Dot’s having a lovely lazy weekend, so while she’s not around, here’s something yummy you might have missed!

Cuban sandwiches are a perfect food for late summer picnics! Here is the step by step on how to make these yummy sandwiches, including how to press them if you don’t happen to have a sandwich press. Click here to read the entire recipe…

Click here to read the entire recipe…

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.

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!

I’ve never tried to make candied citrus peel, but my parents gave me a ton of lemons, so I went researching. I found tons of info on eGullet (love that site) and a neat recipe for doing a small batch in the microwave. Obviously, you can do this with most citrus peels, and my neighbor suggested that these would be great as a Lemoncello garnish!

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

Not a Tiramisu Martini, but a cool picture anyway! –>

Dot’s Easy Tiramisu “Martinis”

Makes 10-12 servings

Martini glasses

1 pint (2 cups) heavy cream
1/2 cup powdered sugar

2 pkgs (16 oz) Marscapone Cheese
Dollop of marsala (optional)
Dollop of vanilla
2 Dollops of kahlua

Ladyfingers – 4-6 per glass
3/4 – 1 c strong coffee or espresso
Kahlua (1/2 c?)
Cinnamon
Chocolate chips (opt)
Chopped pecans (opt)

In mixer (with whisk attachment) whip cream and powdered sugar until you get soft peaks. (if you dont have a mixer you can do this by hand with a whisk, but it’s more work). remove about 3/4 c. to use later.

Add the next set of ingredients and beat to combine. (i prepared this a bit ahead and placed it in a ziplock bag, then when it came time to put it in the glasses, i snipped of the end of the bag and “piped” it in)

In each martini glass, place your cookies around the inside. Save a half or whole cookie for the top.

Pour on the coffee, trying to soak each cookie. Pour a little Kahlua over the cookies as well (i just held my fingers over the top of the bottle, and spurted a little out for each glass).

Spoon in a big scoop of your marscapone mixture. top with the reserved cookie. Add a dollop of reserved whipped cream if you like (i ended up with enough in each glass without the whipped cream, so i skipped it.)

Sprinkle ground cinnimon on top, add a sprinkling of chocolate chips and/or chopped pecans.

Let chill during dinner, then serve!

(note: i had a heck of a time the first time I made this finding ladyfingers. ask in the bakery dept of your grocery store if you cant find them. I had to get ones with cream filling and scrape off the cream filling!!if you cant find them you can probably use some thinly sliced spongecake or poundcake. I think I saw some at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s recently too.)

*photo credit: Grieg Wehr.

I made this — one of my first recycled sweater projects — for The Boy last year. I can attest that he totally loves it still. All the details are at the Instructable embedded above, or click here.

This is a fun little project I did last year, and it took me maybe an evening to complete. I don’t really embroider, so I went for a hand-sewn look to this that is cute and fun, and easily replicable by any of you guys. I’m sure this could be done so much better by someone with sewing skill, so take this tutorial and let me know if you create an even better one!

Materials:
Brown Fleece
White fleece felt
Embroidery floss in several colors.
(obviously, pick the colors you prefer)

The Process:

Step 1: The Design
You can use any design, but here is the pattern for the little robot I like to call Claude. It’s CC licensed for personal use with attribution, so go ahead and click through and grab it.

Step 2:
I cut out the body and the hands out of my white felt, following the pattern.

Step 3:
Then, I stitched on the robot face and buttons on the body with embroidery thread, part of the charm of this being the ‘hand stiched’ look, so don’t worry if you can barely sew! (I used a lime green, but lesson learned was it would probably work better in a darker, more contrasting color)

Step 4:
I cut the brown fleece into a scarf width, slightly larger than the robot pattern (I laid out the pieces on the fleece to decide placement), and slit the ends for fringe. Since this was a child’s scarf, I just used the width of the bolt as the scarf length (for an adult, you’d need to go longer). Another lesson learned – I would probably double the width and stitch it up into a tube, so the back would be clean and you wouldn’t see the stitching.

Step 5:
Body: I sewed the robot body to the fleece using a blanket stitch. I did a simple stitch across his neck line to define the head.

Step 6:
Arms: I used white floss to sew arms directly to the brown fleece. No fancy embroidery here, just made it up as I went along.

Step 7:
Hands: I placed the balls for the hands over the ends of the arms where I thought they looked good, and sewed them on using the gold floss, similarly to the body.

Step 8:
Final touches: Added “ears” and antenna with gold, and lightning bolts in green.

All in all, a fun, relatively quick project, with lots of learning opportunities. and that is the purpose of this blog, to just TRY IT!

Lessons learned:
– I envision better than I can hand sew. I swear I need minions, maybe elves, to actually execute my visions.
– By the time I was done I was sewing alot better and my fingers hurt.
– Fringe should be cut wider on a child size scarf. And i should take the time to cut it straight.
– I should have used darker floss for the robot decorations (eyes, etc) for better contrast.

All the pics and instructions are also here, as an Instructable!

How to make a cute little elephant purse by recycling old sweaters.. I did this as a Christmas gift last year. It’s simple to make, cheap, and was much loved by the recipients. This is my own design, and I encourage you to try it yourself and add your own spin!

Related posts:
Another version of the Ele-purse. (This one is sturdier and more colorful).
See all recycled sweater projects here.
A reader does her own take on the elepurse – Nifty!
July 08 – The Baby Elepurse

The Process:

In case anyone wants to try it, here’s how i did it. And please do, just give me credit ;). I’m sure someone with more skill could do a much better job, and this is a very creative project, in that you could vary the materials, face, or construction and come up with a very different outcome. Be warned, this was a no-pattern trial and error experiment, so the directions may not be the best I’ve ever written. If I do it again, and anyone is interested, I might make a pattern.

I picked a sweater from the ones I had bought. This one was a light green lambswool, either a ladies or girls size.
The original idea was a backpack, but I didn’t know how long to make the straps, so I decided to go with a bag instead.

The Sweater collection:

the “body”
I started by cutting a square out of the bottom, leaving one side seam intact. I reversed it, and sewed it into a pouch (if i’d done the backpack idea, this would have also been when i added the straps in). The bottom finished edge of the sweater serves as the open top. The size could vary dependant on the size of the sweater (and the desired end result), but i made the pouch just slightly wider than the top of the sleeve of the sweater. Stitch a ribbon or whatever you want to use as a handle on either side of the pouch. If I’d been feeling ambitious i might have tried making the strap out of the sweater material, but I wasn’t.

the trunk/head
I cut the sleeve off straight at the shoulder. Since this sweater had 3/4 length sleeves, I used the whole thing, but basically, you need it to be a few inches short of the length of the pouch. Turn the sleeve wrong side out, and center the seam in the back. Now to make the trunk skinnier: About half way down the length of the sleeve, mark with pins. Come in about 3/4 in (depending on the size of your sleeve) on either side of the finished sleeve end, and mark with pins. You want a couple of inches between the pins. Then one each side, sew diagonally from the end pin to the middle pin. Turn rightside out and see if it looks vaguely elephant head like!

Turn the pouch so that the front is showing. Turn the trunk so the back is showing, trunk pointing up.
Slide the top of the sleeve into the pouch about 1/2 in and sew in place to the back of the pouch. The head and trunk should form the flap of the purse now.

the face
I just guessed on the ears. Trial and error gave me a 45 degree triangle, with one side rounded off, and folded a bit to make them stand up. Hard to explain in writing :). I just tacked them on the sides of the head, and covered with buttons. Then added buttons for eyes, and that was about it! More embellishment might be fun too.

Finished project, and other versions:

Henri is a fun little puppet made out of recycled sweater sleeves – more on Henri here.. If you liked the hand drawn tutorial for the Monster Wreath, you might like this too!

Click through to see/download the full size instructions.

Materials needed:
Two coordinating sweaters, felted. 1 sleeve from each.
Felt for eyes
Buttons (if you’re up for the fun of sewing on all those suckers!)
Embroidery thread
I sewed everything but the embellishments on the machine.

Prototype Henri:

This can be modified to do a stuffed toy rather than a puppet by simply stuffing the head fully, and then sewing up the secondary sweater where the legs meet.

If you try him, please let me see your results, and you can post to the Dabbled flickr group : http://www.flickr.com/groups/dabbled/