Time for a Mario quilt?

I've been fighting the desire to make another quilt for myself, but I think now is the time to get started. Inspiration calls, and who am I not to listen? Don't get me wrong, I still love my R.E.M. quilt, I just want to make another. I would like to make a smaller quilt this time since my R.E.M. quilt is the size of a queen bed comforter. Inspiration struck when I was looking for ideas for Ari's Mario bedroom. I stumbled upon this pattern:

Ah-ha! A Mario quilt! How cool. I looked at Google images to see what other people have done, and there were quite a few Mario quilts out there. This has been in the back of my mind for some time and I am ready to get the ball rolling on it.

With Super Mario Bros. for the NES being an 8 bit video game, all the images are made with the combination of distinguishable different colored squares. Since quilting is basically cutting squares of fabric and sewing them together, I can use game images as a reference to do any design that I want. All I have to do is sew the different colored squares together to get the image that I am looking for. Easy, right?

I am still thinking about the different designs I can do, and narrowing them down will be a challenge. I don't know if I want to do one big Mario, or incorporate other characters or objects. The sky is the limit, it just depends on how many squares I want to cut. When looking for ideas, I came across this cross-stitch pattern:


As you can see, this design is just made up of little squares as well, so I could make it into a quilt. I really liked this design until I got to counting all the squares I would need. I did some math and found that I would need to cut 30,000 individual squares to complete the front of the quilt. A little bit more than I was bargaining for. Plus, it would be 200 squares wide, and 150 squares
tall. So, even if I cut 1/2 inch squares, it would still be as big as my R.E.M. quilt. In other words, not gonna happen.

So, my search continues for a pattern, and I'll most likely come up with one on my own. I'm looking forward to this new endeavor, though, and will post updates as my new project continues.

Germination celebration

Hooray! Some of our seeds have started to sprout. The lettuce was the first to pop out from under the dirt. Not quite enough to eat just yet, so we'll let it grow a little bit more. It is exciting, nonetheless.

Shave!

Sometimes I shave at night, and if the kids are taking a bath at the same time, I've got to share the love. Once they see the shaving cream come out they start yelling 'shave!' and I dispense some shaving cream onto one of their hands. The thrill of the shaving cream coming out of the can is only half the fun, they then proceed to lather up just like Dad (only I just lather my face).


I remember my dad giving me on old disposable razor with the blades removed so I could pretend to shave, so one night I did the same for Ari and Emilie; and now they have razors of their own, too. Ari likes to pretend to actually shave more than Emilie; she mainly just likes to lather herself. It keeps them busy and entertained for a long time, and it's the highlight of their bath.

I just wish shaving could be that much fun for me.

Freeze those egg whites!

I always cringed a little every time I saw an egg white slide down the kitchen sink into the drain. I have a couple recipes I use fairly regularly that call for egg yolks only, and I really don't like just letting the whites go to waste. I remember Alton Brown telling me that I could freeze an egg white in an ice cube tray, pop it out once frozen, and store it in a zip lock bag in the freezer to use whenever I needed an egg white or two...or twelve. It was an interesting concept, so I gave it a try.

As I was making a batch of mayonnaise, I separating the yolk from the albumen, and put the aforementioned albumen in a section of an ice cube tray. Once it was frozen, I couldn't get it to release from the tray, so I just left it and put subsequent egg whites in the tray as well. I think I should have put plastic wrap in the tray first in order to get the frozen egg white out more easily. Nevertheless, I decided to just wait until I accumulated twelve egg whites so I could make an angel food cake.

Since I don't really use just egg whites for anything other than angel food cake, I figured this method would work just fine. As it turned out, twelve egg whites pretty much filled the entire ice cube tray.

When I was ready to make the angel food cake, I simply placed the egg whites in the refrigerator and waited for them to thaw. I was nervous to see how they looked when they thawed, and was relieved to find that they looked like regular egg whites. My next bout of nervousness came when it was time to whip the egg whites into a foam. Would I get the volume I needed by using the frozen egg whites? Would I be able to achieve medium peaks?

Yes! The once frozen egg whites performed marvelously and I ended up with a perfectly delicious angel food cake. In my opinion, homemade and from scratch is the only way to go with this delicate dessert.

I've continued to keep egg whites in my freezer and am thrilled when I get a full ice cube tray because I know an angel food cake is soon to follow.

By the way, I use Alton Brown's angel food cake recipe. You can find it here. Notice that is yet another application in which you can use cream of tartar.

Safety first

That's my girl! One can never be too safe, you know. She's gotta be prepared because she never knows when a little four-year-old on a bicycle may came barreling into her. On accident, of course. Hey, at least she's prepared...

It's hard letting go...

Even if it's just three driveways down and back.

Philly Cheese Steak

Philly cheese steaks, baby! A new Friday night favorite. It all started a couple years ago after Ang and Michael got back from a trip from New Hampshire. On their way home, they stopped in Philadelphia specifically to have an authentic Philly cheese steak sandwich. After hearing of their plans, I asked them to bring me one, and they obliged. Even reheated, it was really tasty, and I wanted to recreate it at home.

I did some research online and found that most people use top round or ribeye for the meat. I first used top round because it was cheaper, but found it too be a bit tough for my liking. The ribeye has a lot better flavor, and is much more tender. I start off by freezing the ribeyes and then use the slicing attachment of my food processor to get the meat in thin strips. This method works really well and is such a wonderful time saver.

If it's nice outside, I'll grill the meat by putting my cast iron griddle directly on the coals. This gets the griddle extremely hot and I get a good sear on the meat. If I'm cooking indoors, I just use my 12 inch cast iron skillet to cook the meat. I do prefer the outside grilling method, though.

I also make a provolone cheese sauce for the sandwiches. I start off with a béchamel sauce and then add a boat load of provolone. The cheese sauce is absolutely awesome! I also use sliced green bell pepper, red bell pepper, and onion, and cook them with the meat. All of these components make for a delicious sandwich. They certainly know what they're doing in Philadelphia.

I've finally got a method down that produces consistently good results, and I think if Michael had his way, we would have these every Friday night!

Spring is in the air

I love finding beauty such as this in my own backyard.

Crème Fraîche

I have been intrigued by crème fraîche for some time. I've seen it used to finish many recipes, sweet and savory alike; though I never saw it in any store. I remember seeing a short segment on Food Network about how to make crème fraîche from scratch and it looked really easy. For some reason, I think it was Alton Brown doing the segment, but I wasn't really paying attention, and I never saw it again.

The ease of the process stuck with me, and it was in the back of my mind to try it for some time. I recently got on the internet in search of a crème fraîche recipe. I found several, and they each were basically the same. I settled on a recipe from the Joy of Baking website because it had a pretty picture and detailed instructions.

Indeed, the process was quite simple. Crème fraîche is basically heavy whipping cream and a little buttermilk left to sit at room temperature for about 24 hours; and it thickens all on it's own. It was amazing to see the crème fraîche take form, though I think I could have let my sit longer so it could thicken even more. I think I was just nervous about it sitting out too long.


Plus, the recipe called for pasteurized heavy whipping cream, as ultra pasteurized would take longer to thicken. Sure enough, I looked, and I had purchased ultra pasteurized. Lesson learned. All in all, the crème fraîche had good flavor, and I enjoyed it on some french toast with some fresh blueberries and powdered sugar. It was a lot like sour cream, only I got to make it myself, so it was a lot more fun and satisfying. I do plan on making it again, hopefully with better execution. Not bad for a first attempt, though.

Printable Recipe

New Beginnings

We planted seeds for our expanded garden this weekend. We'll have more variety this year, as opposed to the fifteen or so tomato plants we had last year. We bought our seeds from The Sunspot and dirt and containers at Menard's and were ready to go.

Ari was excited about putting the dirt in all the containers and he did a really good job. He filled all the containers three-quarters full, and moved on to planting the seeds.

Following Eva and Daniels model, I helped Ari plant the seeds. We planted lettuce, carrots, jalapenos, basil, cantaloupe, and pumpkins. We are also planning on planting tomatoes and artichokes, but we don't have those seeds yet. We had such success with our tomatoes last year, I wanted to get the same variety, the Wisconsin 55. We couldn't find them in town this year, so we ordered the seeds off the internet.

Now we wait...