Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Thoughts on pasta.....

The "crud" has hit our house and is making its rounds, so productivity is more or less out the window.  I HAVE managed to get the ruffle onto my girl's skirt for her banquet.  Cuteness!  She has a petticoat with a white circle skirt trimmed with a 30 foot pink gingham ruffle.  The pink gingham sash is coming.....I just haven't made it that far yet.  As a matter of fact, I was in bed last night by 7:00.  Sheesh.

So, since I feel like I have been run over by a Mack truck and since I am not being very productive I will share what Santa brought me for Christmas.  I got a pasta attachment for my Kitchenaid stand mixer!  

Not long after Christmas I watched some youtube tutorials on how to use the thing and immediately cranked out some garlic fettuccine!  



I used that pasta to make some chicken alfredo and it was delicious!  We also had enough that we were able to share :)


Next I decided to make some spinach pasta, and the batch of pasta was so much that I had filled up my pasta rack and was out of room.  At that point, I decided I would just make lasanga noodles.



I learned something very important with this batch of pasta..... The lasagna noodles needed to be on a piece of screen or something similar in order to dry evenly.  Otherwise, they just dry on one side and they curl up, which makes it a pain to try and store a bunch of curled up noodles.  

Out of that batch of pasta I had enough that we have had two meals with the noodles - one with marinara and one with a cream sauce, a pan of lasagna, a pan of lasagna in the freezer, noodles still in the pantry and I have even given some away.

Now here let me state that I use that Kitchenaid almost daily and it is well worth every dime that they cost and I would cry for a month if anything ever happened to it, because it is my best friend and assists me in bringing culinary joy to my household, which makes me happy.  Me and the Kitchenaid are tight.  We are buddies.

However, as expensive as the pasta attachments are.....and they are incredibly expensive.... how many meals or batches of pasta does it take before it pays for itself considering a pack of spaghetti is only a buck or so?

I think if we went to the Macaroni Grill (or that other "Italian" place with the olives that has HORRIBLE  food but tasty salad and breadsticks) we would probably spend anywhere from $50 - $80 ish dollars on a meal dining out with our family.  (Or maybe more than that? - I don't dine out much.)  So if I think in those terms as opposed to the actual cost of buying pasta at the grocery store I suppose it may have already paid for itself?


Now if I could just find out how to grind my own flour.............

Yours Truly,
Coughing and Hacking and needing desperately to finish my sewing before the banquet next weekend and tired of being loopy from all the cold medicine -----

XOXOXO
~~Gena







Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Some January sewing :)

It isn't often that my office is closed, but since it is near the end of deer season, my attorney employer decided that MLK Day was a good day for him to hunt, since the Courthouse was closed anyway.  I hunted too, but the only movement that I saw in the woods was the family of squirrels doing zumba beneath my shooting house. Ha!

But before I went hunting, I decided to do some sewing.

And let me state here that I had previously made the decision to participate in the Swoon Along.....

But before I could start another project, I knew I HAD to finish something I had going otherwise my fabulous most amazing, sweet husband would say something about me never finishing a project before I start a new one and so on and so forth and I knew he would be right and I just couldn't let THAT happen!

So - I decided to finish something so I could Swoon :)

(And let me apologize for the poor quality pictures.  I took these with my cell phone.)

I have been working on this off and on for a while.  It is a terrible wonky mess and has LOTS of mistakes, but generally I am okay with it because I learned a lot about what NOT to do when you are making it up as you go (and why you might should write stuff down if you work on it and leave it alone for a while):



I have all kinds of seams that don't match and had to add sashing because I was way off, blah blah blah.

I am going to add 18" of white all the way around so it will be a full queen size for the bed.

This is going to be the backing:


The picture has a funky hue to it, but it is just the lovely glow of the indoor lighting.  I love the farm print.  It is perfect.


I am going to send it to the quilter just because I have no desire to quilt a queen size quilt on my Singer and because she will probably get a kick out of trying to straight line quilt something that doesn't have matching seams.  And because I have no desire to attempt straight line quilting on something that doesn't have matching seams and because the quilter probably needs a challenge like that. :)

And I have throw pillows forming in my head with some coordinating fabric and some AB Temple Tulips.  Aaaah.

And now that I have that out of the way......




Hope Valley for the Swoon Along!

YAY!!!

And I have some County Fair that I bought for $3.49/yd that I will be using for the backing.  YAY!


I am also working on clothes for the Valentine Banquet.... Hannah will be in ice cream white and pink gingham.  I will be all decked out in sparkly black tulle in a skirt inspired from the Tinseltown line from the Shabby Apple website and courtesy of a 50% off deal and Joann gift card I received for Christmas.   I will post pics of those projects once I get them finished.

Here is the inspiration for my get up:



I ordered my red gloves this morning :)

xoxoxo
~~ Gena









Thursday, January 12, 2012

SWOON ALONG!

I suppose I am a glutton for punishment....


But I have all this fabric that needs cutting up into pieces......



Fingers crossed that I can pull this off and finally do something with all that Innocent Crush that I have been hoarding stashing.

 :)

xoxoxo

~~Gena