This will have to be my shortest post ever.  I was late making this weeks Tuesday’s with Dorie selection, Granola Grabbers (out of granola!) and now I’m rushing out the door for a one night retreat with my grad cohort.

Quickly.  These were a hit with my kids.  They grabbed them off while cooling and gave them a thumbs up– even from my daughter who normally tells me she doesn’t like cookies with nuts in them.  I liked the almost peanut brittle flavor they have.  I wish they had a bit less sugar so I could feed them to my kids kind of like a granola bar– but I might mess around with the recipe in the next couple weeks.  These would be awesome for the lunchbox!

I especially like these cookies because my end product looked a lot like Dorie’s picture!

Check out more (longer) postings on the recipe at Tuesdays with Dorie.  I’m off to recharge before my semester starts next week!

An image from a past tea at my home (summer time requires lemonade too!)

I attended a tea yesterday for a fellow grad student’s birthday at a local tea house. It was a lovely lovely afternoon– child free, women only, lots of talking and tea drinking. I usually go to tea for my birthday, but somehow this year it hasn’t happened, so it was nice to revisit that wonderful afternoon ritual for another’s birthday.

The ambiance of the tea house was very nice, and the service impeccable, but the food, honestly, was disappointing (then again, perhaps I am never satisfied with anything less than homemade). My auntie has schooled me in throwing our own very satisfying teas over the years (I was lucky enough to have her throw my baby showers and my wedding shower teas) and so it is very very hard to meet my expectations for tea food. Thinking on that on the way home, I thought I might share a couple of my favorite tea party recipes (I’ll post them at the end).

One of my favorite sandwich recipes that is a little outside the norm is Cucumber and Roquefort Cheese Sandwiches from a book titled Afternoon Tea Serenade (These are the top sandwich in the 1st picture). The original recipe was collected from The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco, which I can say from personal experience, does one of the best afternoon teas in the San Francisco area– truly worth doing if you are in the area and feel so inclined (my other favorite tea place in the San Francisco is Lovejoy’s– less refined, more eclectic, but delicious food and welcoming environment).

The thing that was missing from today’s tea experience was a hot scone. To me the scone is the anchor of a good tea, and the quality of the scone speaks to the quality of the tea. No scone? It is just luncheon with hot tea. I have made a variety of scones, but my favorite are a quick and easy biscuit-like Orange-Cherry Scone. This recipe came to me from my Auntie, but she told me it was originally from The Honor Mansion B & B in Healdsburg (a stone’s throw from where I live). I like these as much for their flavor, as for their ease– particularly because they can be prepped and placed in the fridge, then popped in the oven when your guests arrive, so that you may serve hot scones!

And last, a tea is really not a tea with out a little sweetness. The highlight of all the teas my auntie has thrown are her Chocolate Dipped Shortbread. She varies the shape of the cookie cutter to fit the theme of the tea, so for my sister’s baby shower which had a little prince theme for my nephew, she made little crowns. She has done these in dark chocolate, but in the last few years she has moved to white chocolate and they are as delicious as ever.

With these recipes, a couple egg salad sandwiches (try these with a little curry powder in them), and perhaps some fresh fruit and a pound cake or box of chocolates you are ready to serve tea. The only thing left is to ask, “One lump or two.”

Ritz Cucumber Sandwiches (My simplified version)

10 slices Tea Sandwich Bread (you can use cocktail bread or any other thinly sliced bread– I think Orowheat makes some thin sliced– or just your favorite bread. These are open faced so the thinness is not as important is with some breads– you do want to make sure it is sturdy enough to stand up to spreading, some breads will tear.

2 small cucumbers, peeled and cut into thin slices (or one English cucumber peeled and sliced) You can trim the cucumbers to the size of your bread and slice lengthwise, or just slice as you normally would.

8 oz Roguefort cheese

8 oz cream cheese at room temp

4 TBSP butter at room temp

1/4 cup walnuts, toasted (you can of course use the nut of your choice, pecans would probably substitute well)

Blend cheeses and butter together in blender or food processor until smooth. Spread a layer over each piece of bread (toast your bread if you like before hand). Place overlapping slices of cucumber on the toast. Trim off bread crusts (absolutely required for a tea sandwich– crusts are unsightly at the tea table), and cut into triangles. Sprinkle with toasted walnuts. Serve.

Orange-Cherry (or Cranberry) Scones

6 Tbsp cold butter

2 cups flour

2 Tbsp sugar

1 Tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 Tbsp finely grated orange rind

3/4 cup dried cherries ( I chop them into smaller pieces when them come whole– you can also substitute dried cranberries, etc)

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 400. Lightly grease baking sheet. In a large bowl, cut butter into flour, sugar, baking powder and salt until misture resembles fine crumbs. Stir in orange rind and dried cherries. Add egg and milk; mix until mixture clings together and forms soft dough.

Turn dough onto lightly floured surface and knead gently about 15 times. Divide dough into fourths and pat into squares about 1/2 inch thick. Cut each square diagonally twice to form 4 triangles. Place on baking sheet. (The scones can also be frozen after being cut, or place on sheet and refrigerate covered overnight).

Bake abt 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Serve warm with butter, lemon curd, jam, or Devonshire cream.

Chocolate Dipped Shortbread Hearts

2 cups unsalted butter at room temp

1 cup sugar

1 tsp almond extract (or vanilla)

4 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup finely chopped almonds (or pecans)

2 oz white chocolate, chopped

2 oz semi-sweet chocolate, chopped

4 tsp shortening

Preheat oven to 325. In a large mixer bowl beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Add extract and dash salt; beat well. Add flour, beat just until well mixed. Stire in nuts. Roll out dough to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut with cutter. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for about 20 minutes (cookies should not brown). Cool on rack.

Cook and stir white chocolate and/or semi-sweet chocolate and 2 tsp shortening over low heat (in seperate pans if doing both) until melted, stirring frequently. Dip half of each cookie into a chocolate mixture, or half and half. Let stand until chocolate is set.

For my Grandmother’s 80th birthday we all wanted to make it special for her.  In the divying up of food duties somehow I ended up with the charge of baking a chocolate dessert to go with a the summer fruit shortcakes my auntie was making, and the black bottom cheese cake my cousin was making.  Somewhere along the line, it was decided that the chocolate dessert also needed to be a cake.  I found myself then seeking a chocolate cake recipe that would be special in every way.  I’ve made many a chocolate cake, chocolate being the favorite of most of the family (except one cousin who inexplicably prefers vanilla in cake and ice cream– I fear she has received some recessive genes), but I wanted this cake to rise above the others in honor of Grandma and her special love of chocolate.  Now if I could of made a cake from See’s candy that would of been ideal.  I also thought of making her the cake that she always makes for our birthdays when we are visiting, a strawberry cake with chocolate ganache frosting, but decided to try something new instead.  I’ve made a few times the Devil’s Food White-Out Cake  from Dorie’s Baking book (I make just the cake part and frost with chocolate frosting), and always as a standby you can’t beat the Hershey’s cake recipe from their tin, but this time I wanted something a little different.  So I hauled out my Tartine cookbook.

Now while I have had good luck with everything I’ve baked from their cookbook, I always feel a little anxiety everytime I contemplate baking from this book because of my experience not with their recipes, but at their actual bakery.  I live in a very rich “foodie” area and it is only about an hour from my house to this bakery.  About two years ago I decided we should take advantage of this great eating area we live in (as much as our budget will allow) and we made a day trip to the city, culminating in a visit to Tartine Bakery in the afternoon.  All was going well as we parked, and proceeded to a nearby upscale grocery to grab some sandwiches before getting the chocolate cake and cookies that were swimming in my imagination.  After lunch we got in line at the bakery and started looking at our choices.  It all looked so good, but I especially had been wanting to try their chocolate cake I had read about.  When I reached the counter I found that I could only buy the cake whole as they had run out of pieces.  I was crestfallen, but decided to be adventurous and try a passionfruit cake (a flavor I had never had).  We settled down outside at a sidewalk table, the kids happy with their cookies and hot chocolate, and I cut my first bite of cake.  I had waited all day to make it here and my expectations were very high.  I took my first mouthful and discovered I do not like passionfruit.  In the midst of my dissappointment I looked up and saw our car being attached to a tow truck.  What ensued was far from what we had imagined as our last stop for the day!  We had to grab a taxi and track our van down at the impound lot and a couple bedraggled hours later finally loaded ourselves in the van for the now very long sounding hour drive home.

My associations with Tartine are now fraught with anxiety and disaapointement, but I decided to forge through these and give their chocolate cake a try for Grandma.

The baking went better than the visit, but I did, for some unknown reason, turn the oven to 325 instead of 350.  This resulted in a longer baking time for the cake and, I think, in a much dryer cake than I was expecting.  The flavor though was very nice.  This cake also has a carmel filling and ganache throughout.  It is exceptionally rich; a true chocolate lovers delight.  In the future I would double the caramel filing amount– no one could tell there was caramel in it.   

Since my first visit to Tartine I have been back, but I have yet to try their version of this cake.  Although my second visit was not quite as dramatic, I have come to the conclusion that perhaps sometimes the best way to visit a famous eating place may indeed be through their cookbook.  Hence my very large (and always growing) cookbook collection, and very infrequent day trips.

School is creeping up on us. My children are chock full of excitement this year, with little worries bubbling over here and there. Each day I glance at our calendar I see the very clearly written: First Day of School. As a teaching grad student, this means my summer is ending soon too, and I must mentally prepare myself to reenter this other world away from my children and their concerns.

So today we escaped to the beach.

Absolutely lovely. We packed up around lunchtime, eating a small bit before we left and packing more (and more) for the beach. We grabbed pails, books for me, some sunscreen. It’s a little trek for us, but a nice drive, and we stopped on the way to pick up some local plums and apples (the Gravensteins are in!) to add to our basket. I wasn’t sure if it would be as sunny there as it was at our house (and had packed layers in case), but it was perfect. A little breeze. Sunshine. Happy kids.

Mrs. Miniver- Perfect Beach Read

While they played in the waves, being chased and chasing them, digging holes (there really is no substitue for digging and filling a hole at the beach), I kept one eye on them, and one eye on my reading.

One of the books I brought to peruse was Nature in a Nutshell for Kids by Jean Potter, which I saw recommended at Soulemama (I think). I’ve persused A LOT of nature and science books for children, and done a good amount of projects with preschool groups, but I’m always looking for new ideas. Usually I find a few scattered projects in a book, but this one is overflowing with great small scale experiments and exploration, and has wonderful explanations that can easily be explained to children. While this book would definietly be appropriate for preschool age children (3+), it would also work for up to 8 years, at least. One of my favorite aspects of this book is that it divides the projects based on season, which is exactly how I like to introduce science concepts to children.

For example: it is summer, so I go to the pictorial coded summer section. I want to do a project with my children about the ocean, or beach to follow up on our outing today and some of our talk on the way home about how much water is in the world, and how many oceans there are. In 5 minutes I am able to locate at least 5 different quick projects. A couple of my favorites (that we will probably try tomorrow) are: Dense Dip: Why is it easier to float in the ocean than in a swimming pool? and Wind Waves: How are waves made?.

Which brings me to two other wonderuful things about this book! The projects are based out of questions that children ask (that I usually can’t answer– like today’s question from my daughter: “Where did water come from?”), and the projects are done using mostly things you can find on a nature walk or nature exursion, or around your house. For the two projects I mentioned I will need: a large cake pan, water, drinking straw, 2 bowls, food coloring, salt, spoon, and two eggs. I should also only need about 20 minutes to complete both explorations/explantions with my children.

Which is a lot shorter than it will take me to explain where water came from, so consider this my diversion tactic until I can get a handle on that one.

I suppose I should know better by now, but sometimes I don’t slow down enough to listen to myself.  Clothing and patterns just aren’t made for me, and especially not clothing patterns for women in a Japanese craft book!  

When I visited my dear friend Anna in Seattle (Anna, are you checking up on me here yet?) we reconnected over sewing and blogs.  She has been making some of those lovely bibs from Angry Chicken’s book, Bend the Rules Sewing, as well as working on a quilt (a sewing feat I have steered clear of so far).  Talking of how I happened into this world of blogging I told her the story of my friend with the Japanese craft books and then the links that followed via email.  Sweet friend that she is, upon learning my love of those books (if you’re not familiar with them, check out these blog postings for more pics and info: mollychicken, weewonderfuls, or angrychicken) drove me (our kids in tow) across town to the Kinokuniya Book Store, where Japanese craft books galore were to be had.  And have I did.  As it was my birthday week when I was visiting I bought myself a couple that day.  And then, yes, the truth must be told… I returned with my husband the following day on our way out of town for another stop and a couple more books.  I know I overloaded, but I have promised myself no more until I sew from each of the ones I brought home.

Cover of the book

Feeling that sewing pressure, and anxious to crack open a book I decided to try an adult pattern from Dress made of My Favorite Cloth by Machiko Kayaki.  I have sewn in the past a few outfits for my daughter (boy clothes books are not as inspiring, but i”m working on it) but I had never sewn from one for myself.  I especially liked the look of this dress (okay, the sleeves were really what got me) and decided to give it a try.

the dress!

First I measured myself, and then try to align that with their measurement table to determine my size.  That the sizing runs on the petit side cannot be stressed enough.  But I estimated, adjusted, and began cutting.  Most important for me is usually length.  At 6′ 1″ most patterns don’t fit me, but I added about 3-4 inches of length to each piece thinking it would be enough.  It was not.

As I didn’t have any of “my favorite cloth” I was using some nubby fabric I had bought a while back (probably with some project in mind at the time, long forgotten) and was attempting to try out my serger a bit more with this project.  What I ended up with looks okay, but does not fit.  The bust area is darted well above where it needs to, and the whole piece is much, much too short– the line that is supposed to fall below my bust, cuts it almost in half.  In my serging I also lost some of the gathering, and it has rather a flat look.  On the bright side it went together rather quickly.  On the downside— I have already begun cutting it apart (it is lying in pieces as I type)– trying to salvage it but knowing that it may not be possible.

I do, however, still love the sleeves.

You will probably note a flurry of sewing in the next couple weeks. My semester starts the last week of August and I can feel my sewing time dwindling and so many unfinished projects still staring me down. I decided that I would dedicate this afternoon to finishing the lunch mats for my children. The decision to focus on the lunch mats was strenghened when I came across a picture of some lunch mats in one of my newest Japanese craft books:All Your Kids Need

I like the one on the top right

These are a slightly different set up than mine, and give me something to try another time. I see lots and lots of embroidery work here, as well as all over the blogs I’ve been reading, and perhaps I will give it a whirl one day. My favorite from the book is the one with the embroidered spoon and chopsticks to show where they go.

With that inspriation I began my work this afternoon. It was quick and easy sewing and I have finished them all! Five for each of my children, so that we may make it through the weeks with clean mats and napkins for their lunches. Hopefully I won’t fall behind on laundry this year!

Hers

His

It was in fact such an easy project that I decided to let my daughter sew one for herself. She received a sewing machine for her 7th birthday last January, but we have just carved out the time for sewing lessons starting this week. We had a basic lesson a couple days ago, and today we dived right into her first project. I helped her as I’m a bit nervous still to let her go at, but she did stupendously and will be on her own soon enough. Today I handled the iron, but I do need to give her a chance to try that soon.

My proud girl!

As I was sewing the rest of them I began playing around a bit- trying pinking shears on some for finishing, my serger on others (I’m still using the serger in it’s most basic way as I haven’t had time to explore it more yet). I tried out a snap and a tie on my son’s, but after having him try to undo and then redo them, I’ve decided that no clasp or closure will work better. Sometimes, simplest is the best.

Pinking Shears

serger action

Please ignore my lumpy crust. I usually stick to baking for this reason.

About a year or so ago, I began getting the magazine Vegetarian Times.  I am alternately unimpressed and inspired by this magazine.  Not sure if I just haven’t had the time for it, haven’t been interested in cooking, or if I’ve just become over saturated with cooking and recipes after a lifetime of reading Bon Appetit, Cooking Light, and my always growing cookbook collection.  But this month was an inspriation month.  I tried (sort of) a recipe from the pages of their latest copy, September 2008– Heirloom Tomato & Sweet Corn Pizzas.  

Make that pizza, singular.  The other dough I made into a regular cheese with red sauce for the children, wanting to hog all the tomatoes (from our garden) and corn (from our CSA) to myself (and my husband too, I do share–sometimes).  Their recipe uses a store bought pizza dough (thank you Trader Joe’s), a garlic pistou and then a bit of cheese and veggies.  Right off I knew I wouldn’t be following this one faithfully when I glanced over the instructions for the pistou and read “Wrap garlic in foil.  Bake 40 minutes…”   That wasn’t happening.

My kids were due home from soccer in 30 minutes and I needed to have dinner on the table shortly after that– I did not have 40 minutes + pizza baking time tonight.  Knowing I was compromising the flavor, I decided to skip that step and use fresh garlic instead, but a little less of it.

Second bump came when I realized I’d forgotten to buy the cheese they called for (Cotija or feta)– did I mention I always end up going to the store more than once?  I decided to ignore that too and use a bit of mozzarella I had in the freezer that I’d pulled out for the kids pizza already.

What resulted after these changes (and a couple more) was a delicious pizza, even more appreciated for it’s lack of resemblance to one of our 5 or 6 standard dinners.  But the flavor did seem suscipsiously familiar…  Then I remembered one of my favorite summertime salads from The  Jimtown Store Cookbook: Cherry Tomato, mozzarella, & corn salad with basil.  Sound familiar?  It was as though this salad had been dumped on a pizza dough and warmed.  What a wonderful thing!

Here is the pizza recipe (ammended) as well as an abbreviated version of the salad.

Heirloom Tomato & Sweet Corn Pizzas 

ammended from Vegetarian Times

prepared garlic-herb pizza dough

garlic pistou my way:

4-10 heads of garlic (depending on size), minced or pressed

1/2 cup pine nuts

2 glugs olive oil

10 leaves fresh oregano

zest of half a lemon

3 handfuls of grated mozzarella (frozen straight from the freezer works fine)

fresh corn kernals from 1 ear of corn

assorted sliced tomatoes from your garden, csa, or nearest store–enough to fill your pizza

6 sliced/chopped basil leaves 

other veggies you have on hand?  I added sliced summer squash and sliced onion from our CSA

Preheat oven to 400 or possibly 450.  Place pizza stone in, if you have one to heat.  Whirl pistou ingredients in a small cuisinart or in a blender into a paste.  Shape pizza crust to your liking, or to the best of your ability (mine is very poor, but always edible).  Sprinkle cornmeal on a wooden cutting board if using a pizza stone, or on a pizza pan.  place pizza dough on corn meal and adjust shape and crust.  Spread pistou.  Scatter corn kernals (and other veggies you want to cook– my squash and onions went on now) about.  I also wanted some of the tomato cooked so I added about 6 slices now.  Sprinkle with as much cheese as you deem appropriate.  Slide onto hot pizza stone or place pizza pan in oven.  Bake for 15- 25 minutes.  Remove from oven.  Top with the rest of the sliced tomatoes and then sprinkle basil on top.  MMMMM!

Cherry Tomato, Mozzarella,  & Corn Salad with Basil

Adapted from The Jimtown Store Cookbook

8 oz marinated bocconcini (small fresh mozzarella balls) (the original recipe has you marinate them yourself, but I usually can find them already marninated in spices and oil and save myself that step for the extra 50 cents)

1 basket small cherry tomatoes (yellow, red or orange, pear shaped or round)

Corn kernals cut from 2 medium ears

About 12 basil leaves that have been chiffonaded

Mix it all together.  Serve room temperature.  You may want to add some pepper, salt and lemon juice or zest to taste.  Perhaps even some pepper flakes.

In my jumbled vault of memories, I have a few, of myself and my sister, as little girls, freckled, sunburned, braids or pig-tails swinging, helping to make home made ice cream.  I am quite sure that these  memories have quantified, for it seems now that we did it many times; most likely it was exactly twice.  No matter, I have that memory and it is lovely.  What I do know is that the ice creams in question were churned on my grandmother’s patio, and as the ice cream maker was older than ourselves, it needed us to sit on it to keep it stable while someone turned the crank.  This ice cream making was far from a solitary affair, but rather needed most all my large family to help get it from cream to ice cream.  There was rock salt to be located, carried, poured.  Bases to be mixed.  And lots and lots of cranking to be done.   

But oh, oh, oh!  the flavor!  Two stand out in my mind.  One was a peppermint ice cream, made in part, from candy canes saved from Christmas and the other was fresh strawberry.  It is hard to go back to store bought.

Well imagine how I felt now, these taste memories floating in my mind, when I saw that ice cream was up for Tuesdays with Dorie this week, and then remembered that I had, uncharacteristically, given away our ice cream maker just one month ago. [You can find the recipe for the Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream at Culinary Curiousity]  I have been trying to turn over a new leaf, work against my patterns of saving every possible thing for every possible situation, and relinquished my ice cream maker to the Goodwill pile.  It is true it had gathered dust.  In fact, it had been living in my garage for the last couple years.  When it was new and sparkly it got lots of use.  But then our children were born and 9 years after receiving it for our wedding I think it had stood idle for at least the last 4.  So into the pile it went. 

At first I thought I would just take the alternate choice and make a recipe TWD had already done, but knew it wouldn’t be the same.  So then I checked out the links on making ice cream with out a maker.  I was committed to doing that.  Even though it would of taken hours of attention.  I really would of done it.  But thank goodness for neighbors.  Especially for Angie.  I was going on and on about TWD and my ice cream maker deficiency when she offered hers up- bowl already frozen and ready to go.

So ingredients gathered (why I can never do this in one trip to the store, I don’t know), ice cream maker borrowed, and book before me I got to work.  Quick work it was too.  In about 5 minutes the ice cream was ready to chill before churning.  Then after cleaning up the kitchen from dinner I popped it into the maker.  20 minutes later, into the freezer.  Not quite the 12 person, all afternoon experience of my childhood!  Since it doesn’t use a custard type base it is very quick, but it does taste distinctly different from the  ice cream flavor I was imagining.

My son described the flavor as he licked the churning blade (plastic, no worries!) as follows: “This tastes like frozen yogurt!  It’s not ice cream.”  He did still lick every last drop, except for the large blob that dripped on his chest (although he might of gotten that one too, but I wasn’t looking).  But he is right.  This ice cream tastes quite similar to the Stonyfield yogurt tubes I buy my kids sometimes, that we then freeze for an afternoon treat.  But while it tastes more like frozen yogurt than the ice cream of my childhood, it was delish nonetheless.

Tomorrow I will return Angie’s ice cream maker.  And, of course I will bring her a taste!  I have to if I ever want to try that very tempting Honey-Peach Ice Cream on the very next page!  Perhaps that can get me closer to recapturing that childhood decadence.

Sticky buns! Who doesn’t love ‘em?  Even I, very selective in the sweet breakfast foods I love (I’m not a donut in the morning kind of gal), love them!  So…. having successfully baked the basic bread recipe from Artisan Baking (who by the way have their own site) I thought I should give their sticky buns made with challah bread a whirl.

They actually write their recipe to be made with either the brioche or the challah, but when I was mixing up the dough I only had enough eggs to make the challah, so challah it was.  It really did mix up in minutes, then I left it on my counter while I wandered off to check email and read for a bit.  Unfortunately, I had mixed this up rather late in the evening, and I found my self dozing off before the 2 hour rest time was up.  Fortunately, even though I stuck it in the fridge after about an hour, maybe 90 minutes, it finished rising and doing its thing in my fridge!  My kind of dough.  I need a little forgiveness and flexibility in my live now and again.

Major drawback to this recipe–time.  After your dough is ready (it can be used directly after the 2 hour rest period, or the next day, or the next… until 5 days later [and then, if you really can't get to it, you can freeze it]) it still takes approximately 2 hours before the sticky buns are ready to eat.  That put a cramp in my plan to make these for breakfast for the kids, because, of course, when they wake up they want to eat within a half hour- tops– and I was not waking up 2 hours before them just to serve them hot sticky buns.  I love them, but I also love my sleep.  So a couple days later I relinquished my dream of sticky buns and tea with my children in the morning, and revised it into, sticky buns and tea after lunch.  

Please don't count my pecans!

Why the two hours?  After you make up the sugar coating for the bottom of the pan and sprinkle precisely 30 pecan halves (who is going to count that out? I did two handfuls of pecan pieces with no adverse affects–more forgiveness and flexibility), roll your dough out (to what size rectangle, by the way, was not noted and slightly irked my perfectionist side– it’s subtle but it does exist) and sprinkle the sugary, nutty goodness into it, and then roll and cut it into the rolls, the buns must still sit for 1 hour in the pan.  Then they bake for about 40 minutes (mine took about 45).  If I was an early riser and was puttering around the house anyway, this wouldn’t matter much, because the hands on time is not long (rolling the dough etc took about 15 minutes), but with two kids those type of mornings are few and far between.  However, I could see a recipe like this being used quite nicely, on say, Christmas morning.

Whatever my reservations about this recipe, it was delicious, and well worth the hours of wait time. Yummy, scrummy sugary goodness, all washed down with a cold glass of milk— for lunch.  But don’t tell my kids– I’m making them wait until after.

  The main problem I’m finding with making something for my kids that lasts year after year is that I have to start thinking of other things to make for them, because I do love sewing things for them that they will actually use.  So while the lunchbags I made for them 2 years ago are still holding up well (used in alternation with their metal lunchboxes from Noni), I was ready to do a little back to school sewing.  Lucky for me there is more I can supply them with!

About a year and half ago, when my son was attending a coop preschool, I was helping the children during their snack time on my workday for that week.  One little girl had the most adorable placemat and napkin in her handmade lunch bag.  Really, I was drooling over it.  I sat with her a couple times over the next couple weeks so I could look at it closely (fortunately four year olds aren’t that concerned by adults inspecting their lunch gear).  It wasn’t complicated, but perfect.

Later in the year I got to know the mother of that child (no, not just to get a pattern from her) and a couple sewing conversations later she turned me on to Japanese craft books, which were the inspiration for her lunch time crafting.  While I haven’t been able to get my hands on the craft book she had, I have taken a first stab at replicating her nifty idea– perfect for my kids’ snack time, which is eaten in their classrooms.

I have only completed my daughter’s, but some for my son, and a couple more for her will follow.  They are a two sided placemat, with a sewn on pocket to hold her utensils and napkin.  It folds up to fit in her lunch bag, or box, and hopefully will have a snap or tie to keep it closed (although I haven’t gotten there yet, and not sure it is neccesary).  Although I am not a germ-phobe, it is nice to know they can eat their snack off this instead of their desk.  I also like that it will keep their utensils in one spot so I don’t have to root around their lunchbags for the sticky spoons.

Lunchmat Tutorial! (let me know if you use this tutorial if I can improve it in any way by leaving a comment)

If you would like to make your own you can follow these easy directions, or make it up as you go along.

1. Cut two rectangles from coordinating fabrics approximately 14 x 12 inches or 14 x 10 (or what ever size suits you!)  At this point decide which fabric will be on the outside, and which fabric will be on the inside (where the pocket is); consider them fabric A and B respectively. Cut an additional small square from fabric A- approximately 4 x 4 inches.  Cut another square from either fabric, or for a two sided napkin, 2 squares; I made my napkins approximately 6 x 6, but anything up to about 8 x 8 would work.

2. Iron the pocket square (square cut out of fabric A) folding over the edges on all for sides to create hemmed edges.  Sew the top edge, leaving the others creased, but not sewn.  

3. Pin it to fabric B about 3/4 of an inch from the bottom (raw edge) and 1 3/4 inches from the right (raw) edge; be sure to have the sewn edge on the top edge of the pocket.  Starting at the top sew the two sides and bottom of the pocket to the fabric B rectangle.

4.  Pin right sides together (pocket will be on the inside) of fabric rectangles A and B.  Sew all around the rectangle leaving a small gap (maybe 2 inches).  Inside out, pulling the fabric through the gap.  Iron.  Top stitch around all for edges closing the gap as you do.

5.  Serge, or hem the edges of the napkin (or make a double sided napkin in the same fashion as the placemat).  Fold the napkin and place in the pocket.  Find the best way to fold your lunch kit.  I fold mine in half longways (top comes down to bottom)- and then do a rolling fold.  Iron it when it is folded to your liking to help it keep the folding creases.