Lighten up!

Hello y'all! To my fellow USA'ers, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving....to everyone else, I hope you had a great Thursday...at work. Hee! I LOVE to cook and Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. I love waking up in the morning with my game plan ready- knowing which dish to start cooking first to ensure everything comes together by 1:00pm. This year, I clocked in at 12:54- whew! Just made it with 6 minutes to get myself cleaned up before our guests arrived. Thankfully, they were a little late since I have yet to perfect my Wonder Woman spinning change technique.

I know how difficult it is to resist stuffing yourself to the brim with all the delicious Thanksgiving fare. I love to cook because I love to eat! However, the nutritionally educated side of me does always kick in- I do have to practice what I preach! So, for each dish, I do try to lighten it up as much as I can without sacrificing taste. One of the places I turn to to new recipes is Cooking Light. I have been subscribing to that magazine for about 8 years now- I love their recipes and I love that they provide nutrition information for everything! I have made their Streuseled Sweet Potato Casserole since I first saw the recipe 6 years ago. It's one of my husband's favorite dishes and I get requests for the recipe every time I serve it to others. Phenomenal!

One of my favorite dishes has always been Pumpkin Pie- I.LOVE.IT. I use Libby's canned 100% pumpkin- I love that they don't add any salt or sugar- it's just pure pumpkin. I also use their traditional Pumpkin Pie recipe from their cans- with a few tweaks. I use Evaporated SKIM milk instead of evaporated whole milk. Also, instead of sugar, I use Splenda. I do tend to swap Splenda for sugar for most things I bake. Splenda will prevent proper rising of baked goods, so I will sometimes use half sugar half Splenda if the dish didn't rise sufficiently the first time around. I like that Splenda has zero calories, can be swapped equally for sugar (no conversions needed) and tastes almost exactly like sugar. I don't like it in my coffee because I can taste the difference- I do love it in my oatmeal, though.

Just by swapping out those 2 ingredients, I save a whopping 95 calories PER SLICE of pie! The regular Libby's pie has 250 calories per slice. My lightened version- 155!! (I use a plain ol' frozen pie crust....though I like making things from scratch, I do take few selected short cuts...so sue me.) Since I didn't know if my guests would balk at a "diet" pie, I made one regular pie (with the skim milk, though- 224 calories per slice) and one "diet" pie. I had my guests do a taste test and they could not tell the difference between the "real" pie and the "diet" pie. Their waistlines, however, could.

Nutritional breakdown per slice of pie (for standard 9" pie crust, 8 slices per pie):

155 calories
6.5 g protein
6.3 g fat
18 g carbohydrate
1.5 g fiber
162 mg calcium
11,991 IU vit. A (almost 3 times the daily recommend value!)

To shave off 5 grams of fat and 45 calories, eat the pie filling and not the crust....though a tasty crust is part of the Pumpkin Pie experience...

This is just one of the ways I lighten up my Thanksgiving meal. Even though most of my dishes aren't as calorific as their traditional counterparts, I do have to employ portion control- too much food- even "lite" food- is not good dietary practice.

Well, it's just about lunch time for me- time to bring out all the tasty leftovers and enjoy the fruits of my labor. Have a wonderful weekend!

Thankfully blessed

Thank you Lord
for blessings bestowed upon me
for blessings I do not even see
for a roof over my head
for a warm and welcoming bed

Thank you Lord
for blessings untold
for my family to lovingly hold
for abundant food upon my table
for giving me strength when I am not able

Thank you Lord
for seeing me through
for touching me when I cannot touch You
for always supplying my needs
for forgiving my unforgivable deeds

Thank you Lord
for knowing what's best
for supplying my soul's much needed rest
for loving me through and through
for being wholly, lovingly You

Hilda Bag Redux

I.LOVE.THIS.BAG



If you recall, this is the purse I made for my mother for her birthday present. I have gotten so much positive feedback on this bag, I decided to recreate it. The one I made for my mom was one of the first ones I created and I hadn't decided to line them yet. My mother's actually has felted pockets that are part of the fabric of the bag.

This one...is lined.



I wish you could see this lining in person- there is actually shiny, metalic, sliver stripes in it. It's actually VERY beautiful. I told my mom that she could send her bag back to me and I'd line it for her, but she loves it so much, and uses it all the time, that she doesn't want me to. I wonder if she'd change her mind if she saw this one?



No Netski....this one still isn't for you....though you do look mighty fierce with it!

.....and Old Trash

Now, here comes the "Old Trash" portion of the blog.

I HATE MY SEWING MACHINE. My husband bought it for me for Christmas last year. We went to Joann's together and he let me choose the one I wanted to ensure it was a good one. HA! I should have done so much more research (or any at all...) prior to that trip. My mother has a Singer machine and I knew that it had a good reputation. Hers is a work horse- it was like 25 years old and she sewed everything with it- now mind you this was 20 years ago....she STILL uses it! That sucker is about 50 years old and it's still running strong. So, of course, I thought it was a no brainer- just chuck whichever Singer machine off the shelf and into my cart and I'll be merrily stitching along well into my golden years.

NO. SUCH. LUCK. My relationship with this p.o.shaving cream began a couple of months after Christmas. First mistake....the warranty is only good for 90 days...a fact that bit me in the butt while I was working on the Chocolate Strawberry bag....but I get ahead of myself. I bought a ton of patterns at Joanns that were on sale for a buck. I chose one that I absolutely loved since I saw the example on the mannequin in the store. However, since I haven't sewn since I was just a wee jumping bean, I decided to practice on some old fabric...my hubby's bed sheets from college. (As an aside, my hubby is fastidious when it comes to taking care of his stuff...his bedsheets, though over 15 years old, were barely beginning to fade. No, we hadn't used them in 10 years, but you get the idea.) I was very pleased with the final outcome, though it came through so much anger, strife, tears, and screams at that machine. For some reason, my machine loves to gobble up the thread from under the feet and then leave me with a nice, huge, tangled bow which I have to spend hours ripping out before trying again. I took it back to the store and they said, "Operator error." I wasn't making sure the needle was ALLLLL the way up before removing my work and cutting the thread, so it was pulling a ton of thread from the bobbin.

Ok, so I can admit when I'm wrong...I was wrong to buy a machine that doesn't have the automatic needle raise function. ARGH. So, fast forward a few months...I've now got a handle on raising the needle to ensure there aren't any more tangles (though, it does still happen from time to time...even when I do make sure the needle is up....the thing is possesed I tell you.) So, I was working on the Netski bag- remember the nice detailed stitching on the handles and interior? Well, I've loved it so much that I've incorporated it into every bag that has a plain fabric for lining. However, I didn't want to just have the same stitches over and over again. That's when the other shoe dropped- there are over 30 decorative stitches available on my machine....only 5 work. ARRRRRGHHHH!!

Through no character flaw of my own, I decided to wait before calling the store to see if they could fix it. You know, in case it decided to say, "Oh! I'm so sorry I've been causing you so much grief Gege! Poof!" and spontaneously fix itself. Sooo...I was working on the Chocolate Strawberry bag and I was using the same stitch I'd been using on all the previous bags. And then I noticed...the darn stitch wasn't working anymore. !!!!!!

I called Joanns...they told me that they just sell the machines....they don't fix the machines. So I'd have to send it back to Singer. I called Singer....they told me that my 90 day warranty was up, so tough cookies. I called a local sewing machine company....they'd fix my machine for free...IF...I had bought it from them. Otherwise, it's $90. NINETY DOLLARS. Pfft- whatever queers. I'm going to utilize the same stitching as long as I can and put that 90 bucks towards a better machine. I took out the needle and tried reinsterting it...maybe it got loose and that's why my ol' faithful stitch wasn't working. That did seem to do the trick, but only for that one stitch. none of the others work still.

Sooo.....now you'll see the same decorative stitch on all my bags. I guess it's a trademark. ;)

Ok- rant off...hopefully I'll get a shiny new machine this Christmas, right honey? Honey? Bueller?

New Beginnings......

Whew! What a day! I have finally taken pictures of the finished PGP purse, the new Chocolate Strawberry purse, and the Hilda Bag Redux.

First up, it's the newly finished (or shall I say FINALLY finished) Purple, Green, Pink (PGP) purse.

To jog your memory, this is it before in it's unlined, unadorned glory:



This is it now!


Here's a shot of the interior:


I found the flower pin at Walmart- it was like one of those romantic moments in movies where the two lovers eyes meet and time slows down and you hear Romeo and Juliet's Overture playing it's sweet love tune (or Bugs Bunny, dressed as a girl, any time he meets a mustachioed man...). I knew EXACTLY what it was destined to be. The pink and purple flower match the bag perfectly. I've always liked this bag, but it always seemed like something was missing....and not just the lining. The lining- how awesome is that fabric??? I actually bought it at the same time I bought the lining for the Erin Bag. It's from the same company and I bought it at Joanns. So, you can see that I've had the fabric for a while and yet, through no character flaw of my own, proceeded to procrastinate lining this bag for way over a month. (You may see that statement many times throughout this blog....)

Now, it will proudly adorn my arm as a self-advertisment of the Gege Crochet line of bags.


The second bag to present to you is the Chocolate Strawberry bag.



My dear hubby actually named this one since it reminded him of, what else, chocolate covered strawberries. My sister loves this bag, as well. The heart button is almost the same as the one on the Queen of Hearts bag, but this one is actually tinted pink (you can't really tell in the picture.)

Here's the interior- I carried the chocolate/strawberries into the lining, as well.


The pink fabric was left over from a dress I started making (cough*5monthsago*cough) but, through no character flaw of my own, have procrastinated in finishing it. BUT, I did finish this bag and the fabric fits perfectly.

Now, time for the rant....it's too long, so it'll be it's own posting.....see you on the other side....