Chili on Brown Rice

It's boring, I know, but at least it's tasty. And leaves enough leftovers to keep my freezer stocked for a bit for the days I'm feeling particularly lazy.

I haven't been feeling too great, lately, and needed to get myself out of that mire. So I spent today cleaning my room, doing ALL my laundry (instead of just bits as needed), taking care of stuff I've been letting slide (like sending payments for seriously overdue bills), and making this. Not that chili requires much work. But that's what made it perfect. It's healthy and tasty and a good no-recipe-necessary meal to ease me back into cooking again. It's been too many days of eating cottage cheese on toast and other no effort required foods that don't have enough nutritional value.

Fabric Folding - Origami Flower Pillows

I was reading a quilting blog - A Canary's Life... The Caged Bird Sings - today that talked about fabric origami and linked to an HGTV site giving directions on how to make a folded flower. And hey - I've done that before!

I haven't felt like sewing in the last little while, so I haven't really had anything new going on to talk about, and then I thought about posting old stuff, but I didn't want to do a big photo-dump. So maybe just dribs and drabs like this, when I think of something specific.

Anyway, these five pillows are just a few of MANY that I made for Christmas gifts in 2005. They're just tiny little things - if I remember right, they're 6x6-in square. But for a long time I've thought about making them smaller yet in order to make pin/needle cushions. I just don't know what you use to "stuff" a pin cushion. (I assume it's not just batting?)

At any rate, the second picture is the only larger scale thing I made using the pattern. It was also a Christmas gift, though that one was for my cousin, who is a huge fan of dragonflies. I found the dragonfly/snail print and decided that bugs would work with flowers. It's a 14" pillow.

Some day I think I'd like to make a full-size quilt full of those little flowers, but they're definite fabric hogs, so it's a big hard for me to commit to something on a larger scale. (Each 4" flower requires a 9" square of fabric.) It sort of feels wasteful. Hm. On the other hand, maybe it's what I can do with all the ugly floral fabrics my mom likes to buy me even though she knows I don't like them. I could make her a throw, or something.

Apricot Chicken with Sautéed Green Beans

This chicken was really delicious, a definite keeper recipe. It had all the things I like about apricots (the taste), with none of the things I don't (weird mouth-feel). (Yes, I do have texture issues when it comes to food.) The shallots were really nice with the apricot, and there was just a hint of cinnamon that was really delicious.

Green beans are a pretty basic side-dish for me. I can/will/do eat them alongside pretty much anything. You can't really go wrong with green and wax beans. Especially beans that are lightly sautéed in a bit of olive oil with some crushed red pepper. Yum. I don't really know why I added the almonds this time - they sort of seemed superfluous and pointless. Maybe they don't match well with the heat of the pepper. Anyway, I'll skip them next time. (But maybe it's time for my favourite rice/beans/almonds/parmesan cheese side dish, again.)

Watermelon and Feta Salad

I seem to have a problem where the foods I want to eat never quite line up with season when the ingredients are freshest or make the most sense. Like wanting hearty soups in the dead heat of summer or wanting fruit salads when the watermelon is starting to look pale and mealy. This watermelon was actually pretty decent, though. Quite sweet and juicy, though a bit paler pink than I'd choose when I'm spoiled for choice in summer. (I did have to try three grocery stores before I found one with watermelon I was willing to spend money on.)

Anyway, this salad was meant to be eaten on arugula, but I couldn't find that at any of the grocery stores I went to either. And then I thought I'd eat it on mesclun, which I had, but it turned out to be past its expiry date and I'm a freak about expiry dates, even when I can see that the leaves weren't wilting and going bad. Fortunately I also had romaine, which was a neutral enough backdrop for the rest.

I was a bit worried about this recipe because the combinations seemed a little bit suspect - the sharpness of balsamic vinegar, the saltiness of feta cheese, the sweetness of watermelon - but it really came together nicely. I enjoyed it a lot.

Lemon-Basil Pork with Parmesan Risotto and Tomato-Cucumber Salad

Overall, this was a couple different sets of disappointments.

Disappointment #1: I really overcooked the meat. I've a ridiculous paranoia of undercooking meat, especially pork, and thus tend to overcompensate and overcook it instead. This pork, when I looked at it at the end of the recommended cooking time, had a sort of funny colour, so I assumed it wasn't finished and left it for another 5 or 10 minutes. Probably the smart thing would have been to test the temperature - we do have a meat thermometre - but why do the easy thing? Anyway, it still looked funny after the extra time, so I took it out and cut it open. Definitely cooked by that point.

Disappointment #2: The breading on the pork really didn't taste that good anyway. It was mostly made of lemon zest, so it should have been lemony, but there wasn't even a hint of lemon flavouring. I just don't get it. The version shown in the picture (it was a recipe from a magazine) must have been deep-fried because it was perfect and golden brown all around. This was just a touch damp and only browned on the side that had a bit of fat (that I was too lazy to trim off).

Disappointment #3: This is a really bad picture. It's not so very noticeable at this small size, but if you click through to the larger version, it's incredibly blurry. This was the best of a bad lot, really. So not impressed. I don't know how I managed to get such a bad shot, since mostly I haven't had a problem with blurriness in a while.


Anyway, the risotto is actually one from a box. I made proper risotto once and realized that I'm really, really not cut out to make anything that takes so long. But this boxed stuff is made by Lundberg, which sells the best rice blend I've ever had, so I decided to try it out. It was quite tasty, especially with extra Parmesan cheese grated over top.

Blue and Yellow Gift Block

I made this block for one of the members of my livejournal group, Birthday Blocks. She had requested blues with pale yellow, quilter's choice for the block.

I'm really not sure what inspired this block choice, except I suppose that it's just a pretty pattern. I wish I'd chosen something else, since it was a complete menace to sew accurately. (And also, I need to throw out my one ruler because it doesn't measure a quarter inch the same as all the rest of my rulers.) I had an incredibly hard time matching things up (and it's less perfect than I'd like, but not so imperfect I wouldn't give it away).

There are so many things I can see now that it's done that I should have done differently (different balances of colour) and different ways of incorporating the yellow, but on the whole I'm pleased. I still think it's a pretty block, even with its flaws.

Chicken & Vegetable Lasagna with Garlic Toasts

I wish I could pretend that I slaved all day (yesterday) over the stove cooking up a really tasty chicken lasagna... but really I just opened the box, tossed it in the oven, waited a while, and then ate it. It's from a Safeway brand called Eating Right, and it is more healthy than any lasagna I'd make at home. (Because at home, I'd use a whole lot more cheese. Just saying...) Anyway, it was a pretty great dinner. (And lunch today. And dinner tonight.)

I did make the garlic butter all on my own with no recipe to guide me. (It could have used a bit more garlic. But never mind that.) That was all the effort I had in me, yesterday.


I should have edited this photo differently. But all the effort I had in me for that was expended just getting it this far... (Having some motivational issues at the moment...)

Mushroom Omelette with Turkey Sausage and Kiwi

This is my nod to Thanksgiving dinner - turkey sausage. (And I'm having a turkey sandwich tomorrow. But that's turkey from the deli. Not turkey straight off a turkey carcass.)

Anyway, I wanted something easy to make today, since I'm so completely exhausted from working my night shift on Saturday night. Eggs? Easy. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with the eggs, but I had a few cremini mushrooms in the fridge that miraculously hadn't gone bad in the many days since I bought them. So... an omelette. (Also, I didn't have actual eggs, just a thing of egg whites, which I bought because I wanted to make this breading-crusted pork dish that needed a bit of egg white, and why waste a whole egg just to do 1/6th of the recipe, you know?)

I bought the turkey sausage yesterday when I was out looking for junk food (didn't find anything worth getting) and they were miraculously low-calorie (for a sausage) so I wanted to find out if they were also low-taste. They were quite good. Not quite the same as your average greasy pork breakfast sausage (that tastes so yummy when dipped in a bit of pancake syrup), but definitely good enough to buy again. (I don't get the urge to eat sausage very often, though, so probably what is leftover in the freezer will last quite a while.)

Kiwifruit were on sale at my grocery store last week so I've been eating a TON of kiwi lately.

Beef and Vegetable Curry on Brown Rice

You wouldn't really know it by the colour of the sauce, but this was made with a Thai Red Curry paste as the base. (It was very mild too, so next time I think I could double or triple the amount of paste. The recipe asked for 1/4 tsp, and I used at least a 1/2 tsp but that wasn't nearly enough.) I'd never used red curry paste before (I tend to use green because I know I like that), but it had a nice flavour, and it seemed to work well with this recipe.

This was meant to be a lamb curry, but I've never cooked lamb before, and it's quite expensive to buy here. (About $20 a pound, which is... a stretch, for my budget.) So I pulled some stewing beef out of the freezer. Stewing beef wasn't the best choice for this - it needs a much longer cooking time than you want to use for the vegetables - but it was what I had, so it was what I used. And despite coming out a touch tougher than I'd really like, it was very very tasty. AND I've got enough for three more meals, so that's fantastic.

Pink Striped Hand Bags

I spent a good part of yesterday afternoon making two little hand bags for the nieces of a friend of mine. The friend had wanted me to decorate some scarves for the girls, but I don't know enough (or, you know, anything) about working with sheer fabrics and I was a bit worried about shredding the material or just... ruining it somehow. So I made these instead.

I found the pattern for this bag here, and then modified it to make it just large enough to hook over an adult's shoulder. It holds my wallet, sunglasses, keys and a few other items as well. I want to try making one for myself, now, but much larger, so that I can fit a few books and things like that in it as well.

These bags are made out of quilting cotton, so they're very light and a bit flimsy (which is why the black one looks so ridiculous - I puffed out the one with white lining by stuffing it full of stuff, but didn't with the black lined one, and it shows), though I did use interfacing to give them a bit more stiffness and weight. Probably it'd be smart to make a larger bag with a stronger fabric, but I don't anticipate trying to haul around anything too heavy.

Tomato Soup with Gold Fish Crackers

I haven't updated in a few days and then I do with... canned tomato soup? Well... that's about the level of cooking skill I've felt like using lately. (Tomorrow though... tomorrow will be something new, tastier, probably healthier, and hopefully better looking.)

If I'm going to eat tomato soup from a can... I better have some gold fish crackers to go on top. I'm just saying...

Anyway, the little black flecks are not from me burning the milk and then scrapping up the bottom. No. They're actually bits of dried basil, since tomato soup from a can is... kind of boring. I also added some mozzarella cheese, which you can't see because it's all melty.

Pork with Honey-Garlic Sauce, Cucumber-Tomato Salad and Cabbage Rolls

I bought the laziest thing the other day - a microwave pork loin. (You can cook it in the oven as well, but apparently they tend to toughen up in the oven.) It was $8.50, and I had a $5 coupon, so I figured that even if it wasn't that great, for $3.50, it'd be good enough. It was actually pretty tasty. Tender and flavourful (though a tiny bit cold, I should have cut it sooner after taking it out of the microwave).

My sister made the cabbage rolls. They're stuffed with ground pork and beef, rice, and a whole lot of garlic. I haven't had cabbage rolls in a while, so that was nice to have.

I didn't cook this either

This is another dish that my sister made, which I had a few bites of yesterday. She doesn't like to cook, and doesn't think she can cook, but she's been trying to cook, and I've been helping her a little here and there. (If my schedule were more stable at work, I'd cook for the three of us living here in exchange for her always doing the dishes. It's a trade-off we could both live with, but I like to eat weirder things than she and her husband do, sometimes, so I don't know that it'd work out so well for her husband.)

Anyway, this is a pretty basic stir-fry, but it's so beautiful and bright. I love the mix of colours and looking at it makes me wish I were eating it (even though I only ate a little while ago and am still full).

Sesame Sole with Sautéed Green Beans and Wild Rice

This is the first time I've cooked fish. I mean, fish that didn't come out of a can or a box. At least I think it's the first time... Anyway, I've never had sole before, so I was worried that it would have a strong taste, but it really just tasted like sesame. Sesame oil and sesame seeds.

I was worried about either over or under-cooking it, but I think it came out just right, by some miracle of lucky timing. (I tend to overcook meats because I worry too much about them being raw.)

I did a tiny bit over-cook the beans - you can see scorch marks - but they were so so so so tasty. I love fresh green beans, just steamed and then sautéed with garlic and red pepper flakes. Spicy and a little crunchy and better than practically anything.

Another first: wild rice on it's own. Usually I only eat wild rice in blends, but decided to give it a go. I didn't like the smell while it was cooking, but I love the texture and taste of wild rice, so I was happy with it.

Orange Chicken with Steamed Kasha and Sautéed Escarole

This dinner came out a little bit hit and miss - I really enjoyed the chicken, found the buckwheat passable but not fantastic, and despised the escarole.

So, from the left. Buckwheat is an odd sort of grain, or at least it's odd to someone like me who'd never had it before. I'm not sure if I overcooked it a bit, but it sort of reminded me of a slightly mushier cooked barley (which I love, but nearly never eat, and can't anyway for the next little while). I've also made buckwheat as a hot breakfast, with cinnamon and banana and I really prefer it that way, so I think part of my reaction was disappointment that it wasn't as good as it was at breakfast. It was a passable side dish, though. Just boring.

The chicken was very nice tasting, though surprisingly sweet. It was made with a lot of chicken broth (Campbell's Organic, which I found on sale for the first time ever, and found to taste much more like a homemade broth than their regular broth), orange juice, orange zest, Dijon mustard (the crunchy kind) and figs. I was meant to use fresh figs, but couldn't find any at the market this week, so I bought and used dried instead. I suppose the sweetness came from the fig, which I'd never had before (except in a fig newton). Anyway, I'll be eating that again for dinner tomorrow, which is fine by me because it really does taste quite good.

The escarole, on the other hand... not so good tasting. I've never had escarole before, so I didn't really know what to expect. It was much more bitter than I like. (I can't imagine what I'd think of the more bitter varieties of endive, if escarole is not so bad as Belgian and curly endive.) I sautéed it with a bit of garlic and... ugh. I'll be throwing away the rest of the head of that stuff and eating some sautéed spinach tomorrow instead.

WIP: Sunlight and Shadows

These are the first 16 blocks (of an intended 56) for my Sunlight and Shadows quilt.

I mentioned in my first entry (and in the following ones) that I'm a member of a group on Livejournal where were exchange quilt blocks on each member's birthday, and this is the quilt that I'll be putting together with the blocks I'm receiving. So far, of the 15 blocks I should receive, I've gotten 8 blocks, and I've made most of the rest. (Two of them are blocks I got through a fabric/block exchange.)

I really love seeing progress pictures like this because I can see the quilt taking shape and how beautifully it's going to come together. I'm not very good at putting together colours (I worry too much about having things work perfectly, so scrappy is really hard for me to do) so seeing something like this is so reassuring. It looks fantastic now, how much better will it look with another 40 blocks? (I better get sewing - I have to make 30+ of those 40 blocks!)

Probably this quilt will be taking up most of my sewing time for the next while, but I'm not going to post individual pictures of the blocks as I make them, I'll just update whenever I've got another clump of them made.

Tarragon Chicken Salad with Pears and Pignoli

I took this to work for lunch yesterday, which worked out much better than I thought it might, except that the pears got a little brown around the edges after waiting the few hours till my lunch break. I didn't take a picture yesterday though because I wanted to make it as pretty as I could for a photo (and I knew I'd be having it again today).

I'm not a really big fan of tarragon in general, but it complemented the pears and pine nuts perfectly, so I'm really glad I tried it in spite of my reservations. This is definitely something I can see myself making a regular lunch staple.

I didn't cook it.

My sister did cook it, though. And it's so pretty that I almost wish I had made it - I'd be happy to claim that as mine, with the vibrant orange and green of the carrots and spinach.

It was my sister's first time cooking scallops, and it was my first time tasting one. (I didn't eat any of the pasta or vegetables, just one single butter-drenched scallop.) I don't think I've got the palate for seafood, since it pretty much just tasted like calamari to me. Something vaguely ocean-y. A very different texture than calamari, but more or less the same taste.

The smell keeps assaulting me every time I go into the hallway. But it sure did look pretty.

Moroccan Chicken with Chickpeas and Cauliflower

This is what I had for dinner last night, for day one of my detox. And then I had it again tonight, though I didn't take a photo this time. (I actually had only leftovers today - Amaranth for breakfast, Bean Salad for lunch, and Chicken for dinner.)

This was a pretty good meal. Good enough that I'll make it again, I think, though I do think it could have stood a lot more spice. There were no spicy additions to the recipe - you use garam masala, but no other spices. I think next time I'll build it up a bit more like a curry to give some more flavour to the dish.

I think I'll also add a touch of turmeric as well, because there's no sense in being such a muted, dirty looking shade of yellow when it could be bright and vibrantly yellow. (I apparently love yellow food. I'm sure there are a few yellow things in the backlog of this blog where I've probably mentioned whether or not I was pleased by the shade of yellow that I acquired.)

I forgot to put cashews on this when I first made it, which is a bit of a disappointment, since I'm such a fan of cashews. I did remember today though, so that was a tasty addition (if an unnecessary one).

I once again used Eden organic brand beans and was once again really pleased by the quality and taste of the product. I don't think I'll ever be able to go back to regular canned beans/chickpeas. The chickpeas are so much nicer in texture than any other brand I've tried and they haven't had their taste dulled by too much sodium and/or preservatives or whatever is put into regular canned beans.

White Bean Salad

This is just kind of your average white bean salad. It was very nice tasting, but I do think it could have used some more herbs in the dressing. (I ground a lot of pepper over it, which helped, but more herbs would not go amiss.) It was also far too much food for lunch, but it was tasty.

Tasty enough that I'm having it again for lunch tomorrow. (And also, I didn't want to throw out half a can of beans just because I don't have a use for the rest of the can at the moment.) I am hoping that some of the garlic flavour and the parsley will get a bit stronger tasting while sitting overnight.

The beans that I used today were an organic brand, Eden organic navy beans, which I really only bought because they were in a conveniently smaller can than average. They were probably the nicest tasting beans I've ever had from a can - they're made without added salt and didn't have that processed taste (or that nasty paste you usually have to rinse off canned beans). Very highly recommended, and in spite of the slightly higher cost, I do think I'm going to keep buying them.

Apple-Walnut Amaranth

Today I started doing a week long detox program that eliminates food allergens like gluten and eggs and dairy and so on. And this was my first breakfast. (Oh how I shall miss my Fibre One/Cheerios with milk each morning...)

It looks kind of gross - very bland colour and the texture doesn't really look that great either - but it was quite tasty, and very filling. This cooked up quite a bit like rice, though it doesn't absorb quite so much liquid. It reminded me a bit of oatmeal, but I suppose that's only because it's the nearest comparison that the average North American can probably make. How often do we eat cooked grains other than oatmeal?

I cooked this with chopped apple (and cinnamon), but I think when I make this again, I'll stir in fresh apple after it is cooked - I think I'd prefer to have a crunch of apple rather than the soft bits of apple you get from cooking it.

Autumn theme gift block

This block is another that I made for a member of a Livejournal community that I'm a member of, Birthday Blocks. There are 16 members and we make one block, to request, for each member for her birthday. (You can read about my requested blocks here, but I'll also be updating every time I get a few more blocks together for the quilt.)

The request for this block - which is late! eep! - was for something autumn (but not Hallowe'en) themed. I did a Maple Leaf block for a previous request and didn't want to repeat myself, so I thought this block would look nice with a leaf print.

I'm not completely happy with the way it came out - hindsight being 20/20 and all that - because the gold blends too much with the leaf print, but on the whole I like it much more than I thought I would. I've never been a particular fan of themed fabrics, so I was expecting to hate whatever I came up with. (I really, really do wish I'd reversed the green and gold fabrics, though. Or used a darker brown in place of the gold...)

Yellow Watermelon

I was sitting in the living room watching Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares when my sister screeched at me to come to the kitchen and wanted me to look at the "I thought it was a watermelon!" on the counter.

Yes, darlin', it is in fact watermelon. Just... yellow watermelon. (I had to look it up on Wikipedia just to prove it wasn't some strange fruit they'd bought by mistake.)

It smells and tastes pretty much the same as any regular watermelon. In terms of sweetness, it reminds me a lot of Dulcinea watermelon, just... yellow.

Garlic Chicken with Sautéed Broccoli and Roasted Garlic Toasts

This was really good, though the chicken got a little dry and the larger cloves of garlic didn't really get quite roasted enough. (And I wish I'd had something other than whole wheat bread - a bit of baguette or something would have been nicer for the roasted garlic).

Anyway, I could eat broccoli cooked like that every day and never get tired of it. (Maybe.)

Cat Block - Designed after Laurel Burch

This block is one that I made today for a member of a group on Livejournal that I'm part of - Birthday Blocks. The request for this block was for a cat block - something I had absolutely no experience in making and no real desire to make, alas. (I'm not a big fan of animal blocks or fabrics.) The recipient had no requests for fabrics or colours, but did mention that she really likes Laurel Burch cat fabrics.

A friend was kind enough to send me a fat quarter of LB fabric, and I designed this paper-pieced block to be as similar as possible to the Laurel Burch style. (Not quite so much the cats in this fabric, as the cats in this one.) There are a few things I'd change, if it weren't so much of a hassle to do - like adding a black bit at the bottom of the nose to differentiate between the nose and the body, and also adding a slump to the shoulder, so that it wouldn't be quite so square. And probably I should have used a darker colour for the eyes.

(I think the recipient could add some stitched whiskers with gold embroidery thread, though, if she wanted, and that would help out with the nose thing.)

Anyway, I can't say I really *like* this block, but I'm actually pretty impressed with myself over it. For a first attempt at pattern design, I think it came out pretty good. (Even though I did forget to reverse my pattern, and thus got a cat sitting in the opposite direction of what I'd intended. At least it didn't involve anything where the direction would matter, like a word.)

Florentine Meatballs with Marinara

More tasty goodness. Turkey meatballs with spinach and a marinara sauce (from a can) on noodles.

So very, very good. This is a variation on a recipe by Rachael Ray, just done a little more low-calorie (and a much smaller portion size - her portions are absolutely massive).

Fried Eggs with the Blood of the Innocent (on an English Muffin)

Fried eggs and ham with ketchup. On a whole wheat English muffin.

Lazy, tasty goodness.

Ham Sandwich with Carrots, Cucumber/Tomato Salad, and Cantaloupe

Just another work lunch/snack, along with the water I took for work. Nothing interesting to see here...

I forgot to put the cold pack in my lunch today. Oops. It was all fine in time for lunch, but I'd saved the tomato-cucumbers for my second break and then didn't eat them because I was worried they'd have gone bad after 7 hours without refrigeration.

Curried Root Vegetables

So tonight's dinner attempt was a failure. It was meant to be Curried Root Vegetables, and in theory it sounded pretty tasty, if a very (very) lazy way to make a curry. I was a bit put off by the "cooks fast in the microwave!" claims, but decided to try it anyway.

So not worth it. The carrots and parsnips were undercooked (except where they were severely overcooked), the turnips were almost but not quite cooked and the sweet potatoes were for the most part overcooked to the point of being limp. The flavour was boring, sort of generically sweet without any more complexity, and pineapple + curry powder does not a curry make.

I should have trusted my instincts about the microwave part of things, and at least just done it on the stove. It wouldn't have been fantastic that way, but at least I could have adjusted the cooking time better and wound up with something edible (if uninspiring).

Vegetable Frittata with Spicy Tomato Salsa

I was going to make garlic chicken and steamed spicy broccoli and rice for dinner tonight, but the simplicity and tastiness of eggs won out. I like making eggs because they're just not complicated.

The entire recipe for this is "chop up some vegetables, sauté them, add eggs, cook and then eat." Basically, I mean. This particular frittata has onions, garlic, yellow peppers, and mushrooms sauteed together until they're all soft and lovely. Then tomatoes and cooked potatoes are added. Then eggs with rosemary, salt, pepper, and Parmesan cheese were poured over top. And then it's just cooked on the stove top and then briefly broiled until finished.

The salsa is homemade as well - chopped tomatoes with garlic, a few dashes of hot sauce, and some parsley.

I'm going to be so disappointed when winter hits and the only tomatoes available are mealy and tasteless.

Turkey Pizza with Fruit, Salad, Chocolate, and Cookies

Another of those Flat Out flat-breads converted to something (hopefully) tasty - turkey pizza made with turkey, bbq sauce, and cheddar cheese.

You probably can't really see them, but there are three thin ginger cookies hiding under the chocolate.

(I don't think I can actually remember if that meat was turkey or chicken. I've been going back and forth, I think, in my descriptions on the photos I've taken while using it. I think it's chicken.)

Baby Steps

I had thought about starting out with a kind of.. this is who I am and this is what this blog is about, sort of post, but then I thought... nope, I'm just going to jump into the middle of things.

This isn't where I usually work on my quilting, but I live with my sister and her husband, and the day I was cutting these out, he was home and in the basement. He's a smoker (and I'm not) so I prefer not to work downstairs when he's there. My usual set-up usually has a table-top ironing board across the top of the table, and my sewing machine would probably be on the floor near my feet (if I were sitting).

All those squares of fabric up top are eventually going to be sunlight and shadows blocks - just like the blocks on the left. And just like these blocks here:



I'm a member of a group on Livejournal called Birthday Blocks, which is an exchange group. We make a block for each member's birthday, and in turn on our birthday, we get a block from everyone else. (A week late, though, and I've only received three of fifteen blocks.)

I requested these Sunlight and Shadows blocks because I wanted to try something I've never really done before - a repeating pattern, no sashing, full-sized, and scrappy. Although I'll only be receiving 15 blocks from the exchange group, I'm planning on making a quilt using 56 blocks, so I've got a lot of catching up to do.

It's really hard for me to make a scrappy quilt because I want badly to make everything match perfectly. And these blocks are difficult for me because I always want things to be symmetrical. So this quilt pushes some of my quilting buttons, and that's what I wanted, so that's a good thing. (Here's hoping I love it when it's finished...)

Chicken Burger with Corn on the Cob and Romanesco Concerto al Limone

That is one of my favourite side dishes ever, so tasty. It's a recipe from the back of the package of vegetables - Romanesco Concerto from Europe's Best - which is lemony and mustardy and delicious.

Boring Lunch Number Eleventy Billion

Wow, this was a badly taken photo.

Um... turkey roll-up made with the flat-bread. A kiwi, sugar snap peas, carrots, and a couple squares of dark chocolate (one of which I gave to a co-worker).

*yawn*

Chicken Roll-Ups with Cucumber-Tomato Salad, Carrots, and Kiwifruit

Not too much to say about this lunch, since it's so... usual, for me, but the roll-ups are something different, so I decided to post it.

The roll-up was made from the same flat-bread as yesterday's pizza, and contains chicken, mustard, yellow peppers, tomatoes, and a bit of romaine. Yum.

Chicken Flat-bread Pizza

Yummy. (Too bad I singed it around the edges.) A little while ago I heard about this brand of flat-bread/roll-ups called Flat Out, which are (or can be) a healthy, high fibre flat-bread. And I thought to myself that probably I wouldn't be able to find it in Canuckistan. But here it is!

So I made chicken pizza, with a little bit of jarred bruchetta mix in place of sauce, and then sliced jalapeño peppers, sliced yellow peppers, sliced chicken breast (deli meat) and cheddar and mozzarella cheese.

Tasty goodness, and healthy.

Mediterranean Chicken with Herbed White Beans

It's too bad this is such a messy looking meal, because it tastes really good. Not really nice enough looking to serve to guests.

The recipes for both come from the book YOU On a Diet and is all, like, healthy and stuff.

Noodley Chicken Soup

This was a bit of a made up as I went along sort of recipe, though it was similar in some ways to a different chicken/noodle/bean sprout soup I made a while back.

This one didn't have as flavourful a broth, but it also didn't have the bad smell the other one had. (It smelled so bad, but tasted so good. Very strange.) I like it with the mushrooms, though, and the green onions, which had a nice mellow onion flavour whenever I bit into one.

Teriyaki Chicken on Rice with Broccoli Slaw and Honey-Ginger Carrots

The broccoli slaw is from a mix you can buy at Cost-co, but the rest I threw together tonight after coming home from work. It tasted all right, anyway, for something done without thought or planning.

I, apparently, have nothing to say about this meal, though. (Except that broccoli coleslaw is a strange thing to eat with teriyaki chicken. It was there, though, so...)

Chicken Cacciatore on Rice with a Green Salad

This was tasty and healthy and a welcome change from all the garbage I've been eating lately. (And my recent inability to cook edible food...)

I probably won't make it again, unless I've got family around again, since it makes an astronomical amount of food. (Five of us ate from it, and there's enough for probably three or four servings leftover.) And I don't know how to cut it down to size - it's a slow cooker recipe and uses canned tomatoes.

Zucchini Pancakes with Fresh Tomato Salsa and Chicken Tikka

My second failed attempt at vegetable pancakes.

I suspect I didn't cook these ones long enough. Maybe I made them too big or didn't use enough oil or turned the heat too high. I don't know. But I don't know that I've ever made a pancake in my life and had it turn out (not even the kind without vegetables, not even the kind without vegetables that comes in a bag and you just add water).

Ah well. The Chicken Tikka was really good, and I just scooped the salsa off the (slightly soggy) pancakes and ate that too.


(Incidentally - the vegan and vegetarian tags refer only to the pancakes/salsa. Obviously. But just... pointing out that I'm not a tool who doesn't know that chicken isn't vegan. I generally only use those tags if the whole meal is vegan but in this case, used it because the pancakes were the main dish, so to speak.)

Ham and Cheese Scrambled Eggs with Fried Potatoes

Eggs and potatoes is sort of my most basic meal, I think. I don't eat them all that often - maybe every other week at most - but I certainly make them more often than anything else. (Except tomato/cucumber salad.)

There's really nothing special about this. The eggs are just ham/cheese/black pepper scrambled in 2 egg whites/1 whole egg. And the potatoes are my standard sauteed potatoes (though I used water rather than broth, this time around).

Pancakes made of Failure and Paper Mâché Paste

I've been debating for a few days whether or not to post this picture - it's ugly and disgusting and I didn't actually eat it. But, hey, I can embrace my failures (and never make them again...)

So what happened was I found this really lovely looking recipe for vegan savoury vegetable pancakes. The photo with the recipe looked gorgeous. So I cut the recipe in half, threw it all together, and... got this.

I couldn't bear to eat the first pancake I made (not pictured, I tossed it) because OH MY GOD it's made of paper mâché paste. Flour+Broth has to work almost entirely the same way as Flour+Water, just with a little (a little) more flavour than your average paper mâché. I cooked the remaining pancakes because I thought they'd be easier to throw out if they were cooked solid rather than that pasty mixture.

I don't really know what I did wrong, exactly. My best guess is that I didn't have enough vegetables - I used half everything, but perhaps I should have added more veg anyway when I saw how much paste there was in comparison to vegetable - and I cooked it at too high a heat, thus scorching it before it had a chance to darken the "dough" (aka paste).

Needless to say, I won't be trying this again.

Chicken Souvlaki on a bun with Russian Salad and Tomato-Cucumber Salad

I didn't really cook this, but I did photograph and eat it. (I made the Tomato-Cucumber Salad, but the rest was done by my Brother in Law.)

The Russian salad isn't really Russian, exactly, but I can't remember the proper name for it. It's something my Russian b-i-l makes though, hence my referring to it as Russian.

I was going to make something really interesting for dinner tonight, but instead I got to eat free food, so I had this, which was delicious anyway. (Should have gone without the bun, though. And tomorrow will be something more interesting, I think.)

Baby Romaine with Beets, Oranges and Walnut Dressing

This was quite tasty (though I don't know if I'll make it again). I don't usually eat beets - I hated them when I was a kid, though not because I disliked the taste. That I liked, but my sister and I had them once before getting sick, and throwing up beets kind of put us off them. (Though maybe it was just my sister who chucked up the beets and the memory has twisted itself around in my brain.)

But I figured I should give them a try again, so here's my try. I do like the taste, though I seem to remember my mom frying slices in butter, which was pretty yummy as well.

This picture looks so pretty and bright with the feta and oranges, but I kind of stirred it around a little to mix the flavours after I'd snapped the pictures, and everything was bright purple-red by the time it made it into my mouth.

Recipe: Ham and Spinach Frittata with Sauteed Potatoes

This will actually be the second time I'm posting this same photo, but this time it's with a recipe. See... I'm an idiot and didn't think to check for comments in this blog, and more than half a month ago, someone requested the recipes. I don't know if she's still keeping an eye on this place - Hi Rebecca? - but just in case, here they are:

Ham and Spinach Frittata, for one.
1-1.5 oz (45 g) ham or Canadian bacon, diced
1 oz (30 g) baby spinach
1 whole egg + 2 egg whites
1/2 oz (15 g) shredded cheddar cheese
salt and black pepper

Preheat oven to 375F.
Heat an oven-proof skillet over medium heat until hot. Add the bacon/ham and saute 3-5 minutes or until slightly browned. Add the spinach and cook until wilted.
In a bowl, lightly beat together eggs with salt and pepper to taste. Fold in the cheese. Spread eggs/cheese over the bacon and spinach in the skillet.
Transfer to the oven and bake for about 15 minutes until golden brown and cooked through.


Sauteed Potatoes, for one.
1/2 tsp olive oil
1 small potato, about 4 oz (or a few baby ones, about 4 oz), thinly sliced or diced in small cubes
1/4 cup low-sodium chicken stock
salt and black pepper

Heat a small skillet over medium heat until hot. Add the oil and potato. Raise the heat to medium-high and saute 3-5 minutes, stirring often until the potatoes begin to brown.

Add the chicken stock and reduce heat to low. Cover the skillet and simmer until the stock has been absorbed and the potatoes are tender, about 6-8 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and serve.

Both these recipes came from a low-carb cookbook I've got, though I make the frittata a little differently. The original source, though, is 5 Square Low-Carb Meals, which for the money is the single best cookbook I own.

Nutritional Info for both parts combined (exactly as I made them):
326 Calories|14g Fat|23g Carbs|26g Protein|3g Fibre

Achard de Legumes on Brown Rice

So, so, so good.

I don't really know what an Achard is, but does it ever taste good. The book the recipe came from said that it can be eaten as a warm salad or with rice as a main course dish. But that doesn't say that much, really.

Huh. If my French isn't failing me completely, Google says it's cut-up, seasoned vegetables. Fairly accurate, that.

This was pleasantly spicy, and my lips are still tingling a bit from it. Very, very tasty. (Practically no protein though. Wish I'd have thought of a meat dish to make along side this. Since I ended up eating a burger with mozzarella cheese melted on top because it was the easiest thing to make last second.)