Wednesday, October 22, 2008

cooking and sewing

because one often feels like nesting with the approach of winter, we've been making some yummy things with the last of the tomatoes from sabin's tomato plant and we've been sewing some throw pillows for the chairs in the living room.

fabulous tomato pasta sauce

8-10 ripe tomatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
1 medium onion, diced
3 fat cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
1 small chili (can be left out of kids are being fed, or just use a mild one)
salt & garlic pepper to taste
T of fresh thyme leaves (or other herbs you have access to)
drizzle of cream

sauté the onions and garlic and chili, add the tomatoes, salt & pepper and thyme. simmer 'til the tomatoes are cooked down.  put in a drizzle of cream just before you serve it--it takes out some of the intense, acidy tomatoiness in a good way.

i served it over fresh pasta with garlic-butter portobellos as the "meat."  it was fabulous.

i made a similar version of the tomato sauce (sans cream) and with quite a lot more chili to use like the patatas bravas sauce we get at the tapas place in greenbelt over a potato omelet.  yum.  what was left over, i threw into a batch of The Soup, so you might say that it's a very versatile thing to have around the house.  and it's good for those last tomatoes that aren't quite ripe or tasty enough to eat in BLTs or salads.

* * *

and now, for the pillows. sabin wanted to sew and since i've been stashing fun fabrics for awhile now, we decided to see what we had that could be turned into some pillows for the chairs in the living room. sabin chose these fabrics and with a little bit of help from me, even sewed herself on the sewing machine. we ended up with this cheerful and autumny pillow:

side 1
side 2

and last night, i got a 10 p.m. creative rush and started making this one:
fun!

8 comments:

Molly said...

Stunning cushions! I love Sabin's. But I have to say I'm GREEN with envy - I think you have my latest lust-after chair! Are they these ones?
http://www.weylandts.co.za/products/shangai-chair
Grrrr... they will be mine, oh yes they will be mine!
Hope you had a good weekend!

julochka said...

hi molly--i'm afraid it's this chair: http://www.houseofdesign.dk/template/t04.php?menuId=137 by danish designer hans j. wegner. the classic "y" chair...the link you sent looks like a very good copy! and it appears to cost a lot less, so definitely go for it if you get some!!

Monica said...

My sister is such an incredible chair SNOB! Don't let the nice girl dream of a perfectly wonderful chair... point out the five-times-the-price Danish Design chair. Remember Sabin's words, "Don't think of it in dollars... think of it how it really is."

Besides, dollars just depress us.

julochka said...

except what i wrote was that it was a really good copy, so i was not being a snob..i was being SAD i didn't know about it so that i could have gotten some... :-(

Molly said...

Guess I can't tell you two off for sibling snarkiness as this is your blog 'n all :)
But while the chair snob in ME is outraged at the blatant ripping off of Wegner's design... the realist chair fiend says yaaaaaaaaay!

julochka said...

thank you molly, i KNEW my sister was snarky! :-) don't you love that word?

and MQ, the dollar isn't really doing so bad these days...strangely enough.

julochka said...

thank you molly, i KNEW my sister was snarky! :-) don't you love that word?

and MQ, the dollar isn't really doing so bad these days...strangely enough.

julochka said...

oops, don't know why it went twice...weird blips in the internet this evening...