Recipe: Shredded Chicken Grilled Cheese

I've been on a grilled cheese bender.  When there is leftover meat or something in the house we sometimes put it on grilled cheese.  One of my favorites has been with shredded chicken.  This particular shredded chicken was cooked with salsa and taco seasoning, its pretty good.  Once I grilled the sandwich (tip: put cheese on both sides so as it melts it holds everything in the middle together), I pulled it apart and added some tomatoes (I like my tomatoes cold).  It was yummy.

Lastest Quilt

I made another quilt.  As I'm sure you can clearly see, this one is 4th of July themed.  It is a Christmas gift for my newest nephew, born in early July.  If you look at the first image just right (or just wrong) the stripes look like they taper off on the ends but they are really all the same width everywhere.

My favorite part of the quilt is the star applique on the back.  I ironed the stars on to the back then, after all three layers of the quilt were put together, I started the quilting process by appliqueing the star with a close zig-zag stick.  That way you can (kindof) see the star shapes on the front of the quilt (middle image).  CJ later pointed out that the applique would have looked better in a different color, maybe gold, and I totally agree.  Instead of using matching red thread while doing the all the quilting, I could have used a goldy-yellow color for a fun contrasting look.  Oh well, maybe next time.

New Job (For Real This Time)

I have a job!

I've been working since August 2nd (wow, two full weeks now) as a Jr. Project Manager at Amirsys, Inc.  Yeah, I'd never heard of them before applying either.  They do medical software and I've learned a lot more about pathology than I ever thought I'd need to know.

It was an interesting, and very quick, process to get the job.  I applied on a Tuesday morning and received a phone call from the recruiting HR guy by Tuesday afternoon.  We set up a phone interview for Wednesday morning.  The interview went well enough I guess because by Wednesday afternoon I had a face-to-face interview set up for Friday.

On Friday I went into the office and met with 6 people.  It was a little intimidating at first being there with so many people but it got really comfortable really quick.  I guess they liked me as much as I liked them because later Friday afternoon we'd set up a lunch appointment to talk further for Monday.

Less than an hour after lunch on Monday I received another phone call from the recruiting HR guy to let me know that they were going to send me an offer.  I accepted the offer Tuesday afternoon and started working the following Thursday.

So it took 10 days from application to first day.  Pretty quick and pretty awesome if you ask me.

Even though the software is used by mostly doctors or medical students, I've found it to be very interesting.  Luckily I don't have to know a lot about medicine to understand how the software itself works.  At the base of it, all software is the same - databases and code.

They started me off getting into managing just one project and, from what I've heard, it was their plan to have me up to speed on only that one project for when my boss went out of town (he'll be out for two weeks, starting only 7 business days after I started the job - which is why my first day was so soon after receiving an offer).  But I guess I caught onto that project quick enough that now they have me doing a lot of work on another, much bigger and more complicated, project as well.

I didn't realize how difficult it would be getting back into work mode.  For the first 7 months of the year I had gotten used to being pretty lazy.  Now I have to get back into the mode of getting up early (I'm even using the treadmill before work a few days a week!), running errands on my way home, and being really good at creating and following my personal to do list.

Overall, I'm really happy about working again, I am really happy about the work environment, and I'm really looking forward to staying at Amirsys long-term.

Latest Quilt

I just finished my second quilt ever.  This one is about one square yard (36 inches by 36 inches) and I made it for my niece's 2nd birthday . . . in September.  Yup, I finished it a little early but I guess that just means I get to start the next one sooner than I thought I would (for a nephew's Christmas gift).

Recipe: BBQ Chicken Pizza With Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

Once upon a time (just a few months ago, really) I had some extra roasted red peppers laying around.  I'd blended some up and added them to some pesto for a pasta sauce which, by the way, was pretty darn good.  Then I saw something on Pinterest.  I just went to look for the pin so I could link to it but it looks like I didn't pin it to one of my boards.  Anyway, the pin I saw was for some calzones with roasted red peppers.  I didn't want to make calzones but I thought that I could make a pizza sauce with my leftover roasted red pepper.  And that is exactly what I did.  CJ and I liked it so much that I did it again today.

This is what I used:

• A pizza crust.  I made my own mostly whole wheat crust.  One of these days I'll get around to putting the recipe and directions for that on the blog.  One day.
• BBQ Sauce.
• Roasted red peppers.  These can usually be found near pickles in grocery stores.
• Feta cheese.
• Mozzarella cheese.
• BBQ chicken.  I just diced up some chicken and cooked it on the stove with some bbq sauce but leftover grilled bbq chicken or shredded bbq chicken would work well too.  If you are looking for a vegetarian pizza, you could leave off the chicken entirely and this pizza would still be good.

This is what I did:

1. Cook the crust without any toppings for about 5 minutes at 350 ish.  It isn't always necessary to do this but I've made a lot of pizza in my day and cooking the crust for just a few minutes before adding toppings really helps make the pizza just a little better.  I think it prevents too many juices from the toppings seeping into the crust, which helps the crust cook more evenly and thoroughly, especially if there are a lot of toppings.

2. Blend up the roasted red peppers until smooth.  If you like your pizza sauce on the runny side, even blend in the juices from the jar.

3. Add bbq sauce to blended peppers.  I actually added about twice as much as is in the picture above.  If you want more of a bbq flavor add more bbq sauce.  If you don't want much bbq flavor, only add a little.

4.  Add toppings.  The order probably doesn't matter too much but I did sauce (which I would assume would usually go on the bottom), mozzarella cheese, bbq chicken, feta cheese.

5. Bake somewhere between 350 and 375 for 10 to 15 minutes.

6. Eat.

Attaching My Even Feed/Walking Foot

It seriously took me almost an hour today to figure out how to attach my even feed/walking foot to my sewing machine.

Here are the instructions my sewing machine told me (it also had a picture, which was only a little helpful):
1. Raise needle to its highest position.
2. Raise presser bar to its highest position and guide the even feed/walking foot into position from rear of machine with arm on needle clamp.
3. Attach presser bar clamp to presser bar and tighten presser foot screw with screwdriver.

By the way, my machine is a Singer 7467S.

The picture helps a little (especially now that I really know what I'm doing) to figure out what the presser bar clamp and such are but the instructions never said to remove the regular shank, which is absolutely required in order to do step #3.  So I was trying to attach the even feed/walking foot while the regular shank was still attached to the machine, which, obviously, didn't work very well.

Then I found this YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVczdRK_K6s. This video tutorial has a lot of information about a lot of different sewing machine feet.  I had to wait until minute 11:30 to get to the even feed section, but it was totally worth it.

Here are my instructions with pictures.

This is the way my sewing machine usually looks.  The regular shank (green arrow) is attached to the machine and the satin foot is attached to the regular shank.

Step One: Turn off the machine.  It may be tempting to keep it on because it will add some light, but don't do it.

Step Two (optional): Remove the foot from the regular shaft by lightly pressing the Foot Release Button (purple arrow). This is optional because if you leave it on it with automatically come off in Step Three.

Step Three: Unscrew the Presser Foot Screw (blue arrow).  In the video I linked to above, they make this look easy but it was not easy for me.  I couldn't use the little screw driver deal that came with my machine, I had to go get a thick, flat head screwdriver to loosen it.  Once the presser foot screw is loose, it is easy to unscrew by hand.

Step Four: Remove the Regular Shank from the Presser Bar (pink arrow).

Step Five: (mostly from the manual instructions) Guide the even feed/walking foot into position from the rear of the machine with the Arm (yellow arrow) on the Needle Clamp (brown arrow) and the Presser Bar Clamp (orange arrow) around the Presser Bar.

Step Six: Screw the presser foot screw back into it's place on the presser bar.

You should now be good to go.

I'm using the Even Feed/Walking Foot to help me quilt some hot pads I'm making.  The hot pads have five layers (outside fabric, muslin for sturdiness, thick batting, muslin, outside fabric) and I wanted to make sure that every layer of my hot pad fed through the sewing machine evenly.  Luckily the Walking Foot is perfect for this kind of task because it has feed dogs on the foot itself.  This means that the feed dogs on the machine are feeding the bottom layers of fabric through the machine at the same time/rate that the feed dogs on the walking foot are feeding the top layers of fabric through the machine.  A perfect combination.

Anyway, I love this foot and I very much wish I had know about it when I made my first quilt but I guess it is too late for that.  Now that I know how to attach it to my machine I hope to get a lot of use out of it.

Recipe: Almond Linguine Florentine

Back when my sisters and I had Sister Dinners, Older Sister made us Almond Linguine Florentine, a recipe she found in our paternal grandmother's cookbook.  CJ and I now have this pasta fairly regularly.

Grandma's note on the recipe: "Daughter" and her boyfriend fixed dinner for my birthday or mother's day.  He did the cooking and this is what he made. Very good!

I agree with Grandma, this is very good.  I don't follow her recipe exactly but it still turns out great.

Original Recipe and Directions:

1 cup chopped onion
3 Tbsp butter or margarine
3 Tbsp vegetable oil
3 Tbsp flour
3/4 tsp thyme
      salt and pepper to taste
1 can beef broth
3/4 cup whipping cream
3 Tbsp Dijon-style mustard
1/2 pound cooked ham, cut into strips
3/4 cup chopped parsley
3/4 cup toasted slivered almonds
1/2 pound cooked linguine noodles

In skillet saute onions in butter and oil until limp.  Blend in flour and seasonings; cook and stir over low heat until flour is well blended.  Gradually stir in broth and cream; cook and stir over medium heat until mixture thickens, about 5 minutes.  Stir in mustard, ham, parsley and almonds.  Toss hot linguine with sauce; serve on a bed of fresh spinach leaves.  Garnish with additional chopped parsley and almonds.

My Version:

1 cup chopped onion (or however much I have on hand if I even have some on hand; in the pictures for this blog I didn't use onion because I didn't have any)
3 Tbsp butter or margarine or vegetable oil (why use 6 Tbsp of fatty stuff when you can use only 3?)
3 Tbsp flour
3/4 tsp thyme (in all honesty, I don't usually measure herbs)
     pepper to taste (I leave out the salt because I figure the ham is going to be salty enough)
1 cup beef broth (I use bouillon cubes instead of canned and I don't know how many cups are in a can anyway)
3/4 cup whipping cream
1/2 pound cooked ham, cut up
3/4 cup slivered almonds
1/2 pound cooked noodles

My directions are pretty much the same as Grandmas:

Melt butter (with onion if using onion), add flour, thyme, and pepper, stir until well blended.  Add beef broth and cream, stir.  Let sit on medium heat, stirring occasionally, until thickish.  Add ham and almonds, stir.  Mix sauce with cooked noodles.

Serve however you like.  I think green beans are good with this pasta and I think diced tomatoes are good with just about any pasta.

Enjoy!