Apple Butter Festival

I meant to post this before I left for Chicago, but the internets weren't cooperating and I gave up. While I work on some posts about the Chicago trip, I'll post this one!

The Saturday before I left was New Columbia's Apple Butter Festival. I set up a stand to sell crocheted and baked goods. When I got up at 7AM, it was pouring, and I thought I wouldn't get to set up. It stopped a little before 8, though, so my mom and I ventured over.

There weren't a lot of people with stands. I don't know if that was all the people that signed up, or if some didn't show up because of the weather. It was kind of a shame, because it could be a nice little gathering. There were maybe 6 or 7 craft and baked good stands, including me; 4 food stands; a couple of games; a guy selling mums and fruit; and a junk stand/yard sale thing.

The wind was killer. At one point, it was so strong that it flipped one of my tables over, and the baked goods were only saved because my friend Sarah grabbed hold of the table! A couple of hours into it, it looked like rain again, so my mom went to my uncle's and got his EZ-Up tent, but we only had it up for a few hours since the wind kept trying to take it away.

I had quite a few crocheted items done - towels, dishcloths, hats, scarves, and snowflakes.



I also had half a dozen loaves of Peanut Butter Banana Bread and Chai-Spiced Bread, as well has two dozen Pumpkin Spice Whoopie Pies and S'more Rice Krispie Treats.



I didn't sell much crocheted stuff... just a few dishcloths and towels. My mom's friend bought a scarf the other day. If anyone would like to buy something, or see more pictures of stuff that I have left... or order something special for me to make, leave a comment or e-mail me!!

I sold almost all of the baked goods. I just had half of the Chai Bread loaves left, and half a dozen S'mores.

Overall, I feel like it was worth it. I had fun, despite the wind and the cold. I got to see some people I haven't seen in awhile, and I made a bit of a profit! If I'm around next year, I may go again, and maybe I'll look for more festivals to set up at!

Chai Tea - Spiced Bread

Whew! It has been way too long since I last posted. I just haven't had the ambition. My life of leisure has turned into a life of slackery. Slackerness? Slackerosity? Laziness.

The hostel is booked for my trip to Chicago! Just one more week! I still have to decide on the show(s) I want to see and get those tickets. My friend Marcy is going with me, and since it's just the two of us, we splurged on a private room. We still have to use the communal shower, but we won't have to sleep with 7 strangers, and we have a private half-bath. I'm so excited! This week, I think I'll print out directions from the hostel, to all the places I want to go. That way if we can't find something, we'll at least know how to get there from where we're staying. The fat kid in me is most excited for deep dish pizza.

It's also just one more week until the Apple Butter Festival. I have about half the stuff made that I want to get done. I need to step it up this week. I'll do all the baking the day before. I want to do a minimum of 2 dozen S'mores and Whoopie Pies, and half a dozen each of the breads. If I happen to have more time and ingredients, I'll make more. Speaking of baking, I tried the Chai Tea-Spiced Bread. It's pretty much awesome. Oh, and there are no tea leaves in it... like my mom thought. There's prepared plain tea, and then the Chai tea taste comes from the cloves, cardamom, and cinnamon.




Chai Tea-Spiced Bread

ingredients
3/4 C. sugar
1/2 C. butter - softened
1/2 C. prepared tea
1/3 C. milk
2 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
2 C. flour
2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. ground cardamom
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp. ground cloves

method
-Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease bottom only of a loaf pan with shortening or cooking spray.
-In a large bowl, beat sugar and butter with an electric mixer on medium speed, until fluffy. On low speed, beat in tea, milk, vanilla, and eggs until combined. (The mixture will appear lumpy/curdled.) Stir in the remaining dry ingredients until just combined. Spread the dough in the prepared pan.
-Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. (Do not underbake.) Cool in pan for 10-15 minutes, then loosen the sides and remove to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Glaze
In a small bowl, stir together 1 C. powdered sugar, 1/4 tsp. vanilla, and 3 Tbsp. milk. Add more milk by the Tbsp., until the mixture is a spreadable glaze. (Do not add too much milk, it will be runny.) Spread glaze over the cooled bread, and sprinkle with extra cinnamon.



Enjoy!

Working My Way to Chicago!

So I've made a couple of decisions the past few days.

Decision number one - I am setting up a stand at the New Columbia Apple Butter Festival. I'm not doing anything productive with my time, so why not crochet and bake to earn a little extra cash? I'm going to be selling...

Crocheted goods:
Scarves - $5
Hats - $4
Kitchen Towels - $3
Dishcloths - $1
Snowflakes - $3
Christmas Wall Decorations - $2

Baked goods:
Peanut Butter Banana Bread - $5
Chai Tea Bread - $5
Pumpkin Whoopie Pies - $1
S'mores Rice Krispie Treats - $1

I'm also toying with the idea of getting some waterfall, beach, and/or lake pics printed and matted to sell for $10. We'll see.... But the Festival is October 15th at the community center in New Columbia. You should all come buy things from me!

Decision number two is that I am going to Chicago. Since I started thinking about it, my unemployment kicked in, and now I'll hopefully make some cash from selling stuff, so I totally have the bank to go on an adventure. It's probably going to be for three nights, the third week of October. I'm going to stay in an awesome-looking but dirt-cheap hostel, see some shows, see the sights, and have a Chicago-style hot dog, and some Chicago deep dish pizza.

Another exciting thing in my life is that I may have a job! It's only a few hours a week, but it's in a theatre, 15 minutes from my house, and something to put on my resume. So going to Chicago is dependent on what my potential new boss says, but I don't think it will be a problem. It's actually in a movie theatre that does live shows sometimes, so I would be helping with lights/tech whenever they have a show. Sometimes I would work 10 hours a week, sometimes I'd work an hour a week. That's fine for me, though. It gives me flexibility for "real job" interviews and to do fun things, but it'll keep me from getting rusty and bored.

All-in-all, things are looking up, and I have a purpose in life again! You can look forward to a Chai Tea Bread recipe post, cuz I haven't made it yet, and I have to try it before trying to sell it to strangers!

My Life As I Know It

So what's going on with you right now? Anything exciting? There's not a lot going on with me, but I'm bored and want to blog, so you're getting an update. :-P

My life is basically what it was while working at the Brooks... just without the working. I've been trying to get up at a decent time every day like a real human being, but it usually ends up being eleven. At least it's still AM? I've applied for a few jobs since I got home. I was really hopeful about a position at the Fulton in Lancaster, PA since I used contacts and networking, and threw a name around on my cover letter. I haven't heard back from them, though, other than an e-mail saying they received my application. It's the same deal with the Campus Theatre in Lewisburg, except I didn't even get the confirmation e-mail. The lady in charge told a friend to tell me to send in my resume, and then ignored me when I sent it. Thanks?

Oh, well. I still have enough money in the bank to be unemployed for another month (or two, if I'm stingy). The treatments and surgeries and meetings with doctors are starting up for my dad's cancer, so it's good that I'm home to run him around. Tomorrow, he's having a medi-port and feeding tube put in, and my niece is having an operation, so my sisters and I are going to sit at the hospital together. Maybe I'll be able to cross #25 off my 30 Things Before 30 list by the time we get through this?

What else have I been up to...? Oh! I'm finally working out regularly again. I was going to join the gym when I got home, but Gold's in Lewisburg is $45 a month. I think not. Then I was going to start P90 again, but I decided to make my own workout schedule. I've stuck with it for the most part, and if I miss a day, I double up the next. I'm pretty much just jogging/walking and building up my stamina and endurance. I'm also doing a new yoga every week, on Sundays and Thursdays. So far I've done "20 Minutes of Power", "Detox Yoga", and "Core Yoga". Next week is "Lunar Flow". I've lost a few pounds, and I feel awesome. If I end up losing a hundred pounds, maybe I'll publish my workout schedule and become the next big weight-loss guru! :-P

Other than sleeping, working out, and reading J.R. Ward's "Black Dagger Brotherhood" series like my life depends on it, I've been doing a lot of crocheting, a little cooking and baking, and a lot of movie-watching. I have a list of 59 movies that I own, that I've never seen. I buy $5 DVDs, or my dad used to bring home sample "screener" DVDs, and I never watched them. My list is down to 40, so I'm making progress. As for the crocheting - I decided that if I just get a stockpile of crocheted goods, I can open up an Etsy shop and stop looking for a real job. :-P At the very least, I can have Mom take in a sign to school and try to sell stuff to teachers. lol

As for the baking, last night I made chocolate chip cookies and sugar cookies for snack time for my mom's students today.



I also made Pumpkin Spice Scones with Spiced Glaze. I had one last night with a cup of tea, and I had one this morning with a mug of Pumpkin Spice coffee. De. freakin. licious.



I will leave you with the best chocolate chip cookie recipe I've ever come across. I've had it for awhile, and tried others, but this is by far the best. The cookies don't spread out too much, and they're not too moist or too crispy.

Best Chocolate Chip Cookies
makes about 3 dozen

Ingredients:
1/2 C. butter - softened
3/4 C. dark brown sugar
1/2 C. white sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
1 bag chips (chocolate, peanut butter, whatever you want)
2 2/3 C. sifted flour

Method:
Blend butter, sugars, soda, powder, vanilla, and eggs until well-mixed. Stir in chips, THEN flour. Chill 15-30 minutes. Using a cookie scoop, scoop dough onto greased cookie sheet. (Return dough to fridge when not using.) Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Cool on pans for a few minutes before moving to cooling racks.


Keeping the dough cold is important in making the cookies not spread out too much. Also, I love making these with chopped up Andes mints instead of chocolate chips!



Well, I guess I should find something to do until Dad's PET scan this afternoon. Maybe something like showering and eating would be a good idea. Leave comments to let me know what you all have been up to, and suggestions for things to keep me busy (or job opportunities if you happen to own a theatre and/or bakery and/or bookstore)!


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