Hi Everyone!

Hope you all had a fun and safe Halloween and have come down off the sugar high! We had about 30 trick-or-treaters and got lots of compliments on our carved pumpkins. And then our street turned into a total fireworks party. Ireland celebrates Halloween with fireworks and bonfires – it made for a very smokey night around here!

Yesterday I began the process of moving all of my art and craft supplies out to the studio! Turns out I have a LOT of supplies. It’s all painted, and we’re just working on the electricity and looking for a space heater. By the end of the week I should be fully moved in! At which point I promise photos…

Between the moving and the sorting, I roasted those carved pumpkins so I can freeze them to use all winter long! So much pumpkin going on!

And I’m freezing them the smart way – in plastic bags squished flat so they can stack in our outside freezer. I haven’t done this in the past, but it makes so much sense!

One of the bags of pumpkin isn’t getting frozen, though. I baked it this morning!

I decided to try this recipe for pumpkin bars, but I added a teaspoon of cinnamon and a half teaspoon of nutmeg. I’m just not sure pumpkin has a strong enough flavor on its own. Would anyone recognize the pumpkin without those spices?? Now I’ll never know…

Here’s a photo pre-icing.

If I were going to make these again, I think I would puree the pumpkin beforehand so that it’s a little closer to canned pumpkin consistency. They’re not very sweet, so I think the icing will do the trick!

*Please excuse the dark and grainy photos…our kitchen has hardly any natural light and I haven’t quite figured how to use my camera as well as I should!

On another topic altogether, it’s Election Day in America today and I hope all of my American readers will get out there and vote!

My aunt asked me last week if I missed all the election buzz since leaving America (I used to do campaign work before I moved to Dublin). And the truth is, this year I’m just relieved. I’m relieved I don’t have to worry about how absolutely crazy some of the candidates are, and how terrifyingly viable a lot of those crazies are. It’s because now I really feel like an outsider. I’m not the one driving (or flying) around the country or state trying to get someone elected.

Instead, I’m reading the papers from thousands of miles away. And I’m hoping that Americans will be able to get past some of the fear that is making the Tea Party so popular.

Because I don’t believe fear is going to get America, or any other country, out of the economic mess. And voting more crazy “grizzly mamas” into office isn’t going to do it either. I hope the candidates who win today aren’t the ones who are taking advantage of voters who are worried and tired and scared that the future is just as bleak as the present. I hope the ones who win are the positive, creative and strong candidates who will be able to get the country working again.

Of course, the relief that I’m not worrying about American elections is quickly replaced by uncertainty about wacky Irish politics. But that’s another topic for another day.

Happy Election Day, everyone! Vote early and often!

We carved pumpkins tonight with Michael’s brother, Isaac, and his lovely wife, Angie. Angie shared with me her family’s way of roasting pumpkin seeds.

I’m really hoping this recipe will reach you just in time to try it out!

Hanson Family Pumpkin Seeds

1 cup pumpkin seeds
1 tbsp sugar
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp melted butter

Since our pumpkin seeds were pretty wet already, I skipped the melted butter part. But I’m sure it would make these even yummier!

If you’ve got dry-ish pumpkin seeds, melt the butter in a small bowl in the microwave. Dump in the pumpkin seeds and mix them around so they’re coated with butter. In another bowl, mix together the sugar and cinnamon, then dump that onto the pumpkin seeds. Mix them all around so they are all coated in the cinnamon-sugar mixture.

Line a baking tray with aluminum foil and spray it with cooking spray. Spread them out on the baking tray in a single layer. Roast at 350F/180C until they’re golden and crispy, about 20 minutes.

Once you take them out of the oven, let them cool for a minute. Then you should be able to peel the layer off and break it into chunks. Then just munch away!

They’re a fantastic combination of crispy, nutty, and cinnamon-sugary.

Way to go, Hanson family!

And I roasted about half the seeds the way my family always did – spread them out on a tray and shake a bunch of coarse salt all over. Roast until they’re golden and toasted. Equally yum!

And here’s a picture of our carved pumpkins – fairly traditional in the end. But not a bad showing from Michael and Isaac, who say they’ve never carved pumpkins before!

Happy Halloween, friends!

When I moved to Ireland I didn’t think too much about the move. In retrospect, it’s weird that I didn’t anticipate all of the things that would be so different.

In my baking, it was clear from week one that I would have to find alternatives to some of the staples.

One of the biggest problems I faced right away was that you can’t get chocolate chips in Ireland. Well, that’s not quite true. They sell chocolate chips in teeny tiny packets at a price that doesn’t make it worth it to ever use them for baking.

So I picked up a package of Wonderbar at Tesco, in the dark chocolate flavor. I’m certain it’s actual chocolate, somehow, but it does not have the same effect if you pop a square in your mouth. Which is probably making me a healthier person, somehow.

But for chocolate chip cookies or muffins, it works great. I chop it into chunks and use it as a substitute for anything that doesn’t involve melting the chocolate chips.

The other missing ingredient on Irish shelves (well, at least for this post), is canned pumpkin. I never used canned pumpkin too much in America, but I’ve been on a pumpkin kick lately, so I’ve been improvising.

Instead of pumpkin, I use butternut squash, chopped in half, roasted, and spooned out of the shells. It works great, and I’m told it’s even better than using roasted pumpkin because it tends to be watery.

When the flavoring is pumpkin-y, with cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger, it all seems to work out to a cosy fall flavor no matter what!

And speaking of pumpkins, we have two just waiting to be carved.

What do you think of these options? I really like the last one, but I don’t have gray pumpkins or the patience!

Hope you all have a lovely weekend and a spooky Halloween!

1, 2, 3 and 4.

Hello Everyone!

With the schools on midterm break this week, I haven’t been baking for my little stand every morning, since my clients aren’t walking by to drop their kids to school. So I’ve got to wait until next week to get back to baking. It’s probably a good thing because there was a whole lot of carrot cake consumed by yours truly over the weekend. I’m often my own best customer!

With the week off, I’ve been checking out new recipes I want to try for next week. Here are just a few that I’ve got to try. But you’ll have to stop by my stand to see which ones make the cut!

Buttermilk Pumpkin Bars (I’m a sucker for bars – they’re great for wrapping up like little presents!)

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies
Just there to the right. Yum, huh?

Pumpkin Swirl Brownies

Which one would you choose? I’m leaning toward the Pumpkin Whoopie Pies – did you know they’re a New England treat?

In other news, Coco has been practicing for Halloween. I think he’s getting it!

Not the sad, I’m getting old Birthday Blues, the we-wear-matching-outfits-and-only-notice-when-we-see-photos Birthday Blues.

We celebrated Michael’s birthday on Sunday night with a little surprise and a big cake! And apparently matching outfits…

But more importantly, the cake. Three layers of carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Moist and yummy. I always use this recipe from the Food Network and it works especially well if you have fresh orange juice. And if you follow the directions. I don’t always, but man, it works a lot better if you do it the way those experts say!

* 2 eggs
* 1 cup sugar
* 1/2 cup vegetable oil
* 1 1/2 cups grated carrot, about 3-4 carrots
* 2 tablespoons orange juice
* 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
* 1 1/4 cup flour
* 2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
* 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9 inch square baking pan.

In a large bowl, beat together the eggs and sugar until creamy. Stir in the vegetable oil until well combined. Add the grated carrots, orange juice and walnuts and mix well. Add the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg and stir until just combined. Pour into prepared baking pan and bake for 25 – 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Allow cake to cool and then frost.

For my friends in Dublin and the surrounding area, you’ll soon be able to order this whole cake (and all my other goodies) for your own special occasions. Just stay tuned for the opening of my online store!

After the weekend of celebrating, there was only one slice left, so Michael blew out one more candle last night on the actual birthday. Right before heading out to my new studio to continue PAINTING! Just a few walls left and we’ll move the table in, put up the shelves and I’ll be in business! Can’t wait!

Good morning friends!

This weekend was busy with baking, birthday celebrations and basketball. And we made great progress on my new studio. I can’t wait to share photos with you, but I’m going to wait until it’s totally finished. The work in progress photos aren’t so exciting without a good reveal at the end!

But in other news, I’ve had a great response to my baked treats I sold last week. I usually put the treats table out around 8:15am and leave it there until 9:30 or 10 when I head to work. But last week, our postman stopped Michael to ask him if I could leave my goodies out a bit longer so he could make sure he got some!

And as I was heading into the house one afternoon last week, one of our neighbors crossed the street saying, “sorry, excuse me, excuse me.” I thought she was going to tell me I was breaking a rule or something by having my little stand out every morning. Instead, she wanted to tell me how much she loved the coffee cake and could she have the recipe!

One of Michael’s teammates who lives several blocks away from us mentioned to him at their training last week that he heard about my goodies. He asked Michael, “Is your wife selling cakes out the front garden?”

So the word is spreading about my little enterprise! I’m sure they all think I’m a bit nutty, but so far it’s been a great way to meet more neighbors and support my baking habit.

The plan for the week is to work on building a more permanent little stand so that I don’t have to keep trucking the Ikea side table out to the front garden every morning. And it’s going to have a little roof so that I can sell goodies even in the rain.

Oh, and a special happy birthday to my Michael! Enjoy the day!

It’s the end of week one of my experiment of selling my baked goods at a little stand in the front garden. Here’s the tally for each day:

Monday: 2 pieces coffee cake
Tuesday: 3 pieces coffee cake
Wednesday: 5 pieces pumpkin cake
Thursday: 3 pieces pumpkin cake
Friday: 10 pieces rasberry walnut bars and chocolate chip cookies!
**Update: 2 more sold today – 12 total on Friday!

That’s right, I sold 10 packets of goodies today! I made these great linzer torte bars, but called them raspberry walnut bars so my customers might have a clue what they were. This morning I even put out little samples of the raspberry walnut bars and they’re all gone!

I was a little skeptical of the linzer torte bar recipe when I was making it and even once it came out of the oven. The recipe makes very thin bars, about a half inch thick, and with so few ingredients I wasn’t sure if they would be that impressive. But they’re just fantastic. They are buttery and nutty, a bit chewy and a little crispy. Overall verdict: very yum.

For the chocolate chip cookies, I made the old Boyle (probably Foley) standby recipe. I’ve been baking them (ad nauseum) since I got to Dublin and they are always a huge hit. Chocolate chip cookies are a very American treat and such a novelty over here. These cookies bake really chewy in our fan oven in Dublin, whereas they’re crispier when baked in a traditional American coil oven.

Here’s the famous recipe:

1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/4 cups flour
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips or chunks

Mix butter and both sugars until combined – no streaks of butter. I usually do this by hand, but you could use a mixer. Stir in the eggs until the batter gets a bit lighter in colour. Stir in baking soda, salt and vanilla. Add in 2 cups of flour; I usually use just over 2 cups, but not quite 2 1/4 cups. Stir in the chocolate chips or chunks, and drop onto tin foil lined cookie sheets. I started using tin foil on the cookie sheets because I didn’t want to wash the sheets each time (was making a lot of cookies there for a while!) but the trick makes the cookies more chewy, less crispy. I’m sure a silpat would work the same way.

Bake at 350 for 12 minutes or so until they’re just golden brown.

Next week is a midterm break for the school at the end of our street, so I’ll be taking a week off from my morning stand. But I’ll be using the week to work on my studio and to work up a few marketing pieces for my new stand.

Today, Michael and his brothers are emptying out our back shed so I can use it as an art studio. Check back next week for photos of the work in progress!

Yesterday I began a new experiment I’ve been thinking about for a little while now. I was inspired by a lady in China Village, Nancy, who has the most beautiful garden.

In fact, this summer, my parents and I were strolling by on an afternoon walk and we were invited into the garden. I think it was the first time I stepped foot inside with the blooming plants and it was awesome.

From her lovely garden, Nancy creates beautiful, bright, rustic flower arrangements and sells them at a little stand at the top of her driveway. Each bouquet waits in a little container of water until someone stops by, drops $3 in the tin, and takes it away.

It’s quite a successful endeavor, and it works on an honor system that I thought maybe only a very small town could sustain.

So yesterday morning, at 7:30am, inspired by Nancy, I tried an experiment. I wrapped up crumbly chunks of coffee cake to look like little presents, put them in a basket on a little table, and used one of my chalkboards to let people know “Today’s Special.”

I keep forgetting to take photos of the little “stand” before I bring it back in the house, so here is a photo of what it looks like in the front room. (I couldn’t get a great shot because the small room is currently occupied by a LAWN MOWER that Michael borrowed from a neighbor and hasn’t managed to return.)

Yesterday, the first day of the experiment, I sold TWO pieces of coffee cake! And today, I walked out after a few hours and I had sold THREE pieces of coffee cake!

Because we live on a street that backs up to a primary school, parents park on our street while they drop their children off, or they walk down our street to drop them. There’s a pretty high amount of traffic on a dry day, so I’m hoping my little stand will become a neighborhood fixture, just like Nancy’s!

Tomorrow, I’ll be putting out pumpkin bread, so we’ll see what my neighborhood thinks of that!

Today I stopped into Tesco to buy a vacuum cleaner. Or, as they say here, a hoover. Tesco is nearly the only store in Ireland that is anything like Walmart: high, industrial ceilings, an own-store brand, and a whole range of products from hoovers to gym equipment to pasta sauce. It’s blissful. In a disgustingly convenient Walmart type way.

But today, October 18th, I walked into Tesco. And saw this:

Christmas. Before Halloween. Or rather, right alongside Halloween.

Irish Christmas typically starts well before Christmas colored M&M;’s hit the shelves in America, I think mostly because there isn’t a Thanksgiving to break up the space between.

But since the weather typically skips fall and heads right into winter, I figure (along with all those Irish people) why not start getting into the Christmas spirit early?

What about you? How early is too early to start thinking about Christmas? If you had no Thanksgiving would you start decking the halls November 1st?

***

And in other news, today marked the first time I have bought toothpaste in Ireland. For the past two years, I’ve stocked up on toothpaste at Walmart in Waterville, Maine, and lugged it back to Ireland. Along with a whole lot of other things (mac and cheese, brownie mix, all my makeup and clothes from the Banana Republic outlet down the I-95).

So today I bought toothpaste in Ireland. I suppose it’s another sign that I really do live here!

So here I go again with my blog. I’ve done a terrible job keeping up with it, but I’m really back.

Lots has happened since my last post. We moved into a new, bigger, brighter apartment. We traveled to the edge of Ireland, Amsterdam, and then all across America visiting friends and family this summer. We’ve slowly begun making our new place a home, which means several crafting projects and plans for many more.

After a lot of contemplating and thinking, hemming and hawing, I’ve decided I’m going to use this blog to document more of my projects, baking, crafting and travels. With no giant craft stores, Walmarts, Targets, Goodwills or yard sales, projects in Ireland always take a lot more foresight and creativity. And it’s easy to lose momentum.

But here’s to a big push of momentum. Stay tuned for news of my new projects, endeavours, baking and fun.

Thanks for sticking with me!

P.S. The photo is a stool I repainted and recovered last week after pulling a pair out of a skip around the corner. But more on skips and projects soon!