...to Sew an Apron.

Have you ever used a 40 year old sewing machine?  I have.  It's not fun.  It makes sewing a chore, and I hate chores.  So when my grandma came to me with a sewing project, I sighed and said yes with much hesitation.  And then I put it off for a month.  But then a miracle happened.  A Christmas miracle.

I got this bad boy (or girl?) from my wonderful parents who love me very much and want me to be happy.  All of a sudden that sewing project Grams had mentioned seemed pretty appealing.  I couldn't wait to try it out.  I read the entire manual because this machine has settings up the wazoo.  

So. Many. Settings.

All I want to do is make buttonholes and sew zippers and use the fancy pattern stitches!  It will happen in time, but for now, aprons!  Grams had a pattern she wanted to use, so she sent me off to the fabric store to pick out colors for three different aprons.  I was there forever.  They had to be perfect.  One apron was for me, and two were for a church function to offer as prizes.  Here are the fabrics I chose:

Since I am nearly addicted to black and white, I went with three different colorless patterns for my apron, and I love them together.  The solid-colored fabrics were to replicate the apron in the pattern picture.  And finally, a "baking and old lady" inspired pattern with a matching solid and polka dot (when I'm old I will wear purple).

It's been awhile since I've sewn anything from a pattern.  I couldn't believe how smooth it was on the new machine.  The other thing I realized this time around was the importance of ironing when it says to iron.  Do it!  Look at the perfectly pressed pockets!

Handy pockets for utensil storage.

My favorite part of the pattern is the geometric bib.  I love the shapes and the way the patterns look together.  I had to be extra careful on this part, but it paid off and the points met the border just the way they were supposed to.

The finished bib with ties.

And finally, they saved the hardest part for last.  Putting every piece together.  The gathered apron is sewn to the bib is sewn to the waistband is sewn to the ties and on and on and on.  And finally a slip stitch to cover the gathering on the inside (yes, even the inside is fancy).

I never want to get food on it, that's for sure, so I don't know how practical it will be.  But it's pretty!

...a Productive Vacation.

Yes, it's true.  I went on vacation.  Here is what I intended to accomplish while away:

• Two blog posts featuring an assortment of things I did on vacation
• Black Friday shopping
• Dressing cute in cold weather
• Tons of pictures
• Not gain my annual Thanksgiving pounds
• Make a delicious Thanksgiving feast
• Build a big foam airplane to fly with my dad
• Go out with friends

I didn't get it all done.  No sir.  Let's go down the list.

Blog posts.   No.  Did not even log in or jot down an idea or take a meant-for-blog picture.  Not sure I even thought about it.

Black Friday Shopping.  Got myself a phone.  The LG-G2.  I like it, and I like that there was no tax.  Three cheers for Oregon!  I also did a little Amazon shopping, but no amazing deals.

Dressing Cute.  Ha.  Not even.  I dressed in sweatshirt the whole time.  That's right.  One sweatshirt.  Went out in it, slept in it, and kept myself nice and toasty in it.  Then there was the one night I went out in the sweatshirt, Christmas pajama pants, and...wait for it...yellow and pink tie-dye Crocs.  Oh yeah.  Cute stuff.  

Tons of Pictures.  Probably the least amount of pictures ever taken on a trip.  Here are some of the finest gems.

The popular "Hey, I'm in a kitchen!" selfie.

Dad's annual "This turkey must be a boy turkey" joke.

And finally, "Demon Dog with Underbite."

Thanksgiving Pounds.  Gained 'em.  Moving on.

Delicious Thanksgiving Feast.  Well, I think I already answered that.  But I'll say more.  I contributed deviled eggs, baked mac 'n' cheese with toasted breadcrumbs, and a chocolate pudding pie with a homemade Oreo crust.  My sister and I also whipped up an amazing chocolate chip espresso cheesecake.  No biggie.

Deviled eggs, a green bean casserole, and my tasty mac 'n' cheese.

Espresso Cheesecake, Oreo Chocolate Puddin' Pie, and Costco Pumpkin Pie.  Gross, right?

Build a Foam Airplane. Another big "Ha!"  Not sure how I thought I would find time for this on my four-day trip to Portland.  My dad builds these cool planes and flies them with a remote control.  He wants me to make one for the blog.  If he buys me a remote control I will.

Go out with Friends.  Not quite, but I did get to stay in with a friend a couple times.  She just had a baby (her third boy) and he was absolutely adorable, just like his big brothers.  I'll mark this list item a success!

So, I didn't get to accomplish or even attempt everything on my list, but I could have done a lot worse.  I didn't even throw up on the plane ride!  And hey, look at me, I got a blog post out of it after all.    

...to Construct an Edible Cornucopia.

So part one of my contribution to Thanksgiving was a wreath made out of an old shirt.  Part two will be a little less lasting, but a lot more delicious!  Nothing says "Thanksgiving!" more than a cornucopia filled with food...except a cornucopia made of food (and also filled with food)!  All you need is a can o' dough, an egg, a lot of foil, and maybe a pizza cutter.  It was supposed to be breadstick dough, but I could only find pizza crust dough.  Not sure if there's much of a difference.

Grab the foil and sculpt a cone, however large you want your cornucopia to be.  I ran out of foil, so instead of using three cans of dough, I only used one.  Now that I finished this, I'm glad I didn't have more foil, because it would have been a giant pain.  Once you've got the shape you want, spray it with cooking spray to keep the bread from sticking.  Now pop that can open!  You know it's the only reason you're trying this recipe.

Unroll the dough and try to resist taking a bite!  (Or am I the only one who likes to eat the dough...)  Cut it into strips.

Use a strip of dough and wrap up the pointed end of the foil.  Then start to add the strips of dough a couple at a time, and weave them like a basket up toward the large end of the foil.  Because we all know how to weave a basket.  Do your best.

Okay so it's not pretty at this point.  It looks rather sloppy, unfinished.  But there's a solution!

Not your best work.

 Braid three strips together and seal off the rim.  This gets rid of all those ugly leftover dough ends.  I used another strip to seal off the bottom edge as well, as my cornucopia was looking very uneven.  Oh yeah, then I built an octopus with chocolate chips for eyes.  Because when you have leftover dough, you gotta make a bread animal!

Now stir up your egg and brush it over the top to give it that shine you so desperately desire in a bread cornucopia!

Now you're talking! 

When it's cool enough to touch, separate the bread from the foil and just let it cool on top of the foil for a little while longer, to make sure it keeps its shape.  You're done!  Now go and fill it with food, and do a better job than I did.  Here are some suggestions:

Nope.

Hmm...too healthy. 

Now we're getting somewhere.

Jackpot!

Okay, so maybe plan on having something to fill your brand new Bread Cornucopia with before you actually make it, or like me, you'll be stuck with Oreos.  And about about the octopus, well...

Just perfect!

...to Decorate for November.

Thanksgiving is almost upon us, and I've contributed approximately zero to the decorating process.  My office is presently bare of oranges and browns, pumpkins and turkeys.  My room is devoid of festivity.  And our big white front door...just big and white.  It was about time I did something.  Well, one thing.  And here is the story of my single contribution to Thanksgiving.  And like most of my stories, this did not involve an extra trip to the store, because I used only things I found around the house.

Remember that foam board storage container?  Well, I had an extra sheet of foam leftover, and I decided to make a wreath.  At that point, I didn't know what else I was going to use, so I went on a hunt.  I knew I wanted it to be orange.

A toilet seat?

I found some batting and raffia in the spare room.  It was a start, but I still couldn't find anything orange.  I put the batting to use by rubber cementing it onto the foam, because who wants a boring old flat wreath.  My wreath, at the very least, would be a squishy one.

A really comfortable toilet seat.

Back to the hunt for my something orange.  I searched the craft closet.  No orange fabric, no orange yarn, no orange orange tissue paper.  Nothing!  So I got desperate and started searching my closet, my drawers.  I wasn't giving up.  How could I not own a single orange article of clothing?  And then, I remembered it.  A single orange shirt, folded and stuffed in a bag for Goodwill, waiting patiently by the door until I had the time to make the trek out there.  Perfect!

It's ugly, but no one has to see the back!

I wasn't sure at first how I wanted to apply fabric, because I figured glue just wouldn't hold it together.  I couldn't find a stapler either, although I'm not sure if that would have worked either.  I settled on tying the shirt in knots around the foam board.  This actually turned out to be much easier than the glue, as there was no drying time, so I didn't have to impatiently wait to complete the next step.

Once I finished wrapping the wreath in fabric.  I used smaller strips of the orange shirt, twisted into ropes, and wrapped them around the wreath to add subtle detail.  At the bottom, I used a braided strip for a little extra pizzazz.

Using the remaining strips of fabric, I made flowers.  I folded the strips in half to get a finished edge, and used the rubber cement to seal them together.  You could add as many as you wanted, really.  I mean, you could even make an entire wreath this way, it would probably look pretty cool.  I ended up with ten or eleven.

And finally, I added the raffia I scrounged up.  It provided the perfect Fall touch to an otherwise very plain and orange wreath.

Add a pumpkin here, a scarecrow there, and you're ready for Thanksgiving!  Easy, quick, and festive!

...Capoeira.

When I started this blog, there were two things I had in mind: food and art.  I wanted to cook and create my way into everyone's Facebook newsfeed and inspire my friends to attempt new recipes and projects.  But here's the thing, that's not for everyone.  So I'm going to branch out a little more, step outside my comfort zone, and start attempting something different every now and then.  

A friend of mine convinced me to try Capoeira.  The beginner class was on Monday nights when I usually play volleyball, but all of a sudden it was Veterans Day, volleyball was canceled, and I didn't have an excuse.  Not gonna lie, I was nervous.  I'm convinced I have some sort of nervous disease where I can create in my head any sort of scenario I need to in order to ruin something that might be fun.  

But as nervous as I made myself, there was no getting out of it.  I was committed.  

She's committed!  

So we made the trek up to Long Beach to BodySport Capoeira for the Total Beginners class.  If you are unfamiliar with capoeira, it is a Brazilian form of martial art that combines fight with dance to create one awesome style of combat.  The origin, as it was explained to me, was from slaves who were forbidden from learning to defend themselves, so they used dance as a way to disguise the combat training.

I cannot recall the reason for the handstands.  This was before the class started.

The class was led by these two ladies, Rebecca and Heather, and wow, did they know their stuff!  Heather (in white) was the primary instructor for this class.  Because we are all facing a wall-to-wall mirror, she knew exactly when you did something wrong, and yes, she calls you on it!  It's a little embarrassing until you realize you're in the Total Beginner class and no one else knows what they're doing either.  You all feel just a little silly together in the beginning, and you all get that sense of accomplishment together when you finally get it right.

After about 10 minutes of warmup, which involved some jogging (forward and backward), some shuffling, and some cartwheels across the room (which made me incredibly dizzy), we began to learn the basics of capoeira.  The first and most used move of the night was the ginga, which is a continuous movement side to side, stepping one foot backward and forward, and then the other.  With the ginga, you're always ready to defend or attack, and with the constant motion, you make a very frustrating target for your opponent.

The ginga.  There were actually other people in the class, I promise.

The next moves we learned were the Meia-lua de Frente (front half moon) and the cocorinha.  Or in common terms, a outside to inside kick and a squat to avoid a kick.  The moves themselves were not that complicated.  If you watch someone do them a couple times, you can do them, too.  But when you consider the fact that the moves are all done in the middle of the continuous ginga movement, it gets a little more complicated.  Eventually, we had to partner up and when one kicked the other had to duck, and back and forth.

The Meia-lua de Frente, front half moon kick.

To finish off the class, we had a roda, which was by far the coolest portion of the class.  Everyone gathers in a circle and a few people keep rhythm using tambourines and an instrument called a berimbau.  They begin to sing and everyone is expected to sing back, and it's all in Portuguese.  Yes, there was some pretend singing going on, but you learn as you go.  The other aspect of the roda is that everyone takes turns in the center of the circle showing their moves for all to see.  This is probably cooler than the singing.  Yes, it's definitely cooler.  But all of it together made for a really great experience.  I'd love to see what it looks like in a non-beginner class.

I did it!  And I was rewarded with a tiny cup of water!

And before I knew it we were done, and I hadn't died of embarrassment, boredom, or exhaustion.  And any night where I haven't died of one of those things is a success in my book!  Give it a try, you'll have fun!

...to Make Protein Snacks.

Last week, as I ate my skinless grilled chicken breast and steamed vegetables from El Pollo Loco, for the third day in a row, I realized I needed more.  I needed something to not only give me a little extra pep in my step, but to break up the monotony of my meals.  And being the sweets-lover that I am, it wouldn't be long before I succumbed to the cravings for the candy dish full of chocolate right outside my office.

So I decided I needed a couple "sweet" treats to mix into the chicken and veggie diet so I didn't go insane.  I have two options for you today - some Peanut Butter Protein Bars and a Protein Cheesecake.  The protein bars are extremely easy and I would recommend them.  The cheesecake used a few ingredients I had to run to the store for, and didn't turn out as hoped.  Less recommended, but read on for details!

Peanut Butter Protein Bars

If you love peanut butter like I do, you'll enjoy these bars.  You don't have to bake them, and you don't even have to chill them (although you could).  The recipe makes 16 bars, and if I did the math right, each bar comes out to 200 calories, 12g protein, 16 carbs, and 8g fat.  Not a ton of protein, but with all the chicken and eggs I'm eating right now, I'm not too worried.

Here's what you need:

-1/2 Cup nonfat milk
-1 Cup reduced fat peanut butter
-2 Cups uncooked oats
-1 Tbsp. honey
-1 1/3 Cups whey protein powder (I used vanilla-flavored)

Mix the peanut butter, honey and milk in a pot on low heat.

This smelled so good I wanted to eat a big spoonful already!

Add the protein powder and mix it up real good.

Finally add the oats and stir.  If it's too thick, add a little more milk.  Once you have it all mixed, press it into a 9x13 baking pan and just let it cool.

It's really that easy!  And I could probably eat a whole pan of these, but I promise I won't.  By the time I turned around from writing this much, two pieces had been devoured by my sneaky grandparents.  They approve!  Once it's all cooled, wrap the bars individually so you (or your grandparents) don't eat them all in one sitting.

Protein Cheesecake

Okay, so my hopes weren't high for this.  How good could it be with basically no sugar and a combination of nonfat cream cheese and greek yogurt.  If it turned out, though, what a beautiful thing it would be.  I had to try it, just in case.

The recipe involved the above pictured ingredients, as well as some Stevia, and was very simple to put together.  If you want to have a go at it, the recipe is over at Built Lean, where the claim is made that you do not have to sacrifice taste with this cheesecake.

Dry and sour.

I beg to differ.  I'm not sure he's ever had real cheesecake, but real cheesecake is heavenly.  Mine was not.  After the incredibly long bake-time, and chilling in the fridge overnight, I tried one bite and tossed it out.

Oh, and did I mention, the cheesecake is a no-crust cheesecake?  Yuck!