Because 2 days is never enough.

It’s been a whirlwind of cooking and crafting and my apartment is a mess. However, I am very pleased with the results so far. I decided to make a few different bulk items so I could divvy them up into homemade gourmet gift bags. The idea is that with enough items, I’ll be able to mix and match so every package is a tiny bit different. Here is the master list of what’s been created so far:

1. Limoncello
When life gives you lemons, make limoncello! A single batch produced four 17 oz glass containers. (See previous post for more details.)

2. Soap
I ordered a 5 pound block of Clearly Natural glycerin. Their product is superior to others I came across online since it does NOT contain sodium laureth sulfate, which I avoid in all skin products. I made three separate batches each with its own flavor based on suggestions from the Martha Stewart Holiday mag:

• French green clay
• Cinnamon
• Honey ginger oat

The clay soap was green in color and the cinnamon was red in color – completely unplanned, but great for Christmas. I am definitely going to remember that color combo in the future.

3. Tea Tins
Erik and I made our own herbal tea blend, which he named “relax-tastic”. (Yeah, he’s an architect not a marketer.) The blend consists of loose chomomile, spearmint, and orange peel. It is very soothing, smells great, and goes well with a dollop of honey. We’re also attaching reusable fabric tea bags to the tins.

4. Chutney
I made two different flavors of chutney: Spicy Mango (for those who love spice) and Pear, Pearl Onion and Cherry (for those who like sweet and savory). I’ve never made chutney before, but I am now a big fan. It is very similar to soup-making – a lot of prep work up front to chop all of the fruit and veggies, and then a whole lot of simmering. I am pleased with how both batches turned out and they look so fancy in the jars I picked up at the container store. Erik’s arty labels were the final touch.

5. Mulled Wine Sachets
I only made four of these since they have proven to be unpopular according to public opinion. (See previous post for the recipe.) I stole the packaging idea from Jess.

Tonight I am going to make granola with quinoa and dried fruit (using Deborah Madison’s healthy, non-oil recipe) as well as peppermint bark (using the Martha Stewart recipe). And then it’s time to figure out a way to bring the goodies to Florida in checked luggage. Yikes. Once I get to Florida, I will assemble the items into apple picking gift bags decorated with blue raffia ribbon and red gift tags.

We had a holiday party on Saturday and I thought it turned out to be good fun. I decided to keep the food relatively simple because we were expecting about 25 people. On the menu:

1. Spinach Dip
I always get so many compliments on my spinach dip and I am always sorry to admit that it I just follow the recipe on the Knorr veggie soup mix box. It says water chestnuts are optional, but I believe they are essential. Anyway, this stuff is like crack, but upon reading the ingredients on the box and finding MSG, I think I discovered why. I’d love to find another, more natural recipe, but I’m skeptical that it would be as tasty.

2. Fresh Salsa
I tried something new with the salsa this time.

Ingredients:
6 vine ripened tomatoes, chopped
1 yellow onion chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
2 jalapeño peppers, finely chopped
2 tablespoons of cilantro
1 tablespoon coriander
1 tablespoon cumin
juice of 1 or two limes (I’m not sure because I couldn’t find fresh limes and had to use a generous squirt of lime juice from a bottle)

Combine onions and garlic in a medium frying pan and sauté for 2-3 minutes, onions should still be white. Add jalapeño, coriander, and cumin and cook another minute. Remove from heat and combine with tomatoes, cilantro, and lime juice. Let stand, covered, in the fridge for two hours before serving.

3. Fondue
My dad gave Karl a fondue pot for Christmas last year and he has emailed me about once a month since, asking if we’ve used it yet. The last time he emailed, he wrote, “I guess it was a kind of stupid gift.” Naturally, that broke my heart some, and I realized that we HAD to use that thing before we went home for Christmas this year. So, I added it to the party menu. But, it turns out it wasn’t a stupid gift at all! People were raving about the fondue and we went through a full pound of cheese.

I used a half pound of Gruyere and a half pound of Emmenthaler, both from Sahadi’s. Karl picked up a cheap Pinot Grigio, which the salesclerk made him promise he wouldn’t drink. I tasted it, it’s a fair promise to extract. Flour, nutmeg, mmm.

4. Sugar and Gingerbread cookies
These were both from the Betty Crocker cookbook and we both very good. We didn’t have ground cloves, so Karl diligently smashed up whole cloves and I actually think the larger chucks of clove improved the gingerbread recipe. Doug and Kelly did a great job decorating the cookies.

5. Mulled wine
This was tasty and festive. I didn’t really follow a recipe, just dumped dried orange peel, juniper berries, star anise, cloves, cardamom pods, black pepper, and cinnamon in a cheese cloth with some red wine.

6. Mindy’s Pumpkin Pie: with amaretto whipped cream!

7. Christina’s chocolate chip cookies

After all the running around and fretting and choosing, I finally put together all my holiday gifts in time to distribute a few of them at our holiday party.

The Goods:

1. Spicy Mexican Hot Chocolate
I found big bags of ancho chilies and boxes of my favorite Ibarra Mexican chocolate at a big grocery store at 135th and Broadway, right near my office. The neighborhood is largely Dominican and the supermarket has all kinds of great ingredients. Each set included a disk of chocolate, a clear bag with the chili and a cinnamon stick and instructions to make this delectable, spicy, sweet delight.

For Spicy Mexican Hot Chocolate:
4 cups milk
1 ancho chili
1 cinnamon stick
1 disk Mexican chocolate

Heat milk, chili pieces, and cinnamon in medium saucepan until just steaming. Remove from heat and let steep, covered, for 10 minutes. Add chocolate, mixing until melted (I used my wooden spoon to mash up the chocolate in an attempt to accelerate the melting process, one recipe I saw recommended using a blender).
Strain.
Enjoy.

2. Mulling Sachets
See “Mulling It Over: II” for description of the mulling sachets. I put these single serving mulling sachets in metal tins from the container store. I only made four or five of them because a few sources indicated they wouldn’t be very popular. But then I picked up some cider and tried it out the other night. Yum. I had one friend who chose the sachets over the chocolate and I think he’ll be pleased (even though I do so love that Mexican chocolate).

3. Holiday CDs
I’ve been slowing teaching myself Illustrator over the past year or so by choosing projects that make me use it. This time, I used the drawing functions more than I have in the past to make a wintry tree with a bird in it for the cd cover. I learned a lot of new functions and tricks (although my big breakthrough definitely came with the valentine’s card I made last February). I still have some issues with PDF files. I don’t have a color printer at home, so I need to print from a PDF at Kinko’s or Staples. Alyce came to the rescue for part of that problem, but I still ended up printing out 25 copies before I realized that when I converted to a PDF, the image was resized. All my covers were too small. I almost wept when Karl said, “That’s not going to fit in a cd case.”
Enter the spray mount and the colored paper.
And ack! This morning I just realized there was a typo in the song list.
We’ll I’m still figuring it all out.

4. Unfortunately, the pottery I made to go along with the holiday beverages was still in the kiln on Saturday, so I won’t have that until tonight.

15 bags of Mexican hot chocolate, 4 tins of mulling sachets, 25 holiday cds, 5 ceramic mugs, and a partridge in a pear tree.

I realized the key to last minute holiday craft success is to limit the amount of time I spend sleeping. I’m starting to get circles under my eyes – it’s not pretty.

The good news is that I found 160 proof vodka in my neighborhood last night so I can attempt to make my own limoncello. I had a bit of a setback this past week since I was told grain alcohol is illegal in the state of New York. I contemplated asking my co-workers who commute in from New Jersey to pick some up for me, but I was worried they would think I was an alcoholic. This led to my insecurity about asking for 160 proof vodka in the liquor stores. Every time I went into a store to ask for it I felt compelled to explain that I needed it to make my own liquor. I figured you can’t just ask for 160 proof vodka without having a legit reason. My liquor store only had one brand at that proof and the bottle looks small-time, almost homemade, and it’s from a town upstate that I’ve never heard of. It’s called Devil’s Creek and has two primary warnings on the label:

1. Highly flammable.
2. Do not drink without out diluting it first.

Nice.

I was so excited about the vodka purchase that I peeled 11 lemons last night at around midnight, dumped them into an airtight container with the liter of vodka, and hid the concoction in a safe corner of my kitchen. When I peeked in on it this morning, I noticed the liquid already started turning yellow in color. I feel like a prohibition era moonshiner preparing my own hooch. I’ll report back in a few days to let you know how step 2 of the process turns out.

My friend Kelly doesn’t understand the impulse to make all this stuff. She thinks I’m crazy and wasting my time completely. Mulling sachets? Mexican hot chocolate mix? Teaching myself Illustrator to make homemade cd covers? She’s a psychologist and I suspect she’s thumbing through her DSM-IV as we speak picking out the perfect personality disorder for me. She jokingly told me I should live in the 1700’s. I told Mindy this and she responded:

ps.  kelly is right.  we would KICK ASS in 18th century living.  it’s
like camping and crafting all rolled into one.  Haha

This is why I love Mindy.

I think this holiday season can be easily summed up in a poignant moment at the Container Store on Sunday. We’re both worked into a frenzy trying to decide which jars and tins and bags and note cards we need. I was sort of about to transform into the hulk because the Container Store only had two of the perfect-and-seemingly-common-but-impossible-to-find-anywhere-else even-though-I-live-in-frickin-New-York-City container. Amid this mania, Mindy turns to me and says, desperately,

“I hate us”

I concur.

I’m not multi-tasking very well, so, at this point, I’m about 1/3 done with about 4 projects, but not finished with anything–except maybe with myself… next year, I swear, I’m planning ahead better. But I too tried out mulling sachets. Mine were from a recipe in the Martha Stewart magazine called Holiday, mentioned here before (Karl has his bike porn and I have my craft porn). These little guys go in a mug with some hot cider for a nice single serving treat. I’m not getting the best feedback on this item, so I think I’ll concentrate my remaining efforts on the other projects. But… some of you may just be lucky enough to get a tin full of these spicy holiday treats.

I’m worried about making my gifts in time for the holidays. This is complicated by the fact that much of what I want to make is food-related and can’t be made too far in advance. In order to stave off a panic attack, I’ve started with a few items that are not time sensitive such as herbal tea mixes and mulled wine sachets.

Mindy’s Variation on Mulled Wine
2 cinnamon sticks
1 whole nutmeg
1 handful allspice berries
1/2 orange zest (or 1 handful dried orange peel)
1/2 cup sugar (or sugar to taste)
Magnum of red wine (equivalent of 2 standard bottles)

Mulling Sachet
Fold a piece of cheesecloth in half and cut an 8-inch round. Place the cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and orange into the center and tie with kitchen twine.

Mulled Wine
Add the wine to a saucepan along with the mulling sachet and sugar. Simmer on low heat. Ladle wine into mugs or remove sachet and serve.

These sachets also work well in apple cider (about 1 1/2 liters).

The holidays are fast approaching and I’m behind on my hand made gift ideas. I’ve been so consumed with knitting (for myself) and thanksgiving feast preparation, that I nearly forgot about planning for great gift giving.

I really don’t want to redo any gifts I created in the past, which included peppermint lip balm and eye pillows made from recycled kimonos, but I’m having a hard time thinking of ideas that top those.

Let the brainstorm begin!

To get the juices flowing, I stopped by my favorite magazine mecca, Global Ink, this morning on the way to work and picked up the new Martha Stewart “Holiday” magazine that features handmade gifts (175 ideas, to be exact). I’m still flipping through it, but there are definitely some interesting ideas such as personalized totes, spicy chutneys, embroidered handkerchiefs, and handmade truffles.

Food gifts require creative packaging, however, which means making a trip to Canal Street and Pearl River. Unfortunately, going to those venues on a Saturday in December can really take the festive feeling out of the holidays.

It’s not so much that I NEEDED more booze in my life, but just that, well, this one is so darned great.

In honor of the Turkish book most of us didn’t get through, I decided to pick up a bottle of raki, the Turkish liquour, for our book club. Raki has been around since Byzantine times and is usually made from raisins or fresh grapes and occasionally from figs. We partook of Yeni Raki brand.

Now, the anise flavor isn’t for everyone, but as an avowed lover of black licorice, it tasted pretty nice to me. What’s more, it was sort of fun to watch it cloud up as I mixed the water into my glass. But, the best thing of all? it just makes you feel happy. Not drunk…happy. I didn’t partake nearly enough of this lovely drink when I was in Turkey last year (I think I was just so excited at the ubiquitity of tea), but I’ll certainly be partaking of it enough moving forward.

Get ready!