Chocolate for Valentine's Day - Peanut Butter Cups

I love Valentine's Day. You may say it's a corny holiday, created by greeting card companies, blah-blah-blah. Well, phooey, I say! Celebrate love! Love of every kind - romance, friendship, family, love of all humankind. And if that's not enough for you, go ahead and celebrate my birthday. (Yes, Valentine's Day is extra special for that reason.) So yes, I decorate for Valentine's Day, and I give away Valentine cards, with a little treat, of course. This year, my beloveds are getting homemade peanut butter cups. These are hubby's favorites, so he'll get quite a few. After all, some pairings are just meant to be, like peanut butter and chocolate and my guy and me.
So let's make some candy. Gather your ingredients:

1 1/4 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup confectioners sugar
2 bags (10 oz. apiece) chocolate chips (I like dark, but use what you like.)
paper or silicone baking cups (I used regular sized ones because that's what I had on hand, and I got 18 out of this recipe. That makes for a pretty big peanut butter cup. Not that your loved ones will complain, but if you want to spread the love to even more people, use mini baking cups)

Melt the chocolate chips. I put them in a glass bowl and microwaved them on 50% power for a couple minutes, stirred, then microwaved them (still at 50%) for 30-second intervals until they were smoothly melted. Like so:

Pour a tablespoon or so of melted chocolate into each baking cup. Place those in the fridge for  about 10 minutes so they set.
While the chocolate is setting, mix the peanut butter and sugar together. This should make a pretty thick paste depending on how smooth your peanut butter is. Take the chocolate in the cups out of the fridge. Place a dollop of the peanut butter mixture onto each one. Take a spoon that you have dipped in confectioners sugar and flatten the dollop of peanut butter with the back of the spoon. The sugar will keep the peanut butter from sticking to the back of the spoon.

Now, pour the rest of the melted chocolate over the peanut butter and chocolate in each of the baking cups.

Sprinkle a little course sea salt on top, if you are so inclined.
Let them set; in the fridge if you're in a hurry or just on the counter if you're not. Then, pop them out of the cups (or leave them in if you've used pretty paper baking cups).

Go ahead and have a taste (or two). Then wrap up the rest and give them to the special people in your life. Because if you don't you WILL eat every last one of them.

Technical difficulties...Please stand by

This li'l ole blog of mine has been mightily neglected. There has been crafting and sewing and such, but sadly it has gone largely undocumented. My trusty camera has finally bit the dust. It was just a simple point-and-shoot, but we got along so well. As I seek her replacement, I will try to post at least a little bit. Yes, a picture's worth a thousand words, but words are worth something, no?
So, any suggestions for a camera? Have one you love and could never bear to be without? Have one you hate and wouldn't wish on your worst enemy? Let me know.

Crayon "Muffins" aka Recycled Crayons

G loves to color with crayons. She also loves to peel the paper off them and snap them into smaller pieces. And leave said pieces all over the house. Crayons bits disappear only to be found when I move the furniture to vacuum behind it. (I wrote that like it's some sort of regular event. HA!) To replace the "missing" crayons, we buy more crayons. This is how I came to have a shoe box full of crayon pieces. So, I decided to make new crayons out of the old.
Without further ado, let's make some crayons.
First, peel all the paper off your crayons. Most of ours were already peeled thanks to G. Let your kids help. Better yet, have them do it. Enjoy a cup of coffee or something while they work on their fine motor skills.
Break the crayons into smaller pieces (again G had taken care of this beforehand), and separate them by color. Put them in a muffin pan, one color group per muffin cup. I use an old pan that is a designated "craft" pan for such projects.

Put the pan with the crayons in a 250 degree oven and let the crayons melt. Once melted, take the pan out and place in the freezer to cool. Or if it's cold out, just put it outside like I did.

Once they're cool, pop them out of the pan and you've got crayon muffins.
Ooooh, so lovely.

I love how they got all swirly.

 Now, get coloring. Or wrap them up pretty to give to someone special. These are going in G's (no doubt overstuffed) stocking.

Aromatherapy Remedy for Homesickness

I love the smell of curry. Just one whiff, and I feel magically transported home. What's that you say? Why, yes, I am a Greek girl from Chicago. And your point is...

While the thought of Greek food does indeed send my heart aflutter and a good Chicago hot dog (all beef, don't you dare put ketchup on that thing, and please pass me the celery salt) is never a bad thing, all things Indian make my heart melt into a pile of gooey homesickness. You see, my old neighborhood was near Devon Avenue. Devon is a supremely multicultural street with just about every ethnic group living and overlapping all along the avenue: Orthodox Jewish, Russian, Indian, Pakistani... The list could go on forever.

I've always loved the Indian stretch of Devon. It's vibrant and colorful and busy and chaotic in the most wonderful of ways, especially on Sunday afternoons and evenings. Traffic lights often have no meaning, friends and family greet each other with exuberant joy, bhangra music fills the air. Anchoring one corner is the huge emporium Gandhi Electronics, where you can find appliances of any voltage you could possibly need for any place in the world. (I loved that they advertised on the weekly Chicago Greek television show. It always cracked me up hearing the virtues of Gandhi Electronics extolled in Greek. Those are the kinds of goofy things about Chicago I miss dearly.) Oh, and the shop windows! Saris in every color imaginable and jewelry fit for a fantasy princess. And wafting out of the restaurants, the delightful aroma of curry.

Clearly, I need a trip home. Unfortunately, that's not in the cards for a while, so I made do with what I had on hand. I threw a Bollywood musical hits CD on the stereo and made Curry Sweet Potato Soup. Not authentically Indian by any stretch of the imagination but tasty (and toddler-approved! Well, my toddler, anyway) all the same. Measurements are not exact because it appears I'm only exact when it comes to sewing. I made the soup in my slow cooker, but I see no reason why you can't make it in a pot on the stove.

Curry Sweet Potato Soup

large onion, chopped

couple cloves of garlic, minced
a stalk or two of celery, chopped

1 tablespoon butter or oil

4 or 5 sweet potatoes, cut into 1-inch pieces

2 potatoes, cut into 1-inch pieces

5 or 6 cups broth (I used chicken, but vegetable would work fine)

2 tablespoons (more or less depending on your taste) curry powder

bay leaf

salt and pepper to taste

1/4 cup or so heavy cream or half-and-half (adds some richness, but if you're avoiding dairy or want to make it vegan-friendly, you could leave it out)

Brown the onion, garlic and celery in the butter/oil. Dump that into the slow cooker with all the ingredients except the cream and mix it up. Cover the cooker and turn it on low for 8-10 hours. (You can put in on high for less time, maybe 5 or 6ish hours.)

When it's done, take out the bay leaf, blend with an immersion blender (or use a regular blender) then add the cream. You can throw some chopped green onions and/or parsley on top, if you like.

The house smelled delicious as the soup cooked all day. It's my own form of aromatherapy. So comforting, and the soup was delicious. It'll tide me over until my next trip home. Or at least my next trip to our local Indian restaurant. 

Fair Weather Jacket

Every girl needs a red coat, and I found the perfect one to make for G. The pattern is the Fair Weather Jacket by Little Prints (available here). I saw this pattern ages ago, but the smallest size is 2. I couldn't wait until G was big enough for it. The wait is over: At two and a half she's ready.

I used red twill for the outer shell and a cotton print for the lining. This is the lining print:

I also used the lining fabric to make fabric covered buttons. Each one is a little different. Here are two of them:

The back has a faux belt held together with two buttons, and it gives the coat a little shape and keeps it from looking too boxy.

And it has a hood that isn't just decorative but large enough to provide protection from not-so-fair weather.

I love the way it turned out, and it wasn't difficult at all. The directions made sense to me for the most part, but if you're not used to sewing from patterns you might need little nudge in the right direction. The pattern was sized almost perfectly for G, which is a rarity since she's so skinny for her age. It fits her well, but there's some room to grow, especially length wise. The sleeves are cuffed and can be rolled down as needed to accommodate a growth spurt or two.This will still fit her in the spring and very likely next fall, too.

 I'll no doubt be making this one again, maybe in a heavier fabric like wool coating for the inevitable colder weather. No reason not to look cute while keeping warm.

Aviator Scarf

I was going through my fabric stash one day and found some scraps of faux shearling:  looks like suede on one side, fluffy sheep's wool on the other. It's left over from a project I call The Jacket That Didn't Work Out. That project was inspired by a jacket from the Burberry Fall 2010 collection. I would have loved the real thing, but sadly, $3000 was more than a tad out of my reach. Perhaps I'll return to it and see whether I can salvage it. In the meantime, I have scraps with which to work.
This morning it was cold. Fall is pretty much here. And shearling always reminds me of bomber jackets and aviators. So, all that plus a reading of "Snoopy, Flying Ace " led to the Aviator Scarf:

Ridiculously easy, I promise. The nice thing about faux shearling (and the real thing for that matter) is you don't really have to finish the edges because it doesn't fray.
First, cut out a longish rectangular piece of the shearling. Mine is about 25 inches long and 5 inches wide. At one end, cut off the corners so it looks like this:

Now, fold up (about a half inch) and pin the edges, then stitch them all around:

 Until it looks like this:

Then, fold the triangle-shaped edge toward the suede side of the scarf to form a loop (I folded about 5 inches; basically enough to fit the width of the scarf through). Stitch it down, sewing on a button as you do so. The scarf will look like this now:

Put it on because you're done! Just loop it around the neck and pull the end through the loop.

She's ready to go get that Red Baron!

Leila & Ben Bolero Jacket

When I saw this pattern over at You Can Make This, I knew I had to make it.

I love the asymmetrical styling of the collar and the front closure, the cropped length and the cropped sleeves. It was just too cute to pass up. So, the slightly chilly weather seemed justification enough to make a light jacket.

This was the first Leila & Ben pattern I've used. (Very cute stuff, and for those of you who crochet, they make crochet patterns as well.) This one was quite easy and came together fairly quickly. I made the jacket during G's nap. The instructions were brief and to the point, but more than sufficient if you've sewn from patterns before. Cutting layouts and grainlines were not included, for example, but I didn't find that to be a problem since those are just things that come naturally to me now.

The only other thing important to note is that the seam allowances are a quarter inch. That's not a problem in any way, but most patterns I've worked with use half inch or 5/8. No big deal; I just had to remind myself a couple times. All in all, I would highly recommend this pattern.

So enough with the blah-blah,blah. Let's see how it turned out:

I decided on yellow because G has been obsessed with "Madeline" the past couple of weeks, and the little girls all wear yellow coats. Lately it's just been one endless loop of "In an old house in Paris that was covered in vines..." So, this was my modern casual take on the lovable little Parisienne.

Tres chic, no?