#I mean when that pie is filled with tons of oil just getting ready to drench the ocean

[philsmeatylegss]

Me tying my fingers together to keep myself from going on and on about how I just cannot understand what specifically is so special about Taylor Swift that she’s risen above everything knowing a simple look at my music taste and interests is enough to rebut hours worths of arguments about how insanely normal her music sounds

[whispersafterdusk]

Lost in Time - ch 12

Spring was here; it was still cold but now it was a lot wetter.  He missed the snow in a way, since it was essentially a readily available cold pack for sore muscles.

And oh boy, were Arlo's muscles sore.

Eli had started them out easy; a couple weeks of basic work outs with her slowly introducing new techniques and exercises each Monday with the weekend set aside for rest and recuperation.  But by the second month of spring she'd started ramping things up: harder, more grueling exercises, longer sessions, diet requirements.  He could tell he was starting to put on muscle mass already but all the work left him so stiff and sore that he often got back to his room in the evenings, climbed into bed, and didn't move again until morning came.

He couldn't go straight home tonight though; his day had started bright and early with the group exercises, then he'd spent another afternoon down in the facility, and tonight he was supposed to meet Nora at the Round Table for dinner.  It was the first arranged meeting they'd had in...awhile.  No amount of sore muscles would have him missing this. ((Continued below cut))

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The Barnarock Black was her Thursday evening drink of choice, and being as it was both a Thursday as well as right on heels of a several-hours-long social meet-up with Carol and Antoine, Eli was ready for a drink.

And food.  Being as she hadn't expected the meeting to last as long as it had she'd skipped lunch, and while there were snacks and tea she had to really restrain herself from eating a ton of junk food while trying her best to ignore the rumblings in her stomach.  Thankfully the chatter never really let up so she didn't think anyone had heard her gut screeching for sustenance but once they'd all parted ways she'd all but run down the street toward the Round Table.

On her way through the door she was almost knocked over by Nora leaving; the girl had thrown the door wide open and slammed it (accidentally) into Eli's hand as she'd been reaching for the handle to open it herself.  As Nora shuffled by with a half-apology and all but ran toward the hill leading toward the church Eli stood there both wondering what the heck had prompted her to rush out of there while also trying to awkwardly pinch shut the fresh cut over her middle knuckle before it started to really bleed.

Inside the Round Table she could see Asher at the long side of the counter, Dawa and Dana at the far end of the counter taking up the pair of stools there, Mars and his daughters in a back booth, and Gale and his family were sitting at the round table in the middle of the room.   Sonia was busy buzzing back and forth between tables and the back of the restaurant and Django was nowhere to be seen but based on the number of people in here he was probably up to his ears in food orders.  

"Evening," Asher greeted her as she took a seat next to him.  He tilted his head and got a look at her hand.  "Need something for that?"

"Nah.  It's just a scrape.  Did Django not have her favorite pie or something?"

"Who?"

"Nora, isn't it?  With the church?"

"Oh, yeah - that was Nora. No idea.  Didn't even know she was here until she left - I never seem to notice that side room there."

Eli knew what he was talking about; there was what looked like a newer addition on the front of the restaurant - it had a large bookcase stuffed full of books, a radio on a stand alone cabinet, and a single booth with a pair of loveseats (which wasn't so odd considering that instead of benches or chairs at the other booths there were plush couches that seated 3, maybe 4 if you piled in together).  It was easy to let your attention slide right passed it since you couldn't really see it or see into it unless you crossed the room to the tables on the back wall.

It looked like just Arlo was sitting-

Ah.  Ok then.

Eli inhaled through her teeth - an awkward hiss, of sorts - and sat down at the counter.  It took awhile for Sonia to make it over and take her order; the cut on her knuckle kept oozing and she'd resorted to periodically swiping the blood off with a thumb and then sticking said thumb into her mouth.

"You SURE you don't want something to wrap that in?"

"All the napkins here are cloth.  I'd rather not stain them with a bodily fluid."

Asher rolled his eyes and pulled a rumpled, dark green handkerchief out of his pocket and offered it.  "And before you ask, no, I haven't blown my nose into it.  It's clean but stained so don't worry about adding to it."

As he said the handkerchief WAS stained - looked like oil, and blood too - but she wrapped it around and tied it off.  "Well, at least I won't drip anywhere.  Thanks.  I hate how much hands bleed before clotting up."

"I agree - knees and shins too.  And no problem.  I've actually never, ever needed to blow my nose in one of those - my dad made me carry one around for that purpose and I always end up using it for something else.  It's a pretty gross concept, really...stuffing a crud-filled cloth back into my pocket.  And I'm supposed to use it several times over a day?"  Asher wrinkled his nose at that.  "And I say that after having gutted fish and food animals...guts and blood?   Totally fine.  Snot?  No thank you."

Eli chuckled; he had a point, after all.  He also still had a noticeable bruise across his cheek from a cross-country jog last week where he'd taken a tree limb right to the face when an end piece had snapped off and slapped the rest of it directly back into him as he'd gone to push passed it. "We usually had bandages and tissue glue on hand for little things like this.  I've even stuck industrial tape over cuts to hold it over until I got back to treat it properly.  Drove Peter absolutely insane doing that.  Was good times..."

"Peter?" Asher repeated.

She leaned forward and braced her elbows on the counter, putting her chin in her hands.  "Yeah - he was one of our team medics.  Him and Ashley, kept us pieced together and put all the blood and chunks back where they belonged."

Asher nodded slowly at that.  "Not a bad idea - having a dedicated medical person.  It's not something we typically do unless it's a big expedition.  But, we all have some basic first aid training so it's not like we're heading out without anything at all."

"Do you have assigned squads in your Flying Pigs?  I'm not even sure what an adventuring guild is."

"Not really," he answered.  "We're a sort of grab bag group - we pick and choose who goes where, unless someone was specifically requested for a contract job.  As for what we do we inspect old ruins for dangers and clear them out, protect those who need protecting, and we help map out areas that no one's been to in centuries.  We've been a bit focused on that lately - eventually we'll make better strides out into the Peripheries and the Great Begeondan and get some settlements in place there too but, no lie, those are some of the most dangerous places on the continent.  Full of monsters and rogue AIs, weird weather, extreme temperatures too."

"Sounds like my kind of place."

The look he gave her was somewhere between surprise and suspicion.  "You're...joking, right?"

"Not in the slightest.  Believe it or not there were a lot of wild, wide open places still left in the world back in my time period.  A lot of our training happened out in harsh areas, and sometimes we'd get called in to go track down some idiot tourist or terrorist that had disappeared out there.  Rangers had to be ready for just about anything, in any climate or location, for any reason."

Now he looked less like he thought she was joking and more just genuinely surprised.  "So - I mean.  It just seems weird to me that what survived through the ages were stories of humans living lazy, luxurious lives, with robots doing everything.  And then you say there were wild spaces and hard training and having to be ready at the drop of a hat.   Why was there any need for soldiers, or rangers?  At least, human ones anyway."

Eli shrugged.  "Each time I hear 'robots did everything' it surprises ME because it seems like no one actually gives thought to what that means beyond its surface.  Would YOU want your life in the hands of something that's one hack or power failure away from shutting off entirely, losing all your files, or turning on you?  Most people tended to act honorably and not target the innocent and whatnot but still, there were those who wanted their voices heard or wanted power and control no matter how many people they incidentally or purposely killed.  In hindsight the fact that the leaders of the world worked so hard to keep the nasty, dark, and terrible things out of the public eye seems to have...really slapped the rose colored glasses on, to the detriment of accurate historical record. Granted, "accurate records" were a bit of joke anyway - at least to those who knew what was being to told to military and what was sent out to civilians. Oh, a hospital got hacked? A train engine exploded for no reason? Power shut off mysteriously?  Nah, nothing serious - just "equipment failures" causing weird quirks and shutdowns," Eli said, raising her hands to stick air quotes around 'equipment failures' and all but oozing sarcasm.  "The world was...certainly something, compared to what it is now.  But there's no such thing as a utopia.  People are always going to be unhappy about something, or slip through the cracks of society and feel they have a justifiable reason to make their displeasure known in violent ways.   There's a reason all the nations still had standing armies even though we'd had peace for centuries, before I was even a concept in Fate's outline.  They kept us all busy with public works projects, organized war games - think big but friendly skirmishes with harmless paint-based or laser weapons with sensor suits - and, like I mentioned before, the occasional idiot tourist rescue, but it wasn't all sunshine and daisies unless you were a regular citizen."

Asher let out a soft noise - Eli thought it was 'geez' or something similar - and rubbed at his chin, going silent for a bit.  Sonia brought out Eli's usual beer then disappeared just as quickly as she'd popped up; Eli had half the bottle downed before Asher spoke again.

"Bet you never thought you'd be correcting history books, huh?"

She sat the bottle down and did a half-assed imitation of jazz hands.  "Ta da, I am full of surprises."  That rapid shaking movement dislodged the handkerchief around her knuckles a bit so she untied and then re-tied it back into place, using her teeth this time to help tighten the knot a bit better.

Over the chatter and sounds of cutlery on plates Eli made out the sounds of plodding feet, and shifted on her stool just enough to see Arlo slouching his way toward the door; right as he reached it it opened and Remington was framed in the doorway briefly before he stepped aside.

"Oh, hey - how'd it--" Remington was cut off as Arlo slipped passed him and kept going without a word; the man stared after him a moment.   "--go..." he finished his sentence with a frown, and a shake of his head.  He came inside and up to the counter to take the empty stool on Eli's left.  "Evening, guys."

"Evening.  How's the knee?" Eli asked.

Remington slid his legs around and flexed his leg a bit.  "Not as bad as I thought it'd be, by now.  It hurts but no more than it does when the weather is bad."

"Good to hear.  I wish flex-gel still existed...that stuff worked wonders."

"Well, we make do," Remington chuckled.  "What's tomorrow looking like?"

"Starting with a warm up run, then I have a couple new things to show.  They're...hard, so I won't keep you all too long at it, and you'll have the weekend to recover like normal."

"Something to look forward to, then," Remington replied.  

Sonia came back with Asher and Eli's orders, took Remington's, and disappeared again.

As she picked up her fork Eli offered the two men a small grin.  "I probably should have warned you both to eat light tonight.  It's going to be a rough morning."

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"Before today...no idea...what a burpee was," Asher wheezed from where he was laying flat on his back on the grass.  "Can't say I care for them....or the reverse ones..."

"A sentiment I can get behind," Sam groaned.  She wasn't laying down but she was sitting a couple feet from Asher with her arms around her legs along with her head nearly between her knees.  

Remington was off to the side finishing up some additional push ups with a sack of sand on his back for weight; Eli had let him do a few burpees to see how his knee held up and had eventually decided not to risk blowing the joint out.  While Sam and Asher did regular and reverse burpees with one-pound sacks of sand in each hand Remington had to do lunges, sit ups, and push ups with a five pound sack.  

For whatever reason though Arlo wasn't present.  

Earlier, before they'd started on their run, Eli had caught Remington and Sam sharing a knowing look, and when asked neither of them owned up to knowing why Arlo had skipped today.  She'd decided not to press the issue and had gone about the morning as she'd planned; being as the burpees had wiped everyone out she was content to not do their cool down jog and was just settling on the top of the fence when she spied Arlo's figure coming toward them from Portia's gates. He was...slouching a bit, and looked a little tired.  

"Morning," she called when he was within not-quite-shouting distance.

"Morning.  Sorry, didn't mean to miss today."

"No problem.  I can do a repeat if you're still up for it."

From his spot still flat on the ground Asher raised a hand.  "Run - run while you still can."

Eli snorted.  "Well, yeah - running is part of the routine."

"Not what I meant," Asher chuckled.  He rolled over and groaned as he got to his feet.  "I've got to get back out to the facility...maybe lay down somewhere that isn't wet and muddy for a bit before I get dragged into the depths to watch some old folks fart around in piles of dust."

With a smile Eli slid off the fence.  "Remind them to leave things where they found it and to not try turning anything on.  Going to be hard enough as it is to unlock personal stations without them tripping the lock out mechanisms."

"They've been fairly good at keeping their hands to themselves now that they have Stewart to entertain them but I'll remind them.  See you guys later."

With that Asher headed out of the fence gate and headed toward town; he was walking in a slow, wincing manner, and Eli made a mental note to go a bit easy on them on the next couple of work days.  A few moments later and Arlo was standing at the fence - on the outer side - and after a pause he sighed.

"I have something I need to speak to you privately about, if you have time."

"Sure."  She hopped off the fence and looked to Sam and Remington.   "If you want to do your cool downs that's up to you but otherwise I'll see you guys Monday morning, or whenever I next run into you."

She left through the gate and walked alongside Arlo down the road heading toward the shoreline; by her estimate they were halfway to the harbor before he started speaking.

"I wanted your opinion on something because it technically involves you.  But first I need to ask - have you noticed anyone treating you differently, or rudely, lately?"

Eli shook her head.  "Not that I've noticed.  There's still some people that I think I make nervous but they're also not anyone I speak to or see often."  She paused and then let out a small huff of laughter.  "I think I'm doing a pretty good job proving I'm harmless to people I see on a day to day basis."

Arlo nodded at that and his pace slowed just a bit.  "Have you interacted with Nora or Lee much?"

"Ha, no.  Nora runs away from me and I think Lee would walk straight through the side of a building to avoid walking on the same street as me.  I do notice he gets a bit louder in his sermons in the plaza if he sees me nearby but he doesn't directly single me out."

"So, you don't think Lee has had too much influence on how others are treating you?"

Eli slowed to a stop; Arlo took a few more steps before stopping but he didn't turn around.  "Not that I can tell.  But I'm guessing he's got some sort of influence over YOU and I'm at the center of it, right?"

He sighed heavily, sounding annoyed.  "Yes, unfortunately."  For several moments he stood there silently, then finally turned around to look back at her.  "Nora and I were sort of dating.  I'm not really sure if we were officially a couple or not.  There's...something there, but I don't know what.  The thing is, she broke things off with me last night because of my association with you."

Eli raised an eyebrow at that.  "Don't tell me she thinks you were cheating?"

"No, nothing like that," he answered quickly.  "She's not happy that I'm openly associating with something the Church is so against."

"...the past," Eli sighed; Arlo nodded in response.  "You know that's a bit ridiculous, right?"

"The Church has its views, and I have my own regarding technology from the old world.  I agree that there's a lot of dangerous things left behind from your time period.  But I also agree that not all of it could possibly be bad.  If it was ALL bad I feel like there wouldn't BE a past for us to be studying.  I know Nora strongly believes we shouldn't be using things from the past but I also know she's changed her mind on a few things once she'd directly experienced it or learned about it.   Knowing that, I feel like Lee is responsible for her...stance, I guess, regarding associating with you."

"So confront him about it."

"That's...something I'm considering," he replied after a pause.  "But what I wanted to talk to you about was your own personal experience with Portia's townsfolk.  Gale was pretty direct about wanting to hear about any sort of trouble that Lee is causing, in the context of it causing YOU trouble.  But this doesn't directly affect you in any way, it just affects me.  If it's not your life he's interfering with then I don't know if I should tell Gale and risk rocking the boat."

"I think you should," Eli said, crossing her arms and glancing over a shoulder toward the distant and yet somehow looming pinnacle that the Church sat on.  "If she wanted to break things off it should be HER decision, not because some crusty evangelizer told her to. No preacher or employer or authority figure should be free to meddle to that degree in someone's personal life.  Not to mention that he's just asking for Balance to beckon and Judgement to come reckon..."

Arlo looked briefly confused by that last bit; Eli just shrugged - she could always explain the phrase to him later if he was interested.   "-look, even if it's not affecting me directly it's clear I'm being used as a sort of weapon here.  I could care less if someone is cursing my name up, down, and sideways, but I really don't like the idea that I'm essentially being used as a political bludgeon.  In fact, I think I'LL go talk to Nora and get the real story out of her."

"I'd rather she not know-"

"Do you really think she'd just expect you not to tell anyone?" Eli interrupted.  "Or that no one would notice you two split and not have questions?"

"I... I guess not."  He sighed heavily again and tilted his head back to stare up into the sky.  "I just don't want to cause a rift between anyone."

"Let me see what I can find out and THEN we can decide if we want to rock this particular boat or not.  Might be that IF Lee was behind this, and IF he thinks he got away with it, he might try it again with other people and then THAT might actually affect me directly.  If anything it's worth it to try and stop that before the metaphorical rocking ends up capsizing instead."

Arlo nodded. "All right, I guess.  I'm going to head back to the Corps building.  Let me know what you found out."

"Will do."

They walked back to town in silence and at the base of the hill near the plaza Arlo kept going while Eli took a sharp left to head to the path that spiraled up to where the church sat on top of a ruins (and if it was the location she thought it was it had once been several floors of administrative offices, a number of clothing boutiques, and a ground floor restaurant).  By the time she got to the top and was looking at the church's doors that familiar feeling of nostalgia had hit her...nostalgia felt like a strange emotion to be having but she supposed it was a step up from the usual soul-crushing gut punch she usually got when she let herself think about something she recognized.

"Knock knock, anyone home," she found herself muttering as she shouldered the door open and stepped into the quiet chapel.  

It was nice in here, at least - nothing opulent or over the top.   Pews, carpet down the aisle, banners and a chandelier, stained glass windows and murals on the walls.  There was a fountain near the back wall behind the pulpit (which was just a small podium with a book sitting open on it), and she thought she could see a piano back there too.

The only thing breaking up the silence was the gurgle of water and the rhythmic sounds of sweeping coming from somewhere to her left; Eli walked up the small ramp into the sanctuary proper and from that spot she spied Nora off in the corner with a broom in hand.

The girl looked up to her and Eli saw her tense up.

"Morning. If you've got a moment I'd like to speak with you," Eli said.  Not much of a greeting but the girl already didn't like her so no amount of politeness was probably going to change much.

"I uh...I need to finish sweeping."  The girl was gripping her broom like she thought Eli was going to attack her; Eli wondered what exactly Lee had been telling her.

"That's fine.  I can wait."

It was clear Nora had been hoping Eli would just leave but instead she watched silently as Eli moved a bit further into the room and sat down on the back pew there.  Eli kept looking forward, admiring what she could see of the murals on the nearby wall; eventually she heard the sweeping start up again and could track Nora by sound as the woman finished up in that corner and moved down to the entryway, then back up and across into the corner on the right.  She heard the scrape of a metal dust pan and the clatter of what she guessed was the top of a trash can opening and closing, and then silence.  Eli let the silence stretch on for a bit before turning around; Nora seemed like she was debating whether she should run out the door or not but froze when she noticed Eli looking at her.

"Good to go?"

"Go...where?"

"I figured we could just step outside so if your minister shows up he can't yell at me for being on church property."

Nora inhaled and exhaled slowly then nodded, and mutely headed out the door; Eli followed along as the girl headed off to the right, to a wooden platform that was similar to the other wooden platforms that made up sections of the path that led up here -- it lined up with the path, in fact, and made it look like whoever had built it had intended to keep going up and around into the sky.  She had a slight twinge of discomfort from the fact the platform gave a clear view of the land around Portia which included quite a few destroyed buildings.

 Don't think about it.

"All right," she said then, blowing out a breath.  "I'll get right to it: Arlo told me.  And I want to know if that was YOUR decision or if Lee put you up to it.  Because he's not sure and I'm not happy to be in the middle of this."

Nora winced slightly and rubbed at an arm, and at first didn't respond.  Eli stuck her hand in her pockets and purposely looked to the left and down into the tree farm while trying to ignore the ruined observatory that she could still see out of the corner of her eye.

"We talked about it...and I agreed, so it was my decision," Nora finally said.  "The relics of the past are dangerous, we shouldn't be embracing anything from that time period."

Eli turned her attention back to the girl.  "Including me?"

"It's..."

"Look, I get it - you church folk aren't going to like that I exist. I'm a living reminder of how humanity almost wiped themselves out.  I'm not asking you to like me.  I am asking you if YOU made the decision to break things off with Arlo, on your own, for your own reasons, or if Lee convinced you to do it because in his mind it was the right thing to do because of Arlo's associating with me."

Nora's shoulders slumped a bit and again she was silent for a long period.  "...I guess it's a bit of both.  Lee's said that-"

"-let me stop you right there.  Lee hasn't bothered talking to me, period.  Whatever he's said I intend to do or teach is something he pulled directly out of his own ass."  At that Nora's eyes widened a bit but Eli didn't know if it was due to the language or because of some possibility that she'd exposed Lee for lying.  "Here's the thing.  I know a lot about a lot of dangerous things everyone seems afraid of - AIs, weapons, computers, devices.  Just because I know how something works, or worked, doesn't mean I can replicate it here.  For every one thing I could maybe manage to write up a technical readout for there's fifty others that I can't.  I know how to put a plasma pulse rifle together but I couldn't begin to tell you how to make one starting from a raw material base; I could describe step by step how to troubleshoot an anti-grav propulsion unit but hand me every single separate part, down to the nuts and bolts, and I'd have no clue how to assemble it.  There's a lot of things that, if it already exists, I could probably get it working again but there's no way I could build it from the ground up because even if I knew everything about everything, the fact remains that your technological level just isn't where it needs to be to MAKE anything."

Nora simply stood and listened silently, and was staring at some indeterminate point on the horizon past the tree farm.

"...so," Eli said into the silence that followed.  "Was it Lee, or was it your choice?"

Nora hung her head.  "You already know the answer to that."

"I was hoping I was wrong.  So, barring Lee's meddling, WOULD you have made that choice?"

To her surprise Nora lifted her head and answered immediately.  "Yes.  I think so, anyway.  Just...not like I did, or when I did."

Eli nodded approvingly at the admission.  "All right, we're getting somewhere then.  What's the ACTUAL reasoning then?"

"I just... I don't know.  I'm attracted to him - he's brave, and handsome, and kind. But I feel so...  I love his stories, and love spending time with him, but there's so many times where once he runs out of stories it gets...it's like we run out of things to talk about.  We don't have much in common it seems.  I try to find things to talk about but its usually the same things each time - the weather, the news.  I've even tried telling him about books I like but I feel silly trying to explain an entire book's plot. And..."

Eli raised an eyebrow.  "And?" she prompted - she wasn't going to let her clam up now that the proverbial dam had apparently burst.

"-I was only supposed to stay in Portia for two years.  I asked to stay longer and was granted an extension to my mission with the Church, and while I love Portia I can't stay here forever.  I have schooling to finish in Atara and then I'd like to settle down and start a family, and Arlo wants to join the Flying Pigs and would be traveling all over.  I don't think either of us can stay with the other unless someone wants to give up a dream."

"Aha..." Eli muttered.  "That I can understand.  Mine and my husband's jobs kept us apart quite a bit but neither of us would have ever asked the other one to give up their career."

"How...did it work out, then?"

Eli gave her a small smile.  "We enjoyed every moment we got together, when we had the time. Truth be told, my marriage was arranged - I just got super lucky in that I actually fell in love with the person my parents picked."  At Nora's shocked look she held up a hand.  "I know, it sounds weird - arranged marriages weren't at all popular back then, and were even against the law in a lot of places.  But all the men I was around were all soldiers or rangers, and I didn't want to marry another serviceman.  My parents picked someone I knew in gradeschool so he wasn't a total stranger, and we ended up fitting together nicely."

"Phyllis ran away from an arranged marriage...I didn't think one could be successful."

"Don't get me wrong - I thought long and hard before I asked my parents to do that for me, AND asked them to make it clear to whoever needed to hear it that I wouldn't be putting my boots away if I got married.  It's not something I would ever suggest to another person.   But, to get back on track, I'm only mentioning my marriage and circumstance because it's entirely possible you and Arlo could make it work even if you're apart for long periods of time.  It just boils down to, do you think that's what you'd want?"

Again Nora fell quiet, and Eli stayed where she was while the other walked over to the edge of the platform and leaned against it with  her arms folded across the top plank of the fence. Standing there, in the quiet, Eli could hear footsteps coming up the path and assumed they were about to be interrupted - probably by Lee.  She gave Nora a couple more minutes before clearing her throat to grab her attention.

"Give it some thought, and be honest with yourself.  And when you have your answer, walk your happy little butt down to the Corps building and be honest with Arlo.  You're still welcome to dislike me," Eli added after a moment, smiling slightly.  "I hear someone coming though so I should probably make myself scarce."

"All right...I'll do that," Nora replied, voice quiet.

Eli nodded to her and then turned to plod back down the path.  As she expected she passed Lee coming up; he gave her a brief sour look then turned his nose up to her and sped up to get by her faster.  She managed to keep from rolling her eyes until she had her back to him and once she'd circled around enough to put him entirely out of sight she sped up into a trot -- may as well get her cool down jog done.  She would check in with Arlo later this afternoon instead (it made more sense to give Nora time to go talk to him on her own, before Eli went to tell him what she'd said -- it'd also mean a lot more for him to hear it from Nora).

As she passed under Portia's gate she paused at the split in the road; ordinarily she'd jog down to the harbor and back with the others for their cool down run.  If she hung a right here she'd go up to the tree farm and she could easily keep going and check in at the facility - today was supposed to be one of her free days to do...whatever she felt like, but she didn't have much in mind to do.  Maybe she could get back to rummaging through the spare parts and start the onerous duty of stripping down and re-working the auxiliary power bank to see if they could convert it over to wind power.

Yeah, that would probably be a better use of her time today.

She paused to stretch and then continued on, jogging up the road; there was someone coming down the road toward her - someone she didn't recognize.  She offered the man a smile and moved off the road into the grass, and the man returned the smile and offered a little wave as she went by.

As she got to the tree farm's gate it swung open and out came Dawa, and when he saw her he waved at her and gestured for her to pause.

"Hey, Eli!"

"Hello Dawa.  You need something?"

"Was Selene home when you left?"

"Uh...  I actually have no idea.  I usually get up and out of the house before she does and I spent the morning out exercising with the Corps folks."

Dawa nodded and grunted.  "Ah, all right.  Was hoping to possibly save myself a trip down there.  But no big deal - it's not like I'm walking across the continent," he chuckled.

"I'm just out for a jog, I could turn around and see if she's there and then send her your way."

Dawa considered that a moment, then nodded.  "If you don't mind.   I've got a lot of work I need to get done by tonight and any minute I can save is worth it."

Eli raised an eyebrow.  "Yeah?  Need a hand with anything?"

"Nah, it's just a lot of chopping and getting things delivered on time.  I can manage it...I think."

"Fair enough.  I'll go have a look and come back up this way if she's not there."

"Thanks Eli!" he called after her as she turned around and jogged back down the path.

She caught up to that same man from before on the way back; he'd stopped not too far from where she'd first passed him, and was sitting on a bit of broken stone off the side of the road watching her approach.  With how he had his feet propped up she could see his brown leather boots were worn and had a few holes in them, and they matched his equally worn duster coat; the man himself also looked weathered and old.

"Hello again," she said as she came up.

"Hey," was the man's response.

When she got back to the house she did in fact find Selene working in her factory and let her know Dawa was looking for her.  She got a sort of distracted, non-committal promise to go talk to him and then Eli left the builder to whatever it was she was piecing together and once again jogged up the path toward the tree farm.

The man was still sitting there; he'd taken his coat off and had it draped over the rock beside him.  His clothes were baggy but were in considerably better condition than his coat and boots were.

"You stuck in a rut?" was the man's gravelly greeting as she jogged near him for a third time.

She laughed quietly.  "Just playing messenger for a bit."

She heard him chuckling behind her as she kept going; it didn't take long to let Dawa know Selene would be along in a bit and then she continued on out to the facility.  Down there it was easy to lose track of time and before she knew it it was early evening - far later than she'd actually intended to be down here...she REALLY needed to recreate a damn Hi-Def or, bare minimum, get a pocket watch or something.

At the very least the tourist man wasn't still sitting on his rock when she went by there again; she did spot him sitting at the nearest booth in the Round Table though, and offered him a nod when she thought he was looking her way.  He didn't respond but that wasn't a big deal - at least no one could claim she wasn't friendly to strangers.  

"Eli!"

She paused, halfway to a stool at the counter, and turned when she heard Arlo.  He looked to be in better spirits and was waving her over to the table where he, Remington, Asher, and Petra were sitting together.

As she headed over Arlo slid to the side to make room for her on the end of the couch next to him and Petra shifted around to the other side; in the few seconds it took to cross the room and sit down Sonia had come over to the table for her order.  Remington, Petra, and Asher all had half-finished drinks in front of them.

"Did you find that sensor thing you were looking for?" Asher asked as she sat down.

"Nope," she answered.  "Granted, I didn't spend too much time looking for it though.  Started in on tearing down the aux unit and making a list of what needs replacing.  We're going to need an amp converter for sure but I'm fairly confident we can manage to make it work."

"That's good news," Petra said.  "We already have the wind generator blueprints and have several up near South Block that are working just fine.  If you can give us an idea of the power output that's needed we can see if we need to alter those blueprints."

"I'm still working on that.  The main hitch is deciding what numbers to use and how to get them - we won't be using the same amount of power that the facility did in its hey day but I also don't know of any other number to use just yet.  I might have to ask Stewart to set aside a week and just run everything from lights to toasters down there to see what consumption level it can even hit, then add some zeroes to account for potential future increases and then see what I get."

Petra nodded.  "That makes sense. I just hope the wind coming down from the bluffs would be enough."

"Well, if its not sufficient then my backup plan was water turbines instead.  There's that waterfall that's not too far away...biggest hurdle then would be waterproofing all the equipment."

At that Petra rubbed at her chin.  "Water turbines and waterproofing... It might work so long as we can avoid altering Portia's water quality."

"Shouldn't be any different from the motorized boats I see out in the harbor with the exception that there won't be any fuel runoff in the equation," Eli replied.  "That ought to make it pretty clean."

Further discussion was interrupted as Sonia and Django brought out all of their orders together and they got to eating; when they finished Petra and Asher excused themselves, paid, and headed out.  As Remington ordered a second lemonade Eli subtly leaned toward Arlo.

"Did she come find you?" It was barely above a whisper, and neither Sonia nor Remington seemed to have heard it.

Arlo nodded.  "She did.  We worked it out.  Still friends."  His voice was equally as quiet.

Eli straightened and flashed him a brief smile - she didn't need details; she was just glad Nora had followed through and Eli wouldn't have to have that conversation in her stead.

"So..." Arlo said then, voice loud and clear.  "I hear I missed learning what a burpee is."

--------------------------------------

The three of them ended up sitting and chatting for quite awhile, then moved on to the back room for a couple games of darts (Remington won every single game).  As they'd stood and headed back Eli again nodded to the old man in the booth and this time got a half wave and smile in response. When they came out of the game room later the man was still there nursing a single coffee.  He offered them a quiet good evening and was digging in his coat pocket for gols as they were filing out through the door.

"Any plans for tomorrow?" Arlo asked, as they stood together just beyond the edge of the extended patio roof outside of the Round Table.

"Sleeping, hopefully," Remington chuckled.

Eli shrugged. "Not really.  I was thinking of seeing if Selene had a rod and reel I can borrow.  I'm determined to see a live frog fish for myself - it's still so hard to wrap my head around the idea of bizarre animal hybrids."

"You should talk to Qiwa - I'm sure he'd be happy to tell you all about the native fish in this region," Remington said.  "He's the one who usually wears purple, if that helps."

She considered that a moment, then nodded; on her To Do list was checking with the local school to see if they had books they could lend her on wildlife, geography, and cultures of the current time period but she kept forgetting about it until it was too late in the evening to catch anyone there.  "Probably a good idea.  I need to start making time to learn about the world as it is, instead of focusing on telling everyone on how it was."  She paused for a breath then looked to Arlo.   "If you'd like to make up for today I'll have time tomorrow."

"Sounds good.  In the morning, as usual?"

"Works for me.  See you tomorrow," she said, smiling and heading off.

The lights were still on in Selene's factory - had she ever gone to talk to Dawa?  Eli hoped so.  Inside the house it was quiet; Eli took a quick bath and tiptoed into her room wrapped in just a towel.  Her pajamas were not on the edge of her bed though, which where she swore she'd left them this morning.  Maybe she'd overshot the edge when she'd tossed them there?  As she came around to the other side of the bed to check she saw a strange pink lump partially sticking out from under the bedskirt, and under it was a single pajama pantleg.

She reached out with one bare foot, grabbed the pantleg fabric with her toes, and pulled; sliding out from under the bed came the biggest, roundest, pinkest cat she'd ever seen.  It was lounging on top of her pajamas and seemed not at all disturbed by the fact it had been dragged out of its little hiding spot.

"...excuse me, who are you and also I need those."  Eli had to let the towel flap open as she bent down to roll the rather sausage-shaped cat off her clothing; when she had retrieved the pajamas she dropped the towel over the animal and heard a rather confused "mrrp" noise from under it.

Selene hadn't mentioned that she owned a cat, much less a neon pink one.

The world was a very weird place nowadays.

[unwritrecipes]

Pan-Roasted Mushroom and Spinach Slab Pie

Happy 3.14 or 3/14, Thursday March 14th, aka Pi Day! Finally got it right, math whiz that I am (not)! Last week I claimed it was 3.12 until my very wise son and his girlfriend gently pointed out to me that pi is 3.14 which probably explains why I am writing this now and not involved in a career that involves higher math of some sort! LOL! But in any case, it’s an awesome day to celebrate with the eating of pie. C’mon we’ll take any excuse we can get, right?

Now, generally when I think about pie, I’m deep in dessert mode (and often it’s a la mode, ha ha) but today, in the spirit of the number pi, which I vaguely remember has something to do with infinity, I want you to expand your mind and embrace the savory possibilities of pie too. Yup, that’s right. Pie, in all its glory, as the main course. And now take it one step further and instead of the traditional round pie, make it rectangular. Uncharted territories, I know. Scared? Don’t be. Because this Pan-Roasted Mushroom and Spinach Slab Pie is not only positively delicious but far, far easier to make and a really fun weekend project. Let’s hear it for Pi(e) Day!!

Of late I have been addicted to the making of slab pies, ever since laying my pie-crimping hands on Pie Squared by Cathy Barrow. I blogged about it last week for my Famous Fridays post with this Easy-As-Pie-Apple Slab Pie and gave you copious notes (I’m still tired from the typing) about how to prepare the slab pie crust, so instead of redoing the whole tutorial here, just click on the link and you’ll see photos that walk you through the crust-making process. Got it?

Ok, let’s move on to the filling, which despite the fact that it is loaded with mushrooms is not goopy or liquidy at all (if you’ve ever made quiche and found that the filling cooked up a little watery, you know what I mean) and this is due to two important techniques: pan-roasting at a high heat and cooking the mushrooms in two batches, so as not to overcrowd the pan. Yes, it takes a little bit longer but it gives you mushrooms that are firm and almost caramelized which adds a ton of texture and flavor to the filling.

And speaking of caramelized, we’ve got to give a shout out to the onions which don’t get a mention in the title but are a vital part of what makes this filling so special. Taking the time to caramelize them is so totally worth it!

And let’s not forget about the spinach (you could also sub in kale—that’s what the original recipe calls for) which you just stir into the hot onions to allow to wilt a bit and adds the right balance of bitterness and leafy greenness to the sautéed veggies and richness of the eggy, custardy filling and cheese.

Assembling is a breeze. Simply position the top crust over the filling, crimp, slash a few steam vents in the crust, brush with an egg wash and bake.

You’re gonna be so proud when you pull this baby from the oven! Golden brown, flaky gorgeousness!

It’s like a quiche on steroids! A complete meal in a pan.

Serve it with a crisp, green salad and you’ve hit dinner perfection! And while you’re at it, how about one of these pies or tarts for dessert?

God, I love Pi Day!!

Pan-Roasted Mushroom and Spinach Slab Pie

Makes 12-15 servings

It is helpful to have a food processor for this. It is also helpful to have a bench scraper and a baking stone but not absolutely necessary.

Prep Time for Crust:  Prep Time for Filling:  30 minutes (much of this is hands free); Assembly Time:  Bake Time:  50 minutes-1 hour

Ingredients

For the Crust

2 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons unbleached, all-purpose flour (325 grams), plus extra for shaping and rolling out dough

16 tablespoons (225 grams) unsalted butter, cubed and frozen for 20 minutes

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 cup (120ml) ice water

For the Filling

1/4 cup (60ml) olive oil, divided

1 pound mushrooms, any kind (I used half regular button, half baby Bella) sliced not too thinly and divided in half

Kosher salt

Red pepper flakes

2 tablespoons dry sherry

2 large onions, sliced in half and then into half moon slices

Fresh thyme leaves from a few sprigs of thyme

5 cups fresh baby spinach, chopped

1 cup whole milk

2 large eggs plus 1 egg white (you’ll use the yolk later for the egg wash)

Black pepper

4 ounces Swiss or Gruyere, grated (about 1 cup)

For the Assembly

1 egg yolk

1 teaspoon water

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

The Recipe

1. To make the crust: place the flour, butter and salt in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal steel blade and pulse for 15 times until the butter is in small, pea-like pieces and coated with the flour. Pour in all of the ice water and pulse until the mixture almost forms a ball. You still want it to be a bit shaggy. If you over mix it, it’ll be tough. If you don’t have a food processor, you can mix the dough by hand. If so, freeze the sticks of butter and then grate them using the largest holds on the box grater right into the flour mixture. Working quickly, use your hands to combine the ingredients until the grated butter pieces are coated in flour. Pour in the water and and use your hands to sort of toss and fold the dough together into a shaggy cohesive ball.

2. Take 2 large pieces of plastic wrap and lay them criss-crossed on the counter so that they form a large “X”. Take a little bit of flour and scatter it in the center. Turn the dough out right into the center of the X, scraping the food processor clean and fold the plastic wrap over the shaggy ball and any stray crumbs. You want to avoid touching the dough with your hands as that warms the fats and cuts down on the pastry’s flakiness. Use a bench scraper or a firm spatula to push the dough into a 6 by 4-inch block that will look like a compact piece of dough not a crumbly block but you will still see pieces of butter throughout. (It helps if you use a ruler to measure—will make the rolling out later a snap). Now use a rolling pin to gently press across the surface of the dough to remove any bubbles. Flip the dough over and repeat on the other side. Place in the fridge to rest for at least 4 hours and preferably overnight.

3. Before you are ready to roll out the dough, set up your rolling surface—it can be a board or your clean counter as long as it’s cold. Use painter’s or masking tape to make an 11x15-inch rectangle. Remove the dough for about 10 minutes before you roll out—you don’t want it to get too warm. Generously dust the rolling surface with flour. Remove the plastic wrap and cut the dough into 2 pieces, one a little larger than the other—this will be the top crust.

4. Working quickly, smack the dough 3 times with the rolling pin. Now flip it over and do the same to the other side. This helps to compress the fats. Now flour your rolling pin and roll out the dough from the center outward, angling to the sides, working to fill the shaped space. Every so often slide the bench scraper underneath the dough to keep it from sticking to the board and turning the dough to get it to fill the space evenly. If it shrinks back when you roll it, don’t pull it—just be patient and keep rolling—it will fill the space eventually. Once it’s rolled to size, gently fold it over in half and carefully place it in the 1/4 sheet pan. Gently press the dough into the corners using the sides of your hand, not your fingers which might poke holes. Place the pan into the fridge while you roll out the top crust.

5. Roll out the top crust using the same technique, but only to about 10x14-inches. Place a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet and sprinkle with flour. Transfer the dough to the sheet and refrigerate as well.

6. To make the filling: Pour 1 1/2 tablespoons of the oil into a large, wide skillet and heat over high heat until the oil shimmers. Add half of the mushrooms and move them into a single layer. Sprinkle with a pinch or two of salt and red pepper flakes and let the mushrooms cook for several minutes, somewhere between 6-9 minutes, without moving them, until you can easily lift one with out sticking. They will sizzle and snap so be prepared. Then turn all of them quickly so that the other side can get browned and let cook another few minutes. Transfer to a bowl and repeat the entire process with the rest of the mushrooms, beginning with the heating of another 1 1/2 tablespoons of oil.

7. When all of the mushrooms have been transferred out of the skillet, add the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil and lower the heat to medium. Stir in the onion and thyme let cook for about 15 minutes, until the onions are beginning to caramelize and turn golden. If they are browning too quickly, turn down the heat. Stir in the chopped spinach and remove from the heat.

8. If you have one, place a baking stone on the center rack of the oven. If not, use an inverted rimmed baking sheet. Turn the oven to 400ºF and let preheat with the baking stone.

9. Remove the bottom crust from the fridge and scatter the mushrooms across the bottom as evenly as possible. Top with the onion mixture, pushing it around so that it is evenly dispersed.

10. In a separate bowl, whisk the milk, eggs, egg white, and a pinch or two of salt and pepper together. Pour it over the vegetables and scatter the cheese evenly across the whole thing. Remove the top crust from the fridge and position on top. Tuck the bottom crust edge over the top crust and crimp. Use a sharp knife to make a few venting slashes in the top crust. Whisk the egg yolk and water together in a small bowl and brush across the surface of the pie using a pastry brush. Sprinkle on some kosher salt. Place the pie in the fridge for 20 minutes.

11. Bake for about 45-50 minutes, until the top is golden brown and a knife inserted into the center of the pie comes out clean. Let cool for about 10 minutes before cutting., then use a sharp knife to cut squares and serve immediately. Pie reheats well too. Store leftovers covered in the fridge and reheat in a low oven for about 15 minutes.

Enjoy!

Note: Recipe adapted from Pie Squared by Cathy Barrow. I subbed spinach in for the kale and used more and different variety of mushrooms.

[recessanger91-blog]

What I’m Into: July 2018

Whew – we snuck this monthly favorites list in right before the door to July closed on us! With summer in full swing, I feel like I have only half as much time as I did in the fall and winter. But this month, I wanted to share some of my favorite new finds as well as some old favorites, so grab a peach iced tea (*wink to the Broken Record subscribers*) and don’t forget to share your favorite products from July in the comments!

Soapbox

It has been a total joy to follow this brand from its inception through a full rebrand, the results of which are obviously stunning. They sent me a press package last year and I have been sudsing up with their body wash and hair care on and off for months! My hair really likes it, the body wash is my current favorite (I suggest the Sea Minerals body wash to  e v e r y o n e), and there are tons of products I haven’t even tried yet!

This brand caught my eye because, while Soapbox has brutally high standards for their ingredients, the prices are incredibly reasonable. That bundle above, for example, is only $31.95 – for everything. That’s a hand soap, shampoo, conditioner, bar soap, and bodywash – for $32. Sort of a screamin’ deal.

Their packaging has undergone a major upgrade, and if you’re picky about your soaps and hair cleansing products, get ready for this laundry list of Soapbox ethical qualities:

Paraben-Free

Gluten-Free

Cruelty-Free

Vegan

Made in the USA

Many Fair-Trade ingredients

Sulfate-Free Shampoo

Recyclable Packaging

1-for-1 Charitable Donation through Clean the World

That last one is my favorite! 1-for-1 means that, with every soap purchase, Soapbox donates a bar of soap to someone in need. (Soap = Hope!) Soap is at the top of the list for many shelters around the country due to its constant use, and Soapbox focuses their efforts on domestic aid, which is something I haven’t seen very often among 1-for-1 brands.

Each bottle has a unique Hope Code that you can input into the Soapbox website to see exactly where the donation from your bottle of soap or hair stuff is going. You can find Soapbox products at Rite Aid and Walgreens all over the country. They’re even easy to find in my little, dumb, island town! If you see some on the shelves, pick it up, but if you don’t see it on your local shelves, don’t worry! It’s all on Amazon for you, as well as on the Soapbox website!

Timberland Earthkeepers

I’m always on the quest for good shoes. Currently, I have a very modest collection of less than 10 pairs of shoes which, if you knew me in my SPEND ALL THE MONEY days, should come as a shock. I think I topped out at 64 pairs of shoes, at one point. My closet looked like a robot Christmas tree lot with all of my shoe trees scattered around. It wasn’t good, and the shoes were mostly low quality (“affordable”) dress shoes that I wore to the job I hated. Starting B&B changed all of that, and raised my standards for “good shoes” about 5000%.

In desperate need of some summer shoes – for both staying cool in the heat and getting into trouble – I took to Poshmark. After a while, I noticed that the shoes in my “Likes” had a noticeable bias towards Timberland Earthkeepers, which I had absolutely never worn before. I knew of Timberland boots because, hi, I was alive in the 1990s and early 2000s. What I didn’t know was the scope of their designs, and how incredibly ethical this brand is trying to be.

Timberland Earthkeepers, specifically, use at least 50% recyclable materials. The leather (yes, real leather) is from a company that is rated Silver for improved energy, waste and water management. The fabric shaft is made with “Bionic canvas” which contains recycled PET (aka plastic bottles) and the rubber sole is also partially recycled! Considering this info was secondary to me falling in love with the shoes designs, I can say I’m pretty damn pleased with my newfound favorite shoe brand.

Timberland Earthkeeper Authentics Canvas Fold-Down Boots in Folkstone Grey

These were the first Timberland shoes I pulled the trigger on, and they single-handedly got me hooked on the brand. While these boots typically sell for around $100 brand new, the pair I found on Poshmark were in amazing condition for only $23. 

Sure, they had some loved spots and a couple minimal scuffs, but they were already broken in for me, and they look even better when they’ve been loved for a few months.

The leather part of these boots is a beautiful blue-grey color, and the canvas looks almost like linen. Another feature that is adorable, but that I regularly ignore, is that these boots are lined with a super cute, blue floral fabric, so if you’re the type that likes to flip the top of the boots down, there is an adorable design element built-in to help make that as cute as possible.

Timberland Earthkeeper Greenside Sandals

After losing my sandals in a pool-noodle stealing operation in Mexico, I was in desperate need for a pair that would withstand my shenanigans for 2018. That means they need to be well-made with high-quality materials, be easy to throw on and kick off, and go with everything from dress shorts to a swimsuit coverup. Luckily, Timberland Earthkeepers came to the rescue – again, via Poshmark.

After stumbling upon exactly one pair of these sandals, I knew I had to act fast. They are cute as hell, made with strong materials, have a slip-on back strap, and are extremely versatile. Unlike the boots, which had many styles and colors available in my size on Poshmark, these were a one-of-a-kind find, so I contacted the seller ASAP and haggled the price of these down to a measly $27.

In hindsight, I should have taken a picture of the soles because Timberland makes some tough-ass shoes. The soles of these sandals are nearly identical to the Timberland boots that I got. They look like they’re ready to carry you through a construction zone – with a kitten wedge.

Have you tried Timberland Earthkeepers? Am I late to this party? I’m already looking to expand my collection because the high heels and dress shoes in the Timberland collections are screaming my name!

2 Dope Queens

Mindy Tucker/HBO

If you’re not privy to this existentially funny duo, you better wise up. Jessica Williams and Phoebe Robinson are a comedians turned podcasters turned legendary show hosts, and their eponymous series on HBO just got renewed for four more hour-long specials!

These two women make me wish I lived 1,000 miles closer to my best friends. Each one of their shows is an intimate peek into not only their friendship, but what life is like as a black woman living in New York City. Speckled between Phoebe and Jessica’s hilarious banter and BFF-arguments are special guests. There are a handful of stand-up comics that get to present a small set, and each episode has a non-comedian guest that shows up just to chat with the girls and participate in a little activity. For example, they bring out a full brunch spread, complete with cocktails, before bringing out the Queen of Brunch herself, Sarah Jessica Parker, who is adorable. Together, the 2 Dope Queen educate a curious and eager SJP about the ins and outs of black hair. It’s a must-watch!

Sans Sucre Baking Mixes

No matter how many times I have tried to stay on a healthy eating streak, my sweet tooth always sabotages me. I can’t get rid of it! Moreover, I don’t really want to get rid of it. Not only do I love baking and desserts, but if I can’t spend this life indulging in delicious things, then what’s the point? Luckily, there are tons of products and brands who are trying to ease the tension between sweet teeth and healthy lifestyles. San Sucre is one of those brands and, if you speak even mild, back-of-the-food-label French, you can probably figure out why.

Sans Sucre makes quick and easy baking mixes that have no added sugar. This makes the nutrition facts on a box of brownies look less like fudgy indulgences and more like a small-to-medium granola bar. Recently, I made the Milk Chocolate Brownie mix (around $5 per box) and was pretty impressed with both how easy it was to make and how delicious they were once they were done!

These turned out so incredibly good for being only 80 calories per serving, and they were much lighter than your average full-fat, full-sugar brownie which can feel super heavy and dense. They required exactly three ingredients: the baking mix, water, and 2T of oil. Yes, two tablespoons of oil for an entire batch of no sugar added brownies. That good, very-brownie-like sweetness comes from Stevia! Could this be love?

In addition to brownies, you can find coffee cake mixes, cinnamon “sugar” sprinkles and even no-sugar-added fudge mixes! San Sucre also sent over all kinds of mousse and pie filling mixes, including (but most certainly not limited to): key lime pie, cheesecake, chocolate mousse, and lemon mousse. Plus, the mousse and filling mixes are no added sugar and low fat! So far, I’ve tried nearly all of the brownies they have to offer, but expect to hear from me again when I dive into these!

If you want to try some for yourself, you can find Sans Sucre baking mixes at lots of different stores, but grab them super easily from Amazon!

That’s it for me this month – now it’s your turn! What have you been loving in July?

Probably watching Netflix.

Source: http://brokeandbeautiful.com/2018/what-im-into-july-2018/

[gethealthy18-blog]

Healthy Breakfast Ideas Kids Love

New Post has been published on http://healingawerness.com/news/healthy-breakfast-ideas-kids-love/

Healthy Breakfast Ideas Kids Love

One of the biggest challenges in switching to a real food diet is figuring out what to eat for breakfast. Breakfast cereals are a really common choice these days, especially for kids, but sadly are not real food.

Even healthy and organic breakfast cereals must be processed in some way to reach cereal form, and virtually all of them have added sweeteners. Some even contain more sugar than donuts!

Why Isn’t Cereal a Healthy Breakfast?

Virtually all breakfast cereals are very high in sugar/carbs and almost all contain processed grains. This means that they are high in phytic acid, which can damage the intestinal lining and lead to tooth decay. Many also contain artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives.

On top of that, many contain genetically modified ingredients in the form of corn products (including high fructose corn syrup), hydrogenated oils, or GMO grains. We feed our poor kids these boxed insulin spikes and then wonder why they have trouble sitting still in school!

Couple that with the fact that most cereals are eaten in milk, which can have some problems of its own, and you have a breakfast disaster.

(Not so) fun fact: Studies in mice have also found that mice that are fed breakfast cereals die before mice who are given only water. And more surprisingly, mice that are fed the breakfast cereal box live longer than mice fed the breakfast cereal! If you are paying several bucks a box for breakfast cereal, sadly, the most nutritious part might be the box!

Oh yeah, and for a really interesting history lesson on cereal, check out this article.

What to Eat Instead

Even for adults, popular breakfast choices are often things like bagels, donuts, croissants, toast, cereal, Pop Tarts, etc. Sure, these things are fast and easy to prepare, but have you ever read the ingredients? If breakfast is the most important meal of the day, getting enough protein and fat is even more important!

So what should we eat for breakfast? I suggest a mixture of proteins, good fats, and *gasp* vegetables! This is especially vital for children, whose developing brains need adequate proteins and fats to function.

Think about it: breast milk, which is the perfect food for newborns, is almost 50% saturated fat, yet no babies get heart disease. Isn’t it logical that the need for adequate fat doesn’t just go away once babies wean? The human brain is approximately 70% fat, and since kids’ brains are rapidly developing, they need healthy fats for optimal brain function.

Unfortunately, our fast-paced lifestyles and misguided interest in low-fat diets have put our kids (and us) at a big disadvantage.

If you are ready to give your kids a nutritional boost at breakfast, don’t worry — the healthy options are often cheaper, and can even be easier than cereal. These kid-approved recipes are also great for adults, and ensure enough proteins and fats to make breakfast truly the most important meal of the day.

Healthy Breakfast Recipes to Start the Day

With a little preparation and planning, a healthy breakfast is possible! The following are some of our favorite “recipes” for breakfast, although some of them really just qualify as ideas and require no prep at all!

Breakfast Egg Muffins

These breakfast egg muffins are an easy and tasty breakfast idea that is portable and able to be eaten on the go. It packs a powerful nutritional punch and tastes delicious. It can be adjusted to fit your child’s tastes by adding whichever vegetables your child likes. You can make these by the dozen and just reheat for breakfast each day, making breakfast faster and easier than a bowl of cereal!

Cheesy Breakfast Bake

No muffin pan? No problem! This is a grain-free twist on the traditional egg breakfast casserole. It’s perfect for overnight guests or a crowd of hungry kids. This bake gets extra protein from cottage cheese and is ideal for working in leftover veggies. (Cheese makes everything better!)

Wellness Bars

These energy bars are also portable and kids love them! They do contain a fair amount of sugars from the dates, so they should be paired with a hardboiled egg or some other protein. These are simple to make, and with only a few natural ingredients, they beat the heck out of Pop Tarts!

Oven Omelet (aka Leftover Omelet)

When cooking for a whole family, an oven omelet is an easy way to help everyone get quality proteins and sneak in some veggies. Cook veggies and meats of choice (we love spinach, onions, ham, etc.) in a large oven-safe pan until pretty soft. Add a dozen eggs or so, scramble in with a fork and stick in the oven to finish cooking. When it’s done, cut thin slices like a pie and serve. It can even be taken on the go.

Protein “Brain Power” Smoothie

While they don’t get it every day, this is the only smoothie that keeps my kids full for more than half an hour. This recipe calls for coconut milk, coconut oil, almond butter, egg yolks, banana, vanilla, and whatever flavor you like (cinnamon, cocoa powder, strawberries, etc.). It has plenty of good fats and medium-chain fatty acids to support kids’ brains, and they enjoy it because it tastes like a milkshake! It also contains much less sugar than juice-based smoothies and keeps them satisfied much longer!

Coconut Flour Waffles

These waffles are a big hit at our house, and while they take longer to prepare, they can be made ahead and frozen to reheat. They contain more protein than some of the “eggs” you get in fast-food breakfasts, and also have healthy fats and filling fiber to keep kids (and adults) going until lunch. They also only have a few ingredients and taste great! Use strawberries and unsweetened whipped heavy cream or pure maple syrup for toppings (if you need one!).

Bacon, Eggs, and Sliced Apples

This breakfast is a well-balanced meal for anyone (and who doesn’t love bacon and eggs?!). It’s fast to whip up on the stove and beats the socks off a bagel any day. What makes this traditional American breakfast healthier is opting for pastured eggs and nitrite-free  pastured bacon. Animals that have been in the sun and eating the foods nature intended produce more nutritious food (more about that here). This is our standard go-to breakfast almost every day, there are tons of ways to mix this up. With all the protein it fills kids up, too. (A difficult feat at times!)

Hard-Boiled Eggs and Fruit With Heavy Whipped Cream

Another easy and delicious breakfast option, especially when berries are in season! Just hard boil eggs the night before and have them ready to peel for breakfast. Put a handful of sliced berries in a bowl and top with homemade whipped cream (just beat heavy whipping cream and a little vanilla with a hand mixer).

Chia Seed Pudding Parfaits

Tired of eggs and smoothies? This chia seed pudding is a nice way to start the day and can be made the night before. I vary the nut milk used for this recipe (almond, coconut, or macadamia are favorites). Top with fresh or thawed berries and a sprinkle of chopped nuts or coconut for a parfait flair. These are so simple the kids can make them… one less thing for Mom to do!

Need more healthy breakfast ideas? There are many more in my Wellness Mama Cookbook.

I’m always looking for new ideas too… what are your favorites for a healthy breakfast?

Source: https://wellnessmama.com/1694/healthy-breakfast-suggestions/

[happy2bmyownboss]

**This post does contain some affiliate links which could possibly earn me a small commission if a purchase was made through them. These links help to support our blog and our family.

Oh my! What a day we have had. As you know from yesterday’s post I was feeling a bit overwhelmed before we even made it to our dance… I finally found that missing belt though and you’ll never guess where. If it had been a snake it would have bit me… it really would have.

  Remember the pile of clothes I had laid out on the bed? Can you guess where it is? Take a closer look…

See it now? I have no idea how it got there even though I am quite sure I must’ve done it before I put away my crinoline. I’ve never done this before so I’m really quite puzzled as to why I did that but it is safe and sound where it belongs now.

Crazy thing is I didn’t really even need it last night as it wasn’t quite the right shade… sigh. Here’s a quick pic of my outfit… I was hoping to get a better pic last night but that never happened either.

It is quite a pretty dress and I got it Mr. Awesome got it from Square Up Fashions. I should have had it shortened a bit but rolling the waist down worked out fine. This dress is the turquoise version found HERE.

We had a late night last night and of course I had to get up early. Not only did I have a shopping trip planned I also got a notification about a Farm Share event happening nearby. I have been wanting to go check this out and somehow I had forgotten that it was happening this morning but I was able to SQUEEZE it into our CRAZY schedule.

Ms. Olivia, who is doing quite well, had volunteered at one of these events earlier in the year and had brought us some yummy vegetables to enjoy. I wasn’t sure what all they had but I really wanted to check it out.

They are on a mission to help end hunger and do this by helping to distribute foods that would otherwise end up in landfills. Crazy to think about how much good food that actually gets thrown out when there are so many who could use it. With our food budget being a little on the tight side right now I really wanted to go see what this was all about.

Well today was another one of those CRAZY days here. The kids were slow getting up and then the van needed gas… deep breath… I really hate when I get in a vehicle and the gas light comes on before I leave the yard but that’s a problem for another day.  I did know last night that it would need gas so it wasn’t as much of a shock as it is sometimes.

Once everyone was up, dressed, and fed we headed out for our chilly adventure. Then we had to stop for gas before getting to our first destination. Unfortunately for us many others had been there before us and there wasn’t much left. However I did speak to a really nice woman and she made sure we didn’t go away empty handed. We definitely have enough coconut milk for Mr. William to use and possibly enough to try out a new recipe or two. She also gave us a big box of mint cookies… yum!

I really like the mission of this organization and I would really love to possibly do some volunteer work at some time. They really do a lot of work in our comunity and provide such a great service. I don’t know if there are any locations in other states but this may be something worth checking into if you are interested.

After that we headed to pick up our Sam’s Club order. Did you know that with the Click ‘n Pull orders you don’t have to even go into the store? I didn’t know that until today. This is great for me as I don’t really like going in to the store and shopping everytime I go because the store is just so BIG! I did go into the store today as I wanted to make sure that was the way it worked and sure enough the cashier said I could’ve waited in the pick up line. Great to know for the next time we go.

I had also planned to shop at Aldi to pick up a few other things we needed. The kids haven’t been to Aldi in a while and they were fascinated by the whole quarter in the shopping cart deal. They were quick to remind me that we needed to pick up some items for our Gold Rush Party. I promised that we would and they offered to ‘keep an eye out’ for some good stuff and they did just that!

Everything seemed to be ‘just perfect’ for our upcoming party and we did end up with more ‘junk gold food’ than I would normally buy but I guess that’s ok every now and then. They are only little once and this will be something they will remember and hopefully it will help them to recall something about the Gold Rush later on.

After finishing up at Aldi, stopping at Dollar Tree, and a quick trip to Walmart we ended up with fries, chicken nuggets, a pineapple, and lots of candy. I mean LOTS of candy. We didn’t go trick or treating but they sure made up for that today! We also had a ton of groceries to put away:

That picture doesn’t even show the bags on the stove or in the hallway to the kitchen… there was a lot and it took me quite a while to get them situated. I did this as quickly as I could so that we could get started on our party preparations.

I also set the timer for 15 minutes so they could do a quick ‘tidy up’ around the house. It’s AMAZING to see how fast they cleaned up when they were motivated. We then set the timer for 30 minutes so that I could get them to help me move some stuff out to the shed and get some Fall decorations up. We’ve not decorated this house since we moved in and I was determined to get it done or give away the totes pf unused decor.

Here is what we accomplished:

You’ll see a bit more in some of the other pics and I’ve changed a couple of things since these were taken but it made such a big difference in making our little house a little more ‘homey’.😊

Then it was back to the party preparations. The stove was covered with party supplies so we had to take care of that because the only other place to put them was on the counter and I needed the counter to prep the food. The kids blew up gold colored balloons and then I showed them how to put them on the sticks and we cut some foam to put in the buckets. We then arranged the balloons in the buckets and layered some candies around them.

I pulled out a Fall themed table runner that Nanny J had given me earlier in the year. It’s so nice to have things semi organized so I can put my hands on things when I need them. This matched quite well with the other decor we had out. The kids then spread some gold coins and candies out around the centerpiece. Aren’t the pumpkins so cute? Nanny J and Papa O brought them for the kids this week. The kids plan to turn them into pumpkin pie soon though.

We also arranged some of the other treats on a gold tray. We did some Fiddle Faddle popcorn which they insisted looked like gold nuggets. We mixed up some of the new Hershey’s Gold Bar pieces with some Peanut Brittle clusters and Yellow Peanut M&Ms to look like ‘Gold’ and ‘Fool’s Gold’. The final section was filled with Goldfish.

Then we used some store brand oreo cookies and some gold spray mist color to make some ‘Gold coated’ cookies. I wasn’t too sure how they would turn out but they looked pretty good and they tasted good too!

Once this was all taken care of we started on the food. First I set out the chicken breasts… these things were HUGE. I got a big pack from Sam’s Club and was totally amazed by how big these were. I mean I’d be scared to see the chicken these came from!

They were really so big that I was able to cut four of them each into four pieces to get them to equal the size of a ‘regular’ one that I get from the grocery store. They did cook down a bit but they were plenty big enough for a good portion.

I seasoned these with some  Alvi’s Incredible Seasoning  and set them to the side. I had actually gotten a whole box of these to use for a party and review but the box came in while I was out of town for my Mom-mom’s funeral and I didn’t get the chance to do the party… Oops… we have used a few of the seasonings and they have all been really good so far.

While they were marinating I started cutting the pineapple. Joey supervised and did some quality control and then I had the kids help me cut some of the slices into smaller bits for the Pineapple Upside-Down cake and cupcakes.

They are really enjoying putting their skills learned with the Kids Cook Real Food  program to use in the kitchen. These kid-safe knives and easy to hold cutters are perfect for little hands to practice with!

When the cakes went into the oven I started on the chicken. I cooked the bacon in my cast iron pan and then browned and cooked the chicken in the same pan… you could cook the chicken in olive oil but I really like the extra flavor from the bacon grease. You can cook some sliced mushrooms in the grease as well…MMmmmm!

While these were baking I went ahead and dumped some chicken nuggets on a large cookie sheet and dumped some French Fries on another. I then popped them in the oven under the cakes.

Then I layered the cooked chicken, the bacon, and topped it with some cheese. When the cakes were finished baking I put the chicken in to finish up and got started on the Mac N Cheese.

By the time it was finished the chicken, nuggets, and french fries were done too. It was party time!

The minions were eager to get their gold plates full of ‘Golden’ food to the table. Once they finished their food and washed it down with some Gold Juice aka Tampico Island Punch they were ready to dig into the treats. They didn’t go overboard but they enjoyed everything so much except for giving their speeches… lol.

Yep, this was part of their History grade so they had to give speeches. The girls took turns and then answered questions. Papa O said he learned some new facts that he hadn’t heard before and so did a couple of other people. I learned quite a bit while we were doing this unit study and I’m glad that the kids were able to pass along a little of their learning to others in a fun way. Even Joey gave a quick speech, from memory, and had a fun time.

Then it was time for some FUN! They each had a fun Gold Rush Wordsearch to do and some glow in the dark sticks to play with. I dug out the LED Party Favors from a review I had done earlier this year. These were a big hit! The kids also had fun showing off their Gold Flakes and Pyrite from an activity we had done earlier.

When all was said and done it was a long day but it was good, really good day! I think this was the perfect way to wrap up our first part of our Little House on the Praire Academic Adventure!

I hope others can have a little fun with it too. You can always pick just a couple of activities to go along with the book and to help create memories for kids and/or grandkids. They will remember the simple things like churning butter in a mason jar or making corn husk dolls for a lifetime. Many of the lessons learned from the Little House on the Prairie series are not taught in schools today.

I have included various activities for all subject and as well as a lot of Life Skills into our weekly studies. I broke them down into weeks, not days, to keep us from feeling so rushed to get things completed. This has worked out well for us and our CRAZY schedule. The good things is that others could also use this on their own time schedule and could choose just one or two activities and complete this unit faster if they chose to do so.

My kids have been learning so many valuable lessons on good manners and character as well as important skills like how to wash dishes and cooking simple meals. These are skills they will use for a lifetime. Best of all, they are having FUN while learning!

Be on the look out for the next adventure, LittleHouse On The Prairie Adventure, coming soon!

  Eureka! I Found My Belt And A Lot Of Gold! **This post does contain some affiliate links which could possibly earn me a small commission if a purchase was made through them.

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The Best Spanakopita Has More Than Just Spinach

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The Best Spanakopita Has More Than Just Spinach

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[Photographs and GIF: Vicky Wasik]

I don’t know if it’s just me, but in the ’90s, I saw a lot of spanakopita. I had never eaten it before, and yet for an entire decade it somehow became my go-to appetizer. Phyllo and spinach always lived in the freezer, allowing me to fold up a few triangles in a flash. The spanakopita I knew was brimming with watery spinach and overwhelmed by cheese, but it was easy and cheap, and it filled a buffet, so I kept making my guests suffer through it.

It wasn’t until a recent trip to Greece that I realized what spanakopita could be. At a farm up in Mount Pelion, we were served a pie made with layers of just-rolled sheets of phyllo, generously bathed in extra-virgin olive oil and loaded with mixed greens from the farm. This pie was complex and earthy, and tasted of summer. This was not the spiritless pastry I’d peddled at so many dinner parties. I realized I didn’t know spanakopita at all.

Surprisingly, giving this dish a makeover doesn’t require much extra effort—it’s all about the ingredients. Using a combination of tender greens and herbs gives the pie subtle complexity, while making the upgrade from frozen to fresh greens ensures the best flavor. Good olive oil adds richness and depth, giving heartiness to this vegetarian dish. I also like to use a true Greek feta, which is made with all sheep’s and goat’s milk—never cow’s milk—and that little hit of funk goes a long way in a simple dish like this.

I chose a mix of fresh spinach, rainbow chard, arugula, and watercress for this pie, but feel free to keep it simple and use all spinach if you prefer. Any combination works, but I especially like the peppery arugula and watercress against the sweet, vegetal flavors of spinach and chard. This recipe is a great way to use up whatever tender greens and herbs you have in the fridge, allowing you to mix and match. Just be sure to avoid hearty greens, like kale and collards, which require a longer cooking time.

I stick to tender varieties for the herbs, such as the dill and parsley I’ve used here. Tender herbs have delicate aromatics, which won’t overwhelm this pie; woody herbs, like rosemary and thyme, are too strongly flavored, resulting in a soapy taste if used in the large quantity that’s called for in this recipe.

Because greens are made up primarily of water, they lose a ton of volume once cooked. In order to get a nicely stuffed spanakopita, many recipes call for precooking the greens before adding them to the pie, so they don’t further shrink in the oven and collapse the pastry. To keep things simple, I instead massage the raw greens, which sufficiently wilts them and allows me to skip the precooking step. This also means I can fully brown the phyllo without worrying about overcooking the greens.

After chopping up the greens and their tender stems, I add extra-virgin olive oil, salt, and freshly ground black pepper. I then gently massage the greens with the seasoning until everything is evenly mixed and the greens begin to wilt, reducing in volume. There’s no need to fully wilt the greens at this point; they’ll continue to wilt as they sit.

Next, I sweat sliced scallion and garlic scapes in olive oil over medium heat. I would normally use sliced garlic cloves, but I couldn’t resist tossing in a couple of seasonal scapes instead. The goal of sweating these aromatics is to cook them enough to make them tender and fully bring out their flavor without browning them. Once they’re sweated, I add the warm aromatics to the greens, which wilts them further. I then add an egg and trahanas to the greens, evenly mixing both in before finishing the filling with large curds of Greek feta.

Trahanas is small, pebbly crumbles that look like grains or small pasta. It’s made from a fermented porridge of grain and dairy, which is then dried and broken up into small, rice-sized pieces. Originally a way to preserve dairy in Greece, the Balkans, and the Middle East, it’s still a popular addition to soups and savory pie fillings to absorb moisture and hold them together. Trahanas can be made from yogurt or buttermilk, for the tangy “sour” variety, or unfermented milk for the mild “sweet” style. Here, I’ve used sour trahanas to absorb any excess moisture from the greens. Once cooked, the flavor of the sour trahanas mimics that of the feta, giving the filling an extra cheesy zip. If you don’t have trahanas, you can swap it out for bulgur, rice, or couscous.

With the filling squared away, I turn my attention to the phyllo. If you’ve never worked with it before, phyllo is tissue-thin sheets of delicate pastry, layered and baked until they’re crisp and flaky. Working with phyllo can be frustrating if you expect to preserve the gossamer leaves; I roll with the punches instead, fully prepared to break, tear, and crack the pastry. Luckily, phyllo is more beautiful when it’s crumpled and scrunched.

After fully thawing the pastry, I unroll the sheets and cover them with a barely damp kitchen towel. Phyllo will dry out right before your eyes, so even for a quick dish like this one, I keep it covered while I work. I brush my pie pan with olive oil before layering on the phyllo, one sheet at a time, brushing each with more oil. Once the pie plate is lined, I fill it with the greens before folding up the overhang and draping more phyllo over to top the pie. I drizzle it all with more olive oil to help it bake up golden and light. To finish the spanakopita, I cut the pie into portions before it goes into the oven—phyllo bakes up so crisp and brittle that the only way to cut clean slices is to score it in advance of baking.

I bake the pie until the phyllo folds become shatteringly crisp and golden, with touches of deep brown on the wayward pleats. The greens will grow tender and succulent, while their moisture plumps up the trahanas. Pops of briny feta run through the minerally greens, giving the spanakopita a creamy contrast to the crunchy phyllo crust. It’s best to allow the pie to rest a few minutes before you dig into the steamy dish. It can also be served at room temperature, and I even like it cold, straight from the fridge and eaten with my hands, like a slice of leftover pizza.

As with a lot of stuff from the ’90s, I’m happy to have this oldie back in my life. This is more than just a dusted-off version—it’s fully revamped and ready for a new decade.

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New Post has been published on http://haleeskitchen.com/homemade-cannoli-that-live-up-to-the-hype/

Homemade Cannoli That Live Up to the Hype

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[Photographs: Vicky Wasik. Video: Natalie Holt.]

Let’s get this out of the way up front: the most authentic part of this recipe is my reasonably Italian sounding name. The history of cannoli is steeped in more regional ingredients, cooking traditions, and family secrets than I could ever hope to honor, much less integrate, in a single recipe. The best I can do is take the same approach I use in developing copycat recipes like homemade Oreo-style cookies and Fig Newtons—focus on capturing the taste, texture, and appearance we long for, even when that means breaking certain rules along the way.

Which is to say, my recipe itself may aim to create the Platonic ideal of cannoli, but there’s nothing traditional about what it looks like on paper. My pastry shells don’t contain a single drop of Marsala or any eggs at all, but they’re blistered, crisp, and tender, and almost savory in their toastiness. My ricotta filling doesn’t include even a pinch of powdered sugar, but it’s wonderfully sweet and silky smooth. The two unite in a pastry that’s rich and light, creamy and crunchy, earthy and floral, mellow and intense—a study in contrast if there ever was one. It takes some time, and an arsenal of equipment to pull off, but the results are more than worth the effort.

Of course, it all starts with the right dough. Believe it or not, cannoli shells are really a type of cracker—nothing more than flour, water, salt, and a knob of butter. Many classic Italian recipes use Marsala as some of that liquid, not for flavor but for the same reason Kenji puts vodka in pie dough—to provide hydration while limiting gluten development.

Good quality Marsala can be hard to find here in the States, and it’s an expensive purchase for recipes that only call for a tablespoon. The far easier method for controlling gluten development is to choose a low-protein all-purpose flour such as Gold Medal or Pillsbury. This builds the right balance of starch and protein into the recipe from the start, giving the shells a perfect combination of tenderness and strength. Just toss all the ingredients into a food processor and blitz until satiny smooth and a little…cobwebby, for lack of a better term.

Hypothetically, this can be done by hand if you have the patience to slap and stretch the sticky dough for an hour, but it’s a 90-second job in a food processor—the only sane option so far as I’m concerned. Transfer the sticky dough to a lightly greased bowl, cover, and set it aside for at least two hours or up to 24. Either way, that flexibility leaves more than enough time to make the filling at your leisure, so don’t feel compelled to tackle the entire recipe, start to finish, in a single afternoon.

On that note, my take on the ricotta filling is certainly where this recipe deviates most from tradition. Virtually all cannoli recipes use nothing more than powdered sugar to thicken and sweeten the ricotta. It’s the easiest method for sure, but the undissolved starch from the powdered sugar leaves a chalky ghost in every bite. If the ricotta is anything less than spectacular, the result is a filling that tastes like, as Daniel once put it, caulk.

My solution is to make a small batch of vanilla pudding, providing a sweet, thick, creamy, and flavorful foundation for the ricotta filling (it’s the same trick I use for making a super-stable cream cheese buttercream). Once the vanilla pudding is cool, beat it until smooth and creamy (either with a flexible spatula or the paddle of a stand mixer), then fold in the ricotta by hand.

It should go without saying that the ricotta needs to be of a very high caliber. Anything made with gums, stabilizers, preservatives, or other additives should be rejected out of hand. If you’re lucky enough to live near an excellent producer, locally made ricotta is an extraordinary thing (at Serious Eats, we love Salvatore Bklyn and Di Palo’s). Shy of that, look for ricotta made with nothing more than milk or whey and possibly salt and/or an acid or starter of some sort (true ricotta is made from nothing more than whey, but it’s a rarity outside of Italy). Ricotta is the backbone of cannoli, and if it’s not delicious enough to eat by the spoonful, your cannoli will be doomed to mediocrity from the start.

After you’ve made the filling, transfer it to a large, disposable pastry bag fitted with a plain, 1/2-inch round tip and refrigerate until needed—it will keep up to 3 days, another excellent make-ahead option.

Next up: rolling the dough. It will seem impossibly sticky in the bowl, but all it needs is a generous coating of flour. Seriously, don’t be shy. Excess flour can be brushed off later, so use as much as you need to feel comfortable handling the sticky dough. Roll it until no more than 1/16 inch thick, then brush it lightly with egg white and fold it in half.

Like a poorly applied screen protector, this results in tons of little air pockets trapped between the layers. In turn, these pockets help the dough to blister in the hot oil, giving the shells a delicate honeycomb crunch and plenty of surface area to fry up golden brown. Re-roll the dough until it’s 1/16 inch thick once more, then cut as many 3 1/2–inch rounds as possible—the largest cutter in Ateco’s graduated set is perfect for the job.

Gather up all the scraps and transfer to an airtight container until you have the time and space to re-roll. While you prepare the oil for frying, the cutouts can be left as-is; if you think this will be longer than 20 minutes, cover them with plastic wrap or a clean towel to keep them from drying out.

The most important thing about cannoli, since it’s a deep fried pastry, is the oil itself—an ingredient most recipes leave to chance, as if any old oil will do. Nothing could be further from the truth; for cannoli, choosing the right oil is just as important as choosing the best ricotta. That’s because cannoli were traditionally fried in lard, a solid fat. Modern recipes use liquid oil for sheer convenience, and that’s a huge problem.

Pastries may crisp when fried in liquid oil, but the oil they absorbs will ultimately create a sense of greasiness. Imagine a piece of bread dunked in oil for a few minutes, and the way it would squish in your mouth. That’s nice if you’re talking about a chunk of focaccia dipped in a fine olive oil, but it’s not exactly what we look for in a pastry. When fried in solid fats, however, the oil a dough absorbs will revert to its solid state once cool, creating a texture that’s light and crisp, with lingering richness as the oil melts on your tongue, like a generously buttered slice of toast.

If you can find enough leaf lard to deep fry, go for it! But my favorite alternative is refined coconut oil. Like lard, it’s solid at room temperature and liquid when warm.

Even better, it doesn’t produce the funky smell most often associate with frying at home; in fact, it’s totally odorless, so the only the thing you’ll notice will be the aroma of the cannoli shells as they brown. Little jars of refined coconut oil can be pretty pricey in supermarkets, but when shopping in bulk at warehouse clubs or online, that price will drop to less than $3 a pound. If coconut oil isn’t an option due to allergies, other solid fats like palm oil or vegetable shortening will do just fine.

Whatever solid fat you choose, use enough to form a 2-inch deep layer in a pot that’s at least 4 inches deep, and warm it to about 360°F, using a clip-on digital thermometer to monitor the temperature in real time. Meanwhile, form the shells by wrapping the cut-outs around tapered cannoli forms and sealing the flap with a dab of egg white.

When the oil is ready, fry the shells until pale gold, about 2 minutes. If the time varies significantly for you, check the placement of your thermometer; it’s normal for the fry-time to vary a little depending on the specific thickness of the dough and the conductivity of the form, but any major differences are a sign the oil is too hot or too cool.

Transfer the fried shells to a paper towel–lined baking sheet. Holding the shell itself with a pair of kitchen tweezers or tongs, rap the tapered end of the form to loosen the shell. Set the forms aside until cool, then continue shaping and frying the remaining cutouts the same way.

Fried in a solid fat like refined coconut oil, the cannoli shells will keep up to one week in an airtight container. Once filled, that solid fat will act like a waterproof jacket and keep the filled cannoli crisp for about four hours. Still, I think cannoli are best when the shells are freshly fried and filled, perhaps because at that point I’ve been anticipating them all day.

I can’t argue with the allure of dark chocolate and toasted pistachios, but, to me, fresh cannoli are absolutely perfect on their own, delicate and crisp and creamy—just begging for a shot of espresso.

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Homemade Cannoli That Live Up to the Hype

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Homemade Cannoli That Live Up to the Hype

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[Photographs: Vicky Wasik. Video: Natalie Holt.]

Let’s get this out of the way up front: the most authentic part of this recipe is my reasonably Italian sounding name. The history of cannoli is steeped in more regional ingredients, cooking traditions, and family secrets than I could ever hope to honor, much less integrate, in a single recipe. The best I can do is take the same approach I use in developing copycat recipes like homemade Oreo-style cookies and Fig Newtons—focus on capturing the taste, texture, and appearance we long for, even when that means breaking certain rules along the way.

Which is to say, my recipe itself may aim to create the Platonic ideal of cannoli, but there’s nothing traditional about what it looks like on paper. My pastry shells don’t contain a single drop of Marsala or any eggs at all, but they’re blistered, crisp, and tender, and almost savory in their toastiness. My ricotta filling doesn’t include even a pinch of powdered sugar, but it’s wonderfully sweet and silky smooth. The two unite in a pastry that’s rich and light, creamy and crunchy, earthy and floral, mellow and intense—a study in contrast if there ever was one. It takes some time, and an arsenal of equipment to pull off, but the results are more than worth the effort.

Of course, it all starts with the right dough. Believe it or not, cannoli shells are really a type of cracker—nothing more than flour, water, salt, and a knob of butter. Many classic Italian recipes use Marsala as some of that liquid, not for flavor but for the same reason Kenji puts vodka in pie dough—to provide hydration while limiting gluten development.

Good quality Marsala can be hard to find here in the States, and it’s an expensive purchase for recipes that only call for a tablespoon. The far easier method for controlling gluten development is to choose a low-protein all-purpose flour such as Gold Medal or Pillsbury. This builds the right balance of starch and protein into the recipe from the start, giving the shells a perfect combination of tenderness and strength. Just toss all the ingredients into a food processor and blitz until satiny smooth and a little…cobwebby, for lack of a better term.

Hypothetically, this can be done by hand if you have the patience to slap and stretch the sticky dough for an hour, but it’s a 90-second job in a food processor—the only sane option so far as I’m concerned. Transfer the sticky dough to a lightly greased bowl, cover, and set it aside for at least two hours or up to 24. Either way, that flexibility leaves more than enough time to make the filling at your leisure, so don’t feel compelled to tackle the entire recipe, start to finish, in a single afternoon.

On that note, my take on the ricotta filling is certainly where this recipe deviates most from tradition. Virtually all cannoli recipes use nothing more than powdered sugar to thicken and sweeten the ricotta. It’s the easiest method for sure, but the undissolved starch from the powdered sugar leaves a chalky ghost in every bite. If the ricotta is anything less than spectacular, the result is a filling that tastes like, as Daniel once put it, caulk.

My solution is to make a small batch of vanilla pudding, providing a sweet, thick, creamy, and flavorful foundation for the ricotta filling (it’s the same trick I use for making a super-stable cream cheese buttercream). Once the vanilla pudding is cool, beat it until smooth and creamy (either with a flexible spatula or the paddle of a stand mixer), then fold in the ricotta by hand.

It should go without saying that the ricotta needs to be of a very high caliber. Anything made with gums, stabilizers, preservatives, or other additives should be rejected out of hand. If you’re lucky enough to live near an excellent producer, locally made ricotta is an extraordinary thing (at Serious Eats, we love Salvatore Bklyn and Di Palo’s). Shy of that, look for ricotta made with nothing more than milk or whey and possibly salt and/or an acid or starter of some sort (true ricotta is made from nothing more than whey, but it’s a rarity outside of Italy). Ricotta is the backbone of cannoli, and if it’s not delicious enough to eat by the spoonful, your cannoli will be doomed to mediocrity from the start.

After you’ve made the filling, transfer it to a large, disposable pastry bag fitted with a plain, 1/2-inch round tip and refrigerate until needed—it will keep up to 3 days, another excellent make-ahead option.

Next up: rolling the dough. It will seem impossibly sticky in the bowl, but all it needs is a generous coating of flour. Seriously, don’t be shy. Excess flour can be brushed off later, so use as much as you need to feel comfortable handling the sticky dough. Roll it until no more than 1/16 inch thick, then brush it lightly with egg white and fold it in half.

Like a poorly applied screen protector, this results in tons of little air pockets trapped between the layers. In turn, these pockets help the dough to blister in the hot oil, giving the shells a delicate honeycomb crunch and plenty of surface area to fry up golden brown. Re-roll the dough until it’s 1/16 inch thick once more, then cut as many 3 1/2–inch rounds as possible—the largest cutter in Ateco’s graduated set is perfect for the job.

Gather up all the scraps and transfer to an airtight container until you have the time and space to re-roll. While you prepare the oil for frying, the cutouts can be left as-is; if you think this will be longer than 20 minutes, cover them with plastic wrap or a clean towel to keep them from drying out.

The most important thing about cannoli, since it’s a deep fried pastry, is the oil itself—an ingredient most recipes leave to chance, as if any old oil will do. Nothing could be further from the truth; for cannoli, choosing the right oil is just as important as choosing the best ricotta. That’s because cannoli were traditionally fried in lard, a solid fat. Modern recipes use liquid oil for sheer convenience, and that’s a huge problem.

Pastries may crisp when fried in liquid oil, but the oil they absorbs will ultimately create a sense of greasiness. Imagine a piece of bread dunked in oil for a few minutes, and the way it would squish in your mouth. That’s nice if you’re talking about a chunk of focaccia dipped in a fine olive oil, but it’s not exactly what we look for in a pastry. When fried in solid fats, however, the oil a dough absorbs will revert to its solid state once cool, creating a texture that’s light and crisp, with lingering richness as the oil melts on your tongue, like a generously buttered slice of toast.

If you can find enough leaf lard to deep fry, go for it! But my favorite alternative is refined coconut oil. Like lard, it’s solid at room temperature and liquid when warm.

Even better, it doesn’t produce the funky smell most often associate with frying at home; in fact, it’s totally odorless, so the only the thing you’ll notice will be the aroma of the cannoli shells as they brown. Little jars of refined coconut oil can be pretty pricey in supermarkets, but when shopping in bulk at warehouse clubs or online, that price will drop to less than $3 a pound. If coconut oil isn’t an option due to allergies, other solid fats like palm oil or vegetable shortening will do just fine.

Whatever solid fat you choose, use enough to form a 2-inch deep layer in a pot that’s at least 4 inches deep, and warm it to about 360°F, using a clip-on digital thermometer to monitor the temperature in real time. Meanwhile, form the shells by wrapping the cut-outs around tapered cannoli forms and sealing the flap with a dab of egg white.

When the oil is ready, fry the shells until pale gold, about 2 minutes. If the time varies significantly for you, check the placement of your thermometer; it’s normal for the fry-time to vary a little depending on the specific thickness of the dough and the conductivity of the form, but any major differences are a sign the oil is too hot or too cool.

Transfer the fried shells to a paper towel–lined baking sheet. Holding the shell itself with a pair of kitchen tweezers or tongs, rap the tapered end of the form to loosen the shell. Set the forms aside until cool, then continue shaping and frying the remaining cutouts the same way.

Fried in a solid fat like refined coconut oil, the cannoli shells will keep up to one week in an airtight container. Once filled, that solid fat will act like a waterproof jacket and keep the filled cannoli crisp for about four hours. Still, I think cannoli are best when the shells are freshly fried and filled, perhaps because at that point I’ve been anticipating them all day.

I can’t argue with the allure of dark chocolate and toasted pistachios, but, to me, fresh cannoli are absolutely perfect on their own, delicate and crisp and creamy—just begging for a shot of espresso.

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[andrewmawby]

Gingerbread Houses: Tips & Tricks

You all loved Jenny’s kitchen and well, her whole house! when she shared a while back. She’ll be sharing her beautiful style here regularly (hooray!) and today she has some amazing inspiration, tips, tricks, and recipes for your annual gingerbread house tradition!

Gingerbread houses don’t have to be fancy (think graham crackers on empty cardboard milk cartons), but if you want them to, they can be elegant, frilly, or even gaudy. You simply can’t go wrong. They’re an expression of your creativity and your mood—an incarnation of what the season means to you.

For nearly thirty years, I’ve been making gingerbread houses at Christmas time. Small ones. Big ones. Red and green ones. Pink and blue ones. Ones covered only in frosting and ones dripping in candy canes and gum drops.

You don’t have to be an expert to make a gingerbread house! Don’t be intimidated by the elaborate gingerbread houses you see on magazine covers. Gingerbread houses—both baking and decorating them—should be fun! No keeping up with the Joneses here. Just do your thing! Here are some tips and tricks to help you on your way . . .

This post may contain affiliate links. See our full disclosure here. 

Gingerbread houses take time! Even if you’re buying a ready-made kit from your local grocery store, the icing takes hours to set up, just as it does when you’re building from scratch. If you’re baking the gingerbread, you want to give it anywhere from a full day to even 2 weeks to dry out completely before you start building with it. And once construction is under way, the icing takes several hours to dry, requiring that you work in steps over a number of days.

To make a gingerbread house from scratch, this is what you’ll need:

A sturdy base (such as heavy-duty cardboard or plywood, depending on the projected size and weight of your gingerbread house). If you plan on having landscaping surrounding your house, the base should be several inches larger than the footprint of your house.

A pattern or template for your house or church or train or whatever it is that you’re making from gingerbread. Search the Internet! There are a ton of free, as well as for-a-fee, options out there. You can also design your own. I’ve even used the pieces from a dollhouse kit as a template for a gingerbread house.

A reliable gingerbread dough recipe (I share a great one later in this post) and all the necessary ingredients.

Cookie or baking sheets that are not warped, but that lie flat so that your gingerbread does not end up misshapen as it bakes. You’ll need a rolling pin, too, and if you’ve got a stand mixer, use it!

The ingredients for the “glue” needed to assemble your house. I prefer to use royal icing (I buy Wilton Meringue Powder and add water and powdered sugar according to the recipe on the can). But some people use a hot sugar syrup, which works, too. (I’ve even heard of people who don’t plan on eating the house who use a glue gun and hot glue sticks to get the job done—nobody can see the glue under all the frosting and candy and apparently it does a great job of holding your house together).If you want to tint your icing different colors, you’ll also need food coloring.

Candy and sprinkles and edible delights of all colors, shapes, and sizes! I have made 2 or 3 gingerbread houses over the years decorated entirely with frosting, which can be beautiful, but more traditional houses incorporate candy in to the design.

Inspiration is everywhere! In store windows, in magazines, on the Internet. And I’m not talking just gingerbread houses here, but anything that attracts your eye that could be translated in to gingerbread. For example, the first time I drove by the house featured below, I just knew I had to make it into a gingerbread house. And so I did.

This red-and-white house below was inspired by some wrapping paper I saw that had a white background with red snowflakes all over it. I loved it so much that I wanted it to be a gingerbread house! It’s one of my favorite houses of all time and yet it’s not terribly traditional. Think outside the box! Make your house what you want it to be!

I’ve been making gingerbread houses long enough that I have a sixth sense for gingerbread inspiration that stays with me 365 days/year. For example, when walking down the Halloween clearance aisles at Wal-Mart, I spotted black decorating sugar for $0.40/bottle. I knew as soon as I saw it that it would add great texture and shimmer to a candy-shingle roof on a gingerbread house. I used the sugar on the Victorian-style house I built this year. (The picture below shows a section of roof covered in watered-down royal icing that I colored black with food coloring gel. The picture below that shows the shingle-like texture I achieved by sprinkling black sanding sugar all over it while the icing was still wet).

Now it’s time for my very favorite construction gingerbread recipe. It’s remarkable stuff. It works in humid climates or dry ones. If dried out properly after baking, it can withstand a significant amount of weight in icing and candy. It rolls out smoothly and bakes evenly. It smells heavenly. It’s heavy-duty and sturdy. It can be used for 2- and 3-story houses. My family and I have collectively made what may amount to hundreds of batches of the stuff over the years and it’s never failed us. Not once. Oh, and the spices make it smell incredible!

This is a picture of me and my two sisters posing in front of 2 gingerbread houses we made together with our Mom for Christmas 1993. We used the wonderful recipe you’ll find below!

My family got the recipe from Mary Comstock and her daughters Karen, Lauren, and Katie (I have featured some of Mary’s and Lauren’s beautiful gingerbread houses towards the end of this post). They in turn got it from a high school German teacher, Frau Em, who told them it is an authentic German recipe. The recipe has been in the Comstock family for over 40 years. And they make one or more gingerbread houses with it each Christmas (and sometimes for other holidays, like Halloween).

Even if you have your own gingerbread construction recipe, I recommend reading through this one, as I’ve included tips that would apply no matter what recipe you use.

And, yes, that really is the name of the recipe.

Das Pfefferkuchenhauschen or, The Never-Fail Gingerbread Recipe

(click here for a printable version of the recipe)

Each recipe makes about 1 baking sheet of dough.

Ingredients

1 cup shortening

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 cup molasses

2 tablespoons white vinegar

1-1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon cloves

5 cups pre-sifted white all-purpose flour

Cream shortening and sugar in a stand mixer. Add egg and molasses.

Add vinegar, baking soda, salt, and spices. Add flour gradually. (You may need to knead in the last cups of flour by hand.)

Pour 1/4 cup or so of vegetable oil on a large, heavy baking sheet with sides (a half-sheet pan — about 18″x 13″ by 1″ high — is perfect). Roll out dough with rolling pin until it fills the baking sheet on all sides and meets the corners. (A standard size rolling pin will fit perfectly across the width of the baking sheet.) You should keep adding vegetable oil to the top of the dough as necessary to help it roll out slick and smooth. Remove any excess dough that does not disappear beneath the rolling pin and mesh flatly into the pan. Use that dough in another pan of gingerbread.

Place your pattern pieces on top of the gingerbread and cut gingerbread house pieces in gingerbread using the tip of a knife (wipe the knife clean in between cuts, if necessary) and leave them in the pan. Cut your pieces to maximize the available space just like you would if you were using cookie cutters to cut sugar cookie dough. Pieces can share sides without space in between. You don’t need to separate the pieces out from the surrounding scraps at this time (in fact, it’s better to leave them in to keep the gingerbread from spreading). Just be sure to cut all the way through to the pan as cleanly and precisely as possible.

Bake at 350 degrees F until very well done (remember, this is for building, not for eating, and you want it dry). Depending on your oven and other factors, this can take as little as 20 minutes or as much as 35 minutes or more.

When you pull the pans out of the oven, re-trace your design cuts in the gingerbread (if you don’t, you won’t be able to separate your house pieces from the surrounding scraps when the gingerbread has dried).

Let gingerbread cool in the baking sheets until it’s no longer too hot to handle. Carefully remove the house pieces and set on cooling racks to cool completely. Ensure the pieces do not touch each other as you want the air to be able to circulate freely to dry everything out. Now is the time to pop out the ‘scraps,’ before they become hard. ‘Scraps’ are the insides of windows or the spaces between fence rails, etc. Remove the door, but don’t throw it away because you can include it later when you assemble your house — a front door can be a fun part of your house to decorate!

Leave the gingerbread out to try. (Leaving it on cooling racks is ideal so that the air can circulate on all sides.) Gingerbread used for building should “season” about 2 weeks before being used to build with so it can dry out. Dry gingerbread is stronger and will support more weight. If you’re pressed for time, or if you’re building a small house, you can get away with letting it dry overnight, just be sure to limit exposure to moisture and humidity by carefully choosing where you leave the pieces to dry.

  Once you have your dried pieces, it’s time to build!

Take a hard look at your base (heavy cardboard or plywood). Will you be adding landscaping around your house? A pretzel fence perhaps? Or maybe some sugar cone pine trees? A candy rock walkway? Calculate roughly where your house needs to be on the board in relation to what you plan to put around it.

Inspect your gingerbread pieces. Are your edges straight? If you need to do a little trimming, I prefer a bread knife and a light hand. Be very careful as you trim, though, as you don’t want the gingerbread to crack or crumble. You may want to label your pieces as you prepare to proceed so that you don’t accidentally use a roof piece as a side wall, for example. You can just write on a small piece of paper and set it on top of the pieces.

If you’re making a multi-story gingerbread house, I strongly recommend cutting pieces of heavy-duty cardboard to support the interior walls and roof(s). Just ‘glue’ it with icing inside your gingerbread house like you ‘glue’ the gingerbread together . . . run a bead of icing on all sides of the cardboard and position it in place, straight up and down, in the interior of your gingerbread house so that it comes in to direct contact with at least 2 of the inside walls and the roof.

Prepare a batch of royal icing. Cover the bowl tightly with Saran wrap or throw a damp towel over the bowl to keep the icing from drying out until you’re ready to use it. (Once you start using the icing, be sure to keep what you’re not using covered).

Grab a couple of cans of food or sturdy cups or something else that can be used as supports for your gingerbread walls.

Fit a pastry bag with a medium to large circle tip. Fill the bag with a cup or two of icing. (You don’t want to fill it too full or it will be difficult to hold and squeeze). If you don’t have a pastry or piping bag, use a heavy-duty Ziploc bag (just cut a hole in one of the corners to fit your piping tip through).

If you’re going to be doing intricate piping work or decorating on your walls, it’s much easier to do it before you assemble the house while your gingerbread pieces are flat. Keep that in mind so you can decide whether you want to decorate before or after assembly. The pictures below show decorating I did prior to assembly.

Also, if you’ll be doing a royal icing wash (like I did both on the red-and-white gingerbread house pieces above, as well as on the large black-and-white Victorian house featured at the top of this post), you’ll want to do that to the individual gingerbread pieces before you assemble them.

To make a royal icing ‘wash,’ prepare a batch of royal icing. Slowly add a little warm water at a time to thin the icing until it runs freely. You don’t want it too runny or it won’t provide sufficient coverage. When it’s ready, use a silicone pastry brush to brush it on to your walls. It takes hours and hours to dry, even longer than royal icing of regular consistency. Plan accordingly. Sometimes, after the frosting has dried, you may want to add a second coat for really thorough coverage—just be certain the first coast has dried completely before you do. Up to you.

Start with a side wall (generally longer than a front or back wall). Run a bead of icing on your base board the length of your wall. Put your gingerbread wall on top of the icing. Put a can on the outside of the wall to support it so that it remains upright and perpendicular to the base board. Run an additional bead of icing on the inside bottom of the wall for reinforcement.

Grab a front or back wall piece. These pieces will go inside of the side walls (this will make the gingerbread house stronger and more stable). Run a bead of icing on the board the length of your front or back piece. Put the piece on top of the icing. Put a can on the outside of the wall to support it so that it remains upright and perpendicular to the base board. Run an additional bead of icing on the inside bottom of the wall for reinforcement.

Add the second side wall as you did the first and finish with the final wall (either the front or back piece depending on what piece you already placed). Make sure you’ve got your supports in place and allow the icing to dry completely (overnight) before attaching the roof.

Royal icing can take forever to dry. An electric hair dryer can be used to speed up the process, but nothing works better than good old fashioned time. Usually waiting overnight will do the trick, but drying time depends on the humidity in the air, how wet your icing is, and how much icing you’ve used.

If you have leftover icing after this first stage of assembly, the icing can be put in an airtight container and refrigerated. You can leave a filled piping bag overnight as long as you cover your piping tip with a wet paper towel to keep the icing from drying out.

When the icing securing the bottom section of your house has completely dried (preferably overnight), it’s time to add the roof. I like to keep my supports in place against the side walls and have additional supports ready to go to hold my roof up while the icing dries.

Using your piping bag of royal icing, run a bead of icing around the top sides of the front, back, and side wall pieces. Put one roof piece in place on top and immediately prop it with supports (canned food works well). Place your second roof piece, aligning it carefully and immediately pipe another large bead of icing where there two roof pieces meet in the center. Prop with supports. Allow to dry overnight.

As you can see in the picture below, I used straws and canned food to rig a support system for my gingerbread pieces as they dried (I attached the gingerbread pieces using royal icing, which takes time to set up).

The sky’s the limit here. So many possibilities. Use royal icing as your glue to secure candy pieces, sprinkles, and whatever else your heart desires.

To make stained glass windows, crush hard sugar candies (like LifeSavers) and arrange them in clusters (sized a little bigger than your window openings) on a parchment- or Silpat-lined baking sheet. Bake at 250 degrees F for six to eight minutes or until they run together. Allow them to cool, remove from the baking sheet and use royal icing to attach on the back/interior side of your window openings in the gingerbread. Alternatively, melt the stained glass windows directly in your gingerbread house window openings by following the same steps as above, but instead of melting the candy by itself, put the crushed candy in the window openings in your gingerbread house walls and put everything directly in to the oven. The candy will melt to fill the openings and as it cools and solidifies, will self-attach to your gingerbread walls.

Photo credit: Lauren Comstock

Layered Necco wafer candies (as seen below) make for a great tile-like roof. You can cover them with frosting to make them all one color or add sprinkles for dimension and texture or additional candy pieces for depth. Other great roof options include crushed or whole Oreos (especially the mini size), shredded wheat or Life cereal (for the look of a thatched roof), squares of chocolate, round candies like peppermints or Lifesavers, gumdrops, sticks of gum, pretzels, M&Ms, marshmallows, and on and on.

Royal icing works great for not only for ‘gluing’ your gingerbread house together, but for making custom decorations, as well. Below, I used royal icing that I had watered down to about the consistency of Elmer’s White School Glue to make accents for the roof line of my gingerbread house. I piped the designs out on parchment paper using a small, round piping tip and let them set-up over night. Once dry, I carefully peeled back the parchment paper and peeled off the design, which I attached to my gingerbread house using more royal icing.

Don’t forget that while you’re decorating, sometimes you need a little extra help (i.e. support) to hold candy or gingerbread in place while the royal icing sets up. In the picture below, you can see that I cut a plastic drinking straw into pieces to use as supports for the awning above my window. When the icing set, I removed the straw supports.

The easiest pine trees in the world are those made out of upside down sugar cones. Cover in frosting, candy, and sprinkles. You can use different piping tips to achieve a wide variety of styles and effects.

Decorated gingerbread houses can make great gifts! Just wrap in cellophane and put a bow on it. I’ve also made homemade gingerbread kits before as gifts, too. I stack the gingerbread house pieces on a base board along with bags of candy and tie everything up together in cellophane. Kids love it!

Don’t forget the kids! When I was growing up, my mom and sisters and I would make two large gingerbread churches each Christmas. We’d work on decorating them together a little each day after school over a couple of weeks. With my own kids, I let them each have and decorate their own gingerbread house anyway they like. We have a tradition of decorating our individual gingerbread houses the day after Thanksgiving. We display them as a gingerbread village table centerpiece.

There’s even more inspiration and eye candy to come! All of the houses below are the work of the very talented Mary Comstock and her daughter, Lauren Comstock Bishop. These ladies know how to decorate a gingerbread house! A great big “thank you” to both of them for permitting me to feature their lovely work in this post!

This article was originally published on Nov 25, 2015. Updated Nov 12, 2017. 

The post Gingerbread Houses: Tips & Tricks appeared first on Remodelaholic.

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[sherlocklexa]

Gingerbread Houses: Tips & Tricks

You all loved Jenny's kitchen and well, her whole house! when she shared a while back. She'll be sharing her beautiful style here regularly (hooray!) and today she has some amazing inspiration, tips, tricks, and recipes for your annual gingerbread house tradition!

Gingerbread houses don't have to be fancy (think graham crackers on empty cardboard milk cartons), but if you want them to, they can be elegant, frilly, or even gaudy. You simply can't go wrong. They're an expression of your creativity and your mood—an incarnation of what the season means to you.

For nearly thirty years, I've been making gingerbread houses at Christmas time. Small ones. Big ones. Red and green ones. Pink and blue ones. Ones covered only in frosting and ones dripping in candy canes and gum drops.

You don't have to be an expert to make a gingerbread house! Don't be intimidated by the elaborate gingerbread houses you see on magazine covers. Gingerbread houses—both baking and decorating them—should be fun! No keeping up with the Joneses here. Just do your thing! Here are some tips and tricks to help you on your way . . .

This post may contain affiliate links. See our full disclosure here. 

Gingerbread houses take time! Even if you're buying a ready-made kit from your local grocery store, the icing takes hours to set up, just as it does when you're building from scratch. If you're baking the gingerbread, you want to give it anywhere from a full day to even 2 weeks to dry out completely before you start building with it. And once construction is under way, the icing takes several hours to dry, requiring that you work in steps over a number of days.

To make a gingerbread house from scratch, this is what you'll need:

A sturdy base (such as heavy-duty cardboard or plywood, depending on the projected size and weight of your gingerbread house). If you plan on having landscaping surrounding your house, the base should be several inches larger than the footprint of your house.

A pattern or template for your house or church or train or whatever it is that you're making from gingerbread. Search the Internet! There are a ton of free, as well as for-a-fee, options out there. You can also design your own. I've even used the pieces from a dollhouse kit as a template for a gingerbread house.

A reliable gingerbread dough recipe (I share a great one later in this post) and all the necessary ingredients.

Cookie or baking sheets that are not warped, but that lie flat so that your gingerbread does not end up misshapen as it bakes. You'll need a rolling pin, too, and if you've got a stand mixer, use it!

The ingredients for the “glue” needed to assemble your house. I prefer to use royal icing (I buy Wilton Meringue Powder and add water and powdered sugar according to the recipe on the can). But some people use a hot sugar syrup, which works, too. (I've even heard of people who don't plan on eating the house who use a glue gun and hot glue sticks to get the job done—nobody can see the glue under all the frosting and candy and apparently it does a great job of holding your house together).If you want to tint your icing different colors, you'll also need food coloring.

Candy and sprinkles and edible delights of all colors, shapes, and sizes! I have made 2 or 3 gingerbread houses over the years decorated entirely with frosting, which can be beautiful, but more traditional houses incorporate candy in to the design.

Inspiration is everywhere! In store windows, in magazines, on the Internet. And I'm not talking just gingerbread houses here, but anything that attracts your eye that could be translated in to gingerbread. For example, the first time I drove by the house featured below, I just knew I had to make it into a gingerbread house. And so I did.

This red-and-white house below was inspired by some wrapping paper I saw that had a white background with red snowflakes all over it. I loved it so much that I wanted it to be a gingerbread house! It's one of my favorite houses of all time and yet it's not terribly traditional. Think outside the box! Make your house what you want it to be!

I've been making gingerbread houses long enough that I have a sixth sense for gingerbread inspiration that stays with me 365 days/year. For example, when walking down the Halloween clearance aisles at Wal-Mart, I spotted black decorating sugar for $0.40/bottle. I knew as soon as I saw it that it would add great texture and shimmer to a candy-shingle roof on a gingerbread house. I used the sugar on the Victorian-style house I built this year. (The picture below shows a section of roof covered in watered-down royal icing that I colored black with food coloring gel. The picture below that shows the shingle-like texture I achieved by sprinkling black sanding sugar all over it while the icing was still wet).

Now it's time for my very favorite construction gingerbread recipe. It's remarkable stuff. It works in humid climates or dry ones. If dried out properly after baking, it can withstand a significant amount of weight in icing and candy. It rolls out smoothly and bakes evenly. It smells heavenly. It's heavy-duty and sturdy. It can be used for 2- and 3-story houses. My family and I have collectively made what may amount to hundreds of batches of the stuff over the years and it's never failed us. Not once. Oh, and the spices make it smell incredible!

This is a picture of me and my two sisters posing in front of 2 gingerbread houses we made together with our Mom for Christmas 1993. We used the wonderful recipe you'll find below!

My family got the recipe from Mary Comstock and her daughters Karen, Lauren, and Katie (I have featured some of Mary's and Lauren's beautiful gingerbread houses towards the end of this post). They in turn got it from a high school German teacher, Frau Em, who told them it is an authentic German recipe. The recipe has been in the Comstock family for over 40 years. And they make one or more gingerbread houses with it each Christmas (and sometimes for other holidays, like Halloween).

Even if you have your own gingerbread construction recipe, I recommend reading through this one, as I've included tips that would apply no matter what recipe you use.

And, yes, that really is the name of the recipe.

Das Pfefferkuchenhauschen or, The Never-Fail Gingerbread Recipe

(click here for a printable version of the recipe)

Each recipe makes about 1 baking sheet of dough.

Ingredients

1 cup shortening

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 cup molasses

2 tablespoons white vinegar

1-1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon cloves

5 cups pre-sifted white all-purpose flour

Cream shortening and sugar in a stand mixer. Add egg and molasses.

Add vinegar, baking soda, salt, and spices. Add flour gradually. (You may need to knead in the last cups of flour by hand.)

Pour 1/4 cup or so of vegetable oil on a large, heavy baking sheet with sides (a half-sheet pan — about 18″x 13″ by 1″ high — is perfect). Roll out dough with rolling pin until it fills the baking sheet on all sides and meets the corners. (A standard size rolling pin will fit perfectly across the width of the baking sheet.) You should keep adding vegetable oil to the top of the dough as necessary to help it roll out slick and smooth. Remove any excess dough that does not disappear beneath the rolling pin and mesh flatly into the pan. Use that dough in another pan of gingerbread.

Place your pattern pieces on top of the gingerbread and cut gingerbread house pieces in gingerbread using the tip of a knife (wipe the knife clean in between cuts, if necessary) and leave them in the pan. Cut your pieces to maximize the available space just like you would if you were using cookie cutters to cut sugar cookie dough. Pieces can share sides without space in between. You don't need to separate the pieces out from the surrounding scraps at this time (in fact, it's better to leave them in to keep the gingerbread from spreading). Just be sure to cut all the way through to the pan as cleanly and precisely as possible.

Bake at 350 degrees F until very well done (remember, this is for building, not for eating, and you want it dry). Depending on your oven and other factors, this can take as little as 20 minutes or as much as 35 minutes or more.

When you pull the pans out of the oven, re-trace your design cuts in the gingerbread (if you don't, you won't be able to separate your house pieces from the surrounding scraps when the gingerbread has dried).

Let gingerbread cool in the baking sheets until it's no longer too hot to handle. Carefully remove the house pieces and set on cooling racks to cool completely. Ensure the pieces do not touch each other as you want the air to be able to circulate freely to dry everything out. Now is the time to pop out the ‘scraps,' before they become hard. ‘Scraps' are the insides of windows or the spaces between fence rails, etc. Remove the door, but don't throw it away because you can include it later when you assemble your house — a front door can be a fun part of your house to decorate!

Leave the gingerbread out to try. (Leaving it on cooling racks is ideal so that the air can circulate on all sides.) Gingerbread used for building should “season” about 2 weeks before being used to build with so it can dry out. Dry gingerbread is stronger and will support more weight. If you're pressed for time, or if you're building a small house, you can get away with letting it dry overnight, just be sure to limit exposure to moisture and humidity by carefully choosing where you leave the pieces to dry.

  Once you have your dried pieces, it's time to build!

Take a hard look at your base (heavy cardboard or plywood). Will you be adding landscaping around your house? A pretzel fence perhaps? Or maybe some sugar cone pine trees? A candy rock walkway? Calculate roughly where your house needs to be on the board in relation to what you plan to put around it.

Inspect your gingerbread pieces. Are your edges straight? If you need to do a little trimming, I prefer a bread knife and a light hand. Be very careful as you trim, though, as you don't want the gingerbread to crack or crumble. You may want to label your pieces as you prepare to proceed so that you don't accidentally use a roof piece as a side wall, for example. You can just write on a small piece of paper and set it on top of the pieces.

If you're making a multi-story gingerbread house, I strongly recommend cutting pieces of heavy-duty cardboard to support the interior walls and roof(s). Just ‘glue' it with icing inside your gingerbread house like you ‘glue' the gingerbread together . . . run a bead of icing on all sides of the cardboard and position it in place, straight up and down, in the interior of your gingerbread house so that it comes in to direct contact with at least 2 of the inside walls and the roof.

Prepare a batch of royal icing. Cover the bowl tightly with Saran wrap or throw a damp towel over the bowl to keep the icing from drying out until you're ready to use it. (Once you start using the icing, be sure to keep what you're not using covered).

Grab a couple of cans of food or sturdy cups or something else that can be used as supports for your gingerbread walls.

Fit a pastry bag with a medium to large circle tip. Fill the bag with a cup or two of icing. (You don't want to fill it too full or it will be difficult to hold and squeeze). If you don't have a pastry or piping bag, use a heavy-duty Ziploc bag (just cut a hole in one of the corners to fit your piping tip through).

If you're going to be doing intricate piping work or decorating on your walls, it's much easier to do it before you assemble the house while your gingerbread pieces are flat. Keep that in mind so you can decide whether you want to decorate before or after assembly. The pictures below show decorating I did prior to assembly.

Also, if you'll be doing a royal icing wash (like I did both on the red-and-white gingerbread house pieces above, as well as on the large black-and-white Victorian house featured at the top of this post), you'll want to do that to the individual gingerbread pieces before you assemble them.

To make a royal icing ‘wash,' prepare a batch of royal icing. Slowly add a little warm water at a time to thin the icing until it runs freely. You don't want it too runny or it won't provide sufficient coverage. When it's ready, use a silicone pastry brush to brush it on to your walls. It takes hours and hours to dry, even longer than royal icing of regular consistency. Plan accordingly. Sometimes, after the frosting has dried, you may want to add a second coat for really thorough coverage—just be certain the first coast has dried completely before you do. Up to you.

Start with a side wall (generally longer than a front or back wall). Run a bead of icing on your base board the length of your wall. Put your gingerbread wall on top of the icing. Put a can on the outside of the wall to support it so that it remains upright and perpendicular to the base board. Run an additional bead of icing on the inside bottom of the wall for reinforcement.

Grab a front or back wall piece. These pieces will go inside of the side walls (this will make the gingerbread house stronger and more stable). Run a bead of icing on the board the length of your front or back piece. Put the piece on top of the icing. Put a can on the outside of the wall to support it so that it remains upright and perpendicular to the base board. Run an additional bead of icing on the inside bottom of the wall for reinforcement.

Add the second side wall as you did the first and finish with the final wall (either the front or back piece depending on what piece you already placed). Make sure you've got your supports in place and allow the icing to dry completely (overnight) before attaching the roof.

Royal icing can take forever to dry. An electric hair dryer can be used to speed up the process, but nothing works better than good old fashioned time. Usually waiting overnight will do the trick, but drying time depends on the humidity in the air, how wet your icing is, and how much icing you've used.

If you have leftover icing after this first stage of assembly, the icing can be put in an airtight container and refrigerated. You can leave a filled piping bag overnight as long as you cover your piping tip with a wet paper towel to keep the icing from drying out.

When the icing securing the bottom section of your house has completely dried (preferably overnight), it's time to add the roof. I like to keep my supports in place against the side walls and have additional supports ready to go to hold my roof up while the icing dries.

Using your piping bag of royal icing, run a bead of icing around the top sides of the front, back, and side wall pieces. Put one roof piece in place on top and immediately prop it with supports (canned food works well). Place your second roof piece, aligning it carefully and immediately pipe another large bead of icing where there two roof pieces meet in the center. Prop with supports. Allow to dry overnight.

As you can see in the picture below, I used straws and canned food to rig a support system for my gingerbread pieces as they dried (I attached the gingerbread pieces using royal icing, which takes time to set up).

The sky's the limit here. So many possibilities. Use royal icing as your glue to secure candy pieces, sprinkles, and whatever else your heart desires.

To make stained glass windows, crush hard sugar candies (like LifeSavers) and arrange them in clusters (sized a little bigger than your window openings) on a parchment- or Silpat-lined baking sheet. Bake at 250 degrees F for six to eight minutes or until they run together. Allow them to cool, remove from the baking sheet and use royal icing to attach on the back/interior side of your window openings in the gingerbread. Alternatively, melt the stained glass windows directly in your gingerbread house window openings by following the same steps as above, but instead of melting the candy by itself, put the crushed candy in the window openings in your gingerbread house walls and put everything directly in to the oven. The candy will melt to fill the openings and as it cools and solidifies, will self-attach to your gingerbread walls.

Photo credit: Lauren Comstock

Layered Necco wafer candies (as seen below) make for a great tile-like roof. You can cover them with frosting to make them all one color or add sprinkles for dimension and texture or additional candy pieces for depth. Other great roof options include crushed or whole Oreos (especially the mini size), shredded wheat or Life cereal (for the look of a thatched roof), squares of chocolate, round candies like peppermints or Lifesavers, gumdrops, sticks of gum, pretzels, M&Ms, marshmallows, and on and on.

Royal icing works great for not only for ‘gluing' your gingerbread house together, but for making custom decorations, as well. Below, I used royal icing that I had watered down to about the consistency of Elmer's White School Glue to make accents for the roof line of my gingerbread house. I piped the designs out on parchment paper using a small, round piping tip and let them set-up over night. Once dry, I carefully peeled back the parchment paper and peeled off the design, which I attached to my gingerbread house using more royal icing.

Don't forget that while you're decorating, sometimes you need a little extra help (i.e. support) to hold candy or gingerbread in place while the royal icing sets up. In the picture below, you can see that I cut a plastic drinking straw into pieces to use as supports for the awning above my window. When the icing set, I removed the straw supports.

The easiest pine trees in the world are those made out of upside down sugar cones. Cover in frosting, candy, and sprinkles. You can use different piping tips to achieve a wide variety of styles and effects.

Decorated gingerbread houses can make great gifts! Just wrap in cellophane and put a bow on it. I've also made homemade gingerbread kits before as gifts, too. I stack the gingerbread house pieces on a base board along with bags of candy and tie everything up together in cellophane. Kids love it!

Don't forget the kids! When I was growing up, my mom and sisters and I would make two large gingerbread churches each Christmas. We'd work on decorating them together a little each day after school over a couple of weeks. With my own kids, I let them each have and decorate their own gingerbread house anyway they like. We have a tradition of decorating our individual gingerbread houses the day after Thanksgiving. We display them as a gingerbread village table centerpiece.

There's even more inspiration and eye candy to come! All of the houses below are the work of the very talented Mary Comstock and her daughter, Lauren Comstock Bishop. These ladies know how to decorate a gingerbread house! A great big “thank you” to both of them for permitting me to feature their lovely work in this post!

This article was originally published on Nov 25, 2015. Updated Nov 12, 2017. 

The post Gingerbread Houses: Tips & Tricks appeared first on Remodelaholic.

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Gingerbread Houses: Tips & Tricks

You all loved Jenny's kitchen and well, her whole house! when she shared a while back. She'll be sharing her beautiful style here regularly (hooray!) and today she has some amazing inspiration, tips, tricks, and recipes for your annual gingerbread house tradition!

Gingerbread houses don't have to be fancy (think graham crackers on empty cardboard milk cartons), but if you want them to, they can be elegant, frilly, or even gaudy. You simply can't go wrong. They're an expression of your creativity and your mood—an incarnation of what the season means to you.

For nearly thirty years, I've been making gingerbread houses at Christmas time. Small ones. Big ones. Red and green ones. Pink and blue ones. Ones covered only in frosting and ones dripping in candy canes and gum drops.

You don't have to be an expert to make a gingerbread house! Don't be intimidated by the elaborate gingerbread houses you see on magazine covers. Gingerbread houses—both baking and decorating them—should be fun! No keeping up with the Joneses here. Just do your thing! Here are some tips and tricks to help you on your way . . .

This post may contain affiliate links. See our full disclosure here. 

Gingerbread houses take time! Even if you're buying a ready-made kit from your local grocery store, the icing takes hours to set up, just as it does when you're building from scratch. If you're baking the gingerbread, you want to give it anywhere from a full day to even 2 weeks to dry out completely before you start building with it. And once construction is under way, the icing takes several hours to dry, requiring that you work in steps over a number of days.

To make a gingerbread house from scratch, this is what you'll need:

A sturdy base (such as heavy-duty cardboard or plywood, depending on the projected size and weight of your gingerbread house). If you plan on having landscaping surrounding your house, the base should be several inches larger than the footprint of your house.

A pattern or template for your house or church or train or whatever it is that you're making from gingerbread. Search the Internet! There are a ton of free, as well as for-a-fee, options out there. You can also design your own. I've even used the pieces from a dollhouse kit as a template for a gingerbread house.

A reliable gingerbread dough recipe (I share a great one later in this post) and all the necessary ingredients.

Cookie or baking sheets that are not warped, but that lie flat so that your gingerbread does not end up misshapen as it bakes. You'll need a rolling pin, too, and if you've got a stand mixer, use it!

The ingredients for the “glue” needed to assemble your house. I prefer to use royal icing (I buy Wilton Meringue Powder and add water and powdered sugar according to the recipe on the can). But some people use a hot sugar syrup, which works, too. (I've even heard of people who don't plan on eating the house who use a glue gun and hot glue sticks to get the job done—nobody can see the glue under all the frosting and candy and apparently it does a great job of holding your house together).If you want to tint your icing different colors, you'll also need food coloring.

Candy and sprinkles and edible delights of all colors, shapes, and sizes! I have made 2 or 3 gingerbread houses over the years decorated entirely with frosting, which can be beautiful, but more traditional houses incorporate candy in to the design.

Inspiration is everywhere! In store windows, in magazines, on the Internet. And I'm not talking just gingerbread houses here, but anything that attracts your eye that could be translated in to gingerbread. For example, the first time I drove by the house featured below, I just knew I had to make it into a gingerbread house. And so I did.

This red-and-white house below was inspired by some wrapping paper I saw that had a white background with red snowflakes all over it. I loved it so much that I wanted it to be a gingerbread house! It's one of my favorite houses of all time and yet it's not terribly traditional. Think outside the box! Make your house what you want it to be!

I've been making gingerbread houses long enough that I have a sixth sense for gingerbread inspiration that stays with me 365 days/year. For example, when walking down the Halloween clearance aisles at Wal-Mart, I spotted black decorating sugar for $0.40/bottle. I knew as soon as I saw it that it would add great texture and shimmer to a candy-shingle roof on a gingerbread house. I used the sugar on the Victorian-style house I built this year. (The picture below shows a section of roof covered in watered-down royal icing that I colored black with food coloring gel. The picture below that shows the shingle-like texture I achieved by sprinkling black sanding sugar all over it while the icing was still wet).

Now it's time for my very favorite construction gingerbread recipe. It's remarkable stuff. It works in humid climates or dry ones. If dried out properly after baking, it can withstand a significant amount of weight in icing and candy. It rolls out smoothly and bakes evenly. It smells heavenly. It's heavy-duty and sturdy. It can be used for 2- and 3-story houses. My family and I have collectively made what may amount to hundreds of batches of the stuff over the years and it's never failed us. Not once. Oh, and the spices make it smell incredible!

This is a picture of me and my two sisters posing in front of 2 gingerbread houses we made together with our Mom for Christmas 1993. We used the wonderful recipe you'll find below!

My family got the recipe from Mary Comstock and her daughters Karen, Lauren, and Katie (I have featured some of Mary's and Lauren's beautiful gingerbread houses towards the end of this post). They in turn got it from a high school German teacher, Frau Em, who told them it is an authentic German recipe. The recipe has been in the Comstock family for over 40 years. And they make one or more gingerbread houses with it each Christmas (and sometimes for other holidays, like Halloween).

Even if you have your own gingerbread construction recipe, I recommend reading through this one, as I've included tips that would apply no matter what recipe you use.

And, yes, that really is the name of the recipe.

Das Pfefferkuchenhauschen or, The Never-Fail Gingerbread Recipe

(click here for a printable version of the recipe)

Each recipe makes about 1 baking sheet of dough.

Ingredients

1 cup shortening

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 cup molasses

2 tablespoons white vinegar

1-1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon cloves

5 cups pre-sifted white all-purpose flour

Cream shortening and sugar in a stand mixer. Add egg and molasses.

Add vinegar, baking soda, salt, and spices. Add flour gradually. (You may need to knead in the last cups of flour by hand.)

Pour 1/4 cup or so of vegetable oil on a large, heavy baking sheet with sides (a half-sheet pan — about 18″x 13″ by 1″ high — is perfect). Roll out dough with rolling pin until it fills the baking sheet on all sides and meets the corners. (A standard size rolling pin will fit perfectly across the width of the baking sheet.) You should keep adding vegetable oil to the top of the dough as necessary to help it roll out slick and smooth. Remove any excess dough that does not disappear beneath the rolling pin and mesh flatly into the pan. Use that dough in another pan of gingerbread.

Place your pattern pieces on top of the gingerbread and cut gingerbread house pieces in gingerbread using the tip of a knife (wipe the knife clean in between cuts, if necessary) and leave them in the pan. Cut your pieces to maximize the available space just like you would if you were using cookie cutters to cut sugar cookie dough. Pieces can share sides without space in between. You don't need to separate the pieces out from the surrounding scraps at this time (in fact, it's better to leave them in to keep the gingerbread from spreading). Just be sure to cut all the way through to the pan as cleanly and precisely as possible.

Bake at 350 degrees F until very well done (remember, this is for building, not for eating, and you want it dry). Depending on your oven and other factors, this can take as little as 20 minutes or as much as 35 minutes or more.

When you pull the pans out of the oven, re-trace your design cuts in the gingerbread (if you don't, you won't be able to separate your house pieces from the surrounding scraps when the gingerbread has dried).

Let gingerbread cool in the baking sheets until it's no longer too hot to handle. Carefully remove the house pieces and set on cooling racks to cool completely. Ensure the pieces do not touch each other as you want the air to be able to circulate freely to dry everything out. Now is the time to pop out the ‘scraps,' before they become hard. ‘Scraps' are the insides of windows or the spaces between fence rails, etc. Remove the door, but don't throw it away because you can include it later when you assemble your house — a front door can be a fun part of your house to decorate!

Leave the gingerbread out to try. (Leaving it on cooling racks is ideal so that the air can circulate on all sides.) Gingerbread used for building should “season” about 2 weeks before being used to build with so it can dry out. Dry gingerbread is stronger and will support more weight. If you're pressed for time, or if you're building a small house, you can get away with letting it dry overnight, just be sure to limit exposure to moisture and humidity by carefully choosing where you leave the pieces to dry.

  Once you have your dried pieces, it's time to build!

Take a hard look at your base (heavy cardboard or plywood). Will you be adding landscaping around your house? A pretzel fence perhaps? Or maybe some sugar cone pine trees? A candy rock walkway? Calculate roughly where your house needs to be on the board in relation to what you plan to put around it.

Inspect your gingerbread pieces. Are your edges straight? If you need to do a little trimming, I prefer a bread knife and a light hand. Be very careful as you trim, though, as you don't want the gingerbread to crack or crumble. You may want to label your pieces as you prepare to proceed so that you don't accidentally use a roof piece as a side wall, for example. You can just write on a small piece of paper and set it on top of the pieces.

If you're making a multi-story gingerbread house, I strongly recommend cutting pieces of heavy-duty cardboard to support the interior walls and roof(s). Just ‘glue' it with icing inside your gingerbread house like you ‘glue' the gingerbread together . . . run a bead of icing on all sides of the cardboard and position it in place, straight up and down, in the interior of your gingerbread house so that it comes in to direct contact with at least 2 of the inside walls and the roof.

Prepare a batch of royal icing. Cover the bowl tightly with Saran wrap or throw a damp towel over the bowl to keep the icing from drying out until you're ready to use it. (Once you start using the icing, be sure to keep what you're not using covered).

Grab a couple of cans of food or sturdy cups or something else that can be used as supports for your gingerbread walls.

Fit a pastry bag with a medium to large circle tip. Fill the bag with a cup or two of icing. (You don't want to fill it too full or it will be difficult to hold and squeeze). If you don't have a pastry or piping bag, use a heavy-duty Ziploc bag (just cut a hole in one of the corners to fit your piping tip through).

If you're going to be doing intricate piping work or decorating on your walls, it's much easier to do it before you assemble the house while your gingerbread pieces are flat. Keep that in mind so you can decide whether you want to decorate before or after assembly. The pictures below show decorating I did prior to assembly.

Also, if you'll be doing a royal icing wash (like I did both on the red-and-white gingerbread house pieces above, as well as on the large black-and-white Victorian house featured at the top of this post), you'll want to do that to the individual gingerbread pieces before you assemble them.

To make a royal icing ‘wash,' prepare a batch of royal icing. Slowly add a little warm water at a time to thin the icing until it runs freely. You don't want it too runny or it won't provide sufficient coverage. When it's ready, use a silicone pastry brush to brush it on to your walls. It takes hours and hours to dry, even longer than royal icing of regular consistency. Plan accordingly. Sometimes, after the frosting has dried, you may want to add a second coat for really thorough coverage—just be certain the first coast has dried completely before you do. Up to you.

Start with a side wall (generally longer than a front or back wall). Run a bead of icing on your base board the length of your wall. Put your gingerbread wall on top of the icing. Put a can on the outside of the wall to support it so that it remains upright and perpendicular to the base board. Run an additional bead of icing on the inside bottom of the wall for reinforcement.

Grab a front or back wall piece. These pieces will go inside of the side walls (this will make the gingerbread house stronger and more stable). Run a bead of icing on the board the length of your front or back piece. Put the piece on top of the icing. Put a can on the outside of the wall to support it so that it remains upright and perpendicular to the base board. Run an additional bead of icing on the inside bottom of the wall for reinforcement.

Add the second side wall as you did the first and finish with the final wall (either the front or back piece depending on what piece you already placed). Make sure you've got your supports in place and allow the icing to dry completely (overnight) before attaching the roof.

Royal icing can take forever to dry. An electric hair dryer can be used to speed up the process, but nothing works better than good old fashioned time. Usually waiting overnight will do the trick, but drying time depends on the humidity in the air, how wet your icing is, and how much icing you've used.

If you have leftover icing after this first stage of assembly, the icing can be put in an airtight container and refrigerated. You can leave a filled piping bag overnight as long as you cover your piping tip with a wet paper towel to keep the icing from drying out.

When the icing securing the bottom section of your house has completely dried (preferably overnight), it's time to add the roof. I like to keep my supports in place against the side walls and have additional supports ready to go to hold my roof up while the icing dries.

Using your piping bag of royal icing, run a bead of icing around the top sides of the front, back, and side wall pieces. Put one roof piece in place on top and immediately prop it with supports (canned food works well). Place your second roof piece, aligning it carefully and immediately pipe another large bead of icing where there two roof pieces meet in the center. Prop with supports. Allow to dry overnight.

As you can see in the picture below, I used straws and canned food to rig a support system for my gingerbread pieces as they dried (I attached the gingerbread pieces using royal icing, which takes time to set up).

The sky's the limit here. So many possibilities. Use royal icing as your glue to secure candy pieces, sprinkles, and whatever else your heart desires.

To make stained glass windows, crush hard sugar candies (like LifeSavers) and arrange them in clusters (sized a little bigger than your window openings) on a parchment- or Silpat-lined baking sheet. Bake at 250 degrees F for six to eight minutes or until they run together. Allow them to cool, remove from the baking sheet and use royal icing to attach on the back/interior side of your window openings in the gingerbread. Alternatively, melt the stained glass windows directly in your gingerbread house window openings by following the same steps as above, but instead of melting the candy by itself, put the crushed candy in the window openings in your gingerbread house walls and put everything directly in to the oven. The candy will melt to fill the openings and as it cools and solidifies, will self-attach to your gingerbread walls.

Photo credit: Lauren Comstock

Layered Necco wafer candies (as seen below) make for a great tile-like roof. You can cover them with frosting to make them all one color or add sprinkles for dimension and texture or additional candy pieces for depth. Other great roof options include crushed or whole Oreos (especially the mini size), shredded wheat or Life cereal (for the look of a thatched roof), squares of chocolate, round candies like peppermints or Lifesavers, gumdrops, sticks of gum, pretzels, M&Ms, marshmallows, and on and on.

Royal icing works great for not only for ‘gluing' your gingerbread house together, but for making custom decorations, as well. Below, I used royal icing that I had watered down to about the consistency of Elmer's White School Glue to make accents for the roof line of my gingerbread house. I piped the designs out on parchment paper using a small, round piping tip and let them set-up over night. Once dry, I carefully peeled back the parchment paper and peeled off the design, which I attached to my gingerbread house using more royal icing.

Don't forget that while you're decorating, sometimes you need a little extra help (i.e. support) to hold candy or gingerbread in place while the royal icing sets up. In the picture below, you can see that I cut a plastic drinking straw into pieces to use as supports for the awning above my window. When the icing set, I removed the straw supports.

The easiest pine trees in the world are those made out of upside down sugar cones. Cover in frosting, candy, and sprinkles. You can use different piping tips to achieve a wide variety of styles and effects.

Decorated gingerbread houses can make great gifts! Just wrap in cellophane and put a bow on it. I've also made homemade gingerbread kits before as gifts, too. I stack the gingerbread house pieces on a base board along with bags of candy and tie everything up together in cellophane. Kids love it!

Don't forget the kids! When I was growing up, my mom and sisters and I would make two large gingerbread churches each Christmas. We'd work on decorating them together a little each day after school over a couple of weeks. With my own kids, I let them each have and decorate their own gingerbread house anyway they like. We have a tradition of decorating our individual gingerbread houses the day after Thanksgiving. We display them as a gingerbread village table centerpiece.

There's even more inspiration and eye candy to come! All of the houses below are the work of the very talented Mary Comstock and her daughter, Lauren Comstock Bishop. These ladies know how to decorate a gingerbread house! A great big “thank you” to both of them for permitting me to feature their lovely work in this post!

This article was originally published on Nov 25, 2015. Updated Nov 12, 2017. 

The post Gingerbread Houses: Tips & Tricks appeared first on Remodelaholic.

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Gingerbread Houses: Tips & Tricks

You all loved Jenny's kitchen and well, her whole house! when she shared a while back. She'll be sharing her beautiful style here regularly (hooray!) and today she has some amazing inspiration, tips, tricks, and recipes for your annual gingerbread house tradition!

Gingerbread houses don't have to be fancy (think graham crackers on empty cardboard milk cartons), but if you want them to, they can be elegant, frilly, or even gaudy. You simply can't go wrong. They're an expression of your creativity and your mood—an incarnation of what the season means to you.

For nearly thirty years, I've been making gingerbread houses at Christmas time. Small ones. Big ones. Red and green ones. Pink and blue ones. Ones covered only in frosting and ones dripping in candy canes and gum drops.

You don't have to be an expert to make a gingerbread house! Don't be intimidated by the elaborate gingerbread houses you see on magazine covers. Gingerbread houses—both baking and decorating them—should be fun! No keeping up with the Joneses here. Just do your thing! Here are some tips and tricks to help you on your way . . .

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Gingerbread houses take time! Even if you're buying a ready-made kit from your local grocery store, the icing takes hours to set up, just as it does when you're building from scratch. If you're baking the gingerbread, you want to give it anywhere from a full day to even 2 weeks to dry out completely before you start building with it. And once construction is under way, the icing takes several hours to dry, requiring that you work in steps over a number of days.

To make a gingerbread house from scratch, this is what you'll need:

A sturdy base (such as heavy-duty cardboard or plywood, depending on the projected size and weight of your gingerbread house). If you plan on having landscaping surrounding your house, the base should be several inches larger than the footprint of your house.

A pattern or template for your house or church or train or whatever it is that you're making from gingerbread. Search the Internet! There are a ton of free, as well as for-a-fee, options out there. You can also design your own. I've even used the pieces from a dollhouse kit as a template for a gingerbread house.

A reliable gingerbread dough recipe (I share a great one later in this post) and all the necessary ingredients.

Cookie or baking sheets that are not warped, but that lie flat so that your gingerbread does not end up misshapen as it bakes. You'll need a rolling pin, too, and if you've got a stand mixer, use it!

The ingredients for the “glue” needed to assemble your house. I prefer to use royal icing (I buy Wilton Meringue Powder and add water and powdered sugar according to the recipe on the can). But some people use a hot sugar syrup, which works, too. (I've even heard of people who don't plan on eating the house who use a glue gun and hot glue sticks to get the job done—nobody can see the glue under all the frosting and candy and apparently it does a great job of holding your house together).If you want to tint your icing different colors, you'll also need food coloring.

Candy and sprinkles and edible delights of all colors, shapes, and sizes! I have made 2 or 3 gingerbread houses over the years decorated entirely with frosting, which can be beautiful, but more traditional houses incorporate candy in to the design.

Inspiration is everywhere! In store windows, in magazines, on the Internet. And I'm not talking just gingerbread houses here, but anything that attracts your eye that could be translated in to gingerbread. For example, the first time I drove by the house featured below, I just knew I had to make it into a gingerbread house. And so I did.

This red-and-white house below was inspired by some wrapping paper I saw that had a white background with red snowflakes all over it. I loved it so much that I wanted it to be a gingerbread house! It's one of my favorite houses of all time and yet it's not terribly traditional. Think outside the box! Make your house what you want it to be!

I've been making gingerbread houses long enough that I have a sixth sense for gingerbread inspiration that stays with me 365 days/year. For example, when walking down the Halloween clearance aisles at Wal-Mart, I spotted black decorating sugar for $0.40/bottle. I knew as soon as I saw it that it would add great texture and shimmer to a candy-shingle roof on a gingerbread house. I used the sugar on the Victorian-style house I built this year. (The picture below shows a section of roof covered in watered-down royal icing that I colored black with food coloring gel. The picture below that shows the shingle-like texture I achieved by sprinkling black sanding sugar all over it while the icing was still wet).

Now it's time for my very favorite construction gingerbread recipe. It's remarkable stuff. It works in humid climates or dry ones. If dried out properly after baking, it can withstand a significant amount of weight in icing and candy. It rolls out smoothly and bakes evenly. It smells heavenly. It's heavy-duty and sturdy. It can be used for 2- and 3-story houses. My family and I have collectively made what may amount to hundreds of batches of the stuff over the years and it's never failed us. Not once. Oh, and the spices make it smell incredible!

This is a picture of me and my two sisters posing in front of 2 gingerbread houses we made together with our Mom for Christmas 1993. We used the wonderful recipe you'll find below!

My family got the recipe from Mary Comstock and her daughters Karen, Lauren, and Katie (I have featured some of Mary's and Lauren's beautiful gingerbread houses towards the end of this post). They in turn got it from a high school German teacher, Frau Em, who told them it is an authentic German recipe. The recipe has been in the Comstock family for over 40 years. And they make one or more gingerbread houses with it each Christmas (and sometimes for other holidays, like Halloween).

Even if you have your own gingerbread construction recipe, I recommend reading through this one, as I've included tips that would apply no matter what recipe you use.

And, yes, that really is the name of the recipe.

Das Pfefferkuchenhauschen or, The Never-Fail Gingerbread Recipe

(click here for a printable version of the recipe)

Each recipe makes about 1 baking sheet of dough.

Ingredients

1 cup shortening

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 cup molasses

2 tablespoons white vinegar

1-1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon cloves

5 cups pre-sifted white all-purpose flour

Cream shortening and sugar in a stand mixer. Add egg and molasses.

Add vinegar, baking soda, salt, and spices. Add flour gradually. (You may need to knead in the last cups of flour by hand.)

Pour 1/4 cup or so of vegetable oil on a large, heavy baking sheet with sides (a half-sheet pan — about 18″x 13″ by 1″ high — is perfect). Roll out dough with rolling pin until it fills the baking sheet on all sides and meets the corners. (A standard size rolling pin will fit perfectly across the width of the baking sheet.) You should keep adding vegetable oil to the top of the dough as necessary to help it roll out slick and smooth. Remove any excess dough that does not disappear beneath the rolling pin and mesh flatly into the pan. Use that dough in another pan of gingerbread.

Place your pattern pieces on top of the gingerbread and cut gingerbread house pieces in gingerbread using the tip of a knife (wipe the knife clean in between cuts, if necessary) and leave them in the pan. Cut your pieces to maximize the available space just like you would if you were using cookie cutters to cut sugar cookie dough. Pieces can share sides without space in between. You don't need to separate the pieces out from the surrounding scraps at this time (in fact, it's better to leave them in to keep the gingerbread from spreading). Just be sure to cut all the way through to the pan as cleanly and precisely as possible.

Bake at 350 degrees F until very well done (remember, this is for building, not for eating, and you want it dry). Depending on your oven and other factors, this can take as little as 20 minutes or as much as 35 minutes or more.

When you pull the pans out of the oven, re-trace your design cuts in the gingerbread (if you don't, you won't be able to separate your house pieces from the surrounding scraps when the gingerbread has dried).

Let gingerbread cool in the baking sheets until it's no longer too hot to handle. Carefully remove the house pieces and set on cooling racks to cool completely. Ensure the pieces do not touch each other as you want the air to be able to circulate freely to dry everything out. Now is the time to pop out the ‘scraps,' before they become hard. ‘Scraps' are the insides of windows or the spaces between fence rails, etc. Remove the door, but don't throw it away because you can include it later when you assemble your house — a front door can be a fun part of your house to decorate!

Leave the gingerbread out to try. (Leaving it on cooling racks is ideal so that the air can circulate on all sides.) Gingerbread used for building should “season” about 2 weeks before being used to build with so it can dry out. Dry gingerbread is stronger and will support more weight. If you're pressed for time, or if you're building a small house, you can get away with letting it dry overnight, just be sure to limit exposure to moisture and humidity by carefully choosing where you leave the pieces to dry.

  Once you have your dried pieces, it's time to build!

Take a hard look at your base (heavy cardboard or plywood). Will you be adding landscaping around your house? A pretzel fence perhaps? Or maybe some sugar cone pine trees? A candy rock walkway? Calculate roughly where your house needs to be on the board in relation to what you plan to put around it.

Inspect your gingerbread pieces. Are your edges straight? If you need to do a little trimming, I prefer a bread knife and a light hand. Be very careful as you trim, though, as you don't want the gingerbread to crack or crumble. You may want to label your pieces as you prepare to proceed so that you don't accidentally use a roof piece as a side wall, for example. You can just write on a small piece of paper and set it on top of the pieces.

If you're making a multi-story gingerbread house, I strongly recommend cutting pieces of heavy-duty cardboard to support the interior walls and roof(s). Just ‘glue' it with icing inside your gingerbread house like you ‘glue' the gingerbread together . . . run a bead of icing on all sides of the cardboard and position it in place, straight up and down, in the interior of your gingerbread house so that it comes in to direct contact with at least 2 of the inside walls and the roof.

Prepare a batch of royal icing. Cover the bowl tightly with Saran wrap or throw a damp towel over the bowl to keep the icing from drying out until you're ready to use it. (Once you start using the icing, be sure to keep what you're not using covered).

Grab a couple of cans of food or sturdy cups or something else that can be used as supports for your gingerbread walls.

Fit a pastry bag with a medium to large circle tip. Fill the bag with a cup or two of icing. (You don't want to fill it too full or it will be difficult to hold and squeeze). If you don't have a pastry or piping bag, use a heavy-duty Ziploc bag (just cut a hole in one of the corners to fit your piping tip through).

If you're going to be doing intricate piping work or decorating on your walls, it's much easier to do it before you assemble the house while your gingerbread pieces are flat. Keep that in mind so you can decide whether you want to decorate before or after assembly. The pictures below show decorating I did prior to assembly.

Also, if you'll be doing a royal icing wash (like I did both on the red-and-white gingerbread house pieces above, as well as on the large black-and-white Victorian house featured at the top of this post), you'll want to do that to the individual gingerbread pieces before you assemble them.

To make a royal icing ‘wash,' prepare a batch of royal icing. Slowly add a little warm water at a time to thin the icing until it runs freely. You don't want it too runny or it won't provide sufficient coverage. When it's ready, use a silicone pastry brush to brush it on to your walls. It takes hours and hours to dry, even longer than royal icing of regular consistency. Plan accordingly. Sometimes, after the frosting has dried, you may want to add a second coat for really thorough coverage—just be certain the first coast has dried completely before you do. Up to you.

Start with a side wall (generally longer than a front or back wall). Run a bead of icing on your base board the length of your wall. Put your gingerbread wall on top of the icing. Put a can on the outside of the wall to support it so that it remains upright and perpendicular to the base board. Run an additional bead of icing on the inside bottom of the wall for reinforcement.

Grab a front or back wall piece. These pieces will go inside of the side walls (this will make the gingerbread house stronger and more stable). Run a bead of icing on the board the length of your front or back piece. Put the piece on top of the icing. Put a can on the outside of the wall to support it so that it remains upright and perpendicular to the base board. Run an additional bead of icing on the inside bottom of the wall for reinforcement.

Add the second side wall as you did the first and finish with the final wall (either the front or back piece depending on what piece you already placed). Make sure you've got your supports in place and allow the icing to dry completely (overnight) before attaching the roof.

Royal icing can take forever to dry. An electric hair dryer can be used to speed up the process, but nothing works better than good old fashioned time. Usually waiting overnight will do the trick, but drying time depends on the humidity in the air, how wet your icing is, and how much icing you've used.

If you have leftover icing after this first stage of assembly, the icing can be put in an airtight container and refrigerated. You can leave a filled piping bag overnight as long as you cover your piping tip with a wet paper towel to keep the icing from drying out.

When the icing securing the bottom section of your house has completely dried (preferably overnight), it's time to add the roof. I like to keep my supports in place against the side walls and have additional supports ready to go to hold my roof up while the icing dries.

Using your piping bag of royal icing, run a bead of icing around the top sides of the front, back, and side wall pieces. Put one roof piece in place on top and immediately prop it with supports (canned food works well). Place your second roof piece, aligning it carefully and immediately pipe another large bead of icing where there two roof pieces meet in the center. Prop with supports. Allow to dry overnight.

As you can see in the picture below, I used straws and canned food to rig a support system for my gingerbread pieces as they dried (I attached the gingerbread pieces using royal icing, which takes time to set up).

The sky's the limit here. So many possibilities. Use royal icing as your glue to secure candy pieces, sprinkles, and whatever else your heart desires.

To make stained glass windows, crush hard sugar candies (like LifeSavers) and arrange them in clusters (sized a little bigger than your window openings) on a parchment- or Silpat-lined baking sheet. Bake at 250 degrees F for six to eight minutes or until they run together. Allow them to cool, remove from the baking sheet and use royal icing to attach on the back/interior side of your window openings in the gingerbread. Alternatively, melt the stained glass windows directly in your gingerbread house window openings by following the same steps as above, but instead of melting the candy by itself, put the crushed candy in the window openings in your gingerbread house walls and put everything directly in to the oven. The candy will melt to fill the openings and as it cools and solidifies, will self-attach to your gingerbread walls.

Photo credit: Lauren Comstock

Layered Necco wafer candies (as seen below) make for a great tile-like roof. You can cover them with frosting to make them all one color or add sprinkles for dimension and texture or additional candy pieces for depth. Other great roof options include crushed or whole Oreos (especially the mini size), shredded wheat or Life cereal (for the look of a thatched roof), squares of chocolate, round candies like peppermints or Lifesavers, gumdrops, sticks of gum, pretzels, M&Ms, marshmallows, and on and on.

Royal icing works great for not only for ‘gluing' your gingerbread house together, but for making custom decorations, as well. Below, I used royal icing that I had watered down to about the consistency of Elmer's White School Glue to make accents for the roof line of my gingerbread house. I piped the designs out on parchment paper using a small, round piping tip and let them set-up over night. Once dry, I carefully peeled back the parchment paper and peeled off the design, which I attached to my gingerbread house using more royal icing.

Don't forget that while you're decorating, sometimes you need a little extra help (i.e. support) to hold candy or gingerbread in place while the royal icing sets up. In the picture below, you can see that I cut a plastic drinking straw into pieces to use as supports for the awning above my window. When the icing set, I removed the straw supports.

The easiest pine trees in the world are those made out of upside down sugar cones. Cover in frosting, candy, and sprinkles. You can use different piping tips to achieve a wide variety of styles and effects.

Decorated gingerbread houses can make great gifts! Just wrap in cellophane and put a bow on it. I've also made homemade gingerbread kits before as gifts, too. I stack the gingerbread house pieces on a base board along with bags of candy and tie everything up together in cellophane. Kids love it!

Don't forget the kids! When I was growing up, my mom and sisters and I would make two large gingerbread churches each Christmas. We'd work on decorating them together a little each day after school over a couple of weeks. With my own kids, I let them each have and decorate their own gingerbread house anyway they like. We have a tradition of decorating our individual gingerbread houses the day after Thanksgiving. We display them as a gingerbread village table centerpiece.

There's even more inspiration and eye candy to come! All of the houses below are the work of the very talented Mary Comstock and her daughter, Lauren Comstock Bishop. These ladies know how to decorate a gingerbread house! A great big “thank you” to both of them for permitting me to feature their lovely work in this post!

This article was originally published on Nov 25, 2015. Updated Nov 12, 2017. 

The post Gingerbread Houses: Tips & Tricks appeared first on Remodelaholic.

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