Life's candy and the sun's a ball of butter

I'm an emotional person. Ask anyone.

I laugh out loud. And I mean *LOUD*.

I cry a lot. You know that Kodak commercial with the kid that shows his grandma her old baseball picture? I'm the one you can hear crying in the distance.

I get chills whenever I witness a fabulous performance of singing or dancing. CHILLS. Followed by immense jealousy that I can't sing and dance like them.

Last week was the Fall Finale of Glee (did I miss the memo on mid-season finales?) this made me have chills, and then I cried. (I just watched this clip 4 times and then the first 30 seconds 8 more times.) [update: the original clip was removed from youtube so now it's just the audio...)


Speaking of the sun being a ball of butter, I have two things I would like to share.

1. Buttery, delicious pecan pie.
2. Me balling -- well, bawling, but those who can't spell can see my segue.

First, the pecan pie. This was the first time I tried a no-roll-pie-crust. I set out to make small pecan tarts instead of one big pie. And then I realized that I had too much filling so I spent another 10 minutes (that's all it takes!) and made another crust for an entire pie. The crust turned out fabulous. I didn't blind bake anything: contrary to my quiche post. Why? I don't know. The likely answer is laziness.

Thanks to my housemate's trusty (although ancient) camera, I was able to capture one decent picture. For the filling, I used Martha Stewart's recipe. Mmmm. The sun must be mighty tasty.

From Food

Secondly: why was I bawling, you ask? Well, they were tears of happiness. I swear. Remember how I broke my camera and you all ran out to buy me a new one for Christmas? Well you can all return them (and get me gift certificates to the workroom) because Dustin gave me my Christmas present early! He spent hours researching for an inexpensive camera that performed well in low light and then went out today to bargain for a discount. He knew I would never have agreed to an expensive camera (and if Angela's ancient camera was up for grabs, I was thinking of buying it off her) so the Chinese bargaining skills came out and (although he wasn't able to pay cash for an extra no-tax savings) his mission was accomplished.

The battery is charging as we speak. No rain on my parade today!!!

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La Vie en Rosé

I used to *love* creamy pasta sauces. Fettuccine Alfredo. Mmmmmm.

And then I became conscious of my "personal spare tire" also referred to as the "muffin top." If only I had blown a tire, and not broken my leg. I would have had a spare.

Lately, at my favourite Italian restaurant: Marcello's, I will compromise and get a rosé sauce. I've never made a rosé sauce at home before, but last week (yes, this post is about last week since I have no new pictures) I whipped up a delicious rosé sauce.

From Food

I don't actually know how the experts make a rosé sauce, but this one turned out pretty tasty and was soooo easy. Too easy... I'm sure I'm doing something wrong. But until I look up a recipe and make it the right way, this is the way I will do it.

Step 1: Get a pot of water boiling. (Whenever making pasta, you should always get a big pot of water boiling first.)

Step 2: Go treat yourself to a beautiful Le Creuset braiser. Okay, that part is optional: but for all those getting married and creating a wedding registry, this is highly recommended. I use it for pasta sauces, stir fries, quick stews, steaks... and I refer to it as the skillet... but I guess the skillet is shallower.

Real Step 2: Mince up garlic and chop up whatever else you want to put in your sauce: mushrooms, zucchini, peppers etc...

Step 3: Olive oil in the shallow pan or whatever you're using to make your sauce. Add everything you chopped. Hold the fresh basil until later if using. Don't forget to season with salt and pepper.

Step 4: Before your garlic burns, add a big scoop of tomato paste (perhaps the organic local one that you got in your biweekly CSA box?) Add chicken or vegetable stock. Adjust either more stock or more paste until you get enough sauce and a nice consistency and nice flavouring.

From Food

Step 5: Your water is probably boiling now. Add (lots of) salt, and your pasta and cook according to package.

Step 6: Add the basil to the sauce. Pour in a small quantity of half and half cream. Or whatever cream you happen to have: light (4%), table (18%), full fat goodness (40%). Add small quantities of cream until you're happy with the creaminess. I think I added 3 tablespoons. I used half and half. Taste and season if required.

Tada! Pour sauce over pasta. Finish with some freshly cracked black pepper and parmigiano reggiano. Yes, I just wrote that with a Giada de Laurentiis accent. Mmmm... "creamy, tangy, the pasta is perfectly al dente..."

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Jumping Through Hoops

Kelly? Kelly who?

What a disaster! It's been over two weeks without a blog post. I have not done well.

Remember my deadline to finish the fabric hoops for the wall behind my bed? I met it. I swear. But I didn't like the colour of my bedroom walls. Dustin and I have been thinking of changing the wall colour since we moved in. I realize that ivory is boring, but I was beginning to feel like I lived in the middle of a flower in pollen-ville.

From sewing

I'm not making excuses for my lack of blog posts. Just giving reasons: I painted my room, I needed a weekend of daylight to take pictures (anyone want to donate a better camera?), and then I broke my camera (anyone want to donate any camera at all?)

Honest: my camera is broken. Not only is my camera broken, I found out today that the camera on my cell phone also does not work. So I couldn't even take a picture of my broken camera.

Before the death of my camera, I managed to take a few pictures. I was going to take better ones, but they are now all I have. I think I have a couple posts worth of pictures before I'll be MIA for a while: so enjoy!

My last two fabric hoops were a shout-out to my very first birdie sling, and an artistic attempt at representing my dress shirt from a class at the the workroom.

For my first birdie sling (photo courtesy of the workroom) I selected Amy butler's grey happy dots, and a beautiful watercolour fabric. The lining was an olive green upholstery fabric.

From sewing

The dress shirt class at the workroom was bitter sweet. When I have a new camera, I will hopefully post more about it. The resulting dress shirt was great: I was very proud of the craftswomanship. But it didn't fit. I know, the class was supposed to be a custom fit dress shirt. I don't know what to tell you. Fortunately, it fits my mother. So she gets two Christmas presents this year.

I had chosen a simple striped shirting fabric. Isn't the mini pocket cute?

From sewing

From sewing

The fabric hoops are great. A little collection of sewing stories. When I get my hands on a camera, I'll post a picture of the finished product.

Now I'm off to think of blog posts about the few pictures that I took before my camera's plunge to its death (literally: I dropped it.)

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Super greeky shower

Photo courtesy of Cris

I'm going to be an aunt! A real one, not the kind where your friends start to have kids and they have to call you "auntie." My sister, Kandice, is having a baby boy within the next week.

Last month, we (two of my sister's friends and I) threw her a big baby shower -- and I mean big. I've never seen a baby shower of this size, but apparently it's a common occurrence amongst her friends in Ottawa.

She wanted a toga-themed tea party. We thought: togas? Let's do Greek food!

Among other great foods, some of my favourite concoctions were mini pork souvlaki skewers, one-bite Greek salad and (my personal favourite) Greek cupcakes.

The mini pork skewers were marinated in some Greek spices (mine comes from Victorian Epicure) and then grilled on my parents luxury grill. A great way to present skewers (of any kind) is to cut a big head of cabbage in half, cover in tin foil, and then stab the skewers in whatever arrangement you so desire.

From Food

One-bite Greek salad is a slice of cucumber topped with a slice of cherry tomato, topped with a cube of feta cheese. Genius! I have my moments.

From Food

And now the cupcakes. What's that, Marigold? "There's no such thing as a Greek cupcake!" Yes, that is correct. But I wanted to bake cupcakes, and wanted to incorporate the Greek theme, so my genius husband (we make quite the pair) suggested icing them with Greek letters. Out came my memories of math class and I iced all the cupcakes with Greek letters that had once crossed my path in my four years of Engineering lectures. See them? Lambda, omega, phi, mu, gamma, rho, alpha, pi... As expected, I used one of Ina's recipes. Perfect Greek cupcakes!!! Happy greeky shower, Kandice!

From Food

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Quiche Lorraine

Does anyone know someone named Lorraine? I don't. So let's just call it quiche-Kelly.

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Our CSA box came with a dozen fresh, organic chicken eggs. A week after we used them for our quiche-kelly we realized we could have made eggnog. Darn it. Don't tell quiche-kelly, it might hurt her feelings.

I made my usual pie crust from Ina. Look at all those butter bits!

From Food

Then I decided to blind bake it. I just learned that term. I'm not sure why it's called blind baking, but it's just a confusing way of saying to prebake the crust. My friend Jenn asked me if she should prebake her crust. I said no. I had only made quiche once before and I made mini quiches. I did not prebake and they were perfectly crispy. I should have done more research before giving my friend advice. I decided to blind bake this crust. Not sure if it made a difference. I guess I'll have to try again sometime without blind baking. But if I get another dozen eggs in our CSA box, I'm making eggnog. So who knows if I'll ever find out.

Boy that was a ramble. I digress. (Wait, one more thing: did you know that putting the fork holes in the pie crust is called "docking"? Okay. *Now* I digress.)

I did not follow any recipe. I do that sometimes.

I scrambled up 4 eggs. Added some salt and pepper. Started pouring in heavy cream. Stopped when my love handles jiggled at me. I think I put about half the 250mL carton in. Chopped up some cilantro. (Cilantro?! Why cilantro? That's what came in the CSA box.) Added some thai seasoning since there was cilantro in it. (My premixed Thai seasoning comes from Victorian Epicure.) Then I felt like I could squeeze in another egg, so I added a 5th. And then maybe a dash more cream.

I cooked up some sliced bacon, added some red peppers for colour (since it came in the CSA box) and then sprinkled it in the prebaked pie crust. Sprinkled some grated Toscana cheese (also from the CSA box) and then poured the egg mixture in. Said to myself "darn it. i could have squeezed in another egg. oh well" and then baked it for ... i dunno... 35 mins in a 375 degree oven?

Who needs a recipe? [cue Micheal Smith's cheesy music ".... you can do it, too..."]

From Food

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Flight of the Concord (Jam)

I went to pick up our second CSA box today. Not as exciting (no alien shaped things) but still full of delicious local foods. It made me realize how far behind I was in my blogging about the last CSA box. Without further adieu:

From Food

Concord grapes are my least favourite grapes. They are my friend Paula's favourite. That happens a lot. She likes the outside crust of bread, I like the inside. She likes the tips of the asparagus, I like the bottoms. She likes the melty outside icecream of the breyer's container, I like the cold, firm inside. She likes smushy concord grapes, I like grapes that are crunchy and not squidgy in the least.

So it was an absolute relief when Dustin suggested making a jam out of the grapes.

I googled and googled for a recipe, but I kept reading about this ridiculous "jelly cloth" that I needed to use to drain the liquid. I assume it was like a cheese cloth. Which I did not have. And didn't they always tell you that the nutrients were packed in the skin?

So I finally found this recipe from epicurious.com. No jelly cloth. But it calls for a food mill. Which I owned (thanks mom) but after I used it, I decided that it didn't really do anything.

I also didn't really skim the surface. Lazy, I know. But I needed every short cut I could get, because the first step was squishing every single grape between our fingers and separating the grape guts from the skins. Dustin helped. We bonded. And squished.

From Food

Here are my revised instructions:

1. Squish 2lbs of concord grapes with your fingers and separate the skins and the guts. (Yes, only 2lbs. Who has more than 2lbs of grapes?! Okay, if you do, then multiply the recipe.)

2. Food process the skins with 1/2 cup of sugar.

3. Add the guts and the skins to a heavy pot. Add another cup or cup and a half of sugar and the juice of a lemon. Or a half lemon. Or grapefruit. Whatever you have lying around. (I may have added some orange liqueur as well. Ina does in her strawberry jam recipe. I want to be like Ina.)

4. Boil it for a really long time. Maybe an hour? Stir it every so often. When it looks kinda thick, it's done! You can test it by dropping a blob onto a plate, letting it cool and seeing if it's thick enough for your liking.

Although concord grapes (juice, jam, or eau de toilette) always reminds me of church communion, the end product was still delicious. We made two small jars of jam with that basket of grapes. Those grapes were toast! Er, that toast is jammed... It all tastes grape to me!

From Food

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I am the very model of a modern major general...

I'm in love with a new collection of fabric that the workroom has recently ordered. In LOVE. It's called Rouenneries by French General (for Moda.)

Photo courtesy of the workroom

I want them all. A dress, a shirt, a skirt, a pillow, a duvet cover... the options are endless!

One thing I know for sure, I'm going use the jelly roll to make a lamp shade using this tutorial by rachel of p.s. i quilt.

"In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,I am the very model of a modern Major-General!"

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Kale Fan

We will be finishing up our first CSA box tonight with a roasted chicken dinner and roasted local, fresh, baby carrots. No pictures: it's still in the oven. But let's go back to our first meal: kale.

From Food

I've never eaten kale before, and Dustin isn't a big fan of soup (it makes him uncomfortably hot; for the same reason, he doesn't drink tea, coffee, hot chocolate, and does not enjoy seat warmers in the car.) To make Dustin a Kale fan, I knew I had to pull out my trump card: stir fry beef. I regularly buy a large cut of beef and slice it up into small stir fry pieces before freezing one-meal-portions in ziplock bags. Stir fry it with *anything* and Dustin will like it.

The most recent cut of beef happened to be prime rib -- a luxury in our household. Marinated with lots of fresh garlic, soy sauce, lots of black pepper and added to the lightly braised kale and the kale was sure to win Dustin over.

From Food

From Food

Look at the size of that one fresh head of garlic! Since it was the first day of the food box, we also had a whole array of salad foods: Boston lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, and Toscana cheese. Next task: the crazy alien broccoli.

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Life is Like a Box of Local Produce

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Dustin recently read In Defence of Food by Michael Pollan where he was introduced to the idea of Food Box programs -- also known as CSA (community shared agriculture) programs. We signed up with Culinarium, who puts together these food boxes from a variety of local farmers. Biweekly, for twenty weeks, we receive a food box filled with local produce, a protein, a cheese, and a pantry item: we never know what we're going to get until two days before pick up date.

So exciting! We get to try new foods and support local farmers. For our first box, we got all sorts of goodies: most of which you can recognize in the picture above, whereas some are a bit of a mystery.

In first place for weirdest produce ever is the Romanesco Broccoli. Dustin calls it the broccochinilini. A strange looking vegetable that is supposed be a cross between a cauliflower, a broccoli and an alien. Our plan? Oven roasted with olive oil and a backup bechemel cheese sauce in case it ends up in the "yucky" section of this blog.

From Food

Some other exciting goodies: Toscana cheese (I took a little nibble,) organic, local tomato paste, and look at those farm fresh chicken eggs! I'm thinking maybe a quiche? Maybe save the tomato paste for a pasta somewhere down the road?

From Food

Who's in a jam? My concord grapes will be! That's the plan for these beauties.

From Food

So many raw ingredients! 9 more food boxes. So many blog post possibilities. If only I could quit my daytime job...

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Bored of no Board

Dustin and I have lived in our home for a year and a half now, and we still have no headboard. Our bedroom is a boring land of "super giant bed and nothing on the walls." It's quite depressing.

From sewing

We had gone shopping for a headboard but with no luck; we never found something we loved enough for the price they were asking. I had decided that I would just have to be creative and figure something else out.

A few months ago, I saw that the workroom sold embroidery hoops. I'm such a pack rat and hate throwing away pieces of scrap fabric bigger than the size of a cookie, so these embroidery hoops were going to be great for displaying favourite scrap fabric and decorating the boring wall behind my bed all at the same time! Two birds! One stone!

Except that it wasn't going to be one stone -- er -- hoop. So far I only have a few hoops. And I can't nail them to the wall until I have all of the hoops. How do I know how much room to leave? What if I want to move them around?! My dad used to hate when I nailed holes into the wall: "Ai Ya!"

The first hoop is from leftover fabric from my sister's baby bag. It's a gorgeous Echino fabric -- and when Cheryl (from Pink Panda Fabrics) sent me my fabric order, she included a sample of Moda fabric that was a perfect match. I love that it draws out the blue hue in the Echino fabric.

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The next hoop is fabric from my "Carrie Bradshaw / Christian Dior" dress. I added some shirring to echo my dress. Simple. But even that took me hours of humming and hawing.

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The final hoop (for now) is a tribute to "the birdie sling that got away." It will always have a special place in my heart.

From sewing

I'm thinking maybe another 3 or 4 more hoops of various sizes. Perhaps I should set a deadline otherwise I'll never get these done. I work best under pressure. "I promise to finish these hoops by November 19th." And those of you who know me know that when I commit, I never back out!

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Figgin' Delicous!

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Chinese moms make Chinese soups. Chinese kids have to drink said soups. Chinese kids get really good at avoiding drinking Chinese soups that are yucky.

As a child, I used to try and hide any sort of ailment from my mother for as long as I could. She would make a soup for everything: sore throats, tired eyes, bad tempers. Most of them were yucky.

Since moving away from home, I've actually missed some of the soups my mom would make. (Not the papaya-pork-pancreas one!) I got sick earlier this month and although the fever, headache, and sinus pains are finally gone, I've still been feeling blah. This calls for a soup. Over the phone, I promised my mom I would make a soup and drink it.

"Go buy some dried figs from that Chinese store around the corner; boil it with whatever meat bones you have, add some potatoes, cabbage, carrots, and whatever vegetables you want and drink it."

"Yes, mom."

From Food

I had no idea my mom put figs in this "vegetable soup" she used to make. It's one of the soups I actually love to drink. I think my mom usually makes it with ox tail, but I wasn't really sure where to find ox tail. Fortunately I found two hunks of beef in my freezer: I'm vaguely remembering the last time my mom visited and told me to use it to make soup...

From Food

From Food

After something like two hours of low simmering, the soup tasted delicious. The figs added a unique sweet flavour that wasn't too overpowering. I'm happy to report to my mom that I'm already feeling better. It's probably all in my head, but who doesn't feel better when they successfully make a delicious Chinese soup?

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Sir Sam's Inn

For our second anniversary, Dustin and I spent the Thanksgiving weekend at Sir Sam's Inn near Haliburton. What a delightful place! (Yes, I used the word delightful.) The drive up was beautiful: Autumn is, hands down, my favourite season. There was a large tree just outside our window that was just starting to turn a nice shade of burnt orange.

From vacation

From vacation

Unlike a resort hotel, the inn was relatively small and we never felt like it was overcrowded. There is a gazebo on the property that looks out into the water: not quite big enough to reenact the scene with Rolph and Leisel from The Sound of Music, much to Dustin's disappointment.

From vacation

The weather that weekend was mostly spectacular, but a small storm hit just when we were out in the canoe. We managed to stay dry, and Dustin even let me take a few pictures of the storm before running back inside. Why don't pictures of blowing snow ever turn out? My only photo evidence of the stormy winds comes from a (lucky) shot of a leaf blowing by our bedroom window.

From vacation

The absolute greatest thing about Sir Sam's, is the water spa. Instead of a standard hotel swimming pool, they have a fabulous water spa with a circuit of relaxing jets, waterfalls, and bubbles that soothe and massage all parts of your body. Dustin and I could not believe how much time we were able to spend at the water spa, mostly with the facility all to ourselves.

From vacation

From vacation

Our nights always ended with a blazing fire in our room. Being the forever boyscout at heart, Dustin was always able to get a great fire roaring despite the minuscule fireplace.

From vacation

I'm not sure who Sir Sam is, but it sure was nice of him to have us at his inn to celebrate two years of marriage to the boyscout of my dreams.

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Mad Pumpkin Carving Skills

From holiday

My deepest apologies for disappearing from the blogging world: I assure you, I've been mentally blogging my latest adventures. I just need the time to put it all down on paper -- er... blogger's server.

What better time than the virtual-one-extra-hour gifted to us by Mr. Daylight Savings?

Since it is Halloween, I will begin by sharing about our little pumpkin carving extravaganza. For the past few weeks, my housemate Angela has been dropping hints about getting pumpkins to carve for Halloween. I found it a little odd how excited she was about pumpkin carving... No, she is not 10.

Last weekend, she finally got her hands on 4 pumpkins and convinced us to get carvin'. You know those email forwards of crazy pumpkin carvings or those tv shows (perhaps only on food network) of professionals turning pumpkins into amazing works of art? My housemate can do that! She is secretly a professional pumpkin carver! She has mad pumpkin carving skills!

I'm almost embarrassed to show you what Dustin, Dan, and I came up with, but let's begin with Angela's work of art: Mike Wazowski.

From holiday

I have zero pumpkin carving skills and decided to make a pumpkin Pi.

From holiday

Dustin carved the Alfred Hitchcock silhouette.

From holiday

And Dan... he carved... this. (10 points for whoever knows what it is.)

From holiday

All in all, our pumpkins were a success. Too bad they were slightly mouldy by the time we displayed them at the front door tonight. Week-old pumpkins smell funny.

I'm crossing my fingers that I don't have to scrape them off the sidewalk because crazy kids thought it would be funny to bounce them like basketballs. I'm hoping Mike will keep the kids away: he's got his eye on them...

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11. Do not covet thy neighbour's purse

I've actually lost count of the number of Birdie Slings I've made. Yes, the factory has poor accounting.

I love each and every one of my Birdie Slings. But this was the first one that I actually wanted to keep. Not only because of the fabulously wild print (she wanted "hippy-earthy-tones" and was "not afraid of patterns") but also because of the fabulous green-hued pewter button. The main fabric is Amy Butler's Gothic Rose. Perhaps she will hate it. Perhaps she will throw it back in my face and say "YOU keep it!" [moment of time to think clearly] Let's be honest. I think I'll cry if she doesn't love it.

From sewing

From sewing

I also completed a Birdie Sling last month that was also truly fabulous. I used Echino Japanese fabric for a whimsical-not-to-loud look. The chic lining is the same in both purses: one in pink, and one in green. You get to carry a cute bag with women carrying cute bags. I wonder what's the lining in their bags?

From sewing

From sewing

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