Kitchen Experiments - The Good, The Grand & The Ugly!!!

Hello all!! Had some fun experimenting in the kitchen lately, and wanted to share my endeavors!! Some turned out fantastic...others, not so much!! I was getting all kinds of creative last weekend, took pictures of the good stuff to share and will fill you in on my experiences with the bad stuff.

First things first, THE GOOD:
I LOVE all my cooking shows...mostly I end up coming by all the episodes I want to see by way of re-run, but I don't mind! I've been totally glued to Restaurant Impossible!! I love watching Robert Irvine and his team completely transform these restaurants that are in serious trouble! So uplifting to see the dramatic changes being made!! On the episode that he revamped Scrimmages, he presented them with a delightful appetizer he called Re-Stuffed Potato Skins. My husband and I thought it sounded and looked SO tasty, that I made them last weekend. OH YUM! Insanely satisfying and a wonderful Sunday Afternoon Football food!! I didn't use the recipe, and the potatos I had were too long to split the way Robert did on the show, but what matters is that they REALLY hit the spot!!!

Here is a link to the actual recipe, but I found it was just as easy to wing it!! http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/robert-irvine/re-stuffed-potato-skins-recipe/index.html

Second, we have THE GRAND:
I saw Prickly Pears on sale at one of our local markets, so I got curious! Looked around online to see what the general concensus was on taste, and decided it was certainly worth a try!! But what was I going to make with them? OOH...I needed to break out my Ice Cream Maker...Prickly Pear Plum Sorbet...sounds delightful!! I haven't used the Ice Cream Maker since we moved; in the words of Rafiki..."It is time" (We just introduced Sissy to The Lion King). I picked up a dozen prickly pears and a few plums, both red and purple. I discovered a few things in my preparation phase.



First, the color of the skin is not indicative of the ripeness of the fruit. Good to know...the only color of prickly pear available to me at the market was green. I love green, so I can live with that!





Second, the fruit inside is VERY seedy. If you thought watermelon was seedy, there is absolutely no comparison!! Although the seeds are edible, they're super crunchy and neither my husband nor I appreciated them. 




Third, if you like kiwi, you'll like prickly pear. As soon as I skinned the first fruit, smelled and tasted it, my mind instantly went to kiwi! Love it!!

Preparation of the Prickly Pears: Disclaimer: please be careful when extracting the fruit. Some of the prickly pears do NOT have all the cactus spines fully removed...they can hurt!! There are various suggestions of using gloves while cutting and peeling, as well as using a kitchen torch to singe off remaining "hairs". Use whichever method you feel most comfortable with, but if you do get poked, stop and make sure you've completely removed the little "hair"...they are small, fine and hard to pick out...not fun!

I cut off the top and bottom of the pears and sliced lengthwise down the fruit, and peeled the skin off from the fruit.


I peeled all my prickly pears this way, and then attempted to figure out how to get rid of the seeds. Trying to squish it through a mesh strainer did not work for me, and I don't have a food mill, so I decided to try putting them in the food processor.


This worked pretty well. Some of the seeds were crushed up too, but for the most part, the seeds separated from the fruit so I could push the fruit through the mesh strainer. The 12 prickly pears gave me about 1-1/2 quarts of fruit.






I then peeled and pitted 4 of the plums and processed them as well, then mixed it all together (totalled about 2 quarts), and added barely 1/4 cup of sugar, just for good measure. I spaced off my camera and don't have pictures of the fruit mixture prior to putting it into the Ice Cream Maker, but I did have to use some food coloring, because this green and the pinkish color of the plums rendered a slightly horrific orangish-brown color that I was positive no one would want to eat!!
After the Ice Cream Maker did it's thing, this was the result.....and it was so good, that my husband felt the need to eat at least a quart of the sorbet on his own!!! (He's mostly an Ice Cream only guy...so I did REALLY GOOD!!!)

Third, we have THE UGLY:
Fried Stuffed Nopalitos...all I have to say about them is hmmmm. I thought they were worth a try when I saw a recipe for them. I don't have any pictures but the finished product (which actually looks pretty decent) but let me describe to you how crazy these little buggers are!! First off, they're cactus paddles...so you have to be sure to clean them up and clean them carefully. Secondly, they're fairly thin, so if you're going to stuff them, you have to almost filet them. Third, and here's the scary part. How many of you remember seeing the movie Gremlins? You know when they're transforming from the Mogwai to Gremlins and they get that filmy, sticky, slimy stuff all over them? That's what the insides of the nopalitos reminded me of...the slimy, sticky stuff. However, I persevered, looking to get past that, to experience them stuffed and fried. I sliced Monterey Jack cheese and placed inside the pockets of the nopalitos, and then egg-washed and floured them and proceeded to fry them on the stove. Here is a picture of the finished product with some salsa verde on it. It doesn't look too bad, but let's just say they're an acquired taste! (Or at least that's my opinion)

So there you have it, The Good, The Grand and The Ugly from my experimenting in the kitchen. It's just one of those things I like to do, and sometimes you get winners and sometimes you get losers...but in the long run, it's the experience you gain that counts!!

Easy No-Pattern Curtains

Well, I had finished Sissy's curtains a couple of weeks ago, and would like to share the process with you. The only part of the project that is not "officially" done is the ruffle border; I purchased about 18" too little of the lacey ruffle that I am using and haven't decided how I want to handle that yet.
It is so bright here in the mornings, I new Sissy and the new baby would need a nice dark curtain to help keep their room dark when it needs to be. So we opted for a double layer dark purple curtain and a matching Tinkerbell valence.


Curtain Panels:
First, you will need to measure your window area and decide how full you want your curtains and how long you will need them. For example, if you only want slightly full curtains, purchase enough material to make the ending width of your curtains one and a half times the width of your window. The more full you want your curtains, the more width you'll need to purchase in fabric. The girls' room window is 35" wide. The fabric I bought was 45" wide and I used two separate 45" panels to make the main curtain. So after seam allowances, the fabric width is about 88" with both panels together. Very full and I love it! In addition to fullness, you'll need to determine the length of fabric you need. Will you have a tall ruffle at the top? How far past your window do you want the curtains to hang? I have a fairly tall ruffle at the top, since the fullness of the panels supports the height, and the panels hang about 6 or 7 inches below the windows.

Second, I always pre-shrink and iron my fabric. The only exception here would be if it was a dry clean only fabric.

Third, prepare your fabric for sewing. Since I was making the panels a double thickness, I just folded each panel in half (inside-out) and pinned the sides to prepare it for sewing. I also marked the curtain rod opening on each side of the curtains.

Due to the fullness, I measured 4" from the top for the top of the rod opening, and measured 1-7/8" from there for the bottom of the rod opening. I marked the openings with a double pins. The width of your rod opening depends on the width of rod you'll be using. Right now we do not have decorative rods for the girls' room, but I look into my crystal ball...I see them in our future ;) But, I'm not sure how wide the rods will be so I wanted to leave ample room.

Forth, begin sewing. I prefer to use smaller seam allowances than what most pattern makers allow. I'm just like that, especially when I use my serger or when I'm sewing at the salvage edge, which I did for these curtains. I feel seam allowances is a personal preference. I sewed the sides together at 3/8" being sure to stop and leave the rod opening unsewn.

The bottom of the curtain, I sewed using 1/2" seams, leaving about a 8" opening for turning the curtain panels right-side-out.

Before I turned the panels, I trimmed the corners to ensure a nice straight corner on the outside.

Fifth, turn panels right-side-out and press all seams and corners. At this point, I pulled my 8" opening up through the rod opening and machine-sewed it closed. I wasn't looking forward to doing that much hand stitching, when it occurred to me that I had the rod opening to use. YAY!!

Sixth, finishing touches.

Mark top and bottom seams for rod opening across the width of the curtain and sew. I also top stitched about a 1/4" seam all the way around to give the edges a bit more definition.


Valence:
First, again here you'll want to determine the width, length and fullness you want for the valence, and from there determine the amount of fabric you'll need. Then cut the number of sections from your fabric to sew together to make the valence. Remember to include seam allowances in your calculations!

Second, sew the panels together and iron the seams flat.

Third, hem top, bottom and sides. I used a rolled hem technique, sewing my hem by 1/4" and then by 1/4" again. However, for the top my second hem was a 1/2" hem.

Forth, sew the rod opening. I saved about 2-1/2" thickness of the purple fabric from my panels to use for the valence rod opening.

I pressed and hemmed the edges of the purple fabric to fit inside the valence. Measure where to place the rod material and pin in place.

Sew the top seam for the rod opening and press fabric down. Measure and fold under the rod opening fabric for the bottom seam.

 

I measured at 2" so I could sew at 1-7/8" on the top just like the panels. Finish sewing the rod opening seam, press and hang!

Finished product (without the lacey trim I wanted).

The color matches the girls' room decor so well, and REALLY keeps the light out when necessary!! LOVE IT!!! Now to finish the master bedroom curtains so we can actually sleep in too!!

Enjoy!

Back at it!!

Well, here I am again...it's been about two weeks since my last post. I'm not going to get all detailed and mushy about why I haven't posted. I'm just going to say that this pregnancy is definitely exhausting me and let's just say I'm getting to that point where I'm glad to know this part of the adventure is winding down, even though I still have the hardest part to get through yet.

Anyway, I just wanted to give a quick update. I've been experimenting with the various dusting techniques I listed in my post about dusting. I've come to the conclusion that regardless of which solution I use (which I haven't been able to try all of the yet) I have definitely converted to the inside-out sport sock as a rag! (I stole a pair of Big Brother's old soccer socks!) It just really seemed to suck up all the dust and since the inside was so fluffy it certainly didn't let any of the dust go. FABULOUS! It was amazing to me to look at my "problem furniture" and have it NOT look like I hadn't just dusted it!

On another note, I'm starting a new experiment. I love vinegar! It's such a helpful household tool! We have extremely hard water in our area and the water spots/hard water deposits drive me bonkers! I'm going to start my experiment in the bathroom showers. I've scrubbed the living day-lights out of them, and as the shower is used, I'm going to take a spray bottle of straight vinegar and spray the shower walls down after every couple of uses. I want to see if this will help cut the hard water deposits down. I've also heard/seen recommendations to soak paper towels in straight vinegar and place on sink fixtures prior to scrubbing them down as well, which will be my next trial if the shower sprays seem to help!

Anyway, I'm working on other sewing projects and a friend and I will be baking goodies and trying out candy recipes soon...very excited!! Will post more as we start our experiments!