giveaway: Applique Your Way

There are going to be a lot of crafty giveaways in your future! 

Today's giveaway is a great book by Kayte Terry called Applique Your Way! There are 35 cute sewing project (patterns and templates included) such this rose petal tee:

 and these adorable felt coasters! 

Read more about the book here. 

To enter, simply leave a comment on this post. One comment per person please. If you'd like an additional way to enter, all you have to do it "like" my author page on Facebook! 

This giveaway will close on Saturday, January 31st at 11:59 pm et. 

I'll pick a winner at random on Sunday, February 1st and a winner will be announced Monday, February 2nd. 

Winner MUST have a U.S. mailing address. I will email the winner and ask for their address. If I don't hear from you within 5 days, a second winner will be selected. 

Good luck!!

what I ate #20

I've been eating well in the new year! (I know you were concerned!) 2015, thus far has been all about parlaying one meal into an entirely different  meal…….let me prove my point:

Once morning's buttermilk biscuits…. (by the way, I've made my share of buttermilk biscuits and these are by far the easiest most low maintenance biscuit I've ever come across)

Become tomorrow's egg sandwich. 

Yesterday's crockpot carmelized pork ramen noodle soup with curry roasted acorn squash

becomes tomorrow bahn mi! (With a leftover broth dipping sauce)

I've also been loving baked sweet potatoes for breakfast. Just cube, drizzle with bacon fat, salt and pepper and whole, fresh sage leaves and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes!

But the home run discovery this month has been this crispy salmon with with strawberry basil salsa!!!

All this and we're not even two weeks out yet!!!

happy new years!!!

So, it would be prudent of me to resolve to post more, but truth be told, with an impending move and a book coming out in May I don't know that that is possible!!

Happy 2015!! Hope yours is off to a new start. I am home with a sick pickle, but he enjoyed his first two days back at school. Since I can't get any real work done with a child at home, I have spent the day…wait for it…..creating a powerpoint presentation about our guinea pigs for Doodle's upcoming kindergarten share. I kid you not. 

I have things to share with you! Mr. P's hockey 9th birthday party, things I cooked over the break! Our new obsession with hiking!

But for now, I'll leave you with my new author website. It's a work in progress, but feel free to bookmark it and visit when you'd like to be up on my latest writing news. If you're a blogger who'd like to host me for an author interview, a book giveaway or anything else, let me know!

www.jennifercaloyeras.com

commissary

When I recently read about Roy Choi's new restaurant in Koreatown I was so excited to try it! Choi is the chef credited with founding the food truck movement that is so popular in L.A. through his flagship gourmet Korean taco truck, Kogi.

His latest restaurant, Commissary, is housed at the Line Hotel in Koreatown. The restaurant is on the second floor and is made to look like a green house. It is so beautiful in there, my photo doesn't even do it justice. And I'd imagine a rainy day might be the perfect time to come here! 

Here is the menu:

Just images - no descriptors. Though the wait staff will gladly go into detail about what is in a particular dish. (My lunch mate is a vegan, so we stuck to the vegetable side. The other side of the menu is mostly animal protein.) Choi wanted to make customers feel as though they are visiting someone in their garden. 

I was so busy enjoying the food that I forgot to take photos!! But we ordered the carrots (roasted with added balsamic over a green chimichurri sauce), quinoa (served with dried fruit), pumpkin (served as a stew atop rice and other veggies) and brussels sprouts (chopped finely and served in vinegar with fried okra.) It was all so good!!

kids t-shirt

Remember when I took a little trip downtown to L.A.'s fabric district? Well, I finally put some of that jersey to good use and made t-shirts for Doodle!

I used this 4-5 t-shirt pattern from Dana Made it. Since Doodle is nearing 6 (!!!) I increased the pattern by about 1/2 an inch all the way around in order to end up with a size 6 t-shirt. This really was much easier than I thought it would be. 

Dana's pattern calls for ribbing around the neck and arms. This definitely gives the shirt a more polished look and can be fun to add a contrasting color. But, I skipped it and just left the next and arms raw. I made one in green (more later on this new wacky face someone keeps making in photos.)

And one in this blue and white striped pattern. 

Mr. P. gave his brother a hug yesterday while he was wearing the green shirt and said, "Your shirt is so soft! MOM, can you make me one?" Music to my ears. Yes, yes I can!

thanksgiving 2014

So, for the first time in about twelve years, my husband and I relinquished Thanksgiving dinner hosting duties and just showed up as guests this year and I have to say, it was magical! I awoke Thanksgiving morning, danced off to hip hop class and spent the rest of the day playing with the boys and not stressing about food!

Our oldest family friends have a place in Malibu right on the beach. You couldn't have made up a more beautiful backdrop for dinner. 

The kids loved playing on the beach and the sunset was incredible:

We brought wine and this gluten free, dairy free, no sugar added chocolate pie with coconut cream. Here is the recipe I used,  from Oh She Glows, but I added a whole banana. I had never made this before but it turned out really good!!

That's my sister on the left! She and I did some blurry cuddling post dinner. 

I could very well get used to being a guest for Thanksgiving!! However, we did manage to cook a Thanksgiving dinner Friday night for a "second Thanksgiving" with my parents and sister. 

In addition to our little turkey, we made brussel sprouts and bacon, sweet potato rounds (from Smitten Kitchen), fingerling potatoes, my mom brought a salad with cranberries and I made this roasted carrot dish from Circa Happy. Everyone was very nice and forgave the fact that somehow, the carrots never made it to the oven. They added a nice and surprising crunch, I suppose. I'd like to try this dish again and actually bake them the next time around.  

what i ate #19

Just busy. Busy. Busy. Busy. 

Birthday party to plan, holidays to sort out, parents having surgery (Everyone is fine!), dogs to train, a house to build, libraries to volunteer in, an author website to build, a book to publish……like I said, busy busy busy. 

But there's always time to eat!

I've been trying hard to stick to my no sugar, no wheat, no dairy policy. Halloween threw me for a loop, but I'm back on track. And thank goodness Starbucks now offers coconut milk! Coconut milk lattes are delicious!!

Here's a few things I've had over the last few weeks:

There's been no shortage of pomegranates over here and I've been trying to incorporate them into everything I eat! (we are even adding a pomegranate tree at our new house)

kabocha squash soup with pomegranate and pepitas

kabocha squash is my absolute favorite. The pepitas add a nice crunch and the pomegranates give it a pop of flavor. 

cauliflower and roasted garbanzo beans salad

This has become my go to salad. In the photo below you'll see I've substituted roasted broccoli for the cauliflower. Whatever is in the fridge. What I love about this salad are all the interesting flavors and textures together: apple, cabbage, herbs, radishes and scallions….

These lamb meatballs sprinkled with mint and pomegranate are so good! Substitute turkey for lamb. Add some heat and dip in a yogurt sauce to cool your mouth. 

Cod with raw beet and carrot salad. Stick an edible flower on a plate and I'm sold. 

Hallowhat??

Look who is behind schedule again? Moi!

I've been distracted. Building a website for my impending novel release (May 15th) oh and building a house. 
What? Yes, we are moving about ten minutes from where we live now. I have been tasked with tile choices, so I've been swimming in tiles lately. Who knew there were so many choices?!?!?! We're pretty much sticking with a classic look, but there are some fun tiles I'm excited to show you that will be in our kitchen (think white, 3D tiles) and in our bathroom (green diamonds in a chevron pattern). 

Anyhow….here are a few photos from Halloween. Slim pickings as my camera phone ran out of space. My dad took some on his camera, but I haven't had a chance to get those from him yet, so you're left with Mr. P.'s homemade jester costume and the dogs as a taco and a camel!

I have to say, that jester costume was by far the easiest costume I've ever made. I constructed it as a vest so he just had to wear a long sleeve black t-shirt underneath. Stay tuned for Doodle's knight costume!!

happy halloween!

Even though there's rain predicted in L.A. tonight, it's not going to stop us from having fun! The only thing scarier than a rainy Halloween is our crazy drought!

Here was this morning's costumes in action. No, I did not sew these costumes. 

But I did sew tonight's costume change!!! Photo to follow. 

The teachers all joined in in a Thriller flashmob choreographed dance that was amazing! Making braised short ribs and kabocha squash soup for dinner before we get out there. 

Underwood Farms

I think this was our 8th year at Underwood Family Farms. 

Same kids, same gags.

But this time, we brought the puppy.

We now have pumpkins for days!!!

very pinteresting: hanging bat

We made these hanging bats from a project on Pinterest. I didn't have any black fuzzy material, so instead, I recycled some fabric from Doodle's elephant costume from last year's Halloween. 

They're cute, these bats! And very easy to make. Click here for the tutorial. 

very pinteresting: body parts in a jar

I needed something for the Halloween table. Something spooky. Something vaguely disgusting. And I found it in the form of these body parts in faux formaldehyde. 

So spooky. So gross. So easy!!!

Click here for the original instructions I found on Pinterest. 

My ratio for the lime green liquid was about four drops of yellow to one drop of green food coloring. 

The body parts were just assembled from a pile of bones and body parts I've collected over the years. 

fish tank and glow in the dark pants

Doodle requested a tank top (he loves to sleep in them) with a fish on it, so I sewed him this:

They go nicely with his new, glow in the dark astronaut pajama bottoms I made!

And they make him act a little silly. Maybe it's not the new pajamas. Maybe it's just him. 

Dried Pears

We're still as enamored with our organic produce delivery box after a year. Everything gets eaten. The fruit goes into smoothies and gets snacked on. The veggies get roasted, sauteed and hidden in smoothies and green juices. Anything leftover gets placed with homemade chicken stock in the slow cooker for Sunday night soup. 

I was looking for something to snack on in the movie theater (we went to see Book of Life this weekend) since Paleo dictates popcorn is out, so I decided to try some dried / dehydrated pears. 

I don't own a dehydrator (and please don't take this as a hint to get me one…) but the oven, set to a low temperature, works just fine. 

I sliced the pear thinly using a mandolin (a gadget I will keep!) I soaked the sliced in a mixture of water and fresh lemon juice to prevent the pears from oxidizing and turning brown for about ten minutes. Setting the oven to 160, I placed the sliced on a baking sheet sprayed with coconut oil and baked them for about six hours. 

I took the pears off the pan before they cooled and then placed them into a plastic bag for the theater. They were crunchy and delicious!!! I think they could even have used an additional hour if you like them super crunchy. 

halloween costumes, continued….

So, after watching Project Runway, I was inspired to try and sketch out the boys' Halloween costumes. Tim Gunn would tell me my proportions are all off, but here you go…one knight and one jester. 

I had fun planning these costumes with the kids. They chose the color schemes and Doodle accompanied me to the fabric store to pick out materials. I went with mostly felt for the costumes as it's pretty sturdy, easy to work with and forgiving. 

We'll see how it all shakes out!

candy wine pairings

I love this chart found on the Kitchn. It helps you pair wine with Halloween Candy:

Halloween just got even more fun. 

duck in cherry reduction

Recently, I discovered an incredible, old fashioned butcher in Santa Monica. If you're local, it's called A Cut Above.

They have absolutely everything here, all so beautifully laid out. And the best part is, their meat and poultry is all hormone free, free range and locally sourced. They are so passionate about their product and have been very patient with me when I ask them all of my questions.

And their products are cheaper than Whole Foods.

They also sell chicken carcasses! What in the world would I want that for?? I've been making my own bone broth lately! (recipe to follow soon).

They make their own bacon!

And the last time I was there, they were selling something called lamb bacon. I haven't tried it yet, but I am definitely intrigued!

They also have a sandwich bar if you're looking for prepared food.

Anyhow, I decided to try making duck for the first time, so I came here to get it. I ended up making duck breast in a cherry reduction sauce with sautéed cabbage.  It was delicious! My 5 year old loved it so much he asked for it the next day both in his snack and in his lunch.

With all the new evidence coming out about how we're creating superbugs and resistance to antibiotics by pumping our meat and poultry full of antibiotics, I think it's an important discovery to find a quality and affordable hormone / antibiotic free, local butcher!

Halloween Tutorials

As I am planning this year's costumes for the boys, I thought I'd take the time to share photos and tutorials from Halloweens past in case any of you are looking for inspiration!

Here is a super simple tutorial for a bat T-shirt (although you could use the embellishment on anything…pillow cases? Tablecloth??)

If you're thinking of a Harry Potter Theme, check out my Wizarding Robe tutorial!

A wizarding wand to go along with your robe:

How about some easy spiders? Great for the under five crowd:

A pirate belt:

A pirate sword and cutlass: 

Pirate eye patches: