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If you live in Utah County, you've got to go to Lindon to see this. We went tonight and it was incredible. More details here.
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2569187&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1
 Frosty the Snowman is pretty cool too.
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2569776&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1

I can't believe this is at someones house!

Happy New Year!

Hi there! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. We had a great Christmas and are now up in Utah. We had a bit of a rocky beginning (who needs their wallet anyway) and don't try calling me. I lost my phone a week ago. It. Is. So. Flipping. COLD. I brought ONE pair of socks. One?? We had a big get together tonight with a bunch of our old Boston friends. We brought Cranberry Meatballs. My dear old Boston friend who we'll call "Mary Beesley" (names have been changed to protect the innocent) gave me this years ago and I've thought about posting it so many times. With New Years coming up and all those parties I know you have to go to, I thought it would be the perfect time to share. So here's what you'll need:

Cranberry Meatballs
2 eggs, beaten
1 c dry bread crumbs
1/3 c minced fresh parsley
1/3 c ketchup
2 T finely chopped onion
2 T soy sauce
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
2 lbs. ground beef

SAUCE:
1
can (16 oz) whole-berry cranberry sauce
1 bottle (12 oz) chili sauce
1 T brown sugar
1 T prepared mustard
1 T lemon juice
2 garlic cloves, minced

In a bowl, combine the first nine ingredients (see above pic) Add beef and mix well.


Shape into 1 inch balls. Place in an ungreased 15-in. x 10-in. x 1-in. baking pan. Bake, uncovered, at 450 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until no longer pink.


Transfer with a slotted spoon to a slow cooker or chafing dish.


Combine sauce ingredients in a saucepan; simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Pour over meatballs. Serve warm.


My meatballs were slightly bigger than 1" and yielded about 60. Total time about 1- 1.5 hours.

As if bringing the worlds best meatballs weren't enough, think about all the great ball-related comments you'll be getting:  

We are in full-fledged handmade holiday making-mode around here and it feels great. Things are coming together and slowly getting crossed off the list. I've been sewing everyday, which I am loving. The pop's of the house is home and such a huge help with the children so I can get gifts ready. Although Henry has turned into quite the little helper. He has learned how to press the foot pedal down when I'm sewing ("Ok…now….ok…stop…..STOP!")
I found a tutorial on-line for making your own market totes. It's pretty simple and you make your own pattern from an existing brown paper bag.  Easy enough. However, it should be duly noted (my favorite saying) that the instructions for the handle portion of the bag do not match up with the picture they have shown (or the way I did my handles.) The instructions have the handles sewn in between the two layers of the bag (the outer shell & lining) so keep that in mind. If you want to put the handles on like I did,  make sure you sew them on before you sew the lining to the outer bag. I used a heavy weight outer fabric (almost the weight of canvas) so I decided to forgo the interfacing. If you are using a light weight cotton/quilt fabric then definitely use the interfacing. Here is the tute.

Last month, Azucar sent me a link from Design*Sponge for making your own paper ornaments. These were so fun and such a cinch to make. I can't tell you how many ornaments I've made. Tons.

These were packaged up today and mailed to my sister Annika, to hang in her salon window in SLC. I hit my local Paper Source and picked up (3) posterboards. They have such a great selection of color there- I grabbed the lime green, forest green and red. Anyway, at $1.00 each, you can make a ton of ornaments for $3.00. I actually never had any intention of putting them on the tree, but rather hanging them at different lengths in the corner of a room or something. When I started making them, I used what I had in my paper stash and made these:
Windy days=very blurry pictures. While I think I like the solid colors more for the holidays, I think the printed patterns would be good year-round.

Anyway- very easy and great for kids to make, too. You can get all the directions from Design*Sponge here.

p.s. Cinnamon rolls are being re-made on Tuesday. Any cinnamon roll prayers you could offer up on my behalf would be greatly appreciated. You may, after-all, be getting said cinnamon rolls.

My clever friend Rachel came by yesterday with this gorgeous bouquet of fresh herbs. The farmers market downtown goes every Wednesday and I was so thrilled to be the recipient of all this goodness. The herbs have been standing in some water and making our kitchen smell delicious. It's a wonderful bundle of basil, chives, dill, rosemary, parsley and thyme. Isn't it the best idea to give for the holidays? Rachel confided in me (because she knows how much I appreciate a good deal) the price of this was…very, very reasonable. It's such a great alternative to all that sweetness (but I would like it duly noted that I am accepting ALL forms of holiday goodness this year.) Rachel you are brilliant. 

And this. This is what my craft project was for today. Be warned: there was a glue gun involved. It's for Henry and I'm really excited about it. You'll want to make one too. I promise. I've been taking step-by-step pictures for a little tute for you so…that will be hitting the blog in a few days.

Happy Weekend!

xo

Get your mind out of the gutter. I'm talking about the bread. If you are a regular reader to this blog, you know that I am yeast challenged. I can't quite pin-point what I am doing wrong. Is the water/milk too warm/too cold that the yeast is being added to? Is it bad that I am using skim milk? Have I added too much flour/not enough? Am I kneading it too much/not enough? Do I have to use bread flour, can't I use all-purpose? I made my first-ever batch of cinnamon rolls on Sunday and true to form, they didn't rise. At all. What am I doing wrong? The thing that kind of stinks about it all is that it's such a time consuming process, you know? 4 hours later and…I failed? Why do you have to be such a pill, yeast?

I'm testing out Christmas recipes, you see. Because I have always wanted to bake something in these awesome paper pans. And it's what I want to give to our friends this Christmas. So I gave it a whirl again today. This time, I tested the liquid temperature to make sure it was 110 degrees before adding the yeast (okay it was just under, but still) and I let it mix in the kitchen aid for  a few minutes longer and I think the biggest thing was that it took nearly 3 hours before it doubled in size. I rolled it out, cinnamon and sugared it, rolled it back up and sliced it into rounds. Let them double in size again, which was about an hour & half. I wanted them to rise more, you know to like bust out of the pan, but they never got really big. I'm wondering if I shouldn't have squished so many in there.

But here they are, fresh out of the oven tonight. Long after the sun had gone down. We dropped them off to 2 friends and are crossing our fingers that no one keeled over. I'm wondering if this will prove to be an unwise Christmas offering. You can't really crank out mass quantities of this.. I mean even if I made 7 batches at one time- that's still only 7 batches. Okay, but that would be 14 pans…..hmmm.

Speaking of bread products, I came across the King Arthur Catalog at my Aunts house on Thanksgiving and let me just say, it's good, real good. I have always purchased their flour but didn't know they had a catalog. Go to their website and request one. They have oodles and oodles of delicious recipes on their site AND they have a great food blog, too. You can thank me later.

A mini etsy shop update can be found here.

xox