Candy Wrapper Purse

For a while I'd been looking at the candy wrapper purses made by Nahui Ollin, and a few weeks ago I finally decided to purchase one. I choose the Rosy Cheeks Hershey Kisses one, though I really like the Splash as well. Anyway, it got me thinking, surely I can make one of these. So I did some googling and came across this wonderful blog by Mylinda at Candy Wrapper Purse. Since she has all the instructions wonderfully written out, I'm not going to repeat them all here, but I will show you some pictures of the steps I took along the way.

First, find yourself a magazine or candy wrappers. I choose Phoenix Home and Garden magazine because my husbands mom has been sending them to me for the last few months and I had 4 stored up. I also found that these magazine pages are thicker than some other magazines and that makes the pieces a bit stronger. Some people recommend if you are using thin pages or chip bags that you should double up those pieces with a piece of magazine. But after cutting 252 pieces for my little 7 1/2" x 4 1/2" purse, I don't think I'll be making any out of chip wrappers anytime soon. That'd be 504 pieces for one small purse.

Cut each piece to 4 1/2" x 2" or some ratio there of. I wouldn't go smaller, but you can go a little larger if you want. The Nahui Ollin ones are a bit bigger, but I like the smaller size. Here is a site that lists some of the other sizes that you could try.

After cutting them, I took the advice of someone who recommended coating them with Scotch Moving and Storage Tape. The tape is just about 2" wide, so it will cover mostly the whole piece very nicely. This makes the paper even stronger, waterproof, and the pictures more brilliant. I was really happy that I took this extra step. 1 roll of the tape should cover enough for a small purse.

After all the cutting and all the taping, you are finally ready to get started. I would highly recommend that you have all your pieces ready before you start the next step because you aren't going to want to stop to have to make more pieces. Plus it lets you see what you have to work with so you can decide how you want to arrange your pieces. Start by making all your chains. See the link above to Mylinda's page to see how to fold and chain them. I made 6 chains of 42 pieces each. Next purse I'd probably make 6 chains of 40 pieces just to make the final purse a hair less long. Leave the chains flat on the table so you can lay them all out and see how each row will look next to each other. Once they are all done you can move onto linking them into ovals.

Linking is difficult. Just look at what you are doing and understand how each piece must fold and tuck into the other and you'll get the hang of it. Having some flat nosed tweezers will be helpful. You'll know when you get it linked or it will just fall apart. Make sure when you fold over the link to hook the chain together that it must get tucked back into itself properly. Again, you'll get it as soon as you try a little.

After having all the chains done, you'll start sewing. I found this 10g Coton Perle thread at Michaels and it worked great. I also used a round end tapestry needle to do the threading, but for the zipper you'll need a regular needle. The other website also has some thread suggestions that you could use, you just need something strong. You'll be sewing both the outside and the inside of the purse until you get to the bottom.


The bottom is a pain. I thought about doing a flat bottom purse, but for this one I decided not to adventure into that yet. Here I just sewed it like the website says. Its tricky and you have to pull fairly tight. I tucked the corners in before I sewed them, so I didn't have to use a screwdriver to push them in. Since you can't sew the inside bottom I would just recommend going back and forth over the bottom. Be creative on the way you sew it and don't worry about over stitching because you shouldn't see the thread at all.

Ta Da! The hardest part is done. Now you can sew on a zipper if you'd like or a handle. I'm going to add a zipper to mine, I just haven't gotten to the fabric store to pick one up yet.

Taste Of Home

I recently purchased a magazine at the grocery store called Taste of Home Cookies. I've decided to work my way through the magazine only deviating by 1-2 cookies, but always coming back to the ones that I've skipped before moving on. Every few cookies I'll try to write up a quick blog spot and let you know what I thought.

The first cookie I started with was Nutty Butter Munchies. As the name states, these are quite nutty. They have a good, very tasty base flavor and the trick of pressing them out with a sugared glass before baking them allows the cookie to stay soft in the center but get a little crunchy around the edges. Although the batter tastes very strong of almond, the baked cookies have a nice harmony of peanut, almond, and pecan. Overall, a tasty cookie, though I can't say anything about them 'wowed' me. The reactions at work were positive, but again, no one was blown away. I'll keep this recipe in my back pocket and probably whip it out again someday, but it won't make it into my top 20.

Next up, Honey Lemon Cookies. These were actually the first cookies in the magazine, but last week I just didn't have time to get them all out of the oven, cooled and then iced. So they are finally making an appearance tonight. Off the bat what I'm not happy about with this recipe is that if you follow it exactly, then you'll be needing 3 bowls. That's a lot of dishes to clean at the end of the night. -1 point. Also, note that they do not spread out, so feel free to cram 12 of them per cookie sheet. I used a small cookie scoop so they turned out to be about 1.5" in diameter. Perfectly bite size. And now the taste test....

Chewy, a hint of honey, a bit of lemon, but ... eh. They definitely need the glaze on top, and probably two passes of glaze. The cookies themselves could use a bit more lemon, maybe double. It has potential, but again, probably won't make my top 20. I have another lemon cookie that just blows this out of the water. HERE!

Stay tuned for Chocolate Lovers Dream Cookies and Chocolate Pecan Kisses!

FOOD!

I've been collecting some pictures of my food creations for a few months now, but there has never been enough to make a full blog out of any one of them individually. So today I present you with Prosciutto Wrapped Asparagus, Chocolate Cake, Chocolate Cake Martinis, and Graveyard Brownies.

I used to hate asparagus, but it has slowly grown on me. And really, when you wrap anything in prosciutto it gets 1000 times better! Here we have prosciutto wrapped asparagus. To make, simply blanch your asparagus in boiling water for 1-2 minutes. Remove from water and pat dry. I like to chill mine in the fridge for about 30 minutes before working with it again. Next gather a cluster of 3 and wrap them together with a slice of prosciutto. Don't worry if the prosciutto rips, it never stays together for me. I garnished mine with a chive tie and some 18 year aged balsamic vinaigrette. I served these at a Christmas Eve dinner party and although my friends were adversed to asparagus, they enjoyed them quite a bit.

Well enough about healthy stuff, lets move onto the desserts!

I found a chocolate hazelnut icebox cake recipe on Pampered Chef a few months back. I really loved their idea for the hazelnut filling, however I wasn't too excited about their "cake." So I decided to modify a bit. Instead of using their recipe for cake I decided to put together a standard devil's food chocolate cake. I made 4 layers and filled between each layer with the hazelnut filling recipe attached. It was awesome! To make the sides all nice and straight, I froze the cake for a few hours then cut the sides with a bread knife. With the extra cake and filling I also put together some chocolate hazelnut cake martinis. Love the presentation of these!

My third food entry in this blog is something that I made just last week. Graveyard Brownies. I got this idea last halloween, but between the wedding and honeymoon I just didn't have time to make them. So a few weeks back I made up the lime green chocolate candies using a halloween mold and stuck them in the pantry. This is such a great time saver. Make the candies when you have a chance, then when you are ready to make the brownies you don't have to set aside such a large chunk of time. Now is where I confess my brownie making secret. I don't make brownies. Well, I don't make brownies from scratch. Nope, not this girl. I've never had a knack for it. What I use is the Ghirardelli Double Chocolate Brownie Mix. They are wonderful. And make sure you follow the note on the box that tells you not to over bake them! Mine came out all chewy and delicious. After they cooled I added my chocolate pieces and then crumbled up some brownie leftovers to make it look like dirt on top of the brownie. Perfect for any halloween or just your typical Tuesday in March.

Speaking of brownies. About a year ago I was at a pampered chef party in Austin and the host kept going on and on about this nylon knife that they sold which was "perfect" for cutting brownies. I've heard the story before that the best knife to cut brownies with is a plastic knife because the brownie 'gu' won't stick to it. So I though I'd give this nylon knife a try. Before I used it on brownies I used it on other desserts like butterscotch bars, and it worked great. Especially if you make your desserts in a pan that you don't want all scratched up with knife marks. So after my brownies were cooled, I thought this would be the perfect time to try out my nylon knife on brownies, you know, the whole reason I bought it.

I made my first cut, not too bad, second, eh, a little messy, and then by the third, forget it. I guess you could argue that it was less 'guey' than a metal butter knife, but I'm not sure I would say it was much better. So I grabbed my little green knife from Williams Sonoma and gave it a slice. Amazing. No mess, no 'gu', just a perfect cut. See ya nylon knife, I may bring you out for bars, but for brownies, I'm all about my little green WS knife.

It's okay to fail sometimes...

...cause it's not always so bad.

I've tried a some new recipes in the past few days and it seems that they all had some type of failure associated with them. Some worse than others.

It all started with the lasagna.

Let me begin by saying, I make a mean lasagna. I know, it's a bold statement. But hey, it's true. Usually it takes about 3-4 hours total just to prep, letting all the tasty goodness of the sauce come together, adding extra cheese, taking care that the noodles are done just right. Mmmm, makes me smile just to think about it.

Sunday, however, was different. :-/

I decided to try the spaghetti sauce recipe from the Mario Batali cookbook as the base for my lasagna sauce. The sauce itself is very good. A little thyme, carrot, lots of tomatoes, meat, onion, deliciousness. In fact, I've actually started to use this as my main spaghetti sauce. And on Sunday I even added in a little left over fajita meat, some peppers from the garden, and a shallot, cause you know, why not.

See, it looks awesome.



The problem with this sauce is that it didn't turn out very saucy. In fact, when it was all finished there wasn't much liquid left at all. Perhaps I boiled it off too much, which is valid, but even to begin with, it wasn't as saucy as my normal lasagna sauce. To me this is what half killed it. I say half because the other problem, I discovered after baking, was too little cheese!

I remember being at the store thinking to myself, how much cheese should I buy. Always err on the side of too much! Especially when it comes to lasagna. This was such a rookie mistake; I only went for 2 cups, when really, it should have been 3-4.

So here was my final product.



Looks pretty good, huh? And really, it wasn't so bad. But not nearly as good as my go to lasagna. And after 3 hours of work, I was a bit disappointed. Too dry, not cheesy enough, just kinda "eh." But hey, it's lasagna, so we ate it.

Then today I had a great idea. As we were eating left overs, which should be even better the next day, but still were just kinda "eh," I got out the fork and just started hacking at it. And before long it looked like a little lasagna casserole on the plate. And you know what, it was better than it was in lasagna form. And, easier to add a bit extra sauce to.

So the moral of the story is this. When you're lasagna sucks, make a casserole! And really, it's probably not *that* bad after all.

A topic for a later discussion: What happens when your focaccia doesn't focaccia.

Pinterest

Seriously, how cool is this site? I had been hearing about Pinterest for a while now and I vaguely recall my friend, Christy, talking about it while we were both in the midst of wedding planning last year. However, it wasn't until today that I decided to jump on this bandwagon and give it a try. I think I was bored at work waiting for a program to compile, and decided it was the prime moment to do some pinning. Yes, that must have been it. After all, I would never be randomly searching the web or reading facebook at work unless it was for a good reason. ;)

So I signed up for Pinterest and was told I'd have to wait a few days for my invitation. Wait?!? What is this "waiting." No no, my Type-A personality just wouldn't stand for that. So I jumped on Facebook, while still waiting for my program to compile, of course, and requested that one of my friends (aka - 30 friends, and 70 people who I knew at one time or another) send me an invitation.

And this is what I love about Facebook. BAM! Within 15 minutes I had a nice invitation sitting in my inbox from Tracy. Thanks Tracy!

Before long I was pinning away. This site is awesome! I've already gotten a bunch of great food ideas for everything from desserts to dinners to appetizers. And the best part about Pinterest is that everything has a picture associated with it! I very rarely will use a recipe from a book that doesn't have a picture with it. What can I say, I eat with my eyes first.

I also love that I can add the "pin it" icon to my bookmark bar and pin from whatever website I happen to be on. It's especially great for sites like Tastespotting, because I can just link those links all to one of my Pinterest boards.

Finally, I love that you can select which boards of your friends that you want to see. Most of the people who I follow I go in and selectively "unfollow" any board that I'm just not that interested in. This especially helps to narrow down the pins that you see when you go to the "people I follow" section.

I hope that you get a chance to join Pinterest soon, and when you do, follow me so I can follow you!

Making Palmiers

A few weeks back I decided to make puff pastry from scratch. It went well and tasted great, but I couldn't help but think to myself this one thought: "This is really good, but how does it compare to frozen puff pastry?" After all, if it tasted only 'as good' or 'mildly better,' then why spend the 8 hours it takes to make your own puff pastry?

So two weeks ago my parents were in town and I decided to make Palimers using frozen puff pastry sheets. The recipe I used came from one of my mom's cooking magazines and was as follows:

2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 sheet puff pastry
2 tbsp melted butter

Okay, so really, 4 ingredients, can't be that difficult... right?

Wrong.

I pulled the puff pastry out of the freezer and set it on the counter to thaw. About 5 minutes laster it was ready. I floured the surface and started to roll out the dough. One word for you: STICKY! Yea, it was super sticky; not at all what my home made puff pastry was like. As I start rolling out the dough I realize that it is so much harder to work with than mine was. I suppose this was because when you are making the puff pastry you are constantly working it in your hands. The frozen stuff hadn't been worked at all.

I finally got my dough rolled out to about 12" x 18"


Painted with melted butter and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar


And rolled up like a scroll


And cut into tiny 1/4" pieces


They seemed a bit small to me, but having just done some puff pastry work, I was sure they would puff up to a nice size. So I stuck them in the oven at 375 deg. for 15 minutes.

When I pulled them out, I was a little shocked. They were so tiny!



I thought for a little while and decided it must have been because I rolled them too tightly. After all, they had no where to "puff." So out came another package of puff pastry and again I repeated the above process. Only this time, I didn't roll them so tightly.



Again I waited my 15 minutes and pulled them out. They were a little better, but still tiny! What the hell. As you can see below, they got to only about 1.5x the size of the other ones.



Well, at this point in the story I'm sure you are all expecting me to tell you some grand revelation that I had to making these things puff up to the size of an elephant. Well I'm sorry to tell you, I didn't have that revelation. I still have no idea why they didn't puff up. I can guess that it had something to do with the amount of butter being spread onto the dough, but I think that is only half the story. I am planning on trying again some day with my own from-scratch puff pastry, but for now I will just have to be satisfied with this fact: they may not have looked right, but you can't beat the taste of cinnamon, sugar, and butter!

Scary Clown

Music courtesy of DC3

Scary clown found off the side of 290 in Brennam

Enjoy