Hershey Kisses Fabric Roses

You've seen these made out of celophane, I like to make them out of fabric scraps!

Hershey Kisses Fabric Roses

We are getting close to Valentine's Day, a holiday represented by roses if there ever was one.

The first Hershey Kisses rose someone gave me was made out of clear celophane. I loved the idea so much I took it home to use as a template to use up some of my fabric scraps. Although with fabric it's not easy to know what is inside, I found an easy way to make that clear.

To make Hershey Kisses fabric roses, you will need:

a 3"x5" fabric piece per flower; select a light or medium weight fabric.

 1 or 2 leaves per flower, either cut out of green fabric or pre-made;

Spray starch;

2 Hershey Kisses per flower;

1 wooden cooking skewer;

Floral tape.

Glue.

I cut out some green leaves out of fabric, which worked well when I ran out of pre-made ones.

To make, glue two Hershey Kisses bottoms together. I like to mix a hug with a kiss or two hugs. Depends on the message you want to send so I will leave what kind of Hershey chocolate you sue up to you.

Insert cooking skewer into one end. 

If you use a light fabric that is green for leaves, you may need to spray with starch and iron to keep the leaf from falling over. 

Place other Hershey Kiss end into center of fabric and wrap fabric around the Hershey chocolate. I add the little Hershey id paper to the outside before wrapping with floral tape so the recipient knows what is inside.

Add a leaf and wrap floral tape around the bottom. Add a gift card and deliver with love!

A bouquet is nice but the single flowers are even nicer, especially if you add a little personal card.

Fun to make and even more fun to give!

Charlotte

Food Jar Pincushion

One way to decorate a food jar, use counted cross stitch top with makers initials for pincushion.

Food Jar Pincushion

Every year, I am blessed with friends who share their homegrown produce in jars. It's a wonderful treat in the middle of a cold winter, and I have a tendency to save them for a special day.

One such jar was pickles. I finally had a friend over for lunch and decided to share the pickles made from a secret family recipe. To my surprise, there was a surprise under the fabric tied over the top of the pickle jar. Here is what I found:

Instructions to tuck under the fabric top of a food jar on how to make the jar into a pincushion.

Talk about recycling, the instructions are how to turn the food jar into a 10-minute pincushion!

Now I recycle jars for a variety of things: to store buttons, seeds, pins, dried coffee grounds for my roses, fresh dried catnip and cat toys getting refreshed - what a great idea for another practical use after enjoying the special treats the jar originally carried.

It doesn't take much fabric, just a 6-inch circle:

A 6-inch fabric round is perfect to transform a pickle jar into a pincushion.

I haven't turned the jar into a pincushion yet, will do that later after the holidays but wanted to share the idea with you now.

Great little gift idea, don't you think?

Charlotte

Make Your Own Ready to Bake Cookie Dough

Chocolate chip cookie dough frozen in wax paper makes handy cookie dough for quick cooking.

Make Your Own Ready to Bake Cookie Dough

When I was growing up, this time of year, we would make icebox cookies, cookie recipes designed to wrap the dough up in wax paper and freeze for quick later use.

Years later, I took my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, wrapped that up in wax paper and voila - after freezing, I could also quickly cut, cook and serve. Well, yes, they should be cooled but when one has a chocolate chip cookie emergency, there is very little to no rack cooling time.

I have also tested this with some other favorite cookie doughs and they all worked well, too so if you need to make dough ahead of time for cookie baking, this is a good option.

One more tip: if you just need a few cookies ready, bake in an electric toaster oven.

Another important tool for emergency cookie baking, a little toaster oven.

Keep an eye on the toaster oven the first time you bake cookies to make sure you get the right amount of time and temperature.

When finished, cookies look just like they came out of the oven.

A rare sight, chocolate chip cookies cooling on a cookie rack.

Cookies are part of our family holiday tradition so anything that makes the process easier so we can keep the tradition is a great addition!

Charlotte

Watermelon Juice, a Toast to Rio

Watermelon Juice, an Ode to Rio

They were everywhere when I worked at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I suspect they are also keeping athletes and their families company during the 2016 Summer Olympics.

In 1992, I was the media advisor to the US Delegation to the United Nations’ conference, the first time all countries in the world had come together to try to agree on how to deal with our rapidly changing climate and related issues. It was a highly politically-charged environment. Soldiers lined the sidewalks to our hotel and conference center, and at one point I was wearing 18 access identification badges.

One of my favorite scenes from the Earth Summit in Rio, Amazon Indians seeing computers.

During our time off, a few of us visited some of the nearby fresh markets, especially on the weekend, and ran into vendors with carts loaded with watermelons. They would cut them up, juice, add ice and hand over a cold glass of summer.

I grew up some 180 kilometers north of Rio, on an island literally off the Atlantic Coast. I have very fond memories of monkeys in our backyard. now extinct; chasing lobsters at the beach across the street, and teaching parrots to sing. Don't be too impressed, it would have helped if I could have carried a tune myself.

Amidst those wonderful recollections are not ones of a love affair with watermelon juice. Not that it should be any surprise someone came up with a way to profit from this special treat, who hasn't had to change clothes after eating an especially-delicious piece of juicy watermelon?

I make my own juice but thought I would double-check recipes online in case I was missing some secret ingredient. Here’s the recipe I found on a Brazilian site:

How to Make Watermelon Juice

·       Cut the watermelon into wedges and remove the flesh from the green skin.

·       Cut it into small pieces, removing as many seeds as you can or better yet, buy a seedless watermelon to start.

·       Put the watermelon chunks in the refrigerator until it is very cold.  

·       Blend the watermelon chunks to a liquid.

·       You can either add sugar or honey to make it sweeter.

·       Pass the juice through a not fine sieve into a pitcher.

·       Add ice cubes and serve immediately. 

Charlotte’s Way of Making Watermelon Juice

(you didn’t think I would follow a recipe, did you??)

One of the ways we used to test watermelons for ripeness was cutting a triangle in the side.

·       Pick out a nicely-ripe seedless watermelon. Now I do remember how my parents would select a ripe watermelon. The vendor would cut a little triangle in the side so they could check the fruit ripeness. Those days are gone, I'm told farmer's markets rules today don't allow for open fruit.

·        Place in refrigerator to cool.

Watermelon balls made with a melon baller come in handy as  a quick desert.

       Cut in half. Using a melon baller, remove the inside of the watermelon with a melon baller and place watermelon balls in container. The nice thing about watermelon balls is that they are convenient to easily make watermelon juice. They can also be used for a quick desert or a refreshing treat on a hot summer day. Less mess, too!

Watermelon juicing requires these utensils and a blender if you need more than a couple of cups.

·       Pour watermelon juice out of container through a strainer. This is important if you really just want the juice without watermelon chunks.

If you've collected most of the juice, there should be enough for a couple 8 ounce cups of juice without dragging out the blender.

Any available strainer will work to remove chunks of watermelon from the juice.

·       Drink. Yumm!

Actually after straining, I added a watermelon ball to my glass. Go figure!

·       To make more, blend watermelon balls in a blender. Pour through sieve.

·       Add ice. Serve immediately.

·       If you want to experiment, add a little ginger, a sprig of spearmint or a splash of lime to a serving.

·       If you decide to store for later use, know the juice separates so you will need to mix together again before serving.

Muito bom! (That's Portuguese for very good.)

Charlotte

Freezing Blueberries

Freezing blueberries individually makes them easier to serve later.

June is blueberry-picking time in Missouri. There are several pick your own farms around where I live so anyone visiting me during these weeks can count on a trip to pick some.

Although some silly people - like one of my brothers who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty - worry about only picking what they can immediately eat, I don't believe there is such a thing as too many blueberries. What we don't eat fresh I freeze for enjoyment later, especially in the middle of winter.

Find the Right Container

I have several trays that fit my little door freezer so find one that works well with your freezer. A cookie sheet with raised sides will work, or even a pie or cake tin.

This is something that little hands can help you do so invite kids into the kitchen with you. Don't count the blueberries, some may inadvertently disappear in the process. 

After washing and drying the blueberries, spread them into a single layer on the tray and place in freezer until frozen for several hours.

Once frozen, store in a freezer bag for easy individual berry retrieval later. Having the berries frozen like this makes it easier to grab a handful for cereal or to spread in a salad.

Works With Other Fruit

This applies to almost anything else you want to freeze. Once you get the system down, it will be easy to preserve extra fresh fruit for enjoyment during the off season.

Charlotte

Baklava Revisited

Alex Pizza baklava topped with Greek Farms, Rolla, Mo. honey but there's more to serving this. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

One of the perks of hosting monthly beekeeping meetings is that people bring in goodies to share. One delicious offering comes from Mike Samaras with Alex's Pizza, Rolla, Mo., one of our beekeeping students.

Now I have enjoyed homemade baklava off and on over the years but it's not a dessert I have seen mentioned how to best serve in Missouri cookbooks.  

Mike said the best way to enjoy this delicious pile of filo dough layers filled with chopped nuts is to drizzle honey over the top. Already rich to my taste, adding honey seemed unnecessary but I tried it. It was delicious.

Then Mike said and the other part of how to serve this desert is to add a sprinkling of cinnamon.

A piece of Alex Pizza bahklava served drizzled with honey and a sprinkling of cinnamon. Yumm!

I took a piece of baklava home, added a drizzle of my own honey and sprinkled with cinnamon. The cinnamon helped cut some of the richness and gave the combination a more subtle taste. Still wonderful and rich.

Thanks for the tip, and the delicious baklava, Mike!

Charlotte

Cooking Orange Daylilies

Several ways I enjoy eating, and serving, Missouri's orange "ditch" lilies.

All Daylily Parts Are Edible

Jan Phillips in her book "Wild Edibles of Missouri" calls orange daylilies "another one of mother nature's grocery stores." Phillips says the whole plant is edible, from the young flower stalks in spring that taste like asparagus to the tiny, white root bulbs reminiscent of radishes.

Different Ways to Eat Daylilies

Over the years, I have used orange and yellow daylilies for salads and stuffed fare. Salmon and tuna salad inside the washed flowers with stamens removed are a lovely presentation, and the entire dish is edible. 

I also like the flower buds fresh. They are a nice addition to a salad or served on their own as a side dish. Remove the green stems before adding to a dish. They taste like green beans with a hint of onion.

Another way to enjoy the buds is to steam them. It only takes a couple of minutes to make the buds wilt so keep a close eye on them so they are not overcooked.

Wash in cool water, then allow to dry. When I wash mine, I keep them on their stems in a flower vase with water until I use them. The flowers only last a day so pick them right before you plan to use.

Make Sure Chemical Free

If you are going to eat daylilies, make sure you are picking them from a chemical-free area.

 Charlotte

Cherry Pie Taste Test

One of the many things I enjoy about the holidays is taste-testing dishes. At a community lunch December 2015, we were offered two choices: a regular cherry pie and a sugar free cherry pie.

As a fan of cherries of all kinds, my friend Ina and I decided to run an ever-not-so-scientific study to determine if there was a difference in the taste of the pies. Maybe they used an artificial sweetener, we surmised. Perhaps the filing had honey, or they used different cherries. There was no end to our speculation of what the difference was in these two delectable desserts.

Here were our two test subjects:

We tested these two cherry pies: sugar free on the left, regular cherry pie on the right.

Once we had fork in hand, we analyzed the most controversial part of a pie, the crust. It was flaky without being dry. Excellent start.

Next bite, one from the sugar free cherry pie.

SUGAR FREE CHERRY PIE BEING Taste tested against a regular cherry pie.

regular cherry pie with a sugar topping as the second taste test subject.

Any guess of what we found?

The cherry pie fillings were the same. The only difference between the two cherry pies was that the regular cherry pie had an egg wash and sugar sprinkled on top and the sugar free cherry pie did not.

Did I miss the sugar topping?

Absolutely not. Actually I preferred the cherry pie without the sweet topping. Good thing since that was the slice of pie I chose to finish!

Charlotte

A Thanksgiving Toast!

"May your stuffing be tasty

   May your turkey plump,

   May your potatoes and gravy

   Have nary a lump.

   May your yams be delicious

   And your pies take the prize,

   And may your Thanksgiving dinner

   Stay off your thighs!"

~Grandpa Jones

Pine Cone Place Cards

It's easy to think of winter as a boring time in the garden. If you can still take walks, winter is a good time to collect a variety of seeds to dry for later use.

I keep a couple of baskets, and now a little glass bowl, where I can easily toss in pine cones and other large seed pods. I started by focusing on finding large, and unusual, pine cones, then graduated to other seed pods, such as gum balls.

Last fall, I found a little stash of tiny pine cones and started to collect them.

One evening, as I was setting the table for beekeeping friends, I unveiled our new beekeeping club business cards as place cards. And guess what came in quite handy as little place card holders!

These could be spray painted for a more formal look but I think they are perfect size for a nature-themed table for weddings, anniversaries, birthdays - or beekeeping club dinner meetings!

Charlotte

Valentine Good Luck Wish

We grew up having dinners where we would all want the chicken breast bone to make a wish.

Not sure where the tradition started, and not sure it continues today but in these charming, sunny vintage Valentine post cards, the wish bone is tied to two hearts as part of the Valentine greeting.

Doesn't it look like the little boy stepped out of the Valentine on the left to toss the arrow at the hearts with the wish bone tied to it on the right?

So, will you be mine?

Charlotte

Edible Daylilies

Not only are they beautiful but the whole daylily is edible, from it's tuberous roots to stem, buds and lovely flowers that only lasts a day.

In Missouri, the orange flowers brought to North America by the first colonists are know as "ditch lilies" because they've naturalized along Missouri's road sides. I happen to love these flowers; they've helped stabilize soil on my hillside and added long-lasting beauty to my garden, and my dishes.

To use, remove the stamen; wash, then dry on paper towels or clean dish towels.

Add a daylily flower to a salad, either whole or in pieces. Make sure you're picking flowers from an area that hasn't been treated with pesticides. Although these are common daylilies, all daylilies are edible.

Charlotte

Holiday Scrambled Eggs

I first made this recipe one holiday when we had more hungry visitors than I had eggs.

Using 4 eggs, this will make 6 servings.

1 cut up medium size yellow onion

1 cut up green pepper

4 eggs

1/4 cup milk

You can also add fresh mushrooms to taste. Add "squish" of extra virgin olive oil to saucepan. Cook onions over medium heat until you have edges scorched but not burned. The high heat will add flavor to the onions so you don't have to add salt. Add cut-up green peppers and stir until soft. If you have mushrooms, add them now until they turn brown. Mix milk into 4 broken-open eggs. You can beat them now or after you add mixture to saucepan. Cook until eggs are done. Salt to taste.

Papaya, Please!

Do you walk by papayas because you don't know how to fix them?

Papayas are South America's version of a cantelope. I grew up with papayas and with a little trick, you will have a delicious fruit dish for breakfast, or any meal.

Cut, peel and core papayas. Keep dish towels handy because they can be juicy. Toss in 1/2-1 cup of lime juice and allow to marinate overnight in refrigerator. Serve.

If you have any left-over, toss to cover with lime juice again and store in refrigerator. I added my last leaf of homegrown spinach to this serving.

Charlotte

How to Keep Track of Garlic

Not that garlic is all that hard to track but, in my garden, where I sometimes mix vegetables with flowers, it's good to have a system.

I was given 7 different kinds of garlic to plant this year. To keep track of what and where I planted them, I sunk old plastic flower pots and planted the garlic in them.

I also made stakes from popsicle sticks to keep track of varieties but Cousin George the raccoon had other plans for those sticks.

I'm only sure now of where the elephant garlic is blooming. With the help of pots, I can at least find the other garlics.

Humm, looks like a mole hole next to that pot...

Charlotte

Radish Roses

One of the simplest, and ooh-ed over garnishes I have made are radish roses.

With a little practice, you will quickly be able to cut a radish in half with a circle of triangles that form the flower petals.

You can change the look of the flowers by changing what you plop in the center - here I have a little mayo to balance the radish taste. Favorite salad dressings, dried raisins and mayo/mustard are all other good choices.

Charlotte

How to Quickly Dress Up A Muffin!

When I was helping to raise 8 stepchildren and their related siblings, my cupcake pans came to the rescue. When I was stuck, I would go to my cupcake pans baking everything from meatloaf to muffins. One morning, when one of the kids told me they needed something sweet for a school function, all I had was a blueberry muffin mix. After getting the mix in the pans, I tossed brown sugar on top. I had seen similar streusel toppings but there was no internet "in those days" and I only had 15 minutes to get these baked and out the door. Once baked, the sugar gave the muffins a little brown finish and automatic icing.

Whew!

Sweet Nutty Treat

Sometimes you want something sweet to end your meal  and these nutty treats are easy, and fun, to make.

Using mini-vanilla wafers, add a dab of melted chocolate to the bottom. Attach a Hershey kiss.

Once dry, use a toothpick to dab a tiny stem on the top.

Takes 5 minutes from start to finish and adds charm to any dish as a sweet, desert garnish.

Acorns, any one?

Charlotte

How to Refresh Asparagus

Fresh asparagus is delicious as long as the spears don't get tough.

To make sure I am serving the freshest part of the spears, I pop off the bottom of the stem with my hands. By applying gentle pressure, the less fresh part will easily break off.

Wash in cold water; pat dry with a clean dish towel. Then prepare in your favorite recipe. With the hard ends broken off, the asparagus will taste fresh-picked.

Charlotte

How to Refresh Asparagus

Fresh asparagus is delicious as long as the spears don't get tough. Keep asparagus fresh by breaking off the ends. Don't use a knife or kitchen scissors. Hold the spear in one hand and gently bend the non-spear end until it breaks. The break will happen naturally and leave asparagus spears as tender as when they were picked.