Apple Pie Moonshine

If, for some reason, you've found yourself the proud owner of a quart of moonshine and think to yourself, 'Gee, I wonder if my lawn mower will run on this stuff?' do your tongue a favor and make it into Apple Pie.

I found a basic recipe on the internet, from moonshineheritage.com and updated it a little.

What you'll need:
1 quart or 1 liter - moonshine or grain alcohol.  You can use Everclear, but if it's not at least 190 proof it's not going to be as strong.  Yes, a quart is less than a liter - a liter is 1.056 U.S. quarts.  If this difference bothers you, take a swig - there, now it's even.  A quart jar is probably what you have if you personally know the maker of the moonshine, a liter may be your option if you're buying it commercially, if that's even legal in your state.  It probably isn't, but I'm not going to judge how and where you obtain your moonshine.
1 gallon - apple juice - yes, I said GALLON
1 gallon - apple cider - yes, there's a difference.  If you don't see something labeled as cider in the grocery store (it's usually kept refrigerated) look for Simply Apple over in the orange juice section, if it's cloudy, it's cider.
2 1/2 cups - white sugar (you may want to substitute that last half a cup with brown sugar, I haven't tried it yet, but I plan on it)
24 - cinnamon Jolly Ranchers - umm, unwrapped, of course.
1/4 tsp. - allspice (if you have Apple Pie Spice, that'll work too)
1 tsp - vanilla  (if you want more than that after you taste it, feel free to add more)
at least an 8 qt stock pot, preferably a 10 qt.
9 - 1 quart mason jars



Keep in mind, that you're combining two gallons of stuff together, so you're going to need a minimum of an 8 qt. stock pot.  That 5 qt. crockpot isn't going to work unless you're halving the recipe.  Combine the apple juice, apple cider, sugar, and jolly ranchers together in the pan. Sprinkle your allspice on top, stir, and bring to a boil.  The Jolly Ranchers are going to stick to the bottom, you'll have to do a fancy little stir/scrape maneuver to keep popping them off the bottom until they melt.  Once it boils and you're certain all of the sugar and candy have melted, turn off the stove.  Add your vanilla flavoring, stir it in, and then let the mixture sit for a while to cool off.  This takes a few hours.  Once it's cool, you can add the alcohol.  This can be tricky if you only have an 8 qt pot, because it's already full.  Basically I poured the alcohol into the jars, making it as even as I could, then filled them all the rest of the way with the juice mixture.  You can enjoy it immediately, but some of the harshness of the moonshine is smoothed out if you let it sit in the fridge for a few weeks.  Remember, keep it refrigerated - just because it's in a Mason jar doesn't mean you really 'canned' it, with the amount of sugar in it bacteria will still grow if you leave it out at room temperature.

So go forth my lovelies, and make some apple pie your friends will kill for, just don't let it knock you on your butt - it's sneaky like that.  Tie a ribbon around a jar and give it away for Christmas, your friends will actually want this gift.  Whatever you do, DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE! Drink and nap, like normal people.

I wrote a book...

If you'll recall, my last post was about Nanowrimo and that I'd finally broken 50,000 words.  Well, in the last two weeks I've taken that bundle of words and disjointed dialogue, shaped it, molded it, and turned it into a book.  Playing Dirt, which can now be purchased as an Ebook on Amazon.com.

How did that happen?  Well, mostly with Pinterest.   If you're as old as I am (35) then you may recall The Little, Brown Handbook where you had to search out all of your questions for punctuation and grammar when writing a story or research paper.  This is what we had, there was no Google, and generally my teachers would never answer a question unless you could not find the answer in the Handbook.  It was frustrating.  Now though, there are some fabulous blogs and online articles about proper editing, and I'd like to take a moment and post some links for some of the best ones I found in my search.  No, I can't say that I hit the pinnacle of grammatical perfection, I'm sure there are still many errors, but it is definitely better than it was when I stopped at the end of November. 

First, The Editor's Blog.  As I was doing what I thought was my final edit, I had a vague niggling at the back of my mind about lower case letters starting after dialogue, but I couldn't remember why, or when I would use it.  This saved me, well, it caused me another run through of editing because I was doing it all wrong, but it was very clear and easy to understand.

Second, Writer's Digest: What To Look For When Editing Your Manuscript.  I loved this article, and it really helped me focus on the things I needed to look for.  Especially rule# 5 - The Audible Read.  If it doesn't flow well when you're reading it aloud, then you've screwed something up.  Go fix it.

This, from The Write Life.  Actually, everything from The Write Life, it's an excellent blog and I really suggest reading a few articles before you get started.

  

And finally, if you're going to publish to Amazon Kindle, you really need to download the free book from Amazon about how to format your work so that it will work on the Kindle platform, Building Your Book For Kindle. 

If you're really bored, or just want to waste more time while you're supposed to be writing something, I've got a whole bunch of tips, funny writing ecards, and other blog links on my 'Writing' Pinterest board.  http://www.pinterest.com/manderbet/writing/

Go forth, and create!

NANOWRIMO - National Novel Writing Month

Okay, so how's this for I Can Totally Do That?  Write a novel in a month?  Sure, why not? Challenge accepted.


So a friend sends me a message in October saying, hey, do you want to try nanowrimo with me?  I, of course respond, "What the heck is that? Some sort of pokemon crap?"

Well, the short answer - no.

It is now November 28th, so I'm not going to make it, but thought I'd let you all know of the effort I gave it. First, let me explain the challenge.  The month of November is THE month in question, you, the writer are challenged to write 50,000 words during this 30 day period.  You update your word count yourself, occasionally pasting the entirety of your writing into a little box; it doesn't save you novel, just verifies the word count, and then shows you your stats - how many words a day you're averaging, how many you need to average to get done, when you are really going to get done if you keep writing as slow as you are now...stuff like that.

You get weekly updates from published writers with hints and tips, which is really nice when you're in week 2 thinking, WHHHHYYYYY am I subjecting myself to this, I'm never going to write anything that anyone will ever want to read.   Waaahhhhhh....  They encourage to go get more coffee and keep plugging away.  You also get to see a breakdown of your region, and they post on their own forums.  The Huntington, WV group has it's own fabulous Facebook page to encourage one another and meet for 'write-ins' which I've never done because bringing children along would defeat the purpose.  All in all, I really recommend it.  It has been fun.  I'm only at 36k words and a little over halfway done with my archaeologist/cop romance novel, but by golly I AM going to finish it.  (nanowrimo thinks by Dec. 11th at the rate I'm going)

Now, by finish, I don't mean ready to upload to Amazon Self Publishing, I mean, the first draft will be written.  I have whole chunks of this that are just dialogue, run on sentences, duplicated phrasing (my biggest pet peeve of 50 Shades is the repetitiveness, okay, he has LONG fingers, we get it already), but the story will be written, the rest is just editing....and re-editing...and then having someone who actually knows how to edit, edit it.  THEN it will be ready.

If you're interested in my effort, check out Chapter 1:
Playing Dirty


And if you're interested in being challenged to write a novel in a month (next November), here's the link.
nanowrimo.org

I hope you enjoy, and I'll let y'all know if I ever finish editing it! ;)

Quick and Easy Costume 'Skin'

 So you want to be a zombie for Halloween, and you've watched every episode of FaceOff but still have no idea how to pull it off.  Let me show you how I faked it.

You will need:
Rubber Cement
Tissues
Acrylic Craft Paint - red, black, white, green, and the closest color you can find to your own skin tone.
A paintbrush is helpful, but you can use the corner of a paper towel or even your finger.
Baby oil (to remove the rubber cement)
Dish washing liquid (to remove the baby oil)
Corn starch, flour, or talc

First and foremost, if you have sensitive skin, I don't advise trying this.  It takes a lot of effort and scrubbing to get the rubber cement back off your skin, so if you think any of the above ingredients may break you out in hives, don't risk it.  (Unless it adds to your costume, ya know, your choice)  Also, if you have a lot of hair where you plan on applying this, shave it off now.  Trust me, you'll thank me later.

Yes, it looks like snot covered tissues.  Yum.

Decide where you want your 'wound' to be placed, then slap some rubber cement on it. As you smear it on, keep in mind that a thin coat is best because even thick globs will flatten out as it dries, so you won't get more texture just a longer drying time.  Let the first layer dry, this takes about 3 or 4 minutes.  Then rip your tissue into strips and lay them down to create the 'edges' of the wound.  Brush over the tissue strips with rubber cement, making sure you get the outside edges laid down flat, you want the inner edges to stick up a little.  If it's not perfect, don't worry, you're going to paint over it anyway, and well, chances are, wherever you're going will be dark so no one will notice.

Then paint.  I painted the tissue the color I found closest to my skin color, then using the same brush (no need to clean it) mixed some red and black together and laid that down the middle as 'gore'.   When I was satisfied with that, I mixed some more of the flesh tone with the red and dabbed it on with my fingers to make a 'bruised' area around the wound, like it's been festering; some black vein marks would be very acceptable.  Since I was going as a zombie, I mixed some green and white with my fingers and kind of smeared it around on the other areas of my arms, to give my skin a greenish tint.  This whole process took about 15 minutes from start to finish.  You could get much more involved with it, but if you're looking for something quick, this works really well.

The hardest part of this whole process - getting it back off.  The paint is acrylic, it will wash right off with water (not rain proof, I'll warn you now!) but the rubber cement, not so much.  Baby oil will dissolve the cement and it makes a lovely rubbery/oily goo.  I recommend using some dish soap to remove most of the oil, then throw a handful of corn starch on it.  Flour or talcum powder would work too, you just need something that will soak up the rest of the oil.  Then, rub thoroughly.  It should peel off pretty easily after that. 

Almost as good as waxing, you didn't need all those useless hairs anyway.

Zebra-fied Corkboard

Yes, even a plain, boring $10 Walmart cork board can be zebra-fied.  I think it's necessary for a 10 year old girl to be able to pin stuff up on something other than the drywall, and let's face it, a big brown rectangle isn't going to fit into the 'decor'.  And so began my shopping trip.

You will need:

*A corkboard, whatever size you want, I used a 2'x3' that I found for $9.97 at Wal-Mart.  I considered just buying cork tiles and making one myself, but honestly it was cheaper to just buy the board already in a frame.  

*A can of white or pink spray paint.  I used white, but you could do pink with zebra stripes if that's your thing.

*Black acrylic paint.

*Trim - something fuzzy, sparkly, shiny....your options are endless.
*A hot glue gun, and ya know, the glue sticks for it.
*A spoon. 

Step 1.)  Brush any loose dust and debris from the corkboard and go spray paint it.  I used an entire can of paint on this board, so if you go bigger you may want to buy two cans.  Even so, you can see that there are areas that could have been covered better, but honestly she's going to have it covered in artwork and magazine clippings within 10 minutes of me hanging it up, so I wasn't concerned about splotches.  Again, my standard warning when using spray paint, protect your area from overspray, and make sure you're in a well ventilated area.  If you start singing show-tunes five minutes in, you may need some fresh air.  Could you use white acrylic paint and a brush? Probably, but you'd want to prime it first, and ain't nobody got time for that.

See how uneven it is? The cork sucks the paint up immediately.  Luckily it doesn't need to be perfect,
you won't notice once you paint the zebra stripes on.

Step 2.)  Find a reference for your zebra stripes.  Google is wonderful thing and every time I use it I wonder how I made it through high school without it.  Find something you like and try to copy it; it's very hard to screw up zebra stripes.  Just try to keep your lines smooth and not straight, if that makes any sense.  You can create tiny little stripes or big bold stripes, it's a very personal thing.  Alternately, you can let your child draw/paint their own stripes, and if it looks weird you can blame it on them. :)  I went with a 'zebra skin' effect, and it took about 2 hours to paint it on.  I was using a good quality acrylic paint from a tube, but I honestly think a cheap craft paint would have been easier, just make sure it's gloss; a flat paint may flake off later.  My paint was too thick and had to be thinned with water, but if I added too much water it would start to run down the board.  I was completely over the whole thing by the time I was halfway done.   

Aaaaannnnd glue and twist and push,
aaaannnnd glue and twist and push...

Step 3.)  Trim it.  Seriously I stood in Wal-Mart for ten minutes with three different yarns and two spools of ribbon in the 'seat' of my cart trying to decide what I wanted to do.  There were fluffy yarns with crystals woven into them, fluffy and glittery, just fluffy, ribbon that was solid hot pink glitter, ribbon that was just pink and shiny...I had a really hard time deciding. I went with fluffy- there was 129 yards of it, so I knew I could use several strands along each side and make it nice and fuzzy.  If I had it to do over again, I would have went with the glittery ribbon, it would have been a lot easier to glue onto the edges.
I spent about 15 minutes cutting lengths of my fuzzy yarn, about 8 per edge, and then started in one corner hot gluing them on.  I didn't make one long length of glue, I did three spots on the short ends and 5 on the long ends (not counting the giant globs in the corners) and twisting the pieces of yarn so that even if one of the lengths didn't get stuck in one glue glob, it would get stuck in the next glob. (Don't you love these technical terms?)

This could be your fingers.  Don't
let this be your fingers.

Now, you're probably wondering where the spoon comes into play.  Hot glue is, well, hot.  Low-temp glue is hot, but it sets up almost immediately and you won't die if you get it on your fingers.  Not so for high-temp glue guns.   High-temp glue is like lava and stays hot for three or four minutes.  For this project a low-temp is fine, we're dropping glue then pressing in the yarn one spot at a time.  I used the back of a spoon to push the yarn pieces into the glue without burning my fingers....again.  Seriously, it hurts.  When you're done, trim your corners, and hang!

Basil Pepperoni Cheese Sticks

One of the joys of having children is trying to find new snacks for your child's school lunch.  This is a story about how a snack gone wrong was corrected.  

My darling son insisted that he was the only child in the whole wide world that didn't get string cheese in his lunch, so I bought some.  Upon tasting it he refused to actually eat it, and my daughter insisted that it was gross to look at and she didn't even want to touch it.  Now I of course hadn't just bought 'some',  I had bought this huge bag of mozzarella that no one wanted to eat.  Great.

Then I found a picture on Pinterest of mozzarella cheese sticks wrapped in a wonton wrapper with some pepperoni, and thought, 'Aha!'.  Unfortunately it was just the picture, there was no link to the directions or to the original blogger, so I don't even know who to credit for this fabulous idea.  I did take it a step further though, and added some fresh basil, because I was just lamenting earlier today that I have this big healthy basil plant in my flowerbed and no idea what to do with it (be prepared to see new basil recipes as I figure it out.)

What you'll need it:

Egg Roll Wrappers

Pepperoni 

Mozzarella Cheese Sticks

Fresh basil leaves.

A cup with water in it (just a little)

A pan of oil 325 -350 degrees.    

Fresh basil has a really strong flavor, so if you 'like' the taste, but don't 'love' the taste, you may want to halve even those little strips.  A little goes a long way.

Slap two more pieces of pepperoni on this side, and fold the ends in first.  You can just do three pieces if you want to pretend you're making healthier, but really....

 Flip one end over, so that it looks like an envelope and then dip your finger into your cup of water and run it along the edges of the bigger flap, so the wrapper will seal tight.

When you first start to roll it it's going to be loose and weird because you've got a lot stuffed in there, but it will tighten up as you roll.  Get a couple of them rolled up before you start dropping them into the oil so you don't get distracted and burn them.  If the oil is between 325 and 350 degrees it should be hot enough to cook but not so hot that the outside crisps up before your cheese gets gooey.  They really need to cook for about a minute and a half to get the cheese warm (cold cheese inside is...not good).  Two sticks are plenty to fill you up, and if you have some leftover marinara, by all means, dip away!

Tooth and Nail

So I've mentioned that my dad has a sawmill, and I thought I'd give him some space here.  He owns a mobile sawmill and woodcraft shop in Milton, WV, making furniture, crafts, and wooden dulcimers and psalteries. So, what is a mobile sawmill?

The log is strapped to the black metal base and the saw (seen at the other end) runs horizontally on rails down it's length, creating board lumber. 

I thought I'd post some pics of all the things he creates from that lumber.

He made this dining room table and side bench.

Dulcimers and Psalteries, he even made the bows!

Rocking chairs.

Cutting boards.

Quilt racks.

A fishing rod holder.

Bark silhouettes created from the slab of bark cut from a log while it's being squared off.

Blanket chests.

Since he has retired, he spends most of his time out in the woodshop, making all of these fabulous works of art.  He's been known to make a gun stalk or two, even caskets!  Basically, if you can dream it up, dad will find a way to build it.  If you want to see more, check out his Facebook page at Tooth  and Nail!

Dad out in the shop.