In My Kitchen - January 2015

My lovely friend Celia in Australia has the best food blog ever, http://figjamandlimecordial.com/ She calls me my mate "Maz" and inspires me to cook more for my family.

Every month she links to posts about "In My Kitchen" and what people all over the world are eating. Here's what's going on in Casa Aguas.

The mencats where on vacation for the holidays so we ate a lot of leisurely breakfasts like "Eggs in a Nest".

 I received so many lovely presents. My brother and sister-in-law gave us gift certificates to Barnes and Noble. (yay!) so I bought Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I'd seen the movie, Julie and Julia a couple of years ago and been curious about it. I've cooked several recipes out it already and they're honestly not as hard as I thought they were going to be. Her instructions on how to cook broccoli are perfect.

Most of the ingredients are pretty standard, there's no chia seeds, star fruit or gluten free flour needed and yes, there is a lot of butter involved. But Julia is up front in the foreword that this cookbook is for people who "can be unconcerned on occasion with budgets, waistlines, time schedules, children's meals... or anything else that might interfere with the enjoyment of producing something wonderful to eat."


Christmas morning I found this Le Crueset braiser under the tree. I love it like Gollum likes rings. It works a treat and goes right from burner to stove. It weighs a ton but I don't care.

 

 I used it to make braised short ribs for the mencats.

 My awesome hub also got me silpat muffin tins.  It worked great on homemade poppyseed rolls. They fell right out of the pan, no sticking.

Today, in getting ready for everyone going back to school and work tomorrow I made Almond Oat Bars. The original recipe called for apricot jam but I didn't have any so I made them with raspberry instead. http://www.thefamilyfoodie.com/2012/03/apricot-almond-breakfast-bars.html

My original intention was to make a healthy breakfast thing for January. This isn't quite that but they are dang tasty and easy to make.

So that's what's in my kitchen, how about you?

Marilyn.


Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.
~ Harriet Van Horne

New Year's Wishes

Neil Gaiman's lovely "New Year's Wish" 
Art by me.

What are you hoping for the new year ahead?



Best thoughts, Marilyn.

“Be kind to yourself in the year ahead.

Remember to forgive yourself, and to forgive others. It’s too easy to be outraged these days, so much harder to change things, to reach out, to understand.

Try to make your time matter: minutes and hours and days and weeks can blow away like dead leaves, with nothing to show but time you spent not quite ever doing things, or time you spent waiting to begin.

Meet new people and talk to them. Make new things and show them to people who might enjoy them.

Hug too much. Smile too much. And, when you can, love.”

—Neil Gaiman

Making beautiful things

Some things I've been making.

 Decoupage boxes and fairy pendants.

 Doodles from Teller's Tempest. It was magical.

 More doodles, for nothing in particular.

I'm teaching myself jewelry making.

That's what's been going on in my workshop. How about you?

Best thoughts,

Marilyn.

--

“Nobody will stop you from creating. Do it tonight. Do it tomorrow. That is the way to make your soul grow — whether there is a market for it or not! The kick of creation is the act of creating, not anything that happens afterward. I would tell all of you watching this screen: Before you go to bed, write a four line poem. Make it as good as you can. Don’t show it to anybody. Put it where nobody will find it. And you will discover that you have your reward.”
~ Kurt Vonnegut

Make something beautiful every day.

I've been trying to make a little something pretty every day, whether  it's a doodle, a bead thing, a paper toy, a painting or a cake. Today was this page of stampy farm animals made with tiny foam stickers I bought at the Dollar Tree.

Here is a little pendant I made. I molded the bird and heart from baked clay then textured them with gold paint. I've put some of my "makings" up for sale in my etsy shop.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheToymaker

 

 

 I have peaches to make a pie but it's too hot to cook. Maybe tomorrow. What have you been making this summer? What new things would you like to learn how to do?

Best thoughts,

Marilyn.




“Whether or not you can never become great at something, you can always become better at it. Don’t ever forget that. And don’t say, “I’ll never be good.” You can become better, and one day you’ll wake up and you’ll find out how good you actually became." ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson

Gerald Manley Hopkins

The Windhover

I caught this morning morning’s minion, 
kingdom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding   
  Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding   
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing   
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,             

As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding   
  Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding   
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!   

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here   
  Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion            
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!   

  No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion   
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,   
  Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.


 ~ Gerald Manley Hopkins

Scarab

Many, many years ago I went on a trip to Egypt. It was a grand adventure, I rode a camel, saw the Valley of the Kings and toured the tomb of King Tutankhamen. I bought a beautiful alabaster bowl which sadly broke by the time I got to Greece and a little scarab made of faience that sat in a drawer, neglected.

Last night I made it into a necklace with some odd beads with a bracelet to match.

I haven't really thought much about that trip in years and it's all a jumble of fading memories, sounds and smells, eating watermelon, hot, dry winds, frentic taxi rides, the dusty mummy of a crocodile high on a shelf in a museum. I found this little sketchbook that had a few sketches.

Sometimes it's nice to remember things from a long time ago.

Marilyn.

--

"I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move."

Ulysses ~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Old Sketchbooks

I've been going through old sketchbooks and filling the blank pages with new versions of my old drawings.

The flowers on the right were from a beautiful day I spent sketching textiles in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London a very long time ago.   The new doodle is on the left.

Here are some more bits and pieces...

I found this funny bird toy idea that I think is supposed to have articulated parts, where when you pull on the tail the head and feet move... What was I thinking? Note to past self, make notes about the back of the design.

Pen and ink practice

Old sketch on the right, new ornament on the left... 

I like the soft colors on this page. Rather dreamlike, don't you think?

I would love to go back to London just to fill sketchbooks with little lines.  If you could go on a drawing tour anywhere in the world where would tickle your fancy?

Marilyn.

--

 “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” ~ Pablo Picasso