Imaginarium, a Scrap Baby Quilt

Imaginarium, a charm quilt for baby

This is a baby quilt, made from leftovers from a quilt which I am making for myself.  It is a little fancier than most charm quilts.  Charm quilts are named for their 'charm' because they are made from scraps which sometimes do and sometimes do not blend well.  Charm quilts tend to be more funky and campy than their sister-quilts-- matched piece quilts.  A unique feature of this quilt is that it has some of the prairie points and flat trim from the big quilt, and it adds interest and detail. 

There are some jokes or funny parts to this quilt that will make you laugh if you're a quilter.  I'll let ya in on the secret.  A beginner quilter might make borders such as the stripe and print here, and might attach one edge backward or going to same direction as the other side as I have done.  Experienced quilters would never do that because it violates the rules of symmetry.  However, Fluffy I am and Fluffy I do, so here the borders on both sides are going in the same direction.   It was a conscious choice. 

Another quilter's joke is that in places you'll find prairie points or flat trim, and not in other places that one would expect to see the same thing.  So happens that I made up some extra length of these and attached them to sashing, only to destine them to the cutting-room floor. 

Here I have followed the old legal maxim of equity, known to law students throughout time from Black's Law Dictionary (or Prosser on Torts) "You take your victim as you find him."  In law, it means that a tort defendant is liable for the outcome even if a tort Plaintiff or victim is extraordinarily impacted.  If you trip a waiter with brittle bones simply in revenge because of poor service, you must pay the price of the damage you do, even if an average waiter would not suffer greatly from being tripped.  Likewise, I've 'taken my victim as I found him' in my scrap pile.  Some strips with Prairie Points don't have a full row.  Well, tough cookies.    My goal was to quilt up that mess in the floor.  The result is that you have a few unexpected things happening on this quilt.

This juvenile quilt top is for sale as a top ($100) or fully custom machine quilted, batted and backed with the contrast or match fabric of your choice ($300).    

Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingersnap Crust

This recipe is adapted from one I found at Allrecipes.com.  Did you know that the old fashioned way to cook a pumpkin is to put it in the oven?  Just rinse it, and put it in the oven, about 350 for an hour or so.  This is also a good way to cook squash.  No fussing over cutting... and this method gives no worries about some of the pumpkin being too done while other parts remain uncooked.  In about an hour, go back and turn it off.  Leave it there.  Let it cool for an hour or half a day.

You can make your own pumpkin puree, and it will taste fresher and more pumpkin-y than canned pumpkin (although the latter is really convenient and less messy).   I use a TV tray for cleaning pumpkin, because it might be too messy for a regular cutting board.  Just slice it into fourths, and use a spoon to scoop away the seeds and strings.  Then pare the skin off easily with a knife.  Cut into chunks.  If you have a food processor, you can whiz it, but don't add liquid.  Another way to puree the pulp is in a mixer for a long time. 

Gingersnap Crust:
Crush and whiz (in a food processor or blender) 1/2 cups of gingersnaps and 1 cup of graham crackers.  You want a fine mix, and I sift mine thru a sifter, because the gingersnaps sometimes don't chop up.  Add 2-3 tablespoons of sugar, and 1/2 to 3/4 of a stick of butter.  I like to put my butter in the microwave for 15 seconds because I rarely have it at room temp when I begin.  This, you press into the bottom of a springform pan.  I don't have a springform pan, so I use a square 9x9 pyrex glass baking dish, a round custard dish or a 9x14 glass pan.  Just put it back in the fridge till you add the filling, and it can be hardening.

Mix 16 oz of cream cheese till creamy, and add 1/3 cup of brown sugar.  Here's where my recipe is a jazzed-up version of the online classic:  While my cream cheese is getting fluffy, I use authentic whole spices that I grind, crush or grate, myself.  I just put those on top of  the pumpkin puree that I will be adding.

I use about a teaspoon of cloves, taking just the buttons off of the top.  (Toss the 'forks' into your simmering potpourri, as they are tough.)  I crush them on an old Cherokee grinding rock using a round Cherokee stone that I found in the woods.  You could use a bowl and pestle. 

I use about a tablespoon of cinnamon that I got when travelling in the Carribean.  If you go South, don't miss a chance to visit a grocery store or town marketplace somewhere like Montego Bay.  You can get amazing fresh spices, whole, and they'll keep for a year or more if you don't refigerate them and leave them whole till ready for use. 

I crushed a fourth of a nutmeg.  That would be about 1/2 teaspoon.

I used fresh ginger root, grating it on a grater... about a tablespoon and that is a lot.

Add a cup of pumpkin puree and these spices, scraping down your bowl edges to incorporate all the cream cheese.

Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla.  Or, you could also use a spoon of Frangelico at this step instead.

You'll get a creamy mix, richer than pumplin pie mix.  Gently pour it into the crust, and pop that into the oven.  Turn the oven to 350.  Add a big pot of water to the bottom to keep your cheesecake moist and avoid cracking.  Cook for 30 minutes or until the edges are puffy and the middle still jiggles.

There's a trick here:  You want to keep your oven steamy, so don't be opening and closing the door a lot.  Treat it like a souffle.

After 30 minutes, turn the heat down to 325, and set the timer for 15 minutes.  Make this topping:

1 cup sour cream
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon Frangelico

You can use Vanilla if you don't happen to have Frangelico.  (Frangelico comes from the liquor store and some people use it as a coffee flavoring.  It is rather expensive, and has a flavor of hazelnut and berries.)

When your topping is made, gently take the cheesecake out of the oven and pour this evenly over the top.  Avoid moving it around with a spoon if you can, so it won't break into the cake which is still cooking.  Then put it back in the oven, turn off the oven at the end of the timer above, and just leave it there for an hour, in the oven, still cooking but at an ever-lower temp.  After an hour you can take it out, insert a knife around the edges so it will shrink without splitting, and put it back into the cooling oven until both oven and cake are at room temp.

Now, for the hard part.  Cover it with foil and stick it in the oven to chill and set up overnight.  Next day, Eat It.

This is a great upscale recipe for holiday visits, but the cream cheese makes it dangerously rich and fattening.    Once in a while, it won't hurt ya.  Enjoy!  And do post any variations that you try.

The Talking Potholder

"Ouch, This is hot!" said the talking potholder, when she used it to take nice cinnamon bread out of the oven, so it could be drizzled with orange glaze and a handful of chopped almonds.  But really, the Talking Potholder didn't mind too very much, because after all, being a potholder was the only life it had ever known.

Stripey Potholder with Pink

Stripey Potholder with Pink Thingy

Potholder of the Day Club here, delivering your Potholder Eye Candy for Tuesday November 23rd.  For a week now, I've been featuring my hand-dyed funky potholders.  These are little utilitarian jewels of art, ready to take a center stage in your kitchen.  Or, if you kitchen doesn't have a stage in it, then I guess you could hang one of these on the Spoon Drawer Handle.

One-eyed Panther Butterfly Lemon Berry Potholder

I guess this potholder sorta looked like a face, so I added an eye.  The berry-colored fuschia is hand-dyed fabric, and the whole shebang is lined with not only nice cotton but alsy a heat resistant barrier.  You cannot tell it, but it is oversized for easy cookie retrieval.  A potholder in the series called:  Potholder Series.

The Potholder Series: Moccasin Nose

The silliest potholder you've ever seen is this "Moccasin Nose" potholder, made of hand-dyed fabric (by me) and then sillied-up with a reproduction Depression-Era flour sack print. So atypical that Google will have a hard time figuring out what advertisements to put on the page with depression-era moccasins, noses and hand dyed fabrics.  The Potholder Series continues, so stay tuned for tomorrow's mystery.

Color Burst Paris, a Funky Potholder

Today's wee little piece of fun artisan potholder is called Color Burst Paris.  Or, if you wish, Colorburst Paris.  The Paris print at lower left is a reproduction fabric from the Drepression Era.  And that gorgeous piece of color in the middle is one of my hand-dyed pieces.  These are for sale at my Etsy store, so stock up in time for The Cooking Season.