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Gingerale
Peaches loves gingerale, especially with cranberry juice, so I decided to try making it myself. This recipe gets his seal of approval — it tastes great, gingery and lightly carbonated.
Ingredients:
- 3/4 tablespoons grated fresh ginger root
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/8 teaspoon active dry yeast
- Juice of half a lemon
- water
Directions:
Pour ginger, sugar, yeast, and lemon juice into an empty 1-liter container, and fill the rest with water.
Screw on the cap on as tightly as possible. Shake the bottle well, and leave at room temperature for two days.
Refrigerate. To serve, pour through a tea strainer.
(Adapted from Allrecipes)
Pumpkin Butter
Ingredients:
- 1 (29 ounce) can pumpkin puree, approx. 3 1/2 cups
- 3/4 cup apple juice
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- Juice of half a lemon
Directions:
- Combine pumpkin, apple juice, spices, and sugar in a large saucepan; stir well. Bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes or until thickened. Stir frequently. Adjust spices to taste. Stir in lemon juice, or more to taste.
- Once cool, pumpkin butter can be kept in an airtight container in the fridge.
(Adapted from Smitten Kitchen)
Cranberry Pear Sauce
Core peel three or four pears, chop them up, and put them in a pot. Pour cranberry juice over them, leaving about an inch unsubmerged. Bring to a boil while stirring. Add a pinch each of salt and cardamom and a tablespoon or so of honey or sugar. Now reduce to a simmer and cover the pot, letting it cook on the stove for an hour or two. Stir occasionally. Let it cool, and then use a blender to puree the mixture until it is the texture of applesauce. This delicious concoction tastes great on toast (french-style or otherwise), pancakes, and whatever else you can think of.
The Perfect Bag
I have always looked for the perfect bag. Big enough to fit all my things — camera, glasses, money, moleskine — but small enough not to be bulky. The strap needs to be a certain length, the pockets a certain size and variety, etcetera. I may sound picky, but this is something I carry around with me everywhere. So, I finally gave up and made my own bag.
The upholstery store had some cheap leftover canvas. I used heavier stuff for the outside, and some thinner stuff as a liner. I also used some pretty cotton scraps my mom had lying around for an outside pocket and the flap liner. The little bunny on the corner I felted and sewed on. The whole thing is hand back-stitched.
I call it a “baby monk bag” because it’s about half the size of those vermillion bags Buddhist monks and hippies carry around. KC and I tried so very hard to find them in Dharamsala, but in vain; everyone seemed to have them except the vendors!
Did it take a long time? Yes. Was it worth the effort? Definitely! It may not be perfect, but it’s the best bag I ever had.
Mr Bunton
Another project! My first attempt at felting was a success. I have named my pink felt bunny after my brother’s teacher, whose name is a curiosly good one for bunny, I think.
Max is worried that I will start knitting next…
Pally the Bear
It took me a long time to get to sleep Saturday, for a little teddy bear had popped into my brain and demanded to be made. The next day I couldn’t stop thinking about him, how I would make him, what material I would need, etc., all during our hiking and walking around the Waitakeries and Muriwai beach. But now, after two days of construction and only a few hiccups, my second sewing project is complete. Meet Pally!
I named him Pally because just as Pallas Athena was born fully-formed from her father’s head, Pally was born from mine — and he turned out exactly how I first imagined him. Plus, you know, there’s the obvious punnery.
The Friendship Game
A board game for 2 to 4 players.
The goal of this game is to gain friends and effort points. Players take turns rolling a 4-sided dice and moving around the board. The exception is a roll of four, which gives you an extra effort point. If you land on a green “Hyla” square, you get 2 effort points plus 2 per friend. If you land on an event, move to the last space in that event. Add up the number of points on each friend card and remove that many effort points. If you don’t have enough points, discard any one friend. If you end up with extra effort points, you can make new friends. Discard one point to draw a friend. You can get a maximum of 3 friends per event.
You can also use effort points to make close friends during an event. Add any amount of effort points to an existing friend to increase the points listed on that friend. This means you discard more effort points per event, but the friend becomes worth more points in the end. Close friends may not be discarded, but if you have no choice, remove one effort point from one of your close friends instead. You can’t make close friends of friends you just got, and you can make up to 3 close friends per event. Effort points can also be saved up for later events.
It does not matter who makes it to the end first. All the other players continue playing until they reach the end. Once everyone has finished, add up all friend and close friend points. The highest scorer wins.
Mango
Mango is one of those games that needs more than luck. It requires you to stare into your opponent’s eyes and figure out what card to play. You’ll need two or more players to play.
Let’s make you the dealer. Deal every player 7 face-down cards, including you. Everyone can look at their cards to see what they have. Split the rest of the cards into two equal piles (though if they’re not equal, it doesn’t really matter), and put them on to the middle of the table, face-down, about 1 1/2 cards length apart. Take the top card of one of the piles and put it in between the two piles. This is the start of the Mango, the middle pile where most of the play happens. The player to the dealer’s left goes first, then play goes around to you.
Let’s say it’s your turn now. You have a couple of choices. Pick a card from your hand and put it down on the Mango, take the top card from one of the side piles and put it on the Mango, or take the top card from your stockpile and put it on the Mango. The last one doesn’t apply to your first turn (or in some cases, your first few turns), when you don’t have a stockpile yet. If this card is higher than the one before it, you take the whole Mango, and put it face-down on top of your stockpile. If you don’t have one yet, this will be the start of your stockpile.
If you put down a card lower than the one before it, it just stays there.
If the card is the same, the first two to slap the side piles (one per pile, of course) get to battle for it.
They both take off the top card of the pile they slapped, and turn them over. Whichever is higher takes the Mango and both of the new, turned-over cards. If these cards are both the same, do it again until someone wins. In this game, Aces beat Kings, but 2’s can beat aces. If you take the Mango, you need to put a new card down to start a new one. This card can’t be from your stockpile, though. If this was your last card you just put down to start a new Mango, the next person can have a turn to try to take the card.
Whoever gets rid of all their cards first gets 10 extra points, and the play stops. Everyone scores the cards in their stockpiles (and include the extra 10 points for the “first one out”), and the one with the most points wins. That means that you can win even if you aren’t first one out.
Scoring is very simple. Aces are 14, Kings are 13, Queens are 12, Jacks are 11, and everything else is face value. If you want to play with Jokers, they don’t count as anything, but can beat anything lower than an Ace. After you’ve played a few times, you’ll get the hang of it all, and even develop some strategy!
Chicken
A card game for 2 or more players.
Shuffle a complete deck of cards. Put it in the middle of the table. Play goes around to the dealer’s left. There’s an odd way to draw cards in this game. On everyone’s first turn you draw a card. Then you draw another card. If this one is a different color than the last one, you stop. Otherwise, you keep drawing until this happens. After your first turn, you also have the option of discarding a card instead. If you have more than 7 cards, you can discard as many as you want, as long as you have at least 7 cards in your hand after discarding. You can also take the top card card of the face-up discard pile instead of drawing or discarding. Your aim is to match your cards into 4 of a kind (worth 10 points) or 4 or more in sequence (worth 5 points for 4 cards, plus 2 for each extra card – ace is high and low). At the end of your turn, you can go out. Everyone must show their hands. Anything that doesn’t match up subtracts one point from your final score. The highest score wins.