Christmas cookies

Oh, hey.

I am the worst blog writer on the planet. I think I aspired to too much this Christmas and then ran out of steam. Hence, no updates. I'm pretty sure I've done nothing crafty lately.

However, Significant Other's birthday is rapidly approaching, so I'm sure I will have some cake fails to share in the near future. Also, I received a large package of cardstock and other assorted papercrafting goodies in the mail (thanks DM), so once I sit down and play around with that, I'll share.

But here are the cookies I made for annual potluck. A month and a half ago. Sorry readers.

Wine jelly

Today I present you with wine jelly, or, my scariest kitchen endeavor to date. I was trolling the Intarwebs one day and stumbled across The Simple Dollar, a personal finance blog, and now I'm hooked. The blog's author, Trent, detailed how to make wine jelly as part of his homemade Christmas gift series. Somewhere in my wormy little brain, a lightbulb went on and I thought to myself, "I could do that!"

Backstory: My only other jelly making experience dates back to when I was about nine or so, and I was in 4H, a group I seriously did not belong in because I would have rather been outside getting dirty than inside learning how to cook and sew. I think jelly-making night turned into my-mother-wondering-why-I-couldn't-be-Susie-Homemaker night.

Here is what you need to make wine jelly:

3 1/2 cups wine (TSD says that a normal sized bottle of wine will yield about three cups, so you can substitute grape juice for the rest; I avoided this problem by buying a large bottle)
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 package dry pectin
4 1/2 cups granulated sugar


Combine the wine, lemon juice and pectin in a pot and bring it to a boil.

This is the part where disaster struck. My wine mixture boiled over. I turned down the heat and took the pot off the burner for a minute until it settled down, then I tried again, but a minute later I smelled pure burning. I had to scramble around to turn on the fan and open a window, so there are no pictures of the actual jelly-making process. If anyone knows how to clean this up:

...let me know.

Once the wine mixture is boiling, add the sugar in and boil it some more, making sure to stir it until the sugar dissolves.

Next, ladle the jelly into jars (make sure you have sterilized the jars first). Leave about half an inch from the top, and put the lids on. Then, put the jars into boiling water for about five minutes to seal them up.

If you have survived, you now have more wine jelly than you will ever know what to do with! Put your jars in the fridge to keep them delicious.

 Here is my finished product to give as a gift.

Lightbulb ornaments

When Significant Other and I moved into the apartment together, I brought a couple of lamps from home to put in our office. I didn't realize that there was a ceiling light (with a CFL bulb!) in there already, so I had a box of lightbulbs sitting in the closet that were going to go to waste.

And then I discovered Etsy and saw this, and a la Adam Richman said, "Oh my goodness, oh my goodness!"

So, I present you with lightbulb ornaments.

First, I took a lightbulb (these are cheap ones from Walmart, I think they cost $0.88 for a box of four) and wrapped some wire around the threaded part. Finding an effective way to do it was frustrating, but the whole thing becomes much sturdier once you tie a ribbon on.

Next, I used paint pens to draw some snowflakes on the lightbulb.

Then I tied some ribbon around the threaded part, hiding the wire that is looped around it. I found the whole spool for 60% off at Michael's; it cost me $0.80.

The finished product.

Mixtape: Winter

I haven't been feeling too crafty these past couple of days, so here is another mixtape. Most songs were on the actual "Winter 2006-2007" mix (one of my favorites to date), but there are a few late additons. I don't know why (most of) these songs remind me of winter, but they do. Don't judge.

I'm noticing now that there are a lot of bands with animals in their names...


The First Song--Band Of Horses
Dear Prudence--The Beatles
Twin Falls--Ben Folds Five (it's a Built To Spill song, but I like their cover much better)
Death And All Of His Friends--Coldplay
A Long December--Counting Crows
White Winter Hymnal--Fleet Foxes
Hooray--Minus The Bear
Avignon--Pinback
No Surprises--Radiohead
Asleep--The Smiths
Concerning The UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois--Sufjan Stevens
Omaha--Tapes 'N Tapes
I Was A Lover--TV On The Radio
I Am Trying To Break Your Heart--Wilco

Magnets

These are fun, easy and less messy to make than orange chocolates. The idea came from Not Martha and I have seen a bunch for sale at Etsy too.

Sorry for the poor photo quality.

First, I looked through a whole bunch of old magazines for some little pictures to cut out. I used a couple of issues of Rolling Stone that somehow ended up in my mailbox. Then, I traced circles around the pictures using a dime and cut them out with a pair of scissors.



I also cut out circles of the same size from white cardstock. I happened to have this already, junk mail would work too, or you can find cardstock at Walmart or any craft store.

Then I used a cheap brush to apply some craft glue to a small round magnet. Make sure that you put the glue on the side that repels from the refrigerator. I used a glue called E-6000 that I know nothing about, but it looked like it would be strong and the packaging said that it was clear. It worked very well, but smells terrible.

Then I applied the cardstock circle to the magnet. This helps keep any picture on the other side of the magazine cutout from bleeding through. Next, I applied the glue to the cardstock and stuck the magazine cutout on it.

Next, I applied the glue to the flat side of a piece of clear vase filler (basically marbles with a flattened side). You can find vase filler at Walmart for sure; I tried looking around Michael's first but had no luck finding a clear package.

Take the piece of vase filler and press it down as hard as possible onto the magnet to force out any air bubbles.

Voila! You have a pretty cool magnet. Just let them dry completely before you use them.

Orange chocolates

Today I decided to attempt making orange chocolates. This is my mother's recipe; I made them a few times with her when I was younger. Let me rephrase that: This is almost my mother's recipe; I have cleaned it up a bit. My mother's recipes are really meant for just my mother and are indecipherable to the average person. Steps are frequently skipped, ingredients are sometimes not listed and then appear randomly in the procedure, etc. (My sister and I once spent an entire evening trying to translate her Babka recipe, who knows if it would make an edible loaf of bread.)

1 package (11.5 ounces) milk chocolate chips
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup whipping cream
1 teaspoon grated orange peel
2 1/2 teaspoons orange extract

Coating:
1 cup milk chocolate chips
2 tablespoons shortening


Place package of milk chocolate chips and semi-sweet chocolate chips in mixing bowl. In sauce pan, bring cream and orange peel to a gentle boil. Let stand one minute. Whisk with chips until smooth. Add orange extract.

I had to stick this in the microwave for 30 extra seconds, the whipping cream/orange peel mixture melted some of the chocolate chips, but not all.



Cover and chill for 35 minutes or until thickened. Beat 10-15 seconds or just until lightened. Spoon rounded teaspoons onto wax papered baking sheet. Chill for five minutes.

This is the roundest I could make them. They are rather lumpy. I stuck them in the freezer for a few minutes because our apartment tends to be a little warm and I knew that the colder they were, the easier it would be to work with them later.

 Shape into balls.

In microwave, melt shortening and milk chocolate chips together. Stir until smooth.

Be careful! Don't leave the shortening/chocolate chip mixture in the microwave too long, or it will burn. I put it on for a minute and checked/stirred the mixture every 15 seconds or so.

Dip into chocolate coating mixture. Place on wax paper to harden. Store in refrigerator.

For whatever reason, I cannot get this picture to post right-side-up. As you can see, they don't look store-quality (in fact, they look kind of lumpy). However, they have gotten the Significant Other seal of approval. Also, I'm going to forewarn you: these are messy to make!

And to determine cost:

1 package milk chocolate chips: On sale for $2 at the local grocery store.

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips: Roughly half the package, $1.

3/4 whipping cream: $2.99 for 16 ounces, I used 6 ounces. $1.13.

1 teaspoon grated orange peel: We had an orange sitting in our fridge, which was brought over by my boyfriend's best friend for some reason. Free.

2 1/2 teaspoons orange extract: What was originally $5.29 was knocked down to $4 with the grocery store's rewards card; the cashier gave me a $1 off coupon. $3 for 1 fluid ounce (or 6 teaspoons), 2 1/2 teaspoons cost $1.20.

1 cup milk chocolate chips: $1.

2 tablespoons shortening: 42 ounces of the store brand shortening was $4 if I remember correctly. 2 tablespoons is one ounce, we will round this off to $.10.

Total cost: $5.43

Christmas DIY adventures

Some of the Christmas DIY ideas that will make an appearance soon in @ Home With Heather:

Cutout cookies
Wine jelly (from The Simple Dollar)
Orange chocolates
Christmas cards
Magnets (from Not Martha)
Lightbulb ornaments
and my Diabolical Plan at some point (which I would post, but some surprises cannot be ruined ahead of time)

I'm pretty excited about these endeavors for a few reasons:

1.  Frugality--I discussed this with my father tonight, and broke it down something like this: I could buy six people gifts at $10 a pop, or I could make six jars of jelly:

1 bottle of wine: Approximately $10.
1/2 cup lemon juice: A 32 oz. bottle of my local supermarket's store brand costs $2.49.  1/2 cup = 4 oz., so 1/8 of $2.49 would be roughly $.32.
1 package dry pectin: A grocery shopping adventure in and of itself; I could not find this anywhere on the shelves. After two phone calls to determine where I should be looking, my worst fears were confirmed: this is a seasonal item and canning season, apparently, is over (you should normally be able to find this on the top shelf with the gelatin or in the produce section). However, my mother was kind enough to dig out a package from her pantry for me (FrugalMom stockpiles groceries). Pectin cost me $0.
4 1/2 cups granulated sugar: 4 pounds of the store brand was on sale for $2. However, pounds are a unit of weight and cups are a unit of volume. Using this handy dandy conversion chart I was able to determine that 4 1/2 cups is about 2 pounds, costing me $1 (I hope the lucky recipients of this jelly have great dental insurance).
Mason jars: Essential for the canning of the stuff; I recently saw six for $10.79 at the local grocery store. However, FrugalMom was trying to sell a bazillion of them at her garage sale and I know there are many left over. I will try to have these gifted, or buy them at a discount from her. I'm going to leave these out of the equation for now.

Total cost: $11.32

2.  Gifts with heart--I'm not just doing this because of the Scrooge factor. In Thoughts about Christmas I expressed concern about the marriage of the holiday with consumerism. My real wish is to create something that friends and family will enjoy and might remember in the future. I know some of my favorite gifts didn't add to somebody's bottom line; they were things that somebody put love into.

3. Personal growth--Growing up, the kitchen was strictly Mom's domain. Intruders were scrutinized. As a result, I never fostered an interest in cooking or baking (side note: I feel no animosity towards my mother; she's pretty awesome). Perhaps interest in a new hobby will be sparked, or I can at least develop some fundamental skills.