reviving tights

Hmmm, that sounds a bit like a band name. Anyway. So a few weeks ago I realized that the red tights I’d planned to put on my little girl were hopelessly pilled and just kinda unattractive. This saddened me because I really wanted her to wear some cute outfit that required red tights and I did not want to take the time to find a new outfit (that would no doubt require its own pair of tights that would probably be pilly too…it’s been a while since we bought new tights). So I was looking at said pair of red tights and I realized that the inside of the tights was completely pill-free. They looked brand new on the inside. So I flipped them inside out. Voila! New tights! I don’t imagine that this will work on all pairs of tights as this pair was from the dollar store and had a strange sort of weave to them (not as thin as regular tights, but not a heavy knit either). All the same, I thought I’d pass on the trick in hopes that some other mom out there can benefit!

Hot Buttered Cauliflower

• 2 heads of Cauliflower
• 1 garlic clove chopped
• 1 tbsp. fresh chopped chives
• A dash of ground nutmeg
• salt and pepper (to taste)
• 1 stick of butter
• 1/2 cup of heavy cream

Yeah buddy! Wash and trim the florets off your heads of cauliflower and place in a baking dish. Add garlic, chives, salt and pepper and just a tiny dash of nutmeg. Slice one stick (for every 2 heads of cauliflower) cold butter into tablespoons and arrange on top of the florets. Poor a 1/2 of cream on top. Cover and bake in oven at 375 for 30 minutes or so, until they are soft, basting occasionally. For the last 10 minutes, remove cover and brown ever so slightly. Strain and serve.

baking things

I’ll start off with this slightly misshapen loaf of banana bread that was oh-so yummy. I got into a little baking spree last week and this was the first of my endeavors. The recipe is courtesy of Dani Callihan in Hot Providence.

Best Banana Bread

1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
3 ripe bananas
3/4 cup milk (I substituted a little buttermilk for fun)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup chopped walnuts

Cream the butter, sugar, eggs and bananas well. Combine the milk and lemon juice. Add this to your creamed mixture, alternating with the flour, baking soda and salt. Pour into a well greased loaf baking pan and bake at 350 for 45 to 50 minutes (mine took more like 60-70 minutes). Do the toothpick test to make sure it’s done. Slather it up with some butter and enjoy!

In other news, here’s my other ‘baking’ project. Little Eva is growing steadily and quickly, and I can’t believe we’re down to two and a half months!

Light

After paying last months electric bill (over $340!), I surrendered my hate of cold colored lighting and bought energy saving CFLs. I found them online on clearance and managed to outfit the whole house for under $50.00. As I changed out the old bulbs, I discovered many of them were 65+ watts! No wonder! I’ll let you know what my next bill looks like using the nifty 14 watters.

Reminder

Orzo Stuffed Peppers

Here is another winner from Giada. The only things I did differently was to use squash instead of zucchini and added extra cheese into the stuffing.

Ingredients

1 (28-ounce) can Italian tomatoes
2 zucchini, grated
1/2 cup chopped fresh mint leaves
1/2 cup grated Pecorino Romano, plus more for sprinkling
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 cups chicken broth
1 1/2 cups orzo (rice-shaped pasta)
6 sweet bell peppers (red or yellow)

HNB

I finished my official training for Handmade Natural Beauty. I am a sales consultant!! Upon completion of my training, I was given permission to give my clients an additional 10% off their orders for the month of March. The discount code is 3030918425  so let me know if I can help you out with that. Also, if you would also like to become a representative for this company, I’d be happy to give you the details. You can email me at abracarnahan@yahoo”dot”com. I don’t want to spam here. And there is a link on the right-hand side under Abra’s Work if you want to check it out further. Cheers!

Panini with Chocolate and Brie

A new favorite in our house. Ophelia was impressed that I was actually serving chocolate for dinner. I pulled this one out of my Giada’s  cookbook. (Which is, by the way, one of my new top cookbooks. It features beautiful pictures and good recipes. I also made tomato soup out of it, and while I did end up putting in about 5x the garlic, it was still really yummy!) But if you use the Food Network, it is also up on their site.  For this recipe I used my mini George Foreman since I didn’t have an actual panini press lying around. I’m sure you could just fry it up on a frying pan or on an outdoor grill. Be sure to scrape off any cheese or chocolate that seeps out before grilling another snadwhich. It would be a travesty to ruin these babies with burnt drippings. For ours, I didn’t pre-brown the bread. I just loaded it up and grilled the whole thing at once to save time, it worked fine. Also, cut up the sandwiches however you want. For dinner, Ben and I each had one, but for lunches, snacks or hors d’oeuvers, halves or quarters would be more appropriate.

Ingredients

12 slices sourdough bread
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
12 ounces Brie cheese, thinly sliced
1 (12-ounce) bag semisweet chocolate chips
1/3 cup thinly sliced fresh basil leaves

an addiction

I know that some people have shoe addictions, and others can’t pass up a new purse. My addiction is to linens. It’s very strange. There are two classifications of this addiction too…the Bed Linens Addiction (I have about 5 sets of sheets/duvet covers that I change out every couple of months just because I have to) and the Random Vintage Linens Addiction. I can’t go into an antique store without checking out the linens and hoping to find some great little pillow case, table cloth, or randomly shaped table runner. And the worst part is that I never use any of them because I’m afraid that I’ll wear them out or stain them. A couple of years ago I found this great pair of napkins.

Just too fun. I’m hoping that when we move this fall I can find a great old craftsman style house that will make a few more of my linens feel at home (vintage linens in 70’s style apartments just seem a little out of place).

fabulous baked potato topper

Andrew’s aunt made this for us a couple of weeks ago and I fell in love with it. We had a baked potato dinner the other night and in order to justify a root vegetable as a main dish, I had to re-create this topping to give it some of the necessary meat protein. I’m sure a lot of you have variations on this (my mom always just fried up onions to top her baked potatoes), but I’m particularly fond of this combo.

1 small onion, chopped up
4 slices or so of bacon, chopped up
4 or 5 big white button mushrooms, chopped up (chop them more finely if you don’t like the spongy mushroom texture)

Combine the onion and bacon in a skillet and cook about half way to bacon-doneness level. Add the mushrooms and cook till everything is nicely browned and smells delicious.

Now mash up your baked potato with a bunch of yummy sour cream, salt and pepper it, and top with this wonderful mixture. Fantastic!