Yoga Bag

It was my friend, Elana's birthday a couple weeks ago and I finally gave her her present. She had been lugging around her mat to yoga class FOR YEARS, without a cozy or cute bag. :-O So I decided to make her one. Happy Birthday, Elana!

Tastes Collide

On Monday night, I made a calamari salad with carrots, bean sprouts, jalapeno peppers, and cabbage with an asian soy vinegar dressing. Charlie made mac 'n cheese with gruyere, sharp cheddar, tomatoes and bacon. Seems a bit clashy together on one plate but it was a good tangy and hearty combo.

Mabo Tofu! Like a Chinese Sloppy Joe--sorta

I kinda altered AND cheated with this one! I used pork sausage instead of ground pork and I used a Mabo Tofu sauce packet too! Give me a break, I wouldn't expect people to make sloppy joes from scratch when they've got those handy packets. :-P Just kidding. In general, meals are tastier when it's made from scatch anyway. Here is a recipe that I'll try next time when I make it from scratch. I think I'll use the Food Network's, Sara Moulton's recipe.

Easter Caramel Cupcakes

I did a variation of the lemon raspberry cupcakes from Bon Appetite magazine for Easter.

Lemon Raspberry Cupcakes
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
3 cups powdered sugar, divided (1 1/2 goes in the frosting)
4 1/2 teaspoons finely grated lemon peel, divided (1 1/2 goes into the frosting)
2 large eggs
1 1/4 cups self-rising flour
1/4 cup buttermilk
4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, divided (2 tbs goes into the frosting)
12 teaspoons plus 1 tablespoon seedless raspberry jam (1 tbs goes into the frosting)
Fresh raspberries (for garnish)

But I replaced the the raspberry with a caramel filling, made some slight changes in amounts, and made a buttercream for the frosting. It came out really yummy!
Easter Caramel Cupcakes
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, divided
3 teaspoons finely grated lemon peel, divided
2 large eggs
1 1/4 cups self-rising flour
1/4 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
12 teaspoons caramel sauce
Jelly beans (for garnish)

Happy Easter!

I Almost Popped an Artery Fish Tacos

Charlie and I made fish tacos last night. Seriously, I don't think any of the ingredients on this plate DIDN'T have fat in it except the bean salad. Charlie said, "These are the best fish tacos I've ever had!" and I was like, "These are the only fish tacos I've ever had" and he was like, "Me too!" Can we really rate these since we don't have anything to compare them to? I give them a 10 out of 10 anyway. Can you go wrong with all that tasty fat in there? I feel depressed now. I have to go eat some more fat to feel better.

Ginny Homemaker

Anthropologie is one of my favorite stores. They have lots of wacky patterns and vintagy looking designs. They sell aprons there that are super suzy homemaker. I like them but I don't like their prices. So, I decided I would get my own wacky fabric and make my own apron. I put a typical frilly white trim around it and and another smaller loop trim at the waist. The orange at the waist is actually a part of the lining on the other side that I folded over to make the part where the tie goes through. It took longer than I thought it would to make it. I think it took almost as long to make as the skirt! O, yeah, sorry about the clashing shirt in the photo. (I actually did change into a solid shirt but this photo came out better than the others.)

First Skirt

Sherri and I made our first skirt together, in ONE night. We even managed to make a nice pasta and sausage dinner (sorry, no photo--we ate it up) before making this. Ok. So it took us like 3 hours BUT I think it turned out pretty nice for 2 inexperienced skirt makers. My mother used to be a seamstress and she told me that she used to make like 40 pieces in a day, or maybe it was 80...anyway, it was way more than one. Basically, I'm at a stage where I have no idea what is ideal time for making one skirt. We're definitely going to try our hand at making more so keep coming back and I'll be posting more items! Stay tuned.

More Seafood

Charlie made a really delicious dill and mustard marinaded salmon on the grill for dinner tonight. I had to take a picture. As you can see there's a theme here. We like seafood and we like our stovetop grill. I made the salad. That yellow stuff is a mozzarella cheese polenta. It was all very filling and gooood.

Ginpoo Apparel

Looks a little American Apparel-ish.
So I decided to make a dress on sunday. It took me all day! This is my first try at making a dress. I used a pattern that was slightly bigger than my size but I was just hoping it would fit anyway. But it turned out that the size is a bit bigger than I was hoping. Anyone interested in buying a size 7/8 dress?

Crustaceans: It's What's for Dinner

Charlie and I made this asian style grilled shrimp, green curry roasted crab with yellow rice for dinner last night. Yum!

I <3 Squid

I really dig squid so I thought I'd start this new blog thing out by posting paintings of my favorite creatures of all time.
The giant squid!

This is a water color painting I did a few months ago. It's kind of ironic that I would paint a sperm whale eating one of these things since I love them so much, but it's a classic image.

Banner contest

There's this really cool blog called metrodad.com that I stumbled upon one day. You might be wondering why the heck I'm reading a blog called MetroDad since I don't have any kids (and I'm not a guy). Upon first glance you would think this site is geared toward a parent raising his kid. It pretty much is. Specifically a father raising a cute rambunctious daughter. Nevertheless, in general, it's a site that's entertaining and geared towards anyone who has a sense of humour, sans kids.

So, last week he had a contest for his readers to send him an updated banner for his blog. Winner would receive: (1) a brand-new Apple Shuffle, (2) a full ensemble of work-out/casual athletic clothing, and (3) a $50 American Express gift certificate.

I built this up just to say I was NOT one of the finalists BUT I still wanted to show off my banner, so here it is.

I definitely like the 5 that he chose for the finalists. You can find those on his site. It's kind of hard to choose the one I like best. I think I like 1, 2, and 4 the best. If I were forced to choose right now, I guess I'd go with 4.