Missing Pieces and Putting It All Together

Lately, I have been in a really creative place. There have been so many ideas and so little hours that I cannot seem to get them all out of my head and down onto paper fast enough. Plus, add onto the situation that I am attempting to get work done, and you have one dizzy person taking notes, looking up things on the computer, and trying here and there to get some of the housework and sewing accomplished that I needed to get done, like last week. My niece's birthday gift, while turning out adorable, is woefully late. My sister always assures me that it is nice for them to get something a bit after their birthday to keep the kids guessing, but I am afraid, this is later than I would have liked. Pictures will follow once I get all of the pieces of that puzzle put together.

This weekend was filled with get togethers and visits from out of town guests. My brother in law came along with one of our friends from Illinois for a business trip that was wonderfully extended into a family visit for the weekend. During that time, we all managed to finish the puzzle that has been moved from apartment to apartment, across the country, and more recently from table to table in an attempt to finally be finished. Since this project was started well before Christmas, I was glad to see it come to an end and pleasantly surprised that it was only missing one piece. I am kind of proud of us all, as no one cheated and looked at the box for clues in any of the puzzle solving process across all that time.

I also put together the puzzle of this year's canning plans. I am doing more this year, and I hope to reach the same number of successes and the same stunning low number of defeats. Along with the jelly and jams, tomatoes, salsa, and peaches, I am going to add things like bbq sauces, pie fillings, fruit cocktails, and some new salsas and jam flavors. I am so excited to get canning this year. First, though, I need to conduct a census of sorts to figure out what I still have and what I will need for the next year. A helpful thing would have been to write down what I started with at the beginning, but, well, I was not thinking long term when the canning bug hit last year. Here is to better planning this year.

Putting the pieces together in my projects can be challenging at first, but as the pictures become more clear and clues are evident for the next course of action, everything just starts to fall into place. Some of those pieces are starting to fall into place for the Etsy Store. Look here for updates soon as to the path of the Fabulous Pants shop and for pictures of the birthday gifts for my niece!

Food and Hiking

This weekend was filled with much activity, at least the first part of the weekend was! Dan and I hatched a plan to go hiking this past weekend. We were really excited about hitting the trails again and planned to go to Mt. Diablo to hike the waterfall trails while there is still water flowing. We started the morning off with a Dutch Baby pancake. Dan and his family got me into these delectable treats when we were both in college. Slightly like a popover, the pancake is chewy on the outsides and the bottom is almost like custard in texture. The pancake is then dressed with butter, a little powdered sugar, and fresh squeezed lemon juice. They are simply wonderful to eat! We used to wait up to an hour and a half to have these at a restaurant, but with the purchase of our own cast iron pan and a book about cast iron cooking, we found out how easy these are to make. It almost makes me regret all the waiting around for a table at that restaurant for something so easy to make.

We then took off for the mountain. We drove up to the summit first, and then came the realization that we could not get to the trail head that I wanted to use with the car. We would have had to circumnavigate the entire mountain using roads that would take a long time to achieve our goal. We decided instead to just hike out to the trail, turning our once 5.5 mile hike into a near 10 mile one. This also resulted in us going downhill at the beginning rather than the end, another decision we would not be happy with later. We saw quite a few small and beautiful waterfalls. I took pictures of two of them. The sunlight was perfect, highlighting the ripples and flow of the water. At times the water would splash up into droplets that looked like diamonds in the air. It was glorious.
We walked in and out of forested areas and into grassy fields. The trail was a bit narrow, so side by side walking was rarely an option unless we were on sections that were the fire roads. There were lots of people out as well. I think the first day of spring always makes people want to get out of the house and explore nature again. The clouds were gone, and for the most part, the haze was minimal, giving us beautiful views of the San Francisco and Discovery Bays. The valleys stretched out like a shaggy green carpet. It was nice to be surrounded by so much green as so much of the summer and fall here is so brown. The wildflowers were something to behold as well. The poppies, Indian paintbrush, and lupines were all in full bloom. Many people were walking around with guidebooks for both the flowers and the many birds that were out and about with us all. Soon enough it was time to turn back and head up the mountain. It was a hard hike that took us a long while due to being a bit tired from the up and down sections of the waterfall loop. We eventually made it and then collapsed into the car, two very sore hikers. Sunday was declared a day of rest, literally. We did not move a bit due to the extreme soreness we both were feeling. The only movement activities that we partook in was the making of food. We cooked a mostly from scratch pizza that was marvelous. We made the crust with semolina and white flowers, used jar sauce*, and then added cheese; our wild boar sausage; and some caramelized onions. Needless to say, it was gone as soon as it was out of the oven. We hoped for leftovers, but there were none!

Today I am going to work on my niece's birthday gift as well as plant the tomato plants out into their permanent pots. They have gotten too large for their temporary home in the office window. While the soreness has subsided a bit, I am still feeling it. Hopefully I will be back in form for dance class on Thursday!

* My plans for this next canning season it to work on our own pizza sauce. The usage of store bought sauce is hopefully a thing of the past next year! Any good sauce recipes? Send them my way!

Green for the Holiday

Spring has certainly arrived, and today is the first day I felt I could fully open up the house to the outside air. It is nice having breezes flowing in and out and smells of the neighborhood are also all around me once again. Between coffee roasters, the meat smoker, and the greasy spoon, the house smells like an elaborate breakfast place. I hope to add to this layered texture of smell with my cooking today. I am going to cook the traditional St. Patrick's Day meal that I have always had since I was little. I only cook this meal for today's feast day, unlike other members of the family who enjoy it more often, and the corned beef and cabbages are sitting in the refrigerator with anticipation for tonight. I am also making Irish soda bread to go with it, and for dessert, the decidedly un-Irish pumpkin pie. I forgot to make a pie for pi day and have been craving some sort of pie ever since. Since there are no really good fruits in season for pie yet, I am going to make a pumpkin one out of the hoard of canned pumpkin I acquired when I heard about the pumpkin shortages that were supposed to occur this year. Needless to say, there is still plenty of pumpkin to go around on store shelves.

Pie filling is something I would like to can this year. I am looking around for good sources for information and recipes, but I have yet to find them in my current books. Perhaps Annie will have some insight on her bookshelf.

I did get around to doing some gardening yesterday. I had to move the beans out to their final planting spots as they were getting too large for the containers I had them in. Their root systems were already all tangled up, and I hope that they take hold outside and do not stunt due to the lack of sunlight out on the balcony right now. Next year, hopefully, I will look back at these entries and hold back my enthusiasm for starting the gardening so early. I also took the chives out of the original herb box and planted them into their own pot. I love chives and use them often, so hopefully with more room to grow and new enriched soils, they will also be more happy. They look more perked up and lively today than they even did yesterday, so I am sure this is a good change for them. I also hope to plant some cilantro and finally root into the herb box the majoram and oregano that I started in the window of Dan's office. Both, though will need actual direct sun that is currently not available. The zucchini also seem to finally be growing a bit more. They are getting more leaves, and I think it is due to the warmer night and day temperatures. I hope that I get a little more action on the cucumbers that are planted along side them. They seem to be really unhappy with the lack of direct sun, but they will hopefully recover in a few weeks when it all changes. I love having all the new green plants all around, and they are just in time for the holiday.

Now I should get down to some baking and perhaps the harp. I have not gotten to pick it up for quite some time, and while I am sure the neighbors are glad that my constant playing of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and "Yankee Doodle" have been on a hiatus, I am sad that I have not gotten to play them. Back to beginner lesson one on the dvd and some more rudimentary and annoying songs!

Life Returning to Normal in 3 - 2 - 1

Life has been pretty hectic over the past few weeks, and the lack of blogging is on of the results. Certain things, though, kept in motion. The Aerogarden is really taking off. While I am slightly concerned that the thyme plant is going to eventually get choked out by the dill and basil, overall the garden is thriving. The outdoor plants however are stunted. I believe my over zealousness started that part of the garden too early. The patio is still not getting much direct sunlight, so the plants are languishing. The zucchini have gotten a few leaves, but the cucumbers are doing nothing. The beans are also stalled out. The peas, however, seem to be pretty happy. They are slowly climbing up the trellis and are very full with leaves. I hope that they are at least happy. My tomatoes are still inside as well as my peppers. I also had to restart more beans. The two that I planted outside are the only ones to germinate. the others just went bad. The new ones look rather healthy, and the largest ones are going outside into the box today. I am afraid that if I leave them inside any longer they will slump due to not having a pole to wrap around. Hopefully they do not stall out too much themselves. Needles to say, there is a lot of gardening that needs to be done today. I also want to redo my chives into their own pot as well. It will be nice to eventually redo the herb box. I just need more sun on the balcony. Hopefully the time change will start to have an effect sooner than later.

So over the last two weeks I have been rather busy getting ready and performing at Rakkasah. My friend Christine came the last weekend in February, and I had a wonderful time with her. We went around the city and saw all sorts of fun things including the Chinese New Year Parade in San Francisco. It was an action packed weekend. All the fun though came to an end when I dropped her off at the airport. I quickly came down with the flu and was out of commission for a week. It was stressful as I was looking to have that week for costuming and completing all the sewing I had to do before the show, including redoing the bra pictured here. I loved this bra the first time I made it, but it had some flaws that needed to be fixed. This second time around I could not be happier. It even has me considering making coin bras for Fabulous Pants! I also had to make another 25 yard skirt. It looked like I was sewing up mummy bandages in the sewing room. The white underskirt was beautiful with my other skirt over. It looked like a beautiful petticoat under the main skirt. I think I will be using this combination for many a show! Now if only I could figure out the ruffle foot on the machine... it would have made this project much easier. It would also open up the possibility of me adding 25 yard skirts to the shop. Let me know if there is interest in either the skirts or the bras! I would be happy to open up the creativity to those items if they are something you all have a desire for.

Now I am off for that gardening and returning to some of the normal mundane tasks that have been ignored over the show prep. There is cleaning to do and books to balance.

Garden Started!

It is a really foggy morning here in the bay, and the first thing I did when waking up was to check on the new seedlings that I planted yesterday. It was colder last night than I had hoped, and it seems like it may be a bit chillier than I would like for the next few nights. I had to replant them into their permanent homes right away as they were growing up too fast for their starter medium. I built the new tower for the cucumbers and zucchini that I planted. I am not sure if it is good enough, nor is it really tall enough I am sure, but they were the longest dowels I could buy at the store we went to. I guess I could just run them along the railing if needed. Hopefully the neighbors don't complain!


Only two of the beans seemed to have germinated. Once they broke through the dirt, they were the size you see now in two short days. I am hoping that the other beans are working slowly under their starter medium and will surprise me soon. I would hate to have such a bad batch for germination. When looking at the medium pots, I do see some small roots that appear to be coming from the beans, but they could be pieces of roots from the other ones that grew out and into the other pots. Hopefully they are the new roots! I am also pretty sure this trellis is not going to be tall enough. My Dad says that I can run the beans up and then back down and up again over the trellis. We will have to see how it works out. Perhaps more will be using the balcony railings!

I am growing peas this year. Last year I tried beans only, and got bush beans at that rather than pole beans. I am hoping that the cool conditions we have here are hospitable for this variety. They seemed rather happy when I looked at them this morning. They had a great germination rate and showed up quickly in the starter medium. I actually really love looking at their lacy style of leaf pattern. I was also surprised at how firm these seemingly delicate leaves actually are. After planting these seedlings yesterday, I watered them with water that was mixed with root stimulator. I hope that they take root and grow well. Now that I know that I have vine varieties, I am going to attempt to train them to trellises this year. I am not sure I can make the larger zucchini and cucumber listen to me, but I will try.

Yet to come are more bean plants, the tomatoes, peppers, and some herbs that I started. The herbs are up and small as well as the tomatoes, but the peppers have not shown up at all either. I may have to start them again, we will see. I am also going to directly seed green onions, radishes, beets, and perhaps some really old lettuce seed that I have been kicking around. I will keep you updated as to the balcony garden process.

New Dance Bag

I am happy to report that the bag is finally fully finished. I found a great button to finish it off and also worked on fixing some of the issues with the ties that I had. I am really enjoying using it, and I think it will be even better now that it has a closure. This bag looks absolutely beautiful from any angle. I love this fabric! I also like how the bag looks when it starts to get filled with items. The bag goes from a very flat design to a lantern type design.
I also like that this bag used up some stash items. The ties are a scrap of satin cord that I had lying around. The straps are scrap pieces of black linen that I have started to fall in love with. Linen is quickly moving to the top of my list of fabrics I like to work with. When I say linen, I also mean real linen, not a linen like blend with polyester. Linen is wonderful as it takes on a softer texture the more it is used and washed. It is also wonderfully breathable. I recently even switched over to linen for all of my fighting tops for Belegarth as the breath ability is unbeaten for me in the hot climates of our tournaments. The interior of the bag is also made out of scraps of black cotton fabric. I always seem to burn through the black fabric, and this season was no exception. I have quite a few black synthetic blends that I cannot seem to find uses for as I have become such a convert to the natural fibers. They just look better, react better, and are more comfortable to wear. This does not mean that I am not still a believer in the occasional stretch fabric here and there, but overall, I really cottons, linen, bamboo, and some animal fibers like alpaca.

I also have found that I am really into the same manufacturer of Japanese style fabrics. The last time I went into Stone Mountain and Daughter, I found this wonderful fabric in the remnant bins. We needed new pillows, and I thought it could be a good option. I also thought it would make a wonderful choli if Dan did not like it for new pillows on the couch. It turned out he did, and I figured out that I could potentially swing both pillows and a choli if I cut smart. I used the remainder of the left over linen for the backings of the pillows. I am happy to finally have new pillows that I can wash seeing as Dan and I tend to fall asleep on them every weekend. I can also easily remove the pillow forms and get new ones when they wear out and keep the beautiful covers. Overall I am really happy with how they came out

Also, I got featured in a SF Etsy team treasury on their blog. It is located here for those of you that want to take a look. It is a treasury based on Chinese New Years!

Today I am hoping to get some early plantings done for the balcony garden. Some of the seeds have taken off so much I cannot wait any longer. Hopefully I can dig up some good packaging peanuts soon, so I can get on this planting.

Where I've Been and What I've Been Doing

Needless to say, last week was really, really insanely busy! I am sure you noticed this since I made no postings last week. I have been running around doing all sorts of fun things and having more food adventures with Annie. I am going to give out a warning to the squeamish now, this posting contains pictures of sausage making. If you are meat adverse, now is the time to consider if you want to keep reading this posting. The last picture before the meat ones will be of the balcony garden seedlings, so know that is your cue to exit if you don't want to be subjected to the meat photos.

Last week was mostly centered around Wednesday night's Student Salon performance. I decided on Sunday night that my coin bra was suddenly not up to par. I had the lofty goal of taking it all apart and redoing it in time for the Wednesday night performance. Needless to say, I got the old bra taken apart, new materials purchased, but no new bra in time for the salon. As we speak, the buckram lined bra is uncovered, with only the shoulder straps in place and all the adornments are zipped away into plastic bags. I am hoping to pick this back up tonight with my chronic Olympic coverage habit. I did get a picture or two of myself after the show. I am going to part with tradition, and post a picture of myself on the blog. Please ignore the red eye as I am not able to edit it out well enough for it to not look weird.

It was my first time in a Fat Chance headdress. I was so excited to get to wear it, and while hot and a bit itchy, it was a very neat piece of costuming. I think that perhaps I will have to wear one sometime at Belegarth. I do have to admit that it changes your dancing slightly as your center of gravity is a bit off from where you are used to having it due to the extra weight at the top of the body. It also helped to drive the point home about air space around your head, neck, and shoulders and reinforced the need for gentle arm curves in all moves.

Other things were busy this week too, mainly all the plants are springing to life.I am wondering if I started them a tad too early as they have really taken off fast! The Aerogarden was an overall success. The seeds have all germinated except for the chives. I find this to be no real loss as the chives in the window box seem to still be clipping along. I think that they are going to get stripped out of that box and placed into their own pot that I can bring indoors during the winter. The dill has taken the lead, but the mint is not too far behind. The basil is just starting to peek out, but I am sure it will spring up fast soon. The roots are already showing out of the sponge medium. The window box greenhouse has been very successful. Most things have sprouted and are already ready for transplanting. The tomatoes can use more time in the indoors and then into temporary pots inside, but the peas, cucumbers, and zucchini are already rather large. I am wondering if I started them a bit too early! only two of the beans have germinated, and I hope that at least four others sprout soon. I would like to get them into the trellis as well. I am wondering if I should take the zucchini and cucumbers into their permanent pots and trellis now and then baby them through the nights by bringing their pot indoors after sundown for a while. The herbs are also started, and this time I am determined to keep my Mediterranean herb plants happy. I bought some vermiculite to try to dry out the soil faster so they do not get so water logged again. I am also adding packaging peanuts into the bottoms of the pots this year to promote better drainage. The peanuts are lighter, so the weight of gravel or something along those lines will not be a factor on the balcony. It is also a nice way to recycle something that otherwise will take up landfill room. I hope that I can scrounge up some more soon as the planting is going to really take off soon, and I need to get the drainage systems set up.

Ok...... Now on to the Sausage! If you are not a meat person, now is the time to sign off, and I will see you again soon! If you are a meat eater, read on to Annie and Amy's adventure in sausage making!

Annie's beau works on one of our many watersheds, and they have many invasive species that must be eliminated from the habitats. One such creature are the wild pigs that roam around rooting up the soil and disturbing earthen dams and the like. This rooting also destroys habitats and plants, so they have a person who comes in to remove these pigs. We happened to have one such pig be offered to Annie and Ian, and my logical conclusion was to make sausage out of it. Annie found a great recipe for wild boar sausage, and while we had a sow, we figured it would work just as well. We had 15 pounds of meat and jowl fat to grind together and then place into casings. Annie pressed the KitchenAid grinder into service.... literally. While not a great grinder, it did at least get the job done after a long time. Thankfully Ian helped as I was not there for this tedious process. She mixed the meat and fat with red wine, whole fennel seeds, toasted fennel, local sea salt, and fresh cracked black pepper. Our taste portion was amazing. It smelled so good, and I had visions of this sausage on pizza with caramelized onions dancing in my head!

After a night soaking up all the flavors, Annie made the tip out to Oakland to stuff the sausages into their natural casings. You truly do not realize how much meat fifteen pounds is until it is staring you in the face. We then opened up the casings we had bought two weeks before starting the project. They smelled rather rank and awful. We were not sure if they were still good. I had read out on the web that they would smell, but this seemed unreasonable. So, we went on a trip back to the butcher to make sure we were not going to kill ourselves and loved ones with bad casings for the sausage. Needless to say, we were giggled at and informed that, yes, they do really smell that way. It was fine to use them. So, we returned back to the house and began the set up. The KitchenAid had the food grinder attachment placed back on, and the sausage stuffer placed on the front. The casings were then slipped onto the front, we tied it off and started stuffing. After a while we got the hang of it and things went really fast.

A few words on the KitchenAid attachment for stuffing the sausage. We had a few problems in the middle of the stuffing process. One of these problems is that the attachment does not house into the machine very well. Once we were getting the hang of things I was pushing into the attachment too hard, and it ended up slipping off the machine twice. If you are getting a hang of the stuffing process, don't push harder to make things go faster, just take the machine up to level 4. It goes just as well as two but faster, and you can keep using the same amount of pressure as before. Also, it is really important to not put too much meat into the hopper at a time. One inch balls of meat worked beautifully, and it never seemed to clog up or anything for us as happens to other people. The other thing I would also say is to not over stuff your sausage. Yes immature jokes can abound here.... I know we made a lot when discussing this project! While I have not tried mine yet as I am trying to adhere to the curing process, Annie has cracked into some of hers. She had problems with the cooking time as there was just too much sausage to cook, and being a wild pig, we need to make sure that the meat is thoroughly cooked due to all the nasty illnesses it could be carrying. Overall, this is a project I would do again, especially if we get free meat like we did this time. I am also not sure if my opinion of this project would change if I had to grind all that meat and fat together. I think Annie would have to give a better opinion on that side of the project. We ended up with a lot of sausage though, and if you are going to tackle something like this, I say make a big batch! I will update you all on what they turned out like after the curing is over, and we eat some of them.

I hope this really long posting helps to makeup for the silence last week. Look for finished bag pictures tomorrow and more garden pictures as that gets set up.