Favorite Recipe Inspiration

I feel like even though I've now organized my recipes, I've been dining out far too much lately. To be fair, my city has some amazing restaurants with great food. This past weekend, friends from out of town visited and it was also my birthday. All great excuses to eat out. 

But in general, I've also just been in a food funk and don't really feel like cooking. (Anyone else out there occasionally have cereal for dinner? Go on, you're in a safe place to confess here.) Oh I've baked a cake here and there -- I just made another orange marmalade poppy seed cake over the weekend -- but one does need a little more sustenance throughout the day than simply flour and sugar.

Plus, since the Sailor is also returning to land soon, I'll need to up my game with planning meals. 

One of my absolute favorite sites for recipe inspiration is Annie's Eats. I've mentioned her blog several times in previous posts. I wrote earlier about her mac and cheese (which is fabulous) and about a month ago I made her drool-worthy cinammon sugar pull-apart bread.

She recently started a new section on her blog called reader love, where one of my pics from Instagram got featured last week. It's been neat to follow her story and passion for cooking over the years. Her photography is also gorgeous and that alone often makes me want to cook whatever I see on there.

I'm also a huge fan of Supercook. Sometimes I have a ton of ingredients on hand, but I'm not sure how to put them together. This site is so handy -- just type in what you have and it gives you a list of what you can make! It has saved me from more than one kitchen disaster. 

Inspiration for gazpacho

What's your go-to plan for recipe inspiration?

Happy International Women's Day!

Until the mid-90s, when I first traveled to Ukraine, I had never even heard of International Women's Day. But there, and in many other countries, it's a celebrated national holiday, in honor of women. It started out in the early 1900s, and has grown since then to become a day to inspire women and to highlight their accomplishments.

What could be better than celebrating the lives and accomplishments of my many fine, fabulous, female friends and family members around the globe, for one special day of the year? Well, by having it on the same day as my birthday, of course! 

I'm sure my mother didn't plan it, but it's super fun to have my birthday coincide with such a neat (and somewhat obscure, depending on where you live) holiday.

This year marks the last one in my third decade. I know many people try to do something special when they actually reach 40, but if the past 39 years have taught me anything, it's to celebrate every day, no matter how old or young you are. Today, I plan to eat my way through a myriad of dishes... bask in the sunshine that's already out... and maybe even buy myself a little something special to mark the past three decades, and to look forward to at least the next six. I might even bake a cake. 

After all, I feel like I get a double dose of a holiday on March 8th, every year.

Happy International Women's Day!

 

 

Knitting WIPs

This week I realized I'm a little behind on keeping you posted on my knitting projects. I've still been knitting (what else does one do in the evenings while watching TV?) but now I'm at the stage where I have a bunch of fiddly things to do with each project and I'm not sure which one to get cracking on. 

For you though, a little update on three works-in-progress.

(WIPs for those not yet initiated into knitting lingo.)

A stretchy grey cardigan for a special baby: crochet edging in the works, and buttons that need sewing.

I've wanted to make this pattern for a L-O-N-G time and I certainly don't remember paying €5 for it... In fact, I don't remember ever paying for it. Maybe it was offered free at some point? Nevertheless, the pattern can be found here on Ravelry. (Don't be deceived though... while this is a fairly seamless knit, there are a TON of ends to weave in.) 

The yarn is some cheap acrylic brand -- I can't even remember which one. I first bought it to make these gloves, and then realized it wouldn't work. For $2 it wasn't worth returning. But it makes a mighty fine little cardigan. 

Next up: a bulky weight blanket, again for a special baby. (The pattern costs a whole dollar if you're up for the splurge!)

Does that yarn look familiar? It should. Remember when I tried to make these shrugs, here and here? Yeah, well, I gave up on the idea of a piece of clothing for me and went with some cute, cozy cables for a baby to cuddle with, instead.

Fabric and batting still need to be sewn on so that it's like a little knit quilt. (Try saying that five times... 'little-knit-quilt, little-knit-quilt...') The fabric should look familiar too -- remember this bag's lining? What can I say, I have a thing for giraffes.

Finally, for a mama-to-be, this cardigan is in the works. The pattern is well worth the $4 because it's written for numerous sizes and also in four different yarn weights. I love it when designers figure all of that out for us knitters. 

A whole sleeve is still in progress, and then eventually the body edging and inevitable weaving in of ends is yet to come. If you're looking for a budget-friendly worsted weight yarn, KnitPicks stocks this great stuff called Brava. 

I realize my taste in yarn color recently has been about the same color as winter. Time for spring to roll in and for me to get some color injected into my fiber fun!

Vintage Cooking

Over the weekend, I hosted a small gathering of local ladies as part of a cooking club. Soon after we moved here, one of the members got married and moved overseas, and I got drafted in to fill her seat. Every meeting offers a new theme and everyone brings a dish -- an intimate potluck, if you will. The hostess provides the drinks and party flair. 

This month's theme was my idea and of course I picked 'vintage'. Any excuse to pull out the Pyrex, I say.  

My vintage recipe books hold a cornucopia of old-fashioned recipes, so I was excited to see what the gals would cook up. They didn't disappoint. We had baked brie (divine), old fashioned PA Dutch Pot-Pie (homemade noodles; no crust involved), pistachio jello salad (yum) and a pineapple upside down cake (yes, please!)  

All I had to do was supply the beverages. I desperately wanted to use my punch bowl that I thrifted last summer. But every vintage punch recipe I saw had waaaayyyy too much booze in it. I'm all for a good tipple, but many recipes called for three or four different types of alcohol mixed together. And the quantities were astounding. This was an intimate affair -- not a party for 40. 

I finally found this one from the 1960s -- a bourbon punch. I halved the recipe and I mixed together the lemons, seltzer, tea and sugar first, and it was delightful all on its own. It reminded me of tea cooler -- that summertime blend of lemonade and iced tea. I ended up only using a quarter of the bourbon called for though -- it was plenty strong just like that and reminded everyone of a good whiskey sour. 

I think my favorite part of making the punch, besides getting to use actual vintage punch cups and the bowl, was the giant ice block. I poured water into my smallest bundt pan, added lemons to it and let it freeze. Rather than having small ice cubes melt away and dilute the drink, the giant block melted much slower and was just fun to watch bobbing around in the bowl.

Not to be outdone, the non-alcoholic option was just as tasty. I made this raspberry cordial, àla Anne of Green Gables. I halved the cordial and it still made a ton. Considering this hardly took any time or effort, I think I might be making a lot more cordial in the future! 

I served the cordial with a bottle of seltzer water (cordial is far too sweet on its own and should be diluted) on a Pyrex plate, and as an added vintage bonus, I included glass swizzle sticks for guests to stir their mixture together. I've been hunting for vintage swizzle sticks for a long time, and I found these three cute ones with sailboats on them, last week at a thrift store. 

While the vintage cooking theme was a resounding success in my book, I do realize that not all vintage recipes appeared (or tasted!) as lovely as ours. For a good laugh, check out BuzzFeeds's 21 Truly Upsetting Vintage Recipes. If the photos alone don't make you laugh out loud, the captions definitely should!

Cooking up a Recipe Organizer

As much as chaos often contributes to my creative process, eventually it has to give way to a little order at some point. 

Years ago, when I lived in the UK, I didn't really know how to cook. I hadn't amassed the cookbooks I have now, and the Internet certainly wasn't as readily accessible, especially at home. Instead, I had a few recipes scribbled in journals and on index cards given to me by friends and family. I also took to checking cookbooks out of the library and then handwriting the recipes I wanted to try out.  

I had a little journal that I used to keep track of which recipes I tried. My rule was that the recipe couldn't go into the cooking journal until I actually made it (and of course it had to be successful...) The problem was, I had way more recipes I wanted to try than the ones I'd actually made, and nowhere to put them.
 
Some things never change -- even across an ocean. For a long time (too long) I've collected a stack of recipes in a pile, thinking I'd eventually do something with them. Eventually finally happened. Around Christmas time, when I couldn't find the recipes for the cookies I wanted to bake, I knew I had to sort these things out, pronto. 

Last week, I finally got so fed up with the pile of recipes, that I commandeered the kitchen table and threw everything on top of there to sort out the paper mess. 

I found a few neat blank books at a craft show in Pennsylvania before we moved, from ReNewed Intent. They had all kinds of re-purposed blank books -- I picked out two that were recreated from old cookbooks. You can shop ReNewed Intent right here on Etsy. 

All I did was sort out the recipes according to category. Once that was done, the rest simply fell into place. 

I used the larger book for everything from beverages to side dishes to main courses. The smaller book holds general how-to cooking info and homemade condiments recipes. I simply pasted the recipes onto the pages. All you need is a glue stick, really.

For the recipes that were too big to glue onto the paper, I created little folders at the start of each 'chapter' to simply shove in the folded full-page recipes. I even made little tabs for each chapter.

I found another blank book to use for my pile of scrumptious dessert recipes. I found this one on clearance at Michael's -- I'm still not sure what brand it is; it's similar to a Smashbook, only it has a three-ring binder in it. I love the ready-made pockets at the front and back -- they're perfect for those little booklets I seem to collect out of magazines.

For a year I had a subscription to Food Network Magazine and I found that I would end up ripping out a few recipes and then recycling the magazine. Most of those recipes take up a few pages -- especially their 'mix and match' ones (which I love!) This blank spiral bound book was perfect. I simply punched holes and attached the full-sized recipes. 

Not to be left out, my trusty everyday bamboo recipe card holder still holds many of my favorite weekly recipes. But now I finally have a place to stash the recipes that either don't get used as often, are too big for the box, or ones I still want to try. 

I feel gloriously organized at the moment!

Now all I need to do is start cooking something from those recipes...