Thanksgiving Goodies

For Thanksgiving and Christmas I am normally in change of making a good portion of the desserts when it's held at my parents house. This year for Thanksgiving was no different, I made 4 different desserts; 2 pumpkin pies (1 graham cracker crust, 1 oil pie crust), 2 chocolate pudding (1 graham cracker crust, 1 oil pie crust), 1 pumpkin cheesecake and 1 chocolate pumpkin cheesecake. Also my brother's fiancée brought this awesome apple pie.

Thankfully, I didn't try to leave any of the cooking till the last minute this year and made all the desserts the day before because at about 11am my parent's electricity went out. In fact most of their neighborhood was out. We ended up rushing the food to my apartment to finish the cooking process. Getting the food there wasn't an issue, I live under 5 minutes from my parents home, just the lack of space I have in my tiny kitchen.

In the end everything turned out well, the 15+ family members sat around in candle light telling stories from their childhoods and fond memories of past holidays till the power came back on around 5:30pm. Everyone had an enjoyable meal and left with plenty of left overs.

On to the pies and crust we had this year.

Oil Pie Crust

1 1/2 cup AP Flour
1 tsp Salt
1 1/2 tsp Granulated Sugar
1/2 cup Olive Oil
2 tbsp Milk

Mix together the flour and salt.  Next add in the olive oil and milk, if crust is super dry add in a little more milk till it's the right texture. Wrap in plastic wrap and let sit in refrigerator for at least 15 minutes. Poke with a fork and bake at 350 till lightly brown. Makes 1 pie crust.

CHEESECAKE FACTORY PUMPKIN CHEESECAKE
Originally posted to recipelink.com by Elly, Ohio:
http://www.recipelink.com/msgid/312166

Crust:
1 1/2 cups graham crumbs
5 Tbsp. butter, melted
1 Tbsp. sugar
Filling:
3- 8oz.pkgs. cream cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup canned pumpkin
3 eggs
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. allspice
Whipped Cream

Mix crust ingredients together, just till coated and crumbly. Press onto the bottom and 2/3 up the sides of an 8" springform pan. Bake for 5 min. at 350. Set aside.

Combine cheese, sugar and vanilla in large bowl, mix until smooth with an electric mixer. add pumpkin eggs, and spices, beat till smooth and creamy. Pour into the crust. Bake for 60-70 min. or till the top turns a bit darker. Remove from oven and allow to come to room temperature, then refrigerate. After it has thoroughly chilled, remove the pan sides and cut. Serve with whipped cream.

Chocolate Pumpkin Cheesecake Swirl

Ingredients:
Remaining pumpkin pie filling (above)
1 package of chocolate pudding mix prepared
1 graham cracker crust

Take remaining pumpkin cheesecake batter and put half of it (maybe about 1 1/2 cups to 2 cups) into graham cracker pie crust spread evenly on the bottom add in about 1/2 cup to 1 cup of the prepared pudding pour remaining cheesecake batter on top till crust is filled.  Next take a chopstick/butter knife and make small swirl shapes in the batter moving the object kinda upwards to bring out the chocolate swirl.  Bake the same as the chocolate cheesecake.

Okay it's after midnight I think it's been enough for the night.

Angel Halloween Costume with Tutu

Working on catching up on posts I saved from the holidays. Hopefully in the next few days I'll be posting about the different cookies and treats I made but first I'll start with what I did for Halloween.

For Halloween my sister asked me to make her an angel costume for a party she was going to. We ended up finding a white dress at Goodwill. It had the right silhouette for what she had in mind and  a couple sizes too big so we had plenty of fabric to work with too.

Sorry this is the only picture I have of her in the tutu :(
Originally I was going to make a petticoat to go under the dress to make it more poofy but my sewing machine is old and it doesn't like a lot of fabrics(including tulle). :( So I searched around and found a no sew video for a girls tutu on YouTube. I linked to the video below.

Tutu Tutorial

To make the no-sew tutu:

•     take a rope or ribbon longer than your waist
•     cut strips of tulle twice the length you want the tutu to be
•     fold the tulle in half creating a loop on one end
•     take loop section and put it behind the rope then loop the loose ends over the top of the rope through the loop pulling snug
•     repeat a bunch of times

Pretty basic but it does take a long time.   I recommend catching up on movies during this project.

My sister ended loving the tutu the best so the dress became more of a body suit that went under the dress. It was shorten and an elastic band was added to the bottom, also I added a fake corset to the back to make it a bit more form fitting.

The tutu had to be the easiest part of the whole costume. Since then I've even made two smaller ones for my little cousins.

Yoda Ears and Mohawk Hat

Awhile ago I crocheted/loom knitted a couple random things.  First I made Yoda ears for a girl at the office.

It was a very simple design just a headband with two triangles on both sides. It's not the best work I've ever done but it made me happy to be crocheting again.  At the time I hadn't crocheted in months because of so much chaos going on in my life.  I never realized what a stress reliever it is to crochet.

Next I made a mohawk hat or Mr T. hat as some people call them.  The hat was made on a knitting loom then I just cut the yarn into 3 inch pieces and looped them onto the stitches.

If anyone knows of an easier way of making the mohawk let me know.  I have to make a unicorn hat next and I'm dreading making the mane lol