Hanging Airship decorations

Wait what? This is not a food how-to!

Yes, yes. I know, but these are some decorations that I made for my steampunk themed birthday party this past weekend and I figured that no one would complain if I put the tutorial here.

So how this came about was quite by accident. I was on the hunt for a way to create an airship piñata without making one from scratch, but I could not find ready made football piñatas anywhere (which is odd here in Florida in the middle of football season). What I did find were these football paper lanterns, so I figured that I could just make hanging decorations instead!

Now I only bought one pack of these, but if I had more time I would have gotten more because they are the perfect size and easy to paint and manipulate. Also the cardboard packaging that came with them was perfect for wings (or anything else you can imagine).  

So after much brainstorming I decided to combine two of the footballs into one super airship. I used masking tape to tape it all together and it works pretty well for the most part. The only problem I ran into with it was that some of the edges didn't want to stay down and had to be firmly pressed down a lot and caked on with paint to keep in place. Now I'm sure a different solution would work better but these were being hung from the ceiling where you can't get a close look at them and I had a very limited time frame to get them done. Now I used the cardboard packaging for fins of the airship and cut them out to the right size and use a lot of tape to make sure they stayed on. 

  

As you can see I used the metal wiring inside each lantern as a further step to secure the two lanterns to each other. 

Now this is the part that was part luck part making up on the spot (well more so than the rest...) I was able to use the cardboard roll of some use up wrapping paper as the rockets on the other airship. I tried using the template of the curve from the last airship to create the curves needed for the rockets but the two ships had slightly different curves and had to create a new one for the rockets. 

From there I just just cut out as many rockets needed and eyeballed where they should go and used another crazy amount of tape to attach them together.

I wanted to make sure that I covered every seem with tape so that there would be no holes in the final products. So the footballs were slowly being entirely covered with tape.

Ok so I wanted to make some kind of basket for the longer one and wanted to make it the easiest way possible. What I ended up using was the leftover bit of cardboard roll from the rockets. I just cut angles out of either side and taped it into a triangle type shape. It wasn't a perfect shape but it had an interesting look that just felt right.

Using more tape (the entire thing was made of tape... I was on a time crunch) I was miraculously able to stick the basket to the body of the airship.

Now for paint. Basic acrylic paint works for the job. Although to save time and paint, I would suggest spray painting the entire ship the main color and then adding the minor colors and designs after (the exact opposite of what I did).

 

This was my set up for painting since I didn't want to leave the AC of my house. As you can see both ships have been painted and have details painted onto them.

The final step that I did was to add an aged look to them as if they were real ships. I just added a darker shade of gray and lightly brushed it to places that would naturally darken on each ship. This is how it looked on the bigger one.

And here you go! The final products. Both ships before I hung them up with basic twine. (Since it was a steampunk theme I decided to go with the visible line to have them like decorations, but fishing line could also be used to make them appear to be real mini ships floating around.)

Now the cool thing with these is that there pretty much are no limits to what you can do to them. As long as what you add isn't heavy enough to tear apart the paper then you are fine. You can add propellers, hanging baskets with rope or wire, moving pieces... it's all up to you. I know that I will definitely be playing around with more ideas for these when I have more time and an excuse to make them. I shall keep you posted on the various outcomes.

Cereal treats!

Today's magical recipe is something super simple and quick. It is also heavenly and is able to be tweaked however you want to they are: cereal treats!!! (I need to get a better name for them, but until that day comes, they shall be known as cereal treats.)

Now what are cereal treats? Well they are pretty much Rice Krispie Treats with a twist. Ok, not too exciting, but still a lot of fun to make (and they have a habit of disappearing). These are also awesome because you can make them in a dorm, even a dorm with no kitchen because there is a recipe on the Rice Krispie box for how to make them in a microwave!

What you will need:

one bag of marshmallows

3 tablespoons of butter

one package of the variety of cereal (I also got a small container of Rice Krispies just because)

chocolate or whatever other sweets and things you want to add

Now you want to begin by setting up your ingredients because once you start melting the marshmallows you will be on a time crunch, so first you want to measure out 6 cups of cereal (each box is about a cup to cup and a half) Also if you have any other bits you want to add in, you want to get those ready as well. Whether it's cutting them (if it's a large solid piece of chocolate for instance) or or whatever. Just make sure that it is all ready because you will burn the marshmallows if you try to do this after things have been heated (butter or marshmallows).

Once you have everything all set up, then melt the butter in a large pan. I use our wok because it has high sides, so nothing spills when everything is mixed together.

 Once the butter is completely (or 99%) melted add in the entire bag of marshmallows. Turn heat to about medium (to slow down how fast they melt) and constantly stir until they are completely melted.

This is about the consistency you want the marshmallows to be. You just want them to be a little bit more melted. You can tell that it's melted because the lumps are really just a show. You can stir them gone. If your marshmallow mixture starts to brown a bit it is fine. It is simply caramelizing, but this is a good sign that they are pretty much done. Any more time and they will begin to burn. Take the pan off of the heat.

Once you take it off of the heat, slowly add in the cereal. You most likely wont use all of the cereal, but it really depends on how you like your treats (more or less chewy). You also want to stir the mixture after every time you add in some of the cereal. This makes it easier to mix and gives you a more accurate idea of how the final product will be.

This is when you can add all of the other sweets and items as well. I used a handful of Hersey drops and slightly mixed them in. The heat from the marshmallows melted the chocolate down, so they became little pockets within the treats.

Final look of mixture before moving them into different pans.

Now that you are happy with how the mixture looks, it is now time to prep the baking pans. Now depending on how thick you want the treats decides on which pan(s) you use. These are two 9"x9" pans that I used because we like ours in a decent size. All you need to do to prep them is to spray them with Pam or other oil based product meant for baking.

Once the pan(s) are prepped then you just scoop the treat mixture into the pan(s) with the spatula.

Once you get it all in the pan(s) then you grab some wax paper and carefully pat down the mixture to get in all of the corners of the pan(s). I ended up only needing to use one of the pans, but it is always better to be prepared.
Some of the marshmallow may still stick to the wax, but it will be very little and can be easily picked off (or you and simply fold the wax paper so the areas covered in marshmallow are no longer in contact with the mixture).

Once you have the mixture how you want it, cover it with foil and place it in the fridge for a few hours. Once it has cooled you can remove the pan, cut them into the desired sizes and wrap up in wax paper for individual consumption.

You now also have whatever remains in the pan and spatula to eat and enjoy in the meantime.

Now this recipe is wonderful because you can add whatever you want to it. It's a very flexible recipe that allows your creative juices to flow. You can add things that are more savory like potato chips or peanuts. Or sauces poured over the whole batch. It's really up to you! So eat and enjoy.

And let me know of any cool experimentation you do with this recipe and how it turned out (photos would be awesome)!

Homemade Grilled Pizza

This is a popular treat at my house, and I thought that this would be the perfect recipe to start the revamp of this blog. (Also a friend of mine wants to make pizza at a party soon and I just wanted to put this up for her to see.) 

This is not the recipe you do if you want that perfect circular pizza that you get at restaurants. No, this is the one you do to just have a fun time making your dream pizza. Great entertainment for parties and get-togethers (having your guest either bring their toppings of choice and having them set up in a buffet like fashion for everyone to pick and choose what they want.) 

For the ingredients it varies depending on what you want, but the initial things you'll need is your dough and flour. We buy dough from Publix and that amount is good for 4 decent sized pizzas (scroll down to see the exact size). You can use however amount of dough you want and you can even make your own dough (although that may take a lot longer to prepare). 

four and dough

This dough is good for about a month in the freezer, just make sure you remember a day in advance to move it to the fridge to defrost. It is also best if you take the dough out about 20 minutes before you cut it to allow it to thaw out and make it easier to stretch. 

You take the flour and spread it across your work area (after cleaning the surface of course) and you use a pizza cutter or a knife to cut it into 4 equal parts. (More or less depending on the size you want/are able to handle. The more dough the harder to handle in the next step.) 

I just use a bowl because that's where I had the dough resting before. Just a personal preference because then I can move it around with ease. 

Next you take flour a rolling pin and use it to flatten out the dough. It won't make it completely flat, that's where gravity and your hands come in. Just stretch, spin, whatever to make it to the thickness of your liking. If it's sticking too much, just add more flour. But there is a good chance that you will get flour on you. The mess just shows the fun.

A word of caution: Don't make you dough too thin, it will disintegrate on the grill. I know from personal experience, and it was one of the saddest nights. I sign of the dough getting too thin is if it starts tearing. One or two small tears (like the one below) are fine, just reseal the edges. But if too many start appearing every time to seal up one, then it is too thin and you need to reroll it or something (only know that it is a warning sign because of the sad night... not to certain if rerolling will actually work. So just don't get to that point and we are good.) 

The four pizzas rolled out 

Next step is to take some olive oil and a fork and sprinkle a small amount of the oil on one side and to poke holes all over the dough. The oil is to help prevent the dough from sticking to the grill and the holes are to help prevent air bubbles to form.

close up on oil/holes

Grilling

 Now you take the dough and place them, oil side down, on the grill. You only grill ONE SIDE! If you grill both sides then the bottom of your pizza will be black by the time you are done. There is no way around that fate, so just avoid it and grill one side. 

 The dough will give you some warnings as you grill. The thinner parts will actually start darkening on the top side. And it is done when you can easily get your spatula under it (from there it's just how dark you want it. Darker means more grill flavor... until it's burnt, then your just done and it's a sad day for you.) 

The normal grill trick of once it releases from the grill then it's ready applies here. Just pull then off (FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS DO NOT FLIP IT!!!)

This is pretty much a good color for the crust (the dough is now crust, I am calling it crust from now on). There are only three in this image because the fourth was destined for greatness: dessert pizza.

 You want to have the crust flipped over because that is the side you will be putting all of your lovely toppings on. We didn't have out toppings set up nicely, so you don't get to see them. Sorry.

TOPPINGS!!!

 We have too much fun adding the toppings, and mine is always noticeable because I add ALL THE MEAT to mine. I also am not a big fan of crust (yes I'm weird), so I always try to get my toppings as close to the edge as possible.

And this is the pizza destined for greatness. 

GRILL

 Now you take your pizzas and you put them back on the grill. (This is why you only grilled one side. Now the second side shall be grilled while the toppings are heating up and the cheese is melting.) Now you close the lid. It takes about 3-5 minutes for the toppings to melt and the bottom to get that perfect shade. Just find the balance of watching it and not opening the lid too much. 

We only grill the main meal pizzas and save the dessert for after the meal so that it is nice and warm for when we put it with ice cream. Advise: don't put it on the grill and turn the grill to low before you start eating. Soon billows of smoke will issue forth from the grill and the pizza will be a blacken husk that not even birds will pick at the next morning. Yes this is more personal experience. I am realizing that all of my personal experiences of sad days occurred because my dad thought that it was a great idea while drunk... 

So moral: DO NOT DRINK WHILE MAKING THESE! BAD, SAD THINGS HAPPEN WHEN YOU DO!

ok now back to pizza. 

Once they are done, bring them back in and cut them into slices. They will not be perfect slices, but they will be tasty.

*drum roll*

*angels sing*

It was too dark to grill by this point, so we just popped it into the toaster oven and cooked it in there. And this is when i learned that this whole thing can be done just fine in a toaster oven (or technically even your regular oven, if you want to heat up your whole house), but you will lose the grilled flavor that just adds to the pizza. 

Note: dessert pizza is good with vanilla or (my favorite) coffee ice cream. Also if you put caramel pieces on it, they will harden once they touch the ice cream and become teeth breaking hard. 

NOW ENJOY!

A Much Needed Change

Hey guys! So it has been um... 6 months (hehe) since I have last posted on this blog, and I am so very very sorry. I had no idea what to post, been busy with school, had too many other internets to deal with, DOCTOR WHO, and I may have forgotten that this existed for a bit, but no longer! I now have a semi plan of what to use this blog for: FOOD!!!!! 

Yes, that's right! I will be posting various dinners and meals that I make since people ask me about them all the time. So the next few post will be from a few dinners a few weeks back that I took photos of, and I will put recipes and the like if it is desired. If there is any aspect of the meal that anyone would like (that I failed to mention) please let me know and I’ll be sure to add them. Feedback will help me improve upon the blog J