Baklava

If you're looking for delicious holiday treat that only uses a pound of butter, then I have the perfect thing for you!

When the Husband first requested this a couple of years ago for a Christmastime treat, I asked my Mother-in-law what recipe she uses (this was a childhood favorite of my husband). She sent me a link to a recipe by Michael Symon - except(!), she uses a different recipe for the syrup - both of which are found below. I've made this with both walnuts and pistachios - pistachios are my favorite!

Enjoy!

Baklava

(Baklava recipe by Michael Symon. Baklava syrup recipe by Kathy Crapo)

Ingredients

For the Baklava:

• 1 pound pistachios and/or walnuts, coarsely ground, plus more for garnish
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, or to taste
• 1 cup ground zwieback crackers or breadcrumbs
• 4 sticks unsalted butter, melted
• 40 or so sheets of Phyllo dough (thawed, if frozen)

For Baklava Syrup:

• 1/3 Cup Honey
• 1 Cup Water
• 1 1/2 Cups Sugar
• 1 Tbsp Lemon Juice
• Dash of Vanilla
• Pinch of Salt

Directions

Position a rack in the lower third of the oven; preheat to 350 degrees F. Combine the nuts, cinnamon and ground crackers in a bowl.

Brush a 9-by-13-inch baking dish with some of the butter. Layer 14 pieces of phyllo in the dish, brushing each piece with butter before adding the next (keep the remaining dough covered with a damp towel). Sprinkle a quarter of the nut mixture over the dough (about 1 Cup). Layer 5 pieces of phyllo on top, brushing each with butter before adding the next; sprinkle with another quarter of the nut mixture. Add 5 more phyllo pieces on top, brushing each with butter, then add another quarter of the nut mixture, 5 more pieces of phyllo with butter, and the remaining nuts.

Layer the remaining 11 pieces of phyllo on top of the nuts, brushing each with butter; brush the top piece with extra butter. Cut into the baklava to make strips, about 1 1/2 inches wide. Then make diagonal slices, about 1 1/2 inches apart, to create a diamond pattern. Bake until golden, about 1 hour.

Bring the sugar, honey and water to a boil and cook, 10 to 15 minutes. Add the lemon juice, vanilla and salt and boil 2 more minutes, then let cool slightly.

Pour the syrup over the warm baklava; let soak, uncovered, at least 6 hours or overnight. Garnish with nuts.

Holiday Hats

I'm sure people are tired of reading about my darn hats, but I made a few variations (for donating to the hospital). If you don't want to go with a traditional type Christmas hat (Santa), you can change things up with stripes of various thicknesses and elf-inspired variations on the puff-ball tipped hat (like the green and white one on the right, which I LOVED, and am now making a larger sized one for my youngest niece).

These are basically the same pattern as the Santa Hat, except you start with 50 sts (these were all newborn sizes).

Felt Christmas Ornaments

It's that time of year again for me...to make Christmas ornaments.

This year I decided to do something I've never done before and that was to make ornaments out of felt.

I had a church activity I was asked to lead again (making Christmas ornaments) so I came up with the tree at the top and this lovely star and bird.

But after I finished those I didn't want to make them for my family.

One day I got an ad/catalog from Shutterfly (which is where I get photobooks - which look great, by the way, if you're interesting in doing that sort of thing) and there was a cute little felt owl ornament on one of the pages....which I then proceeded to copy.

Unfortunately, this post will ruin the surprise for some people (sorry Tammy - but you can choose which one you want!).

Merry Christmas!

Knitted Santa Hat

I whipped up a quick knitted Santa hat for my son. You know, just because. He refuses to wear it, of course, preferring to rub it on his face instead. *Le sigh*

This hat is probably 6-12 months size. It's pretty simple. I used a fluffy/wispy (yes, very technical!) white yarn for the trim and ball; Vanna's Choice "cranberry" for the red.

Cast on 70 sts with the white on size 7 dpns. Purl around until the work measures approximately 1 1/2 to 2 inches (when the hat is finished, this trim will naturally roll under a little bit).

Switch to the red. Stockinette stitch around until the red part of the work measures about 3 1/2 inches.

For the decreases, start by knitting 8, then knit 2 together. Repeat all the way around (7 times total). Then knit 2 full rows.
Next decrease, *k7, k2tog*, repeat around. Knit 2 full rows.
Continue decreases in this manner, remembering to knit 2 rows between decreases, until you have 7 stiches left. *k2tog* until you have 1 stitch left. Tie off and weave in all ends.

For the ball, use straight needles (or two dpns) and cast on 10 sts of the white. Stockinette stitch until you've made a square. Cast off and leave a tail. The purl (or wrong side of the work) will face out when you're done (this side looked fluffier with this yarn). Use the tail of the yarn (and a tapestry needle) to draw together the (4) points of your square. Then run the tail through the (4) mid-points of your square and tie off tightly (you should have a round-ish ball). Use the remaining tail to attach your ball to the tip of your hat.

Crocheted Ornaments (continued)

As requested, finished ornaments by Stacy (on my tiny fake Christmas tree):

Crocheted Wreath Ornaments

I believe I mentioned before that I was searching for an ornament pattern to crochet as Christmas gifts and after trying to come up with something on my own for about a week, I broke down and bought a book from JoAnn's. I'm a quitter like that.

Anyway, one thing about making Christmas ornaments that you have to worry about/deal with is starching your project so that it's stiff and hang-able.

What I do is take a plastic sandwich bag, spray some starch inside and put in the crocheted piece. Then you work in the starch so every part is wet, take it out and squeeze it between pieces of paper towel to remove excess starch.

For the next part, you'll need a surface that takes pins well. I used to have some cork boards that I used for this but they got lost in our many, many moves and so here I just used a piece of cardboard with plastic wrap taped over it (so the piece doesn't stick). Also, you can see that I drew lines on it to guide me but they didn't really help because the symmetry was a little weird (i.e. I had the lines in the wrong place!) - I hate wasted effort. And then I pinned the thing down in the proper shape - if you don't know what that looks like, here you go:



It'll only take a few hours to dry and then you can remove the pins.

And here's the final product (my apologies for the less than stellar pictures here - I am lazy, that's all I can say - Maybe Tammy can post a better picture of the finished product since she has one!):



I just used gold embroidery floss for the hanger and voila! A do-it-yourself Christmas present!

'Tis the Season...

... For giving!

Been working on a few TOP SECRET Christmas projects lately, so that's why you haven't heard from me. Can't post about those yet, but I CAN talk about what to do when you don't have a project or two lined up ...

Do you ever find yourself with the desire to knit, but you have no one to knit for? Let's be honest, one can only make so many hats and cat sweaters for their own amusement before the cat's like, "Enough!". Ahem, you know what I mean.

I have a tendency to fidget and knitting helps keep my hands busy, so I've been participating in a monthly knitting group lately to get my knitting fix. We make knitted and crocheted hats, booties, and blankies for newborns (they are donated to one of the area hospitals, in this case, one that serves a high proportion of low income families). I've found this to be quite fulfilling. You get to make something cute, and your handiwork goes to keeping a fresh baby warm!

I'd been using a pattern from a book in recent months, but it required too much sewing in my opinion. I hate sewing together my work at the end. It slows things down too much! "Faster!", I said. So I found this cute little pattern for some quick and easy baby booties: Easy 2 Needle Baby Booties. Now, usually I detest garter stitch in my work, but these have a surprisingly pleasant shape when finished. And they are not a nightmare to sew, either. Keep in mind when you sew the back edge to make sure to pull the yarn tight at the heel. It should make a swirl-like pattern and be flat like the rest of the sole. Make sure and leave enough of a tail at the beginning AND end of your pattern so you have enough yarn to sew up the seems.

The pattern called for a crocheted chain for the bow, but I thought that would look like crap, so I did a twisted cord instead (you could also use a satin ribbon). For a twisted cord: measure how much yarn you'll need for a bow and multiple that by three or four times. Cut that length of yarn and fold it in half, tying the end. Affix the tied end to something solid and twist your yarn til it's tightly twisted (keep the yarn straight so it doesn't twist back on itself while your doing this). Then carefully fold the yarn in half (back on itself) and hold the ends together (one end will still be attathed to your solid object). It will want to twist around itself, so let it (it will only "want" to twist in one direction), then keep twisting in the same direction until it takes on what I like to call an 'old-fashioned candy'-like texture. Tie both ends of your cord and thread it through your booties! (I untie the tied end from the beginning and re-tie it to catch the new end, then trim the yarn ends to match.)

Painting Christmas Ornaments

Yes, yes, I know, it's been so long! I've been knee deep in my many, many craft projects! Now that Christmas is upon us there's so much to do and so little time!

But, here's something I've been working on for the last couple of months - I organized a Relief Society activity where we painted Christmas ornaments.



These are the examples I made - I got them at Joann's. Three of them got broken in the course of doing the activity so I had to paint new ones (the tree, the snowman and the round ornament). I used the opportunity to fix what I didn't like about the ones I'd already done.

I've still got lots to paint though - ornaments I picked up last year on clearance and smaller ornaments I've gotten this year - perhaps I'll get around to those once I've finished up all my Christmas projects!

Lest you think that you're 'not a painter' let me just say that practice makes perfect. We used to paint ceramics all the time when I was a kid and the results weren't always very good but you'll get better - practice! That's all it takes!

The search for the perfect Christmas ornament

Two years ago I started a tradition of crocheting Christmas ornaments for my family.

It's inexpensive. It's fun! Homemade gifts are the best!

I made snow flakes two years ago.

This is what I did last year - they're mini Christmas potholders:

I found the pattern at Crochet Soiree. They have lots of free patterns to download. The original potholder pattern called for worsted weight yarn - but I love to miniaturize! So I used thread instead, and voila!

This year I wanted to do a little Christmas tree. I tried to come up with something of my own, three tries later I'm getting close to something that may be acceptable...this is the first time I've ever tried to make my own pattern so I suppose I should cut myself some slack.

But in the meantime, The Kansas Hooker had this cute pattern. Again, instead of using yarn, I used thread and it came out quite quaint and precious.

However, I don't think it's quite what I'm looking for. I think the shape is too simple. And it's very small - only about an inch and a quarter high.

Oh well, the search continues!