January 24th, 2010 kellyschnell
As I mentioned earlier, Shane and I are in the midst of our frugal January, trying to stick to a grocery budget of three dollars per person per day. I’ve embraced the challenge, but have been unwilling to give up certain ‘necessities’, such as dessert. As I perused my most economical options for sweets on Friday night, I decided that carrot cake seemed to fit the bill as 1) cheap, and 2) still slightly decadent, when topped with fatty cream cheese frosting. I pulled from couple of different recipes to come up with a cake that contained mostly ingredients that we already had on-hand, and it turned out quite well:
Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting (makes 8 servings):
2 eggs
2/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cup grated carrots
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/4 cup softened butter
4 ounces softened cream cheese
1 2/3 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
extra pecans, to sprinkle on top
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 11×7 or 8×8 baking dish. In a large bowl, beat together eggs, oil, white sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Mix in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, nutmet and cinnamon. Stir in carrots. Fold in pecans. Pour into prepared pan. Bake in the preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Set the cake aside to cool.
To Make Frosting: In a medium bowl, combine butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Frost the cooled cake and sprinkle with pecan pieces.
Cut a slice and serve with hot chamomile tea. Consume while watching football on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
I was happy with how this one turned out, considering it was my first attempt at a carrot cake – moist, cinnamon-y, and dang, I love a good creamy frosting. I have already made two cakes in three days to share with friends and neighbors and will be adding this to my go-to dessert list. The best part? The only ingredients I had to buy were a couple of carrots, costing 60 cents, and a small package of cream cheese, which I got on sale for an even dollar. Now that is a sweet deal (pardon corny pun)…
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January 23rd, 2010 kellyschnell
I was so proud of my 2009 homemade calendar, but in the end, doing a drawing or painting for each month got to be too much, and so November and December were never even completed (meaning that according to the calendar, it was October in our house for three months). But I liked the idea of personalizing a calendar, so this year I took a less labor-intensive route and worked with photos I’ve taken over the previous year. Each month in our 2010 calendar holds a photo that was taken during the same month in 2009. I like it – the whole calendar turns into a nice little trip down memory lane. March holds a picture of our trip to Paris, June reminds us of our hike up Little Si, and November is captured with a photo of our annual trip to Minnesota. It took a few hours to sort, print, and trim all the photos, but it was worth the effort, and it’s nice to have the whole thing done and ready to flip to with the changing of each month. Also nice to find that I had at least one print-worthy photo from each month of the year – I’ll work on keeping with that rhythm for the year to come.
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January 3rd, 2010 kellyschnell
I’ve always loved the look of hand-knit stuffed animals, and decided to take a stab at a teddy bear pattern I found in this book. Mr. Bear didn’t turn out quite how I’d hoped – one of his legs is a little longer than the other, his stomach is rather lumpy, and his stuffing is showing through in places – but he’s got lots of charm and is still soft and cuddly. Plus, he’s bright pink. Awesome.
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December 28th, 2009 kellyschnell
These were the final few prints that I cranked out last month – I held off on sharing them because two of these were a late birthday gift for my mom, but she received them last week, so I’m no longer in danger of ruining any surprises. These are all monoprints, done with hand-cut stencils loaded with ink and run through the press. I’m pretty happy with how several of them turned out – none of these are perfect, but I’m coming to learn that these imperfections are the beauty of printmaking.
These are two of my favorites, which will soon hang on the wall of my parents’ newly remodeled bathroom (my first piece of art to ‘grace’ someone else’s walls!):
These are all part of the same series…
And so my intro into printmaking has ended. But due to the generosity and thoughtfulness of my ever-supportive husband, I’ll be able to occasionally rent space in the print studio next year with my Pratt school gift certificate! I have some thinking/organizing/prepping to do before I’m ready to get back in there, but there are lots of ideas swirling around in this busy ol’ brain of mine. Can’t wait to see what comes of it…
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December 20th, 2009 kellyschnell
I spent this afternoon baking up a storm, preparing all kinds of goodies to take with us when we head down to Portland later this week to spend Christmas with my family. I love using the holidays as an excuse to try out new cookie recipes, and so I scoured the internet to find a couple of sophisticated-but-simple treats. This is what I came up with:
Cranberry Noels (recipe here, courtesy of Martha):
This one seemed simple enough, and once I had my dough all rolled out and packed away in the fridge, I figured slicing the rolls into perfect little circles and dropping them on a cookie sheet would be a piece of cake. Not so much… My dough was really crumbly, so when I tried to slice it, it fell apart. But I’ll be danged if I’m going to let two whole sticks of butter go to waste, so I had to just hand-form the dough into little patties and for-go any hopes of matching Martha’s perfectly round biscuits. Ah, well. They still taste good…
Chocolate-Espresso Snowcaps (recipe here, also from Martha):
Espresso and chocolate, coming together in one perfect cookie? Yes, please! Between the sifted ingredients, the melted chocolate, the goopy mixing bowl, and the sugar-dipping bowl, this one made a disaster of my kitchen, but it was worth it. Freezing the dough before rolling it into balls was key, as it was far too sticky to work with right out of the bowl. I used Starbucks Via instead of instant espresso, and the cookies have a distinct-but-not-overpowering coffee flavor. Yummy.
And finally, because it’s tradition, one more batch of butter toffee. Not sure what happened to the batch I made last weekend – we must have an infestation of toffee-gnomes in our kitchen…
Our bundle of goodies is now safely packed away, ready to be broken into on Christmas Eve with the family. Dude, I love Christmas…
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December 13th, 2009 kellyschnell
It’s December, and I’ve got the baking bug, so I spent this afternoon whipping up a batch of my most favorite almond toffee. I only make this at Christmas-time (see the copious amounts of butter used and you’ll understand why), so it’s an extra-special treat. Recipe below, in case you’re also tossing out any notions of a holiday diet…
Chocolate-Covered Almond Toffee (recipe adapted from here):
10 ounces chopped, toasted almonds (almonds can be toasted on a baking sheet at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes)
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/3 cup light corn syrup
1/3 cup rum
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, cut into small pieces
Place sugar in a small deep saucepan. Add the corn syrup and rum and, over medium heat, bring to a boil. Let boil until large bubbles form on the surface, 3 to 4 minutes. Cover with foil and boil 5 minutes longer. Add the pieces of butter and continue cooking, uncovered, over medium heat until temperature reaches 300 degrees F on a candy thermometer, about 30 minutes. Remove from heat and immediately add the salt, baking soda, and 1 cup of chopped nuts. Stir until well combined. Pour the toffee mixture on an oiled baking tray and spread the mixture out, making a block about 10 by 13 inches. While the toffee mixture is cooling, melt the chocolate in a medium heatproof bowl placed over simmering water*. Keep warm. When you can lift up the block of toffee, transfer it to a flat work surface or to a clean baking tray*. Pour the melted chocolate over the toffee and sprinkle with the remaining chopped nuts. Refrigerate for about 10 minutes to set the chocolate. Cut into pieces of desired size.
***LESSONS LEARNED: Today was not my day kitchen-wise, and though I’ve made this recipe several times before, I somehow managed to royally screw a couple of things up. Take heed: 1) Melting chocolate is a sensitive process. I set my metal bowl over the pan of simmering water, but neglected it for just a moment and it turned into a solid, chunky mess. The stove should be on low, and the chocolate should be stirred constantly until melted. Thank goodness for my extra chocolate stash. Crisis averted. 2) This one is embarrassingly obvious, but do not (I repeat DO NOT) set your block of toffee on a sheet of wax paper to cool. I meant to grab the roll of parchment paper, but instead grabbed the wax paper, and when I went to lift my block of toffee to transfer it to a plate, the paper stuck to the bottom and was impossible to peel off in places. This whoopsie forced me to toss out nearly half my batch. What a shameful waste of good butter…
Mishaps aside, this is good stuff. Happy holidays!
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December 1st, 2009 kellyschnell
My printmaking class ended a couple of weeks ago, but I made the most of my final days of studio access and cranked out some good stuff.
The two images below are collographs, made by carving into a shellacked piece of cardboard, rubbing ink into the carved areas, then running it through the press.
My next focus was on paper lithography, using some of my photos of Paris to make prints. I spent a few hours wrestling with this process one night in the studio, and still don’t feel like I got it right, but are some nuggets of quality in here…
I also put together several graphic monoprints that I was pretty happy with – a couple of them are being given as gifts, so for the sake of not ruining any surprises, I’ll post pics of those once they’ve been unwrapped.
In short, this class was amazing – I now see printmaking potential in all kinds of random things, from tangled netting to old photos to sketches I did 4 years ago. I’m in the midst of figuring out how I’ll get back into the studio sometime soon – can’t let all that potential go to waste!
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November 27th, 2009 kellyschnell
I’ve been on a bit of a knitting hiatus lately, but a little bird told me that a little girl was hoping for a scarf from Aunt Kelly for Christmas, so I happily picked up a few skeins of soft, brightly colored yarn to whip up a couple of scarves for our nieces, Shanay and Hayden. They are both rib-knit, one with alternating blocks of a chunky green and yellow yarn, one with a double-strand of two shades of purple. Hayden wore her purple scarf around the house all afternoon after we exchanged gifts, which tells me it was a hit. I like to think I’ll be doing my small part to keep these girls warm during the freezing cold winter to come…
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November 8th, 2009 kellyschnell
After nearly a year of planning, budgeting, and coordinating with our neighbors, our big backyard renovation is nearly complete. We still have some planting to do and some patio furniture to purchase, but we are thrilled to say that all of the major work is done (just in time for the rainy season – grrrr!). We’re really happy with the results and can’t wait until next summer, when we can roll our grill out onto our new patio and enjoy a glass of wine in our new adirondack chairs.
These are the before photos – our largest issue with the original design of the yard was the steep slope that led from the driveway to the back door, leaving us without a nice space to put a planter bed or even set up a chair. The grass was in horrible condition, due to poor soil and the tendency of water to run off the slope, rather than soak into the ground. The pavers that served as the pathway up the slope were also a little treacherous in winter weather – I slipped on those things a couple of times when we got all of that snow last year.
We worked with our neighbors to come up with a solution that would include planter beds, a flat place to put seating , and stairs that would make up the rise from the back door to the driveway. Getting all of this done within the budget we established was tricky, but ultimately do-able, after a couple of rounds of negotiations and substitutions with the contractor. And so, Voila!
We’ve been planting things bit by bit, including a beautiful Japanese Maple tree, a bright green smoke bush, and several tulip bulbs. I am so looking forward to watching things grow and blossom over the seasons and years to come. Now all we need is a little sunshine (I won’t hold my breath…).
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October 24th, 2009 kellyschnell
Good stuff happening in the print studio! The last two weeks have been focused on relief printing and lithography. So many possibilities! Here’s what I came up with:
block print (a block of linoleum or rubber is carved, then used as a stamp):
paper lithographs (a fancy kind of xerox transfer process):
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