Catching Up and Homemade Pasta

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It’s back to the kitchen and catching up on chores this week. The weather has been so nice that I’ve neglected the decluttering and  mini-mountains of clothes that need folding, and instead have been riding my bike with Ollie and hanging out at various parks. The kids have also had a little education in local and federal government as the whole family applied for passports. Abby laughed as we posed for our pictures, “Mom, it’s like we’re in jail?!” Yes, but would we by smiling?

I like Ollie’s first attempt:

Last weekend we hosted a House Party sponsored by Calphalon and Williams-Sonoma and while we weren’t selected as the hosts to have Chef Michael Symon visit, we had a fantastic time with our guests. The easiest part about this dinner party: the menu, along with recipes and a grocery list, was supplied by Calphalon and Williams-Sonoma. We were so busy cooking up dinner, I had my brother-in-law and cousin take some pictures and I hope to post some soon.

Friends came over a few months ago and taught us how to make homemade pasta. We tried homemade potstickers so I thought, homemade noodles shouldn’t be too difficult.

Basic recipe

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 cups semolina flour
  • 6 large eggs (at room temperature)
  • pinch of salt

We combined the dry ingredients in a large bowl, made a well in the middle then cracked the eggs into the flour. Using a fork, begin beating the eggs lightly as if scrambling them, and the flour will start “falling” into the egg mixture. Continue beating the eggs to incorporate the flour slowly. The mixture will begin forming into dough, and then once the dough begins to stiffen and all the flour is incorporated, you can take it out of the bowl to knead. It wasn’t very pretty, pulling and pushing the dough, squishing it around. Our friend made it look all nice and rectangular. Mine sort of looked amoeba-shaped until I folded it over again to knead some more. I think we did this for a few minutes before running it through the pasta machine. And when we did, it took a few passes to get to the thickness we wanted. We hung the noodles up as we finished the rest of the dough and got a big pot of water and salt to a rolling boil. The noodles cooked quickly in less than 5 minutes.

Collage Project: Flooring Catalog

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Magazines and catalogs are sometimes the best sources of inspiration, especially when I see tons of little colored squares in a particular carpet tile catalog (we actually used these tiles in our basement).  I was itching to do a collage project and finally broke out the scissors. The tiles would be perfect for covering up one of my sketch books.

Since the squares were all uniform in size, piecing it together was easy… like a cut-and-paste Tetris game! I’d like to do one coat of Mod Podge on the front and back covers soon, and I have enough cut-outs to cover my larger sketch book another time.

Celebrating a Friend’s Engagement

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How could you not have fun with a bunch of girlfriends at a cooking class and then karaoke in a private room belting out hits from the 1980’s? There were plenty of treats for us at dinner, and unfortunately, I didn’t make time to bake up a batch of cookies to share. (I really wanted to.)

I did make this card for my friend.

Borrowing a line from a Las Vegas commercial, I wrote this in the card, “What happens at the bachelorette party, stays with the bachelorette party.” So with that, I won’t go much into the weekend details (no big debauchery, really), but I’ll say it was so much fun spending time with the ladies. I will share how to make the card!

What you need:

  • The Bad Girl’s stamp kit by Chronicle Books
  • 6″ x 6″ card – white cardstock
  • Two or three coordinating colors in acrylic paint – I used Lumiere paint to coordinate with the bride’s invitation. Feel free to experiment with other colors!
  • Black embossing powder
  • Miscellaneous supplies: paint brush, ink pad, and heat gun
  • I’m assuming there is general knowledge about embossing and rubber stamping… basic techniques can be found by searching for “rubber stamping basic embossing technique“.
  1. If you need guidelines, then use your ruler and lightly pencil out a grid, evenly dividing the card into 16 spaces. I did not do this… just eyeballed the spacing to give it a handcrafted feel.
  2. I then took drops of each color and placed on a foam plate (palette) to mix the colors a bit. This is all very free-range art; mix as much or as little as you want. I like it lightly mixed so you can still see different colors.
  3. Paint 16 squares on your card front, preferably free hand. The squares don’t have to be perfect. Let dry.
  4. When paint is dry, stamp your images within the square. Again, I went for a freehand look and did not align the images in a certain orientation. Off-center is fun and quirky!
  5. NOTE: I stamped four images and then dusted with embossing powder.
  6. Once your card is all dusted with embossing powder and you’ve tapped off the excess, turn up your heat gun and make some embossing magic!

Voila! It’s done and ready for your personal note for your bride-to-be pal.

Hello and Thanks

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I feel remiss in saying hello to anyone who is new to my site especially via Craft Critique, Blog Frog and Top Mommy Blogs! Thank you for taking time to come by and reading ramblings about my crafty-foodie life which often involves my family. Having the site for 1-1/2 years now, it’s still surreal to believe there are readers who visit regularly or whenever time allows. It’s nice to know that I’ve helped or inspired others to do something different, something new. The crafting and cooking will return soon…

It's the simplicity I envy sometimes

I’m feeling a little introspective lately. Like everyone else, just lots of things going on with family and life, but things are under control. I mean really, I have a great family life and I’m finally exploring the artistic side of me which before, I hardly had time. At least now, I sneak it in once in a while: a late night, drawing or sketching in the car while waiting in the school pick-up line.  I often wonder if my daughter remembers I used to work outside the house and I used to take her to the office with me. Or is this the me she sees now: mom, wife, personal secretary, chauffeur, cook, launderer, housekeeper, etc. I want to make sure my kids know I love them, want to set a good example, teach them life skills. We all do the best we can.

I think I just get run down with the parenting-homekeeping part of me, so it was great timing that a friend of ours managed to arrange two tickets to The Oprah Winfrey Show! How surreal is that? I ended up going by myself because Eastman had a prior school event – out of town, even. And, while there was the “extra” ticket, how could I possible pick one friend to come along? How do you pick? I didn’t. It’s almost impossible. How does that Petula Clark song go *grin*?

Like a good audience member, in accordance to the “guest contract” I signed at Harpo Studios, I won’t blog about the program I saw (it was the Dolly Parton/Kenny Rogers show, by the way – aired last Friday), but I can certainly document my journey there. It was really refreshing to have some time for myself…

I had a chance to forget all my troubles, forget all my cares… downtown.

(Thanks, Darwin! Thanks, East!)

Gotta Get Outside

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I’ve learned from working in construction that there are really only two seasons in Chicago: coming out of winter and going into winter. Sometimes there is an in-between, and that’s when everyone runs outside. We’ve been spending some time outside in our backyard. I’m so excited the plants are coming up after last year’s late season planting especially the brunella (Jack Frost), the garlic and some ferns that were transplanted from Oak Park to a far west suburb and then to our home. You’ll see the ferns have grown a lot in just a few weeks!

(click on the pictures to zoom in)

The shrubs are looking a little lopsided, hopefully after some pruning and warmer temperatures, they’ll bounce back. I’m slightly worried about them. I planted some lettuce and spinach in “the farm”, but I’m afraid it’s late in the season. They’re sprouting now, as of this post, so we’ll see what happens. Saturday, chicken wire was added to help deter the rabbits. I’m looking to add some marigolds soon…along the perimeter of the kitchen garden.

This week is starting out a little damp and cloudy, but by the weekend, I should have some warmth to do more outside. Right now, I have a leak somewhere in the roof to take care of, too. Grrr!

Personal DNA

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Another one of those weeks where I’m catching up on chores, writing, reading, crafting, mothering… I wanted to take a break and thought to share this personality quiz. I used to take a bunch of these in high school and college. Now that I think about it, why did I keep taking these quizzes? Is that was girls do? My daughter has two quiz books from American Girl… we start so young, don’t we? I’m not sure what I was looking for then. Maybe it was some insight into the person I was versus the person I wanted to be. Maybe, back then, it was to confirm that I was the right girl for my crush-of-the-month.

Well, this quiz assessed me (now) as a Dynamic Inventor. Figures, hehe.

My personalDNA Report

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