‘Ello, sweets!  I hope all of you in the Northern Hemisphere are able to enjoy some warmer weather this week.  I have been so inspired by the change I have updated my Etsy shop (fable*) with a ton of vintage (and some new) goodies!  Really, really wonderful things that I can scarcely believe I’m parting with.  I know these pretties will find their way to good homes so that makes it okay.  (Psst - I have also listed items at very reasonable prices too.)

There are lots of sewing patterns, millinery, beads and a couple of lacy, floaty wearables.

Special for blog readers this week: Buy any 2 millinery items, beads or sewing patterns and get the 3rd millinery item, beads or sewing pattern for free (equal or lesser value; through midnight Friday, March 26th, PT).  Just leave a note in the “Message to Seller” box when you checkout letting me know what free item you’d like.

Non-U.S. Peeps: Please convo me the item you are interested in, plus your city/country, and I’ll get back to you with a shipping quote.

» Visit the shop here.

Thanks for looking!

Wow, I can hardly believe Thanksgiving is almost here!  And it’s only Monday and I already feel like this week is getting away from me.  I spent my Sunday evening watching season 3 of 30 Rock on Netflix and trying to get through an early 1940s (or is it late 1930s?) dress for the holiday festivities.  Yes, I still get excited, just as I did as a little girl, over the prospect of having a new dress to wear for a special occasion!  But the sleeves - oh, the sleeves!  The puffed sleeves were really trying my patience.  I guess I can’t do puffed sleeves no matter how much I try to convince myself.  It remains my goal, however, to finish this dress but now the sleeves have been pared down quite a bit.  We shall see how it goes!

Anyway I have a couple of recipes to share with you.  The first is a Berry Crumble.  The crumble topping is similar to what you may find on top of a banana or blueberry muffin.  There’s no egg and it’s very crumbly.  I think the trick to making a good crumble is to make sure the dough clumps are not too big  and are spread out evenly over the fruit (so they can cook thoroughly).  I also don’t like my fruit too sweet or syrupy and I don’t use much sugar in the filling.  This recipe is so easy it’s great to whip some up after a trip to the farmer’s market.  (Which is were I got these beauties!)  You can vary the amount fruit depending on how much you have and how deep you want the crumble to be.

Jen’s Berry Crumble

Dough:

6 T unsalted butter, softened

1/4 t light brown sugar (or white sugar)

1/2 c all purpose flour

1/4 c instant oatmeal (the plain, unflavored kind)

1/8 t. salt

2 t. water (Optional)

Filling:

2-4 pints berries (I like to combine blackberries with strawberries)

1 T sugar

> 1/2 t. lemon juice (Optional - I usually leave this out)

Cooking spray or melted butter

Cinnamon or nutmeg, ground

Directions:

1. Preheat over to 375 degrees F.  Spray a 9″ baking pan with cooking spray (or brush with butter).
2. Cut up fruit if desired.  Spread fruit out in the pan and sprinkle with sugar.
3. Mix all dry ingredients for the dough.  Mix in butter - this might be easiest to do this with your hands.  Add a little water if dough seems too dry.
4. Crumble dough evenly over fruit filling.  Sprinkle with cinnamon or nutmeg.
5. Bake for 30 minutes.  Sometimes I flip the broiler on for a few minutes to brown the top without overcooking the fruit.

Jen’s Pumpkin Pavlova

My friend Michelle introduced me to pavlova many years ago and has since been one of my favorite desserts.  It’s so light it hardly seems sinful.  (Hee hee!)   This recipe is fairly easy as well (a recurrent theme in my kitchen).  I originally planned to make some today but at this point I probably don’t have time with all the other pre-holiday planning (including finishing up some work!).  SO, here it is, in pdf format.  Perhaps I’ll be able to update this post later with a photo.

» Download Jen’s Pumpkin Pavlova Recipe

Enjoy!

One of the best things about our little house is the lighting in the kitchen.  This main window faces the north/northwest and the light does not change much the whole day.  Even on the grayest of days there is plenty of light and I’m ever so grateful for this; I’ve lived in places that were dark and, really, I found it depressing.   This is the light in our kitchen right now: very bright and soft and white.  Yes, some of the doors are hanging off their hinges, the 80+ year old sink has seen better days but it’s really quite cozy, especially now.

My parents got us this Kitchen-Aid mixer as a wedding gift.   I know, I’m super fancy now.   I mean WE are super fancy.  So far I’ve made rapid rise bread with it (from the recipe book that came in the box;  pretty good but I’d like to try others) and some super fluffy cake frosting.   You know what would be really cool?  The pasta attachment.  Then I could make homemade pasta to go with my homemade lamb ragu (a household favorite).

And right now the weather in L.A. is perfect.  Very comfortable in the high 60s, bright and sunny, but not too hot to turn up the oven.  I’ve been brewing up all kinds of things lately which inspired me to make some fall-ish recipe cards.  I decided to post them as PDFs for free because, you know, I like you that much!

We’ve got a 4″x6″ recipe card:

And a 3″x5″ one too:

(Click images or links below to download.)  Just print them on your color printer, “best” setting, cut and go.

» Download: 4″x6″ Recipe Card

» Download: 3″x5″ Recipe Card

Oh, by the way, THANK YOU for the swan-love!  I’m so pleased you liked her.   She’ll have some friends soon.

Have a lovely fall-ish weekend!

Thank you to everyone whom participated in A Slight Sinister Giveaway!  I LOVED reading all about your costumes and scary stories; I now have a little spooky list of books I’ll need to check out, so thank you for that too.  If you haven’t read them, check out the comments in the giveaway post and maybe you’ll find a creepy story that might interest you.

Ok, without further ado, the winner is: Lucky #5, Modern Crush!

Thank you again, peeps.  Oh, and happy fall my Northern Hemisphere friends!

(Random number-generating goodness brought to you by random.org.)