Saturday, December 22, 2012

Gluten free Christmas baking

Every year I do lots of Christmas baking and every year I say I will cut back on the amounts and every year I over estimate and every year I still make too much. This year was no exception. Of course every year I seem to screw some thing up and out of it comes some thing new. Last year I came up with chocolate pudding peanut butter balls, This year it was....
Yes, Nutella. I needed 2 cups of peanut butter for my last batch and after cleaning out the house I only had one. Whats a girl who doesn't want to leave the house to do? Well, I have a cup of Nutella, bingo. Nutella peanut butter balls are born. My husband, who loves his peanut butter balls, really liked them. Still liked his regular balls better but liked these as well. I don't think it would work as well if it was all Nutella because I think it would have been too strong of a flavor. I think the blend works well and it just tastes like Nutella to me. 1 cup of peanut butter 1 cup if Nutella 12 TBs of butter 4 cups of powdered sugar Cream your peanut butter/ Nutella Add your powdered sugar and mix well Roll your balls and let sit at least 20 mins to dry a little (I did not find this necessary for the Nutella balls because they were already on the dry side and I think the powdered sugar could have been reduced a bit, this is just my regular peanut butter ball recipe and I haven't played with it any yet to adapt it for the Nutella) Melt some chocolate in a double boiler, not generic (for some reason it doesn't seem to melt all the way for me) and dip those balls and let dry til set. Enjoy!
I also made some thing new this year. Egg nog truffles, a recipe I found on Pinterest and of course they are delicious and the recipe never makes as many as it says it does. Also they never look as pretty as they do online but they sure are delicious!
I also made my normal peanut butter cookies but this year added a small peanut butter cup because I thought it would be easier for Alec to eat those rather than a Hershey kiss.
He loves them. I made sugar cookies too but have yet to frost them because he prefers them with out the frosting. I will frost some of them later today though. I hope you have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Bye!

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Finished Basket

I really enjoy basket making. You take strips and pieces of wood and make them into awesome baskets and some of them can be very detailed. They always look more complicated than they really are. Eventually you get so many baskets you just don't know what to do with them. I have a friend that I do basket class with that has so many that they are piled into a huge mountain in an extra room in her home. We joke that she has created another layer for mount basket. When I start a new basket I try to think of a use for it. Will it be a decoration on my shelf, a laundry basket. Will it hold apples and other fruits or can I use it to pick the produce from the garden? But lately it is getting to that point where I am running out of ideas for uses and have started a mount basket myself. This newest basket I just finished will not be part of the basket mountain. I created this one with one thing in mind, Alec's Hot Wheels collection. Alec has quite a Hot Wheels collection at my house and at home. Here they are piled into different places, a wagon he likes to pull around, a Mickey Mouse Easter bucket from last year, a Halloween candy pumpkin bucket, you get the idea. So when me and Becky dug through all the reed I had bought for home to use it up I decided I needed a large bushel type basket for Alec's Hot Wheels collection. About the using up reed I had at home. When I cleaned out my sewing room at one time I realized I had a tub full of unused reed for basket making at home. The thing about that is I do not weave at home at all. I prefer to use my time at home for sewing and fabric crafting and I do not have the room to spread out and keep things out that long to work on a basket. Also reed goes bad. It gets brittle and will eventually be un useable. So I took the tub to Becky's and said lets use it up, what can we make? This is my second finish from the tub. Hot Wheels bushel basket.
I'm hoping that its sturdy enough to hold up to Alec. I know it will do what I want it to do but Alec likes to push baskets around and climb in them but hey, who doesn't like a good basket sit. For example....
That's just him chillin, watching Mickey. Obviously, the basket I made would not hold up to this so if he does try this I will have to use it for some thing else until he's older. We shall see. Wish me luck. And progress on the cross stitch gift.
Bye!