Sunday, June 14, 2015

This Morning's Walk


I try to get some type of exercise in each day. It can be a real challenge to find the time! I managed to get a three mile walk in this morning. I know it's not a marathon, but I felt so much better for having made the effort. 

Here are some pictures I took along the route. Enjoying summer's bounty!

An old barn..


A bunch of cone flowers and a little bee!


Look at the gorgeous pink and yellow beauty here...


And a lovely yellow rose..


It was a great way to start the day. :)

Boredom Busting Back in the Day and A Vintage Cookbook Journal

When you were young did you learn to cook using one of these?


I did! When we were kids, we used to have to keep ourselves entertained (life was hard before the Internet!). We kept ourselves busy by teaching ourselves how to cook, sew and make things. Remember Pac-o-Fun? I'm pretty sure it was the first craft magazine ever published. My Grandma bought be a subscription and I was beyond excited with I saw it in the mailbox after school. My best friend Cheryl and I would make everything in it and then we'd wait anxiously for the next issue.

We also used to embroider on EVERYTHING! We'd buy our DMC floss for $0.10 at Woolworth's along with those giant books filled with iron-on transfers at Woolworth's. Then, we'd get stitching! Nothing was safe. Nothing was sacred. Chambray shirts (hello '70's!), jeans and pillow cases. Any fabric that was found lying around was fair game. I had the old Coats and Clark book of embroidery stitches from 1964 (another gift from my Granny). I don't know whatever happened to it, but one day I'm going to buy another on E-bay. Just for old time sake.

Anyway... back to boredom busting back in the day. My best friend Cheryl and I made just about every cake and candy recipe in this book. Some turned out pretty good, while others were a complete failure. One time we made a cake that came out of the over hard as a rock. Not to be deterred from creating our own entertainment, we took the hard cake outside and tossed it back and fourth like a Frisbee until we tossed it so high that it ended up on the roof of the garage. Where it remained throughout the entire winter. Rain and all! We were in awe of that "cake" and it's staying power, but at the same time we were baffled as to what had gone wrong when we made it. The problem might have had something to do with the fact that we didn't always follow the directions. We'd just leave an ingredient out if we didn't have it. Our logic was if you only need 1/4 tsp of something (ie: cream of tartar or baking soda), then how important can that ingredient be? I'm happy to say that my cooking skills have improved since then! But that's how you learn. :)

Anyway, getting back to the cookbook...I found one exactly like the one I used to use at a vintage store not long ago. It was missing some of it's pages, but I figured that I might be able to make it into a journal of some kind. Here's what I came up with:


I wanted to maintain the shapes of the pots and pans on the cover because they are a huge part of the charm of these old books for me. I decided to change them out with some scraps of vintage table cloths that I had in my fabric stash. The lids are topped with old, rhinestone buttons. I also happened to have some interesting vintage game cards that referenced foods, so I thought this would be a cute way to incorporate them into a project.

I used vintage tablecloth scraps throughout the book. Here's how it turned out:
 


The "Bread" page:

The "Cake" page:


"Long long ago when chickens had teeth...once upon a time..."


This is the back of the chicken page:


And more pages...

Old millinery flowers and bridal netting:


I'm including blank Kraft paper pages and vintage ledger pages for notes or recipes:



"Soup is the song of the hearth...and the home"



Wish page...

I lined the inside of the book with vintage red poppy gift wrap. I love how it all came together! :)



Thursday, June 11, 2015

Easy Pasta with Bacon, Onion and Tomato

I'd like to share this simple, delicious pasta recipe that I came up with one evening when I was in a rush to make dinner. It's so easy and only requires a couple of ingredients. It's budget friendly too! Perfect for when you "have more month than money"...which happens a lot around here.


The only ingredients are bacon, onion, canned tomatoes and pasta. That's it! I also added in a little black pepper and some garlic power. That was all it needed. I love to cook with bacon! It's a great way to add a lot of flavor while using very little meat.


It's super easy to throw together. All you need to do is dice the bacon and onion. Drain a can of tomatoes and reserve the juice.

Then, saute the bacon until it's crisp and has rendered it's fat. Add the diced onion and continue to saute:


Tip: Bacon is easy to dice if it's partially frozen. There are only two of us here, so when I buy bacon I wrap six slices together in plastic wrap and then bag all of the bundles in a plastic freezer bag and freeze it. This way, when I need a few strips of bacon, I just pull a six slice bundle from the freezer to use.

Add tomatoes and some of the juice. Then season with black pepper and garlic powder:


Add the cooked (al dente) pasta to the sauce:


Let the pasta simmer in the sauce for a minute or two so that it absorbs some of the flavor of the sauce. Then plate:


I topped the pasta with a bit of Parmesan cheese and gobbled it up!

Double or triple the recipe as needed. I make a small amount because it's just me and my husband.

Pasta with Bacon, Onion and Tomato

* 5 or 6 Bacon Slices 
* 1/2 Yellow Onion (or use whatever type of onion you have on hand)
* 1/2 Pound Pasta (I used Spaghetti)
* 1 28oz Can Diced Tomatoes
* 1/8 tsp Black Pepper
* 1/4 tsp Garlic Powder
* Parmesan Cheese (if desired)

1. Dice the bacon into small pieces (about 1/4 inch).
2. Dice onion into small pieces.
3. Drain the canned tomatoes - Reserve the liquid.
4. Begin heating water to boil pasta in a pot large enough to hold your pasta.
5. Saute the bacon in a large saute pan until it begins to crisp and it renders it's fat, approximately 4-5 minutes. Add the diced onion and continue to saute until the onion cooks, about another 3-4 minutes.
6. Add the drained tomatoes, 1/2 to 3/4 cup of the reserved juice (depending upon how much liquid you want in the sauce), the black pepper and the garlic powder. Combine and let simmer on very low heat.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta until it's al dente. Once cooked, drain the pasta and add it to the saute pan and combine it with the sauce. Let it sit (on low heat) for a minute or two so that it absorbs some of the sauce.

Plate and serve! Top with Parmesan cheese if you'd like.

Enjoy!




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