Green posole'

I got this recipe from my dear friend and secretary of the school where I used to work.  She told me, "You make good posole' for a white girl!" :)

Next time I make this, I'll take pictures as I go and add them to this post.

Ingredents:

1 whole chicken – giblets and innards removed
1 onion – peeled and quartered
1 head of garlic – peeled and separated
2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed
1 bag frozen corn
1 can hominy, drained and rinsed
7-8 tomatillos
3 jalapeno peppers
3 anaheim chiles
3 poblano peppers
Salt, pepper, cumin and chicken base to taste

In a big soup pot, put the onion, garlic, chicken, 2 T salt and about 2-3tsp cumin.  I don't measure the cumin, but I add until I smell cumin but can adjust cumin, salt & pepper as it cooks.  Add about a gallon of water, or until the chicken is submerged.  Cook on medium heat till it simmers, let simmer for about 1.5 hours.

Once the soup part is cooked, strain out the onions and garlic.  Take the chicken from the broth, pick off the meat and throw the meat back into the pot.  At this time, I add the black beans, corn and hominy.  Letting these warm in the pot as you work on the rest.

Turn on your grill (medium high heat).  Put all the peppers and tomatillos on the grill, turning them frequently until they are black and charred.  Seriously, this adds flavor.  Once they’re off the grill, put on rubber gloves and slide the skins off the chiles.  You can also put the chiles in a plastic bag for about 30 minutes so the steam can help for easier peeling.  Once the chiles are peeled, split them open, remove the seeds and chop VERY fine.  Chop the tomatillos as best you can – mine usually get mushy but I chop them up too. 

Put 1-2 T oil in a skillet, heat up and then add the chiles and tomatillos.  Cook these in oil, adding about 1tsp salt as the veggies fry.  Once everything is fried and most of the oil is gone, add these into the soup and simmer for about 20 minutes.  At this time, taste the soup, add more salt, pepper and chicken base (bullion) if needed

Serve the soup with crunched up tostada shells, shredded cabbage, cilantro and lime.  I add all this to a bowl before pouring the soup over top. 

You can adjust the heat for more or less chiles depending on taste.
I’ve also done “red” posole with ancho, chipotle and Guajillo peppers, re-hydrating the dried peppers in boiling water for about 30 min before de-seeding, chopping and frying.

Copycat "Olive Garden" breadsticks

It's Spaghettti Night at the P. househould and we are jonesing for breadsticks!  I love to bake, so I wanted to find something close-ish to Olive Garden or Fazoli's.  I found this from www.chef-in-training.com

Homemade Olive Garden Breadsticks

By Chef in TrainingFebruary 17, 2012

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 1 packet active dry yeast
• 4 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter melted
• 2 Tbsp. sugar
• 1 Tbsp. salt

Instructions

1. In a large bowl, dissolve sugar and yeast in warm water and allow to sit for 10 minutes, covered. Mixture should be frothy.
2. In separate bowl, combine flour and salt. Add to yeast mixture. Add melted butter. Mix with paddle attachment of stand mixer or wooden spoon until fully combined.
3. Knead dough for a few minutes just until dough is smooth. Do not overknead!
4. Grease a cookie sheet. Pull off pieces of dough and roll out into strips. Cover the dough and let sit in a warm place for 45 minutes to an hour.
5. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F and once heated, pop in the bread sticks.
6. In microwave, combine the following: 1 stick unsalted butter (or 1/2 cup margarine), 2 teaspoons garlic powder and 1 teaspoons salt.
7. After bread sticks have cooked for 6 or 7 minutes, brush the bread sticks with half the butter mixture. Then continue to bake. Bake for 5-8 more minutes.
8. Immediately upon removal from the oven brush the other half of the butter on the sticks.Allow to cool for a few minutes before eating.

New job!!

I resigned my position at the school I'd been at for the past 4 years due to some personal reasons.  However, that did not mean that I wasn't applying for other positions.  I'd been interviewing all over and had many "thanks for interviewing but we chose someone else" contacts.  I interviewed this past Monday (7/30) at a youth corrections facility in the same district where J goes to school and where we live. The facility is operated by the state but the school by the district.  I got a call not even two hours after I interviewed saying, "we want you," and of course I said yes!  It'll be teaching Special Education to a population of kids in the judicial system, working more directly with teachers and kids on IEPs.  I go in on Monday (8/6) and Tuesday (8/7) for trainings and my first day is 8/14. 

I'm excited and yet I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit nervous because I'd done the exact. same. job. for the past four years, which I could practically do in my sleep.  However, I'm thrilled for a new opportunity to expand my teaching and work with new staff and kids!

Pinwheel Quilt

 This is a quick quilt that I've made for numerous babies.  I got the original pattern from "Quilt it For Kids" years ago, although I've fussed with the original pattern to make it easier to fit my needs.

It only calls for roughly 4 yards of fabric, three 1-yard cuts for each of the pinwheel colors (stripe, polka dot & solid), plus enough for a backing.  It measures up to about 36"x36" when finished, and it is so quick it only took me two days from cutting to machine quilting!  I'll write up instructions soon!

My advice for a novice quilter

I had to create a "Multi-Genre Paper" for a writing course that I just finished and I did the paper on my quilting experiences.  This was one of the pieces:

(Note - the advice is gathered from various friends, books, magazines, etc)

• Always cut away from your body
• Replace your rotary cutter blades regularly
• Don’t be afraid to “Frog” (“rip-it rip-it”) sometimes
• Use a quarter-inch seam
• Match your points
• Always pre-wash your fabric
• Starch, heavily if you need to
• Don’t iron back and forth, always press
• Your fabric stash will grow more than you realize
• Press your seams flat before pressing the pieces open
• Use solid colors to make patterns pop
• Don’t use calico
• Take a class if you don’t know how to complete a pattern
• You’ll collect more magazines and books than you know what to do with
• Don’t worry about perfection
• Label your quilts
• Your fabric stash will grow more than you realize
• Finish your ‘UFO’s” = Unfinished Fabric Objects
• Don’t rush to finish a project (unless you have a strict, set deadline)
• Every once in a while, have good “S-E-X” (Stash Expanding ‘Xperience)
• Give your quilts to people you love, they will be well appreciated
• Talk about your obsession; you never know who is a fellow quilter

50 Things About Me

This list is inspired by all of those emails/Facebook posts/etc that ask you to fill in your own information. Here goes:

Name on your birth certificate: Nicole Aileen P***

Were you named after anyone? My first name, who knows but my middle name came from my Aunt, Aileen.

TV shows you always watch: Good Eats, Pawn Stars, Duck Dynasty, House, CSI, and Castle

Book you're currently reading: Just finished The Hunger Games and looking for something else

Favorite song: Right now, it’s “Payphone” by Maroon 5.

Favorite movie: The Princess Bride, 8 Seconds, and Mulan

Last movie you saw in the theatre: “The Avengers”

Favorite pastimes: Sewing, reading, working out

Favorite restaurants: Red Robin, Einstein Bagels

Favorite season: Fall and Spring

Favorite food: A good grilled steak

Least favorite food: I’ve never had anchovies but they are just eww!

Favorite drink: Sweet tea

Favorite sandwich: I like a good turkey, spinach and avocado

Favorite dessert: Anything that’s chocolate!

Favorite cookie: Chocolate chip (I’m a purist)

Favorite ice cream:  Mint Chip

Favorite flower: Carnations (I’m a simple kid!)

Favorite smell: Fresh cut hay (it’s the farm girl in me!)

Least favorite smell: Umm...B.O.

Favorite sound: My kid laughing

Least favorite sound: Little yappy dogs barking or fingernails on a chalkboard

Favorite feeling: The euphoria of a good workout

Least favorite feeling: Just simple fear of doing something “bad” whatever that may be

Biggest fear: That I’ll fail as a parent

Biggest pet peeves: People who “tailgate” when they’re driving

Biggest weakness: Chocolate! 

My perfect day: I’d love to have the day to go have a leisurely breakfast with a book, hit the pool, then come home and sew all day.

Have you ever been outside the country? A brief trip over the Canadian border from northern Idaho way back when!  However, what

What time do you wake up? Usually around 7am

What time do you go to bed? Right now, anywhere from 10pm to midnight if I’m crafting or in the middle of a good book!

20 interesting/unique things about you:

1. I was born a preemie at 2 lbs, 1.5 oz, 13 inches long. 3 months early!
2. I never believed I'd enjoy being a teacher as much as I currently do. Especially to my hard to reach, VERY much at risk students!
3. Even though I'm an English/Lit/Writing teacher, I hate grammar...and I was REQUIRED to take a grammar course to fulfill my student teaching semester. UGH!
4. My daughter makes my life absolutely complete. She surprises me on a daily basis!
5. I'd rather go barefoot than wear shoes. Seriously. Even in the winter, I'll go outside barefoot. Except when it's snowing like crazy!
6. I used to crunch through cups of ice like crazy when I was a kid. No liquid, just ice.
7. I lived in a one-stoplight, 6 bars in 2 blocks town in Montana and loved it.
8. I collect cookbooks and Breyer model horses. The horses, since I was 6.
9. I love to swim, but cannot dive. At all!
10. I taught myself to quilt about 5 years ago. Since then, I've made various quilts.
11. I never thought I'd study and take classes to become a Special Ed teacher. That's something that has come up in the past year, and I'm in that program. Dual Master's!
12. I've been friends with my 2 best friends since kindergarten.
13. I'm a bookworm. I've always got a book or 2 going, even during grad school work/reading.
14. I love to bake and can bake a mean Challah!
15. If I had to do school over again, I'd love to be a home ec/consumer family studies teacher.
16. I was a founding member of my sorority chapter in 2003.
17. I love music, especially the cheezy 80s, early 90s music.
18. I have to have something chocolate after lunch and dinner. The darker the chocolate the better.
19. I had two jobs (back to back) where I was the ONLY female employee. Both jobs were in college and I LOVED it!
20. I've lived in Colorado all my life (except for the almost year in MT) and I've never skiied. Trees don't move!
21. I taught my little brother to ride a bike and tie his shoes. What more is there to life?! :)
22. My favorite colors are purple and green.
23. I prefer to be with one or two friends instead of a huge group... but I'll go out in a group and not complain.

My machines

When I began my journey as a quilter, I knew that I needed a machine, but I did not have one.  My aunt, who works for McCalls Quilts magazine, gave me my first machine, a Pfaff Hobby 4720.  This machine is named “The Workhorse” and he has served as my faithful steed within my journey as a quilter.  He has never broken down and has sewn through everything I have ever asked, including denim.  Why does it have a name you ask?  Well, I feel if I am going to swear at something or praise it, even if it is an inanimate object, it needs a name!  He (and I don’t know why it is a male persona) has helped make everything from quilt number one which resides in my in-law’s guest room to one that is hanging half-finished on my design wall waiting to find the right spark of inspiration to finish the design!  

However…"The Workhorse" has been replaced, but is not collecting dust.  I decided to upgrade in January 2012 to a newer model that can do more than just basic stitching so here is my new machine.  I got the Pfaff Q.E. 4.0.  THIS is my new “baby,” which is worth slightly more than my car. Insert sticker shock here.  I still have not figured out all it can do yet.  I’m just waiting for it to start sweeping the floor.  Interestingly enough, while writing this paper, the machine found its own name.  I realized that it looks similar to an old anvil, so his name is now “Ed-vil,” because “Ann-vil” sounds more like a girl’s name while the new machine is another male persona.

Baby Hoskinson

One of my dear college friends and his wife were expecting their first child.  Unlike most people, they did not find out the sex of their baby until the day he or she was born.  Being the crafty person I am, I decided to make the new one a quilt.  H. and his wife, A. said that their colors were greens and yellows, so I dug through my stash and this is what I created.  This is also the first quilt that was  quilted using my new machine!

The quilt was designed so that back and front could be "reversable."  The center of this side is a panel of letters and numbers with a green border.

This is the other side, which the main rectangle blocks are about 9" x 18."  I tried keeping the fabric unisex, and I think I did a good job for their baby girl!  Now to make them something fun in pink! :)

My baby is famous

So...my aunt works for McCalls Quilt magazines (Quick Quilts, etc.) and she made a quilt for my daughter.  She calls me back in December and asks if J. would like to model her quilt for the newstand only edition of "Fast Quilts" by McCalls Quilting.  We did the shoot waaayyy back in December and the edition just came out a few weeks ago! 

J.'s quilt is called "Little Princess" and fits her to a "tee" because the colors are SO her!

http://www.mccallsquilting.com/mccallsquilting/issues/America_Makes_Fast_Quilts_Spring_2012

My honor...ish?

I teach the "tough" kids.  For the past 3 years, I've also taught the Holocaust, justice and tolerance as an end-of-the year unit that cumulates with a dear friend who is a Holocaust survivor coming to speak to my students.  Well, we just got back from our 3 week spring break (year-round schedules rock!) and I started my annual Holocaust unit, which always begins with a timeline of key events, a discussion over the book (or books) we're going to read in class, and some basic vocabulary. 

Enter my 10th grade class (one of 2 10th grades I teach, plus 1 9th grade) on Thursday morning just before lunch.  I've got a mixed group of students, about equal boys & girls.  Well, one boy was just NOT keeping it together during class, and this student has TBI so his impulse control is just. not. there.  I take this student with a whole shaker of salt, not just a "grain of salt" due to his disability.  He is also on my IEP caseload so I know him quite well.  Anywho...this student starts making very racist comments about Jewish people and the Holocaust in general.  One of the girls says, "Don't you know that Ms. is Jewish?" and this student said he didn't realize that, but kept on withhis comments.  I see two other boys getting very upset and telling this student to be quiet.  He eventually quieted down after I gave him the "calm/scary mom voice" and told him he was getting a discipline referral for the comments and I'd talk to him after class.  Class commenced with some other varied, lively discussion and the kids went to lunch.

One of the two previously upset boys came back after the class dismissed and said, "Ms., he did not need to talk to you like that, that was VERY disrespectful!"  I thanked this student and sent him on his way to lunch.  Little did I know that the two previously-mentioned boys and the other student would get into a fight at gym because they thought no one stood up for me to 'defend my honor' as it were!

Granted it's not the "Right" thing they should've done, but it makes me...well, not happy per se, but more...happy-ish(?) that they thought that they could stand up for me!

Teaching Hope...or, hope for my sanity

I just finished reading Teaching Hope: Stories from the Freedom Writers' Teachers and it was all I needed to hear/read/see/experience.  I've been at my school for 4 years now and teaching the same type (demographic, ethnicity, etc.) of kids for the past 5-6 years.  This is a tough population, true, but I find myself drawn to these tough kids.  I like how I as a teacher who is not of their ethnicity, background, or even lifestyle, can push these up-til-now so resistant to ANYthing kids and get them to realize their full potential.

Case in point, a former student (F.) came in today, and this student was one of my very first students when I started at this school.  This beautiful young woman graduated high school and will be attending college this fall.  It gave me hope that I am truly touching lives, even if they don't show it right away.

Back to the book and, ironically, this particular young woman.  My first (or maybe second?) year, I'd taught the book The Freedom Writer's Diary with F. and her classmates.  This student was part of a small group cohort of about 20 students who were pulled for extra help in a small class environment.  Between myself and the 3 other teachers who taught F. and her classmates, we actually did create a "Room 203" environment where the kids could come to any of us and talk about their problems. Case in point, the year after F. and some classmates left, another former student was killed in a car accident.  F. and 3 of her friends came back to our room, sat and talked to me and the other staff because, "This was the only place that we call home."  We sat, talked about the young man gone too soon, cried, and grieved with each other.  That moment still sticks with me even these few years later.

Lately I've been feeling discouraged so when I was at the library over spring break, I picked up Teaching Hope as it was on the display just as you walked in.  Reading the teachers' accounts, I felt my own teaching spirit renew as I know now that I'm not the only one going through the "trenches", busting my ass for little pay, even less recognition, and trying to make some damn bit of difference in a kid's life.  This quote by Ana Quindlen, from the book's forward says it all:

"And so I stick with my blanket statement: It’s the toughest job there is, and maybe the most satisfying, too. There are lives lost in this book, and there are lives saved, too, if salvation means a young man or woman begins to feel deserving of a place on the planet. “Everyone knows I’m gonna fail,” says one boy, and then he doesn’t. What could be more soul- satisfying? These are the most influential professionals most of us will ever meet. The effects of their work will last forever. Each one here has a story to tell, each different, but if there is one sentiment, one sentence, that appears over and over again, it is this simple declaration: I am a teacher. They say it with dedication and pride, and well they should. On behalf of all students–current, former, and those to come–let me echo that with a sentiment of my own: Thank you for what you do" (2009)

It's been a year?

Not only is it Pesach, but it is also the 1 year anniversary of my grandpa's passing. Part of me can't believe it's been a year, but the other feels like it's been just a few days. I lit my Yahrzeit (memorial to honor the Jewish dead) candle last night, which was bittersweet.  I have a sweater of his that I got from Grandma about 6 months ago - it's one he used to wear all the time - so it's a good thing for me to have a connection.  This sweater usually stays on my chair in my office/sewing room since it's "frozen turkey" cold in here! 

Friday musings...

I still feel like I've got frosting in my pores!

My oldest, best friend (as in the person I've known since I was 4 and further known as "OBF") came by last night and made dinner!  During this while I was baking for mine and the hubby's work parties today.  I made my sinful chocolate mint brownies for a coworker's birthday, then hubby wanted "Car Bomb" Cupcakes so I did a double batch of mini's.  While I started on the baking, OBF jumped in making the ganache and icing.  OBF and I were reminiscing about cooking together in our 10th grade "Foods" class, which we took after our required High School home-ec class in 9th grade.  Everything OBF and I made in "Foods" was very tasty but smelled like poo when it was cooking.  Interesting!

The "Car Bomb" cupcakes were heavenly!  Guinness chocolate cake filled with a Jameison whiskey ganache, then topped with a Bailey's buttercream icing!

Pictures will be uploaded soon!
But...here is the recipe as shown from the "East Village Kitchen" website
http://eastvillagekitchen.com/2009/06/29/mini-irish-car-bomb-cupcakes-recipe/

I'm so glad it's Friday and the end of the quarter, so I get the next 3 weeks off of school because I teach in a year-round school!  It'll be a good "Finish it Up" Friday in the span of a 3 week time.  I've got quilts to finish for my grandma, mom, and a few friends.

Project Linus

Today my dear friend, D. and I -- along with her friend P. -- went to the headquarters of Quiltmaker magazine to help out with Project Linus.  The goal was to make a quilt of any type, size, or material (hand tied, quilted, crochet, etc.) and donate for the cause.  Then, you got to shop for fabric ($3.00 per pound!), notions, books, etc!

The quilt I made followed the "Sweet Girlie Charm Square Quilt Tutorial" from http://www.dontcallmebetsy.com and used a charm pack of "Zoe"(from http://www.benartex.com/).  I liked that it could go for a boy or even a more mature girl's quilt.