Joyful Abode

This was a simple dinner I threw together one night out of things we already had. I didn’t follow a recipe, but here’s how things came together.

• 2 bell peppers
• 1 box of “dirty” rice mix
• 2 Cajun sausages, taken out of their casings and browned (like ground beef)
• Chili powder, paprika, garlic, salt (to taste)
• Cheddar cheese
• Frozen hush puppies

Basically, here’s how it went. Cut off the tops of the peppers and de-seed them. Then, stick them in the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit in a glass baking dish. I put a little bit of water in and around them, and wrapped them with tin foil, so they could sort of steam and soften.

While those are in the oven, cook the rice according to package directions, and throw in the Cajun sausage pieces (You can brown them while the rice is cooking). I think I also had an extra bell pepper, which I cut up and added to the rice, though this really isn’t necessary.

By the time the rice mixture was finished, the peppers should be starting to get soft (but not too soft!). Take them out of the oven, and get rid of any extra water.  Fill them with the rice mixture and top with cheese. Pop them into the oven with some frozen hush puppies (on a cookie sheet on the other oven rack) and in about 10-15 minutes, everything is ready to go!

Mmmm……

If there’s one thing that says “summer” to me, it might just be corn on the cob. When my family visited my grandmother in Michigan every summer, “Doo-Dah” would bring us corn on the cob for the requisite family cookout. My dozens of cousins and second cousins (well, close to dozens) and I sat in the yard, shucking the corn and taking off as much of the silk as we could, happily anticipating the feast ahead.

A few short hours later would find us happily munching the kernels off of the cobs, which we had buttered and sprinkled with salt. Delightful!

My father taught me how to eat the corn neatly so it wouldn’t get stuck in your teeth, by popping the kernels off one row at a time using your bottom teeth, rather than digging in with a CHOMP! It works, and has the added benefit of a typewriter joke. Finish the line of corn, say “Ding!” and start over. Well, that’s what my dad does anyway.

He also taught me the delights of eating leftover corn, still cold from the fridge, with a sprinkle of salt. It’s one of my favorite summertime treats to eat corn this way, so I usually get extras so I can intentionally have leftovers.

Unfortunately, when I moved out on my own, I discovered that I wasn’t actually sure about the right way to cook corn on the cob.  I tried microwaving it, boiling it endlessly, seasoning the water with a variety of things… but nothing was ever quite right.

So after reading about a dozen “recipes” and formulas for corn on the cob, the guy and I settled on this method (which is a conglomeration of a couple different ones), which turned out to be a happy discovery.  THIS is how corn on the cob shoud be!*

• Fill your pot with water.
• Add 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup of sugar.
• Drop in your corn.
• Bring everything to a boil, making sure the sugar is dissolved in the water.
• Boil for no longer than 8 minutes.
• Remove from the water and let it cool enough for handling and eating.
• Handle it and eat it.

It was perfect! Well, almost perfect. It was early-season corn and not the best I’ve ever had, but it was delicious and cooked properly! With just a smear of butter and a few shakes of salt, it was delicious with our dinner of tomato pie.

And I had my 2 ears of leftover corn reserved in the fridge for later, when I enjoyed them cold, and sprinkled with salt.

*Unless it’s grilled, which is equally as delicious, and always a special treat. I LOVE grilled corn on the cob. 

The first time I posted this recipe was back in September of ‘07. Two things have happened since then:

1. I figured out that I like this dish even better (if that was possible!) if I peel the tomatoes first, and
2. I have gotten much, much better at food photography.

So, here’s the same recipe, a second time around!

I make my own crust (the recipe is here), but store-bought should work fine too. If you have a pastry crust recipe you like though, feel free to use that!

If you’re using a commercial crust, you may want to pre-bake it for a few minutes at 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

If you’re picky like me, you might want to peel and de-seed your tomatoes before you slice them. If not, slice away. Lay your tomatoes on paper towels or cloth to absorb the excess water. No one wants a soggy pie! When your tomatoes are ready, fill your crust with them. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, basil and onion powder. Like I said in the original post, I am very liberal with the basil and salt.

Then, mix 1/2 cup mayonnaise with 2 cups of your choice of shredded cheese (this time I used mozzarella). Spread this over the tomatoes.

If you’re using homemade crust, you can add the top now, making sure to poke vents into it. If you’re using a commercial crust, don’t worry! It’s just fine without a “lid.”

Protect the edges of your crust with a shield. If you don’t have a pre-made one, aluminum foil will work perfectly.

Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes, then remove the foil.

Bake for an additional 10-15 minutes, or until your crust is goldeny delicious.

If you can wait, it’s good to let the pie sit for 10-15 minutes, so everything can congeal inside. I couldn’t wait this time, so the slices in these pictures are a bit oozy. (Mmm….) If you let it sit, it’ll slice into pieces that are actually triangular, rather than triangular-plus-oozage.

I missed some seeds I guess! But a few don’t bother me. Doesn’t it look delightful? Mmmmmm! Tomato Pie!

Tomatoes are such a lovely fruit. I enjoy them so many ways… but I am insanely picky about them.

I don’t like to eat the ooky seed/slime part, so I always de-seed my tomatoes before slicing them or cooking them. I am also kind of weird about the skin. It’s fine if I’m eating slices of tomatoes on sandwiches or plain with salt, but if the tomatoes are cooked, I can’t stand eating the skin. It’s just a weird texture by itself, I guess.

So I had to figure out how to easily peel tomatoes for when I make my beloved tomato pie. I figured it would be easier to do all at once before cooking it than to pick out the peel pieces before/during each bite I take. haha!

First, you’ll need tomatoes, of course…

And a bowl of ice water…

And a pot of boiling water.

It’s really very simple! All you have to do is put the tomatoes into the pot of water , leave them there for one minute, then fish them out with a slotted spoon.

Submerge the tomato in ice water until it’s completely cool.

Now, barely pierce the skin with a paring knife, making a small slit.

And start peeling. You’ll find that the skin comes away from the tomato quite easily.

And you’ll be able to peel off large pieces…

Until the entire lovely tomato is free!

It’s so quick, it only takes a little while to do a whole bunch of tomatoes. You can put them all in the boiling water, then ice water at the same time. After that, it’s just a simple slit and peel for each!

After this, I de-seeded them and made the best tomato pie I’ve ever made! More on that later. *sneaky grin*

If you’re looking for a deliciously simple way to dress up a steak, a whole chicken, or any number of other things you might be cooking, this rub may just be the answer! Named “Ron’s Rub” after my dad, this is a yummy mixture of only four ingredients.

Equal parts:

• black pepper
• kosher salt
• brown sugar
• paprika

Rub it on a steak, throw it on the grill, and a couple minutes later you’ll have this! (Provided you already stuck your sweet potatoes into the oven about 45 minutes ago).

If you’ve done much reading on this blog, you know that I love to cook and eat delicious foods. Unfortunately, they’re not all the healthiest choices, so my husband and I have decided to make more of an effort to plan healthy, lower-fat, lower starch, higher fiber, more veggie-filled meals. I also made a list of healthful snacks we should try to have on hand.

On the list was granola bars.

But do you know what??? They’re not all healthy! Some of the granola bars you can buy in stores may as well be candy bars, with the amount of sugar and “fluff” they include in their ingredients. And most of them (except Kashi) also have high fructose corn syrup as a main ingredient. Disgusting. While I love Kashi granola bars, the guy and I tend to go through a bunch of those, so it gets pretty expensive.

So I decided to take matters into my own hands. After reading tons of granola bar recipes (and throwing out the ones that sounded like disguised candy), I came up with my own mixture that works deliciously well to create healthful, filling granola bars. If I eat half of one of these and a small piece of fruit, I’m good to go for several hours. And it makes me happy knowing that I didn’t eat anything disgusting to feel full.

So here’s my recipe. Let me know if you try it out!

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Gather your ingredients:

• 2 cups oats
• 3/4 cup wheat germ
• 3/4 cup sunflower seeds
• 1 cup peanuts, crushed
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup honey
• 4 Tbsp butter
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp Kosher salt
• approximately 8 oz. dried fruit

To crush your peanuts, put them in a plastic bag and smash them with a heavy mallet, measuring cup, or sauce pan.

Then, mix the peanuts, oats, wheat germ, and sunflower seeds in a baking dish with sides. Toast them in the oven for 10-12 minutes, stirring every few minutes so that they don’t get burned.

Meanwhile, prepare a glass baking dish (about 11 x 13 inches) for your granola by lining it with waxed paper lightly sprayed with a nonstick spray.

Put the brown sugar, honey, butter, vanilla, and salt into a saucepan and bring to a simmer, stirring constantly. (I forgot to take a picture of this step, but it looks so pretty!)

By now, your  grains and nuts should be toasted, so mix everything together in a large bowl. The grains, the liquid “glue,” and the dried fruit. Oh, and turn off your oven, because you’re finished with it now.

Mix everything REALLY WELL  because you want to make sure the “glue” gets all over everything. Now, dump your granola mixture into your prepared baking dish.

Spread out the mixture with a wooden spoon or spatula.

Now fold over the sides of the waxed paper or add a sheet on top, and PRESS HARD all over the granola. You want to compact it together so that your bars won’t fall apart when you cut them.

Wait 2-3 hours or until the granola has totally cooled.

Then, open the waxed paper …

And carefully turn the granola onto a large cutting board, peeling away the rest of the paper.

Now, firmly pressing down with a big knife (not sawing), cut your granola into whatever size bars you’d like.

I wrapped ours individually in plastic wrap, so that we could just throw one into our bag or lunch box in the morning. If you’d like to save on packaging though, you can store yours in an airtight container, between sheets of waxed paper (so they don’t stick together).

Enjoy!

Of course, you can mix up the recipe. I used peanuts because they’re what we had, but next time I’m going to make the granola nutless at first, but during the pressing-down part, I plan to press almonds into the top of the bars.

Another combo that would be fun to try is macadamia nuts, dried pineapple, and coconut flakes.

Or try dried cranberries, walnuts, and white chocolate chips (just a few).

I also plan to add flax seed to my granola mix.

Different flavors of honey would also probably change the final outcome too. Mmm…

So many options! Good thing we have time!

This recipe is so simple and quick, and will work perfectly no matter how many people you’re cooking for. I made it for just the two of us, but it would easily expand to serve a dinner party.
Ingredients:

• 1 taco seasoning packet (this will be good for 2-4 servings)
• 1 chicken breast per person - boneless and skinless
• olives
• cheddar cheese
• fat free sour cream
• salsa
• lettuce

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Mix the taco seasoning packet with the suggested amount of water.

Brown your chicken breasts in a pan, but don’t worry about cooking them all the way through. We just want to get a little color on them.

Bake the chicken in a little bit of the sauce (just drizzle some) for about 35 minutes, or until the chicken is done.

Simmer the rest of the sauce on the stovetop for about 10 minutes, with the olives mixed in (however many olives you think looks good).

When the chicken timer goes off, pour the rest of the sauce (with olives) over the chicken and sprinkle with a little bit of cheddar cheese. Return it to the oven until the cheese melts.

Slice the chicken and serve over lettuce. Top with fat free sour cream, salsa, and a drizzle of taco sauce.

Enjoy!

This is going to be part 1 in a 3-part series on perfect party dips. At first, I thought it would only be 1 of 2, but then I realized I have never posted about how to make homemade pita chips! Tortilla chips, yes, plenty of times, but not pita chips. So I’ll have to buy some more pitas and make another batch. Eventually.

Anyway, everyone loves party dips, but not everyone loves the “bad stuff” that can be in them. These two are relatively healthy, and while they do have some fat, it’s the “good fat” from olive oils.

The first dip we’re focusing on is the yummus hummus. Really, it’s just hummus, but it’s so delicious, I had to add the yummus part.

Here’re (is that a word?) the ingredients you’ll need to make my yummus hummus recipe:

• 2 cans of garbanzo beans, drained (reserve the liquid from one can)
• 1/4 cup tahini
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 cloves garlic (or 3 Tbsp pre-minced garlic from a jar)
• paprika to taste
• basil, parsley, or other herbs to taste
• extra virgin olive oil

Basically, you just throw together everything except the olive oil into a food processor and blend until smooth. Add olive oil and the reserved bean liquid until it’s smooth enough for your liking.

It’s also really good with some red bell peppers thrown in and blended together with it. Mmm… or olives. There are tons of hummus variations, so try whatever you think would be good! It can’t hurt.

This is delicious with homemade pita chips, wheat thins, Triscuits, on carrots (or celery or other raw veggies)… in a pita with some alfalfa sprouts and a slice of tomato… the possibilities are endless!

This recipe is another “pantry-buster” (i.e., a recipe made completely of things most people will have lying around). It’s quick, easy, and so delicious. In hindsight, it probably would’ve been really tasty (and add some nutrients) to add frozen spinach in the cheese layer.

You will need:

• 3/4 pound of spaghetti
• 1 jar of spaghetti sauce (or equivalent of homemade sauce)
• 2 small cans of mushrooms (or fresh mushrooms if you have them)
• spices and herbs of your choice
• cheese of your choice (about 2 cups)

Boil spaghetti until al-dente.  (That means it’s still a little bit resistant/firm)

Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and spray a 9″x9″ baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.

Now you can start layering. Start with a layer of spaghetti.You should use half of your spaghetti at this time.

Then add half of your sauce. You can use homemade spaghetti sauce if you have some in the freezer, or if you don’t, a jar of store-bought junk is fine.

Add half of the mushrooms and some herbs to the sauce layer.

And top with half of your cheese.

Then repeat the layers. Pasta, sauce, mushrooms/herbs, cheese.

Top with more herbs and put the whole thing in the oven. As I was pantry-busting, I also chucked in a loaf of frozen garlic toast.

Bake it about 25 minutes, until everything is warm and melty. I switched to the broiler for the last 2-3 minutes, so that the top would get that lovely toasty color.

Serve it up, and enjoy!  The leftovers were even better. Mmm…

This is sort of part two to this post, “Getting Ready for a Guest, or How I Pulled a Guest Room Out of My Bum.”

Now that my dear friend Meagan is safely on her airplane, I can tell you about the other things I did to get ready for her stay.

But… I’m going to write it like I’m telling you what to do, because that’s how I roll. You know, I make a recipe for the first time or pull a craft idea out of my back pocket, and then I act like the authority on it and you all listen to me, and then I get a mini-power-trip off of that.

And I’m also going to ask you to forgive my pictures… my camera has been getting blurrier and blurrier and I’m not sure why. It’s not the lens being dirty, and it’s not the settings (because I know how to use them). So maybe the camera is just dying.

So, I present to you…

A list of things you should always do when you are playing hostess to an out-of-town guest

1. Ask your friend what foods she’d like to have around. Buy them. Have them around. Also, read your friend’s mind and buy some things you know she likes and strategically place them around the house in bowls. See: M&Ms.
   
2. If it’s possible, clear out a closet for your guest’s clothes. If not, at least provide some empty drawers. Make sure there’s a place for her to rest her suitcase, a place for her dirty clothes, some reading material, and a mirror. Always provide 2 towels for ladies (we like one for our hair too!) along with a hand towel and a washcloth.
   
3. Put clean pretty bedding on the bed. I tried to fluff out the wrinkles in the dryer, but since the comforter is new, it didn’t want to do that… Make sure there are lamps by the bed, for night-time reading.
   
4. Make sure you have an alarm clock, kleenex, and a trash can in the room. If you want, you can add fresh flowers, a live plant, and some candles.
5. A box of goodies never hurt anyone. Make sure to include things your guest might forget, like toothpaste and lotion, a razor, soap, anti-frizz hair gel (hehe) for humid climates, lip balm, and a pad of paper and pen. Other fun things to include are fancy soaps, a loofah, room spray, and season 5 of Scrubs. Seriously.
6. Hope that your friend likes Gerbera daisies as much as you do.
   
7. Also, freshen up the bathroom, put some flowers in there, stuff like that. And when your guest arrives, go with her to McGuires Irish Pub, drink margaritas, and relax, because no one likes a hyperactive-anxious hostess.

Yum, yum, yum! Blueberries are so delicious and delightful and all of those good things.

I invented a spur-of-the-moment tasty thing and don’t know what to call it besides blueberry muffin/biscuit thingies with streusel on top.

Here’s what I did:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mix up some biscuit dough with more sugar than usual.

Plop some into greased muffin tins.

Nestle some blueberries in the center of each blob of dough, pushing down gently with my fingertips (although if you’re making it, you can use your own fingertips).

Mix up some streusel topping: cream together some brown sugar and butter, add cinnamon, a little bit of flour, and some oats. Crumble together with fingertips (mine or yours) until it’s combined and crumby.

Top muffin/biscuit things with streusel.

Bake until the muffin/biscuit part is done. I’m not sure how long it took because I kept checking and adding a couple more minutes.

They were really delicious eaten warm with a glass of milk.

 I posted about these amazingly delicious biscuits in September, but the post isn’t very complete, I didn’t give you my actual recipe, and the picture is somewhat lacking. So I decided to take pictures when I made them last weekend and give you a play-by-play with photos.

So here’s the copycat recipe for Cheddar Bay Biscuits (I think that’s what they’re called at Red Lobster, yes?) 

(One note, I doubled the recipe, so the pictures show twice as much stuff as what I’m telling you.)

Set your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and spray a cooking sheet with nonstick spray.

Dump into a bowl: 2 cups of buttermilk biscuit mix (like Bisquick or Jiffy mix), 1/2 a teaspoon of garlic powder, and 1 to 1 1/2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese.

Stir everything together.

Pour in about 2/3 cups of milk. Stir until combined.

It gets pretty thick, and you can add a little more milk if you need to. But don’t add too much, otherwise it’ll get really sticky. See how my spoon is standing up straight by itself? I decided it would be easier to doff my rings…

And get my hands a little dirty. Hey… it works. And my hands were clean, I promise.

OK, now wash your hands and use the two-spoon method to drop lumps of the dough onto your cookie sheet.

Don’t they look nice, all lined up ready to be baked?

Stick them in the oven and set the timer to 10 minutes. Now, melt 2 Tablespoons of butter and stir in 2 teaspoons of oregano and 1 teaspoon of garlic salt.

When the timer goes off (10 minutes, remember?) brush some of the butter mixture over each biscuit. Then, pop them back into the oven for another 5-6 minutes.

Or until they’re lightly browned. If you’d like, you can brush them with the garlic-herb butter again and let it soak in before you serve them.

If you’re having people over, you’d better double the recipe. These will get snatched up like hotcakes. Or, you know, like… cheesy garlic biscuits.

These delicious and creamy potatoes are totally customizable … you can add cheese, broth, your favorite seasonings, whatever. It’s more of a technique than a recipe, so I’ll walk you through it.

Basically, this came about because I was having a lot of people over, wanted to make a lot of mashed potatoes, but don’t have a big enough bowl to actually mash them in (and I can’t use my metal masher in my nonstick pots). So I tried this out and it was so easy and amazing, I may just declutter my masher unless someone can tell me another great use for potato mashers.

Wash your potatoes. I like to leave the peels on, but if you want to peel yours, go for it.

Cut them in half, then chunk them. Is “chunk” an actual culinary term?

Throw them in a really big pot.

Then cover them with water.

When they’re soft enough to easily sink a fork into, drain them and put them back into the pot. Put in something creamy, like sour cream or plain yogurt or cream cheese or … something. I used sour cream. At this point, your pot should still be on the burner, which is set to low heat.

Pour in something liquid like milk, cream, or broth. Stir everything together with a big spoon.

If you still have a lot of lumps like mine, and you need more creaminess, add some more creamy/liquid stuff. This is also a good time to add seasonings, herbs, and cheese. I added more sour cream, a big splash of milk, garlic salt, and onion powder.

Stir again.

Doesn’t that look amazing? Creamy stirred (not mashed) potatoes! Easy schmeasy! (Oh, and you can turn off your stove’s burner now.)

AND my potato masher is so clean and shiny because I didn’t even have to touch it.

The blueberries in the store are starting to look so good. They were on sale recently and we bought a bunch.

Sometimes we like to have breakfast for dinner. You know, make all the fantastic breakfast foods that we don’t have time to make (or don’t feel like making) before we go to work in the morning,

Enter Blueberry Pancake. With sidekick, Bacon.

You know how when you stir blueberries into the batter, they break and turn the batter all blue? I didn’t do that. I poured some batter into the pan, then sprinkled blueberries on top. When the batter starts to cook, it puffs up around the berries.

Like so.

And then, like I said… bacon. The sweet blueberries in soft pancakes alongside the salty crunchy bacon? Fantastic.

The man likes this picture better:

And I think this one is nice. So I figured I’d use them both.

Here’s the basic pancake recipe. Mmm.

You will need:

• 3 cups of flour
• 6 Tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 Tablespoons of baking powder

Mix those together. Add:

• 3 eggs
• 1/3 cup canola or vegetable oil
• enough milk and/or water to make it the right consistency

Pour it into your pan or on your griddle. Wait until it puffs, flip it, and cook the other side. (Just in case someone is reading this who’s never made pancakes before.)

Enjoy!

And the next morning, I topped my leftover pancakes with sliced strawberries and a drizzle of honey.  Excuse the smear on the fork. I was actually using it to eat with, not just staging a photo with it. hehe.

Country-fried steak is another dish that’s not quite so photogenic. But it’s so amazing. We hadn’t had it in a while, so we were both pretty excited about it. The recipe is so simple, and the meat is so juicy and tender. The gravy is quick and easy, and the entire meal is just… delicious. Can I go on a little more?

The recipe is here.

So, so, so yummy.

This pasta may not be terribly photogenic, but it’s really delicious. If I had had penne pasta, I would’ve used it, but I didn’t so I mixed some shells and farfalle (bowtie) pasta.

No recipe, but here’s an approximation:

4 cups of pasta, uncooked…. cook it

1 bunch of asparagus, steamed and chopped up

1 box thingie (about 2 cups) of sliced mushrooms, sauteed

A couple tablespoons of capers

Some chicken or tuna, either “real” or from a can. “Real” is better, of course, but I used canned white-meat-only chicken because I didn’t feel like making real stuff.

Toss all of it into a bowl, and sprinkle it with about 4 Tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil.

Add garlic salt to taste.

Then sprinkle about 2-3 Tablespoons of lemon juice over the whole thing, to taste.

Serve with parmesan cheese on top.

This is also really good with some artichoke heart quarters in it. But I forgo-ed (forwent? hehe) that this time.

So yummy! The capers are an important part, so don’t leave those out unless you hate them. But if you hate them, don’t blame me if this recipe lacks a certain “kick…” it was in the capers. haha.

I made a carrot cake. I took half of it to work, where it was hidden and hoarded like a treasure, until the coworkers who hid it had savored every bite. The other half? My husband ate it all. Except for the slice I cut in this post (which I ate).

It looks so pretty with the spices on top of the cream cheese frosting, and little carrot hearts decorating it.

Maybe I’ll just take a little slice…

There they are… mother cake and daughter slice. Was that too cheesy?

Maybe I’ll just have a little… tiny… bite.

So I know you want the recipes.

Carrot Cake Recipe:

You will need:

• 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 2 cups flour
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 3 1/2 cups grated carrots
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter a 10″ tube or bundt pan.

Blend oil and sugar. Add eggs, beating well after each addition.

Sift together flour, salt, cinnamon, and baking soda. Add to the egg mixture. Stir completely.

Fold in carrots and walnuts.

Pour batter into the pan and bake about 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until a wooden skewer comes out clean when inserted into the cake.  Cool, then remove from pan by inverting onto a plate.

Cream Cheese Icing Recipe

You will need:

• 8 oz. cream cheese
• 4 Tbsp. butter, melted
• 2 Tbsp. vanilla
• 1 lb. powdered sugar

Beat cream cheese until light and fluffy. Gradually add melted butter until absorbed. Add vanilla, then sugar one cup at a time, beating well after each addition.

Shisha (the Hindi word for “little glass”) embroidery is also known as mirror-work or abla embroidery. Originally, pieces of mica were used as the mirrors, but later, thin blown-glass pieces were broken and used. Today, small mirrors are commercially available for shisha embroidery. If you use these, make sure to file the edges first so the mirrors aren’t sharp.

I like using paillettes, those large sequins with a tiny hole in the side. They’re extremely lightweight, not sharp at all, and readily available in many colors. They worked perfectly in my “Local pride” apron. I also think it would be really neat to use coins from around the world in shisha embroidery.

I’ve recently gotten really into playing with embroidery, and I decided to at the very least do this one tutorial to share my love of the art form with you all. All you handcrafting/DIY-type folks, get ready!

1. Gather your materials. You’ll need fabric, an embroidery hoop, a sharp needle, a shisha mirror (or paillette or coin), and embroidery floss.
   
2. Secure your fabric in the hoop tightly. Thread your needle and knot the end of your floss.
   
3. Place your shisha on the fabric, and secure it with a crossing of foundation stitches.
   
4. Now, duplicate the foundation stitches, but turned 45 degrees… like this.
   
   Until you get this.
   
5. Now, you could leave it at that, and decorate around it. It’s pretty secure and it looks pretty, right? But if you’re more interested in creating a solid frame for your shisha, continue. Poke your needle up through the fabric beside your mirror.
   Then, slide your needle under the foundation stitches, from the center toward the edge.
   
6. Pull your needle through and tighten the stitch, then work one backstitch right next to your mirror.
   
7. Now, your next stitches will be like blanket stitches. Again, thread the needle under your foundation stitches from the center to the edge, but make sure your thread is looped UNDER your needle as you pull the stitch tight.
   
8. From now on, when you work the backstitch after your blanket stitch,make sure to initially poke your needle through the previous backstitch. This will create an attractive chain around your shisha.
   
9. Once I get mine shishsa started, I like to take it out of the embroidery hoop. You can if you want to, but you don’t have to. Keep working steps 7 and 8 around the mirror.
   
   This is why I like to take it out of the hoop. It allows me to sort of bend the fabric backward to have more control over my backstitches.
   
10. Keep going until you’re finished!
    
11. Are you proud of yourself? You should be! You could stop there, or you can decorate it some more (back in the embroidery hoop for this). I started with a border of turquoise chain stitches, to match my paillette.
    
12. And then… oh look! The shisha is shining with happiness!
    
13. I finished mine up with some delightful little french knots.
    
14. Enjoy! And join the flickr group to show off your own shisha embroidery.

I’ve read all sorts of tutorials and how-to instructions for making a homemade lightbox for photographing things… and I’ve tried a couple of them.

The cut-up-a-cardboard-box-and-line-it-with-tissue paper thing didn’t work out for me. It felt flimsy and didn’t even yield decent pictures (for me, at least).

Then I combined some different thing I have read, seen, and heard about, and came up with a pretty decent solution to my macro photography woes.

You will need:

• one of those milky white/clear storage containers, like Rubbermaid or Tupperware or whoever makes them
• several clip-on lights. You can use what you have, or buy inexpensive ones from Lowe’s or Home Depot. Make sure you get some that will handle the watts of the bulbs you wish to use. We don’t want to start a fire!
• Stuff to clip the lamps onto.
• A power strip to plug all of the lamps into.
• Light bulbs. I’m using full-spectrum “GE Reveal” halogen bulbs. They have a halogen bulb within the regular outer bulb, which is nice because you don’t have to worry about getting your fingers’ oil on the halogen part and making it explode.
• Some sort of background material. I bought a white poster board and a black poster board.
• White fabric for diffusing the light.

These are the lamps I got. I think they were 7 dollars each. There was a smaller size for 6 dollars too.

My light bulbs. Like I said before, they have a halogen bulb inside the regular glass bulb. Very cool.

I’m clipping my lights onto random things, propped up by other random things… it really doesn’t matter because those aren’t ever in the photos (unless you’re writing a tutorial on how to make a light box). The containers kept falling over, until I stuck some weights in them. Now they’re good to go.

This may seem like common sense, but plug all of your lamps into a power strip. The awesome part is you can leave all of the lamp switches on, and just use the power strip’s switch to turn them all on and off at once. It’s a little thing, but very cool.

Here’s my general set-up so far. The box is on its side with the background material in it, and lights clipped all around it (and one on top). I guess you can tell I’m not using my tripod, because it’s over there on the left looking lonely.

Make sure your white balance is set to the correct setting (for my box that’s usually the tungsten setting… or I’ll do the manual setting, in which you just point the camera at the background, click, and then it’s set!) That will take a pretty good picture, but there will be some glare. This photo is unedited.

If you want to reduce the glare, take a piece of fabric…

And drape it over the lightbox, between the lights and your product. I just kind of threw it on top, but if I were feeling perfectionistic, I would smooth everything out. I’m still obviously not using my little tripod, as you can see it in that picture, looking sad.

That’ll give you a less glare-y photo, but slightly darker.

Which can easily be fixed by playing with levels in any photo editing program.

It may not be perfect, but it’s way better than what I had before (stick the product on a background and try tons of angles and light sources to try to get it to be well-lit and good-looking).

Works for me!

I took all of my stationery photos using the light box, too. Very helpful, and I’m happy with the results!

So, here at my Joyful Abode, we’ve dipped cherries and clementines in chocolate.

And we’ve made chocolate Ritz sandwiches.

So I guess this is the third edition of the chocolate-dipping extravaganza.

First, I gathered my materials:

Chocolate for melting, pretzel rods, crushed Oreos, sprinkles, and marshmallows (regular and cocoa).

I actually used milk chocolate, white chocolate, and dark chocolate.

First, melt your chocolate in the microwave by setting the power to 50% and microwaving 30 seconds at a time, stirring between each zap. Then, add some non-heated chocolate and stir it in until it melts (don’t microwave again). If I’m doing it right, this is to temper the chocolate so it doesn’t end up tacky and gross when it “dries”… it’ll be like a hard shell.

Set up a couple cookie sheets with waxed paper, and start dippipng!

Ahh… the anticipation.

I found that if you let the chocolate excess drip off before you roll/sprinkle it in toppings, the toppings will stick much better. Otherwise, if there’s too much chocolate, the toppings just slide off.

For me, the most fun part was drizzling everything with contrasting chocolates. I just got a little bit of the chocolate on a spoon and sort of swung it over whatever I was drizzling on… and it makes little fun lines!

For the marshmallows, normally I would use toothpicks for dipping… but I ran out! So I had to come up with a solution, and I ended up liking that solution BETTER than toothpicks.

I dipped one side of the marshmallow, and when the chocolate on that side hardened, I flipped it and dipped the other side in another chocolate.

I served these at the craft night I hosted for our SOSA craft group I’m helping to start.  The leftovers went to work with my husband, for the student naval aviators to gobble up.

These would make fantastic hostess gifts or gifts for teachers or anyone else who deserves a sweet treat. Just wrap them in pretty cellophane and tie them with a ribbon. The pretzel rods are also pretty served in a clear wide-mouthed vase.

More pictures in my flickr.

I’ll admit it needs a shorter name… seriously. Any suggestions?

I threw this together one night on a whim… and it was so fantastically delicious, I just had to share my recipe.

So here’s the recipe:

You will need…

• a bunch of broccoli, cut into florets and steamed
• 2 onions
• 1 package of mushrooms (a couple cups), sliced
• 2 large chicken breasts, boneless skinless… cooked and cubed
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup
• about 1/2 cup of milk
• shredded cheddar cheese
• French’s fried onions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

Sautee the onions and mushrooms. When I do this, I put the onions (chopped) into a pan with a couple tablespoons of water, and cover it to let it steam for a while. Then, when the onions are a little bit softer, I uncover the pan, let the water evaporate, and throw in a couple tablespoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Then I toss everything around till the onions are browning. Then I add the mushrooms and let them cook… I like my onions really really cooked.

In a casserole dish, combine the broccoli, onions, mushrooms, chicken, soup, and milk. Mix everything. Top with cheese and fried onions.

Bake covered for 10 minutes, then uncover and let the onions on top get crispy (about 5 more minutes).

Delicious. Unless you hate onions. Listen to “secret onions” and laugh like crazy. Then go listen to the rest of the album. (My older sister Jessica, her guy Ryan, and their roomie Stephen made it.)

The last time I tried to make homemade pizza, it resulted in a sad looking product that had my husband saying, “Well, it’s not totally disgusting.”

This time, emboldened by my bread machine (thanks yayanana) and armed with your advice, my trials were successful!

I used whole milk mozzarella (next time, I’ll probably slice it thinner) for the cheese.

For the sauce, I used a can of tomatoes mixed with a few tablespoons of regular spaghetti sauce and seasoned with garlic salt and Italian herbs.

The crust was this recipe:

Throw in the bread machine:
A little less than a cup of lukewarm water
2 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons white sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons active dry yeast (my machine has a separate compartment for this)

Set it on the dough cycle and wait till it beeps.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit

Take the dough out and stretch it onto a greased pan. Let it stand until the oven is preheated (about 5-10 minutes), then bake about 5 minutes.

Take it out, top it with the sauce, cheese, and other toppings (next time I’ll put the pepperoni on top of the cheese, because I like when it gets crispy). Bake another 10-15 minutes or until everything is melty.

PS. I also brushed the edge of the crust with butter and garlic salt. It was like breadsticks. mmmm.

PPS We enjoyed it with home-brewed beer (by the hands of my brother-in-law) called Christmas Conception (their “brand” is Conception breweries, so all of their beers have a “conception” name). It was a delicious caramely stout.

Can you tell I’m trying to tie up loose blog ends? First the quilt, now the vanilla.

In June, I started making vanilla extract … basically you just get an air-tight container, fill it with liquor (vodka, rum, or brandy are good choices) and stick in several split vanilla beans (just cut them lengthwise with a sharp knife). Then wait for a longlonglonglong time.

By July, the vanilla was starting to extract but it still smelled strongly of alcohol. The tall bottle is rum vanilla extract, and I started another little jar of vodka vanilla extract.

When the holidays rolled around, the extract was ready! I decanted it into little glass bottles (each with a little chunk of vanilla bean inside) and labeled them to give as gifts along with homemade gingerbread cookies.

After I decanted the vanilla extract into the little bottles, I refilled the big bottles with rum and vodka (plus some fresh vanilla beans added to the ones that were already there) so that I can make more extract for next year! And this is what it looks like now. (The little jar is the vodka extract… it’s not really that much darker than the rum. It just looks that way because it has more depth)

So it’s winter, and the produce at the grocery store is looking kind of sketchy…

But you’re dreaming of spring, and you want something light for dinner.

Enter the recipe for “Skip to Spring” Pasta Salad

Start with about 3 cups of tri-color rotini. Throw it into a pot of boiling salted water, and let it cook.

Meanwhile, get out three cans: a can of tomatoes (I love when people call them “tinned tomatoes”), a can of artichoke hearts (not marinated, and a can of black olives.

I cut up my olives and artichoke hearts, but you can leave them whole if you prefer. Drain everything and put it into a bowl.

Now, drizzle a couple of tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil over the ingredients. Then some garlic powder and basil or Italian seasonings. Sometimes I like balsamic vinegar too, but for this particular night, I left it out.

Now, your ingredients are melding flavors while your pasta finishes cooking. Drain the pasta and toss everything together.

It’s really good cold or hot (and topped with Parmesan cheese), and it’ll make you think Spring is already upon us.

Enjoy!

Mmm… does it get any better than this? Chewy cookies that are the perfect consistency for milk-dipping… Perfection!

I’m not a banana-eating person. I don’t like bananas at all. I can’t even stand the smell of bananas. I used to say that when I became a teacher, I would tell all of my students’ parents that I’m allergic to bananas (even though I’m not) and not to pack them in their kids’ lunches.

But bananas made into stuff? I love! Banana nut bread, banana pudding, banana candies, dried banana chips… delicious!

And these cookies delicious, too. I’m going to call them Curious George cookies, because when Curious George visited the chocolate factory, he got sick from eating so much chocolate. But I bet these cookies would be perfect for his little monkey tummy.

Recipe for Curious George cookies:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Cream together:

• 1 cup white sugar (though I’m sure brown would be fantastic too)
• 1 cup butter

Stir in:

• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Sift in:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Stir until blended, then add:

• 5 ripe bananas, mashed (I just cut mine into big chunks, and my KitchenAid mixer mashed them as it mixed)
• 2 1/2 cups rolled oats
• 1 1/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Stir until you feel like stopping.

Then, drop dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes. The cookies probably won’t look quite done when you take them out, and this is RIGHT… if they look done, they will not be deliciously chewy. So take them out when they still look slightly “wet” on top and let them cool on a wire rack. They’ll be perfect.

One night, much to the dismay of the guy, who likes huge slabs of meat next to piles of starch… I was really in the mood for hors d’oeuvres. Call them what you will: appetizers, starters, or-dervs… I think they’re excellent. Little bites of yum, no matter what kind they are.

So I dug around the kitchen for a while until I came up with an idea. All of the ingredients are things we always try to have on hand (we stock up when they’re on sale):

• 1 package of imitation crab meat (krab)
• 1 package of bacon
• Ritz crackers
• cream cheese

Separate the chunks of imitation crab meat. If there are really big pieces, you may want to cut them in half.

Then, slice your bacon into thirds (so each piece is 1/3 of the length of a whole piece).

Tightly wrap each chunk of krab with a piece of bacon, and secure with a toothpick. The bacon is sort of stretchy, so it works out well.

Put your rolls onto a cooling rack IN a cookie sheet (so there’s space between the rack and the sheet for the grease to drip down). Place them in a cold oven, and set the temperature to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Cook for half an hour, flip them if necessary, and cook for about another half an hour or until they’re as crispy as you like. The imitation crab meat is already cooked through when you buy it, so you’re just cooking the bacon.

While this is happening, grab some Ritz crackers and spread them with some cream cheese. Just a little will do; enough to “stick” the crab/bacon rolls and taste good.

When the crab rolls are finished cooking, set them on some paper towels to get any excess grease out. Then set them on top of the crackers and cheese.

Voila! Hors d’oeuvres, starters, appetizers… Crabettes!

PS if you save any bacon-wrapped crab pieces without putting them on crackers, they reheat very nicely in a toaster oven (on a baking sheet of course) on the broil setting.

If you like pumpkin desserts, you’ll love this quick and simple pumpkin pecan crumble. It’s sort of like a crustless pumpkin pie with a soft cake-y topping. You CAN spoon some onto your plate and eat it with a fork or spoon (with vanilla ice cream. Mmm), but It’s also great served as a dessert dip. Use gingersnaps or nilla wafers to scoop hunks of the pumpkin goodness, and enjoy the crumble with an extra crunch.

For this recipe, you will need:

• 1 package of Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe Yellow Cake Mix
• 1 - 16oz. can of solid pack pumpkin
• 1 - 12oz. can of evaporated milk
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup nuts (chopped or whole, whatever kind you’d like)
• 1 cup melted butter

And this is all you have to do:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
2. Mix together the pumpkin, evaporated milk, eggs, sugar, pumpkin pie spice, and salt. Pour it into a greased 13 x 9 pan. Except that the last time I made it, I poured it into 2 9″ pie dishes.
3. Sprinkle cake mix evenly over the top of the pumpkin mixture.
4. Top with nuts and drizzle butter all over.
5. Bake 50-55 minutes.
6. Enjoy however you like it! Vanilla ice cream? Gingersnaps or Nilla wafers? How do you think it would be best enjoyed?

My camera didn’t feel like focusing on the nilla wafer with a scoop of pumpkin stuff on it… but that’s what I’m holding.

So, if you don’t feel like going all out with making delicious meat sauce for your spaghetti, meatballs are a little faster and just as yummy.

Here’s how I made mine:

• 1 lb. of lean ground beef
• 1 egg, beaten
• minced garlic (however much you like)
• 1/4 cup Italian breadcrumbs

Mix it all together with your hands (there’s no other way, really), and shape it into meatballs. Then, brown them in a pan until they’re nicely colored on the outside, and mostly cooked through (like the picture above, still a bit pink). Dump in your sauce and whatever else you’d like to add to it (I added mushrooms, olives, Italian seasonings, garlic salt, and cheese) and simmer for about 20 minutes.

Mmmmmm…. simple, last-minute spaghetti and meatballs.

Cabbage is really overlooked as a vegetable. I know I hardly think of it when I’m thinking of a side-item. Usually I think of green beans, broccoli, spinach, asparagus, or something like that. But cabbage is delicious and full of cancer-preventing stuff, and really low in calories (while being full of vitamin C, vitamin A, iron, and calcium).

Cabbage soup is one of those simple recipes that can be really fulfilling on a cool winter day when you don’t want something heavy like stew.

Here’s the recipe I put together,

• 8-10 cups of chicken broth (I used bullion to “make” it)
• Throw in an onion, chopped
• Add baby carrots, cut lengthwise
• Splash in some Frank’s Red Hot Sauce
• Dump in half a head of cabbage, chopped

Wait until the cabbage and carrots are tender, and then eat it.

So simple, and so yummy. The leftovers reheat well too, but don’t freeze this soup… cabbage gets weird if you freeze it.

Here’s a sweet pattern that might help you with Valentine’s gifts this year. A few years ago, when I was a resident assistant at Winthrop University, I made a pin for every one of my (about 40) residents. It took a while, but I think it was worth it, especially when I saw some of the girls wearing their pins on their bookbags, jackets, and shirts. If you’re a teacher, this is a great thing to make for your students. Or just pull together a few of them for your closest girlfriends.

You Will Need:

• Small amounts of yarn, any weight
• A crochet hook appropriate for your yarn
• A yarn needle
• Pin backs
• Embellishing Glue

To Begin:
Start with a magic ring.
ch 1.
7 sc into ring.
sl st to join.

Round 1:
ch 1. Do not turn.
1 sc in first 2 scs.
[sc, dc, sc] into third sc.
1 sc in next 2 scs.
[sc, 2dc, sc] into next 2 sts.
Sl st to join.

Round 2:
Ch 1. Do not turn.
1 sc into first 3 sts.
[sc, dc, sc] into next st.
1 sc into next 3 sts.
2hdc in next st.
3dc in next st.
[hdc, sc] in next st.
sl st in next 2 sts.
[sc, hdc] in next st.
3dc in next st.
2hdc in next st.
sl st to join.

Finish off. Weave in the ends.

Extras:

• Try adding a ruffled border by working a succession of scs and chs around the edge.
• Add top embellishment by using sl sts to make an outline. Or stitch on kisses and hugs (Xs and Os)
• If sequins and buttons are your thing, the embellishing glue will set those on your hearts nicely.
• Or, try gluing a tiny felt heart onto the crocheted one.

Making Your Hearts Into Brooches:

• Embellishing glue is a lovely thing… it will adhere anything to anything, as long as you follow the directions! I’ll tell you what my glue says to do, but read your glue’s label and double-check to make sure it’s the same.