Mmm, Granola

When we were living together, my roommate would make granola at least once a month. At first I didn't care for it too much (it wasn't nearly as tasty as the uber-processed chocolate peanut butter Chewy bars that I was used to), but over time, it grew on me. Since I get hungry every three or so hours, it was a great snack to take along when I had huge blocks of class, or when I woke up late and couldn't eat breakfast. I've been dreaming about it for awhile now, so when a friend passed on this super tasty granola recipe I decided to give it a try.

Never having made granola before, I must say that this turned out to be really friggin' delicious. Perhaps even better than my roommate's version. Since it calls for molasses, my kitchen ended up smelling more like my mom's ginger bread men than granola, which was a pleasant surprise. I made a few changes. I went against the author's advice and made a half-batch, being that I am only one person and it was the first time I was making the recipe. I also don't have three baking sheets. Or even three shelves in my oven. Didn't add the flax seeds, but neither did my friend (or the author of the recipe, for that matter). I decided to double the vanilla, a habit I've inherited from my mother, no doubt. And I threw in some sunflower nuts that I found at my grocery store for super cheap.

Now, I'm a firm believer that most anything that comes out of the oven tastes best when eaten right away (allotting some time for cooling to a reasonable temperature, of course). The recipe cautions to leave it alone until it's fully cooled. Pshaw, I say. The best part of making this by myself was that there was no one to chastise me for picking around the edges of the granola while it was still warm. Living alone for the win! (I did, of course, leave most of it alone to set. Slightly burnt and crispy edges, however, are always fair game.)

The recipe mentions substituting maple syrup for half of the molasses, which I'll definitely have to try. I'm looking forward to making this again with slightly different ingredients to see how it turns out!

Magic Deck Pouches

I've recently become involved with an exceedingly nerdy collectable card game, Magic: The Gathering. Some would say that Magic is this generation's D&D. Given the extreme nerdiness of my boy and my friends as well as my fondness for games of strategy, it was really only a matter of time before I got sucked into it. The very very basic premise of the game is to build a deck of 60 cards (from the 10,000+ cards that have been printed over the years) and play your deck against an opponent (or opponents), trying to kill him before he kills you. Of course, the rules get head-spinningly complicated, but that's the basic idea. Google it if you really want to know more.

"Now, Anna," you may ask, "What does this have to do with the domestic endeavors which you promised would be the focus of your blog?" Relax, I'm getting to it. After spending hours painstakingly building my very first deck (a red-blue Madness deck, for all you Magic players out there), I realized that I had nowhere to put it. My boy has a fancy carrying case with a foam insert, in which he can fit 14 decks and a big ol' pile of dice. That seemed a bit excessive for my solitary deck. But still, was I just going to wrap a rubber band around it? Certainly not. I suppose I could have bought a deck box for it, but where's the fun in that? Also, being unemployed has been encouraging me to do things as cheaply as possible these days. So, I designed this:

Neat, huh? The fabric is something I had lying around, I believe it was a $1/yard purchase from Walmart some time ago. The lining is just plain ol' canvas, which is stiff enough to help it keep its shape. I chose the pink because it's the most ridiculous thing I had on hand, and it matches the sleeves I have on my deck:

Now, this may not be the preferred aesthetic for many Magic players, but I quite enjoy the sillyness that is a pink and black polka-dotted deck pouch. Anyway, after I had successfully executed this, I realized that many of my friends were carrying their decks around in sad store-bought contraptions, or worse, rubber bands. Conveniently, one of my friends had a birthday coming up. An opportunity to brighten her life and warm her heart, as well as try out my design on some other cool fabrics I had on hand! 

I tried my best to document the process with photographs, but as this was a traveling project (it accompanied me pretty much all around the city), some steps got left out. In any case, what follows is my best attempt at a scientific documentation and tutorial on the process.

1) Choose two fabrics that you like, one for the pouch and one for the lining. I found this really cool faux stamped leather in my pile of extra fabric pieces. For the lining I used some black suede.

2) Cut out your pieces from the lining fabric. I used three pieces to form the pouch; a 1.75"x 10.75" piece for the bottom and sides, a 3.25"x 4.25"piece for the front, and a 3.25"x 7.75" piece for the back and flap. *

3) With a ruler, mark a 1/4" border around the wrong side of your pieces in pencil. This will dictate where you sew your seams, especially if you're doing it by hand (which I did). I'd recommend cutting off the corners, where the lines intersect. 

4) Determine the mid-points of the bottom piece and the back piece, and sew together along the 1/4" seam line, with the wrong sides facing out as shown above.

5) Repeat step 4 with the front piece, attaching it in the same way to the bottom piece. You'll end up with a strange cross-looking thing that looks nothing like a pouch yet.*

6) Sew the remaining edges together to form the four side corners of the pouch. 

7) Repeat steps 2-6 with the outside fabric. At this point it may be useful to press or sew the seams open, so they lay nicely. *

8) Turn the outer pouch right-side out, and slip the liner into the outer pouch so that the wrong sides/seams of both parts are pressed flush against each other and out of sight. 

9) Fold the top edges of the front and sides of the outer pouch over the lining (it may be useful to snip off 1/4" off the top of the lining for easy folding) and (neatly) sew all the way around.

10) Repeat step 9 with the flap. For both of my pouches I decided to cut off the corners of the flap to make it less square, but a square flap could also work.

11) To close the flap, you have a couple options. For my first pouch I hand-sewed a button hole into the flap and attached a button on the front of the pouch, as per directions I found here. For the second one, I simply made a loop with some fancy cord and sewed it onto the top edge of the flap, then looped it around an equally fancy button sewn onto the front of the pouch.

Here's the finished product:

Notes:

-For my first pouch I had the bottom/sides piece 1/2" wider, so it was 2.25"x 10.75". Even on my deck with sleeves, it still has a bit of extra room. This new size should work a little better, especially on an unsleeved deck. 

-After sewing the front and back pieces to the bottom, it helps to make a small 1/4" snip on the bottom piece right where the corner is cut off of the front/back piece, for ease in sewing up the sides.

- In order for the lining to lay nicely inside of the pouch, I had to sew all of the seams open on both pieces. It would have been much easier to do this as I went instead of when they were already constructed, as the bottom edges are quite hard to get to once you've sewn the whole thing together. I would have pressed them open instead, but the darn things are so small!

I will probably have to make more of these as I build new decks, as they are tons of fun and a pretty quick little project. Also, if I know you and you play Magic, odds are you'll be getting one of these for Christmas.  

My very favorite vegetable side dish

Lately I've been on a quest to eat healthier. Perhaps it's because my boyfriend is in med school, so I get to hear fun factoids about the human body all day, every day. Or maybe it's just because I'm getting to the point where I can't live solely on mac n' cheese and peanut butter sandwiches anymore. In any case, I've been paying a lot more attention to what I eat, and how. I've been trying to front-load my calories for the day, adding a food to breakfast and taking away a food later in the day. (Goodbye, midnight egg sammiches!) In addition, I've been trying to replace part of my lunch and dinner with vegetables. This way I don't have to completely give up tuna noodle casserole and grilled cheese sandwiches, I'm just halving the portions and filling up the rest of the way on vegetables.

Since I'm not yet at the point where I have to be really watching my sodium intake, I figure a tiny bit of soy sauce and butter on my veggies won't hurt. The absolutely most satisfying vegetable recipe I have in my repertoire actually comes from my mother's kitchen, broccoli with brown butter sauce. I started making it for myself while I was living in France, for two reasons: (1) It is absurdly easy, and I was just learning my way around the kitchen, and (2) It was easily accomplishable in my 6x8' kitchenette with two tiny electric burners and almost no counter space. These days, I love it so much that I will steal broccoli from my boy's house just so I can have my fix while he's in class. It's quite simple:

Ingredients:
Equal parts butter, soy sauce, and balsamic vinegar. (I usually do about 1 tbsp per serving, eyeballing the soy sauce and vinegar)
Some broccoli (I'm eating a small head per meal)

Put the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Forget about it for a few minutes. When it's nicely brown, but not burnt, take off the heat. Add the soy sauce and balsamic vinegar, and swirl it around. Avoid taking a big whiff, you will regret it.
Rinse off the broccoli head. Chop up into bite-sized florets, leaving as much stem as you wish. Put into a microwaveable bowl or dish. Pour the sauce over the broccoli, and cover the bowl with some plastic wrap (or a lid, if you're fancy.) Microwave on high for 1-2 minutes. Take out, remove plastic wrap, stir, and eat.

I have made this at least three times this week. I need to find a new equally delicious veggie recipe fast, or I'm going to risk burning myself out on it! I've probably still got some time, though. I can proudly say that I enjoyed today's serving more than the half grilled cheese sandwich it was accompanying. Hooray!

Hello.

My name is Anna. I'm a 22-year-old college graduate living in the Midwest. I'm a belly dancer. I can kind of speak Spanish and French. I'm a Pisces, but both my moon and rising sign are in Libra. If I were a tree, I'd be an Albizia julibrissin. I'm here to tell you about my creative domestic endeavors.

I've just moved to my very own apartment. No one else lives here, and it is completely mine. This means that there is no one to get pissy at me about the dishes, or play music that I don't want to listen to, or be hanging around when I want to be alone. It costs more, but it is worth it. All of this, combined with a recent bout of unemployment, means that I have been spending quite a bit of time on the aforementioned endeavors which I am here to tell you about. I need a single location in which to compile all of my experiments and accomplishments, which is easily accessible to my friends and family for when I've done something totally awesome that I need to brag about. Also, a friend recently convinced me that a blog may be a good way to keep myself motivated and on-task, as I have a tendency to start projects and not finish them. So, from compiling a recipe for cilantro hummus to decoupaging an old piece of furniture to searching for a way to organize my things so that entropy doesn't lay waste to my life, I will write about all of it here.

My goal is to write on a fairly regular basis, which means that I will not only have to force myself to sit down and write things from time to time, but also that I have to do/make things to write about. So, this serves as an exercise in discipline and structure for myself, as well as a vehicle to more creativity into my life. See how that works? I love multi-tasking.

I'm tired of introductions. Here we go!