I love Banh Mi sandwiches. They are a fabulous mix of flavor and texture. All of the fresh veggies and herbs make me think of spring. And with all of the cold weather, I could really use some spring. When I ran across this recipe on epicurious.com I knew I had to make it.

Meatballs:
1/2 lb lean ground turkey
3 uncooked brauts (casings removed)
1/4 cup chopped basil
4 cloves of garlic
3 green onions finely chopped
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 tablespoon sriracha (hot chili garlic sauce) – I had to tame down the heat to get my kid to eat it
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
salt and pepper
Mix all ingredients together. Heat a large oven proof skillet over medium heat (I used cast iron). I used two spoons to drop 1-2 inch meat balls into the hot skillet. Brown. When all meatballs have been browned place the skillet in a 350 degree oven until cooked through (like 15-20 mins). Just check your meatballs and take them out when they are done.

Hot chili mayo:
1/2 cup mayo
2 green onions finely chopped
sriracha to taste 1/2-1 tablespoon
Stir everything together. Easy.

Pickled veggies:
2 cups carrots grated
1 cup broccoli slaw (you are supposed to use daikon but my grocery store didn’t have it)
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
Mix everything together in a bowl and let set for about an hour.

To put together the sandwiches, cut a large piece of french bread into sandwich sized pieces. Smear with the mayo. Add the meatballs, lettuce, the veggie pickle, fresh tomato and fresh cilantro and thinly sliced pieces of jalapeno.

Enjoy

If you live in the southeast, I would definitely look around for these wonderful, NC grown, Saura Pride Sweet Potatoes sweet potatoes. I got to sample one today and flavor was sweeter and more vibrant then a normal sweet potato. Plus it has more anti-oxidants and vitamins then a regular sweet potato. And as a bonus it was purple. So there is lots of opportunity for wonderful purple food.

This year I wanted a healthy start to thanksgiving. So this was our breakfast.

I added ground flaxseed to the oatmeal. I’ve never cooked with ground flaxseed before. It has a nutty flavor and smells almost like peanut butter. It did change the flavor of the oatmeal, but it wasn’t bad and it added all of those omega3 fats.

I also added some frozen blueberries to it. These were blueberries that I frozen myself in the summer (when blueberries were in season).

Healthy and delicious.

As much as I love to sew, I REALLY love to make costumes. This year I decided to go with Cleopatra. I used Mccall’s M4954 to make this costume.

I’m really pleased with the way it turned out. I did make some changes to it. Instead of using a gold fabric I used a gold pleather. It was really easy to work with and added a nice texture to the gold pieces of the costume. I also went with the main costume being black. I know it should have been white, but I just can’t pull off that color. Plus with all of the rain we have been getting there is no way I’m walking around the neighborhood in a full length white dress.

I also did hand bead work around the color and on the head piece.

And across the belt I did hand embroidery of Egyptian symbols. The embroidery itself was very simple, but because I was embroidering pleather, I wasn’t able to trace my pattern on the material. So I had to do the embroidery with out a pattern on the fabric. It turned out ok and only a few of the circles turned out a little wonky.

Over all I’m quiet pleased with the way this turned out. Looking forward to wearing it next week.

I’ve been playing with ideas about making this dress for a while. I started by doing sketches of the dress. The idea was a sleeveless dress that actually had a white shirt built in underneath it (so it wasn’t actually sleeveless). One day while looking through some patterns, I found vogue pattern 8313.

This was almost exactly what I was looking for so I got it and decided to use it to make my dress.

The fabric is this lovely sheer striped fabric with graphics of shoes and hats in pink. The shirt part of the dress is done in a white cotton as is the dress lining.

I also did a rolled hem along the bottom.

This was the first time I ever did a rolled hem, so there was a little trial and error trying to get it to work correctly.

Over all I’m happy with the way this dress turned out. The pattern was fairly easy to follow. It would have been much easier to put together if I hadn’t been overlaying a very sheer (difficult to work with fabric) over top of a cotton. This dress also would have gone together easier with a solid color fabric. The dress was supposed to have darts in the the front and back. Because of the vertical strips I wasn’t able to put the darts in the sheer fabric (I did put them in the cotton lining though). So I had to do the dress sharping through the side seems.

Have your kids been extra good and deserve a special treat? Or do you need to bribe them to do something unpleasant (like clean their bathroom)? Either way this is a fun treat for them to enjoy.

Simply take a package of Twinkies and a package of fruit by the foot. Slice the twinkies so they are the same width as the fruit by the foot. Wrap each piece of twinkie with a piece of fruit by the foot (so it looks like the nori). I also made a dipping sauce using chocolate syrup.

Fast and fun.

I went to a baby shower for one of my college roommates. I of course wanted to give her some hand made items. So I made a hat, socks and a baby blanket.

The baby blanket was made using a granny square pattern, but I just made one very large granny square(instead of many small ones connected with a border between them). I alternated rows in blues, browns and whites.

Standard granny square pattern:

to start:
ch4, join the 1st and last with a sl st.

round 1: ch3, 2dc into ring, ch2, 3 dc into ring, ch2, 3 dc into ring, ch 2, 3 dc into ring, ch2. Join to the beginning of the round with a sl st.

round 2: sl st the next 2sts, ch3, 2dc (don’t dc into the stitches, they need to go in the open space). ch2 (for the corners) , 3dc, ch1. Continue this pattern for the rest of the round.

All other rounds: sl st to the next corner space. 3dc, 2 ch, 3dc for the corners and 1ch 3 dc 1ch for the sides.

Just keep doing rounds until the blanket is the desired size. The blanket was finished with a standard shell stitch edging.

Shell stitch. ch3 dc5 (into the same st) ch3 sc. repeat that pattern all the way around.

We got the opportunity to go to another NIN/JA show and this time we got to meet NIN. It was absolutely amazing.

We also got to watch about half of the NIN set from the side stage. As we were leaving backstage, we got to meet Tom Morello and Boots Riley of Street Sweeper. I got a picture with Boots.

This the last tour for NIN… possibly forever. If so, this was a great experience. The guys were super nice.

Here is a shot of Trent

And here are some of Jane’s Addiction

Keeping with the fresh and light theme, I decide to make ice cream sundaes with raspberries and sherry. Sherry is WONDERFUL on ice cream. I know it sounds strange, but trust me on this. It is a perfect complement.

Take your washed and drained raspberries and place them in a bowl. Pour some sherry on them and let them sit for 30min or an hour. We played clue while we were waiting (Ms. White, with the bat in the dining room).

Then we just scooped up some vanilla ice cream, topped with a little chocolate syrup and the raspberries and sherry.