Pasta Maker In My Kitchen!

Ok I have an attachment for my kitchen aid that does different shapes of pasta but since you through the dough balls down the “hopper” and it gets squeezed out these tiny holes the pasta clumps together no matter what consistency your dough is. If anyone else has this attachment and has had success please tell me your secrets!!!!

Here I am trying to pull apart the strands of noodles!! Not fun!

So all in all I would not suggest ever getting this attachment. Instead I ordered a pasta maker old school style 🙂 with hand crank.

Ta da!!!

 

And Ta da!!

And that is right you guessed it TA DA!!

 

Ok here is my beautiful unclumped pasta that I am drying out over my clean chair because I don’t have a pasta drying rack 😉

One more time shall we 🙂 I also made homemade Cheese Ravioli  TA DA!!

Apple-Fig Cookie with Caramel Icing Drizzle

Apple Fig Cookies

• Servings: 6-8
• Time: 1hr
• Difficulty: easy
• Print

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of butter
• 1 cup of brown sugar
• 1/2 cup of white sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp of vanilla
• 2 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp of baking soda
• 1/2 tsp of salt
• 1 tsp of cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp of cloves
• 1/2 tsp of nutmeg (I used freshly grated nutmeg)
• 2 granny smith apples peeled and grated (should equal 1 cup -1 1/4 cups)
• 1 cup of finely chopped dried figs

Directions:

First off,  turn your oven on to 400 degrees F. Beat the butter, sugar, and egg until smooth. Add the vanilla and the grated apples till combined. Stir together the dry ingredients (flour, salt and spices) and add them to the wet ingredients. Lastly add your figs and stir just until the ingredients come together.   Over stirring will = tough cookies. Drop by heaping tablespoons onto a parchment lined cookie sheet. Cook for 10 min. Allow to cool to room temperature on a rack before adding the icing.

 

Caramel Icing

• Servings: 6-8
• Time: 15min
• Difficulty: easy
• Print

Caramel Icing:

• 4 tablespoons of butter
• 1 tsp of vanilla
• 1 tbsp of cream
• 1 cup of icing sugar

Directions:

In a small saucepan brown the butter until a medium golden color. Off heat add the vanilla and cream. Whisk in the icing sugar and stir till smooth. Drizzle over cooled apple cookies.

Baking With My Little Sweet Tooth

 

Did I ever tell you my daughter looooooves loves, loves, loves ok one more LOVES sweets! She asked if we can make cookies and together we came up with some great comfort autumn cookies great for school snacks and maybe even a breakfast pick me up. First off we made traditional oatmeal raison cookies with fresh nutmeg to really boast up the taste and compliment the oats.

 

 

Next I made a cakey like texture cookie with freshly grated granny smiths paired with cinnamon and more fresh nutmeg. I wanted some sort of texture to contrast with this soft cookie and I came across some dried figs and thought “brilliant” this will work nicely. I love the grainy toothy-ness of the figs in this cookie and I paired all this yumminess  with caramel icing drizzled on top.

 

Anyone interest in the recipes? 🙂

The Vintage Dress Completed!

 

I finally finished the retro vintage Tia dress by sewchic.com!! It has an excellent twirl factor especially with the petticoat I made for this dress.

It’s flirty and fun.  I love the way it turned out for my first time. I also added horsehair braid to the hem of the skirt for added fullness especially if I wear it without the petticoat this gives it a beautiful drape and finish.

Pattern

• by Laura Nash from sew chic.com
• why? Because I love vintage clothes!!

Scooby Snack Rating

• not more than 2 cocktails girls there are a few tricky, nippy parts.

Material

•  I choose a bold cotton I found at M and L Fabrics in Anaheim CA 3.99 a yard! (More on that tidbit later)
• I also needed one yard of fabric for the trim at 4.99 a yard. I always prepare my fabrics first before sewing them. To do this I simply washed and dried them as I normally would any other cotton clothes.
• 1 yard of iron on interfacing 2.99 yard.
• 3 yards of netting for the petticoat
• 1 (1/4 inch) bias white binding for the petticoat.
• I used cotton thread in matching color, 80/12 needles
• regular sewing foot and use of a serger for the seams on the skirt portion and petticoat.
• marking tools (tailors chalk, rulers, pins)
• cutting tools: snips, scissors and I love to cut out my pattern pieces on a large quilting mat with a rotary cutter using large washers to hold down the pattern and fabric.
• pressing tools such as seam roll, tailors ham, clapper and of course an iron with steam setting for the cotton.  I also love my silk organza  pressing cloth.
• 14 inch regular zipper
• Stay tape for the waist

Stitch length

• 2.5 most of the time but I love to baste certain pieces to double-check fit than redo with the 2.5 length

Seam Finishes

• The bodice I just used pinking sheers because it is lined. The skirt is sewn with regular seams pressed open and a 3 stitch overlock on the raw edges for a nicer finish.
• Hand sewn modified blind hem stitch on the horse hair braid for the bottom of my skirt and the armhole bias finishing as well.

Total length of time to complete project

• hmm tough one I was following along with the craftsy course to make this outfit and I think it took me 2 weeks  of working on it for average few hours a day during the week so …. 20 + hours

Snafu’s Girl?

• ya the f$#%@*  bodice!!!! I think I needed a larger cup size in-hindsight and could have went down 1 size because I had a lot of ease in the waist.
• f’@#&*n  fabric. It was 3.99 for a reason I had a hard time truing up the grain on this sucker!! Plus in my frustration I did not pay attention to the directional nature of these birds!! (PSST don’t tell anyone but my lining inside is all upside-down) Thank goodness I realized my error before I cut out more pieces for this dress or I would not have had enough fabric
• sewing the triangular piece to the front bodice was a complete bitch to sew in order to get it nice and straight and completely center. Absolutely no room for error on this part.
• zip with the facing…not sure why but it was a bit of struggle to get in.

I omitted the sleeves in the  pattern and just made my own bias trim to finish the arm holes. Why, you asked?…..Alrighty you got me on another snafu girl ….. I ran out of fabric 😛

The zip for the dress is on the side seam and has a great fly facing so the zip isn’t directly against the skin.

My husband helped take the pictures and I thanked him for that 😉

 

Here are a few pictures of the back profile of this dress.

 

And a few more on the twirl factor. Little do you know in these pictures I am trying not to fall on my ass. lol

A Vintage Look

I thought I would share with you guys what I am working on right now. This is Laura Nash’s pattern from SewChic. The Tia dress: vintage, flirty and fun!

I have completed the bodice and will be working on the skirt portion of the dress today.

 

I will be making bias trim and using bias on the armholes instead of sleeves. This top portion is fully lined and will have a zip on the left side that extends down into the skirt portion.

Happy Sewing 🙂