Homemade Hummus

I made this hummus after going to visit family.  My Aunt and I had a cooking night and made some Lebanese family recipes (Grape leaves, Hushwey, and Halise). We picked up some hummus, baba ganoush, pita bread, and falafel from a local Middle Eastern restaurant for our appetizer. The hummus was sooo good, that I just had to try it again at home.

In the past I've had a problem with the garlic being too powerful and chunky and the consistency of the hummus giving one dry mouth. I read up on some recipes, tips, and techniques and here's what I came up with. By adding the garlic and a few other ingredients in and blending them well before the chickpeas are added, you ensure that each bite tastes the same and you don't get any "whoa garlic" bites. If you don't like a really strong garlic flavor, just do one clove this recipe. Extra lemon juice adds that "zing" on the tongue and paprika leaves that slightly warming sensation in the mouth. The soy sauce add that extra little "wow that's really good" bit.

Best hummus I've ever had in my life, no joke, seriously yummy and slightly addicting. Try it!

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Hummus

Ingredients

1-2 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
2 tsp, plus 1 tsp of olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp paprika
pinch of ground pepper
juice of half a lemon
2 Tbsp tahini (sesame paste)
1/8 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1 15 oz can chickpeas/garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 warm water
1/2 tsp soy sauce

Instructions

1. Add garlic clove(s) to a food processor along with most of the lemon juice, salt, paprika, pepper, tahini, and parsley. Run food processor. Slowly add the 2 tsp of olive while machine is running. Scrape down the sides, as needed, until ingredients form a minced paste.

2. Add chickpeas to processor then slowly add the last tsp of olive oil, last of the lemon juice, water, and soy sauce while machine is running.

3. After processing for at least 2 minutes, check consistency of hummus and process longer and/or add more water if too thick or dry. Salt to taste.

4. Serve with minced parsley, sprinkled paprika, and a drizzle of olive oil over top.

Click HERE to print.

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You can dip vegetables, pita bread, or crackers. It's also very good on a veggie sandwich with cucumbers, sprouts, lettuce, roasted red peppers, cheese... topped off with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar.

If you have any comments or questions, let me know below.

Happy Cooking!

    

So Jess Sew - George and Ginger Mix It Up (Build a Bodice Dress)

This is the coolest pattern ever, seriously, you really get your money's worth. The Mix It Up Dress has 5 bodices fronts, 5 bodice backs, 5 sleeve lengths, and 5 different skirt styles. Any of the front bodices can be combined with any back bodice and any skirt style can be attached at the bodice. All the bodices are designed to hit at the natural waist (where you bend).  With this many options, you could literally make hundreds of different combinations.

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Ok so here are the options broken down.

Front Bodice Options:

Yoke

Horseshoe

Leaf

Keyhole

Asymmetric

Back Bodice Options:

Yoke

Square

Diamond

Keyhole

Full Closure

Skirt options:

Peplum: full circle skirt, half circle skirt, handkerchief skirt

Mini:full circle skirt, half circle skirt, handkerchief skirt

Dress: full circle skirt, half circle skirt, handkerchief skirt
Fitted Skirt:with optional short or long hi-lo peplum or peplum from above

The dress I made has the asymmetric front, diamond back, fitted skirt, with a long hi-lo peplum. A mouthful right? But I think it turned out so cute. The fabric is a heavy black four way stretch Ponte. It's fancy, so I guess it will be my party dress!

Some of the bodice options are considered modest and some are not. The leaf, keyhole, and yoke front bodices show a bit of skin (especially if you're busty). The back bodice styles yoke and keyhole will show the back of a regular bra. But the awesome part is, you can choose whether you want to show skin or not!

On all bodice styles, be sure to follow the pattern instructions on how to sew the main bodice to the lining so that the curves and corners come out looking nice. (She suggests sewing with a sewing machine with a stretch stitch and clipping corners and notching curves). I used a walking foot for the first time while sewing around the neckline and under-stitching it. Worked out great. 

I did add a titch too much extra length on my bodice. I usually need to lengthen the bodice portion since I have a long side waist (10"). I think George and Ginger drafts for an 8.5 inch side waist. I added 2 inches to this bodice. The extra half an inch plus the weight of two skirts, did cause a bit of bunching at the very bottom of the bodice. I may end up serging around the waist line to bring it up the extra amount if it bugs me. 

You can make the dress as casual or fancy as you want it to be depending on the fabric and styles you choose. 

Here's another that I made: Horseshoe front, diamond back, half circle peplum. I used the burrito roll method for the sleeveless part. The pattern also includes a binding if you want to do sleeveless that way. I only added 1.5 inches to the bodice this time and the length turned out perfect!

See the pattern plus all the other tester photos HERE. The pattern is very well priced. Seriously a steal for so many options in one pattern. 

Leave your comments and questions below!

Happy Sewing.

Need a sweet, but healthy side? Something simple and easy? This one is perfect. It is sweet, but not too sweet with a slight hint of savory. You could replace the brown sugar with another sweetener if you choose.

A recipe great for barbecues and thanksgiving dinner alike.

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Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients

2 large sweet potatoes, peeled if desired and chopped into 1" cubes 3 Tbsp coconut oil 2 Tbsp brown sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon
salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 415 degrees Fahrenheit
2. Whisk together coconut oil, brown sugar, and cinnamon in a large bowl.
3. Add cubed sweet potatoes and mix to coat potatoes entirely.
4. Spread potatoes out onto a sheet pan (cookie sheet)
5. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until potatoes are fork tender and slightly crisp on the outsides.
6. Sprinkle lightly with salt to bring out the flavor. Serve.



To print recipe, click HERE.

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We had ours with burnt ends (brisket) and green beans for dinner last night.

Enjoy! 

Let me know if you have any questions or comments below.

Happy Cooking!

Fancy Frozen Peas

If you've been following my blog, you might have noticed all my recipes so far have been simple and veggie based. Great tasting fruit and vegetable sides encourage healthy eating whether you're an adult or a child. And who couldn't use more fruits and vegetables in their diet? So here's another recipe you can whip up fast. It's cheap, simple, and delicious. Plus it looks and tastes way fancier than plain old frozen peas.

Fancy Frozen Peas

Ingredients

1.5 Tbsp butter or olive oil
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 tsp dried tarragon
1/2 tsp dried basil
2 Cups frozen peas
1/2 Tbsp white italian condiment(a mixture of basalmic and white wine vinegar), balsamic vinegar, or a wine vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Directions


1. Add oil to pan on medium high.
2. Once oil is hot, add minced garlic, tarragon, and basil. Saute until fragrant.
3. Add peas to pan .
4. Stir to coat peas in spices. Warm peas until warmed through, stirring occasionally.
5. Add vinegar and stir to coat peas, cook 1 additional minute.
6. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve.

Click HERE to print recipe.

My kids usually fight eating their peas, but they ate these. Especially my youngest, he had 3 servings. If you like your peas more sweet, you can add extra vinegar (one Tbsp instead of a half).

I hope you enjoy this recipe. Check out the Food label for more great recipes!

Leave your comments and questions below.

Happy Cooking!

So Jess Sew - George and Ginger, Ginger Dress

This dress is so fun to wear. It's unlike any other dress I own. The Ginger Dress is a swing dress with a handkerchief hem. It's really flattering through the midsection and hips, and just kind of swirls around you when you walk. I used DBP for the main fabric, and a sweater knit for the trim. 

I like how the dress looks casual like a regular shirt on top, but the bottom gives it class. I've worn this dress with fluffy boots, heels, and flats and it all looks good together.

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There is only one cuff size for the sleeves, so I actually made a wider cuff since the sweater knit I used didn't have much stretch and I wanted to be able to pull my sleeves up if needed. I saw an idea in the George and Ginger group about this dress a while back that I want to try on my next on. Someone recommended that if you want to keep the dress more form fitting at the top, you can draw a line straight down from the armscye until the waist, and then meet up with the pattern lines going outward. I'm sure it looks cute both ways.

If you want to make your own Ginger Dress, you can see the listing HERE.

Comments or questions? Please leave them below.

Happy Sewing!

So Jess Sew - George and Ginger Jawbreaker Dress

Need a dress for a wedding, date, church, tea party, Kentucky Derby, and more? Check out this Jawbreaker Dress. The bodice is lined and the outer front has 2 small pleats at the front for an extra little something. This dress is a full circle skirt. The skirt options include peplum, mini, and dress length circle skirts and also fitted mini and dress length skirts.  

I did shorten the sleeves by two inches because I like them a bit shorter. The fabric is Liverpool I got on Knitpop on clearance. I don't wear a lot of yellow, but I'm trying to branch out and I think this print is so pretty.

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The circle skirt didn't seem big until I hemmed it. It took a lot of clips, I actually didn't have enough to go all the way around. So I started hemming and then would leave the skirt in the machine while I clipped ahead for a while, then sew up to that point and do it again. The Liverpool is really great to work with for a circle skirt though.

I had fun twirling the circle skirt like a little girl.

Can you see my rose earrings? They are my favorite to wear whenever I wish for Spring and Summer gardening. I made them using charms.

You can see more pictures of the Jawbreaker Dress pattern on the George and Ginger website HERE. It's on sale for the month of April (2019), 25% off!

Leave your comments and questions below.

Happy Sewing!

So Jess Sew - Patterns for Pirates Pencil Skirt (Free Pattern)

This is the Patterns for Pirates, Pirate Pencil Skirt. It's free! Don't you just love free? Patterns for Pirates (or P4P for short) has a bunch of fun freebies. The drafting is pretty good, and the patterns are mostly on the basic side. Great for beginners. It's where I started with PDF Patterns. 

I made this skirt from some leftover sweater knit I had (Joann's fabric). The length is shorter than the pattern, since I didn't have enough to make it as long as intended, but I actually really like this length.  The pattern uses a knit waistband (you can also use the contoured waistband from the free leggings pattern (Pegs)). Since the fabric I used didn't have a lot of stretch or recovery, I cut a waistband at the same width as the skirt and made a casing for 2 inch elastic. The hem is folded over twice at 1/2 inch. Loose sweater knit fabric has a tendency to fray, so be sure to finish all raw edges as if it's woven fabric if you make one like this.

Make it fancy with a nice shirt and heels, or dress it down with flats.

Questions or Comments? Leave them below.

Happy Sewing!

Out of all the vegetables I offer my kids, broccoli is the most accepted. And growing up, broccoli was my favorite vegetable, still is. There's a good reason for that. The way my mom cooked broccoli growing up is the same way I cook it for my family. Today, I'll share the secret to the best tasting simple broccoli.

The recipe itself is quite simple, but there are a few pointers here that will make or break the taste, so read carefully.

Mom's Garlic Steamed Broccoli 

Ingredients

1 Tbsp of oil (canola, olive, etc.)
2 large garlic cloves, minced
2 broccoli crowns, chopped so that floret is bite sized (stems can be long)
1/2 C water, plus
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Add oil to pan on medium high.
2. Once oil is hot, add minced garlic and saute until fragrant.
3. Add broccoli to pan . Stir to coat broccoli in garlic oil.
4. Add water to pan, then cover and reduce heat to medium low.  Steam until broccoli is fork tender.
5. Remove lid from pan and allow broccoli edges to darken and caramelize by not stirring often. Watch it closely! You don't want the broccoli to burn. Once you see brown from the caramelizing on the bottom of the pan, add a bit of water and scrape the pan clean. Allow the water to cook off, then remove pan from heat.
6. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve.

Click HERE to print recipe.

What are Beneficial Nematodes?

Let's start with how to pronounce "nematode." Is it Neema-toad or neh-ma-tode? Well, according to dictionary.com, it's....drumroll...[nem-uh-tohd]. What is a nematode? They are tiny, non segmented, cylindrical worms. They live in large numbers in places like water and soil. There are beneficial nematodes that help your garden, but there are also nematodes that can destroy it (roundworms). If you don't have the right mix of  microorganisms in your garden currently, beneficial nematodes might help your garden like I hope that it helps mine. 

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I mentioned in the blog post about the Garden of Eden Gardening Method, that I was getting a large number of fungus gnats around the new beds. So I ordered some nematodes on Amazon (these kind):

to help combat the gnats. The nematodes are supposed to go after a number of unwanted species that live in  your garden including fungus gnats. In the package from Amazon, there was a cold pack to keep the nematodes cold. And you are supposed to store the nematodes in the refrigerator upon receiving them. Here's what it looks like. A white powdery substance.

The instructions stated to mix the package of nematodes with 1-5 gallons of water and then spray it on the garden. I mixed the pack of nematodes in a cleaned out milk jug.

I then used a hose sprayer container like this one and turned the dial all the way up. The spray container did not hold a gallon of water, so I just filled it up a few times with the milk jug of nematodes and sprayed it on all of my garden areas.

The instructions say to keep the soil wet for two weeks after application. I'm crossing my fingers that this helps with the gnats. But if you read the reviews on the nematodes on Amazon, there were a number of people that didn't even mention gnats, but said that their gardens looked better than ever after using these. I have high hopes! And I'll update you all here on the blog.

As always, let me know if you have any comments or questions below. 

Happy Gardening!

How to Make Compost Tea

Today I'll show you how to make tea. For plants, not people. Compost tea to be exact. The batch I'll show you here is small, it's for my grow light seedlings (tomatoes and peppers mostly). You could do this same thing on a larger scale for the garden outside.

The word compost probably means a lot of different things depending on who you ask. You could definitely go out to your compost pile and use this method with that type of compost. What I used this time, was actually an organic pre-made fertilizer which contains ingredients like blood meal, fish meal, and seaweed. It smells lovely. Anyway, the plants like it.

I started by putting some of the fertilizer in a square of cheese cloth. I wrapped it up and secured a rubber band around the top. I then put that in a container with some water and let it soak for 24 hours.

As far as how much compost and water to add, you might need to experiment depending on what type of compost you are using. Since I bought a pre-made fertilizer, it actually had instructions on bag that states the ratio to use. This is the kind I bought:

It's Dr. Earth brand. I actually used this fertilizer last year in the garden and really liked it. You can buy this kind on Amazon HERE. I bought it last year because of the awesome reviews it got.

Here are the instructions for the compost tea on the bag. Since I mixed this compost tea up to fertilize seedlings. I made the tea at half strength (1/2 cup fertilizer to a half a gallon of water).

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Since I put the fertilizer in the cheesecloth, I didn't need to strain it out before adding it to the plants. you could easily strain it instead of using cheesecloth, but this way is less messy.

Hope this post helps! Let me know if you have any questions or comments below.

Happy Gardening!

So Jess Sew - Ellie and Mac Ruched Tee

This is my first Ellie and Mac sew - The Ruched Tee. The front of this shirt is cute, but the back is AMAZING. Check out the V-back and ruching ties. The awesome part is that you can pull the ties as tight or loose as you choose, they are not fixed. So you could let out some of the ruching for more coverage, or make it really high for a workout shirt or a hot summer day. There are three bodice ease options on this pattern. This is the slim fit version. There are also fitted and a relaxed cut lines. 

The neck is closed using a binding and the arms on this are banded. The pattern does have the options for short and long sleeves as well. I thought the pattern might be complicated with the casing, but it was actually really simple. And the instructions were step-by-step with pictures.

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I had some gaping at the front of the neck binding because my main fabric was not as stretchy as the binding (cotton spandex vs DBP). I also have narrow shoulders. But, I should have known when I quartered the neck binding and didn't need to stretch it at all onto the shirt's neckline. My fix for this was to add some elastic to the shoulder seams. 

I tried two different methods to find out what I liked best. I cut a piece of 1/4" elastic about an inch longer than the shoulder seams (so that I could hold onto the end easier while sewing it).

•  For the left shoulder, I did a straight stitch (stitch length 4) all the way through all layers of fabric. As soon as I got stitched a few stitches forward and then back stitched, I pulled the elastic taut across the seam (but did not pull the garment at all). 
• For the right shoulder, I only sewed through the shoulder seam allowance so that the stitches would not be visible on the right side of the garment. I used the same method as the other shoulder, except I used a zigzag stitch instead of a straight stitch since the seam allowance is only two layers of fabric and I didn't want the stitches to pop.

Below is the result:

It was a lot easier to feed the elastic through on the left shoulder with the straight stitch, but the right shoulder seam is cleaner on the outside of the garment. I like the effect of the ruching better on the left shoulder though. So I would say, if you want the ruched area to be tighter, go all the way through the layers. If you don't want the stitches to show, use the seam allowance. This might have been more effective had the band not been added yet, since I could only sew over so far on the edges.

This fixed it enough for my liking.

And the back is just so darn cute.

My photographer is only 3.5 feet tall, so I guess cutting heads out is expected occasionally.

You can find the Ellie and Mac Ruched Tee HERE. If you look at the listing, you'll see the other versions of the shirt with more ease. I plan to make a fitted or relaxed fit tee next time!

If you have any questions or comments, let me know below.

Happy Sewing!