Fairy House

Here are some photos of the fairy house Brandon and I built for a co-worker. Last year I gave her a homemade unicorn doll. I don't know what I'll manage to think of next year.
Main House:

Detailed. The blanket is reversible.

Looking in a window:

Kenny Tailoring

Shoofly Pie

Highly recommended for molasses lovers. Recipe from Joy of Cooking with the pat in the pan crust.

Belated

Halloween

scarves

A friend of my mom gave me a bunch of vintage scarves and handkerchiefs. I don't wear scarves so I am hording them until I think of something to do. They are lovely. She also gave me some handmade ribbon flower corsages. We gave most of them to Brandon's grandmother but I kept a small one for myself.

Binding Tape

This apron that I made from a poorly tested pattern in A is For Apron was my reward for working on my grad school essay. I bought the fabric with a $20 that a mad man dropped on the floor at work and didn't come back to get, ever. He probably didn't notice considering he had a huge wad of money shoved into a crumpled newspaper and asked one of my co-workers to help him count it in the kids department. Creepy. East Liberty is pretty rough. Anyway, I made my own binding tape and loved it! Everyone says the bias is so great and they were right. It hugged the curves easily and really made the apron look professional.

Our Winery

A couple months ago Brandon bought some beer and wine making equipment from a very enthusiastic garage salesman. Then his employer moved to a new building down the street from a really excellent wine and brewing supply store and our winery was born. So far he has bottled peach, blackberry (we picked them at his grandma's!), and coffee. The coffee is an exotic taste (read: sort of horrifying but not terrible.) We have pineapple, blueberry, strawberry, orange, and cranberry working right now. They taste really good, too!

Opening Day

After an exhausting attempt at being a football fan last year I signed on to only participate in the "big" games. Like the season opener. We had those same old amazingly delicious ribs. I also made a successful soft sweet dinner roll. My life has gotten that much better since giving up in the biscuit crusade. The roll recipe was from Joy of Cooking. Of course it was, right? Also, we had corn in butter with parsley.

Deep Dish

So I've become a little obsessed with home-made pizza. Thanks to a last minute glance through of last month's Good Food magazine I discovered deep dish. Not only is it yummy and a tidy presentation but the oil I coated the bottom with and the dough combined to give my much abused iron skillets some tlc.

Also, some last minute sangria. I mushed up some frozen strawberries with sugar and the juice of one lemon, sliced a couple peaches and combined with some jug wine. I also added a slug of orange juice which I would not recommend as the flavor was a little more subtle before that step. It was served with soda and ice in my precious pansy glass from the goodwill.

Caramelized Onions & Peas

This is loosely based off a "pitza" my ex-boyfriend used to order at a local restaurant that serves middle eastern food that is good but not very interesting. The one he got was much spicier and had chicken. I don't even remember liking it that much but suddenly woke up the other day desperate to make this. I had a container of tangy tomato sauce left over from a Moosewood meal. The peas were heated in a little oil with garam masala. The onions were finely sliced and caramelized. I made a big pan of them to mix with yogurt and cheddar in another loose remake of a real winner from Amy Sedaris.

Sicilian Pi

I took a cue from Laura and tried my hand at recreating a Pi favorite. I covered the crust with grated provolone, about 6 cloves garlic minced, sliced tomato sprinkled with generous salt and pepper and a handful of chopped parsley. It was really amazing. The crust wasn't the same, obviously, but I do intend to eventually try it with a pie crust. I think I may make this for dinner again tonight.

Recently Eaten

Bacon Burgers with Sweet Potato Fries.
I mixed chopped onion in the meat along with the usual worcestershire, salt, and black pepper. The fries were tossed with olive oil and baked until nearly destroyed in a 475 oven. Not pictured: amazing homemade Ranch Dressing. I found the recipe in How to Boil Water by the Food Network.


Chicken Green Bean Stir-fry

Made from a pretty close following of the recipe in the most recent Rachael Ray magazine. The sauce was better than good. Next time I would double the sauce, halve the chicken and replace it with more veggies, and double the rice.

finished

Despite crushing laziness I finished the pillow. It worked out well.

Log Cabin-ish Pillow

We bought as-is pillows at Ikea last year. Then half-heartedly covered them. I decided months ago that I wanted to make a Log Cabin inspired cover for the worst of them. Here is an in-progress photo. I really hope I finish it but it has already been over a year so there is no telling. All the fabric was leftover from other projects at least.

Tomato Sauce with Vinegar

Twice I have made a mushroom tomato sauce with red wine vinegar. I enjoyed it both times.

I mince garlic and saute it until fragrant. Then add sliced mushrooms. Add marjoram to taste and mix thoroughly. Once it seems that everything will stick horribly to the pan add a glug or two of red wine vinegar. Cook with lid on until mushrooms are soft and it smells delightful. Add tomatoes and any salt and pepper. Simmer while the water for the pasta boils. It makes a fairly tangy sauce so I think it is best over a filled pasta.

Peach Cobbler

I made a peach cobbler from frozen peaches. They were a little hard even after baking forever. This is one recipe that has never been as good as the first time. How can that be? I remember it as the most amazing thing I had ever made up until that point. And it has since gained nearly mythical status. I make it once or twice a year now and there is always something that rubs me the wrong way. The nutmeg was too strong. The dough never quite cooked despite nearly doubling the time in the oven. This time the peaches were hard and the dough still had issues. Maybe I should accept that the first time was the best and move on to a different version of the recipe. It was from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking Book.

One Hour

A couple weeks ago we ran for one hour straight! The last ten minutes were pure will power and pain. But, what an accomplishment. Then on Sunday we both had "PR's" in the local race for the cure. Brandon = 25:45. Me = 27:50. Hurray!

Sci-Fi Summer

This summer I am going all out and reading only science fiction/fantasy. I always claim to love the genre but haven't read enough of it to silence its many detractors. Also, I may go back to school next term and won't have time for such luxuries.

I started off with a painful, difficult book The Void Captain's Tale by Norman Spinrad.

"But despite these appearances, I sensed that the void within me, that black hole of confusion which had somehow been bored through my weltanschauung, had finally begun to fracture the phenomenological realm precisely at its point of greatest ambiguity - the sexual interface where psyche and soma could no longer be dualized."

And on and on in that vein. But I finished it and I think I understood some of the most obvious points.

Race for the Cure

Our race for the cure packages came on Friday. We ran the course yesterday and even though my legs felt like jelly we finished in 29:40. Which is a huge improvement over our first 5k. Race day will be much different but I hope to be surprised/satisfied with my time.

Chocolate

So I don't consider myself a baker because I have never successfully made a loaf of bread and until yesterday had never made really good muffins. The bread thing has a ways to go unless you count flat bread, which I don't. These muffins were double chocolate muffins from Joy of Cooking that I made using leftover chocolate from a going away cake I made for a co-worker. I am in love with the fact that I got up Saturday morning and just happened to whip up a huge batch of muffins with "leftover" chocolate like I am someones grandma and it is a just a matter of course that I would have leftover anything.

And this is the cake. The icing was too die for cream cheese, butter, chocolate melted with brewed coffee, and a little confectioners sugar. I only put a couple tablespoons instead of the 3 cups that were called for because I want to taste the butter and cream cheese. The cake itself was chocolate sheet cake with walnuts. I don't see myself ever making it again because it was more complicated than it sounds and tasted boring. Both of the recipes were from Joy of Cooking. If someone forced me to make the cake again I would add coffee to the melted chocolate instead of water to add a little interest or depth to the very mild chocolate flavor.

Ruffles Demystified

So I have a list of sewing to-do projects that I am diligently working through. One is a mini-dream project based on a super girly, ruffled laundry bag I saw in Blueprint magazine awhile back. The real bag costs $40+ so obviously I have to make my own. So I killed 1 1/2 birds with one stone this weekend. I finally got the balls to try ruffles and marked off another project all at once. This misshapen mess is my new scrap bag with my first prototype ruffles. I didn't hem the raw edges because, hey, it is my scrap bag and I was too lazy. But the ruffles were actually quite simple I just maxed out my thread tension and stitch length and then quickly sewed a line up the edge of each extra long strip. It looks a little cuter in real life but absolutely too huge for my one bedroom apartment.

Hand Drawing

This post is mainly for my mom to see my progress on my current learn to draw program. I am reading Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and having pretty cool progress. I am going through it pretty slow because it does take a lot of time to really sit down and do it because it is so hard. And way scarier than it would seem to try to draw something. But for me, drawing has been something that I was so "bad" at that I never wanted to try and fail. So anyway, here is my second hand drawing on toned paper.

New Bag

This is my version of the Wasp Bag from this free pattern I found. It worked like a charm (nearly). And the bag is great. Very roomy and comfortable. Maybe it was just a good pattern but I really think my sewing skills have improved. Making this felt like a special treat after the boring chore that the quilt became. The yo-yo's were my own embellishment idea. Currently, yo-yo's are my favorite thing.

Zippered Pouch

I have a new purse in the works so as a little warm-up I made this new zippered pouch. I designed the embroidery myself. Can you tell?! I find it entertaining, so there.

Kansas Dugout

I finally finished my "official" quilt. I took the pattern from a book of classic quilt patterns, the slip of paper I wrote the name on has been lost. Also, I was too stingy to even cart it home for a night so I traced the shape of the dugout onto a tissue with a pencil during lunch one day. Needless to say there were a few size issues and the perfect symetry thing didn't happen. But I pretty much loathe those precise geometric quilts anyway.

I think I will go back to slapping together random shapes and hoping like hell that I have enough fabric because making the same block over and over again was tedious.

Final Game

They lost but the meal was a real winner. A spicy cheesy bean-y burrito that I found in a Racheal Ray Magazine. Embarrassingly, I am a subscriber. Her recipes are delicious so I won't apologize. You don't have to be classy to make good food. Anyway, the season is over and I am quite possibly the only person in Pittsburgh happy about it.

Much Belated

Here is a link to my race results in the Gutbuster on Thanksgiving. I ran it by myself and it was hard. Very hilly and muddy. I finished in 44:26 which I was very happy about because my goal time was 45 minutes and I ended up walking more than I planned due to the steepness of the hills. I am number 48 and my name is very misspelled.

We have run out of steam on the Steelers Game Day meals. Not so much we as me. So we had pizzas the last two games. They were delicious and amazing but there are no pictures. Oh, well. did make a New Year's Resolution to take 30 photos a week so I may post a picture of the play-off meal(s).