Simply Rurban

Kids Craft Corner – Jazz Fest Style

Posted on May 8, 2012 by simply0637

I think Stella’s favorite part of Jazz Fest is the kids area! They have a special stage just dedicated to kid centered musicians, puppeteers, etc and then tent after tent of kids art project – that change every few days. This year there were more tables that had art items that were going to be part of a bigger project; sculpture, paper maiche mask or art for the group’s office. Each day we would go to the area, at least once, for no less than an hour. We started a new tradition this year – on the way to the kids area we passed a lemonade stand – and being as hot as it was – we would stop and get one lemonade to split between the 2 of us as we walked.

Jazz Fest Kid’s Art Projects

Butterfly Necklace

Take a butterfly cut out (with or without antennae) and color. Once all decorating is done, punch a hole (center, top) and string with ribbon. Tie and put over your head. You now have a lovely, one-of-a-kind butterfly necklace.

Fan

There were two different fans to be made. One, your basic fan and the other a lady bug fan. For either one – you will need the cutout (out of cardboard) and attached to popsicle sticks. For the basic fan – decorate with markers, crayons, glitter, feathers, felt cut-outs and beads, For the lady bug fan – you will need to cut out black circles, triangle and oval and then cut out 2 white circles. Glue on following the picture below.

Red Beans and Rice Art

This was a fun art project. Using a wooden board, red beans, rice, glitter, markers and glue – the kids could let their imagination go. Some made plaques, others picture frames, other just pictures.

One art project was to paint feathers on cardboard. All the feathers over the second weekend were collected and were to be added to a paper maiche mask. Stella ended up doing 2 feathers.

The other project that Stella could not keep the art was the wind sculpture. Kids would paint a cotton square and then they were all added to the sculpture. The kids could come back at the end of the festival and take their creations. Stella did two, but we could only find one of them.

Posted in Kids Crafts | Tagged jazz fest, kids crafts | 1 Comment

When In The South, Must Cook Southern

Posted on May 7, 2012 by simply0637

I decided that since I was in the South I needed to have the new recipe of the week, well be a Southern recipe. I love Southern food, fried, sweet, bread, sauces – yum, yum, yum!! This is the time of year for crayfish boils and one of the sought after items from a boil is the seasoned garlic. This is garlic that has been sitting in the boil water, which means it’s very well seasoned! This recipe uses the same principle, but the garlic is the seasoning agent.

Pasta Baudouin

Ingredients

3-4 heads of Garlic
1 package bow tie pasta
1/4 – 3/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes
1/4 Olive oil
White wine (enough to cover the sun-dried tomatoes)
1/4 – 1/2 tsp of seasoning (your choice of mixed)
1 1/2 pound Shrimp (could be crayfish or omitted)

1. Cut the tops of the garlic heads. Place in a small saucepan and cover with water.

2. Bring the water to a boil, turn down, cover and simmer for about 30 minutes or until the garlic is fork soft. You want to check during the simmer time to make sure that there is water in the pot – you DO NOT want the water to boil away and the garlic to burn to the pan – your house will smell for days!

3. Measure the amount of sun-dried tomatoes you want to use and chopped into smaller pieces.

4. Place the cut sun-dried tomatoes in a bowl and cover, plus half inch, with white wine. If you don’t want to use wine -you can replace with vermouth, water or broth. This is done to re-hydrate them.

5. When the garlic is fork soft, turn the burner off. Let the garlic cool a little. Save about a 1/2 cup of the garlic water for later. Drain the garlic heads and allow to cool so you can handle.

6. Cook the pasta according to the directions.

7. Rinse the shrimp and set aside.

8. In a large saute pan, add the olive oil and squeeze the garlic out of the heads.

9. Heat the oil and cook the garlic until is browns slightly and gets a little thicker.

10. Add the sun-dried tomatoes and wine, stir. The sauce will begin to thicken, similar to a roux. Add your seasoning, stir. To thin the sauce out add some of the garlic water, the amount added is your preference for sauce thickness, more water thinner sauce, less water thicker sauce.

11. Add the shrimp and cook for another 3 – 5 minutes or until the shrimp is cook through. Stirring the mixture so the shrimp cooks evenly.

12. Pour the drained pasta into a pan and cover with the sauce and shrimp. Mix well.

Serve. If you have some really good bread, nice addition, since now you can sop up the extra sauce in your dish. We served with artichokes. Make extra, this is great as leftovers.

Posted in Dinner, Recipes | Tagged garlic, pasta, recipe, shrimp, sundried tomatoes | 3 Comments

Jazz Fest: Fun, Sun, Music and Friends!

Posted on May 4, 2012 by simply0637

I love the New Orleans Jazz Fest. The first time I went was in 1996 on my move from Atlanta to Houston. I went with my sister and we had so much fun – I was hooked. I have tried to go almost every year since then, but of course life does have a way of getting in the way of plans and fun.

I only spent 1 year in Houston and then was transferred to San Francisco, but I made a life long friend – he was my running partner. When you train for marathons, you run for a long time when practicing, a lot of time to learn about each other. Beau, was reluctant at first when I asked him to be my running partner – we worked together and he did not like my work persona, but felt like he could not say no. He decided he liked me outside of work and a friendship was born – also I think he liked the fact that I pretty much talked the whole time we ran, which made the time go by faster. I also became friends with his wife Lorrie, she was our designated driver for our fuel up dinners before a big race, she is also a fellow crafter. Beau is from New Orleans and when they retired they moved from Houston back to New Orleans.

Jazz Fest is always the last weekend in April and the first weekend in May, so it was that time of year again, I was living in San Francisco, but Beau & Lorrie were now in New Orleans – the phone call was made “Hey I am coming for Jazz Fest, can I stay with you guys? What!, you have never been? You need to go!” and that is how a tradition was born. Since then I have only missed a couple of times and Stella loves it – she has been attending since utero and has only missed I think 3 in her 8 years.

Being Silly

Our Potrait Tradition

Having Fun

We have our routine. We figure out what stage we want to be at at the end of the day and that is where we set up our chairs, blanket, etc and that is our home spot. Then it is what food are we going to try and where is it located – they do write ups in the paper of old standbys and new additions, which is very helpful!

Jama Jama and Plantains

Crayfish Tails and Spiced Potatoes

Key Lime Tart

The first day of the second weekend started off with the sun shining and the temperature hot and humid. About an hour after we set up our spot, the clouds came, a breeze started and the temperature seemed to cool, just slightly. The day was filled with fun, food, music and great company!

Stella was picked to dance on stage in the kids tent. It was an song from the opera Hansel and Gretel – she was so excited!

Walking around the festival you come across so many different acts, people, stages, and who knows what…

Dirty Dozen

And of course the music. We set up camp at the Acura stage and were treated to some wonderful music: Hurray For The Riff Raff, Glen Hansard, Honey Island Swamp Band, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band and the finale – Jimmy Buffet with Mac McAnally.

Acura Stage

Jimmy Buffet

Congo Square

And I will leave you with some Jimmy Buffet and the fun that was had!

Posted in Life, Outings | Tagged food, jazz fest, jimmy buffet | 3 Comments

Re-Use A Plastic Bag To Make A Plastic Bag

Posted on May 3, 2012 by simply0637

Do you ever come a cross a recipe, craft, sewing project that you just can’t wait to do/try and then are disappointed with the final outcome? This is one of those projects. When I came across the article on re-using plastic bags to make another plastic bag – I was like oh, yeah! Since I use my own bags when I go shopping it took me awhile to get enough bags to start this project and of course with the waiting came anticipation… This project needs 4 – 8 plastic shopping bags, but the one’s from grocery stores are too flimsy so you need to have the nicer bags that you get from clothing, book, etc. stores. That was even harder since I don’t shop very much – least favorite activity, and I either shop used stores or on-line. I finally accumulated 6 bags, so this past weekend I took out the ironing board and iron and went to work!

Recycled Plastic Lunch Bag

Items Needed

4 – 8 plastic bags, not grocery plastic bags
Iron & board
Scissors
Parchment paper
Ruler
Clothespins
Velcro (optional)

1. Cut the bags down the side seams with scissors and undo the bottom pleat, you want the bags to lie flat.

2. Layer the bags on top of each other and secure with clothespins. The clothespins will keep them from shifting while you are ironing them together. I found that once you started ironing and some of the plastic was fused together you could remove the clothespins.

3. Heat the iron to medium high. Put a layer of parchment paper over the ironing board. (The directions that I had said to use parchment or wax paper. Now common sense told me that wax paper would not work, but I had to try – maybe wax paper and plastic bags don’t melt together? The wax paper did not work – it fused to some of the plastic, but not all of it – glad I had tried it on the inside part of the bag.) Place another piece of parchment over the section that you are ironing. Iron from the center out, ironing each section for 30 – 60 seconds. Let cool, flip and iron the other side. Let cool and check to see that all the plastic fused – if not iron again.

4. Use scissors to trim the plastic fabric to about 9″ wide and 30″ long.

Note: If you want to iron on any designs – do that step now. I decided not to iron on any designs. Just cut out shapes out of the excess of one of the plastic bags (use parchment) and iron on. You can also do a strap – I thought about it, but chose not to.

5. Fold the bag, but do not match up ends – you want to have a flap. On the bottom you want to create a pleat or gusset. The pleat will make for a roomy bag and allow the bag to stand on its own.

6. Flatten the crease and shape the bag. Place a wooden ruler along the edge of the bag about 5/8″ from the edge – this will allow you to fuse the seams and stop the heat from going further along the bag. Make sure that you use the metal ruler edge. Placing the parchment under and on top of the bag – fuse the seams. This will take some ironing on both sides.

Note: I made my bag with 6 layers. One of the bags did not make it to each edge. When I was fusing the seams – I had no problem on the seam that only had 5 layers (10 total), but did have problems with the other seam that had 6 layers (12 total) – No matter how many times I ironed and I even turned the heat up – I could not get the seams to fuse. So I ended up gluing that side of the bag.

7. You can add some velcro to close the flap

So pack your lunch in your new reusable lunch bag and see what conversation it starts at the lunch table!

Posted in Crafts, Recycled, Repurposed | Tagged Making a reusable lunch bag | 3 Comments

Kids Craft Corner – Make A Photo Cube

Posted on May 2, 2012 by simply0637

With Mother’s Day coming up, what better way to show your love for mom than with a homemade gift. I found this link while researching I think business cards – but it looked fun. The kids, who are all pretty computer savvy now a days – whenever I have a problem with my iPhone all I have to do is ask Stella and she fixes it for me, will have no problem figuring this out.

Photo Cube

What you will need

Computer
Printer (preferably color)
Digital photos
Scissors
Glue
Paper – we just used regular printer paper, but you could use a heavier stock

1. Go to this link http://h30393.www3.hp.com/printing/app/us/en/tg_photo_cube-landing.aspx and follow the directions. I have to say that I usually use FireFox for my browser, but ran into problems with uploading the photos – but had not problem with Explorer.

2. Stella used my computer, since that is where most of the photos are stored – so I just showed her how to get to them and she was set.

3. Print the photo cube.

4. Cut, fold, glue and assemble. Stella read the directions and followed them without any help from me.

She had so much fun making one, that she decided to make another! You could make several and make a fun mobile! Her friend Mateo came over after she was done and of course Stella had to show him – he thought they were cool. It was so cute listening to her explain to Mateo how to make it!

Posted in Kids Crafts | 3 Comments

The Prepping Has Begun

Posted on May 1, 2012 by simply0637

I love the start of the garden beds, getting your hands dirty, feeling the energy of the earth after the winter, know that you are nurturing the soil so in turn the vegetables grown will nurture your body and just seeing the transformation. After the accident in December I had my work cut out for me in preparing some of the garden beds. There was still debris in the soil, the dirt had been turned over with the putting up of the new fence, which also meant rocks, roots, etc, the garden dividers had been moved, broken, toppled – so first thing was to go through and pull the dead plants, pull roots and get any accident debris. Check!

Then it was off to the garden store to purchase some organic garden soil and compost. Last fall I had layered compost on the beds and turned them – so I am sure the compost is buried deep in the ground – but the beautiful black soil that I had in the beds is now a brown and some even palomino colored soil – ugh!

The organic soil and compost has been poured and raked across the bed. Now I hand till it – love this part, mixing the soil and an upper body work out – fantastic! Wanted to get this part done before the rains came. The weather forecast was predicting 5 days of rain – so I want it all to mix together and get rid of the clumps.

The rains came and I am so glad that I got everything done that I did. I usually will start my seeds inside, but this year we traveled a couple of weekends in April and will be gone for a week in the beginning of May and then again at the end of May. I would have had to get one of my neighbors to come over twice a day and spritz. etc the seedlings. I wanted to get the beds ready so that when we are back I could direct sow – and if we get a freeze I will still have time to direct sow again. Over this last weekend we did get a slight freeze. First I made my rows, breaking up any clumps, pulling more debris, removing rocks and roots.

I always plant some marigolds in between the rows, natural pest repellant.

Next, I raid my neighbors recycling bin for newspaper and cut it into strips. I place 2 or 3 pieces of newspapers between each row and cover with mulch. This helps keep the weeds at bay and keep the moisture in. So now I am ready when I get back next week to plant some of the seeds. I have one more bed to prep, but that one does not need as much work.

Posted in Garden | Tagged Garden, garden beds | 3 Comments

Parmesan Cheese Coated Flounder with Kale Chips

Posted on April 30, 2012 by simply0637

They had some beautiful flounder at the market, so I bought it, but wanted to do something different than what I usually do. Usually I grilled the flounder with some butter and lemon – but not wanting to grill I need another way to prepare it. I cam across a recipe on www.allrecipes.com and taking the basis of that recipe I changed it up a bit. I recently read an article about spices that are beneficial and that you should try and add to your diet – one of those spices being thyme. The market was out of fresh thyme and there is none in the herb garden yet – so I ended up using dried thyme.

Thyme has antimicrobial properties and the oil has been found to be effective against shigella, staph and E. coli. Thyme is a good digestion aid, helping to reduce gas and other discomfort and it is good for the hair and scalp. To add into your diet you should use a teaspoon of fresh or 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of dried thyme three times a week.

Parmesan Cheese Coated Flounder with Kale Chips

Ingredients

2 lbs. of flounder (review the Seafood Watch listing for what kind to purchase)
2 Tbl lemon juice
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup butter, melted
3 Tbl mayonnaise (I used an organic, full fat mayonnaise)
1 tsp dried thyme (I crushed it in my hand before adding)
1/4 tsp salt

To make kale chips, see previous blog posting http://simplyrurban.com/?p=273

1. Line a baking dish with tin foil and coat with oil – I used my misto which is filled with olive oil.

2. Rinse the fillets and place on the tin foil. Brush with lemon juice.

3. In a small saucepan melt the butter, allow to cool slightly.

4. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

5. Add the mayonnaise and whip to mix.

6. Add the cheese and mix well.

7. Add the thyme and mix.

8. Brush the cheese mixture on each fillet.

9. Bake for 15 minutes or until the fish flakes with a fork easily. If you want the topping a little more brown – turn the oven to broil and broil for about 2 – 3 minutes.

Serve with kale chips or vegetable of your choice. Stella loved this – telling me it tasted like mac and cheese. Mateo, who was over even tried it and loved it – he is not one to try new food easily, he was a little hesitant, but once he tried it he wanted more!

Posted in Dinner, Recipes | Tagged dinner, flounder, recipe | 3 Comments

The Lasting Bouquet

Posted on April 27, 2012 by simply0637

I have a very dear friend that just recently had a big birthday. I know that she loves flowers, so I decided to make her a bouquet that would last and last. How you ask and so glad that you did ask – I made a bouquet of felted flowers. I have never done felted flowers before – so this was a learn as you go project. I had great aspiration to make 5 different flowers, but only ended up making 3 – they took longer than I thought they would.

I am not sure if my directions/explanations of how to make the felted flowers was enough – so I have included a lot more pictures than usual. Enjoy the picture creation.

Felted Flowers

Items Needed

Wool roving of different colors
Felting needle
Felting pad
Pipe cleaners
Vase

1. Decide what colors you will need and what type of flowers you will be making. The only flower that resembled a true flower was the daffodil and that came to me – well because we had some in a vase on the dinner table. Since purple is Jane’s favorite color I had to have a purple one. The pink one I thought was just “happy”

2. With some wool roving fold it over 2 or three times – so that the fibers cross. With your felting needle felt the outline of the flower and then felt the inside. Fold the roving outside of your design needle edge and using the needle felt it into the pedal shape.

Layered

Outline

Folding Over

3. Once you have the petal pretty well felted you need to really shape it. Felt the side and really felt the petal until it is firm, but not too firm.

4. Using your felting needle you can now add some character to the petal – showing a definition in the petal and also make them curve. Add a little color to the center of the petal if you like.

5. To add a curve to the petal – where you want the petal to curve use your needle and felt a row – this will cause the fibers to interlock more and pull the other part of the petal up or down, depending on where you do the line.

Making the Purple Flower

Felted Petal

Shaping the Petal

Shaping the Inside

Adding Color

Final Shaping

Making the Daffodil

Felted

Shaped

Start of Center

Center Felted

Daffodil

6. Attach the petals, either to each other or to a center. This is done by felting the pieces together. Place the petals together and using your needle poke it several times – this will interlock the fibers. This is how you would also attach to a center.

7. To make the stem you will need a pipe cleaner. I folded the bottom of the piper cleaner to give it a heavier base. With green roving, wrap the pipe cleaner. Roll the pipe cleaner that has been wrapped in roving and this will secure it. For the top and bottom – using your felting needle to felt the roving together and cover the ends of the piper cleaner. Place the pipe cleaner on the back of the flower and attach with your felting needle – poking and poking the needle until the fiber have attached to one another.

8. Place the flowers in a vase and bend the pipe cleaner stems whichever way you want.

Posted in Crafts, Felting | Tagged felted flowers, felting, flowers | 4 Comments

No Bake Granola Bars

Posted on April 26, 2012 by simply0637

We continue our quest for non store purchased snack foods. Soccer has started back up so a snack is needed for practice day and game day, along with our other outdoor activities. The quinoa bars went quick and I will definitely being making those again, but of course wanted to try another recipe I came across for non-bake chewy granola bars. There were a couple of things that I liked about this recipe – no corn syrup (yeah!), no baking (so great for the summer) and that the goodies could be mix and matched and changed up.

No Bake Chewy Granola Bars (thank you to: http://heavenlyhomemakers.com/homemade-chewy-granola-bars-without-corn-syrup)

Ingredients

1/2 cup peanut butter or sunbutter
1/3 cup honey
1/4 cup coconut butter or olive oil
1 cups oats
1 cup combination of dried fruits, seeds, nuts, coconut flakes, chocolate chips, flaxseed

1. In a saucepan, melt together the peanut butter, honey and coconut oil. We used sunflower butter.

2. Once melted, turn the heat off and add the oats.

3. Choose your combination of goodies and mix and match to equal 1 cup total – stir into the oat mixture.

4. Spread evenly into an 8×8 or 9×4 pan.

5. Place in the refrigerator and chill for at least 2 hours. Cut into bars, wrap in plastic wrap or parchment paper and store in the fridge.

These are DELICIOUS!!! Very rich, so small squares are the way to go. They need to stay cool or they get a little sticky. Everyone who has tried them, LOVES them! Can’t wait to make them this summer – a nice snack that is refreshingly, sweet and satisfying – perfect for those hot days!

Posted in Recipes, Snacks | Tagged granola bars, snack | 3 Comments

Kids Craft Corner – Toilet Paper Roll Bracelets

Posted on April 25, 2012 by simply0637

Start of Toilet Paper Girl

For some reason I just cannot make myself put the toilet paper rolls into the recycling! They just call out to me, save me, re-use me! We have a drawer that is overflowing with them and I am always trying to figure out what to do with them. This past weekend we went to the Green Festival New York and Stella made a person out of one, very cool – other kids made pen/pencil holders from them. I think the possibilities are limited only by imagination! This week we decided to make some fashionable bracelets out of them.

Toilet Paper Roll Bracelets

Items Needed

Toilet paper rolls
Scissors
Glue
Tissue paper, beads, gems, beans, macaroni (whatever you have on hand)

1. Cut the toilet paper roll length wise.

2. Cut the width you would like your bracelet to be. Stella decided she wanted hers the whole thing – she was already preparing for next Halloween, she wants to be an Egyptian princess and they wear large bracelets.

3. Using whatever decorative items you have on hand – let your imagination run wild. We both decided to first cover our bracelet with paper and decoupage glue.

4. Next, for Stella was beads and for me was beans and beads.

They turned out really nice and I am sure if I wore mine most people would not be able to guess that the core was a toilet paper roll!

Posted in Kids Crafts | Tagged jewelry, recycle art, toilet paper rolls | 2 Comments

Kids Craft Corner – Jazz Fest Style

When In The South, Must Cook Southern

Jazz Fest: Fun, Sun, Music and Friends!

Re-Use A Plastic Bag To Make A Plastic Bag

Kids Craft Corner – Make A Photo Cube

The Prepping Has Begun

Parmesan Cheese Coated Flounder with Kale Chips

The Lasting Bouquet

No Bake Granola Bars

Kids Craft Corner – Toilet Paper Roll Bracelets

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