A Few Notes on Cup-pies

At a friend's request, here are a few tips on making cup-pies.

• I'm generally able to get 10 cup-pies out of one regular pie's worth of crust and filling.
• For the bottom crust I cut a 4-inch circle, and used a 3-inch biscuit cutter for the top.
• The thicker the bottom crust, the easier it will be to pop them out of the cupcake tin.
• There's no need to grease or line the cupcake tins at all.
• I probably overfilled these a bit as they leaked a bit during cooking, so a little under the tin rim is probably best.
• Don't forget to vent the top!
• For extra flair, I brushed the tops with milk and then sprinkled them with a bit of granulated sugar.
• I cook them at 350-375°F for 30 minutes, or until the filling bubbles. For this batch then broiled the tops for about a minute to get them golden brown.

Happy National Pie Day!

In America, the National Pie Council (what, your country doesn't have one of those?) declared January 23rd National Pie Day. Being as we for some strange reason don't get this as a day off, I had to do my celebrating yesterday in my now-traditional fashion, with a pie-luck!

I made a batch of cherry cup-pies and a chocolate/raspberry pie that I neglected to photograph.

(Note to all bakers out there, when making a recipe for the first time, read the whole recipes before the morning you attempt to make it. I neglected to do this and caught myself running out of time when I realized that my raspberry pie took FOUR HOURS to make due to refrigerating time for the different parts.)

I think I need to make cup-pies more often, they're adorable and take only a tiny bit more work than a regular pie.

As usual we had a range of savory, sweet, and tart pies.  A pie-luck requires at least three rounds to the table and generous amounts of tupperware for the leftovers.

We also got in a fair amount of knitting and Aimee, Chris, and Maggie split up several balls of Jamieson and Smith yarn for our sheep heid knit-a-long. (I'm spinning mine).

So for those interested, here's a run-down of the pies (if I forgot any my apologies!):

• Savory
  • Red Lentil & root vegetable pot pie
  • Goat cheese and leek egg pie/quiche
  • Pizza Pie
• Fruit-Based
  • Apple Cranberry
  • Cranberry Pear Shortbread
  • Cranberry Sage
  • Cherry Cup-pies
  • Chocolate Raspberry
  • Apricot Cheese
• Cream
  • Chocolate Satin
  • Butterfinger

With all the leftovers I ended up with - I'll be celebrating pie all week!!

Northern California Adventures: The Plates

Maybe it's because I have food on the brain, but I took a lot of photos of food on our California trip, and truthfully we did a lot of eating out while we were there, so I thought I'd share some highlights.

Oxbow Public Market

For southern Mainers, the Oxbow Public Market is like a successful version of what the Portland Public Market tried to be. INside the market there are a dozen or so food-related booths ranging from cupcakes and ice cream, to spices and olive oils, to oysters. Even on a Wednesday the whole market was fairly popular.

We grabbed some delicious Tacos at Casa and had the unseasonable pleasure of enjoying them outside on the patio seating. Casa's food is my favorite kind of Mexican - instead of the heayy refried bean and cheese fare at most Mexican chains, their food was fresh and light and featured some tasty but untraditional favor combos, like my blue cheese/onion/steak taco below.

Buttercream Bakery:

My visits to Butercream are more about nostalgia than anything else. The food at the diner is simple diner fare, while the doughnuts come in regular and fancy varieties. We picked up a dozen of my old favorites, but I most enjoyed the red velvet doughnut I'd never tried before. So much for nostalgia!

Genova Delicatessen

A great deli in an unassuming location, this is the one spot my brother always makes sure to visit whenever he's in Napa.

See's Candies

If you're Californian, or ever been in a California airport, you probably know See's Candies. I used to always try to get to the sprinkled one first - never realized they were mocha-flavored. If you visit one of the stand alone-stores, you get a free sample!

In-N-Out Burger

What is there to say about In-N-Out that hasn't been already said. Of all of my food photos from the trip, this is one that made Mr. Cleaver the most hungry again.

Boon Fly Cafe

I was most excited to visit the Boon Fly Cafe.

One summer during college I worked at the under construction Carneros Inn (its parent/location) as a temp in the accounting department filing papers in a trailer full of soap and shampoo and one day my supervisor took me to lunch at the Boon Fly, which I remembered as delicious.

My memory served me well.

The Boon Fly is my favorite kind of restaurant, simple food done incredibly well. The blackberry lemonade and flatbread pizzas were especially tasty. As a bonus the restaurant boasts a beautifully designed and relaxed atmosphere.

Ghirardelli Ice Cream Shop

After all this food, there's still a place for desert. While in San Francisco we stopped at the Ghirardelli Ice Cream Shop, and let me tell you they do not mess around with chocolate there.

Other notable stops (non-pictured):

Gillwood's Cafe - Napa locals' favorite brunch spot

Norman Rose Tavern - a new spot w/ great comfort food and an impressive tap list that includes several local beers and ciders in addition to the expected wines.

Northern California Adventures: The Places

Last week Mr. Cleaver and I headed out to Northern California to visit my family. The weather was beautiful and we ate enough food for the entire month of January - in fact most of my trip photos were of food, so I'm going to give the eats their own post.

Today I wanted to focus on the last day of our trip when my big brother (hi Luke!) took us to Muir Woods and San Francisco before depositing us at the airport to catch our red eye back to Maine, where it promptly snowed 8 inches on our return.

Luke had suggested we go to Muir Woods, and since Mr. Cleaver had never seen a giant redwood tree, I heartily agreed!

If you're not familiar with redwoods, the coastal redwoods are the tallest living trees in the world and can grow up to 380 ft (115m) high. These amazing trees grow only in a small region of Northern California and the the Pacific Northwest and I visited them often growing up on camping trips with my family.

Perhaps even more amazing is that these giant trees grow from the tiniest pinecones!

Coming from Maine, it was fun to see how green everything was, even if the non-evergreens had lost their leaves.

For a complete 180 from our woodland trekking, we ended the afternoon at Ghiradelli Square and Pier 39 in San Francisco- the epitome of touristy hustle and bustle.

The  Bourdin Sourdough Bakery

Checking out the Sea Lions at Pier 39

Sunset over the Golden Gate Bridge.

2012: A Year in Food

It's not so much a resolution as a a general feeling, but in addition to all the usual crafty things I do (and boy, do I plan to do a lot of them this year), I'd also like to spend more time and mind-space crafting my food. I put a great deal of time and thought into my knitting, sewing, and other crafts, but when it comes to food, I usually take the path of least resistance.

For example, breakfast for me is often a bowl of Trader Joe's Honey-O's. It's not that I crave the taste, it's not that it's the most nutritious, it's just that it's easy. I'm a bit embarrassed when I think of the number of times I've thought that the six minutes it takes to microwave oatmeal is just too long (you have to watch it whole time!), even though I'm always hungry by 10 AM when I eat cereal.

This is not to belittle cereal in any way, it's just about the general mindlessness of the whole thing.

I'm not forswearing any foods, or vowing to only eat things raised within a prescribed mileage. I just want to make and eat food for a reason other than convenience.

It's also not about weight loss or eating five servings of fruits and vegetables a day.

It's about being aware that I live in a place and time that gives me the good fortune to have access to a huge range of food of all varieties. It's making an actual choice about what I'm feeding myself, even if that choice is a bowl of popcorn and some Oreos.  As long as it's an actual decision.

I'll be the first to admit that Mr. Cleaver does more than the lion's share of food shopping and prep in our house, and that I need to step up to the plate more often. 9 to 5 cannot be my excuse for not caring.

So I'm going to care, and plant the veggie garden I didn't get to last year, and do better than the can of soup I've taken to work for three days straight and not eaten.

I'm not promising weekly posts or anything, but if you haven't heard anything in a couple of months you have my permission to bug me about it some. So long as you don't mind reading a little about the stir-fries along with the stitches.

So here's to 2012 and putting as much care into my food as I put into my craft.

...and now that I read this whole post, it's sounds an awful lot like a New Year's Resolution. And that's okay too.

P.S. Can I point out that I drew all the veggies in the logo thingy myself in Adobe Illustrator? I'm still fairly new to the program, so I'm pretty proud! (Yeah I made a logo thingy for this)

Introducing: Bob & Wave Cowl

In September I stopped in PurlDiva and treated myself to two skeins of Misty Alpaca Chunky.

I'm not a big yarn horder, I typically only buy for specific projects, so I had admired and passed on this yarn on a couple different occasions. But on this particular day it had been a long week, and Misty Alpaca feels like soft cuddly air and Purl Diva had it stocked in one of my favorite colors, so how could I resist??

As soon as I had a break from all that November knitting, I turned that yarn into this Bob & Wave cowl. The color reminded me of 1950s Cadillacs, so I wanted do do something with a retro feel and nothing feels more like retro knitting to me than bobbles.

Though it's a small and relatively quick project, there are a lot of fun details. The cowl features an i-cord cast on and bind off. I-cord also appears as the button loops and faux i-cord is created by rows of purl stitches that are pleated horizontally to make the texture really pop. Carefully placed increases and decreases create the scalloped waving background for the bobbles and the fabric manipulation makes for a denser and warmer cowl.

The project uses two skeins of Misti Alpaca or 175 yds of cozy chunky yarn and measures 22”/ 56 cm long, 9”/23cm high.

The pattern is available for purchase for $4.00 USD

or you can queue it up on Ravelry.

To find out about new pattern releases and special offers, sign up for the Ms. Cleaver Mailing List.

More Christmas Makings

Here's a few more things I either made in secret (ornaments) or at the last minute (wreath):

Did you do any Christmas making?

2011 in Review

We became homeowners on Dec 31 of 2010, and a lot of this year was learning the in and outs of being homeowners. We removed what didn't want and started building in what we did. We peeled wallpaper and painted walls.

Shoveled snow and learned the importance of roof-rakes.  (Hint: don't pile that much snow that close to your house)

Perennials were planted in the spring and bulbs were planted in the fall. Lawns were moved and leaves raked. Floors were swept and appliances replaced. And at some point along the way it stopped being their house and started being ours.

Starting the day after we moved in, we filled our home with friends: Pie Day, poker games, dinners and documentaries. The highlight was inviting over all our friends for a summer time barbecue and concert.

And we saw a little doggy online and decided to invite him to stay for the long-haul.

During Lent I wore skirts for 47 days and visited Washington D.C. for the first time.

In sewing, I got my own studio space and made a thing or two.

Fiber-wise, I learned how to dye and needlefelt.

I bought a loom and made a total of one scarf.

I also did a fair amount of spinning, but haven't quite met my knitolution of knitting anything with handspun yet.

Knitwise, this has been a huge year for me. I've released three patterns with Quince & Co., one with Twist Collective, and six on my own. I started a mailing list.

It's amazing to me how much has happened in one year, and how quickly that year has gone. There's snow on the ground outside now and it's a few days to Christmas. It's been a helluva year in the best way possible.

Merry Christmas everyone, and a Happy New Year!

A Stocking for Steiny and Other Makings

I was trying to not to be one of the those crazy pet parents who gets their pets Christmas parents (which seems to be a largely American thing - yes?), but I gave in and not only got Steinbeck a gift, I sewed him a stocking.

In my defense, it only took me the baking time of about 2 dozen cookies to get the whole thing done from conception to completion and it's totally cute. The fabric was leftovers from my Valentine's skirt and a wreath I'm still trying to finish up.

In addition to the aforementioned cookies, Ive made my annual batches of dark chocolate mint fudge and peanut brittle.

The goodies are baked, the house decorated, the packets shipped, and the gifts (mostly) wrapped, with three days left, I think I'm good to go!.

Second Annual Ornament Swap

I think by now it's well established that I spend my Tuesday nights (and regularly weekends) in the company of a bunch of creative and talented knitters (not to mention funny and kind).

This past Sunday we held our second-annual holiday party and ornament swap at Aimee and Eric's charming home.

I love the ornament swap because 1) I only have to make one thing for it,

2) these ladies know how to throw an amazing potluck

and mostly 3) everyone's ornaments are different and wonderful. I've managed to pull Lynn's ornaments for the past two years and they have places of honor in home, but I'd be equally happy to have taken any of these home.

As for me, I needlefelted this holiday beaver, complete with stylin' holly accessory. I'm pretty proud of the little dude.

And I may have made a few more ornaments since then, but you'll have to wait a bit longer to see those. :)