The Spice Satchel

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

monkey madness

At the same time I made Bennett's jungle animals, I made a monkey for Bridget's coming nephew. He is going to have a monkey themed room, and I think he got about 10 stuffed monkeys. I love how similar and different the boy monkeys are from each other. Like they almost have their own personalities.

As I said, Ellie loved Bennett's monkey so much, she has claimed it as her own. I made her very own super special girl monkey. What makes it a girl monkey? Pink overalls and a flower on her head, of course! I hope she loves it as much as (or more than) Bennett's boy monkey.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

cookies! ginger

I want cookies, Honey, could you make cookies soon? -Paul
What kind? I ask, he doesn't care.
I've been wanting to try these Giant Ginger Cookies I saw a while ago, and we are soon making our Valentine's Day meal, which has a sizable piece of ginger in it. Sounds like a plan!
I am simply calling them ginger cookies, because I make all my cookies giant! Well, except cut out cookies. Anyway, I like big, soft cookies. Yum!

Cookies are sugar, flour, flavor, and fat. When you are lactose intolerant, and your husband dies from dairy, you have to get creative when a recipe calls for all butter fat. Fleischmann's unsalted margarine is our favorite, but sometimes we can't find that, and we have to settle for some sad 52% fat margarine just so it doesn't have milk hiding in it. A lot of times the best thing to do is mix 1/2 margarine 1/2 shortening (Crisco). This is what I did for this recipe, and my cookies are very, very soft I'm happy to say.

A funny thing happened while I was making the dough. I decided I only wanted 1/2 a batch. I didn't think Paul and I really needed a whole batch of these giant cookies, which is really double compared to normal size cookie recipes. So I was very carefully measuring out 1/2 the flour, and I got it perfect. Then after I mixed everything together, I thought the dough was awfully floury. Only to realize, I very carefully had put in a 1/4 cup too much flour. Ha! I'm not the math guy of the family :) Actually, I had figured out the right amount, I just forgot by the time I went to measure it.

So I made the rest of the dough, and a full batch of giant cookies! Which is good, because as it turns out, our roommate likes them. He almost never eats anything we eat. So, hooray to lots of cookies :)

Valentine's Dinner

Paul and I decided to make a fancy dinner, and try some (more expensive) wine for Valentine's Day this year. We made a lamb curry pilaf, and paired it with Zinfandel. Nice. The lamb made the black pepper pop in the wine.

It took us 3 hours to prepare this meal. It is the most extensive curry we have made yet. The onions, tomatoes, garlic, and green chilies all cook so long they turn into gravy to coat the lamb. Together with ginger, cinnamon, cardamom pods, cloves, bay leaves, saffron, rose water, turmeric, coriander, red chili powder, cumin, mace, and nutmeg, it has the most complex smell and taste I think I have ever experienced.

The rice didn't cook how it was supposed to, and the gravy didn't get as think as it was supposed to, but it was still a very delicious meal, and well worth the 3 hours. After cooking the rice and lamb separately, you assemble the pilaf in a casserole dish, and bake it so all the flavors meld into half the rice.

I know it kind of looks like mush, but I have full confidence that next time it will be much more pretty. As it took so long to cook, and it was for a special occasion, I couldn't not share :)
Fancy meals don't have to come from a restaurant, you can make them right at home. They are often better when you do, I find. I am more often disappointed by restaurant food than satisfied by it. Especially with something like Indian, when Paul could likely die just by walking into the place, with all the peanuts, whole and crushed, they use in so many dishes. Plus, you can eat and drink much more for a lot less.
And romantic :)

crochet me some jungle friends

Bennett just turned 1. For his birthday, Doni asked if I could crochet him some jungle animals for his jungle themed bedroom. A monkey, a lion, a hippo and a giraffe (not too big and not too small). How fun, and what a great idea! I knew I had patterns for a monkey and a lion in my crochet today magazine, they were small, so I just needed to use a larger hook to make them bigger.

I went right to ravelry.com to look for the giraffe and hippo patterns. You can almost find any pattern, or at least an idea of how to make it on your own, on ravelry. It is an awesome community site. I did find the patterns I was looking for, and even though the final sizes of the animals were not mentioned, I had a feeling they were too small as well. I was right, for the giraffe I simply used a larger hook, just like with the other 2 animals. The hippo was even too small for that, so I used an extra large hook (9mm!) and 2 strands of yarn. This gave me an opportunity to give the hippo some character. The monkey had pants, the lion an awesome mane, I made spots for the giraffe, so using 2 colors was a way to make the hippo fun and cute too.

I love the way they all turned out! The lion is a little top heavy, but his huge head is so cute I don't even care! Ellie loves the monkey so much, she has stolen it, and hasn't let Bennett play with it at all. She even sleeps with him :) So for her birthday, I am making a girl monkey :) I hope she will love it just as much!

Monday, February 13, 2012

cranberry muffins w/orange glaze

Cranberry Muffins:
3/4 cup milk (I used 1/2 coffee rich 1/2 water)
1/4 cup veg. oil
1 egg
2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup halved cranberries

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Grease bottoms only of 12 medium muffin cups w/shortening.

Beat milk, oil & egg in large bowl with fork (add 1 tablespoon orange peel if desired). Stir in flour, sugar, baking powder & salt all at once just until flour is moistened (batter will be lumpy). Fold in cranberries. Divide evenly among muffin cups.

Bake 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Let stand 5 minutes in pan, then loosen with knife if necessary and remove from pan.

Orange Glaze:
1/2 cup powdered sugar
3-5 teaspoons orange juice

Whisk together. Add more sugar if too runny, and juice if too solid. Drizzle over muffins with spoon. Serve warm or cool.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Where is Winter?

I know I possibly shouldn't be asking this question, or perhaps I should be knocking on wood... Winter is nowhere to be found this year. It's not here anyway. It makes me even more sad for the Polar Bears, and so many other endangered species, to see the spread of what we humans have done to the planet. Last year we had blizzard conditions, and this year just 2 little snows. My feeling is that there still is time for a giant blizzard to sneak up on us- it's not even Valentine's Day yet. But even if that happens, it will be the most mild Winter I have ever seen. One morning of surprise ice on my car, and one 2 day snow/ice cover. That's it, the rest has been sun and green grass.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Amanda Parker: fine artist

Amanda Parker is one of my great friends from all the way back in elementary school. She was always great at art, and really started loving it in high school. Now, she is an amazing painter/artist, and learning more about her passion everyday. She painted Paul and I a picture, and we just love it! Love it so much, we got another one from her, and it arrived the other day! I really like all the different things you can see in her work. The colors and shapes, the feelings and moods of the pieces. They are just great.
You can see more of her work, here on facebook, and she also has an ebay store.
The piece she painted just for Paul and I is titled The Lift.

The painting we saw, and just had to have because it is so cool, we saw on her facebook page, and purchased through ebay! It is called Calculating Chaos, which I thought was extra fitting since Paul is a math major.

I am so proud of her, pursuing her dream, painting, and loving every minute of it. Getting her work out there, doing what she really wants to do. I am also glad she has such a supportive husband by her side. Keep painting, Amanda!

She also drew the art for Paul's card game: Trebuchet! I love that I had a talent to incorporate too. He has been working on this game since 2006. It has changed a lot over its life, but it has been a lot of fun play testing, and designing the cards. I hope to blog more about this in the future. So much life going on right now.

Paul and Cori

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Monday, February 13, 2012

Friday, February 3, 2012

Sunday, January 1, 2012