Summer Recipes

This is another off topic post, but these are two recipes

that I get a lot of requests for during the summer.

First up are zucchini bars. The original recipe can be found at allrecipes.com.

This is my modified version.

Zucchini Bars 

3/4 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup flaked coconut
3/4 cup white chocolate chips
3/4 cup craisins
2 cups grated zucchini

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour 9x13 inch baking pan.
Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder. Mix 1/4 cup of the dry mixture with the coconut, chips and craisins. Set both aside. 
In a large bowl cream together the butter, white sugar, and brown sugar.
Mix in the eggs one at a time and vanilla until fluffy.
Mix in the dry ingredients on low until just combined.
Stir in the zucchini. Then stir in the mixture of coconut, chips and craisins.
Spread batter into the prepared pan. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes. Cut into bars when cool.

Variations: To make chocolate zucchini bars substitute 1/4 cup of the all-purpose flour with Dutch processed cocoa.

Any dried fruit, nuts, and baking chips can substituted for the coconut, white chips and craisins. If you don’t want quite so much stuff, you can pare it down. Even just a cup of morsels will still result in tasty bars. So have fun playing around with different combinations.

My kids love the chocolate version with semi-sweet chips, chocolate chunks and white chocolate chips. Another favorite combo is coconut, white chocolate and butterscotch chips.

Note: Use unsweetened coconut flakes, not that nasty shredded stuff that tends to lurk in the baking isle. I find the coconut flakes in the natural foods section in most stores.

A few tips for zucchini virgins: Don’t be afraid of the zucchini. It doesn’t have a strong flavor, you won’t even taste it. All it does is give the bars their moist texture. If you ate these bars blindfolded you’d never know it was there. 

When you shred zucchini, shred the whole thing peel and all. Quarter larger zucchini’s lengthwise and remove the seeds before shredding. Don’t worry about tiny, paper thin seeds, they’ll cook down.

Sometimes the zucchini can be too moist and you end up with a dense layer on the bottom of the bars where the extra liquid has settled. It’s still perfectly tasty and edible, but to avoid that you can remove some of the moisture by laying the shredded zucchini between layers of paper towels or you can roll it up in a clean lint free cloth, such as cheesecloth or a dish towel and wring the juices out. You can even grab fistfuls and squeeze it out Hulk style.  Take care not to squeeze all the liquid out, you still want it to be moist.

The second recipe is fairly common in these parts. I’ve only made a

few minor tweaks, but people always want the recipe, so here it is.

Veggie Pizza

2 - 8oz packages refrigerated crescent rolls (Pillsbury Crescent Seamless Dough Sheets make this even easier)
1 - 8oz package cream cheese, softened
1 small container (5 - 7 oz.) or 1 cup plain Greek yogurt (Fage 2% is my favorite)
1 - 0.4oz package Hidden Valley Ranch Buttermilk Recipe Salad Dressing and Seasoning mix
1 tbsp fresh dill
2 cups assorted veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, assorted bell peppers, grated carrots, mushrooms, cucumbers)
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 375
Roll out crescent rolls onto 12x17 jelly roll sheet. Let stand 5 min then pierce with fork.
Bake 8 minutes or until golden brown, let cool.
Combine cream cheese, Greek yogurt, dressing mix and dill. Spread the mixture over the cooled crust and top with assorted veggies and cheese.

A few tips:

Be careful, all those Hidden Valley Ranch seasoning packets look the same. I accidentally grabbed the Original Ranch Dips once and it was way too salty. The Original Salad Dressing mix isn't too salty, but I still prefer the Buttermilk one. Either way they contain MSG, if that is something you are concerned about.

Adding a tablespoon of fresh dill makes it awesome and growing dill is so easy, it’s very forgiving of poor growing conditions and neglect. If you let some of it go to seed, it will reseed itself the next year.

Don’t following the baking time on the Pillsbury crescent roll package, it’s way too long.

Mushrooms and cucumbers should only be added right before serving because they don’t retain their texture well.

I actually think it's better without cheese, but I seem to be in the minority in that.

Painters Tape Skulls

Last post I got a little patriotic with the painters tape, but I couldn’t leave it at that.  I’ve never met a craft I couldn’t bend to my nefarious vision

 and I’m not about to start now.

This cute skull was created using painters tape as a stencil.

He’s pretty simple, but I’ve become rather attached to the little bugger and have decided to adopt him as my unofficial trademark.

 

 

My son really liked my bag, and wanted me to stencil his backpack, which led to the creation of the guy below, who definitely has my son’s personality. 

  Even though I designed it for him, he said it’s ok to share it with the rest of the world. If you do use it, we’d love to see what you do with it.

 

 

To make a tape stencil, print out the template and glue it onto the matte side of plastic coated freezer paper.  I’m sure wax paper would work as well. On the shiny side layer strips of painters tape.  Layer strips horizontally and then vertically overlapping by a ¼ inch.  Cut out the pieces along the lines and remove the freezer paper.  In between use, the pieces can be stored on another piece of freezer paper.  

 

 

The surface is a black backpack.  Here are all the pieces in place except for the gear piece.  I painted that area with puffy fabric paint, because it was blue, permanent and it's what I had.  I used a brush to spread it in a thin layer, brushing away from the edges of the tape.   

 

 

 

Just for fun after the paint dried I made random

lines using metallic permanent markers. 

 

 

Once that set I covered it with the corresponding tape piece.

 

 

Carefully remove the skull piece, it helps to use something pointed like a pen tip to push the little nose pieces in place.  For the skull I used an acrylic paint pen, again because it was permanent and that's what I had on hand in white. The paint pen needed a couple layers. I don't worry about even coverage, I think it gives it character.

 

 

The white really bled under the tape on the right hand side.  I don't know if I just got sloppy with the white paint, but I suspect it had more to do with not having an even layer of blue puffy paint. 

 

 

Lucky for me one of my metallic pens was a pretty close match for the blue paint so I touched things up.  I touched up the eyes and nose with a black permanent marker and added a bit more white. I like the way the pen the strokes show through when it's not a solid white.

 

 

 

Here's another skull with red from an acrylic paint pen.  I just randomly pounced it on, you can really see the difference where the paint was layered more. 

 

 

The surface here is white watercolor paper. Start with just the skull piece and throw down some color all around it.   

 

 

After it dries lay the gear piece down and sponge some color around the edges. 

 

 

Then pull up the gear piece and lay down the outline of the gear piece. 

 

 

Sponge on some color, making sure to get the eyes and nose. 

 

 

Pull up all the tape and SHAZAM!

 

 

Using tape and this template from Skull-A-Day, I dressed up an old hat. It was never a cool looking hat, I love it for its awesome sun blocking abilities, but now it has some style. I don't think the template was ever intended to be reduced under four inches.  It was a pain to cut out and some of smaller details didn't really come through the painting process.  By the last skull the smaller pieces of the stencil had torn off, but hey it's tape so I could stick them in place. Using tape as my stencil also gave me a lot of flexibility.  I was able to stencil skulls halfway on the brim going up the side without missing a beat.   

 

And that folks, is how to creep things up with painters tape.  

United States Flag

This isn't my usual creepy craft, but it was created in the spirit of honoring the dead, so it's not that far off.  I originally did this with my Girl Scout troop to make posters for Memorial Day, but with the 4th coming up it's an easy way to add stars and stripes just about anywhere.

  

The hardest part is making the stars, which isn't difficult, it's just tedious cutting them out by hand.  I  would think you could use a die cutter or a large star punch, but if I had either of those, I wouldn't be showing how to do it by hand. Here is my star template.   

The stars are different sizes for good reason. I know I could spend an hour just trying to get all the stars lined up to look the real thing and some of our girls are like that too.  This way it's abstract from the get-go, so there's no need to stress about perfection. 

 

Here's one of their finished posters to give you an idea. The font used was Tootie Patootie. It's easy to see from a distance, nice block shape for coloring and cutting out, especially if you ignore the smaller white spaces

 

 

 

Continuing on with the making of the stars, first you will need a piece of plastic coated freezer paper.  I think parchment paper or wax paper would work as well, but I like the freezer paper for it's slick coating on one side and matte finish on the other. Print out the star sheet and glue it to the matte side, I prefer using a glue stick for this. 

 

Then flip it over and cover the shiny side with overlapping strips of painters tape. This is optional, but I like to lay another layer of overlapping strips in the opposite direction. The picture shows the second layer half done. I think the added thickness makes it easier to peel the stars off and makes them studier for handling.  They can be used again and again, until they lose their stick.

I don't like cutting things out. I'm left handed and I can't cut with lefty scissors. Sometimes I wonder if others have the same stupid problems I do, or if I'm truly just that "special". I can cut fine with right handed scissors but it isn't comfortable and I find myself having to cut at weird angles to see where I'm cutting. That being said, I found the most efficient way to cut out the stars was to cut from point to point and then cut the triangle that was left.  The stars are lined up so they can be cut into strips and knock out one side on all the stars in one fail swoop. 

After the star is cut, peel it off and stick it onto the shiny side of another piece of freezer. I've got a little tri-fold action going on here with about half the stars.  Folded up it's 5"x8" and easily fits in a folder for later use. 

Now is the best part, lay out the stars and stripes and sponge paint over them. 

Extending the tape over the edges of the paper keeps it secured to the work surface, but isn't necessary.

Use a different sea sponge for each color. They don't have to be very big. Make sure the sponges are thoroughly wet and then squeeze all the excess moisture out before using. Dab the sponge into the paint and dab it a few times on a clean surface (paint tray, paper plate, etc.) to remove the excess.  Then pounce it straight up and down on the surface you want covered.  The straight up and down motion keeps the paint from being pushed under the tape.   

Wait a minute or two for the paint to set and remove the stripes. For the stars wait until the blue paint has completely dried.  Remember you can place the stars back on the freezer paper to use again. 

One more Memorial Day craft while I'm at it.  This is another poster our troop did. We used the instructions from Moms Holiday Craft Ideas to create the poppies, except instead of pipe cleaner stems, we punched out red construction paper 1.5" circles for a base and 1" black circles for the flower centers and glued the tissue flowers in-between the two.  The poem excerpt is from Moina Michael's "We Shall Keep The Faith" which was inspired by John McCrae's poem "We Shall Not Sleep".  Here is a little history on the poppy. The font is called Let Her Go by Kimberly Geswein.

Voodoo Dolls

I would like to thank Girl Scouts for making this Voodoo Doll possible. I'm not in any way implying that they encourage the practice of Voodoo or the making of Voodoo paraphernalia.  I take full responsibility for taking their idea and warping it for my own amusement. I guess I should also apologize to Voodoo for making it cutesy.  

The idea of I speak of is the Role Model Doll project in the aMuse journey books.  For that project dolls are made with pipe cleaner bodies and button heads, wrapped in yarn and decorated with scraps to emulate an admired role model. My brain immediately translated that to Voodoo doll, I can't help it.   

One of my Girl Scout moms created this awesome guy at last year’s craft party and I thought it would be way cooler than a button head.

The wooden beads had been donated to a previous craft party by another troop leader.

Finally I have to thank our troop, for testing my original design (in role model mode) and showing me where it needed improvement.

The following instructions work for both Voodoo and Role Model dolls. Alternatively you could do both, a sort of Jekyll and Hyde doll, by making two faces on opposite sides and just flipping the hair. 


To make these dolls you will need:

one 1 inch wooden bead
4 pipe cleaners
3 yds. yarn for hair
3.5 yds. twine for body
cloth scraps
fine or medium point permanent markers
scissors
glue

How much yarn or twine will depend on its thickness, how long you want the hair or how tightly you wrap the body. The measurements above should give you enough wiggle room that you don't run out. The directions that follow will be given in arm lengths, because it's faster to measure that way and it doesn't have to be exact.  Just note I'm on the short side, so if you're 6' 2" to my 5' 4" not only can you reach stuff on the top shelf, but two arm lengths will give your doll fuller hair than mine. If kids are doing the measuring add on another arm length or two.  I think it's better to have too much than not enough, but it's not the end of the world if you have to add more, just make sure to glue the ends and wrap over them. 

If you use yarn instead of twine for the body, I would recommend using a heavy weight yarn.  When our troop made dolls we used average yarn to wrap the bodies, most of the girls didn't have the patience to wrap them enough to really fill them out, so we had some really skinny dolls. With twine it only takes a pass up and down each limb for a nice thickness.  If you use twine make sure you get the natural kind that hasn't been treated.  Treated twine has a very strong nasty chemical smell. 

Draw a face on your wooden bead and set aside.

Next cut about two arm lengths of yarn for medium length hair. I wrap it around my fingers, for longer hair or for little creatures with smaller hands make a looser wrap. You want about 18-20 loops, to fit snug in the bead.




Keeping the yarn looped together, slide it off and fold your pipe cleaner in half over the loop of yarn and give it a couple of tight twists. then gently twist it almost halfway down for the body and legs. 





Cut the loop at the point opposite your pipe cleaner. Place a dab of glue around the pipe cleaner right before the hair starts and pull the pipe cleaner through the bead just until the top of the pipe cleaner disappears and all you can see is yarn coming out.

At any time you can add a little glue to the back of the bead to keep the under layer of hair down permanently if you'd like.








Cut a 7 inch piece of pipe cleaner, leave a little space for a neck and wrap it around the body twice to make arms.




In my original version, I wrapped some scrap cloth around the body to give it a little more girth.  Later after making these with our troop, I decided it was best to reinforce the entire body.  These dolls got a lot of attention, but even though it was careful, loving attention, there were still a few injuries. The pipe cleaner shoulder joint is especially a weak point since the arms get posed a lot.  

To add a little extra strength, position a pipe cleaner along the side of the body.  Give it a slight bend in the armpit area so that there is an equal amount extending past the arm and the leg. 





Holding the pipe cleaner against the body wrap from the armpit down the body to the end of the leg.  Then wrap from the armpit to the end of the arm. Repeat on the other side. 








Then take three arms length of twine, plan on more if you are using regular yarn and start to wrap. 

Crisscross around the body, up the neck, back down and head on over to the arm. 

Notice with twine your wraps don't have to be right next to each other for this step, but if you are using yarn, you probably want to keep them closer together. When you get a quarter inch from the end, stop and fold the pipe cleaner over.


With our troop we had some arms start to unravel, so put a dab of glue on the fold, wrap over it and work your way back up the arm. This time place the wraps right next to each other to make it look nice. Cross over the body and wrap the other arm. If you used yarn I would make another pass up and down each arm to make them thicker.

Wrap down the body, down one leg, fold and glue, just like the arms and wrap back up the body.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wrap back down the body and do the other leg.  Wrap back up the body, cut the twine towards the back, tuck the end in and glue. 

Here is a side by side comparison of the two bodies.  The girl on the left obviously does more pull-ups. 

 

Then dress your doll with scraps of cloth.  You can either glue them on or just tie them on with more yarn, ribbons or strips of cloth. I think gluing scraps of fabric in place for makeshift clothes is easier, but most of our girls wanted to be able to change outfits.

This glamorous attire is perfect for a night out at the St. Louis Cemetery and it's made out of a few odd scraps. 

 

 

 

Here are the girl's role model dolls.

 

This is the one I made for my mom, she loves purple, with the reinforced body style. On the subject of moms and dolls, my mother showed me how to make little dolls out of a hollyhocks like these when I was little. Now that I think about it they look a bit alienesque, but to a kid it's pure fairy magic to make dolls out of flower parts.

There is also an interesting read on voodoo dolls at Steampunk Opera.