Resolved

December 31, 2010

I love new year's resolutions. I think of them for months leading up to the new year, trying to figure out what will be the best way to start the year on the right track. I know some people find them too much pressure, but I suppose I've never been too worried about breaking them.



And I figure even if you break them, at least you tried and that's a step in the right direction!

My most successful resolution I've ever made was in 2007 to stop cursing. I had been working on political campaigns for a few years and I'd picked up the campaign lingo, which generally involved a lot of cursing (sorry, parents!). So in 2007, I made a resolution to stop cursing.

Four years later, it has nearly worked. Nearly. It just goes out the window when it comes to cat poop and certain very important domestic disagreements when I really need to make my point (sorry, Michael).

So this year, I'm re-resolving to really stop swearing altogether.

I'm also making a resolution to write a letter, not an email or a facebook message, each week. Everyone loves getting letters, and I think it will make 52 people smile!



A few months ago, I started writing a book, then got caught up in my blog and put it down. But 2011 will be the year I finish writing my (first!) book, and maybe 2012 will be the year you all see it in print!



Of course, I have a long list of crafty, arty projects I want to start and finish, and lots of recipes I want to try. And even my lovely blog is getting a serious makeover in the coming weeks which I think you all will like.

What about you all? Did you make resolutions? Are you scowling at me through your computer because you hate resolutions? Come on, I know you're out there!

{I'm not sure where those images are from! I saved them before I started this little blog, so if they're yours or if you know where they're from, please tell me so I can give credit!}

Cheery New Year!

See you in 2011!

Remembering Veggies

December 29, 2010

One of the most surprising gifts I received for Christmas was from my brother in law. He's 18 and perhaps the biggest fan of my chocolate chip cookies. And he shocked me with an awesome crock pot!

I've been wanting a crock pot for the longest time, so I am very excited to find some new recipes to try with it.

Here are a couple that are at the top of the list (they are heavy on the veggies because it feels like a million years since I've had any!):

Slow Country Green Beans



2 pounds fresh green beans, ends snapped, broken into two or three pieces
1 yellow onion, cut in fat wedges and separated
1 ham hock
1 15-ounce can of stewed tomatoes, broken into pieces
1 teaspoon of fennel seed)
1-2 cups water
salt & pepper

Place all the ingredients in the slow cooker, cover and let come to a simmer. Adjust heat to maintain slow simmer, stirring occasionally and adding water if needed. After several hours, remove the ham hock and cut the meat into pieces and return it (along with the bone and any large pieces of fat, if you like) to the pot. Some time later, season to taste. Cook for about 10 hours or until beans are almost buttery.

All Day Boston Baked Beans



1 lb or 500g bag of small white beans (called navy beans or cannellini beans or haricot beans, depending on where you are)
1 large onion
4 garlic cloves
1 chunk of fresh ginger
4 Tbs. molasses, or 4-5 Tbs. dark brown sugar
1 chunk of smoked bacon or ham
2-3 bay leaves
2 tsp. salt
Several grinds of black pepper
1 tsp dried mustard powder, or 1 Tbs. prepared mustard (brown or Dijon style..whatever you have around)
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 cup ketchup
water

Slice the onion. Smash and roughly chop the garlic. Peel and grate the ginger.

Put all the ingredients into the pot. Pour in water to about 1 1/2 inch / 4 cm above the level of the beans. Mix well.

Set your oven temperature to 250°F / 120°C, or your crock pot / slow cooker to around 200°F / 93°C. (If you have a Rival crock pot, this would be the LOW setting.) Put your pot in or turn it on, depending on what approach you're taking. Set the timer to 6 hours. At that point, check on the pot - the beans may be a bit hard, or not, depending on how dry they were to start with. Usually I find it needs at least 8 hours for the beans to get really tender and sort of caramel-colored. Add water as needed if it looks dry. (If you can't be there to check at the 6 hour mark, just add more water to start with so it doesn't dry up.)

Three Bean Vegetarian Chili



2 bottled roasted red peppers, drained and chopped
1 large minced onion
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
2 tablespoons chili powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 cups organic vegetable broth
1 1/2 cups butternut squash
1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained and chopped
1 (15-ounce) can pinto beans, rinsed and drained
1 (15-ounce) can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 (15-ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained

Preparation:
Add all ingredients to the slow cooker. Cook on high for 3-4 hours, or on low for 6-8 hours. Garnish with sour cream and green onions before serving.


*I found these recipes with the site foodblogsearch.com. I just typed in "crock pot" and came up with so many recipes to cook in the crock pot. Did you know you can even do cupcakes in the crock pot? Sounds risky!

So Clever!

December 27, 2010

Yesterday, with the Christmas craziness over, I went to work on a (belated) holiday card email to send to our family and friends in America.

This is what I came up with:



I used the site Picnik and it is just genius. I uploaded a photo, tweaked it a little with their awesome (and free!) photo editing options, and made it into a Christmas card. You can send the card from their site, but I wanted to be able to write personal messages at the bottom so I just sent it to myself, added the message and sent it along!

I'm no photo expert, so this site is a great, free option for giving your photos a little boost.

Check out the options for "seasonalizing" your photos too - they're hilarious!



Not that we've needed extra snow here in Dublin, but you can even add snow and lights!



There's even an option to add nuts, hats and ornaments! Instant holiday cheer!

Festivities

I hope you all had a lovely and peaceful Christmas and Stephen's Day, or Boxing Day, or day-after-Christmas Day or Blizzard Day, or whatever the case may be!

We had a festive, white wonderland Christmas in Dublin and then woke up today to green grass and pouring rain again. Maybe it means spring is on the way!


{The Christmas mantle at 52 Grange Park}

My parents sent over a Kindle for Michael and I to fight over, so I've been browsing Amazon for books. Anyone have any great suggestions? I just finished the sample of My Life in France, by Julia Child and Alex Prud'Homme and I'm hooked. What a fun, inspiring lady.


{Papa J and Mama Lo surprised us with a dryer - can you say excited??}

Sadly, our Christmas tree had to be taken down already - there were more needles in a pile on the floor than on the tree and it's been brown for over a week. Maybe we peaked too soon this year? But now that the tree is down, we're going to do a serious deep clean on the apartment over the next few days. There is a dusting of flour and cocoa powder on nearly every surface from the frenzy of baking over the last month and it's got to go!



{Happy Holidays from the Westbrooks family!}

Mulling

December 22, 2010

On Sunday evening, Michael and I went to a lovely little Christmas gathering at a friend's house.

When we walked in the door, the smell that greeted us was just delicious. Mulled cider and mulled wine! It just smelled like Christmas.

Since we can't get real apple cider in Ireland (no apple farms either - giant bummer in the fall), mulled apple cider is a great alternative.



Image from here.

Here's a recipe that will make your house smell like it's ready for the holiday this weekend!

Mulled Cider Recipe

* 1/2 cup of brown sugar
* 1 teaspoon of whole allspice
* 1 teaspoon of whole cloves
* 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
* 3- inch stick cinnamon, broken up
* 2 quarts of apple juice

Stir everything together in a saucepan and heat until just simmering. Let steep for at least 20 minutes or up to half an hour. Strain out the spices and serve into warmed mugs. This recipe will serve around 8 people.

Hint: If you place the whole spices in a small cheesecloth bag, it will be much easier to take them out before serving.

I don't have whole allspice or whole cinnamon sticks, so I'll probably use about 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon and 1/8 tsp ground ginger. We'll see how that works! I think you could also add some orange peel for some citrus zing.

The other thing you can make to fill your house with Christmas is mulled wine.



Image from here.

Mulled Wine

* one orange, peeled and sliced (keep peel as well)
* 1/4 cup brandy
* 8-10 whole cloves
* 3 cinnamon sticks
* 1 tsp fresh or 2tsp ground ginger (or allspice)
* one bottle of red wine

Combine all ingredients in either a large pot or a slow cooker. Gently warm the ingredients on low to medium heat (avoid boiling), for 20-25 minutes. Stir occasionally to make sure that the honey or sugar has completely dissolved. When the wine is steaming and the ingredients have been well blended it is ready to serve. Ladle the mulled wine into mugs (leave seasonings behind) and enjoy!

Now, don't those sound cosy?

I've had a big baking day, I made chocolate snow drop cookies for the neighbors, two pumpkin cakes for a friend's daughter's school, homemade pizza to keep Michael happy, and another batch of (perfect) buttercrunch so I could redeem myself from yesterday's disaster. I'm all baked out.

Even my computer is covered in flour and cocoa powder dust!

Snowed In

December 21, 2010

It's snowing and it just won't stop. I don't have any of my own pretty photos for you because it's still mid-blizzard and has been since Sunday! But here are a couple that give you a taste.





Images from here and here.

Meanwhile, I've been messing up recipes left and right. Yesterday I wanted to make just a little more of Nancy's buttercrunch, so I halved the recipe and burned it. I shouldn't have tried to mess with perfection!

And just now, I was trying to make this peanut butter fudge that looked so easy and so appealing, and I burned it. I forgot and put it on the only burner that heats up way too hot and walked away for two minutes - burned!

I have a couple cakes to bake for a friend tomorrow, so here's hoping my baking bad luck is at an end!

Do you ever have those stretches of recipes not working right, or your brain not working right? It used to happen to me a lot more often, before I learned I need to read the whole recipe through before I start, not as I'm going along. Now it happens a lot less, but man, it still makes me a little grouchy!

So, because I'm going stir crazy and need about one ingredient for each of the recipes I'm dying to make, Michael is taking me to the grocery store. If we're not back in a few hours, call the search party!

Sleepless Nights

December 17, 2010

Happy Friday afternoon, folks!

I could not get to sleep last night. And it was my own fault. Before bed I was browsing around the kitchen section on Canadian House and Home. So instead of sleep, all I could do was think about kitchens. Tiles, storage, appliances.

And the best thing about my dream kitchen? It's going to have a place for other people to sit and relax while I make dinner or bake goodies. So it's not just me in there while everyone else is in the living room having fun!

Here are a few of the ones I was drooling over.









Anyone have any great weekend plans? I'm working on a few batches of mini whoopie pies for a party Sunday night. You didn't think whoopie pies were holiday fare? Think again, friends! Photos and recipes back here, bright and early Monday morning!

Happy baking!

Christmas Cookies: To Bake or Not To Bake

December 16, 2010

I'm a little torn this year. I'm not sure whether I want to bake Christmas cookies. Last year, I baked chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies in varying colors and something else, I can't remember what. I brought plates of them to several people and families and they were a big hit.

But this year, I'm just not feeling it. In our teeny tiny Irish oven I can bake two trays of about 6 cookies at a time, which means baking lots of batches of cookies takes FOREVER.

So I'm toying with the idea of some of these recipes. They might save my sanity this weekend!

What about peanut butter fudge? And it doesn't even involve marshmallow fluff (which I can no longer use because it's been disappearing alongside the Cadbury's hot chocolate).



Or homemade peppermint patties? I'll only need to figure out what will coat the patties well instead of chocolate chips, and I'll have to find a substitute for shortening. A bit more work on the research end, but man, don't they look decadent?



Now these would take baking but I know I could fit more than 6 on my little cookie sheets. And I think making them into sandwich cookies with this cranberry cream cheese icing is such a festive idea.



But then there's always the buttercrunch (I've been munching my way through the whole batch I made a few days ago). So easy, so yum!

So what's everyone else baking this Christmas?

Images from here, here and here.

French Christmas Traditions

December 15, 2010

The first Christmas I was in Ireland was the first Christmas I had ever spent away from my family. And I'm a sentimental girl, I really like Christmas and I was pretty worried about not being in China Village for the first time.

And, really, when China Village looks like this on Christmas, it's kind of hard to be anywhere else!



But the neat thing about having our first Christmas as a little married couple in our own apartment in Dublin, was that we got to start our own new traditions.

That first year, we had just returned from a quick wintry trip to Paris and we were hooked on all things French.



On Christmas Eve, we decided to re-enact Paris as much as we could. I made baguettes, and we munched on clementines, soft cheese and hard sausage. And because my mom would always make French Onion Soup, we added that to the mix too.



Oh, and I made chocolate mousse, just like we had in just about every little lovely restaurant on our trip.



And on Christmas morning, I made cinnamon rolls and we had real hot chocolate while we opened our presents.

We have big sweet teeth in our family!

That first year, I made this recipe for cinnamon rolls. It's a pretty great recipe, but this fall I made these No-Knead Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls and they are just on a different level. So we're going with them. The recipe makes lots of them, giant ones. It's going to be awesome.



Now here are a few recipes, in case you want to re-enact Paris anytime!

French Onion Soup

5 generous cups onions, sliced
3 tbsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
3 tbsp flour
2 quarts beef broth
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp rosemary
crusty bread and grated cheese to serve

Melt butter and olive oil in a pot, add the onions and cook, covered, over low heat for 15 minutes. Uncover and add salt and sugar. Raise the heat and cook for 30 minutes. Stir in flour and cook for about three minutes. Heat the beef broth and white wine. Then add the onion mixture and season with salt and pepper, thyme and rosemary. Cook for 30 minutes. Serve with crusty bread and grated cheese. Ooh la la!

Chocolate Mousse

1 cup plus 2 tbsp margarine (they have this in Irish grocery stores)
1 1/2 cups sugar
6 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tsp vanilla
4 eggs (or the equivalent in Egg Beaters, which they don't have in Irish grocery stores)

Mix everything except the eggs with a mixer. Add eggs one at a time, beating for 5 minutes after adding each egg. Spoon into individual dishes and refrigerate until ready to serve!

Did anyone try Nancy's buttercrunch recipe from yesterday? I did and I'm so proud of myself! It worked perfectly! And in the end, it was very easy. The hard part is managing not to eat it all!

Guest Post: Neighbor Nancy!

December 13, 2010

Hello Everyone,

I've got the best post to share with you this morning. Remember when I did my little stand out in the front garden, and I said my inspiration was my neighbor, Nancy, who had a stand where she sold fresh flower arrangements all summer? Well, Nancy was kind enough to agree to do a guest post on my blog today!

Nancy is such a talented crafter, baker, decorator, gardener, and the list goes on. Every summer, we ogle her luscious flower garden (with lots of vegetables hidden in between), and every winter for as long as I can remember, she's dropped in handmade Christmas ornaments for our tree.

But what I always look forward to at Christmas is the treat she explains below. So yum.

***

My name is Nancy and I am lucky enough to live around the corner from Emily’s family in that special place called China Village.

I first met Emily when she was a beautiful 18-month-old with curly brown hair and a permanent smile on her face. I became her babysitter and am the mother of her first best playmate—my son Andrew.

Before I start to tell you about making buttercrunch, I just want to reveal something about Emily you might not all know. She was the world’s best napper. She went to bed happy, woke up happy, and slept for a very long time. I have never seen another napper who could touch Emily’s excellence in that department.

Now down to business. Every year between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I make many batches of a delicious candy called buttercrunch. It is not hard to make and is a great gift. I am on the lookout all year for jars and containers that would be good for holding buttercrunch at holiday gift-giving time.



In my recipe box this is the only recipe I have that has a date on it. I copied it from my mother on Nov. 25, 1977. I was surprised to discover that I have been making it for 33 years!

These are the simple ingredients that you will need to make this delicious candy:

2 cups sugar
½ cup water
½ cup light Karo corn syrup (Emily edit: Golden syrup should work too)
1 cup butter
12 ounce bag of chocolate bits (Emily edit: I think you could use any chunked up chocolate bars)
Finely chopped walnuts (I imagine any nut would be tasty)

The only tricks to making this successfully are patience and a good candy thermometer. (I have an old one that clips to the side of my deep saucepan)

Cook the first four ingredients over medium heat until the candy thermometer reaches 285 degrees F. This could take 30-45 minutes and is a good project to do while you are in the kitchen doing other things. Don’t forget to give the ingredients a stir quite frequently. The mixture will become thick and amber-colored. The second the thermometer reaches 285 degrees, I pour the very hot mixture into two buttered, slightly flexible metal jelly roll pans.



Rather quickly I spread the mixture out as much as I can with a metal spatula. As soon as you have finished spreading out the hot toffee, sprinkle the chocolate chips evenly over the two pans. In a couple of minutes the chocolate will soften and you can spread it out over the toffee. Then sprinkle finely chopped nuts over the chocolate. Sometimes I like to add chopped up holiday M&Ms to the nuts for some extra color.







Let the pans cool overnight before trying to break the buttercrunch into pieces. This is the fun part. Flip the big piece of buttercrunch over so the nuts are face down in the pan. My cracker of choice is an old wooden pestle. I whack away at it until the pieces are a good size to fit into your mouth. I fill the jars and put them in a cool room, waiting a few days before giving them away. The candy seems to become kinder to your teeth if you wait this much time —or more.



After cracking the buttercrunch you will be left with some nuts and tiny pieces of toffee. I use this as part of the nut topping for the next batch.

You will not be disappointed if you make this tasty treat!

***

Thanks, Nancy! And now I'm off to make my very first batch today! This will be my first project with a candy thermometer..fingers crossed!

The Trick

December 10, 2010

Does your family adopt silly things someone said once and keep using them for years? My family does this a lot. My mom leads the way, but I'm a close second.

Which brings me to The Trick. My cousin, Julia, when she was 2 or 3, used to do the thing where she would hold onto my uncle's hands and walk up his legs and then flip herself over backward. My uncle would say to us, "Here is Julia, presenting The Trick." Very grand, very hilarious.

And now very much a part of my family's list of sayings that just won't die.

So this is essentially Emily, presenting The Trick: Snowflake Edition. And it really is the neatest trick.



Last night I had a little time to spare, but not enough energy to start a new project, so I thought I'd cut out a few paper snowflakes to decorate the house. Where they're going to go, I've no idea, but I've got a whole pile of them and they're awesome!

It turns out the ones we made in grade school all those years looked lame because we were folding the paper wrong!

You've got to follow these steps and they instantly turn out better.



Then you just cut out from that little triangle. If you go to this site, there are a few examples of snowflakes you can easily make. But I experimented last night and NONE of them turned out bad. Well, I don't think. The more paper you cut away, the more intricate the snowflake will be. And the sharper the scissors the better.



I know I'm a bit odd, I really think The Trick is monumental. It just works so well! I dare you, try it!

Instructions image credit.

Starting Simple

December 9, 2010

Yesterday, I took a whack at the sewing machine Michael gave me for my birthday (I hinted. A lot.). And I managed a simple little project without even needing to call my mom! I call that a major success.

I have a thing for mobiles, so I started with these easy stars, hung from a small piece of driftwood. Also have a thing for driftwood. But you knew that already.



And while I was sewing away, these guys were doing their thing on the bookcase. I love them. They were a gift from my parents when we got engaged, and they just made the journey all the way from Maine this year. Not a scratch on them, hardy guys that they are.





And for Dublin readers, check out this lunchtime concert at the National Concert Hall next Friday at 1pm. It's only €10 per person and there are still seats left! Michael and I are trying to do some schedule re-arranging so we can make it too. It would be the perfect Christmas-y activity!

Funny Ones

December 8, 2010

So, the weather. It's still here. Very, very cold. No snow since last Thursday, but what we've got doesn't seem to be going anywhere, anytime soon.

When it snowed last week, there were no snow plows to push it out of the way, and there were no city workers out shoveling the sidewalks. Instead, the 8-ish inches of snow has just turned into inches and inches of terrifying ice.

Here are a few shots of my street this morning. Perhaps you can't see too much because of the glare off the sheet of ice that is our road!







But the weather's made for a couple funny stories over the last few days. They made me chuckle.

The first one I can't take much credit for. All I did was hear it on the radio, probably most Irish people did as well.

Last week, during the worst of the storm, schools were all closed and the kids were all out playing in the snow. Apparently, a certain few groups of lads had the idea to hide in the bushes near intersections. When a car would come crawling up, they would jump out, get on all sides of the car, and spin it so it was facing the opposite direction, then run off! Absolute genius.

The second funny story is similar. My husband was coaching one of his teams at a match out in Tallaght (translation: the 'hood) during one of the days of snow. He had to go out to the National Basketball Arena, which has a very long driveway, lined on both sides with fields.

I know it's hard to picture the hood and all these fields, but bear with me.

Michael was driving up this road to the Arena, slowly through the snow, and teenage boys on either sides started pelting the car with snow balls.

Michael thought he'd be clever and stop the car, pretending he was going to get out and start yelling at the boys. He thought shaking his fist and stopping the car was going to scare the lads away.

But he forgot a crucial detail. He was in Tallaght, not our polite little Bayside neighborhood.

So instead of running away, the boys ran up to the car, opened all the doors, and started pelting Michael with snowballs. Ha! Well played, boys.

That's about all I have for the day. I'm cooking stew to bring to a new mom (and I suppose the dad can have some too!), baking some dinner rolls and maybe some rhubarb crumb coffee cake, and working out the kinks in my new sewing machine.

What are you all up to today? Anyone baking anything yummy?

Settled and Festive

December 7, 2010

I had forgotten how much worse the jet lag is when you come in this direction, so I've been a little slow to get going!

I've been unpacking, getting the house back in order, and starting to decorate. And it is full on Christmas! Yeah!

It's still freezing, icy and now sleeting, so there has been lots of inside time and hot chocolate. (Speaking of, check out this neat recipe!)

So last night, I made these quickie wreaths for our big back windows. Very, very easy.



Tear some fabric into strips, or use scraps you have lying around, and cut them into uniform lengths. I used about 14 inch strips. Tie them around a wreath form until it's full. Then I added some thick red ribbon to hang them. So festive (and cheap!).





Cute huh?



And more photos of the nice little Charlie Brown tree when I'm not so grouchy at it...after the first night the lights stopped working. And I'm really not looking forward to taking them all off and starting over. Grrr.

Until tomorrow, I'm going to continue enjoying this dark, rainy, cold day. Off to organize my studio!

DIYing, Holiday Style

December 1, 2010

You know one thing I love about Ireland? The absolute over-use of the description "DIY". I'll admit, I've adopted it. It's one of those phrases that annoys me if I think about it too much, but it flows so perfectly off my tongue I can't help myself.

Right, so, yesterday and the day before was all about somebody else DIYing and putting their creations on the most excellent Etsy for us all to purchase and gift away to our friends and family. But today is all about ideas for our own DIY. In your house. On your kitchen table. On your living room floor. In your studio (remember I was making a studio? I swear it's nearly done.).

I've got some ideas of my own I'm dying to share with you once I'm back in Dublin, but in the meantime, here are a few projects from around the web that are just fantastic.

This first one had me at the craft store (my 3rd home) yesterday asking for a porcelain pen. I hadn't even heard of such a thing, but they even have loads of different colors! So neat.



The project is from the genius behind DesignMom, Gabrielle Blair. She has been doing DIY crafty, practical gifts for her kids from her other kids for years now and she has very clever ideas.

You can find the instructions here on her blog, but you essentially find a letter or image you like and draw it freehand or using transfer paper, on the mugs, plates, bowls, or whatever you like. You let them dry for 24 hours, and then put them in the oven according to the directions on the pen.



I absolutely love that she filled the mugs with hot chocolate mix and mini marshmallows for little gifts. Watch out, Dubliners, you might see those coming your way later this month!



This quickbread in a bottle idea is from Sunset (via Apartment Therapy :). You could definitely use a Ball canning jar or the equivalent (at Ikea, Irish readers, for cheap!), and you could use any of your favorite recipes!

You'd want to pick a recipe with relatively few wet ingredients, and you'd probably want to try to make the dry ingredients fit the jar you pick. Otherwise the dry ingredients will be able to shake around and they won't look so darn neat all stacked up!



This last one is from Martha Stewart, and I think it would be an awesome project to do with kids or for kids, or both!

The full tutorial is here, but the gist is that you chop up the crayons (great for using all those gross, stubby ends), and put them into muffin tins. Then you bake them until they melt, let them cool and pop them out!