announcement:

i was completely uninspired by the camp theme.

i tried, i really did. but i sucked it up Big Time. also, can we negotiate an every OTHER week theme? i don't have that much time for crafting. :(

sad story.

kittens and sunshine,
j.me

beets are scary and lino is bliss

Kitchen Ninja is on a mission. While, actually, Kitchen Ninja has many missions. I believe I can become excited and passionate when it comes to just about anything. It's an affliction.

This current mission was one of block printing. I needed a handmade way to reproduce a logo, and I didn't want it to look flawless in ANY way. I quite like the buy local one, partially because the text in it is a bit dodge.

And then we have BEETS. I must have subconciously known that there was an alarming side effect to eating straight-up beets for dinner, but 8 hours later, I was mildly alarmed nonetheless.

Eat 6 beets and there are consequences my friends.

But first, my recipe for:

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Eat 'Em Beets

6 fresh beets, scrubbed, not peeled and halved

kosher salt

pink peppercorns

balsamic vinegar

olive oil

you'll also need a muffin pan and some foil.

1. roll halved beets in olive oil, then season with salt and pepper.

2. foil the muffin pan and place each 1/2 into it's own muffin section.

3. bake at 350 degrees for 20 mins.

4. test to see if they're done, if so, cube or slice, then drizzle with balsamic vinegar.

They're good with a bit of goat cheese if you have it, or cold as a beet salad.

The theme this week is camp, and I will post my camp project as soon as I get to a sewing machine. but, there'll be a template! Yay! Templates!

Also, this post could be sort of "Camp" if you imagine Bette Midler or a Drag Queen reading the title of the recipe.

but really, as Susan Sontag once put it,
“ You can't do camp on purpose."

Ugly Cake, the Making of

Happy New Year ('s eve)!

Jams and Maggs are together and pissed at Tams! (Okay, not really. But she did steal our New Year's Ugly Cake idea...or just got to it first. Whatever).

So, to one-up the Kitchen Ninja, here's a much BETTER Ugly Cake (cuz you don't have to eat somebody's face to enjoy it). And also: a tutorial. Whee!

Step One: Make a cake. Any cake. Ugly Cake is not picky. We chose devil's food. (Maggs says: "Please enjoy my Gramma's antique mixing bowls and my lack of counter space").

Step Two: Gather your decorative toppings. Since we are not as ambitious as the Kitchen Ninja, we purchased our icing. Buttercream. Yum. Usually, we use decorator's icing to make freehand drizzle, but as we were feeling particularly lazy, we went for the candy topping: Milk Duds. The Reese's were for eating. They just wanted to be in the picture. Reese's are such attention whores.

Step Three: Turn cake(s) out of their baking pans. Usually, with cake baking, presentation is key. However, the key to a successful Ugly Cake is impatience. It's best not to wait until the cake is completely cool before inverting. Tonight, we were lucky and the cake came free of the pan without incident. Usually, it breaks into a million different-sized chunks ("all the better to build with," says Maggs), but since both cakes came out of their pans quite easily, we went for a traditional two-tiered structure rather than a more creative approach. If your cake falls into a million pieces, don't fret. Simply paste the chunks together in whatever formation you desire. Icing is the glue of the cake world. It can hide a multitude of sins.

Step Four: Ice that thing! Again, impatience pays off. It's best to ice the cake while it is still warm, so you can experience the frustration of icing slippage and runoff. This will also ensure that your candy topping won't completely adhere to the icing's surface.

(Okay...I guess the icing doesn't cover all sins).

Step Five: Decorate with your choice of toppings. The Milk Duds give it an unexpected chewy texture. We couldn't decide if that was a good thing or not...a tasty thing, yes. But not necessarily good.

(Topping slippage: an unexpected delight).

Step Six: Enjoy the finished product. Remember: the more bizarre the shape, the more fun it is to cut!

We hope this tutorial was a helpful one. Remember: if you are trying to make a cake, but are too impatient to do it properly, make an Ugly Cake. Just be sure to tell everyone you did it on purpose, or else they'll just think you're inept.

Jams & Maggs out!

Happy New Year!

christmas scarf!

guess which ninja finally dropped her camera one time too many!

that's right...this ninja. so my photos will be poor until i can talk myself into spending the money to replace it. i can literally pull the top off of the thing and hear stuff jingling around inside, so i can't avoid buying a new one anymore.

until then, here are the two photos of the scarf i made for fellow ninja megan for christmas: it's a long piece of jersey with a peacock feather embroidered at the end. simple, but i love it [and i hope she does, too].





i tried to draw my own peacock feather pattern, but was disappointed in everything i ended up with. urban thread's patterns were on sale, so i purchased this one. most of their simple patterns [all of which are adorable] are a dollar for the hand embroidery version. and, best of all, they keep stored the patterns you've purchased in the past so you can access them on the website with your sign in, instead of having to save them to your computer and hope you don't lose them.

*update with better photos from my new camera!*

foreshadowing:

i hate working with jersey. i've sewn...oh, three things now, in my entire life, and this - the fourth, which you'll see at a later date, i tried to do with jersey.

stupid jamie.