)
1/2 c. maple syrup
3 T – 1/4 c. water

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder and baking powder. In a small bowl, whisk together oil, molasses and maple syrup. (TIP: if you measure the oil first, then the molasses and syrup will slide right out of your measuring cup). Add wet to dry and stir to combine, kneading with your hands when the mixture is too thick to stir. If it seems to dry to hold together, add a Tablespoon of water at a time until the dough can form a ball. Use immediately, or chill until ready to use.

To make the cookies, roll the dough out between two pieces of parchment paper or waxed paper to a thickness of 1/8 – 1/4 inch. Cut with a small biscuit cutter or cookie cutter. Bake for 9-10 minutes in a 350 degree oven. It is very hard to tell if the cookies are done by sight, if you can smell them, they’ve probably been in there too long.

Makes approximately 2 dozen, depending on the size of your cookie cutter. This recipe is easily doubled.

I’ll post more about the cheesecakes soon.