New Drawing

Things have been incredibly slow at work lately. I'm not complaining, really, but I don't have a good book to get into right now and I'm not supposed to use the interwebs (side note: book recommendations welcome). Someone offered to lend me a copy of "Fifty Shades of Gray" but I'm not that desperate - yet.

Anyway, that leaves me with lots of time to work on my Microsoft Paint skills. Drawing with a mouse is not easy.

For this drawing, I wanted to make a sweet old-timey portrait. I like to imagine that this is a wedding portrait - what do you think? I had a lot of fun designing the flower border and picking the color palette.

Cat Shortbread Cookies

I made these cat cookies using some of the dough I had from the "Broken Heart Cookies" from my last post. Aren't they cute? I love their expressions! They look very distrustful. You could make them more cheerful if you mad an upturned mouth and made sure their eyes are even.

I used a cat face cookie cutter that I had from a Halloween set, but you could use a circle cutter and then just add little triangle ears. The inside of the ears, the whites of the eyes and the muzzle are all melted white chocolate chips (piped on from a trusty and easy-to-make parchment cone). I sprinkled some pink sprinkles on the ears and added a heart-shaped sprinkle for the nose. The eyes are mini chocolate chips. The mouth and whiskers were drawn with a food marker but you could use a small paint brush and some black food coloring. Or pipe them with dark chocolate!

Broken Heart Shortbread Cookies

Happy Valentine's Day! I took an informal poll the last few weeks and most people seem to dislike Valentine's Day. I might just hang around a bunch of rebellious types because the top reason people gave was that they didn't like being told (by Hallmark, The Man, or the chocolate companies) to show their affection on a specific date. Also, they are a cheap bunch of folks.

I like all holidays. It breaks up the monotony. Plus, February is a month in desperate need of festivity. Otherwise (especially in MN), it's just endless winter and piles of slush.

I thought these cookies would be pretty funny and something different. They are just regular shortbread sandwich cookies with either Nutella or raspberry jam in the middle. After I cut the heart shape, I took a paring knife and cut out a little crack from the middle. These cookies don't spread too much so it's easy to make the cut out once you've put them on the baking sheet and then just bake them.

Shortbread Cookies

(Makes about 1 1/2 dozen sandwich cookies)

2 sticks butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar

2 tsp vanilla

pink food coloring (optional)

pinch of salt

2 cups flour

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Cream butter and sugar together.
3. Add vanilla, food coloring, and salt.
4. Add flour until fully combined and a soft dough forms
5. Form dough into a ball and chill  for an hour or longer.
6. Remove dough and roll out about a 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch thick. Dough will probably be sticky so add a little flour to your rolling pin and/or surface as needed.
7. Cut heart shapes (I used a 2" cookie cutter). Place on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or ungreased cookie sheet. Cut the "cracks" out of half of the hearts with a sharp paring knife or a small pastry wheel. Remove the small cookie "strip" so that the filling will show through the crack on the finished cookie.
8. Bake for approximately 7 minutes until done. Make sure the cookies do not turn brown.
9. Cool cookies completely then spread bottom cookie with filling (Nutella or raspberry jam, in this case). Carefully place the two "cracked" parts on top.
10. Serve to your favorite curmudgeon. If you are me, you apparently have plenty to choose from. Better make a double batch!

My latest Microsoft Paint masterpiece. I call it, "Love Robot Destruction"

Saint Paul Winter Carnival 2013: Ice Sculptures - Part 2

I went back to Rice Park last Saturday to see the completed sculptures. I think they were judging them that morning because I saw people walking around them with clipboards. It was pretty incredible how much work the teams accomplished in such a short time (they had about 24 hours, I think).

The awesome archway is completed! This Jack Frost sculpture won the first prize in this group sculpting competition.

I like the columns on this one!

I liked the humor in this "prehistoric" ice sculpture. I wonder who will win in this battle? I'm kind of hoping it's the sabertooth tiger. Sorry, Cavey.

Spiderman, Spiderman.....doo doo doo...spiderman. Check out this dynamic Spiderman ice sculpture!

I took several pictures of this Calvin and Hobbes ice sculpture. Love it!

This one was my favorite!  Look at the expression on this face! Whimsical but slightly twisted :)

Snow Place Like Home

This one is such a creative concept - a puppet show sculpted in ice! I wonder how hard it was to stabilize the "strings" ?

Saint Paul Winter Carnival Ice Sculptures - Part 1

Cathedral of Saint Paul - all lit up for Crashed Ice!

Thursday night I walked over to Rice Park in Saint Paul to check out the ice-sculpting competition. I happened to be right by the Cathedral of Saint Paul and got this beautiful picture of it all it up. The Red Bull Crashed Ice competition is taking place in Saint Paul again this year and they've timed it so it takes place during Winter Carnival. I'm too wimpy to stand out in the cold to watch but I've seen some of it on TV. Totally crazy!

The ice sculpture version of the cathedral

 I meandered around the park, checking out a few of the smaller sculpture displays (not part of the competition, just for fun)

The beginnings of an awesome archway. I'll show you the finished piece in the next post!

The teams had started their sculptures that morning and still had a long way to go! You have to admire these folks. Those blocks are HEAVY...and did I mention it was really dang cold? Like "I can't feel my nose or forehead anymore" type of cold.


FYI, power tools are allowed.  Working so hard on something that is just going to melt seems a lot like slaving for hours over a cake that is just so going to get eaten. Slightly crazy.

...and did I mention it's cold? And dark?

Janu-weary

Oh, January....so cold and blah. We have been taking time to rejuvenate and recharge our batteries around here. Okay, we are just being lazy. Isn't that what winter in Minnesota is for? It is supposed to be a high of minus two tomorrow. Time to hibernate!

Saltine Toffee

I've heard about this saltine toffee for years but never got around to trying it out. To be honest, I wasn't sure about it. There are a ton of recipes out there on the interwebs (especially Pinterest) that take an old favorite and substitute all these really weird processed ingredients.

 Dredge your chicken in Doritos! Make your cake with Mountain Dew! Just use Velveeta!

  Why not just use the real thing?

BUT, I'll admit that this toffee is delicious! The recipe has some definite advantages over traditional English Toffee. The main one is that you don't have to fuss with a candy thermometer. Also, you don't have to stand over a hot stove for a long time because it finishes in the oven. The other nice thing is that, although it has a nice crunch, this toffee is softer than your traditional English toffee.

So, sometimes it pays off to take a little shortcut....

....but you won't find me adding Velveeta to anything anytime soon.

Here's the recipe I used with very easy instructions:

http://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2012/12/saltine-cracker-english-toffee.html