Cinnamony Goodness

I’d be remiss if I didn’t share this recipe with you.  I had waited all week to try it.  It was last Friday night, we’d had a late dinner and Nathan was finally in bed.  I was ready to bake!

I love baking with yeast—maybe because I love homemade bread, almost as much as I love homemade cakes, cupcakes, cookies, you name it.  I made the yeasty dough and let it rise in a [very] warm oven.  The kitchen and family room filled with the promising smell of yeast while I launched my Creating a Family Home Etsy Shop.  (This is real-time reporting, folks—I’m telling it like it actually happened.)
 

FINALLY, the dough was ready to roll out and slather with butter, cinnamon and nutmeg (which I worried was a mistake).  Then my mouth watered as I waited for the dough to rise again and the oven to preheat, this time with aerosolized nutmeg burning in the back of my throat.  Great.

My mouth watered some more as the bread baked for a half hour.  I tried doing dishes to make the time pass more quickly.  It didn’t work.  I kept looking at the timer.  25 minutes left.  18 minutes left.  And I still had to let the thing COOL for a few minutes, unless I wanted to burn my mouth off.  And then I experienced a coffee pot malfunction that left water all over the counter and only gave me a half-pot of coffee.  This was a difficult wait.

But the agonizing wait was worth it. With a mug of coffee in hand (I wasn’t going to get any sleep anytime soon, and fine by me), I dug into the sweetest, cinnamoniest bread I’d ever had and waited a full week to taste.  It was amazing.

Here’s where you can find the recipe and experience the same cinnamony goodness.  Be wary of imposters—the original recipe I tried was a blatant rip-off of this one and didn’t give the dough the same softness or moisture, left out some crucial details and was full of missteps.

I give you Cinnamon Pull-apart Bread.

Enjoy!

Yarn Along

As always, I’m knitting along with Ginny of Small Things on Wednesdays. 

This week I’m still on the same yet-to-be-named spring cardigan for Nathan because I’d been too busy needle felting and opening my new Etsy shop. Oh, and I also started gardening a little.

But I did have time to add a new friend to the in-progress projects, the bunny from Itty-Bitty Toys by Susan B. Anderson.  He’s just a body so far, but he’s already looking pretty cute!  The book is full of patterns for really cute toys, stuffed animals and interactive playthings I hope to someday make for Nathan (and other future babies).  My favorites are the ones geared for girls, of which I have none.  The bunny will show up in Nathan’s Easter basket on Easter morning.  I hope he loves it.

I hope my bunny comes out just as cute as Susan's.  I'm going to stuff him with beans for heft and weight and fiber fill for softness and overall loviness.  He's made of Lion Brand's Fishermen's wool left over from other projects, and it's such a bargain.

I'm still reading—you guessed it—Oprah's unauthorized biography, and it’s a doosie.  If you like good factual writing, good dirt and good stories about people making something incredible of themselves, I recommend it.  It’s good.

Good knitting,

Kelly

Adventures in the Garden: Starting seeds indoors

This is the first in an occasional series of posts on how I create my family home with the help of my garden. Growing my own vegetables, herbs and cut flowers is a part of seasonal living, appreciating nature, spending more time outdoors and taking advantage of what our land has to offer.

This year, my adventures in the garden started indoors.  Today I started my tomato seeds indoors.  In a few weeks I’ll start my summer squash and zucchini seeds. (These don’t have to be started indoors, but a pesky groundhog that loves to eat my seedlings lives nearby, so if I want summer squash, it’s a necessity).

I’m learning how to scale back the right way after two lackluster gardening seasons during my pregnancy and my son’s infancy.  I’m looking forward to gardening seriously again, but am cautious about how much I try to take on with a toddler in tow.  In no way will my garden be as big or look as beautiful as it had the first few years we lived here, but it’ll be something, and something is a lot better than nothing.

There are a few things I’m unwilling to live without in the summertime.  Homegrown tomatoes, basil, parsley, rosemary, summer squash, zucchini, cucumbers and cut flowers.  Lots of cut flowers.  I choose what I grow based on the recipes I like to make and the herbs I like to dry for use year-round.  (That’s why I’m trying to cram summer squash and zucchini plants in my small kitchen garden—I do not want to live without them ever again!)

Some of my favorite summer meals include bruschetta, shrimp fra diavolo, greek cucumber salad, zucchini fritters with a hint of mint, tomato sandwiches, pesto on bread or with pasta, feta cheese and grape tomatoes, summer squash sautéed in butter and garlic, breaded and fried zucchini and squash rounds, the list goes on and on.

There’s something special and amazing about growing your own produce and herbs and using them in the meals you make for your family.  It feels so good to go outside and pick some vegetables and herbs before you start cooking.  It’s such a shame we can’t garden like this year-round.

Because of the size of my tiny kitchen garden (compared to the 1,000-square-foot garden I grew in years past), I must pick and choose wisely and be prudent about the varieties I select.  This year I’m growing heirloom Cherokee Purple tomatoes for slicing, Granadero plum tomatoes for dicing, cooking with and canning (if I get enough), Zephyr summer squash and Plato zucchini, in addition to the perennial flowers and herbs I already have in the garden.  (More on them some other time.)  Being prudent in this case means admitting to myself that I have no room for cucumbers.

As I planted, the things I’d learned about gardening over the years came flooding back to me.  Moisten the soil before filling the cells.  Don’t plant the seeds too deep.  Plant two or three seeds per cell.  Although I could feel the warmth of the sun when the wind wasn’t blowing, I was kneeling on cold, wet earth.  How I can’t wait for the warm weather to return and to get my hands dirty in the garden.  I mean, really dirty, not just kinda dirty like I did last year.  The promise of spring is everywhere around me, but the seedlings that spring up in these cells will be the promise of summer.  And that's what I'm after.

Lots of Needle Felting & New Etsy Shop is Open!

I’ve been busy making needle felted creations for spring, and many of them are for sale in my brand new Creating a Family Home Etsy Shop.  It’s finally open!  Please visit to check out my seasonally inspired handmade items: needle-felted creations, seasonal home décor and wreaths, original knitting patterns and knitted objects.

I finally opened this Etsy shop after years of people telling me to do it. And before Etsy existed, my friends and my husband told me I should be selling my handmade items on Ebay. I admit, at the time I just didn’t get it. Why would people want the things I make? Why wouldn’t they want to make these things themselves? I couldn’t understand why someone would want to buy handmade items—I really thought that if you wanted handmade items, you made them yourself. By hand.

After a less-than-successful stint of selling felted purses at a big, high-end flea market, I decided against it. It just wasn’t fun for me at the time and I couldn’t imagine there being much of a market for felted bags. Even though many, many people stopped by my table and told me much they liked my felted purses and hand-knitted hats and scarves, not that many people were buying them. I ended up selling the leftovers to co-workers and giving them away to friends. But now I know that I should have sold them on Ebay, or later on Etsy.
 

So now I know. It finally hit me when I saw the interesting creations my fellow bloggers are selling in their Etsy shops. And I’m finally finding out about the value people place handmade items these days—I think a lot has changed since my felted-purse-flea-market days and I’m so glad!

Just like when I started my blog, this new outlet has given me renewed energy and excitement for my crafts, and I’m getting ideas for new projects all the time. I don’t necessarily make my objects to make money; rather, they are things I’m inspired (driven, really) and want to make for the sake of making them.  (I'm also a process knitter, rather than a product knitter, but you may already know that by now.)

I hope you’ll stop by occasionally to see what’s new in my shop.

Thanks for visiting,

Kelly

{this moment}

{this moment} is a Friday ritual inspired by SouleMama.  A single photo—no words—capturing a moment from the week.  A simple, special or extraordinary moment.  A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

In gratitude this week for:

• More hours of daylight, even if they fool me into thinking it's warmer outside
• A fun and unexpected weekday family outing
• Baking inspirations to be [hopefully] realized this weekend
• Time with my family this weekend to celebrate my dad's birthday

Have a great weekend!

One Last Hurrah, My Mac N Cheese Recipe

Just when we thought we were done with winter, we weren’t.  Not only did we wake up to sleet and freezing rain on the first day of spring, but a few days later we got two inches of snow.  I was appalled, even though I’ve been paying attention to the early spring weather long enough to know that we always get one more snowstorm in March.
 

The view from my craft room window. I’m so sick of winter, yet the snow on the trees is still breathtakingly beautiful.  How is that possible?
 

The view from my kitchen window.

So if winter gets one last hurrah, so do I.  I fought off the gloom and cold and another wet day spent indoors with my favorite winter comfort food: homemade Mac N Cheese.

Here’s how I make it:

Ingredients

2 tablespoons flour

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard (Anyone have any Grey Poupon?)

2 tablespoons flour

2 cups milk

8 or more ounces of sharp cheddar, grated

Big handful of halved cherry tomatoes or two tomatoes cut into pieces, seeds removed

3/4 of a pound of small shell pasta (3/4 of a box)

Kosher salt & pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Grease an 8 x 8-inch casserole or baking dish with butter or non-stick spray.

Set a big pot of water to boil on the stove. Season the water with salt when it reaches boiling and add 3/4 pound of pasta. Cook until very aldente (it will continue to cook in the oven later).

Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, melt two tablespoons of butter. Add two tablespoons of Dijon mustard. Add two tablespoons of flour, stirring constantly.  Allow mixture to thicken and bubble for a few minutes and turn golden brown.

Very slowly start adding the milk, a little at a time, stirring constantly to evenly distribute the milk and keep lumps from forming. The longer you take to add the milk, the thicker (and better tasting) your cheese sauce will be.

Once all two cups have been added and the flour mixture is completely dissolved, remove from heat and allow to cool slightly before adding the cheese. If you add the cheese while the liquid is too hot, the cheese will cook instead of melt and form small, hard lumps in your sauce.  Not tasty.

Test the temperature of the liquid by stirring in a small amount of cheese; if it melts right away you’re good to go.  If it just hangs out, hardens and stays bright orange, the liquid is still too hot.  Add cheese little by little, stirring constantly, until it’s all been melted into the sauce.  You may need to put the pot back on low heat in order to keep the temperature from dipping too low for the cheese to melt.

Add Kosher salt and pepper to taste.  I don’t measure the amounts I put in, but don’t be fooled into thinking that the cheese is salty and/or flavorful enough to not need salt.  It does.  I probably put in 15-20 shakes of my Kosher salt shaker and 8-10 grinds from the pepper mill.

Once the sauce is seasoned and the pasta has reached aldente, drain the pasta well and put it in the casserole dish.  Add cheese sauce and mix to combine.  Add tomatoes and stir to evenly distribute.

Bake for 30-35 minutes at 350 degrees; it will be hot and bubbly and the edges and top will be slightly browned.

Enjoy!

I wish I had thought to take a picture before digging in!  This is just a half-batch, since I didn’t have enough pasta in the house to make the full recipe.

Yarn Along

I have happy feet because my Birds in Flight Socks are done, and they’re so warm and comfortable!  (And even though spring is officially here, I do need them—we’re getting more snow today.)  I released the pattern yesterday—it’s available on Ravelry.

I’m still working on Nathan’s spring cotton cardigan, but I’m not making the progress I should be because I’ve been needle felting cute little things for spring.  But more on that some other time.  The cardigan is a fun, easy knit that’s knitting up very quickly considering the sport weight gauge (6 sts/in).  And the pattern still remains nameless.  Any suggestions?
 

The color doesn't look as nice in this lighting.

I’m still reading Oprah’s unauthorized biography when I make the time to read—and it keeps getting better and better.  Kitty Kelly’s writing is actually pretty good and I find myself in awe of the amount of research she had to do—and TV show transcripts she had to pore over—in order to tell the whole story.  It’s actually getting in the way of me enjoying the book.  (I’m a writer by profession and hobby and can’t seem to detach myself from written words, or any words, really.  I can’t read something without noticing typos or grammatical errors—without trying, I swear, and my husband doesn’t believe I’m not trying—and if the writing is good, I can’t seem to read it without evaluating why it’s good.  It’s frustrating, and I think I have a previous employer to thank for that last part.  But the typo-noticing thing is all my fault.  I think it’s who I am.)

As always, on Wednesdays I’m knitting along with Ginny of Small Things.

More good knitting,

Kelly

Birds in Flight Socks Pattern is Live

After several Yarn Along appearances, my Birds in Flight pattern for knitted socks is now live on Ravelry.  My self-imposed sock-of-the-month-club socks for March 2011, my Birds in Flight Socks feature a zig zag lace pattern that looks like birds the way kids draw them flying in the sky against a color Knit Picks calls Blue Yonder. The birds are set off by seed stitch diamonds and flanked by seedstitch borders.  It’s a wintry design that signals spring is on its way.

Join my self-imposed-sock-of-the-month club and knit Birds in Flight Socks for April!  I’d love to see your finished objects.

More good knitting,

Kelly

Forcing Spring....er, Blooms

 

I'm trying to force spring along by forcing some Forsythia blooms in my family room.  And I think it's working!  I cut the blooms last weekend and they started blooming by Thursday.  And on Thursday and Friday we had temps in the 60s and it even reached 70!  It actually felt like summer, so we fired up the grill and made ourselves a steak for dinner last night.  And we planned a summery lunch of bruschetta, prosciutto and mozzerella, tomatoes and basil today for my in-laws, who are visiting for the weekend.  I can't wait to taste it!  The thought of basil is making me itch to go outside and spend time in the garden.  Here I am waiting for spring, but I really think it's summer I'm after.

Forcing spring, I mean, blooms, is easy.  Here's how: 

1. Cut several branches from a forsythia bush in February or March.  Make sure you choose branches with lots of buds on them.  The buds will look really small, but that's okay.  They'll get bigger and bloom once they warm up indoors.
2. Put the branches in a vase of water.  I used an old honey jar.  (Cut flowers are the reason I buy local honey in glass instead of plastic jars.  They're pretty and make a great gift vase for zinnias, my favorite cut flower.)
3. Keep the vase somewhere warm (room temperature).

You'll have blooms in less than a week!

Happy Spring,
Kelly

Birds Nest Wreath Tutorial

It's hard to keep your mind off the earthquake, tsunami and pending nuclear disaster in Japan when you subscribe to a 24-hour news service (or rather, are married to one). So I'm trying to focus on creating my family home and decorating for spring, and an important part of that for me is making my own decorations.

That said, inspiration hits me at the strangest times.  This time it was near midnight when an idea for my unused willow branch wreaths came to me.  (It's why the lighting is bad in my photos -- when inspiration strikes I just need to go for it, right then and there.)

Some leftover bits of spring green yarn from Nathan's spring cardigan sparked my idea -- what if a bird were to use these pieces of yarn in its nest?  Combine that thought with the pile of willow branch wreaths I didn't know what to do with, and I have a spring wreath inspired by a bird's nest.

Here's what you'll need to make it yourself:

- A small willow branch or other kind of wreath (check out my willow branch wreath tutorial to make your own)
- One long-ish piece of yarn (but definitely a scrap -- no purchases needed here)
- Wool roving
- Felting needle
- Glue gun

Start wrapping the yarn around and around the wreath, starting at what will be the top of the wreath.  I tried to do this as hap-hazardly as I could, which is somehow hard to do.  Leave a long tail at the beginning (I left mine too short and it was hard to make a knot).

Cut the yarn when you're done wrapping and tie the beginning and the end together in an overhand knot.  This creates the loop you'll hang the wreath from.

Get out your felting tools...

And wrap your wool roving into an eggy shape.

Give it hell with your felting needle until it gets firm and you like its eggy shape.

Glue the eggs to the wreath with your hot glue gun.  There you have it, a bird's nest inspired wreath!

Irish Soda Bread for St. Paddy’s Day

Even though I’d never made it before, I felt like I wouldn’t be a good Irish girl if I didn’t bake Irish Soda Bread for Saint Patrick’s Day this year.  (And it’s beside the point that I have overripe bananas on my counter and only one loaf pan.  It was a tough choice!)

I don’t have much time for baking these days with a little one around and the commitments of work and family, so I planned ahead.  Last night I measured and combined my dry ingredients in advance.  (I’m sure a baking expert would say that this does something the freshness of the ingredients, but I was willing to take a risk.  Chances are, that expert doesn’t have young children.) 

This morning, I added the wet ingredients to the dry while my coffee brewed and popped it in the oven to bake while I took my shower, all before Nathan woke up. (After I measured the few dry ingredients last night I realized I could have done this in the morning, but I’m glad I did because I went to bed too late last night and the last thing I felt like doing first this morning was baking.  But I wasn’t about to let all those dry ingredients go to waste, so I made myself do it.)

Serving suggestion with coffee, of course.

The results are delicious, and so timely.  I come from (and married into) an Irish family, and have gotten away from the things we used to do when I was young.  Our family dog had been born on Saint Patrick’s Day, so that added to the fun—we celebrated with an Entenmann’s chocolate cake with green icing and let her eat the first piece.  We also used green food coloring in our mashed potatoes and milk—pretty strange to eat and drink, but fun.  As Nathan gets older I want to be sure to incorporate some Irish heritage into our lives.  Hopefully we can come up with more than just corned beef and cabbage!

The texture is really nice.

Unlike storebought Irish soda bread, this recipe came out buttery, moist and slightly sweet with a nice, crumbly texture. The recipe was given to me by a friend at my bridal shower.  I don’t know the source, so in my ignorance I thought it’d be okay to share the recipe here. There’s still time to make it for Saint Paddy’s day, so I hope you do.  Enjoy!

He likes it!

Irish Soda Bread

Makes one 9 x 5-inch loaf

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/3 cup white sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 egg, lightly beaten

2 cups buttermilk

1/4 cup melted butter

1/2 cup raisins (optional)

Preheat oven to 325° F

Combine flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and baking soda. Mix egg and buttermilk together, then add all at ounce to the flour mixture. Mix just until moistened. Stir in butter. Add raisins if desired. Pour into greased pan.

Bake 65 to 70 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

Yarn Along

As always, I’m knitting along with Ginny of small things on Wednesdays.  I’m just a few rows shy of finishing my Birds in Flight Socks.  I should have the pattern posted sometime next week.

I should have had them finished them by now, but I got sidetracked by Nathan’s spring sweater, which doesn’t have a name yet.  Here are the two front panels blocking:

I'm a little meticulous about my knitting if you look at the number of pins I've used.  It would have been easier to just wet the pieces first, but I usually knit with wool and prefer to drape the pieces with a wet tea towel instead of dousing them.  I'll try the dousing method for the rest of the pieces to see if it speeds things along when working with cotton.  Note to self: Measure as you pin, not after.

It's Knit Picks' Simply Cotton Sport in Green Tea Heather and I reeeeeeally love the color.  It’s so springy and it goes with some of his springtime button-down shirts.  I can’t wait to try it on him, but I guess a lot has to happen before then.

I’m still reading Oprah’s unauthorized biography.  (Did I ever mention that I only read a few pages a night before I conk out? This one’s gonna take me a while.)  I’m also reading Amanda Soule’s Handmade Home, even though I don’t yet have a sewing machine or the time to learn how to use one.  I don’t think I could trade in knitting for sewing, since I don’t know how I’ll ever have time for both.  I’m also perusing Itty-Bitty Toys by Susan B. Anderson.  It contains a pattern for a bunny that would be perfect for Nathan’s Easter basket if I could get it done on time.

And finally, I’m trying to figure out what to do with the wreaths. They’ve been on my mind a lot during the last day or so, and that’s why I put them in the picture.  I made them myself from willow tree branches without a plan in mind.  Half of the willow tree came down in a storm, and the rest is being taken down tomorrow.  My wreath-making career is dead in the water, over almost as soon as it began.  The deer ate all the reachable branches, and I think I’ll be too embarrassed to run down to the tree guys and ask them for the usable branches before they get stuffed into the chipper.  So, I’m saying goodbye to my willow tree now.  How I hate to see him go!  Maybe these wreaths will become photo frames or maybe I’ll include them with my seasonal decorations.  Any ideas out there?  I feel like they’re the last of an era—maybe they’ll just sit on my craft table for a while longer.

Good knitting,

Kelly

Rural Living Finally Joined the 21st Century

In case you haven’t been able to tell from some of my photos, we live in a rural area.  We’re about 9 miles from the center of the nearest town, and even though we’re surrounded by farmer’s fields and trees and can’t see our neighbors, we do have neighbors; it’s not that rural. Our town has almost 5,000 residents covering 30 square miles, averaging out to about 166 people per square mile.  But I guess if you compare this to my suburban hometown in New Jersey, a 45-minute bus ride from New York City, with 2,555 people per square mile, it’s rural.

It’s so rural that up until last week we couldn’t get a high-speed Internet connection because the cable company—the oldest in the nation—couldn’t be bothered to upgrade our infrastructure.  The last eight years have been so frustrating, with two computers taking turns using one Internet connection.  I feel like now that we have high-speed cable Internet, I’ve finally joined the 21^st century.  Thank God!

I can finally do the things I want to do online—upload photos more regularly, upload videos (for the first time ever) and upload large files for work.  Best of all, I can set up a wireless network and browse the web from my couch, the most comfortable place in the house, any time I want, without asking to switch the Internet from my husband’s computer to mine.

So right away I bought a wireless router and a shiny new laptop. In fact, I’m using it to write this post right now!  And I’m tickled pink by the convenience.  With my alone-time so limited with a little one, I love being able to quickly look up something online, blog or search for knitting patterns or inspiration while relaxing in front of the TV at night.  I feel so connected.  And best of all, my husband and I can enjoy access to the Internet simultaneously; no more archaic wire-switching that left me asking, What decade are we in, anyway?

I can firmly say we’re finally members of the 21^st century, something I haven’t had the opportunity to really appreciate until now, despite the modern conveniences of indoor plumbing, oil heat and non-drafty windows that don’t require a double-take to make sure they’re actually closed.  (Before this house, we lived in a stone house built in the 1830s—it was drafty.)

There are pros and cons to rural living, just like there are for living anywhere else. It’s funny how I didn’t notice the cons as much until we started a family—how I long for stores that are closer (and better) than the ones in the town 9 miles away. The good stores are 12 miles away, and the best ones are 24 miles away. Maybe I’ll write more about that later. For now, I’m just glad I can strike lack of connectivity from the cons list and will focus on the pros. Because if nothing else, it’s beautiful and quiet in the country.

It’s Almost Spring

Okay, so it’s not spring yet, but it’s almost spring. At least that’s what I’ve been telling myself to get me through these last dreary days of winter. Okay, I said it.  It’s still winter.  But it’s almost spring, and I couldn’t resist changing my the design and color scheme of my blog for spring when I’m in the midst of thinking up springy things to do inside my home.

This weekend I’m packing away my winter decorations and am hunting for new ideas for the coming season.  Tomorrow should include a shopping trip to the craft store and lots of ideas to follow.

Even though I’m sure we’re in for at least one more good snowfall here in Pennsylvania (I’m not jinxing it, for the record—saying it won’t snow is how you jinx it), we can at least pretend it’s spring. My blog is living proof.

{this moment}

{this moment} is a Friday ritual inspired by SouleMama.  A single photo—no words—capturing a moment from the week.  A simple, special or extraordinary moment.  A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

In gratitude this week for:

• Rain that finally stopped (and no treacherous conditions like there are elsewhere in the world today)
• Better internet connectivity
• A kind reminder to keep things in perspective (thanks, Mom)

Have a good weekend!

Back from the Brink, Signs of Spring

I’m finally feeling like myself this week after a weeklong battle with a stomach bug that left me exhausted, weak and useless in general. The worst part wasn’t the symptoms, but the inability to function and do the things I normally do for my son and my family. My husband did what he could to pick up the slack and keep things in order, but they just weren’t, and it wasn’t nearly as good as if I’d done them myself. The illness put me in the most foul of moods and brought me down in every way possible, so I’m elated to finally be free of its grasp and feel like myself again.

I had a rejuvenating visit with a friend earlier this week and ventured out for a walk with Nathan yesterday and looked for signs of spring. Sadly, this is all we found:

Green grass coming up in the farmer’s fields in neat little rows

Hey, it’s green, so I’ll take it!