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..."

From Food

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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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