Pants Party

"Cough, look over here...I would like to extend to you an invitation to the pants party."  

Following my three-part series on how to turn a big piece of fabric into a wearable pair of pants, I proceeded to make several more pairs, tweaking the fit and details each time. 

These are the results.

I actually made these before, but they are a favorite.  Narrow leg denim trousers.

These were made before too.  Wool lined in flannel.  Just like wearing pajamas.

The Pants Diary pants. 

Bright navy, very thin fabric.

Grey wool suiting.  Sorry for the gratuitous bum shot, but these are probably the best all around fit.

Stone twill.  Replaces an old pair I had that were HUGE in the waist.

Olive twill.  Probably my favorite pair.

And there you have it.  Seven pairs of pants that fit really well that I can wear to work.  I have some camel colored pinstripe fabric to make into another pair, and I'm hoping to make some black wool pants lined in flannel sometime this winter.  Then I should be all set!

CSA Week 22

The return of French Sorrel!!  I wasn't expecting to see that again this year so it was a pleasant surprise.  I knew it was a cool season crop but thought it only showed up in the spring.

We received kale, sorrel, beets, acorn squash, bell peppers, lettuce, brussel sprouts, and apples.  I'm not sure on the variety of apple but I'm excited to try them out as I don't think I've ever eaten an apple grown in western Washington.

CSA Week 19, 20, and 21

When you have a blog there are a few requirements that you need and having an internet connection is near the top of that list.  Unfortunately I forgot to pay the Comcast man for a few months (oops) so we lost service for a bit.  Fortunately for us it was the motivation we needed to research our other internet options in the area and ended up finding a deal where we have cut our internet bill in half.  We are now back up and running and will try to catch up on blogging.

Week 19 brought us butternut squash, beets, mustards, lettuce, kale, celery, and perpetual spinach.

In week 20 we received fennel, two winter squash, radishes, chard, lettuce, collard greens, and chives.

Week 21 (today) was a fun CSA.  When I showed up at the market stand I was informed I could fill my sack with whatever I wanted as long as the total cost was $16 worth of produce.  I grabbed Swiss chard, celery, romaine lettuce, red leaf lettuce, and five bell peppers.

LJ has been trying to eat two servings of fresh veggies each day so the bell peppers and celery will make for nice snacks and the rest will make for good salad fixings.

CSA Week 18

We got a really great mix of things this week.  From left to right: Bell peppers, radishes, lettuce, kale, delicata squash, collard green, baby bok choy, and fresh dill.

Vegan Cheese

I've been slacking with my cheese-making posts but don't worry, I'm still working on cheeses.  This recipe is less cheese and more dip or spread that just happens to taste very cheesy even though it has no dairy in it.  I'm not sure it is something I would make again because it was a multi-day process to first make the millet rejuvelac and then process cashews.  None of the steps took that long though and I had leftovers of all the ingredients so I might give it another shot and share with with some vegan friends and see what they think.  It is really tasty as a dip and was delicious spread on crackers.

I didn't get a picture of the final result but I used one of my new cheese molds to shape it in to a wheel.

Chicken balti hand pies

As a follow up to my first attempt at making English style hand-pies or pasties, I decided to give Chicken Balti pies a try.  I used this recipe for the filling and this one for the pastry.

The results were excellent.  I really enjoy making a big batch of these pies on the weekend and then having them in the freezer to easily re-heat for lunch later in the week.