Project #3: I spy snowball quilt

I saw the idea for this quilt on Craftster. The person with the screen name ZumaGirl74 designed her quilt this way as sort of an accident. She didn't have enough fancy fabrics to do the traditional snowball pattern. I liked it so much that I kept the idea in my head for 3 years. When my nephew was born I thought it was the perfect excuse to test it out.

This was the first "real" quilt that I've made. I've made a denim rag quilt, but that didn't have any batting. I also made Blockette a cheater stain glass window quilt, but that didn't have batting either. The closest thing to anything quilted was place mats. Let me tell you, quilting a large baby quilt is quite different from a place mat. There is a lot more fabric to mess around with, and mess up. Especially if you are machine quilting the darn thing.

I was pretty pleased with myself that I only managed to get 2 or 3 little folds in the fabric from the quilting process. When I made the place mats I had at least that many on one tiny place mat. The seam ripper was definitely my friend. I left the little sewn in folds on this quilt though. The fabric is dark enough that they are not noticeable. I also used a thick batting which also did a good job of hiding the mistakes. I won't use batting that thick again, even if it was good mistake camouflage. The thickness from the batting was just too much of a pain to manipulate under the arm of my sewing machine. Thin batting is what I'll use from now on.

My nephew's quilt is actually quite large for a baby quilt. It measures a whopping 42 x 52 inches! I'm hoping his parents will use it as a floor blanket when he gets big enough for tummy time.

I chose bright, high contrast colors because they are supposed to be what a baby can see the easiest. I'm not normally into the color yellow, so it's weird that this quilt turned out to have a ton of yellow in it.

There was some debate between me and Mrblocko as to whether or not the yellow border fabric was too girly. The shirts on the fabric have hearts on them. I was not given the memo that hearts are girly. I thought hearts were for love. Again, I didn't get the memo that love was girly as well. I liked that there were hearts on the fabric, and since I was the one making the quilt, the border fabric stayed. Although you can't tell from the photo, the border fabric matches the rest of the quilt perfectly.

My camera did not like the black background fabric in this quilt. Thusly, the photos of this quilt are especially pooptastic. When I tried to take a picture without the flash, the camera wouldn't focus. Something about the tiny black dots on the fabric made the camera go all wonky. So my choices of pictures were either blurry or washed out. Washed out it is!

Front:
Back: (The white circle is the label. I named the quilt "I spy a snowball fight."
I think maybe I should refrain from naming objects after weather events. As soon as this quilt was finished we got smacked with a ton of snow!

Clownsuit

Note: if you look carefully you can see her fancy clown collar around her neck.

Cinnamon Roll Caramel Corn

It's tradition that Mrblocko goes to his friends house for the "big game". His friends live 45 minutes away. Since the game is on a school night, Blockette and I go to my best friend's house who lives only a mere 15 minutes away.

I asked Mrblocko what he wanted me to make for him to take over to his friends house. Do you know what he wanted to bring? Cheese, sausage and crackers. HA! I decided that I was going to make Our Best Bites' Cinnamon roll caramel corn to take to my party.

When I first told Mrblocko I was going to make caramel corn he was pretty unenthused. Then I told him I was going to take a perfectly good batch of caramel corn and add cinnamon, pecans and white chocolate. That really caught his attention.
I let him taste this Om nom nommaliciousness and I had to take it away from him so he wouldn't eat it all. I said, "Doesn't this make your sausage, cheese and crackers seem super lame?" He could not deny that my snackage trumped his.

The folks at Our Best Bites made note that when making the caramel, the traditional corn syrup could be replaced with honey. Blockette has a friend in her class that can't eat corn syrup. It's next to impossible to find snacks that don't contain corn syrup, even non-sugary ones. I figured I'd test out the honey version and if it was tasty, I'd pass the recipe on to Blockette's friend's mom. Plus, I was curious as to how much the honey would alter the flavor of the caramel.

The end result didn't taste like most caramel corn I've had before. The honey flavor really shone through. This was not a bad thing at all, especially if you are a fan of honey like I am. The caramel didn't get as crispy as I thought it would after baking. I think this might be from the honey. The next time I make a batch of this caramel corn I will use corn syrup to test my theory.

Cinnamon Roll Caramel Corn from  our best bites
12 C popped popcorn (about 1/2 C kernels)
1 C roughly chopped pecans
1 C brown sugar
3/4 t cinnamon
1/4 C Karo syrup (or honey makes a good substitution)
1 stick real butter (1/2 C)
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla
3 squares almond bark

Preheat oven to 250 F, Place popcorn and chopped pecans in a large bowl and set aside. And by large bowl, I mean like, twice as big as you think you really need. Combine brown sugar and cinnamon in a big, microwave-safe bowl. Like a 2-quart bowl or Pyrex measuring bowl. Again, use a bowl larger than you think you need to avoid scorching hot caramel goo accidents. It’s really important to incorporate the cinnamon into the brown sugar at this point. For some reason, if you don’t it does crazy things. Chop butter into chunks and place on top of sugar mixture. Pour corn syrup (or honey) over the top of everything. Microwave on high for 30 sec (just to soften the butter a bit) and then stir to combine.

Return to microwave and heat for 2 min. Remove and stir and then microwave for 2 min more. By this point it should be nice and bubbly. Remove from the microwave and add in vanilla and baking soda.
The vanilla makes it bubble and pop and the baking soda makes it foam up.  pour over the popcorn and pecans. Stir right away, and stir lots. Take too long and the caramel will harden on you. Keep stirring until everything is well coated.
Spread popcorn mixture onto a foil-lined jelly roll pan.Place in oven and bake for 30 min, stirring every 10 min.After 30 min, take a piece out and let it cool. “Sample.” If it’s not crunchy enough, bake for another 5 minutes. “Sample” again. When it’s done, give it a final stir and let it cool off for a bit while you melt your almond bark (just nuke it in the microwave according to the package directions) If you want, you can spread out your caramel corn on a clean piece of parchment, waxed paper, or foil. Drizzle the melted almond bark over the popcorn mixture.

Baked Parmesan Tilapia

Hey I'm on a roll with fish here. I think this is the third recipe using fish that I've tried. Amazingly, I've actually liked all the fish recipes I've tried. Maybe I'm starting to like fish?

I came across this recipe for Baked Parmesan Tilapia through the blog "Dine and Dish." She found the recipe on RecipeZaar, but that recipe is based on a dish from Mama's Restaurant in Minocqua. WI. The comments on RecipeZaar of those who have eaten at Mama's say the recipe is a great facsimile.

The weird thing about this recipe was that it stated it served 4. Fish fillets are one thing I cannot stomach as a leftover. Reheating fish just grosses me out. A rubber band might be more tasty, and easier to chew. The recipe calls for 2 pounds of fillets. The Tilapia I buy comes frozen in a 1 pound bag. That amounts to around 6 fillets. I liked this recipe, but I wouldn't want to eat more than one piece of fish at a time. Mrblocko agreed, and he really really likes fish.

I halved the recipe and there was still a lot of sauce for just the three fillets. The amounts of the seasonings just don't allow for me to quarter the recipe. I also screwed up and added the lemon juice to the sauce when it was supposed to be added to the fish first. I think that added to the soupy-ness of the topping. Next time, I will make the recipe as follows:


Baked Parmesan Tilapia for 3
3 tilapia fillets
A squeeze of lemon juice
1/4 cup grated Parmesan Cheese (don't use the powdered stuff, It won't melt properly)
1 T Butter, room temperature
1 T mayo
1 1/2 T finely chopped green onions
1/8 teaspoon seasoned salt (like Old Bay) (I think I used Bacon salt, I don't remember)
1/8 teaspoon basil
a few grinds of black pepper
1 big dash of hot sauce

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a baking dish with Pam. You want a dish that will hold the fillets in a single layer. Squirt the top of the fish with lemon juice. Bake about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, combine cheese, butter, mayonnaise, onions and seasonings in a small bowl Spread baked fish with the cheese mixture, and place under the broiler until the cheese begins to brown.

Pantry Bundt

I had really high hopes for Kitchen Koala's Pantry Raid Bundt. I got the recipe for the rockin Apple butter bundt from the same blogger. Maybe I set the bar a little high, but I was not completely thrilled with how the cake turned out.

This recipe consists of a Devil's Food Cake Mix and a Brownie mix. So, while the recipe was very inexpensive and super quick to whip up, my cake was extremely dry. Because I didn't have a 15 cup bundt pan, I made a 12 cup bundt and 5 mini bundts. I watched the cakes very diligently because I did not want them to get dried out. The mini bundts took a little less than 15 minutes and the full size cake took around 50 minutes.

The weird thing was that the cakes looked very moist when they came out of the oven. They looked so moist in fact, that I was a little unsure if I had cooked them all the way. I don't know why, but once they cooled, they lost their spongy-ness.

Luckily, that problem was solved with a big old scoop of ice cream. The cake was still quite edible and vanished, although not as quickly as it would have if it had been a moist cake. Will I make this cake again? Probably not. If I'm going to make a box mix bundt, I'll just use a box mix and skip the brownie mix addition.

Pantry Raid Bundt from Kitchen Koala
box (18.25 oz.) Devil's Food cake mix, plus ingredients to prepare
1 box Brownie mix (9x13" pan size), plus ingredients called for on box

Preheat oven to 325°F. Generously grease a 15-cup Bundt pan. If you only have a 12-cup pan, use extra batter to make a layer cake or cupcakes. In a very large mixing bowl, stir together dry cake mix and brownie mix. Add eggs, oil, and water (amounts needed depend on brand--check the packages). Mix on low speed to moisten. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl. Mix batter on medium speed for 2 minutes. Pour into prepared Bundt pan. Bake at 325° for 55-65 min, til cake tests done. Let cool in pan on wire rack for 15 min, then invert onto serving platter to finish cooling.

Project #2: Another wonky blanket for Haiti

Ugh, it's finally finished. If I ever make another afghan again it will probably be too soon. This one took longer to make, but it is less wonky than the first. The edges got all ripply like the first blanket. Luckily, I'm not going to make another afghan, so it would be a waste of time to try to figure out what I was doing wrong.

The color scheme may seem a bit weird in this picture. That's because of the weird lighting and the camera. The pink, periwinkle, cream and green are all in the variegated yarn in the corners. You can see that they match a little bit better if you click on the pic. As with most of my photos, the colors are more yellowish than they are in real life.
That's Boo in the upper left corner of the photo. He's pretty upset that I sewed the squares into one blanket. When I had them all laid out on the floor to piece together, the edges of the squares sort of curled up. He thought they were toys for him and proceeded to pounce on them and bat them all around the room. Maybe that was just his way of saying he didn't like my design choice. He's pretty persnickety that way.

Pace Chicken and Rice

I found this recipe for Chicken and Rice on the Pace Picante website. I made the mistake of using short grain brown rice instead of long grain white rice. The short grain brown rice takes a much longer time for it to cook. What should have been a quick no fuss meal ended up in a quick rethink of dinner.

I whipped up some veggies instead of the corn and rice. While we were eating I dumped everything but the cooked chicken in a covered pot and let it boil for another 30 minutes so it would be ready to eat when it came to leftovers.

Once the rice was cooked completely the dish was quite good. I think I like the short grain brown rice almost as much as the white jasmine rice. The short grain rice didn't have the wonderful nutty fragrance, but it was every bit as delicious as the Jasmine.

Boiling the rice in the salsa imparted great flavor into the rice as well. Some of the salsa also started to caramelize in the bottom of the pan while the rice was cooking. This added just a hint of sweetness that I really enjoyed.

The next time I make this I'm going to try making this recipe in the crockpot with frozen chicken. I figure it should take about 6 hours on low. Then maybe it really will be a no fuss dinner.

Pace's Chicken and Rice
1 jar (16 ounces) Pace® Picante Sauce
1/2 cup water
1 cup frozen whole kernel corn, thawed
3/4 cup uncooked regular long-grain white rice
1 1/4 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
Paprika
1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
Directions:

Stir picante sauce, water, corn and rice in an 11x7x2" baking dish. Top with the chicken. Sprinkle the chicken with the paprika. Cover the baking dish. Bake at 375°F. for 45 min til chicken is cooked through and the rice is tender. Sprinkle with the cheese. If you don't have Cheddar cheese on hand, you can substitute an equal amount of shredded Monterey Jack or a Mexican cheese blend.