whats been cooking and not cooking

Two weeks ago I went on a cooking binge.  I made up some pickles, my first batch ever.  I couldn’t find pickling (kirby) pickles so I just used the english seedless kind from the grocery store.  I also found it difficult to locate dill seed in Peoria grocery stores.  I really love these pickles.  They are very tart and vinegary, which I normally wouldn’t like or love.  But these are nice b/c I have to nibble them, which makes them a lovely treat.  Next time I’ll make them with more garlic and maybe some more spice.  I also pickled green beans.  Number 12 on my 31 list is to make pickles and pickle something other than a cucumber.  So I pickled some green beans following Food in Jar’s recipe.  They need to sit for two weeks while the flavors cure so I haven’t tried these yet.  I’m kinda excited to.  I’ve read that you can put them on hotdogs instead of real pickles to make yourself feel fancy.  I was also thinking they might be good in a salad with some blue cheese. 

I was on a major roll this day.  I made green tomato chutney.  I’d had tomato chutney at a restaurant on a burger and thought it was amazing.  Sweet and tomatoy and chunky and lovely.  I had a ton of green tomatoes so I picked them and whipped up this chutney also from Food in Jars.  It’s super yummy.  Sweet with a bit of heat from the red pepper flakes.  So far I’ve enjoyed this on turkey sandwiches, but I plan to slather it on some pork chops and on my burger the next time I make them. 
Finally the small brown bottles are home made vanilla extract.  I’m hoping to use some of these as Christmas gifts this year.  It was super easy to make and kinda fun.  I’ve used it in several things and have had great results.

So that’s whats cooking in my kitchen.  Not much has been cooking with photography.  But we’ve been super busy being responsible this month.  Meeting with the banks, and insurance companies to set up accounts and funds and what not.  Pretty soon I hope to be able to say that I’ve completed number 8 on my 31 list.  I do have a holga project that M and I are going to do together.  I’m also going to spend a night in Chicago again in a couple weeks.  So there are holga opportunities coming up.
I have been quilting a lot!  Got a ton of piecing done on both quilts I’m working on.  Spent last night at the quilt shop taking free mini classes and buying fabric for finishing. 
R is learning to walk.  He’s a speed demon while pushing his toy and the last few weeks he is becoming more and more stable on two feet.  He can walk across the room on occasion.  On other occasions I think he’s learning to run before he learns to walk. 

back to red film pics

* Those are my sunglasses in the top part of the pic.  I intended to try and shoot through them but I like this effect.
* Project updates are as follows
      ~ Afghan: block numbers 5 and 6 are finished just need borders then I’ll take an update photo
      ~ Knitting: in the spring I started a block about 12 inches square.  I made a stripe effect with knits and purls and I love the way it feels.  I finally googled how to cast off and finished the block.  Last night I casted on with larger needles and a bright turquoise blue yarn to do the same stripe pattern.  It feels good to touch so we’ll see what comes out of it.
      ~ Quilting: I made another block for Mom and I’s collaboration.  It’s a Greek Cross.  I did math to figure out what sizes to cut and followed a the pattern.  This is big for me!
                  Don’t think I’d mentioned it on here before but while at the quilt store a few weeks back buying fabric for the collaboration quilt, I fell in love with some more batiks.  That section is really trouble for me.  Especially when they put bundles together of colors that compliment each other.  Then it’s not just one fabric I fall in love with it’s the whole package and it’s enough to make a blanket from.  So I come home with more projects.  Here’s a pic of what I have accomplished with it.  I actually snapped this a week ago, so I have about double the amount done now.  All hand sewn and starting to feel good about my triangle work.  It’s going to be a blanket.  At first I was thinking a baby blanket, now I’m not sure who it’ll go to.  But I do want to personalize it with wording.  If I end up keeping it, I may end up quilting “knucklehead” on it.  But we’ll wait and see how it goes.

* I’ve been cooking over the last few weeks.  Made some corn and zucchini salsa, zucchini bread, sun dried tomato and goat cheese pasta, jambalaya, and peach cake.
* Still not much happening for new photos.  I think its going to take me loading up a camera and forcing myself out there to shoot some pics.

back to blue slim

I snapped this pic back in June when we went to Chicago for the Toast.  It’s multiple sculpture piece in Grant Park.  It’s probably one of my favorite sculpture pieces that I’ve seen in the city.  Lots of reading, quilting, cooking, and birthday celebrating going on this week.  I’m making plans w/ M to construct a photography project/challenge.  Life’s been busy and good.

31 things to do before I turn 31

Today’s my birthday and I’ve left my 20ies behind and joined the 30ies club.  It’s hard to believe I’m 30, I don’t feel any different.  Although I do notice that I don’t shop at the same stores I did 5 years ago.  My tastes have changed and I’m glad for that.  I don’t want to feel like a 25 year old.  I want to be me at 30.  Me at 30 has a purple feather in her hair.  I haven’t lost all the baby weight but haven’t been too stressed out about it.  I’ve been learning to quilt and really loving that.  I’ve also been crocheting my afghan that I’ve worked on for the past year.  And I want to put more time into knitting, although that is 3rd in line and doesn’t get touched very often.  At 30 I’m struggling with where I am and where I want to be career wise.  I hope I figure that out in the next decade.  I’m also struggling with finding time to keep my blog active and alive, I would miss an online presence if it were to slip away.  I love my family and love that we’re growing together everyday.  I have a great gathering of friends that I’m very excited to get to see this Friday.
Last year I made a list of 30 things to do before I turned 30.  I did pretty well with it.  I accomplished or at least made a dent in 26 of the 30 items.  I sorta really enjoyed this list.  It made me sit down and think of a list of reasonable things I want to accomplish.  And during the year I found the list inspiring me to get things done or do things I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t had the reason.  So I sat down again and came up with 31 things to do for the next year.  (for some reason it was way harder to come up with 31 things than 30 things)  So here’s the new list for the next year.

1. Continue to tweet a happy thought a day
2. Read 10 books
3. Bake a yeast bread from scratch
4. Finish crocheting the blocks for my afghan, goal is 1 block a month
5. Create a garment, either sewing or knitting or whatev
6. Work out 2-3x per week is the goal and totally doable
7. Yoga everyday for one month
8. Figure out our investments and feel happy with them
9. Fix up our kitchen
10. Learn my sewing machine
11. Make some dietary changes ~ drink at least 8 glasses of water per day and stick with this
12. Pickle some vegetables.  I want to make pickles and then pickle another veggie to see what the hub bub’s about
13. Quit swearing.  by far the hardest thing on my list.
14. Make some more jam, two kinds for gifts.
15. See a show at the Civic Center
16. Meets friends out for dinner once a month
17. Organize my bookmarks and bloglist
18. Take a trip with my hubby sans R
19. Polyurethane projects: buffet table, railing, dining room table, Adirondack chairs
20. Make a prettier pie
21. Complete a photo challenge
22. Complete a quilt
23. Try different coffee drinks other than my norm
24. Plant next years garden with melons
25. Strip and refinish my cedar chest
26. Spend an afternoon at a coffee shop reading
27. Try something new with the holga
28. Tweak and update the website
29. Take another class
30. Create a Dear Photograph
31. Watch a movie marathon featuring Mila Jovovich w/ C

#12 bake a pie from scratch

I baked this pie back in June.  Anything pastry scares me in the kitchen, especially if it involves a rolling pin.  But that’s why baking a pie made the list.  I choose to do a classic apple pie b/c I had apples in the fridge.  And I went with a very simple flour and shortening and cold water recipe for the crust.  I don’t have a food processor so I had to cut the shortening into the flour using a pastry knife, basically I went about this the old fashioned/hard way.  I’ve heard pie crust is way easier if you use updated methods.  Anyway the crust dough seemed really dry and didn’t hold together well.  I did manage to piece it together to form a bottom and top crust.  It’s not the prettiest pie in the world.  Looks aside, it tasted very good and didn’t last very long in the house.  I put this back on the list to try again next year.  I want next years pie to be prettier.

movie marathon conclusion

Fast and the Furious: The first MR movie we didn’t finish.  We watched it with a group of friends and it best described as a guy movie made by a girl.  It’s got the hot chicks, fast cars, and then they throw in Vin Diesl and drama.  MR plays VD’s girlfriend.  I hear she dies.  I don’t remember any funny or catchy lines from the movie.  Rotten Tomatoes gave it 52%

The Breed: Favorite line from this movie is “Woof.”  A group of kids vacationing on an island get attacked by the local killer dog pack. It’s a great addition to MR’s bad movie series, definitely one of my faves.  It’s must see for bad movie lovers, if you don’t believe me rotten tomatoes gave it 15%.

Girlfight: MR’s first big screen flick.  It’s called girl fight and that’s about what you get.  Not a horrible story line although it’s been done a million times.  She actually does some acting in this film, instead of just putting on her mad face and shooting something.  She does not die at the end in fact she even gets the guy.  Rotten tomatoes gives it 88%.

Lost season 2: Honestly both C and I think its her best work.  Probably the best character she has had to work with.  I”m a big fan of Lost and I wasn’t really disappointed when she was killed off but it was definitely a shock.  She was a brutal character played well.

That concludes our marathon of Michelle Rodriguez movies.  We didn’t watch everything she was in just what seemed like the big ones.  It was a lot of fun.  Next on my new list of things to do for the next year is to have a movie marathon featuring Milla Jovovich.  She plays the main character in Resident Evil and has made a decent handful of bad movies.  We’re real excited to start working on this.

quilt update

~ This is the first of many update blogs.  Here are two progress shots of how Mom and mine’s quilt collaboration is coming along.  We’ve got quite a few squares now and I think they’ll look great together. 
~ I’m learning tons while doing this project.  Working on blocks that I wanted to try and yet wouldn’t necessarily want to make an entire quilt with. 
~ I’m working up to trying more triangles.  Lining up the points is difficult for me.

~ while downloading my pic I found my jamaica pics on the memory card.  Funny since C and I had just talked about wishing we were on vacation.  Even going back here

red friday and quilts and to dos

:: Another red photo this week, not my fave from the red roll but I like the shadows
:: Currently discussing a co-op photo challenge w/ M, we’re picking themes right now
:: ooo just thought of another idea for our photo challenge…a double exposure challenge.  Mom’s told me about these challenges where one person shoots a roll in the holga then goes in a dark room and rerolls up the film gives it to another person and then they reshoot the film.  That way each pic is a double exposure one taken by each person.  I know you’ll read this M…thoughts?
:: I have the weekend to myself this weekend and I’m overwhelmed by the possibilities of things to do
:: I want to start painting the master bedroom, I bought the paint and began taping
:: I’ve started stripping the paint off a cedar chest that used to be my great grandmas
:: I’d like to go do some shopping…wine shopping, clothes shopping, fabric shopping, lil boy shopping

:: Here’s what our quilt looks like with all our blocks put together, I think it’ll look awesome
:: I’d like to read out on the deck
:: the house needs cleaning
:: this post is turning into a to do list!! 
:: mostly I’d like to get some crafty time in.  Make a couple more squares and work on my afghan while watching some girly movies.
:: wish me luck in relaxing and getting things done!

quilting collaboration

Two weeks ago when I went home for the fiber festival Mom threw an idea by me.  Since we’d both been talking about quilts lately and we inspire each other, we even feed each others obsessions and creativity when we really get going…she suggested we make a quilt together.  I was intrigued.  It would force me to learn and do learn by doing instead of just pretending to read about it (i tend to just look at the pretty pictures). 

We decided we needed some rules for our quilt.  First we decide to choose a pallet of fabric and stick to it.  It didn’t take long to decide to use batiks since we both love them and the colors are endless and not inhibiting.  I had happened to bring some batiks home with me to brain storm a project for them.  I dug them out and she was inspired by them as I was.  They consisted of some greens, pinks, and winey purples.  We headed out and bought a couple more fabrics that complimented the pallet we had going.  The main colors are pictured above.  Our second rule was we wanted to make 8inch blocks.  We can do any pattern or funky scrapy block we want.  We just have to use those batiks and make it 8inches square.
We have very different styles, she follows patterns, knows a lot of the rules and some of the tricks to quilting.  She uses a sewing machine.  She likes her triangle tips to line up and her angles to be near perfect.  I am the opposite of all these things.  In fact here are 3 very good reasons why I’m not a quilter, I don’t measure, I hand sew b/c I like to, I hate the math involved it sucks the fun out.  They are the same reasons why I wouldn’t make a very good carpenter!  I have a vague idea in my head and I attempt to create it.  Making these blocks and following some of the basic patterns is helping me to think like a quilter.  I’m coming up with easier ways to do what I originally wanted to do.

I actually almost have three blocks completed.  I only took a picture of my first block though.  It’s a very basic quilting pattern called the log cabin.  It was good to start with, it taught me to begin thinking in squares, which is proving to be hard for my nonsquare brain. I’m planning more wonky blocks soon but back to the now.

Here are Mom’s two completed blocks

and

I’m not sure what the star is called but the other block is called the basket weave.  I’m anxious to see our blocks together and see if our combined styles will mesh and make for a cohesive quilt.  Doesn’t really matter if they don’t.  We’re both having fun making them in the process and really you can’t beat that.

toy cam thrus: a sky w/out blue

= the sky through the eyes of tinted red film apparently is green
= i like this b/c you can actually see the sun’s rays
= long holiday weekend equals fun and one burnt out kid
= we all played in the pool
= M also posted a red tinted photo on her blog this week
= I almost have 3 blocks quilted and only photos of one
= I started to make a pie yesterday, its on my list and I decided to just give it a go
= I’m going w/ the classic recipe of crisco, flour, and a lil bit of water, I mixed (w/ a pastry knife) it up and divided it in half and stuck it in the fridge
= I’ll roll it out Friday
= I’m not sure it’ll go well, it’s still pretty crumbly dough
= and I’m really not good at rolling out dough and then moving it
= it may turn into an apple mash of of dough and sugary apples…should still taste good though
= also starting to think about what jam to make next, i want something good but a little different
= also want to make another batch of the raspberry jalepeno
= braised a roast in a bottle of cab sav last night, it cut like butter it was so tender
= i have leftovers on top of a salad w/ lettuce from my garden
= tonights dinner will probably be frozen pizza =)