Month: October 2007

In order to give the kids more sweets to eat things to do while they’re waiting to put on their costumes, I made some gingerbread cookies for them to decorate. They’re not too sweet, which is good because the frosting adds a lot of sweetness. They have a mild ginger flavor and the molasses adds richness and that perfect gingerbread color. Here’s the recipe.

Halloween Ginger Cookies

Makes about 2 dozen, depending on the size of your cookie cutters.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Cookie Ingredients:
DRY:
3 cups flour
1 T baking powder
2 t powdered ginger
1/2 t sea salt

WET:
1/2 c canola oil
2 T fresh ginger (I actually used a jar of grated ginger from the Ginger People
1/4 c molasses
1/2 c maple syrup

Icing Ingredients:
1 c powdered sugar (you can make your own, you know, by blending sugar in the blender with a smidge of corn starch).
5 T apple cider or orange juice (or soy milk, if you don’t want the flavoring)

Decorations:
Raisins
Candy Corn

Instructions:
Add the dry ingredients to a large bowl, and whisk to combine. Add the wet ingredients to a smaller bowl and whisk as well. (TIP: if you measure the oil first, then the sticky sweeteners will just slide off your measuring cup).

Combine wet and dry in the large bowl.

Roll out dough on a floured surface to about 1/4″ thickness. Cut with floured halloween shaped cookie cutters and bake for about 10 minutes on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

Allow cookies to cool completely.

When the kids are ready to decorate, sift the powdered sugar and whisk in the liquid slowly, stopping before the full amount when you reach a nice spreadable consistency.

Have the kids spread the icing onto the cookies and press the decorations on top. Allow the icing to dry if possible, before eating.

—

I’ll post more pictures after they’re decorated.

Happy Halloween!

Technorati Tags:
vegan, recipe, ginger bread, cookie

I love this popcorn snack that Jay made in his preschool today. The kids filled a clear food service glove with popcorn. The “fingernails” are made from candy corn. The kids loved using them to scare the parents when they were arriving.

James just got an e-mail from a grad-school classmate Christina Hsu:

“My dad and I went on an AMAZING trip this summer that we’d like to share with you. We were among the 11 lucky teams chosen to compete on “The Amazing Race” – a five-time Emmy Award winning show. If you’re wondering what it’s all about or what happens, you won’t get any answers out of me … please just tune in!”

Funny thing is, when we were living in Princeton, Christina would come over and watch the Race at our house, and we’d all fantasize about putting together teams. I’m so excited she actually did it.

The show premiers November 4th on CBS.

Technorati Tags:
cbs, reality tv, amazing race, christina

It may seem like I have hats on the brain these days (I sort of do–I recently made a knitted hat for my friend Molly that I’ll post about soon). Back in July, I wrote an article for CRAFT magazine. It is a step-by-step guide to creating your own hat design. The issue just came out, and my article is on page 116. Here are some of the hats I created as models while working on the article:

This one is a sun hat I gave to my grandmother for her birthday.

Below, my mom models it:

And I tried it on:

This hat was my Fair Isle February project:

My favorite hat for the piece is a newsboy cap. It was a bit tricky to get the brim to stick out without any aids (I didn’t want to add plastic or cardboard to the brim like many hats do).

I ended up doubling the yarn and going down a hook size. I found that tip online, but unfortunately, can’t remember where now! (If you know, post a comment, and I’ll link to it).

The tutorial gives tips on how to create a spiral-style crown or a round crown without obvious increases. You can learn various brim styles, and get ideas for all sorts of fun customizations.

A good friend had her baby a wee bit early, and so I got to make some very tiny things to warm the baby’s head and feet. I found the bootie pattern online. (It was so easy, I had it memorized by the second bootie). And I improvised the hat. You can too!

Make a row of foundation single crochet as tall as you’d like the hat to be. (I made the preemie cap 4 1/2 inches tall).

Work half-double crochet in the back loop only until the hat, when stretched is the width you’d like it to be. (I went for a stretched-width of 10″ which was 8″ unstretched.)

Crochet the foundation row to the final row to close the cap. Leave a 12″ tail. Create a draw-string closure for the top of the hat by weaving in and out along one side edge about 1/2″ in from the edge itself. This creates the crown of the hat and the floral poof on top at the same time. Draw closed, and wrap the yarn around the poof a couple of times. Weave in your ends. If you don’t want a florette at the top, make your drawstring on the wrong side of the cap (which ever side you choose to be the wrong side) and make it only a smidge from the edge.

That’s it! I really like the look of the half double crochet rib–it reminds me of a broken rib in knit, which I like a lot too.

The yarn I used is Malabrigo Merino Worsted, from my stash. I used a 5 mm hook.

Technorati Tags:
crochet, pattern, free pattern, hat, preemie

Pictures from all 5 Book launch events:

Ravelry party!!!

Went to blogger meetup! This smart blogger found profile pics for all the people on her “Blogger Bingo” card and made her own version of the card with pictures.