Rhubarb vol. 2

It has been quite warm the past few days here in Finland. Sunshine, rain, thunder..quite like living in a green house – hot and humid. Now what would be a better way to cool yourself than with a icy rhubarb soda. Well there’re lots of rhubarb growing outside in our garden and the freezer is full of ice! Only thing I needed was a recipe since I had only made juice of red and blackcurrant and I guess it works a bit differently with rhubarb. This is what I found from Culinate.

Rhubarb Soda

1½ cups rhubarb, roughly chopped

1 cup sugar

1½ cups water

Sparkling water

Ice

Place rhubarb, sugar, and 1½ cups of water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, then turn down to a simmer. Cook for about 15 minutes, until the syrup is bright pink.

Turn off the heat and allow to cool. Strain syrup into a large jar.

To make each soda, measure ¼ cup rhubarb syrup into a glass. Add enough sparkling water to fill the glass ⅔ full. Stir to mix, then add ice.

I also made this so that I replaced the sugar with syrup. The color changed quite much..I did use dark syrup so...hmmm well I think I prefer the sugar version-> PINK! The soda can taste a bit sweet (not too sweet in my opinion) but you can easily adjust the sweetness level by changing the amount of sugar/syrup to match your taste. Some like it sweeter than others ;)

Happy times...

LiLoPe

Mirror mirror on the wall which one's the juiciest of them all?

It's voting time at the Pomegranates contest at SpoonFlower ! Check out the juicy designs and vote for your favorites ^___^

LiLoPe

Pomegranates!

I'm so excited! I received a package today containing three Fat Quarter (21" x 18") samples of fabric with my own design!!! The theme is "pomegranates" and here are few pics which I took outside so that I could use the sunlight to show the colors as they really are :)

Here's all the colors together..I really like them all! ^___^ They are going to give a juicy retro vibe to our dark brown sofa -> you guessed right PILLOW COVERS :D

Here's a close up of the "Red Pomegranates" my very first desing! Yay!

Here's the "Yellow Pomegranates" (note that the red one is still trying to steal the show from behind :P) 

And here's the "Green Pomegranates" which I think is kind of groovy!

I already have a black and white design on it's way ^___^ gonna make something nice for someone (not telling who since that person could be reading this! Sneaky me, thehehehee ^___^)

Feeling crafty?? Just go to SpoonFlower and start designing! It's soo  addictive and fun!

Gone totally "Pomegranates" LiLoPe

Get-Together ^_____^

My sis came to visit me the other day and we both had a major craving for SANDWICH CAKE! Our mom makes the best sandwich on this planet...maybe in the whole universe o_o! (At least that's our opinion :) Moms probably have some secret ingredient that make everything taste sooo good!) All I can say is ... mayonnaise... and lots of it!


Me and my sis have never made sandwich cakes before (eating is a whole another story :P) So after phoning our mom and acquiring all the ingredients for this secret recipe (which will be kept as a secret..sorry^^) we head out to the local market.


After some cutting, laughing, tasting, gossiping and getting mayo almost everywhere we were done!


And here they are! The one on the left is my sis' "take away" version and the one on the right is miiiiine..all mine..!

SuKaKi と LiLoPe :)

Rhubarb treats vol. 1

I was going through our freezer and noticed that I had some frozen rhubarb still left from last year.

As there already is a new crop growing in our garden I thought that it's time to clear out the old to make room for the new! (what I good excuse to make something yummy ^-^)

And what goes better with rhubarb than sweet sweeeeet chocolate! So I decided to make a mud cake /drool...

Mud Cake

150 g dark chocolate (44%)
50 g even darker chocolate (70%)
1ts baking powder
4 eggs
2 dl sugar
2.5 dl flour
200 g butter


♥ Preheat the oven to 200 C. Whisk together the eggs and the sugar until mixture is light yellow and foamy (approx. 5 minutes fierce whisking.)
♥ Melt the chocolate and the butter and let it cool a bit before slowly pouring it into the sugar and egg mixture (fierce whisking required!)
♥ In a separate bowl mix together the flour and the baking powder. Then add the flour mixture by gently folding it in with a spatula. I used a wooden spatula.
♥ Prepare your cake tin, diameter approx. 21-25 cm ( I used 21 cm.) You can butter it and use breadcrumbs or flour or line it with parchment paper. The choice is yours :)
♥ Stick it in the oven and bake for 12-15 minutes depending on the size of your cake tin, 25cm->12min and 21cm->15min.


Because rhubarb isn't really photo-genetic (looks terrible after cooking some time in the pan...) I thought it might be best to mix it with something...something creamy...


Chef's little helper was keeping an eye out under the table...

Rhubarb Whipped Cream

250 g rhubarb (if fresh chop them up if frozen no need to chop)

cane syrup
2 dl double cream
sugar


Just toss the rhubarb in the pan. If you are using fresh rhubarb you can add ½ dl water in the pan (when using frozen ones there is no need to add water.) Boil the rhubarb and add cane syrup. The amount of the syrup depends on your taste buds, so make sure to taste it and add more if needed. Let it cool (best is to cool it first to room temperature and then put it in the refrigerator for a while.)
Start whisking the cream and add some sugar while whisking if you like...I know I like ^-^ Then mix together the rhubarb syrup and the whipped cream.


Enjoy!

"Omnomnomnomnomno..."

                     

LiLoPe

Awesome Happy Birthday Giveaway at Modes4u

Modes4u is celebrating its 4th B-day! There is a awesome giveaway with 4 kyuuto prices for 4 happy winners :)  

4 lucky winners get the following package:
1 Rilakkuma “Relaxing Meal” Re-Ment
1 Rilakkuma Chocolate and Coffee Deco Tape
1 Rilakkuma Bread Squishie
1 Sentimental Circus Sticker Sheet
1 Rilakkuma red pocket (traditional Chinese “La See” with Rilakkuma Design that can only be bought in Asia)
1 big Rilakkuma / Sentimental Circus plastic bag (exclusively from Japan with brand new Rilakkuma Happy Holiday Picnic design on one side and Sentimental Circus design on the other – bag is usually not available to the public, but exclusively designed for fair trade business customers) 


Entries will be accepted until Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012, Midnight GMT. There are different ways to enter and you can find the instructions at modeS Blog :) Go and check it out!!!

♥ LiLoPe

Hattifatteners - Tutorial

The Hattifatteners are tall, thin, ghost-like creatures, resembling long white socks

What you will need:

          

•  white mercerized cotton yarn (ofc you can use any yarn you like)
• a crochet hook 3mm ( UK = 11 and US it's either C (2.75 mm) or D (3.25 mm) I think.. )
• a tapestry needle
• a pair of clear safety eyes (the ones I used were 9 mm)
• polyfill
• plastic pellets

sc    = single crochet

inc   = increase (two single crochets in one)

Body

Start with a MagicRing

1st row               sc x 6                    --  6 stitches

2nd row              inc x 6                   -- 12 stitches

3rd row              (sc + inc) x 6          -- 18 stitches

4th row              (sc x 2 + inc) x 6     -- 24 stitches

5th row              (sc x 3 + inc) x 6     -- 30 stitches

6th - 33rd row     sc x 30                   -- 30 stitches **

And end with a slip stich

**! IMPORTANT ! When you reach the 14th row install the eyes (this way it won't be so hard to install them as it would be later on...) The eyes can be installed between rows 10 and 11 and I have left 5 stitches between them  

Bottom

Start with a MagicRing

1st row               sc x 6                   --  6 stitches

2nd row              inc x 6                  -- 12 stitches

3rd row              (sc + inc) x 6         -- 18 stitches

4th row              (sc x 2 + inc) x 6    -- 24 stitches

And end with a slip stich

The hand-like thingy x 2  

( I decided to draw a picture..hopefully it's not too confusing ^___^' )

After all this you should have the following:

Now it's time to stuff in the polyfill! You should leave some room for the plastic pellets about 3cm (1.2") ...what a terrible drawing :D I'm sorry..teehehehehe..

Start attaching the bottom part to the body but leave it so that you can stuff in the pellets (this was somewhat nerve wracking..one pellet in two pellets out  >__< ...just have faith..I found out that a teaspoon comes very handy at times like this..) After you have stuffed the amount of pellets that you think is enough close the gap. Then attach the "hands" and finish up. Tadaaaa your Hattifattener is ready! Yay!

If you go totally "Hattifattener"  and start making tens of thousands of these little creatures :D you can easily change the pattern for example make it longer or make the "fingers" in the "hands" in different lengths and give your Hattifattener a more personal look ^___^

Happy Crocheting!!

♥ LiLoPe

There's always room for pillow covers ^_^

Pillows are such a super easy way to cheer up your home decor! They are inexpensive and quite easy to make. We went on a little fabric shopping spree with my sis and oh my gosh! She found this adorable fabric which we couldn't leave behind ^___^

In total I made three pillow covers for her. The covers were made so that on the other side of the cover is this splash of colors and on the other side it's either green, yellow or black. Here're pic of the green and yellow (the black one is already at my sister's house..hehe.)

This way it's possible to change the look just by turning the pillow and voilà!

Spring is here!

With Spring also comes a new look for my blog ^____^ 
I must have been extra nice last year since I got this awesome pen tablet as a Christmas present! I just got totally carried away while practicing with it and decided to draw sumthing fun for da blog!


Sunny SpringTime to You All!!!

Christmas Secrets

I thought that now would be a safe time to post some pics of the 2011 Christmas pressies I made. (All of them have been sent and received by now so no surprises will be spoiled!)


Since winter is such a cold time here in Finland I thought that a warm present would be more than welcome. It was great fun making these but I must say that I think I'm not going to be making sock for a while :P...

These were the ones I finished the last minute so there was no time for taking pictures :) 

I Wonder what I'll craft up this year ;)

...probably  not  socks..