Early Girl Breakfast Casserole.

Early Girl Breakfast Casserole

I'm still finding inspiration from my recent art trip to Asheville, NC where I studied Expressive Drawing and Painting with artist Steven Aimone.  The class was life changing and I fell in love with Asheville.  I'll be posting pictures about that experience soon!

I had lots of fabulous food while in Asheville and ate several times at the wonderful Early Girl Eatery http://earlygirleatery.com/.  This recipe is my imagined recreation of a delicious breakfast scramble I ate there on the last day of my visit.  I transformed it from a stove top scramble to an oven baked strata or casserole.  I didn't measure any of the ingredients so I've listed approximations for those of you who need structure to feel safe. 

Prep Work

-Peel and quarter 2 large sweet potatoes.  Boil them with cinnamon stick, cloves, and salt.  Dice when cool.

-Brown some ground breakfast sausage.  I used a maple flavored breakfast sausage from the meat counter at Sprouts grocery store.  I removed the meat from the casings before browning.

Early Girl Breakfast Casserole

Early Girl Breakfast Casserole

2-1/2 c. diced sweet potato

2 c. cooked ground breakfast sausuage

8 eggs

1-2 c. milk

6 slices wheat sandwhich bread crusts removed, lightly buttered one side, diced

seasoned salt to taste

fresh chopped chives for garnish

Preheat oven to 375.  Spray a 9 x 9 in. baking pan with non-stick spray.  Beat eggs, milk, and seasoned salt together in large bowl until well combined.  Add sweet potato, sausage, and bread.  Stir gently.  Make sure bread gets good and soaky. Pour into greaed pan and bake 35-45 min. until golden brown and set in middle.  If it starts to get too brown, lay a piece of foil loosely over the top. 

Variations:  This would have been wonderful with some browned bacon added and/or some cheese. You can really add what you want in terms of ingredients and seasonings.  The sagey tatste of the sausage with the cinnamon-y clove taste of the sweet potatoes is divine.

You could make this whole thing the night before and store it in the fridge to bake the next morning.  Enjoy!

Mmmm, fresh chives from my garden tops it off.

Gelatin Monoprints.

Carol's "Biohazard" print

My friend Carol demanded that I come to her house to MAKE gelatin monprints. This is what I learned....

1.  This is NOT scary.

2.  This is NOT difficult.

3.  This is WAAAAY fun.

4.  This can be done in your own home  with humans of all ages.

5.  Do it!...and send me pictures.

Materials Needed

-pan(s) of prepared gelatin
-ink brayer(s) and flat pan to roll paint

-acrylic paints
-paintbrushes to paint designs on gelatin surface if you wish

-spray bottle with water (lightly mist gelatin and blot with paper to clean the printing surface occasionally)

-string, lace, leaves, twigs, forms or shapes cut out of cardstock, chipboard shapes or letters, etc.

-paper of any kind...we used sketch and rice papers, and some newsprint as well

Gelatin Recipe

This will fill one 9" x 11" pan. 

What is a monoprint? 

I picked this up from the web...
A design is painted onto an unmarked plate. Paper is laid on top and pressure applied. It usually produces one strong and one weak impression.

The "unmarked plate" for this project is a pan of knox gelatin that has set firmly in the fridge. 

Roll some acrylic paint on to your brayer and then roll the bayer on to the gelatin for a nice even coat.

Lay some cut out card stock shapes, string, lace, or other items on top of the painted gelatin.

Lay a piece of paper on top and rub thoroughly with a gentle pressure. 

Remove paper and you have a monprint!  This one is very light in color, but the excitement happens when you start layering more monoprinted images upon one another. 

Now my favorite part, printing the ghost image.  Remove the cardstock or other items from the gelatin plate very gently so you don't smear the remaining paint or rip the gelatin.  Lay another piece of paper on top of what's left on the gelatin, rub, remove, and you have what's called the ghost image.  I LOVE ghost images the most.

The ghost is a little hard to see with this lighter ink, but you get the general idea. 

Here are some photos of the process and finished prints that my friend Carol and I made in several hours.  Remember, the key is LAYERING.  Do a monoprint on the ghost of another image you've already printed, print ghosts on monprints or on other ghosts using different colors.  The possibilities (and fun) are endless!

Monoprint

Ghost Print

Black paint on gelatin, red circles made by dipping an acrylic lid in red paint
and dotting on the black here and there, card stock "negative" laid on top of that. 
Now, I just need to lay a piece of blank paper on top, rub, and I'll have a monoprint!

Some of Carol's FAB creations.  See the effect of layering?  Mmmmmm

Get jiggy with your paint on your brayer tray!

Our prints on the clothesline against a blue TX sky.

Ready to lay paper on top and rub.  Notice the circles have paint on them from
prior use.  The paint on the circles is dried.   The print will have 3 white spots
where the circles are laid.

4 hours FLEW by...and we could have kept going

How to Use Your Monoprints 

Use them in collage, trim and frame them, add them to notecards or ATC's (artist trading cards), etc.

Bake or Die.

Herb Roasted Chicken, Curry Roasted Cauliflower, Baked Sweet Potato

I've been wanting to mod podge, paint, and sew all weekend and the most making I've done was dinner this afternoon.  Herb Roasted Chicken, Curry Roasted Cauliflower, and baked sweet potatoes.   I baked everything together at 350.  It took the sweet potatoes about 1 hr. 20 min., and the cauliflower about 45 min. Everything was delicious, and my house smelled wonderful. 

The baking times and temps. below are for baking dishes separately.

Herb Roasted Chicken

1 roasting hen

Herbs de Provence

seasoned salt

olive oil

fresh minced garlic

1 c. water

(Tip:  If you have a bulk dry goods section in your grocery store, get your herbs there.  I spent .78 cents on the same amount of Herbs de Provence that would have cost up to $7/bottle in the baking aisle.)

Make an olive oil slurry with Herbs de Provence, salt, garlic, and oil.  Massage slurry into bird, including under the breast skin.  Place herby bird in dutch oven (I used enameled cast iron), pour in water (don't pour over the bird), cover.  Bake at 350 for 2 hours.  You can also roast it open and it will brown, but I wanted mine "fall apart" tender.  I also baked the neck along with the bird to make a rich broth.

Curry Roasted Cauliflower--Ready to Bake

Curry Roasted Cauliflower

1-2 heads of fresh cauliflower florets

1/2 medium onion, large dice

curry powder or mixture of Indian spices:

     (turmeric, coriander, garam masala,

      red pepper, dried ginger, etc.)

salt or seasoned salt

olive oil

Put onion and cauliflower in large plastic zip-lock bag.  Add olive oil and spices.  Shake well to coat.  Bake at 350 to 400 until browned, (30-45 minutes) stirring once. 

I make my own curry mixture with Indian spices.

Baked Sweet Potatoes

Rinse whole sweet potatoes well to remove any dirt.  Pierce skin in several places with fork.  Bake at 400 on cookie sheet for 30 min., turn potatoes over and bake an additional 30 minutes.

Little Dresses for Africa and Easy Tube Pillowcase Method Collide.

Little Pillow Case Dresses for Africa
Girls 11-12, Toddler 3-4

This MLK weekend, I'm doing service work for others by making Little Dresses for Africa.  The dresses are constructed out of pillow cases.  You can use a store-bought pillow case or you can make a pillow case and turn it into a dress...that's what I'm doing.  See the Little Dresses for Africa link below (littledressesforafrica.org) for details and printable sewing instructions.  Patternless sewing, my favorite!  

I'm using my fabric stash, and spending a few dollars on low cost cotton fabric at Wal-Mart to make Easy Tube Pillow Cases--ridiculously easy, professional finish, FABULOUS.  Fun and funky pillow cases alone are a great gift to yourself or others.  To turn my pillow cases into dresses, I don't finish the top hem of the case but leave it open since this forms the neckline of the dress.  I center the seam down the back of the dress. 

Check out the links and if you are inspired to make ANYTHING, share here! What are YOU making?   

Little Pillow Case Dresses for Africa
Added Yo-You Detail, Toddler 3-4 

Making,

Martha

Little Dresses For Africa--MAKE to Help Others

Make or Die with Me.

Our Lady of Kaftan
Collage by Martha Stroud-Merry

I make stuff....a lot of different kinds of stuff.  I can't help it.  I can't NOT make.  At various times I cook, sew, photograph, paint--and other art mediums, collage, quilt, make jewelry and glass beads, etc., etc., etc.  I swear, I could be a centerfold for a Home Economics magazine.  I used to abhor the word CRAFT, I made ART.  Now, I don't care what genre I'm in.  If I see it and I like it or if I get an idea for it, I want to MAKE it....as soon as possible!!!

Making feeds me, and other people's making feeds me too.  I want to share my ideas, imaginings, hunches, and completed creations with you in this space and I want you to share yours with me (and the other two followers of this blog).  I believe that we expand our boundaries through collaboration and I hope that's what happens here.  It's not just about me having a place to show and tell, it's a place for YOU to show and tell as well...a place for all of us to MAKE new juicy creative ideas TOGETHER. 

When I'm not making, I'm either really busy or creatively I'm in that "dying" part.  If you're a maker, you're also very familiar the dying part.  It's that place where you get stuck, dried up, unmotivated.  You have a ton of things you could work on, most of them half done, but nothing is appealing.  It's like opening the fridge when you're hungry and nothing looks good.  It's that time when go out and buy (or assemble) everything for that fabulously exciting creative project, get it home and don't feel ready to start, so it sits...waiting.

My wish is that Make or Die will be a place where we can share about both sides of being creative, the making parts and the dying parts.  BOTH places move us forward and inspire new and exciting creations.  I can't wait to see what happens here!  Let's go!

Making,
Martha