I've been busy, you know, just doing stuff. And now I am sick, which is not so ace, but a fairly good excuse to slow down a wee bit. Here's what I've been up to:
- Making Danish Pastries - I bought a jar of Morello cherries on Saturday. You know what that means? It means that it's time for danishes. Yep. So it was pastry, custard and cherries ahoy on Sunday. I made the fancy pastry first - it's a yeasty, buttery concoction made in the style of puff pastry. Luckily I have stainless steel bench tops in our dodgy kitchen, so it's perfect for making pastry. The pastry took pretty much all day to be ready. You have to roll it and fold it and rest it about 3 times to ensure it is light and buttery. In the late afternoon I made some vanilla custard - from scratch - and then thickened it a little bit with custard powder so my Danish wouldn't runneth over. Then rolling and folding and custard daubing and cherry popping... and voila! Danish pastries! I think that I needed to anoint them with heaps of sugary syrupy glaze - they weren't quite sweet enough for my liking - I'll share the recipe when I've got it perfected. Okey doke? Let me know if you have a recipe that you use - I would love to see it!
- I've been hanging with Ari a lot. After seeing Leo's very cool blog, Ari was keen to start his own, so we've been working on that together. Ari's learning how to scan things and crop images and how to post things on Blogger. He's designed his own blog header over on Picnik, and he's pestering me all the time because he wants to 'do his blog'. It's going to be a really fun project to work on over these rainy, cold Wintery holidays. We're also making plans to do the MS Readathon.
- I've been working on my new book. Yes. Another book. It's a bit exciting and we've just finalised the list of projects and I'm on my way! I'm really excited to be able to make a book full of my own Made-By-Pip projects. I think it's going to be something that you will like a lot!
- I've been showing the lovely Brown Owls how to do Gocco printing at our little clubhouse - and also showing them how to drink Gluhwein! Last night we knocked over 5 screens (and printed 5 different prints) and ate cheese and other snacks and drank nice, warm mulled wine. We had the usual Gocco glitches - one globe not going off, runny ink, things like that - but that's what Gocco is about - little glitches for big rewards! We tried to watch 'The Flying Nun' too, but the tv wasn't working properly. Darn. But we still had heaps of fun. Everyone took lots of prints home and got lots of printing inspiration. I'm still getting a handle on my Gluhwein recipe - but here's how I did it last night. You should make some.
Pip's Gluhwein
3 bottles of red wine
1 litre of orange juice
2 cups of water
1/2 cup brown sugar
2tbsp honey
1 tbsp golden syrup
a slosh of vanilla essence
1 tsp mixed spice
4 cinnamon sticks
1 sliced lemon
1 sliced orange - peel and pith removed
Put all these things in a big pot and heat gently until nearly boiling. Taste it and make sure it's sweet enough for you - if not add more sugar. Turn off the heat and let the flavours develop for a couple of hours. Reheat until steaming but not boiling and serve. Serves 8 wine liking people.
Pour into thermoses and take on outdoorsy type trips to stay very, very warm.
Substitute cranberry juice for orange juice if you prefer
- I've been forgetting to do any crochet. I'm still in love with it, but I've just been doing lots of other work - and lots of cooking - so I need to get my act together and get hooking again. It's the perfect weather for it - and you only need to check out the Granny A Day group to see how LOVELY the results are!
- I've been tweeting
- I've been planning a mini-break with some nice friends in a few weeks.
- I've been compiling a new series for this blog - Five Daily - featuring heaps of great people and their website/blog recommendations. Check in daily for updates.
What have you been up to?
xx Pip
