CEiMB: Fettuccine with Creamy Red Pepper-Feta Sauce

Today's Craving Ellie in my Belly recipe is Fettuccine with Creamy Red Pepper-Feta Sauce, hosted by Jessica of Learning to Love Vegetables.



This was so insanely simple and so yummy. I loved it. Definitely one of my favorite Ellie recipes. It makes a lot of sauce, and I knew the kids wouldn't try it, so I only mixed 2 servings of pasta with the sauce for our dinner last night and put the rest of the sauce in the freezer. I hope it will freeze well. Thanks for a really great pick, Jessica!

Baby Gifts

A good friend and his wifey had their first wee babe a few months ago, and so I had to bust out some baby gifts. My old stand-by is burp cloths. My favorite way to do these is to buy those nice thick flannel cloth diapers, and just sew fabric to size, flip it inside out and topstitch all around. I always have some on-hand so I can sew some up in a pinch if I need a baby gift. Not complicated, but very cute. It's nice to feel somewhat fancy when someone is vomiting on you in public.



And I made a patchwork baby blanket, with minky on the back. Oh, minky is the worst to work with! Cripes, it's awful, but is is so lovely and cuddly-cozy, so, what are you gonna do?

I used a charm pack of Amy Butler stuff, and stamped on some linen squares. I picked an exerpt from favorite poem from one of our Mother Goose books. I think it's maybe called I Had a Little Nut Tree:

I skipped over water
I danced over sea
And all the birds in the air
Couldn't catch me









These blankets are great. They're cuddly for the babes, and they can be used for a play mat, and then kids can use them for baby dolls... I'm hoping wee Sylvia will love and use it for many years.

CEIMB: Walnut and Dried Cherry Bars

Hey CEiMP-ers -- forgive me PLEASE for this late posting. This has pretty much been one of the worst weeks of my life. I was incredibly ill and have barely been able to move for days. Total nightmare. But the antibiotics are kicking in and I almost feel human again.

So! This past week was my turn to host over at Craving Ellie in my Belly. My pick was the Walnut and Dried Cherry Bars, on p. 40 of So Easy (recipe at end of post).



I did not love these. I see that a lot of people really did, so maybe I should try them again. They were a little too soft for me, I'd try baking them a little longer next time, and maybe try a different kind of preserves. I feel badly picking a recipe and then not digging it, but oh well, they can't all be keepers.

I'm looking forward to reading through everyone else's posts (when I can look at the computer for more than 2 minutes without feeling like puking! Bon apetit!).


Walnut and Dried Cherry Bars

Ingredients
1 cup quick-cooking oats
3/4 cup whole-wheat pastry flour or regular whole-wheat flour
1/4 cup toasted wheat germ
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup canola oil
1 egg, beaten to mix
1 egg white
3/4 cup chopped dried tart cherries
1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts
Cooking spray
1/4 cup "fruit only" apricot preserves

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a medium bowl, whisk together the oats, flour, wheat germ, cinnamon and salt.

In another bowl, whisk together the honey, applesauce, oil, egg and egg white until well combined. Stir in the oatmeal mixture until well combined. Add the dried cherries and walnuts.

Coat an 8-inch square baking pan with cooking spray. Spread the mixture into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out

clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Put the preserves in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. As soon as the bars come out of the oven, brush with the preserves. Cool completely and cut into 12 bars, about 4 by1 1/2 inches each.

Home Project

I read Bonnie's post tonight: The Home Project. Go check it out, it's a great idea. It's easy to let time in a marriage just by so quickly, to take it for granted in these days of life with wee ones and all the craziness they bring. She plans to chronicle her marriage through photos, weekly, and I am thinking of playing along.



This is part of the mayhem on our bathroom counter right now as Josh packs for tomorrow's business trip that will keep him away from home for 5 days. HGe travels regularly, but the trips aren't usually this long. And on top of the general stress that comes along with him being away, Delma is sick, I am sick, and we are expecting a huge snow storm. Oy.

But, the glasses... After Josh and I got married, we went to Hawaii for our honeymoon. When we were flying out, I looked over at him at one point and he had fallen asleep reading, with his glasses on. I took his glasses off of his face and carefully stashed them. And then I was struck with that one small act. That this man and I would be doing big things and also these smallest things for each other for the rest of our lives. That there's someone to take my glasses off of me when I fall asleep reading. For people who have grown up feeling attended to and cared for, this may be nothing. To me, it is everything.

CEIMB: Mushroom Barley Soup

Today's Craving Ellie in my Belly recipe is Mushroom Barley Soup, hosted by Jennifer of The Rookie Baker.

The recipe as written is actually Beef Mushroom Barley Soup, but since we're veg I left out the beef. If I were going to make this again I'd replace the beef with a meat alternative or with beans, but this time around I just left it out altogether. It was good, it was hearty and satisfying. It was also super-easy to throw together. But it wasn't particularly exciting, probably because it was missing so much flavor that the beef would have provided.

I didn't take any pitures, because I made it so late the other night that it wasn't ready in time for dinner. So I just packed it up for lunches, and soup in a take-out container on my office desk does not make for an appealing photo.

Check out Jennifer's blog for the recipe.

CEIMB: White (Turkey) Chili

Today's Craving Ellie in my Belly recipe is White Turkey Chili, hosted by Leslie of Lethally Delicious.

As we're vegetarian, I replaced the turkey with TVP. I couldn't find poblano peppers, so since I wasn't sure what a good replacement would be, I just skipped the peppers altogether. And then when I was dishing it up tonight I forgot the sour cream. I liked this chili, and Josh liked it a lot. I think I'll like it more when I have it for lunch tomorrow and remember the sour cream.

For me, "real" chili is and always will be red with tomatos, since that's what I grew up on. But this really is a nice change from the norm, and came together quickly and easily (I chopped the onion and celery this morning so I could just throw it all together tonight). It would make a good winter weekend lunch, served up with some crusty bread. And hominy, hello? This was my first foray into the world of hominy and I would rate it a success.

Check out Leslie's blog for the recipe. In the timeless words of Yo Gabba Gabba, "Try it, you'll like it!" Thanks, for a great pick, Leslie!

Popover Morning

Oh, these Hattonettes. They wake up ready to GO and it is exhausting. They do not appreciate my need to ease into my morning.

Exhibit A. Picture taken around 6:45 this morning, after getting up at 6:30 and making a bee-line for the Halloween face paints. Do the math.



So, there's that. And 2 minutes later she demanded I take it off, and I had to rub her face raw with baby wipes to get (most of) it off.

Then I decided it was a popover morning, and thankfully I had printed out the recipe from the Parents Magazine web site ages ago, because now the link to it is dead. I do not get a dozen, as the recipe says, but they sure are tasty. They are very eggy, much more-so than I recall from making them before, and the girls did not dig them. But at least they tried them, which made me happy. And of course the best part was using the sifter to make the sugar snow on them.

Sufganiyot!

I decided to try my hand at sufganiyot (jelly doughnuts), and picked Martha Stewart's Glittered Sufganiyot. They're little, the size of D&D Munchkins. I didn't end up using all of the dough, because I knew we would not eat a kajillion of them. And mine do NOT look like Martha's, but, I'm not going to lie, they are delicious.

I filled half of them with strawberry jam, and left the other half empty. I'm glad I finally had the guts to try this, it will be a great Hanukkah tradition now that I know how easy they are.

Handmade Hanukkah

As usual, I went overboard on gifts for the girls. It's a good thing they're spread out over 8 nights. We mostly bought stuff, but I wanted to make sure to get some handmade gifts in, too.

Monogram pillows for the girls. I think they came out cute, the only think I don't like is that the spray adhesive I used to put the paper template onto the fabric when making the applique sort of stained the fabric and makes it look like there are wet spots. Oh well, we can live with that.





I made the pillow cases with an envelope closure, so I can easily take them off for washing and can swap them out when I eventually get off my butt and make them different covers for holidays. I used chenille for the back, and instead of just hemming it on the side that overlaps, I used pieces of the front fabric to bind it.




And I made them the set of Patty Young Potty Girls, and dresses for them.



I don't know if it's because I have a low-end machine or what, but I could NOT hem these dresses. The knit fabric with the tiny hem would literally just get sucked down into the machine by my feed dogs every time, no matter what I did. I could have tried the serger, but didn't bother. I just sewed them at the shoulders and up the sides and left all the hems unfinished. I'm sure after a while they'll get ratty looking though, so I'll have to figure something out.

The girls are really into their baby dolls these days, so I wasn't sure whether they'd be very impressed with these dolls. Well, they were, and the whole sharing situation got a bit hairy. But this year they're getting quite a few gifts that are for both of them together, so they'll just have to learn to deal with it.

I got each of the girls a gift to give to each other, baby doll-related paraphenalia, and they were very sweet about thanking each other and telling each other how much they liked their gifts. So precious. They are such good little sisters. Last week Delma did something to upset Mimi, and Mimi said, "Delma is not my friend!" Delly just shrugged it off and said, "Well, I'm always going to be your sister." Heart.

Hanukkah Sameach!

First night of Hanukkah! It's been hard to get into the spirit of the wintery festivities when we just had Thanksgiving and some days it's still warm enough to be outside without a jacket. That freaking lunar calender is whack. Anyhoo! Hanukkah is here, ready or not.

We had a lovely first night, complete with light and music and gifts and good food and tantrums and unwillingness to share aforementioned gifts. Sigh.

Also since we interrupted a coloring session with dinner, there was lots of "Put down the crayons and eat your dinner." Again, sigh.





That there husband of mine is all about the latkes, we try different recipes every year. Tonight were some potato and onion ones with mustard seeds, and a batch of some apple and potato latkes. Both vegan (we're not vegan, it just worked out that way), and both DELISH. Of couse, I'm sure just about anything would be delicious if you fried it up and drowned it in sour cream and apple sauce.



Nom nom nom.



Happy Hanukkah!