Eat your Greens!

By admin on May 18, 2012

It’s farmer’s market time! Our neighborhood market just opened up at the beginning of the month and I was finally able to get there this week.  It’s finally sunny and the temperature is just perfect for wandering around and checking out what all the vendors had.   I always seem to stop at Patty Pan Grill and grab a veggie quesadilla.  They are amazing.  I even grab an extra for lunch the next day!  Once my tummy is full, I then grab some fixin’s for other meals.  I always grab a bag of braising greens and paneer cheese.  And this time around I bought some leeks.  Ok, I bought a lot of leeks.  They were $2 a bundle.  I bought 2 bundles and when I got home I weighed them.  It’s roughly 4 pounds of leeks!  I’ll be cooking them up this weekend.

So if you’re not familiar with braising greens, around here they typically consist of kale, chard, collard greens, mustard greens.  And if you’re not familiar with paneer cheese, it’s a cheese mainly used in Indian cuisine.  It’s one of my favorites.  It doesn’t really have a strong taste.  It tends to take on the taste of the other things in the dish.  The other thing to know if you plan on giving it a try is that it doesn’t melt like other cheeses.  Now that you’ve got paneer and braising greens you can make a tasty meal or side dish.

I grab a couple of cans of fired roasted diced tomatoes (or fire roast and dice your own tomatoes, I just don’t have any place to do some fire roasting) and throw them in a high sided saute pan with a lid.  You’ll probably have to smoosh the greens down a bit to put the lid on,  but put the lid on the pan.  Let those greens cook down a bit on medium heat.  While the greens are going, cut up the paneer cheese into small cubes.  When the greens are almost nice and wilted, throw the cheese in and add whatever other spices and herbs you like.

I eat this as a meal.  I toast and butter up some homemade bread and a bowl of the greens and I’m good to go!

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Inspirations

By admin on May 9, 2012

I have been thinking a lot lately about what inspires me and what people, places and things have influenced me throughout my life.  First and foremost, my family has been a huge inspiration and influence.   My parents have always been supportive. They have exposed me to new places, ideas, point of views, people and experiences.  We’re not a Disney family.  We never went to Disney World/Land.  And I love that about us.  We were a Looney Toons family in more was than one.  When we went on family vacations we did museums and antique stores and the occasional pow wow.  Never once did I feel like we had learning vacations, but I did learn things.  I learned a lot of things.  One of the big things I learned was respect.  I learned to respect history, where I came from and most importantly, other people.

My family exposed me to history, nature and the arts.  Both of which are huge influences on me.  I remember my parents taking me to see Bill Cosby when I was around 10.  That’s huge!  Bill Cosby is a comedy legend.  I don’t think you could find a family that laughs as much as we do.  My mom’s biggest fear was that I would grow up and become a comedian.  I haven’t… yet.  Every year we do a family trip.  We went to Lake Tahoe for a long weekend once and I dragged them to the Ponderosa Ranch, which is sadly, no longer in existence.   They’ll be visiting me a few weeks and one of the things we’ll be doing is the King Tut exhibit.  That’s pretty cool, if you ask me.

I remember being a kid and going to camp (Grandma and Grandpa Beauregard’s summer home) in Minerva, NY.  We’d go hiking and swimming canoeing with Grandpa.  I also remember Grandpa taking us on hike that led to an old blast furnace.  Grandpa would also take us to the swamp and watch the beavers build a dam for what seemed like hours.  But even when we were little we knew not a whole lot of people could say they actually watched a beaver build a dam in the wild.  Grandpa was never without his camera.   I can’t tell you how many photos there are of all of us at the holidays, stuffing our faces.  Grandpa even had a dark room in the basement of their house.  After he passed away there were boxes and boxes of his photos.  And they are some of my favorite keepsakes.  In the winter, when Grandpa was back at the house in the “city” he would paint from the photos he took over the summer.  And when he wasn’t doing that, he would be building canoes and guide boats from the plans he got at the Adirondack Museum.  And if I’m not mistaken, we donated some of his boats to the museum to be used in their displays.

While he was taking photos, painting and building, Grandma would be baking or sewing.  Grandma could make a mean pie and an ever better doughnut.  And when she wasn’t doing that, she was quilting.  She was a hand quilter… sewing machines were for wimps!  I think all of us older grandkids have a quilt made for us by Grandma.

My other Grandma was an incredibly knitter and crocheter.  We all had hand knit aran sweaters of patterns of her own design.  I still wear the last one she made me.  I was fortunate enough to have had her show me how to knit.  She never got to see my fancy lace knitting, but I know she would be proud.  I also use her sewing machine when I’m sewing my sachets, clothes and any other crazy sewing project I get into my head to do.

As far as artists that have inspired me, well that will have to want until another day because it’s late and I’m tired.  Good night, sweet dreams, and as my parents used to say to me, don’t let the bed bugs bite!

 

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The rolling stone gathers no moss

By admin on April 27, 2012

 

And you will find no moss on me!  I’ve been busy keeping the garden going, visiting the tulips and trying to come up with some new designs for both the care/launder instruction gift cards and the towels!  And on top of all that, I have been trying to get back to my fighting weight – whatever that number is.  I can tell you what number it’s not.

In an effort to get  back to getting back into shape and get healthy again, I started going back to the nutritionist.  After we went through what I ate the day before she told me that I needed more protein in my diet.  Fun fact, she told me when you get a craving for sweets, it can be because you haven’t had enough protein!  Here’s one of the many reasons why I love my nutritionist, she doesn’t give me a strict diet to follow.  Her philosophy is to make eating healthy something that is sustainable.  She wants me to be able to have a healthy balance of foods and not to deprive myself of things.  When you start to deprive yourself, if you slip, and say, eat a piece of really rich and yummy chocolate cake, then you beat yourself up, you get depressed because you feel like you have no willpower, and why bother if you don’t have any willpower, and we all know where this is heading… Another reason I love my nutritionist is that she tells me to eat butter and to drink full fat milk.  She told me that farmers use low fat foods to fatten up pigs for slaughter!  I gave her my “say what?” face and she explained that they reason they give them low fat foods is because one of the things that makes you feel full is fat.  So if you eat and drink a lot of low fat things, you will not feel like your full and will tend to eat more.  Now I’m sure you’re saying, “your nutritionist is a quack.”  No way, Jose!  This is my nutritionist.  As a favorite comedian of mine once said, “She kicks butt like a cross-eyed Rockette!”  She’s a big proponent of eating natural foods and if you can’t really pronounce the ingredients, you probably shouldn’t be eating it.  But she also realizes that sometimes, life happens.  Sometimes you just need a couple of doritoes to get you through a meeting.

And with that, I will share with you a couple  of my new found favorite recipes.  I found this one at the Kitchn.  It’s a quick and easy tomato sauce.  The basic sauce 4 ingredients (and all things you can pronounce).  You can find the recipe here.  The great things about it are:

You don’t need a lot on your pasta or whatever you are putting it on.

It makes about a jar of sauce (I have a mason jar that I use to keep it in when I make it.  I have not tried freezing it. I don’t think it would be a problem.  But if you try it, let me know if it’s just as good when you thaw it and use it).

And you can customize it – add veggies, add sausage, add olives, lots of garlic… however you like your sauce!

Since I tend to be pretty busy, I use Sundays for making my meals for the week.  This includes my breakfasts.  I have just started to really enjoy the yumminess that is, steel cut oats. Again, from the Kitchn, I found this little nugget about cooking the oatmeal the night before and then putting it into mason jars as a single serving size breakfast!  Genius!  I followed this recipe for cooking the oats.  On Monday morning, I ladle in some oats in a  half pint mason jar and add some milk (full fat… none of that pig food low fat stuff!).  I then bring in all jars of oatmeal (the recipe makes roughly 5 jars) along with a small container of brown sugar and some homemade jam.  When I get to work, I put the oats in a bowl, microwave for about a minute, add my toppings – the brown sugar or the jam (if I’m feeling real saucy I add both) and have my breakfast.

Enough food talk, let’s take a little photo break!  Here’s a couple of my favorite photos from the Tulip festival in Skagit County.  We visited two different farms – Roozengaarde Farm and Tulip Town.

This was at Tulip Town.  All those stripes of colors are tulips.  Including the green in the front photo.

This was also at Tulip Town – side note… don’t wander to far down the rows of tulips.  I got in a warning for it when I was walking back from taking this photo.  It was totally worth it.

The rest of the photos are from Roozengaarde Farm.

Who says it has to be just tulips?  This one of the millions of daffodils that were in bloom as well.

I love one.  The color was amazing!  I believe this is what is called a double tulip.

Some lovely white tulips.

These were some of my favorites because the colors in them reminded me of poppy colors.

I loved these.  The colors we muted compared to a lot of the other tulips.  But even though they were muted I couldn’t take my eyes off of them.  I’ll be ordering some of these to plant this October!

I’ve got rolls more photos from the tulip festival.  So if you want to see more, let me know and we can all oooohhh and aaaahhhh together.

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Welcome Spring! We’re glad you came back

By admin on March 24, 2012

Finally!  Today was the first day in a long time that we had sun and a nice temperature to do work outside.  Armed with a gift card (from Christmas) and need to plant something, I headed up to Sky Nursery.  I have this one space on what is the back side of our house that my landlords (who are awesome) told me that if I wanted to plant something there, to feel free.  They apparently felt bad that I was staring at a plastic locking storage box where they keep their kids outdoor toys.  To be honest, I never noticed it.  When I sit at that window I’m usually sewing or taking photos of things.  Since they have been so nice to me over the years, I thought i would take them up on their offer and plant something that we can all enjoy.    So here’s a picture of the space before.  And keep in mind the photo was taken during kitchen deep clean, so the stuff you see in the window is from that and is no longer there.  OK the KitchenAid mixer stayed there.  That’s where it lives.  But the rest of all that stuff found a new home.

And here’s the after shot (thanks Santa!  aka Mom and Dad!)

The back row from left to right is:  a white bleeding heart, gourmet salad green mix, garden kale mix and  daphne.  The middle row is red kale and a spicy salad mix (they didn’t have a braising green mix and this was the next best thing).  The front row is a pansy, swiss chard, arugula, and another pansy.  In front of the raised bed I planted a periwinkle and a clover; in the hopes that they will spread and make it a little nicer and less of a pain in the butt for my landlords to deal with.  The back side of the house is one of those places my poor landlords are trying to figure out what to do with.  Hopefully this helps a little.    Now we can all grab some fresh greens throughout the spring and summer and possibly into the fall!

And on that healthy food note, The Supersizers Go, is about to start and they are taking on the 70s!  Here’s hoping something that shouldn’t be in a gelatin appears!

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It’s spring cleaning time!

By admin on March 18, 2012

First things, first… For those of you who voted for the new towel design, it looks like we’ll have the “Prime Cuts of Corn” towel for sale this weekend!  They are currently at the printer, and hopefully will be ready before you know it!

Even though Seattle and most of the west coast is being hit with some crazy weather – for us, it’s a snow and rain mix on most days, I was starting to get the spring cleaning itch.  So since the weather was bad, why not stay in and clean!  I’ve decided to deep clean one room per weekend.  This way I don’t feel rushed or overwhelmed.  This weekend was the kitchen.  I was completely unaware that I had spices in my cabinet that expired in 2008!  I’m hoping I haven’t poisoned anyone with those spices!  But now the kitchen is clean. And it’s so nice that it’s clean and I have replaced the killer expired spices.

Next weekend is the living room area.  This is one room that I dread.  I live in a small one bedroom apartment.  So that means my inventory is also living in the apartment.  And I’ve got a fair amount of inventory.  I’ve been feeling a bit claustrophobic because of it.  My hope is that I’ll be able to weed out a lot of stuff that I don’t need and/or use and donate it.    Then the weekend after that, it will be the bedroom and the bathroom.  I think my bedroom is probably the smallest room in the house, but it’s the room I feel like I’m in the most time in.  Don’t worry Mom.  I’ll be sure to leave you something to clean up.  You complain about it, but I know deep down you love cleaning out closets :)   And Dad, I haven’t left you out.  I’ve got a wobbly chair that I need help fixing.  Along with some hopefully easy upholstery work I need some help on :)

I’m also keeping my fingers crossed that this weekend will be sunny or at least one day of part of a day will be sunny so I can get the garden plan together and the “garden” cleaned up.  It’s been so soggy and cold that I just didn’t think that cleaning up the garden would have been a good idea.  And there’s something about shopping for plants and planning a garden when the sun is shining and the temperature  is warm.

As for knitting, I finished one Baby Newsie hat.   I was a bit disappointed with it.  It was huge!  It fit my head and I used the instructions for the 6-12 month size hat.  I was even went up a needle size to get gauge and everything.  I’m going the next one aside for now and try and work on something else for a bit.  I started working on the Jan Sweater and so far it’s going well.  But I’ve only done about an inch of ribbing, so really, it’s hard to go bad with that :)

 

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How do I become a food historian

By admin on March 11, 2012

My new favorite show is the Supersizers Go… I am fascinated by this show.  The way they describe the show is, “a British restaurant critic and a comedienne eat their way through history.”  And that is what they do.  They head to the doctor before they start the week and get the full range of tests.  Then they live the part of history that they have chosen.  They go from ancient Rome to the eighties.  They throw in bits of history and, the point of the show, they eat and drink the foods of that time period.  At the end of the week, they go back to the doctor and get re-tested and see how bad or good the diet really was.  I wish there were more episodes.  I actually look forward to staying in on Saturday nights to watch it.  And after the shows over, I run to the computer to look up some more food facts.

I love to cook and bake.  And it probably goes without saying that I love to eat.  For me, it’s all about the process.  Then, once I’m done with the process it’s about having others enjoy it.  I’ve been doing a lot more cooking recently.  Probably in an effort to save money and control my diet a bit.  My new favorite food site is, The Kitchn.  I’ve found some amazing recipes.  Tonight’s test recipe is the vegetarian black bean espresso chili.  It’s soooo tasty.  I have never been a chili person, but I’ve had a few recently that have me changing my mind.

I’ve been baking bread and I even made my own butter.  Seriously, it’s not that hard if you have stand mixer – just throw in some heavy whipping cream into the mixer and let it go until the buttermilk separates.  Then grab the lumpy bits and wrap them in a cheese cloth and squeeze to get out the rest of the buttermilk. Done.  That’s it.  And if you don’t have a stand mixer but you have some kids that need to get rid of a little bit of extra energy, try putting the heavy cream in a jar with a tight leak proof lid and shake it for about 10 -15 minutes until it separates method. Better instructions for that method can be found here.

One of these days I might even get brave enough to attempt making something from all my vintage cookbooks.  Perhaps something in a jelly mold that shouldn’t be in a jelly mold… something perhaps like this,

I also created a new knitting care/launder instruction gift tag this week.  It’s now up at the store and available for purchase.  Here’s what it looks like…

And on a final note.  My landlords have the smartest standard poodle ever.  She’s a teenager now and she wants people to pay attention to her.  So when the put her in the yard to let her run off some of her extra energy, she’ll spot me in my apartment and this is what it looks like.

This was from this afternoon.  She just got a haircut and she looks fabulous.  Also note the muddy foot prints on the window.  That’s what happens when I don’t pay enough attention to her.  Kink and Jimbo, just sigh and go back to their work – napping.

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Giving back to a great organization

By admin on February 29, 2012

I have been thinking a lot recently about how much encouragement, support, help and resources Washington CASH has given me over the past year.  I was talking to one of the board members and said that if I had the money I would donate what I could to Washington CASH.  Her response was even $5 would show your support and thanks to us.  And she completely right.  It doesn’t have to be a huge donation in order to make a difference.  That got me thinking, what if I took one month and donated a portion of my online sales to Washington CASH.  So that’s what I’m going to do.  For the month of March 20% of what is bought thru my online store will be donated to Washington CASH.

I can not say enough wonderful things about Washington CASH.  This organization helps those of us with big dreams of becoming entrepreneurs reach those dreams.  Especially in these days where funding for small businesses is near impossible and jobs are few and far between, Washington CASH has helped many folks overcome the odds and be successful.  It goes beyond just helping us finance our businesses.  It starts with helping us really figure out if we have a viable business idea and putting it all down on paper – the numbers, the target market…, to figuring our your marketing plan, to even just listening to you talk about how difficult it is.  Washington CASH has become a business family to me.  I have made friends that will always inspire me and encourage me to become a great success.  And I hope I will be able to do the same for them and for others in the future.

And as as added bonus (as if helping out an incredible nonprofit organization is not enough) if you spend $12 or more you can get free shipping on your order.  Just enter code:  WACASH into the discount code box.  And if you’d like to donate directly to Washington CASH, you can do so here.

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And the winner is…

By admin on February 28, 2012

It was a close one.  With the Choice Cuts of Corn, the Glorious Stove and the lovely Bacon and Eggs.  But in the end. the Choice Cuts of Corn won by 3 votes!

Thanks so much to all those who voted!  And speaking of voting, there was a giveaway as a thanks for voting.  Well it looks like Amy J won!  Thank you random number generator for taking the pressure of Kink and Jimbo.  They were a bit afraid that they would hurt someone’s feelings if they didn’t get picked.    Look how relieved they were when the found out that they didn’t have to choose!

It’s back to work for me!  I’ve got a new design to get ready to print!  Thanks again everyone!  Check back tomorrow there will be a special little something… I promise it will be worth it!

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Downton Abbey why must you torture me so

By admin on February 14, 2012

Downton Abbey, why are you so good?  Why do you make me wait 7 days until I can see you again?  And when will I be able to see season 3?

Ok, enough Downton Abbey whining.  This weekend was reasonably productive.  I was able to finish up my tunic.  It’s all sewn up and ready to wear.  Once the temperature warms up, that is.  I went to the flower and garden show, bought a few things, got a ton of ideas and I got some new tea towel designs done.  Actually a couple are repeats, but I still think they are darn good and should be printed.

Of the lot of these I’m hoping to be able to print at least 1, if not 2 of these designs.  So please vote for the ones you would want to have hanging in your kitchen.  And if you do vote, I will pick, at random a person to win the Sunday Drive Designs gift pack – One mermaid tshirt,

a sachet,

the meat and potatoes (with your choice of meat – pork or beef) flour sack towels

and perhaps a few other goodies to be determined.  All you need to do to vote and get entered into the contest is to post your two favorites in our comments section.  And please let me know a little bit about you too!

And now, drum roll please…. the new designs ideas!

Design 1 – Bacon and Eggs:

Design 2 – Corn!:

Design 3 – Glorious Stove:

Design 4 – oysters:

Design 5 – Red Meat:

Voting will be closing in 2 weeks.  So get to voting people!

 

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It looks like the weekend is here

By admin on February 11, 2012

Finally the weekend arrives and fortunately I got thru this week with little damage.  This weekend is going to be all about new designs, knitting, sewing, flowers and gardens.  Hopefully Monday evening I’ll have some new towel designs for everyone to vote on.  And there may even be a little giveaway as a thanks for the input on the new designs. As for the other four things, well, after I get this post done, I’ll be doing some knitting.

I haven’t been able to knit as much as I used to.  And one of my goals is to get back to knitting.  Even if it’s for a few minutes here and there.  Tonight’s project is the Baby Newsie by Bekah Knits.  I had 3/4 of this done and frogged it because it just looked huge.  So I’m going to give this another go.  And I will prevail.  I have to.  I have to make 5 of these things.  If I can get this one done, than the other 4 should be smooth sailing.  And once those are done, I have a small shawl/scarf that I promised my mom that I would make for her.  She bought the yarn in August and I haven’t been able to get to it.  It’s the Highland Fling scarf/shawl on the cover of the Crestone & Vista booklet.  And after that I’ll finally be able to get to my sweater… but which one should I do first?  The Rose Jumper or the Jan Sweater.  Thanks to my cousin and her lovely daughter, I have the yarn for both of these sweaters.  I guess I will make my decision once I get to the point where I have to make the decision.

The sewing part of the weekend is to finish the tunic I started before the holiday craft fair season.  It’s about half way done.  And since I’ve made this tunic before I should be able to get it done in a reasonable amount of time.  And if I’m feeling like I really want to live on the edge, I will trace the pattern for the next thing I want to make.  But again, I will make that decision when I get to that point.

The flower and garden part of the weekend will be sunday.  I’ll be attending the Seattle Flower and Garden show.  My friend and I do a girls day once a month and this is our day out.  I will be looking longingly at the chickens and the chicken coops.  I really want to get chickens but the rather large raccoon family in our cul de sac and my landlords teenage poodle seem to be two really good reasons for not getting chickens.  One half of my landlords also expressed an interest in getting chickens…  the dream lives on…  I really excited to see what kind of container gardening I can do by my door and to find out what I can do to keep the lovely teenage poodle out of my plants.  I will probably have to give my wallet to my friend so that I don’t try and buy a pear tree or something crazy.  I’m hoping the fact that I’ll be taking the light rail to the show might also deter me from buying large shrubbery.  But if I can find them I’ll be buying more of those tomato grow bags.  Those things are great!  I got a pretty good tomato crop this past year.  It probably would have been better if I had been better at watering my poor tomatoes.  Or perhaps, if they are having a show special I may have to get one of two of these Vee Garden container gardens.  The more i look at the exhibitors list, the more I’m thinking I should just leave my wallet at home.

And that, my friends, is my weekend.  Enjoy your weekend everybody!

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