Intentional Weekend: Christmas Crafting

Mike was home for awhile yesterday. I gave him a crinkly rotary cutter and a yard of Kate Spain fabric and asked him to cut circles. And hour later, he commented out of the blue that he was in a very good mood. I quietly suggested that there is something to the idea that crafting is therapy. 

I don't look at this list of possiblities as a "to-do" list a busy whirl of a season. I look at it as pockets of quiet creative oasis. Maybe something here catches your fancy. A litle homemade Christmas is good for the receiver ...and the giver.

Happy creating.

Healing Salve (or hair gel, depending on how you use it)

Lemon Sugar Hand Scrub

Lavender Sugar Scrub

Peppermint Foot Scrub (super easy. smells great. Include coupons for home-spa pedicures and foot massages.)

 

Homemade Vanilla Bean Extract

Christmas Jam (this is beautiful and really yummy)

Cinnamon Honey Buttter (love things to put in adorable jars)

Oatmeal Cinnamon Bread Kit in a Cute Jar

Pretzel Dots (Use Christmas M&Ms, but you already knew that)

Crazy Good Kiss Cookies

Mason Jar Meals (for a mom who is newly pregnant or about to deliver or postpartum or otherwise way too tired for this busy season)

Infused sugar

Felt Garland

"Polaroid" Ornament

A Happy Place for Christmas Scraps

Scrappy Covered Journals

Cozy Heatable Therapy Bags (I think I'm going to mix in some lavender)

Amazing Nature Journals

Scripture Bookmarks

Homemade Beeswax Crayons 

Beautiful Bookpage Luminaria

Darling Repurposed Denim Do-It-All Bins

Tea Wreath for the Kitchen (I need this) 

Let's Make Pepperoni Rolls

Begin with 1 lb frozen bread dough, thawed  OR 1 pound homemade dough. If you make homemade dough, you need to knead. Then, 

On a lightly floured counter with a lightly floured rolling pin, roll the dough into a 16X10 inch rectangle.

Blend 3 beaten eggs with 1 1/2 cups grated or shredded romano or parmesan cheese.

Spread the egg and cheese mixture over the rolled out dough

Cover the egg and cheese with about 4 ounces pepperoni slices.

Top with 4 ounces Provolone slices.

Roll tightly, lengthwise.

Bake on a lightly greased cookie sheet at 350 for 35-45 minutes.

Pair it with a football game.

::Oh, and if anyone out there takes this recipe and adapts it to a gluten-free version, please do share. These smell amazing and are very hard for me to resist::

Super Cute Cupcakes

Bake cupcakes as usual and make a batch of frosting of your choice.

Cut mini marshmallows on the diagonal

Dip the cut side of the marshmallow pieces into colored sugar

Frost one cooled cupcake (I frost and decorate one at a time so that the frosting is soft)

Carefully arrange the dipped pieces on the frosting to make petals

Fill the whole top with petals or leave a little circle to sprinkle the center with little pearls or jimmies or other sprinkles of your choice. or Ballerinas. Ballerinas are always good.

Intentional Weekend: Hearth and Hands

Good morning! I made homemade pumpkin spice coffee this morning (no sugar, organic pumpkin from my carefully guarded stash). Yum. I have lovely strips of Terrain squares waiting to be gathered into a tiered skirt for Katie. And there's a crisp, new stack of Ruby charm squares to be transformed into a similar twirly autumn skirt for Karoline. My basil is lush and full and green and ready to be harvested and loved into pesto for the freezer. I bought butternut squash at the Farmer's Market this morning, destined to  become stuffed squash for dinner tonight. And tomorrow, there are apples (after the first three soccer games of the weekend and before the second two).  Picking is good. I'm unplugging just as soon as I click "publish." I leave you this morning with a family recipe. Perhaps you, too, have some very bushy basil?

I pray your weekend will be blessed with the abundance of late summer becoming early fall. 

Here's our favorite family pesto:

2 1/2 cups fresh basil, washed and patted dry

1/2 cups walnuts or pine nuts or almonds (I let my budget dictate)

4 good sized garlic cloves, peeled and pressed

1/2 cup olive oil

1 pound angel hair pasta (reserve 2 cups of the cooking water)

1/2 cup romano cheese, grated

[secret ingredient: 2 ounces of cream cheese]

Chop the basil, add nuts and process together in the food processor. Combine the olive oil and the garlic and heat on the stove until it just sizzles . Remove from the heat immediately. Heating the  garlic takes away the bitterness--it's an extra step but my husband appreciates it. Blend basil mixture with the oil mixture.

{{At this point, you can spoon it into cute little glass jars or zipper freezer bags and freeze it until you want to add a taste of summer to your winter meals.}}

Cook the pasta.

Now, for Aunt Lisette's secret trick: While the pasta is cooking, blend the cream cheese into the pesto mixture.

Pull off 2 cups of the pasta water before you drain the pasta and add it to the pesto. Drain the pasta. Toss the pasta with sauce and cheese.

For a variation, blend some sundried tomatoes into the sauces while it's still in the food processor.

Kitchen Reprise

Once I told someone that if this homeschooling mom gig didn't work out, I'd love to have a cooking show. I like to cook. I like the art and the science of making food taste good and look beautiful. I like messing with presentation. I like to put plates in front of my family that make them slow down and savor the moment. Maybe it's genetic. I come from a long line of Italian cooks who respect the beautiful  .

She scoffed. Scoffed! She actually said that food was just something to make, eat, and clear out of the way. She said she couldn't be bothered with thinking too much about it. She had a family to feed and it was sinful somehow to give food more than its utilitarian thought.

I gulped. Didn't talk to her about food again.

Last year, I relinquished my inner foodie. First, I acknowledged that it didn't play well with all-day-long morning sickness. Then, it didn't hold up to the admonition not to be on my feet more than necessary. Then, it died altogether when I was banished from the kitchen and sent upstairs for 6 weeks of bedrest. After the baby was born, I couldn't really multi-task the premature baby nurturing and tasks that required--well--my hands.

We didn't starve. Remember, the foodie thing is genetic. Almost all of my children appear to have inherited the gene. The jury is still out on the one who puts hot sauce on everything. They COOK, these kids. And they care about presentation. The eight-year-old is particularly fond of finding just the right garnish. 

Now, though, I'm back in the kitchen. I choose menus that are a bit more involved than I probably should. I stand at the counter and do quite a bit of peeling and chopping. I am certain to make a mess as I go. I can almost hear my utilitarian commenter clicking her tongue and telling me that there is no place for creativity in the kitchen, that it's a waste of time and energy. No matter. I find loving, thoughtful creativity has much the same effect in the kitchen as it does in the schoolroom. joy in the beautiful process is contagious and it draws us all in.

I'm not in the kitchen alone. Ever. The creative process and the creative product draw my children to me. They want to help. They see the joy that cooking brings and the want to be a part of it. And there we are, busy creating, when something else happens. They start to talk. Big ones. Little ones. They instinctively know that that recipe with all those steps will hold me here in this sunny yellow room. I will not leave. I will not turn away. I will listen. And they can be assured that I will hear the subtle seasoning in their stories. I will be attuned to the questions they hope to be asked. I will the mom in the apron who knows that it's not about the white sauce at all. It's about the inevitable conversation that happens around good food. It happens at the table, of course. We eat as a family and never are at a loss for words. But the intimate conversation, the sharing of hearts, happens over nearly-bubbling milk, whisk in hand.

I take the time to consider food. To consider cost. To consider skills. To consider time. To consider cleanup. And I decide again and again to choose the thoughtful, creative approach. Because, really, there are so many ways our children need to be nourished. Food is just the beginning.

~from the archives because I'm thinking these thoughts again today.