This Week's Projects

This week is the terrible weather marathon. From snow to wind to freezing rain to ice to very cold temperatures, we have had it all. The Dirty Hoe went ahead and called the week early on because the it is just pretty much unworkable. I have been indoors more this week than I probably have in all the time combined (excluding sleeping time) since about March. I've been passing the days with moderate levels of industriousness, and it's been moderately fun to engage in these winter activites... Enjoy the show and tell:

#1 "Swedish Jam Shortbread": Jenna and I made 3 batches to share- it is insanely delicious and addictive and keeps for quite a while.



"Swedish Jam Shortbread" Recipe:
Mix together: 1 Butter recipe cake mix
1 egg
1/2 cups chopped pecans or walnuts
1/3 cup soft butter
Press that mixture into a greased and floured 9x13 pan
Spread jam of your choice over the mixture- my favorites are apricot and strawberry.
Bake at 350 for 25-35 minutes.
Cool and then glaze with:
1/2 cup 10x powdered sugar
2 1/2 tsp milk
1/2 tsp almond extract

Let set. Cut into small squares and serve with holiday breakfast or as a sweet snack.

#2 Multi media Christmas cards: I did the background watercolor and Jenna did the collaging on the foreground. I thought they turned out great...





# 3 Rag rug, pound cakes and linden blossom mead: The rag rug is an ongoing winter project. I plan to keep expanding it as long as I can keep coming up with fabric that loosely coordinates with my projected color scheme of my future house interior, which is the colors of the luna moth (put that in your pipe and smoke it.)
The pound cakes are some Christmas baking.
The linden mead is something Sally and I made this past summer. Check out the most bodacious labels made for me by Heidi in Deutsch. Bottling the mead was a somewhat involved process. First I had to soak the collected wine bottles in hot water and soap so that I could then scrub off their original labels. Then I ran the bottles through the commercial dishwasher at the Mountain Magnolia to sterilize them. Next I siphoned the mead from the fermentation vessels into each bottle. I learned years ago that you cannot bottle wine and then go to work- siphoning the wine by sucking the tube (which is my technique) inevitably involves swallowing substantial amounts of wine in the process. Once at the garage apartment I got up early in the morning and starting working on my Things to Do list before leaving for work. First on the list was to bottle some homemade wine. I started sucking the siphon and bottling several kinds of wine. Before I knew it I was stumbling drunk and it was about 7:30 in the morning. I had to sober up before I could go to work at about 11:00! At least my schedule was flexible that day.
Anyways, after I bottled the mead I went down to Kinkos and made some labels (via color copies and laminate label paper). It was an ordeal, but I am tickled pink with the way the labels turned out. Thank you Heidi!




Maybe tomorrow I can get out for a walk or something.