Tea Towels

Tea towels - ah how I love thee

I'm becoming quite the tea towel addict/user/abuser of late
there are a million and one uses to which I put them a thousand and one times a day. I can't seem to get enough of them and blow through my pile daily with abandon

and they add nice color and variety to the kitchen scenery :)

Baking

In an effort to truly test out the new oven on more then a casserole (of which there have been many lately) I have decided to use my lazy lazy Sunday to make: Bread!
nothing better then the smell of bread baking - so homey

I have two bananas about to go off so some kind of banana bread (quick bread) is in order and some kind of rolls I do believe.

The banana bread recipe is from The Fresh Loaf
Love me The Fresh Loaf :)




and the dinner roll recipe I decided to try is from Recipezaar: Delectable Dinner Rolls

I'll post pics of the finished yumminess

Move

Move -we have successfully moved. Packing a house and moving is a pain and exhausting and argh! inducing but we have succeeded and now - we unpack
boxes - and crates and more boxes.

Swap-bot = renewl of creative crafty-ness

Swap-bot has become my latest time sink/mail obsession. On the plus side it has me doing all kinds of things I had not done in a long time (papercutting, stamping, being creative and social). Good fun :)

Things that make me smile

1)The Muppet
2)The "kids" - Doggy - Murphy and Kitties - Shiva + Ozymandius
3)Freesias (fav. flowers)
4)My garlic keep (how cute is that!)


5)mail (the snail mail variety)

Bead Sprites

So the Muppet♥ (yes I live with a full grown muppet -that's him over there (Sweetums from the JimHenson Muppet crew -thanks to muppetwiki for image)) and I have recently begun dabbling in making Bead Sprites from Perler/Hama Beads. You basically construct your image then iron the beads to fuse them together into a lasting image. Fun, easy and tons of video game applications (which makes the Muppet very happy - he has a thing for the vid-ia) So eventually when I upload my pictures they will start appearing here.

UPDATE: HERE ARE SOME SPRITES FOR YOU:

Cherry Scones

mmmm mmm mmmm cherry scones -

I use Nigella Lawson's recipe from "How to be a Domestic Goddess" - such a good scone recipe mmm mmm mmm :)

Video Game

Video Game inspiration - yes I have been viewing lots of cross stitch and perler bead creations to do with video game images - and I keep hearing "You can make that, I'll let you" in the background....talk about subtle hints

Christmas Cross stich Ornament

Finally finished a little ornament I have had kicking around forever - is two toy soldiers

It's funny when I actually stitch projects go so much faster - my problem is I just move them around a lot and don't actually get to working on them.

Craft - Cross stitch

An old cross stitch that hangs on the kitchen entry wall

Trifle

This pumpkin trifle was made at Thanksgiving time - yes I know it is out of line with the rest but I finally got the picture on here - and it is yummy. The recipe is off of Food Network and is a slightly different version but yea - gingerbread, gingersnaps and pumpkin for the win.

Stove

Today we get our new stove *HURRAY* It will cook evenly - and bake evenly - what a novelty
also-it will not sound like a time bomb about to explode.


http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_02294219000P?vName=Appliances&cName=Cooking+Appliances&sName=Freestanding

this one

been a while and surprising enough im back to the roast chicken - this time stuffed with a rosemary bread stuffing - side of fresh CSA grown brussel sprouts and potatoes (roasted) - num!

Roast Chicken and Veg

MMMmmmmm fall harvest is beginning and with lots of veg coming out my ears and a whole chicken in the freezer a roast sounded delish. Soo on with the nom! -
Roasted chicken stuffed with rosemary, parsley, sage, and other herbs from garden as well as onion and garlic - in pan with onion, potato and peppers
for a side.....More roast veg! num!
a layered dish of tomatoes, onion, zuchinni, and eggplant with a sprinkling of cheese throughout.
along side - bread - nice and crunchy - homemade - reheated. so good

Chicken + Eggplant Parm

Chicken Parm, Eggplant Parm - served over spaghetti = very very very full. (sorry no pics was too hungry and it got devoured by all). The eggplant were small round disc's and soo good.

Food Porn

So I read an article the other day
http://www.re-nest.com/re-nest/at-on/at-on-the-lost-art-of-cookingmichael-pollan-in-the-new-york-times-7292009-091911

which said we are all watching *more* food shows/etc but actually cooking less. I blame Food Porn (thanks for the image Anthony Bourdain). We all love food porn in all its various forms. Talking about it (the chocolate was molten and oozed from the cookies), watching it (10,000 cooking programs are proof of that), as well as flipping through it (cookbooks? - how many have a collection of these). Something about the primal language of the body speaks to the eye candy of food products. We even participate in food porn when we go out to eat - but like all porn its so much more fun when we don't have to make it ourselves. I think the work involved in creating your own foods speaks to other things within us, but takes away from the insta-gratification/illusion that is food porn. Good thing cooking/baking is just as primal :)

CSA Weekly Haul

So today is CSA (community supported agriculture) day. Which means - we have received our tote of fresh from the farm veggies for the week. Today's haul:
Carrots (a load of really yummy sweet covered in dirt carrots)
Sweet corn
Tomatoes (the first of the season)
Eggplants
Kholrabi
Green beans
Cabbage
Beets
Zucchini
Squash
Poblano Peppers
Cucumbers

Find your own CSA at: http://www.localharvest.org/csa/


So...Who's *YOUR* farmer???

Fish pie

MMMMmmmmm fish pie - think shepard's pie but with fish and white sauce - so good - hearty/filling - you can just picture a fisherman sloughing off wet things and cozy'ing up to a fire place with a bowl of this. Too good.

Trials and tribulations

One of the constant struggles of daily life is "what to have for dinner?????" It becomes a rifling of cookbook piles and freezer/fridge findings amongst other things. (Can you tell what time of day it is in the house?) Today I am leaning towards something with chicken in the chinese/thai land of flavours. We shall see what I end up with.
now...back to the recipe hunt

and after all that - ended up with decidedly not asian at all - English fish pie from my aunt :) nummy

Cookbook overload

So I suffer (or relish in) cookbook overload. I *may* have one or two or 100 'ish. (for complete listing visit my other addiction - Librarything.com and view my books: user:evedeve)

Now these books range from the little supermarket grabs to the poshy ones to the beat up, found in the back bin of a used book store, splattered and dogeared books. There are recipe cards, and books and now the websites (like recipezaar) all tempting me and taunting me. Even the motion picture world seems to have jumped on the bandwagon (that new Julia/Julie movie). Those are just the recipe books - there are even more when you delve into "regular reading" such as mysteries (with recipes!) and gastronomy books etc. Even the travel books give me a bug (usually for breads and hearty soups and teas).

I am trying to make some sense of my culinary ramblings as they cross all food groups, all meals, all regions of the world and some even pop outta my head like mad little things. So if I falter or don't list where I found it or what I did - let me know to keep me focused.