In the Kitchen with The {NewNew}

Members of The {NewNew} create some fantastic treats for your home.  Deck out your kitchen and dining table with handcrafted ceramics, light switches, magnets, coasters and more!  Our featured designers are just as creative when it comes to cooking too.  Each one has shared a favorite recipe

Kitschy Retro Light Switch Cover
by LuCrafts
Lu's Apple Crisp
Lu strives to add a "little lovely to every day."  Light switch covers and magnets in a range of patterns are available in her shop LuCrafts. The name of this recipe should really be Lu's Lovely Apple Crisp! It is baked just long enough so that the apples that get soft but not mushy and the topping gets crisp and wonderful. You can warm up leftovers in the microwave.  And don't forget the vanilla ice cream. 


Ingredients
6 large Granny Smith apples
2 tbls white sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tbls lemon juice
1/4 cup butter
3/4/cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
Directions
Peel, core, and cut apples into quarters then cut each quarter into 3-4 slices. Place in buttered pan. Sprinkle with lemon juice, white sugar and cinnamon. With a fork, mix the brown sugar and flour. Using 2 knives or your hands, cut in butter until you have coarse crumbs. Sprinkle on top. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Bird on a Branch Wood Coasters
by Peppersprouts
Peppersprouts Peppered Up Margarita
A full time graphic designer who says she has too many ideas for things to make!  Visit her shop Peppersprouts to see the results of some of those ideas.  In the meantime, give this Peppered up Margarita a try and be sure to use a coaster.





Ingredients
1 chili pepper (pick based on you heat preference)
1/2 cup tequila
1/4 cup Cointreau or Grand Marnier
2 tbls fresh lime or Rose's Lime juice
Directions
Slice the pepper into thin strips and rub it around the rim of a chilled margarita glass.  Drop a pepper strip into the glass. Fill cocktail shaker half full with ice and add tequila, Cointreau or Grand Marnier and lime juice. Shake vigorously and strain into glass.


Linda's Jazzed-Up Curried Lentils
Linda is not only known for her adorable bright colored birds and decorative magnets, she is also famous for this Lentil recipe.  I'm so glad she shared it with us!  Visit her shop PurtyBird.
Ingredients
2 large onions
2 carrots
3-4 large stalks celery
2 Gala apples 
4 cloves garlic
1 pkg. dry red lentils
1 handful anise seed (more or less to taste)
3-4 handfuls raisins
3-4 tbls curry powder (more or less to taste)
6-8 cups water
Salt to taste

Directions
Saute onions, garlic and celery in enough oil to cover the bottom of the pot until translucent. Add anise and let cook approx. 2 minutes. Add lentils and water, then apples, carrots and curry. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and let simmer for approximately 1 hour or until lentils are cooked. Add raisins. Continue cooking over low heat for another hour or two. Salt to taste.  Can be prepared a day in advance and refrigerated to allow the flavors intermingle and develop.

May Luk's Pineapple Pound Cake with Pineapple Rum Glaze
May's unique ceramics are both beautiful and functional.  Working with clay and glaze, May creates each of the items in her shop MayLuk by hand.   Try your hand with a different king of glaze, a delicious pineapple pound cake with pineapple rum glaze.

Eat Pink Platter
by MayLuk
Ingredients
Whole wheat pastry flour - 2.5 cups
Butter - 1 stick unsalted at room temperature
Sour Cream - 1 cup
Eggs - 3,  separated
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Vanilla - 1 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Baking Soda - 1.5 tsp
Crushed Pineapple - 1 cup  drained

Directions
Whip egg white until stiff on high. About 3 minutes. Set aside. Mix flour, baking soda and salt together. Set aside.  Whip butter for one minute. Then add in the sugar mix well. Add in the egg yokes and mix well. Then add the vanilla. Alternately add in the flour mixture and the sour cream and mix well. Add in pineapple and rum, mix well. By hand, slowly fold in the egg white. Do not over-mix
Pour the batter into a buttered bundt pan. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 350 deg F for 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes clean and the edges are slightly golden brown.

Pineapple Rum Glaze
Cream Cheese - 4oz   (1/2 package) at room temperature
Butter - 1/4 stick at  room temperature
Powder Sugar - 3 tbsp
Vanilla Extract - 1 tsp
Salt - pinch
Crushed Pineapple - 1 cup drained
Bermuda Gold Liqueur - 2 tbsp. Add more to taste.

Directions
Beat cream cheese and butter on high until well mixed. Add in the remaining ingredients and beat until it's nice and fluffy.  Mix in pineapple and rum. Serve with cake.

Hope you enjoy these recipes and hanging out in the kitchen with The{NewNew}.  For more kitchen and dining related items visit the In The Kitchen treasury on Etsy.

Holly
Ellis Design 

Artistic Process: What inspires you?

"Inspiration....
Everyday objects.
Typography & letterforms.
Shadows & outlines that appear when I close my eyes.
Motivation.....
I just want to make simple things but make them in my own way. Great
design at a fair price.
I can't sit still... I'm always designing something even if its not
feasible to make at the moment. (I have my heart set of large felt
rugs i just need to find a way to cut them)."

-Jen
Peppersrouts

Meet your {NewNew}!


Meet Jen Pepper of PepperSprouts! I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know her better through this interview. Read on for a peek into Jen’s life…

Tell us a bit about yourself! I grew up in a small beach town in Delaware, it's the kind of place where your parents know you got a D on your math test even before you did. My family has always been supportive of my interest in the arts and let me take a watercolor class when I was 7, from then on I feel like I've always had a project going on. I spent my first year of college at the Art Institute of Boston, and then transferred to the University Of Delaware, where I majored in Graphic Design. I moved to New York after graduation, and started a slew of odd creative jobs. I worked as a custom picture framer, a photo retoucher, a advertising production artist, and currently design director at isocurve. Throughout it all I've always been creating, drawing, painting and anything else I can get my hands on.

What are your favorite materials and what do you transform them into? I love paper, wood, paint, x-acto knives, and fabric mixed with digital software and I make pretty things to decorate your home.

Why did you start PepperSprouts and when? I officially started PepperSprouts in 2008 to keep my creativity alive and give myself an excuse to keep creating. I love the idea of designing pieces and sending them out in the world for other people to enjoy.

Design plays an important role in your work, so who are your favorite designers? Some of my favorite designers are Jennifer Sterling, Chip Kidd, David Carson & Ken Barber. I know when I love a piece of design work because I get this feeling in the bit of my stomach that feels like jealousy, yet at the same time I SO want to hang out with that person.

How would you describe your aesthetic? My design aesthetic is very clean and simplistic mixed with a little bit of wit, I try mix a little bit of humor in everything I do.

What are you working on now? What's new and coming up?
I just finished a Brooklyn skyline pendent, Michelle from Dirty Loves Clean gave me the idea this winter and I'm very happy to say that it came out wonderfully! My upcoming projects are numerous, some textile designs for throw pillows, a series of prints and originals of my favorite Brooklyn buildings, some super cute typography and silhouette brooches, and another set of coasters. I also have an ongoing childrens book I've been working on, hoping to have that finished by the end of the year. So keep your eye out, I'm on a roll!

Wow! You've got so much going on! How do you find time between your full time job and your own work? Do you have a set routine? Ha! I always say I need more hours in the day. As I work 9-6 Monday-Friday in a small design firm, a lot of my outside work is done on the weekends and late at night. I talk a lot of ideas out on the train ride to and from work, with my boyfriend of course not complete strangers.

What inspires you?
So many things inspire me, I love the woods, nature, my silly welsh corgi, Einstein. Typography also plays a big part in the background of my work.

Einstein is so cute! That face kills me. What part of your life do you find is/was the most creative? Do you think back to these times when creating your work? The most creative time in my life has to be right now, because I'm able to be creative at my day job. My mind never turns to mush. I might be thinking about a logo for a client and some crazy idea for a series of prints pops up in the background.

What is your creative process when making your work? It's funny I actually come up with a lot of ideas in the middle of the night. I rarely sleep through the night. I find myself waking up and having to sketch something out. When I have some idea I spend some time bouncing things off my mathematical boyfriend for a different opinion on things. A lot of times I sketch ideas out in illustrator before I bring them out in the real world.

Do you make all the products yourself? How long does the production process take? My shadow boxes are made my me, hand-cut from paper and assembled, the entire process takes about an hour or so. My illustrations, of course, are my own. I am currently working on some new home goods that will be out in the next month, the first out are my silhouette coasters which took me a few weeks to get the design finalized, and then they were outsourced to be cut, then finished by me.

What are your best-selling items? My Brooklyn shadow boxes and silhouette coasters are two of my best sellers. I think they add a lot of uniqueness to a home.

When you find yourself stuck, how do you get out of it? I go to the bookstore. If I open a book and start looking at designs, or patterns or maps, or floral design it gets my mind jump started and then its hard to get it to stop.

Do you have any creative thinking tricks you like to share? Always keep a little notebook with you. I couldn't live without my moleskin. Just jot it down, get it out of your head, especially if it’s a bad idea, or something that just isn't going to work. You never know when those forgotten ideas may transform into something else great.

Why do you think people should buy handmade? Originality. Cut out the middleman, and buy the creativity that supports local economies. People put so much love and time into their creations, I can't think of a reason not to buy handmade.

What handmade possession do you most cherish? So many to choose, I really love my ceramic Bears in love from KG + AB, I got them last year at the Renegade fair at McCaren Pool.

I have a ceramic spoon from KG + AB and it is my favorite handmade object too, because using it makes me so happy. Apart from creating things, what do you do? Oh the usual, exploring the city, doing the dog park thing, winning free drinks at Redd's because I rock at skeeball.

What is something about you that surprises people when they find out about it? I'm a comic book nerd. It's pretty funny because the last few weekends I've been dragging my boyfriend into Midtown Comics and I can tell he just feels super uncomfortable.
In ten years where do you see yourself... Married and self employed. But seriously, I'd like to still be able to wake up everyday and create. I want to still have fresh thoughts and not be burned out. I really don't want to get burned out.

Thank you so much for sharing Jen! She also has an awesome blog, UpstateFancy, where she features lots of other makers, inspirations, beautiful objects and design on the daily. Check out the blog and make sure you hop over to her shop. Thanks for meeting your NewNew member Jen! and check back for more interviews to come!


Jessica