f u l f i l l m e

I don't remember when I made this so I'm posting to today. It was actually pretty good. I served with with shrimp and linguine.

( Herb Non-dairy cream sauce )
Alterations:
- Used real butter
- Added cayenne pepper
- Used hand blender
- Used Spike's no salt herb & spice blend, though original recipe says to use the one with salt

This dish was just okay, and I don't think it will do too well for leftovers. I think it would be better with chicken, though I doubt I will make the recipe again. I wasn't in a measuring mood tonight, so I didn't measure anything on either of these recipes.

I don't think I posted the recipe last time I made these portobello mushroom fries, so I posted it below.

( Mexican Baked Fish )

( Portobello mushroom fries )
Notes:
I made things difficult for myself by buying precut mushrooms. Because they were cut, scraping the gills off the undersides of the caps was difficult without breaking them. I also didn't do the grilling step so I had to leave them on the fry pan for longer; that didn't really work out because they got too dark before they were done. I'm surprised I tried this recipe again since it gave me a hard time last time, but they are pretty tasty, even if I can't seem to get them just right.

Winged it on this one. A bit of vegan mayo, a ton of cheddar, some cayenne on garlic bread fried in a bit of butter. With frozen TJ fries.

This recipe is actually for macaroni and cheese with chicken meatballs, but I didn't want to make the mac n cheese. The meatballs were really good, and I don't even like meatballs that much ~_^

The mini-pita pocket idea isn't mine. I saw it online somewhere, but I can't remember whose site it was. My apologies to the creator, and if you see this, let me know it was you so I can post credit to you.

Click here for the bento version.

( Chicken Meatballs )

So my bf helped me make a dress form of myself. We'll probably do the stand next weekend. We don't have the right tools.

So far it has helped with the shirt I'm trying to make myself out of bamboo fabric. The form looks bigger than I am, but it's still better than a store bought dress form, and with the stand, it only cost me about $30 plus an old tshirt.

I made this pasta quickly when we discovered we hadn't made enough leftovers from dinner. I don't remember what we put in it aside from Italian seasoning and cayenne pepper. It was good but I forgot to bring cheese T_T

I sewed a new case for my crochet stuff this morning. The design was inspired by crochet hook and sewing organizers I saw in BlueBananaShop on Etsy.

I'm pleased with how the front turned out. My sister helped me design the front and choose the fabric for it, so a big thanks to her. I'm not pleased with my sewing, though. I'm not going to point out specifics, but I'm at least getting better.

This is the case open.


Notes:

• I was planning to store the hooks left to right, smallest to largest, but I didn't realize the pocket was too tall for the smaller hooks until after I had sewn the section between the smaller and hook pockets to the backing. Adapt.
  
• The larger hooks stick out from the top of the case; one of the reasons I wanted to make a new one was because my big hooks were too tall for my other case. Fortunately, when this case is closed, you can't really see that they stick out.
  
• The smaller pocket for my stitch markers and yarn needles is too loose. The first case I made had a pocket that was somehow perfectly sized for the plastic stitch marker case, but this is less fitted for it, so the plastic case falls out willy-nilly.
  

You'd think this case would have been easier to make since I've already made one, but what's funny is, this case was more difficult because I had to make sure everything fit. The pockets of the first case were just estimated because I didn't have certain hook sizes or stitch markers. When I eventually bought those things, they just happened to fit.

I got this pattern from the label of some yarn I bought. It turned out considerably smaller than it was supposed to because I used a 4.25mm hook instead of a 4.5mm hook. I could not find a 4.5mm hook at Jo-Ann Fabrics and wanted to start right away, so I didn't bother looking elsewhere. In retrospect, I should have gone a size up, but all I had was 5.00mm and I was afraid that would be too big. Well, now I know.

I took it to the grocery store for the first time today and used it for produce. It did pretty well, though it was a bit small.




Click here for the pattern page at Bernat.

Chicken tortilla soup. I made it Sunday night for my parents for the first time. They liked it =)

Click here for the recipe.

This one is salami. Yum!

Today I just brought sandwich stuff and put it together at work. I know it just looks like a bunch of lettuce, but the lettuce is hiding everything else.

Packing lunch is a little trickier now that I have to worry about the size of my containers.

I've been eating nachos from leftover taco meat for a while. Tomorrow is my one week cutoff day for leftovers, so I might as well toss the rest of it tonight. And the guac too, cause it's not that good. I bought really good guac for game day, though I didn't take pictures of it since it was store-bought. So now I have to figure out which brand it was. Doh.

This is the bento I assembled from the shrimp scampi dinner I cooked. Chocolate Silk is in the drink container, and the second L&L contains dried apricots and mango, and in the middle is trail mix with raisins, nuts, chocolate and peanut butter chips.

( Shrimp Scampi )
Alterations:
- Added double the amount of red chili flakes
- Used linguine instead of angel hair
- Omitted dry white wine (no replacement)
- Minced and peeled garlic

Notes:
Next time I won't be so liberal with the parsley.

My bf bought these tea flowers with the cup and saucer set for me some time ago and I never got around to taking pictures. It's delicious tea from Adagio, and if you use that link, you'll get 5% off your purchase. I don't know how long the promotion is going though.

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Since this is the third time within two weeks that I have made this cake, I decided to just post a pic of the Alton Brown double boiler method for melting the chocolate and butter. It's basically a glass mixing bowl over a sauce pan of hot water. Mr. Brown used a stainless steel mixing bowl, but I gave mine to my sister, so I just used what I have. The method works well and saves money and space that an actual double boiler would have taken.