Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Jennifer's "work shop"




I've been busy as an elf, gonna have some lucky girl friends.

Cheers!

It's one of my favorite decorating times of year. I love going through magazines, taking an idea from here and an inspiration from there. I get lots of ideas even from mail order catalogs like Pottery Barn and Napa Style. I've always loved those glittery letters that you see in boutique stores, but never wanted to pay for them. This year I decided to make my own with a little help from Microsoft Word, and some card stock. I always keep a package of card stock on hand. It's useful for all sorts of things. I print out stuff for the kids, make gift tags, and seem to find other uses. It's fairly inexpensive at your local Staples store. I found the font I wanted on Word, changed the size to about 600, and printed one per page of each letter I needed. Then carefully cut them out, punched two holes in the top for hanging.
I gave each letter a coat of spray adhesive and then glittered with Martha Stewart copper color glitter. Once dry, I resprayed and glittered again to cover it beautifully. I have to say I love this glitter, which I bought at Michael's, it's super fine, like a powder, and looks much better than the traditional glitter. It also comes in beautiful colors. Once everything dried over night I strung it on black cotton ribbon and hung it up. I will be picking glitter off my face for days to come, but It was an easy project and now I have my fancy, sparkly letters. 

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Got a Hanker'in for Mole

Chicken and spinach mole tacos
Yesterday I had a craving for mole sauce. It's that lovely Spanish sauce made of chocolate, that is spicy and has a wonderful smokey aroma. You find it mostly on chicken, but you can put it on beef too, or butternut squash to vamp up a vegetarian version. I've never made it before, and when I searched it on the internet I discovered I was missing a few elements. Now, I'm an experimenter, and sometimes it goes all wrong, but other times it's a hit. I decided to wing it and yeah, it worked! Now, I didn't have canned tomato soup, so I substituted the red pepper tomato soup in a box, and I didn't have any ,so I spiced it up with Tabasco. I'm sure there were other elements from the info on line that I didn't have, but my point is don't be afraid to use your senses and try something else. It could be a happy discovery.

My Mole Sauce
2 Tbl olive oil
1/4 cup chopped red onion
1 Tbl unsweetened cocoa
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chopped garlic
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 Tbl dark brown sugar
1 cup roasted red pepper tomato soup
couple dashes of green Tabasco

Heat up your sauce pan on medium, add the olive oil and cook the onions until they are soft and clear, add the garlic and cook a bit longer, maybe a minute. Add the tomato soup and everything else. Bring to a simmer and taste. Spoon out over your cooked chicken or butternut squash.

I have a bad habit of creating my own stuff and not writing down the exact method or ingredients. However I did write this all down for future use just in case.

Green Tomatoes Everywhere

Jars of Roadside Blackberry Jam and Green Tomato Chutney
My beautiful lush vine
The Seattle area is known for having mild summers, and this year was no exception. At the end of the summer I'm left with a beautiful, lush vine of tomatoes....all green. What to do, such a bummer. Anyhow, what comes to mind is Fried Green Tomatoes of course, but there's only so many of those that we can eat. So this year I made Green Tomato Chutney and Pickled Sweet Green Tomatoes. The Chutney I've made before, and it's awesome with cheese and crackers as an appetizer. Everyone likes it and my oldest sucks down the jar if you turn your back on him. (But then gain he eats almost anything because he's 13).  The Chutney is great with holiday foods such as ham, roast beast, or turkey. It's sweet and spicy all in one. It also makes excellent hostess or teacher gifts. I also tried something new, the Pickled Green tomatoes. I think they will be used along the same lines as the chutney. Probably would make an awesome addition to a boom'in grilled cheese sandwich too!

Sweet green Tomato Pickle

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

First notes

Just starting out and getting things going. Have to do my research on how to present this and all my options. Be back soon. Cheers!