Rustic Fig Newtons

I have been a big admirer of The Pioneer Woman for quite some time now. I would just love to live her life. She has a commercial for her Food Network show where she states that if a recipe doesn't quite turn out like she planned, she calls it "rustic" and moves on. I have thoroughly embraced that idea. After years of following Martha and more recently Pinterest, there are just too many images of perfectly executed recipes out there. I am far from a chef and embracing this idea of "oh look, it's rustic" has helped me cope with some of my less-than-stunning creations.  These fig newtons are a classic example.
I got the recipe from Brave Tart, using the simplified ingredient list at The Faux Martha.  Check them out for the actual recipe specifics.

Lots of ingredients for this recipe, but I already had everything except for the figs.

To start the cookie/cake, I creamed the butter, sugar, baking soda, honey, cinnamon, vanilla and orange zest.

The butter needs to be soft. This is key.

Then goes in egg yolks, one at a time, and then the flour and finally some orange juice. The mixer needs to stay on while all this happens.

I wrapped the dough up and put in the fridge overnight to chill.

To make the filling, I diced up some figs as small as I could.

I added the applesauce, honey, cinnamon and orange zest. I don't have a food processor, so this is where I whipped out my handy masher... and I got a little busy mashing and forgot to take a picture. It took a while, but I ended with a pretty nice, but chunky, puree. A rustic puree, if you will.

 Then I rolled out the dough into rectangles and put down some of the puree.

I folded one half over the top and then rolled the whole log over to seal it with the double layer seam on the bottom.

The recipes called for baking them for about 12 minutes, but I baked mine for about 16 until they seemed done and then cut them into cookies.

They didn't turn out as pretty as I'd hoped, but they taste delicious. I'm calling them rustic and moving on. My taste buds can't tell the difference.



Create a Crossword!

I got hooked on crossword puzzles almost 10 years ago. A boyfriend's family did them regularly as a group and I would get so excited when I knew the answers, even if someone else shouted it out first. There was just so much satisfaction in deciphering the tricky clues and slowly filling in the grid. I started doing them at home with my mom and she got hooked too. Now she does the USAToday puzzle religiously. She'll bring me half-completed grids to see if I can add some more words. The day we finished our first puzzle without looking up any clues or looking at the answer grid was a happy day indeed. Mom proudly hung the puzzle on the fridge like an elementary art project.
Last summer, for my friend Alyssa's birthday, I decided to try making my own crossword puzzle for her. I did extensive research and then worried I was nowhere near awesome enough. It is truly an art. There are several websites I read and videos I watched that are amazing at explaining just how impressive a feat it is to make a crossword puzzle. These are my two favorite (neither of which are required viewings for the crossword I'll make further down in this update):
http://barelybad.com/crossword.htm - This man goes into great detail about everything involved in puzzles. Making them, doing them, and my favorite part: particularly brilliant ones. There are a lot of detours he mentions and I suggest taking them. They're jammed full of really interesting information.
http://www.ehow.com/videos-on_4422_make-crossword-puzzle.html - This is a 14 video series, which I know is a lot, featuring a man that I can't take seriously, but the information in it is amazing... and the videos are really short.

Back to my point: I really wanted to make a crossword for Alyssa, so I forged ahead following the basics of the how-tos I had found.

Step 1: Get A Theme And Get Some Words
For my crossword, the theme was a given: Alyssa's birthday. Her party was America themed, so between things related to Alyssa, America, Birthdays and our friendship in general, I had plenty of words to choose from. Professional crosswords can get really tricky and use whole phrases or sentences, but I stuck to simpler one, two or three word answers in varying lengths. The more words you have in your list, the more options you have to choose from when trying to get words to fit in the puzzle.  I came up with this list:

Stars and Stripes

God Bless America

United States

Washington

Presidents

Betsy Ross

Patriot

Birthday

Margarita

Tequila

Martini

Irish Pub

Grey Goose

Wine

America and Alcohol. What a great combination. :)


Step 2: Create A Grid
I'm going to assume you have a basic knowledge of Excel for this part, but any graph paper would also work.

A traditional crossword grid is 15 cells x 15 cells, but yours can be whatever size your heart desires. I made mine bigger so it could grow in any direction as I added words until I got the size I wanted.


Step 3: Add Words To The Grid

Next, start adding words from your list to the grid, making sure the words cross.

Keep adding words until you like the general shape. Square-ish is typically better than a lanky puzzle that seems to grow off in one direction. You may use all the words from your list, you may not. I didn't, but I got a lot of them in there, so I was happy. You could probably tweak a puzzle forever.

This next step is optional. If you're happy with only using your theme words in your puzzle, feel free to skip it. But my puzzle was a little sparse for my liking, so I wanted to add some unrelated words to fill in the blanks. Not every word in pulished crosswords relate back to the theme. Most are just words that fit in the blanks.

 Let's take for example the highlighted cells. I knew a word would fit there, I just didn't know what it was. The internet to the rescue. The website I used is called www.crosswordcluesolver.com. It's intended to help you solve a puzzle you're working on, but it works perfectly for my goal as well.

It asks how many letters are in the word and what letters I already have. I filled it with the H and the L from my puzzle.

It came back with 37 options!  All I had to do was choose which word I liked best and fill it in. From the list I'm showing here, I knew no normal person would ever know what a Chamal or a chanal was, so I chose chapel. (Pure coincidence that I chose the 3rd word on the list. I looked at all 37 before choosing it as the best option.)

And so CHAPEL joins my puzzle!

I did it again. These yellow squares looked like the perfect place for a word.

...like REBEL!

And I continued that process a bunch of times until my puzzle was really as full as I liked.

Then turn all the unused squares black. (I have erased some words from the original puzzle I gave to Alyssa to protect my good reputation. :) There's a big difference between a joke between friends and posting something on my blog.)

Step 4: Numbering The Grid

At this point, save the filled in grid. It will act as an answer grid and it will help you with writing clues later. 

Then erase all the words so we can start numbering.

Numbering starts in the upper left hand corner and moves across and then down just like reading a page. The next number will go in the next square that begins a word, regardless of if that word goes across or down. This can be a little tricky and I had to renumber this puzzle several times before finally getting it right.

So starting in the upper corner, the first across word get a 1.

 The next square starts a down word, so it gets a 2.

The next square doesn't start a word in either direction, so we move on and the square after that starts a down word, so it gets 3. This continues on until the whole grid is filled in. Not every square will get a number, but every word will start in a square with a number.

The grid with all the number filled in.

Step 5: The Clues

This is the best part of crosswords. Clues ultimately determine how tricky a crossword is to solve. They can be very straight-forward definitions or they can be witty little riddles. Say for example, you have a 5 letter word with an A in the middle: _ _ A _ _.  The clue is: "Heat Setting?". Might be tricky. But what if the clue was " ____ Vice" or "Home of South Beach"? It quickly becomes apparent that the answer is Miami. As the city, or setting, of the Miami Heat basketball team, Heat Setting is a completely accurate clue for Miami, but it's certainly not as obvious. After doing crossword puzzles for a while you pick up on standard tricks, like if a clue ends in a question mark, it's general something tricky or witty. Mom always groans when she sees those because she would have spent ten minutes thinking of all the thermostat or iron heat settings for that Miami clue and then smack herself when she finally realizes the answer. Those are my favorite crossword moments. Haha.

So starting with the word at 1 Across, write clues for each of your words. Like I mentioned, one option is that they can simply be definitions.

These definitions, taken from the CrosswordClueSolver website I mentioned, are good clues for chapel. But for something a little more creative, there's another website I like: www.CrosswordTracker.com.

This box appears in the upper right hand corner of the CrosswordTracker website. When I typed in CHAPEL, I got some more interesting clues.

This website gets its clues from actual published crosswords, that's what the "spotted 12 times" line refers to, so even if they're definitions, they're more creative wordings. I really liked  "____ of Love", which is the clue I used in Alyssa's puzzle.

Definitions, analogies, opposites and fill in the blanks are all good starting places for clues if you're stumped, but there's a whole world of other options out there, so try to think outside the box a little.

The most important part of writing clues is making the puzzle fun for the solver. If they're not the kind of person who thinks outside the box, then "Place to tie knots" is probably not the best CHAPEL clue since they may never make it away from literal knots at boats or boy scout camps. "Wedding setting" may be a better option. You don't want your solver to get so frustrated they give up. .. unless that's your goal, in which case, you're a sick, sick person.

Bonus Step: Word Scramble

To make things that much harder for Alyssa, I added a word scramble. I went back to the filled in puzzle and located all the letters that spelled out one of her presents: a set of MUSTACHE SHOT GLASSES. I turned those squares into patriotic colors. Once she solved the entire puzzle, she could unscramble the letters and get her present.

So her final puzzle looked like this:

(Like I mentioned before, I deleted a few specific clues and answers, so her actual puzzle had clues at all the numbers.)

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Alyssa LOVED her puzzle.

While making a crossword puzzle isn't rocket science, it's also not a walk in the park, but for me, it was totally worth it to see how much fun Alyssa had solving it. (And she solved the entire thing!)

Make one of your own and let me know how it goes!

Easter Wreath

Easter is such a refreshing holiday. It symbolizes hope and renewal, both spiritually and seasonally. After a long, albeit mild, wonderful winter here in Atlanta, even I'm enjoying the change. I've put away my heating blanket and my winter coats. I've planted my garden out on the balcony. I'm welcoming spring with open arms. And of course, decorating for it.

While rummaging around on Pinterest, I found this great wreath DIY courtesy of Courtney at A Diamond In The Stuff:

I knew it would be perfect for over my tv, so I made my own to match my decor.

I started out with many of the same materials: a wooden frame with its mat, a grass square, easter eggs, a butterfly and nest, paint and hot glue.

This is where I deviated though. I took the mat and colored it green then punched holes around it. I popped off each little grass cluster and shoved them through the holes.

I left a little section empty so I could attach a ribbon. I used almost all of the grass clusters.

I gave the rest to Emmy who plays with them nonstop all day.

I took my frame, sanded it a little, cleaned it up and painted it a pretty shade of lavender. I liked the blue in Courtney's frame, but my walls are blue, so I needed something else.

I found some ribbon in my stash that I thought looked Easter-y and tied it to the grass mat and then to the frame, so the grass hangs in the middle.

I hot-glued on some miniature glitter eggs I found 8 for .99 at Michael's. I love glitter.

I hung it over my tv and it brings a little Easter cheer to my apartment. I hung the grass off-kilter, much to the dismay of my brother, but I like it.
I had a butterfly, a little nest, and some much larger glitter eggs in the beginning, but I decided I liked mine better without those. Restraint and all that. Between the grass, the glitter eggs and the ribbon, there was enough going on.


And for a little garden update:

Back Row, l to r: beefsteak tomato, hybrid tomatoes in the long box, strawberries and cherry tomatoes.
Front Row, l to r: jalapenos, bell peppers, forget-me-nots (the only flowers in the bunch), hybrid tomatoes, bell peppers, onions (which aren't doing very well) and more jalapenos.

The three large round pots in the back contain new plants I purchased instead of growing from seed, which is why they are so much larger.
Most of the seedlings survived the transplants pretty well. I've only lost a few so far. I know they'll need to be transplanted again, but I need to wait for them to get larger and stronger.
I'm hoping to add a lime tree or bush to the balcony soon, so we'll see how that goes...