How funny is this Martha Stewart blooper reel? She gets run down by a cow and accidentally says “hairy balls.” Hilarious!

And in case you haven’t caught on to it yet, there’s a new show on the Food Network that reeled me in with its first episode last Sunday. It’s the reality show The Chef Jeff Project, where a successful chef (Jeff Henderson) who used to be in jail takes six kids down on their luck and teaches them life skills by giving them a chance to shine in the kitchen. From the FN website:

Jeff Henderson grew up on the tough streets of South Central L.A. and San Diego. At 19 he was running a $35,000-a-week cocaine operation. At 24, Jeff was arrested and sent to prison, where he spent the next ten years. While incarcerated, Jeff discovered a passion for cooking and the drive to turn his life around. Jeff became Executive Chef at Café Bellagio in Las Vegas, wrote a bestselling book, and now he is focusing on giving back. In The Chef Jeff Project, he takes six at-risk young adults and commits to turning their lives around by putting them to work in his catering company, Posh Urban Cuisine. He arms them with the knowledge, the skills and, ultimately, the opportunity for a new life with a culinary career.

Here’s Chef Jeff

And his crew:

Brett, Adam, Maria

Kathy, Alonzo, Shante

My favorite character so far is Kathy, who used to be a drug addict and had no clue what to make as a signature dish, which was Chef Jeff’s first task for the team. She ended up preparing a fresh salad with some greens and fruit, along with the surprising inclusion of fresh cherries (simplicity on a plate can be a refreshing change in these overseasoned times). Plus, I like how Chef Jeff is hardcore and tough-talking but like a big old softie at the same time. I can’t wait for the next episode! (The show airs at 10 pm PST on Sundays.)

This is a watermelon heart. Isn’t it yummycute? Don’t you just want to just sink your teeth into it? Well, how about biting into a whole bouquet?

This was an edible arrangement that Mama and I worked on. It was for a “Meet The Baby” Party (yes, I found out that there are such things) for Maxwell, my new nephew. I offered to help his grandma whose assignment was to provide fresh fruit for the guests. Instead of just heaping some fruit onto a platter, it was a chance for me to see if I could swing making an actual eatable bouquet. 

Mind you, edible arrangements like this are nothing new. In fact, a company called just that—Edible Arrangements—has built a successful business arranging and delivering these sweet bouquets. I’ve sent many to friends on birthdays and special occasions. But I’ve always thought that if I only had an excuse (and the time), I could study how the fruit is prepared and try to make one myself.

Here are some of the steps and tips, if you’d like to try your hand at making one for an upcoming baby/bridal shower or party.

YOU WILL NEED

·      baskets

·      weights (I used plastic bottles filled with water.)

·      floral foam

·      parsley for “grass/greenery”

·      wooden skewers in different lengths

·      lollipop sticks (read my note about this later)

·      steel cookie cutters in different shapes and sizes

·      dark and white dipping chocolate, if you’d like to include chocolate-dipped fruit in your bouquet

·      fruit

       Non-mushy fruit works best. (Save those bananas for muffins!)

       No apples because they’ll turn brown when exposed to air.

       We worked with:

             -     pineapple

             -     miniature pears

             -     strawberries

             -     grapes of all colors

             -     oranges

             -     cantaloupe

             -     honeydew

             -     watermelon

             -     large mutant blackberries that we found at the fruit market

PREP N’ STEPS

1)   Prep fruit by washing and drying individually. Be patient! This can get a bit tedious, especially with grapes and berries. Put on some 80’s music and just enjoy yourself.  :)

2)   Dip some fruit pieces in your melted dipping chocolate. My favorite is orange segments in dark chocolate and strawberries in white. Leave on racks to dry (strawberries) or wax paper (orange segments) while you do the rest.

3)   Put some weights at the bottom of your basket. This is so that the basket stays put when guests pull out the fruit. You can use clean rocks or bricks, depending on how large your basket is.

4)   Cover your weights with a kitchen towel to level the surface a bit and line with floral foam cut to size. The foam is very forgiving and you can cut all sorts of shapes to fill corners and pockets. Make small holes in the foam by twisting in the tip of a pair of scissors into it and staggering the holes throughout. “Plant” your parsley in these holes and in any gaps in the foam (start from the outside edge and make your way to the middle).

5)   While you’re prepping your basket, you hopefully would have coerced/cajoled/convinced a friend or family member to start cutting up the fruit. This way, you can start assembling the bouquet by sticking the fruit into the foam as the shapes are being made.

Some tips:

-     No need to peel the pineapple, just cut into rounds and into shapes by firmly pressing down on your cookie cutters.

-     Make sure round, flat pieces are not too thin, otherwise, they’ll slide down your skewers.

-     For tricky shapes, make crescents. We did this for the honeydew and cantaloupe because some were too narrow to cut big shapes out of.

-     Top off a pineapple flower with a grape “center.” The different colors together on one stick make the pieces more interesting to look at.

-     Work from the center of your bouquet outwards, with taller pieces in the middle.

-     Lollipop sticks are safer for kids because of their blunted ends, but remember that these will start to bend after about half an hour because they start absorbing the juice from the fruit. Either snip off the pointed ends from wooden skewers or serve the arrangement right away.

-     Position heavier fruit lower to the foam, on the outer edges of the arrangement.

Here are the two baskets we put together, one for kids with fun duck, cowboy and cactus shapes and another for the young-at-heart.

I hope they inspire you to plant pots of blooming fruit of your own! :) 

I think I’m the latest one in my Creative Swap group to do a post on the crafty gifts I’ve sent to my swap partner Jen. Aside from it being a challenging past few weeks, I lost the cord that goes from my camera to the computer, prompting an even later post. Still, I’m happy this got sent out (finally!) and had fun making the crochet needle holder with some fabric I had on hand and ribbons, and embroidering the front, too.

I used some muslin stuffed with a thin layer of quilt stuffing and sewed a ribbon into the inside with different-size slots for needles of all types. I tried it out with my own (humble) set.

Embroidering the outside was something I knew I wanted to do before I even started. Embroidery is one of my favorite things to do, craft-wise, but I never get the chance to do it anymore. I started with printing out the design and holding up the needle holder against a window for a quick mock-up of how it would look like.

As a kid, I used to hate tracing patterns onto cloth. I would do it the painstakingly stupid way: lay the design over cloth, outline it by tracing over it REALLY HARD and lifting the paper to trace over the indentations on the cloth lightly with pencil. I know, I was young and dumb.

But for this project, thank God for my brother who suggested I use transfer paper—the kind he uses for art school. (I didn’t have no transfer paper growin’ up in the boonies of Negros Occidental, yo!) The brand is called Saral, available online and from art-supply stores. All he had was yellow (it comes in other colors), and I wasn’t sure if it would work, but I gave it a test run and decided I could live with it. It works pretty much like carbon paper of yore. You simply place it in between your design and the fabric and trace away.

I did the embroidery with whipped stitches and French knots in her favorite color, green (I wonder if it’s because of the university she graduated from? If so, I’m not telling her na lang what fated school I’m from! Hee.) Here’s Jen’s loot again, with some crochet mags and resource books, my favorite guilty-pleasure candy, a hokey postcard (I love how fake the bears look!) and a ball of Sugar ‘n Cream yarn with some of her favorite colors in it. (Doesn’t it look good enough to eat?)

Till next swap, folks!

(If you’re interested in joining our little band of rockin’ crafters, see details on Caryn’s blog HERE.)

This is recipe #2 in The Girl With A Curl’s Fallin’ For Soup project.

This Turkey Chili is a family favorite. It’s embarrassingly easy to make! I’ve made this many times, but have found that its full, spicy flavor is best with the sweetness of cornbread, made moist by buttermilk and topped with fresh corn, so I try to make both when I get the chance. A chilly wind was blowing through the kitchen windows today, and this made for a perfect, cozy dinner.

CURLY TURKEY CHILI

* 1 tablespoon vegetable oil

* 1 pound ground turkey

* 1 29-oz. can tomato sauce

* 1 15-oz. can diced tomatoes with jalapenos

* 1 1/2 to 2 cups water

* 1 15-oz. can white beans, rinsed and drained

* 1 15-oz. can red kidney beans, rinsed and drained

* 1 15-0z. can corn kernels, drained

* 1 large onion, chopped

* 2 tablespoons chili powder

* 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

* 1/2 tablespoon garlic powder

* 1/2 tablespoon ground cumin

* 1 pinch ground black pepper

* 1 pinch ground allspice

* salt to taste

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat oil in a deep pot, brown ground turkey in it. Drop in the onion and saute until soft.

2. Pour in the tomato sauce, tomatoes with jalapenos, and about a cup and a half of water. Stir. Add all your spices: red pepper, chili, garlic powder, cumin, black pepper and allspice. Mix in.

Bring chili to boil, then lower heat to simmer for as long as you want, stirring every so often. I’ve seriously simmered this up to three hours, the house filling up with that delicious chili smell. This time, I did so about an hour and 20 minutes while I tackled the laundry.

3. Drop in the two kinds of beans and corn.

Simmer for about 20 minutes more. Serve with some shredded cheddar cheese on top. You can also add dollop of sour cream.

GOLDEN BUTTERMILK CORNBREAD

Seriously the best I’ve tried (I’ve had many, but always come back to this). I’ve deduced that the buttermilk is key. I’m not entirely sure what buttermilk is, though I do know it’s a dairy by-product that’s a sour milk of sorts. Don’t have any on hand? You can make an easy substitute by adding 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar or 1 3/4 teaspoons of cream of tartar to each cup of milk. Stir, let sit for about 10 minutes, and use.

* 1 cup unsalted butter

* 2/3 cup white sugar

* 2 eggs

* 1 cup buttermilk

* 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

* 1 cup cornmeal

* 1 cup ap flour

* 1/2 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat over to 375 degrees. Grease an 8-inch square pan. Shuck fresh corn and slice top section of kernels into a bowl. Scrape the rest into a separate bowl.

2. Melt butter in a microwave, taking care to check at intervals.

3. Pour melted butter in a mixing bowl. Add sugar and stir.

4. Add eggs and beat quickly. Dissolve baking soda in buttermilk and pour that mixture into the melted butter mixture. Stir in the scraped fresh corn.

5. Stir in cornmeal, flour and salt and blend, just until all ingredients are incorporated. Pour into pan and top with corn kernels.

6. Bake for 30-40 minutes until golden brown on top. I usually underbake this by about 3 minutes.

There’s nothing like chili to kill the chill!

Have a great start to your weeks, everyone!

Fall is my favorite time of the year. In the U.S., it officially began last September 23, and will last until December 21, when winter begins. I love fall because the weather starts to change and the leaves answer vanity’s call by bidding goodbye to greens and browns and wearing all those reds and oranges that the season is known for. The word “fall” actually comes from the term “fall of the leaf,” which happens to trees closer to the season’s end. Being in California is great for all the sun-worshipping freaks out here, but I personally look forward to bringing my scarves and boots out of hiding.

The nip in the air lends itself to the ultimate comfort food: piping-hot soup that fills the stomach and warms the heart. Making the hearty Turkey Meatball Soup with Curly Endive that you see above two weeks ago made me think about how this is a perfect time to seek out, make and share yummy soup recipes that are simple yet fun to make, and are savory celebrations of the season. And how timely: it’s a chance to take stock (pun intended) of my soup-making abilities, so that when winter blows into town, I can wield my pot of soup and say, “Ha, Winter! My consommé will kick your cold culo!” (Thanks to Via for always using the Spanish word for butt/bum while we were in college!)

Before I get any more carried away, let me say that this post introduces my humble FALLIN’ FOR SOUP project on The Girl With A Curl, which aims to bring you a hopefully delicious soup recipe every other Sunday, for the rest of the season. I understand that some of you might be in countries where fall is unheard of, but I hope these recipes still make their way into your recipe box. Nothing quite soothes like a bowl of good soup! 

By season’s end, you will have learned six soup or stew recipes along with me, if you care to follow along. That seems ambitious, considering how I work full-time and craftdancesurfthenetandhavealife during the rest of my waking hours, which means I could very well skip a Sunday or two. But there’s so much for us to try our oven mitts at: bisques, cream-of-somethings, slow-cooked stews, all that rib-stickin’ good stuff. Who knows, I might get so much into it that I’ll do more than six! I actually wanted to do something every Sunday, but that’s getting ahead of myself.

Here’s the recipe for my Turkey Meatball Soup with Curly Endive to start!

TURKEY MEATBALL SOUP WITH CURLY ENDIVE
* 1 pound ground turkey
* 1 egg
* 1/4 cup onion, diced
* 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
* 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 2-3 cubes of chicken bouillon
* 2 1/2 cups water
* 2 carrots, sliced diagonally
* 2 stalks celery, chopped
* 1 onion, chopped
* 2 cloves garlic, minced
* 2 medium potatoes, diced
* 1 bunch curly endive, ends trimmed and the rest cut into 1 ½-inch pieces (You can also use spinach!)

* This is what curly endive looks like, by the way. It has a slightly bitter taste that rounds out the flavors in mild-flavored soups like this one.

DIRECTIONS
1. Mix together the ground turkey, egg, onion, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Form meatballs using a small ice-cream scoop (I use mine for cookie dough, too.)

Here’s a tip to check if your meatballs are well-seasoned (because I can never get them right): Fry a little bit in some oil for a taste test. This should give you a fairly good idea about whether or not it needs a little bit of this or that.

2. In a soup pot, sauté garlic, onions, celery and carrots.

Pour in water and bring to a boil. Drop in meatballs one at a time and simmer for 10 minutes. Drop in diced potatoes and simmer until soft to the fork, about 20 more minutes.

3.  Spoon some broth into a cup. Dissolve one chicken bouillon cube in the hot liquid and pour back into the pot. Taste and adjust accordingly, adding more chicken flavor if needed.

4.  Add curly endive, cover and let simmer. Turn heat off after five minutes. Enjoy!

Nutrition note: I first made a modified version of this for my mom while she was on a low-iodine diet by using only egg whites, non-iodized salt and by omitting the bouillon cubes.

The next Fallin’ For Soup post is this Sunday, so remember to check back! Until then, I hope to finally post something about my swap project and my quilt.

I can’t wait for our tureens to teem with yummy soup! (Which reminds me, I don’t even HAVE a tureen, haha.)

Between soupy posts and updates on my quilt’s progress, it’s shaping up to be a craftin’, cookin’ fall. I can’t wait.

I’ve been mulling millinery in my mind, ever since I saw The Duchess two weeks ago. Millinery, if you care to know, is the art of designing, making or selling hats. It’s believed the term originated from Britain in the 1700’s, where traveling haderdashers from Milan made good trade selling items necessary to dress (including hats).  These salespeople were called “millaners,” signifying their city of origin.

It’s my secret wish to learn millinery. I think I wouldn’t fare very well with the design aspects of it, as I can’t make sense of space to save my life. But I’d love to learn how to crown hats with glorious embroidery, sequins, ribbons and plumage. Watching The Duchess made me remember this wish, because Keira Knightley wears the most gorgeous hats in the movie, playing the role of Georgiana Cavendish Spencer, the Duchess of Devonshire.

I even like the crazy ones with fur on them (though I wouldn’t wear real fur myself!) The real Georgiana was a fashion icon in her time, so it isn’t a surprise that she was the picture of opulent style in the film . The portrait on the right is an actual one of her. (I once saw a painting of her in the Huntington Library, not knowing her history, and I looked her up when I got home because she was the most stylish of the lot!)

Hats off (pun intended) to the film’s costume designer, Michael O’ Connor. I love how he made a curly girl look fab in a cloak!

Jerseys don’t mean squat. Case in point: Here’s mine, from the office’s softball team. They’re called the Stets (I work in a publishing company—points to you if you’re able to connect the dots! If not, and you want to be a nerd, you can go here.) My possession of this piece of clothing doesn’t in any way, shape or form mean that I’m athletic. On the contrary, the most athletic thing I do (aside from dance, but that’s a different matter) is knead dough and wrestle with my quilt as I’m feeding it through the sewing machine. Hence the nickname the team decided to give me on the back of the jersey. I don’t do sports…I just cook for the team.

I baked these homemade Twinkies for the Stets’ championship game. These were a hit!

I always just use the Vanilla Cupcakes batter from the Magnolia Bakery cookbook, and a tried-and-tested buttercream recipe with my own decorating tip and bag to goo-ify the little cakes with delicousness. You’ll see the yellow dots on top where I’ve filled the Twinkies with yummy frosting.

I got my Twinkies bake pan from a bakery supply store. It came with recipes and a special “frosting injector,” both of which I’ve lost. Oddly enough, the set’s available from Urban Outfitters.

Making these always makes me feel like I’m pretend-baking, the way I did as a kid. Coincidentally, my brother told me about this cupcake baking and decorating set (he watches the Cartoon Network even if he’s ____ years old, and well, hee, I do too!) I want it! It’s called My Girl Gourmet, and you can bake the cupcakes in the microwave, put them in a special decorating thingamajig that twirls while the frosting dispenses from a special tip. You even get a cupcake carrier. See what I mean:

As for baking for the team, the new season’s started. I haven’t been to any of the games, but maybe I’ll get the “Call To Den Mother” email again soon, and maybe more homemade Twinkies (maybe chocolate ones, with cream cheese frosting!) will get me another award like this:

Plaaay ball!