Straight Stitches

Friday, July 13, 2012

A New Twist on an Old Favorite

Dana July 13, 2012 0 Comments

I love my husband. I love him for so many reasons. One of the reasons I love him so much, though, is because he's easy to please (unlike me...poor Mike). :-) His favorite meals have always been very simple, (usually) one dish, though they often lack a vegetable. Oh well, I'll take what I can get. In his top ten, though, has long been chicken rice bake. I think Heather may have actually been the one to give me this recipe...maybe at my bridal shower--yes, my shower was a pounding party. Is anyone really surprised that it was food-related? I didn't think so. Unfortunately, since we had to go gluten free, we haven't made it because one of the main ingredients, cream of chicken soup, has wheat products in it. Well, we didn't make it until I took matters into my own hands...

Here's the original recipe:

Chicken Rice Bake

1 lb. boneless chicken breast, cubed

1/8 tsp pepper

1/4 tsp paprika

Can of cream of chicken soup

3/4 cups rice

1 cup water

Preheat oven to 375. Mix all ingredients together and sprinkle more paprika on top. Cover and bake for 45 minutes.

Yup, that's all there is to it. Yet another reason Mike loves it so much; he can make it himself. The soup is really the only issue, so I had to come up with an alternate scratch version. First thing I did was to find a from-scratch green bean casserole recipe. Why? Because my green bean casserole recipe also calls for cream-of soup. I remember that Alton Brown had one, so I used it...and tweaked it.

By "tweaked" I mean "kind of ignored his ingredient quantities and used whatever and how much I had lying around". What? I really like garlic. Plus, I knew it was going to cook for about an hour. A lot of the garlic flavor would temper and fade. I also had a goodly handful of shallots that needed to be used, so I used those instead of onions.

I also thought I had poultry seasoning. I thought wrong, so I did a quick search for a recipe for that too. I found it here and "tweaked" it too. Don't ask me what I ended up leaving out or adding or how much of what I used. I honestly don't remember, but that recipe I just linked to is a great base to work off of.

As far as executing the recipe goes, I just kind of winged it. The whole point is to cook everything down and let the sauce thicken, which was really easy. Then, into the oven it went. Fun fact: the container somehow boiled over up and over and onto the lid. Neat trick...not so neat to clean.

This dish travels really well too, as we took it over to a friend's house once it was done.

Mike loved it! I'm so glad I was able to make him one of his favorite meals again. Even if you make the original recipe, though, it's still amazing. I promise your family will not be disappointed.

PS: In case you're wondering what that thing next to my chicken rice bake it, it's some awesome roasted cabbage I found a recipe for here. Lemme tell you how good it is. My friend Johnathan HATES cabbage and thought it was pretty good. He ate it all!

PPS: Want a good book to read? I just released my first! It's available on Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords, and it's only 99 cents! You can also check out my website here. Enjoy! :-)

Tuesday, July 03, 2012

Duct Tape to the Rescue!

Heather July 03, 2012 0 Comments

Yesterday I shared my pretty new dress, and we all know that pretty new dresses need pretty shoes to go with them. Except I had no pretty white shoes to go with my pretty new dress. How many times can I say pretty? Enter Pinterest...

A while back I pinned this great redo from AGAAGG.

Aren't those adorably cute shoes? That houndstooth pattern is vinyl. Yep, you heard it right. Its vinyl. Do you see my light bulb starting to get brighter? I don't have any vinyl (well none that I'd put on shoes) but I do live near a Target that sells all sorts of fun duct tape!

So after fetching some white duct tape, I gathered my supplies (shoes, duct tape, craft knife, brown paint pen) and got to work. I forgot to take before pictures of both shoes undone, but you get the idea. :)

The original shoes weren't bad, but like I said - I needed white shoes to go with the outfit.

After applying all of my duct tape the shoes needed something more. So here's where the paint pen comes in. The shoes had decorative stitching on them originally, so I just drew some brown stitches on the duct tape. Worked like a charm.

Aren't they adorable? I love that I was able to reuse some old shoes. Although during the wedding I did remember why I stopped wearing said shoes (about 4 years ago) and that's because as my feet swell, the shoes don't and it makes for some painful feet. Oh well, at least I looked good while my feet weren't swollen. :)

Heather

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Monday, July 02, 2012

Retro Inspired Threads for Me!

Heather July 02, 2012 0 Comments

Well its been no secret that I've been on a sewing kick and most of the sewing has been for me. A couple of weekends ago, we attended the wedding of some very dear friends and as such, I needed a new dress. :)

The wedding was held at a local winery and the forecast was for 88 degrees and sunny. Awesome. Enter cotton seersucker. Love me some seersuckefr. :) Its a pain in the butt to work with sometimes, but the affect is so nice.

So here is my outfit!

The pattern is Simplicty 1797!

The pattern is fairly straightforward, and really the only annoying thing was cutting out all the bias tape strips for the accents on this dress. Oh and remembering to match up the plaid, but that's not the pattern's fault.

I did have to alter the bodice and add a dart from the armhole to the side front seams to accommodate the lack of bulk I have near my arms, but that was a fairly straightforward adjustment.

So the dress was pretty comfortable throughout the afternoon and into the evening. I would absolutely recommend this dress pattern to anyone to make. Its straightforward and really the only difficult part is getting the pleat and bias tape accent on the front of the skirt right, but even that is not that difficult.

Oh and do you see those white spectator-like shoes I'm wearing? Yep, the were originally brown leather, but some white duct tape fixed that. :) I'll share that alteration with you guys tomorrow!
Heather

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