Homemade Toffee

Every year I make several batches of homemade toffee to take into work, family events and holiday celebrations. However, after all of that is said and done there is always someone who says they wished they could have had a little extra to take home.

So, I am trying to take an inventory of anyone who might like their own personal batch of toffee this year. If you have never had my toffee, I think it's fabulous - but I might be biased. Also, I don't put nuts in or on the outside of the toffee.

If you want toffee just leave me a comment and I will make sure you are on my list.

Locco for Gocco

Without any children to post pictures of or humorous stories about their antics - I am once again subjecting all of you loyal blog readers to another one of my craft related posts. This post will be about my new Gocco machine that arrived in the mail from Japan. It was a long flight, and boy are it's wings tired. *badum-CHING*


I am sure some of you are wondering what's a Gocco? Well it's basically a small, self contained screen printer. I bought it in the hopes of being able to screen print designs on some of my future aprons. Of course I am going to have to learn how to use it, and find a manual in English since all of the instructions are in Japanese.



Stay tuned to see what crazy things I can design with this new toy of mine.

Birds of a feather

I didn't really have anything to blog about.. but decided that I would start a mini showcase of things I have or recently obtained that I love. As some or none of you might know I really love birds.



The designer of this necklace uses old watch parts, along with new pieces to design her work. I think it's wonderful!

Halloween is just around the corner..

I have posted a few Halloween decorations for sale on my Etsy.com account, NeedlePinProductions.etsy.com.

Go check them out! You don't have to buy from Etsy, you can order directly through me. Just email me what you would like.

Continuation of July 14th post

On July 14, 2008 I posted a pic of canning jars and said to stay tuned. As usual with my life I made a slight change of plans. My original plan of attempting to make homemade raspberry jam (first atttempt) stayed the same, but I found new jars I thought were cuter.

Here is the final product -

The jam turned out great, in my opinion. I do have a few extra jars I would love to share with anyone who might be interested. Just let me know!

Recipe: A la Bekah Pasta

While reading through one of my favorite blogs the other day I got the idea to make a pasta dish from scratch, minus the actual pasta of course. For lack of a better name I am calling it A la Bekah Pasta. For this recipe you will need the following

• Olive oil
• Butter
• Garlic
• White Onion
  
• Mushrooms (fresh not canned)
• Zucchini
• Chicken Broth
  
• Heavy Cream
• Plain Tomato Sauce
• 1 lb pasta of your choice
• Fresh Parsley
• Salt
• Pepper

To start you are going to need a large saucepan/skillet. Chop a small to medium white onion. Pick your size depending on your desire of onion in your dish. Now mince two cloves of garlic. Place your saucepan on medium heat and add 2 tablespoons olive oil and 2 tablespoons butter. Once the butter has melted a little, add the onions and garlic, letting them cook and stirring occasionally.

While that is cooking rinse off your fresh mushrooms. I used about 2 cups when I made my dish. Now put the mushrooms aside for a minute. We'll come back to them. Since we are near the sink, fill your pot for the pasta and put it on the stove to boil.

Taking a small to medium zucchini begin to slice it into pieces. I cut my pieces a little thicker because I then cut them into quarters. Once you have finishing cutting, gather your mushrooms and put it all into the saucepan. You are going to let these cook for a few minutes to soften them up. However, keep in mind that there are several other steps in this process, so if you like your veggies more firm than tender you aren't going to want to let them cook for long.

Add 1/2 cup of Chicken Broth. I used the vegetarian variety. Your creation should look something like this:

Find your trusty can opener and open an 8 oz can of plain tomato sauce, then add that to the saucepan. I hope you read my ingredient list at the top and noticed the heavy cream. It really makes a difference. Add 1 cup of heavy cream.

Stir.

Still with me?

By now your pasta water should be boiling or close to. Add your pasta to the water. While your pasta is cooking you are going to let the saucepan simmer, without a lid. You are also going to want to add any of your seasonings at this point. I threw some fresh parsley, pinch of salt, and fresh ground pepper into mine. The following day I thought some red pepper flakes might be nice for some heat. I'll have to try it nice time.

Funny thing... While I was making this dish I realized I didn't have any pasta when it came to the point of adding it to the water. Yeah, silly me. I had to leave everything on the stove and run to the store for pasta. I know, I know.. don't worry I made sure Jon was around to monitor the stove so I didn't burn down the house.

Ok, back to the recipe. Once your pasta is done cooking, drain it. I then just put the pasta into a serving dish and added the sauce over the top. After some quick stirring, ensuring not to break the pasta, it looked like this:

We added some grated parmesan cheese to the top of our servings and enjoyed. voila!

Stay Tuned...

to see what happens.

Felt-tastic!

Recently while perplexed that I did not have what I felt was an appropriate case for my ipod, Jon suggested that I make one. Mind you I had spent several hours searching the ipod aisles at the local target, other gadget stores, the apple store, and even eBay ( shocking, huh?). I found these sock things that you are supposed to put your ipod in. They were ok, and being able to purchase them at the apple knock-off price of $5.00 I thought they would work. Well there was a delay in shipping.. blah blah.

So be it my luck that the day I go to Joann's tired of waiting for these sock things - they show up in the mail. Despite this I still decided to make my own case. This is the 2nd one I made. The first was more of a prototype.

Red Velvet

Freshly made, most delicious cupcakes made by yours truely.

Needle & Pin Productions

For Valentine's Day I have teamed up with my friend Hollee, who owns Emberlily Design to offer designer special gift packages, that include my aprons. Yay!

Aprons, Aprons, Aprons!

Some may know that I have been working on some reproduction vintage aprons and trying to make a business out of it. Well, I gave myself the deadline of having aprons available for sale through Etsy, by February 16th. Now that this deadline has been made public I have to make it happen.

While I was working the other night, Larry decided that my fabric basket was a comfy place to take a nap. I can't really blame her, it did still have some fabric and patterns in it so I imagine it was softer than the floor.

Chili

Yummy!

A few weeks ago I made homemade chili. This is a recipe taken from a chili that Jon's mom makes, but I have made a few changes along the way. There is no actual written recipe just a list of ingredients that I combine to make this delightful dish.

* Kidney Beans
* Chili Beans
* Chili Mix (the hot kind)
* Diced Tomatoes (I prefer the kind with jalapenos in them)
* Stewed Tomatoes
* Tomato Paste
* Tomato Sauce
* Ketchup
* Brown Sugar (This cuts the acidity created by the tomatoes)
* Morning Star Crumbles (This is a vegetarian substitute for 1 lb browned ground beef)
* Cheese
* Sour Cream

I then combine all of these ingredients together, except the cheese and sour cream, in my crockpot. I can then let it simmmer for a couple of hours. We think it's great to serve with breadsticks.

Jon's Birthday

The 11th was Jon's Birthday. As I posted earlier I wasn't able to post any pictures until now due to laptop/camera malfunction. However, Jon was nice enough to download my pictures for me and give me a cd of them.. so here they are!

For Jon's birthday there was no cake, instead I made him homemade butterscotch pudding. The whole time I was making it I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out because I hadn't done it before. I don't think I have ever tasted butterscotch pudding before so I was nervous about that too. In the end though Jon said it turned out good.

Headbands

My cousin Kim and I were talking about making headbands the other day and one of the newer trends we have seen about make them out of thigh high nylons or childrens tights.

However, I recalled that I had read a blog about another way to make headbands. I did a little searching and I found that blog. Which shows an ingenious way of using a hairband to provide a little stretch. That blog can be found here, on Your Heart Out. If you love to support the local SLC businesses - you should definitely check this blog out.

http://www.yourheartout.com/

Birthday and Pecan Pie

Sunday was my Dad's birthday, so I invited my parents over for dinner. I made thanksgiving dinner for us complete with pumpkin and pecan pies. The pecan pie was for my dad - it's his favorite! It was a nice change to have them over and to cook for them.