A pressing situation

 

Aren't cookie presses wonderful? I love the way they produce many beautiful cookies so quickly. I don't remember ever making pressed cookies in my childhood or teen years, although I often helped my mother with baking, especially at Christmas.  I'm not sure that my mother even owned a cookie press; I certainly didn't find one when I cleaned out her house.

When I had a kitchen of my own, I did acquire a cookie press -- if I remember right, as a gift from my mother. I have been through several cookie presses -- at least four that I can recall.

This lemon spritz recipe is a favorite of mine because it is very different. It has a lovely flavor from the fresh lemon juice and rind.

LEMON SPRITZ
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 tsp. grated lemon peel
1 Tblsp. lemon juice
1 egg
2 1/2 cups flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/8 tsp. salt

Beat butter until light; beat in sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in lemon peel and juice and egg to blend thoroughly. Sift together flour, baking soda and salt. Add to creamed mixture, blending well.

Fill the cookie press with one-fourth of the dough at a time. Use the plates of your choice to press out cookies about 1 inch apart on ungreased baking sheet. (I often use the camel plate for these cookies, but they are good in any shape.)

Bake at 375° for 10 to 12 minutes, or until light brown on edges.

Remove from baking sheets to cooling racks. Makes about 8 dozen cookies.

I mentioned yesterday how much baking Mr. T has been doing.  One of the cookies he made was Christmas Tree Spritz -- and,  in doing so, he ended the life of yet another cookie press.  We went to our local thrift store that afternoon in search of another, but the store was closed.  So, we investigated Amazon that very day and ordered another, but it has yet to arrive.

Fast-forward to yesterday when we finally got to our thrift store.  We found quite a deal -- a vintage Sawa cookie press, made in Sweden, for only $4!  I have seen them on Etsy from anywhere to $20 to $75.

 Ours is missing the box, but has everything else.   (It came to us packaged in a zip-top plastic bag.)  Everything is metal, which means it is so sturdy and well-made.  My hubby is so pleased with how it works.  Yes, he has already whipped up a batch of spritz!

A sale at my Etsy shop

 

 Just a quick public service announcement:  I'm running a sale at my Etsy shop, A New Hampshire Attic, now through the end of June.  Every single listing in the shop is 25% off through June 30.  I hope you'll go over and check it out.  If you enjoy all things vintage, I'm sure you'll have fun browsing through the shop!

One New Thing ....

 

 I alluded to this One New Thing in last week's Hodgepodge post.   When Market Basket  came to our town in 2020,  it was a good thing we'd been hoping for, for a long time.  Great prices.  I also knew, having shopped in other Market Basket locations, that they offered reduced prices on ground beef.  They freeze it when it gets close to the expiration date and one buys it frozen.

What I didn't know is that they also offer reduced prices on bakery items, deli meat ends, and even produce!   Only recently have I found the areas where these items are located.

I've found some good buys on reduced price bread and rolls.  In the deli meat ends, I've found turkey and ham that can then be sliced to use in sandwiches or cubed to use in casseroles,  egg dishes, etc.

But the produce section is where I've found the very best deals, like a bag of 4 avocados for 99¢, a bag of vine ripened tomatoes for $1.  And my very best deal so far has been a bag of 6 or 7 Minneolas for $1.45! 

 To be honest, when I picked them up, I thought they were oranges.  I knew navel oranges were running 99¢ apiece, so this seemed like a really great deal.  Was it ever! 😊

These were the absolute best oranges I have ever tasted!   Easy to peel, no seeds, and so flavorful!   So I set out to learn a little more about Minneolas.  Here's what I found; info from Tricia Christensen.

"The Minneola tangelo is a specific hybrid citrus fruit that is made by crossing the Duncan or Bowen grapefruit and the “Darcy” variety of tangerine, also called a mandarin orange. The cross was developed by the United States Department of Agriculture, in Florida, and was first released for sale in 1931. The fruit combines the sweetness of the mandarin with the tart flavors of the grapefruit, and it is highly prized for its juiciness and combination of sweet/sour flavors."

I found the information from Tricia Christensen here:  What is a Minneola Tangelo?

 And here's more:  "As tangelos go, the Minneola tends to be pretty large and is usually bell or pear-shaped. Diameter of the fruit averages about 3 inches (7.62 cm), though some can grow a bit larger. The peel is somewhat thin, but like most tangelos and mandarin oranges, it is pretty easy to peel. Many people like the fact that the fruit doesn’t have very many seeds, usually about ten on average, so they’re easy to avoid.". 

The ones I sampled had no seeds at all!

So there is my most recent one new thing!  Have you ever tasted a Minneola?  Does your supermarket offer reduced produce?

Making a Christmas recipe book, part 2

 

 I promised to share a couple more ideas for making a special notebook or recipe book just for Christmas recipes.  It really is a great project to work on right after Christmas, when the recipes you used are fresh in your mind and probably still right at hand.  

 However, you could work on this project any time of year, as the spirit moves.  It might be fun to work on during July, for Christmas in July, or anytime in summer to help you feel a little cooler.  Not only is such a cookbook a great way to keep your Christmas recipes accessible; these things would make absolutely wonderful gifts as well, for grown children or for grandchildren.  (I did post about this project a few years ago over on my Christmas blog, so if it looks familiar to someone, that would be why.)

Making a photo book from Shutterfly turned out to be the perfect way to get all of our favorite Christmas cookie recipes in one easy place.  We make a lot of cookies every year, but we do tend to use the same recipes each Christmas, possibly adding in a few new ones.  

The standard 8x8 photo books have 20 pages, so I used 18 of them as recipe pages with a different cookie recipe on each page.  Some of the recipes are from my childhood; others are as new as Christmas 2018. 

On the first page I wrote out some of my Christmas baking memories from childhood.  I actually had written these out years ago for a Christmas memory book, so I just copied and pasted it into a text box on a page in the Shutterfly book.

Then I chose the 18 recipes that I wanted to use and dived into making the recipe pages.  I had photos for most of the cookie varieties.  Shutterfly absolutely walks you through the process of putting photo book pages together.  The recipe book format was a little different than an ordinary photo book because there were so many large text boxes to fill with recipes.  I added in a few of the charming Shutterfly "stickers" to embellish each page.  I didn't overdo it with these pretty touches (though one certainly could be tempted to do so) but just added enough to add color and charm to each page.

The screenshots of some of my pages, below, give you an idea as to what can be done.

 

Every time I get a free photo book offer, I'll make up another of these cookie books.  In that way I just pay shipping. To my mind, $7.99 is a fair price indeed for such a nice and useful product.  I've been able to give many of these as gifts.

Hope this has inspired someone to make a recipe photo book!  If you want more details as to how I did it, let me know and I'll try to help.

End of the year sale at my Etsy shop!

Yes, now through December 31, 2019, selected listings are 20% off at my Etsy shop,  A New Hampshire Attic.  There are over 90 listings on sale, including things in the following categories: vintage Christmas, vintage gifting, vintage stationery, and paper ephemera.


If there's something you've been eyeing in one of those categories, you may want to take another look.   However, as always, no pressure at all to do anything but window shop.  Looking through vintage things makes a lot of people happy, including me.  Happy browsing!

Back to school sale at my Etsy shop!

Yes, classes start Monday for the high schoolers in our town!  My granddaughter's volleyball team has already been practicing.  The university students are back in town.  It seems like a very quick summer indeed. 

In honor of back to school, I'm having a little sale in my Etsy shop now through September 2: 20% off selected listings with a fall or back-to-school theme.  Most of the included listings will be sewing patterns -- sweet vintage school outfits like the one below.

There will be a few other items that fit the theme as well, so if you enjoy vintage things, head on over to A New Hampshire Attic and check out the sale.  It may bring back a sweet memory or two of your own school days!

Announcing ...

... a late-summer sale at my Etsy shop!

I've selected over 60 summer-related listings and they're on sale now through August 22 -- a hefty 20% off!

Here are just a few of the listings:

June 1947 New Hampshire Troubadour

Nasturtium seeds packed for 1974 -- "Glorious Gleam"

1968 lawn mower brochure

Rose needlebook

A blotter from Kellogg's Corn Flakes

Sweet vintage notecard

Adorable vintage pattern for little girls' summer outfit

  If you wish to get in on the fun, head on over to A New Hampshire Attic and check it out!

Short post for the longest day

Just popping in with a little announcement.  I'm having a one-day sale at my Etsy shop, A New Hampshire Attic to celebrate the longest day of the year, June 21.  Selected listings will be 20% off for today only.  Note that this sale will not include items in the Vintage Christmas category.  I am planning a Christmas in July sale, so you will want to wait until July for deals on Christmas goodies.  Hope to see you at the sale!

Labor Day sale at my Etsy shop!

Just popping in to share that I'm having a Labor Day sale at my Etsy shop, A New Hampshire Attic.  The sale is running from today, August 30, through Monday, September 3.

I'm offering 15% off on selected items.  Because it's a Labor Day sale, the items I've chosen to feature are those that a person might work with: vintage sewing patterns and notions, vintage cookbooks, and maybe a few other items along the way.  I'll be adding more things to these categories in the shop throughout the sale.

As always, please do not feel at all obligated to purchase anything or even to go and look.  I'm letting my blog readers know about this only so that if one of these selected items interests you, you would be able to get it while the price is lower. 

Now I am off to scan and list more items in the shop.  I hope you will all have a wonderful Labor Day weekend!

A fun summer find at Dollar Tree!

On Saturday we made a quick stop at Dollar Tree to pick up some items we needed to get for church -- cleaning supplies and paper goods.  While browsing the kitchenware aisle I came upon the nifty item pictured above.  These cute red-checked waxed basket liners are the type you might see in those classic red plastic baskets like they use at take-out places.

I could see myself using these in a number of ways, not just in the summer.  They could be useful at Christmas time as well, for wrapping breads or for lining boxes or baskets to hold kitchen gifts.

Dollar Tree sells the red plastic baskets too, and I think this would be a fun way to serve hot dogs or hamburgers from your backyard grill.  Lots of atmosphere!

As you can see, there are 15 sheets of red-and-white checked waxed paper in each package.  That's a deal in my book for only $1.  And a nice plus is the fact that this product is made in the USA!

A simple and fun after-Christmas buy

I did very little after-Christmas shopping this year.  Did find a couple of things which I won't show that I have put away for next year's gifting.  Bought a couple of bags of New England Coffee in holiday flavors like Eggnog and Gingerbread Cookie.  About the only thing I found that I thought unique enough to take a picture of is these pretty bowls.  I bought two of them.

Probably the only reason I found these is that I noticed them while doing my regular grocery shopping at our local Hannaford supermarket.  These pretty bowls with their pine cone motif are a sort of plastic, like melamine, I would say.  They were 79¢ each!  They are sort of an odd size, not really large enough for serving bowls, but too big for cereal or desserts.  We found that they did work well to hold a salad for two people, and I'm sure I will think of other uses.  Decorative uses, if nothing else! 

A fowl tip

Photo from Pixabay

 ... on preparing cooked chicken for the freezer.

Our local supermarket will often feature boneless chicken breasts for $1.69/lb.   I nearly always buy a large package or two to freeze.  I most often freeze them individually, wrapped in plastic, and this works out well for using however many I want for a particular meal.

This summer, though, I tried a recipe for Basic Mexican Chicken from a Gooseberry Patch slow cooker cookbook, Slow Cooking All Year Round.  I got this book for free because my recipe for slow cooker "rotisserie" chicken was published in it.

Here's what you do:

BASIC MEXICAN CHICKEN
6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 pkg, taco seasoning mix*
16-ounce jar salsa

Place chicken in slow cooker; sprinkle with taco seasoning.   Pour salsa over top; do not stir.  Cover and cook on low for 8 hours.  Shred chicken with 2 forks; mix well with sauce in slow cooker.  Serves 6 to 8.

Julie Saifullah, the lady who shared the recipe, wrote, "I make this chicken often because it is so versatile.  You can use it to make all kinds of Mexican dishes, like tacos, enchiladas, burritos, rice bowls, nachos, or even chicken tortilla soup!"

This recipe is indeed so versatile, as I found when I tried it for myself.  From there it was a short step to thinking about freezing the cooked chicken.  I made the recipe again next time chicken was on sale, and packaged meal-sized portions of the Mexican-flavored chicken in quart-size ziplock bags.  It proved to be very handy to just pull out a package of cooked chicken to get a start on a soup or casserole.

So recently chicken was on sale again

Photo from Pixabay

and I found myself thinking about this a little more.  If Mexican-flavored cooked chicken in the freezer was so helpful, why not other flavors?

So I bought two large trays of chicken and cooked one tray with more of an Italian flavor.  I put a little olive oil in the bottom of the crock and between the layers.  I also made up a dry Italian salad dressing mix* -- a double batch, because this is a lot of chicken to season! -- and sprinkled that between the layers of chicken.  I cooked it for about 4 hours at high.  When it cooled a bit, I cut it up in cubes and again froze meal-size quantities in quart-size ziplock bags.

The next day I cooked the other tray.  I wanted this one to have more of a rotisserie chicken flavor, so I drizzled in a bit of olive oil and sprinkled the layers of chicken very generously with Montreal Chicken seasoning.  Again I cooked it about 4 hours at high and packaged it the same way.  Of course I labeled the various flavors accordingly -- Mexican, Italian, or seasoned.

(I should add that the Mexican chicken recipe, because of the salsa, comes out with a more "soupy" consistency, but I just divided the liquid among the freezer bags of chicken.  It's been fine in the recipes I've tried it in.  But if I wanted it less liquid-y, I would just drizzle the chicken with some olive oil, sprinkle with the taco seasoning, and cook it without the salsa.)

I am looking forward to having these "meal starters" at the ready in my freezer for busy days!

There are several pluses to cooking this chicken in the slow cooker which I thought I would mention.  First, of course, is that it cooks while you are doing other things.  A huge plus in my book!  And then there is the fact that several cups of nicely seasoned broth are also produced with this cooking method.  You just strain it into a clean container (I use a recycled quart-size yogurt container) and put it in fridge or (for longer storage) freezer.  Next time you need chicken broth, it's there!

And then, a very important plus is that you don't need to trim the fat off the chicken breasts before cooking.  Most of it melts into the broth (which isn't an issue because you are going to chill the strained broth and can then lift the layer of fat off the top).  What small bits of fat remain on the cooked chicken, you can easily trim off with kitchen shears and you won't have wasted a lot of meat as can often happen when trying to remove fat from raw chicken.

And also:  * My recipes for taco seasoning mix and Italian dressing mix may be found in this older post: Saving Money in the Kitchen.*

Free tea samples from Twinings!

From my collection of vintage advertising cards

 Just a quick post tonight with a public service announcement!  If you enjoy tea, you will want to check out this link: Twining’s Tea Samples!  You can choose three samples of tea for free, at least as long as the supply holds out.  Be sure and scroll all the way down the list of teas; there are some seasonal ones on there, some organic teas, some cold brewed ones and so on.  A huge variety to choose from, so head on over and see what you would like!

My very favorite after-Christmas buy!

I actually wish I had bought more of these lanterns.  They aren't too fancy looking, but they were only $2.50.  I bought this the day after Christmas and of course all my decor was still in place, so I brought this in and placed it on a chest next to our manger scene.  You can just see the edge of the wooden stable at right in the photo above.

The next photo shows the lantern and creche more clearly, though the picture is somewhat fuzzy.

Below is our manger scene as it looked last year.  The wooden stable was made by my dad many years ago.   I got the idea of placing a New Testament, open to Luke 2, in front of it after seeing something similar that Sandi, at Rose Chintz Cottage, had done.  I liked the idea and the look very much, but felt it needed something to set it off.  Evergreens with entwined white lights would have done the trick, but there is no outlet anywhere near that chest, nor any place to hide an extension cord.  I don't care for battery operated light strings because in my experience the batteries die much too quickly.

So when I got this lantern home, I decided to try it by the creche.  There's a place inside the lantern for a candle.  I first tried a votive.  Bad idea.  It ended up melting all over the candle cup.  Tea lights work much better.  Of course, a battery operated tea light or flameless candle would be better still.

Still, a little something was needed and I had the spray of cedar and glittery red berries in my stash.  I put the stems behind the stable and sort of curved the berries around the lantern.  Much better!

 As I mentioned at the beginning, I do wish I had bought several of these lanterns.  The nice thing is that they are not specifically Christmasy, so they would work in any season.  If we happen to find any more next time we visit that store, I will snap them up!

December 27

 It's been snowing here a good bit of the day, and tonight the trees are so pretty.  The scenery on our road looks just like a Christmas card!

Today is a very special day in my life.  It's my youngest daughter's birthday.  She had been due on December 11, so as each day went by I grew increasingly more concerned that I might have to be in the hospital over Christmas.  God was gracious (as He always is) and held off the delivery until the 27th.  Close enough to Christmas to have a cute little stocking on her crib in the hospital nursery, but missing Christmas itself, thankfully.

Today she is 34 and the joyful mother of four little ones ages one through six, living many hundreds of miles from here.  We had a few minutes to chat on the phone tonight when Mr. T and I called to sing "Happy Birthday" to her. 

This evening we went out for a bit to do some grocery shopping and to check out the after-Christmas sales.  Oh, the bargains and beautiful things we found at Marshalls!  Some of them will be gifts for next Christmas, others are practical things like coffee.  I hope to get a picture tomorrow of a lovely wall hanging I found for only $3.20.

Soon I also hope to post some photos of my Christmas crafting, now that all of the gifts are safely in the hands of the recipients!  Maybe tomorrow; we will see!

A vintage find!

On our recent trip out west, our daughter took me shopping and out to lunch one day. It's always such a treat to spend special time with her, a busy mom of three. One place we visited is perhaps my favorite shop there in Elko, Nevada: a wonderful consignment boutique called Mishmash & Muddle. I like to visit this shop whenever I am in Elko, and have never yet left without purchasing something. The shop has a wonderful assortment of treasures, from clothing to dishes to jewelry to -- my favorite -- vintage linens. For the most part, the prices are extremely reasonable.

Here are my best finds this trip. Not sure if they are meant to be tea towels, napkins, or possibly even guest towels.

The price was only $2 each (as is; there are some stains and fold marks).

At first I hesitated, but then my daughter suggested they could be used in my Valentine decorating. Sold!

Chickened Out!

One of my tasks today was to package 20 pounds of boneless chicken breasts for the freezer. Oh, what a task it was!

A small local market had the boneless breasts on sale for only $1.49 per pound. An incredible buy! Usually the cheapest one can ever find them around here is $1.79/lb. We bought 40 pounds and then our daughter & husband purchased half of the chicken from us.

Usually we only buy about 5 pounds at a time, and then my hubby and I usually package the chicken together. That makes it a lot easier. Today I tackled the job myself because he had other responsibilities.

While packaging the chicken, I also lined a baking dish with parchment paper and arranged 3 of the chicken pieces in it, then sprinkled with salt & pepper and spread with barbecue sauce to refrigerate and bake later for Monterey Chicken. I was happy to have 3 less pieces to package up.

It will be nice to have all of that chicken in the freezer for meals this winter. But for now, yes, I can truly say I am... chickened out.

A very sweet deal

Last night I did my grocery shopping. I am buying a few baking ingredients ahead each week with an eye to holiday baking. I had noticed in the sale flyer that our usual supermarket had Hershey's chocolate chips on sale for $1.89, so brought along my four 55¢ coupons to see if it worked out to be a better deal than the store brand.

We did a bit of shopping at Walmart first, so I checked the price of Hershey chips there. They were on sale for $1.50!! So with my coupons, I paid only 95¢ per bag of chocolate chips. To me, that's a very sweet deal indeed! Now, I'm off to put them to work in making some chocolate caramel apples...

"When the going gets tough..."

 

“... the tough go shopping!” I think the original saying was “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” But shopping works for me!

A week ago Saturday my husband surprised me by coming home from work and suggesting, “This would be a good day to spend in a store.” It was raining -- hard. None of the Saturday afternoon tasks he had planned could be done. I was only too happy to go along with his suggestion. The store he had in mind for himself was Lowe’s. I had any number of places nearby to Lowe's from which to choose.

It may be surprising, but I chose Wal-Mart. The Wal-Mart in the town we’d be in is much nicer and more well-stocked than the one in our own town. So I spent a couple of hours there, wandering the aisles and looking for things on my list. One particular goal of my search was to find a few items to spiff up my kitchen. I’d been so inspired by Kelly’s essay at FlyLady.net -- “The Cost of a New Kitchen” that I wanted to find a few simple items to help with that goal. I found some really cute place mats that featured all different fruits on a green-checked background. The walls in my dining area are sort of a retro green, and I have a strawberry theme in both kitchen and dining area. So these mats were perfect. And only 97¢ for two! I also bought a new dish drainer for my sink. I’ve only seen these items before in neutral colors like white or cream or brown -- but I found a RED one. It’s actually called “Intense Red” and looks perfect in my strawberry kitchen. And it makes me smile every time I look at it!

The other thing I was looking for was some sort of container to corral loose recipes I have stacked on one corner of my kitchen counter. I have an old, tall recipe file box there, but I seldom use the recipes in it anymore. My most frequently used recipes I keep in a photo album kept with my cookbooks -- works perfectly. And I have an expandable file folder full of clipped recipes to try. But most of these on my counter are recipes I use quite a bit and don’t have room for in the photo album. I think inevitably I am going to have to buy another one of those, but knowing me, I also know there will probably always be a stack of loose recipes on my counter. What I want to do is reorganize a lower cabinet and be able to free up enough space to store the old tall file box in there. I can’t just throw those recipes out -- they are from my childhood and my kids’ childhoods, and every now and then somebody asks me for one of them. Then for the loose recipes -- well, what I found was, I think, intended to be a planter. It’s galvanized metal, long and narrow, with an embossed ivy design. I think it will hold my recipes just fine, and look neater and decorative at the same time. I plan to put index cards in it for dividing the recipes into categories. We’ll see if it works. If not, I can always use it as a planter! Now, to get that cupboard reorganized...

We also went to a consignment shop that day. I had hoped to find some clothes -- I’ve lost quite a bit of weight and need to find some smaller, inexpensive things -- but I didn’t find what I was looking for. I did, however, buy 2 books -- a Gooseberry Patch Christmas book #2 which I passed on to my daughter, since I have that volume, but it’s a keeper and I knew she would use it -- and a hardcover book on making crafts to sell that has some really practical ideas in it.

We ended our rainy-day outing with supper at a favorite diner. It was such fun to dash in out of the pouring rain to a warm, bustling place full of good cheer and comfort food. (I ordered breakfast.)

What a wonderful way to spend a rainy afternoon!