Pinwheels

With fall comes football season, and with football season comes tailgating, and with tailgating comes decisions.  Such as "beer or liquor" (my group always did both, why limit your inebriation options?), "set up before or after the game" (if it was noon, 4, or 8, you best expect both!) and "maroon or orange" (because come on, there are no other colors)

LOGAN! He falls forward for a gain of 2!  First Down!
<drafthouse.com>

Through the past 5 years I've buckled down on Saturday to go honor the most sacred of holy days in the church of football.  With the honorable Frank Beamer presiding assisted by Bud Foster.

Lunchpail Defense.  Go to work.
<hokiesports.com>

So while there are many things that could be different from Saturday to Saturday, there were always 2 constants: spinach dip and pinwheels.  Both we figure originated from the football gods to be distributed amongst mortals to enjoy while getting ready to discuss the highly technical maneuvers that were laid out before us.

Depicted: Beamerball
<http://blogs.roanoke.com/andybittervirginiatechfootball/category/schedules/page/3/>

So I present to you, tailgate-worthy pinwheels

Ingredients
5 slices of bacon or precrumbled bacon
1 tube of crescent rolls or 1 crescent roll sheet
1 tub of onion and chive cream cheese (I use the 1/3 and you can't tell the difference)
1 cup of cheddar cheese (this is a rough estimate)

If you didn't get precrumbled bacon, BONUS TUTORIAL!  Bacon on the broiler!  Preheat the oven to broil.  Lay out the bacon on a broiler pan.  This allows the bacon grease to run off the bacon into the broiler pan and you'll end up with a lot less fat on the bacon as it cooks.  Bacon is good enough without all the extra fat.

Put in the oven for about 2-3 minutes on each side depending on how crispy you like it.

Preheat the oven to 350.  Roll out the crescent rolls so there are no seams and just to generally make the surface larger.  Make it about 1/8" thick or thinner; enough to be able to support cream cheese.

Spread the entire tub of cream cheese over the surface.  Go up to all the edges except leave a strip on the far end plain.  Contents may shift during the rolling process.

Cover with cheddar cheese. Again we're going for general coverage on this.  I wouldn't create a layer of cheese, but enough that the surface is covered minus that strip up top.

This is usually what I go for.

Cut up the bacon and spread across the cheese.

Now begins the tricky rolling process.   Starting at the side closest to you begin rolling the crescent dough length-wise.  Make sure to patch tears as you go, keeping mildly tight so it's easier to cut but not so tight as you tear the dough.  Be gentle, and don't rush or it'll be a lot harder to cut.

Tears can easily be patched with some dough from the end.

Plus if you rush you could lose toppings.  That bacon is valuable.  Go munch on a piece if it; it'll make you feel better.

After finishing rolling up the dough, it's time to slice.  Going along the tube, slice pieces about 1/2-3/4" thick.  As you cut, roll the dough slightly back and forth.  It will help preserve the shape.  And it's ok if you have to do some reconstructive surgery.  They're going to be just as good in the end regardless of shape.

Explosion!  This one came out ok

Line a baking sheet or 2 with parchment paper (easier cleanup, I see what you did there) and arrange the pinwheels on it with a small space between each.  Put in the oven and bake for about 10-12 minutes.  Check periodically, you want them to come out lightly browned.

Not yet ready, give it about 4 more minutes

Transfer to a cooling sheet and serve warm.  Be ready to be loved by everyone watching the game.

Good luck to your team!  & I'm going to settle into watching the two best teams on the planet: Virginia Tech and whoever's beating UVA this week.


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Easy Brown Sugar Garlic Chicken

One unfortunate thing about cooking for yourself is that most meals are built for the family of 4.  Since I'm missing several of the components of that nuclear unit, it becomes cook one day and you're good to go for the week.

The presentation is never this good 4 days in a row.

In order not to get sick of the same meal, since my normal food exactness tolerance is tripped by anything other than salmon & hamburgers after 3 days, I've developed the Sidebartender's Shots methods.  Aka: cutting the portion size down to last 2 days and cook everything on the stove top.  Seriously, I don't have the patience to put things in the oven or to wash up after it's done.  The dishwasher was invented for a reason and that is so I don't have to go through the 24 pack of sponges as quickly.

Totally got some room there in the front.
<http://waterytart23.blogspot.com/2010/12/dishwasher-wars.html>

After seeing this recipe I decided that the oven and 2 of the chicken breasts were unnecessary, and I shot it up!  So Pinteresting!  Based off Easy Garlic Chicken from Food.com

Ingredients
2 chicken breasts or 4 thin sliced chicken breasts
2 cloves of garlic minced
1 tsp olive oil
2 tbsp brown sugar

If you're using thin sliced chicken breasts, congrats on saving some time & you can skip down a couple pics to enjoy your deliciousness sooner.  If you're not, congrats of saving some money and we'll quickly play catchup.  Slice your breasts in half so you end up with 4 thin breasts.

If they're still a bit thick, whip out that mallet and hammer them thinner.  The thinner they are the faster they cook, and since we're on the stove top, it's really important to ensure that they cook all the way through.

Add the oil to a sauce pan over medium heat and cook the chicken until about cooked through.

We are not ready

Remove chicken from heat.

Lookin good!

To oil in the pan, add the garlic and saute the garlic.

Add the brown sugar and continue to saute until the garlic is browned.

Add the chicken back to the pan.  Spoon the mixture over the chicken.  Lower the heat, cover, and let cook for 5 minutes.

Dig in and enjoy minimal cleanup.  Seriously guys, the dishwasher can totally pull the weight on this one.  *high five*

Sidebar: this sauce is extraordinarily good and I can easily imagine it over salmon, mixed in with tuna, or a glaze on a hamburger.  Might even be enough to bump the tolerance up to 4 days.  Get creative!  That's over half of what cooking is in the first place.


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Marbled Votives

Because it's only August, I decided to continue improving my friend's gifts.  Part of the 3 step plan.

Can still hear you Jamie

While trying to resist the urge to just pin everything into My House is a Very Very Very Very Fine House board from my design soulmate, I've also been keeping tabs on all the fun things to keep my hands busy. Since the bottom of the smaller votives is flat it's hard to pass up working with such a perfect surface.  *ponders infinite possibilities... codes instead*

The top needed some love too == sparkly band

I found this idea on Curbly for marbling the bottoms of shot glasses and figured that I'd give it a shot for these votives.  The original looks so simple!

Materials
Glass votives with flat bottom (recycled Glade candle holders)
Nail polish/enamel paint; used 3 colors per shot glass
Painters tape
Shallow bowl you don't care about (nail polish goes in, doesn't really come out)
Toothpick
Nail polish remover for touching up the parts of the glass you didn't want decorated
Cotton swabs for the touchup work

Because we're fans of clean lines here we've breaking out the painters tape.  About a half inch down from the top of the votive put a ring of tape around the votive.  Paint with the nail polish of your choice.  Also bottoms up!  (Tape up)

While the blue is an annoying polish color, it makes for great paint.

Alright, the good stuff: the actual marbling.  Fill the bowl with water then drop or pour the nail polish into the bowl.

This alone could have been the bottom of the glass and I'd have loved it.

Then you can swirl it around with the toothpick to your heart's content.  I found that the consistency of nail polish when in water is very different than what you'd think.  If you don't work quickly enough it creates a film over the surface which makes it very difficult to swirl the polish when in the water.  I found it easier to swirl a bit in the water then stamp the glass where I most liked the swirl then use the toothpick for finishing up the work on the bottom of the glass itself.

If you look closely you can see it's an accurate topographic map of my yarn bin

As I'm learning about a lot of crafts, less is more.  Don't marble more than you have to here.  It just turns the whole thing grey.  Which is awesome if that's what you're going for, keep up the good work!  Let dry.

& no, I went and watched an episode of White Collar

After they dry you want to seal them with either clear nail polish or a light, glittery one that matches but won't cover the bottom of the votive.  You know, the ones that are impossible to paint 7 you need about 6 coats to even see the color  This is one of those few situations where I actually went with the glittery option.  Maybe I've been watching too many episodes of Craft Wars....

It's the good kind of sparkly

After everything dries it's time for the reveal!

Reeeeeveal!

 Take off the tape and touch up the lines and if you got a bit overzealous with the application, get it from the middle of the glass too.  I don't judge, I've had to rescue my computer case because I don't ever let my nails sit long enough after I paint them.  My mouse when it was painted was totally intentional.

From the inside lookin out

So much better when it's dry!

I'm jealous of this one myself

We're already doing better than last year picture-wise

 Next, part 3!  To make the candles!  Because we're still in August! *victory fist pump*


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Recycling Glass Votives

I woke up the other day and thought: "omg!  It's August!  There's only 4 more months till Christmas!"

Yes Jamie, I hear you

So in order to avoid the Search for Red (yarn/clay/paint) October I've efficiently decided to start a bit early this year.  & since it's Augus I can safely make extravagant claims of what I'm going to do.  It's stretch goals for crafting.  New planning technique, oh yeah.

For this Christmas I'm not even going to try to outdo what I did last year for a couple of my friends.  I made them "Wine Emergency" Kits which I'm so sad I didn't take better pictures of because they were awesome.  Which should be apparent from the name; it's associated with wine.  And included emergency chocolate.  How much better can it get?

One of the 2 pictures of the wine emergency kit in existence.  I beaded the fork; it took ages

A lot better than that picture.

I'm a sucker for maximizing anything I buy.  Through the coupon-enabled purchase through the final intended use of the product to the "...I don't want to really throw it away..."  So when my candles look like sad versions of their former selves:

When burnout is a good thing

I recycle them!

Aunt's gift; check

Man, it feels so good to reuse things.  Makes me able to justify my almost borderline pyro habits when it comes to candles.  The other good part about reusing the glass votives is it's like you're almost cheating; you're getting a free (ok "free") medium on which to try techniques.  So the crackle nail polish does not crackle on glass?  *shrug*   The etching mask slipped a bit?  Looks like I now have a candle for my bathroom were it can hide and you get take 2.

Oh hey!

 The possibilities are endless. Endless until the you realize that you're only 1/8 way through burning the next candle.

Faster!  You're fire!  BURN!

Until then, here are some ways you can keep busy while the candle is burning the 3:30 (you can choose am or pm) oil.  To get the votives ready for crafting use you've got to get the left over wax out.  There a couple different techniques but the one that makes the most sense to me is to melt it out.  I mean you could scrape it if you have patience but I don't think it's worth it.  Turn on the oven to 200.   Line a baking dish with tin foil making a "bowl" or essentially covering the bottom & working up the sides slightly to create a lip.

Make sure to turn up the edges.  We're going for bowl

Place the votives upside down in the tray and put it in the oven.  Let it sit for about 10 minutes.  You can check it at intervals; the important thing we're looking for is all the wax to be out of the votives.

This is an example of it NOT being ready.

 Bonus points for getting the wick out.  The wick is held in place with some industrial strength glue, and if you leave the votives in the oven long enough, the heat will make the glue melt.  Sometimes all you have to do is wiggle it when heated and it comes off too.

This is an example of it ready

Quick! Before the wax solidifies!  We've got 2 things to do!  1) wipe out all the wax from the votives so it doesn't solidify in a thin layer around the inside of the inside.  It's very very hot, use a potholder

Burn wax, not your fingers.

2) we've now got a tin foil boat of hot wax. Now can we use this wonderful repository of raw materials?  Why yes, we can.  Since we're currently not melting new wax for candles we're going to make fire starters!  Take cotton pads and submerge them into the melted wax. You want to gather as much of the wax as you can, so just keep dropping them in until the wax is pretty much used up.

The freshest smelling campfire you'll ever have.

Now we have it: it's (mostly) clean glass.  & it only took 20 hours and 10 minutes.  Totally worth it.

Now to decorate!  Because I had 2 different types of glasses, I decided to use 2 different techniques and continue my quest to etch everything glass I can get my hands on.  I used a dragonfly stencil on the larger votives (courtesy of Febreeze) and the names of my friends on the smaller ones (courtesy of Glade)

FYI: It's really hard to take pictures of etching

I can see you guys wondering if this is how I'm leaving them.  To that I chuckle a bit and reassure you that I'm not giving up on such an easy point in the crafting process.  Me?  Keep it easy?  *waves hand*  It's only August!

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