Make a grocery store flower arrangement

October 7, 2015 alaskaknitnat 4 Comments

Happy October! As I glance out the window at the trees half shed of their leaves and the drizzly, cold rain, I am eager for the festivities of fall.

In celebration of Halloween, my blogging friends Leslie Shroyer (a.k.a. AK Shopgirl) and Tess Weaver of Tessie Style and I are collaborating to present fresh, fun and accessible Halloween ideas and do-it-yourself tips. Each week during our Halloween Blog Party we will curate a collection of costumes, décor, crafts, and last-minute ideas focused on a weekly theme. Local traveling speakeasy, The Sawbuck, will contribute craft cocktail recipes, and DJ Spencer Lee will create a playlist to complete the party.

This week Leslie takes the reins with “Where the Wild Things Are.”

You just have to check out her darling DIY costumes for children and adults.

I thought I’d give a brief tutorial on how to arrange grocery store flowers for a “Where the Wild Things Are” theme party — or if you just want to spruce up your living room on the cheap.

It’s by no means my most impressive arrangement, but it only takes a few minutes to put together and I feel as though I’ve accomplished something by doing it.

Here’s what you’ll need:

The safflowers, $8 at Fred Meyer, remind me of the character Max’s crown as he parades through the forest with the wild things. The vase, a Mason jar painted like mercury glass, was just $4.50 at JoAnn Fabrics. The mixed bouquet was $5 and the baby’s breath was $1.60 a stem at Alaska Wholesale Flower Market.

First, fill your vase with water and stir in the flower food packet. The packet came with the flowers, so you might as well use it, but it’s of course optional.

Next, trim the baby’s breath so about three inches of the blooms stick out of the vase. This acts as the framework and velcro for the arrangement. Without it the other flowers would flop around. Baby’s breath keeps it all in place.

Start cutting away the safflowers and placing the short stems around the lip of the vase. Try and get the leaves to curl around the lip. This gives the arrangement more continuity.

A good tip for trimming stems is to bring the vase to the edge of the table and line the stem up to the vase. Determine what height you prefer and cut the stem at an angle so it draws up water more easily, thus prolonging its vase life.

Start filling out the arrangement with the remaining flowers. Stagger the heights of the yellow flowers and have them point in different directions if you’re going to have the arrangement be a centerpiece. That way it’s lovely from all angles.

A rule of thumb is to use an odd number of focal blooms. It’s more pleasing to the eye, I suppose.

Add other flowers here and there, filling in any gaps in the baby’s breath, until you like what you see.

Now place your arrangement in a calming spot and revel in the fact that you just did something nice for yourself.

Check back all month for more Halloween crafts and tutorials. Take a peek at what akshopgirl is up to this week so you can have your own wild rumpus.

appetizers, Cooking, recipes, side dishes, snacks

Fried Green Tomatoes

October 5, 2015 alaskaknitnat 3 Comments

In our family, home is where the kitchen is. This week we are visiting family in Pittsburgh. My kid sister just moved into a cavernous brick home in Lawrenceville, coincidentally the neighborhood where my husband was born.

Her kitchen is absolutely Pinterest perfect and I couldn’t wait to cook in there.

This evening we stopped by a farmers market full of squash, zinnia bouquets, goat cheese and apple cider. We picked up some green tomatoes and made them as a light dinner.

Here’s a quick post about how my sister prepares them.

Fried Green Tomatoes

Ingredients:

Serves 4

4 medium green tomatoes, sliced into 1/4 thick slices
1/2 cup cream of wheat
1/4 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp chili powder
1/8 tsp cayenne powder
Ground pepper
Pinch of salt
2 eggs
Peanut oil

In a shallow bowl, mix together the Cream of Wheat, paprika, chili powder, cayenne, pepper and salt. Whisk the eggs in another shallow bowl.

Add half a fingernail’s depth of oil to a cast iron skillet and turn heat to high.

Dredge the tomatoes in the egg and then in the breading.

When oil is glistening, add tomatoes in one layer in the pan. You may need to fry them in three or four batches.

Fry for a few minutes on each side, till browned. Place on a paper towel-lined plate. Sprinkle lightly with salt.

Serve as-is or with a yogurt dipping sauce. Recipe below:

Yogurt Herb Dipping Sauce

Ingredients:

1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt
1/4 cup sour cream
1/8 tsp. smoked paprika
dash of garlic powder
1 tsp. chopped fresh herbs such as oregano, basil or parsley
salt and pepper to taste

Mix together all the ingredients. Serve with fried green tomatoes.

alaska, Flowers, weddings

Alaska Weddings: Audra + Chris

September 25, 2015 alaskaknitnat 1 Comment

Last month I got to create wedding flowers in Arctic Valley. Today I was at the top of Alyeska. What a fun experience! My assistant and I got to cram all the flowers into the tram and ride to the top of the mountain. Audra and Chris are tying the knot at Seven Glaciers Restaurant, a dining experience with unparalleled views of Alaska.

Alaska Weddings: Audra + Chris | Bliss at the top of Mount Alyeska — Riding up the tram was a unique floral experience.

The bride selected white hydrangeas, ivory garden roses, white tulips, football mums and blush vadella roses. What a perfect palette for a mountain top soirée — especially since it started snowing as we were setting up!

Continue reading Alaska Weddings: Audra + Chris →

alaska, Cooking, recipes, Tutorials

Harvesting Anchorage: Pickling and Canning Beets

September 16, 2015 alaskaknitnat Leave a comment

I’m thrilled to introduce fellow Anchorage blogger, Ashley Taborsky, in this week’s “Harvesting Anchorage.” Ashley is the woman behind Alaska Urban Soil Project where she aims to create an “online community of fellow urban hippies who want to get into Alaskan backyard farming.”

This gal is diving deep into Alaska gardening and I admire her for her tenacity and willingness to try new things.

Throughout the summer I’ve been blogging about how I interact with the wild foods of Anchorage and Alaska, but you’ll notice that I don’t garden. It’s partially due to my hectic working mom/florist/other stuff schedule, part laziness and also that I don’t have an easily accessible water source in my yard (ok, this equates to laziness. I just don’t want to stretch my hose to the other side of my lawn where we actually get sun).

Ashley is obviously more determined than I am to produce her own food and it appears that she is succeeding. This is why I thought she would be a great guest to talk about how she harvests Anchorage in her own back yard.

Check out her site for lots of DIY projects and recipe ideas. Today I’ll be passing the mic to Ashley to let her talk about pickling and canning her homegrown beets.

Continue reading Harvesting Anchorage: Pickling and Canning Beets →

alaska, breakfast, Cooking, recipes

Harvesting Anchorage: Lowbush Cranberry Marmalade

September 9, 2015 alaskaknitnat 2 Comments

I know it’s a superb fall when I close my eyes at night and all I see behind my eyelids are lowbush cranberries.

Blood-red jewels hug the mossy ground in my secret south Anchorage picking spot. It must have been the warm May weather that caused patches of usually dormant cranberry bushes to produce large, pea-sized berries.

What my family calls lowbush cranberries are, in fact, lingonberries. These short plants can be found in most Anchorage forests. They have round, shiny leaves and if there’s enough sunlight during the summer they bear tart, red berries.

I prefer these to highbush cranberries, which are more watery and have a big, oblong seed in each berry. Lowbush cranberries are opaque and have no seeds. They are also firmer than the highbush variety.

Cranberries are my favorite wild berry to pick because they are durable, highly nutritious and they freeze well. They can also be substituted for any recipe that calls for commercial cranberries.

I once again refer to my mama for this segment of “Harvesting Anchorage.” She’s a pro when it comes to cranberry marmalade. The cranberries have so much natural pectin there is no need to add any of the store-bought kind. This simple marmalade is a perfect addition to any breakfast table.

Cranberry Orange Marmalade

Ingredients:

3 oranges (or 2 oranges and 1 lemon)
Water
1/4 tsp. baking soda
8 cups wild lowbush cranberries
4 cups sugar

Directions:

Remove the skins of the oranges in quarters. Cover rinds with water and boil with baking soda for 15 minutes. Shave off as much of the white pith as you can from the rind and slice rind very thin.

An alternative method is to use a vegetable peeler to peel off the rind and slice it. If you choose this method you won’t need to boil the rinds since they are so thin.

Meanwhile remove the membrane from each orange segment and reserve the pulp in a bowl. Take the membranes in your hands and squeeze the remaining pulp and juice into the bowl. Discard the membranes. If you’re really lazy you could probably use a couple of cans of mandarins, drained and rinsed. I’ve never tried it, but it could work.

Combine pulp, rinds with their water, cranberries and sugar in a saucepan. Boil, stirring often, skimming off any foam.

Let the mixture boil down and thicken, about 15-18 minutes. Take a spoonful of the mixture and pour it back into the pot. If there are lots of frequent droplets, the mixture isn’t ready yet. If the drips are slow and turn into one big droplet, then it’s ready (that’s called “sheeting”). Turn off the heat and place a tablespoon of liquid in a bowl and place it in the freezer for about 3 minutes.

Remove sample from freezer and tip it slightly. The sample should stay put. If the jam slides around the bowl it means it’s not ready yet. Bring the jam back to a boil and continue stirring constantly for another 5 minutes.

Ladle jam into sterilized canning jars with brand-new lids. Fill leaving about 1/4 inch of space at the top. Add the lids and let cool. When you hear little pops that means the lids have sealed. If you’d like more details about canning I recommend this thorough tutorial from The Alaska Urban Soil Project.

If you’d like a different lowbush cranberry recipe, I recommend my simple cranberry and lemon muffins.

Here are my other recipes from the “Harvesting Anchorage” series:

Harvesting Anchorage: Mama's Blueberry Jam | A recipe from alaskaknitnat.com — Blueberry Jam

Spaghetti & Chicken in a lemon, thyme mushroom sauce | An original recipe from Alaskaknitnat.com — Spaghetti & Chicken in a Lemon Thyme Mushroom Sauce

Harvesting Alaska: Smoked salmon roe | a simple recipe from Alaskaknitnat.com — Smoked Salmon Roe

Wildflower tea

Harvesting Anchorage: Wild Rose and Rhubarb Cookies | A recipe from Alaskaknitnat.com — Wild rose and rhubarb cookies

Harvesting Anchorage: Spruce tips | Alaskaknitnat.com — Spruce tip gnocch

Birch tree tapping | Make your own birch syrup | Alaskaknitnat.com — Birch Syrup

Harvesting Anchorage: Devil's Club Pesto | A free recipe from AlaskaKnitNat.com — Devil’s Club Pesto

baking, Cooking, recipes

Back to School Recipe: Apple Apricot Bran Mini Muffins

August 30, 2015 alaskaknitnat Leave a comment

Our son starts preschool this week, which means I’ve got to mom up and start making snacks and lunches. I don’t plan on being some sort of super mom who prepares intricate bento boxes with pandas made out of cheese wheels and olives, but I do hope to serve my son healthy foods. Ok, I admit, we did buy fruit snacks and granola bars during our epic Costco run yesterday. I’m not perfect!

Here’s a recipe I came up with for healthy mini muffins. Apples, dried apricots, wheat bran — who cares what’s in it as long as it’s mini?

Apple Apricot Bran Mini Muffins

Makes about 48 mini muffins or 24 regular muffins

Ingredients:

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1.5 cups wheat bran
1.25 teaspoons baking soda
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 cups of milk + 1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup honey
1 egg
3 tablespoons coconut oil, melted
1 cup finely chopped apples, peeled
1/2 cup finely chopped dried apricots

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a mini muffin tin.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the flours, bran, baking soda, sugar, salt and cinnamon.

In a one-quart liquid measuring cup combine the milk, vinegar, molasses, honey, egg and coconut oil.

Pour the wet ingredients into the mixing bowl. The mixture should be like thick pancake batter. Stir in the apples and apricots. Spoon batter into muffin tins. Bake for 13 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool on a drying rack.

Store in an airtight container or freeze and defrost as needed.

alaska, Flowers, weddings

Alaska Weddings: Cara + Tyler’s Mountaintop Romance

August 29, 2015 alaskaknitnat 9 Comments

Most Anchorage residents would tell you that autumn is here. It arrived last Tuesday, to be precise. There was a nip in the air this morning as I made my way up the windy dirt road to Arctic Valley for my last gig of the wedding season.

Cara and Tyler chose a rustic theme for their wedding, which was fitting against the wilderness surrounding the Arctic Valley chalet. Burlap table runners dressed with vintage lace and slabs of raw birch logs surrounded by moss were just the right touch.

Cara chose pink, blush, white and sage green for the floral arrangements. The shabby-chic color palette complimented the rest of the decor perfectly.

I had the pleasure of working with feather-light garden roses, the color of rosy cheeks on a crisp autumn day.

The mother of the bride requested a garland over the birch tree wedding arch, which I was looking forward to creating. It was my first try at a garland and I constructed it sort of like a giant flower crown. I put the garden roses in water tubes and wired them in just before hanging to ensure the blooms lasted as long as possible.

What a truly wonderful close to my wedding season. This was a challenging, fun summer. I learned a lot through my experience of being a new florist on my own and I’m grateful to the brides who put their trust in me. I can’t wait for next summer!

baking, Cooking

Harvesting Seattle: Blackberry peach pepper pie

August 24, 2015 alaskaknitnat 1 Comment

Last weekend I had the pleasure of spending time in Seattle. Despite the smoky air, I made it a point to get outdoors and do some urban foraging. Blackberry brambles are abundant around the city. My best friend, her boyfriend, my sister and I headed out to Discovery Park and found several briars laden with sweet blackberries.

This wasn’t my first blackberry rodeo. Although it was a hot day I made sure to wear pants, shoes and socks. There’s good reason Sleeping Beauty was surrounded by a thick wall of brambles — these bushes are brutal! My friend Matt didn’t heed my pants advice.

We picked a quart of berries in about half an hour. I got a few unbelievably ripe, juicy peaches at Pike’s Market and we knew that pie was on the horizon.

I’m not a baker and I’ve probably made one pie in my life, but I was inspired by the blueberry pie at South Restaurant + Coffeehouse. I tasted it the other day and noticed a subtle, unusual ingredient: pink peppercorns. I don’t know if the pepper was in the crust or the filling, but I found a pretty cool recipe from the L.A. Times that incorporated blackberries, nectarines and pepper. I wanted to try it.

A big thanks to my best friend Jess for her pie lattice expertise because this pie was a winner inside and out!

We used 3 cups of blackberries and two cups of peeled, sliced peaches. We used honey instead of corn syrup. The ground pepper was incorporated into the crust and gives the pie a bit of zing.

After placing the bottom crust in the pan, we set a circle of parchment paper on the crust and used some dry beans as pie weights. Then we baked the bottom crust for about 15 minutes in the preheated oven, let it cool for about five minutes and added the filling.

We brushed the lattice with milk and sprinkled cinnamon and sugar on top.

Click here for the original recipe.

Crafts

Mini Anchorage Living — a child’s backyard dream house

August 16, 2015 alaskaknitnat 3 Comments

All summer my husband has been the quintessential handyman — ladder leaning against the house, body splayed across the roof, a hammer hanging from his Carhartts, screws sticking out of his mouth. Only this house is 10 square feet and lives in our back yard.

Last year my husband, Stephen, became my father’s apprentice and took up woodworking with unbridled gusto. We are slowly replacing our particle-board furniture with hardwood heirlooms. He has thoroughly impressed every one of our family and friends. I’ve even made him his own hashtag (#hubbycraft, if you’re interested in seeing some of his projects on Instagram).

My parents recently replaced their deck and Stephen diligently ran every discarded board through a planer. Twenty-five-year-old faded, mossy cedar planks turned out to be healthy, sturdy wood perfect for reuse.

In May, Stephen started working on the plans for our son Jack’s playhouse. He used the repurposed deck planks for the frame and the miniature wrap-around porch. He spent every non-working and sleeping moment perfecting the playhouse from the screened vents under the roof to the retractable rope ladder leading up to the loft.

Tiny Anchorage Living: a backyard dream house

At the end of July we were finally ready for the playhousewarming party. All of Jack’s buddies gathered for food, treasure hunts, pool splashing and a chance to break in the new house.

Stephen estimates he spent about $500 on the house — a worthwhile investment for years of yard fun.

Thanks to the interior design expertise of Fernanda Conrad. She was an immense help in staging the playhouse. Check out some of her regular-sized designs here.

Continue reading Mini Anchorage Living — a child’s backyard dream house →

alaska, Italian, Pasta, recipes

Spaghetti & Chicken with Lemon Thyme Mushroom Sauce

August 10, 2015 alaskaknitnat 1 Comment

Sometimes I just don’t want to plan dinner. Today was the case as I opened my fridge at 5:10 p.m. to figure out what to prepare for my family. I came up with frozen chicken breasts, frozen broccoli, lemon and fresh thyme. I was uninspired, but decided to put the frozen chicken in the pressure cooker and figure it out as I went along.

Then, when my son called me out to the yard to look at the newest addition to his playhouse, the best thing happened: I found two pristine king bolete mushrooms standing proudly under our large spruce trees.

I’ve been waiting all summer for this moment. King boletes are the most delectable of the mushrooms my family gathers and they happen to grow in my yard every summer from late July to early September. For the past three weeks I’ve been checking the areas under the spruce trees for these meaty, delicious fungi. They pop up overnight and you have to pick them when they are fresh otherwise bugs will lay claim to them.

As soon as I cleaned my two treasures I had formed a supper strategy. Lemon, thyme, mushrooms, broccoli, garlic, chicken and pasta — yeah, that’s a good combination. By 6:15 I had a decent meal that was a real crowd pleaser.

Of course you can use store bought mushrooms, but if you happen to have wild porcini, I encourage you to cook them as soon as you can.

Spaghetti & Chicken in a Lemon Thyme Mushroom Sauce

Serves 4

Ingredients:

2 frozen boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1-2 cups chicken stock
1 tsp. lemon zest
1 lemon, sliced
3 sprigs of fresh thyme
Salt and pepper
2 cups frozen broccoli florets
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 tablespoons butter
8 oz. fresh mushrooms, sliced
1/4 cup dry cooking sherry (optional)
2 tablespoons butter
3 garlic cloves, minced
8 oz. spaghetti
1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

Directions:

Place 1/2 cup of chicken stock in a pressure cooker. Line the bottom of the cooker with lemon slices. Add the frozen chicken, zest, thyme and salt and pepper. Set the pressure cooker to 35 minutes. When it’s done, slice the chicken into bite-sized pieces. Set aside and reserve the cooking liquid as well.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook pasta until al dente, drain and set aside.

Meanwhile, place broccoli and 1/4 cup chicken stock in a large sauté pan. Cover and steam over high heat for 5 minutes or until broccoli is tender. Set broccoli with stock aside.

In the same sauté pan, add the olive oil and 1 tablespoon of butter. Heat on medium-high and add the mushrooms. Sauté until mushrooms have given off their liquid and they begin to brown, about 7 minutes.

Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Pour in the sherry and let it evaporate, about 2 minutes.

Create a slurry with the flour and 1/4 cup chicken stock. Add this to the mushrooms and garlic. Once it’s thickened, add some of the stock from the pressure cooker until it’s a sauce-like consistency. Add some more butter if you want it creamier. Add the drained pasta, broccoli and chicken. Toss until evenly coated. Sprinkle with cheese and serve.