Sew Darn Cute

Recipe Time: Roasted Lemon and Parsley Potatoes

So, since I've been working on my book, my days have been busier than ever. While I miss cooking, it's often the last thing on my mind. As a result, our dinners usually consist of a rotation of simple pasta dishes with 5 steps or less. Stuff like: 1. Boil frozen ravioli or whole-wheat pasta,  2. Microwave a steamer bag of mixed veggies, 3. Toss together with pesto or tomato sauce in a big bowl and eat. Or sometimes we'll buy whole wheat pizza dough from Trader Joe's and throw together a quick pizza with a jar of sauce (or again, pesto) and whatever toppings we have on hand-- pair it with a salad and call it done.

It's not the worst way to eat in the world, and it certainly beats ordering takeout all the time, but I've been getting SO bored with our food routine. Johnny noted recently that it had been a while since we made potatoes and that he missed them. Not wanting to go our usual potato route (mashed, or roasted with carrots and onions), I tried out this recipe (an adaptation of a few different ones I found online) and results were awesome. We paired them with a big salad of romaine lettuce, crumbled jack cheese, slivered carrots, sesame seeds and sliced strawberries in vinaigrette and it was the most satisfying dinner I've tasted in quite a while. Try these tangy potatoes and lemme know what you think!

Roasted Lemon and Parsley Potatoes

* 3 lbs. mixed small potatoes (we used a bag of new, red, and purple)
* 6 TBSP lemon juice
* 1/4 cup olive oil
* 1/2 stick butter or margarine
* About 1/2 bunch fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
* Zest of one small lemon (yay for Microplane zesters!)
* Sea salt & cracked pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Quarter the potatoes and put 'em in a 13 x 9" pan. Melt the butter or margarine, whisk together with oil and lemon juice. Toss with potatoes to coat, salt and pepper generously. Cook (uncovered) for 45 mins or so, then pull 'em out and mix in the lemon zest. Cook about 15 mins more or until nice and golden. Remove from oven and toss in the parsley. Eat until you explode.

Cookies & Milk

Oh, boy. My days are so scary busy lately the weeks just fly by. It's a little overwhelming but I'm doing my best to keep up! Lately I've been keeping busy with a lot of CRAFT blogging, running D.I.Y. demos at the L.A. County Fair, planning the Felt Club Holiday Show (applications are online now!), and working on around 4 top secret projects I hope to be able to reveal soon. It's enough to make a girl just plotz!

I managed to have at least one relaxing evening last week, having a little movie party with Johnny and my pals Jordan and Steve. We watched the hilariously bad (yet great) flick From Beyond, brought to you by the same folks who did the classic ReAnimator. It may sound weird considering how much I love cutesy stuff like cupcakes and baby bunnies, but I absolutely love disgusting and cheesy horror movies—and this one is a real keeper.

photo stolen from Shelteriffic

Speaking of keepers, you have got to try this chocolate chip cookie recipe I came across on Shelterrific. It originally ran in the NY Times and has inspired a lot of debate...everyone has their own idea what makes a "perfect" chocolate chip cookie, after all. I don't know if this one is completely perfect, but it's pretty damn close. Jordan must have eaten at least a dozen in the span of an hour and a half. Either he's a compulsive eater or they were damn good. Maybe both. Just be sure to try them for yourself and let me know what you think! The recipe is here.

ALSO! I want to thank you guys once again for your responses to my going out of business sale. I'm working very hard to fill everyone's orders and sent out a big batch of packages today. I do warn people on the site that everything is made to order, and with the crush of orders it can take up to 4 weeks before I can get everything stitched and shipped, but rest assured I'm working on it. Packages should start appearing in mailboxes this week—if you ordered a bunch of sewn stuff, hold tight a little bit longer. Thanks for having patience in this overbooked gal and her super-messy sewing room. Orders went out to the following zip codes today: 94118, 19508, 20016, 97206, 75204, 46220, 08244, 90404, 93110, 77550, 94116, 95820, 32766, 30306, 91423. Phew!

Apologies and Cake

I'm a terrible blogger! Two weeks since my last entry? For shame!! I have a good excuse, though. The excuse is that I am insanely busy! Things always get nuts right before a big Felt Club show, and our XL Summer event is no exception. This has got to be the most amazing show I've had the pleasure of organizing, but boy howdy is it a ton of work. Every day I've got countless errands to run, e-mails to respond to, photos to take, and more. My living room has no less than 35 boxes in it right now, sent in from a variety of sponsors and folks kind enough to donate goodies for our swag bags. It's amazing but also overwhelming, and I'm just trying to keep up. So, I do apologize for the lack of content 'round these parts lately. For the next couple of weeks I'll be spening the bulk of my time on Flickr and on the Felt Club blog, making near-daily updates. We'll return to our normally scheduled programming after all this madness, though, so I hope you'll stay tuned.

The good news is, I've still been cooking and thrifting and crafting and such, so I'll have lots to tell you about soon. Check out the Thrifty set on my Flickr to see my latest thrift store scores (two of 'em are pictured above...that pink gingham sheet wants to be a breezy summer skirt so bad, don't you think?). I've also started a Flickr group called Veggie Dinnerplate, which is a place for folks to post photos of their delicious vegetarian dinners—the intention is to inspire people who have no idea what to make for dinner (a position I often find msyelf in). I've been successfully avoiding meat for about 7 months now (never a huge fan, I finally decided to quit making it altogether), so it's been a lot of fun for me to peruse. Be sure to check it out and post your own photos of vegetarian goodness, I'd love it. Check out the Spicy Korean BBQ Tofu and Coconut-Collard rice pictured below (courtesy of Celine from Have Cake Will Travel). I thought it looked so delicious I recreated it myself!

On the cooking tip, here's an easy recipe for Tres Leches cake, which I've cribbed from my old (deleted) blog. Someone on Flickr recently asked for the recipe, so I thought I'd share it with all of you.  Sorry there aren't prettier pictures of the finished cake, but we wolfed it down too fast to play photoshoot. Chances are, you will too!

Easy Tres Leches Cake

Start with a 13 x 9-inch yellow sheet cake. You can find recipes for this most basic of cakes in any cookbook, or you can make one from a mix. Whatevs. Anyway, bake the sucker and let it stand about 5 minutes. During this time you can assemble your cake-soaking ingredients: 1 cup whipping cream (heavy), 1 cup whole milk, 1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk, and 1/3 cup of RUM! Mix them all up (but don't whip the cream), and be sure to scrape along the bowl's sides, as the condensed milk is sticky/thick.

Set aside your milky mixture for now. Next you're gonna poke your cake with a fork. I poke it all over in (approximately) 1-inch intervals (you may have to wipe the fork tines occasionally.) Here's what it should look like:

So pretty! Now go ahead and carefully pour your milk/rum mixture alllllll over the cake. Here's what that will look like from the side...wowzers!

Now you're gonna pop the cake in the fridge (covered w/foil) for a good 3-4 hours, or until it's chilled and most of the milk/rum mixture has been absorbed by the cake. While the cake is chilling out in the fridge, toast yourself 1/2 cup of chopped pecans on a cookie sheet. Then toast up about 1 cup of flaked coconut. (Be sure to watch this stuff as you toast it, it doesn't take long to get all goldeny-brown and nice. As we all learned here.)

When you're ready to serve the cake, make some whipped cream to spread across the top. I threw 1 cup whipping cream, 2 tablespoons rum, and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla into my Kitchen-Aid mixer on high and whipped it until soft peaks appeared. Spread the whipped cream over the cake, sprinkle with the coconut and pecans, cut and enjoy! As you can see, we sure did!

Texas Caviar

I was feeling inspired by the lovely picnic-friendly we've been having lately, and decided to whip up some Texas Caviar (a/k/a Marinated Black-Eyed Peas). This tangy and addictive concoction is a warm-weather favorite in our house, and it's not hard to understand why. I originally got the recipe from my friend Rhea in Seattle, who made it for a Southern-style potluck. It was and continues to be a total crowdpleaser. Delicious served as an appetizer with crispy, salty tortilla chips, stuffed into a pita with fresh romaine as a sandwich, or just eaten on the side as a salad. I always end up doubling the recipe—it's that good!

Texas Caviar (4 servings)

1 can black-eyed peas (plain)
1 rib celery, chopped
1 tbs. finely chopped onion
1 tbs. salad oil
1 tbs. vinegar
1 tbs. mayonnaise
1/4 tsp. salt
Dash cayenne pepper
1 ripe tomato, diced

Drain peas, rinse with cold water, and drain well again.  Add chopped celery and onion. Combine oil, vinegar, mayo, salt and cayenne. Mix well. Pour over peas, and stir gently. Allow to chill in refrigerator several hours or overnight.  At serving time, add the diced tomatoes. Mix carefully.

S'mores Cupcakes

As I mentioned in my last post, I had to make some cupcakes on Saturday. Well, "had to" is a strong term...I wanted to make some cupcakes for my friend Wendy's birthday. She was advertising it in part as a "cake tasting" party, whatever that means, so guests were encouraged to bring cakes of various kinds. There were red velvet cupcakes topped with tart blackberries, a delicious malt layer cake with whipped-cream frosting, a moist vegan chocolate cake, and mocha-chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter-cream cheese icing. Last but not least were these puppies, my very own S'mores cupcakes! So easy, yet so tasty (and not the slightest bit good for you).

The cupcake part can be any chocolate cake you like (such as Martha's One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes, which is pretty much my standby). Edit: Just so you know, I always get far more than 24 cupcakes from this recipe for some reason. (That's good, since the frosting recipe makes a ton.) Here's how to make the frosting:

1/2-3/4 lb. (2 or 3 sticks) butter, room temperature
1 lb. (2 cups) confectioner's sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
16 oz. tub of marshmallow cream (I recommend Fluff)

Cream the butter (I love my Kitchenaid!) on high until it's light and fluffy. Add the confectioner's sugar, 1/4 cup at a time, and beat until fluffy each time. Beat in the vanilla until incorporated. Then dump in the Fluff and mix it up 'til it's all creamy. Transfer to pastry bag (if desired) and pipe onto cupcakes! (You can also cut the corner off a Ziploc bag and use that instead.)

The tops are dusted with graham cracker crumbs, and each cupcake is topped with a square of Hershey's chocolate. Yes, there are fancier chocolate bars out there—but for that authentic retro campfire taste, I say you oughta stick with the classic.

Eat and enjoy! (And have a happy birthday, Wendy!)

Fresh from Johnny's Kitchen

Johnny and I received a Cuisinart ice cream maker as a wedding gift a few years ago (thanks Eric and Rhea!), and have enjoyed every minute of it. I had grand visions of making classy sorbets and exotic ice creams straight outta Gourmet magazine, but my husband's cravings were firmly in the "dump lots of candy and cookies into ice cream and call it a day" camp. I can't complain, though, because his ice cream inventions have been across-the-board amazing every time—he's like the Rainman of sweet treats or something!

His very first idea was Count Chocula ice cream. We made a basic sweet cream-vanilla base and folded in a bunch of cereal, then froze it for a few hours. I was pleasantly surprised at the way the marshmallow bits changed in texture to form these delicious little pockets of goo and the crunchy parts softened up just so. Mm-mm, it's chemically delicious! Around the holidays, Johnny decided we should make brown sugar ice cream, and thought it would taste great with chopped gingersnaps folded in—the results were predictably wonderful. You might even say the stuff was mindblowing. So allow me to bow down to the master and present you with his latest concotion, Chocolate Cake Ice Cream.

The idea was simple: make homemade chocolate ice cream (made using Ben & Jerry's "Ben's Chocolate" recipe) with big chunks of chocolate layer cake folded in and frozen. Judging from the four scoops he wolfed down last night, I think it was a success.

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 cup milk
2 large eggs (fresh!)
1 cup sugar
1 cup heavy or whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 pinch salt

1. Melt the unsweetened chocolate in the top of a double boiler over hot (not boiling) water. Gradually whisk in  the milk and heat, stirring constantly, until smooth. Remove from heat and let cool.

2. Whisk the eggs in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy, 1-2 minutes. Whisk in the sugar, a little at a time, then continue whisking until completely blended, about 1 minute more. Add the cream, vanilla, and whisk to blend.

3. Pour the chocolate mixture into the cream mixture and blend. Cover and refrigerate until cold, about 1-3 hours (depending on your refrigerator).

4. Transfer the mixture to an ice cream maker and freeze following manufacturer's instructions.

The ice cream takes about 30-35 minutes to freeze in the machine, and you could eat it like soft-serve if you wanted to. But since we prefer our ice cream a bit firmer, here's what we do next.

Grab a knife and chop up a frosted chocolate layer cake! I never use box cake mixes since homemade is so easy, but considering that we weren't sure how this ice cream would turn out, I wanted something quick/easy/cheap. So, we used a Duncan Hines Devil's Food mix and some milk chocolate and "whipped cream" flavored canned frosting (something I also never use, but it was perfect for this project). It did feel weird to make a cake only to destroy it!

Dump the ice cream into a quart-sized container and stir in about half a cake's worth of chunks (Johnny wanted to use more, but I refused on the grounds that it was scientifically unsound and also just plain crazy). Snap on the lid and pop in your freezer for 3-4 hours or overnight.

Here's what it looks like all finished. Ben and Jerry have nothin' on my fella, I gotta say. In retrospect, Johnny seemed to agree that we achieved the perfect cake-to-ice cream ratio (though it didn't stop him from clutching his chest like Fred Sanford and screaming dramatically when I tossed out the leftover cake). Cake genocide notwithstanding, I think we make a pretty good team.

Checking In

I haven't felt much like posting lately, I have to admit. For small business owners, this can be a trying time of year...so much tax paperwork we need to sort though, business paperwork that needs to be renewed, etc. It doesn't leave much time for fun crafting and cooking adventures—but I did want to share a couple of fun bits with you.

One, how cute are these Buckingham Palace guard dudes? They're actually Christmas ornaments from when I was a kid, and they were made by my dad! I unearthed them back in January when I was visiting my folks. I remember our family making these back when we lived in Rhode Island...so they're over 20 years old. I love their hilarious little toothpick rifles and pipe cleaner arms. Too funny.

I also wanted to share a photo of the cupcakes I made for Chinese New Year. A friend of mine hosted a dinner party full of noodles, dumplings, fried rice and other treats, and I brought these for dessert. The cakes were made using Martha's One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes recipe (the one from her Baking Handbook, not her website), and I filled them with whipped cream and glazed the tops with chocolate ganache, topped with chopped candied ginger. The filling was actually my attempt at making the ginger whipped cream from Cupcake Bakeshop, but it didn't work out for some reason...the ginger flavor didn't come through at all. I'm going to try it again though, maybe I got a bum ginger root, or didn't use enough of it...? They were still plenty delicious, though.

I also wanted to share the exciting news that we finally nailed down the dates for this year's two super-sized Felt Club craft shows. There will be a summer show on July 15 and a holiday show on November 18. Yes, I know some folks are sad we're not doing the shows on a monthly basis anymore, but honestly...that schedule was killing me, especially considering I don't make a living off planning these shows, and I think having two BIG events per year works out better for our vendors anyway since it means more anticipation. Also, producing only two shows per year means we can spend more time making them super-great and full of fun for everyone attending. I don't want to spend too much time babbling about Felt Club here on my personal blog, but I'm psyched about this and excited about the cool new developments to come. You can stay on top of all Felt Club news here.

Not so exciting is the fact that I was slammed with $400 in city fines last month, for illegally posting flyers for some of last year's events. I guess some folks had hung flyers in areas where it wasn't allowed, and the city finally got around to fining me...now, right before tax time. Sigh. So, we're having a big sale on silkscreen posters in our Etsy shop, only $20 until March 12 (that's $15 off!). We've also put together three killer Felt Club gift baskets, full of crafty treats from our vendors and friends (like our pals at Reform School!), which I'm in the midst of photographing right now. They'll be up on eBay within the week, so stay tuned!

PS: I finally got to meet Pink Craftie recently, which was a lot of fun. Hanging out with Susan and Cathy was great too, of course. ;)

How Not to Make Lasagna

So, Johnny and I had dinner plans last night, with friends we haven't seen in ages. We decided that I would make the main course and bring it over to their place, and they'd make salad and dessert. Easy, right?

I decided to make this amazingly decadent and very involved Vegetarian Lasagna I saw on this food blog a while back. I've made it once before and it's incredibly delicious, but as the author notes...really time consuming! The preparation takes around three long, involved hours.

First, you chop all your veggies up as finely as possible in the Cuisinart...you're basically making a faux-Bolognese sauce, so the texture is akin to minced meat or whatnot. So, you're rinsing and trimming and chopping and pulse-processing away. As you can see, a lot of veggies go into this, so it takes a good while to get through 'em all.

Next, you cook the veggies until softened, then you add some red wine and tomato paste and simmer it until the wine reduces. This takes yet another while. Then you add some crushed tomatoes and chopped fresh herbs and cook that down as well, stirring constantly, until you have a super-thick, nearly dry sauce and forearms the size of Popeye's. The whole thing takes around an hour and smells absolutely wonderful.

After this, you make yet another sauce...a béchamel. I pretty much have the béchamel thing down by now, but it can still take a while to get right. Whisk, whisk, whisk!

So now you've got your two sauces...yum! You grate up a big heap of gouda cheese, then start layering all your amazing ingredients until the pan is bursting with deliciousness: "Fauxlonese" sauce, noodles, more sauce, then mozzarella slices, then baby spinach, then béchamel, then gouda...and so on and so forth 'til you're done. On the tip-top layer, you combine your two sauces and slather it over the noodles, topping with more mozza and parmesan and into the oven it goes. Aaand into the oven mine went, right before I headed out the door to run an important errand. I left Johnny with explicit instructions on when to turn the oven off and take it out, and even set a kitchen timer so it would buzz. I provided aluminum foil in case of too-quick browning and left to go about my business.

But, ummm, this is what I came home to later. The damn thing was still cooking away in a super-hot oven!! Johnny either totally didn't hear the buzzer go off or he completely misunderstood my instructions, because this pathetic lasagna was just ruined. The photo does not even capture the true charcoal-black nature of most of the "crust", which oozed all over the plaze and charred itself onto my pretty sheet pan. Siiiiiigh. Even the bottom was blackened, and we had to trash the glass Pyrex baking pan...and we were left with nothing to bring our friends for dinner. Yikes.

I couldn't even get mad at Johnny about it (though I did get teary when removing it from the oven, just out of sheer frustration), because the poor guy looked so damn miserable and mad at himself for screwing it up that I didn't even have the heart to rant at him. Damn, I hate it when he cock-blocks my ranting and nagging by being genuinely sorry for something! Grrr. Long story short, next time I'm putting him in charge of salad.

PS: Our extremely understanding and sweet friends cooked us pizza instead. Thanks, guys!

Diagnosis: Delicious

If you are at all in tune with the blog world, you've likely already heard about the No-Knead Bread recipe from the New York Times that has been spreading like wildfire...seems like everyone has tried making a loaf, and I've seen nary a bad review. If you haven't heard about the recipe, it's an extremely simple undertaking: just mix flour, salt, yeast (I used Fleishmann's Rapid Rise) and water in a bowl and let it rise in an oiled bowl (anywhere from 10-20 hours). The baking is done in a dutch oven, which explains why department store shelves have been understocked for weeks and weeks. I was lucky enough to score one of the much-coveted $40 Chefmate models (recently reviewed by Cooks Illustrated and found to be comparable in quality to Le Creuset). It was the last one on the shelf. Yay!

You can now add this blogger to the herd of bread-baking lemmings and yet another positive review to the pile. I baked two loaves last night and they turned out fantastic!

I made one loaf using the original recipe (adding a bit more salt as I'd heard it needed it), and a second loaf using two cups of all-purpose flour, one cup of whole wheat flour, plus a bit of olive oil and a handful of Herbes de Provence. Both loaves were out of this world...crunchy, crackly (yet chewy!) crust, moist and hole-y interior. I really can't recomment this recipe enough. I had two slices this morning: one spread with butter and a sprinkling of kosher salt flakes, and a second toasted and spread with orange marmalade. So delicious!

There's a ton of discussion about this recipe on the web, as you'll find if you Google it, and lots of info about ways to adapt and vary the recipe. There's a lot of helpful info over at ReadyMade and Not Martha, and you can get the recipe (and watch Jim Lahey make the bread!) via Martha Stewart's video archives. If you're a fan of freshly-baked bread, you'll definitely want to give it a try.

The Guava Saga, or: How Participating in the Cupcake Round-Up Challenge Nearly Burned My House Down

Oh Goodness. Last night was a long one for me; I spent several hours working on a hand-sewing project for a friend and watching movies with Johnny. My eyes were bleary and I felt like passing out, when all of a sudden I remembered that the deadline for the Cupcake Round-Up was the next morning. Ah, shoot! So I set aside my sewing supplies for the time being and headed into the kitchen to whip up something fun. I knew I didn't have time to make both of the recipes I'd been mulling over, so I decided to go where my pantry took me.

I knew I wanted to do a filled jumbo cupcake, and I knew I wanted to do something with the tin of guava paste I'd picked up a while back. I settled on making an almond-flavored cupcake, figuring that the creamy nutty flavor would pair well with the sweet, tangy guava. I used what has become my standby cupcake recipe, Tattletail's Vanilla Cupcakes by Amy Sedaris, but instead of 2 teapoons of vanilla I used 1.5 tsp of almond extract and only .5 tsp of vanilla. The almond smell was very strong while baking, but thankfully the flavor was not too overpowering—it was just right.

Now, what to do with the guava paste? Originally I planned on making a guava cream filling for the center of the cakes, with a lighter whipped cream on top, but after experimenting I decided to just use the same mixture for the insides and on top. I wanted the lightness of whipped cream, the sweetness of the guava, but needed something else. Then I remembered the guava tarts I've had from Cuban bakeries, which always contain a layer of cream cheese filling. The slightly sour creaminess mellows out the guava in such a nice way. So, I improvised a blend of all these ingredients, plus a squeeze of lime. It needs no additional sweeteners, since the guava paste already contains sugar. So delicious and easy!

After the cupcakes were cooled, I used chopsticks to poke holes in the middle of each one, then filled them using a pastry bag with a plain round tip. I switched to a star tip and swirled on some more as topping. I was feeling happy to have met the Cupcake Round-Up challenge deadline, and in my relieved (and tired...and cocky) state, I decided to toast some coconut for the tops of the cupcakes. Y'know, just to make them that much cuter/tastier (in retrospect I think some lime zest would be better). I spread some flaked coconut on my toaster oven tray and selected the Lightly Toasted setting. Walked away from the kitchen for literally one minute...and returned to find the toaster oven up in flames! I do mean engulfed. I screamed, "Help, help!" but Johnny was fast asleep by this point and my kitchen was rapidly filing up with smoke. I suddenly remembered you're supposed to put baking soda on an electrical fire, so I threw open the oven door and tossed the entire box onto the flames. What you see here is the aftermath (complete with the dirty dishes sitting on my counter). Siiigh. Time for a new toaster oven...and for a new resolution: Absolutely NO More Baking After Midnight.

The recipes can be found on my Flickr.