Wine Stew? Yes Please.

The BF and I are going on a food adventure this year. It started with making homemade Massaman curry (thai beef stew) and then a cousin's BF gave us the low down on making Ginger Beef (most likely the North American version... but we have to start somewhere). After perusing through my Joy of Cooking book, I stumbled upon a french beef stew made with red wine. Wine + cooking = count me in.

Beouf Bourguignnone 

2 - 3 lb boneless beef roast, cut into 1 inch cubes (make it a tougher piece of meat, like a chuck roast)
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 large carrot, peeled and chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
2 cups dry red wine (like a Pinot Noir, from France perhaps?)
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tsp garlic cloves, minced
1 bay leaf
2 TBSP parsley, finely chopped
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp salt

4 strips bacon, chopped

2 TBSP flour

2 cups white mushrooms, quatered

Lovely Red Wine

Lovely Red Wine

  1. In a large bowl, add the cut up meat through to salt. Stir till everything is well mixed and covered in liquid. Cover and refriegerate for at least 1 hour, and up to 24 hours (for the best flavour).
  2. After marinating is complete, remove the beef, reserving the marinade. Pat the beef dry. Strain the marinade to separate the liquid and the vegetables. Set aside. 
  3. Heat a large dutch oven over med-high heat. Add and cook bacon until golden brown. 
  4. Remove bacon and set aside. Using the fat from the bacon, cook the beef in batches. Brown beef pieces on all sides. Be carful not to crowd the pot. Remove browned beef and set aside with bacon. (Keeping the lovely brown meat fats in the pot. Mmmm.)
  5. Add the reserved vegetables to the pot and cook until lightly browned. Add flour and stir, cooking for about 1 minute. Stir in liquid from marinade, then return beef and bacon to pot as well. Stir together.
  6. Bring stew to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer stew, covered, for 1 to 1 1/4 hours. 
  7. After, add mushrooms and stir together. Cover and cook for another 20 minutes. 
  8. To serve, garish with parsley, if you want. Then Nom!

I think this food adventure will be amazing (especially when we get to T.O. and I can get my hands on some strange vegetables and spices). So let it continue! And let my hips not hate me too much when eventually the stretchy pants don't fit!

-Andrea

The Half-Assed Hobbyist

Magical Mumptions. Also, Vows!

One of my good friends is getting married. Not just getting married though. She's getting married Harry Potter style. For real. (My friends are cooler than yours.) Anyway! For a semi-wedding/real life gift, I'm making the happy couple Hogwarts Robes to wear while they greet their guests at the reception. (The Hogwarts away for Hogwarts reception. Complete with Harry Potter themed bar and four long house tables under a ceiling of candles. Again. Cooler than yours.)

One would think making a HP robe is an easy task. I searched for patterns to buy to make a tailored robe for the bride-to-be and her wizard fiancee but there were no such official patterns to be had. Enter my journey through the blog-o-shpere to find out how others of 'my kind' were getting on without patterns to purchase. 

One real good blog was this one. Now, while I definitely took little of their advice, it gave me my base courage to enter a Fabricland and find a 'close enough' pattern that I could alter to be the magnificent robe fit for a first dance as husband and wife. 

I have to admit, it took me for freaking ever to get started. First thing I had to do was make a draft version of the robe using the "close enough" pattern I'd purchased. I used Simplicity 5840, pattern B. From the draft robe I could make alterations and then transfer those alterations to the pattern. And then actually make the final robe and tailor it to Madame Bride. 

Fig 1

Easier said than done though. The pattern I used was waaaaay to big. Like many other bloggy-inclined, I was referencing a couple screen shots from various HP movies to get an idea of the fit. Fig 1 is one of the best to get an idea of how fitted it is buttoned up. So the first alteration was to take in the side seams about 12 cm. Straight from the armpit down to the hem. 

The second alteration was to the sleeves. I had to shorten the part that met the body of the robe by 6 cm a side (thank gad for easy drop shoulders). Also, the sleeves in the movie have a long and straight cuff on them, so I had to alter the flare of the original pattern as well. Plum 1 (below) has the best example of the fit and drape of the sleeve on Miss Parkinson. Fitted along the top of the arm and then a dramatic flare at the elbow.

Plum 1

After the sleeves were altered, cut and sewed in, I still had a rather large expanse of fabric at the back. So tailored darts, yay! Now, I don't have any high definition views of the back of the robes so I'm going to pretend that some fancy Hogwarts students have darts in their robes. I did two darts, each centered over a shoulder blade. They run from near the nap (about 5 cm lower) to the top butt region. 

Next, the hood. To get that telltale Hogwarts hood drape on the chest was a bit difficult to do with this pattern. The original pattern had a droopy hood, meant to look elegant in velvet, but that wasn't going to work for an as-close-as-possible HP robe. 

I see your back! Haha!

I see your back! Haha!

The length and shear pointedness of the hood was hard to figure too. I knew that the hoods from the third movie on were rather pointier than their predecessors, but the only clip I could really find that had good views of the hood, front and back, was in the third movie at the first Care of Magical Creatures class scene. From this I figured: 1) the hood has to be long enough that when it's up the tip still falls around the neck/upper back area; 2) the tip is indeed pointy; 3) the hood needs to be wide enough at the neck that when it's down the lining can be seen on the chest; 4) Again, when the hood is up, there should be no sagging of extra fabric at the connection between the hood and the robe front. Lots the think about. 

I extended the hood point (a little too much in the draft - I shortened it more in the final robe), and I pressed and taped together the patterns hood darts so my hood would be smooth at the seams (no sagging!). Luckily the hood was wide enough as it was so I didn't have to alter the neck seam, yay!

Ooooooooooo!

Ooooooooooo!

Hood = Achieved! After that success there was one more obstacle to tackle. The Lining. 

From the third movie on, each robe is lined with the house colour of its student. My friend is a proud Hufflepuff, so, verily suiting, a Hufflepuff robe she will have. Looking back at Fig and Plum 1, we can see that the cuffs are lined, the front of the robes are lined and the hoods are lined too. However, there are No Visible Seams at the chest. Gross. This meant that some fancy planning work would be required. 

Lining Design

Now, many of the blogs I've visited that have detailed how they've made their own robes have only lined the first foot of the robe front. This is a very clever way to work it. Instead of lining the whole of the robe, making it rather difficult to sew and also much heavier than strictly necessary, they've cut out one, long, piece of lining to go from the base hem on one side, up along the robe front, into the hood, down the other side of the chest, back to the hem. Essentially, they've figured out how to make it so that there are no seams at the hood and chest connections. Brilliant. 

But because apparently I enjoy making more work for myself than necessary, I decided to line the whole of the robe. Then the inside seams would be covered too. Easy enough... Or so I thought. Basically I had to make a copy of the robe I had just made with lining, with one very important difference: The robe front had to be one piece up into the hood. I drew it all out (above) and then set to work. 

After the lining robe was sewed together - I basted the sleeve lining to the robe lining at the armhole because I'd need to be able take them apart to turn the robe right side out after I'd done the cuff seams -  I positioned and stitched the crest to the front left robe breast. Then, after the lining was sewed to the robe front seam (hem to hood to hem), I made up the buttons. I bought plastic buttons to cover in fabric so they look just like the original robe buttons (see gallery beside). I had sewn a piece of looped black cord in the centre of the breast in the robe front seam to use as my clasp. So it was a case of button positioning and a happily ever after. These little details done, I finished the cuffs, detached the sleeve lining at the armhole, turned them right side out and sewed the sleeve lining to robe lining again. I tacked the lining at the hood point, shoulder seams and under arm seams so the lining wouldn't shift around too much and then started on the hem. Doing the hem last, I was able to fully incase all the seams. How professional!

All in all, this project was amazingly fun to put together. I got to spend a lot of 'research time' rewatching all the movies and rereading all the books. And Lesley and I got to spend hours together being giant sewing nerds. It was all so worth it. 

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I'll post pictures of the actual wedding after it happens in July. But until then, just be happy with a glimpse at the AMAZING invite.

Eeeeee! So Excited!!!

Cheers!

-Andrea

The Half-Assed Hobbyist

Being an adult is hard

There are some moments in my young adult life that really kick me in the emotional butt. Specifically when a big change happens. Lesley, my partner in sewing-crime and my baking-twin is moving on to an adventure life of travel. I helped her pack up her house on the 31st (in one day too! We're house cleaning/packing ninjas) and then said goodbye at her farewell party. And while I'm happy that she's following her adventurous soul, I'm also super sad that my remaining time in the prairies won't be filled with sewing Sundays or Lesley Muffin Specials: chia seed banana muffins with pecans. 

It was last summer that we made salsa together (wine included, of course). And after I reminisced a bit, I thought this would be the perfect time to write all about it.

The processing is much like the jams and jellies I've done: Boil the jars, pour boiling food-stuffs into jars, and then boil jars again. The difference is in the recipe. The recipe below isn't the one we used - we were so expert at cooking that I forgot to write it down (haha, maybe to much wine). So instead below is an approximation of the salsa we made, if memory serves.

Wine, tomatoes and smiles!

Wine, tomatoes and smiles!

Salsa

6 ripe Roma tomatoes, skinned and chopped
2 jalapenos, chopped (seeded if you want a milder salsa)
2 banana peppers, chopped
2 cups red onions, chopped 
1/2 cup lime juice
1/2 cup white vinegar
1/3 cup tomato paste
1 can diced tomatoes
5 tsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
3 cups yellow, green or red peppers, chopped

  1. Blanch the tomatoes to remove the skins. To do this, boil some water in a sauce pan. When boiling, drop in a couple tomatoes. Boil them for 30 secs to 1 min. Remove from the boiling water and place them in a bowl of ice water - this stops the cooking. Once cool enough to touch, the skins should slip right off.
  2. Chop the things!
  3. Mix all ingredients together in a large pot. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer salsa for minimum an hour till all ingredients are cooked through and liquid is reduced.
  4. **Process jars in boiling water bath. Fill jars with boiling salsa (making sure to get out any air bubbles). Place on lids and screw bands till only finger tight. Placed filled jars in boiling water bath. 
  5. Process filled jars for appropriate time. (Edmonton - 15 minutes)
  6. Remove jars from boiling water bath and let cool. 

** Check out my jam post for all the processing specifics and reasoning.

Delicious salsa. I believe it make between 3 - 4 500mL jars. We got 3 because we ate the remainder. Mmmm.

But yah, I'm going to miss you Lesley! Stay safe. Love you lady. 

-Andrea

The Half-Assed Hobbyist

Spring Rollin' By

Spring has sprung, or so to speak. Edmonton just got a healthy dusting of snow on March 20th, the supposed first day of spring - Mother Nature is laughing her ass off at the irony (me: not so much). And because the weather is warmer and the sun doesn't set at 4:30pm anymore, it's time to break out the cooking skills and make spring rolls! 

I first learned how to make spring rolls when I was a kid. My dad, sister and I went to a local chinese place pretty often and one of the ladies who ran the place would make all the spring rolls, by hand, sitting out in a booth in the dining room. I was always looming around her, watching how she mechanically rolled the things, so she invited me to sit down and learn. Total free child labour... but I had lots of fun and learned how to make spring rolls. Looking back, it was probably super unsafe foodwise to have an 11 year old hand roll spring rolls at a restaurant table, but it was a fun learning experience! 

Below is the recipe I made up (based on my childhood spring rollin' days and an old test kitchen recipe I made a billion times - over 300 spring rolls produced! Mmmm.)

Spring Rolls

1 lb ground pork
1 TBSP ground pepper
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup finely chopped white onion
1 cup shredded carrot

White rice vermicelli
Wonton Wrappers or Egg Roll Wrappers
Water

Oil for frying (optional)

  1. Mix together ingredients (pork through carrot). Use a fork to make sure the mixture is thoroughly mixed.
  2. In another bowl, soak vermicelli in lukewarm water until it's limp (~2 mins). Drain remaining water.
  3. Fill another bowl with water - this water is used to wet the wrappers to seal them up. 
  4. Place a wrapper on it's diagonal (so it looks like a diamond).
  5. Put ~1 1/2 TBSP of pork mixture in the lower centre of the diamond. Form it into a cylinder-type shape. (Meat tuuuube!)
  6. Place some vermicelli above pork. 
  7. Wet bottom corner of wrapper and wrap it firmly over pork and vermicelli. (Making sure the wet part contacts a dry part on the other side of the meat to seal).
  8. Wet the side corners and stretch them inwards and slightly forwards, to seal.
  9. Wet the top corner. Roll spring roll up over top corner, to seal.
  10. To Cook: 1) Frying - either use a deep fryer or the pan frying method. Cook for ~8 minutes, until wrappers are browned and meat is cooked. 2) Pre-heat oven to 400F. Brush spring rolls with oil. Bake for ~15-20 minutes, turning them over at least once, until wrappers are browned and meat is cooked. Makes ~20 spring rolls. 

These spring rolls freeze super well too so you can make a bunch and freeze them for later. Nom!

Super glad that the lady at the chinese place didn't have any problems with an 11 year old kid rolling her restaurant's food. Mmmm. Strange learning experiences. 

-Andrea

The Half-Assed Hobbyist

Jelly Flower Power


It was last year in mid December that my friend Lesley showed me a video about making edible flowers in gelatine. A) I was super blown away because I'd never seen anything like it before, and B) obviously we had to try it. We were both too busy during December to endeavour to make them however, and so the idea receded into the ether of 'should do's and 'one day's.

Skip forward to last week. Lesley is sifting though her archived email (brave soul) and stumbles upon the original email thread with video link attached. The game is on. I have almost all the ingredients in my pantry too, so a date is set. Jelly Flower Power!

Anyways! I got the recipe off this blog, belonging to the lady who did the wonderful video tutorial. I've modified it to use cups instead of mL and I've written out some instructions too. (Complete with pictures!)

Jelly Flowers

Gelatine Base

Cups or bowls, preferably clear

1 cup cold water
4 packets (4 TBSP) gelatine 

4 cups water 
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
1/4 tsp clear flavouring**

  1. Add gelatine to cold water. Stir so all lumps dissolve. Wait 15 mins for gelatine to set. 
  2. In a saucepan, heat water, sugar, and flavouring until sugar dissolves completely. (This happens right before the water boils.) Remove from heat. 
  3. Stir in set jelly to hot sugar liquid. Stir so all jelly lumps dissolve. 
  4. Using a cup with a lip (for easy pouring), fill bowls with hot liquid. Remember to leave 1/2 cm room at the top of each bowl as you'll be filling more jelly in later.  
  5. Refrigerate jelly for 2 - 4 hours, until jelly is set.

** I used almond extract but the original recipe used acetic acid. Mmm Citrus.

Petal Concoction 

1/2 cup cold water
2 packets (2 TBSP) gelatine

1 can (300ml) sweetened condensed milk
Whipping Cream (at least 1 cup)
Food colouring

  1. Add gelatine to cold water. Stir so all lumps dissolve. Wait 15 mins for gelatine to set. 
  2. In a 2 cup liquid measuring cup, pour in sweetened condensed milk. Add whipping cream up to the 2 cup line.
  3. In a saucepan, heat milk mixture until combined. (Liquid will become uniform in colour and thickness when it's done.) Do Not Boil Milk Mixture. Remove from heat.
  4. Stir in set jelly to hot milk mixture. Stir so all jelly lumps dissolve. 
  5. Portion out petal concoction into separate bowls. One for each colour. (Don't forget white!) Add food colouring and stir until desired colour acheived.

Now for the process! I've outlined how I made mine and all the tools I used. I am hoping to get a needle syringe like the lady in the video though. It'll make it easier and less messy..... Hopefully.

Materials needed:

Spoons
Knives
Forks
Scissors
Plastic syringes
Paper towel

Basically how this works is you make a slit in the jelly with a tool and then you squirt coloured jelly into the slit, making petals for your 3D jelly flower. Brilliant and easy, right?

So first, you need some petal making tools. You can use regular metal dinnerware or you can use plastic utensils (which you can cut into shapes as well). If using plastic though make sure you get super cheap stuff. It's way easier to cut if the plastic the utensils are made of is flexible. I cut a pointy tip out of one of my spoons and I used a fork for the blue flower. Kinda looks like a chrysanthemum. And a knife for the big pink one. Kinda like a spiky water lily.

I got the plastic syringes from the pharmacy. You can buy fancier ones or ask the pharmacist for the cheap ones. They're typically used for give cough medicine to kids, etc. but for this, they are used for squirting the colour jelly into the slits for the petals.

From here on out I don't really have too many good pictures of actually making the flowers. The video tutorial does it best.

Start your petals in the centre of your jelly base. Since these are the centre petals, the angle is pretty straight in. Make your first circle of petals by inserting your tool, pulling the base jelly back a bit to allow the coloured jelly though. After the centre circle is done it's on to the second row of petals. (You can also wipe off any excess coloured jelly with a damp paper towel at this point so you can see what you're doing.) Angle your tool out from the centre so the petals seem to be folding out, like a real flower. Then continue like this, around the circle, slitting and squirting in coloured jelly. If you have a clear cup you'll be able to see where your petals are by holding it up. Adjust if you need too! Continue adding layers of petals to your flower, adjusting the petal angle as you go. 

After your satisfied with your flower, cover all the petal slits with a layer of the same coloured jelly. Let that set (about 5 - 10 mins). You can then fill in the rest of the base with another colour. For example, I chose green so it's like the flower is sitting in leaves. Refrigerate your flower creations until the coloured jelly is set (about 20 - 30 mins). 

Now if you're doing multiple flowers you'll notice that while you've been food artisting your coloured jelly is starting to gel. Soon it will be to glorpy to suck up into your syringe. You can put it in a microwave to make it liquid again but microwave for no more than 20 seconds. You don't want to over heat the jelly or else it won't gel anymore. I ended up heating my coloured jelly back up about 3 times and it still gelled. 

Other tips I can give are choose thin utensils to make your slits. Thick spoons make it hard to keep the petals close together because the spoons rips the clear base rather than making a slit. I liked using a thin knife best.

IMG_4896.jpg

The next hard part is getting the jelly flowers out. I used a flat unserrated icing spreader to unstick the jelly from the sides of the container. I ran is along the edges like one does when trying to unstick a cake. Then I stuck the tip of the spreader up the side, all the way to the top and pressed down until the jelly unstuck. I also chopped off the tops  the jelly orbs with a very sharp knife (so you could see the flower inside). They're turned out great for a half-assed attempt! (Lesley and I are going to experiment on how to make them stick less though.)

But yah, I want to thank Lesley for being my partner in crime! May many more adventures be had! <3

And just maybe we'll be queens of the next dessert fad. Hmmmm!

Cheers!

-Andrea

The Half-Assed Hobbyist

Before Jelly Circumcision&nbsp;

Before Jelly Circumcision 

After

After