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Monthly Review
Monthly Review · Uncategorized

Monthly Review

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It’s hard for me to believe it, but I’ve been writing this blog for 11 months! 11 reviews, multiples of 11 of new recipes, and probably about 11 craft projects completed. 🙂

Fancy has found 11 new places to nap, most of them in spots where we would like to sit or were previously sitting.

She’s also making new noises. We thought we had a quiet dog, but when she wants something that is not the case at all. Lately she has decided the coffee table makes the perfect launch pad to the couch. We’ve shut that one down quickly. No jumping on tables for her. This is her after getting yelled after one of those times.

So this month wasn’t a strong sewing month, although we did get two big organization projects done. We organized the cookbooks and the pantry area downstairs.

I also finished my Rainbow Snowball Quilt! It hasn’t made it to its new owner, but is completed finally.

I started a tunic, but got confused by the directions and put it away for a little bit.

I also started a new rainbow quilt. This one may have a home, but I have to measure it when done first. I can’t have sibling rivalry going on over my quilts.

It looks like I may only have finished one sewing project! Yikes! I need to get on that. Here’s a sneak peek of super secret Christmas projects to make up for it.

These two will be together. The next two are just pictured together, they will be separate projects.

This one was a complete impulse buy, but it was on clearance and I wanted it. Who doesn’t like winter walrus?! I will probably make myself a Christmas apron out of it. 🙂

I’ve also found several Christmas flamingos, one of which is this Welcome flag.

The neighbors thought they would escape flamingos at Christmas! Ha! Silly neighbors!

The Husband has not yet agreed to the large light-up scarf wearing flamingo for the yard, but if it’s still there for Target’s 70% off clearance, it’s coming home with us. 🙂  It’s possible I have a flamingo problem.  Send Legos for the Husband so he’ll be distracted and won’t notice additional flamingos!

Food-wise, I did better with meeting goals. I used 7 new cookbooks, a couple of new techniques, and 24 new recipes total.

We had 4 misses. The squash tasted bland and wouldn’t flambé, the shortbread was a weird texture, the souffle tasted too processed, and the seed cake was too dense and dry.

Hits were the French Onion Pot Roast, Fancy’s pumpkin pb treats, the Creamy Chicken dish from Natasha’s Kitchen, the Chocolate Banana Muffins, and the beef stew with barley and carrots.

This month I want to try to get the Husband a little more comfortable with cooking a few dishes, so I can leave more things for him. I also want to keep trying some new techniques. I’ve been hinting strongly for a kitchen blow torch for Christmas. There are creme brûlée yogurt parfaits to be made!

Craft goals for the month: I would like to focus on finishing Christmas presents and also making some household items, like potholders and seasonal table runners. I have Christmas and Thanksgiving fabric. Perhaps a table runner will encourage me to keep the table clear!

I would like to make at least one clothing item and finish a UFO, but that might be a back burner goal, depending on how Christmas goes.

I’ve also got to collect info for my year review! It’s exciting and scary at the same time.

All the 25 Days of Cookies recipes will be included in the weekly Recipe Roundups and will have their own post sometime after Christmas. Tonight I made no bake pb bars and glazed ginger hibiscus cookies!

Now it’s off to bed. I have a sleepy dog and a long day tomorrow!

Sneezy, Dopey, Grumpy, and Sleepy: The Four Dwarves of a Cold
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Sneezy, Dopey, Grumpy, and Sleepy: The Four Dwarves of a Cold

LSiehLeave a comment

I am sick. I can’t stop coughing, sneezing, or blowing my nose. I have no appetite and just want to go to bed and sleep everything off. Fancy was so concerned about me that she has been attached to my hip since Sunday and has to be touching me at all times. She’s started to guard me from The Husband again. She freaked out when I had to use my nebulizer, but seemed okay once I showed her what it was. Now she just has to lay on my lap while I use it. She checks on me every so often like this.

The Husband has been taking good care of me, so I am feeling like I’m getting a little better. The last stage of a cold for me is when it settles into my chest and my asthma flares. I’m taking zinc and drinking orange juice (though not at the same time.. blech)  and having lots of chicken soup.

I have not felt up to crafting or sewing, as I’ve also hurt my back again. I sat crunched up while writing and am still paying for it. I have to find a PT place again, so they can fix it.

I have been able to write and got over word count pretty much all the days so far. I had a hiccup in my story and decided to go back to my original idea of a people/princess rescuing dragon. The Steampunk idea got away from me. I don’t know enough about the mechanics of it to write a good story. The cowboys were confusing me to and I got really bored with my characters and the storyline. The Husband suggested I write the original one and so far it’s going well.

We went to a wedding on Saturday that had dragons. 🙂 I woke up with a cold then, so brought my own box of tissues and hand sanitizer and tried not to hug or breathe on too many people.

It was a really cool wedding.  Beautiful decorations and just a hint of nerdiness. 🙂 The sign says “One ring to bring and into marriage bind them.” The bride looked like a princess and the groom was her very handsome prince.

We got to see a whole bunch of college friends and the Husband’s music fraternity serenaded the bride, which is my favorite part of a PMA (Phi Mu Alpha) wedding. There was a serenade at our wedding too and it, of course, made me cry.

It’s time for another dose of cold meds, so I’ll leave you. Hopefully I will start to feel better this week. We have our Elevensies party on Sunday and I have a lot of food to make. Send me healthy prayers please!

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Simple Sunday

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“If I could explain, I wouldn’t have to dance.”                -Isadora Duncan

“You don’t enter a dance studio and say “I can’t do that.” If you do, then why are you in the studio in the first place?”
― Judith Jamison, Dancing Spirit: An Autobiography

“Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance. Great dancers are great because of their passion.”
― Martha Graham

Recipe Roundup
Recipe Roundup · Uncategorized

Recipe Roundup

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Fancy was very excited this week, she got two new dog treat recipes made for her! Sadly, the vet thinks she may be allergic to chicken and if that’s the case, she can’t have one of them. We’re keeping her off chicken for a few weeks to see if it helps her ears and feet heal. I’m finding other recipes for her though.

1- Apple Crunch Pupcakes by Lola Bakes. http://blog.candiquik.com/apple-crunch-pupcakes/#more-6534

The pupcakes ended up being a trip. I used coconut flour and had to call a friend in a panic because the mixture wouldn’t stop expanding. I think I will not use coconut flour again. Fancy loves them, she won’t even let me get the paper off of them normally before she starts licking them. This is good because with the expansion of the flour it made 24 big cupcakes and two pans of minis. I froze them, as they started condensing a lot in the containers.

Here’s what the flour looked like in the bowl:

And a mini pupcake:

2- Mushroom Stroganoff Tortellini from Food Network Magazine, Oct. 2017, V. 10, N. 8

I saw this recipe when I got the magazine and the picture made me say “yum!” I used cheese tortellini instead of beef, since it was what we had. We always have the Kirkland/Costco brand tortellini on hand for quick dinner. One set will generally get us four separate meals and it keeps very well.

It was a little rich for me, but it tasted good. The Husband liked it a lot and said we could definitely make it again.

3- Vegetarian Chili, loosely based on this recipe:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/72508/the-best-vegetarian-chili-in-the-world/

I read the recipe, sort of, and then threw everything into a pot and cooked it for a few hours before work. Meat has been causing me issues lately. I haven’t wanted to cook or eat it, so this was a good option for lunch. I am the only one eating it too, so I am going to freeze it for lunches later. I used pinto beans instead of garbanzo beans. I also used a home-grown jalepeno. It was lovely and had just the right hint of spice.

4- Chicken Sausage with Spaetzle from Food Network Magazine, Oct. 2016, V.9, N.8. 

First off, this was in the weekday dinners section and I have no idea how they thought making spaetzle was a weekday thing. We didn’t eat until 8:30 the night I made this. Second thing, if I am going to make spaetzle again, I need a different colander with bigger holes. Also, three more arms, so I can rotate when they get tired. I have actually always wanted to try making spaetzle, so I was excited to do it, but man were my arms tired.

It tasted good though and I had a craving for chicken sausage, so was happy with it. It was relatively easy too, just awkward when trying to hold the colander and smoosh it through.

5-Freezer Cafe Rio Chicken from Freezer Meals by Juliana Sweeney. 

I don’t have a picture, as we ate this on different days. This meal saved my behind this week when I forgot to take anything out for dinner. It thaws for an hour before cooking and that’s it. It was surprisingly good. I thought it might be weird as it had Italian dressing and ranch seasoning, but it was actually good. We had it with rice.

My friend, Kayla, got us this book and it has been great! I have had a much easier time prepping dinners and using the crockpot more because of it. Tomorrow, I will be prepping more of them to freeze as I am almost out.

I’m pleased with my meal prep and execution this week. Sometimes it’s hard to feel like cooking after work, but I do get a lot of benefits out of it.

Any suggestions on techniques or recipes I should try? I’m trying to be more adventurous lately. I have to top the duck!

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Recipe Roundup

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I think I am in another food rut. Nothing sounds good and I don’t have the energy to cook anything new. Then, when I actually do cook something new, I think of all sorts of ways to change it or make it better. Plus, when we do eat out, or I eat a quick frozen dinner, I get sad and just want to make it better. It’s becoming a problem, although maybe a good problem to have, I guess.

I’m wondering if this cookbook challenge is pushing me in another direction, a new and slightly scary one. Maybe it’s time for me to start thinking about making up my own recipes… Real recipes, not just thrown together ones.

As I’m writing this, we are watching Masterchef, and the Husband is pointing out that the next audition cycle is “coming to a city near you!” (Chicago on September 9 is the next one.) He’s threatening to apply for me and bring me Mystery Boxes to get me ready for auditions… I may have created a monster…

While I’m not quite ready for Masterchef yet, I could maybe handle trying to create a few of my own recipes.

I did make spaghetti and bagel pizzas this week that were my own recipes. These will not win me Masterchef, but did make for tasty dinners.

1- Spaghetti, recipe by me.

The spaghetti had tons of fresh basil in it, so had a little bit of a different flavor. I had run out of garlic, so it just had garlic powder. It cooked in the crockpot for about 10 hours. The Husband’s coworkers are in awe of my cook time for spaghetti sauce, apparently. It is a long time, but if it cooks for under 4 hours, it isn’t as good. It still doesn’t taste as good as my Dad’s recipe either.

Yes, the pasta is mixed shapes. I thought I had more spaghetti and it turned out I had double the fettuccini, not spaghetti.

2- Fettuccini Alfredo with mushrooms from the Pasta book. This was not a new recipe, but I did add mushrooms. (We didn’t have these back to back, there were a few days in between.) I spaced on pictures, we were too hungry.

3- Bagel Pizzas, recipe by me.

The Husband laughed at me when I was talking about making these because apparently they started simple and then sounded extra fancy when I had finished what was going to be on them. They really aren’t fancy at all. I made homemade pizza sauce with dried oregano, parsley, basil, and garlic and onion powders. I toasted the bagel before adding the sauce and it made it much nicer. I added a slice of mozzarella cheese, mushrooms and ham, and then another slice of cheese on top. They were baked for about 10 minutes at 350.

4- Herb Chicken Meal from Freezer Meals by Julianna Sweeney. 

It looks terrible, but was actually pretty flavorful. We used boneless, skinless leg quarters and baked it for about 50 minutes, as it was still slightly frozen. Salad and garlic bread completed the meal. I will make this again, it was good.

Oh gosh… Now the Husband has my Masterchef plan of attack all worked out, from knife skill drills, to dinner parties where other people can eat the fish that neither of us like, to what we’ll do after I win.

If he starts telling all of you to send me weird food items, don’t listen! 🙂

For now, I think I’ll stick to trying some new ways to prepare foods and maybe try a few things out on my own. I still need to meal plan for the week too. My back is currently acting up very badly, so resting with an ice pack and recipes seems like just the thing to do.

Fancy is being bratty and demanding pets and rope tugs, which the Husband has provided. This has been my view during the week when she decides I’m done on the computer for the night.

It is National Dog Day though, so I suppose we can spoil her a bit. 🙂 Who can resist puppy snuggles, after all?

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Recipe Roundup Delay

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I typically post a Recipe Roundup today, but we’ve been without power for a few days, due to heavy winds, so I’m not able to see my cookbooks or use the internet. Hopefully it should be restored today and I can get back on the ball. I’m posting from work right now, but didn’t want to carry all my cookbooks with me. 🙂

Fancy is currently snuggled under a mound of blankets and is only coming out for bathroom breaks or peanut butter. She seems cozy.

Wish us luck for power and heat tonight!

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Hello out there!

LSiehLeave a comment

So I don’t make resolutions for New Year, but I do try to start projects. Last year it was to sew more clothes and that went off the rails when I couldn’t fit all my fabric in the tiny apartment and couldn’t remember how much I had. It’s amazing how much fabric accumulates when you can’t see it piling up…

Now after moving into a house and having space to sew and a kitchen big enough for more than two plates at a time, I think this year I should actually do those things. I also realized how much fabric I actually  have and it’s an embarrassing amount. Add in being stuck in a food rut of what seems like the same three dishes and it is definitely time for a change.

This year I am planning to use the resources I already have and try to buy less. For cooking, this means making at last one recipe from every section of my cookbooks. For crafting, this means choosing at least one project from all of my craft and sewing books. I thought a blog would be a fun way for me to keep track of all my progress and will help keep me accountable.

So far my recipes are winning. I just finished going through all my craft books and marking down the projects I want to complete. I haven’t started any of them yet. I still have to figure out what to do with my unfinished projects, so that they get done too.

I’ve made two new recipes so far and will post them later. Have fun following along!