Tomato Sauce

I like to make big portions of home made tomato sauce to keep around in the fridge for whenever we feel like pasta. I like making my own for two reasons, one is that I like the taste better, and the second is I can control more about it such as salt content. Generally I use canned tomatoes of any sort, and include sauteed tomatoes, garlic, and herbs and spices. I decided recently to try using fresh tomatoes instead of canned, and started with the fun first step of blanching the tomatoes. I also used fresh herbs instead of dried ones. The outcome was pretty good, but in my opinion the the canned tomatoes result in better sauce both texture and flavor wise. I'll probably go back to the cans for next time!

the best Peanut Butter in the world

Last night while watching the snow fall outside, I decided it was finally time to try making my own peanut butter. This is something I've been wanting to try for a while. I found an easy recipe and got to work.



This is seriously the best peanut butter i've ever had. It almost tastes like the peanut butter in a reeses cup!

Home Made Gingerale!!

I made my own ginger ale last night, using most of Alton Brown's Recipe, but replacing the step where you add yeast to carbonate it, by using my awesome Soda stream to carbonate it!

My apartment smelled delicious as it simmered. After straining out the ginger I decided to try the syrup on its own. It was spicy and hurt my mouth, I wouldn't recommend that. I then mixed it with my bubbly water and a splash of lemon juice and it tasted almost store bought!


I'd like to try rootbeer next, but I'm not sure where to buy sarsaparilla.

Rugelah

Last night I tried my second attempt at making rugelach. The first try came out really delicious but lost form during baking due to too much jam. This time I added less jam and it came out much better. The only problem was that I forgot how much a batch makes (4 dozen) and I decided to double it....

Holiday Season

I decided to try out making my own holiday stocking this year so I could have one in non traditional colors. I found a cute pattern and only modified it slightly. The modification was to add an edging under the cuff which you can sort of make out in the pictures.
First I cut the inside fabric, the outside fabric, and the batting.

This is the first time i've tried to do the traditional quilting stitch over everything to keep the batting in place, and I started with a simple box pattern, maybe next time I can try a more complicated pattern. I'm very happy with the way it came out too!

And voila! the final product

Night Photography Take 2

I still have a few more things to work out, such as more manually adjusting the shutter speed.

I got a wireless shutter release to fix the main problems from last time, but I forgot to bring it out with us, so we had to make do with the self timmer.

The light turned out fairly eerie in the long exposure pictures. These pictures were taken at about 9 or 10 pm, it was pitch black out, but the photos looked like it was dusk. I even tried using the hood on the lens but that didnt do anything.


The lincoln memorial photographs well from upclose though when the shutter speed could be fairly fast.


Then I brought out my new toy, the fish eye lens. I bought a pretty cheap lens extension for this, so the photo quality isnt all that great, but still kinda neat.




Then when we were just packing up and about ready to go home, peter spotted this creepy guy:

I just made my first dress! NBD

I just made my first dress. Its not amazing, but its wearable! I was in the fabric store today (my favorite place) and I saw the dress fabric section and figured why not. I bought a fabric that I surprisingly like since Orange is involved, and we all know how much I despise the color orange. I followed this pattern. My favorite part are the functional pockets.




There are two things I may do to modify the dress though. 1. Add straps. 2. cinch the high waist a little bit to add more of a figure.