Paper ornaments

We made a few paper ornaments today to hang on our paper tree. I used wrapping paper, but you could use just about anything. The instructions are here at How About Orange.

You do not work alone.

In preparing for today's RS lesson I remembered a General Conference talk by Pres. Eyring from October 2002. The talk is advice to people who are new to their church callings. To me, at that time, I think that it applied more generally as well, to any time that we are doing a good work and the work of the Lord.

He counseled people that God would magnify them in their callings and that they would need it. The part that I particularly remembered was this.

"There will be times when you feel overwhelmed. One of the ways you will be attacked is with the feeling that you are inadequate. Well, you are inadequate to answer the call to represent God with only your own powers. But you have access to more than your natural capacities, and you do not work alone." -President Henry B. Eyring

Knowing that I was not alone in my efforts of the time was incredibly comforting. It still is today.

Christmas candy

Buddy boy wanted to make candy canes today while Baby girl napped. We made a modified version instead. It is red and white and peppermint, but much easier to make.

Cream cheese mints:

4 oz. cream regular or low fat cream cheese, room temperature
1 pound powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract (more or less)
Food coloring (optional)

Mix it all together. Done!

It will probably seem like there is to much sugar, but keep mixing/kneading it in. If the cream cheese is room temperature and softened it will be easier. Add food coloring if desired. I suggest using paste food coloring. If you are using liquid food color use only a small amount.

Roll into a log and slice or do the following for striped candies.
Color about 1/3 of the mints and roll into 4-5 snakes. Make alternating white snakes as well as a center snake.

Put them all together like this...
The green sugar was an unplanned addition that happened as I was getting Baby girl up from her nap.

Roll until you get the the desired thickness.

And slice...

You can also make little shaped mints with mold like these. Much more labor intensive.

The mints are also delicious dipped in chocolate. But this is more than I wanted to tackle today.

Dough

Mother...

Daughter...

pencil subscription

I saw an article on subscription gifts that included one that really caught my eye. Twenty five colored pencils a month for 20 months. That's 500 pencils! I love this idea. During grad school on particularly bad days I would head to the book store art department and buy myself a few Prismacolor pencils. I ended up with a great collection, but not 500. I didn't have much time for artwork during those years, but buying the pencils was cheap therapy and made me remember that it would all be over some day.

P.S. Mom, Christmas? :)

Kid art

The kids have been having a good time with artsy craftsy things. After going through a roll or so of regular tape I got a stack of multi-colored masking tape from the teacher store. It's been a huge hit. We have had spider webs, jungle vines, cage bars, traps, finish lines for races, and snow flakes hanging from the ceiling. It's been a lot of fun but has turned our living room into a bit of an obstacle course.

The next thing was the dot dot art. This is a favorite of Baby girl. You can use the Do A Dot bottles or Bingo bottles like these. The paint is very watery so regular paper warps. The preschool teachers make cut outs from coffee filters. This works much better.

On a recent trip to the library Buddy boy saw a poster for the King Tut exhibit at the de Young museum in SF. He decided he wanted to make a mummy and a mummy case. So we did. We checked out the museum web site to see what we needed to do. Then we used very a very unauthentic Kleenex box for the sarcophagus and a toilet paper tube, tennis ball, and TP for the mummy, with plenty of tape of course. He even colored the face yellow after we looked at pictures from the museum exibit. He asked me to draw the "striped snake hat".

After making the mummy we read Bill and Pete. A cute story about a croc and his toothbrush bird and their trip to the museum in Cairo.

So much fun. You never know what they will come up with next.

My favorite pie

On Thanksgiving pumpkin pie is the undisputed king of desserts. For as much as I love it I also love my grandmother's mincemeat pie. Each year she would serve pumpkin and mincemeat pies, and sometimes a plum pudding, and maybe even a cookie or two. In more recent years my mom continued making the pies including the mincemeat for me and my Aunt Karen. The mincemeat pie is served topped with "Dip" and whipped cream. (The Dip is also the sauce for the Yam'n apples.)

So just in case you needed a little more cooking to do for Thanksgiving this week. Here are a couple of my favorites straight from Grandma A's table.

Recipes:

Mincemeat pie filling

2 Tablespoons frozen orange juice concentrate
1 cup diced pears
1 1/2 large apples, diced
2 cups raisins
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
pinch cloves

Bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes, until apples and pears are cooked, but not overly soft.
Place filling in a raw crust with a raw crust on top and bake at 350 until lightly browned.

Notes: This is actually 1/8 of the recipe my Mom and Grandma used and is about the right amount for a small pie. Large batches of filling can be bottled and saved for later. I like using it on oatmeal in the morning.
The filling can also be used to make filled sugar cookies. Cut sugar cookie dough into circles. Place a spoonful of filling in the center. Fold over and seal edges.

Dip

1/2 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 cup butter
1/2 teaspoon salt

Bring to boil until thickened.

Yam'n apples

I isn't yams and apples. It's Yam'n apples with Yam'n as an adjective to apples. Not a pie, but just in case you were wondering.

Peel and cut apples and yams into approximately 1 inch pieces. Boil separately until tender. Drain, combine, and top with Dip. Bake.

Notes: I'm not sure why you need to bake it since it is all cooked and already hot. It probably helps blend the flavors. The traditional family recipe is to boil the yams but I might try it with roasted yams instead.

Enjoy!

recipes

With the whole foodie craze, recipes can get rather long and complicated. Here is a list of recipes where each one is only a few lines long. While some of the ingredients are things I just don't use (broccoli rabe anyone?). Many sound delicous for fall dinners, not just Thanksgiving day.

image from NY Times

Simple Beauty

I've been reading a biography of Johannes Kepler (Kepler's Witch by James A Conner). I am about 1/3 of the way through since it it a little slow going and I have read a couple of other things in between. But today I read something that I think was worth stopping to think about.

Kepler was trying to discover the unifying order of things in the universe, the theory of everything. A contemporary of Galileo, he stuggled with the same issues. He could see that the earth-centered universe of Aristotle and Ptolemy was overly complicated. To many exceptions had to be developed in order to explain what he observed in the sky. He believed that the way the universe worked and ordered itself was a window in to the mind of God. Because of this he believed that what we find beautiful we will also find to be true.

The Good, the True, and the Beautiful - these are the deep properties of Platos's Ideas, and the yardstick by which Kepler measured the universe. - James A. Conner

When James Watson and Frances Crick were searching for the structure of DNA they knew they were on the right track because it was beautifully simple. It had to be the right one. It was.

The simple, the true, and the beautiful. In truth we find beauty, and in true beauty, simplicity.

More leaves...

From the New York Times and Christoph Niemann. A very fun series. Check here for more punny leaves.