Posted on Leave a comment

Cupcakes

Sometimes after binge watching baking shows, you just have to bake cupcakes.

Lots of cupcakes

I substituted a 1 to 1 gluten free flour blend for the flour in the yellow cake recipe out of my favorite Better Homes cookbook. The cupcakes turned out a little dense, but not bad. Most gluten free cakes are a little dense, so I’m not sure there’s a good solution.

My favorite part of any cake is the butter cream frosting.  A slightly dense cupcake doesn’t bother me, as long as the frosting is good. My frosting recipe also came from my Better Homes cookbook. Some of my family can’t have dairy, so I substituted shortening for the butter and almond milk for the milk.

My Sunbeam Mixmaster worked beautifully for both the cake batter and butter cream frosting. I’ve had it for over a year and a half now, and the only problem I’ve had was with the beaters.Those were cheap and easy to replace, and it’s been going strong ever since.

Frosting delivery device

Posted on Leave a comment

Goodwill Finds and Refashion Ideas

Pink tunic after removing the lining.

This weekend, we visited a local Goodwill store. Unlike the other Goodwill’s in our area, this one has everything in big bins and they charge a flat, by-the-pound fee. Thrift stores always have unique items, but this one seems to have some really good finds, if you’re willing to dig.

In addition to a few household odds and ends, I found a couple of dresses and a shirt that need a little bit of refashioning, and a pair of skinny boyfriend cut jeans that are like new and fit perfectly. I also found a pretty floral vintage bed sheet. Vintage linens are somewhat in demand among crafters, and I rarely have luck finding them, so it was a nice surprise. 

 

Vintage Pink and Purple Floral Bed Sheet
Vintage Pink and Purple Floral Bed Sheet

Green Dress

The first dress is a casual, green knit dress with interesting cutwork and stitching at the neckline and hem.

Green knit dress
Green knit dress

Pros: It’s comfortable, easy to wear and chase after kiddos, and I like the color and detailing. Cons: It’s a size or two too big. This makes the underarms gappy and the waistline droopy. It’s too short to be a maxi dress, but not short enough to not be frumpy. I could wear it as is around the house, but I think I can make it into something better.

My plan: Separate it at the waist into the bodice and skirt. Tighten the bodice at the side seams. Reattach the skirt to the bodice after removing a few inches from the top of the skirt to make it somewhere between tunic and knee length. Add new, tighter elastic at the waist.

Long, Floral Shirtdress

The pretty blue and floral pattern is what caught my attention with this dress.

Blue, long floral shirtdress
Blue, long floral shirtdress

Pros: The print is very pretty, and there is a lot of fabric to work with. Cons: The fabric is a stiff, non-breathing 100% polyester. It’s a size too small through the middle.

My plan: I have a few ideas for this one. The top (bodice) fits pretty well. The only fit issue is right through the middle. I could separate the bodice from the skirt, raise the skirt so that a wider section that fits me better is at the waist and reattach. Factoring in the button placket might make it tricky, but not that difficult.

I’m not sure I would wear it enough to go through that trouble, though. Option two is to use the skirt portion to make a slip-style nightgown by shaping a neckline and cutouts for armholes, then adding bias tape trim and snaps. I would probably use it more this way, but I still worry about the feel of the fabric. I usually avoid things without at least some natural fiber content. Texas is hot and I need my clothes to breathe.

My final idea is to salvage the buttons and use the fabric for things like bag linings, makeup pouches or other accessories. I will probably try one of my first two ideas before this one. I can always use option three if one or two don’t work out.

Pink Tunic Shirt

I think the flowiness of the outer layer and the stitching around the neckline is what made me grab this tunic shirt from the bin.

Flowy Pink Tunic Shirt
Flowy Pink Tunic Shirt

Pros: Flowy, comfortable fit. Detailing at the neckline keeps it from being too plain. Nice, bright color. Cons: The top layer seems to have shrunk, exposing the lining layer. The lining is 100% polyester knit, which is stretchy and comfortable, but doesn’t breathe.

My plan: This one was so simple, I actually did it in about five minutes this morning. I thought about shortening the lining by a few inches. The top, gauzy layer didn’t really have to have a lining, though, so I decided to remove the lining altogether by simply cutting it out. This made it super easy, and now the tunic is lighter and more suitable to Texas summers.

Pink tunic after removing the lining.
Pink tunic after removing the lining.

It’s not the most dramatic refashion, but it fixed a problem and made it so much more comfortable to wear. I wore it Sunday over my new-to-me Goodwill blue jeans to The Modern art museum and then to Central Market with the family for a treat and playtime on their playground. Without the lining, the tunic was lightweight, and the drapiness of the fabric kept it from feeling frumpy. I totally see it becoming one of my new favorites.

Speaking of The Modern, if you’re on Instagram, I’ve shared a video to @subearthancottage of Thadd and Beckett having fun with the crazy acoustics inside the Vortex sculpture out front. It was so much fun to watch them play, as well as just about anyone walking by. Few people passed without stepping inside to stomp their feet or shout.

Posted on Leave a comment

Electric Pressure Cooker Update

In the interest of being totally transparent regarding the things I recommend, I think it’s only fair that I post an update to my Why I Love my Electric Pressure Cooker, aka Knockoff Instant Pot post.

GoWise Electric Pressure Cooker, Take One

My first GoWise electric pressure cooker worked beautifully for almost a year and a half. Then, one day while mid-cooking cycle it just died. There was no warning, no error codes, no lights on, nothing. I gave it time to cool off to make sure it hadn’t overheated, but still nothing. Luckily, when my parents bought it for me as a Christmas present, purchased the extended warranty, so I was able to ship the broken pressure cooker back in exchange for an Amazon gift card.

Pardon the messiness. I literally took the photo as soon as I transferred the half cooked bean soup out so I would have it for the warranty process.

Even though my first GoWise electric pressure cooker broke, I chose to repurchase the same model. I also bought the extended warranty. Until it died, I hadn’t had any trouble whatsoever, even with almost daily use, so I thought it was worth giving it another try.

GoWise Electric Pressure Cooker, Take Two

After almost a year, my second GoWise electric pressure died in exactly the same way as my first one. I do use my electric pressure cooker almost daily, so I might be legitimately wearing them out. I did, however, have a friend say her GoWise died in the same manner. Because it’s a common malfunction, this time I planned to pay the little bit more and get an Instant Pot.

Unfortunately, because it lasted less than a year, the manufacturer’s warranty still covered my second GoWise. That means my extended warranty won’t cover it yet. Since the manufacturer’s warranty covers an exact replacement, I’m expecting my third GoWise electric pressure cooker in the mail. I’m sure it will still be awesome for about a year, and maybe the third time is a charm.

Backup for Number Three

In the meantime, I’ve actually been considering getting a second electric pressure cooker so I can have one for the main dish and sides. I like how rice turns out in the pressure cooker compared to other rice cookers, and I frequently burn it on the stove top. Having two would work nicely for when I’m making beans or curry in the pressure cooker and need rice to go along. If I find a good deal on an Instant Pot, I may go ahead and splurge on it as my second. That way, I’ll have a backup in case this GoWise breaks mid-cooking and I can do a real comparison of the two.

Posted on 1 Comment

Sunbeam Mixmaster Update

Last Thanksgiving I bought a Sunbeam Mixmaster to help with all the gluten free baking. This Thanksgiving, I broke my Sunbeam Mixmaster by sticking a plastic spatula between the beaters while it was mixing blueberry muffins. Broke as in pieces fell out of the machine and the beaters stopped spinning. It’s probably a good idea to turn off a mixer before scraping the bowl.

A quick internet search told me I probably broke the plastic drive gears, and the remedy for that was a dumpster burial. At that point, I figured it wasn’t going to get worse, so I had nothing to lose by taking it apart and seeing for myself if it was reparable.

When I finally figured out how to open it, everything looked fine. No sign of anything broken, and the plastic gear that turns everything had minimal wear. The part that latches the beaters in place looked fine. I couldn’t find anything that looked like it was missing the tiny broken pieces. Little pieces that, after thinking more about it, looked oddly like the little tabs on the beaters…

At that point I grabbed the the beaters and compared them to the rarely used dough hooks. Sure enough, the tabs were missing from the beaters but not the dough hooks. Yay! Replacing beaters is cheap and easy. The only problem was now my mixer looked like this:

Luckily I reassembled the mixer without breaking anything. I tested it with a loaf of banana bread mixed with the dough hooks, and it worked fine. Amazon had replacement beaters for about $10, so it should be fully functional in about a week.

My guess is that those tabs are designed to break under pressure if something gets caught in between. While the drive gear is plastic, it’s pretty thick. Even with my mistake and a year of using it almost weekly, it looks to be in good shape. It makes me wonder if some of the people who thought they stripped the drive gear actually just needed to replace the beaters.

In the long run, if money allows, a mixer with an all-metal drive would be better. From my year of use and seeing how little wear there is on the inside, I do think this Sunbeam Mixmaster is a good budget-priced stand mixer. It has mixed everything I’ve thrown at it, including a double batch of banana bread and a meatloaf (separately, of course) with no trouble. Everything, that is, except for spatulas.

Don’t forget: this holiday season, take 30% your SubEarthan Cottage order with coupon code “ShopSmall18”. Valid through December 10, 2018.

 

 

Posted on Leave a comment

Cloth Gift Bags are Available Now

There’s a new batch of Christmas gift bags at the SubEarthan Cottage Shop. This year, you can choose between jute twine like I use for wrapping my soaps, or white satin ribbon for the drawstrings. 

You can find all the Christmas gift bags here: https://subearthancottage.com/product-category/holidays

That is all the fabric I have in those prints, so if you like them, get them quickly before they sell out. Right now, coupon code “NewSiteSale” is good for 30% off your entire regular-priced order.

Posted on Leave a comment

Fruit and Nuts

We have eleven pecan trees, so along with the leaves, pecans cover our yard this time of year. We already had about ten pounds collected just from our front yard, so this weekend we took them to the farmer’s market to have them cracked. Even though we still have to separate the shell from the meat, it’s so much faster than doing it all by hand that it is totally worth it.

Cracked pecans

While we were there, Thadd discovered a big box full of bruised apples for five dollars, so I bought those, too. Thanks to my apple peeler-slicer-corer contraption, I was able to quickly get them ready to freeze for later. Here’s a similar apple peeler to the one I use:

Johnny Apple Peeler by VICTORIO VKP1010, Cast Iron, Suction Base

Some of the apples went straight to the stove with cinnamon and sugar to have as a sweet side and baked oatmeal topping.

Apples!

I’m looking for more recipes to use the apples and pecans that aren’t overly sugary. So far, I’ve found a recipe for apple cider vinegar that makes use of the saved peels.

In the meantime, I made my favorite pecan dessert that is the opposite of not sugary: pecan pralines. (That’s puh-cahn prah-leans, y’all.) They are dangerously easy, especially when you have a ton of pecans on hand and the rest of the ingredients are kitchen staples.

Pecan Pralines
Still too hot…

Here’s the recipe I use:

Pecan Pralines

3/4 cup each of brown sugar and granulated sugar

1/2 cup of milk

1 cup of pecans

1 tablespoon of butter

1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Combine the sugars and milk in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and cook until it reaches the soft ball stage. (That’s when you can put a drop in cold water and it holds together in a ball shape but flattens on your finger when you take it out of the water.) I stir it pretty constantly and check it when it starts to look a little thicker.

Once it is at the soft ball stage, remove it from the heat and stir in the butter, vanilla and pecans until it’s well mixed. Drop the mixture by the spoonful onto waxed paper. If it gets too hard to spoon out, warm it back up for a bit on the stove. It’s best to have the waxed paper ready and work quickly, though. That way you don’t risk burning it and the resulting sadness.

Resist the temptation to try the yumminess immediately and let it cool. Seriously, let it cool. Hot melty sugar burns! The pralines will be more frosty opaque than glossy and easy to peel off the waxed paper when they are ready.

I usually get about sixteen pralines from one batch, but it will vary depending on how big you make them.

Enjoy!

Posted on Leave a comment

Bath Towel Redo

Last Christmas we received a new set of bath towels. Many of our old ones had worn through in places and were ready to be retired. I hate to throw out something that still has some life left in it, so here’s what I did:

I cut the towels to salvage the most usable material possible. Then, I serged the edge with my serger. You could also use a wide zig-zag, fold and hem, or use bias binding to finish the edges and prevent fraying.

The white towels were cut down to about half-size. This makes them perfect for wiping up big spills or as a bath mat. The green towels on the right are smaller sized for kitchen and cleaning towels. The stack of squares in the middle can be used in place of disposable cotton squares for toner, make-up remover, etc.

The small squares are also handy for DIY dryer sheets. I keep a few in a small tub on the dryer soaking in diluted white vinegar and lavender essential oil. I wring one out slightly and toss it into the dryer to add a fresh, lavender scent to our laundry.

All made from two large, worn out bath towels.