get in my pocket

Happy Fourth of July, everyone! In Laura tradition, I am at home, blogging. Five years running! Woot! Anyways, I’ve decided to start posting some cooking blogs because I like to think of myself as a bit of a “good cook” in the respectable sense. Tonight, I made myself a delicious feast and had a chilled bottle of Franz Reinhart 2008 Reisling in the fridge. May I say for $7 a bottle, its pretty good!

Alright, so on the menu tonight was Red Pepper Crusted Flounder and Spicy Southwest Chipotle Corn Pasta :) Sounds tasty, no? So, the recipe I’m posting essentially only works if you’re cooking for one, as I always do. So, adapt however you want accordingly.

Red Pepper Crusted Flounder

The restaurant I work at serves a lot of seafood dishes. But most of them are so blandly prepared because well, old people like bland food. We have a variety of cooks from different countries like Mexico, Greece and the Middle East. I always see them preparing food for themselves with lots of fun spices that are colorful and (when they let me try some) insanely delicious. So, I tried my hand at making a spiced up version of a boring old dish.

(This is a broiled dish, and can also be pan fried, but broiling is probably healthier in the long run)

Ingredients:

1-2 large flounder fillets washed and prepared

2 tbs. italian style breadcrumbs

1 tsp. dried roasted red pepper flakes

1/2 tspt chili powder

chipotle chili pepper powder

2 tbs butter

salt/pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425. Once oven is preheated, take your baking pan and spray lightly with cooking spray and leave it in the oven for 10 minutes. This will evenly heat the fish while it cooks. Take the breadcrumbs, peppers and powders and mix in a bowl, spread them out evenly and coat the flounder fillet with a nice layer of the mixture. Melt the butter and set aside. Once the pan is preheated, place the fish on the pan and pour the butter even over the fillets. Cook 5-7 minutes. Once the 5-7 minutes has passed check to see with a fork if the fillet flakes. If so, then it’s done. Otherwise put it back in for another minute or two.

Spicy Southwest Chipotle Corn Pasta

Josh took me to this awesome little place called Moon Time in Coeur d’Alene, ID. Their food was insanely delicious. I ordered this ancho pepper black bean burger and it came with this amazing chipotle corn pasta salad. We both decided we had to figure out how to make it and so I came up with a super simple, easy to make version. Normally, I make all of my cheese sauces myself, but if you don’t want to go through the trouble of making a cheese sauce, just use this recipe I made for the sake of laziness. I also changed the pasta for a healthier option.

Ingredients:

2 or 3 handfuls of Ronzoni Garden Delight Pasta

1 tbs butter (I know, I loooove cooking with butter…shush)

1/4 of a small yellow onion finely diced

1 tsp minced garlic (I use it from a jar)

1/2 can sweet corn

chipotle chile pepper powder

Ragu cheddar cheese sauce (For lazy losers. If you want my actual cheese sauce recipe just ask. There’s like 95089230982 pounds of butter in it)

Directions:

Cook pasta, drain. Sautee the onion and garlic in a saucepan with the butter. Add corn and chipotle pepper powder. I like to use a lot because I like spicy food. I think I used about 2 tsp. But, use to your discretion. Once everything is mixed evenly, add a little bit of cheese sauce to the mix, but not too much! Just enough to evenly coat what’s in the pan. Add pasta and mix. Remove from heat.

So, last night in one of my weird inspired moments, I was looking at old 1940s swimwear photos and was like, “Yeah, I could totally make a bathing suit”. Okay, so I’ve never actually made one before, but hey, it can’t hurt to try.

So, I looked at some more photos, rummaged around in my fabric drawer and pulled out this awesome cherry printed jersey knit and started cutting. Couple hours later, this happens. I’m really quite excited about it and am planning on making another in a different style. I am thinking of illustrating a tutorial to post for this since I see a lot of people asking around about how to make one. It’s a really fun project!

<3

I whipped out another dress last night. I’m starting to feel like a dress machine these days.

This is probably my favorite project thus far. It combines elements of pretty retro 60s party dresses with an edgy punk rock feel  like a cut out back and exposed chunky zipper.

This dress was originally a king size bedsheet from the 70s, believe it or not. I found it at a local thrift store for $3, which a good price, considering what I would have paid for that much yardage in broadcloth at a fabric store, when it’s $3.99 for one yard!

I designed this dress myself. I used an existing dress I have for the cutout guideline, I essentially just traced the shape onto vellum paper and then transferred that onto the pattern I drew for the bodice. The bodice front consists of three fully lined pieces sewn together. The back consists of four. The top back closes with a button and then I covered that with a large bow. The front bodice actually didn’t fit me the way I had originally planned (I don’t have a dress form, sadly) so I ended up making pleats in the front, which added a neat structured element to the overall design.

I love this dress!!!

It’s finally done!!! Okay, I shouldn’t really say ‘finally’. I mean…it took what? Maybe a whole day to finish? My impatience with projects is astounding. Nonetheless, I love this new dress!

I actually stayed up until 3 am last night working on this. I saw this fabric at Karlin’s Fabrics in Philly and knew that it would make the most perfect 60s inspired dress. I was looking through my vintage patterns but really wasn’t seeing what I was envisioning for this particular fabric. So, I used the bodice pattern from a vintage Butterick #6624 that came in three front pieces that were stitched together. The pattern called for a strange pleated skirt, but I opted to freehand it, cutting rectangles and then gathering then and attaching them to the bodice. For an extra retro feel, I attached a bow in the front.

I really like how it turned out!

So, this is my latest creation, all handmade from scratch! I finally got the nerve to roam around Dunwoody Village (am I even allowed to walk around there?) to take photos by the cool octagon building everyone is so excited about. But yes, this dress is fantastic and its perfect for this nasty nasty Pennsylvania summer I’m suffering through. :)

So, this is what I wore today (or technically yesterday, but really, it’s not tomorrow until I go to bed and wake up again). And I’m starting to feel like I’m being slightly more cohesive in my day to day wardrobe but sometimes it can be hard. I do love this outfit though.

romper: homemade from previous atrocities found at salvation army

belt: h&m

locket: forever 21

shoes: found these @ AIDS Thrift on South Street in Philly for $3, they’re the greatest!

leather purse: thrifted @ local church for $4

Thrifting is pretty much the greatest thing aside from making my own clothes. I’m heading to Karlin’s Fabrics in Philly tomorrow to scavenge their sale table for some neat looking floral fabric. I have this idea for a dress with an exposed zipper…but we’ll talk more on that later.