halfway there!

I am halfway to my goal of 8 pillows for my October 1st shop launch with 9 days left.  Not bad, not bad.  I have some unexpected time off this week, so I'm hoping to get a good amount of sewing done in these next few days while I try not to go too stir crazy.  I haven't taken too many pictures of the process - part of me wants to just show them all at once.  Here's a very unglamorous webcam photo of me hard at work on my couch (next to a large stack of library books - typical):

I'm getting faster and faster at stitching and it kind of amazes me how quickly I took to all of this.  Getting disinterested quickly and abandoning projects is pretty much my M.O.  Just recently I gave up on knitting before I even started once I realized how much math was involved.  Ick.

I went this weekend and indulged in some unnecessary but helpful sewing goods.  I decided it would be a good idea to purchase a pin cushion, so I could stop sticking the needles in my couch while I sewed.  I also picked up a thimble so I could stop sticking them in my finger.  Does anyone know why pin cushions are so often in the shape of a tomato?

While home from work today (after hours of lying in bed reading magazines and eating English muffins) I pulled out my gear, sat in a warm patch of sunlight and finished a new style.  The varied nature the vintage doilies means that I can mix and match styles on the current size offering of pillow (16x16").  I decided to get a little adventurous and try two different sizes and colors on one.  I liked how it turned out, and it looks a lot different than the other pillows.

lemon picnic cake

Summer is winding down; temperatures have dropped dramatically literally overnight, leaves are starting to fall, and I am getting back into the cooking/baking mood.  This is good news for my blog; probably not so good news for my waistline.  I had just finished reading The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake and it inspired me to make a lemon cake as one last hurrah for summertime.


This cake is more of an understated lemon cake rather than having in-your-face flavor like your average lemon box mix.  The batter only has a hint of lemon (creating more of a pound cake flavor) and most of the zing lives in the glaze.



Lemon Picnic Cake
recipe adapted from Mom

Cake Ingredients:

• 4 large eggs, separated
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 cup milk (I used skim)
• 2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Glaze Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon grated lemon peel

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350. Separate egg whites into small bowl.  Beat egg whites at high speed, scraping bowl often, just until stiff peaks form, 2-3 minutes. Set aside.
2. Combine the 2 cups sugar and 1 cup butter, beat at medium speed until creamy. Add egg yolks, continue beating until creamy.   
3. Mix together the flour and baking powder, reduce speed to low and gradually adding flour mixture alternately with milk to butter mixture, until well blended. Add lemon peel, lemon juice and vanilla.  
4. Continue beating until well mixed.  By hand gently, fold in the egg whites.   
5. Pour batter into greased and floured 12 cup bundt or 10 inch tube pan. Bake for 50-65 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

   

For glaze:

In a 1 quart saucepan stir together all glaze ingredients. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until sugar is dissolved, about 3-4 minutes.   With chopstick, poke holes in top of cake; pour glaze over cake, letting glaze seep down into the cake through the holes.  Cool 15 minutes, remove from pan.

Hello!  I am not very good at these introductory posts, but I suppose I can tell you a little about myself.  My name is Kelly Burgess, I am 25, and live in Arlington, Massachusetts.  I moved to a one bedroom apartment this summer after living in a studio for a year and now actually have room to decorate and put furniture.  I decided to start making pillows one day because I couldn't find any online that were my style and that would go with my new couch.  I don't find myself to be particularly crafty (most of my endeavors into the craft world get abandoned before they even get off the ground) but I always wish that I did something with my hands.  I would categorize myself as a photographer first and foremost, but I also make forays into web design, book making, and make feeble attempts at cooking.

I've been working hard this month trying to get everything ready.  I'm hoping to launch by the end of this month if everything goes according to plan.  I have a domain, set up the shop, and have the blog in place.  Supplies have been purchased and I'm on my way.

So here's a finished product and what you can expect once I get the shop up and running:

The first step was to clean the vintage doilies.  I let them soak for a while in my kitchen sink and now they are clean and don't smell like grandmas.

I've even started making tags to attach to the pillows for when I send them out.  I don't have a dedicated craft area yet, so I've been working at my coffee table.  I'm very excited to get this off the ground, so stay tuned for more updates.

blackberry cobbler

I had two goals for the summer: ride the swan boats in Boston Common, and make a pie.  To the surprise of no one, I have not accomplished either one of those goals.  I guess I technically have until September 23rd (the first day of autumn), but the outlook isn't good.  I see it being much more likely that I'll end up making an apple pie once apple picking season starts.  I've also been trying to go to the swan boats for the past five years and I just never quite make it there.  C'est la vie.

While my pie baking goal sucked a big one, I did manage to make a cobbler!  This was both the first cobbler I had ever made and the first cobbler I had ever eaten.  I know.

A couple of years ago I went to Maine with T. and his family.  On the way to their summer house (mmhm, I hate them, too) we stopped at a little roadside shack and purchased a blackberry pie from a little old lady.  I was in love.  I ate that pie for breakfast the next morning with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream.  I've been dreaming of it ever since.

I decided that I'd try my hand at making something with blackberries while they were still on sale.  I purchased some, let them mold on my kitchen table, and then bought more.  All in all, this stupid cobbler cost me about $20.  I was determined.

Blackberry Cobbler
recipe adapted from Simply Recipes

Berry mixture:

• 4 cups blackberries, rinsed clean
• 1/2 cup sugar (less or more to taste, depends on how sweet the berries are and how sweet you would like your cobbler to be)
• 1 tsp lemon juice *
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 1/2 Tbsp cornstarch (for thickening)

* I found that it was much too sour with the lemon zest and lemon juice, so I would reduce the amount of lemon juice involved.

Cobbler topping:

• 3 Tbsp sugar
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 4 Tbsp butter
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 egg, lightly beaten

Place berries, sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon, and cornstarch in a 9x9 casserole dish. Stir to coat the berries evenly with the sugar. Let sit for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°F. In a medium sized bowl, whisk together 3 tablespoons of sugar, the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cut the butter in with a pastry blender or fork (or even your fingers) until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Use a wooden spoon to stir in the egg and milk until the batter is just moistened.

Taking large spoonfuls, drop the batter mixture over the berries. Place in the oven and bake for 30 minutes or until the berry mixture is bubbly and the topping is nicely browned.

oven-fried chicken tenders

It's been... a while.  I wish I could say that I've been cooking up a storm in my new kitchen, but cereal and pasta have been my good friends lately.  I finally dragged myself out of my non-eating stupor this month and decided I'd actually make dinner... a few weeks ago (I'm sorry).  I scoured my recipes for something quick, simple, and non-offensive.  I came up with oven fried chicken tenders.

This recipe once again called for panko-style bread crumbs and I finally bit the bullet and picked some up at the store.  I am glad that I did.  They stayed crispy where normal bread crumbs would have gotten soggy and gross.  I still haven't mastered the wet-hand, dry-hand method and ended up with club fingers while attempting to bread each chicken strip.

These turned out a little bland - I bought plain style bread crumbs and didn't add a great deal of seasoning.  I think that next time, I would add some herbs and spices to jazz things up a little bit.

Oven Fried Chicken Tenders
recipe from Taste & Tell

• 1.25 pounds chicken tenders or chicken breasts, cut into strips
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1 cup panko bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper
• cooking spray

Preheat the oven to 425F.  Line a baking sheet with foil, then put a baking rack on top.  Spray the baking rack with cooking spray.

In one shallow dish, place the flour.  In a second shallow dish, mix the egg and the water.  In a third shallow dish, place the panko bread crumbs, the Parmesan and salt and pepper.

Dip each chicken strip into the flour, then the egg mixture, then the bread crumb mixture.  Place on the cooling rack.  Spray lightly with cooking spray. (This is where the one dry hand and one wet hand method comes in handy...)

Bake in the preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes or until no longer pink and the coating is golden brown.

mint birthday cake

Well, I'm all moved in and as settled into my new apartment as I am going to get.  The kitchen is a lot bigger, but I haven't really taken much advantage of it since moving in.  I'm still eating mostly cereals and pastas because I am terrible.

I did, however, get my act together enough to whip up a special birthday cake.  The birthday boy in question is fond of chocolate and mint, so I scoured the internet to try to find a mint chocolate cake.  I never really found anything that was close to what I was looking for, so I combined several recipes into one to suit my needs.

I wasn't quite ready to try my hand at making a cake from scratch, so I went looking for a boxed chocolate cake mix.  I ended up with Devil's Food because stores don't seem to sell just "chocolate cake" mix any longer.  I think in the future, I would pick something that was more chocolatey, like chocolate fudge cake.

I followed the directions on the box and made two round nine inch layers.  During the mixing process, I added a tiny bit (maybe half a teaspoon) of peppermint extract because I was worried that the frosting wouldn't be minty enough, but this turned out to be unnecessary and I would actually advise against it, especially if using the devil's food flavored cake.  It wasn't bad tasting, I just think it would have been better and more subtle without the extra mint flavoring.

To go between the two layers, I made my own mint frosting.

Mint Frosting
- 1 stick of butter (8 tablespoons), softened
- 2 cups confectioner's sugar
- 1 teaspoon peppermint extract
- 1 tablespoon water *

Mix all ingredients in a bowl and beat until whipped and fluffy.
* I found that 1 tablespoon of water was not nearly enough and butter/sugar was flying everywhere when I was using my hand mixer.  I poured in more water until it softened everything up and created a frosting-like consistency while I was blending.

After spreading that on top of the bottom layer, I placed the top layer on it and used a serrated knife to level the cake.  I chose just a plain chocolate frosting to go over the cake and then decorated it with some white piping.  It wasn't quite as tasty as a thin mint, but it was well-received and a good starting point if I wanted to improve upon the recipe in the future.

I ended up having to freeze a good portion of this cake.  I cut into slices, put each slice in the freezer for about 10-15 minutes or just long enough to harden the frosting, and then wrapped each slice first in plastic wrap and then aluminum foil before throwing them in a Zip-Lock bag.  Here's hoping it keeps well.

hiatus

I'm moving on the 11th.  Until then, it is highly unlikely that I will make any food. Come back after I'm all settled.

Bertucci's olive oil

My motivation to cook anything has hit an all-time low lately.  I haven't really been eating anything besides pasta for dinner.  With an impending move in the works, I will also have to start the process of eating whatever food I have left in my apartment so that I don't have to move it.  I foresee a lot of rice in my near future.

This weekend, I went to Bertucci's for dinner.  I will be feasting on the leftover pizza for the next few days (since I somehow ended up with almost an entire large pizza given to me... ahem) and found one of their free rolls in the box of pizza.  I, presumably like most people eating at Bertucci's, enjoy their rolls quite a bit.  Even more, I like the olive oil that they bring along with it.

Image from This Is Framingham

Over the past few years, I've purchased several brands of "garlic infused olive oil" in the hopes of recreating the experience at home.  Last night, I gave making my own a whirl to make the idea of eating a cold and slightly stale roll slightly more appealing.  Luckily (or perhaps unfortunately, as this does not make for a particularly entertaining read), mixing up an olive oil requires nothing that can burn or cut me.  It turned out surprisingly well and I think I'll be heading off to the grocery store during my lunch break this afternoon to pick up some rolls to go along with my rice for dinner.


Garlic Olive Oil
I didn't measure anything, so all seasonings are to taste
- extra virgin olive oil
- garlic powder
- garlic salt (Whole Foods makes a really tasty one with sea salt)
- red pepper flakes
- Parmesan cheese

Place olive oil in a bowl.  Mix in the above ingredients.  I was surprised at how the olive oil took to the garlic powder.  A+.

betty crocker

I mostly save my cake eating for birthdays.  Occasionally, I will bake cupcakes.  I bought cake tins a few years ago and, like most of my kitchen gadgets, have only been used two or three times.  Mostly for birthdays and once for those Pillsbury cinnamon buns that come in the vacuum-sealed tube.  Like my favorite homemade coffee cake, I seem to only feel comfortable making and eating cake for some sort of holiday or celebration.  Sometimes, however, I just feel like eating a cake.


I am not yet as skilled (read: motivated) as to bake a cake from scratch and Betty Crocker cake mix was on sale at Target for $1.  I bought a gold cake mix and a tub of chocolate frosting (a departure from my usual buttercream/cream cheese frosting fixation).  I made a point not to buy the whipped frosting, as it is the same price for frosting that has been injected and whipped with air.  So far, everything is going smoothly.

Once home, I place the ingredients and all needed out on my butcher block.  I set out my cake pans and poured the cake batter into them.  So far, so good.  I run into a little trouble when I realize both cake tins can't fit completely flat in my miniature oven, but that's okay.  I make do.  My kitchen timer goes off and I take the pans out of the oven to cool.  Everything looks fine.  After a while, I remember that I have cake cooking and try to get them out of the pans.

I was fooled by Wilson's.  Non-stick nonsense.  I run a knife along the edges and assume the cakes will flop out like usual.  Instead, the cake does not budge.  I slide my hands gently under the cakes, prying them away from the bottom of the pans.  The first one crumbles, but I figure I will just stick that one at the bottom and we'll be none the wiser.  We'll just cover that bad boy in frosting.

I take the frosting from the shopping bag and am alarmed at how light the canister is.  I take a look at the label.  Whipped!  How did that happen?!  I angrily throw it in the microwave and smear it cover my broken cake bits.  Now comes the top layer.

 This doesn't go much better.  I think this picture pretty much sums it up:

I try to patch it up by using frosting as an adhesive.  It looks kind of okay at this point.  I go to cut a piece later in the evening and the entire thing crumbles to bits.

Just so this entry isn't so depressing; here's a completely normal looking cake that my sister made for my dad's birthday:

chicken

It should be pretty apparent by now that I am a fairly lazy individual.  I'd be totally satisfied eating frozen food every day and, frankly, I'm completely surprised that I'm still attempting to make my own food.  I had sort of assumed that this project would fall by the wayside shortly after I started it.  Sure, I haven't been the best at making a new recipe every week (or even making anything at all some weeks) but just the fact that I'm still going with this and have become more adventurous with food has been a source of pride for me.

That said, there are some things I just can't get behind.  Making your own mayonnaise, homemade bread (I am sure this is delicious but it seems like a lot of work.  You know what's good?  Bread from the store bakery.  It's only like $3 and costs me 0 hours of time.), and roasting your own chickens.

I love roasted chicken.  It was one of my favorite meals when I lived at my parents' house and it seemed like we had it once a week for a while.  I spent the first three years of living on my own without any roasted chicken in my life.  I had a roasting pan, but no drive to do anything with it.  I finally gave up and got rid of the roasting pan when I moved into my current apartment and it wasn't until last year that I realized that those rotisserie chickens from the grocery store are a god-send.  They are tasty, versatile, require minimal effort, and feed me for days.  This is made even sweeter by the fact that they are only $5 on Fridays at Stop & Shop.  Even so, a rotisserie chicken costs, what, $6-7?  You know what else costs $6-7?  A raw chicken that you then have to cook yourself.  I don't really get off on crafting the perfect rub of herb and spices for my chicken and so the "all natural" flavor works just fine.  It's flexible in the sense that I can then take pieces of that chicken and make many other dishes with it.

One of my favorite roasted chicken leftovers is chicken salad sandwiches.  I tend to err on the side of easy and bland when I make food, so I'm not even going to bother with a recipe.  I bought a nice baguette from the store, placed leftover chicken on it, slathered it with mayonnaise (I don't even mix it ahead of time now because I don't like how the mayonnaise soaks into the chicken over time) and topped it with a layer of almost but not quite wilted baby spinach.  It's easy enough that I can make it in my zombied before-work daze or throw it together for dinner quickly when I get home from work.