If you can drive a car, you can use a sewing machine. A car is a much more complicated piece of machinery, running on the same basic concept of push the pedal and make the motor run.
Yes, that easy.
I decided to make curtains this week, since I had a very revealing conversation regarding how easy it is to see my nude body through the window, and the eye witnesses of my peers who have accidentally seen such a sight. What frightens me are the people I don't know peeping into my window while I'm innocently running from one room to the next in search for my shirt or pants... or underwear.
Here's a how-to for some basic curtains, although this is way fancier than you need to do if you just want to keep the eyes away. BUUUT, once you get comfortable sewing some basic things, maybe you can take up the courage to tailor your own skinny jeans, or better yet, make them from scratch yourself!
I know, broke-ass punks can't afford a sewing machine. But, you're not hunting hard enough! This past summer I saw a WORKING 1970s era Singer at a tag sale for $1!!! And, if a collective of you put money together, I bet you could afford something even that expensive. Happy hunting, and happy sewing!
Monday, January 30, 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Another Day, Another Loaf
Disregard the messy countertop! This is today's Pain de Campagne. I'm (im)patiently waiting for it to cool before cutting into it, so no photo evidence of how good/bad the crumb is. Yesterday's mini baguettes are already gone! Hopefully this will last us a few days.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Snow is the Perfect Occasion to Bake
Last night, our plans for today got cancelled due to the impending weather. So here we are on Saturday afternoon with fresh bread! Making good bread seems to take me all day, or even days, but it's always worth it. At the beginning of this week, I posted about the progress of my bread starters. Both of them took off and were doing well, and it was getting too tedious to keep up with feeding both of them, so I combined them and made mini baguettes today. I pulled them out of the oven about 2 hours ago, and I'm quite pleased.
There's still room for improvement in the crumb, but the crust came out great!
Earlier this week, I washed and put away a dozen empty pint jars. It was bittersweet. On one hand, that was 12 less jars of tomatoes, pickles, or corn to enjoy, but on the other hand, I knew that we had eaten well. I put them into the attic, and covered them with newspaper so they won't get too dusty inside, making them easier to prep next summer when we need them.
I enjoy days like these, at least for the time-being. A fresh blanket of snow makes everything look a lot more quaint than it actually is. It's a good thing it's a Saturday, and I like to stay home anyway. I'll just keep enjoying things the way they are.
There's still room for improvement in the crumb, but the crust came out great!
Earlier this week, I washed and put away a dozen empty pint jars. It was bittersweet. On one hand, that was 12 less jars of tomatoes, pickles, or corn to enjoy, but on the other hand, I knew that we had eaten well. I put them into the attic, and covered them with newspaper so they won't get too dusty inside, making them easier to prep next summer when we need them.
I enjoy days like these, at least for the time-being. A fresh blanket of snow makes everything look a lot more quaint than it actually is. It's a good thing it's a Saturday, and I like to stay home anyway. I'll just keep enjoying things the way they are.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Family Farmers vs. Monsanto
I saw this via Comstock, Ferre & Co. where we get basically all of our seeds from. Click the link and sign the petition/send a message of support to America's farmers to continue to grow and save their own seeds without lawsuits or fear of them from Monsanto. Food Democracy Now! page.
Monday, January 16, 2012
January Is Still Green
I'm sure it happened, but I never remember EVER having a "White Christmas." As an adult, I've had to re-teach myself when the seasons happen, and Christmas is barely even winter. January is just getting winter started. Here in CT, you can still see ground, and its covered in green. Now, I admit, there is a drastic difference between the green of spring and what is covering the ground outside right now, but on the color wheel, its still green.
The inside of our house is booming with green too. I was starting to go stir crazy without any fresh greens around, when we discovered at our local health food store Two Guys from Woodbridge. It was just the thing I needed. These greenhouse greens are sold with their roots intact, making them super fresh and awesome! When I was done chomping, I realized that I could just replant these happy roots and keep enjoying their splendor! We now have little baby leaves growing-- right in the middle of January! whodathunk!
The inside of our house is booming with green too. I was starting to go stir crazy without any fresh greens around, when we discovered at our local health food store Two Guys from Woodbridge. It was just the thing I needed. These greenhouse greens are sold with their roots intact, making them super fresh and awesome! When I was done chomping, I realized that I could just replant these happy roots and keep enjoying their splendor! We now have little baby leaves growing-- right in the middle of January! whodathunk!
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Sunshine in a Jar
"Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread." -Edward Abbey
As always, there's a lot of stuff going on here despite the fact that it's January, and it's 21 degrees outside. It's Sunday, so there's a whole lot of cooking going on.
First off, I'm making chili. This is what I've been waiting for since August: making chili on a cold winter day with tomatoes from my own garden. We made some salsa on New Year's Eve but it just wasn't the same as using fresh tomatoes, so we decided that all those jars in the pantry would be perfect for chili!
The thing that I'm most excited about with this chili is the pickled jalapeños. Naomi only put up 2 jars, but I'm sure that will be plenty! I first got into canning with jalapeños. I think they add the right amount of heat and flavor, but there's something about the way they combine with the vinegar that will light your ass on fire! It may just be that the capsaicin is mixed with the oil, which binds to the surface of your mouth. Whatever the reason, they're gonna make this chili really good.
Another thing I've been diligently working on is my bread starter(s). Over the holidays, I accidentally neglected my starter in the fridge. It had too much hooch on the top, and would barely rise at all when I fed or used it. I decided that it needed reviving, and after a few days, it seemed like I wasn't going to get anywhere. We were breadless, so I started a friendly competition. I continued to feed my old culture twice a day approximately 12 hours apart, and I started a new one, which takes about a week to get going full-tilt.
On the left, you can see the old starter, and on the right, the new one started that very evening. You can see some gas bubbles in the old starter, but alas, it is not fermentation of wild yeast, but rather some other organism because it smelled like wet paint, and tasted like it too. I kept feeding it. In some future post, I will get into breadmaking a bit more. Five days later, these two are neck and neck. They really got into the spirit of competition, and with 2 good starters, I don't know which I'll use. Neither are ready to morph into a loaf of bread yet, but we're getting there:
Again, on the left is the old, and the right is the new. Ol' Lefty has been puffing up pretty nicely and smelling like a breadcrust dropped in a beer bottle, but isn't getting quite the boost I'm waiting for. And the baby on the right is starting to get gassy, too. I think by Friday, I might be baking. With these two letting off their sweet smells, the chili cooking on the stove, and some apples in the dehydrator, the kitchen smells wonderful. I wish I could post smells, but you'll just have to imagine, or get some stuff bubbling in your own kitchen.
Finally, I saw an old and dear friend this last week. The day he left town, I came home to a special gift, and the first of our wedding gifts.
As always, there's a lot of stuff going on here despite the fact that it's January, and it's 21 degrees outside. It's Sunday, so there's a whole lot of cooking going on.
First off, I'm making chili. This is what I've been waiting for since August: making chili on a cold winter day with tomatoes from my own garden. We made some salsa on New Year's Eve but it just wasn't the same as using fresh tomatoes, so we decided that all those jars in the pantry would be perfect for chili!
The thing that I'm most excited about with this chili is the pickled jalapeños. Naomi only put up 2 jars, but I'm sure that will be plenty! I first got into canning with jalapeños. I think they add the right amount of heat and flavor, but there's something about the way they combine with the vinegar that will light your ass on fire! It may just be that the capsaicin is mixed with the oil, which binds to the surface of your mouth. Whatever the reason, they're gonna make this chili really good.
Another thing I've been diligently working on is my bread starter(s). Over the holidays, I accidentally neglected my starter in the fridge. It had too much hooch on the top, and would barely rise at all when I fed or used it. I decided that it needed reviving, and after a few days, it seemed like I wasn't going to get anywhere. We were breadless, so I started a friendly competition. I continued to feed my old culture twice a day approximately 12 hours apart, and I started a new one, which takes about a week to get going full-tilt.
On the left, you can see the old starter, and on the right, the new one started that very evening. You can see some gas bubbles in the old starter, but alas, it is not fermentation of wild yeast, but rather some other organism because it smelled like wet paint, and tasted like it too. I kept feeding it. In some future post, I will get into breadmaking a bit more. Five days later, these two are neck and neck. They really got into the spirit of competition, and with 2 good starters, I don't know which I'll use. Neither are ready to morph into a loaf of bread yet, but we're getting there:
Again, on the left is the old, and the right is the new. Ol' Lefty has been puffing up pretty nicely and smelling like a breadcrust dropped in a beer bottle, but isn't getting quite the boost I'm waiting for. And the baby on the right is starting to get gassy, too. I think by Friday, I might be baking. With these two letting off their sweet smells, the chili cooking on the stove, and some apples in the dehydrator, the kitchen smells wonderful. I wish I could post smells, but you'll just have to imagine, or get some stuff bubbling in your own kitchen.
Finally, I saw an old and dear friend this last week. The day he left town, I came home to a special gift, and the first of our wedding gifts.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
I love onions!
For the last 2 seasons, I've been meaning to keep track of our garden. This year, I decided that I'd do so with a blog in hopes that someone will follow along, and can glean something from what we've figured out so far.
We started 2012 on Wednesday, December 28, 2011 with 12 packets of onion seeds. They were sown in seed starting mix in flat trays without the cell dividers and put under lights. Right now they're getting 10 hours of lamp light from 7 A.M. until 5 P.M. After 5, I put a blanket over them to keep any residual light out. Here's one of the trays on the 28th.
Here we are a week and a half later, and the little guys are looking great!! What we've got here are Red Wethersfield onions, American Flag leeks, Southport White Globe onions, White Barletta Onions, Australian Brown onions, Giant White Stuttgart onions, Extra Large Carenten leeks, and Yellow Dutch onions. You can see from all this green, that we're making progress!
I've got my fingers crossed and my eyes open for signs of damping off. This is an experiment because the last 2 years of trying onion sets proved to be frustrating at best. I've never had this much success with germinating onion seeds, so I'm feeling positive at the moment. The time when the ground will thaw, however, is a long way off. I've got really high hopes for the leeks. I got some leeks from Grandma's garden this year, and they were awesome!
It's not too late if you want to get some onions started. I only started as early as I did because his giant onion growing friends started theirs a few weeks before me. If they can do it, I can do it!
Allium fever continues outside the house too with all the garlic I planted back in October the day before we got a freak snow storm. This is my first time growing garlic at all, but everything seems to be ok so far. Here are some of them sticking their way out of the hay.
The rest of the garden plot is a sad-looking frozen brown slab at the moment. Well, partially frozen, because it was in the low 60s yesterday. I'm ready for more of that cold we had earlier in the week!
We started 2012 on Wednesday, December 28, 2011 with 12 packets of onion seeds. They were sown in seed starting mix in flat trays without the cell dividers and put under lights. Right now they're getting 10 hours of lamp light from 7 A.M. until 5 P.M. After 5, I put a blanket over them to keep any residual light out. Here's one of the trays on the 28th.
Here we are a week and a half later, and the little guys are looking great!! What we've got here are Red Wethersfield onions, American Flag leeks, Southport White Globe onions, White Barletta Onions, Australian Brown onions, Giant White Stuttgart onions, Extra Large Carenten leeks, and Yellow Dutch onions. You can see from all this green, that we're making progress!
I've got my fingers crossed and my eyes open for signs of damping off. This is an experiment because the last 2 years of trying onion sets proved to be frustrating at best. I've never had this much success with germinating onion seeds, so I'm feeling positive at the moment. The time when the ground will thaw, however, is a long way off. I've got really high hopes for the leeks. I got some leeks from Grandma's garden this year, and they were awesome!
It's not too late if you want to get some onions started. I only started as early as I did because his giant onion growing friends started theirs a few weeks before me. If they can do it, I can do it!
Allium fever continues outside the house too with all the garlic I planted back in October the day before we got a freak snow storm. This is my first time growing garlic at all, but everything seems to be ok so far. Here are some of them sticking their way out of the hay.
The rest of the garden plot is a sad-looking frozen brown slab at the moment. Well, partially frozen, because it was in the low 60s yesterday. I'm ready for more of that cold we had earlier in the week!
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