Birthdays & Anniversaries

This past weekend we celebrated both Mike's birthday and our one-year anniversary of being in our home in Corso Italia.  One year already??

Friday night we headed out to the local sushi restaurant around the corner - Sushi California. The "New Open" sign in front of their window has been hanging there since we moved in and is looking a tad more weathered after a year.  It also leaves us wondering just how long that sign was up before we moved in!

As with the last time we were there the prices were great, the food was yummy, but the service was very slow. Adam slept through most of the dinner leaving us to enjoy a quiet meal out together and I'm sure we would have been able to make it home before he started to fuss had it not taken so long for everything, including paying the bill. And one very unattractive thing about the restaurant was that when they cleared tables in between patrons, they wiped the tables down with a citrus cleanser that smelled like Lysol. No one wants to be smelling cleaner while they eat their food. We felt like we were suddenly transported into a bathroom as we were enjoying our maki rolls.  Seriously, a definite turn-off.  Good place for pick-up, perhaps not for dine-in.

Saturday we had fun furniture shopping as it was time to spruce up the place.  There were a few things on the list: coffee table, side table, storage bench, desk...We ended up buying a walnut tripod coffee table from Shelter and a side table from EQ3 that matched surprisingly well.  There was also a nice storage bench from West Elm that we might go back for.  A pretty successful morning in all...now we just need a new desk for the office.

Enjoying birthday dessert on our new coffee table

Yesterday we got down to business.  I have a list of things that I've wanted to get done around the house for a while and I was eager to start picking them off one by one. The first was painting the washroom ceiling to cover up some plaster repair last year after installing the exhaust fan. While I was at it I decided to also paint the dividing wall separating our porch from the neighbour's (you can see in the photo below). What a difference a fresh coat of paint makes.  

Mike picked up a shelf so we could organize the closet under the stairs and then also cut the grass - the first time for 2013!  The front and back lawns survived the winter wonderfully and are nice and green. We will need to attack some of the weeds again but it won't be anything like the dandelion infestation and monster weeds we had to deal with when we moved in.   Anyway the warm weather was much appreciated this weekend...it finally feels like spring and of course, the bbq came out of storage. Can't wait for burgers!

Slow-Cooked Lamb Chops with White Beans

This past Sunday we hosted a dinner to celebrate my mom and brother's birthdays.  I have a favourite lamb shank recipe that I've made several times in the past.  This time I wanted to try a new one and followed (more or less) the "Braised Lamb Shanks with White Bean Puree" recipe from More Heart Smart Cooking with Bonnie Stern.  I borrowed the book from my mother-in-law last week since she's made this one before and it was a winner.

I didn't follow the recipe exactly (I seldom do) but the meal was delicious all the same.  Since my mother insisted on bringing an appetizer and side dish (...to her own birthday dinner! Ah Chinese mothers...) I thought individual lamb shanks would be too much for everyone.  Instead I used lamb loin chops and that way people could take more or less as they wished.

The lamb had been marinated overnight in a bowl of chopped onions, minced garlic, red wine, pepper, and rosemary.  The next day I browned the lamb chops in a big pan and set them aside.  Then I sauteed some sliced onions and garlic in the pan and added plum tomatoes and the marinade juices from the night before.

Once everything was heated I transferred the lamb and sauce to a slow cooker to cook for 4 hours.  The house smelled fantastic all day :)

Finally I made a side of cooked white beans, carrots, zucchini, celery, and onions.  The actual recipe calls for a white bean puree to act as a bed for the lamb shanks.  It was quite delicious when my mother-in-law made it previously so I'm not quite sure why I didn't just follow the recipe...I probably would have if I was completely in charge of the meal but I suppose I didn't think the puree would go with the food my mom was bringing.  Anyway it was yummy!  Here's a shot of the meal below.  We also served some olive bread from the local bakery which was good for soaking up the sauce.

I regret not taking a photo of the lovely strawberry mousse birthday cake that my sister-in-law brought over. It had taken her 2 hours to make and was delicious.  I've never been big on baking but I think that will start to change.  Earlier this year I decided that every week I should attempt something new in the kitchen, and perhaps some weeks it might be baked goods rather than dinner entrees.   The new recipe could be a simple one, like lemon poppy-seed muffins (next on the list...we usually make banana-walnut ones), as long as it was something new. It hasn't always worked out that I've found the time each week but so far I've tried the following new dishes:

Braised lamb chops

Pork roast with apple stuffing

Moroccan beef stew

Chili (my cousin's recipe)

Asian style chicken wings

Breaded shrimp on a bed of lentils

I've enjoyed the new cooking challenge and am excited to get through my post-it notes where I've jotted down interesting recipes I've come across so far.  Wish me luck!

Delightful Dinos #2: Monty

My parents came by to visit on Monday and that gave me just enough time to quickly sew together some legs for Monty the Bronte (pronounced "Bron-tee", heh heh).  I used the same fabric as the one for Spike's belly which is nice and colourful.  I had to hand-stitch the legs to the body again and opted not to use buttons for any detailing (choking hazards, as I mentioned in my earlier blog) but it really would have been nice to have pop-out eyes.  Since the polka dot fabric is so busy, the grey thread I used to embroider Monty's eyes just doesn't stand out enough.  Perhaps I should have gone darker, like black.  Oh well.  Grey eyes, just like Adam's.

I continued work on Monty in the evening after Adam went to bed and just as I was about to sew up the last seam on Monty's belly I remembered that I had initially planned to put a bell inside.  But where the heck was I going to find  a bell at 9:45pm?  Forget it, I was tired and my fingers were sore from hand-stitching and I was just sooo close to being finished. Well, with 10 extra stitches I was.  And I'm happy with it.

Whoops, wasn't careful and got the seams on crooked!

Delightful Dinos #1: Spike

Yay! After about a month of picking up and putting down this sewing project I finally finished the first of three Delightful Dino toys for Adam.  Meet Spike.  

I first saw the adorable sewing pattern on Etsy around Christmas time and purchased it online.  I know that the patterns for the three dinosaurs are straightforward and usually I hesitate to bother buying them for simple projects but I wanted to get to the sewing part as efficiently as possible, given the time constraints with a newborn.  Now I'm happy I did.  During one of Adam's naps a few weeks back I successfully cut out all of the fabrics and interfacing for all three dinosaurs (and finished the ironing - hooray!) so I'm optimistic I'll be posting about the other two dinos in no time.  Fingers crossed.

I purchased four cute fat quarters from Fabricland and used two different fabrics for each dinosaur. I like the colourful polka dots on the fabric for Spike's belly and foot pads.  Unfortunately I forgot to pick up wide ric rac to use along Spike's spine so instead I had to create my own triangular spikes using the same polka dot fabric. It was a bit more effort but turned out to be nice detailing.

I would have loved to use buttons for Spike's eyes and for attaching his legs to his body (as called out for in the pattern) but I'm a little paranoid about buttons being pulled off and becoming choking hazards so I put safety first.  Instead of buttons I just used blue thread to create circles for his eyes.  They don't stand out as much as I would have liked because of the busy fabric but they'll have to do.  

For the legs I tried to sew from the front right one straight through the body to the front left one (as instructed in the pattern) but my needles just aren't long enough to easily penetrate the body without a whole lotta squishing down. It was too tricky to control where the needle would emerge from on the other side...plus I kept running the risk of losing the needle altogether inside the body if it slipped out of my fingers.  In the end I settled for hand-stitching along the tops of each leg so that they flop around which is kind of fun.

Oh, and the best part? I took some of the wrapper paper from saltine crackers and stuffed it into Spike's body.  Now when you squeeze him he makes the crinkling sound that seems to be a common feature among many baby toys that we've received.  Perhaps I will add a bell to the next dino. Stay tuned!

Fun with Flannelette

Nope, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth but yes, it sure is tricky finding the time to sew with a new baby.  And when I do find the time to sew, everything I sew is for the baby. For example, here is a simple bib that I made for Adam using a cute flannelette I picked up at the new Len's Mill store on Orfus Road by Yorkdale (and by the Fabricland!)  It was really straight-forward as I just roughly traced out one of the bibs we got as a hand-me-down for him.  I don't like buttons located directly behind the neck though because I find them a hassle to do/undo when he's lying down (this goes for clothing as well as bibs).  So, as you can see I just shifted the opening for his neck so that it closes off to one side and used snap buttons for a quick finish.

The bib is reversible with the same flannelette on both sides. For a bit of added absorbency I took the extra fabric cut out from the centre of the bib (for the neck hole), cut it in half (to create semi-circles) and sewed it into the bib between the outer layers where his chin would normally lie.  That way I didn't waste the fabric and hopefully the bib acts as an even better drool catcher.

I was originally going to cheat with the binding and just pin it around the perimeter, then top-stitch the whole thing in place. However after seeing how narrow the binding was I figured it would be challenging (and messy) to get clean stitch lines that caught the binding on both sides of the bib.  Therefore I had to go with the more proper (but tedious) approach of sewing one side into the bib with the machine, then hand-stitching the opposite side. This takes a lot more time but is very clean because all the stitch lines are invisible.

Stitching the first side with the Singer

Binding is complete

Finally I hammered in the snap buttons to finish off the bib. I love using snap buttons because they don't involve making button holes which aren't the easiest to do on the old Singer.

And after finishing off two identical bibs I went ahead and completed some burp cloths and a receiving blanket with the extra fabric.  Now Adam has a cute, matching set :)

And just to show how tricky it can be to find the time for sewing, here are some photos of me making the most of my quiet time.  I'm taking in a pair of jeans that needed tailoring before I was even pregnant but I was too lazy to get around to it last year. Then Adam was on the way and I said bye-bye to denim for several months. Now that I'm back in jeans I might as well get them to fit the way I want them to, right? Right! 

How did this fella sleep through the clunkety-clunk of the Singer??