Joyful Abode

We were pretty hot pirates if I may say so myself. I made our shorts and hair accessories (my headband, his do-rag).

Simple Jack-0-Lantern this year. And thanks again to Marci for the cute scarecrow wreath.

We got tons of trick-or-treaters tonight. The best costume ever was a hamburger. The girl said her friend’s mom made it for her. I LOVED it.

Similar to popovers, Yorkshire pudding is actually a bread. It’s spongy, light, and fluffy… perfect for soaking up gravy. When made in muffin tins or a popover pan, it is a tall muffiny shape, usually with a dip in the center of the top, where the pudding refuses to rise (we like to pour gravy into the “hole”).

It’s usually served with roast beef, since it is generally made with the drippings from the roast. But with some bacon drippings or butter, you can recreate it any time you’d like.

I found a deliciously simple recipe for Yorkshire pudding last year, and made up a perfect batch quickly and with no ERRORs (sorry for last year’s dark picture) by combining the recipe with what I had already learned about Yorkie-making from my sweet mother-in-law.

Recently, I decided to treat my sweet husband to some (he loves it), but the oven in our new house has hot-spots, and I also suspect that it runs hotter overall than it says it does. So our first batch turned out a bit odd. He ate it anyway.

A few days later, at the last minute, I decided to have another go at it, so I adjusted the oven racks, and turned the temperature down a bit… it was a delicious dessert, served with a drizzle of honey.

So… make your own!

Easy Yorkshire Pudding (Yorkie) Recipe

You will need:

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup of milk
• 1 cup of all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 cup (roughly) of beef drippings. Substitute melted butter if you have no drippings

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.

Beat the eggs with a whisk. Then stir in the milk, flour, and salt. Cover the batter with a towel and let it rest for a while to become bubbly. A while can be 2 minutes or half an hour… whichever you have.

Put about a tablespoon of drippings or melted butter into the bottom of each muffin cup (I get 12 out of this recipe) and put just the drippings into the oven. Let the pan and drippings get hot (about 3-5 minutes).

Remove the pan, and quickly fill each muffin cup about halfway with the batter. Return the pan to the oven.

Bake for 15 minutes. Then, reduce the temperature to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and bake for an additional 10-15 minutes, until toasted and “set”. If you take it out too soon, it’ll still be good, but the inside might feel a bit moist and eggy.

Enjoy with your roast, smothered in gravy.
Or with a nice thick stew.
Or for breakfast (or dessert) with a drizzle of honey.

This chicken was so delicious, and quite easy to make. I put some Stove Top stuffing into a bag and crushed it into a fine powder. Then, I dried off my clean, raw chicken with paper towels and threw it into the bag with the stuffing powder. I shook it around (Shake and Bake! And I helped!) until the chicken was totally covered — no dredging in any milk or egg or anything. Then, I cooked the chicken in a pan over medium heat.

Meanwhile, I was cooking rice… I always do a little more than twice the liquid as rice. So for a cup of rice (uncooked), I’d use two and a half cups of liquid. Bring it to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, covered until the rice soaks up all the liquid, stirring occasionally. Maybe I should do a “how to cook rice” comic like my “how to boil eggs” one. Anyway… I also gave the rice a shot of lemon juice as it was cooking.

When the chicken was done, I covered it to keep it warm (on a plate) and dumped some chicken broth into the skillet. To make a glazey gravy, I added lemon juice and soy sauce, then a slurry of corn starch and cool water. I stirred it until it was thick and shiny.

The gravy is delicious over both the chicken and rice. And green beans were a nice side.

This was a delicious and quick meal. I can’t imagine how it would end up in ERROR, so give it a try!

I’ve been wanting to re-cover my office chair for a while… to match my bulletin board.

Then, this post from Design*Sponge reminded me recently, and I finally got off my butt to do it. However… I wish I had a chair like theirs, because the top part (the part your back leans on) on mine cannot completely snap out of the plastic frame. WISH IT COULD.

Also… I am very much a visual learner. SO… I like to cater to visual learners too. I needed WAY more photos than two “after” shots. So here is my version.

To begin: One Ugly Office Chair

Turn it over, and unscrew the seat from the base. Very simple, indeed.

Rip off the ugly useless cardboard if you feel like it, then lay the seat on your fabric, making sure the fabric is facing the right way if it is patterned.

Staple the straight sides using a staple gun.

Don’t work clockwise or counter-clockwise… work with opposing sides (like left, then right, then top, then bottom).

After that, pull each corner point as far in as it can go…

and staple the four corners with one staple each.

At each corner, now you have two “pockets” of fabric. Put your finger in the center of each pocket, then flatten it to the bottom of the seat to make a pleat. Staple each pleat.

Now you will have two pleats at each corner, for a total of eight.

Do some extra stapling wherever you feel it’s necessary, then trim your fabric pretty close to the staples, but not too close.

Now, cut a piece of muslin about the size of the chair bottom. Folding the edges under, staple the fabric to cover up the edges of your pretty fabric. Again, do top, bottom, right, left (or similar).

I folded the corners under separately too, because I felt like it.

Feel around for the screw-holes and then poke some holes in the muslin with a pair of scissors.

Now you’re ready to screw on the base again. (See the holes?)

So… screw it on!

If you’re lucky, like the folks at Design*Sponge, you will be able to pry the backrest of your chair off for its makeover. If you’re unlucky like me, you’ll need to use some biceps. I borrowed some biceps for my chair-prying.

The backrest doesn’t actually pop off… it’s still connected in the middle. So this stinks.

But it’s workable. Lay your backrest on some fabric, or some fabric on the backrest, and trace around it. Then cut around the tracing, giving yourself several inches on all sides. LEARN FROM MY ERROR: leave more wiggle room than I did! It will make life MUCH easier.

Make a running-stitch around the edge of your backrest fabric with some heavy thread (I used embroidery floss). The thread color doesn’t matter, because no one will see it.

Sit the fabric on the backrest, and pull the string to gather. If you’re lucky, you’ll get to tie the string ends together when it’s nice and gathery. If you’re unlucky, like me, your string will break.

Starting at the bottom, and working your way up both sides (and then to the top of course), tuck the fabric edges in-between the cushioned part and the plastic part of the chair back. A flat-head screwdriver is good for this. Then, snap the plastic back in place (just squeeze really hard and it’ll snap).

Voila! Your office chair is no longer ugly!

Now and then, I like to visit Craftster and look at other people’s projects and occasionally post mine. Recently, I found a couple of swaps that sounded fun to me, so I signed up! One of them was a Mini Halloween Swap. We were supposed to send two “medium” and two “small” crafted items to our partners.

My partner Marci made this adorable scarecrow wreath for my door.

But when I close my glass door, its face gets smashed and it did NOT like that. So now he lives on the little flag pole holder, where he is much more comfy.

Then she decided to go crazy for me with an incredibly time-consuming project… a gorgeous and snuggly knitted scarf! I know how to knit but don’t have the patience for it, so I know how much work went into it. I love the way it feels, and it even has pockets for my hands! My yard scarecrow wanted to model the scarf for you, but he does NOT get to keep it!

Look at the pretty leafy cable design!

Marci also sent me a delicious-smelling jar of mulling spices. I’m so excited to try them out! I may go pick up some apple juice later today.

This is what I sent to Marci.
A jack-o-lantern zipper pouch:

Some embroidered Jack Skellington coasters (she loves Nightmare Before Christmas):

Halloween-y pennant flags (or garland) to decorate with:

And a jack-o-lantern apron (I couldn’t not do an apron):

More/bigger photos here in my flickr.

Check out this fantastic tutorial for cocktail napkins at The Purl Bee. You could do these for any holiday or any time of year.

Sewing Stars has posted a cutesie little skeleton that you can print and cut out. If you put it together with brads, it’s movable. I think it would look really cute in a little apron.

My Paper Crane has made some adorable printable Halloween garland along with a smaller version that can be used as sucker toppers.

And this one’s not Halloweeny, but Turkey Feathers has a tutorial up for a beautiful Autumnal patchwork pillow (again, of course you can adapt it to different seasons).

Check out the Joyful Abode coloring contest entries, too! We’ve got FIVE entries now, so the contest is officially on. If you want to get in on the action, submit your entry by the end of Monday, October 29th. After that, the race to 13 votes commences. 

Click for the recipe at allrecipes.
I made muffins instead of using a loaf pan (baked for 23 minutes). Sooo yummy. Not as pumpkiny as I’d like, but they’re delicious anyway. I also added ground cloves.

I’ve been told that this could be considered a copycat recipe for Red Lobster’s cheese biscuits… I’ve only had those once, and they were really good. But I’ve had these many, MANY times… and they just get better and better.

I’ve made these a million times… and despite the fact that I love to make regular biscuits from scratch, these really work best with Jiffy mix or Bisquick. So that’s the main reason I keep biscuit mix around.

These have got to be one of the guy’s favorite things… his eyes get huge every time I make them, and whenever we have cheese biscuits somewhere else, he gobbles them up and licks his lips, then says, “Yours are better.”

I based my recipe off of this one from Allrecipes, but added/changed some things. First, I usually double the cheese. Even a cup and a half is an improvement, but two cups is better. I don’t measure the garlic, but I am sure I use more than they say to.

Then, when it says to brush with butter and sprinkle with garlic salt and parsley, I mix the garlic salt and Italian herbs (instead of parsley) in with the butter, and just brush it. No sprinkling. And again, I probably use more of all of this than they say to.

And when they’re done baking, I brush more butter/herb mixture on them for good measure. It’s delicious.

I sort of used this recipe but altered it a bit.
I used 4 bananas and added cinnamon (sifted with the flour) and vanilla (mixed into the banana mixture), as was suggested by several people in their reviews. I also folded in about a cup of oats after everything was combined.

They’re very very moist and delicious. Mmm.
I tend to feel that walnuts make most things better… but I didn’t add any this time. It would’ve been good though!
Walnuts + oats = my favorite things to add to stuff, in general.

I was surprised at the number of my friends who didn’t know what acorn squash is.
It is a winter squash with a sweet/nutty flavor. It’s dark green in color, and despite Joy’s thought that maybe they were “one of those useless things people decorate with,” they would be great for decorating because they keep at room temperature for up to a month.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

First, cut the squash in half and scoop out the guts with a spoon.

Put about half an inch of water into a microwavable baking dish. Then place the squash halves face down in the water. Microwave for about 7 minutes. Longer would be fine. You’re just giving it a head start.

While it’s microwaving, chop up an apple. Stir it up with cinnamon, brown sugar, and some chopped walnuts. I added the walnuts after this picture.

Flip over the squash, replenish the water if necessary (you don’t want your squash to dry out)

Fill ‘em up!

Drizzle some melted butter over the filling.

By this time, your oven should be preheated. Bake them for a long time. After about half an hour, check to see if you need to add more water. At the 45 minute mark, I suggest covering the pan with tin foil to lock in the moisture even more.
Mine took an hour.
When they’re done, the flesh will be translucent and easy to pierce with a fork. It shouldn’t resist the fork at all.

Serve it in a bowl. Eat with a fork or spoon. mmmm.