Holidays

World War Zzz

Author: Kirsten K., Author: Kirsti K., Holidays

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We’ve been busy swooning instead of blogging,
but even though we’ve checked out recently,
we’re checking in on one of our favorite days
of the year to let you know that we haven’t
been turned into mindless zombies—yet.

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🎃 Have fun “passing out”💤 candy, Swooners! 🍬

💀 Happy Halloween! 💀

 

This pumpkin was carved using a Victorian zombie silhouette and tools from Pumpkin Masters.

 

True Colors

Author: Kirsten K., Crafts, Holidays

This year, Easter arrives the day before Earth Day, which is a timely reminder to make sustainable choices when celebrating this holiday of rebirth and renewal. Consider one of these green alternatives to plastic Easter grass, then fill your basket with goodies from Natural Candy Store. Along with natural and organic jelly beans, lollipops, foil-wrapped eggs, and chocolate bunnies, this online emporium sells a superb set of Natural Easter Egg Decorating Colors.

These six vegetable powders from TruColor make potent natural dyes that are specially designed to color eggs (or alternatives). Ingredients like red cabbage and purple sweet potato provide a vibrant stain that deepens as it dries. Unlike the traditional method I learned growing up, which involved submerging eggs for five minutes in a mixture of boiling water, vinegar, and synthetic food coloring, dyeing eggs with these natural colors is as easy as 1, 2, 3:

  1. Mix powder with water in a cup.
  2. Let sit until completely dissolved.
  3. Submerge egg for one minute.

In just 60 seconds, the colors surpassed pastel and grew in hue, so play around with the amount of powder, water, and time for a basketful of options (such as diluting the dye mixture at intervals to create ombré eggs). You can also mix equal parts powder and water for applying color directly to the eggs with a paintbrush. Enter your “eggcellent” creation in the 2019 Easter Egg Natural Decorating Contest by April 21st (instructions and contest rules are included with your natural dye kit) and your artistry may be rewarded with a $100 gift certificate to Natural Candy Store. Sweet!

Once you’ve finished dyeing your eggs, you can use the leftover powder for cake and cookie decorating to make earth-friendly and people-pleasing holiday treats, so show your true colors on Easter while honoring Earth Day as you celebrate this spring awakening the natural way.


Stuff Worthy Of Our Notice™ in this post:

Natural Easter Egg Decorating Colors

 

Natural Candy Store is currently offering 10% off your entire order, including savings of up to 50% on overstock Easter-themed candy, plus a free gift for any $20 minimum purchase. Consult this chart for Easter shipping deadlines and get hopping!

 

Erin Go Bread

Author: Kirsten K., Breakfast, Dessert, Food, Food & Drink, Holidays, Recipes, Snacks, Sweets

My version of this recipe defies all raisin.

For as long as I can remember, my mother has made Irish Soda Bread for St. Patrick’s Day. She is not Irish, nor is anyone on either side of my family (as far as we know), but every year in mid-March, I receive a freshly-baked loaf from her kitchen.

The recipe was found in a church cookbook compiled years ago from favorites submitted by parishioners as a fundraising effort. The Irish Soda Bread entry is credited to Pat O’Connor, whose name inspires confidence in the authenticity of the recipe, but neither the shape nor the texture of this bread resembles the traditional raisin-studded, round loaves with a cross cut into the top that I typically see for sale at this time of year.

That suits me just fine, though, since—unlike most Irish Soda Bread I’ve tried—this version is super m-word (I’m not allowed to write or say it!), with a light, sweet flavor and an unusual texture that I’d describe as slightly, though not unpleasantly, “rubbery.” In any case, it’s SO easy to make that why would you buy one of those dry, rustic-looking loaves when you can pull this church-sanctioned knockoff from your oven in no time?

Like St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland, my mother drives the raisins out of my Irish Soda Bread each year and replaces them with chocolate chips, so I ask you: who’s the real saint? It may not be traditional, but it’s tradition in my family. Every March 17th, along with the wearing (and sharing) o’ the green, my mother and I enjoy an Irish coffee with a slice from this recipe. Erin Go Bread!


Stuff Worthy Of Our Notice™ in this post:

IRISH SODA BREAD

1 cup sugar
1 egg
3 cups sifted flour
¼ tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
Pinch of salt
2 cups buttermilk
1 cup raisins (or chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 350°. Cream sugar and egg. Add sifted flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Mix in buttermilk. Add raisins (or chocolate chips!). Bake for one hour.

 

Awesome Floss

Author: Kirsten K., Coffee, Food, Food & Drink, Holidays, Hot Drinks, Sweets

Happy New Year, Swooners! Unfortunately, I spent much of my time over Christmas and New Year’s recovering from illness, so I wasn’t able to schedule our annual holiday posts, but I found comfort in sipping my new favorite drink: the Juniper Latte. I swoon over the scent of evergreen, but never thought it would grace my Grande until I saw this seasonal brew on Starbucks’ menu. Once I experienced the flavor of winter foliage, I wanted MORE of this “treet,” but adding pumps of the juniper syrup to my coffee order also meant adding unwanted sweetness, so I began to look online for a juniper extract to jazz up my java. That’s when I discovered Nature’s Flavors.

I ordered juniper in the form of an organic flavor concentrate (which works like a charm in my latte), but fell down the rabbit hole while exploring the many extracts, oils, syrups, powders, and other natural and organic flavors offered by the company. There were so many to choose from in such a variety of forms that I had to create a spreadsheet to make sense of them all! In addition to evergreen essences like juniper and pine, they have an endless assortment of fruit, vegetable, herb, spice, floral, liquor, and baking flavors, as well as surprising options running the gamut from acorn to zabaglione.

I wanted to try them ALL, but before I broke the bank buying up bottles, I found that they offered many of their flavors in the form of “floss.” Cotton candy may be referred to as candy floss or fairy floss in some parts of the world, but it’s still the same fairground staple we know and love, and it provides a light and (f)airy vehicle for sampling all types of tastes (Alfredo, anyone?). Naturally, I gravitated to the florals: jasmine, lavender, orange blossom, rose, violet…and one I’d never tried before—apple blossom. Awesome!

Nature’s Flavors also carries juniper cotton candy floss, but next time I might try something more daring, like dragon fruit, or bold, like bay. With their slew of selections, I won’t need a reminder to floss daily.


Stuff Worthy Of Our Notice™ in this post:

Nature’s Flavors Cotton Candy Floss

 

For the do-it-yourselfers, Nature’s Flavors offers all natural and organic cotton candy sugars. Click here for some more fun ways to floss.

 

Committed to Memory

Author: Kirsten K., Books, Holidays, Literature, Nostalgia

One December afternoon many years ago, my high school English teacher, Miss Weakland, announced that she would be reading a story aloud for the entire class period. Miss Weakland was my favorite teacher, in part because she liked to intersperse drilling grammar and parsing Faulkner with days like these where the class could relax and enjoy some literary entertainment. That same year, she caused a minor stir when she decided to screen Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet. There’s some brief nudity in the film, so the administration of our private Catholic school required that students bring a signed permission slip from their parents in order to watch. This created an awkward anticipation during the screening, which grew in intensity until one student let out a loud wolf whistle when Leonard Whiting’s ass-ets finally made an appearance, breaking the tension amid gales of laughter.

But this day’s presentation was free from controversy. Miss Weakland would be reading A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote. I’d heard, of course, about the famous author of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood, but hadn’t read this short story about a memorable holiday from his youth or seen the 1966 film starring Geraldine Page. “Imagine a morning in late November,” it begins. Just two paragraphs later, I was already drawn in by the time the author’s elderly, childlike cousin and best friend exclaimed that “it’s fruitcake weather!”

I was so charmed and deeply moved by this tale of innocent pleasures, selfless giving, true friendship, and pure love that I went on and on about it when I got home from school. That year, my mother gifted me with a special edition of the book for Christmas. I’d also told my own older (though not elderly) cousin and friend—a bibliophile who later became a librarian—about the joy and wonder of first hearing this story read aloud, so she enthusiastically suggested we hold a reading at our family’s Christmas celebration the following year, but it didn’t go over as well as we’d hoped. She’d read the story, but we hadn’t read the room—a captive audience of AP English students it was not.

Since then, I’ve pulled the slim volume from its slipcase each Christmas to reread on my own, marveling that it still has the power to bring tears of joy and sadness to my eyes, even though, after all this time, it is practically committed to memory.

I recently learned that Miss Weakland passed away exactly one month before Christmas…on a late November day that, perhaps, signaled the start of fruitcake weather. She will forever remain a special part of my Christmas memories.


Stuff Worthy Of Our Notice™ in this post:

A Christmas Memory

 

Incredibly, an audio version of A Christmas Memory is not available from Audible, but Barnes & Noble carries an edition of the book that includes a companion CD featuring the story read by Celeste Holm. Or, start a new tradition this year by downloading the ebook and reading it aloud at your own holiday celebration. Just make sure to read the room first.

 

Good Sport

Author: Kirsten K., Food & Drink, Holidays, Sweets

One of Kirsti’s favorite scenes in the movie Throw Momma from the Train occurs when Billy Crystal’s character, Larry, declares that he’s going to kill the mother of Danny DeVito’s character, Owen. Before going after her, Larry asks Owen if he wants anything, and Owen replies, “You can get me a Chunky.” Pre-murder snack aside, this struck both of our funny bones, because who eats a Chunky?

I had personally never tasted the tubby trapezoid of Nestlé milk chocolate with peanuts and raisins, because 1) raisins, and 2) see #1. However, it became a running joke with Kirsti and me, and we started gifting each other a Chunky on birthdays and special occasions. I tried one and was surprised to find that I…liked it. I didn’t love it, and I never went out and bought one for myself, but the combination of creamy chocolate, crunchy nuts, and—yes—chewy* raisins tickled my taste buds.

Years later, I was introduced to Ritter Sport chocolate and swooned over their marzipan bar. It’s still one of my favorites, because the precise temper gives it a pleasing snap, and the chocolate-to-almond-paste ratio is just right.† Designed by Alfred Ritter and his wife Clara to “fit into every sport jacket pocket without breaking,” each perfect, 16-square grid of Ritter Sport chocolate is both sweet and satisfying to those of us chocophiles with OCD tendencies.

I’ve sampled many of their flavors, from Yogurt and Cornflakes, to Espresso and Caramel Mousse, so—despite the “currant” situation—I decided to give their Milk Chocolate with Rum Raisins & Hazelnuts a try. It tasted like a sophisticated Chunky and I found it delicious, raisins (gasp!) and all. It has the familiar smooth milk chocolate and crunchy nuts, but there’s a reason they call this bar “The Tipsy Chocolate.” Before mixing in the raisins, they are soaked for hours in Jamaican rum. There is also rum in the chocolate, and the boozy flavor is surprisingly strong. I like to call it a “drunk Chunky.”

I don’t come across Ritter Sport’s Rum Raisins & Hazelnuts very often, which is probably a good thing (chunky isn’t just the name of a chocolate bar). The combination of rum and raisins seems to have become associated with the Christmas season, because I only see this bar at World Market and my local German deli during the holidays, so if you’re going shopping for international treats, be a good sport and ask me if I want anything, but don’t laugh when I say, “You can get me a Ritter.”


Stuff Worthy Of Our Notice™ in this post:

Ritter Sport Milk Chocolate with Rum Raisins & Hazelnuts

 

*It seems that what I actually don’t like are “plump” raisins. If they are completely dried to the point that they’re dense and chewy, I can handle them.

†Try to get a fresh package, because the marzipan is sometimes dry in older bars.

 

The Pilgrim’s Bloggess

Author: Kirsten K., Author: Kirsti K., Holidays

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“We did not fix
To show to all the World our Posts and Pics
On such a blog; we only thought to share
What makes us swoon, so others are aware,
Thereby to please our Readers; to be true,
We did it our own selves to say, ‘Thank you.’ ”

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🌽 Happy Thanksgiving Swooners! 🦃

 

 

Poem adapted from the prologue to The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan.

 

Light-Headed

Author: Kirsten K., Author: Kirsti K., Holidays

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♪ ♫ Well, I’m light-headed, check it and see.
I’ve got a hollow feeling inside of me.
Getting sleepy, as if I’m in a trance.
I’m light-headed, I’m light-headed. ♩ ♬

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🎃 Happy Hollow-een Swooners! 🎃

 

 

This pumpkin was carved using tools and patterns from Pumpkin Masters. Lyrics adapted from Hot Blooded by Foreigner.

 

Lemon Aid

Author: Kirsten K., Dessert, Entertaining, Food, Food & Drink, Holidays, Recipes, Sweets

Today is National Ice Cream Day, and whether you plan to celebrate with scoops of the dairy-derived dessert or pints of a plant-based alternative, I’ve got a sweet and simple recipe that you can squeeze out in mere minutes.

Many years ago, my brother-in-law’s co-worker shared his “secret” formula for a foolproof hot weather treat: lemonade ice cream. It is embarrassingly easy, utterly unsophisticated…and absolutely awesome!

With its cool, creamy texture and tart, refreshing flavor, lemonade ice cream is the perfect summertime sweet. The recipe involves just two ingredients, two pieces of equipment, and two minutes of your time—it’s almost too good to be true!

If you’re looking for a last-minute dessert, it’s lemonade ice cream to the rescue. You can blend up a batch for your next seasonal social and still have plenty of time to enjoy the lazy days of summer (emphasis on “lazy”). And when guests are swooning from the heat, start spooning up this treat and you’ll render lemon aid.


Stuff Worthy Of Our Notice™ in this post:

LEMONADE ICE CREAM

Ingredients:
One half-gallon of vanilla ice cream*
One 12 oz. can of frozen lemonade concentrate

Equipment:
Large glass or metal bowl
Large mixing spoon

Directions:
Place bowl in freezer for 30 minutes or more before preparing recipe (recommended, but not strictly necessary). Set ice cream on counter at room temperature for about 10 minutes to soften. Remove bowl and lemonade concentrate from freezer. Empty entire carton of ice cream and full can of lemonade concentrate into the bowl. Mix together with spoon until blended (I prefer a uniform mixture, but my sister likes to gently fold in the concentrate, stopping when there are still random chunks of vanilla ice cream and frozen lemonade in the mix). Cover bowl and return to freezer for at least an hour to set before serving. The consistency will be a little softer than that of regular ice cream. Serve with a slice of lemon or a strip of candied lemon peel.

Variations:

  • To fancify this dorm room dessert, add a drop or two of Lavender or Rose flavor extract from Medicine Flower before mixing, then serve with a sprig or sprinkle of lavender buds or rose petals that haven’t been treated with pesticides.
  • Substitute a can of frozen concentrated limeade for the lemonade, then serve in a margarita glass. First dip the rim of the glass in lime sugar (or salt), then slip a slice of lime on the edge.

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*For vegans and those who avoid dairy products, substitute four pints of vanilla non-dairy dessert (I like Vanilla Island from Coconut Bliss) for the ice cream. Since I never see quarts or half-gallons of dairy-free ice cream at my local supermarkets, I usually make small batches of this recipe by mixing a pint of non-dairy ice cream with ¼ can (or to taste) of the frozen lemonade concentrate. Just scoop it out of the can, replace the lid, and secure with a rubber band to store in the freezer for later.

 

Taking Liberteas

Author: Kirsten K., Cold Drinks, Food & Drink, Holidays, Tea

This time last year, we gave three cheers, but not everyone wants to celebrate the Spirit of ’76 by adding spirits to the mix. For those who forswear alcohol (or sugary drinks), you can offer a refreshing alternative to the usual 4th of July fare with this festive trio of teas. Featuring botanically-based hues of red, white, and blue, these caffeine-free* brews will be a natural at your patriotic party.

The crimson of classic Red Zinger from Celestial Seasonings comes from tangy hibiscus leaves, which impart their trademark “zing” with an assist from peppermint, sweet orange, lemongrass, and wild cherry bark.

What white tea lacks in color, it makes up for in character, and with eight varieties to choose from in The Republic of Tea’s line of 100% rare Chinese white teas—including Pineapple Guava, Cucumber Mint, and Asian Jasmine—you’ll find a flavor to please every palate.

But the sapphire shade of Blue-Tee from Wild Hibiscus Flower Co. is the real sparkler here. Made from pure butterfly pea flowers, this herbal tisane has been a Southeast Asian staple for centuries, but has found recent popularity in America due to its Instagram-worthy tint and peculiar properties. Add a squeeze of lemon juice and the blue brew turns a violet hue. Mix in milk and you get something resembling Bridget Jones’ leek soup.

By taking liberties with afternoon tea, this British tradition becomes as American as red, white, and blue, so for those who want to skip the soda and bypass the booze this Independence Day, add these stars to your backyard bars and give guests their freedom of choice.


Stuff Worthy Of Our Notice™ in this post:

Red Zinger Tea from Celestial Seasonings
White Tea from The Republic of Tea
Blue-Tee from Wild Hibiscus Flower Co.

 

Celestial Seasonings and The Republic of Tea can be found at most chain supermarkets. Wild Hibiscus Flower Co. teas are available at many Whole Foods and Sprouts markets. If you can’t find the tea, look for their b’lure Butterfly Pea Flower Extract at BevMo.

 

*Herbal teas like Red Zinger and butterfly pea flower are caffeine-free. The caffeine content of white teas can vary widely depending on type and processing. White teas from The Republic of Tea are low in caffeine.