Most of us are acutely aware of our own struggles and we are preoccupied with our own problems. We sympathize with ourselves because we see our own difficulties so clearly. But Ian MacLaren noted wisely, “Let us be kind to one another, for most of us are fighting a hard battle.”

I didn’t plan to post anything but my “Things” post this weekend, but something happened on Thursday and Friday that made me feel the need to write this. I generally try to keep things light and personally related to me on Karacooks. But this subject hurt my heart.

On Thursday I made (admittedly) a rather pissy negative comment on a blog whose author posted some serious fat hate, along with a blanket condemnation of all fast food as being (paraphrased) the 7th level of hell. She retaliated by writing an entire followup blog post lecturing me on how I’m the model for fat acceptance, misquoting me, and basically just going to town on how I’m an ignorant idiot and she’s right. I’m not going to say who or link to it because I’ve unsubscribed to that blog and ultimately it doesn’t matter.

What I want to say is this. I’ve been fat. Very very very fat. I’m 5’4″ and I once weighed 267 lbs. I probably weighed more, but there was a long period that I didn’t step on the scales. The first time I weighed myself as part of a conscious decision to lose weight, I had been going to the gym and eating well for about 4 weeks and that scale said 267, so I go with that for my start weight.

I lost 100 lbs. I gained some of it back (20 lbs). I lost again and then gained a little back again. Right now I”m in the process of losing again and getting back to working out on a more regular basis.

I know what it’s like to be fat. I know what it’s like to see people staring at you, judging what’s in your shopping cart, judging when you put food in your mouth or sip from a can of soda (even if it’s diet soda and sometimes especially if it’s diet soda). I know what it’s like to have to ask for the belt extender on the airplane. To not fit into the theater seats. To not be able to bend over to tie my shoe and instead have to prop my foot up on the table and huff and puff. I know how embarrassing it is to go shopping with slim, fit friends and not be able to try on the same clothes in the same store.

I remember a humiliating conversation with a size 2 friend of mine who had just advised a room full of photographers to dress a certain way. Someone in the audience had asked her “what do you do if the stores you shop at don’t sell those kinds of clothes?” Later she asked me “what was that person talking about?” and I had to explain to her that the clothes that were available for the size 24 me were vastly, drastically different than the clothes available for the size 2 her – and that designer jeans rarely went above size 10-12. She was floored and we were both embarrassed.

I have been called horrible names for being fat. I have been told that my past boyfriends and lovers were the type to (and I quote) “throw flour and f*** the wet spots”. Trust me, I’ve heard and experienced all of the fat hate that it’s possible to experience.

I don’t accept fat. I don’t believe in the “healthy at any size” mantra. I don’t think being fat is healthy physically or emotionally for anyone. But I KNOW the pain of being fat and not knowing how to get out of it. I know how hard it is to take that first step, to say no when someone offers you a food you love, to get out there and exercise when you are uncoordinated and you sweat just changing into your gym clothes. To go to a gym and feel that everyone is staring at you saying “how dare SHE come here” or “what does she think she’s accomplishing with her walking on the treadmill”.

I believe in being honest and direct. If your friend is eating fast food 4x a week and complaining that she just can’t lose weight – then yes, absolutely, say something. Gently and with kindness, but honestly. Tell them that you can’t lose weight eating a double cheesburger and fries 4x a week. If someone is fooling themselves by eating strawberry shortcake and claiming “but it’s good for me – it’s fruit” – be direct with them. Tell them, you’re lying to yourself and deep inside you know it. If someone is following fad diet after fad diet and not being real about what they’re doing, call them out – with KINDNESS.

But I don’t believe that ANYONE should ever ever ever ever be shamed for being fat. Ever. Being fat is hard. Changing your whole life to not be fat is hard. You have to choose your hard when you’re ready.

And you know what, eating a grilled chicken sandwich at Wendy’s isn’t going to make anyone fat.

[ Fighting a Hard Battle is a post from kara cooks. All content is © Kara Hudson and karacooks.com. If you are reading this anywhere but in a feed reader, it has been scraped without my permission. The use of this feed or any kara cooks content on any other website is a violation of copyright. ]

This is going to be a really quick post while I’m waiting for Z to finish up at work so we can head to the airport. (Yay for free wireless in hotels!).

Although I follow a lot of PF blogs and spend a lot of time talking to PF bloggers on Twitter, blogging about personal finance never has been my thing. It still isn’t, so you’re not going to find me posting debt payoffs or balance sheets or any of those things. Lately, however, my spending has been a bit out of control. Between new furniture, house projects, new clothes, new photography equipment, and oh-so-many other things that I’ve spent money on since the beginning of this year, I’ve gone a little overboard! This trip to NYC didn’t help much either. I had budgeted for it and I’m not at all upset about the amount of money I’ve spent here, but now I’ve had my fling and it’s time to rein things in.

I know a lot of PF bloggers do “no spend” days/weeks/months, but I can’t get behind those. In my own mind they don’t work because it just seems that it’s either buying things in advance and stocking up or waiting and then buying things after the no-spend period is over. To me that seems counterproductive. Instead I’m going to put myself on a spending diet: I will budget exactly what I need to pay my bills, buy groceries, and allow myself a daily amount of discretionary spending (in the realm of $5 or so), but other than that, for the rest of the month of May (and possibly into June), the outflow of money will be minimized.

For me that means: No buying lunches out at work, no random pedicures because I’ve had a bad day, no last minute deciding not to cook and ordering in, no picking up a bottle of wine on a whim on the way home, and especially NO KINDLE BOOK BUYING (my biggest unrealized money sink).

With any luck, the additional benefit to the spending diet plan is that I’ll buckle down and finish some of the projects that I have half done around the house, instead of spending time and money on starting new ones.

I have about 5 more hours in NYC and will be spending some money on gifts for friends back home (and probably coffee at the airport) and after that … it’s back to real, normal, CHEAP life.

Wish me luck!!

PS – Huge shout out to Katie at Girl With the Red Balloon for talking me through the idea last week. It had time to percolate in the back of my mind while I’ve been vacationing and I know I’m ready to take the plunge when I get home!

[ Getting control of my money! is a post from kara cooks. All content is © Kara Hudson and karacooks.com. If you are reading this anywhere but in a feed reader, it has been scraped without my permission. The use of this feed or any kara cooks content on any other website is a violation of copyright. ]

I know it’s been a slower than normal posting week, even for me! There’s a reason I promise – it’s even a good one. My sweetie is working in NYC this week and invited me to join him, so after verifying with my day job that I could work remotely, I did. It’s not a full vacation, since he has to go train his client every day until 5:30 and I have to be logged on for at least 6-7 hours a day to keep a handle on my projects.  But it’s still a chance to travel together, to spend evenings hanging out in one of my favorite cities, and to build some memories.

I used to do a lot more travelling – both for business and personal reasons – and for some reason the last couple of years I haven’t gotten away from home as much. This trip has made me realize how much I’ve missed it and how much I want to do more!

I’ll have more thoughts on NYC, some photos, and a few reviews coming at the end of this week, but until then here are a few photos to hold you over.

I’m one of those people who fall asleep on a plane in a heartbeat, so I slept through most of the flight, waking up just in time to see us cruising in past the city.

The hotel we’re staying at is right across the street from the World Trade Center Memorial and all the new construction. I wandered up to the restaurant on the 20th floor and snapped a few quick photos of the view to either side.

Sunday night I visited the 9/11 Memorial. It’s a beautiful setting; despite all the people it was calm and peaceful. The trees and the grass are still young and new and they’re roped off to allow them to take root and grow, but I can see in a few years the area is going to be be lush and green and a lovely place to come spend some quiet time.

The fountains themselves are enormous (reflecting the footing size of the buildings that fell on 9/11) and with the names etched into the surrounds, they’re both gorgeous and sobering.

I had a lot of mixed feelings visiting the Memorial and I still don’t really have the words to write about it. The last couple of times I was in NYC prior to this, the area was still a big construction hole in the ground and I avoided visiting because at the time it felt morbid and disrespectful. This time with the Memorial in place, it felt different and I’m glad I went. It was 12 years ago, and I didn’t lose anyone close to me, but I still remember very vividly where I was the exact moment the attacks happened. I suspect anyone who was a teenager or adult in the US probably feels the same way.

The Friday before we arrived, they had just raised the top spire on One WTC. Even this picture, taken from the side of the South fountain, can’t convey the sheer size of the building. It’s enormous and impressive and in it’s own way, quite beautiful.

Anyway … there’s my “to date” recap on why I’ve been silent this week. I have a bunch more photos and some reviews and ideas for other NYC travellers as well. Tonight I’m going to meet some online friends in real-life for beer and grilled cheese (yay!) and then take my sweetie for an early birthday dinner at a nice steakhouse.

I’ll post more later, I promise!

[ A week in New York is a post from kara cooks. All content is © Kara Hudson and karacooks.com. If you are reading this anywhere but in a feed reader, it has been scraped without my permission. The use of this feed or any kara cooks content on any other website is a violation of copyright. ]

Right about the time this post goes up, I should be on a plane on my way to NYC. I’m really excited. I haven’t been to the city in almost exactly 5 years – since I treated myself to 10 days there for my 40th birthday. I’m even more excited to be there with my sweetheart. It’s a business trip for him, so I’ll be on my own during the day while he’s doing his thing. I plan to dial in to work a few hours each day, but for the most part, I’ll be out and about and enjoying myself.

Things that I did this past week

• Washed, cleaned, and detailed my car.
• Worked more hours than I had planned to (52).
• Cleaned the holy hell out of my house (I hate coming back from vacation to a dirty house).

Things that I want to do this coming week

• Enjoy NYC with my sweetheart (and surprise him with an early birthday dinner).
• Get 4 images in NY to add to my Etsy store cards/images.
• Run 3x (3 miles each time) at least once outside in NYC
• Workout in the hotel gym at least 2x.
• Write 10 blog draft posts to schedule for later.

Things that made me laugh

•  The gigantic rubber duck made it to Hong Kong Harbour.

Things that are interesting

• A NYTimes editorial on why one man pays his employees what he pays them.
• Awesome posters from some geeky things and a lot of Coen Bros. things.
• 20 Things I Wish I’d Known in my 30′s – by Kareem Abdul-Jabar
• Is antibacterial soap safe? The FDA is analysing.
• Living a year without the Internet. I’m not sure I could do it.

 Things I want to cook

•  Thai style loaded baked sweet potatoes. Z happened to look over my shoulder and see this and said “make that!”
• Baked ricotta with lemon, garlic, and chives. Maybe for the baby shower?
• Marinara baked eggs with salsa verde. I’ve never baked an egg before. I want to try.
• Rice noodle bowl with shrimp and veggies. I want to learn to make more Asian-style dishes.

[ Week 18 2013 – Things is a post from kara cooks. All content is © Kara Hudson and karacooks.com. If you are reading this anywhere but in a feed reader, it has been scraped without my permission. The use of this feed or any kara cooks content on any other website is a violation of copyright. ]

Monday night I was getting ingredients for dinner out of the pantry and happened to catch a glimpse of the jar of sauerkraut that was supposed to be merrily fermenting away. Saturday night it looked fine. Monday it looked like this. Ugly, no?

I”m not sure what happened. All the recipes I read said that as long as the cabbage stayed submerged in liquid, it would be fine. My guess is that over the course of a few days the liquid covering the cabbage began to evaporate and the cabbage that became exposed, started to mold? When I poured out the moldy part, the pale cabbage at the bottom smelled a little like a properly pickled kraut. So I’m thinking it had to be about the level of liquid.

I know that the cabbage has to be exposed to air for a little bit to pick up the natural yeasts and bacteria that help the fermenting process. Do I cover the jar after a few days to stop the evaporation? Do I add more liquid and if so what do I add? Plain water? Vinegar? Brine? I’m going to have to do more research. If anyone has any ideas, please leave them in the comments. I’m determined to try this again and make it work.

[ Sauerkraut Fail is a post from kara cooks. All content is © Kara Hudson and karacooks.com. If you are reading this anywhere but in a feed reader, it has been scraped without my permission. The use of this feed or any kara cooks content on any other website is a violation of copyright. ]

Let’s get back to some food around here!

I love squash. All squash. Zucchini. Yellow squash. Spaghetti squash. Butternut squash. Pumpkin. And any squash left unnamed. But one of my favorites for ease of preparation and flavor is acorn squash. There are so many things you can do with it – stuff it, mash it, or … like below, just plain roast it.

Start by slicing your squash into rounds. Be careful – the skin isn’t terribly thick, but the ridges and the wobbly shape of the squash make slicing it a little tricky. Once you get the first cut into the skin, it slices pretty easily. Cut them about 1/2 inch thick, but don’t worry if they’re not exact.

Scoop out the seeds with a spoon. They can be washed and roasted just like pumpkin seeds if you’re so inclined. I don’t bother, to be honest, because there aren’t enough of them from a single squash to mess with.

Arrange them on a baking sheet. (Mine is old, dirty, and sticky, so I line it with foil. A newer pan or a silpat works well too.) Spray or drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and a liberal grind of pepper, and roast at 375 for 20-25 mins (depending on the thickness of the slices). Notice the 2 wedges cut from the very end of the squash that were too wobbly to cut circles out of. They roast nicely, too, as long as they’re not too big.

And voila! Perfect roasted squash rounds which are pretty as well as yummy. Plus you can make any spicy variation of these that you want. I’ve seasoned them with paprika, chili powder, sage and rosemary, garlic salt, onion salt … pretty much the sky is the limit. The flesh of the acorn squash is mild and ever so slightly sweet, so it takes well to almost any seasoning.

1 cup of the flesh of the squash (about half the squash) has 54 calories, 14g carbs, and 1.2g protein, so a great part of a healthy meal.

[ Roasted Acorn Squash is a post from kara cooks. All content is © Kara Hudson and karacooks.com. If you are reading this anywhere but in a feed reader, it has been scraped without my permission. The use of this feed or any kara cooks content on any other website is a violation of copyright. ]

So this was supposed to be a Sunday post and I … um … well, I sorta slacked it off yesterday. Some blogger I am. Here it is on Monday instead.

I made the phyllo cups above as a test for a baby shower that I’ll be cooking for in June.  They are fabulous right out of the oven, but unfortunately they get soggy sitting overnight, so they won’t work for the shower. Still … they were yummy and pretty easy and I’ll keep them in reserve for some other event!

Things that I did this past week

• Photographed the Hambidge Art Auction at the Goat Farm.
• Finally taught myself how to properly sear scallops (and then ate them twice during the week).
• Cleaned out my fridge (all except for the veggie bin which is scaring me).
• Made the cutest ever baby shower invitations for a librarian friend.
• Finalized my participation in a bridal show at the Fox Theater.

Things that I want to do this coming week

• Lift weights a minimum of 2x.
• Clean out my car (again) because the layer of pollen has reappeared.
• Pull a dozen images to get printed for the bridal show.
• Get my house cleaned.
• Stop freaking spending money!!!

Things that made me laugh

• What your coffee says about you. Because people who say “expresso” make me ragey!
• Humor for photographers. Sarcastic photog business humor for the win.
• How to exercise with your cats. (vide0)  There are more in the series – the one about walking your human is also very cute!

Things that are interesting

• I didn’t mark anything to save on my Feedly reader this week. I can’t remember if that means I didn’t find anything particularly interesting or if I was just lazy and uninvolved. I’m kind of leaning towards the latter. I’ll do better next week, I promise.

 Things I want to cook

• Preserving cookbooks. Not a recipe – but these three books look like ones I’d love to have to cook from.
• Stuffed Roasted Poblano Peppers. I love chiles rellenos, and this looks like it would be a yummy variation.
• Marinara Baked Eggs w/ Salsa Verde. Need I say more?
• Carnitas. I’m still introducing my sweetie to true home cooked Mexican and Tex-Mex. He would love these.

[ Week 17 2013 – Things is a post from kara cooks. All content is © Kara Hudson and karacooks.com. If you are reading this anywhere but in a feed reader, it has been scraped without my permission. The use of this feed or any kara cooks content on any other website is a violation of copyright. ]

Using the weekly ad from my 2 closest grocery stores (Publix and Kroger), I did my own comparison.

• 2 lbs chicken breasts – from the sale flyer $2.49 per pound, so a total of $4.98
• 10 lbs potatos – from the sale flyer a 5# bag for $2.99, so that would be 10# for $5.98
• 8 ears of corn – from the sale flyer 5 ears for $2, so 8 ears = $3.20
• 1 pound peaches – peaches were not on sale, but gala apples (about 3 apples) are $1.69 / lb or pears at $1.59 /lb
• 1 gallon skim milk – couldn’t find it on sale, but last week I paid $5.49 a gallon for non-organic milk
• 1 pound 96% lean beef – from the sale flyer lean ground beef $4.99 / lb (ground round is also on sale at $3.99 / lb but also fattier)
• 32 oz tub yogurt – from the sale flyer 16oz tub = $3.99, so two would be $7.98
• 18 oz cannister of oats – currently BOGO from the sale flyer for $2.85
• 2 lbs frozen sweet peas – store brand frozen veggies at my store run $0.99 for the 12 oz bag, so that’s about $2.60 for 2 lbs.
• 1 pound dried kidney beans – $2.99 (pinto beans are cheaper at $2.49 per lb)

So taking the figures above which are using SALE prices I come up with a total of $42.15 plus tax

That’s over double the claimed price of $19.54, above.

This is why people kick back against the idea of buying whole foods and eating healthier. Misleading information doesn’t convert people, it just makes them dig in their heels more. I am a big proponent of healthy eating – whole foods over processed or fast foods especially – but food shaming and providing bad information isn’t the way to do it.

A much better way to look at this is to say that you could spend that $42 in the grocery store and from those foods you could make anywhere from 3-5 healthy dinners for a family of 4. (Mind you if one of those 4 is a teenage boy, all bets are off! ).

Comparatively, $12-$14 for a healthy home-cooked meal is still FAR better than $19 for an over-processed  greasy, salty fast food meal. But it’s not the drastic savings that the image above claims.

So how do we convince people – not shame them into it but convince them – that healthy eating is cheaper and doesn’t take much more time than going out to buy the food to begin with?

I think a first step is to stop lying about what things cost. Milk is expensive, especially if you’re feeding children. Chicken breast is expensive. Fresh fruit and veggies are expensive if eaten out of season … and perishable. Plus many people who are on limited budgets don’t have the time or the resources to drive to 3 different grocery stores to find the best possible sales prices each week. Let’s be realistic about the costs and the time needed to eat healthy – and instead encourage people to make it a priority instead of shaming and misleading them.

[ Healthy Eating Costs and Food Shame is a post from kara cooks. All content is © Kara Hudson and karacooks.com. If you are reading this anywhere but in a feed reader, it has been scraped without my permission. The use of this feed or any kara cooks content on any other website is a violation of copyright. ]

There are so many random things that fit into my week that I love to share with people (and sometimes I do on Twitter or via chat). I think I’m going to start sharing them here on Sundays, as well as just some random thoughts from the week. Nothing crucial or important or earth shattering, just a little bit of a roundup.

This week has sucked. I think I can say uncategorically that it has. We’ve had bombings, shootings, explosions of factories, earthquakes (multiple), congressional idiocy, on a national level; and new tires and freaking insane coworkers on a personal one. I’m glad it’s over, but even as I say that I know for many people the effects this week are just beginning to be felt and understood. My heart goes out to them.

Things that I did this past week

• Took an afternoon off work on Tuesday and spent it with my sweetie doing nothing more than hanging out on the back patio, sipping on some iced tea, watching the birds, and talking about life.
• Made saurkraut. Ok started to make it, since it’s a 3 week fermentation process, from everything I’ve read. I’m excited!
• Cleaned out my closet. Packed away all the winter clothing, set aside things to go to the cleaners, sent some items off to Goodwill, got things organized for the Great Closet Redo of 2013 that will happen at some point this summer.
• Cleaned up my workout area in the corner of my room … because I have to get back to working out.
• Worked a lot. I’m assigned to a new project at work and it’s good to learn new things, but right now I’m out of my depth and having to put in more hours to keep up.

Things that I want to do this coming week

• Figure out how to automatically push my blog posts to my Karacooks FB page (surely there must be an easier way!)
• Run 5 miles (cumulative)
• Clean out my car and detail it (the pollen has seeped through the cracks and the entire inside of my car is a pale yellow)
• Ship off my next set of slides to be scanned.

Things that made me laugh

• Big Cats Like Boxes Too (video) Anyone who has cats can relate to this.
• Cat Licks Vacuum Cleaner Hose (video) The bit at about 28 seconds had me laughing out loud.
• Sounds that have disappeared in the last decade.  This made me feel old!

Things that are interesting

• Wriging out a Washcloth in Space (video: actually Cmdr Hadfield’s entire video series on how things work in space is worth watching)
• The Central Park Five is a Ken Burns film about the five teens who were wrongly convicted of the Central Park Jogger rape in ’89. You should watch it.
• Why hitting the snooze alarm is bad. I’m a bad snooze alarm-er and I need to break the habit!
• How to freeze food in canning jars. Everytime I’ve tried it, the jars have broken. Now I know why.

 Things I want to cook

• Cheddar & Jalapeno Muffins
• Roasted Parmesan Creamed Onions
• Pimento Cheese
• Swedish Meatballs (I have a fabulous recipe and I’m craving them)

[ Week 16 2013 – Things is a post from kara cooks. All content is © Kara Hudson and karacooks.com. If you are reading this anywhere but in a feed reader, it has been scraped without my permission. The use of this feed or any kara cooks content on any other website is a violation of copyright. ]

A few weeks ago Z and I spent an evening at Ormbsy’s, playing bocce, and hanging out. If you’re in Atlanta and have never been – go. It’s loads of fun to hang out, try new beers, and meet new people. Plus they have fabulous food. The calamari and shrimp is one of my favorites.

Z is a meal guy and wasn’t prepared to subsist on appetizers and snacks alone, so he ordered the “art of the reuben” sandwich, described on the menu as: “piled with corned beef, sauerkraut, swiss cheese, & thousand island on grilled pumpernickel”. Holy yum! I’m not much of a sandwich person myself, but I wound up eating almost half of his it was so good. And the thing that I loved the best about it was the crunchy, tart, very simple sauerkraut that was thickly layered on the sandwich.

I’ve been thinking about it ever since. This week I finally decided that it would be fun to try to make my own. I don’t know why, but for some reason I thought it would be difficult, requiring lots of ingredients and steps. But every recipe I found said pretty much the same thing: cabbage, salt … let ferment. Some of them included things like juniper berries, sugar, poppy seeds, etc., but most were dead simple. So today I started a small batch of sauerkraut. Stay tuned for the results.

Start out by thinly slicing a head of cabbage (I used a half a head for this experiment). I also turned the head 90 deg and sliced these slices in half to make them easier to pack into a jar.

Then I tossed the cabbage with  2 tsp of pickling salt and 1 tsp of poppy seeds (because I had them).

Then I packed everything into a wide mouthed canning jar. I covered the top with a layer of cheesecloth (loosely), then put a small mouth lid over that and weighed it down with a can of beans. I pushed hard to pack everything down firmly. As you can see from the top photo, the cabbage was already beginning to release some liquid.

According to the recipes I read, by tomorrow the cabbage should have released enough liquid to completely cover things (and if it hasn’t I can add a little water). Then I just have to let it sit in a cool, dark place for about 3 weeks to ferment.

Fingers crossed!! Check back around May 11 to see what’s happened.

[ Making Sauerkraut – Part 1 is a post from kara cooks. All content is © Kara Hudson and karacooks.com. If you are reading this anywhere but in a feed reader, it has been scraped without my permission. The use of this feed or any kara cooks content on any other website is a violation of copyright. ]

One of my 101 for 2013 goals includes cleaning out that storage closet, installing some proper shelving, and getting it organized. And this past weekend, I finally did it. I’m just going to jump right in and post a before and after so you can see the difference.

I’d actually already removed a good bit of stuff from the closet when I remembered to stop and take a before picture. Probably just as well since really the “before” state of the closet was risky to life and limb. You can see in the before picture the big, bulky plastic shelf unit that was taking up so much space was a part of the problem.

You can see some of the stuff removed from the closet on the left, and the swept and de-cobwebbed closet on the right on the above photo. Below is everything removed from the closet and the trash bin rolled around back to handle the junk. Yes, this is me being honest about my storage mess!

I was trying to figure out the best system to use in the closet without spending hundreds of $$ on it. I have a ton of leftover Elfa shelving from when we lived in the hold house, so I did a little research and found out that the Rubbermade brand of wall shelving was compatible with the Elfa standards. Whoo! A quick trip to Lowe’s landed me the 40″ hanging rail that I needed for the inside of the closet. Cost: $12.

H helped me use the bolt cutters to cut down the 72″ long shelving to the 40″ that I needed to fit across the back wall of the storage closet.

Hanging the rail was quick and easy – 1 needed 4 drywall mounting screws and 1 2″ wood screw (to screw into the center stud). Then 2 of my existing Elfa rails and 5 of the 16″ deep shelves finished the job. I measured up 22″ from the ground to allow room to store the deep fryer box, and then spaced the remaining shelves 10 “spaces” apart each, counting up the brackets on the rails.

And again… here’s the before and the after. Doesn’t it look SO much better?

I had one full trash container and 3 boxes of junk to donate/offer on Freecycle. The ladder was mounted on “over the door” hangers on the inside of the door, so it doesn’t have to be moved every time I need to get something from the closet. All my painting and home project stuff is in the big blue Rubbermaid bin, all my gardening stuff is on the shelf below that, and all the household tools, bit sets, and so forth are on the next shelf down.

And my patio is *almost* ready for summer grilling and hanging out – I just need to get rid of that ugly brown shelf and we’ll be good to go!

Plus, it’s one more item I can cross off my 101 list! Go me!!

[ Cleaning out the storage closet is a post from kara cooks. All content is © Kara Hudson and karacooks.com. If you are reading this anywhere but in a feed reader, it has been scraped without my permission. The use of this feed or any kara cooks content on any other website is a violation of copyright. ]

Of course before long I had to put down the book and pick up my camera.

The sage is getting ready to bloom. I love having sage flowers in vases in the house. They have such a unique smell.

The rosemary is growing like crazy. I have always had a rosemary plant by my front door, wherever I’ve lived. The old wives tale says a thriving rosemary plant at the entrance to a home indicates a strong woman lives there.

The roses are going crazy; there are already 20+ buds and I know that one day I’m going to step outside and it’ll be a riot of red blooms. And the geraniums are recovering from the last frost and putting out flowers and that spicy geranium scent!

This guy showed up on my back patio the other day. Ok, well .. I brought him over from Garden Ridge. He makes me smile. This weekend he’s getting hung on the wall next to the sliding glass door.

In the back garden the mint is suddenly running wild.

The strawberries are starting to send up pale green leaves and shoots.

Isn’t he cute? I love him so much!!

The lemon tree and the fig tree both have beautiful pale green baby leaves sprouting.

This is what happens when you let a house kitty outside (supervised) on the first really nice day of spring. She thinks she’s a jungle cat!! 

[ It’s Spring! is a post from kara cooks. All content is © Kara Hudson and karacooks.com. If you are reading this anywhere but in a feed reader, it has been scraped without my permission. The use of this feed or any kara cooks content on any other website is a violation of copyright. ]

I’m so excited that our farmer’s market opens this weekend. I didn’t go much last year – I just got out of the habit. I’m looking forward to going regularly this year and eating more fresh, local fruits and veggies.

This past week I did a photoshoot with some friends of mine. We combined a girls’ brunch with a makeover/photo session and it was a blast. It reminds me that we need to do this more often.

I agreed to do some cooking for a baby shower for a friend of mine and so I started a Pinterest board for recipe and snack ideas. Any one have any thoughts or suggestions? I have no idea what the guest list will be like right now, so how many things I make and how much of them is kind of up in the air, but I’d like a mix of sweet and savory.

Finally, why have I never watched Dark Shadows before now?

[ Farmers Market & Randomness is a post from kara cooks. All content is © Kara Hudson and karacooks.com. If you are reading this anywhere but in a feed reader, it has been scraped without my permission. The use of this feed or any kara cooks content on any other website is a violation of copyright. ]

My friend Shannon was telling me that she had roasted some cabbage wedges for dinner a few nights ago and that they were awesome. Plus, she said, they were even better leftover and cold with a little balsamic vinegar drizzled over them for lunch. After 3 days of her telling me “I’m having more roasted cabbage today,” I figured I really NEEDED to make these.

And by gosh, she wasn’t wrong.

There’s nothing fancy about these. Nothing high end. Nothing frou-frou. You take a head of cabbage, peel off the loose leaves, and cut it in wedges (I cut mine in 8ths). I left the core in to hold the wedges together while cooking, sprayed them with a little olive oil, sprinkled with salt and pepper, and roasted in a 400 oven for 40 mins.

Now, I’ll admit that I left mine in a little long. Ok, so the timer went off and I was doing something else and .. um. Yeah. So there are a few little blackened edges there. They may have stayed in for close to 50 mins. But you can peel those right off (I ate them because I like the overdone crunchy bits!), then sprinkle a little shredded parm on the wedges. Maybe a little more black pepper, too!

I ate them with roasted salmon and some reheated leftover quinoa for dinner this evening.

I have another 6 wedges left and I plan to try a few variations over the next couple of days for lunch. I’m thinking balsamic one day, maybe lime juice and honey the next?

At any rate. Make these. Really. They’re easy and quick and healthy and delicious!

[ Roasted Cabbage Wedges is a post from kara cooks. All content is © Kara Hudson and karacooks.com. If you are reading this anywhere but in a feed reader, it has been scraped without my permission. The use of this feed or any kara cooks content on any other website is a violation of copyright. ]

I had a 2nd set of shelves on the side wall, but they were mounted incorrectly by the builder and collapsed in the middle of the night one night. (And by the way, why is it that things around the house that are built badly seem to collapse at 2 in the morning and scare the ever living daylights out of you?)

I’ve moved bookshelves in there to store things. I’ve tried cheap wire shelving and drawers. I’ve made do for a long time. I’m about at the end of my rope with the storage issue. So my goal for April is to get my closet and clothing storage sorted.

I was kind of inspired by a blog I follow where they painted the interior of a closet a bright, cheerful color. All of the paint in my house is neutral and I decided that I was going to be adventurous with my closet.

The walls of my bedroom are this color:

I’m debating between the following colors for the inside of my closet. Any suggestions, thoughts, or ideas?

[ Painting my closet is a post from kara cooks. All content is © Kara Hudson and karacooks.com. If you are reading this anywhere but in a feed reader, it has been scraped without my permission. The use of this feed or any kara cooks content on any other website is a violation of copyright. ]

Over a year ago I bought two dressers from a thrift store in Birmingham, AL. Well, actually thrift store is generous – it was a shack full of junk on the corner of a couple of back highways. In amid all the pressboard and cardboard and really hideous Goodwill reject items were the two pieces that caught my eye. One of them was a simple white dresser with a pretty curved front. The other was a more elaborate dresser with turned legs and badly chipped veneer. I wheedled and pleaded and bargained and got both dressers for $125. Go me! The chipped green dresser has sat in my living room for the year and I’m growing rather fond of it. I have future plans for it – but later!

This post is about the white dresser. It’s a solid, well made, sturdy 5 drawer dresser. It was, at some point painted over with a flat white paint (it doesn’t look like they even sanded before they painted) and then badly, poorly distressed. As a friend of mine put it, much like Sonic the Hedgehog ran in front of the drawers! It also looked like someone tried at some point to paint it blue and then gave up!

A quick sanding of the top revealed that it was, in fact, solid wood, and well made. Unfortunately there were some really chipped and damaged areas that made me realize pretty quickly that I wasn’t going to be able to strip and stain it, so I decided to paint it, instead.

Stay tuned for the painting post, and the final reveal. It’s taken me 3 months to finish this danged dresser and find knobs for the drawers, but I promise I won’t make you wait that long!

[ refinishing the white dresser – part 1 is a post from kara cooks. All content is © Kara Hudson and karacooks.com. If you are reading this anywhere but in a feed reader, it has been scraped without my permission. The use of this feed or any kara cooks content on any other website is a violation of copyright. ]

Up until recently I haven’t made too much with ricotta cheese. I made the occasional lasagna or stumbled across and saved a recipe for some kind of dessert type thing with ricotta, but overall it wasn’t really a cheese that was on my radar. Then the other day a friend of mine started raving over lemon ricotta pancakes. That same afternoon another friend convinced me to add ricotta cheese to a small veggie pizza from my local pizza place. Suddenly ricotta was the cheese du jour in my life!

And to top all of that off, that very evening I saw an article on Serious Eats for homemade microwave ricotta.

I took it as a sign from the universe that I was meant to make ricotta and use it in a bunch of recipes.

First of all, I tried the microwave recipe – and it worked as described, but seemed unnecessarily clumsy. Since every microwave heats differently, I wasn’t comfortable just sticking a measuring cup full of milk in for 5 mins. Cleaning burned milk out of the bottom of the microwave wasn’t really on my game plan for the weekend. So I started out with 3 mins and then added increments of 1 min at a time until my instant read thermometer showed about 175 deg. It took a little over 6 mins. (Mind you the constant stopping, opening the door, & checking the temperature probably lengthened the time some).

Next I decided to see how the stovetop method worked. Honestly I found it easier and less fussy than the microwave method. I just don’t get what’s so hard about setting milk to simmer on the stove and watching it for a few minutes to make sure it doesn’t bubble over.

It took less than 10 mins to bring a gallon of milk up to 178 deg in a saucepan over medium heat. I set the heat, gave it an occasional stir, and checked the temp when I saw small bubbles forming around the edges of the pan.

Once it hit temperature, I turned off the heat and immediately added 1 tbsp kosher salt and 1/3 cup of plain white vinegar. I gave it a vigorous stir and then let it sit for about 10 mins – until it looked like this:

You can see the yellowish liquid whey has risen to the top and the more solid creamy white curds are sinking to the bottom of the pan. At this point I decided it was ready to strain.

I lined a plastic colander with coffee filters (I used 4 of them, overlapping) and drained it into the sink. (Next time I’m going to drain the whey into a pan or bowl so I can save it and use it elsewhere.) After about 5 mins, it looked like this:

At this stage it was creamy and soft, but not runny. And really really delicious! The ricotta was slightly sweet, milky tasting, and had a soft creamy texture.

Two things that I wanted to do as part of this experiment were – One: compare it to commercially available ricotta and Two: see if it really is cost effective to make my own.

Here you can see side by side a bowl of a popular brand of whole milk (full fat) ricotta and a bowl of the homemade version made with whole milk:

I’m pretty sure you can tell which is which. The store-bought ricotta looked very smooth and had a somewhat gelatinous texture (it actually wobbled slightly as I spooned it into the bowl). It looks smooth but on closer inspection, it’s slightly grainy and you can feel the grains against your tongue when you taste it. It’s got a milky taste, but not as sweet or creamy feeling as the homemade. Even though the homemade looks more “lumpy”, those curds break apart and become soft and creamy in your mouth. There’s not even a hint of graininess in the homemade.

As for cost effectiveness: I bought 1.5 gallons of organic milk at Costco for $7.99 and used a gallon of it to make 2.4 lbs of ricotta. Dividing out the cost for the one gallon, I get $5.32 for my batch of ricotta.  By comparison, the store-bought ricotta was $2.25 for a 1 lb container, so doing the math, 2.4 lbs  would cost around $5.40. Nearly identical. Had I used non-organic milk, a gallon would have cost me $2.99 – a significant savings. On the other hand, if I didn’t have access to Costco, a gallon of organic milk at the grocery store would cost me $7.99, so it would cost me nearly half again as much to make my own ricotta.

It’s absolutely well worth the cost to me, since it breaks even using the Costco brand milk. But even if I had to pay the higher cost for the organic milk, I would still make my own because the quality difference is so dramatic.

Now after these experiments, I have nearly 6 lbs of ricotta at home – so I guess I’m going to have to get cracking on some recipes using it all! (I’m also going to experiment with freezing it to see how well it’ll hold it’s texture and how long it’ll last.)

Homemade Ricotta Cheese

• 1 gallon whole milk
• 1/3 cup white vinegar
• 1 tbsp kosher salt

In a large saucepan, heat the milk over medium heat until it reaches somewhere between 170-180 deg F. The number doesn’t have to be exact, but just within that range. If you boil the milk, it won’t separate out as well later.

Once the milk reaches the proper temperature, turn off the heat and add the salt and vinegar and give it a good stir.

Let the mixture sit for 10-15 mins. When you see a layer of yellow liquid whey on top and the white curds on the bottom, it’s time to strain.

Pour the mixture into a sieve or colander lined with cheesecloth or coffee filters. Strain for anywhere from 5 mins to 20 mins, depending on how creamy you want the cheese. The longer you strain, the more solid your ricotta will be.

(You can strain directly into the sink, or you can reserve the whey for use in other recipes!)

Refrigerate your ricotta to keep it for up to 2 weeks in the fridge.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

[ Ricotta is a post from kara cooks. All content is © Kara Hudson and karacooks.com. If you are reading this anywhere but in a feed reader, it has been scraped without my permission. The use of this feed or any kara cooks content on any other website is a violation of copyright. ]

Way back when I first started this blog, I struggled a lot with props and framing and colors for photographing things. My kitchen doesn’t get a whole lot of light, since it’s in the back of the house. My dining table (originally picked out by my Ex) is huge and roomy but decidedly red-toned. My countertops are black granite, which is gorgeous to look at but really hard to photograph on.

I experimented with all kinds of things – rolls of paper, bits of white board and batten, big slabs of tile or marble or slate, even taking things outside and photographing on the concrete on the back patio. Some of them worked better than others, but most of the ones that worked the best wound up being really impractical (shooting on the ground of the patio isn’t possible in the rain and putting food on a paper backdrop means grease or water stains and buying more paper). Some of them, like the slabs of tile do work but are too fussy a lot of the time.

Really what I wanted was something like the gorgeous dark wood tabletops I’ve envied other bloggers for. I wanted something dark and neutral, but with character, too, so I finally decided that I was going to build myself a “fake” tabletop to photograph on.  I had originally thought about buying a big piece of butcher block – I even looked at buying a whole 6 foot length of butcher block counter from Ikea and cutting it down so I’d have several different options for stain or paint. But I really didn’t want to spend $150, plus how am I going to transport 6′ of kitchen counter the 27 miles from downtown?

So my next thought was to get some pieces of 1×4 and screw or nail them to a couple of cross pieces. I went to Lowe’s and was looking at the precut lumber when I happened to glance over and see the preformed tabletops and panels. Among them I saw this:

It’s 3 feet long and slightly less than 2 feet wide, which is a perfect size; big enough to put a serving dish on, but small enough to be light and portable. I can pop it onto the counter top or the dining table to shoot on, and then store it upright behind the buffet or shelves when not in use. Best of all? It was $14! Whoo hoo!

So I stained it using the same stain that I used on the stair railing, since I had some left over. Since I wanted a rough, used, old farm table sort of look, I didn’t paint it on smoothly. I wetted down the board with a damp papertowel, then poured a puddle of stain onto the board. I took the same damp papertowel and used it to smear the stain around. Some areas were more heavily coated and some were less coated. I wanted a certain amount of blotchy, streakiness.

Once it had dried for 24 hours, I applied 2 coats of tung oil, which I let dry for about 15 mins each before buffing them down. The look is not glossy … it’s just a muted glow. But it also seals the wood and stain, so setting wet or oily plates or containers on it shouldn’t be a problem. Anything that gets on it will just wipe right off.

And I finished up with this:

You can really see the difference in this and the very red tones of my dining table. (And now I really want to strip and refinish my dining table!) And you can see the test image I made with a couple of pears I grabbed from the fruit bowl, too, up at the beginning of the post. Doesn’t it look awesome as a base for food photography?

I’m really happy with it. Now I”m thinking about painting the other side something different so I can use either side, depending on the mood I’m going for. I just have to decide what  - maybe a pickled whitewash look? We’ll see what I come up with!!

[ Photography Props & Backgrounds is a post from kara cooks. All content is © Kara Hudson and karacooks.com. If you are reading this anywhere but in a feed reader, it has been scraped without my permission. The use of this feed or any kara cooks content on any other website is a violation of copyright. ]

Lately Z and I have been spending the occasional date night cooking together. Or, more accurately, I cook and he watches, pours wine, and provides running commentary and entertainment. We’ve gone through a couple of old favorite recipes, but recently I decided to be adventurous and risk a new recipe on date night. This one turned out particularly well (once I cleared up the difference between Chicken Marsala (with an “R”) and chicken tikka masala (without the “R”) for my sweetie) and so I had to recreate it at home later in the week complete with photographs. It also meets one of my 2013 goals of trying and blogging some of the Pinterest recipes I’ve had pinned for a while. So all in all, it was an excellent choice.

I started off using this pin as a base and then added a few tweaks of my own.

I added onion, just because I had a half an onion in the fridge that needed to be used. I also doubled the amount of mushrooms that the recipes called for as I felt the original recipe was lacking in mushroom-y goodness. Finally, I didn’t dredge the chicken before cooking it – instead I added a little bit of flour slurry to the liquid in the pan when it was simmering for thickening. I probably sacrificed some flavor of browned flour in favor of less cooking mess (dredging is a pain!), but I thought it turned out just fine.

A note about Marsala: Marsala is an Italian fortified wine. Fortified means that it’s had additional alcohol added to it and Marsala is most often fortified with a grape brandy. It makes for a heavier, sweeter wine that adds a really rich flavor to cooking. When you cook with Marsala (or any wine or spirit) most of the alcohol will cook off, but not all of it. If the alcohol is problem, you can just double the amount of beef stock – but it won’t have the same rich flavor that using a real Marsala would give it. You can also substitute a sweet red wine if you can’t find Marsala, but really any decent liquor store should have it in stock. I’ve even seen it at local grocery stores that sell wine and beer.

Kara’s Chicken Marsala

• 2-3 large chicken breast halves, sliced into large cutlets (a pound or a little more)
• 24 oz portabello mushrooms
• 1.5 cups Marsala wine
• 1.5 cups beef stock or broth
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1  or 2 tbsp flour (or, 3-4 tbsp flour for dredging)

Place the chicken breasts between two sheets of parchment paper or waxed paper or even plastic wrap. Using a meat tenderizer or a rolling pin or even the bottom of a heavy mug or glass, pound the breasts flat (about 1/4″ thick or less).

In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium high heat. Salt and pepper the chicken breasts and put them into the pan to brown quickly – about a minute to 90 seconds on each side. Remove the breasts from the heat and set them aside.

(Optionally, before you brown the breasts, you can dredge them lightly in flour. Otherwise reserve the flour for later to thicken the gravy.)

Put the mushrooms in the pan and reduce the heat to medium. (If you’re adding onions, now is the time to add them as well.) The object here is not to saute or brown the mushrooms, but to cook them down and get them to release their liquid. After about’ 15-20 mins, the volume of mushrooms should be reduced by half and there should be some liquid in the bottom of the pan.

Add the Marsala wine and bring the mixture to a boil. Add the beef broth, then return the chicken breasts to the pan, making sure they’re covered by the liquid and mushrooms. Lower the heat to a simmer and cook for 15 mins.

If you didn’t dredge the breasts, you can make a little slurry out of a couple of tablespoons of flour and some of the hot liquid from the pan. Once it’s smooth and the flour is completely incorporated, pour the slurry back into the pan and stir it well to blend.

Finally, swirl a pat or two of butter into the pan and make sure it’s completely melted and incorporated, then remove the chicken from the heat and serve.

This is traditionally served over mashed potatoes, but you can serve it over noodles, or with rice, or even just as it is, with a salad or veggies on the side. Garnish with a little parsley – fresh or dried – to add some color.

[ Chicken Marsala is a post from kara cooks. All content is © Kara Hudson and karacooks.com. If you are reading this anywhere but in a feed reader, it has been scraped without my permission. The use of this feed or any kara cooks content on any other website is a violation of copyright. ]

I can’t believe we’re a third of the way through March already. Daylight savings time is back, St. Patrick’s Day is almost here, and Easter is right around the corner! Where is the year going? So far 2013 has been a year of changes for me – not big changes necessarily, but more a lot of small significant decisions and choices. I made another decision this past week that is going to require a huge amount of time and effort on my part – but is something I really want. I’m nervous and excited to move foward.

In the meanwhile … currently, I am:

Watching: House of Cards on Netflix with Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright, and Kate Mara. It’s based off of the BBC trilogy of the same name (which I haven’t seen yet). I love this series. The only downside is that Netflix put all 13 episodes up at once and I’m powering through it. What will I do when it’s over?

Eating: Strawberries were on sale at Publix this week, so I bought 10 lbs and made strawberry crock pot jam (or as Z has corrected me repeatedly “preserves”). For breakfast this morning I had homemade biscuits topped with homemade strawberry jam. 

Reading: I always have a couple of books going at once. My current list is: Bad Blood (Kate Shugak Novels) by Dana Stabenow, American Gods by Neil Gaiman, and Brain over Binge: Why I Was Bulimic, Why Conventional Therapy Didn’t Work, and How I Recovered for Good by Katheryn Hansen. I have many many thoughts on the last one especially and will probably be posting about it later.

Cooking: Today a huge pot of chicken stock on the stove.

Doing: Consolidating data from piles of old hard drives and looking through nearly 16 years of digital images for my website upgrade.

Planning: To completely restructure and rebrand my photography business. Photography has given me a nice little side income for years, but now I want to push that; my goal is to increase my total income by half again by this time 2014.

Inspired by: The ReSTARt series by Jasmine Star on Creative Live.

[ Currently … is a post from kara cooks. All content is © Kara Hudson and karacooks.com. If you are reading this anywhere but in a feed reader, it has been scraped without my permission. The use of this feed or any kara cooks content on any other website is a violation of copyright. ]

I’m also not happy with the current level of clutter in my home and sometimes I’ll reject perfectly good photos because there’s “stuff” in the background that annoys me.

But the other day I realized that I needed to just embrace the imperfection that is my life. I’m not alone. We all have stuff on the counter, an extension cord in the living room, a pile of mail lurking on the sideboard, or any number of things that aren’t perfect in our homes. Some bloggers are just better at hiding it (or have more room to hide it) than others!

So in the interests of embracing my imperfections … here’s a recent counter shot from a recipe I was making. I spent a lot of time framing the shot to make sure there were no hints of the chaos going on around me; just a shot of some diced potatoes:

Then I thought what the heck, be honest. This is what it REALLY looks like when you’re working in the kitchen.

Then I thought oh let’s go one step further. There’s a ton of stuff that stays on my kitchen counter all the time because I use it so often. The coffee grinder, coffee, and press get used every morning. The Nutribullet gets used daily as well. The grill/griddle at least 3x a week. The bottles of various cooking oils, the salt, the pepper grinder … all of those things get used daily and and they have a permanent home on my counter top.

The lesson here (at least for me) is to remember that it’s possible to take images that look like the surrounding area is pristine, when really, behind the scenes there’s a lot more going on!

I’m going to try to be better about embracing imperfection in the images I post!

[ Embracing Imperfection is a post from kara cooks. All content is © Kara Hudson and karacooks.com. If you are reading this anywhere but in a feed reader, it has been scraped without my permission. The use of this feed or any kara cooks content on any other website is a violation of copyright. ]

It’s not a hideous tile, really. It’s just square and beige and … boring! You can see it on the left, below. Ok, ok, maybe a little hideous. And even more so around the fireplace. Nothing exciting or pretty or stylish about this fireplace. It’s just like the bathroom floor: bland pinkish-beige and blah.

In an ideal world, I’d rip out all the tile and retile it with something pretty and colorful, like maybe a cool blue subway glass tile or something shimmery but subtle with a combination of glass and stone. Re-tiling is out of the question right now, however, so I went for the 2nd best solution: paint.

I started out by taping off the wood floor and priming the tile with the same primer that I used on the wooden mantel and surround. It’s your basic Kilz 2 Latex Stainblocking Primer and I use it everywhere. (Note: Don’t put oil based paint over a latex based primer – the latex will expand and contract with changes in temperature and the oil based paint won’t, which will result in the paint coat cracking!)

Even with just the primer on, it already looks so much better!

I didn’t tape off the mantel because I had plans to touch up the white anyway, so I was ok with the primer getting on the wood surround. Once the primer dried, I taped off anything that I wanted to stay white.

After that, it was just a matter of laying on 3 thin coats of semi-gloss black paint (Rust-Oleum 1974502 Painters Touch Quart Latex, Semi-Gloss Black) and letting it dry thoroughly.

And I have to say that I love it. When I started with the first swipe of black paint, I was a little freaked out – what if I was making a huge mistake? But after the 2nd coat went on, I really started to like it. Once the third coat was on and dry, and the white had been touched up, I was flat out in love. I am thrilled that the texture of the tile shows through, and I love how it makes the fireplace both visible and subtle at the same time.

I”m pleased with how the black finished up against the edge of the hardwood on the hearth. I was a little concerned that I’d either have white tile-spots or that there would be bleed over into the wood, but it turned out to have a nice edge. I did use a sponge brush with a chiseled tip to gently dab paint down into the edge between the tile and the wood, and managed to avoid any bleeding on to the wood itself.

I still would like to take out the tile and replace it, as well as raise the hearth just a few inches for separation, but for now? I’m really happy with the results.

What do you think? Has anyone else ever painted their fireplace? Or painted any tile?

[ Painting the fireplace is a post from kara cooks. All content is © Kara Hudson and karacooks.com. If you are reading this anywhere but in a feed reader, it has been scraped without my permission. The use of this feed or any kara cooks content on any other website is a violation of copyright. ]

[ Cat crafting is a post from kara cooks. All content is © Kara Hudson and karacooks.com. If you are reading this anywhere but in a feed reader, it has been scraped without my permission. The use of this feed or any kara cooks content on any other website is a violation of copyright. ]

Back at the beginning of this month I posted that I planned to participate in the 28 Day Blog Challenge. I created a page for the challenge to list my goals and keep myself on track. Today is Day 28 – the last day of the challenge – and I’m really pleased and happy to say that I stuck with it and completed all 28 days.

I didn’t complete all 28 tasks I had set for myself. As it turns out some of them were really overwhelmingly big. Updating all the photos on my past blog posts has required digging through multiple hard drives of images (which has gotten me slightly sidetracked into organizing image archives and other things). Adding tags to all of my posts has been time consuming and taken a lot more mental work than I expected; as a result that’s an ongoing task. Some of the posts I wanted to make didn’t happen. Some of them still require some image editing, and some of them just fell by the wayside as I tackled more long term cleanup tasks (like the photos and the tagging).

I plan to continue with the items on my list, even though the Challenge is technically over. In fact I’m going to add a few other items to the list (based on the ideas of many of the wonderful women over at the official Challenge page) that I will keep working on throughout the year. One of the things this Challenge has given me is the realization that this kind of tweaking and finessing needs to be part of the ongoing blogging process. My blog will never be 100% finished or 100% perfect – I’ll always have something to change, to fix, to update, or to play with, which is part of what makes blogging fun!

Even more, the Challenge has pushed me to tweak and finesse other parts of my life. I’m working on a project for my photography website & blog, I’ve started some big and some small-but-will-make-a-huge-difference projects around my house, and I’ve set things in motion for some changes in my personal life as well. The Challenge also pushed me to take on a commitment to my community that I wasn’t sure I wanted to mess with … and I’m glad it did.

So hooray for what I’m calling a very successful completion of a month-long Challenge! And a huge amount of thanks and love to Katie and the many brilliant, talented, creative, and just plain awesome women who inspired me with their participation!

[ Finishing the 28 Day Blog Challenge – Some Thoughts is a post from kara cooks. All content is © Kara Hudson and karacooks.com. If you are reading this anywhere but in a feed reader, it has been scraped without my permission. The use of this feed or any kara cooks content on any other website is a violation of copyright. ]

It’s Meyer lemon season and every blog is overflowing with recipes. I’m somewhat jealous of those bloggers who have unlimited quantities of Meyer lemons to hand. I can’t seem to find them in quantity anywhere. The best I can find is a 1lb (wildly overpriced) bag at Whole Foods. Those of you who have 20lb boxes of them available, let me know where I can get them!

One of the things I’ve been wanting to try is Meyer lemon limoncello – which I first read about a couple of years ago on Heather’s Voodoo & Sauce blog. I’ve always made limoncello the traditional way, with zested lemon rinds, but her version, using the whole of the sweeter Meyer lemon really appealed to me. Mainly because zesting 4 dozen lemons is kind of a pain in the ass.

So I went ahead and splurged on a couple of those 1 lb bags at Whole Foods, just so I could make this recipe.

These were marked organic and supposedly not waxed or polished, but I still gave them a soak in a weak vinegar water solution and a good scrub with a brush. Then I trimmed off the ends of each lemon, cut them into quarters, and dropped them into a half-gallon mason jar.

1 lb of lemons filled a little over half the jar. Then I added the better part of a 750 ml bottle of 100 proof vodka. I know that a lot of the recipes you find call for Everclear or grain alcohol, but I find it too harsh and bitter. 100 proof vodka does just as well with less of a bite.

I put a lid on the jar and set it in the back of my pantry. Heather said she left hers for a month. I’m going to go for 8 weeks and then we’ll see where that gets us. So tune in April 20th for Part 2 of the Meyer limoncello saga!

[ meyer limoncello – part 1 is a post from kara cooks. All content is © Kara Hudson and karacooks.com. If you are reading this anywhere but in a feed reader, it has been scraped without my permission. The use of this feed or any kara cooks content on any other website is a violation of copyright. ]