Stinkerpants

Thoughtful Last Minute Gifts

December 14, 2009 in More Stuff • Kids' Stationery

I don’t know about you, but the month or so leading up to The Holidays seems to go at WARP SPEED.  I always think, “I still have time to get a gift,” and then before I know it, it’s too late to order something online.  This is especially true for people like my husband and my father, who are notoriously hard to buy for because they seem to have everything.

An awesome gift for people who are hard to buy for is a family portrait. This year, I worked on several family portraits as holiday gifts, including this super cute one of the P Family:

The daughters split the cost of the family portrait as a gift for their parents.  What a thoughtful idea!  I’m sure their parents will love it (and I can’t wait to hear their reaction!).

It’s too late to have an actual portrait finished by the holidays, because the design and printing process can take up to six weeks.  But it’s definitely NOT too late for a family portrait gift certificate!  I will work directly with your friend or family member to create a one-of-a-kind piece of artwork of their entire family (or of anything they want, actually).

The Family Portrait gift certificate is $300 and covers both the cost of the drawing and printing in any size they want on high quality art paper or canvas.

Each gift certificate is printed on thick, beautiful art paper and presented in a fun, colorful envelope.  I’ll send the gift certificate to you, or directly to the recipient.  And for those of you who are SUPER late?  I can send you a full resolution image of the gift certificate to be printed out on your home printer and presented to your loved one moments later. I’m Jewish, so feel free to contact me as late as Christmas morning–I’ll have the image to you in no time.  ;)

See?  Last minute gifts can still be thoughtful!

My Three Favorite Soups

December 13, 2009 in Cooking

While every season has delicious recipes, I have to admit: my favorite time of year (recipe-wise, at least) is Winter.  Why?  Because of soup, which is best when it is cold as heck outside.

This time last year I shared my favorite Carrot Soup recipe. It’s still one of my staples, soup-wise, but I’ve added a couple more to my Fall/Winter arsenal. And because they bring me so much joy, I’m going to share the recipes with you, right here, right now: Potato Corn Leek Soup, Carrot Soup and Curried Cauliflower Soup.  I’m about to devour a bowl of Potato Leek Soup as we speak, actually.

Those of you with CSA boxes will be happy with these recipes, too, because they utilize delicious in-season veggies like cauliflower and leeks, that you might not know what to do with.

Potato Corn Leek Soup

My current favorite is the Potato Leek Soup.  This recipe was served at my friend Karen’s birthday a couple of years ago, and I’ve loved it ever since.  The original recipe is from Cooking Light.

image from here

Ingredients

• 2  tablespoons  butter
• 1  tablespoon  olive oil
• 1 1/2  cups  coarsely chopped leek (about 1 large)
• 1/2  cup  finely chopped celery
• 1/2  cup  finely chopped red bell pepper
• 2  cups  whole milk*
• 3  tablespoons  all-purpose flour
• 3  cups  fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
• 2  cups  fresh corn kernels (about 4 ears)
• 2  pounds  cubed peeled Yukon gold or red potato
• 1  teaspoon  salt
• 1/4  teaspoon  freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4  cup  finely chopped fresh parsley
• 3  tablespoons  chopped fresh chives

Preparation
Heat butter and oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat. Add leek, celery, and bell pepper; cook 4 minutes or until vegetables are tender, stirring frequently. Combine milk and flour in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk. Slowly add milk mixture to pan, stirring constantly. Stir in broth, corn, potato, salt, and freshly ground black pepper; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes or until potato is tender. Stir in parsley and chives.

*In my kitchen, I almost exclusively substitute 2% milk for whole milk and heavy cream.  I personally don’t think cream or whole milk is worth the added fat and calories.  This soup is fantabulous with regular milk.

Carrot Soup

Last year’s favorite (and still obviously in the top 3) is my Carrot Soup recipe. The original recipe is from Moosewood Restaurant.

image from here

Ingredients

• 2 pounds peeled or scrubbed, chopped carrots
• 4 cups stock
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 medium potato, chopped
• 3-4 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1-2 small cloves crushed garlic
• 1/3 cup chopped cashews
• 2 pinches of nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon dried mint
• dash of cinnamon
• 1 cup milk

Preparation
Place carrots, stock, salt and potato into a medium sized soup pot and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer it for 12-15 minutes. Let it cool to room temp.

Saute the onion, garlic and nuts in the butter until the onions are clear. You can sprinkle in a little salt to help draw the moisture out of the onions. Towards the end of cooking, stir in the nutmeg, mint and cinnamon.

Use an immersion blender to puree. Whisk in milk. Garnish with toasted nuts, some toasted bread crumbs, grated parmesan, or eat just as it is.

Curried Cauliflower Soup

Last year we received a giant head of cauliflower in our CSA box, and I felt totally stumped.  My dad always hated Cauliflower, and growing up I decided I hated it too, despite never having actually tasted it (I trusted my dad, what can I say?).  When I used it to create this Curried Cauliflower Soup, I was blown away.  Apparently I don’t hate cauliflower after all. The original recipe is from Vegetarian Times.

image from here

Ingredients

• 2 Tbs. olive oil
• 1 small onion, chopped (1 cup)
• 1 medium tart apple, such as Granny Smith, peeled, cored, and coarsely chopped (1 cup)
• 1 Tbs. curry powder
• 1 clove garlic, sliced (1 tsp.)
• 1 large head cauliflower, chopped into 1-inch pieces (6 cups)
• 4 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
• 1 tsp. honey or agave nectar
• 1 tsp. rice wine vinegar

Preparation
1. Heat oil in large pot over medium-high heat. Add onion, and sauté 5 to 7 minutes, or until soft and golden. Stir in apple, curry powder, and garlic, and cook 2 minutes more, or until curry powder turns deep yellow.
2. Add cauliflower and vegetable broth, and bring to a simmer. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer 20 minutes. Cool 20 minutes, then blend in food processor or blender until smooth. Stir in honey and vinegar, and season with salt, if desired.

I hope you guys love these recipes as much as I do!  And please, if you have your own favorite soup recipes, share in the comments!!

American Gothic Save the Dates!

December 9, 2009 in Blog • Weddings-Blog • Custom Weddings • Save The Dates

Back in August, I shared a little snippet of a drawing I was working on and asked if anyone could identify what it was based off of.  Here’s the finished product!

J & C contacted me and asked if I could base a save the date drawing off of the famous American Gothic painting by Grant Wood.  They had a few extra details to add: for example, they wanted to include their awesome kitties, and they wanted to change their outfits to be more personalized.

I love how it turned out!  Even the kitties are holding on to the pitchfork!

Creating New Holiday Traditions

December 6, 2009 in Miscellaneous Ramblings • Personal Projects • Holidays

Coming to terms with Christmas has been one of the hardest issues I’ve had to face in my marriage.  I’m not even remotely kidding.

I am Jewish, and I guess I figured I would marry someone Jewish; Christmas isn’t part of my past, and I never thought it would be part of my future.  Growing up, I always felt left out during the holiday season; one of the great tragedies of my childhood was being forced to go Christmas caroling with my girl scout troop.  What the heck is wrong with “I Have a Little Dreidel,” I ask you?!  Don’t tell me that song sucks compared to Jingle Bells.  Everyone wants a dreidel made out of clay, dammit.

As I got older, my feelings of sadness turned into resentment; I still don’t understand why Christmas music starts in November and Target starts decorating in green and red starting in September.  And after working at Paper Source and being forced to listen to Christmas music 10 hours a day for an entire month, my resentment turned into full-blown hostility.

Y, on the other hand, loves Christmas.  Every year, he hosts a “Cousin Christmas” (now Chrismukkah, because of me) for all of his cousins, which involves gift exchanges, a white elephant exchange, and lots of food.  He loves everything about the season: everything from stocking holders to santa hats for the cats.

Our first holiday together included such hits as:

• Sara feels like a traitor as she hangs a Santa ornament on a Christmas tree
• Sara insists on getting a BLUE tree skirt for said tree
• Sara tries her hardest to “get on board” with Christmas by making stockings out of felt, then feels dejected when she looks around her own house and sees stockings, a tree, and a lot of red & green.
• Sara is secretly thrilled when her parents send a box full of gifts wrapped in Chanukkah paper, along with sugar cookies shaped like Stars of David.

But my quiet bitterness was interrupted by Y, who seemed to totally understand that celebrating Christmas (and not complaining incessantly) was really hard for me.  And to this day, his gift of a gorgeous menorah is one of the most meaningful things he has ever done for me.

We’ve been together for five years, and each year I’ve tried to make a bit more effort to enjoy Christmas–both by decorating the house and trying to squelch my inner hostility.  Last year, I made a “Happy Chrismukkah” sign and a giant sparkly “OY.” I gave Y a personal ornament for the tree, and tried my absolutely hardest not to get all Grinchy on him.  This year, my mom and I erected the tree and set out the decorations the day after Thanksgiving.  I still have mixed feelings, but I try my hardest not to show them.

Yesterday I read a post over at Not Quite Betty Crocker and started thinking about holiday traditions.  Marisa talked a bit about her own Christmas traditions growing up, and her apprehension about spending the holidays with her husband’s family instead of her own.

My family doesn’t have too much in the way of holiday traditions, mostly because Chanukkah isn’t an important holiday for Jewish people.  I do have some favorite memories of the holiday season though:

• For a few years, we had a nice dinner with friends on the first night of Chanukkah, complete with gelt and dreidels.
• Going to a movie on Christmas Day.  When we first started doing this, the theaters were empty because everyone was opening their gifts.  As I got older, though, (enter bitterness) the selfish people who had a great time opening their presents would all RUSH to the movie theater, making sure it was hard for us Jews to get a seat and enjoy the only good thing about Christmas.
• Lighting the menorah with my parents and our dogs.  Allie, one of our dogs, would howl to sing along.
• My mom and I each buying a new ornament for our Chanukkah bush, then setting it up together

I am really happy that I have those memories, and really, it’s kind of sad that Chanukkah’s not a very big deal.  My favorite holiday is always Passover: that is the holiday that means “family” to me.

But now I’m thinking about our future holidays.  My friend Marianne absolutely adores this time of year, and I think it has a lot to do with her memories of family traditions.  Last year, Jen suggested that I invent some of our own traditions–and now I’m taking her advice.

I am now making it my personal mission to make December our own month of Chrismukkah.  Here is how I’m going to do it (otherwise known as The New Stinkerpants Chrismukkah Traditions):

• Invent Santaberg.  He is a Jewish Santa.  I don’t know what he looks like, but I think he will definitely be very fat, have a big white beard (and possibly Payote) and a yarmulke.
• Have Cousin Chrismukkah every year with Yorkey’s cousins.
• Have a Chanukkah open house on the first night of Chanukkah every year.  Invite all of our friends and family over to enjoy appetizers and cookies and karaoke (Y’s parents love karaoke).  Every night of Chanukkah, have something special for dinner–maybe our future kids will get to choose their favorite dishes so everyone has something to look forward to.
• For Christmas Eve, everyone gets a new pair of pajamas and a new pair of socks.  If we can find some that are not super Christmassy, I will not be bitter (I swear).  Watch a movie.
• For Christmas Day, open stockings and gifts, then have a big brunch.  Put out a puzzle to work on and hang out.  Maybe decorate a gingerbread house.
• Have the entire family come over–aunts, uncles, cousins, kids, etc–for Christmas dinner.

These are my ideas for new Chrismukkah traditions, which I think will make me excited about this season instead of inexplicably hostile.

What are your family traditions for this time of year?