Browsing the archives for the pie tag.

Frozen Oreo Pie

Domestic, Kids

Oh. My. Goodness. I remember when we told our two oldest kids (12 and 7 at the time) that they could each choose one physical activity to do. We had decided to continue homeschooling and they needed some kind of organized physical fitness a few times a week. Each of them chose things that they not only came to love, but they came to be very dedicated to as well! Now we homeschool every week day, our oldest has classes 5-6 days a week with 3 private lessons on top of that, our tiny dancer has classes 5 days a week with 1-2 private lessons on top of that and we try to take a few afternoons a week for our littlest one to spend time with her buddies. Non stop action. This is why I stay up so late, so I can knit and talk to my husband and do nothing for a minute.

For now, though? For now, let’s forget about everything else and just make an Oreo pie.

I have made this entirely from scratch with homemade pudding and whipping cream and guess what? It doesn’t work! I KNOW!

Frozen Oreo Pie

via Kraft

1 1/2 cups Oreo cookie crumbs
6 tablespoons melted butter
2 pkgs instant vanilla pudding
2 1/2 cups milk
8 oz thawed whipped topping
10-15 Oreos, chopped up or broken

Super simple. Just mix the cookie crumbs and butter in your pie plate and, once combined, smoosh the crust into the pie plate. Make sure it’s all over the bottom and up the side to form a good looking crust.


Mix the milk with half of the whipped topping and then mix that with the pudding mixes. Fold in Oreo cookie chunks.

Pour the filling into the crust and top with the rest of the whipped topping. Sprinkle more Oreo cookie chunks and crumbs on top. Freeze for at least 4 hours.

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Happy Canadian Thanksgiving

Domestic

I need to interrupt my little Halloween countdown for Canadian Thanksgiving, but it’s still a fairly Halloweeny recipe – pumpkin pie. And not pumpkin pie from a can, actual pumpkin pie. If you don’t want to gut small pumpkins and puree that, you can use a can of pumpkin, but not the pumpkin pie mix. Since the pumpkin pie mix is so simple, people use it instead of actual pumpkin assuming that making it form scratch is so much harder. The thing most people don’t realize is that it’s the same thing as making your own pancakes vs pancake mix. Not hard, I swear! You need a can of evaporated milk either way and you probably have everything else you need already.

Also, just for the record, there are 17 sleeps till Halloween. 😉

Pumpkin Pie

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups cooked and drained pumpkin
1 5oz can evaporated milk
1 9″ unbaked pastry pie crust shell
1/2 cup sugar
5 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
3/4 cup whole milk
3 extra large eggs, beaten
whipped cream (topping)

Preheat your oven to 400, then combine both sugars, salt, and the pumpkin pie spice (if you don’t have any and don’t want to buy any, cinnamon will work just fine). Now add the pumpkin, stir and stir and stir until it’s blended. Recipes like this make me even more thankful for my standing mixer than usual. Next add the whole milk, evaporated milk, and eggs. Stir this until it’s totally smooth.

Lay your pie crust in the pie plate and pour the pumpkin mixture into it. Use any leftover pie crust dough to make a braid to go around the end of the pie and maybe a few little pumpkins if you have a pumpkin cookie cutter.

Baking it is a little like making popovers in that you change the temperature of the oven without removing the pie. So when you first put it in, your oven should be at 400, then after 15 minutes turn the oven down to 350 and keep baking for another 45 minutes. Depending on your oven, you may need to leave it in even longer, just keep checking the center with a toothpick every 10 minutes or so until the toothpick comes out clean.

Once it cools off, spoon some whipped cream over top with a little sprinkle of cinnamon and voila! Perfect ending to Thanksgiving – or any fall meal!

Pumpkin Pie
 Pumpkin Pie
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Fall Baking Round Up (Halloween and Birthdays)

Domestic

Making a different pie every week all year has lead to some pretty funny pies. I strive to rival Martha, and some days I do (hello Valentine’s Day, 2009!), but other days I end up making a chocolate crumb crust, lining the bottom with sliced apples and pouring chocolate pudding on top. Yup. Meet pie #47, Apple Chocolate Pudding Pie. It was delicious, for the record, but the description above is 100% true. My 9 year old could have made this, actually I bet my 4 year old could have made it too (she likes to make instant pudding in the Kitchen Aid)!

Moving along to treats I am more proud of, brain cupcakes made for wee one #1’s school Halloween party! One of my dearest friends, Talea, gave me an icing pen for my birthday this year, because 2010 is the Year of Cakes and Cupcakes! I used it for the first time to make these brains. I was so happy while making them because the pen, though a little fiddly to fill, works like a dream and made the cupcakes look all brainy! Of course, once they were all packaged up and ready to roll the night before the party I started to get self-conscious about them. Did they look brainy enough? Maybe I should have tinted the icing to be pinkish? Maybe I should have added blood? No.

I made these Chocolate Witch Hats from a Martha Stewart recipe. In her recipe is says to paint the cones with chocolate, but the image it conjured of the messy hands killed it for me. All you need; a box of sugar waffle ice cream cones, a tray of chocolate wafer cookies (I made mine from scratch thankyouverymuch), a bowl of broken Kit Kats, and a bowl of melted chocolate.

 

Dunk the ice cream cone into the melted chocolate, put a few broken Kit Kat pieces inside, and top it with the cookie (using the flat bottom of the cookie as the underside of the lid so it holds to the cone better), you may have to brush the seal with melted chocolate too. Just as many children ate these as adults once we got them into the school. Most of the office staff had one!

Shortly after all this Halloweening it up in the kitchen, I came across this post on Cake Spy from May on a Cookie Cake Pie, which naturally, got me very excited! I still had some of the cocoa cookie dough in the fridge from the Chocolate Witch Hats I had made, so I went with a chocolate version. I’m not sure what I did wrong. I think I will try this again when I visit with my friend Heather when we go on our Christmas trip. I didn’t do the idea justice, it was ok, but a little dry and not half as exciting as the original idea.

I immediately redeemed myself with these Pumpkin Carrot Muffins, though, so it’s ok. 😉

 

Standard Lemon Meringue was pie #51, with the standard coffee ring (chopped up to fit on the platter, naturally), and (drum roll please) pretzels.

 

I made pretzels from scratch! The recipe was alright, but the instructions were sub par so I will try this again and share a how to once I’m better at it!

 

This was exciting for me. Meet pie #52, Mint Chocolate Chip! It was delicious, but it was also so pretty and the sound the meringue made when I cut it was that perfectly crunchy but not hard shell cracking sound. Mmmm. I was impressed with myself, for sure.

I made a standard white flour pie crust (we’ve established that whole wheat flour and chocolate only work nicely in brownies), baked it, then made chocolate pudding with some mint extract, filled the pie crust and popped it back in the oven for another 30 minutes or so. Then I whipped the meringue and added green food coloring, I topped the pie off with that and then put it back in the oven again for another 10 minutes. I added the chopped chocolate once I took it out.

I maybe should have called this the Elvis Pie, since it’s pretty much equal parts banana and peanut butter, I learned when making this pie that while a smashed banana is delicious and invisible in baked goods, the same is not true for actual pieces of banana. They are still delicious, but they’re not pretty.

 

Finally, this cake is my most favorite recent accomplishment. One of my wee ones has a thing for Dora, as many wee ones do and asked me to make her a cake. So far, on the baking front, I’ve been getting pretty good at making very pretty cakes, but they are decorated differently. My mother was always baking and frosting cakes. By the time I was half way through elementary school, she was making cakes and chocolates from home as a small business. Her style of decorating was piping the entire cake from the Wilton decorating tips and it was so so so nice. I have yet to get that good at piping, so I smooth out the cake and pipe what I think I will do the least damage with. I used the same decorating pen from Talea for the sun and cloud. She loved it, and so did her wee friends!

    Next up is some serious holiday baking!

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Smell You Later (with pie!)

Domestic

One of my best and oldest friends has left the country – again. The first time she left was for England, then she came back for a few years and now she’s trying Australia on for size. I knew she’d love Australia, and though her Visa is only good for a year I wanted to give her a serious send off! The weekend before her Smell You later party, I made this pretty little pie and we finished up the prep work for the following Saturday!

Keeping in my kick with the chocolate crust, I pulled together this number – Peppermint Pie with a Chocolate Crust. Most of the ladies at the Stitch n Bitch where I served this said it tasted like Christmas. It’s a pretty accurate description, actually, so much so that I think I’ll pull this out at Christmas time from now on.

The Smell You Later party was all about good friends and good food. 🙂 It was a semi-surprise, as in she knew about the fete being thrown in her honor, but didn’t know I was inviting all her favorites – even the ones that don’t usually cross social circles! Fun!!

    

First up was this Apple Caramel pie! Essentially, you can rig up any apple pie recipe for this. My only suggestions for altering your favorite recipe to include the caramel is to not use Granny Smith apples, up your cinnamon and use all brown (or golden yellow) sugar instead of granulated. Even when the caramel started to ooze out the top, I was still very happy with it! I dusted the top of it with cinnamon and sugar before baking as well.

I also made Marshmallow-Topped Cocoa Brownies from my fail-safe Good Housekeeping scratch brownie recipe, I just sprinkled marshmallows on top, as per wee one #2’s suggestion. They turned out as good as they look!

Raw batter and mini marshmallows…

Baked brownies, melty and browned marshmallows….

Cooled and cut!

My Uncle Glenn loves to cook, and often comes over on Fridays, especially before a large weekend gathering, to play in the kitchen with me. This week he showed me his favorite dish to make for a crowd, Sausage and Peppers. We started with a red onion, chopped it really chunky and sauteed it with some whole garlic cloves and a bit of olive oil, and added the sausages. At the same time, we chopped the peppers, put them on a cookie sheet with a bit of fresh black pepper and some olive oil. By the time the sausages were cooked, the peppers were ready, we added everything to one casserole dish and popped it back in the oven for another 30 minutes or so. Tah-dah!

 

I know we’ve got a blurry one here and I try to avoid that but it’s the only shot I took of all three of this week’s pies. The Apple-Caramel Pie is on the left, on the right is this Triple Layer Mud Pie from Kraft, and under it, my first successful Frozen Key Lime Pie, recipe courtesy of Martha!

My hands down favorite treat that I made for Lindsay’s Smell You Later party was this tray of pink cake balls, which I think we all know by now I discovered on Bakerella. I made these ones from cherry cake and pink frosting! I ran out of lollipop sticks, but had chocolate to melt, so I made little cake balls with my tablespoon, dropped them in cute cupcake liners and drizzled them in chocolate! So so so good, I swear it doesn’t matter what you do to a cake ball, it’s delicious. Bakerella has so many amazing ideas for decorating cake pops, check it out!

 

I will end this post with details of the full spread, though the three pies I mentioned above are not pictured here, as they were all in the fridge when I snapped this photo. Going across the back row, from left; pork and chicken meatballs, with a bowl of tangy dipping sauce, pizza bread, loukoumathes (my mother picked up a box of them from Athena Bakery), my cheddar crackers, and raspberry scones. Going across the bottom row, from right to left; apple-cinnamon scones, cherry cake balls, cheesy garlic bread, a rice and broccoli number and the sausage and peppers are just out of the frame. Honestly, there really wasn’t much left over!

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Spaghetti Pie, Cake and Cupcakes!

Domestic

When I decided to make a different pie every week, I knew I wanted to make supper pies as well as desert pies and of course, I wanted to make some really weird ones. Weird pies, like Spaghetti Pie. Really. This was take one, and there will for sure be a take two now that I’ve tried it out and sort of know what I’m going for. I had bumped into a few recipes for it, like this one from Kats Kitchen, and this one from Dinner With Julie, which are both essentially spaghetti mixed with eggs, cheese, sauce and veggies, poured into a pie pan. Then there are recipes for it like this, from Big Red Kitchen, where the spaghetti is used as a crust and the sauce, meat and cheese is on top. I went with the base of the first two and used what I had. While the spaghetti was cooking I chopped the veggies, I used carrots, a tomato, oregano, zucchini, and of course onions and garlic. I also cubed some cheddar cheese and poured 3 whisked eggs around it. I recommend mixing it all in a bowl first and then putting it in your pan because the cheese mostly melted on top. It wasn’t bad, but it could have been much better.

 

Next time, I will use more like 5 eggs for this pan, I’ll add some peppers and spinach and I think I’ll use mozzarella and parmesan instead of cheddar.

These cupcakes, along with the Spaghetti Pie, were made to say smell you later to a friend who was going away for a couple of weeks – whose favorite color is green. I didn’t want to make green frosting for a plain chocolate cupcake, it’s a little misleading, so I made mint chocolate cupcakes.

2009 has been the year of the pie, and I’ll keep going with the pies and tarts till the end of the year, but 2010 is going to be the year of cakes and cupcakes! I was getting into it early with the cupcakes and then a few days later with this marble cake, and then again with more cupcakes. I don’t know why I love it so much more than either vanilla or chocolate cake. Presentation, maybe? It’s much prettier than a plain cake. I didn’t even frost it, we just ate squares of it with coffee.

 

I had to make something special for wee one #1’s last day of school party, he wanted cupcakes, but he wanted them to be different. I saw some rainbow cupcakes on Craftster a while ago but had no reason for them at the time. They look far more impossible than they really are and I so wish I had taken photos of the process. I will do them up again for the year of the cake and cupcake and take better pics then. Essentially, you just make a vanilla cake, separate it into how over many smaller batches as you like and tint them all different colors with food coloring. Then we you fill the cupcake liners, you just use about a tablespoon or so of each color (depending, of course, on how many colors you use).

When they bake up, you can see the layers of colors in the crust on top, but they are downright impressive when you break one open!

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Chocolate Espresso Pecan Pie and Potato Crisps

Domestic

I have never really been a big fan of pecans, but when I read about this recipe via a Tweet from Jen Yu, I had to try it. It’s a pecan pie, sure, but it’s a chocolate espresso pecan pie. I love chocolate and I adore espresso, so its a win! The recipe is posted here at Use Real Butter, modified from Fine Cooking, and I modified it just a little as well. I made my usual crust and I didn’t have any corn syrup so I used maple syrup (ha!). I’m going to repost it here anyway, in the interest of organization! Use the crust suggested, or your own standard crust.

#25 – Chocolate Espresso Pecan Pie
3oz unsweetened chocolate
2 oz butter
4 large eggs
1 cup maple syrup
1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp instant espresso powder
1 tbsp hot water
2 tbsp Bailey’s (or something like it)
2 cups pecans

This pie comes together just as you’d imagine it would, chop and melt the chocolate and butter together. Let it cool off and mix the eggs, maple syrup, sugar and salt. Whip up the espresso and hot water before adding it to the egg mix, then add the chocolate mix and the Bailey’s.

Spread the pecans on the bottom of your crust and the pour the mix on top (pecans float, who knew?). The recipe says to arrange some half pecans along the edge of the pie before you pour in the filling. Your call, I didn’t. Bake it at 350 ’till the filling puffs’ and man does it ever, about 45 for me (be warned, my oven runs HOT).

I don’t think I can possibly describe this pie, it has to be tasted. It’s not too chocolaty, and though you can taste the coffee flavor, it’s not overpowering. This is a pie I will make again and again. I loved it.

Sidenote, I’ve taken to making little potato crisps in the afternoon for the kids when they ask me for a snack. I just scrub down a potato, leave the skin on and slice it really thin. I just sprinkle with a little Becel oil and black pepper. Sometimes I also use a little romano or parm cheese. I pop them in the oven at about 400 for 15 minutes or so (depending on how thin they are).

Wee one #1 eats them plain, wee one #2 dips them in ketchup and wee one #3 doesn’t have any teeth yet so she doesn’t have a preference yet. 😛 I’m going to try this will various root veggies and different toppings. Like can you imagine how garlic and green onions could transform a potato? Or what cheese and chives would do for a yam?! I am getting excited about the possibilities!

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Birthday Fete + Earth Hour

Crafty, Domestic

This year my dear friend Lindsay’s birthday fete at my house landed on Earth Day, and ran through Earth Hour. Of course, Gillian arrived with candles so we’d be prepared. Hanging out in the dark was especially awesome this year because Talea kept knitting, which as you know warms my heart to no end. The wee ones on the other hand, they just couldn’t unplug but I really felt they should be a part of it so I let them have handhelds in the dark. I know, I know, that’s cheating. Guess what? I don’t care. 😛

Ok so on to the prep for Lindsay’s birthday. I have to admit, as much as I hate to, that I’ve spent so much time watching Lost and snuggling with wee one #3 that I haven’t had as much detail in the last few birthday gatherings I’ve hosted. There’s always pie though, that’s the most important element to Saturdays around here. Picking the pie this week was easy because Miss Lindsay loves her some key lime pie, and luckily for us Grocery Gateway stocks key limes.

 

So while I was ordering them, the husband machine asked what I was going to make with them, and when I told him, he made a face. The husband machine isn’t really a fan of testing new recipes – at all. So he wasn’t into the chocolate mousse pie last week, nor was he interested in the nectarine pie from the week before, or even the chocolate-strawberry pie from the week before that. All he wanted was an apple pie. So I made an apple pie before I got to the pie of the week. 🙂

With that out of the way, I made a graham crust, and the followed a recipe for the filling that I wont share with you because it failed. It failed bigtime. Somehow, several people ate an entire piece. Ick, not me. I had a few bites to give it a chance, and it was just really runny and bitter and not very good at all. That was not a fun sentence to write. I’m going to make one of those lime green frozen key lime pies to redeem myself.

I knew what I was going to knit her for her birthday when I came across an ad for a Patons sock pattern book in Vogue Knitting’s holiday issue last year! I didn’t pick up that Paton’s book till a trip to Mary Maxim in January – but I knew that she’d love polka dot socks! As is usual so far this year, her socks were not ready for her birthday, but I did show my progress to her – progress that needs to be ripped out because it’s way too small. Intarsia all the way around a sock doesn’t give it any stretch at all. Like none. That’s ok, I’ll live. This was 2 eps of Lost and half an ep of 24. I’ve already ripped it out and started again. This time I casted on an extra repeat, we’ll see what good that did tomorrow. The real shame here is having to knit, frog, reknit (and potentially refrog and reknit again!) the cuff. Knitting cuffs, to me, is pretty awful and I’m always glad when I’m done and can move on to the pattern. So yeah. I love my Lindsay, and I shall display this by knitting and reknitting her sock cuff.

This was what I ripped out. 🙁 She saw it like this and laughed about how miniature her foot would have to be for this to make sense. I also made her a wee little felt pouch, thankfully about as big as her snazzy phone. First, I embroidered a wee pink L in the bottom corner and a cute blue flower in the top.

 

Even though it’s smallish and fiddly, I used my sewing machine instead of hand sewing it because I really wanted it to have clean edges.

I’m glad I did, it looks so cute and she loved it.

Last year, Lindsay experienced the joy of light bulb cooking for the first time when wee one #2 got an Easy Bake oven. One of the things we made was pink cookies that tasted like Fruit Loops. This was my attempt to recreate them, I even put strawberry Jello powder in them. They were pretty close.

 

FYI, not everyone was a fan of these cookies. I think you have to be a fan of Jello to get these.
However, everyone was a fan of Bakerella’s cake balls. This was my first time making them, there are so many occasions these things would be perfect for! So many different ideas on her site too!
This is how I made my cake pops. First, I baked a rainbow sprinkles cake then when it was cool I crumbled it into a bowl and mixed frosting in with it until I could shape it. Then I rolled all of it into about a dozen balls and melted chocolate to cover them.

 

 

Then I dipped my lolli-stick into the melted chocolate and then into a pop, not sure if it actually holds it on but I think it helps. Once that was dry, I dipped the balls into the melted chocolate to totally cover them and stood them up to dry!

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Gauge is Important + New Yarn

Crafty, Domestic

So everyone always says that checking your gauge is important and I’ve had a few close calls with socks, where I really needed to block them or there’s no way they’d fit but aside from socks I don’t generally knit things that need to fit. I like to knit accessories and silly things, like wee cats and veggies and pearls. Last week I cast on for a little dress for wee one #3, following the pattern exactly. It was coming together really nicely, though I hadn’t been able to try it on the wee-est one, mainly because she’s pretty much always sleeping and when she’s not she’s eating or having a bath or something far more interesting than trying on a dress. So three days go by and I’m done! All I had to do to be sure it wasn’t going to fit was walk it over to the cradle, just holding it next to her it was obvious. Boo!

My first thought (after the initial let down wore off) was to try it on wee one #2 as a top. So I called her over and unlike her 3 week old sister, she pretty much lives to change her clothes so she was happy to participate. However! She pulled it over her head so roughly and tried to ram her hand through the armhole without looking at what she was doing. Just watching her put it on made me twitch. Doesn’t she know you can’t treat a Debbie Bliss cashmere-merino blend like that?! This is why I only ever knit her socks and toys, she is a monster truck trapped in a sweet little girl’s body. This wee dress will stay put on the hanger until this summer when there is a slight chance that the wee one it was intended for will be big enough to wear it.

Thankfully food doesn’t need to fit! The same day this happened, I made hamburgers, which is probably the one thing everyone in this house loves equally. I so love it when I make something that everyone, even my painfully specific husband machine, likes.

There isn’t much to them, though I suppose there isn’t much to most homemade hamburgers; beef, onions, garlic, an egg, torn bread pieces and a little bbq sauce. Simple and soooo good! Sometimes I put a little cheese on the inside as a wee surprise when you bite into them!

Last weekend probably should have been a St Patrick’s Day feast, but it wasn’t. Not even a little bit. Next year I will outdo myself to make up for it, I’ll even make soda bread! So while it wasn’t a green weekend, it was a fantastic time. I finally got to meet blogging buddy Romi, which was so much fun, and of course my usual Stitch n Bitch collective was here for the evening as well. I finally finished Andrew’s Skull Socks of Fury from last month. Man, hardly anyone gets a handmade birthday gift on time from me! I swore I’d make everyone something for each occasion this year, maybe next year I’ll swear to do it on time!

 

It’s hard to tell what the fit was going to be like with them laid flat on the counter, and I had weaved in ends for over an hour hoping that they’d fit because if not I’d be blocking them, intarsia or not! Thankfully, he tried them on immediately and they fit! Woot! They were worth every stitch, the yarn was superwash too, so it doesn’t matter much what he does to them, they’ll live.

This week’s pie was actually even easier to make than the strawberry topped one a couple of weeks ago! This was another chocolate crust, this time with chocolate mousse inside. I served the strawberries on the side to keep the decadent chocolate look of the pie.

It was another simple but amazing pie, perfect for Romi’s first time at my house!

The sock yarn I was going on about last post from Red Bird Knits arrived, and even though I already know what it’s all going to be, it’s so exciting to have new sock yarn. I know, I know. I must be stopped! As intended, I picked up two hanks of cotton for my Mother in Law because she is allergic to the sock yarn I love to use (can you image? what a horrible disease to have!). Turns out that the yarn I picked from Red Bird Knits, the Super 10 from Butterfly is Greek! Not just Greek as in it’s made by a Greek, but Greek as in it’s imported from Greece and even has some Greek writing on it (Mom confirmed it just says Butterfly, but still…)

So the red is the cotton for the husband machine’s Mom’s socks, and while I was there I noticed some ‘nearly solid’ sock yarn from Lorna’s Laces. I know I have a heap of Lorna’s Laces already, but I was planning on knitting polka dot socks for my friend Lindsay’s birthday this weekend and I didn’t have enough of a solid sock yarn to make the background. I ended up changing the polka dot colour as well, on the husband machine’s suggestion that the pink and purple looked better together – he was right they look great.

The purple is Blackberry and the pinkish one is Berry, I have managed to knit up about 3″ of polka dots on the leg of this sock since this photo was taken yesterday and they look fantastic! These colours together are way better than my original selection and much more ‘Lindsay’, I think she’ll be happy with them. No idea on when they’ll be done though, since there is other prep work that I have to do for her party this weekend.

Once Lindsay’s fete is over and before I get going on my Mother in Law’s socks, I need to take one afternoon to make some cloth diapers for wee one #3. I found some seriously cute cotton flannel. Hello skulls and cross bones on homemade cloth diapers!

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Welcome to the World + Belated Birthdays

Crafty, Domestic

Wee one #3’s arrival was the most anticipated yet! Both her brother and sister were weeks early, so naturally we all assumed she’d be early as well. Imagine our collective surprise when she decided to arrive 3 days late! It’s amazing the things I put off or just didn’t do at all because I was so sure she was on her way. My Dad’s big 60th birthday party never happened (I will just have to throw him a big 61st party next year!), my parent’s 30th anniversary dinner didn’t happen either (is it weird to make a celebration out of 31 years next year?), and both Andrew and Talea’s birthdays did not have half as much detail as I had originally planned. Her Welcome to the World though, that was the most low-fi and equally fantastic night ever. Four of my dearest (missed the other dearests not there though) friends were here to introduce themselves and give her a snuggle.

 
 

Technically, Andrew didn’t actually give her a snuggle, but he did put a crayon in her hand that she held for a loooong time and I thought that was painfully sweet.

The only thing I put together for his little gathering was a chocolate-strawberry pie and it was so simple to make it’s embarrassing to admit. The crust was just Becel and cookie crumbs, the filling was from scratch vanilla pudding (which really doesn’t require much more effort than instant pudding, unless you count turning on the stove effort), and the top was just sliced strawberries. I was a little blown away by how good it was, and even more blown away by how much everyone else loved it. It’s been named best pie so far.

After the excitement of bringing home a new baby, it takes some time to come down from it all. It’s also hard not to just stare at her sleeping all day, so between the laundry and the other two wee ones, a few birthdays slipped past me! The first is for a dear friend’s cousin, and I wasn’t actually going to make her anything but I found a pattern for a cute monster and I remembered that she got some really rad monsters for Christmas last year so I casted on for her – on her birthday – so she wasn’t done for a while. Here she is finished, yes without a face, I just didn’t think my yarn selection allowed for a face.

One of the husband machine’s Uncles and one of his cousins have had birthdays in the last two weeks, so I made up cards for them. It’s a wee gesture, but it’s important for them to know that late or not, we’re thinking of them. 🙂

It’s also my Mother-in-law’s birthday. She was here visiting on her actual birthday and we gave her a card because I hadn’t finished two little gifts I was working on, and I hadn’t even ordered the yarn for her birthday socks yet! Truthfully, I’m going to stop this post right now and order it! She’s allergic to a lot of yarn so the only safe bet is to use cotton. I’m going with The Butterfly Super 10 Cotton from Red Bird Knits in Persian – it’s a fantastic and rich red. I should have it by Thursday and hopefully a few late nights catching up on Lost with the husband machine and I’ll have her socks ready to mail out by this time next week. Now, if only Andrew’s Skull Socks of Fury would hurry up and knit themselves up! The other little gifts I’m making for my Mother-in-law are, silly as it may seem, an apple cozy from I Think I’m Gonna Purl and a banana cozy. She takes fruit with her to work and has mentioned that it gets banged up in her bag, these cozies should soften the blow.

This weekend we got back to the usual Stitch n Bitch night, and Gill pointed out that I really should have made soda bread and done up some green window decorations…though I suppose I could always host a late St Patty’s Day SnB next weekend. We’ll see, all of a sudden I have the urge to knit four leaf clovers. Thanks a lot Gill!

This week I made nectarine pie and in keeping with the new baby theme I cut wee teddy bears from the crust. It was really juicy and not at all too sweet. Of course, we ate it warm with french vanilla ice cream.

Over the last week or so I’ve been collecting ideas of things to knit for wee one #3, though all I’ve knit for her has been socks. That first pink, white and green pair and this purple pair. I’ve also just finished up a green set for wee one #1’s former teacher, who just had her first baby.

The next person to turn 29 this year is wee one #3’s Godmother, Lindsay. She’s having a few gatherings over the course of a week to celebrate and one of them is a ‘Girly-Tastic-Birthday-Fun-Time’ tea at the Four Seasons! Of all the ladies coming, one is pregnant and two of us have brand new babies that we’re bringing with us. I can’t find a pretty dress small enough for my 7lb baby to wear to tea, so I’m going to knit her up something snazzy – tea is this weekend though, so I’ve got six days to knit it up if we count today. Good thing it’s March Break and I’m up to all hours watching Lost and knitting anyway!

It’s so hard to pick a pattern! This one is my overall fave, but I’m not crazy about the ribbon. Just because I know from wee one #2 that bow is not going to stay tied up and will likely end up covered in some bodily fluid. I’m guessing it’s harder to get puke out of organza than cashmerino (which is surprisingly durable). Other options include this, which has no ribbon, but is too big and seems like it might be a serious headache to make it smaller and maybe this one, but I’m still undecided. I need to cast on tonight though so a decision must be made! Oh and I *must* sew this as well. Love it!

This week I’ll be working on that dress, maybe some small St Patty’s Day stuff for next weekend and once my yarn order gets here I’ll have to dig deep and find it somewhere in myself to stick to Andrew’s second skull sock until it’s done and not abandon it for snazzy new yarn. I can already feel myself crumbling and I just paid the invoice a few minutes ago…

I’m really excited for next week, getting ready for Lindsay’s birthday fete at my place!

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One Anniversary and Back to Back Birthdays

Crafty, Domestic

My parents celebrated their 30th anniversary a few weeks ago, I had a few silly ideas for the pearl anniversary that involved patterns with lots of ‘purls’ in them but nothing seemed quite right. If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time you know how much I love knitting creatures and toys so I just went with knitting pearls, 30 of them!

I didn’t intend for either of them to actually wear them, I assumed they’d put them where ever they put all the other random knitted stuff they have from me. I’ve been told that when held up and dangling, this looks like a string of garlic. As far as I know my folks don’t believe in vampires…

On to the recap portion of this recap post, so much has happened – both crafty and otherwise – since my Valentines Day Rewind post a few weeks ago. First, we had a (sort of) surprise party for our dear friend Andrew, then another birthday party for our dear friend Talea, and then I finally gave birth to wee one #3 and we had a little welcome to the world party for her. Many, many things were knitted, and many, many things were baked (and cooked) since then.

A bunch of my friends are turning 29 this year, myself included, and Andrew was the first. So we started planning his fete as a surprise – which isn’t how it ended up at all, unless you ask wee one #2, she’s certain he had no idea. She hid under the dining room table and jumped out at him yelling ‘suuuuuurprise!!’ 😛

Food themes for tonight (aside from 102 Warhead sour candies) were cheese and chocolate – two of our favorite things as a collective. The cheddar crackers are from a recipe my Dad and I put together last summer with not much else to do one afternoon. Every time I make them they’re a little different, sometimes I switch up the cheese, sometimes I add onion or chives. This version is made with cheddar and has diced onions. The cheese souffles were also made with cheddar, and borderlined just enough on being quiche-like that both those who love and hate quiche loved these babies.

 

The actual surprise of the evening was the cake Gill had made for him. We Photoshopped Andrew’s head on to Burt Reynolds’ very naked body (very naked body on a bear skin rug!), and had that put on an ice cream cake. To keep him from discovering, or even asking about his cake, we made a decoy. Wee one #2 and I made a banana chocolate chip cake and she painstakingly put on each of these chocolate chips herself, one at a time.

 

This week’s pie of the week was a tray of chocolate cinnamon tarts. My resident pie fanatic assured me that as mini pies, tarts count! The crust is my usual pie crust, minus 1/4 cup of flour for 1/4 cup of cocoa and a bit of milk instead of water. The filling is essentially scratch chocolate pudding with 1 tsp of cinnamon, topped with fresh whipped cream and a chocolate chip, naturally! Wee one #1 crushed some Oreos for me so we could make Oreo fudge. Fudge used to be such a mystery to me and now I can hardly believe how simple it is to make!

 

On to his gift, his gloriously unfinished gift! I’m knitting him up a pair of Skull Socks of Fury from Hello Yarn! I made him the Pirate Mittens from the same site for Christmas, so I’m keeping with the theme. The pattern in these socks is pretty simple to follow, it’s just the time consuming factor of knitting socks for men and their giant feet. 😛

I love how big the skull is on this little guy, clearly he has an overactive brain.

So now, fast forward one week, I’d been having contractions here and there and it was making it tricky for even me to get things done. Talea’s 26th birthday landed on the Saturday, the day *after* my official due date with wee one #3. I had so many fun ideas for her birthday party, and I wont list all the neat things I didn’t do this year because I’ll just do them next year when she’s 27! 😛

I did manage to get some fun things done for her birthday fete though! Talea is my pie fanatic, the reason I vowed to make a pie a week for at least a year (this week’s potato/cheese/chive pie was week 13), and she is my one and only sock knitting protege. So really, it wouldn’t make sense to not use the themes of sock knitting and pie. Naturally, from one sock knitter to another, my first thought was to make heaps of teeny tiny socks and litter the table with them.

 

This actually lead to knitting baby socks, (which consumed the rest of my week – more on that later), so I casted on again to make really, really wee socks and left them partly unfinished with toothpicks in them as wee double pointed needles! I also knit up a chocolate-raspberry tart for her! My husband machine thought the wee socks and ‘needles’ were cute but they needed a knitting basket for the wee balls of yarn they were being knitted from so he made me some origami boxes!

The wee ones wanted to get in on the crafting action, of course, so they made some tissue paper flowers for her! Her fiancee totally showed them up by having 26 red roses delivered here that night to surprise her! Ha!

I’m not posting photos of this week’s pie because it was sort of blah and I’m not happy with the crust. I cut balloons out of the crust, but it just wasn’t what I was aiming for. It was yummy though – Potato Cheese and Chive! I will post a photo of the birthday gal’s treats! I got her Lorna’s Laces sock yarn and Gill and Andrew got her a huge goblet and a bottle of her fave wine. What I loved most about this gathering was how quickly the addition of a few hanks of yarn turned it into a yarn winding party!

At Talea’s birthday fete I had two pretty serious contractions, enough to make me think that wee one #3 may actually join us that weekend – I wasn’t far off. I spent the rest of the weekend knitting wee socks for her, keeping my fingers crossed that she was a girl as the tech had said she was (the husband machine and I were having a really hard time coming up with a boy name), and hoping to meet her soon. Monday night (one week ago tonight) she was born…here she is:

And here is one of the many pairs of socks I made for her last weekend while we were all waiting for her to be ready to come out!

I’ll leave you to chew on that for now and post again about the Welcome to the World gathering we had on Friday…with the most delicious pie there ever was.

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