Flower Yo Yos

I have lots and lots of small pieces of fabric sitting around in my house.  I keep telling myself that ones of these days I will make a scrap quilt.  Until that happens I have been plying with my yo yo makers to create cute embellishments for sweaters, hair clips, dresses and shoes.  Today I made a few adorable gigham flowers to attach to hair pins.

Clover has several yoyo makers out on the market but I most enjoy the circle and the flower shapes.   You slide the fabric between the two pieces with the wring side of the fabric touching the piece that looks like the flower ( the left shape in the picture)  Click the pieces firmly together.

 Follow the instructions to sew the thread in the fabric.  Make sure you use a matching thread since it will show a bit and that you get all the folded over cloth caught in the stitches.  I like to overlap the first and last sections but make sure you do not sew into the knot of the first section or it will not pull properly.  Once you have down the outside edges and the center pull it off the template.

To create the center take a little bit of extra fabric or a bit of batting or cotton ball and from the right side of the fabric poke it in with your finger as you pull the thread tight around the filling.  It should look something like this.

Next pull the end of the thread on the outside edge pulling the fabric in to meet the middle.  I suggest taking your time so that the edges fold cleaning under and the gathers are mostly even. 

Now you are done.  You can sew it to anything you want.  Since tonight I wanted to look cute going out on the town I glues it to a bobby pin using a small trip of fabric and a hot glue gun.

The Great Cabbage Challenge 3

Usually my soups are a casual amalgamation of whatever I have sitting around: a broth, a little bit of starch (pasta, grain, or potato), some vegetables and some herbs and spices.

I was digging around in my cupboard and found some dried beans and thought "hmm there is nothing like the excitement of beans and cabbage".  So a new soup was born.

Cabbage Bean Soup with Toasted Parmesan Bread

¼ cup onion

Olive oil

Sauté the onion in the oil until soft

Broth

A clove of garlic (or more to taste)

½ cup diced tomato

½ cup whole beans (I used pink for this but any will work)

Generous handful of sliced cabbage

Pinch of sage, thyme, marjoram and pepper ( any mixture of your favorite herbs and spices will do)

Handful of a small pasta (I used spaghettini, you could also use a grain, quinoa or diced potato)

Add to onions and cook until pasta is tender

Slice of bread

Butter

Parmesan cheese

Toast the first side of the bread

Turn bread over and sprinkle with parmesan and cover

When second side is toasted, turn over one more time to toast the cheese.

The Great Cabbage Challenge 2

 One thing I discovered about this cabbage is that it is fairly tasteless.   I am thinking the recipes will all need lots of spices added.   I started off the experiment with something fried.  What I like about fritters is that you can add any spices and grated veggies to the mixture to change up the flavor.  This time I did a fairly basic version of a fritter.

Potato cabbage fritters

2 cups grated potato  

2 cups thinly sliced cabbage

1 small onion

2 eggs

½ cup flour

 ½ cup masa flour

 ½ cup milk

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon of pepper

A few teaspoons of your favorite spices  ( I did this time a Bavarian spice mix from Penzeys Spices)

Mix all together and fry up

I topped it with a lightly sautéed garlic and beet tops

The Great Cabbage Challenge

What do you do when you encounter a cabbage the size of a small child for $1 at the farmers market?  

 Buy it of course.  If you are like me when you get home you realize there is no way you can come up with enough recipes to keep cabbage eating interesting enough until you use up this monster vegetable.

Challenge Accepted!