Knife tips

**Tips from Brittany's Kitchen**
Today we are going to talk about knives.

Go grab your block of knives (or any that are in your house for that matter) and come read this.

Look at the handle of your knives. Can you actually see the metal going all the way down the handle? There should be little metal pegs that hold the pieces together. that means that if you fully disassemble your knife, the blade would still have a handle. A metal one. THIS IS GOOD!
If the whole handle is just plastic (or whatever) toss it! In MOST cases, this means that the metal actually only goes down less than an inch into the handle. Press down too hard, the blade will separate from the handle and you could lose an eye. No joke.
I see these things returned at the store from broken handles all the time.
So you can still buy cheap knives, just check the handle first!! Could save you ;)

Outdoor Needle-Point

Ok, so after 24ish hours (that's seriously how many hours I logged on this project, not including sleep, cooking, etc.) I have finally completed my outdoor needle-point project. I wanted to make some artwork for my potting table that I have in the backyard, and yup, that's exactly what the area needed.

So, if you are ambitious, or you just want a project to work on nightly for weeks, lol. This is the one for you! Just remember....IT'S VERY TEDIOUS AND TIME-CONSUMING!

Outdoor Needle-Point

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-boards for frame (What size you chose depends on how thick you want the frame and how large you are doing your artwork. Bigger artwork=bigger frame.......I chose 1x4's)

-different colors of yarn to suit whatever picture you are making

-window screen

-stain

-spray polyurethane

-yarn needle

-staple gun

-sandpaper

-chaulk

1. Make your frame to whatever dimentions you want. Miter the corners to 45 degree angles.

2. Assemble your frame. Make sure you drill pilot holes where you will be screwing this together or the boards with chip. Drill the holes near the the edges aiming towards the neighboring board.
3. Once the frame is assembled, sand it down (or not, whatever) to give it a nice finish

4. Stain the frame. Outdoor paint can also be used, but in my experience, the solid stain works better than any paint.

5. Once that's dry, staple your screen (keep in taught!) to the backside. Trim away any excess.

6. Draw your picture on the screen in chalk. Small chaulk works best.

7. Thread the yarn through the needle eye. Don't make the string all the way double like you would do in sewing! With the increase in size, the yarn will just wear down faster when you thread it through. Just keep it double long enough so that the yarn won't come out of the needle.

8. Tie a knot in the very end of the yarn so it won't fit through the screen holes. You may need to knot it a few times.

9. Start threading it through the screen, folling your design. Play with different techniques and patterns. You will notice that on mine: the flower I did in a circular style, the middle of the flower I did a bullseye, and the leaf I did half going horizontally half vertically.
10. Once you get that all finished (days later) spray it down with polyurethane. You will need quite a few coats, and let dry between each coat.

11. After this, I just stuck mine up on the shelf, but if you want to hang it, get some hardware and stick it up! Wala!

Beer recipes, Honey Ham, and Biscuits

We like our beer up here in the north woods. So I'm making it Beer Day today. And I made some pretty good food yesterday, I'm going to bombard you with some recipes today.

Today's supper:

Wisconsin Beer and Cheese Soup
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Paprika and dried Thyme to taste
1 can of beer (I use Miller lite)
4 cups water
4 chicken bouillon cubes
1/2 large onion
4 garlic cloves
1 lb of cheese (I like mild or sharb cheddar, but colby tastes good, too)
1 cup milk
2 tbs butter

1. Get out your crock. I used my 4 qt. (Notice I like the 4 qt for soups?)
2. Throw in the paprika, thyme, beer, water, cubes, milk and butter.
3. Throw the 1/2 onion and garlic into a food processor until it's all finely minced. Toss that in the crock
4. Cut up the cheese into cubes and toss that in.
5. Cook on high for 1 hour. (Sometimes the cheese isn't melted all the way yet, so you can leave it for longer if it's not.)
****DON'T LET THIS SOUP SIT FOR TOO LONG ON HIGH, THE CHEESE WILL CLUMP AND CURDLE. IF YOU NEED TO HAVE IT SIT FOR A WHILE B/C OF A PARTY, USE VELVETTA!!!***
I like to toast up some french bread in the oven and dip that in the soup. Yummy!



Double Beer Brats
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Made just like regular beer brats, but I buy pre-packaged beer brats and start the whole process.
I used another crock just b/c I don't feel like lifting a finger tonight for supper.
Beer brats
Beer
Water
1. Dump in 2 cans of beer into the crock
2. Add 2 cups of water.
3. Add a pkg. of beer brats and let sit for a few hours.
You can serve it just like that, or pop them onto the grill afterwards. Your choice.

*NOTE* To all those parents who are scolding me for serving up beer foods, if beer is cooked, all the alcohol is cooked out. So don't worry, you're not getting your kids drunk. Anyone from "da Nort'" should know this.


Yesterday's supper:

Biscuits with Sausage Gravy
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Country gravy mix
smoked sausage
bakery mix

I use bakery mix instead of doing this from scratch. I cheated. You can cheat further by just buying premade biscuit rolls.

1. Preheat the oven to 450.
2. Biscuits : 3 1/3 cups bakery mix 1 1/4 cup water or milk mix that all up
3. Grease up a pan and lay the biscuit dough all over it.
4. Bake 10 minutes
5. Gravy: I cheated with the mix packet. Make the gravy as directed on the packet. Then add finely chopped smoked sausage.
6. Take the biscuits out of the oven, slice it into squares with a pizza cutter, then dump the gravy all over it.


Honey Ham
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Ham
Honey (hehe, duh)

1. Get out a griddle or a large flat pan. Dump a crazy amount of honey in it. Heat it up
2. Thinly slice your ham. I did mine about 1/4 inch
3. Start frying it up. Make sure to get both sides

Your honey may take a weird reddish color after a while, but don't worry, it's normal. It'll still taste good.


So that's all the recipes that I have for you! I am currently working on my outdoor needlepoint project. It took me 12 hours straight yesterday, and I'm not even halfway finished! I had NO IDEA that it would be this much work! But it is very calming, so I'm not complaining. Once I get it done, hopefully by tomorrow, I will post a how-to. Stay tuned!!

Coming up next...

What a vacation! Highlights:
-Birthday party was fun. My nephew is now 1! Happy Birthday Ethan!
-My daughter got at least SOME sleep in the hotel. Kid vomited in the pool, so we couldn't swim until the morning. Ugh.
-The Brewers took the game against the Cardinals in the 10th inning. Really exciting game!


Anyways, so I'm back at home and waiting for some good weather to finish some projects of mine. Does it seem like I'm always crafting up some project? Yeah, that's because I always am. Either crafting or remodeling. That's my thing.

Anyways, future How-To's:
-Garden Room Divider (needed a craft to get rid of a heap of chicken wire that I happen to have)
-Outdoor Needlework artwork
-Rock Mosiac Wall hanging
-Jazzed up Flower Boxes

Good-bye for now

A little heads-up: I will be gone for the next couple of days. Tomorrow we are heading down-state for my nephew's 1st birthday.
Then we are staying at a hotel and going to a Brewer's game on Monday! Yay! It's my first this season. We won't be getting back until late Monday night. So there won't be any new fun things for a few days.
But......I will be sure to bring my camera, so I will definately post pictures as soon as I can!