Kyle's Eggless Baby Pancakes

Ingredients:

1 cup whole wheat or all purpose flour, or a mixture of the two.
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup fruit, pureed or 1/2 cup puree. Peaches, bananas, pumpkin and applesauce will all work.
1 1/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons oil

Click the stop button to go through the slides at your own pace.

Practicin' My Stabbin'

Here is a little tutorial for creating note books from recycled greeting cards and random paper. The technique used is called Japanese Stab Binding.

I am trying out a new slide show format for this tutorial, let me know what you think.

You can click the stop button to go through the images at your own pace.

PDF Patterns 101

I was just working on a new pattern for my Etsy shop, and I thought I'd share my method for transferring a pattern to PDF format.

You will need:

your full size pattern, drawn on tissue paper, newspaper or what ever you have available.

plenty of 8 1/2 x 11 paper to mount your pattern pieces on.

a glue stick, clear tape or double sided tape

Scissors

A square (optional) will help you divide your pattern into neat pieces.

a scanner

Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator(optional) can help you create professional looking patterns.

A program capable of creating PDF files. Cute PDF is a free one.

Microsoft word or similar software for creating multiple page documents.

Adobe Acrobat can do both of the last two jobs.

Directions:

1. Draw a 1" border around one of your 8 1/2" x 11" sheets of paper.

2. Use this as a guide for cutting your pattern into pieces. Every piece needs to fit into the inner square.

3. Use tape or glue to mount your pattern onto sheets of 8 1/2" x 11" Paper.

4. Label each piece. I like to go from top to bottom. This will help you assemble the pieces later. You can also use symbols on the edges that match up to their neighboring pieces.

5. Scan each piece.

6. Now if you are not using a graphic editing program to make a professional looking pattern, and you are happy with they way your hand drawn pieces look; you are ready to print them as PDF files. You can stitch them together with Acrobat, or paste the images into a Word document and print as a PDF using Cute PDF. (if using Word, you really need to check that your images have printed true to size. Use the originals to verify this.)

If everything looks good, print out and assemble your pattern. Make sure all your pieces line up correctly, and look as you'd expect.

7. If you would like your pattern to have a professional appearance, you will need to use your graphic editing software. I use Adobe Photoshop.

* You will use the images of your pattern pieces as guides.
* make a new layer.
* make a new path.
* Use the pen tool to trace the outline of your pattern piece.
* Select the brush tool and choose the brush and color you'd like to use to outline your pattern piece.
* Click "stoke path" it is the little outline of a circle tab at the bottom of the paths window.
* Add any text or graphics your like for you pattern.
* Hide your background layer and save. Make sure you save as a Photoshop file and a JPG or PDF file, just in case you need to edit it later.

*Repeat these steps for each piece.

8. Follow step 6 to create your PDF file.

Fond of Fennel

Once again I am lauding an obscure vegetable. You've all heard me rave about kale, now it's time to talk about fennel. It's slightly sweet with a mild licorice flavor, and the longer you cook it, the more mellow, and sweeter it gets. I like to slice it thinly and saute the heck out of it. it's also really good roasted. You can even eat it raw for a crunchy veggie that beats the heck out of celery. (raw celery is one of my most hated foods, so I'm always looking for alternatives.) And, how cute are those feathery little fennel tops? They make a perfect garnish.

Here, I have sauteed fennel served alongside a tilapia filet, both garnished with some of the fennel top.

Jayson's Quote of the Day.

"I'm a pirate, but I only cut food with my sword."