Happy New Year!
I was doing all right until one minute ago. I was distracted by a call and somehow, the really long post that I have been working on and ready to publish, is lost in blogland. Agh!
I have been busy the past few months. I just wrapped up a book with Martingale & Co. [That Patchwork Place]. I finished another one for them in October too. The most frustrating thing that I encounter with maintaining a blog is the inability to post about my projects until they are actually published. I usually work about a year or so in advance so there's that big gap between finishing and publishing.
I had a lot of magazine work published in the past few months. I had a quilt, "be Merry" on the cover of American Patchwork & Quilting, some holiday cards and an interview in Quilts & More, and pincushions in Quilts & More. Look out for some cool placemats in the next issue of Quilts & More. They're quick and easy to make and are funky.
I wrote four books last year and I am so stoked about them. I can't wait for them to be published! It's worse than Christmas, which for me is a really bad thing. Don't ever tell me that you've purchased a present for me. I will ask you everyday from the day you tell me about it until the day that I open it. My husband pretends that we're not going to exchange gifts and then he pulls out something fabulous. I'm not so into jewelry and bling but he's bought some iPod and Patagonia items in the past. Now, if only a very large Apple product would end up on my desk ...
Back to my books. I've expanded the product range and look to include knitting and scrapbooking. Of course, there is the usual quilting book. Some of the look will reflect my personal taste. My signature look in quilting is bright but I love bright and luxurious likened to Designers Guild and muted colors dominate my home, knitting and scrapbooking tastes run more classic.
I discovered a couple of things when I was writing my scrapbooking book. My main loves are paper and photography but sometimes I prefer that they run separately. Yes, I know, you can't tell from this site but I love black and white photos with a photojournalistic touch. I think that I can call myself a digital documentary director. I almost have 20,000 digital photos alone and I love to take photos that say something without saying something. I think that has to do with the fact that I keep a separate diary/journal and I feel that a visual should just jump out at you and give hints at what's going on. The remaining interpretation is up to you. I found that I preferred an uncluttered look when it came to designing a page. Classic and clean with an unusual touch. I think that this book brought me back to my roots of design.
Apple and Blue Cheese Salad
As much as I would like to live a life filled with decadent disregard for things like calories and extra pounds, a life packed with things like porchetta and chicharon and chocolate truffles, the reality of it all is that, sigh, I do have to think of these things (sometimes!). Truth be told though, I am not always the fat-gobbling, calorie-consuming Braveheart that I sometimes paint myself to be. Oh, that is definitely a big part of who I am, but I also love vegetables and fish and food that won’t kill you. I guess at the end of the day, I can say that I am an equal opportunity eater: everything gets an equal opportunity to be eaten by me.
After all of the holiday’s feasting, it was time for a little restraint. Not the restraint you would equate with suffering and deficiency, as this salad does not in any way evoke either. It was just time to eat a little lighter…something both my tightening jeans and taste buds where telling me. Yes, it happens…even to a voracious pork lover like me…I was in the mood for a salad.
I threw this salad together based on ideas and inspiration from the salad recipes in Donna Hay’s The New Cook. She has so many wonderful-sounding salads! In fact, the dressing I use here is hers as well (from her magazine, Spring issue 23). So this salad basically sprung from the crossroads of: her recipes, what I had available, and a surfeit of apples from the Christmas season.
Apple and Blue Cheese Salad
- a bunch of red and green curly lettuce
- a bunch of arugula
- 2 apples, chopped into cubes
- 1 medium onion, sliced as thin as you can manage
- a small hunk of blue cheese (depending an taste)
- a knob of butter
- a pinch of brown sugar and freshly cracked black pepper
- Wash your greens and dry with a paper towel (I have a salad spinner but I find myself rolling the greens in a paper towel more and more often instead).
- Melt butter in a pan, once it’s clear and bubbly toss in apples and sprinkle with a pinch of sugar and pepper (to taste). Let apples cooked a little until the sides are a tad caramelized.
- Arrange lettuce on a plate, top with arugula, then the onions, then apples.
- Crumble blue cheese on top and drizzle dressing over everything (or, if you are like my mother, serve the dressing on the side).
Herb Dressing
(from Donna Hay Magazine, Spring issue 23)
- ¾ cup basil leaves
- 2 ½ tablespoons rinsed capers
- 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
- 2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 crushed garlic clove
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
Process in a food processor until just combined (I used an immersion blender).
That’s not all we had! We also enjoyed a strawberry yogurt smoothie with our salad.
Strawberry Yogurt Smoothie
- 2 cups milk
- 1 cup natural yogurt
- 2 cups strawberries
- ice
- honey to taste
- Blend everything but the honey in a blender.
- Taste.
- Add honey to sweeten, if needed.
- Makes 3 glasses.
I so enjoyed this meal! The different components of the salad seemed to interplay perfectly with one another: the apple, the onion, the blue cheese…even the dressing. I really liked that I had pan-seared the apples first (fyi, Donna did it with pears). I was quite pleased with myself, and am now happily thinking up of all kinds of salads I can make for me and C (who is an absolute vegetable lover by the way). The smoothie was good…but could have been better as our strawberries weren’t that sweet…hence the honey.
Is this the end of fatty foods for me? Hardly. Only the beginning of more variety!
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