What can I make with...

          So I found myself waking up from what seemed like a stupor of life recently. I had stopped cooking completely since August, when the SO and I split, and cooking just didn't feel like the right thing to do for some reason. My mom had always told me that food takes on the flavor of the emotions of the cook--and honestly, right about then, my food would have tasted bitter and unappetizing.

But, for some reason--be it my own heart's will to regenerate or just the passing of time--I suddenly wanted to cook again.

So, what to cook?! I found myself with little to no cookable food items in my house...at least, nothing that seemed like an obvious meal solution. I DID have some turkey cutlets and some very, very, very almost bad tomatoes. But that was pretty much it. However, after a bit of scrounging, I came up with this very easy (and very delicious) meal.

TURKEY CUTLETS

some thinly sliced tukey cutlets
1 c. bread crumbs
1/4 c. parmesan cheese crumbs
some herbs and spices (I used parsley, sage, and chives)
salt
butter

TOMATO/ONION TOPPING

1 medium tomato
1 medium onion
1 large clove of garlic (or 2 small)
butter
herbs and spices (I used sage and oregano)
salt

1. Wash the cutlets and pat dry with a paper towel. Put the 1 c. of bread and the 1/4 c. of cheese crumbs into a bowl (as opposed to your hand?). Add salt to taste. Yes, you stick your finger in and taste it. Add a pinch of your chosen herbs and mix well. Make sure the whole mixture is evenly distributed.

2. Take each cutlet and put it into the bowl to coat it in crumbs. They obviously can't be TOO dried off for this to work. If they are, quickly stick them under running water and dry them off again to almost dry-ness. The crumbs need to stick, after all.

3. Heat up a skillet on medium heat with two pats of butter, 1/2 Tbsp. each. When it melts, swirl it to coat the pan, and put the cutlets in the butter. Fry about three minutes to a side, more if the cutlets are thicker. The crumbs and the butter help to keep the cutlets moist inside and not too chewy, as is the nature of cutlets sometimes!

4. For the topping, I seeded and cubed the tomatoes, chopped the onion into medium chunks, and minced the garlic. Since I like to absorb flavor, I used the same skillet as the cutlets, and I melted a bit more butter in there (because the bread crumbs tend to absorb the butter they are fried in.) I threw the whole mix into the pan, added some salt and herbs, and let it sautee until the onions were clear. Immediately, I topped the cutlets with it, and served with mayonnaise.

A word on mayonnaise and turkey cutlets: YUM.


I happened to have some desperately frozen peas (last thawed about 1 year ago?) in the freezer, and luckily they thawed out deliciously. I sliced a cuke and called it a meal!
Voila!

So, this week's tip is to be resourceful...it's easy to make great meals with very little. You just have to be creative. :)

Vintage from a Barn Sale

I really love shopping. In fact, I find it most rewarding when I shop at things like estate sales, just because anything you find in a place like that automatically carries more weight...you had to dig for it! Here are some of my latest finds at a recent barn estate sale in Bloomfield. They can also be found on my etsy shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/lxp3478.

The little things.

Way back when, in the times before the seventies, I have this opinion that life was not necessarily better..just more detail oriented. The thought comforts me. I guess this is because I myself am very detail oriented--not just in the way I do things,but also in the way I dress, decorate my home, and act.

I went to an estate sale yesterday in a barn, and was floored by how many little tidbits there were from this woman's life. Each dress I purchased had a matching bolero, often made out of delicate tulle or lace. Wedding dresses had crowns. Little purses had detachable clutches inside.

Whatever happened to the following details?

The perfect hat

Gloves.

The beautiful sweater guard.

The thank you note.

The well-fitted suit.

The peignoir/nightgown set.

The scarf.

The decanter set for liquor.

These days it feels like no one takes the time to dwell on the little pieces of appearance that make us feel and look special. I get that we're all busy, but maybe by taking that little extra second to dwell, we can use our time to inflect upon our own selves a little more. After all, one can't care for others until one cares for themselves.

SO much has happened! Where to begin?

Well, OK. So, first, I broke my collarbone. I fell off of a horse during a riding lesson, which is bad enough--but on top of all that, his name was Spanky. Seriously, universe?

The wrath of Spanky.

Then I got to get surgery. I flew home to Atlanta and everything, which was rad because I got to take off school and work, but not rad because I then became entrenched in homework-land. I'm still there, because I have got this fabulous internship at Partners + Napier as an account planning intern, and when I come home, I am TIRED!

SO, very little sewing for now. BUT, i have learned to crochet in the meantime. I've made a skirt from Mary Jane Hall's Crochet That Fits, and wear it all the time. I love it. Crochet was easy for me to do with my arm in a sling, so now I'm obsessed. I am working on a bag currently, and after that...who knows? I'm thinking some pink, fluffy bunny slippers....as if I need those in the summer. :/

So, that's most of the news for now. Let's catch up again soon...I'll show you my latest hook projects, and maybe this crazy jumper dress thing I sort of am making up as I go along. LOL.

Let's talk about my fear of skirts.

I recently purchased this really great Joel Dewberry fabric from an Etsy seller in two colors...the lime green and the dark pink.

Now, I was in love with this fabric, but honestly had no idea what to do with it. I really wanted to make something utterly cool, but it doesn't seem like this fabric would be all that great all over your body--as in, a full length dress. After a little bit of snooping, I found this skirt over at Bird and Bread:

(img courtesy Bird and Bread)

Isn't it sooooo cute? She did an amazing job sewing it, and I only wish I could replicate the effort. Unfortunately, I have this little problem. Ok, a big problem.

(I look really bad in pencil skirts.)

Even I get how defeatist this is, but it's totally true. I just can't find any styles that accommodate my curvy hips with my small waist. I'm not built like a stick...I can't help that. But, I can totally take a cue from the fabulous blogger above and sew my own, well-fitted skirt.

I looked for a long time. Vogue had a lot of high-waisted options that I really liked, but I finally settled on this pattern from the "project runway" line. It's kind of a tulip skirt sort of shape that I think will go really well.

The link to the pattern review is here.

The one that the reviewer made up looked a little poofy in the hips...but hopefully this will work for me. I've never worn the style, personally. Here goes nothing!

Tea Sandwiches and Transversally cut bread

It has been beautiful here in western New York recently, and the SO and I decided to go on a picnic. There is a really beautiful lake nearby that we decided on as the spot for our munching, and the only thing left to do was to figure out what to munch. I didn't have much in my fridge (this is very typical, really) but the SO was hell-bent on making what basically amount to tea sandwiches. We had them a lot when on our trip to Argentina so see his family a couple years ago. They are square, usually thin sandwiches on thin white bread, with a very small amount of filling.

(Image taken from Asado Argentina)

The basic idea behind these is that you have to eat about 50 to satisfy hunger, but they are defninitely light and would be easier to haul around than thirteen Tupperware canisters full of potato salads, cocktail weiners, and all the other elaborate food I wanted to pack. So, we made them. Ah, but how does one get the bread so thin?

By cutting it lengthwise instead of width wise!

The fine people at Wegman's were understandably confused, but could not fight my rock solid logic. 

"This is the last loaf," the bread woman said skeptically. "I can't cut it that way here." We both looked from the loaf in my hand, to the machine, and then back to the loaf. I allowed my face to settle into a patient, oh so very patient smile.

"Is there any reason why you can't do it here? Can't you just put it in the other way around?"

And she did, and it worked. She was definitely not impressed with my bread cutting style, but since it was the last loaf and all (and it's not like I was at the bakery section of a grocery store or anything, right?) I can understand her attachment to it. The point I'm trying to make is that Wegman's is full of excellent people who always try to accommodate the customer. Even if we are weird bread-murderers!

The great thing about these sandwiches is that you can basically put whatever you want on them. We did three types: cuke/mayo/mustard/ham/salt ,  cuke/mayo/tomato pesto/turkey/tomato , and cuke/mayo/tomato/ham/mustard.

Yum!!! We had a great picnic, and though I didn't make fifty, I wish I had--because I really could have eaten at least three more. I wonder how much of sandwich eating is eating a bulky crust? Maybe that's why most people can only eat one real sandwich, but fifteen of these?

Ok people, let's talk strapless. Or: A PLEA TO DESIGNERS EVERYWHERE

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, EVERYONE GET OVER IT.

Thanks for letting me have that little rant. Now I feel like we can truly begin.

This all started this morning when, groggy as a pirate the night after a wedding (aren't I punny? pirates would drink grog...Ok, sorry) I clambered onto my email and saw the email from VoguePatterns proclaiming that the NEW PATTERNS WERE HERE. YAY! I'm kind of a (not so) secret pattern hoarder, so I decided to check things out. Well, surprise, surprise...I was more or less disappointed. Here's a selection.

Wow. Look at all those sheath dresses. YAWN.

And then, the kicker. I saw it hovering around the bottom...some sort of delicious floral-on-white. Nothing gets my attention like pink and red on white. Here's what it was on:

                                                   

STRAPLESS! Why??? Why has everything got to be strapless? Who came up with this idea? It's terrible!

In my expertise, there is a tiny boob-range of women who can wear strapless gowns. If you are flat chested, you are not in it. Also, if you have any chest to speak of, you are not in it. That leaves...oh, about 1.8% of women who look good in a strapless. So WHY IN THE WORLD do we see this stupid design EVERYWHERE? 

(how does this last one even stay up?! what if you have to stretch!?)

I get that there's a certain charm to showing off your beautiful shoulders and collarbones. However, the majority of women (even the ones who can make these bizarre things stay up) still spend more time hiking the bodice up and/or looking like the saggy boobed grannies of yore. These types of clothes always drag down your bust. Is that the charm--the almost falling off part? Can someone help me here?

There are other ways to show off that chest without needing to resort to almost baring it. Busty ladies, why not try something like this? (Image from igigi.com...one of my fave designers)

And that goes for the rest of you too! Let's all shed the strapless like the dead weight it is, and bring back the boatneck, the cowl neck, the sweetheart neckline with long sleeves! Let's throw out the saggy boobage and celebrate cap sleeves!

Who's with me?!

And by the way, Vogue Patterns...THANKS FOR NOTHING!

In which I become a Level One Quilting Jedi, and bemoan making clothing for others

So, this weekend, I made my first foray into QUILTING. I know, you can barely stand the sheer adventurousness of the whole thing--but seriously, I became a Level One Quilting Jedi this weekend, thanks to the help of Regina over at The Queen Bee's Buzz. Quilting is actually something I enjoy possibly just as much as garment sewing, and this is because (like garments) a quilt is just the final result of a bunch of tiny, puzzle-like pieces. I dug everything about it, from the methodical cutting of squares, to the precise sewing, to the ironing. It was a very huge ordeal for me, however, to get the whole thing laid out, as I tended to get caught up in the layout obsessively from the get-go. Here's the final result, not yet sewn together:

I really can't wait to get a border and a backing on it. I'm thinking a thin black border and then a wider....? one. Any suggestions? 

In other news, I am dying to make myself a spring/summer dress out of this old vintage sheet I've got. It's  perfect fabric for such a thing because it's light, airy, pre-washed, and already broken in. However, I've already promised to make the SO a vest, and my mom and friend a dress. Why oh why can't I just be a selfish seamstress? As soon as I make something, I want to give it away!!!

Lame. Well, on top of everything else, the machine's tension is on the fritz, so I may have to get it looked at. It's not been serviced in fourteen or so years, so I'm thinking it's about time....

Well, I guess that nips my sewing in the bud, at least for a little while. Lame.

What I did this weekend...

Was make some Marie Antoinette-inspired pumps with my mom. A regular 80's pump and some trim, earrings, and glue, and you've got a new shoe! Enjoy the preview. Check them all out in my shop tomorrow.

I like to cook how I dress..blending the basics.

I feel like a lot of college kids (and even some adults) don't understand the basic rules of cooking for one, or cooking to save money. They see cooking as something you do for someone you want to see naked someday, or maybe just because you feel really fancy. Flambe, cheesecake, some sort of stir fry with gold flakes in it...whatever. It's a one time deal, generally involves a giant mess, and leaves everyone feeling exhausted. And, it's so complicated that usually the cook wants nothing to do with the kitchen for the next three months.
It doesn't have to be that way. A few tips I follow are:

1. Find a good source of fresh, cheap produce. In my area, we have a ton of farms and even a PriceRite, which to me is wonderful. Produce should be the BULK of your shopping, not easy mac and Twizzlers.

2. Keep the staples on hand. These are:

• onions
• garlic
• potatoes
• a few plum tomatoes
• a cucumber
• a head of lettuce
• green beans OR asparagus
• lemons OR lemon juice
• olive oil
• butter
• eggs
• ground meats/shaved meats/salami
• citrus fruits AND a non citrus fruit
• two avocados
• bread
• pasta
• rice
• cheese of some sort
• salt and other basic spices, dried (oregano, thyme, basil, sage, rosemary)
• For breakfast, keep milk, OJ, tea, instant coffee, a bag of oats or instant oatmeal, and/or a box of cereal along with some dried fruits and jam

I also recommend keeping some chicken drumsticks and a pork loin in the freezer. These things are pretty easy to just whip up and cook, with minimal effort. If you want to be really lazy, keep a frozen pizza in there. But I kind of frown upon this, as pizza that is from the frozen section is usually pumped full of nasties and sodium.

3. Make basic dishes, and LOTS OF THEM, then mix and match. Chili and rice, for example, like the recipe I am going to show next. Or, put the chili on some chopped lettuce. Or, make a salad. Or.... (ok, see? my list above already has a lot of basic meals.)

The cool thing about being a college kid is generally, you don't have a family to worry about feeding. But even if you do, try making a giant pot of something and using it creatively throughout the week. Then, you stretch the dollars that went into that dish even further. Save the fancy stuff for the weekends or special occasions. You'll find that at least that way, cooking will actually save you a TON of money. I spend, currently, about $70 per two weeks of foodies, sometimes a little more if I have to replenish the salad items. I try to eat something green every day.

Here's a basic dish to get you started.

Randomly Herbed Turkey Chili and Brown Rice Bonanza

Ingredients
1 package ground turkey
some grape tomatoes or 1 plum tomato
1 package chili seasoning
1 can red beans, undrained
some random herbs
salt
butter
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
brown rice


1. So. Mince the garlic and chop the onion, and toss them in some butter. Saute until clear or browning. It doesn't really matter which. As the kids say, "Lol"

2. Add the turkey and some salt and random spices. I can't even remember what went into mine. Definitely thyme, rosemary, and sage, but I seem to remember some Herbamare?

3. Cook until turkey is fully browned. No pink stuff! You don't want food poisoning, do you?! Meanwhile, cook your rice. I use a rice cooker, which is a great invention and a super friend to all exasperatingly messy chef like myself.

4. Add some grape tomatoes or slices of regular tomato, whatever. These are just what I had on hand. Stir them in well and mash them up a little. Let those things stew for about five minutes.

5. Add your can of red beans, juice and all. Heat all the way through.

6. Now, I know it is in bad taste to deny you, my loyal readers, frozen pizza, and then turn around and be all WELL NOW YOU ADD SOME PRE-MADE CHILI MIX--but the fact of the matter is that this stuff is like magic powder for meat and bean combos. Also it costs like 65 cents and is good to keep around for flavoring things of all sorts.

7. Mix well, heat through again, and serve on rice or by itself or on a salad or in a sandwich or with a baguette or on pasta or...