Shelves for the Living Room or Office

stealing from another blog.... maybe for the living room or the office? or both?

Bird Cage

Ok, one of my all time favorites. Sitting here on a Saturday. In my jams. Luxuriating in laziness. This movie came on-- crap. I'm stuck.

Fireplace Adornment

The fireplace has been bugging me. Well, our living room has been bugging me. We just finished putting it together-- -and it's too heavy. We have a painting of Jeff's on the mantle - I think we need something less heavy.

this isn't exactly what I'm going for... but i like the colors.

this fireplace is awesome. ours is very different. what this inspires me to do is play with glass hurricanes. i think that will brighten things up.

Idea for a Pie Crust

I'm not really yet at that point as a cook where I can start creating my own dishes. I'm kind of a follow-the-recipe kind of person at this point. However, I think I'm going to try out a rosemary orange pie crust. I just need to figure out what goes in the pie itself. I don't really love pies, honestly, but I think this would be a fun experiment.

I also want to play with the crust design, thanks to Martha Stewart.

*UPDATE*
I attempted a fancy crust. Don't try this until you are fantastic with dough. I'm still working on that part so, making a wreath of dough leaves around the rim was the last things I should have been working on. 
Perfect pie crust is so hard to accomplish. Am I the only one who thinks so? Harder still, to get it perfect and then be able to manipulate it enough to do these crazy designs. I got so pissed trying to work with some crust that I had a fit and managed to get dough wads everywhere. I mean, everywhere. 


I'll keep trying though. 

Ok, I'm back

I've decided to try this out again. But this time it's not for any reason other than creating a place to capture some ideas. I have non-digital versions of this type of thing - but I come across so many ideas while surfing... and I don't want to print them out each time.

I initially thought I'd delete this blog and start new at Wordpress. After toying with their interface and struggling with a new name, it became obvious that this blog was a ton easier to use. My mom must be sending bad juju to my other blog attempts b/c she wants me to finish what I started on this one.

Werd.

I had three, count them, three successes yesterday. I made Ina Garten's blueberry crumb cake, a tomato soup from Cook's Illustrated (sorry - from a cookbook) and Ina's "adult mac & cheese". All three turned out well despite a number of issues. 

You see, my kitchen is small. OOOH. Big deal. So it goes for most people. But isn't it frustrating to watch cooking shows and see these enormous and beautiful kitchens? My favorite show is Barefoot Contessa (whichever iteration)... and her kitchen... and her HOME is ridiculous. It's perfect. A walk in pantry that's loaded like a gourmet grocer. An enormous garden, perfectly manicured, that grows every herb you can imagine. And then, her kitchen, with it's perfectly situated everything. I AM SERIOUSLY JEALOUS.

Let's talk about my kitchen. I have no dishwasher, other than my husband (yes, he's that great). We've created a make-shift pantry next to our washer/dryer that makes me a bit crazy because the heat from the dryer messes with my foodstuffs. Our rented townhouse came with a 1950's era stove that, while fun to look at, is totally impractical. The oven area is tiny and only has one rack. We could probably find another but, honestly, the temp is so off (the "200" setting gives out 350 degrees) and the space so small that I think it would ruin any cooking/baking/roasting attemps. The door doesn't stay closed so I have to pull a dining chair in to the kitchen, shove it up against the oven and heap heavy books on it to keep it closed. Only two of the four burners work well, the burner covers are miss-matched and my pans don't sit on them evenly (so everything runs to one end).. blah blah blah. You get the point and I haven't even started on my fridge or my counter space.

I think, especially with our awesome economic conditions (sarcasm), my kitchen is more the norm than the Barefoot Contessa's... especially for those of us living in big cities. So, while I'll continue to daydream about having a huge kitchen someday, I think I'll start snapping pictures of my workspace while I cook. Maybe I can pull together ideas for handling these not-so-perfect situations. Hmmmmm.

PS: I tried that Boule recipe again. Followed the instructions to a T. Same results. It's now in the trash... both my wad of dough and the recipe. Stupid boule.

This economy sucks

I know, "duh", right? But it's getting me down big time. It's definitely hampering my desire to spend time writing and that's too bad because it's probably something I SHOULD do.  I am still having fun with recipes. It's just tarnished by my moods.

My husband really wanted me to try red velvet cupcakes. So, last week I found a recipe from a Bobby Flay Food Network challenge. I found the cupcakes kind of bland but Jeff went nuts for them. So did others who had some (though that's always a dicey opinion to rely on - what are they going to say 'these are terrible'?). I'm going to make them again today because I've got enough frosting left over from the first batch for a whole new batch and I halved the recipe the first time!!! I know people like it layered on but c'mon.

I really want to try another recipe to compare, but I know this one made Jeff happy so I'll stick with it this time.

By the way - if you're ever trying one of my culinary attempts - please don't give undue praise. It doesn't help me weed out the crap recipes and it makes it hard for me to tell if something is really good. I once had a friend over and I made a fish recipe. Put simply, it was disgusting. I think the fish was bad (though I had purchased it that day). The whole kitchen stunk and Jeff, who usually pokes his head in to grab some of whatever I've cooked, beelined for peanut butter and jelly. I have known this friend for years and so felt I could be candid  - oh screw it, I'm always candid - I put my fork down and made a face. My friend said "oh no, it's good" (as she pushed food around her plate). To this day, she claims it was a good meal. Not helpful... comically gracious and I love her for it... but not helpful.

Last week I made another Food Network recipe - Lamb burgers wrapped in prosciutto. These are great but I kept thinking they were missing something. Like some sort of sour cream topping. Something "cool" to go with all the richness. I'll toy with it. The recipe is definitely a keeper.

I haven't had any hilarious mistakes occur or any cuts or bruises to report. Maybe I'm more cautious when I'm bummed. Plus, everything has been easy. Blech. Save us Obama. (Yeah, I know that's not realistic, but I gotta have some beacon of hope.)