Green Christmas

First things first, the title of today's entry has absolutely nothing to do with a lack of snow on Christmas. On Friday, when so many people were breaking down the doors at Target and Walmart to get the best deals, I took my dog on a hike. That morning, I was checking my Twitter feed and I noticed posts from a couple of my favorite eco-friendly folks, @Treehugger and @Teecycle_org . Both were encouraging people to turn Black Friday into Buy Nothing Day. And I thought it was a great idea. I decided, why stop at Black Friday. I wanted to turn this into a greener Christmas, but making gifts for my family and friends instead of buying them.
Now, I'm not so unrealistic to think I can actually buy nothing all Christmas season... obviously I'd at least need to buy some supplies. And I did yesterday. But I'm hoping to use as many recycled objects as possible and buy as little as I possibly can this season. My biggest challenge, I think, is going to be my nieces and nephews. Not quite old enough to understand my decision, all they'll know is that Aunt Katie Didn't buy them the video game they asked for... so I'm racking my brain, trying to make sure the gift I choose to create is the best it can possibly be, so they won't even care. I'm still making plans, and still coming up with ideas... but I've got a few so far that will have me sewing for quite a while... But I'm really excited about the idea.... and any craft project ideas are welcome!
Anyone else crafting gifts this season? What are you making???

Cooking Adventures: Caprese Mac

So, the other night I had a brainstorm... and it led to what may be one of the best culinary inventions I've had so far... I took my favorite thing in the world, macaroni and cheese... and combined it with my favorite salad, caprese, and now I feel brilliant. Because, well, yum. Anyway, it's not really an exact recipe, but here's what I did... and you'll get the idea.

For starters, I made a roux in a saucepan by melting two tablespoons of butter and combining it with two tablespoons of flour. Then I added 1/2 a cup of milk and wisked until the roux dissolved into the milk. Then I added the cheese. You can add whatever you want, but i did about a 1/4 cup of mozzarella and then a few tablespoons of parmegiano reggiano and romano. The mozzarella is kind of non-negotiable because that's a key ingredient of caprese, but beyond that you can basically do what you want. I also seasoned with a pinch of salt. If you don't add the parmegiano reggiano, you'll probably need more salt. Then I added about four tablespoons of pesto. Jarred is fine, I guess. But I used the stuff I preserved over the summer. When I make pesto, I usually freeze it in ice cube trays and then put the cubes in a zipper bag in the freezer. It's perfect because each cube is about two tablespoons.
You should turn off the heat while you add the pesto. Too much heat can turn basil black and it looks a little gross. Toss the sauce with some cooked pasta. I used elbows, but just because I already had some cooked in the fridge. I think twisty pasta works well though, because it holds the sauce better.
The final touch is to chop up a seeded tomato and add that. I used the last of the fresh tomatoes from my garden. Just make sure to remove the seeds or the whole thing will end up too soupy. If tomatoes are not in season, you could always add a can of diced tomatoes, just make sure to drain off the juices first.
I don't have any pictures because, well, I ate it too fast. But trust me, this creates a delicious bowl of gooey goodness. The sauce has a creamy pale green color and a nice pop of brightness form the tomatoes. Soooo good.

The wedding boycott

So. Yesterday was a meltdown. I'm not going to deny it. But, sometimes meltdowns are needed in order to fix what's wrong and make things better.
Which is what happened yesterday.
I've been struggling hardcore with the expectations of what a wedding "should be" vs. what Josh and I want our wedding to be. People telling me I can't do certain things because it's not how things are done. And it was pissing me off. Like, acting like a five-year-old, digging in my heels, fine then we'll just elope kind of pissing me off.
And I don't wanna be pissed off like that. I don't want to elope. I want to celebrate with my family and friends. And Josh REALLY wants to celebrate with our family and friends. And I REALLY want Josh to have the wedding he deserves.
So. The meltdown. It was a good thing. Because after I came on here and had my little meltdown, I had a really good conversation with my future mother-in-law. She seems to really get what we're trying to accomplish with our wedding planning. And she said something that made me look at her like "wow, are you always this brilliant??"
She said we need to stop planning a "wedding" and instead, throw a party at which we'll get married. Brilliant, right? Because the word wedding has so many expectations that it's like, well if you're having a wedding, you need to do X, Y, and Z. But if you're throwing a party, you can pretty much do anything you want.
And cue weight lifting from my shoulders.
So we're boycotting weddings. We're throwing a party. And it's going to be amazing and fun and everything that our friends and family would expect from a party thrown by me and Josh.
And I'm breathing again.
:)

I have ADD

Lately I can't focus on anything for very long. I've been going from project to project and can't settle my mind on anything. I started a painting. It's half finished. I knitted a pair of socks. These socks.


These are awesome socks. They're made from handpainted merino wool. And they feel amazing on your feet. And I intended to write a blog post about why I'll never buy socks again because of these socks. And then I got sidetracked. Again. I started a scarf. It's not done yet. I made a batch of homemade chicken soup.
I started dying curtains. I started dying fabric for various sewing projects. They're currently nothing more than scraps of fabric. I printed out tons of recipes and bought ingredients, which sat untouched for days. Finally, yesterday I baked a loaf of bread. I was so proud of myself, because if was the first time I've baked a loaf of bread not using my breadmaker. It's delicious. I used this recipe that I found on a blog from my local co-op. And it's probably going to be my go-to bread recipe from now on. It's soft enough to be sandwich bread. Honestly, I don't know how else to say it except yum. I mean, look at it. Just look.

I'm afraid this post won't be very useful to anyone. But I decided that to get beyond this stuckness, I just need to force myself to write. Every day. So I'm going to. I can't promise it'll always be entertaining. But I'll try. And we'll see where it goes.
On the wedding front, I'm basically boycotting. I did finish the sample version of the dress pattern. And I love it! (Sorry, no pictures yet.)
But in every other aspect, I'm boycotting everything and even rebelling against every decision that's been made so far. I thought about growing my own flowers. Except that in Wisconsin, that means I'd have to grow them indoors and it turns out that unless I can find someone to give me grow lights for free, buying them will cost me more than it would to buy the flowers wholesale.

It also turns out my bridal party is incomplete. A long story, but a huge blowup with one of my bridesmaids means there are now six groomsmen and only five bridesmaids.
We had settled months ago on the caterers we would hire, after I was talked out of cooking the food myself. But now I'm getting pissed off at that decision too. Why can't I cook the food myself? I mean really, I love to cook. What's wrong with cooking the food myself??? Honestly, I'm still hoping for eloping. But I know Josh really wants the party, and I don't want to take that away from him. But in the mean time, I feel like I'm not finalizing anything because I'm hoping I ultimately won't have to.
And I know I'm wasting time. Last week, my mom sent me a column she cut out of her local paper. Apparently one of the paper's columnists is getting married and she's documenting the planning process in her column. The one my mom sent was about how she just realized she only has eight months left and hasn't planned anything. I looked at the calendar, that clipping arrived right around the eight-month mark for my wedding. She's trying to tell me something. But I still can't commit. Like I said. ADD and stuckness. Sigh.

I've Cracked the Code!!!

So. I love hummus. Like, LOVE it. Like, if it was a choice between my fiance and never eating hummus again, it'd be a tough one... well, maybe that's a bit extreme but you see what I mean. I really like hummus.
Thing is, I'm really picky about it. The only kind I've ever really gone gaga over is Sabra. And that totally goes against my thrifty nature, to insist on spending $3 for a tiny container of the stuff premade.

So. A few months ago, I set out to figure out how to make the stuff. Disaster ensued. I tried so many different recipes that ranged in flavor and texture from inedible to eh... So I started researching and basically combined ideas from about a dozen different recipes and even more tips and finally got it. Seriously, a fully homemade, fully delicious, fully addicting hummus recipe.

Now, here's the thing... I used dried chickpeas. It's not essential, but in this case, I highly recommend it. And, really, considering how well both hummus and cooked chickpeas freeze, it's not so much work because you can make a bunch of extra and freeze it. Anyway, here goes.

3 cups cooked chickpeas (that'll be about 1 1/2 cups dried)
1/3 cup lemon juice
3 cloves garlic
1/2 cup tahini
2 T. Canola oil
pinch salt

Start by soaking your chickpeas over night. Drain then and cook them in enough water to cover by about two inches. Normally, you'd cook chickpeas for about two hours, but in this case, I'm going to tell you 2 1/2 hours because you want them to be really creamy once you put them through the food processor.
When the chickpeas are finished cooking, reserve 2/3 of a cup of the cooking water and drain off the rest. It's VERY important to process all this while the chickpeas are warm so if you've cooked them ahead, you'll need to rewarm them in the microwave or on the stove.
In the bowl of your food processor, combine garlic, lemon juice, reserved cooking water, and chickpeas and puree for about 3 or 4 minutes, or until smooth. Scrape down the sides as needed.
Add tahini and puree for about 2 minutes, adding the canola oil as it goes. Season with salt to taste.
There's a couple tricks at play here. First, grinding up the chickpeas while they're warm helps to mellow out the garlic a bit. And overcooking them gives them a smoother consistency once you grind em up. Plus, the starchiness of the cooking liquid helps with the creamy texture too.
Yeah, it's that easy. And you're welcome.

And of course, hummus is a dip... so you need something to dip it in... and for that, I made my first ever non-breadmaker bread... actually, it was skillet pita bread and I'm really proud of myself because it came out amazing.
Granted, it doesn't look like the pita bread you buy in the store (it actually looked a little more like naan) but anyway, yum.
I can't take credit for this one. It's this recipe that I got out of the September issue of Vegetarian Times and seriously. It's worth all the effort. I mean, take a look... yum. (and yes, I realize it's not round. Seriously, it's so good, I'm not even concerned.)

Lessons Learned, or, Why I’ll be sacrificing my Friday night

So. I’ve been working on a test version of the pattern I plan to use to make my wedding dress. Before I bought super fancy wedding fabric, I wanted to try it out on some basic cotton to make sure A) the pattern isn’t too uber-complicated (I hate using other people’s patterns to begin with, so when they get too complicated my eyes tend to glaze over and all the words jumble together) and B) I still like the dress once I’m wearing it.

But of course, being a thrifty kinda gal I can’t just make a dress for no reason. So I picked some nice funky cotton in colors I loved and figured I’d make it so I could actually wear it. And a couple weeks ago, I looked at the calendar and realized like, whoa, Widespread Panic shows are comin’ up crazy quick! (As I write this, crazy quick= tomorrow.) I decided what better occasion to crank out that dress for than to pretty up and get my groove on with JB and the boys... So I got to work. The pattern isn’t so hard, but there are some intricate patchwork pieces that need to be worked. So you need to be in the right frame of mind. Which is where the lessons come in.

Lesson number 1: Don’t drink and sew. For sure not one of my better ideas... but spontaneity happens and who am I to argue? I was groovin’ away on the dress one Saturday afternoon and friends started showing up... Not gonna kick em out... not gonna stop working... but the wine, now that was my downfall... next thing I knew, I drank the whole bottle and I’m spending my Sunday ripping seams... Seam ripping is the theme of this post in fact.

Which brings me to lesson number 2: Only sew when well rested. The pattern has a zig zag design at the bottom which is formed by a series of triangles sewn together into rows, and then the rows are sewn together to create the complete pattern... you get the right pattern by arranging the triangles in the right color order... which I did quite nicely. What I didn’t do in my sleep-deprived state last night was check to make sure I was sewing the final row onto the bottom of the skirt right side up. So now I have a beautiful zig zag pattern until you get to the bottom where it just looks like random geometric shapes... so I’ll be spending my lunch hour today ripping those stitches out... and there’s a lot of them. And since once I realized I had done it, I decided to stop working before I hurt myself, it means that in order to be groovin’ in a new dress by Saturday night, no night out for me tonight... I’ll be home, with my sewing machine and some tunes... but no wine, I swear!

Keeping it my own

So I have a long-awaited wedding update for you (translation: I’ve been slacking).

I’ve started collecting glass milk bottles from one of our local dairy farms. These are going to hold the flowers for our centerpieces. Which I did a trial run of last week. I decided I want sunflowers and they looked so amazing at the farmer’s market that I picked up a bunch to try my hand at arranging them. Here’s what I came up with.

A couple things... First, I don’t think I need quite so many in there, which is good because the farm I found to provide the flowers charges by the stem. Second, I tried this tip I read in a DIY wedding book about putting a drop of bleach into the water to keep everything looking fresh and nice. I don’t think it works. It didn’t keep the water from getting scummy and after a couple days, the flowers weren’t wilty but they looked like paper and the centers were bulging out like crazy. I’m thinking I’ll stick with my original idea of picking them up the day before and not arranging them till the morning of the wedding. Also, it may or may not end up being sunflowers, since I'm thinking of growing them myself so I'm still deciding.

In other news, I finally settled on a dress design (I think) and I’ve started working on a mock up of it, to make sure I like it on me.

But honestly, I didn’t really want to talk about any of that today. And none of that is why I started writing this post. I’ve been struggling a little bit with the wedding planning... and honestly, I’ve mostly boycotted it for a while now. And it’s not because I’m having doubts or am thinking I don’t want to get married (dear god no!).

I think it’s more the wedding itself. Wedding planning is hard business. I thought I knew what I was in for, since I’ve done this once before. But not even close. See, the problem is I’m older now. And I know more clearly what it is I want. And I’m more stubborn. Which is to say I’m not afraid to insist on what I want. The first time I got married, I was young. I had no idea what I was doing and I wasn’t paying for it (not even for the pretty frilly underwear under that way too poofy white dress).

But now, well, I’m a bit older and a bit (I hope!) wiser... and for sure more set in my ways. And Fiance is too. He knows what he wants, too. Correction. WE know what WE want. But other people still know what they think we SHOULD want.

Oh, and then there’s the cultural geography issue. I was born and raised an East Coast girl. A Jersey Girl, to be more specific. Go ahead, I know you’ve all got a picture in your head now. But guess what? That’s not me. Never has been.

Which is (part of) why I jumped at the chance to move to the Midwest to be closer to my betrothed. And now, we’re working hella hard to plan a wedding that fits who we are. But that also means we’ll have about 50-75 Jerseyans flying in for the event. Which, if you’re used to Jersey weddings, might be something of a non-event.

And this is where the problems start. Because every time I make a decision, or come up with an idea, it gets met with... “well you can’t do that...” and when I ask why, my mother usually says something like “well that’s just not how it’s done.”

And by the end of one of those circular conversations I’m so frustrated I’m begging to go to Vegas or get married at a Phish concert!

The thing is, I don’t really want to elope. Our wedding is important to me. And the kind of wedding we have is also important to me.

Lately, I’ve become obsessed with A Practical Wedding. Meg is awesome. And between her posts and the graduate and undergraduate posts she runs, I get tons of insight that, I hope is helping me to navigate this whole mess.

And here’s what I think I’ve figured out. People look at a wedding as a right of passage, which it totally is. But, a lot of people also look at it as this huge affair filled with obligations that you have to adhere to because “it’s always been done that way,” which it’s totally not.

The way I see a wedding is that it’s the first time you’re starting to build what Meg refers to as your baby family. So many people look at having a child as the start of your family. And when people get pregnant, they generally sit down and discuss what values they plan to instill in their children. But a baby family’s values are established from the moment that baby family is born (which, in many cases, is waaaaaaaaaaaaay before an actual baby comes along).

To me, your wedding is your first opportunity to really figure out and establish your baby family’s values, and let the whole world know what they are. In my case, it’s my chance to say that extravagant, fancy, super expensive parties are not my style. And I personally don’t believe they’re necessary. And that my baby family does not believe in going into debt over unnecessary things like rented tables and chairs when the lake house we’re having the party at has more patio furniture than a Home Depot garden center.

Even using a hodgepodge of patio furniture, my crafty self would make it beautiful and amazing. And really, it’s impossible for a wedding to not be beautiful and amazing. No matter what the decorations are, when two people are looking at each other all like, dear god I can’t believe I get to spend the rest of my life with you and that starts today, like, right now.... well, who the hell cares what they’re sitting on??

Which is the point I was trying to get across when the pizza fight happened. Apparently I didn’t do such a good job. Fiance is a very picky eater. He doesn’t like A LOT of things. I don’t want my new husband starving at our wedding. So the one thing we both love is pizza. We decided to use Streetza pizza to cater our wedding... out of their lunch truck. I think it’s an adorable idea. Our friends think it’s super cool. My mom thinks it’s tacky.

“You can’t have relatives flying in from a thousand miles away and then feed them pizza,” she says.

My response: “really mom, because I thought they were flying in to celebrate with me because they love me and want to see me happy, not because they were craving filet mignon. I’m pretty sure they can get that in New Jersey.”

The circle continues... she has started to back off a little bit, but every once in a while, she just can’t help herself. But I’m not giving in this time. Tradition can be a great thing... and I’m sure we’ll incorporate some in ways that feel right to us. But this wedding will be a reflection of our personalities. And traditional isn’t really in the description for either of us.