boogaj

Moving into this Century

After many years of printing, cutting and gluing photos to the cover of each Black Sheep Bags pattern, I have decided to switch to a full color pattern (at least the front will be in color).  Whew.  Why has this taken me so long.

I'm working on getting the patterns converted and have decided to go with a *very* simple design (as you can see above) because if I do this with the 10 current patterns and the 2 new ones I'm trying to get out by the end of the year, it may take ages.  One down, 11 to go!

I Love Flea Market Fancy

I love Denyse Schmidt's gorgeous Flea Market Fancy fabric and wish I could get my hands on some more of it someday, don't you?  If you answered yes, then the Flea Market Fancy Freaks website is the place for you.

Homemade Pasta & Sauce

Over the weekend I picked quite a few Amish Paste tomatoes and while some of them went into salsa, the bulk of them were used to make tomato sauce.  When I thought about what pasta I wanted to pair the sauce with, I figured this was as good a time as any to pull out the pasta maker.  After all, the fresh light taste of the simple sauce deserved a flavorful pasta.

Making pasta is ridiculously easy and I have no excuse for my laziness in this area.  It's so easy to pick up a cheap bag of pasta at Trader Joe's -- and their pasta is pretty good -- but nothing compares to fresh made.

For the recipes for both the sauce and pasta, I turned to Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything.  I find that I'm using this book all the time as it is a great reference which gives you simple, basic recipes and then allows you the freedom to alter those recipes to your hearts content.  Just the way I like to cook.  Really, I feel like this is the Betty Crocker Cookbook of this day and age and I can't recommend it highly enough.

So, back to the pasta and sauce.  The last thing I want to say is how fun it was.  I had pulled something in my back, so everyone helped out with the noodle making and I believe it made sitting down to the meal that much more enjoyable.  If you are interested in seeing a noodle making session in photos, let me know!  I didn't have the camera handy this time, but am certain I will be making noodles again soon.

FIT IS GO!!

I have an orange car.

Yipee!!!

Garden Harvest

A view of the garden from my kitchen window -- Pete and Maddie are in the background harvesting a carrot. . .

 

(Yes, he is happy to see you -- he he.)  We had very few carrots come up and I guess I was too lazy to do a second planting, but at least we have a few.  And I only need one for the pasta sauce I'm making tomorrow.

 

And since the tomatoes are finally turning red, I decided to make some garden salsa.  Luckily we still have a few jalapenos ripening, so I was able to throw a couple of those in there too. 

Julie's Garden Salsa

3 medium sized tomatoes, diced
2 jalapenos, finely diced, seeds removed (unless you like it hot!)
1/2 of a small red onion, finely diced
1 large or 2 small cloves of garlic, finely diced or run through a garlic press
Juice of 1/2 lime
Salt to taste
Cilantro, chopped

Just combine everything, stir well and taste. Add more of whatever you think it needs.

My salsa is a bit lacking because my cilantro has already gone to seed and the grocery didn't stock cilantro (?!?) but no matter, gotta make do with what you have.

Seven Years and I Missed It!

This past week marked the seven year anniversary of this here blog -- and I missed it completely! Whoops!

Cute Idea -- Sewing Project Calendar

I think this is a fun idea for anyone who likes little crafty projects -- Sewing: 2010 Day-to-Day Calendar. Not unlike the popular Knitting Pattern-a-Day, it looks like it will be filled with a huge number of great little projects. And I find it intriguing that the patterns fold open to 8.5" X 11" size. I'll be adding this one to my wishlist.

My Favorite Cooking & Baking Blogs

Speaking of cooking, I subscribe to a growing number of cooking and baking blogs.  Over the years, I've come to rely on some of them for their wonderful recipes and I want to share them with you (but only if you promise to leave me the names of your favorite food blogs!)

• Simply Recipes -- Elise's recipes are wonderful and have never failed me.  She rarely calls for exotic ingredients and I have learned to look in her archives for a recipe before searching throughout the internets. Why she doesn't have a cookbook out yet, I do not know.
• The Pioneer Woman Cooks -- I was drawn in by the beautiful photography depicting ranching life on her main blog, but was quickly sucked into her cooking site.  Her photography of each step in a recipe is fabulous and her commentary is always witty.  And get this, she has a cookbook coming out in October called The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl.
• Bitten -- Mark Bittman's website.  But haven't I already raved enough about him?
• David Lebovitz -- His blog, subtitled "living the sweet life in Paris", is always a good read.  Not only are you guaranteed to learn something, but also come away craving some of his wonderful creations.  I have and love his book Perfect Scoop and I'm dying to get my hands on his new book -- The Sweet Life in Paris.

Other food sites of note:

• Joy the Baker
• Smitten Kitchen
• Baker's Banter

I'm sure I'm missing many good foodie blogs, so please let me know which are your favorites! 

Pesto, Sun Dried Tomatoes and a Wedge of Parmesan

It would be nice if I had a photo to share here, but I don't, so let me set the scene. . .  Me in the kitchen spooning some gorgeous dark red sun dried tomato basil pesto onto steaming penne.  Here's the crazy part -- I made the pesto (using my own homegrown basil, no less).

Why do I say this is shocking?  Well, I had heard of pesto before -- even eaten it in fancy cafes and restaurants, but had no thought of using it in my own kitchen until a couple years ago. 

Revelation!!!  Pesto is awesome and should be used with reckless abandon.  In fact, I went from purchasing pre-made pesto to making my own to then growing my own huge patch of basil so I could make it virtually all summer long.  It is so much more awesome fresh.

A couple weeks ago I went completely crazy and purchased my first jar of sun dried tomatoes.  What I would do with them, I wasn't sure, but the whole pesto thing went well, so it was time to add a new ingredient to my repertoire.  I made a sun dried tomato and goat cheese pasta last week, but had more than half a jar left over, so I went searching on the internets as I am wont to do.

I found a recipe that combined my love for pesto with sun dried tomatoes -- Sun Dried Tomato Pesto.  I looked in my fridge and realized that all the pre-grated Parmesan I had was moldy already (I just opened it last week -- argh) so I decided it was time to take another plunge -- I bought a big chunk of Parmesan.  As a result, I will be grating my own from now on since it's something like 100 times better tasting than pre-grated. 

Why do I wait so long to do these things?  Well, I guess sometimes you have to take baby steps in the kitchen.  I'm changing things up one ingredient at a time and loving it -- and isn't that what cooking and eating is really all about?

Sun Dried Tomato Pesto (adapted from this recipe)

Get out the food processor and throw in:

A large handful of basil leaves
A big clove or two small cloves of garlic
About 1/4 c. of sun dried tomatoes (with the oil)
About 1/4 c. Freshly ground Parmesan
A little less than 1/4 c. pine nuts
A pinch of some good salt
A pinch of some freshly ground pepper
A pinch of crushed red pepper flakes

Pulse a few times, scrape down sides and pulse again. If the mixture is too thick, which it probably will be, add a little olive oil while the food processor is running. The sauce will be thick -- almost like a paste, but you don't want it too dry. Now taste it -- you must do this. If something stands out, add something else. For instance, mine tasted very tangy from the sun dried tomatoes at first, so I added a little more Parmesan and that did the trick.

Cook your pasta and before you drain it, reserve about a cup of the cooking liquid. This is important because the pesto will be too thick to make a good sauce. Now throw the pasta and pesto together and stir, adding some of the cooking water until you get a nice sauce that coats the pasta.

This made enough pasta for three of us, but the recipe is easily altered to make more or less depending on your needs. And if you make too much pesto, no problem! It's great on bread, eggs, sandwiches, etc.

Oh -- and the almost 9 year old loved it, so I would say this is a kid friendly dish.

Chicago Botanic Garden

This past weekend we took a little trip up to the Chicago Botanic Garden so we could check out the Bonsai Show.  Maddie has a bonsai book (which Pete and I purchased years ago at the Bonsai Show at the CBG) and has been interested in getting a bonsai of her own.  If you have any interest in bonsai, I have to recommend this yearly event which includes an exhibition of many bonsai created by both amateurs and professionals as well as a nice selection of vendors -- some quite helpful.

 

There is so much to see at the Chicago Botanic Garden in addition to the show.  The variety of gardens, all within walking distance of each other, are quite amazing.  There is a rose garden, fruit and vegetable gardens, water & waterfall gardens, a Japanese garden (actually a couple of islands) and so much more. 

 

If you live in the Chicago area and haven't been to the Chicago Botanic Garden before, I highly recommend it.  Check out their website before you go because they have lots of great events all season long.

Stray Cats

A couple weeks ago these cute kittens visited (do you see the shy one hiding in the bacK?)  We call them Spot and Spike Jr. and we are beginning to fall in love with them -- uh oh.

 

This little devil comes running up to me whenever she/he hears me coming outside, but is still a little too shy to let me touch her/him.  As you can see Spot will come right up to you to see what you are doing and enjoyed getting photographed.

 

They have a mother who is always around, but often times out of sight (who we call slippers because of her white feet) and we think we saw Spot nursing the other night, so they may be young enough to find human parents.  I'm having my husband call COPE, who we have volunteered with in the past (I did their website and we used to clean cages) to see what should be done.  I've asked him to call them because, frankly, I am already way too attached to them -- especially Spot. 

Spin by Robert Charles Wilson

Spin by Robert Charles Wilson has been on my reading list for quite some time, but the library only had it in mass market paperback -- which is just too hard on my eyes -- so I waited. When I received my Kindle I thought I would finally get a chance to read it, but it wasn't available yet. Fortunately last time I checked, the Kindle version of Spin was available and I downloaded it and tore into it. Thank goodness Amazon is being diligent about getting books converted.

Why was I so eager to read Spin? Well, I am a sci-fi junkie and it won the 2006 Hugo Award for best novel. I've read quite a few of the Hugo winners (and nominees) and find that they are usually excellent books.

Wilson explores a not so distant future in which an unseen intelligence messes with the earth, flinging us into the future with an unknown purpose. I really liked the main character, character being very important to good sci-fi, and loved where he went with this idea.

I looked for a Kindle version of the follow-up to this book -- Axis -- but it is not yet available. Darn. However, my library did have it in hardcover and it's sitting next to my computer as I type this, waiting to be read. But before that, I need to finish I Married a Communist by Philip Roth. I'm liking it well enough, but still feel like I'm not meshing with Roth as much as I would like. It's definitely better than Everyman (wow, did I loathe the main character in that book!) but not as good as The Plot Against America.

Jalapeno Crop

I planted a few jalapeno plants on a whim and they ended up being real winners in the garden -- tons of peppers from only 3 plants.  So what to do with so many jalapenos? I searched around on the internet for some recipes and decided to try PW's Bacon-Wrapped Jalapeno Thingies which I would hignly recommend. They were easy, tasty and filling (they were, in fact, dinner).

Do you have any jalapeno recipes?  I have plenty more peppers on the way.

Yesterday was a busy day

Yesterday was the 10th Annual Tim Klotz Memorial Golf Outing. Tim was my dad and he passed away while running on a beach 10 years ago -- at the age of 49. It was quite sudden as he had been healthy and athletic all his life. It was devastating for my mom, three sisters and I, as well as all of his friends and family.

And we could have chosen to become victims, feel sorry for ourselves, or simply tried to move on, but my mom isn't that type of person. And my dad had a lot of friends.

As my dad was an avid golfer -- often skipping work to play a round -- it was only fitting that everyone get together for a day of golf. Well, it has turned into much more than golf. Each year we raise quite a bit of money for local charities. In fact, we've raised well over $100,000 in the past 9 years. And yesterday was a good day. Despite the recession, despite the fact that my dad was in the mortgage industry, as were many of his friends, they all came together to support the foundation in his name and once again, we will be able to present much needed money to local charities who help mostly women and children -- many victims of abuse and assault -- and to fund mentoring programs in our local community.

It's a lot of work, and quite emotional, but it is rewarding and I'm glad that I have this kind of family and these kinds of friends in my life.