Mexican Gumbo
choice of beans
rice
cheese
sour cream
salsa
tortilla chips
tortilla soup

For the soup:

Remove the chorizo from its casings and crumble into a hot pan. Brown. Toss in the onion and cook with the sausage until translucent. Add all the rest of the ingredients and let simmer for at least 30 minutes. Adjust the spice to taste.

To make into a gumbo, layer some rice and beans into a bowl, top with the soup, and then add your choice of toppings. Be sure to crumble tortilla chips on the top because that crunch is so yummy with the soup.

I went a bit easy on the spices, but if you’re going to use the soup in the gumbo you’ll want to make it a little bit spicier than you like. The rice and beans really bring down the heat level, so it can stand up to a lot more spice than if you were eating it on its own.

Recipe: Mexican Gumbo or Tortilla Soup

Year of Pleasures: Organized Closet

I really resisted this day. The minivan of my imagination was a place where old McDonald’s wrappers went to die. Where you drove slower than the speedlimit and shouted at drivers who weren’t properly appreciating your precious cargo. Where you cashed in any last vestige of your own personality to fall into the endless pit of Motherhood.

I may have been projecting a few of my own issues onto a hapless inanimate object.

Even though we just have Atti, having a child with motor issues means travel is COMP.LI.CATED. When I was driving my PT Cruiser around, I’d have to put Atti’s wheelchair in the trunk after lowering the handles and folding the seat down. The Cruiser has a pretty generous trunk so it wasn’t so bad, but trying to run errands where I had to stop at several different places, assemble the chair, load Atti into it, run my quick errand, load him back in the car, break the chair back down and hoist it into the car…Ug. Exhausting even to remember. And impossible to do if I needed that space for groceries. If we took Bear’s Prius to grandma’s house we had to lower the handles, fold the chair, and take off the wheels. It was doable, but far from ideal.

Then Atti got another piece of equipment. We just got a gate trainer to work on Atti’s walking, and that sucker doesn’t break down at all. It’s a huge square made of metal pipes. There’s no hauling that thing around in a regular old trunk. If we want to travel to grandma’s and use both his trainer and his wheelchair over the course of the trip, we would have had to take two cars. It was time to let go of my prejudices and face reality.

We have a cousin who is a car dealer, so he set out to find us something great and we got this car for a really great price. It is so awesome to have people who know what they’re doing take care of you in an area where you know nothing. Hooray for help. Atti is thrilled because it came with a DVD player installed, and I’m thrilled because I can just lift the back gate and toss in all the equipment I’ll ever need. The space we suddenly have is kind of a crazy adjustment. I feel like Atti and I are just rattling around in there.

But mark my words, I will not get stickfigures on the back window. That is just too far for me to go. Maybe instead I’ll get flame decals and put those on the side.

Minivan Mom

The first thing you need is some fusible web. I go through this stuff faster than milk. It’s basically a double sided tape that becomes sticky when you iron it. This will hold your pieces tightly in place while you’re sewing around them.

Iron the wrong side of the fabric onto a piece of the fusible web. The backside of the web is a thick white paper, so once I’ve ironed and it’s cooled, I sketch my shape right onto this paper and cut it out of the fabric. Just remember that your image will be reversed, so be careful about lettering. If you don’t want to worry about that, you can sketch your image on another piece of paper and cut the fabric out using that sheet as a template.

With all your pieces cut out, remove the paper backing and position them as you want to sew them. On the fox you can see how I added details beyond just the silhouette. The ears and tail will be made in white fabric, but the line of his hip will be outlined with stitching. When your pieces are in place, iron them down.

Now it’s time to sew. First of all, this does not need a fancy sewing machine. If you can adjust your stitches, you can machine applique. You’ll need thread in an appropriate color – I usually match mine to the fabric, but you can get a great contrast effect too – and some kind of a stabilizer. The stabilizer keeps the fabric stiff and flat so that the stitches don’t pull too tight and create a big puckery mess. You can get it at any fabric store, but I’ve always used flattened coffee filters. It does the job super great and really can’t get much cheaper.

This is the back of the piece I’m showing you here so you can see the coffee filters in action. Just place one behind the area you’re appliqueing. Set your stitch to a zig zag stitch with a really short stitch length so that the zigs are almost right on top of each other. If you want a thick line of stitching, set your stitch width wide. Not so thick, not so wide. I normally like to keep the width in proportion to the shape I’m sewing. Smaller shapes get a thinner width. Sew around the edge of each shape so that those little raw edges get all covered up in pretty little stitches.

Stitch on one shape at a time, starting with the pieces that go underneath, and layering the other pieces on top. To add in details like the fox’s eyes and hip, just use the same stitch and go over the line you drew. Once you’re done with your applique you just tear off all these coffee filters, give it a good iron, and use it however you want to.

This time I put it in a quilt. A couple of borders, a little bit of patchwork, some stipple quilting, a little binding, you know, no big.

I don’t know what it is I find so satisfying about machine applique. Those smooth satin stitches are just so neat and orderly, I love them. And of course the chance to personalize everything appeals to the blogging ego in me.

Tutorial: Machine Applique

I leave the house without makeup more often than I don’t. But on those days when I don’t I’ll catch a glimpse of myself and think I need a nap. Not really, it’s just that my eyelashes aren’t doing it on their own anymore.

For those days when I don’t feel like makeup, and then regret it when I leave the house, I keep an extra tube of mascara handy in the glove compartment of my car. It’s a simple solution, but it makes a difference.

Mascara on the go

Dice the pork and onion and sweat together in a pan at a low heat with the olive oil. Add the rest of the ingredients and let simmer for 15 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper and add red pepper flakes until the spice is hot enough. Serve with rice.

Not only is this a preparation unique enough that my family will eat it for a week, but it is the best simple supper. A few cans of things, only a bit of chopping, and you’ll have dinner ready in the time it takes to cook the rice.

A hash is really just a combination of chopped up stuff, so you could add whatever you wanted to this. I stuck with classic southwest flavors, but if you change the kind of bean, or some of the vegetables, you could make anything your heart desired, or use up whatever you’ve got lying around.

Recipe: Southwest Pork Hash

Hope your Valentine’s Days are filled with something equally as wonderful.

Year of Pleasures: Chocolate Truffles

This is a pretty radical departure for me, being so staunchly a cat person. Part of why I love cats is their independence and cleanliness, two traits that don’t really apply to dogs. But here I am anyway. It’s all Julie Klausner’s fault.

Julie is a hilarious comedian and I came across this tweet last week and didn’t take her at her word.

Thank you, @NYTimes for making me sob in public with this absolutely beautiful and moving story. nyti.ms/zhgyH8

— Julie Klausner (@julieklausner) February 4, 2012

I read this to Bear in the car on our way to date night and cried so hard I couldn’t speak. As soon as I read this, I became a dog owner who hadn’t yet met her dog.

When we got home I started searching. I worked out google with searches for organizations that would help us get a service dog, but realized that we don’t quite need one just yet. Most charities wouldn’t give Atti one because he’s so young, and his needs aren’t severe enough to jump through hoops and come up with the cash for an expertly trained service dog. I kept thinking of the part of the article that talked about kids making friends because their dog was so cool, and I started to think that the right, regular old, well trained dog would be good enough for him. I devoured Craigslist, scoured Petfinder, called shelters, and came up empty.

If you want a small dog, there is no shortage. Poor chihuahuas and pitbulls were EVERYWHERE. But a small dog won’t work for us long term. We need a dog that will grow to be big enough that Atti can play with him from his wheelchair. Then there was the cats. They have done a remarkable job in our family, I’m not introducing anything that threatens them. Which meant that the GORGEOUS Malamute I found with the face like a teddy bear couldn’t be ours. The cats wouldn’t stand a chance.

After a few days of rationalizing the need into urgency, I resigned myself into recognizing that even though I wanted Atti to have the benefits of an expert dog YESTERDAY, at 4 years old he still has a ways to go before it would be most beneficial, and pet ownership is not something you jump into because you read a moving article. Adopting a dog just because he’s handy is begging for disaster. I sighed a deep sigh, tried to get over the feeling that I was somehow, in that backwards logic parents feel, failing my child, and let it go until a few years in the future.

Then on Saturday Bear went to Wal-Mart to pick up a couple things and found a kid out front with a basket of these puppies. They were full-bred Old English Mastiffs, and dirt cheap as far as puppies, but especially for Mastiffs, go. He sent me a picture of this sweet little girl and I was a goner.

You know what is a perfect breed for our family? An Old English Mastiff. Look how gorgeous, and enormous, she is going to grow up to be. Mastiff’s are huge dogs, but known to be gentle with children and other animals, quiet, peaceful, and companionable. They want nothing more than to lay at their master’s feet, as little Boo is doing to me as I type. They don’t need constant workouts, just a couple walks a day. They’re just sweet lugs who want to love and protect their family. And we stumbled across one in a Wal-Mart parking lot.

Scout seemed like a name for a more adventurous dog. This little girl just wants to curl up on my chest and stick her snout under my chin. She’s far more of a Boo Radley than a Scout, but still, our little Atticus has the companion I dreamed of.

Atti’s New Playmate

My big problem is that no matter how hard I searched, I really couldn’t find a blogger who was living my kind of life. I found a few style bloggers who were moms, but that didn’t seem to really factor into their work. Mostly I found adorable women in their 20′s with backgrounds in fashion, most who live in New York or environs, and were thin and young and could wear anything they wanted to because they were thin and young. And despite searching and searching I couldn’t find ANYBODY who was dealing with a large chest which is the single hardest thing I deal with in getting dressed every morning.

Side note: twitter might not be the best venue to ask people if they know of large breasted bloggers. Ask me how I know.

Foxy Like a Crafter is a daily style blog for women like me. Women who are no longer as thin and young as they used to be, who aren’t ready to slide into matron wear but don’t want to try to pull off teen queen either. Women whose lives will not allow impractical jewelry, skirts too short to bend in, and anything requiring drycleaning. Women who have responsibilities that do not include spending a fortune on a new wardrobe every season, but aren’t ready to completely let themselves go either. Women who don’t want to look like a frumpy mom, but still have to function like one.

Along with style posts sharing what I wear on a regular day, I’m also planning regular features sharing what I’ve learned to solve my dressing problems. How to Not Look Like A Mom will feature ideas for how to not look stereotypical and frumpy, despite the job you still have to do while looking cute. How to Dress Your Breasts will share my hard won tips for how to dress when you have large breasts. Craft the Look shares wearable projects I make and shows how I incorporate them into my look. And Foxy Crafters will share what all you other stylish crafters come up with. I’m hoping that loads of you will jump on board with me and show how creative and stylish us every day moms and crafters can be when we turn our powers to how we present ourselves to the world.

The hardest part about this whole thing has been taking the pictures. Modeling what I wear every day is so weird you guys. And I feel like such a phoney baloney goober when I do it, but how else am I going to share this stuff? I might look at a picture of me and pick apart all my flaws, but whenever I see another woman who is not flat all over doing it I’m so grateful to see a different way to look. So I’m putting my ego where my mouth is and being the change I want to see in the world and all that jazz.

I hope you’ll join me over there, and apply the same creativity we use to solve every other problem in our lives, to address how we treat ourselves.

Announcing Foxy Like A Crafter!

Make up a batch of sugar cookies cut into whatever shape you want. A heart is obvious for Valentine’s Day, but you could do letters for monograms or even plain circles and add your own decorations. Mix up a batch of royal icing, tinted the color you want, and put it in a squeeze tube like you’d use for ketchup.

Here’s my personal royal icing recipe:
3 Tbs egg white egg beaters
1 C powdered sugar, give or take to get it thick but not too thick

Some recipes call for meringue powder, which can be difficult to track down, and using raw eggs presents a bit of a food safety issue, so I’ve solved this problem with using a pasteurized egg white product. I just pour the eggs into my squeeze bottle, add the powdered sugar a little at a time, and shake to combine. The consistency is very forgiving, you just want it thick enough to not run off the cookie and thin enough to still puddle nicely. Anywhere in between those two points will work.

Apply the icing from your squeeze bottle by first drawing a little dam around the area you want to fill. This will keep the icing from dripping off in every direction and make a nice polished look.

Fill in your reservoir with more icing.

Then use a palette or butterknife to smooth out the surface.

When it comes to customizing, there are no limits. Once the royal icing is dry you can pipe on a different color of icing, add buttercream, whatever, but I wanted to avoid piping and still personalize them, so I used these food coloring markers I found at my local bake supply shop. I experimented with using liquid food coloring, or gel food coloring, but these worked the absolute best.

Making this experimental batch I just used the markers to write right on the cookies, but if you hate your handwriting you could use stamps by coloring the stamp with the marker and then pressing it into the cookie. I plan on presenting these in a little clear bag with ribbon and a tag and I think they’ll be darling.

I think when I make these for Atti’s classroom, if I’m feeling a little ambitious, I might just write his classmate’s names with the markers, and then embellish them with more royal icing. I’m not confident enough in my piping skills to write the whole name that way, but I bet this would look adorable with little white dots dressing it up. I can definitely do dots.

Tutorial: Personalized Cookie Valentines