From Our Blog to Your's - 10/30

In light of the upcoming Halloween festivities, this week's FOBTY over at Sweet Shoppe Designs, is a little quiz dedicated to discovering you inner monster. Cute, cuddly, fuzzy monster, butt I think i prefer those over any other type of monster. Anyway...here is what my monster has to say about me:

What Your Cute Monster Says About You

You are a vibrant, vivacious person. When you live, you live as wildly and loudly as possible. You are very bold. You are willing to stand up and be a leader. Your inner demon is intensity. You have a tendency to let your passions take over. People think you're cute because you're fiery. When you get worked up, it's charming.

The Cute Monster Test

What does you monster have to say about you? Thanks for reading!

-Diana, The Ivy Kitchen

From Our Blog to Your's - 10/24

It's FOBTY time over at The Sweet Shoppe again, and this week we are doing another one of those in-depth personality analysis (how the crap do you pluralize "analysis"?). This time it is based on Jack-O-Lantern preference. I have to say that my results were less than accurate, in fact, almost oposite of my own observations about myself...but hey it's from BlogThings so it is above question.

What Your Jack-o-Lantern Says

You tend to be a goofy, optimistic person. You enjoy Halloween more than anyone else you know. This Halloween be as silly as you can - dress up as a giant version of a small object The candy you should give out: laffy taffy

The Jack-o-Lantern Quiz

What does you Jack-O-Lantern say about YOU?

-Diana

Fresh Off The Needles: Autumn Toddler Sweater

Well, the last time I blogged about knitting was back in July because I took a break from knitting most of the summer. But I am back into it now and wanted to share my latest completed project. It is a toddler sweater for the Little Princess. It is the same pattern I have used to knit baby sweaters, and is adapted from Baby Knits for Beginners by Debbie Bliss. It is my favorite knitting pattern book that I have ever used, and there are some great intermediate projects in there as well. I borrowed the book from my SIL about 3 years ago and haven't given it back (((blush))). I highly recommend it for anyone wanting to knit non-complicated stuff for babies & toddlers:


I say the pattern is adapted because I used the pattern for "Sweater with Square Set-In Sleeves" which has a diamond stitch pattern. I did the sweater in straight stockinette stitch choosing to do a striped color pattern instead.

Back in the spring, I knit a sage & rose toddler dress for her in the same pattern that I used for other dresses I have talked about on here, and I loved to color combo so much (and had the leftover yarn in my stash) that I decided to do up a sweater for the Little Princess for fall.

It knits up fairly quickly on size 7 needles, it took me 3 days to complete the body panels & neck band, but not without a small glitch that involved the sweater not fitting over my child's giant melon, and me having to rip out my bind-off and redoing it. And then knitting fatigue set in, my pace slowed and it took me another whole week-and-a-half to finish the sleeves and the sewing together.

Anyway, it's done, it fits great, and I am really happy with it. The princess seems to like it as she keeps picking it up and saying "Mommy, you knit this for me?" :)

Here are a few pics I snapped with her in it, and a little digiscrapbook page I did about it:

This scrapbook page was created using all goodies you can find over at The Sweet Shoppe.

That's it on the knitting front for now. There could be a baby shower for a close friend on the horizon, so we shall see what kind of projects that may bring! Thanks for reading!

-Diana, The Ivy Kitchen

From Our Blog to Your's - 10/16

Here is another installment of "From Our Blog to Your" over at the Sweet Shoppe. Check out their blog, as well! You won't belive some of the beautiful kits they have featured there this week!

This weeks FOBTY is a sweet little quiz:

Halloween Candy Quiz





You are a Candy Corn


Like the candy corn people can count on you to always be there


Find out which Halloween Candy you are at Quizopolis.com

So what kind of Halloween candy are you?

Diana, The Ivy Kitchen

From Our Blog to Your's - 10/2 & 10/9

Hi! I am just getting caught up with the "From Our Blog to Yours" entries from Sweet Shoppe Designs. Each week they have fun little things to post on your blog, so I am hoping to keep up with them.

For October 2 the challenge was to blog about our favorite fast food. Man...that is a can of worms for me, since I have a major love/hate relationship w/ fast food, as I am sure most people do. One the one hand, It is an affront to my culinary senses in the way it is mass produced with little no regard for subtlety of flavor and nutrition. On the other (bigger) hand, it is so easy to order food I didn't have to make and sometimes deep fried and smothered in chocolate just tastes so stinkin' good.

Anyway, those things being accounted for there is such a wide variety of "fast" foods out there it becomes a question of what do you classify as fast food? If we are talking any place that you can walk into and have food in front of you inside of 10 minutes, then it is Panera Bread ALL THE WAY. Their turkey artichoke sandwich with a side of kettle cooked chips & a dill pickle is a meal I could eat everyday for a month straight and still want to eat it the next day! Their smokehouse turkey sandwich is equally as good. But some how to whole fresh baked, lack of a fry-o-later seems like cheating in the realm of fast food.

If we are talking deep fried, knitty gritty, questionably cow fast food, then I am gonna have to go with the classic, Mickey D's. Not much to say except that sometimes you just want a couple eighth-inch thick brownish-gray-meatish patties covered in processed orange cheese food and reconstituted onions, with a hint of ketchup and mustard and a single (2 if you're having a lucky day!) dill pickle slice between two slices of steamed, wet from condensation, squished bun. And sometimes you only want to pay a $1.00 for it!

On to FOBTY for 10/9...This is an in-depth look at my personality based on how I like to eat my ice cream. I am not a big ice cream eater to begin with, so I fear for the accuracy of this test, but I did it in good faith and this is what I came up with:

Your Ice Cream Personality:

You like to think of yourself as a fairly modest person. And it's true that you don't talk yourself up... but you're also pretty happy with who you are. You are incredibly cautious. You rather miss out on something than make a mistake. No one would ever call you wild... but they would call you responsible. You are a somewhat open minded person, but deep down you're fairly conservative. You don't like trying new things very much. And if you do find something new you like, you stick with it. You tend to have a one track mind. You prefer not to multitask. You are fun loving and sweet. You tend to enjoy joking around and teasing people.

The Ice Cream Personality Test

Somewhat accurate, but not totally. I think it is because I recently discovered that my favorite flavor of Ice Cream is Ben & Jerry's (Non-breastmilk varietal) Chocolate Fudge Brownie. They never mentioned that in the quiz, so I am guessing that is where the margin of error comes from.

Thanks for reading!

-Diana, The Ivy Kitchen

Make Mine a 4-Way, Please!

Oh. Hi. O...I know I haven't done a legitimate cooking entry in over a month now, but here I am with a discovery that I have been wanting to share for awhile! Back in August my friend Ryann from A Working Mommy's Blog, and a Cincinnati girl, asked our collective mommy's board if we thought this was weird:

Chili served over spaghetti with shredded cheese & onions.

As a New England girl, I had never heard of such a thing, nor have I ever travelled to Ohio. My first thought was about Texas-style chili over spaghetti, which sounded interesting. She claimed (her claims have now proven to be beyond reproach, hehehe) that she got it that way at a restaurant called Skyline. Our friend Terri, also a Cincy girl at heart, backed her story up. The whole idea intrigued me, but I had never heard of it being served that way. So I went to do some reading.

Not only do people, indeed, eat their chili over spaghetti in Cincinnati but there are lots of restaurants (or chili parlors) that cator to this very demographic! In reading the Wikipedia article found here, I discovered that the chili in question was not at all like Texas style chili. Same basic idea but with more eastern European and middle eastern influences with the use of cinnamon, cloves, and chocolate! The culinary adventurer inside of me was starting to get really piqued.

I also read some about Skyline which appears to have more than just a cult following among Cincinnati natives and extends to those who've relocated all across the country. People have cans of it shipped to where they are. Apparently the chili is traditionally served as a 2-way (chili over spaghetti noodles), 3-way (chili, noodles & completely covered with shredded sharp cheddar cheese), 4-way (chili, noodles, cheese, fresh chopped onions) or a 5-way (chili, noodles, cheese, onions, and kidney beans).

I looked up recipes for Cincinnati chili, and lo and behold, there was one at allrecipes, under my nose the whole time! In reading the reviews of the recipe over and over were the words "very similar to Skyline." So follows the recipe that would change my culinary presuppositions forever, or at least taste really, really good.

Cincinnati Chili from AllRecipes.com (with a few slight modifications by me).

INGREDIENTS

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 pounds ground beef
1/4 cup chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 bay leaf
1/2 (1 ounce) square unsweetened chocolate
2 (10.5 ounce) cans beef broth
1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

Directions:

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring frequently, until tender, about 6 minutes.

Add beef, in batches if necessary, and cook, breaking up with a wooden spoon, until browned. Now here is where I altered the recipe just slightly. In reading the reviews on allrecipes, many people stated that the "authentic" way to make this was to boil the ground beef in the broth. So that is what I did, I added the broth to the sauteed onions, brought it to a boil and cooked the ground beef in it. I get a finer consistency from the ground beef this way.

Add chili powder, cinnamon, cumin, allspice, cloves, bay leaf, chocolate, beef broth (see above), tomato sauce, cider vinegar, and red pepper.

Stir to mix well. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low; cover and simmer 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.
It is the best if you now refrigerate overnight. I did not let it sit over night, and it was still DELICIOUS!

Remove the bay leaf. Reheat gently over medium heat. Serve over hot, drained spaghetti. Top with shredded cheddar cheese. End recipe.

The chili is supposed to be a thinner consistency and mine turned out pretty thick, but it is because I should have added another cup or so of beef broth after the meat was cooked. That being said, both DH and I loved it with a thicker consistency and he even said he likes this better than traditional spaghetti sauce.

It was very good, and this recipe makes more than enough to freeze for future meals. We ate ours as a 4-way, DH is not big on beans, and it was just so delicious. The picture at the top of the entry shows a scant amount of cheese compared to how it is served in restaurants, but I was trying to be good. Hopefully I will get to visit Ohio one day and stop by for some authentic Skyline chili! And a big thank-you to Ryann and my Cincy girls for introducing me to it.

-Diana, The Ivy Kitchen

From Our Blog to Your's - 9/25

Over at the Sweet Shoppe, the community that I like to do my digital scrapbooking in, they do once a week challenges for our blogs. The Septemember challenge (yeah, I am a little behind) was a typing test. I am slightly ashamed to post my results, but not ashamed enough to actually prevent me from posting. So here goes:

38 words

Speed test

How many words per minute can YOU type?

-Diana, The Ivy Kitchen.