The BestThing to Happen to Me Today!

(so far)

Although, perhaps this is the greatest thing to have happened to me all week, contending with the hour long nap I took in Madison Square Park during my lunch break, Giving Death Cab's Ben Gibbard directions, or watching this movie with some of my favorite people.
Published by Procter and Gamble ~ 1959
While walking through the streets of Brooklyn at 5:02 AM this morn - I looked at my watch - I happened upon one crazy stoop sale. After leafing around for a bit, my hand landed on a small spiral bound volume.

Now, here at She Sure is Sketchy we do our best to control our excitement. The problem is that our excitement is just so big sometimes.... As I pulled the book out of the box, I exhaled the only thing I could think to say,

"Fern was up at daylight, trying to rid the world of injustice. As a result she now has a pig…It just shows what can happen if a person gets out of bed promptly."

As a kid (up through high school) my parents read aloud to us nightly. These classic snippets are ingrained deep in my subconscious. They pop up at the oddest times.
I'm a helping queen this morning. Here I'm helping out non-sketch blog followers and google!
Recipes upon this sacred page of awesome in which a girl and a cat think about a dougnut.
1. Clover Leaf Rolls 2. Fan Tan Rolls 3. Miss C's Easy Bread (again, awkward) 4. Sally Lunn 5. Cake Doughnuts

I was up all night drawing dogs. Seeing my light on, a friend texted this to me: "Amber, come safe my from myself." I donned a jacket at 3AM and clip clopped into the chilly Spring (yes!) air, concerned that my buddy (who worked in publishing as an editor prior to her maternity leave in May) had really lost it. Safe my from myself?! Sorry Nessa, it seems you've temporarily dropped that wordsmith ball. We carefully walked her baby, who'd wake and start screaming at the slightest deviation in stroller speed, along the streets of Brooklyn in to the wee hours. It was actually so much fun.

If being seen walking with a jogging stroller at dawn isn't trying to rid the world of injustice I don't pretend to know what is. As a result I now have a book that doesn't only fit into my vintage collection of cook books, but also highlights the use of Crisco! It's like finding an ad focusing on the health benefits of smoking! SCORE.

Yum. Tuna Chip Casserole. Heh. Heh.
1.Chop Suey ( don't cook this) 2. Tuna Chip Casserole 3. Veal Kabobs 4. Fish in the Skillet
Also, this book tells you how to cook Veal like it's going out of style. Awkward.

Ahem. Why don't I own an axe cookie cutter?
1. Cherry Pie 2. Berry Pie 3. Rhubarb Pie
Or a set of house twins that bring me pie?

As someone that lives and dies for a good pun I am so so excited by this find.
1. Dessert Pancakes 2. Fluffy Hard Sauce (what?) 3. Golden Sauce 4. Old Fashioned Sauce 5. Orange Sauce

Here's one of the best pages in this book. Golden Crispy Fries
It not only gives helpful tips to prevent scarring your kiddo's faces with boiling oil, making you a better mom than Betty Draper, but it gives you three, count them three, techniques for frying potatoes! Then it tells you how to strain and save your used Crisco for future cooking adventures!

Yay for Saturday!

Anyway, that's the best thing that happened to me today, so far. Since it's 7:45 in the AM I've feeling pretty AOK about the prospects of this blissful day. Let's start with a nap, shall we?

A Recipe: Octopus Soup

Yesterdays book report on 'A Penguin Story' made me hungry. Inspired by the color red, and the book's ocean theme, I decided to make myself some Octopus soup.


Amberbop's Octopus Soup

Ingredients:

I only included measurements to keep it a recipe. I eyeball this stuff. I add things and subtract things and then add things again. I pretty much do all kinds of random stuff to this soup every time I make it. You should too. Just don't add octopus.

• 3 or 4 bell peppers - the more color the better the soup
• 2 zucchini, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 3 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 cup of milk*
• 1/2 cup of cream*
• 2 (14.5 ounce) cans vegetable or chicken broth
• 8 oz. of meat - I use Pepperidge Farms Turkey Kibalsa**
• salt and pepper to taste
  
  *If you have an aversion to milk you can sub in 2 cans of cannellini beans beans in place of all dairy, have an aversion to beans, so this is how I play it.
  
  ** If my veggie friends want some I can say, ooooooh, i wish -- but it's not vegetarian.... Also, it adds heartiness. Its involvement in this soup is totally up to you.
  
  
  
  
  
  By now you have probably realized this recipe isn't an ocean-y kind of soup. Years ago I made it for a pair of boys I used to babysit, one of them was Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes. The only way I could get him to eat it was to tell him it was octopus. He watched the pepper's gooey insides and sniffed around before deciding it really was octopus. Every time I baby-sat he begged for octopus soup. This blend of wintery-goodness has kept its moniker.

Directions

I have a gas stove. If you don't you can still use this recipe. However, I'd recommend you just get a gas stove. It's one of my top 10 favorite things about my home. When I visit elsewhere i feel bad for my friends who are without the perks fire cooking.

For a gas stove:

• I take off little metal raiser on a burner and then turn up the fire to high. Keep those flames hopping!
• Using long BBQ tongs and a hot mitt (LBH, I usually skip both and find something make-shift but this is my blog and I like you and I'd like you to be safe) put the peppers into the fire and let them get good and black as night, the blacker the better.
  

For an electric stove:

• Preheat oven to broil.
• Place the bell peppers on a baking sheet and broil on the top rack of the oven, using tongs to turn them as each side blackens.
• Make sure you're wearing pants for this part because when the smoke detector accidentally goes off and you have to jump up on a chair in front of your windows to turn it off, you're going to want to be wearing pants...
  

Now pick up here. The Choose Your Own Adventure is Over:

• Place the blackened peppers in a communal paper bag. Tightly roll the bag up and allow them to cool in there for 20 to 30 minutes.
  
• Once they've steamed long enough and are ready for their facials, peel the skin off the peppers. (If this is getting frustrating sometimes I peel them under running water).
  
• Cut out the stem and get rid of all the seeds. Marvel at how Octopi they look. Chop the peppers up if you're using a blender, if you're using a food processor you can leave them be. Put them aside.
  

• In a large pot over medium heat, saute the onion and garlic, zuke in the oil for 5 minutes, or until onion is translucent. Now host a meet and great for the bell peppers and everything already in the pot. Once they're combined, saute for 2 to 3 more minutes.

• Next, add the chicken broth and the beans or milk, stirring well. Using a food processor (top ten favorite thing about my home) or a blender, puree the soup in small batches and return to the pot over low heat for 5 minutes. Salt to taste, throw in any other herbs you think belong in there. Stir it up and then start singing that song about stirring it up. Eat some soup with your friends.

  

  --This is really great reheated and topped with a dollop of cream cheese right before serving. Enjoy. xoxo
  

A Miracle in My Kitchen

There weren't loaves, but there were fish. Or more specifically, a fish. At times I've wondered what I would do if I were ever faced by a wild, unexplainable once in a lifetime event. Now I know. I would, in this order:

1. run and grab my Nikon
2. do some shutterbugging
   
3. create new surface design to document the tremendous occasion
4. Hit my most visable public forum to chat it up - Hence our current post here at She Sure is Sketchy.
   

Friday in my frantic struggle to get out of New York, I spilled a spot of orange juice on the counter. It wasn't a lot of orange juice and I had to pack. I made an executive decision, leaving it on the counter, I decided I'd clean it up after I yanked my carry-on's zipper into submission.

When I came back to sponge up the spot, it had taken a hint from it's nearest neighbor, my favorite fishy glass. The little juice spot had taken the form of a bright juice guppy! I kid you not, this is a serious phenomenon and it happened in my little bitty kitchen in the heart of Brooklyn on a sunny September afternoon in the year 2009.

Sadly, the cookies accompanying the fish in this photo did not feed the starving masses. Those lucky few who did partake of them claimed they were a marvel in their own right. I am rock steady in my faith of the miraculous, never-changing perfect nature of homemade anything made with my dearest love, my new Cuisinart food processor. So, the cookie goodness was expected and unsurprising, albeit appreciated. If you're looking for your own small wonder here's the haps:

Shortbread Jelly Jam cookies
(as baked on the day of the Miracle of the Goldfish)

• 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 1/3 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 3 egg yolks
• 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
• Interior scrapings of 1/2 split vanilla bean, preferably Tahitian
• 3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• fruit preserves, any flavor - i am partial to apricot and raspberry
• sometimes I take this opportunity to add a touch of cardamom to the mix - but I do that with everything

1. Using the dough blade, In the bowl of a food processor, combine butter, sugar and salt and cream on medium speed until blended, about 2 minutes. Add the egg yolks one at a time. Blend in the vanilla bean scrapings and the extract. If you need to scrape down the bowl you should do it.

2. Turn the mixer off and add the flour. Turn the processor on until the flour is completely blended in. Remove the dough from the bowl. Working on parchment or wax paper, form dough into 4 logs 10 inches long and 1 1/4 inches in diameter; wrap and chill.

3. Preheat the oven to 325°F.

4. Cut a log into twenty 1/2-inch rounds. arrange them 2 inches apart on all sides on a parchment-lined or nonstick cookie sheet or sheets.With the back side of a spoon make a little jelly-jam sized well in the surface of each of the cookies. Fill the wells with jelly-jam, about a teaspoon per cookie if you are feeling stingy, more if you are benevolent and willing to help a miracle along.

5. Bake 15 to 20 minutes. Remove to a wire rack, you know the drill.

6. Bask in the glow of adoring fans.

My kitchen - A miracle mecca.

Zucchini is a Funny Word

I think it's the "kini" part. Hey! What about zucchini bambini?! Oh man. Genius.

OK I'm going to do some sketching and come back to this post later! Hehe.

Ok. I sketched some bambini so I can show you and continue this post.

My mom gave me this recipe over the phone last Summer. It is deliriously delicious. I am sharing it because she calls me to ask me what it is once a week. Since it's that time of year I thought you lovely blog stalkers might want to try it too. I originally wrote it on post-its and I keep worrying that perhaps I've thrown them out. Now I can! Take that paper clutter!

Amber: 1, Paper Clutter: 2,654,031

Zucchini Bambini Pancakes
(I just christened them that)
Ingredients:

• 3 medium zucchini - grated with a cheese grater
• 3 eggs - beat
• 1 small red or yellow onion - chopped
• 1/4 cup fresh Parmesan cheese - grated
• 1/4 cup white flour (I say use whole wheat flour but then my mom shakes her head and asks who raised me)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

1. Use a cheese cloth or a berry strainer to squeeze out any zucchini water (it's a technical term)
2. In a large bowl mix zucchini into the eggs
3. Add the onion and Parmesan cheese
4. Stir allup like a pancake batter
5. add flour and stir allup some more
6. Heat olive oil in frying pan
7. Add batter to oil in generous spoonfulls
8. Flip and fry until perfection
9. Let cool on paper towels

Serve over sliced Summer tomatoes (fresh from the garden are best) with a lovely Summer salad and homemade lemonade.Listening to right this second: "Just an Old Fashioned Girl" -- Eartha Kitt

Pumpkin Carving, Drawing and Roasting

Yes, in that order.

I'm spending tonight in perfect NYC haunting mode. I'll be vamping it up on the Upper East and Upper West side. We're starting the night off at St. John the Divine, screening the Phantom of the Opera - old school style with a live creepy and ancient organ to spook up the silent film. Then I'm heading to a party/dance for the rest of the evening on the other side of Manhattan. Happy Haunting!

I got together with about ten friends last Monday for an evening of carving bliss.

Here's Emmett, my new version of Jack:

Here's one of the pages of new illustrations he inspired:

Party on!
Also, if you're in the market for the best pumpkin seeds you've ever tasted, here's my favorite pumpkin treat. I took a keg load of these bad boys into "job job" where they met with rave reviews, which isn't necessarily something I'm used to receiving for baked veggie guts. I'm sure they're best paired with Pale Ale. SIGH -- Here's to another year of sobriety!

Here it goes:

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds of Yumminess

1.Gut your pumpkin.
2. Don't wash the seeds - not only is it bad luck, it takes away some of the yumminess.
3. Remove the strings and the pulp and as much gooeyness as you can manage.
4. Crank your oven to 250 degrees.
5. Put them in an even layer on parchment paper in as many baking pans as it takes to get the job done.
6. Sprinkle fresh cracked sea salt on them and then toss them in the oven. Stir them every once in a while
7. Go be fabulous while they bake (I like trying on different Halloween wigs while they're in the oven). Doing a Halloween like activity only enhances their yumminess.
8. Bake 20 - 40 minutes or until they're a pretty color.
9. In a big bowl mix together 3 Tablespoons sugar, 1/4 teaspoon sea salt, 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice, 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, and 1 teaspoon ground cardamom. Stir it all up.
10. Take your fresh baked pumpkin seeds from the oven and add them to 1 1/2 Tablespoons olive oil in a frying pan on the stove.
11.Heat them up mixing them in the oil as you add 2 Tablespoons of sugar. Stir them all up for a minute or two, until the sugar dissolves and they start to caramelize.
12. Take them off the stove and add them to the bowl of spices.
13. Stir them up good.
14. Marvel at their yumminess.

Sidetracked by Life - but Back with Pumpkin Bread

Hi lovelies! I know it's been awhile. . . but man have I been busy! I'm developing a new line of sketchy goodness - drawings to be sneak peeked sooner rather than later. I'm working like a maniac in my other life in full time animator/story boarder/lover mode. I'm busier socially than ever, which means that I'm way busy socially and deserve a butterfly medal. I had a stellar beach weekend and I have the sun burn to show for it. I look like a cheetah all over my back where the spray sunscreen most likely needed to be rubbed in.

My computer went fried egg on me, but luckily I had a lovely boy around to fix it. Now I have a factory new-old computer and I promise to never, ever say a bad word about poor Ruby Computer ever again. It would be impossible for me to ever express my complete and utter thankfulness to God/Technology/Karma etc. . . that Ruby Computer didn't decide to pull down the curtain over Surtex. The nice thing is that without a computer at home I've lived a semi-normal life recently and have taken the vacation from the computer that I have long promised myself. Now I'm back - with a vengeance, and with Pumpkin Bread.

My friend Kristen is getting married in a couple of weeks and so the perfect group gift turned out to be recipe cards. Smiling Pumpkin Bread is the tops and so I thought I'd send her off to her huge fancy house in Long Island with a map for making it. I thought you'd probably like it too, even though I'm sure it tastes best in the Fall in a big old house on Long Island :)

My illustrated recipe card collection/calendar is going to be available on Etsy in the next few weeks. If you must have your hands on them check back next month and they could be yours!