Sew Half Crazy

10/31/2012

Happy Halloween Y'all!!!

Heather 10/31/2012 1 Comments

Its been an adventuresome couple of months here, but hopefully the changes will be dying down. I went back to work for a spell, and then the hubs got a job, so I left said job to go back to staying at home and so far its been awesome. Except for, ya know, the hurricane conditions.

Luckily, I had Halloween set up before Sandy decided to visit, and even more lucky is that we did not lose power. It flickered and what not, but never went out, so I'm just going to thank my lucky stars for that.

So here's our Halloween decor! Pay no mind to the mess......I had to rearrange the rooms on Sunday.

I reused stuff that I've had in years past, with the addition of my red apple. I had grand illusions of doing an Evil Queen themed mantle, and well that was my addition. :)

Oh for the table I did add a new purple owl. Love the $1 section at Target!

So there's the buffet in the dining room. I'll be showing more of the dining room later, but as you can see - its been painted again. :)

And that was Hurricane Sandy at about 3 or 4 on Monday. It got much worse later through the night, but thankfully we got through unscathed.

I'll be posting more often because I have actually gotten projects done while I was working I just didn't have time to post them!
Heather

10/26/2012

Easy Treats

Heather 10/26/2012 0 Comments

Howdy folks. I haven't been up to anything big this week, but lots of little things have been happening. Let's get right to it!

First and foremost, I had another anti-Starbucks victory--homemade pumpkin spice latte. I feel especially proud of this one because it was ALL ME! That's right, I didn't use a Pinterest recipe or anything. What's better than that is that I didn't use pumpkin puree like so many recipes call for. I've had PSL copycats that use pumpkin puree and it's quite bitsy. That's a problem I figured out a way around. I feel so proud of this incredible feat that I almost don't want to share my secret. Food is meant to be shared, great food doubly so. That being said, here it is, my big secret ingredient...

Yes! It's like apple butter but more committed to autumn. This works so great, and it's from the farm where I do a lot of my grocery shopping. I got this idea from the farm chef, Richard (I've spoke of Richard before when I shared about my beet revelation), when he told me about a cocktail he made using pumpkin butter. Genius!

Dana's Pumpkin Spice Latte

2 shots espresso

16 oz milk

1 tbsp pumpkin butter

Add the espresso to the milk and heat (I just toss mine into the microwave for two minutes). Then stir the pumpkin butter into the hot latte. Go to your nearest Starbucks and enjoy rubbing it in their faces.

AMAZING!!! That is all you need to know.

I've also been playing with sandwiches lately. Sandwiches are kind of an untapped treasure in my repertoire I generally just do PB&J's with fancy jam. I've had some great sammies while out recently, though, and I thought to myself, Why don't I do this? So I've started. Generally my system is to put a bit of protein with a special cheese and a fruit spread. Yes, fruit. Why? Because it's delicious! A little touch of sweet with savory is incredible. My recent favorite is pork with buttermilk cheddar and cherry fruit spread. I also like to use Genius by Glutino's GF seeded bread.

So that's what I've been up to this week. What are your favorite simple but fantastic fixes?

10/21/2012

The Great Recipe Purge!

Heather 10/21/2012 0 Comments

It had to be done. It was just getting out of control. I speak, of course, of my list of recipes "to try". There are several websites I collect recipes through: Taste of Home, Whole Foods, Cooking Channel, Food Network, and Pinterest (of course). Between all of them, I had...well, even a lot more than I do now. I cleared out Taste of Home a while back and pinned all of those to a board on Pinterest. Last weekend, I went through all of my saved recipes for Food Network, Whole Foods, and Cooking Channel. I got rid of well over 100 recipes, people! Oh, and I don't even know how many I binned from my recipe software, too. Don't act like you're not impressed.

So what was my criteria? When you have that many to choose from, how do you know what to keep? Well, here's what I did.

Roast Chicken: Gone. I have one really great, simple roast chicken recipe. It's all I really need. You don't need to fancy it up or have endless variations unless you make it all the time, which I don't. In fact, I very rarely make roast chicken anymore--I know, there was a time I was doing it every week--because I don't do that particular CSA any longer, so I don't get whole chickens any more.

Pasta: Gone. I'm sorry, I just can't have twenty new pasta recipes to try when we just don't eat it that much anymore. Since Celiac came into our lives and we had to go GF, we've eaten pasta less than ten times. Would I have kept them if we weren't a GF household? Heck yes! I LOVE pasta, but the GF stuff just isn't the same, and it's just not worth it.

Ditto to anything else particularly gluten-y (i.e. bread). Let's face it, I'm not a baker.

Anything else that I wasn't particularly wild about: Gone. This is serious business. I can't hold spots for C-string players...I just made a sports metaphor. I need someone to tell me if I used it appropriately.

So where does that leave me? Around 300 recipes stil to try. And that's a vast improvement! Hey, at least it's not more right? How do you decide which recipes to try and which to ignore?

10/14/2012

Didn't We Just Do This?

Heather 10/14/2012 0 Comments

It's not that I can't be made happy. I just have that type of mind that wonders, "I wonder what happens when I...", which can be really great or very dangerous. When it comes to lasagna that uses veggies in place of noodles, the result is delicious. If you follow this blog, you'll remember my adventures in using spaghetti squash for the first time a few weeks ago. Today's entry is very nearly the same thing, except that I used zucchini instead of spaghetti squash...and risked my life with a mandoline instead of a massive chef's knife. Let's begin!

I'm not going to include the recipe here, but you can follow the link above and see what I did with the spaghetti squash. I'll point out the minor differences as we go. Behold! My mandoline. I'm very proud to say I can finally put it together and take it apart without the instruction booklet. Also, behold my zucchini (corgettes, as I've recently discovered, to my English friends). I used three bigger ones and one little one.

Mine can vary the slice width between 1/16 and 1/4 inches. I went with 1/4" slices.

As you can see, I cut my zucchini lengthwise so that they resembled the shape of lasagna noodles. Warning!: Always use the hand guard doubly so when slicing things lengthwise. The larger the food, the more unwieldy it can be.

Tadaa! Nice big zucchini slices. Time to roast.

For this application, I roasted my zucchini at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. You'll notice I also had some red peppers in there. The peppers eventually got moved to the top. I also wish I had used parchment paper across the racks, as the zucchini sticks a bit.

Fun Story: I decided to roast the peppers based on the suggestion of a friend, Kelly. Her logic was that you can dry out the zucchini and then it will then rehydrate by sucking up the sauce in the lasagna. Keep in mind, this is the same person who witnessed my squash-medallion-roasting failure. Oh well, I'm adventurous, and her logic seemed sound.

While the veggies are roasting, time to do some preliminary assembly. I though the lasagna would end up being four layers, so I divided my beef into quarters (1/4 lb each). Usually I would cook it first, but the beef was 90/10, so I skipped that part. Had it been 80/20, I would have cooked and drained it first, so pay attention to your fat content.

The zucchini roasting worked! Thanks for the idea, Kelly. And, in case you're wondering, the dried out medallions of yellow squash got frozen after that fiasco and will one day feature in another vegetable lasagna. :-) I tried to spread the ricotta cheese out as evenly as possible, and I think I succeeded for the most part.

The red peppers that got roasted were then skinned (ten minutes in an airtight container after roasting will make the skins come away from the flesh easily) and sliced to be layered into the lasagna.

I only ended up doing two layers, technically, and then topped the whole thing with mozzarella.

Tadaa! 30 minutes in the oven at 350/375 (depending on how hot your oven runs) and this is what you get. Deeeeeee-licious!

Just like the spaghetti squash version, this was great! It did include beef, unlike its predecessor which Mike liked better--that was a given. If you're looking for a low-carb one-dish meal, you found it. Want it to be even lower fat? Use ground chicken or turkey and low fat/skim cheese. Need it to be vegetarian? Cut out the meat altogether. You get my drift. You've got options, and it'll still be absolutely delicious.

10/10/2012

New shoes and times.

Heather 10/10/2012 1 Comments

So I had to buy some new running shoes and in so glad I did!!!! I got last year's Nike Pegasus from my local running store and I'm happy that they were on clearance and only $75 but more happy that the guy helping me actually listened to my laundry list of aches and pains. These shows are super comfortable and even though I forgot my knee brace today my knee is not bothering me. Yay!!!

So another thing that I love is that I ran my fastest mile today. 11:12. Not that that's super fast or anything but what I love is that I didn't kill myself getting there. My pace was a nice even kilter that I was able to maintain through out my run. Love!!

So that's my check in. See y'all later.

10/05/2012

Backsliding

Heather 10/05/2012 0 Comments

One this episode of Starbucks Crossed Love...

Starbucks: Dana, my darling, it's autumn. The leaves are changing, the wind blows colder, and apples are in season. Apples, my lovely. Why don't you have a nice warm Caramel Apple Spice.

Dana: Starbucks, sweetie, I don't need your Caramel Apple Spice. I can make that myself now. We've talked about this. We can never go back to what we used to be.

Starbucks: Another, Dana? Another copycat recipe? You wound me. Still...how about a Salted Caramel Mocha? It's new.

Dana: Curse you...

I know! I know! I said I broke up with Starbucks, that it was just going to be a road trip booty call from now on. Starbucks is crafty, though, the way it keeps on enticing me with new and delicious drinks. Well, at least I don't have to pay for Caramel Apple Spices any longer. Where did I find such a great copycat recipe? I'll give you one guess. I'll wait while you think about this...

...

That's right! Pinterest! The original post is here. This could not be easier. Let's do this!

Easy start. The syrup will darken as it cooks down. Above is the beginning and end of the cooking process. Yes, really, this is the only cooking required.

Now for the apple juice. I got one with no sugar added just in case--some apple juices are just so sweet, I thought it might be too much when the syrup was added. Good thing I have this handy-dandy beaker cup for measuring. Also, if you know me and you know what the company I work for does (we test urine samples!), this is kind of a gross picture. Think about it...

There's the cinnamon-y syrup all ready to go. Look at how much that made! The cost of the homemade syrup is probably a fraction of how much the drink from Starbucks costs. Now we just need some hot apple juice.

Voila! Caramel Apple Spice. "But wait!" you say. "Where's the whipped cream and caramel?" I don't take my CAS with whipped cream and caramel, so I didn't bother with them.

This. Is. AWESOME! It's like autumn in a mug. So sweet and cinnamon-y and apple-licious! And just like what you can get from Starbucks. LOOOOOOOVE! Yeah, I'm sure I'm going to backslide once in a while, but not for a Caramel Apple Spice. :-)

Bonus

I made this kale, beet, and bacon dish this week, too, but I didn't take any pictures. I honestly didn't think it was going to be that great. I really just needed some way to use up some stuff that was sitting in my fridge. I was wrong; it's fantastic! I do think the recipe has you cook the kale too long, but it turned out really nice anyway.

Full circle.

Heather 10/05/2012 1 Comments

So it's been 9 years and 8 days since I first said "I do," and I have come full circle. Weight wise at least. My most recent weigh in came in at 227.8. That's my wedding weight.

It's kind of odd. I'm not used to seeing this body attached to me. I'm actually in disbelief. I wanted to be at this weight a month ago but what's another month in the scheme of things?

Not much, but what I wasn't expecting was my reaction to the additional weight loss. I'm totally happy with the it but what I wasn't expecting was the anxiety to return.

The sane, logical side of me knows what's going on. I'm stressed and therefore freaking out about ridiculous things. I have no workout schedule. I'm barely hanging onto my diet. My kids are growing up without me it seems. In short, I feel disconnected and its screwing with my balance. Hate doesn't even begin to describe the distaste I have for this phenom right now.

The emotional, psycho side of me wants to curl up in a ball with my family, the tv, chocolate, coffee, nachos, fuzzy slippers, and a blanket big enough for all of us and never move again. Cause that's totally plausible. *eye roll*

Sigh. I need to get my head screwed on straight. I need to charge forward like I *always* do. I need to find my way.

Anyone have a map?