{from scratch holidays} Thanksgiving Tablescaping Part 3

Editor’s Note:  Ms. Lauren from Craft My Life Away is back with her final installment in her three-part Thanksgiving Tablescaping series. Her first installment ran on Friday and her 2nd piece, FILLED with patterns & instructions, ran yesterday- check it & craft on! -Christina I’m back with Part 3 of my 3 Part Installment obsessing over Thanksgiving Tablescaping. All of the…

{from scratch holidays} Thanksgiving Tablescaping Part 2

Editor’s Note: Ms. Lauren from Craft My Life Away is back with her 2nd installment in her three-part Thanksgiving Tablescaping series. Her first installment ran yesterday– check it & craft on! -Christina I am back with Part 2 of my Three Part Installment obsessing over Thanksgiving Tablescaping: I will be discussing topics 4 & 5: Going…

{from scratch holidays} Thanksgiving Tablescape Part 1

Editor’s Note: We are taking a break from our usual recipe-driven ‘from scratch holidays’ posts to concentrate on your holiday tablescaping creativity! We’ve never ventured into the crafting world, but who better to educate us than newbie swapper & lifetime crafter, Lauren of Craft My Life Away! I’m excited to share Lauren’s 3-part series that…

{from scratch holidays} A Spicy Thanksgiving

By the time the Puritan Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, there were actually many settlements already established by the Spanish in what would eventually be considered the United States, like Santa Fe NM, El Paso TX and St Augustine FL. So what and where was the first Thanksgiving in the United States? Was it the…

{from scratch holidays} Bourbon Brown Butter Sweet Potatoes

The leaves are on the ground, pumpkins on every doorstep and the crazy holiday season is creeping up on us. I love this time of year and I tend to cook more intensely during this season. The crisp freshness of summer foods usually cooks quickly and effortlessly. This time of year food slows down and…

{from scratch holidays} Quick-Braised Carrots

For the holidays, we totally don’t go for traditional recipes. This is due partially to me remembering jello salads and various different riffs on Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup from my childhood. This is also partially because of my husband’s opinion that turkey is really dry no matter what, and usually requires way more effort…

{edible gift} D.I.Y. Cocktail Bitters

My friend Julie turned me on to homemade infusions years ago. She has a big shelf in her amazing kitchen/dining room filled with homemade bitters, digestifs, infusions, shrubs, and the like. It’s like walking into a delicious apothecary. Julie recently attended the FSC Schenectady Food Swap and brought with her a bunch of her homemade bitters…

{recipe recap} From Scratch Holidays

I know, I know. Halloween was only yesterday. BUT like magazines, we want to be weeks ahead of the game so you have time to prepare, shop for & create dishes for your Thanksgiving meal, appetizers for a your holiday party, and cocktail suggestions for a New Years Celebration. We also strive to provide you…

{roundup} FSC Edible Gifts 2011

Well..well….well. Hanukkah is upon us. Christmas is soon to follow then New Years. I don’t know about you but I feel like December has f-l-o-w-n by. Wizzed. Sprinted. Galloped. It will be 2012 in 9 days. Whoa. In the meantime, I’ve been frantically creating edible & non-edible gifts (Jillian’s lotion from the Ebook is AMAZING)…

{from scratch holidays} Mocktail Mixers

{Grape Expectation} Holiday mode is in full effect. Tonight is the third night of Hanukkah and Christmas is this weekend. Or maybe you are more of a Winter Solstice person. And let’s not forget New Years Eve is next Saturday! Either way, you are probably going to get down with your bad self over the…

{from scratch holidays} Perfect Vegan Latkes for Hanukkah

Hanukkah is here, and in our home that means my husband Jeff spends a few days making his perfect vegan latkes (sometimes called potato pancakes, and pronounced “laht-kuhs“). All traditional latkes contain shredded or ground potatoes. Many contain onions and eggs. They are fried in oil (cooking with oil is one of the things you…

{edible gift} Chocolate Dipped Candied Orange Peels

My sister-in-law is a new vegan. I had a moment of disquiet about this over Thanksgiving, saying to her, “But what are we going to do about mashed potatoes?” We sub-divided them, of course, which was perfectly sensible. But my next question was even more important: what about dessert?!?!?! Thanksgiving without pie? Really? She made…

{from scratch holidays} Challah for Christmas

Some of my earliest memories are of my Jewish grandmother setting out a loaf of challah, along with a spread of white fish, cream cheese, lox and bagels.  She never made any of these foods herself, but challah still reminds me of her.  Recently I developed an interest in making challah bread myself.  Thinking about…

{from scratch holidays} Arugula Pesto, Two Ways

I like local food. I like to eat it, I like to read about it and I like to sell it. Every Saturday morning I am lucky enough to talk about and sell local vegetables for Michael Kilpatrick (Kilpatrick Family Farm) at the farmers market in Saratoga Springs. Working at the market is so much fun for me,…

{from scratch holidays} Cheesy Potato Casserole: Makeover Edition

For the holidays my grandmother would make a dish that was simply called Cheesy Potato Casserole. It’s pretty much exactly what you would find at a Midwestern church potluck. I absolutely adored it and my brother and I would beg for it whenever we had a family holiday meal together. As my grandmother got older,…