Monday's meal

Now, I love myself some food and the following is probably my most favorite comfort food meal. I make mine in my treasured Le Creuset fryer and the sight of all that deliciousness brings a smile to my face every time. I always find myself licking my fingers and scrapping the plate...it's that good. Just try it and see. Oh by the way, in classic southern style is should be served over rice with some biscuits on the side. If you have some collard greens too...well you're golden!

Smothered Chicken

1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 whole chicken, cut into pieces
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups finely chopped onions (I like white, but yellow are good too)
1 cup finely chopped celery
3 cloves garlic, chopped
3 cups chicken broth
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper


Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Season chicken pieces with 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon pepper. Dredge in flour, place in the skillet, and brown on all sides (note that chicken will not be fully cooked at this time). Set chicken aside, and drain skillet, reserving about 1 tablespoon oil.
Reduce skillet heat to medium-low, and stir in onions, celery, garlic. Cook about 5 minutes, until tender. Stir in the flour, and cook 5 minutes more. Pour in the chicken broth, season with cayenne pepper, paprika, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil for approximately 1-2 minutes and reduce heat to low. Place chicken in the skillet, cover, and continue cooking for 30 minutes, until chicken juices run clear and gravy has thickened.

My super power is...

sewing fast under pressure. Let me explain. From a kids perspective I guess when your mother sews you take for granted that whatever you decide you want her to make can be accomplished lickety split. Case in point, yesterday M. reminded me that today was "PJ Day" at school. He excitedly told me how he would wear his pajama's and eat pizza for lunch. I smiled and suggested he could wear some of the flannel pj pants I had made him recently. He thought a moment and then said, "Well, you didn't make me a shirt for them". Ever quick on the uptake, I said "Oh, you can just wear one of your plain tshirts with them." For which he responded "I can't, we have to wear pj's." I attempted to explain how a tshirt could be considered pj's. Well...his little eyes welled up so finally I relented and said "Go upstairs and pick out some fabric and I'll make you a shirt." He came back with some scrap (of course it had trains on it...which he absolutely adores) that I was quite skeptical of getting even a shirt for a doll out of. I told him as much and then said I would see what I could do. Fast forward to midnight, I have traced out a tshirt pattern from my favorite Japanese pattern book, cut out the shirt and some pants and serged and top stitched them both. This morning he was all smiles. Of course since he was in bed when I was putting in the elastic I made it too large and had to take them in this morning. All total it took me about two hours to make the pj's but the smile I got was priceless.
I'll have to add a picture later. We were in too big of a hurry to get off to school this morning to get one.

Alright, so I might just have a problem

You may have heard that Linens and Things is going out of business. Well, I had been working on my goals list for 2009 and one of the things I hoped to accomplish was restoring some semblance of organization to my sewing supplies and fabric. So, I buzzed in there the other day and picked up some of the chrome shelving systems they had for sale ($36). I started off getting just one. Hmmm...I've ended up needing 3 plus a smaller shelf I relocated from the master bedroom. Not to mention that I didn't even address the 6 foot armoire that I have crammed full of fabric that I can't even get the doors to close on. I have a problem. I think it was easy to be in denial when the fabric was disorganized. I didn't realize how much I had. Ok...maybe I did, I just didn't want to admit it. I have stopped buying fabric in recent months and I will continue to buy very sparingly in the future. I don't know if I should go through it and try and sale some or just chock it up to the fact that it's my hobby and everything I purchased was because I really liked it and had some vision for it. I can say as I was going through it, nothing jumped out at me as something I now hated...I still loved most of it. Ugh, it really is a sickness. Anyways...I thought I'd share some pix. They were hard to obtain because the dimensions of my sewing room are so shallow and I couldn't get far enough away to photograph the shelving well. So here's a pix of my sewing room storage, 2 overflow shelves in the garage, one small shelf in the upstairs hallway. I photographed the uber stuffed armoire but it was so chaotic looking I thought I better not post it, lol.

Monday's meal

You might just think you stepped into that famous Ham store when you taste how delicious this ham is. Try it and see.

Fake out Honey baked Ham

Any brand spiral sliced ready-to-eat ham (5-7 lbs works well)
1/4 cup whole cloves
1/4 cup dark corn syrup
2 cups honey
2/3 cup butter


Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Stud you ham with the whole cloves. Place ham in foil lined pan. Place the corn syrup, honey and butter in a saucepan over low heat, mix well until all butter is melted and glaze is well blended. Keep glaze warm while baking ham.
Brush glaze over ham, and bake according to manufactured suggestions for the weight of your ham (usually an hour to hour and a half). Baste ham every 10 to 15 minutes with the honey glaze. During the last 4 to 5 minutes of baking, turn on broiler to caramelize the glaze, watch closely as it will caramelize quickly. Remove from oven, and let sit a few minutes before slicing. Enjoy!

Out of the box

When it comes to clothing I'm not a risk taker. I'm a pretty plain, jeans and tshirt kind of girl. But, every once and awhile I see something that pulls me out of my little box. I saw these 3 corduroy coordinating prints at Hancocks awhile back and I knew just the pattern I'd use them for. I love the fabric. It's a bit crazy, a little retro and funky. Very nice hand, not too thick and great colors. I actually had cut this outfit out for O. at the beginning of the fall in a size 3. It just fit, as my girl has had a bit of a growth spurt and next time I'd be better off with the size 4. Anyway, I finished it last night and she tried it on. She loved it. I even broke out the old snap press and used snaps rather than buttons. Oh, and check out that top stitching. Which calls to mind that I need to read up a bit more on my camera features...I couldn't figure out how to do a real closeup without getting a really blurry picture...but you get the idea.

This is the last time...

I promise. I went to the Patsy Aiken attic sale today. I had said that I wouldn't buy anymore fabric, remember? Well I couldn't not get some...not when I had been waiting for the new stuff to become available. It's beautiful as always. I can just see O. in some of the outfits now. I even resisted by not getting every print that I wanted. I thought I was a very frugal minded shopper. You just tell me if you could have resisted all these great fabrics.

Monday's meal

Well, if you're like me, you find yourself doing a bit of baking during the holiday season. I love a good brownie. Nothing is better than to bite into a gooey chocolaty brownie in my opinion. I tend to like mine chewy rather than cake like, but I wouldn't pass up one no matter the texture.
Here's a nice recipe that's even better since it has two kinds of chocolate to make it just that more delicious.

White Chocolate Chip Brownies
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp of baking powder
3/4 cup sugar
1 stick of unsalted butter
2 tbsp water
1 cup of semisweet chocolate chips
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 of cup of chopped nuts (your choice and optional)

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees, Grease a 9" square baking pan. In a bowl mix the flour and baking powder together and set aside. Combine sugar, butter and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Remove from the heat and add the semisweet chocolate chips and the vanilla, stirring until the chips are melted. Let cool. In a large bowl with an electric mixer (or stand mixer) beat egges until light, about 3 minutes. Beat in the chocolate mixture, followed by the flour mixture. Mix until smooth. Stir in the white chocolate and nuts (if using). Pour batter in the prepared pan. Bake in the center of the oven for about 30 minutes or until brownies just begin to pull away from the sides of pan and a toothpick in the center comes out almost dry. Cool brownies in pan, sprinkle with confectioner sugar. Cut and serve. Enjoy!