Cheesy Mac n Cheese

I’ve never made Mac n Cheese with a roux before, until the other day. It turned out wonderful and so cheesy I thought I’d share the recipe.
Melt a half a stick of butter over medium heat. Yes, I know my picture shows an entire stick and luckily I caught my mistake before it melted entirely.

Sprinkle in 4 TBS or 1/3 cup of flour. This will make your rue and this is what will make your cheese sauce thicken.

Stir this over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes. I use a whisk when making a roux, it’s great for when the butter and flour want to stick to the sides of the pan. Eventually it’ll look like this.

If you use real butter, not margarine, your rue will be very white, but I didn’t have any on hand so mine turned out very yellow.  NEXT, pour in 2 1/2 cups of milk. The higher fat content in your milk the creamier your finished product will be, so keep that in mind.

Stir until mixed. Now crack one egg into a separate small bowl and whip it up just a bit. Go back to your rue and whisk this around for about 5 minutes, or until it’s as thick as you like it. If you’ve ever made gravy from a seasoning packet you know the drill.
Once everything is thickened up, take about 1/3 cup of the roux and pour it into your slightly beaten egg.
You’re going to be ‘tempering’  the egg, so make sure you stir the egg mixture as you pour in the roux so that the egg doesn’t scramble.

Now take the tempered egg and pour it into the roux and mix it together well. When that’s mixed in, add 2 cups of cheddar cheese to the roux and 1/2 tsp of salt.

You can turn the heat off at this point. Everything is hot enough to melt the cheese, just stir so nothing burns.
Now you’re ready to dump in about 4 cups of almost cooked all the way pasta of your choice.
Mix until the pasta is coated with cheese and then pour this into a casserole dish. Sprinkle more cheese on top and bake for 20-25 minutes at 350.

So delicious.


My verdict: This is totally grown up mac n cheese. I think I went a little heavy with the cheddar so it wasn’t as ‘wet’ as I would have liked. But after 24 hours, there was not a single cheese covered noodle to be found!

The family verdict: Not a single one of the kids liked it, they even said it was too cheesy. As if there could ever be a such! I think if it were ‘wetter’ they may have approved.
~Jess

The smell of home.

Look what I have going on in my kitchen.

The best Sour Dough Bread starter ever! I use to make it all the time and then life and having babies took over. Boy Toy mentioned Sourdough Bread awhile back ago and it reminded me that I’ve had this recipe sitting in my cookbook for a long time and that I needed to take it out and put it to use again. Want to do it with me?
Here’s the first step to the best Sour Dough Bread ever!!
Sour Dough Bread Starter
1 pk of dry yeast
2 cups plain all purpose flour
1 TBS sugar
2 c warm water
2 TBS instant potato flakes

Mix flour, yeast and sugar in a bowl. Set aside.
Add instant potato’s to warm water and then stir this into the flour mixture.
Cover loosely with aluminum foil or wax paper and let this sit in a warm place for 48 hours.
When your 48 hours is up, measure out 1 cup and place in a covered bowl or mason jar with a lid on it in the refrigerator. Throw the rest away.
Feed your starter for a few weeks before baking your first batch of bread.
I’ll post how to feed your starter as soon as mine is ready to be fed!!!
Mine should be ready to bake around the first of February, I can almost taste it!
~Jess

A Purse and some gripes.

I made this purse yesterday. Rebecca at Flaming Toes was kind enough to share her pattern with her blog fellows. I immediately loved the look of this purse. It does have ruffles, and my owl fabric made it even cutier don’t you know!!

Here come my gripes. I had many issues and problems with this bag. Well, I mainly had gripes with the instructions for sewing this bag. I’m not sure if they pattern and instructions were intended for more advanced sewers that could fill in their own blanks or if maybe this was the first pattern Flaming Toes had complied, either way I wasn’t pleased.

This bag can sit up on it’s own, which I love. I think to often patterns for purses come out floppy and more like a pillowcase than a functioning purse. But the directions on how to insert the stabilizer in the side green panels was lacking. At one point you’re told to “Lay one Corner Interfacing Piece on the wrong side of a fabric Corner Piece.” That’s simple enough, but since the interfacing piece is cut shorter than the corner piece you’re not told if you should center the interfacing or line it up with the side edge or bottom edge of the fabric.
Then the instructions go on to read, “Sew the Corner Pieces to the bottom edges of the Front Panel Pieces using a 1/4” seam and another seam right along the edge of the curve. Sew the remaining two sides to the front panel as well.”
Once again you’re not told how to line up your fabric for sewing. If you center your interfacing on the corner fabric piece then the interfacing is not going to line up with the bottom edge of the fabric or the side edge of fabric. Ugh!
Flaming Toes was kind enough to use pictures in the instructions and the picture showed the interfacing centered on the fabric corner piece. But it still failed to show how to line it up for sewing. I took a wild guess and just matched up the edges of both my fabric pieces and sewed it in place. It turned out pretty well.

My next gripe, sewing the bottom piece of the purse to the actually bag. The only instruction you receive for this major step is, “Pin the bottom panel to the bottom of the panel pieces. Match the side seams of the purse to the center of the small sides of the rectangle. Sew the bottom panel on, turning carefully at the corners. Make sure that the bottom piece is sewn on correctly, then clip the corners so that they
turn nicely.”  Wouldn’t it be nice to know ahead of time if you should pin right sides together and if you should sew straight seams for those corners you’re so worried about getting right before flipping or if you should round the corners and still get the same effect?? Call me crazy but it would be nice to have a clearer step by step tutorial.

My list of gripes goes on and on, so I wont bore you. I had an issue with the zipper instructions (and I know how to put in a zipper dang it). There’s a pocket on the lining that’s really cute but again, the instructions were in no way user friendly.

Finally, my overall main gripe with this purse (and apparently it upset Ganesh as well) has to be the strap or handle. You use D rings, which I love in my purses but all the strap consists of is 2 pieces of lining fabric cut out, sewn together, turned right side out and top stitched.
This isn’t a big purse, but come on, 2 thin pieces of lining fabric for the strap? I don’t see this holding up at all. I’m looking for it to start pulling and tearing within a week or two of normal use.

I’m going to set out and make my own pattern for this purse. It’s a great, little bag to have and it has tons of potential.  I wouldn’t recommend the pattern tutorial it for a beginner though based solely on the unclear directions and confusing steps.
Maybe sometime this week I’ll be able to sit down and work up a redo purse and post a quick tutorial here. I have some gorgeous blue and brown light corduroy fabric I just picked up that would work well with this style of bag.
If any of you out there in blog land have tried this pattern and didn’t have the issues I’m fussing about I would love to hear about it. Am I just instructionally challenged?
~Jess
     

Simply Forgetting.

In all the busyness of life and kids I often times take pictures of projects and things I want to blog about and then simply forget to download them to my computer,to ever blog about them . Shame shame. So let’s play a game of catch up.
Two summers ago (that’s terrible to type isn’t it??) I made a camera bag for my small silver camera at the time. I had hopes of doing a step by step how to on this project but I never found the time to make another one. Now that I have a bigger, and better camera I’m not sure this kind of bag would be protective enough for it.

Here’s a picture of the back. I wanted it too look similar to a camera it’s self.

This was the first time I had really worked with felt. It’s a cute way to tote around a camera.

I got around to working and almost finished another wall art project I had in mind for the walls in my bedroom. So far I’m in love with how it’s turning out.

Who knew that simple wooden cross stitch hoops (which I have a ton of) painted white and then filling with fabric of your choice would be such a cute and cheap way to decorate your space? (I even have ideas of doing this in my kitchen but hanging them from the ceiling, we’ll see.)

I started sketching again, just rough figures to help get my ideas out on paper. If I have something to look at as I draw I’m pretty decent, if I have to go at it on my own then it’s a mess. Without a doubt I want to learn more about figure drawing this year. (These aren’t my designs or anything, just sketches of pictures I was testing my chops with.)

Apparently this chick is on a drug induced downer.

Fun with hair, and no, I don’t think I’ll ever get the hang of proportioned faces. Let’s face it, it’s a lost cause.

Last one I promise. A nice toga of sorts you think? 

It’s nice putting pencil and pen to paper again. Now you can all consider yourselves updated for the new year.

~Jess

Am I missing something??

I introduced my blog buddies to my stray cat, Ganesh, back in September. This is how she came to us, tiny, scraggily, and undernourished.

Her name comes from one of the Eastern religions (no I’m not a Ganapatya, no worries there!) It means Lord of Obstacles. I liked the name and it seemed royal enough to fit her.

This is Ganesh today.  A little more filled out and so very sweet. But this cat has a weirdness about her.

A weirdness you say? Surely not, look how nice and beautiful she looks, you tell me.

Are you seeing what I’m seeing? I was busy cutting out fabric for a quick scarf idea I had, I got little work down when she happened on the scene.

Here it is again.

Ganesh: Will you rub my head? Maybe my tummy?

Ganesh: Please, just a scratch or two?

Ganesh: Well then I’ll just take a nice nap on your foot until you’re ready.

Ganesh: Wha…why did you move your foot? No bother…*yawn*…I’ll just…keep…sleeping.

I mean, I don’t’ think this cat can sleep any other way but on her back?!

Whooo’s Taking Over?

It’s no secret I’m in love with Owls, but as I was cleaning house the other day I was kinda surprised at how many owls I seem to have acquired.

There’s the Marble owls I use as door stops.

The little family of owls I made two years ago. I love the little fat baby one.

Then there’s the wicker basket kind of owl I found at a thrift store for $2.

Let’s not forget the very first owl given to me by my mom that started the entire owl addiction.

And here’s a handcrafted owl given to me this Christmas by my Aunt. Such pretty colors.

Speaking of Christmas, I had 6 of these pretty owls hanging out in my Christmas tree this year.

Check out this handsome stud of an owl. He’s heavy and cold to touch but he looks very impressive beside one of Isaac’s dragons.

We can’t forget about the owl pillow that is always lurking somewhere in my bedroom.

I even have one made out of tiny little seashell’s. I’m just as surprised as you are that this delicate thing hasn’t been smashed to bits or lost in the chaos of my house yet.

Even my books are slowly being invaded by owls.

Even my picture frames aren’t safe. (Yes, that is my Boy Toy the Reverend)

Who can forget the owl Mackenzie made me from a Hollister bag for mother’s day last year. It’s one of my favorites.

Last, but not least, one of the most important ones of all has to be the one adorning my skin.  

Owls….I love them…..what more can I say.