Olivia's Quiet Book

My friend Melanie is home schooling her son, who will start kindergarten this year, just like Abby. Melanie also has Olivia, who is 2. Melanie has been looking for things for Olivia to do while she and Mitchell are doing school. Melanie had seen my old Quiet Book (which Abby plays with) and wanted one for Olivia, so I made one for Olivia's 2nd birthday. All of the words are hand embroidered and I did most of that while watching "Law and Order" re-runs in the afternoon.*

I decided to photograph all the pages before I bound the book--I thought that would be easier. There's two pictures of some of the pages, so you can see the "activity"

Imagine that there's a drum roll, as I'm really proud of myself.

OLIVIA'S QUIET BOOK

I have all the pages sewn together** and am working on the cover now. I think that I'll have it done tonight, or at least by tomorrow. I'll post pictures of the cover when it's 100% complete.

I'm planning to offer this as a custom item at my Esty shop and then make one with fewer pages and without any personalization that will also be available. I think that my favorite thing about making these was getting to use all the scraps that I've been collecting.

Abby has invented a new game using the pieces from Cranium Carboo, the people from her doll house and a jump rope, so I need to go and see what that's all about. Perhaps Abby will get an Etsy store too.

*Not relevant, but something fun to know

**Which was a challenge and I really wish that I knew how to use a thimble.

My Fancy Yogurt Maker

My sister called over the weekend to ask me about my yogurt maker. Her birthday is coming up and she said that she wanted a yogurt maker for her birthday, but all the ones that she's found are too expensive, so she was wondering where I got mine.

My yogurt maker consists of the following: two pots put together to make a double-boiler, a candy thermometer, a whisk, a sink full of ice water, an electric blanket and a bath towel.

I made yogurt on Tuesday and here's some pictures of the process so you can see my fancy yogurt maker at work*.

I am heating the milk up to 185 using my two pot double boiler method, with the candy thermometer to check the temperature and the whisk to make sure that there aren't any hot spots.

Now the pot with the milk is in the sink to cool to 110 degrees, so the yogurt cultures can grow.

This is the key to the yogurt-making--the pot is wrapped up in an electric blanket to hold the temperature at 110 degrees. When I read about making yogurt at http://www.makeyourownyogurt.com/ they recommended sitting your pot on a hot plate. I don't have a hot plate, so I decided to try out my first batch with the electric blanket and see if we liked home made yogurt. My intention was to get a hot plate, however the electric blanket works so well that I'll just use this now. My parents, in particular, get a big kick out of the fact that I use a blanket to make yogurt.

And finally, everything gets covered with a towel to hold in the heat for the 7-9 hour process of the cultures growing.

Making yogurt is like having a science experiment in the kitchen and I always enjoyed my science fair projects. My sister is now trying to think up a way to use the heat of Phoenix to make her yogurt, so maybe I'll have pictures of her fancy yogurt maker sometime soon.

*In addition to not having a fancy yogurt maker, I don't have a fancy kitchen. Someday, perhaps...

What's for Dinner?

Making a menu was hard this week. I don't know if it's because it's summer or if I'm just in a funk, but I don't feel like cooking and it was hard to come up with stuff to make. So...

I went looking through my recipe printouts from stuff that I've found on-line in the past. There are two recipes this week from "30 Minute Meals." Let me say, right off the bat, that Rachael Ray annoys the heck out of me. I hate that she can't just say "olive oil" and that she has all the cutesy expressions for everything. However, Rachael Ray used to be on at 6:00 pm in our time zone and when Abby was a baby that was a VERY bad time of day for her. We were careful with what kind of TV shows we watched with Abby around even when Abby was a baby and the Food Network was a "safe channel". Abby really liked Rachel Ray and I enjoyed sitting in a chair with a baby who wasn't crying while I waited for Nick to come home. When Abby learned to talk, she called Rachael Ray "30 Minute Meals" (or a baby talk approximation of that--I can't remember exactly how she pronounced it.) As much as I disliked Rachael Ray's personality, I had to admit that she made some good food. So, that's the story behind those recipes.

Sunday
Make your own Tacos*
Watermelon

Monday
Frozen pizza**
Jell-O Jigglers with Strawberries

Tuesday
Italian Mini Meatloaves with Macaroni and Cheese (this is one of the "30 Minute Meal Recipes that you can find here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/italian-mini-meat-loaves-with-mac-and-three-cheeses-recipe/index.html
Green Salad

Wednesday
Wild Mushroom Quesadillas with Warm Black Bean Salsa (I'm getting them out of the way together. Here's the recipe for this one: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/wild-mushroom-quesadillas-with-warm-black-bean-salsa-recipe/index.html)
Green Salad
Watermelon

Thursday
Hoisin China Noodles with Four Flavors (from The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper--this is my only night of real cooking this week)
Stir Fried Bok Choy

Friday
Breakfast for Dinner
Fruit Salad

Saturday
I have no idea--hopefully an idea will come to me and I'll have everything that I need in the cupboards. Or hopefully we'll have some left overs.

*This was really fun, as I got hard taco shells and Abby called them "Taco Buns." She also pretended that she had her own cooking show and narrated for us while she made her taco. Perhaps she was remembering back to those long ago days of watching "30 Minute Meals."
**Nick had a board meeting and with my lack of desire to cook, I wasn't going to cook for just Abby and me.

Lunchbox Ideas

Abby starts kindergarten soon (August 24th), so she'll start taking her lunch ever day. She doesn't like sandwiches, so I've been trying to think of some "sandwich alternative" ideas. We have some insulated containers, so she can take potsickers and rice, or scrambled eggs and bacon, but we need some other options.

Right now* I'm trying out two things. I have dough rising to make Portuguese Corn Bread**. My "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" has a recipe to use the corn bread dough to make spicy pork buns. I read through that recipe and it doesn't seem like something that Abby would like, however I'm thinking that I can use the technique to make buns that are filled with ham and cheese and maybe tomatoes or some kind of vegetable. I think that Abby would eat that and it would be a sandwich alternative.

I'm also trying to make-over my banana bread recipe. My recipe is the one that my mom always made and it comes from my aunt's neighbor. It has a lot of sugar in it, so I've tried it with an extra smashed banana and almost no sugar. I added a little bit extra flour to take the place of the bulk of the sugar. The batter tasted right,*** so will hope that the bread comes out okay. I have no idea if I need to adjust the baking time because I took the sugar out. The reason for the banana break make-over is that Abby likes banana bread and cream cheese sandwiches, and that will be a viable lunch option as long as the banana bread isn't like cake.

Finally I'm making Jell-O Jigglers with strawberries. I feel like Abby (and me) doesn't eat enough fruit and vegetables, so I thought that the jigglers would be fun to make. I have tiny flower cookie cutters that I want to use to cut them out, once the Jell-O has set.

I talked to my sister yesterday and I think that she is a homemade yogurt convert. She lives in Phoenix and is trying to figure out a way to keep her milk at 110 degrees using solar power/the heat of Phoenix. If you want to try making your own yogurt, I recommend the directions at http://www.makeyourownyogurt.com/.

Happy cooking!!!

*Literally, right now
**I don't know what makes it Portuguese--I haven't made corn bread from scratch before
***Yes, I taste things with raw eggs in them while cooking because I like to live on the edge.

I wish that you could smell my kitchen

I am making four loaves Brioche Filled with Chocolate Ganache today for the cake stand at our church's Parish Festival. I think that this is the best that my kitchen has ever smelled. The brioche is like a giant chocolate filled croissant. There's ganache rolled up in the bread dough, caramelized sugar on top and then more ganache--how can that not be tasty.

I'm still working on Olivia's Quiet Book. It's going pretty quickly, but now I have probably jinxed myself. I'll post more pictures of it soon, as I'm really happy with how everything is turning out.

I also got the pattern yesterday for the apron that I'm making my best friend for her birthday--that will be the next project once the Quiet Book has been completed.

I'm going to go and smell my kitchen some more.

My Quiet Book

I had a beloved Quiet Book as a little girl. It was a gift from my grandma, handmade by some hospital axillary ladies and sold as a fund raiser. I have no idea how many trips to church this book has made, since Abby has now adopted it as her own. I loved everything about my quiet book--especially when my mom remembered to put a piece of gum in the "Surprise" pocket at the end of the book.

Since I started sewing again, I have wanted to make my own Quiet Book. I'm updating some of the activities (and eliminating the racism*). I'm making my first book as a present Abby's friend Olivia, who will turn 2 soon. Here are the first four pages of Olivia's book. The letters on the "Write your name" page Velcro off, so Olivia can practice spelling her name. Olivia's book is going much faster than I anticipated. I'm not sure if I'm going to put these on Etsy--it will depend on the total time that they take (and also how much Olivia likes hers). In the mean time, I'm having fun re-creating one of my favorite toys. I'm hoping to hide this one from Abby, so she doesn't demand a new one. I quite like that she uses my own. Oh, if you look carefully in some of the pictures, you'll notice my trademark wonky style of hand sewing.

If anyone was wondering, I'm not posting a "What's for Dinner" this week. I do have a menu, however we have too many variables in our evenings this week and I've basically thrown the menu out the window and plan to recycle it for next week. Now you have something to look forward to.

*It's crazy--who would have thought that a Quiet Book from the '70s could be racist, yet mine is.

Tiny Totes with their New Owners

I was really pleased this morning to get an e-mail from my best friend that the personalized totes that I made for her kids had arrived.* I had LOTS of issues at the post office last week when trying to mail the package. The post code for Wales wasn't showing up in the computer and I was very worried that these weren't going to make it or that they were going to get there AFTER they had left for their trip. Ben said that this bag was the best thing that he has ever seen, which is saying a lot for an almost 6 year old boy. It is always really nice when something that you make is appreciated!

In other news, Yukon seems to be mending well and about 80% recovered. I think that he'll be sad when he has to go back to his usual food and isn't getting homemade boiled chicken and brown rice.

*If anyone is wondering about the picture, I used the "Cartoon" effect from my Kodak EasyShare Software to conceal the kid's identities a little bit. James is missing from the picture, as he didn't feel like posing this morning.