NAC: Congrats

So it seems like my cards have been picking up recognition lately, partially thanks to this blog & mostly because of the Cards Blog. I feel so honored and grateful that they're getting so much attention :D Friends tell me that my cards have always been great and I love that they say that but I honestly feel like NOW my cards are at the level they should be. I think I'm improving day by day though which is a great thing.

This particular card was requested by a friend who needed a congratulatory card for one of his friends who is graduating from college. He told me that it needed to have a "natural" look to it which I hopefully accomplished with this card. I struggled SO much with the sentiment because not only did I have to come up with a new template but the first few wouldn't fit! The font I based the template on used all capital letters which, no matter how I played with the size of the card and placement, would not fit right. Finally, I tried it out with lowercase letters with a different font that worked perfectly. I love the fact that the card is still a standard size and not any bigger. I think I could add something to the blank spaces between the green stitching and sentiment but that might distract from the main focus so I'll leave it alone.

Cooking: "Tandoori" Chicken w/ CousCous Salad

Tonight Justyn and I both cooked something. I gave him rough directions on how to make the marinade for the chicken. He combined some yogurt with a cumin & coriander blend, paprika, curry powder, honey, salt & pepper. He was a little skeptical on how it would turn out so I made him try it before he added the chicken. It tasted a little off but I was sure that as the flavors came together and eventually cooked on the grill, that it would be good.



I stuck with what I knew well for a side dish which was a couscous salad. I played around with the proportions on certain ingrediants to improve the flavor and sauteed the red onion to get rid of the overwhelming flavor so that you would be able to taste the other ingrediants in the salad. It turned out very well. I think, to date, this is the best version so far.



The chicken didn't take long to cook on the grill. It turned out surprisingly good. We used chicken breast instead of chicken thighs which is what the recipe called for and the meat was pretty juicy and tender. I think the yogurt marinade helped a lot. I hesitate to call our recipe a Tandoori chicken because it's such a bastardization I have to put it in quotes. A tasty bastardization though.



Here's the revised recipe for the couscous salad.

CousCous Salad

1 cucumber seeded and diced
4 roma tomatoes diced
1 red bell pepper diced
1 red onion finely diced
2 large cloves of garlic grated
2 juicy lemons juiced
handful of mint chopped
handful of Italian parsley chopped
1 box of plain couscous
1 can of low sodium fat free chicken broth
1 container of feta cheese
2 tbsp dijon mustard
4 tbsp honey
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tbsp butter

In a large bowl combine cucumber, tomato, bell pepper, mint, parsley and feta cheese.

In a pan, saute red onion until semi translucent. You can also add the onion in raw but it'll overwhelm the other flavors in the salad. Set the onions aside to cool.

In a pot, cook couscous with chicken broth and 1 tbsp of butter. The directions to cook couscous are on the box. Set couscous aside to cool.

In a bowl, add garlic, lemon juice, dijon mustard and honey and mix to combine. Whisk olive oil into the mixture. This will be your dressing. Season with salt & pepper to taste. You might need to add something more depending on what you like.

Add onions & couscous to the veggies & cheese and mix to combine. Add dressing and mix to combine.

Cards Blog Challenge: Mother's Day Card

Up to date, I think this is the hardest and most technical card I've made. I struggled so much with the template for the "mom" part of it. Eventually I got it right though. I just googled "embroidery font" and used that to paper pierce on computer paper using my mat pack from Stampin Up. Then I adhered the computer paper template to the cardstock and used my mat pack stencil to make sure the holes were evenly aligned. Kinda hard to describe but it took me a good few hours of trial and error before I got it down. One tip that I learned through making this card is that once you're done paper piercing, go over it again to make the holes a little bigger so you're not tearing the cardstock with the needle and thread. It makes the embroidering a little cleaner.

After that I hand drew around "mom" to mimic what you would see on "I Love Mom" tattoos. I really like how it turned out despite a few mistakes in the stitching.

Cooking: Chicken Tikka Masala

Tonight I tried making a healthier version of chicken tikka masala which involves chicken breast, low fat plain yogurt & fat free evaporated milk. Yes, just using those ingrediants instead of full fat ones can make it better for you. Less indulgent for sure, but the flavors are all still there. I'll just skip to the recipe cuz I'm hungry and currently eating as I type this.

Healthier Chicken Tikka Masala

Warning: You'll need an hour to overnight to marinate the chicken. Lesson learned for me :)

1 pkg of boneless skinless chicken breast cut to bite sized pieces
1 onion sliced
5 garlic cloves minced
4 inch knob of ginger skinned and grated
1 jalapeno finely diced
2 limes juiced (need 1-2 tbsp juice)
handful cilantro rough chopped
2/3 cup low fat plain yogurt
1 cup fat free evaporated milk
4 tbsp tomato paste
2 tbsp cumin/coriander blend (found at the Indian market)
1 tbsp paprika

1) Combine paprika & cumin/coriander blend together.
2) Dump chicken in a freezer bag along with half of the garlic, ginger, cumin/coriander/paprika blend, all of the lime juice, yogurt, salt & pepper. Tightly seal the bag and mix everything together. Set aside to marinate.
3) After time is up, heat a heavy bottomed pan with some veg oil on medium heat.
4) Add sliced onion and saute until translucent and softened.
5) Add jalapeno and other half of ginger, garlic, cumin/coriander/paprika blend. Saute until fragrant.
6) Add marinated chicken and mix.
7) Let the chicken cook for about 5-7 minutes until you don't see any pink. Then add tomato paste and mix until well incorporated.
8) Deglaze with evaporated milk.
9) Simmer for 20 minutes or until it has become thickened to your liking. Reseason and serve.

I served mine with store bought palak paneer, garlic naan & rice.

NAC: Single Layer Card

We were challenged this week by Kristina Werner to create single layer cards. Man... this one was harder than I thought it'd be. Weird thing was, I already knew what I wanted to do. On Sunday night I closed my eyes, ready to drift off to sleep and images of cards were flashing through my mind. Interestingly enough, the next day I woke up and I was able to sketch out a few of the cards. One of the cards that I sketched out had lovely teal & pink color to it but when I actually tried it out on the card, it didn't work.

Last night, I watched a Threadbanger video where this chick made a lamp cover that had a beautiful city skyline outline (I can't link for some reason right now but I'll edit this post to include the video later). Anyway, I thought about how I could incorporate the technique without paper piercing. I didn't want to do paper piercing because I probably wouldn't be able to get the holes big enough to show a white background so I decided to use my white gel pen and dot the outline. I think it turned out pretty good although I had a hard time filling thinking about how to fill in the space between the tall building and the sentiment.

I think my other inspiration was the song I Left My Heart in San Francisco by Tony Bennett.

"Cooking": Pulled Pork Tacos

You probably saw this coming. I had a bunch of leftover pulled pork from Saturday so tonight I decided to make tacos. They're no ordinary pork tacos though. I used some BBQ sauce to add flavor to the pork and topped the tacos with cole slaw for added texture and crunch. Mmm... it's so good. I'm salivating as I type this and the plate is sitting right next to the keyboard so I'll make this short and sweet.

Cooking: Pulled Pork Pizza Rolls

This afternoon we're going to a party at our ex-neighbors place and I wanted to make something special despite the fact that I've learned my lesson on not making something new for people unless I've tried and perfected it. Recently, one of my friends linked me to a recipe for pizza rolls. What are they, you ask? Imagine Totino's pizza rolls but homemade and better. Yeah, that's what I thought too.

I also asked peeps what I should stuff the pizza rolls with since I wanted something unique. One of them mentioned pulled pork and cheese. Yum! How could I go wrong with that? I found a very easy pulled pork recipe on Chef John's website (http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2009/12/oven-smoked-pulled-pork-shoulder.html) Hey.. I know it's ghetto but I don't have a smoker either and IT WORKS.

I put the seasoned pork butt in the oven at 10:23pm last night and this morning, 12 hours later.. it was falling off the bone. I couldn't transfer the pork to a bowl in one piece, it collapsed in pieces. Oh and flavor wise.. amazing.



My friend said the cheese on top looks good. "Definitely good but bigger is not better." Size consistency was definitely a problem. So if you try this recipe I recommend using a cookie cutter or something so you can get the pizza dough the right size for each portion.





I rough chopped the pork and added some store bought (Sweet Baby Ray's) BBQ sauce and some salt to reseason it. Then I stuffed the pizza dough with cheddar cheese, caramelized onions, and the pulled pork. I brushed the tops of the rolls with olive oil, more cheese & a thin slice of jalapeno.