Give Thanksgiving a Chance!

Christmas should not start before Thanksgiving. 

There. I've said it. 

My favorite home improvement store put out the huge Christmas inflatables before Halloween.

Santa's been at most of the malls for over a week now.

At least half of my neighbors have their Christmas trees up already.

Radio stations have started playing Christmas tunes 24/7.

This isn't really new, and I've learned to accept it, if not embrace it. But now, Black Friday is starting on Thanksgiving Thursday. Enough is enough!

While I love everything about Christmas, I believe that Thanksgiving is quite a wonderful and important holiday, too, and should be given its due respect. All it asks for is one day. Gratitude, food and family- who could ask for more in a holiday?

So, go shopping on Thanksgiving Day if that's what makes you happy. As for me, I'll be relaxing in front of the fire with my husband, daughter and cat, with a glass of wine in my hand.

However you choose to spend Thanksgiving, at least take time to be thankful! You'll still have 39 days between November 23 and December 31 to celebrate Christmas!

Why Didn't I Think of That?

The Quirky Quilter, Elaine Myers (read more about her here), always quilts with a pincushion on her wrist  and a piece of batting pinned to her shirt. She says it's a long way around a long-arm quilting machine frame and there's never a trashcan nearby, so she just sticks her stray threads to the batting. 

Why didn't I think of that? Maybe because I just throw everything on the floor, Eleanor Burns style!

Elaine Myers, The Quirky Quilter, with her 3 quilting essentials:  a pincushion on her wrist, batting pinned to her shirt, and a timer for billing clients fairly.

Elaine explains the long-arm quilting process using a model she made from caradboard boxes, mailing tubes and popsicle sticks!

Elaine says professional long-armers want to receive your quilt top, batting and backing separately, not pinned or basted. And they need the batting and backing at least four inches larger all the way around! If you hire someone to quilt for you, check to see what makes it easier for them and gives you the best results.

Anthropologie Inspired Spice Jar and Canister Makeover

I fell in love with these little Chalkboard Spice Jars last time I visited Anthropologie:

$10 - $12 each from anthropologie.com

Which got me thinking about the little jars I use in my spice cabinet to hold extra bulk spices and other odd things that come without decent containers, like baking soda.

I daydreamed for awhile about using chalkboard paint on my jars, but couldn't figure out how to get a cute little label shape just the right size without hand-cutting a stencil, because I'm a little lazy like that. 

Meanwhile, I realized I was bored with the sad and pathetic P-Touch labels I had put on my Blue Willow canisters, too. Would chalkboard paint work on them? 

Before I had time to really mull over the chalkboard-painting and mess-making and buy the supplies, a visit to Staples made it super simple for me (after all, I'm the Home Ec Dropout, not Martha Stewart). Coincidentally, though, the labels I stumbled upon were made by Matha Stewart Home Office with Avery.

My spice jars are not quite as cute as the ones at Anthropologie, but the jars were free (from Better Than Bouoillon chicken base- the labels peel off the top and front very easily) and 48 Kraft paper labels cost $3.99. I just wrote on them with a fine-point Sharpie marker.

And my updated canisters took all of five minutes. The chalkboard labels were 12 for $5.99. I had to cut one in half and recut the bottom edge to shape for the smallest jar, using another sticker as a pattern. 

Staples sells a 4-pack of Martha Stewart chalk for $3.99, which seemed expensive to me. So I wandered over to the art supply area, where I found a box of 12 for $.99. OK, to be fair, the MS chalk already had a little point whittled onto each piece. Big whoop, right?  For three extra dollars? The cheap kind worked just fine!   

So my canisters and extra spice jars have a new look, and I have lots of stickers left over for more projects. If I had done my own painting of the labels, I would've sized them specifically for each jar, but who knows how it would have turned out in the end?

Now if I could just learn how to do that cute lettering the scrapbookers do...

Valuable Advice x 2

FIRST:  Do not try to cook pasta shells (for Pumpkin-Ricotta Stuffed Shells) in a smaller pot with less water than usual (or recommended) so that you can do the elbow macaroni for macaroni and cheese in your pasta pot! You get this stuck to the bottom,

a few left intact,

and a bunch of pasta scraps left in your colander!

Actually, it kinda works out if you also accidentally used your 3-quart glass baking dish for the mac and cheese, meaning that the whole set of stuffed shells wouldn't have fit into any of your remaining available baking dishes. So, I guess stuff has a way of working out (at least that's what I'm trying to tell myself).

SECONDLY, although no less importantly:

Never browse Facebook for your old   former (well, maybe I had it right to start with) classmates and friends for the very first time on the exact same day that some smart@*# at AARP has chosen for you to receive this in the mail: 

But, I still think these are the best days of my life. Well, maybe not today...  

How was your day?

Please

Tomorrow.

 If you choose not to, please don't complain about who wins!

Julie & Julia

I just finished reading Julie & Julia by Julie Powell. What a departure from the movie, which I thought was absolutely delightful. I'm glad I read it because it offered a more realistic account of her experiences with cooking all 524 recipes from Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child... in one year! And blogged about it every step of the way !What surprises me now is the casting of the seemingly sweet Amy Adams, who portrayed  Julie as a cute, giggly, adventurous, though slightly skeptical gal! Having read the book, I'm thinking maybe Amy Pohler would've been a better choice. Of course, Meryl Streep was fabulous (even better than Dan Aykroyd) as Julia.

Anyway, I enjoyed both the book and movie, and am completely intrigued and inspired by the Julie/Julia project! However, I'm certainly not up to cooking kidneys, liver, gizzards, or any manner of aspic. And no one in my family would touch that crap with a ten-foot pole, including me.

I was talking to Mabz about this and she said, "Mommy, why don't you bake your way through the Christmas Cookies book?"

Now, that I think I could manage.

What cookbook would you like to cook and eat your way through?

Perfectly Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

Every year I toast the pumpkin seeds from our jack-o-lantern. And every year I don't like the way they turn out- usually burnt. Until this year! I present to you my process, arrived at through much trial and error, for:

Perfectly Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

What you need:

rimmed metal baking sheet or pan

seeds from 1 pumpkin (probably somewhere between 1 and 2 cups)

olive oil

salt

Here's what I did:

1. I did not bother to rinse my pumpkin seeds. I just picked out the really big pieces and left most of the little stringy stuff. As someone else suggested, a little pumpkin goo never hurt anybody, and adds even more flavor. It dries up when you bake the seeds.

2. I read somewhere that it would be a good idea to spread out the seeds in a single layer to dry overnight. So I did. This seemed preferable to boiling the seeds in salty water prior to baking, as another website suggested. Both methods claim to make them easier to eat if you plan to eat the entire seed rather than cracking it open to get just the tender kernel inside.  I really don't think I'd go to all this trouble for a few tiny morsels.

3. When you're ready to roast, toss the seeds with 1 or 2 tablespoons of olive oil (in my failed attempts I used regular vegetable oil) and salt to taste.

4. Place on a greased rimmed metal baking sheet or pan in a single layer.

5. Preheat your oven to 300 degrees and bake until the seeds are lightly browned and fragrant.

For how long, you ask? 
I think this is the important part:

6. Depended on how many seeds you're toasting, how thick or thin your seeds are, how dark your baking pan is, how well your oven is calibrated, how much oil you used, and Lord knows how many other factors, this will probably take between 10 and 30 minutes (some say up to 45). I wouldn't believe any recipe or chef who presumes to give you an exact time. Mine took 20 minutes. About half-way through I took them out, shook the pan, and tasted one to check their progress. When they're done: they smell delicious, appear nicely browned, and taste crispy but are easy to bite into and chew. Sort of like an APGAR score for pumpkin seeds!

I think you can store these in an airtight container for about a week, but you won't need to!

And just to prove I'm a gourmet, the wine pairing for Perfectly Toasted Pumpkin Seeds is Lucky Duck Riesling ($3 a bottle at WalMart).
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CRAZY WEATHER, INDEED

Sandy didn't mess with us much here in the New River Valley, but it's just not right to wake up to snow on the day before Halloween!

Snow on the ground, leaves still on the trees... What the...?