This is the fabulous Mr. Adventure making that apple/cheddar cheese pie I wrote about a few days ago:
Oh how I love this man!
1. I am decidedly not dead. I am, in fact, undead.
2. Working on finding a balance that will have me blogging regularly again soon. That balance also includes making opportunities to do stuff to blog about.
Mr. Adventures In has been busy!
4. That is Pie! It’s apple and pear season and we’ve been taking advantage by making lots of pastries and getting our winter weight on! Pictured above is apple pie with Tillamook Aged White Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese baked into the crust. Mr. Adventures In made it. It was fabulous.
5. Another fall favorite – one that I actually made – is pear turnovers. I make my own faux puff pastry dough and fill little triangles with pears sauteed in butter, cinnamon, sugar and a little balsamic vinegar and…(this is the good part) Rogue Creamery’s Smokey Blue Cheese. To make them easy, you can buy puff pastry at the store and follow the package directions. These are, hands down, my favorite fall treat/snack/breakfast/food.
6. The Adventure Boys have also been doing a lot of DIY crafts – salt & flour playdough, cornmeal moon sand and – my favorite – cornstarch goo. Recipe: put some cornstarch in a bowl & add water (slightly less water than cornstarch seems to work best) … move your hand slowly through the goo and it’s like pudding; poke it with your finger and it’s like silly putty. Honestly, I think I played with it longer and with more enthusiasm than my kids did. Very cool stuff!
7. I’ll be participating in NaNoWriMo. I have no idea what I’ll writing about. I’ll figure that out today…or sometime next month, I suppose. I have no idea what that means for the blog (which really has a life of its own – thank you, people who read the big burger and big pizza entries!) or for me or for you or for anyone, but I just wanted to put that out there. I’m writing a novel! Yay for me!
Yesterday I finally put those Ball jars I bought a couple of weeks ago to good use. I canned – albeit on a very small scale.
Canning requires a little bit of equipment:
1. An absurdly tall pot. We found ours at Target for $16
Okay, that was pretty much it for equipment. Except for the jars. Of which I have no pictures.
You’re also going to need something to can. Like tomatoes.
I used a variety: heirloom orange, Russian black and Beefsteak.
I did a “hot pack” method, which means I cooked to tomatoes before I canned them.
Pretty AND Yummy!
Then I fought them into the jars. I could really use a wide-mouthed funnel. (The list of “required” equipment is short, but the list of “recommended” equipment is a touch longer). I had enough for two pint jars of tomatoes.
Then it’s time to process! The reason for the absurdly tall pot is that the jars need about an inch of water above their tops to do their thing.
The jars in their bath. Note the cookie cutters I used in lieu of a canning rack in the bottom of the pan.
I love that picture. If you’re so inclined, take a look at a larger version. The wisps of steam coming off the water, the clarity of everything. I want to take all of my pictures through a water bath now.
Where was I? Oh yeah, depending on the recipe and the type of thing you’re canning, you let the jars boil, lid on, for anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour. I did these tomatoes for about 25 minutes.
- Here they are all done!
I also made jalepeño carrots, but forgot to take pictures of the process.
But I did take a picture of the finished product!
The cause for the super secretiveness was the fact that this was a birthday gift for my mother (Hi, Mom!). You can take a look at the real Frida’s original here. I took some liberties with color and left the background clean, but I’m fairly pleased with how it came out.
I had so much fun making this that I’m headed back to the store this afternoon to gather supplies for the next one. Then I just have to figure out what the next one will be.
Any suggestions?
We know I made it
We know I used some groovy stitches. (And that the lighting sucked today)
We know there are beads
We know somebody's cutting something.
We know that I went nuts for (french) knots.
Come back tomorrow for the full reveal!
Way too many scarves? Check
Big ugly blank wall that’s stayed that way because I’m not painting as much/quickly as I thought I would? Check Check!
What to do?
Behold: The Wall of Scarves
It's madness, I tell you, madness!
So, I got a mad drive to make rainbow Jell-O the other day. It’s no secret I’ve been in a rainbow mood all year, and I’ve been dying to try this:
from Cafe Zupas
But I was also making an overnight breakfast casserole thing (that ended up being a huge misguided unappetizing mess of a thing) and so couldn’t do the whole “big pan and slices” thing.
So I ended up using a variety of glasses from around the house, and they looked a little like this:
as you can see, I'm less careful about precise striping.
I also modified Cafe Zupa’s recipe a little:
Ingredients:
4 boxes Jell-O. I used Sugar Free Orange, Lime, Cherry and a regular box of whatever the blue flavor is.
1 c. whipping cream – whipped up to soft peaks. I threw a little sugar in with it to make it a little sweeter.
1c. sour cream – I went low fat here to make up for the added fattiness of the whipping cream.
1c. cottage cheese – the recipe calls for cream cheese, but I didn’t have any around and was too lazy to walk to the store. Nobody in our house minded the cottage cheesy bits, but if that’s the sort of thing that bothers you, I’d go with the cream cheese (or ricotta…I bet that would be yummy).
Method:
Put your Jell-O vessels in the freezer about 30 minutes before you get started. This helps speed everything along.
Mix together the whipped cream, sour cream and cottage cheese.
Use 1 3/4 c. water for each box of Jell-O, but otherwise follow the package directions. Wait about 15 minutes for it to cool.
Mix 3/4c. of Jell-O with a couple of tablespoons of the cream mixture and set this aside.
Pour the remaining 1c. of Jell-O into your cups, pans, glasses, whatever. I filled 4 tiny teacups, 2 bucket glasses, 2 ramekins and 2 wine glasses (I told you I used whatever was laying around!) and used about 1/4 to 1/2 inch per layer of Jell-O.
Put the Jell-O in the fridge until it sets. This should only take about 15 minutes. During this time, start work on the next layer. You’ll probably spend a good hour in the kitchen…but it’s worth it for the pretty!
So it’s been….
Youch!
It’s been two months since I last posted.
In that time I:
- worked a long-term sub gig.
- wandered down the rabbit hole that is Plants vs. Zombies
- made sushi
- ate a lot of pie
homemade by Brandon - Mr. Adventures In
- took a little road trip
aaaach...schnoo!
- and made my first fried chicken…kinda
see, it's baked. so it's good for you, right?
I’ve also embarked on a super-secret crafty project that is coming along so awesomely that I can’t wait to write about it and show it off!
Ooh, and Jell-O madness! Look for a stripey Jell-O-Riffic blog post sometime very, very soon!
My Four Most Faboo Fashion Friends
Something happened when I started my student teaching: I began finally to wear all of the (very many) scarves I’d picked up on our trips to Europe. Don’t ask, just suffice it to say that when I get overseas I become a scarf-buying machine! It’s gotten to the point where I feel naked if I go out without a scarf.
But now it’s getting warm, and I need some summer scarves. Have you worn a wool scarf on a bright spring day? Not recommended!
No Skills no Frills
But I have no summer scarves. Worse still, I have no summer scarf budget (and certainly no go-to-Europe-to-buy-summer-scarves budget).
What do I have? A stash of skirt fabric that’s been sitting around for something like three years and a pair of nice, sharp scissors.
First up: Simple Seersucker. If you’ve got 2-3 yards of fabric and the ability to cut in a relatively straight line, you’ve got yourself a great lightweight scarf! I cut this one about 18 inches wide.
Knotty!
Next: Sheer Stripes. Follow the directions for the last scarf. Now tie knots in both ends. Voila! They don’t show too well in the picture, but this scarf is full of dreamy mermaid colors. The knots on the ends keep the super lightweight fabric from getting too fluttery and flying away.
The third scarf: Now we’re getting into some tricky territory. This scarf required braiding skills (gasp). I had a lot more of this shiny sheer deep blue green fabric than any of the others. God knows what I thought I was going to make with it (it’s totally translucent and yet doesn’t really breathe!).
In Braids
I cut three 4-6 inch strips, each about 4 yards long. I tied a knot at one end and braided it loosely. Then I tied a knot at the other end. I left long unfinished ends that remind me of a gibbous skirt.
I think of all of them, this is my favorite. It’s quite long, very lightweight and I’m of the belief that it goes with everything.
For the last scarf: Things got kinda weird. I started like the braidy scarf, but I didn’t have as much fabric to work with. I ended up tying 3 or 4 thin strands together at both ends.
Shabby
It looked a little blah, so I cut a couple more strips into 12-inch segments and tied these at random all up and down the scarf. It’s got kind of a scrappy crazy-lady wacky thing going on.
I totally love it.
I don’t think I’d recommend this for people who don’t have a bunch of fabric lying around unless you want to make scarves for all your friends, too. I’ve still got enough of each fabric to make those skirts I planned on all those years ago.
Then again, I don’t think the fabric for any of these cost more than you’d pay for a scarf at Target, and making these provided me with nearly instant crafty gratification (I made all four in about 40 minutes). So maybe it’s worth the trip to the fabric store!
Yes…go make super simple summer scarves! It’ll make you feel great.
Swoosh!
More importantly, it’ll make you look fabulous!
from flickr user kevitivity
I haven’t done a random food feature in a while, and the burger entry I did back in February remains my most popular to this date. So I suppose it’s time to add another American favorite to the stable: pizza!
My Faves:
I’m a huge fan of local (Portland) chain Pizza Schmizza. All of the topping choices available are solid, but the Steak & Potato Pizza? Oh. My. God. It’s heaven on a circle of dough. You can get a whole pie for carry out, but they don’t deliver, which is fine since what I like best is to round up the fam and grab a slice and a salad for lunch.
I’m also still in love with Stark Naked Pizza. For an independent pizza place, their prices are fantastic. More importantly, though. they’re pizzas are brilliant!
Big Pizzas
Searching around, I’m discovering that the internet is a little dodgy about the world’s largest pizza, so I’m going to have to take some license with the information and images I have and hope I’m not spreading horrible misinformation.
This picture is all over the net, but as for the where, when and how big…well, I can’t seem to uncover that imagination. At the same time, we learn that Iowa Falls, Iowa lays claim to the world’s largest pizza. The town came together to make the 129×92 ft monstrosity as a fundraiser for the local school district. But apparently nobody bothered to take a picture!
Oh well, we’ve got a picture of a huge pizza and a story of a huge pizza. I’m calling that good.
But what about the world’s longest pizza?
A hotel in Shanghai boasts that honor. The pizza measures over 20 meters! And is that fresh basil I see? Yum! (image via junkfoodnews.net).
Expensive Pizzas
The world’s most expensive pizza, the “Pizza Royale 007″ from chef Domenico Crolla
is densely packed with an assortment of some of the world’s most expensive food ingredients, such as lobster marinated in cognac, caviar soaked in champagne, sunblush tomato sauce, Scottish smoked salmon, venison medallions, prosciutto, and vintage balsamic vinegar. In addition to all these fine ingredients, it’s topped with a significant amount of edible 24-carat gold flakes.–from mostexpensive.net
Wow! That’s certainly a world of decadence baked into a pie.
Toppings
Anymore, anything goes on a pizza. I’m a big fan of Thai and sweet and sour pizzas, but a good margherita pizza with fresh basil and big fat tomatoes absolutely hits the spot in the summertime.
Not sure of what to put on your pizza? Let astrology decide! I’m not 100% sold on the accuracy though:
Capricorn (December 22 – January 19)
Chalk it up to their thrifty manner … some Capricorns enjoy no-frills pizza with just cheese. Yet most Caps will enjoy pizza with a selection of classic toppings, such as sausage, black olives and sliced tomatoes, and will find a way to make even the lowliest pizza impress. Gourmet pizzas with goat cheese, spinach and fresh herbs may also appeal. Long-established pizzerias delight this tradition-loving sign.
Plain cheese pizza? No, thank you! The wilder the better in my book. Although they’re dead to rights on the goat cheese.
Making Pizza at Home
from flickr user kevitivity
Homemade pizza can be a simple or complex procedure. Grab some refrigerated dough and top it with some prepared sauce and fresh veggies. Easy! Make your own dough. Spend some time ahead roasting or caramelizing veggies or cooking meat for the topping.
My favorite at-home pizza:
1. Choose your favorite crust. I like a beer-based dough because there’s no waiting for it to rise. I also like to put a little whole-wheat flour into the dough.
2. Caramelize some onions and roast some garlic. You can do this up to a day or so in advance (or do a bunch on a weekend and store it in the freezer!).
3. Make a little balsamic reduction (plop some sugar into balsamic vinegar and simmer until it’s sticky). You can do this ahead of time, too.
3. Gather the remaining topppings and preheat the oven to 400:
- goat cheese or bleu cheese
- walnuts
- olive oil
- fresh or dried sage
- roasted or pickled beets–if it’s wintertime.
4. flatten the pizza dough, top and toss in the oven for about 20-30 minutes (depending on how thick you’ve made the dough).
5. Enjoy!
What about you? Where’s the best pizza in your neighborhood? What’s your favorite topping combo?
