so many pouches, of course

So Ashley has a sandwich pouch. You know, a reusable sandwich wrapper.  So we had to craft some up for the rest of us.  How do you do it?

Well you need a piece of fabric and a piece of liner.  The fabric can be anything, but should be cut to about a 12-14 inch square.  The liner should be plastic, but the thinner the better.  Remember this will keep all those good sandwich juices in the wrap, and make for easy cleanup.  Oh, also cut it to the same sized square as your fabric.

I went with red seersucker and a ladybug plastic.  Because it's so cute. Take your two pieces of fabric and fold it in half twice so you have a smaller square and then cut off the corner, just a couple of inches so that when you unfold it, it looks like this:

Check plus.  Now pin it up, right-side out.  Take it to the machine and sew it up all around, like so:

Then grab those pinking shears and trim it up:

Oh yeah and then when that is all said and done sew some velcro on - one piece on the inside and one on the outside, across from each other.  

 

And now you are ready to throw a sandwich in there and wrap it up!

Yeah, Shira got the pink one and Casey got the dinosaurs, obvi. 

xoxo

rant/rave: a bite of the past

So this picture is quite old, like from last spring.  It was taken when Magnum bars made their American debut. 

This is the double caramel.  What does that mean? Well it means that there is an ice cream bar, covered in chocolate coating, dipped in caramel, and then covered in chocolate coating again.

Yes, it sounds ridiculous. And it is. But back in my italy days we ate them all the time...Well i'll be honest, I ate them all the time, everyone else ate them occasionally.  But hey, you walk everywhere when you live in europe so it was fine.  Those were good times. 

And until reunion #2 can happen, magnum bars will have to suffice as a trip down memory lane.

xoxo

stamp-tastic

Why is this awesome chair stamp a 4 cent stamp?

When am I ever again going to need it (again)? It's just not fair to keep such a pretty stamp to such a silly value. These are some serious letter writer problems. 

But more importantly, do you know about the letter writers alliance? Because you should. Get inspired to write a few more, or just look at some of the pretty stamps and envelopes. 

xoxo

NYE Fun...

Means - ladies, wine, champagne, snacks, and chocolate...

and braids?

What the cool kids did:

xoxo

um or yum?

I saw these in a magazine:

Really they could be called candy cane or just red and white glass earrings but the claim of bacon makes them more interesting.

Not sure how I feel about them no matter the food they claim to represent.

xoxo

triple word for the win

I saw these scrabble coasters, on pinterest of course. I made them for my sister for Christmas, since we have spent many heated nights playing the game. 

Don't tell her but they were super easy to make. 

You just need scrabble tiles, modge podge, and cork board.

I of course always have a hearty supply of modge podge, so no worries there, as for the cork, I found some of the thick stuff on sale at staples and went to target for the scrabble game.  I'm still not sure what to do with the board now though...

So what do you do? Well you lay the tiles out on the cork, modge podge them down and then modge podge the tops with about four coats for a good seal.  

(The original source above as a step by step tutorial)

The only difficult part about this project is getting as many words as you can on a coaster. 

Casi says she has yet to find them all, but I have faith in her. Family favorite qat of course made the list as well as other Casi favorites. I wonder if she has figured out what the blanks are yet...

ps. they are resting on the amazing pantone book Ashbash got me for Christmas!

xoxo

rant/rave: a habit I can't afford

It's been awhile... no not that song, just since I've done a rant/rave. But school is back so these are too.

Starbucks. Yup we love it and hate it all in one breath. 

Why do we love it? Because we can get all the fancy caffeine we want, whenever we want.

Why do we hate it? Corporate America making us want to pay 5 dollars for a cup of coffee?? Ridiculous.

Yup. It's a problem. One that I indulge some times, along with a treat of course. But as a grad student, it's an expensive habit, so one I'm hoping to cut this year. Yeah it's not a resolution because I don't do those, just a task on the to do list.

Stay caffeinated team.

xoxo

food lately: recent fare

Some things I've been eating lately: 

My love of vegetable cakes should be obvious by now, so zucchini and potato pancakes with apple sauce is just another tasty lunch for me. 

Bean Chili and Cornbread for a warm lunch at school.

Homemade grilled cheese with leftover sweet potato fries from tylers. 

I love my corncakes from El Torito so I made some. I just halved my usual cornbread recipe but used a full 1/4 cup of oil and a can of cream style corn. And paired it with some spicy black beans and tomato-avocado salad. 

 

Oh and I had some pretzel rolls from guglhupf so i had one with some prosciutto,cheddar, and apple

And later with a prosciutto and sun-dried tomato omelette. 

 

That went along with some more apple, and potato pancakes.

Eat up!

xoxo

always for the man

Isn't it cute?

At banana republic, but in the boys section, and too big for my wrist.

Terrible.

Oh and the nail polish is OPI William Tell, a dark plum that I love.

xoxo

some food for thought in la

There was lots of good food at home, no surprise there.

Mom and I had brunch at the Dish, one of the best places to have breakfast in LA.

I had the banana pancakes, with banana cream.

The ladies and I enjoyed some mimosas while watching the Rose Parade. Always a winner in pasadena

Nelson and I had lunch at Carmines, amazing italian. 

Nothing like fried mozzarella and a meatball sub to get you through an 80 degree day in december... 

oh sorry.

 

Oh yeah and then he took me to the fair oaks pharmacy and soda fountain for some to die for ice cream. Absolutely amazing. The brownie sundae with strawberry ice cream:

Oh and the last time I was in town, over Thanksgiving, Nelson and I went to Il Fornaio and had the dessert plate. Also spectacular.

I sure do love food.

xoxo

heaven in a bite

I had a craving for some caprese salad. So on my last grocery store run I picked up the needed supplies and got to work.  

I started with some olive oil and balsamic on the bottom

Layered on some good mozzarella cheese and basil

and then tomatoes, pepper, and salt

But then I was thinking, this isn't going to keep me full, so I thought I'd fry up a couple of eggs to go along with it, over medium of course.

And then I thought, why not just put those puppies on top of my caprese salad? A fried egg makes everything better, so Ashbash says at least. 

And it was absolutely amazing

Every bite was so good; the yoke wiggled with the olive oil and balsamic to make a delicious dressing and warmed up the cheese. 

I could seriously eat this every day.

Obsessed. 

xoxo

oh yeah, this one too

For Lyle's party we went out to parlour room. I like it there, so I had to have a good braid.

I went with a three way:

I started with taking one half of a front chunk and did a simple small braid and clipped it off, this would end up being pulled behind.

Then I took the opposite side front chunk and did a frenchie and tied it off. 

Finally, I grabbed all of it and did a fishtail on the side with the french braid, having the simple braid in the back.

 

Pretty fancypants in the end. And I liked it.

xoxo.

red white and bluezz

Mom, Raf, and I went to a bar in pasadena, red, white, and bluezz. We've been there before and continue to have a lovely time.

This time we munched on pre-dinner treats of sweet potato fries and a 'ham and cheese plate, so delicious.

 

We of course also had cocktails, but mom's was the star:

It was tequila, orange juice, jalapeno, lime, maple syrup, and basil.

Absolutely divine.  Still have to try and recreate it...

xoxo

a new but classic guest to this party

So green bean casserole usually doesn't happen in our house.  

But I decided to try it out, with some twists of course.

I started with an onion and started to saute it.  Then I added some chopped mushrooms, both baby portobello and shiitake. 

 

After it had started to get brown and delicious I added some seasonings: nutmeg, garlic and onion powder, cayenne, and salt and pepper

Next up I added some spinach, boom!

And then I chopped up some green beans and added those

 

Then it was time to make a little roux - 2 Tablespoons butter and flour

 

After it had all cooked for about a minute I added some milk, about a cup, and some gruyere 

 

I let that all thicken up and divided it up into a greased muffin tin

And then topped it with some more cheese and some puff pastry, adorable

They came out looking good and were tasty, but I'm not sure on an ideal presentation of such a dish...

xoxo