Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Dinner Tonight

Ok, so it was dinner LAST night, but still... It was yummy - had to post!

Ingredients:

3 strips bacon, chopped (already cooked is fine)
2 chicken breasts, sliced into chunks
1/2 onion, chopped (or dried minced works too)
1 good sized bunch rainbow chard, chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped
1 can mushrooms
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk or cream
Garlic
Salt & Pepper
1/2 cup or so of Parmesan cheese
8oz of spaghetti or linguine - hot/freshly cooked

Boil the water for the pasta - and plunk the pasta in!
In a large skillet - fry chopped bacon until crispy - add in the chicken bits and brown up until cooked through.  Add in the onions and garlic, sprinkle with S&P.

Once the chicken and bacon are cooked through, add in the chard, tomatoes and mushrooms.  Toss, mix, stir until chard is wilted and everything is hot - I had a hard time getting everything to stay in the pan - this makes a lot of food!

While the pasta is finishing cooking and the chard and chicken are getting all hot and happy, whisk together 2 eggs and the milk/cream with some S&P.  Drain the pasta and place back in the hot pot.  Toss quickly with the egg mixture until the noodles are well coated and the eggs have cooked on the hot pasta.  Add the pasta/egg mixture to the chicken and veggies, add in the Parmesan cheese and toss together well.

Fleece Pants - TUTORIAL!

My first tutorial on here - yay!!!

Broke out the Ikea fleece blankets that had been used for another project (fleece jackets for the family a few years ago) and decided to make some fleece pants for the kids.  I figured the ruffle/design on the bottom was great instead of a hem.  Cute, quick and easy.  3 pairs cut and 2 finished in the space of 45 minutes (wanted to get to the blog tutorial, so I didn't finish the 3rd pair).

Materials:
1 fleece Ikea blanket - your choice of color!
3/4 inch elastic - approximately 22 inches per pair of pants depending on the waist size
scissors, thread, sewing machine, tape measure

Fold the blanket in half so that both "fancy" edges are lined up with one another and the side edge is straight.  Cut a large rectangle out of both thicknesses of fleece approximately 20-30 inches wide and 20-30 inches tall.  You should measure how long and wide you need the pants to be on the child that you are making these for.  If you are making them for a 18 month old to 3yo, 22-24 inches square should be more than enough.  I made mine 24 wide x 20 tall and they're a bit too big.

Once you have your square of fabric, fold the fabric in half lengthwise so that the "fancy" edge is on the bottom.  You will cut a J out of the side of the fabric approximately 10 inches long by 1 inch deep.

Once you've cut your "J", unfold the rectangle of fabric, keeping the "Js" lined up on each side.  Stitch the two "Js" but not the side seams.

Once the "Js" are stitched, reach in the top of the pants and align the two seams to one another.  Line up the bottom of each leg and stitch one long seam from the end of one leg, to the end of the other leg - this forms the pant legs.

Stitch the waist band casing approximately 1 inch in from the top leaving a space to thread elastic through the casing.
Thread elastic and stitch securely together.  Finish off and stitch closed the elastic casing.  Turn right side in and try 'em on!





They're a bit long, but she'll grow this winter, I'm sure.  Didn't want them to not fit in a month when it's just starting to get cold.  These will also be great when she's much bigger for some nice fleecy shorts :-/

As I mentioned, I got 3 pairs out of one fleece Ikea blanket - one very long pair, this pair and a wider pair.  Two have the fancy edge, the 3rd pair (long pair) is the "middle" of the blanket  folded width wise on top of itself and cut to make 2 rectangles before proceeding with cutting as above.



Tutorial needs some work, I think, but for now, I hope you get the gist of it.  Ask in comments if you have questions.  I'll be posting more soon, I hope!

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

New Dresses



Made 3 dresses in the same style for the girls and I.  The patterns are all basically the same, just in different sizes.  I have yet to get pictures of mine and the 3yos dress, but here's the little one.  Looks good if I do say so myself.  Bonnets to go with them too... More on those later!

Finally another recipe! Yummy Chicken and Veggies

It's been waaaay too long since I've written any blog posts.  Life has been happening.   The cooking goes on.

Made a great recipe last week - had to share, especially after my MIL requested the recipe from me TWICE!

Ingredients:
Chicken Pieces (enough to feed the fam)
1/2 large onion chopped
3-5 carrots, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
flour
butter
2 cups chicken stock (or 2 cups water and 1 bouillon cube)
Oil for the pan

Heat oil in a large dutch oven - brown chicken pieces until nicely browned.  Remove from pan.  Saute vegetables in a little more oil until onion is a bit browned and the other veggies are softened a bit.  Either remove the veggies or just continue on.  Add in ~3Tbsp flour and mix in well to the veggies until all the oil is soaked into the flour and the pot is rather dry.  Then add in the 2 cups of chicken stock (or bouillon and water) whisking as you go to break up lumps until it's a nice smooth sauce.  Add in salt & pepper and any other seasonings now and mix well.  Add the vegetables and chicken back in and simmer on the stove - or in a 350 degree oven - until the chicken is done.

Serve over rice or mashed potatoes would be tasty too.

Feeds 4-6 depending on how much chicken was cooked.