What's Hot + What's Not: Happy Chaxgven

I love Wednesdays. Time to play along again with all the hotter-notters at Loobylu's. Head over there to check out the cute artwork Claire's featuring this week and to see what's hot and not around the globe!

HOT

Chaxgven Also known as Thanksgiving. We renamed the holiday after receiving this charming invitation a few years ago from my nephew who was then in kindergarten. (In case you don't read invented spelling, it says, "Dear Baicker-McKees Could you come over for Thanksgiving."

Naturally, we couldn't refuse.) Hope you have lots to gve chax for this year; I know we do. And it's not just the food.

The Kitchen That's because of the food. Specifically at the moment because of the Chocolate Amaretto Cheesecake that's about to come out of the oven. (I'll have to add a picture shortly.) Not traditional - but good on any occasion. We're having pumpkin pie too, and lots of other typical Thanksgiving dishes, but I'm planning to give special chax for this dessert. Here's the recipe, which came to me by way of a work colleague of my husband's. Here's the amazing part: it's low fat, but you'd never guess that from the taste. It is, quite frankly, incredible.

Chocolate Amaretto Cheesecake

2 small tubs soft light cream cheese (I've tried fat free, but the texture was weird.)

1 cup sugar

1 cup 1% fat small curd cottage cheese

1/4 cup flour

1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa

1/4 cup amaretto (you can sub almost any liqueur, like creme de menthe, Kahlua, Cointreau)

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 tsp salt

1 egg

4 Tbsp mini chocolate chips

8-9 crushed chocolate wafers OR 2-3 crushed graham crackers OR a 1/3 cup graham cracker crumbs

Extra chocolate bar for making decorative curls (and tiding you over until it's time for the feast)

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Prepare a 7 or 8 inch spring-form pan by spraying it lightly with Pam. Then put the cookies in heavy duty zipper bags, squeeze out the air and seal. Recruit your little people to crush them. (Consider double-bagging them if your kids are "enthusiastic" workers - less chance of dog hair mixing in with the crumbs that way.) They can use the traditional rolling pin or canned peas to crush them - or for extra fun, they can run their trucks back and forth over them or stomp them to smithereens with a large toy dinosaur. Sprinkle the crumbs over the bottom of the pan, adding some extra if the bottom isn't covered. Set aside.

Put the first 8 ingredients (cream cheese through salt) in the food processor with the sharp spinning blade thing. Process the heck out of these, pausing several times to scrape down the sides. The mixture should look very smooth and creamy, with only faint traces of tiny white lumps/dots. Add the egg and process just until mixed in. Remove the blade, taking care not to cut yourself or drip chocolate on the dog or kids whining at your feet. Fold in the chocolate chips, then pour the mixture carefully over the crumbs.

Pop in the oven and bake, 45-50 minutes for an 8-inch pan or 65-70 minutes for a 7-inch one. In my oven I nearly always need an additional 5 minutes. The direction says it's done when a knife comes out clean, but I don't think that EVER happens. I look to make sure it seems set (not too wobbly in the middle) and that it's starting to pull away from the sides a tad.

Refrigerate for at least 8 hours before serving. It may crack as it cools, but no worries. Just use your veggie peeler to make lovely chocolate curls (or the grater for grated stuff) for a dense garnish that hides all the flaws. Then eat the rest of the chocolate to keep your strength up.

Coming up with an idea for Once Daily

That's Claire's ning-thing where you post one photo a day, usually around a theme. Read more about it here. I'm going to take photos of my new backyard pond. (Just wishing I'd started back when the pond first did. Here some more in-progress pictures. (It's not done yet - but done enough to enjoy.)

Last but not least, gearing up for my second annual Advent blog

Starting Sunday! Over the month (probably not daily, but I'll try) I'll have a little something holiday related. Like the tutorial for these little mushroom houses that I meant to post last year...and lots of other craft ideas too (most kid-friendly). And some recipes, book recommendations, fun if somewhat quirky traditions, and some gift ideas for kids and parents too. I'm working on a few printables and a give-away as well. Any requests or suggestions for other ideas?

NOT

Skipping the nots in honor of the holiday. Must. Bite. Tongue.

Scandinavian Woven Heart Baskets

I apologize for the lousy photos, and I couldn't get my pdf template to work (with luck I'll add it tomorrow) - but I hope you can make everything out enough to follow the instructions. Okay, a whole year later you can get the pdf here. Also you can see some more sample hearts here.


These heart baskets are a traditional Scandinavian Christmas craft; they make beautiful decorations for your tree or windows (as in the above photo - with my relatively tidy kitchen showing in the background) and they also make interesting holders for candy or a small gift.


This is a fairly simple craft for a school aged child, and a preschooler may also enjoy helping.

To make one you'll need:

• 2 pieces of contrasting papers, each at least 2 1/2 inches by 8 inches, plus an extra strip about 1/2 inch wide and 5 inches long or so. (Red and white are traditional colors, but I also made two of the above from recycled papers - newspaper, a page from a catalog, and the inside of a security envelope)


• Scissors


• A little glue or tape

To start, you should cut a template from cardboard or cardstock (I used a box from dog biscuits, as you can see in the photo below, which I forgot to rotate.) My template is 2 1/2 inches wide and 4 inches tall. The lines marked on it show you where to make the cuts so that you'll have 3 strips to weave. I hope tomorrow I'll have a printable template for you, but you can certainly fudge it - I did. It helps to cut the strips fairly long, so you have room to fiddle, especially until you've had some practice. Next fold your papers in half. Place the flat end of the template against the fold and trace around it. Mark the positions of the interior cuts, and then cut around the outside, as well as along the two interior lines. (Sorry for the blurry photos.)

Next comes the tricky part: the weaving. Start by scunching open the uppermost strip on the white half and sliding the upper red strip through it.

Then scunch the second red one open, pinch the first white strip closed again, and slide it through the middle of the red strip.

Finally, open the first white strip again and slide the third red strip in. At this point, you've finished the first row of weaving!

Okay, here's where the how-to photos end - but the rest is more of the same, except for weaving in the second white strip you'll reverse the scunching order. First scunch the first red strip open and slide the second white one through it, then red through white and white through red again. (Sometimes the last top strip will pop out - just work it back into place. It will stay when the basket is done.)

Repeat the order of the first white strip for the third one, and you're about done. Just tape or glue the extra long strip inside to form a handle, add some goodies, and give it to a friend!

In my Merry Christmas, Cheeps! book, the littlest chick can be seen hanging one of these on the tree on the page for "Reach to hang an ornament/Shiny, shiny bright." You can also see one hanging on the tree in the excellent classic book Christmas in Noisy Village by Astrid Lindgren (who wrote the Pippi Longstocking books).

If you get good at these hearts and want to try some more elaborate ones (you can get pretty fancy if you vary the number and shape of the strips, check out this sites for ideas and instructions:

• This interesting Danish site which has both the basic and very advanced directions (but beware, it plays electronic-ish Christmas music)


• Margita Mentorp's papirklip blog (I think I have her name right - but the site's in a language I don't speak). It has lots of cool templates for unusual woven hearts, as well as some little house templates to cut out and assemble and other Christmas decorations to make.