Bisquick Caramel Apple Desert

We had a few apples sitting around and I wanted something different for desert so I found this recipe: Bisquick Caramel Apple Desert. I liked this recipe because it doesn't have eggs - we don't eat them that often so I almost never have any in the house. It took a while to bake (nearly an hour) but it was worth it! It was great served right out of the oven with a little bit of Cool Whip.

American Idol Cake: Adam versus Kris

I wanted to do something special for the American Idol finale, so I made little fondant figures of Adam Lambert and Kris Allen to top a cake I ordered from the grocery store (my homemade cakes never taste nearly as good as store bought). This is the first time I've made fondant figures so they don't look much like the actual people but they were fun to make!

Amigurumi Raven

I crocheted this raven back in March as a birthday gift for my dad. Unfortunately I was in a hurry and I "freehanded" it so I don't have a pattern. If you want to make your own, the shapes I used were fairly simple (except for the feet):

Body: A pill shape - just an amigurumi ball with a few extra rounds thrown in the middle to make it longer.

Beak: I think I started out with four stitches in a circle, then increased twice in each round, putting the increases opposite from each other. I stuffed it a tiny bit.

Wings: Also started with four stitches in a circle. I then put all the increases on one side so that the wing would be curved. I didn't stuff the wings.

Tail: I did the tail a little different. I chained several stitches (6 or 8 maybe) and then started crocheting "in the round" up and down both sides of the chain. Once I had one round finished, I decreased twice in each following round, putting the decreases opposite from each other. I stopped when there were only a few stitches left in the round. This made a flat trapezoid shape. I did not stuff the tail. I sewed the open end (the less-wide end of the trapezoid) to the raven's body.

Feet: I'm a little unsure how I made them. I think I made a small circle (maybe 4 or 6 stitches) and then did the toes by making a few chains away from the circle then turning and stitching back down the chain until I hit the circle again. I repeated that for each of the three toes.

I hope this helps explain how I made it. If I still had the raven I would try to write up a pattern but it is now in Texas with my dad so I'd have to start from scratch and I don't have time for that at the moment. Please feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions and I'll do my best to help.

Simple Apron

I made this apron as a gift for a friend's bridal shower. I made a similar one for myself a long time ago (I think it was my first sewing project ever) and really love the style - it covers everything! The pattern is Simplicity 5525 which is unfortunately out of print but Simplicity 4987 and McCall 5690 are similar. The only modification I made was to leave out the elastic waistband - I don't like the way it looks and it works just fine without it.

Make Your Own Lawn Markers

If you need a way to mark your lawn or garden that's cheap and won't interfere with a mower, try something like this:

It's a plastic cap from a milk (or water) container and a large 8 cent nail from the hardware store. I used an icepick to poke a hole in the center of the milk cap and pushed the nail through (if your nail is sharp enough you probably wouldn't need to use an icepick).

Then you can just push it into the ground to use as a marker.

We were looking for some way to mark where in our lawn we wanted to set our sprinklers so we don't have to figure out where to place them every time we set them out. Flags would be in the way when we mow but plain stakes or nails would be hard to spot when they're pushed all the way down. So my mom came up with the idea to use the milk caps and a nail - since they're brightly colored they show up in the lawn but they're flat so they won't get in the way.

My Texas Saguaro

So I am 98% sure that this cactus is a saguaro (pronounced sah-wah-roh). If you don't know what a saguaro is, it's one of those giant cacti that have the big arms. I had no idea that they were called saguaros before I moved out here to Arizona. The saguaro is pretty much the mascot of Arizona and the southwest - there's even one on the Arizona quarter.

The interesting thing about my saguaro is that it is not in Arizona. It's at my parent's house in south Texas. Back when I was still in grade school I got one of those little greenhouse cactus seed kits while on vacation at Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. I'm not sure exactly when that trip was but I am guessing it was between 10 and 15 years ago.

This cactus was the only one to survive from the kit. It finally outgrew the little pot we had it in so we re-planted it in the back yard. I never really given much thought as to what type of cactus it was - I thought it was some type of barrel cactus until I noticed that it getting taller but not wider as a barrel cactus should. It's shape made me think of a saguaro, so I started researching them online.

After a few days of searching, I was almost convinced that it wasn't a saguaro because many sources said that a ten year old cacti would only be 1.5 to 6 inches tall. As you can see from the photo above, mine is between 2.5 to 3 feet tall! But after doing some more research I found that those heights were for wild cacti in the desert. Since Texas is slightly wetter than Arizona (and since my parents probably watered it occasionally) my saguaro probably grew faster than it would have in the wild.

I compared my cactus to pictures of saguaros and to saguaros I've visited in real life here in Arizona - I couldn't find anything that made me think that my cactus wasn't a saguaro. The main identifying trait that I found mentioned online was that in each group of spines, there is one spine that is much larger than all the others and points downwards. You can see this on my cactus here:

So all these things together have led me to the decision that my cactus is a saguaro! After living here in Arizona where saguaros are a big deal (a full grown one can cost thousands of dollars), it's fun to know that I grew one without really trying! And that's even more special since it's in south Texas, which is not really it's native habitat (there are no wild saguaros in Texas or even in New Mexico). It's kind of cool to think that my parents are probably the only people in my hometown with a saguaro in their yard!

(By the way, if anyone who has some cacti knowledge thinks that this might not be a saguaro, please let me know why not and what you think it might actually be. I'm no expert so it's very possible that I'm wrong!)

Update 9/29/11: I've posted an update with photos of how the saguaro has grown over the past two years.

"The Office" Party Decorations and Activities: Throw a party themed around the TV show!

As part of (another!) task at DunderMifflinInfinity.com, my branch (Ypsilanti) came up with a bunch of printables that can be used by anyone wanting to throw an "Office" themed party. We won the task so I guess our items must be worth something! Here they are:

Jell-O Mold Placecards and Butt-Kisser Game

"The Office" Paper Dolls: Dwight, Michael, Pam, and Jim

Not pictured: Who Said That? "The Office" Quotes Game and our Party Recipes.

- Jell-O Mold Placecards (PDF) To decorate your table.
- The Butt-Kisser Game (PDF) Played like Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey, but with Michael's butt as the donkey and Dwight's lips as the tail!
- Who Said That? "The Office" Quotes Game: Questions (PDF) and Answers (PDF) Quiz yourself or your friends by identifying quotes from "The Office".
- "The Office" Paper Dolls (link) I posted these here before, they can be used as decorations or party favors.
- Party Recipes (link) These were also posted here before, there are 14 party recipes submitted by the members of DMI Ypsilanti.

Chiltepin Plants Update 2

I've been trying to grow some chiltepin plants (a tiny pepper) from seeds taken from a plant that has been growing at my parent's home in Texas for more than 20 years. Unlike most pepper plants, their chiltepin stays alive during the winter so they don't have to re-plant it every year. My goal is to also get a chiltepin to survive year round here at my home in Arizona. I started growing my plants indoors last May and ended up with 31 seedlings (all the seeds were from one tiny pepper, I might add!).

Eventually they started to attract pests so in early fall I moved them outdoors. They grew much faster outside and were just beginning to develop peppers when it started to freeze. I worked hard to cover them up when it got too cold, but I had to leave for two weeks over Christmas and, well, they didn't make it. Since I had been working on them for 8 months I was pretty upset (I have to admit I cried a little). I couldn't bring myself to pull them up and throw them out so they've been sitting in my backyard for two months.

I was making plans to have my mom send me some more seeds when I happened to look at the plants and I was surprised to find that there were tiny green leaves shooting from the bases of many of my "dead" chiltepin plants!


I guess they were just hibernating! The chiltepin seeds can take a month or more to germinate so I was very happy that I didn't have to mess with trying to get them to sprout again. Since I had let them grow too tall while they were inside (they had to be held up by stakes) I decided now would be the best time to prune them a little. Even though they looked pretty dead it was still hard for me to cut them back. I left them all at about 6 inches.


There are still about 1/3 of the chiltepin plants that don't have any new leaves, but the stems of all the plants were green on the inside when I trimmed them so I'm hoping that those will come back too. And as soon as the plants have recovered enough, I'm going to put them in the ground - no more messing around with plastic buckets! Hopefully they'll have enough time this year to make some peppers so I can try cooking with them.

My 31 chiltepin plants, still looking nearly dead

Related Posts: Quail Nest and Chiltepin Seeds, Chiltepin Plants Update 1

"The Office" Paper Dolls

"The Office" Paper Dolls - Dwight, Michael, Pam & Jim (Dundie in the background for scale)

My friends at the Ypsilanti branch of Dunder Mifflin Infinity (an online game based on "The Office") recently held a Regional Manager Appreciation Day for me. They even had our "Office" Christmahanukwanzakah poem printed up in a book and sent it to me. Aren't they awesome? :)

As a way to show my appreciation for them, I made these paper dolls based on Dwight, Michael, Pam and Jim from NBC's "The Office."  Well, I guess they're not really paper dolls since you can't change their clothes but I'm not sure what else to call them. Mini standees, maybe? Anyhoo, my friends on DMI really seemed to enjoy them so I thought I would share them with you all. Update: I've added three more dolls with accessories and changeable outfits: Creed Bratton, Kelly Kapoor and Michael Scott with his desk.

Here's how to get the dolls on this page:

1. Open the PDF file containing the paper dolls (see below) and print each page out (the stiffer the paper the better - cardstock would be the best).
2. Cut along the outline of the stand and around each paper doll (you may have to use an X-acto knife to get all the details). Cut two slits in the stand along the lines that say "cut".
3. Fold the stand back along both lines that say "fold" then slide the two slits into each other.
4. Stand the paper doll up. You may have to gently bend the figures and the stand so they'll stand upright.

4 Inch Paper Dolls (PDF)


5.5 Inch Paper Dolls - Michael and Dwight (PDF)


5.5 Inch Paper Dolls - Jim and Pam (PDF)

Enjoy, and let me know if you have any problems downloading the files or printing the dolls. :)

White Chocolate Recipes

The husband and I usually don't spend much on Valentine's day since February is the month of the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show and we blow all our money there. So this year I decided to save money and surprise him by making three different cookies using his favorite sweet, white chocolate. I made Oreo balls dipped in white chocolate, sugar cookies with white chocolate icing, and white chocolate chip cookies (which turned out oddly shaped since I didn't space them out enough). I made them early, the Thursday before Valentine's, so he could take the extras to work on Friday.

Kevin's favorite were the white chocolate chip cookies. The recipe I used was from FoodNetwork.com (Emeril Lagasse). It was supposed to be a giant cookie cake (I left out all the nuts and bittersweet chips and put in extra white chocolate chips) but it was so thick that it didn't get cooked in the middle so I had to start over. I decided not to risk under cooking them again so I just made small cookies.

My favorite were the sugar cookies. The recipe was also from FoodNetwork.com (Alton Brown this time). I had to bake them slightly longer than the time given in the recipe but I took them out when the edges were just barely brown and they were perfect - soft and not overly sweet. I melted white chocolate, put it in an icing bag and drizzled it over the top of the cookies.

The Oreo balls were also good, though I think that dipping regular, non-balled Oreos in to white chocolate would taste just as good. And since they have cream cheese in them that means you have to keep them refridgerated which was a hassle. The recipe I used was from Allrecipes.com.