Happy Halloween! Here's a treat...

A doodle in a meeting becomes a freebie for you! 

Please enjoy this responsibly--on hand towels, pillow cases, t-shirts...the possibilities are limitless (as long as you don't use this for commercial purposes)!

Below are two unfancied up versions of this doodle.  (I'm a doodler not a graphic designer.) 

Depending on your transfer method (lightbox/window tracing or transfer pencil/copier ironing), download image one or the flipped version. 

Click on the pic to grab a larger version; print out; and craft!

I can't wait to see what you do with this!

xxoo

jenni

Shut yo mouth!

I'm not going to lie, I love food. 

I also love the manna of my people: cornbread.  (Let the choir of gospel singers say AMEN!)

Tonight--or rather this afternoon--I got a hankering for some cornbread.  Happily, I have recently purchased some yummy mix at the GO TEXAN mercantile at the State Fair of Texas. 

Unhappily, I have not been to the grocery store in donkey's years.  I have neither eggs nor milk.  (Well, I have chocolate milk because, really, who can live without that?!) 

A faithful Twitter follower suggested subbing canned cream of corn.  SCORE! I have that.  Maybe.  Somewhere.  In that thing called the pantry. 

Darn you, DelMonte, why would you put a "code" on the top instead of a date?  I did not graduate from MIT so figuring out your "code" sure isn't in the picture. 

What to do? 

Experiment!  (See, even non MIT grads like to play, er, conduct scientific experiments!) 

So, I had to think: what is an egg for?  Fat.  Fats I have in plenty.  (Olive oil.  That's a good fat.) 

NONFAT HALF AND HALF!  A faux fat, if you will, leftover from Mother's visit to Dallas.  A quick sniff test confirms it is on the edge of usefulness. 

So, dump in some mix, dump in some olive oil, dump in some faux half and half.  Stir.  Olive oil up the pan.  Pour the semi-bubbling mixture.  Gas at 400' for 15-20 minutes. 

And we have a very sad, unrisen cornbread. 

not quite as golden (and no need for that sheet pan beneath to "catch" any overflow!

a pretty good little crust on it, though...

pretty flat, think about an inch

but oh-so-good with a drizzle of local wildflower honey!

Sad and unrisen though it be, it still tastes pretty fabulous!  I woudln't serve it to company.  But just for me?  It's perfect!

xxoo

jenni

More exciting news!

Click on the images above to be taken to virtual magazine nirvana!

Yes.  Look closely.  Page twenty-six of the Anniversary Issue of Lonny Magazine (with the Holiday Gift Guide) lists my Pink Cabana Stripe Passport Cover as #2 on their list of great etsy finds!

I'm tickled pink!  Ellie, I owe you many thanks!  I'm so happy you found me. 

xxoo
jenni

More tales of a culinary genius...

Last night I was too tired even for takeout.  I know.  (Speaking of takeout, Melissa made an awesome treasury with that theme.) 

What had I in the icebox?  That could really be used to make something quick and easy?  Leftover rotisserie chicken.  The last two usable pieces of french bread from my 99-cent Whole Foods round.  And some Babybell cheese.  And that's about it. 

So I put together a panini instead of just eating a sad single-girl dinner of cold chicken, a chunk of cheese, and some bread in front of the TV.

But here's where the culinary genius comes in.  I used olive oil instead of butter.  (Okay, so that's not the genius, either.)  But then I sprinkled a bit of Kosher salt on the oiled up bread. 

I'm telling you: fabulous. 

My rotisserie chicken was really delicately flavored with pepper and vanilla.  More of a perfuming than anything else.  So the bite of the kosher salt on the bread really made what could have been a boring sandwich into an extraordinary culinary moment. 

(And cleanup was a breeze!)

 Babybell cheese makes suprisingly good melty goodness!



those sparkles on the bread are little flakes of toasty kosher salt goodness



xxoo

jenni

BlogLovin'

Follow my blog with bloglovin


In my quest to dominate the world

In my quest to dominate the blogworld

In my quest to share a piece of my mind with the world, I've joined BlogLovin. 

(you should, too!)

xxoo
jenni

Beautiful Lengths

Beautiful Lengths Before and After...



Pardon the grainy cellphone/mirror photographs.

I had a milestone birthday this year, and, when I was holed up in my cabin in the woods, pondering the decades behind me and the decades before, one of the things I put on my life list was to donate my hair to a worthy cause. 

Now, know a little something about my hair: it's really boring.  And I'm okay with that.  My best friend is obsessed with her hair--and for good reason because she has luxurious, thick blonde tresses.  And while my hair is a pretty nice color of brown (not mousy, is pretty shiny, turns a pretty auburnish when I'm in the sun, and is only .01% gray), it's not luxurious by any stretch of the imagination. 

So in Dallas, the running price for a good cut is about $65-100 bucks (I'm sure there are some people who pay more).  This makes me nuts because seriously all I need is someone with a steady hand and a good eye.  I mean, really.  So giving up a cut for 6 months to grow out my hair wasn't that much of a hardship. 

Or was it?  My hair, it's a nice color, in good condition, but it's really fine.  And not in a "he's so fine" kind of way.  I mean in a practically a nanoparticle fine.  (I had a hairdresser tell me once that I had a lot of hair.  Be that as it may, it's still completely limp and blah.)  So I've been wondering/worrying that I'm doing this whole thing for nothing, that my hair won't be helpful, etc.  That they'll end up not using it and I'll have been that "crazy lady with the too-long hair for her age" for no good reason at all. 

Vanity is a scary thing. 

But it will be helpful.  My foot-long ponytail will join the ponytails of 10-15 other ladies (and, hey, possibly some men), will be transformed into an awesome hairpiece (I really hope my hair comes back as a lipstick red bob!), and will hopefully help some woman feel beautiful again. 

And how lucky am I to be able to be a small part of that?  

xxoo

jenni

State Fair

I've been in and out of The State Fair of Texas for a few weeks now--setting up my space in the Go Texan Mercantile in the Food and Fiber Pavillion, heading over for the awesome TX Dept of Agriculture / Texas Monthly Magazine / Go Texan preview party, taking inventory to the store, and "sampling" on the mercantile porch all day Sunday. 

But yesterday afternoon was just for fun! 

Mother and I headed over to the fair grounds after I got off work.  We took a circuitous route to avoid Central and I-30 and all of the horrible and messy rush-hour traffic.  Our sole purpose: Creative Arts pavillion oogling (quilts, crafts, artwork, jams/jellies), a Fletcher's corny dog munching (a SFoT institution!), and this year's fabulous fried food winner tasting (fried Frito pie). 

All were awesome...and I say this every year: Man, I really need to enter some of my sewing in the State Fair because I think know I could be a competitor!  :) 

Fletchers was, of course, delightful.  And the new addition of fried caramel this year....sweet breaded corn batter goodness with melty sugary caramel on the inside?  For 5 food tickets, this is a MUST! 

And now, presenting the clear winner of this year's fair food (though I didn't try any of the others): FRIED FRITO PIE.  Yes, it's Frito pie inside of a crusty golden shell topped with Daisy sour cream.  Real sour cream.  (How long has it been since I had REAL sour cream?!)  Mother and I split this delicacy.  I almost stabbed her with my platic fork so I could take her share, too. 

I'll certainly be stopping by for another taste of fried Frito pie when I take more inventory out on Sunday morning!!!

A fireworks display with great balls of fire coming out of the Esplanade topped off the evening.  And I also confronted my fear of heights and rode on the gondola that goes above the Midway.

Here's the view from the sweet, sweet, solid ground:

xxoo
jenni