Month: September 2008

Look at what Av brought home for me on Friday!

He took off in the Volvo and brought me back a BMW X3!

He says it is for being such a great wife and mommy…but really I have a feeling it has something to do with the fact that there’s *no* way that the tandem stroller we bought would fit in the S40!

I am crazy about it – Av just went off and bought it and brought it home to me! He said he wanted to put one of those giant bows on it just like in those Lexus commercials that come on during the holidays – but all he had was one of the big blue bows from when Shug was born so he figured that would be funny too!

Love-love-love it. Yay!!

This past week I made a two-tiered paper banner for the mantle for the upcoming Jewish New Year holiday – but these instructions work for any paper banner and any message…

Materials:
Scrapbook paper for background triangles
Scrapbook paper in complementary colors/pattern for stenciled letter
Stencil letters
Stencil brush
Acrylic paint (the little bottles of Folk Art paint are perfect)
Glue – I used Sobo but Elmer’s is perfect too
Small-diameter hole punch (mine is 3/4″) for making ribbon holes (make sure the holes are bigger than the ribbon you need to run through them)
Ribbon

Directions:
Measure how long your ribbon needs to be to go across your mantle, etc. If you’re doing a two-tiered mantle, make sure you figure enough ribbon so there is enough space between the two tiers for the letters to show easily.

Figure how big your triangles can be. In this case, I was able to use a whole scrapbook-paper width – but if you have lots of letters, it may be less.

Take a regular sheet of scrapbook paper – one for each letter:

Cut the paper into a perfect triangle by using the half-way point/length as your ‘point’ at the bottom and cut diagonally up to each opposite corner:

Next, cut the other scrapbook paper into whatever shape you like – I’ve used 15.5cm x 11cm for a rectangle (just trying it out here to see how it fits) – just make sure it is bigger than your stencil letters:

Take the stencil outlines and line up centered on the new scrapbook paper that was just cut – and with the stencil brush and acrylic paint on a paper plate, load the brush up with paint and ‘pounce’ the paint onto the paper through the stencil:

Remove and let dry.

While the stencil letters are drying, take each big scrapbook paper triangle and make two hole punches on each side of the top of the triangle. Make these pretty close to each side, and pretty close to one another, but not so close that the paper may tear. This is what the ribbon will be running through:

Glue on the stenciled letters, run the ribbon through the finished triangles, and the banner is done:

This one reads “L’shana Tovah” which is the Hebrew greeting for “Happy New Year!”.

Since this mantle is for Rosh Hashanah decorations, I took some wooden numbers like what are available at Michael’s, spray-painted them chrome, and once dry, put them on the mantle. This coming year is 5769:

…and here’s the whole thing! The paper banners, on each end of the mantle ledge are jelly jars filled with dried peonies, one side has a shofar (the shofar is blown every morning during the month leading up to Rosh Hashanah, on RH, and to end YK – and is blown as a reminder that the time of introspection is approaching), the other side has a replica tiny Torah scroll (these are often given as wedding or bar/bat mitzvah presents), and in the middle are the 5769 numbers:

I’m trying to make it so that we decorate for holidays so our children can really get into what’s coming up and when they’re old enough, make their own crafts and decorations to go along with them.

…already working on a new banner – Halloween!

Caramel apples are just a “Fall” food, I guess…I can’t imagine even thinking of having one in any other season. Maybe it’s because I remember those red candy-coated apples at school harvest festivals and Halloween carnivals – or maybe it’s the time of year when I occasionally flip past QVC and they are selling those Mrs. Prindables apples that seem a little expensive (about $33 for six, plus shipping).

Anyway, I’ve never had one of those Mrs. Prindables apples, but it’s so easy to make these at home – and you can do it with any flavors you like…

Ingredients – this is enough for four large apples:
1 bag Kraft caramels (these come with little sticks for making caramel apples)
2 tbsp water
4 large apples (or maybe 5 small ones) – I used red delicious
little sticks for apple handles if you don’t buy the Kraft brand of caramels
ribbons for embellishing the cooled finished caramel apples
various toppings: I used Heath bar toffee bits, chopped pecans, tiny M&Ms, and melted chocolate morsels…but you could use anything!

Directions:
Make sure there is room in the refrigerator for the baking pan once these are made.

Put each topping in its own bowl so that’s ready to be applied once the apples come out of the hot caramel. Depending on each, you may want to have a little spoon ready for each topping to help put it on. Have these bowls close to where the apples will come out of the caramel because the caramel cools off pretty quickly and everything sticks best while the apple is still hot.

Wash the apples and make sure they are completely dry. Put them on a baking sheet that’s lined with parchment paper.

Over medium heat, melt the caramels/water mixture – stir very often:

After a few minutes, the caramel will be completely melted:

Here are the apples, ready to be dipped:

Place each apple – one at a time – into the melted caramel and spoon the caramel over all sides. While the apple is covered with hot caramel, place it into the bowl with the topping(s) you’re using for that apple. For most of mine, I just rolled the apple around in the topping bowl to get the best coverage. Place each apple back on the baking sheet to cool:

If you are going to personalize any with writing, wait until the plain caramel apple has been in the refrigerator for a while and is cold. Then melt the chocolate, place in a small ziploc bag, cut off a tiny bit of one bottom corner, and pipe your message. Since I made these for a little pre- Rosh Hashanah treat, I piped the upcoming new year on it – 5769:

It would really be cute, too, to write each guest’s name on their apple, or pipe a monogram, etc. If I was doing a bunch like this I would have melted some white chocolate and piped dots all over the apple too.

Once these were ready to serve, I cut a length of different ribbon for each. Here’s the M&M caramel apple (oh – and next time I might think about using the regular, bigger M&Ms. These baking M&Ms were so quick to melt while I was placing them on the hot apple, so in a few places you can see where they burst open), plus chopped pecan, and toffee bits:

I love making cornbread. No matter what, those four ingredients mixed together makes cornbread the same as the hundred times before (whereas with loaf bread I get something a little different every time!).

If you like, you can add things to it – corn kernels, jalapenos, onions…

Updating this post in 2021 to mention that I most cornbread recipes are very, very similar. Lately, I’ve been using this recipe from Dixie Lily cornmeal, using buttermilk. If I get cornmeal from a gristmill, I’ll use their recipe instead.

Cornbread Salad

Ingredients:
Half skillet of cornbread
1 bell pepper, chopped
2 celery sticks, chopped
1/2 medium-size Vidalia onion, chopped
1 tomato, chopped – plus another 1/4 – 1/2 tomato chopped to sprinkle over the top just before serving
mayonnaise
(plus – you can add in crumbled bacon, shredded cheese, pinto beans, rotel tomatoes, etc etc etc)

Directions:
Crumble the cornbread into bite-size pieces:

Add all the other ingredients except the mayonnaise:

Put the mayonnaise in a little at a time – I think I usually use about a cup of Duke’s for this. But you may like a little more or a little less.

Mix gently, and it’s ready! I have to admit, it’s not the most attractive dish, so before I serve it like this, I’ll dice up a little more tomato and sprinkle that over the top – makes a big difference.

Oh – and like potato salad, it really is better the next day!

Av noticed in the paper today that the Elvis is Alive Museum is for sale on eBay. It is in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The current owner, Andy Key, purchased the museum on eBay last year for $8300. Right now it has a starting bid of $15,000 – he says in the listing that he’s invested $40,000 including the value that’s been added since he and his wife have added content to the museum plus a gift shop and grill.

This 1974 Cadillac Fleetwood Limo is included, also a “real casket with a wax headed figure, several flower sprays, and drapes to create the funeral scene”.

The reasons behind why Elvis is believed to still be alive are there too…and there are *lots* of other things included in the listing – like:

“Rights to the DNA test results which compared tissue samples from Elvis’ two biopsies, to tissue samples from the body autopsied as Elvis, which cost $2,200.00. The two DNA’s did not match.”

“Several Bradford plates, including an extremely rare ‘On Stage from Hawaii” light up plate.”

“Over 600 Pages of FBI files that document the fact that Elvis worked with the FBI and DEA.”

“One 2×3 and One 3×5 ‘Elvis Lives’ Rug”

…and much, much more…

The eBay listing is here.

The Encyclopedia of Alabama website has been ‘live’ as of last Monday – there are lots of good articles, and they asked (and I said ‘yes’) to use a bunch of my pics too. The website is here.

I didn’t realize until someone at Auburn had contacted me that universities even did these online state encyclopedias as projects – but Georgia and Washington both have really nice ones.

Av and I both grew up with World Book – and I had to look up just now to see if they still made a physical set of encyclopedia volumes (they do – a set of 2008s is $1089). World Book also made those great Childcraft books too…Av’s mother saves everything so I bet we can use his set for our kids. Looooved those. Then there were the ones that were sold at the grocery store. Was it that you had to buy a certain amount of groceries and then you could buy a different volume at a lower cost? Av remembers Golden Book Encyclopedias and I think I remember Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedias done that way. It was *so* convenient if you had your own set of books because back in…you know, the ’80s…you’d have to go all the way to the library to look something up otherwise…