The Nifty Foodie

Amy

My first Hancock’s experience..

by 6 Comments

Let’s just preface this with the fact that I have had great experiences at most craft stores. I’m not a bitter store-hating person, as it might seem on my Twitter. I am a very happy Michael’s/Hobby Lobby/JoAnn’s customer.

I decided to take advantage of a HUGE warehouse sale at Hancock’s. 50% off notions, 40% off buttons, cheap ass fabric, etc. So, I went after work on Thursday with my $30 fun money budget in mind. All I wanted were a few things anyway, and I wanted to scope out another fabric store. Pretty exciting things going on in my life right now, eh?

I walked in excited as a kid on his birthday, and walked out pissed off and frustrated. Granted this was after a workday and my patience is very thin after work, but really, I was ready to kick someone in that store.

First, I started in the notions, which are sewing accessories, if you didn’t know, like me. Grabbed some pins, snaps and a yardstick. It said the whole wall was notions and it was 50% off. I’m a new sewer, so I don’t know what’s a notion and what’s not. I just simply believe the sign.

Then, I grab a few buttons for some projects coming up, and they have NO sign on the buttons aisle (can you believe there is a WHOLE aisle of nothing but buttons?), but the website says 40% off in store. I have the email on my iPhone ready, just in case issues arise.

Here comes the fun: fabric. I wanted to buy some FELT for a project that I have (it’s a secret until it’s done), but my dumb brain gravitates towards FLEECE and grabs up a few bolts. I tell the lady I want 1/4 yd. of each color of FELT. She says it’s FLEECE. I finally make the connection…d’oh! I needed FELT, and it wasn’t on sale. Embarrassed..

In the back of my mind, I’m hoping to make a quilt soon. They just so happened to have quilter’s cotton for $2/yd. Great…so I find the little section of quilter’s cotton. It looks like plain old fabric. Nothing fancy, so I grab a beige one and have her cut 3 yds. of it. No big deal.

I proceed to the check-out counter when an older lady in front of me with this cushy attitude tells the cashier she wants to order some ugly ass bird buttons. They looked like crows (where are you going to use CROW buttons??). The cashier explained the policy, gave her an order form to fill out and told her to do that while she checks me out. I knew this wasn’t gonna be pretty, because I am a price watcher. If the price is wrong, I will speak up, and I know price adjustments tend to take longer.

Lucky for crow buttons lady, we had quite a few of those. The snaps rang up full price, the buttons rang up correctly and then the quilter’s cotton: rang up $15. WTF??? I told the lady that it was quilter’s cotton and she said uhm, no it’s not. I insisted that it was in the spot with the rest (looked as cheap as the rest), and she told me ANY sewer would KNOW that quilter’s cotton is NOT this! Embarrassed and pretty pissed that she made that comment…I’m a newbie. 🙁

At this point, the old lady is pissed off at my price corrections, bangs her hands on the counter and sighs LOUDLY. It took every ounce of me not to tell her something about her ugly ass crow buttons. It’s not my fault that the fabric was in the wrong spot. I know I should have made sure the regular price matched the rest, in hindsight. It just looked as cheap as the rest of the colors! However, I was TOTALLY NOT paying $15 for crappy cotton. I’m new at this sewing thing, but I know $5 a yard is ridiculous for that stuff. So, she put it in the remnants stack for the lady with the fabrics to deal with. I hated to do that, but honestly, that is not my fault, and I’m sure it will sit in the remnants pile for a long time, eventually being cheaper than $6. Oh well…

At this time, I present the cashier with a 10% off purchase coupon that I got from being a “fan” of Hancock’s on Facebook. She looks at the print-out and asked me where I got it. I politely explained, and the cashier found it kind of cool. I’m sure not many Facebook-ers shop there, just looking at the demographic of the shoppers that were there at the time. (Lots of people who looked like crow buttons lady…)

After I check-out, the cashier informs me of a premier club that I should join. I love discount clubs, so I ask for the form. Another HUGE sigh from crow buttons lady. Just to spite this crow buttons lady, I filled out the form right then and there. I should have taken my sweet time too. I know, I’m a bitch.

So, after spending half of my fun money for the week, I have some neat-o sewing stuff to add to the collection. I can’t wait to finish cleaning house so I can get to my machine! 🙂

Time to Craft it Forward

by 1 Comment

I’m so excited to see how many people wanted to craft it forward!

Congrats to Danielle, Marci, Brittany, Beth and Jody! The powers of random.org selected y’all as the lucky 5 who will get something handmade from me (and an Etsy-er).

I’ll be emailing all of you shortly to get your addresses, so I can start crafting and sending things out! Thanks again That Wife for this fun idea. 🙂

Our Trip to Houston

by 2 Comments

For the long Mardi Gras weekend, my husband and I planned a fun little vacation to Houston, TX. I’m from New Orleans, and to me, Mardi Gras is very repetitive, so it was OK to take a year out from it. Plus, with the Saints winning, I didn’t want to go near that madness. (No, I’m not a bitter Manning fan. I’ve embraced “Who Dat?”, OK?)

While I did miss giving random shout-outs to clarinet players in the marching bands (about 10 years playing that instrument, holla!) in parades, I think this trip was well worth it. You see, it snowed (a lot) on Thursday night/Friday morning. So, whenever it snows, a lot of places shut down. No work…ever! So, since we asked off Friday, it kind of became a freebie for taking leave since the offices were closed anyway (SCORE!)!

However, this meant we had to leave as early as we could. The only way out of the city is a pretty high bridge that ices easily, so we had to beat the State Police before they closed it. We did. FREEDOM!

I geeked out during the drive and continued to cross-stitch. (Yep, still working on that..and the baby is now 4 months old…eesh!) Hubs doesn’t like it when I zonk out on a road trip, so I kept myself occupied. 4.5 hours later, we were in Houston!

On our first night, we decided to try Goode Co. Texas BBQ after multiple recommendations from locals. I will say this, the meat is seriously on-point…NOM! However, the sauce? It’s a confusing fusion of italian and BBQ that is just NOT right to me. Tasted like spaghetti sauce with a slight smokey flavor. Meh..that ain’t BBQ peeps…learn from Luther’s (darn you Luther’s for closing after Katrina hit!!).

On the second day, we went to Dave and Busters. We usually LOVE this place. I go nuts over the machines. However, this time, $50 of food and “fun” later, I felt ripped off. It was lame.

We went to visit the hubs’ cousins, who live in Houston and they took us out for our first Houston Tex-Mex experience: Gringo’s. Very fair priced and yummy food! I had a HUGE margarita for $8, and felt pretty tipsy after that. Such a lightweight. The highlight of that restaurant? There is a soft serve machine (ice cream) that you can load up on for free as you are leaving the restaurant!! The low point? When a manager walked up to our table and asked me what I was doing with these 3 attractive men on the night before V-day? Hubs flaunted his ring and was like uh no, she’s mine. Manager looked at me like I was some man-izer wearing an LSU t-shirt and jeans…nice.

On Valentine’s Day, the hubs and I did a little more shopping. We went to his electronic heaven, Fry’s and then to my spice heaven, Penzeys. Sigh…that store smelled GOOD! For lunch, we tried the infamous Red Robin. Oh yeah, those burgers are YUMMY!

Afterwards, we lounged a little while and planned to go across the street for $3 margaritas and more tex-mex. Let’s just say 8:30pm Valentine’s Day evening is not a good time to try a new restaurant…the parking garage was packed so we left! We ended up at Jack in the Box and I, with my sore (read: no Valentine’s day restaurant dinner) attitude, ate curly fries. This is coming from the person who isn’t a fan of V-day..why did I let it get to me? UGH…

Our last day, Lundi Gras/President’s Day, we went to JoAnn’s for the President’s Day sale. Hubs found me a 20% off the whole purchase coupon and I went nuts on these patterns (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) since they were $1 each, afterall (80 cents after coupon). A steal, indeed! After that, we went to IKEA to get me an organizer for all my sewing goodies. The battle I’m having assembling this damn thing is blog-worthy.

We decided to go to the $3 margarita place for a late lunch, and we’re so glad we did! The restaurant had lunch menu prices and was not crowded at all! Plus, we used a free appetizer coupon, since it wasn’t a “holiday” anymore. Squee!

Dinner was uneventful…Mickey D’s. We were just tired..and food was getting pricey in Houston!

We left to go home on Mardi Gras, and let me tell you, the minute we got to Baton Rouge, we realized how much we missed Houston….stupid Baton Rouge traffic!

In case you were wondering about our 4-legged friend, she stayed in New Orleans with my folks, including their 10 year old lab, Dixie. Millie made her feel young again haha! They apparently played and Millie learned a little training too with a good example at her side! Check it out…just too cute! Just ignore my dorky giggling over the fact that they are going nuts over these little treats that my mom has!

40 days…

by 2 Comments

As a Catholic, I’ve always become familiar with Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten season. I’m not very extreme in my religion, but I do give up meat on Fridays (and Ash Wednesday), attend church and give up something that I am shamelessly addicted to for 40 days.

Image source

This year, I’m giving up soda. Simple sounding but seriously, that stuff gets me through my workday!

In addition to giving up one thing, I’m also LIMITING my fun money spending to $30/week. This includes coffee shop purchases, craft shop purchases, clothing, hair, etc.

I usually allot myself $50/week to spend however the heck I want, but that extra $20/week will go to the church instead. I’m sure they’ll spend it much better than I would have. 

Image source

I also hope my  Crafting it Forward project brings a few smiles during the Lenten season to my readers. Today is the last day to enter for that!

What are you doing during the Lenten season?

Project 10 Pan

by 1 Comment

Most ladies can relate to me when I mention that I own too much make-up. I don’t have a HUGE collection, but I do have a lot of products that I bought a year or so ago that just need to be used up. Also, hubs thought it would be nice to buy me some new make-up last Christmas and got me a super huge palette similar to this.

So, needless to say, I’m not running out of make-up anytime soon!

Enter Project 10 Pan. Project 10 Pan is a personal challenge to use up 10 beauty products that you have before going to the store and buying more beauty products. It’s a great idea, and I’m going to do it. I’m not stepping foot into Sephora or Ulta until this is done!

I think this also forces me to be creative with the colors that I have, so if I have a certain look I want to achieve, I have to do it with products I already have, and more importantly, my 10 products that I need to use up! 🙂

I will admit, some of this make-up is older than it should be, but I paid pretty good money for it and I’m totally using it up! Here are my 10 products…you can tell I have a pretty bad lipgloss/eyeshadow habit.

So, the only time I’m buying make-up from now until this challenge is done are essentials like foundation (which I own only 1 bottle of), powder and concealer.

Are you a product junkie like me? Do you think you are going to try this challenge?

Oh man, the power behind the needle!

by 2 Comments

Image source

So, in Christmas 2008 (yes, 2008 you read that correctly), my grandma gifted me with a sewing machine. I’ve always been really curious about sewing and making all sorts of cool items! So, it sat in the box for a few months. I was really afraid.

Last summer, I got the guts to take it out and put it on the sewing table. It was beautiful…it powered on and I was done. Sometimes, I’d check on the machine to make sure it still worked. I did this until 2 weeks ago.

I was so scared of this machine that one of my good friends, Moonlight and Magnolias (aka Mrs. Crabcake of Weddingbee) sewed me this cute Buttercup Purse because I tweeted about how I wish I  knew how to make that purse. You are all sorts of awesome if you are reading this, by the way. LOVE that purse!

So, the hubs called his mother. He had some pants that needed to be hemmed because they were too long, and this domestic diva wannabe wanted to learn too! So, she showed me the ropes on doing a blind hem stitch. Ugh, that was a frustrating lesson.

After getting two pairs of pants done really well, I felt empowered. I felt like I could do it all..so, I got to my first project on my own: a clutch.

 Crafty Loves Smarty (aka Mrs. Yorkie on Weddingbee) showed me this project way back when. Back in the days of staring at my machine, flipping the switch on/off, and leaving it alone. Those intimidating days.

I was walking down the aisles of the Target that I wish I could boycott, and saw that they had placemats on clearance for 50% off, so I bought one. I finally sat down last night and told myself enough already, let’s do this!

So I got to work. My needle jammed a few times, I made HUGE knots of thread when I forgot to thread my needle correctly, and I might have said some choice words that I should have covered dear little Millie’s ears for. However, after two hours of struggles and hearing more “Stand Up and Get Crunk” replays than you could imagine (Saints’ Superbowl parade background noise) I had a clutch!

So far, this purse has no embellishments or snaps. I’m hoping to add a couple of cute ribbon flowers and a snap to it. 🙂 It’s a little rough looking, but I’m pretty happy with myself for this being a first project! If I can finish it tomorrow, I am totally bringing this with me on our mini vacation to Houston that we are taking this long (read: Mardi Gras) weekend!

Roasted Tomato Salsa

by 4 Comments

My husband and I planned on doing a Superbowl Mexican feast (for 2), so I was searching for salsa recipes. I happened to come across this recipe on Delish Blog, and was intrigued. Roasted vegetables are always awesome, so roasted salsa had to be all sorts of amazing.

Roasting all of the vegetables made the house smell so yummy, and I just couldn’t wait to dig into this! It had amazing flavor, but my husband and I agreed that our tomatoes probably weren’t ripe enough. We were craving a more rich tomato flavor in the salsa. I can’t wait to try this again in the summer with fresh local tomatoes!

Roasted Tomato Salsa
Source: Delish Blog

Ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 pounds tomatoes, cut in half lengthwise
  • 1/2 large white onion
  • 4-6 cloves roasted garlic
  • 2-3 large jalapenos, deseeded & deveined, cut in half lengthwise
  • freshly ground black pepper & kosher salt
  • Extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1/4 – 1/2 cup cilantro, roughly chopped

Directions:

  1. Heat oven to 400°F . Gently toss the tomatoes, onions, garlic, jalapenos with the olive oil in a large bowl. Alternatively, use spray oil to gently coat the veggies (You just don’t want it to burn). Season with a little freshly ground black pepper. After they are nicely coated arrange in a single layer, tomatoes cut-side facing up, across a parchment or foil-lined baking sheet, roast in the oven for 40-50 minutes, (depending upon the size of your tomatoes). You’ll know they’re ready to come out when they start to get a nice color and the tomatoes start to collapse. Remove from the oven and cool.
  2. Puree cooled tomatoes, onion, garlic, and jalapenos. Alternatively, puree half of the veggies and hand chop the remainder and combine. Season with salt and stir in the cilantro. Refrigerate.

I’mma be…crafty!

by 15 Comments

Back in December, I entered a contest with Team CAC (Christian Artist Crafters) on Etsy for a huge giveaway basket of items. I couldn’t believe it when I saw that I won one of the baskets! I was SUPER stoked!! 🙂

After looking at the haul of things I received, I thought it would be fun to kind of pay this generosity forward to my readers, but I had no idea how I was going to go about this.

About a week ago, That Wife blogged about Craft it Forward. She generously offered her readers a chance to receive a handmade gift from her, and I found out this weekend, that I was one of the lucky 5! YAY!

So, I’m going to Craft It Forward too! I’m totally stealing That Wife’s idea and making it a random drawing to readers.

A bonus? Not only will you get a handmade gift from me, but you will also get a gift from the basket that I won from Team CAC! I think it would be kind of fun-hoggish (yeah, probably made up that word) to keep all the wonderful handmade things I received to myself!

Here’s the deets:

  • I’m randomly picking 5 commenters on this post to get a Craft It Forward package from me.
  • If you enter, you should Craft It Forward to 5 other people as well. It’s a chain thing, yo. I’m not going to twist your arm to do it, but I think it would be neat to keep this thing going.
  • Winners will get their stuff before taxes are due. That’s my personal deadline.
  • I do a lot of crafts. You could get anything from a scarf, to an apron, to heck, maybe even some decorated cookies! Yup, I’m random like that. I might even ask the winners a little about themselves to get a better idea of what might be awesome to send them!
  • I am by NO means a professional! That’s another reason why I’m including something from the Team CAC basket I won, just in case you hate my skills.

To enter, just simply leave a comment. Simple as that. This little nifty contest ends after I wake up from the king cake (carb/sugar) induced coma on Wednesday, February 17th!  You have PLENTY of time to enter! 🙂

PW’s Beef Brisket

by Leave a Comment

Sorry, this picture sucks. Taken on the iPhone since we just got our pup and well, finding the camera was not a necessity at the time!

I’ve been wanting to make this recipe for quite some time. You see, we don’t have really good BBQ out here in Baton Rouge, in my opinion. I miss Luther’s BBQ, which was in NOLA before Katrina hit. That stuff was the bomb-diggity, and sadly, I haven’t found a place in Baton Rouge that is anywhere close to it! Plus, BBQ out here is ridiculously overpriced for what you get…ugh!

So, when I saw this on Pioneer Woman’s blog, I thought that I had to try it! My biggest problem was finding a slab of brisket that was less than 10 lbs. It seems like Baton Rouge has some SERIOUS brisket lovers! I finally found this 3 lb. piece at one of the grocery stores out here, and knew what I’d make with it!

Let me tell you, this brisket is AMAZING!! It kicks our local BBQ’s butt in my opinion! I’m definitely making it again sometime soon. 🙂

PW’s Beef Brisket
Source: Pioneer Woman

Ingredients:

  • 2 cans Beef Consomme
  • ½ cups Lemon Juice
  • 1-½ cup Soy Sauce
  • 5 cloves Chopped Garlic
  • 2 Tablespoons Liquid Smoke
  • 10 pounds Beef Brisket (we used 3 lbs. and this worked just fine!)

Directions:

  1. Combine first five ingredients in large roasting pan (a disposable is just fine). Place brisket in the marinade, fat side up. Cover tightly with foil. Marinate in refrigerator for 24-48 hours. When ready to cook, place pan covered in foil into a 300-degree oven. Cook brisket for approximately 40 minutes per pound.
  2. When fork-tender, transfer whole brisket to a cutting board. Slice against the grain and place slices back into the cooking liquid. Serve immediately, spooning juice over the slices. Barbeque sauce may be used, if preferred.
  3. You may store pan in fridge for up to two days or freeze for use at a later date. If fat collects and hardens at the top, remove and discard.