Jello Aquariums

I watch my friend's daughter on Fridays. She is three months younger than Mya and they get along as best as any two-year-olds can get along—That means many squabbles over toys, pushing and grabbing yet they enjoy being around each other. But when I have something to occupy their time, they seem to be a little more calm during the day.

One day, I decided to have them help me make Jello Aquariums. It may not be the healthiest thing to serve a kid but it sure is fun to make (and there's fruit in there). Here are the following supplies and ingredients:

6 clear plastic cups
Canned Fruit Cocktail, strained
Blue Jello
Gummi Fish

Following the instructions on the Jello box, I started to boil 4 cups of water. I gave each girl a spoon and had them partially fill all 6 cups, one at a time, with the fruit cocktail. This will be the "gravel" of the aquarium.

The girls then took turns pouring the package of Jello into a bowl. I added the water to the bowl and they took turns mixing. Of course, I finished the mixing to make sure the gelatin has dissolved.


I let the girls play as I partially filled the cups with the Jello mixture - up to the level of the fruit cocktail. The cups were then placed in the freezer. This will anchor the fruits to the bottom (I learned this the hard way). You can also place it in the fridge, but I only had a few hours before the girls could enjoy their creations.

After a quick freeze (about 20 minutes), the fruit/Jello mixture was solid enough to add the remaining Jello to the cups. I placed it in the fridge for about 45 minutes until partially set.

Once the Jello is partially set, the gummi fish were added to the cups and then placed in the fridge to fully set.



The end result is a fun Jello aquarium that my friend's daughter can take home (and that we can portion for ourselves).

You can also make a bigger aquarium using the same technique. I used the fruit snack fishes which didn't hold up well in the Jello - the coloring came off of the fishes but it was still edible. I think the gummi fish or swedish fish would work out better.

Reviving a tired dress

I was on the board of a charity event that I attended a few weeks ago and as usual, I struggled over what to wear. I have a few semi-formal dresses that I bought pre-baby. I never liked the way they fit before I had my daughter. Even now, they just don't fit right.

I have this sparkly asymmetrical dress I bought 3 or 4 years ago at Macy's. I'm 4'11" so any dress that goes below the knees make me look even shorter. This dress started at my knees and went down to my calf. I was tired of wearing long dresses and couldn't find any short dresses that weren't "hoochie" so this dress was a compromise between the two. I never felt that it looked good on me even though it was comfortable. This photo was taken on our Eastern Caribbean cruise this past January it's why I'm tipping to one side - the boat was really rocking.

I finally decided it was time to put my sewing machine to good use and shorten the dress. The DAY OF the event, I put my dress on, stood on a step ladder in front of a bathroom mirror and pinned where I thought I should cut it. My initial intent was to just make it one length and hem the bottom.

I put my daughter down for a nap, quickly measured and pinned my cut lines on the dress (my chalk pencil was too hard for this dress) and started cutting away. It was quite easy - I probably chopped off nine inches. I tried the dress on and lo and behold - it's too short! Duh, I forgot to add an extra 1-1/2 inch to the cut line to make room for the hem. That's what I get for trying to rush through a project during Mya's nap time. The material is not the type where you can make a rolled hem so that was out of the question. So I decided it needed something more.

Once my husband got home from his errands, I quickly headed over to JoAnn's Fabric store for some fringe. I couldn't find the right thickness of fringe but I found one with the right length. The fringe was a little light but it's all I could get. $8 later (I bought a new ripper, too), I'm home pinning the fringe to my dress.

My daughter woke up from her nap and watched as I started sewing the fringe to the dress. It was a painless procedure and I only made a mistake in a one inch area where it didn't attach to the dress. It was a quick fix and the whole sewing part probably took less than 10 minutes. I tried it on and was satisfied. It was okay for a 2 hour project - most of it was waiting time for my husband to get home and traveling/shopping time to and from the fabric store.

I got many compliments on the dress at the fundraiser and I felt good in it. I had quite a story to tell whenever someone asked me about it. Unfortunately, all photos taken of me during that evening had me from the waist up.

The final product...

Jay, Conan and Dessert

My husband and I are attending a dinner tomorrow/today we are requested to bring dessert. I usually make desserts after my daughter has gone to sleep for the night so that I can have the kitchen to myself. So I usually end up watching (although it's more like listening to) Jay Leno and Conan while I make my dessert. It's quite relaxing.

The dessert we are bringing is a berry tart made in individual servings.

Yes, it's a PITA sometimes to make individual servings but I like them for the following reasons:

1. Each person can have their own piece without feeling ripped off because they had to scrape the pie pan for a serving.
2. Sometimes after eating a large meal, you only want a bite of dessert
   
3. They're cute

This recipe was adapted from a three berry tart recipe from one of those booklets you find at the checkout line. My version uses a pastry crust (a pate brisee) instead of an animal cracker crust just because a cookie/graham cracker crust would crumble in someone's hand.

This recipe for Pate Brisee is so simple and the crust comes out nice and flaky.



Pate Brisee (Shortcrust Pastry)
Makes 2 9-inch pie shells or 24-36 mini tarts

Ingredients:
2-1/2 cups of all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) of unsalted butter cut into cubes and chilled
1/4 to 1/2 cup of ice water

Tools:
Rolling pin
Mini cupcake pans or mini tart pans
Fork or parchment paper/aluminum foil and uncooked dried beans

In a food processor, pulse together the flour, salt and sugar until combined. Add butter and pulse until butter chunks beceome pea-sized. Add water slowly until it just comes together. It should look a little dry and if you squeeze a little bit in your hands, it should come together. Don't over-pulse or the dough will be tough. Turn out the dough onto a board and bring it together with your hands. Divide the dough in half and wrap each of the halves in plastic wrap. Refrigerate at least one hour to allow the gluten do develop.

30 minutes before rolling the dough, bring the dough out of the fridge to room temperature. On a lightly floured board, roll out the dough to 1/8 of an inch. When you roll out the dough, keep the dough moving by picking it up and rotating it every few passes of the rolling pin. This will prevent sticking.

Use a 2-1/2 inch round cookie cutter to cut out the circles for your mini tarts. Press them down the bottom and sides of your mini cupcake pan or tart pan. Dock the dough (that's a fancy way of saying poke holes in the dough) with your fork along the bottom and sides of the cake pan. This will reduce the uneven rising in the oven. Place in the fridge for 30 minutes before baking. Alternatively, you can cut small pieces of aluminum foil or parchment and tuck them in your dough and fill it with pie weights or uncooked dried beans and then place them directly in the oven (no need to refrigerate, but it's better to let it rest if you have the time).

Bake at 400°F for 20-25 minutes or until the dough is lightly browned. Allow to cool completely before filling.


Cream Cheese Filling
makes enough for one pie or one large tart pan or 24-36 mini muffin cups

Ingredients:
8-oz package of cream cheese at room temperature (neufchatel works great, too)
1 cup of heavy cream
1/2 cup of granulated sugar
zest of 1/2 a lemon
2 tablespoons fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Beat cream cheese, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice and vanilla extract until light and fluffy. Add heavy cream and beat until stiff peaks form. Scrape the bowl frequently.

Filling the pastry cups
Fit a large star tip (Ateco #824) on a 16-inch pastry bag. Fill the bag with the cream cheese filling. Pipe nice swirlies in the cups to about 1/2 inch - 3/4 inch above the crust. Refrigerate at least 3 hours or overnight.

Berry Top
This is pretty straightforward. Fresh strawberries, blackberries, blueberries and raspberries work well together. I pick two or three berries for the tarts. The key is contrasting colors so try not to work with both raspberries and strawberries together (unless you're going for a red theme). Quarter regular-sized hulled strawberries. I had gigantor strawberries and needed to cut them into eighths.

Glaze: 2-tbsp of strawberry or seedless raspberry preserves and 1 tbsp of water. Heat preserves and water in the microwave for 30 seconds until melted.

Push two or three berries onto the peaks of the filled cups. Lightly brush glaze over the berries to keep the berries shiny and moist.

You can make this into a large tart with a graham cracker crust and it is a HIT at parties. It's also about 500 calories for 1/10th of a piece of pie. That's why I like little bites better.

And there you have it! Mini berry tarts. Cute, sophisticated, and oh-so-yummy!

Easter Cookies

I enjoy making sugar cookies because it can suit any occasion, it allows me to be creative, it's portable and gosh darn it, people like them!! I've tried a few recipes but the one that I keep going back to is a recipe from Joyofbaking.com. I also use the Royal Icing recipe with Meringue Powder and substitute almond extract for vanilla extract.

Every Easter, my sister and close family friends make Easter baskets for all our kids (a total of 9). This year, we all made a pact to NOT put candy, particularly jellybeans, in the baskets. So I decided on making cookie pops.

I searched high and low for cute (cheap) cookie cutters and I found a 4-piece set at Wal-Mart for $1.88. They were cheap alright... the cutters were plastic and a little flimsy. If I could quote my father-in-law, "whoever designed this should be shot." Well, I'm exaggerating. They were flimsy and there were sections that were so narrow that the dough would break when you removed them from the cutter or the board. Bottom line, I bought them without really looking at them and for the most part, they worked.

Since I was planning on making these cookies into lollipops, I needed sticks. I was in a rush while at Wal-Mart and got 50 Wilton lollipop sticks without really thinking it through. What's that you say? Yes, I'm a mom and I've lost some brain cells due to pregnancy. Plus, I had my 2-year-old with me whining, "I'm hungry." So you take what you can get when you need to hurry up and get out, right? But I digress... Lollipop sticks, the kind you use for candy, shouldn't be put in the oven because they are made out of paper. There are sticks made especially for cookie lollipops that are pretty much wooden dowels. You can also use popsicle sticks. But I had what I had and I crossed my fingers that I wouldn't set my house on fire.

Rolling the dough
I usually experiment with different techniques when making sugar cookies. The recipe calls for refrigerating the dough before rolling it out. I've done this in the past and have found the dough awfully hard to roll out without cracking. But, cutting out cookies is very challenging when the dough is very soft. My solution - roll it out on parchment paper then refrigerate it.

I worked with 1/4 of the dough at a time. Because these cookies have to be thick to insert the sticks, I needed to have something to make sure that the dough is rolled out evenly and at the perfect thickness. I found two 1/4-inch dowels leftover from a cake project and placed them on opposite sides of the dough. The dowels worked as guide to keep the dough at 1/4 inch thickness while the rolling pin does it's job. There was some sticking - a good tip I learned from Alton Brown is to use powdered sugar instead of flour to prevent the dough from sticking to your rolling pin. Adding more flour to the dough will make it tough. I have a powdered sugar shaker that puts just the right amount on the dough.

Once the dough is at the proper thickness, I place it on a cookie sheet, cover it with plastic wrap and refrigerate it. I work with the rest of the dough, stacking them on top of each other in the fridge when I'm finished with them. After an hour, the dough is ready to be cut.

Cutting and Baking
Preheat the oven to 350°F (sorry, I don't have any high-altitude settings) and start cutting. Cutting is pretty straightforward. But there is a little technique to inserting the sticks. It's simple, really. When you insert the sticks, the dough will shift and create a bump. All you do is tap the dough where it bumps up as you insert the sticks to flatten it out. No need to worry that your once-flat dough is a little buckled. You're going to cover that with icing anyway. Gently place the cookie dough pops on a new parchment-covered cookie sheet and place them in the oven when filled.

Bake at 350°F - ovens vary but start out with 10 minutes. Because my oven always takes a little longer to get good results, my cookies turn out perfect after 14 minutes. I usually cut more cookies as I bake and place them in the fridge until they're ready to go in the oven. Keeping your cookies cold will prevent them from spreading and losing their shape.

Icing
Allow the cookies to cool completely and then start icing. As I said, I make the Royal Icing using the Powdered Meringue recipe and vanilla extract. There are some purists who say NOT to use regular vanilla extract but to use clear vanilla so that it doesn't discolor your white icing. I haven't had any complaints that the icing is slightly off-white. I don't even notice it myself! Besides, I'm usually adding food coloring so it doesn't matter. I think almond extract gives it a little bit of a chemical taste and I just like the flavor of vanilla.

Start out by piping the outline of the cookie. If you're using several colors, one tip I have is to use plastic zip bags to pipe icing. That way you're not constantly cleaning your reusable piping bags. I still use my small round piping tip to make the outlines just because cutting the tip of the bag gives me unexpected shapes and results when I pipe the outline of the cookies.

After the outlines have dried, thin out the icing with a LITTLE bit of water. I emphasize "little" because it's easy to make it too runny and unmanageable. Place in another zip bag, cut the tip and pipe it inside the outline. Don't put too much, you can get an offset spatula and spread out the frosting. It will come out smooth if you thinned it out enough. While you're doing all of this, cover the unused icing with a wet towel so it doesn't dry out.

If you're going to add more details (like the eyes and nose on the bunny) wait until the icing has completely dried or the colors will run. My bunny has as sort-of anime look to it with it's wide tiny eyes.

Allow them to dry completely before transporting or wrapping. And there you have it! Cookies on a stick. My house didn't burn down, by the way. The sticks worked out perfectly and I didn't feel bad about disposing them. I hate wasting things and feel more guilty disposing real wood vs. paper. So I think I'll stick to paper next time. I guess as long as my oven temp stays at 350°F it won't burn.

I made a double batch of this recipe for Easter and gave out cookies to the choir at church and some of the kids. Even the adults became like kids when they got these cookies... they were fighting over the bunnies.

Let's try this again...

I've toyed with a few ideas with what I'd like for my blog. My mother-in-law calls me the "Martha Stewart of the West. " It's flattering but I cannot live up to that title. I can figure out how things work, how food is made, and how things should work. It's a lot of common sense and a little sleuthing that makes ideas come full circle.

Here you'll find my recent projects - successes and failures. I hope you enjoy it!