Food

Last night I made one of my favorite sandwiches to eat. The weather has been a little cooler and it is just starting to feel like fall so...I pulled out this recipe that reminds me of fall for some reason.

Balsamic-Glazed Chicken Sandwiches with Red Onions and Goat Cheese and Sweet Potato Wedges:

The recipe came from my November 2004 issue of Cooking Light. I love that magazine!! I just got one in the mail today. I am going to read on the drive to Arkansas tomorrow.

3/4c balsamic vinegar

1/2c dry red wine

1 teaspoon low-sodium soy sauce

2 teaspoons brown sugar

2 (6oz.) skinless, boneless chicken breasts

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Cooking spray

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/12c thinly sliced red onion

1 (3oz.) pack of goat cheese

4 whole wheat/grain buns



1. Combine first 4 ingredients in a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring mixture to boil, stirring until sugar dissolves. Cook until reduces to 1/3c (about 12 minutes). Remove from heat. Cool slightly (**Warning this stuff is scalding hot! Be careful. I burned my hand very badly once from sloshing this on myself by accident**).

2. While vinegar mixture is cooking, heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add chicken to pan, cook for 4 minutes on each side or until done (I usually cook them longer). Remove chicken from pan and thinly slice. Cover and keep warm.

3. Add oil to pan; reduce temp to medium-low. Add onion, cook for 5 minutes or until onion is soft and beginning to brown, stirring frequently. Remove from heat.

4. Spread about 1 1/2 tablespoons goat cheese evenly over bottom half of bun, divide sliced chicken and onion evenly over rolls. Drizzle each serving with about 1 tablespoon balsamic mixture and top with other half of bun. You can also add arugula if you like.

Yields 4 servings.

I also made some lemon drop cookies and Oatmeal muffins for the trip. The oatmeal muffins turned out great. I added extra Cinnamon and used almond extract instead of vanilla.

I may post these recipes a little later. Now I am off to the Herb n' Health to pick some stuff up for the trip.

Eeeeeee!

I just checked my Etsy and I sold another item. This time it was the Summer Jordy Bag. I am excited because I really like this one. Jordy's are my favorite bag to carry.

I am going to include a little something extra as a gift. Anyhoo, that is it. Have a good night!

I'm In Love...

....with this Anna Maria fabric that arrived in the mail today. It is absolutely gorgeous! I love the colors. It is so whimsical!

I am going to make something with it tomorrow. I want to make a bag to take with me on my upcoming trip. As I always say, a girl can never have too many bags!!

Also, I have been working on new shrinky dink pendants for the shop. This one had a bit of a bleeding issue when I sprayed on the fixative but...since then I have worked out the kinks

Also, I made a new market bag today. I will post pictures of it tomorrow. Tomorrow, aside from working on my own bag, I think I am going to make a few zipper bags for the Market. I am rockin' and rollin'!!

Have a good night!

Cheers!

Saturday Afternoon Crafting

Well, my trip to visit my sister, brother-in-law, and niece is coming up. I am going with my parents and of course that means leaving at the crack of dawn on Thursday morning. Yep, 5am is apparently the time the ship is sailing, so I have decided to spend the night at my parents house on Wednesday.

I have been trying to get some items ready to go for the Stone County Farmer's Market. It is right on the Square, where all the action is. I am sure going to be in trouble if the booth I am sharing with my sister is facing the Stonebrook Fudge Factory. If that does happen, more than likely, I will be dreaming about their wonderful tiger butter fudge. I will probably go buy a pound of it and eat the whole thing in a matter of minutes, then feel remorseful (if I don't go into a sugar coma first) and will want to take a long walk through the mountains to burn off the calories :-).

When I woke up this morning I started sewing in preparation for the market. It seemed as though Ziggy was very intrigued in my sewing and maybe wanted to learn himself.

I sewed together several snap wallets. I had my own little sweat shop going on.

However, rather unfortunately, I ran out of snaps. Poo. I guess that is just another excuse to go to Jo Ann's tomorrow!

I have sew, uh...I mean so (yep I know bad, very bad) much work left to do. Good thing I am off next week, again! I am in the middle of changing jobs. My last day of hospice was yesterday. A co-worker and I went to a cute little restaurant in town called Lili's for lunch. We had that yummy looking chicken salad sandwich to the left. Great place to have lunch or dinner with fairly reasonable prices. Not to mention the atmosphere is fantastic!

Now, I am off to make dinner. I am going to make a little pizza like last time but this time I am going to use mozzarella and goat cheese with caramelized onions. LOVE the goat cheese!

Swapping Fun

I recently entered a swap on craftster a few weeks ago. Swaps are so much fun. I received my swap package from my partner today. Wow, she is absolutely fantastic. The bag she made for me is perfect. I am going on a trip to visit my sister next week and I will most certainly be using this bag to carry along a little road trip crafting supplies.

She used colors that I love together, red and turquoise. She also sewed little beads on the bag..such a nice touch to detail.

On each side of the bag she added little read heart buttons. I am telling you...such attention to detail! ;-)

I love the bamboo handles too. Every time I go in Jo Ann's I walk past the bamboo handles and admire them. Now, I have my own bag made with them.

Swaps are so much fun. I highly recommend them if you have not tried it. Just go right over here and sign up to be a member of craftster and then you are all set! I am still working on the bag for my partner. After she receives it I will post pictures but just in case she takes a look at my blog, I don't want to ruin the fun!

I have also been working on a few bags for myself well, because a girl just can't have too many bags. I went to this fantastic fabric store in town called Cabbage Rose and purchased Amy Butler and Anna Maria Horner fabric. I first went with my sister when she was in town visiting. I felt like a kid in a candy store. Then a few days later, I went back with my friend and she showed me the most important part of the store that I completely missed the first time I went in, the sale room. I got a lot of Anna Maria fabric on sale for a steal!!! So exciting. I had my eye on the Joel Dewberry sparrows fabric the first time I was there with my sister. So, of course when I went in the next time I had to purchase it. I am saving it for something special because the fabric is beautiful.

This is what I made with the Amy Butler fabric using an Amy Karol pattern. I love the way it turned out.

I also used some of the Anna Maria fabric I had to make a pleated purse. I kinda like how it turned out but I am certainly going to re-vamp it and make it much better. First shot at it, not so bad.

I still have some other things in the works and will be posting again soon. For now, I need to go finish cooking up my chicken Cesar salad! Yum!

Cheers!

Ah, Vacation!!

Thank goodness for paid time off. I have just been relaxing with friends and family so far and it has been wonderful. The best part of taking time off work is catching up on all the wonderful blogs I love and crafting it up! I am going to work on making more items for my shop this week and am going to make a few new shirts for myself. I also want to try a few more patterns from Amy Karol's book. I went to Jo Ann's today and got some great fabric. Also, the point of me starting this blog is to show off this wonderful site to get fabric for CHEAP!!!!!!! My sister is lucky because she live close to the town this lovely little fabric store resides in. She told me about it and I thought, "wonder if they have a website?" Sure enough they did and I am telling you, the fabric is so freaking cheap it is crazy...but the fabric is all good quality. So, check it out. When I go to visit her next month we are going to take a trip there because apparently it is sold even cheaper in the store itself!

Crafting With Friends

For some reason I have never been a big fan of cutting fabric. I love fabric when I purchase it and I love it even more after it has been turned into something special. I guess I feel cutting fabric slows me down and I like instant gratification! My dear friend (you can meet her over here if you like, she makes awfully pretty cupcakes!) and I decided to get together on Sunday afternoon in her fantastic craft room to hang out and do a bit of crafting. We drank coffee, chatted, and worked on a few projects. I decided that would be a good time to cut fabric. I can't believe how much I got done! It really helped to pass the time and not make cutting the fabric so monotonous. She has a great sewing table too that helped. Anyhoo, here is a bit of what I did:

Because I have plans to make a bunch of stuff. I also cut out interfacing and fused it on the back of half of the fabric.

And....I cut fleece interfacing too! I am telling you I got alot done and feel so accomplished. ;-)

After I got home I spread everything out and made a huge mess....as usual.

And then I made this little snap wallet to put in the shop.

Today, after I came home from work, I made two more! I really like the way these are turning out. I even made one for myself yesterday out of the strawberry print fabric. You can check the others out in my shop if you fancy.

Well, I am off to make some more snap wallets. Have a nice night!

Cheers!

P.S. I am on vacation next week and can't wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!