Cafe World Challenge Week 42

Another week and two more dishes down. I made a spicy Kung Pao Stir Fry and just set up a Vegas Buffet based on the Cafe World graphic.

I had my husband home all week and he's been taking kids to school etc, but that also left him time to go wandering around town and he always comes home with stuff I don't need. I was going to make Chicken Gyros and fries this week, but he came came home with steak, chicken flings and shrimp. UGH!!! I shouldn't complain, his galavanting has allowed me some time to stay home and sew..my number one passion right now.

KUNG PAO STIR FRY

A Kung Pao stir fry is a Sichuan dish usually made with chicken, although other meats can also be used. It is different from others because it contains some heat in the form of chilies and Sichuan peppercorns and also has peanuts in it.

I made up my own version using the ingredients I had at home. I should've added Sichuan peppercorns, but didn't have any and opted for chili and a Chinese garlic chili sauce. I couldn't find Chinese chili peppers at my store so I just used a jalapeno, so not very authentic, but very tasty nonetheless. I changed the traditional order of cooking so that I could keep the pan free of hot flavours for the kids. I then scooped out their servings of meat and vegetables and then spiced up for the adults. The Cafe World version was made with beef, so that's why it isn't a chicken stir fry.

Kung Pao Stir Fry recipe:

2 garlic cloves, minced
1 lb sliced beef steak
3 tbs vegetable oil
1 heaped tbsp Asian chili-garlic sauce
2 tsp soy sauce
2 tbsp dry sherry
1 tbsp white vinegar
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp toasted sesame oil
1 tsp cornstarch
1 jalapeno, ribs and seeds removed, thinly sliced
1/2 cup roasted unsalted peanuts
1 small zucchini, cut into 3/4 inch dice
1 red pepper, cut into 3/4 inch dice
1/2 cup cilantro leaves

Combine garlic with meat and 1 tbsp oil. Make sure meat is well coated and marinate for 30 minutes.

I prepared all the ingredients before starting to cook, so that it was easier to stir fry.

Sauce: Whisk together chili sauce, soy sauce, sherry, vinegar, sugar, sesame oil and cornstarch.
In another bowl combine peanuts and jalapeno.
In another bowl combine vegetables.

Add meat to hot pan or wok and stir fry until slightly browned. Remove and set aside.
Add 1 tbsp vegetable oil to pan and stir fry vegetables until tender. Remove and set aside.
Add 1 tsp vegetable oil to pan and flash fry peanuts and jalapeno. Return meat and vegetables to pan and add sauce. Stir fry till heated through and serve with cilantro on a bed of rice.

VEGAS BUFFET

If you look at the game graphic above, you can see that this person loaded their plate with Steak, Lobster, probably chicken wings, maybe potato and jello and they have their winnings on hand too.

Since my husband came home with steak, shrimp and chicken flings...I could be a very good substitute. So my version has garlic butter sauteed shrimp instead of lobster and Buffalo chicken flings (basically just chicken nuggets) instead of wings and I served it with potato salad and a store bought jello treat my son begged to have. There wasn't enough time to make my own jello at home. I figured the bag of loonie chocolate would stand in for the Vegas winnings, although I suppose you wouldn't find many loonies in Vegas.
For my non-Canadian readers: a loonie is our 1 dollar coin. It is called a loonie because it has a loon (a bird found in Canada ) on one side. Our Two dollar coin is called a Toonie (Two-nie). Yes I also found this incredibly strange when I arrived, but it is fun to confuse visitors!!

Progress: 77/86 (9 more if no others get added or unlocked)

Next Up: I'm going to make my version of a chicken gyro.

Disclaimer: Image owned by Zynga. This site is not owned by Zynga. This site is not the owner of the intellectual property

Jacket Prep Work

I 've made some progress with the Vogue 8692 jacket. I've made up my muslin and made changes to the pocket pattern pieces that were incorrectly printed. If you're interested the changes are up on Vogue Patterns' Facebook page.

Even if you're not interested in this pattern, you should still take a peak at their Facebook page. They share the work of bloggers like you and me and you'll see many familiar faces and their beautiful Vogue creations.

I just muslined the back, front and sides and tested for fit through my middle. It seems to fit okay!! Any comments?

The other big job was to prep the wool crepe fabric. I have 3.5 yards of 62 inch wide fabric, enough for the jacket and a skirt. The piece is way too big for me to be considering hand washing and flat drying, I'm just not equipped to deal with that. I could've taken it to the dry cleaners, but that will be expensive (I'd rather spend the cash on fabric). So I found another method on Carolyn's Blog Diary of a Sewing Fanatic, she calls it the "Steam the heck out of it" method. As she herself says, this is a REALLY time consuming method. I've been at it all day and haven't finished half yet. It involves using a damp press cloth and lots of steam and yes, pressing the crap out of it. I'm using a 20 by 12 inch piece of lightweight muslin press cloth and it covers the width of the fabric 3 times, but only 2 lengths of the press cloth fit on the ironing board, so I have to wait a while in between, because I can't move the wet fabric. So I don't know if you know what I'm getting at, kind of hard to explain, but it comes down to a LONG TIME. I've at least gotten to catch up on my PVRed shows while I stand there and press and I've been doing housework and blog reading and other stuff while I wait for the wool to dry a bit, before repositioning on the board and continuing the process.

Tonight Canada is playing Russia in the World Junior Hockey Championships Gold Medal Game, so I'm watching that while pressing and writing here while waiting. I'm really hoping to be done by tomorrow morning, as I absolutely have to tear myself away and go out to lunch with my husband. He's been home all week and has wanted to go out to lunch every day, but I've been so engrossed in my sewing that I've nixed the idea each time. So when I agreed to go tomorrow, he called some friends to join us, so I couldn't back out again. At least it's Indian food, which is my absolute favourite. I've been lucky all week, my husband has been around to deal with taking kids to school and back and I've been sewing or doing sewing related reading all week. ABSOLUTE BLISS!!! I think I need a bumper sticker for my car, "I'd rather be sewing!!" Can you get those? I'm happy, I'm on a roll, stay tuned for another update soon.

12 Jackets in 12 Months

There is a sew-along going on over at Stitchers Guild, where the goal is to make 12 jackets in 12 months. I posted there back in December with a rough plan and thought I'd make my intentions known here too.

Usually at this time of year I would be obsessing over the SWAP contest (also at Stitcher's Guild), but decided to skip the stress this year and do something a little more relaxed. You say 12 jackets in 12 months is relaxed?? Not totally, but it is only a sew-along and no pressure to actually sew up 12 pieces. I thought I'd use the spirit of the sew-along as motivation to finish up some half sewn up jackets and coats in my UFO pile and make much needed cover-ups in my wardrobe. Since the rules of the sew-along are pretty flexible, I can count structured jackets, coats and casual unlined jackets and even cardigan type knit jackets.  If I take into account all the UFO's or previously planned pieces for which I have fabric all ready and waiting, I have 7 projects. I'm sure I'll have other patterns and fabric jumping out and inspiring me too, so whatever works out is great by me. My other goal with the sew-along is to stretch my skills, which is also the theme of this year's SWAP, I want to use techniques I haven't used before and to this end my first major project will be Vogue 8692, Claire Shaeffer's Custom Couture Collection jacket pattern.

An added bonus of using this pattern is that Ann Rowley, a moderator over at Stitcher's Guild, has made up an amazing photo tutorial of her progress through this pattern. It is found here. There is also an abundance of discussion about the pattern at Stitcher's Guild, so it will make the attempt of this advanced skill pattern a little easier. I hope!!

I purchased a beautiful navy wool crepe from Denver Fabrics. Ann also used a wool crepe, so I'll follow her recommendations to which interfacing etc to use. I'm using a grey silk charmeuse, which I got when our local Fabricland closed, for the lining.

I was supposed to get the muslin done today as my kids went back to school and I'd have some uninterrupted time available. But alas!! My eldest son was excited about seeing his friends and was wide awake at 3am and never managed to get back to sleep and kept waking me every hour with some request. So I used my quiet time today to nap, I'll need it, he'll probably come home a tired wreck and be as cranky as a constipated bear.

So I'll post more progress at a later stage. Oh and I also cut out a casual unlined jacket in a very drapey khaki coloured fabric, so that will be whipped up too...at some stage soon anyway.

New Year, New Look

Happy New Year and wishing you all a happy and prosperous 2011!!!

I've been wanting to change up the blog appearance, so to celebrate the New Year, Jen's Pots & Pins has a new look. I hope you like it.

Cafe World Challenge Week 41

I'm back in the kitchen. Did I ever leave? No not really, I just took off a week posting while travelling around visiting family over Christmas. Since I have two weeks worth of dishes to report on, this post will be longer than usual. I finished up four more dishes to cross off the list, although one is a new addition.

PITA AND DOLMAS

The Cafe World version has a pita stuffed with Falafel and Dolmas. I have previously made Falafel for the challenge, so I made Tabbouleh instead. It is a fantastic salad made from Bulgar wheat, tomatoes, green onions, parsley and mint with an olive oil and lemon juice dressing. I make it pretty regularly and just estimate quantities and taste. I found a recipe on SimplyRecipes.com which is pretty much exactly how I make mine. So check it out there, it would save me typing it all out.

I've never made dolmas/dolmadas/stuffed grape leaves/stuffed vine leaves...whatever you call them. I've always enjoyed them though and had fun making them. I was in the middle of a biscotti baking marathon for a cookie tray fundraiser, so I chose a crockpot recipe to keep pots off my stove and out of the way of the baking. They turned out great. I made this recipe on the Blog "A Year of Slow Cooking" . This blog is a great resource for crockpot recipes and tips. The year involved was 2008, but the blog is still kept current with new recipes and crockpot related posts. These dolmas are stuffed with a rice and ground lamb and turkey (I used chicken) mixture. Once you get the hang of it, the stuffing and rolling of the leaves is quite easy and fast. I still have a big jar of leaves left so I'll probably make these again.

ATOMIC BUFFALO WINGS

I used a Betty Crocker recipe, it was simple enough except for the whole deep frying in batches thing which takes forever if you don't have a great big pot or deep fryer. It is fried in a seasoned flour and then tossed in a hot butter sauce. I set aside some wings for the kids before coating mine in sauce, it was spicy but not atomic. My husband's were probably ATOMIC as he made up his own dipping sauce using all the remnants of his hot sauces. He loves HOT sauce and the hotter the better. I dipped mine in some yummy chunky blue cheese dressing.

WALDORF SALAD

As my regular readers know, I didn't grow up in North America so I am only vaguely aware of what constitutes a Waldorf salad. The Cafe World game had you gathering walnuts, celery and lettuce and I knew there had to be apples in there. So I came up with my own version, although after further investigation I suppose you couldn't really call mine a Waldorf salad at all. It doesn't have grapes or raisins and isn't in a mayonnaise dressing. But what the hell, no apologies, mine was good, better than good, it was superb!! After using a blue cheese dressing the night before for the wings, I got a craving for some good blue cheese.  So this is my version:

Jen's Apple & Walnut Salad:

A bag or about 12 handfuls of mixed salad greens
2 stalks celery sliced
1 small green apple cored and thinly sliced
1 small red apple cored and thinly sliced
1/4 cup walnut crumbs
1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese
Vinaigrette or dressing of choice (I used a zesty Italian)

Toss together greens, celery and apple. Sprinkle with walnuts and blue cheese.

BLOOD SAUSAGE

I bought a package of blood pudding and cooked it up with some mash and butternut. I remember blood pudding from my childhood. My dad would buy it and I remember enjoying it and considered it a special treat. I haven't eaten it since then and couldn't even remember what to expect. It was good-ish, although it is very rich and I think it should be eaten in small quantities. No recipe here, just a dish to cross off the list.

CAFE WORLD COOKBOOK ADDITIONS

I unlocked the Waldorf Salad and there is also a new cake - Gem Cake.

Next Up: I'm making Kung Pao Stir Fry this weekend.

Progress: 75/86

Disclaimer: Image owned by Zynga. This site is not owned by Zynga. This site is not the owner of the intellectual property

My gifts to myself

I was lucky enough to actually get something sewing related for Xmas this year, a gift certificate to a local fabric store, but I decided to treat myself anyway and over the last two months have bought a number of patterns at sales and bought some fabric to use too. Since today is Boxing Day and many people have shopping on their minds, I thought I'd share my loot with you instead of hitting the stores myself.

PATTERNS: (see captions below)

Okay I was having a meltdown trying to get pics and captions to align, so the captions are here, from top to bottom with links taking you to the company website for details:

Butterick 4613, out of print, I've wanted this one for a while, will be making up View A in the navy wool crepe (see below)

Butterick 5548, tunic

Butterick 5558, a Maggy London dress with interesting waist pleats

Butterick 5562, cute knit tops

Butterick 5570, wardrobe pattern

Simplicity 2508, Project Runway Coat pattern

Simplicity 2692, dress pattern

Simplicity 3827, dresses, tops and skirts

Vogue 1205, Kay Unger Dress

Vogue 1206, another Kay Unger dress

Vogue 1209, Rachel Comey dress

Vogue 1211, Guy Laroche jacket

Vogue 8692, Claire Shaeffer Custom Couture jacket, my next project in the navy wool crepe below.

I also bought the Palmer/Pletsch Pants for Real People DVD:

I also made an order from Denver Fabrics:

A navy Blue 100% wool crepe for the skirt and jacket mentioned above. Also two cotton shirtings, one blue/green check (bad image quality, not the fabric) and another in pink/blue grey. I've found a few Burda magazine blouses for the shirtings to go with the navy suit. I haven't received the fabric yet, but it gives me time to finish up the other projects first.



Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas to all my readers and happy holidays. I wish you all wonderful times with your family and here's to hoping Santa got it right for you!!

My little ones have their version of a Christmas classic for you, if you don't understand little boy speak...it's supposed to be Jingle Bells: