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Yet more Christmas stockings

I actually did these two before Mike’s and mine. Since I was visiting my family at the time, I had access to a sewing machine (such luxury). These are for our two kittens, Moo and Brenda, and are made out of vinyl.

Christmas Stockings

I’ve been spoiled all my life and had a homemade Christmas stocking (my grandmother made it). In fact, my family has matching stockings, because we’re just that cool. I decided that in an effort to my Mike’s and my place more Christmasy, we should make stockings and boy were we ambitious. My inner craftyness told me that simply sewing a stocking was not enough - I would make the stocking. So we bought some roving and decided to wet felt. Turns out Mike is much better at this than I am, but our felt is not the best. Luckily this small problem was solved by lining them with extra fabric I had left over from our couch cushions. Mike even sewed on his own initial and part of his stocking! (I nabbed a talented guy)

And why yes, that is helvetica. We’re such type geeks.

Lamb Curry (Rogan Josh)

Mike and I were craving curry for a while, so after a big trip to the market we finally made some. We used the recipe from here. It actually tastes a little like chili now, but we think that’s the general meat plus tomato taste. It’s still very tasty.

In addition to the lamb, we added some fresh carrots, cauliflower and sweet potato. Not really traditional, but we figured that we should throw in some vegetables to make us feel better about ourselves.

Humanities Days

This is the first poster I’ve done in a while (or at least it feels like it). The people on the Humanities Committee love bright, primary colours, so that’s what I went for.

Running the torch!

Mike ran the torch today! It was awesome and he was like a celebrity and kids were running with him.

Finished journal

Way back when (and I do mean forever ago) I told the very newly envisioned undergraduate science journal that I would help them with their graphic and layout design. More than a year later the first issue is out and even though it was a lot of stress at crunch time everything turned out so well and there were no issues with the printer or printing at all. I’m incredibly proud of this little thing, despite the years it seemed to take off my life.

First glimpse of the torch relay

Yesterday the torch passed through Halifax. Mike and I followed it around most of the peninsula. It was amazing to see how big the crowds were, I can only hope that things will be half as exciting when he carries it on Friday. I still can’t even believe he’s carrying it, I’m so jealous and so proud at the same time. This brings the number of olympic torch bearers I know up to two: my aunt carried the flame for the Calgary olympics relay.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

I’m so very excited for this movie. Not only is it a book that I loved when I was a kid (I read almost all of Roald Dalh’s books), but it’s Wes Anderson and IT’S CLAYMATION!

I have a super soft spot in my heart for claymation ever since I made a couple of my own back in the day. I think that they were so smart to do this movie in this medium instead of computer animation. Don’t get me wrong, I love that style too, but this is just too perfect.

Gluten-Free Pound Cake

As a celebratory gesture for our last class of anatomy, I baked a cake for my tutorial group and what better shape to make it in than that of the kidney (we were doing kidneys this past week). Since one of the members of my group is celiac, I made sure that it was safe for her to eat. Because I wanted to carve out the cake and because, as I’ve already said, I watch too much Cake Boss, I knew that the cake of choice would be pound cake (it’s real good for carving). So I looked up a recipe for gluten-free pound cake, even though I have never made regular pound cake before. The recipe I found was organic, but my variation is plain old not-organic. To make it organic again, simply buy organic versions of all of the ingredients.

Gluten-Free Pound Cake (from Diana’s Desserts)

Ingredients

• 3 1/2 cups white rice flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup butter
• 2 cups white sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup milk

Directions

1. Combine dry ingredients and set aside.
2. Cream butter in a large mxing bowl and gradually add sugar, beating between additions.
3. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat well. Add vanilla.
4. Blend in dry ingredients gradually, alternating with milk, and beginning and ending with dry ingredients mixture.
5. Spread batter into two greased and floured 9 x 5-inch loaf pans, or into one 9×9 and get one GIANT cake (like I did)
6. Bake at 325 degrees F/160 degrees C for about one hour (mine took about 1:30), or until done (when baking with rice flour, it can take a bit longer to cook.)
7. Let cake stand in pans for ten minutes, then remove and cool completely on a baking rack.

Cake coming out of oven (it’s HUGE)

Rough cuts

Mostly final shape (minus ureter and adrenal gland)

Dirty icing

Final cake (with ureter and adrenal gland)

It probably would have looked really cool with fondant, but that’s still a bit out of my cake making expertise. Mike really wants to try though, so really all we need is an excuse to make another cake. For the frosting I used the same buttercream recipe as before.

Pumpkin muffins

Anatomy has almost consumed my life, but it will all be over soon. In the meantime, I decided to make some pumpkin muffins. Nothing says fall like pumpkin. Moo (the cat) likes pumpkin too.

Pumpkin muffins (adapted from Allrecipes.com)

Ingredients

• 2 cups of canned pumpkin
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups white sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 3 “eggs” - to make the muffins healthier, I use ground flax as a substitute (for each egg, use 1 tablespoon flax to 2 tablespoons of boiling water)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease 12 muffin cups or line with paper muffin liners or use one of those silicon muffin “tins”, they’re awesome, no greasing, no paper and no stuck muffins.
2. In a large bowl, stir together flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and salt. In a separate bowl, beat together 2 cups pumpkin puree, vegetable oil and “eggs” (flax mixture). Stir pumpkin mixture into flour mixture until smooth. Scoop batter into prepared muffin cups.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.