Chicken Pot Pie Gravy and Biscuits

As requested my easy pot pie gravy and biscuits recipe follows. 

It can be made in one pan, uses up leftover chicken and comes together in under 30 minutes.

Ingredients:

1 lb cooked chicken, chopped or shredded

onion

3 Tbs butter

4 Tbs Flour

1+1/2 Cups Chicken Broth/Stock

1 Cup Milk

16 oz bag Frozen Mixed Vegetables 

Salt, Pepper, seasonings to taste

Cheese (optional)

In a large pan melt butter over medium heat and saute onion 1-2 minutes, whisk in flour to make a thick roux.

Slowly whisk in chicken broth making a smooth sauce, slowly stir in milk, add seasonings(i use salt pepper and my own cajun spice mix) and bring to a simmer to thicken stirring continuously. 

As the sauce simmers stir in frozen vegetables, after they begin to soften add cooked chicken.

Continue to cook, stirring occasionally until vegetables are cooked and chicken is heated through.

If you'd like, stir in a cup or so of shredded cheese to make an even richer sauce.

Serve with biscuits for soaking up the gravy, like my quick low-fat biscuits:

Preheat oven to 400, in a bowl combine 2 cups flour, 1 Tbs baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp salt.

Stir in 1 1/4 cups of plain yogurt until dough comes together.

Drop large spoonfuls of dough onto a baking sheet OR dump dough onto floured surface, pat out into 1/2 inch thick layer and cut out biscuits. 

Bake for 10-12 minutes, until golden brown and delicious. 

The Birthday Squiggstravaganza Part II: Piece of Cake

The squiggstravaganza was a little over a month ago and i think we have finally recovered. Having the entire clan in town was wonderful ... and overwhelming, but mostly wonderful.
I managed to get all my projects accomplished before family started arriving, including these fun table toppers and the all important party dress:

All, that is, except for the one that had to wait until the last moment: the cake. And what's a birthday party with out a birthday cake? It's just a party, that's what.
For weeks i had been envisioning a beautiful stacked rainbow cake with vibrant colors that have never occurred in nature. As i did my research into the appropriate method for coloring the cake i suddenly realized that i would be using a petroleum based gel color created in a chem lab by specially trained scientists, and they're pretty pricey to boot.
Now it should be noted that i'm not a food-fascist, we eat sugar and gluten and even fast food more often than i would like to admit, but something about serving those artificial colors to a one year old (not to mention everyone else) did not sit right with me.
So what is a diy mom to do? Why order a set of all natural food colors online! JK, you want to talk about expensive? Those suckers start around $17, but if you've got more money than time they are a viable option. I, however, googled and pinned and collected a handful of techniques to make my own colors that are not only 100% natural but also easy and inexpensive. A bonus to making your own food colors is accessibility, everything you need can be found in your local produce section.
So without further ado i present you with my food coloring shopping list:
           -Purple Cabbage
           -Beets
           -Carrots
           -Spinach
That's right, it's all veggie's. Now i will admit i got some strange looks, and some people thought i was joking when they heard the words 'cake' and 'vegetables' together but i'm pleased to say i showed them! Despite what flavors come to mind once they're in a cake all you can taste is cake. What should be noted is that natural coloring results are somewhat unpredictable but practice will give you an idea of what you'll end up with. Here is how i prepared and used my natural veggie colors.
The prep is super easy, especially if you have a juicer. (Ours was like $30 at walmart back when the husband decided he was going to do that whole juice craze, it's been in a cabinet for the last 2 years).
If you don't own a juicer you can find some tutorials out in blogger-land for "juicing" with a food processor and the like.

To Make:

• Purple : Purple Cabbage. Chop it and boil the purple out of it. After you strain out the cabbage bits you can continue to boil down the liquid to concentrate the color. Go ahead and saute up some kielbasa and onion, throw the boiled cabbage in and have yourself a delicious meal to commemorate the gorgeous purple food coloring you just made.

Gorgeous

• Blue: It's notoriously hard to achieve a saturated blue, even with synthetic color. But to create a nice powder blue in baked goods prepare a purple color as above then add a teeny tiny smidge of baking soda. Mix thoroughly and wait a moment, if it is not quite blue yet add another tiny smidge, mix and wait. If you add too much baking soda it will turn green so take your time until you get the right shade of blue. 

• Red/Pink: Beets. Either boil and juice fresh beets or juice canned beets, i used canned because i didn't need the huge bunch of beets my grocery had. Reserve the juice from the can and use it as well, like the purple solution the juice can be boiled down to concentrate it. Depending on how much you use beets can create any range of reddish-pink from bright magenta to a pale petal pink.

• Orange: Carrots, duh. Juice 'em or buy 100% carrot juice from the health food aisle to save a little work. It works fabulously for a fun bright orange and will make any baked good extra guiltlessly sweet. Use what you need then drink the rest, good and good for you.

• Green: Spinach. Stop right there, it is nearly flavorless on it's own and completely undetectable in a sweet treat. Juice it, a lot of it. A whole bunch of spinach juiced down to about a 1/4 cup so juice accordingly for your project, the upside is it packs a colorful punch. Beautiful bright green for St. Patrick's Day, Earth Day or a kid that really likes green.

That's purple and blue in the back, they are appear very dark once concentrated.

Now just replace some or all of the water called for in your recipe with your newly minted color(s), the amount of color vs plain water will determine how bright or pale you finished product will be.

I tested my colors with little ramekin cupcakes, these are mid-bake (and upside down?) because i forgot to take before and after pictures.

Once i scaled my recipe up the colors were a little less vibrant just because of the amount of mix, next time i will probably just choose one or two colors and go all out for a bold effect.

I divided my batter *before* i added any water and mixed in each color, it took a lot of mixing because of the weird order of operation.

Six 7x7 layers served 20ish people, including those who returned for seconds

Stacked and filled, and a bit lopsided, i never claimed the execution was perfect.

It received additional icing to achieve full sugar induced mania, and it ended up being a big hit at the party.

I think this face says it all...

and this one.

The Birthday Squiggstravaganza Part I : The Great Tissue Paper Deluge

I love crafting, like seriously love it. Nothing brings me more satisfaction and joy than creating something pretty out of a few disparate supplies, that's probably why a baby was a no-brainer for me, it's basically the ultimate craft project. In fact the only thing that pales my love of crafts is my obsession with birthdays. I don't know why, but having your own personal holiday is the best thing ever to me, anyway:

With Miri's first birthday fast approaching like any good craftaholic i had been pinning for months planning the ultimate rainbow/kaleidoscope party that this magical little cherub deserves: The Squiggstravaganza!
It's her first and i'm gonna set that bar high!

The first order of crafty business is decor so i chose a couple of simple projects utilizing the cheapest and most versatile of all craft supplies: Tissue Paper.

Oh the tissue paper, i hoard that stuff and yet my stash dwindled as i measured and cut and hot glued and repeated.The project?

Tissue Paper Birthday Number

Oh it's cute and i love the kind of furry texture i created by cutting all those little flowers with pinking shears. But it took A LOT of tissue paper. However much you think you'll need add 2-3 packs and you'll be close. This took the equivalent of about three 24 sheet packs, and it is pretty much the easiest number! If you are doing a more involved number like four or eight or, lord help you, ten, go ahead and buy 5 or 8 packs and return what you don't use, if any. 

Now had i retrieved my holiday supply tote from the top shelf in the back closet earlier i would have diversified my colors and perhaps saved myself a return trip to the party aisle at wal-mart. But Alas i did not. 

Along with a deluge of tissue paper you will also need quite a bit of time, and a sympathetic spouse/friend would be helpful. The size and effect of your tissue 'flowers' all depends on how you cut them. I cut 4-5" squares with zigzag pinking shears.

Cut

Stack

Crumple

"Helping"

I started by painting my foam board number in case any backing peeked through, that ended up not being an issue.

Make enough flowers/poofs to get started then trick some poor soul into making more for you while you glue. The good thing about this technique is that it is so forgiving, crumple and glue and it's oh so fancy lookin'. 

I started by gluing around the edges, then filling in.

Day 3

And voila! A few short nap times later you have a great big fancy pants birthday number that only costs a little bit of your sanity.

Fortunately, my other tissue based project was much quicker to put together and actually a refreshing break from all those little poofs.

Tissue Tassel Garland

70! 70 tissue paper tassels Ah Ah Ah!

 

First cut your rectangles, i did 4" x 10" approximately, you can guesstimate here i just knew i wanted 10 rectangles per 20 x 20"sheet of tissue.

After your rectangles are cut, fold them in half vertically so you have some squarish things.

We experimented looking for the quickest way to turn out 70 of these bad boys to make a 20ish foot garland, (if you only need 5 feet 25-30 tassels ought to be plenty). Cutting by hand is the obvious method but it's time consuming, so i stacked and cut several at a time which was a lot quicker but it was difficult to get nice even strands and then it hit me: paper shredder. 

We have a little home office jobby for shredding...well nevermind. 

To get the auto-feed function on the shredder to recognize the delicate tissue my hubby had the stroke of genius to fold a piece of notepad paper over the raw edges.

Then we shredded raw edges down and stopped with about an inch left intact at the top. < that bit is important

Like so

In order to get our shredder to cooperate one of us fed the paper stacks in while the other person manned the switch: On....wait until you are in inch from the top then off and reverse to get the paper back out. Was it troublesome? yes. Was it fun and ridiculous? also yes.

Once unfolded/ untangled they should look like this (approximately): 

Next each little frilly thing needs to be rolled up with the fringe at either end.

 Folded over

 and taped leaving a little loop to string them together

With two people working on these we knocked them all out in one evening, I strung them on a hemp cord and hot glued them in place about 3" inches apart. My favorite thing about this project is it's versatility. These can be made in any color for CHEAP, and you can play with the scale making them huge for a big statement (maybe the end of chair rows at a funky wedding) or tiny for topping a cake. String them as close or far apart as you like! 

I definitely needed something like this after the tissue paper monstrosity at the beginning of this post.

Anyway, Miri's party is tomorrow and the whole clan is coming into town (including my bestie The Real Housewife of Greenville! :D ), so i have to get baking! 

Stay tuned for our next installment: The Birthday Squiggstravaganza Part II: Almost Rainbow Cake!

Book Pocket / Organizer Tutorial

This project just kind of occurred to me to solve a specific problem i had, but I ended up creating something super versatile for a problem that a lot of moms have: where am I going to put all this stuff?

Bibs, diapers, wipes, lotions, burp cloths, socks, headbands, pacifiers. This easy hanging organizer can be customized to hold pretty much any assortment of baby supplies you need to stash.

My particular storage issue was board books, Squiggs loves to 'read' her books at bedtime and they usually end up under her crib somehow.
I needed a place to stash them so their easy to grab for a bedtime story and put up out of the way when not in use, and just as importantly it needed to be cute and match her crib set.

Oh look, i found a book under the bed.

For this project you will need:

- At least one fat quarter each of two coordinating fabrics OR one half yard of a single fabric.

(I bought a half yard of each fabric and had enough to make two organizers)

- Your preferred closure for the hanging straps: KAM Snaps, sew-on snaps, velcro, buttons, etc 

-Basic sewing materials: matching thread, safety and straight pins, measuring tape, ruler, iron.

 Since this project is so versatile it has no pattern but is easy to customize to your particular application using a couple of measurements: First i measured for my width and strap placement, measure for your desired width and add 1" for seam allowance (1/2" on either side).

I decided on 18" wide with straps at either end and one in the middle

 Then measure for strap length and again add 1" for seams

7" + 1" = 8" Straps

Now the tricky part. 

The size is entirely based on where you're hanging the organizer and what you want it to hold so feel free to customize this part based on your needs, just remember to add your seam allowances. 

I decided on a 6" pocket and a 10" finished length, so my dimensions were: 19" long X 17" high.

Draw out your square or rectangle or whatever, and cut one of each fabric.

 

Then draw and cut your straps: Pick your finished width, double it and add seam allowance. 

I wanted 1" wide straps so i should have cut 3 strips that were 8" long and 2.5" wide, but i didn't, i forgot my 1/4" seam allowance *face palm*

This should have been 2.5" x 8"

All pieces cut and soon to be ironed

 Next fold your straps over lengthwise with right sides together and sew your straps closed. 

I didn't want to recut my straps so i sewed them up with a napkin edge serge to close them without losing too much width, but if you remember your seam allowance a regular seam is fine.

Then use a safety pin to turn them right side out.

Press the straps flat with the seam on the under side

Then tuck in about 1/2" on one end of each strap and top stitch them closed.

 Now that the straps are made we're really moving along. 

Lay out your 'inside' fabric and pin your straps in place along the top, seam side down. 

Come in about 1/4" inch more than your seam allowance to prevent the straps from getting caught in the side seams.

Tack your straps on at the top and move your pin to the bottom of the straps to keep them in place while you sew up the rest of the seams.

Another tricky part:

If you are using a single directional print for your outer fabric like i am you will want to place it on top on your inner fabric upside down. When you fold up your pocket at the end the pattern will be right side up!

See?

 Place your two fabrics right sides together with the straps sandwiched in between and sew all around edge leaving a 5"(ish) opening at the bottom. 

Make sure your top edge seam is wider than
the stitching where you tacked down your straps.

 Clip your corners like so for a nice crisp square corner when you turn right side out.

Reach through the opening you left and turn the whole thing right  side out, being careful of the pins left in the straps that can now come out.

Push your corners out nice and square and press the whole thing flat.

Pull the bottom edge nice and straight paying special attention to that opening, fold the raw edges in to make an even edge and top stitch along the entire edge.

Now with your outer fabric side down, fold from the bottom up to create the pocket.

Pin the sides together with edges even and top stitch. Don't be stingy with the backstitch at the top and bottom of the pocket to make a very strong seam.

To create multiple pockets mark where you want the dividers and topstitch them down.

I wanted two 9" pockets so i just sewed a seam right down the middle.

 Lastly fold your straps over and attach your closures. I used KAM snaps (the plastic snaps on cloth diapers), but you can use sew-in snaps, buttons + button holes, magnets, velcro, the list goes on.

Finally hang, fill and enjoy one less thing to worry about finding a home for!