Oh, Fransson!

Saturday Cookies

 

I now have eight of twelve kinds done.  The latest four include Chocolate Crinkles, which are really messy to make but also really tasty.

 

This recipe calls for Dutch-Process Cocoa.  Since my grocery store was out of the kind I usually get, I used this Guittard Cocoa Rouge.  For the Bittersweet Chocolate, I used Guittard Bittersweet Chocolate Discs, which also had a lovely taste and smell.

Next, I made Spicy Ginger Crinkles which I rolled in Demerara Sugar before baking.

 

I also made these Cocoa Espresso Crinkles.  I can't find this recipe online (and it's not my recipe, so I can't post it or send it out) but it was in the Better Homes and Garden's Christmas Cookies Magazine this year.  This is a similar recipe that I've made before and that is very good.

 

Finally, I made these Maple Bar Cookies.  This recipe is from the Land-O-Lakes Butter Cookie Recipe Magazine from a couple of years ago.  (It was called Maple Moons and they made the cookies in the shape of moons.)  I can't find this one online either, but here is a link to the Land-O-Lakes website, which has several other maple cookie recipes.

 

When I'm drizzling glazes and melted chocolate on cookies, I like to use these little plastic bottles instead of drizzling from a spoon.  I find that it's much less messy and easier to get even drizzling.  You can find bottles like this at specialty kitchen supply stores or in the cake decorating section at JoAnn. 

Lily's Mixtape Quilt Finished

 

By the time I finished this one, we had far too much snow to take it outside to photograph!  This is my niece, Lily's, new bed quilt.  It's made primarily with Heather Ross' Mendocino (the line with the mermaids) with some of Denyse Schmidt's Flea Market Fancy, Anna Maria Horner's Garden Party, Amy Butler's Lotus and Belle and Sandi Henderson's Farmer's Market thrown in for good measure.

 

The sashing is Essex cotton/linen in medium aqua.

 

I really love the colors in this quilt!

 

The back is made with Amy Butler's "Wallflower" in Mustard and the "Underwater Sisters" Mendocino print.

 

Binding is Michael Miller Dumb Dot in Aqua.

 

The Mixtape Quilt pattern will be available at the end of January.

Merry Christmas

 

Merry Christmas, everyone!  These are some photos from our Christmas Eve Brunch.

 

Here's our little buffet.

 

I made this goat cheese quiche with a hash brown crust.  It was really good (and easy to make)!  I added smoked salmon and that seemed to work out just fine.

 

I'm only showing the detail shot of the cranberry upside-down cake, because part of it got stuck in the pan, so it wasn't as pretty as it should habe been!  (It tasted wonderful though.)

 

We also had mimosas and bloody marys.  This recipe is really good.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday!  Pictures of finished holiday quilts and more cookies are coming soon.

. . . and it's still snowing

 

We've had snow on the ground here for going on eight days, which is just crazy for around here.  According to the local news, this is the most snow we've had in Portland since 1968. 

 

These are the stairs off our back patio.

 

And here's a view from out front porch.  You can kind of see in this photo how there's a field across the street.  On the other side of the field is a shopping center with a JoAnn.  What you can't see is that the field is covered with about eight inches of snow, covered by a half inch of freezing rain, covered by another four inches of snow.  Walking across it yesteday (I needed batting!) was quite an adventure.  This snow/ice/snow combo also looks funny after people have walked across it -- like someone broke a bunch of windows and threw the glass into the snow.

Elliot's Quilt Finished

I needed to wash this anyway, so I decided I would take pictures in the snow.  So, here is Elliot's twin-sized quilt. 

The featured fabric is Alexander Henry's 2D Zoo.  The sashing is green Essex linen/cotton.  The other fabrics are a mix of mostly geometric patterns including some dots, some gingham and some fancy-schmancy Italian shirting cottons.

 

This isn't really so much of a pattern, but I did do the layout first in Excel.  There are five columns of 9.5" wide blocks with 4.5" sashing between them and at the top and bottom.  (Measurements include seam allowance.)  Blocks are three heights: 2.5", 3.5" and 4.5".  In addition to the 2D Zoo, I used sixteen prints, which I divided into four color families.  On my Excel spreadsheet, I noted whether each block should be the feature fabric, the sashing fabric or one of the four families and them chose which specific print from each of the families as I worked.

    

I used the idea from the Stacked Coins quilt in Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts of having some of the "coins" be made of the sashing fabric and I liked the way that broke it up.

I laugh looking at these photos now because when I took them yesterday morning, we had maybe 3" of snow in our yard.  As I type, we have at least 8 - 10" which is now being coated in freezing rain.  I'm glad I don't have to go anywhere today!  We ended up postponing the party we were supposed to have last night -- the one for which I was making all the cookies -- because of the horrible weather, so the cookie posts are going to pick back up next week, leading up to the new party date on January 5. 

 

My kitties are going to be so sad when I finish working on Christmas quilts.  They've both been taking turns laying on the stack of quilts that's been sitting on my printer waiting for binding.  Now that Elliot's quilt is finished, I've washed it and wrapped it up in plastic so the cats can't get any hair on it!

Chocolate Covered Cherries and Praline Cookies

 

Two more cookies for today.  My total is now at about 30 dozen.  The first ones are Martha Stewart's Aunt Mary Dillon's Praline Cookies.

 

I use about twice as many chopped pecans in the topping than is recommended by the recipe.

 

And these are the Chocolate Covered Cherry Cookies.

 

I got this Oregon-manufactured cocoa from New Seasons and would highly recommend it.  Wonderful taste and smell!

If you would like to share photos and recipes for your holiday cookies, I have a Flickr Group that you can join.

Progress on Christmas Gifts

 

I now have 15 of 25 squares for Chris' quilt done.  The blocks, as shown here, are not in their final arrangement, but I think they're going to look great together. 

 

It's a whole LOT of faux bois, but I'm kind of liking it.

 

I'm also about halfway done sewing the binding on Elliot's quilt.  Hopefully, I can get it done tonight.

Frosted Vanilla Cookies

 

More cookies!  These are almost exactly like a recipe from one of those Land-o-Lakes Butter Recipe Magazines from the grocery store.  (It's a couple of years old and I couldn't find the original on their website.)  This is a vanilla cookie made with ground walnuts and a vanilla cream frosting.

 

The only substantive change from the original recipe is using a tablespoon of Vanilla Bean Paste instead of chopping up and using actual vanilla beans.  I get mine from New Seasons, but it's also available at Sur la Table.  It's a syrupy liquid full of little vanilla bean flecks and it gives your cookies and frosting a nice vanilla fleck-y look and smell. 

The original recipe also calls for some kind of pre-packaged chopped walnuts.  I just chopped walnut halves in my food processor instead.

Here is the recipe, with my modifications: Download FrostedVanillaCookieRecipe

   

Lemon Drop Cookies

 

This is the first of my Christmas cookies.  I made up this recipe because I wasn't happy with any of the lemon cookie recipes that I was finding.  These have a really lovely lemony taste and are also nice and chewy.

 

The key is combining granulated sugar and lemon zest in a food processor.  This sugar is used both in the dough and to roll the cookie in before baking.  I got this tip from Cook's Illustrated's Baking Illustrated.  (I didn't care for their recipe though -- The cookies were too crispy.) 

 

If you'd like to make them yourself, here is a pdf: Download LemonDropCookieRecipe

ETA:  For those of you asking about how to do this without a food processor. . .The point of using the food processor is to make sure the lemon zest and sugar are all chopped up together.  This flavors the sugar and releases intense lemon flavor and smell as the blades and sugar granules chop up the zest.  You can still make the cookies using just the zest and sugar whisked together, it just won't have the same intense lemon flavor that can be acheieved by using a food processor to combine them.  It's my opinion that a blender would not work as well and might make a huge mess.  Then again, I've never tried it.  It you have one of those mini processors, it would probably work.  You would just need to process in batches.

This is going to be Chris' NBA Quilt

 

I finally have all the fabric and a plan for my husband's quilt, which he's been asking me to make for a while now.  I found this awesome circa 1971 NBA bedsheet on e-bay several months ago, but it's taken me a while to figure out how to make a quilt with it.  I had originally planned on using solid colors and white, but they just looked way too bright --like a box of crayons or something.  I kept trying to keep the design modern, but it just wasn't working for me with the print on the back. 

In the end, I've decided to embrace the 1970's retro/kitsch aspect (check out the amazing Milwaukie Bucks mascot spinning the ball on its hoof!) and use the Joel Dewberry faux-bois fabric and retro looking prints. I'm going to use the faux-bois for the binding too.  The way the team logos are arranged on the sheet makes it difficult to fussy cut them for use in blocks, so the sheet is just going to be the back.  There will be solid sashing on the front made from natural linen. 

I should mention that, when I originally asked my husband what he wanted the quilt to look like he made mention of using woodgrain fabric (for the hardwood, get it?) but I thought that was just way too literal and over the top.  I must now admit though that he was totally right.  This quilt is going to be all kinds of fun.

 

The prints I've chosen are from Katie Jump Rope, Bell Bottoms and Michael Miller's Garden Pindot.

The question now is whether I can finish this by Christmas.