Ashley Made me a Happy Birthday!

A month ago I sent Ashley a cigar-box birthday package full of wax-paper wrapped goodies to remind her of home and of her passions - instant snow, multi-flavored local honey sticks, a tree, and - the crowning piece - a prism! (Ashley loves triangles and colors - how could she not own a prism?!)

What I got back for my birthday package was even better!! Beautifully illustrated sea-creatures rendered by her own hand, exotic candies, and even pearls! Here are some snap State-side snap shots from the grab-bag goodies and CD & card illustrations.

More photographs as taken across the sea can be seen on her blog or in the quoted segment below:

The Sea is Laced with Gold

Here's a little calendar I made for my dear friend, Danica. It was her birthday in December, and I was a little late. Hence the multiple year thing. There was also a mix CD, as there tends to be with gifts given as of late, but I'll let her post those pictures.

I made a biscuit wreath.

I love biscuits and I love wreaths so this was a ridiculously and easy joyful craft for me!

I first saw the idea on A Semi-Homemade Thanksgiving, but after scouring downtown San Luis Obispo for leaf shaped cookie cutters, I settled on some fun shapes that the Sheean household already had at hand.

The only ingredient needed for this quick n' easy, pretty biscuit wreath is Pillsbury/Trader Joe's pre-made grand biscuits.

I made an Elf Yourself movie.

Its not Christmas without dancing Sheean elves!

I made a cuttlefish!

Dear reader,

If you are not Casey Fay, you may read on.
Otherwise, you are going to have to turn back now because the following post is about the incredible Christmas present your girlfriend got you.
If you stumbled upon me because you were Googling yourself and found your name and illustrations on my blog, then you should be totally embarrassed that I caught you!! And that I'm going to tell Ashleyanne of your narcissistic tendencies.

Love,
Danica

P.S. It's ok for you to look at da pie stuff. But nothing else!

A dear friend from my favorite moments of high school put in a custom order on Etsy with me last month after having shared via facebook our mutual of cephalopods. As it turns out, she - like me -is in cahoots with a super nerdy wonderful illustrator! Casey Fay is the author of the should-be/soon-to-be renowned children's book Wonders of the Sea: Cephalapods (currently sold out - DANG IT) and the illustrator of many awesome quirky, colorful, animal adventure pieces (I want this one so bad!)

For this Christmas, his lovely lady wanted to bestow upon him a gift celebrating his affection for these wonderful invertebrates of the sea. She enlisted my services - seeing as I manifest my own love for cephalopods by crochet hook - with a special request for a brightly colored cuttlefish. I hope my handiwork reflects Mr. Fay's whimsical imagery justly:

I learned to make Japanese water balloons!

A few weeks ago, Ashley put up a series of lovely blog posts what engendered great feelings of whimsy in me. One of the things she mentioned was sending a birthday package to a friend (I would venture to guess it went to mutual friend currently featured in Ashley's blog) that had a bag, with instructions, full of folded origami balloons. I decided I must learn this for myself! And then put these little balloons in an emergency party kit a long with some other goodies (mentioned below) - you can, too! With these step by step photos, I did my darnedest to depict how pictorial instructions for you (mouse over the image for step instructions):

At the same time as discovering Ashley's balloons, Hollin visited and photographed the 6th Annual Puces Pop DIY Craft & Fair where equal amounts of celebratory decor dotted the church's basement and merchandising displays of crafters' booths. A particularly lovely and simple decoration Hollin captured were the pom-poms strung up above the entrance:

Apparently, though, you can purchase something similar for $65 from anthropologie (while these pom-poms are felted, they do NOT make this project worth that hunk of change in my humble opinion):

I finally got myself to Michael's where I was able to purchase a HUGE bag of brightly colored pom-poms for $5 and string them together myself with some magenta embroidery floss - it was very therapeutic:

(Yes. Our hallway is pink.)

A Pie You Set on Fire

Apparently the Northend cousins have an affinity for the same nautical themed spirits - namely Sailor Jerry's (and NOT Captain Morgan's - blegh). Matt and I discovered Sailor Jerry's in the midwest (far away from any bodies of water) when we accidentally missed some obscure "blue law" window for alcohol purchases at the grocery store. We were looking for Bicardi Black - a spiced rum with a high enough proof to light on fire - for a surprise dessert for my mom and dad who were on vicarage there in Kansas. We managed to find a liquor store willing to sell some of their stock just before closing but no Black was to be found! What ended up going home with was better tasting than anything I've ever lit on fire before.

This pie was a serendipitous combination of last-minute Pie-of-the-Week cooking and last year's nectarine harvest. Mamma Sheean had sent us home from our visit last weekend with a big box of vegetables and huge vacuum sealed bag of frozen nectarines. I was determined to use them in a pie, but my Pie book doesn't have any nectarine recipes. In keeping with my unique-pie pursuit, I tried Googling different nectarine recipes and came up with a "Cajun Nectarine Pie" - but the only spice every iteration of the recipe called for was cinnamon. Yum! But boooooorrrrriiinng. With the nectarines almost completely defrosted on the counter top, I was running out of time to make a decision.

And that's when the bottle of Sailor Jerry's toppled from the cabinet onto my head. INSPIRATION STRUCK! Well... that would have been the ideally dramatic way of inspiration striking - but truth be told there was simply a very large bag dark brown sugar sitting next to the sink BELOW the open cabinet with Sailor Jerry's inside NEXT to the melting nectarines which had somehow ended up next to lighter. True story.

With "cajun" still in my mind, I found myself wondering if Bananas Foster had ever been Nectarine Foster... and then, of course, if anyone had ever put it in a pie... and VIOLA!

Danica's Nectarine Rum Pie.

(If this gets famous, I'm makin sure my name is in the title!)

ingredients:
4 lbs of frozen nectarines (the juices will cook off and diminish the weight)
1 c of firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/2 c, 2 Tbsp of butter
4-5 shots of Sailor Jerry's (or spiced rum of 90 proof + 1 tsp of vanilla + tsp of nutmeg + 1 tsp of ground cardamom)
1 partially baked bottom pie crust shell
1 unbaked top pie crust
*2 Tbsp lemmon
*2 Tbsp of flour

In a nutshell:

I started by draining off all the water from the frozen nectarines. I didn't squeeze the juices off, but drained them pretty throughly and saved about 1 cup for later.

I browned a 1/2 cup of butter in a large 12" sauce pan and added the brown sugar and the nectarines, sautéing as best I could and adding juice as I saw fit to keep things moist and create a syrup, over about 5 minutes.

I continued adding juices as I needed to as well as an extra 2 Tbsp of butter, and stirred the mixture while things started to caramelize.

(NEXT TIME I made this pie I will sautee the nectarines without the brown sugar.)

When the consistency was such that I could scrape the nectarines and juices with a spatula and reveal the clean bottom of the pan for a few seconds I removed the pan from heat and spread the nectarines evenly over the surface. Then I added about 2.5 shots of Sailor Jerry's over the entire surface and lit it on fire! When the fire died out (after about 3 minutes), I stirred the mixture and repeated with another 2 shots.

Then I added 3 tsp of cinnamon and 1.5 tsp of ginger while I let the mixture cool, just a bit, before putting it into a partially baked pie crust.

I botched placing my top crust & added sprinkled brown sugar which ended up looking burnt =/

I also didn't rotate the pie half-way and burnt it a smidgeon.

I topped the pie with new, uncooked crust, poked some holes and stuck it in the oven for 20 minutes at 400 degrees and broiled on high for an extra 3 minutes to brown the top crust.

I highly recommend Sailor Jerry's over any other spiced rum!! It has hints of vanilla and cloves that compliment the simply spices added by hand so very wonderfully.

It tasted PHENOMENAL.

*Next time, I want to add 2 Tbsp of flour to the caramelized mixture just to give it a tiny bit more body, although.... the nectarines were super juicy and soft because of their previously frozen state. I imagine fresh ones will require that flour. I would also recommend adding 2 Tbsp of lemon juice in this stage - I didn't have any, but I imagine that it would really bring out a wonderful gingery pucker with the incredibly sweet nectarines.