Me Oh My that Pecan Pie!

I don’t believe I’ve ever met anyone who doesn’t like pecan pie.  Granted, after living in several regions of the US, I’ve heard different versions of the pronunciation of “pecan,” but everyone knows that it refers to the best southern nut you’ll find.  In this house, the perfect pecan pie begins in fall, when the trees drop their nuts.  Then it’s time to get crackin!  The very best nuts, are the fresh ones that fall in your own yard, and are cracked by your own hard work.  They taste unbelievable!

Why can't I get a good picture of this pie, it's actually beautiful!?

Here is my favorite recipe for pecan pie, it’s basic, it’s a classic, and it never fails (to impress!).

Classic Pecan Pie

3 eggs, lightly beaten

1 C sugar

1 C light corn syrup

2 T margarine, melted and cooled

1 t vanilla extract

1 1/2 C pecan halves

1 9-inch unbaked pie shell

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place the beaten eggs, sugar, corn syrup, melted margarine and vanilla in a large mixing bowl and stir until well combined. (I use a whisk) Fold in pecans.

Pour mixture into the pie shell, smoothing out the top and evenly distributing the pecans.

Bake for 50-55 minutes, until pie is a deep nut brown and a knife inserted in the center of the pie comes out clean.

Remove from oven and cool for 30 minutes.

Before baking...

Recipe source: Georgia Pecan Commission.

Basic Pie Crust Recipe

Nothing fancy, but does get the job done.  If you experience trouble rolling when the dough is cold, just warm it for a few seconds in your hands, this helps with the “togetherness.” 

Ingredients:

1 C flour

1/2 t. salt

1/2 C shortening

1/8 C ice water, up to 1/4 C.

In a large bowl, combine the four and salt

Cut in shortening, or use hand mixer.

Stir in water until a ball forms.

Flatten into a disc, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight

Roll out on floured surface

Don’t overwork.

If an egg wash is desired, use

1 egg white, 1 tsp water, whisked together and brushed onto exposed parts of crust.

This is going to go great tonight with the slow-cooked pork ribs, slathered in a homemade BBQ sauce, with thick mashed potatoes, buttered green beans, and quick (maybe cheddar) biscuits on the side!

Prime Pumpkin Bread

At this time of year, pumpkin bread is a definite hit.  Bake a loaf for yourself, and give one to a kind neighbor-it may just make their day.

 

Ingredients:

1/2 C white sugar

1/2 C brown sugar

1/2 C margarine

1 1/2 eggs

8 oz. pure pumpkin puree

1 1/2 C flour

1/2 t each: ground cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg

1/2 t baking soda

1/4 t salt

1/4 t baking powder

1/2 C chopped nuts (pecans)

Grease and flour one 9X5 bread pan

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Beat together sugars and margarine

Add egg, beat

Add spices and salt, mix well

Add flour, baking powder and soda, mix evenly

Pour into loaf pan

Sprinkle chopped nuts on top, pressing into the dough with the palm of your hand

Bake for approximately 55 minutes, but check at 50 minutes

Yields 1 loaf, though easily doubled and freezes well when tightly wrapped.

Good with margarine or with a cream cheese frosting (Hint: add a dash of cinnamon to this frosting for a special topping).  Enjoy!

The Office: Step Two...Chair

This chair went with the desk that came with my mister, so it's been around for quite a while and in pretty good shape too.  I know he's spent many hours on that chair, and finds the grooves comfortable.  Me, I'd put a pad on it.  Well, this chair had been sitting in our office, stripped, for a year, waiting for us to decide on what color stain to aim for, and since that decision was now made, we decided to go ahead and give this chair the treatment. 
Mistake!!
Using the golden oak on this chair turned it red!  I don't mean an understated red, I mean an unmistakable red.  That simply wouldn't do.  So, thinking quickly, we tried to thin it with some paint thinner, but could see that we were putting in a lot of effort and getting uneven results.  It would have to be stripped again.  Joy.  It would probably be a little less unsavory (just a little) if we had a decent hardware store around that sold things like...curved stripping tools.  That not being the case, and hours later on a separate weekend, the chair was again stripped.  This time, however, we opted just for the poly coats.

Here is the finished product, which looks oh so good with my new desk (stay tuned for future parts):

 

I have no idea what kind of wood this chair is made out of, but if I had to guess...golden oak?

 

McCalls M6083

M6083 Misses’ Jumper

Version A, the short one, size 4 (after looking at the finished garment measurements and practicing with a measuring tape moving around my hips).

Yes, there are wrinkles on the legs because I had been driving for a while.

Alterations:

Based on other reviewers (thank you!) I added 2 inches to the front pieces 1 & 2.

And when it was all done, I decided it looked a little off, so I went ahead and bought some trim to make ties and sewed them on.  I really think it looks better this way.

Overall I’m quite pleased with the pattern, it looks cute, and I have plans to make the full length version now.  Well, sometime in the future anyway.  I think if you want a little more poof in the front waist, you'll want to add more than 2".  (Hint: for perspective, I'm 5'5").

McCall's 6568

On my quest for a great pair of kick-around fun pants, I picked up this McCall's pattern 6568 when JoAnn's was having one of their kick-ass 99-cent sales and I finally got around to trying it out.  My goal is to find a pattern I'm really happy with, and then make a covet pair of white pants.  I like the drawstring/elastic waist, as long as it's not too bunchy.  I like a good wide leg, but not a sailor pant (already have sew this in blue).  Pockets are fun, I like pockets, handy for putting things in. 

Well, the long and short of it is, the jury is mostly still out on these...I don't think it's "THE" pattern for the white pants to come.  But, hopefully they will have use around the house anyway.  What do you think?

 

See how awkwardly high the pockets are?  Yeah, I was too lazy to go back and fix that.  If you read my review, you'd understand why...too many alterations on what should have been a quick and easy sew.

Maybe if the legs were a little less tapered at the bottom?

 

 

"Russian" Tea Cakes-My favorite cookie

This is a special day here on the blog.  I’m going to share with you my favorite cookie recipe in the world.  Russian Tea Cakes.  This is a recipe I’ve grown up with, and it always has a place on our Christmas Eve table.  I wish I could claim that it is an old family recipe, brought back from the old country, or even that it was my own stellar invention.  It’s not.  It is actually a recipe by Betty…Betty Crocker that is.  Here is the link to the official site:

http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/russian-tea-cakes/3af8664b-6c3e-4022-b686-cd961521e59b

1 cup butter or margarine, softened

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 1/4 cups Gold Medal® all-purpose flour

3/4 cup finely chopped nuts

1/4 teaspoon salt

Powdered sugar

1 Heat oven to 400ºF.

2 Mix butter, 1/2 cup powdered sugar and the vanilla in large bowl. Stir in flour, nuts and salt until dough holds together.

3 Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place about 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheet.

 

4 Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until set but not brown. Remove from cookie sheet

Here’s where I vary a little bit…

5 Take them off the cookie sheet immediately, and roll them in powdered sugar.  Set aside to cool.

6 When completely cooled, roll again in powdered sugar.

*I use a food processor to grind pecans to a fine chop and they blend into the balls very evenly. 

Otherwise, this recipe is Perfect!

The Office: Step One, Bookcases

Build bookcases.  Have you ever endeavored to do this?  If so, you were ahead of me!  There were many things to consider along the way, but I'm proud to say that my very first venture into sizable furniture making was probably a success:  

First decision, how big?  I liked the look of bookcases with sides that there 12” or so, to make a deeper shelf, so that took care of the width of the side pieces and shelves.  Height?  Oh, heck, 7 feet look good.  And pretty much anywhere we may live in the future would have ceiling space to accommodate that.  And how wide?  Well, not too wide to make them unstable, but not too narrow because I really want them to hold a lot…I settled on 32” long shelves.  More on why later…

Second decision, how to attach shelves?  I didn’t want to see a bunch of nail or screw heads dotting the sides, so I opted for under-the-shelf brackets.  Although I didn’t find much info on how much weight they could bear, I picked one inch brackets for the front (2/shelf) and two inch brackets for the back (2/shelf).  OK, but how many shelves will there be?

Third decision, shelf spacing, and consequently, number?  I thought it might be nice to mix it up with shelves spaced between 14”-12”, and laid out a plan for the bottom 2 shelves to be 14” and the remainder be about 12”, allowing for a 3 ½” base, because I didn’t want the bottom shelf sitting on the floor.  This worked out to be 7 shelves per bookcase.

Forth decision, what wood?  Being budget minded, as I am, here’s what ultimately happened.  I drove an hour to a real lumber yard.   Technically, my mister drove me an hour to the lumber yard as he has a truck.  Yes, yes, I live in a small town with nothing to offer.  Home Depot was a ray of light to me.  And, even better, I could find the wood (and the prices) online from home.  Heck, if I trusted them to be nearly as discerning as I, they would have picked out the wood for me and set it aside, which was not going to happen, of course.  But, they did have a good enough supply of common pine boards, 1”X12”X8’ and X10’ and X12’ as well.  This is where having math skills comes in…

8 feet = 96inches, divided by my shelf length of 32”= exactly 3 shelves could be cut from each 8’ board.  Nice, eh?  More on that later too…

So, since I’m destined to build 2 bookcases, exactly alike, I would need:

4-8 foot boards for the sides

 5-8 foot boards for the shelves

But that would leave me with one shelf extra, and I thought, that would be wasteful, so I complicated things by instead getting:

2-10 foot boards, cut for 2 sides, plus one shelf each

2-8 foot boards, cut for 2 sides

4-8 foot boards, cut in thirds, for three shelves each

Fifth decision, decoration and backing?  Some 7’ (perfect, no cutting) fluted 2-inch wide strips caught our attention, as well as some oblong corner pieces, so the idea was to put the fluted strips up the front sides, and the corner pieces on each of the four corners.  The backing was decided up on by 1)looks, 2)price, 3)thickness.  I settled on subflooring, 1/4" thick with a nice layer of wood pressed onto the top.  These were also cut for us (2 cuts) by the great folk at Home Depot.  They have a very cool machine for this.

I also wanted to have a base and decorative top on these cases, and with my new toy…a jib saw…this was entirely possible.  This would fill in the space between the floor and the bottom shelf (3 ½ inches) and shorten the amount of usable frontage space on the top shelf, where I chose an arc design.  I used scraps from the backing to create these pieces.

Sixth decision, what color to stain them?  With pine, the mister, a very experienced painter formerly, I was advised strongly to use a prestain conditioner, which Minwax was handy with making.  The color…hmmm.  Tough choice.  We wanted to go lighter, much lighter in the office, but I have an aversion to blonde wood.  We settled on Minwax golden pecan, got it home, stirred it up, and quickly saw that this was going to be far, far too dark.  Sneaky…I returned it to Walmart, and exchanged it for our runner up-an even lighter, golden oak.  This was our winner.  Nice, light, but not blonde, just enough gold, but not reddish.  Two coats, went on easy, covered nicely.

Seventh decision, what finish to give them?  After discussion, we decided a semi gloss poly would do.  Also two coats.  Great finish, not too shiny, but enough to give it some durability.  Also by Minwax.

The assembly…

Unfortunately, 4 of my shelf boards were too long, those that were cut off the ends of the 8 foot boards, by about a half inch.  Luckily I was able to correct that with the jig saw.

Once I picked the “good” side of each board, I began by drilling and screwing the brackets into place on the shelves, placing the outer of the bracket edge 1” from the outer edge of the shelf, on the ends, two per end, each shelf. 

Then I drilled and screwed the brackets into one long side of the case, flipped it over (with the shelves almost dangling for a moment) on top of the second side, and drilled and screwed the brackets into this side as well.

*Tip, measure and mark your spaces not with a pen or pencil, but with painters tape to leave no mark.  This is also a good way to determine how tall you want your cases or what shelf spacing you prefer-just use a door frame or wall to get a picture of how it would look.

Flip the case over so that it was face down, and nailed on the backing along each shelf and along the sides.

Flip the case again, laying on its back this time, and applied the struts for the base and top, nailed into the bottom of the bottom shelf and the top shelf.  Remember to stain the top shelf strut, as it will show when you look up. 

Apply the cut sections of the base and the decorative top with wood glue securely along the struts.  Use small nails in the corners (these will be hidden by the fluting) to stabilize.  Glue the facing-those 7’ fluted strips onto the front, using wire nails to secure them every so often.

Glue the corner pieces on.

Wait for glue to cure.

Step back and admire your work!

At least, this is how I did it.  Admittedly, I haven’t put anything in them yet, that will be tomorrow.  Wish me luck!

Fall Jacket

I was in a Walmart somewhere, and found this great brushed brown sort of faux suede fabric, and bought 2 yards with sewing a fall jacket in mind.  I had picked up this pattern months earlier, and together they sat and sat over the hot summer months.  A cold snap in the weather made me break out the pattern and figure it out.  It was too confusing, so I put it aside.  Then I took another crack at it.  And realized that I was a yard short on the fabric needed for the design I wanted to make.  Shoot.  No way to get more of this fabric-it was very near the end of the bolt as it was, where ever it was.  So, that’s when I decided to accent certain pieces, the collar, the cuffs and the pocket flaps with some wide corduroy of green.  I really like brown and green together.  I read the reviews that others had posted on this pattern, picked my size and cut out the many, many pieces.  Sewing it up took me the better part of a week or so, working on it when time permitted.  Here is my end product:

Whoops!  Forgot to fix my collar before setting the timer for this shot!

Other changes I made (other than the contrasting color), were taking the back in by about an inch on both sides of the piece, using snaps instead of buttons (my buttons I had bought were black, and that would have made a third color, and given it a clownish look in my mind), and leaving out the welts.  This last one was a mistake, the instructions for putting them in didn’t seem to be in the sections I was following, so I went back and added them at the end, hand tacking them to the sleeves at the seams.

It was my first attempt at lining anything, and not too big of a deal, really, even with the confusing (at times) directions.  Overall, I didn’t think it was easy to sew, nor was it really difficult either.  My machine choked and threw a fit now and then, to add to the drama.  The biggest bummers about this piece is that the sleeves are still short, although I did pin and try, and I’m not pleased with the bottom seam, it’s lumpy.  I guess these two things make me just “like” my jacket, and that is disappointing after putting so much time and work into it.  I hope it grows on me, it had such potential.  

Next Project: The Office

The idea came to me one day, I think it was in the morning, our "office" slash "spare bedroom" slash "where everything else goes" room is in need of help.  Lots of it.  It's not a room that I really spend time in, or have reason to.  My "office" is all over the place: the dining room table, the living room, the kitchen side counter, all the places that I stash my important stuff, stuff that needs attending to, in places where it shouldn't be.  My computer lives on the table, so it never looks very nice in that area either.  Organization is important to me, don't get me wrong, and I have my method by golly.  It doesn't matter that no one else gets it!  But it does grow tiresome. 

Couple that with the fact that the rest of our rooms seem to have purpose, a healthy theme to them, a great use and togetherness of the pieces in it.  This is all missing from the office.  One day, I voiced my opinion that our bookcases looked so very sad, the mis-matched, sagging, shelves overladen with heavy books and bowing terribly inspired me to say something along the lines of...we should build bookcases!  A set-that matches! 

Well, we really was me, and I got myself into a bit of a pickle in terms of underestimating how much work goes into that sort of thing.  For me, who has never made something that big, from scratch, it would be quite an undertaking.  I realized this when I went to draw up a plan.
How tall?
How wide?
How many shelves?
How deep?
Can you find that wood?  Here?  Within an hour's drive?
How will this be supported?
Who will cut the wood?
And on, and on.

But then, it gets to be an even grander scheme.

You would think I had learned my lesson, after opening my mouth and getting myself into something I knew nothing about, but no, no no.  I go even further.
Wouldn't it be nice if I had my own desk?  In the office?
So the hunt was on for a new desk as well.  When I say "new" I mean new to me, by the way.

A consensus was made on the ideal wood color: lighter.  
Then arose the idea...lets make all of the office furniture that color.
Ladies and gentlemen, get your chemicals ready for a stripping party.  And don't forget the gloves.

Here is a checklist of all the items we agreed to makeover:
The mister's desk
The desk chair
The rocking chair
Frames?

Along with acquiring a desk, which will most likely need to be refinished.

And these bookcases, that I need to build.

Nice, eh?  When am I going to learn to keep my mouth closed?

I'll post on the progress of this office "makeover" endeavor.  For your amusement and mine!