Make Slime! The Photo Tutorial.

Click through to see all the flickr pics.

1. Slime ingredients, 2. Stir the Borax and water to dissolve, 3. Pouring glue, 4. Water + glue + paint for color, 5. Pour the Borax solution into the glue mixture, 6. Stir, watch it clump up, 7. Pour off the excess water and check out your slime!, 8. Initial slime, 9. Ball it, 10. Squeeze it, 11. Ewwww…, 12. Punch it

See the full tutorial and directions here..

Enjoy the gooey fun!

Sorry for the re-run here, but I’m so behind in the real world right now. The Boy’s 4th Birthday is this weekend, and I’d better get started! The rest of this week should be filled with Dragon Party related posts.

But, here’s a cool soup recipe for you — check out the pics below, and go here for the full recipe! How to Make Carrot Vichyssoise.

How to Make Carrot Vichyssoise.

For the festival this past weekend (yes, I still owe you guys my write up, I’ve been busy! more on that later) I made a batch of cuban sandwiches for our cooler. And lucky you, I documented the process, including my most interesting way of pressing them without a sandwich press. So here they are.

Cubans are a great sandwich, especially for picnicking. They have no mayo, and are good either hot or cool. They don’t require alot of ingredients, and since they are pressed, they stay together well for transport.

Dot’s Cubans (recipe follows)

Ingredients –
-Cuban Bread (available at my local Publix, but if you can’t find cuban, you can do on italian, french, or similar)
-Roast Pork Loin
-Ham
-Swiss Cheese
-Baby Dills (or thin sliced dill pickles)
-Mustard
-Butter

Steps:

Prior: Either purchase roast pork sliced from the deli, or do what I did and roast a pork loin. I highly recommend the latter. For mine, I purchased a pork loin, marinated it in mojo marinade (available in the mexican/ethnic aisle), then roasted it in the oven, uncovered according to package directions. (350 or so, until the internal temp is around 150. A Digital Probe Thermometer
is awesome for this stuff). I threw this in the oven the night before. I sliced it the night before too, but in hindsight, the slices I did the next morning after it chilled overnight were much nicer looking, so I recommend chilling, then slicing.

Sandwich Assembly:
(Optional, slice into 4 pieces. I did this because I wanted to ensure that the bread stayed fresh since I’d bought it a few days earlier, so I cut it to store in a ziplock.)
Slice Bread in Half, length wise (ie cut open for sandwiches).
Spread mustard on both sides. I like spicy brown.

Layer on:
– Roast Pork
– Ham
– Swiss
I do several slices thick of each meat and a single cheese, but if you like yours thicker, add more.

My oddity for this sandwich is I love crispy pickles. So I like to take my favorite pickle, petite dills, and slice them thin. You may of course substitute an inferior floppy pickle if you wish! The key is very thinly sliced, though.

So slice your baby dills, and lay them out on top of the cheese.
And top your sandwich with the top piece of bread.

Now this would be a lovely sandwich as is, but it’s not a cuban until it’s pressed. Now traditionally a cuban is pressed with a sandwich press called a plancha, similar to a panini press. You could also use a George Foreman grill.

(note, the picture above for this is sideways, no idea why. Do click through to see it right side up!)
BUT, if you don’t have any of these things, you’ll need a method to press them, and I’d like to share mine! Basically, procure a griddle (mine is a double one that covers two burners on the stove. An electric griddle or any flat stove friendly surface works fine.) Turn on burners to med heat
Melt a little butter on top and spread around.
Next add your sandwiches.

Now, find a large pan(I used a roasting pan) similar in size to your griddles, and place on top of your sandwiches. Now you need some weight. Conveniently enough, I had some small 5 and 8 lb weights for working out purposes, which were perfect for the job. Place the weights spaced evenly in the upper pan, and press down evenly. This amount of weight was about perfect.

After a few minutes, remove the pan, ensure the bottoms of the sandwiches are crispy, add additional butter if necessary, and flip sandwiches. Return top pan and press for a few more minutes.

Remove from pan, and either serve immediately (tasty warm!) or let cool, slice diagonally, and wrap in wax paper for your picnic. I like to wrap each sandwich individually, then store them all in a gallon ziplock.

These are great served with black beans and rice, and/or a tasty cucumber/onion salad. Let me know if you need recipes for those too!

Easy Peasy… and way yummy!

Related:
– All Photo-Recipes

Instructions and Recipe below the pics:

Ingredients:
2 Sticks butter, softened.
1 c sugar
1 c brown sugar, packed
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
2 c all-purpose flour (fluffed with fork or sifted)
1 teas baking soda
1 teas salt
3 cups oatmeal
1 1/2 c raisins (or instead, 1 1/2 c chocolate chips & 2 cups chopped pecans)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375.
Cream butter, sugars, and vanilla until light and fluffy
Add eggs and beat well.
Combine flour, baking soda, and salt (I like to sift them together)
Add to creamed mixture
Add oatmeal and raisins (We did this in the much loved Kitchen Aid mixer, but if the mixture is too think, stir in by hand.)
Drop onto a slightly greased cookie sheet. (a disher makes this really neat and easy)
Bake at 375 degrees F for 8-10 minutes, until light brown.
Remove from oven, and transfer to cooling racks.
Lick beaters!
Eat warm cookies!

(And if you’re concerned about small children and the joy of licking the beaters vs the tiny risk of salmonella, use pasteurized eggs.)

Related:
Make a Blueberry Pie
Make a Lemon Pie
Make Carrot Vichyssoise

Stumble It!

Dot’s Mom’s Blueberry Pie:

Ingredients
Pastry for top & bottom of 9 in pie *
4 c fresh or frozen blueberries (I used frozen ones from my parents haul this summer)
3/4 c sugar
3 Tbs flour
1/2 tsp grated lemon rind (doh! no fresh lemons on hand today, so I left out)
dash salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1-2 tsp lemon juice
1 Tbs butter
*Although it’s certainly not that hard to make your own piecrust pastry, I cheated here and used the all-ready type rolled pastry you can find in the refrigerated section of your grocery store, near the cookie dough rolls and biscuit dough tubes.

(row 1)Combine sugar,flour, spices and peel in a large bowl
Toss with blueberries
Line 9″ pie pan with pastry.
Pour blueberry mixture into shell
(row 2)Sprinkle with Lemon Juice, Dot with butter.
Top with top crust**
Crimp crust edges together, squeezing with your fingers.
(row 3)To avoid too brown crust edges, use aluminum foil to make little strips to cover the edges of the pie. (Unless you have a pie crust shield like this or this)
Sprinkle with xtra sugar and cinnamon.
(row 4)Bake 375 for 35-40 minutes (reduce heat if needed to keep crust from over browning)
Pie is done with nicely tan on top, and blueberry juice is oozing through the holes in the top. Mine took about 15 min longer than the recommendation above.

**For my top crust I used a handy cheat – a Lattice Pie Top Cutter –basically a giant cookie cutter that gives the appearance of a lattice crust. You can do anything you want here (if you use a solid sheet, be sure to prick the top of the pie), including making a ‘real’ lattice top, or using cookie cutters to cut out shapes.

If you click through to flickr, the picture above contains notes explaining all the steps – a one stop recipe!

Several people asked where to get the lattice top maker: You can get a Fox Run Lattice Pie Top Cutter HERE!

View other PHOTO RECIPES

Like this blog? Subscribe!

Recent

• Illustration Friday – “Poise”
• Tumblr as a Portfolio platform
• Illustration “Tuesday” – Subtract
• New Dabbled Buttons

Chocolate Dipped Chocolate Hearts – and ways to fix and avoid chocolate problems. – More DIY How To Projects

It’s got some good hints for working with chocolate, and ideas for rescuing chocolate projects, too!

Don’t forget, voting ends today in the Anti-Valentines People’s Choice Award Vote

PS: If you are a winner in the Anti-Vday contest (judge’s choices) and haven’t emailed me, be sure to do so asap, so I can get the prizes out! If you don’t email me, you’ll be stuck with what’s left of the prizes!!

So here he is — “Cedric”… But I also need an opinion.. I didn’t ink him like I’ve been doing (see others) just darkened the pencil outline. Like? Not as good?
Would love some feedback on this.

So the second thing is the soup… It has some great things going for it:
1. Sounds fancy! and French! Well, it isn’t really french in origin, but was invented at the Ritz, so that makes it fancy, right!? (By the way, it’s pronounced ‘vishee-swahz’, sounds like ‘fishy bras’)
2. Easy, quick and inexpensive to make.
3. Kid friendly way of getting them to eat their vegetables. I serve this with cheddar cheese on top, and call it “Cheese Soup” and my 3 yr old is happy!
4. Soup is great on a cold day to warm you up! Well, technically, vichyssoise should be served cold, but I like it hot. Especially in cold weather. But in the summer, this works great as a cold soup too, nice for brunch!

Soup! Make an easy, healthy, kid-friendly Carrot Vichyssoise – More DIY How To Projects

See the Photo-Recipe here on flickr

Related:
All Photo-Recipes
Cephalopod Week

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
Heat a large roasting pan in the oven or on the stove, with olive oil.
Salt and pepper your roast.
Brown your 7 Bone Chuck Roast (the cut Alton recommends!) Mine’s about 4 pounds.

Chop up your vegetables. Several Onions, carrots (i like the bag of precut babys), potatoes, winter squash, sweet potatoes… any combination of stuff you like.
for this I used just onions, carrots, and cauliflower. If I’d had any fresh garlic in the house, I would have throw in a bunch of whole cloves too. In a large bowl, drizzle veggies with olive oil, then sprinkle with kosher salt and pepper.
(Note: veggies that don’t take that long to cook should be added in the middle of cooking, not at the beginning. Carrots and potatoes can pretty much cook the whole time if you like them soft. Cauliflower should actually be added with maybe an hour left to cook so it doesn’t get too soft–i put mine in too early in these pics)

Spread your veggies around your meat. Sprinkle with 1/2 packet onion soup mix, and pour over a can of Beef (or other) broth.
(The mushrooms and garlic I did think to add toward the end of cooking – add with about 30 minutes left.)
Oh, and start some rice at about 30 minutes til done, too. This is excellent over rice!

Cover pan with heavy duty foil (or a lid if available, mine doesn’t have one)
Cook for 2-3 hours depending on the size of your roast. Meat should be fork tender and falling apart!

Serve over rice if desired, to soak up all the yummy juices.

This is great when you have family over and want to not spend time in the kitchen, but still have a meal to feed everyone!

Related:
See All Photo-Recipes
Save money – Freeze Chicken Stock in small portions

There’s more info in the recipe, so go check that out too.
This is easy, although somewhat time consuming (you do a lot of microwaving). I recommend doing it while you’re doing other kitchen chores or cooking.

1. This was a test batch, so I just used 2 lemons. I took the hint on how to remove your peel from the recipe, and it worked really well! Isn’t it nifty looking?
2. I sliced the peel in strips, and also cut out O’s out of the ends.
3. Per the recipe, I placed the strips in a large Pyrex measuring cup, filled to within 2 inches of the top. I microwaved this for 10 minutes.
4. I drained the peels, then added fresh water and micro’d for 10 more minutes. Then repeated the process a third time.
5. I set aside the peels, then rinsed the Pyrex and added 1 1/2 c water and 1 c sugar. [The recipe recommends using at least the 2 quart pyrex for this. Unfortunately I didn’t have one. And yes, it did end up bubbling over at the end steps, so try to find a big enough container.] Micro for 3 minutes.
6. Per the recipe, add the peel to the syrup and microwave for 5 minutes. Stir, return for 5 more. Stir, zap for 5 more minutes. The sugar syrup should be thicker now. (watch for boiling over!) (I added a touch of vanilla extract here too, just for the heck of it)
7. Let the peel cool down for at least 30 minutes. Now microwave again for two 5 minutes sessions. (This was when I had the boiling over issue.)
8. Pick a couple of pieces out of the syrup and drain it on a wire grid until it is cool. If the white part has colored and become translucent, it should be done.
9. Taste it. If it tastes okay, place all the pieces on the drying rack and let it dry until it is just tacky, then toss it in granulated sugar. I found that it dried rather quickly.
10. You’re now ready to toss it in sugar. I found it pretty easy just to put sugar on a plate, and toss a few pieces at a time.
One thing I did differently: I mixed sea salt to taste on my sugar plate prior to tossing. I think the little bit of salt gave it a really interesting flavor.

Inspiration: Brownie Points
I’ve been wanting to try this since this post last year. Check it out, lots of good info and ideas, like adding things to the syrup or dipping in chocolate.

Recipe Link: RecipeGullet, by andiesenji
Orange Peeling Reference: E-Gullet Forums by andiesenji
…Thanks so much for sharing it!

Good luck and have fun trying this… I can’t wait to see your variations :)

Related: – How to Make a Lemon Pie
– All Photo-Recipes

This is a favorite lemon pie of mine… It’s dense, rich and very lemon-y. Lemon Chess, closer to lemon bars than lemon meringue. These make a lovely hostess gift (bake the pie in a pretty pie plate for your recipient to keep)… or make your own ‘gift set’ with lemons, the recipe, and some gear to make it (recommendations below).
(UPDATE: Get the recipe as a PDF here)

1. How to Make a Lemon Pie: Ingredients (2 pies), 2. Zesting Lemon*, 3. Lemon Pie: Ingredient Prepwork, 4. Juicing Lemons**, 5. Whisk Melted Butter, Sugar, 6. Add Eggs, 7. Whisk well to combine… ready for pie shells!, 8. Place crust pastry in 2 pie plates***, 9. Crimp Edges, 10. Continue around Pan, crimping edges, 11. Split into the 2 pie shells., 12. Lemon Pie, all done.

Gear Recommendations:
*Nothing zests a lemon quicker or better than a Microplane. I love mine.
**The nifty little juicer I have is convenient- It has a measurements in the cup so you can see how much you have, and it has other attachments, like the egg separator I used in the Eggnog recipe.
***I love my Pyrex pie plates. They cook evenly and seem to do much better than metal.

Recipe:

(Can double and make 2 pies—freeze one*)
1 ½ lemons (3/8 cup lemon juice)
1 ½ cup sugar
1/3 cup butter, melted
3 eggs
dash salt
unbaked pastry shell, 9”

Place pastry in pie pan and crimp edges. (If you’re using storebought pie dough, let it get to room temperature first for ease of unrolling)
Have lemon at room temperature or soak in warm water (to get more juice).
Zest rind (note, you just want the yellow on top, not the white pith, so zest shallowly).
Ream out or squeeze lemon , measure juice.
Add sugar, melted butter, eggs, salt. Mix with wire whip until smooth. Mix in grated rind or just put it in the pie shell. Pour rest over.
(For making 2 pies, I used a measuring cup to alternate scoops into each pie shell)
Bake at 325 about 45 minutes.
Makes one large pie.

*If you want to freeze a pie, just bake the pie, then cool it. Wrap tightly with plastic wrap, cover with foil, label, and freeze. Thaw in the refrigerator before serving.

For extra prettiness and festive holiday cheer: Cut a snowflake out of tissue paper slightly smaller than the top of the pie (or use a paper doily). Place on top of the pie and sift/shake powdered sugar on top. Remove paper, and you have a pretty wintery design! NOTE: Do this right before giving/presenting/serving, so the powdered sugar doesn’t sink in and disappear.

Pastry: For this, I cheated and used prepackaged all ready pie crust from the refrigerated section. But making your own isn’t hard, here’s the recipe:

Oil Pastry:
Quick, easy, & healthier

2 cups sifted all purpose flour
1 ½ tsp salt
½ cup corn, canola, or light olive oil
¼ cup cold milk

Fluff flour & salt together with fork. Pour salad oil and milk into measuring cup (do not stir). Add all at once to flour mixture.
Stir lightly with fork until it forms a ball. Divide into 2 parts.
Flatten one ball slightly. Sprinkle both sides of dough with extra flour. Roll between 2 floured sheets of wax paper. Peel off top sheet and invert over 9” pie pan. Continue according to recipe.
The extra ball can be used for a top crust, to make 2 pies, or frozen for use later.