Menu Monday (7) Baked Manicotti

This past Saturday we had a meeting of our Cayo Hueso dinner club at our home. It's a monthly get together of eating and drinking and good conversation with friends. I arranged an Italian team of baked manicotti, chicken marsala, green beans with mint and garlic and lots of red wine of course! Our friends always include the apps etc to round out the meal. The chicken recipe and marinara sauce used to top the manicotti have been on previous posts.

Do you call your marinara, tomato sauce, or gravy? I call it sauce, but that's my choice since that was what it was called in our home growing up.To me gravy is brown, white or au jus, sorry, I digress, back to my manicotti which is to die for, worth the calories and melt in your mouth.  Making your own shells makes all the difference, is not hard and makes you look like a genius! It's like making a crepe with a cheese filling. I made the shells and filling the day before, then rolled and baked them before my guests arrived. This is my Mom's recipe, a family secret, but I will share it with you (o:


BAKED MANICOTTI (SERVES 8 TO 10)

shells:
5 eggs
1 1/4 cups unsifted all purpose flour
1/4 teasp salt

filling:
 combine all ingredients:
2lbs ricotta cheese
1pkg (8oz) mozzarella (diced or shreaded)
1/3 cup parmesean cheese
1 tblsp chopped parsley]1 teasp salt
1/4 teasp pepper
2 eggs.

Make shells: in a bowl combine all shell ingredients with 1/1/4 cups water and mix with a portable mixer until smooth.  Melt 1 teasp butter in 7" skillet ( I use a Teflon type pan and just use butter for the 1st pour). Pour 2 tblsp (or more) batter rotating pan quickly to spread batter evenly over the bottom of the pan.. Cook over medium heat until the top is dry but bottom is not brown, Cool on wire rack and then stack with waxed paper in between each shell until you are ready to bake.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
 Cover the bottom of your baking dish with a small amount of  sauce. Place 1/4 cup filling in each shell and roll up. Place shells seam side down in a single layer and top with sauce and parmesean cheese and bake till bubbly.

Enjoy!!

TSKW

TSKW stands for The Studios of Key West. This non profit organization is a wonderful venue for artist to join together as a community to share artistic ideas and expertise. Welcoming artists from all over the world, TSKW provides them a  place to reside for a month and share their work with the community of Key West. The artists reciprocate by giving workshops in their field giving others the opportunity to experiment in different medias.

I have been volunteering at the Studios for about 18 months now. When we moved back to Key West after spending time in Jackson Hole, Wyo and the Outer Banks of NC. I wanted to become move involved in the art community. Joining TSKW had done this for me. I have embraced my surroundings and I am learning to push my self boundaries to create what I feel is inside me. It is my time now. I may feel like a 30 year old on the inside, but in reality I am that quirky older ( I prefer ageless!) woman  that realizes that time is not to waste. With this in mind, I am learning new art techniques, experimenting with my own ideas, breaking some art rules and having fun along the way.

This evening I was part of TSKW show Voluntary Acts. Artwork created by the volunteers of the Studios is being celebrated in the 2nd floor gallery. I am happy to have my work displayed in this venue. The highlight of the evening for me was when a woman approached me to tell me she was looking for me because she really enjoyed my work and wanted to meet me. Thank you, thank you.

Funky Friday (6) Journaling

  I like the idea of journaling, just with a twist. Several years ago while searching on the internet, I came across an artist that journaled on clothing. I was imediately hooked and wanted to try it for myself. I started with a pair of worn demin jeans that I altered into a skirt (the legs into a small bag).  I now keep my thoughts and special memories on jackets, purses and vests.

  If you want to see where my inspiration came from, check out  www.voodooandzen.com 

Menu Monday (6) Monday Surprise

It was a busy day, worked in my studio (more about that later), had my car repaired, household everyday stuff, then dinner. It was 6:30pm, tired and hungry, what's for dinner. I have to say some of my best meals were concocked from whatever was on hand with no recipe to follow. This evening was one of those meals. Checking out the fridge and pantry, I had 3 chicken cutlets, a selection of potatoes, some grape tomatoes and several bags of frozen veggies in the freezer. This is what I came up with. You can put a name to it!

3 chicken cutlets
1/2 onion copped
1 bag frozen green beans
1/4 cup of dry Vermouth
olive oil
butter
crushed red pepper
salt and pepper to taste
1/3 box grape tomatoes cut in 1/2 pieces

In a frypan drizzled with olive oil, heat until hot
saute onion till tender
add chicken seasoned with salt and pepper & hot peppers
cook over medium heat, sprinkle with hot pepper & deglaze pan with Vermouth
  ( I had dry Vermouth on hand for my special occasion dirty martinis,
 but any dry white wine would work)
cook chicken slowly turning in pan until cooked through

In the meantime cook frozen green beans
and baking potatoes, first in microwave then crisped in toaster oven.

When chicken was cooked completed, I removed it to a dish. I then added the green beans to
the pan stirrng to coat with pan juices and a pat of butter and seasoned to taste. Gently stir in the cut grape tomatoes to heat thru.

To plate, I seasoned the baked potato, added a couple of spoonfuls of the green beans and tomatoes and topped with sliced chicken.

Enjoy!

This was an easy dish, a great combo of what I had on hand.

I wanted to post a photo, but I am having camera issues! Come up with a name for this if you would like. If I was feeling a little more creative, I would have used fresh green beans!












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Funky Friday (5) The Process

I have been asked many times where I get my ideas from. I have to say, it is a process of building. I will usually start with a box, or some kind of base or a stand, like an old floor lamp, or an object like a shoe, and let it grow by adding objects to it. The photos below will help in my explanation.

The platform shoe spoke to me because it stood high and gave a strong presents. My next thought was, why not make it taller?  Searching through my stash of goodies, I came across some dolls pieces....a leg! Altering it just a little, the leg fit perfectly over the heel of the shoe. Then using heavy tape (I sometimes us paper mache), I attached the leg and continued to wrap the whole shoe to provide a good surface to paint on. Wow the shoe can walk on it's own! Watch your step pops into my mind, yeah then I think this shoe needs an eyeball so it can see where it's going. (Can you see how this is building?)

After some paint and embellishments, I stood back an looked at what had taken place. I originally had the inside of the shoe painted black, but you could not see the definition of the inside of the shoe because it blended in with the black of the feathers. Adding a piece of blue felt to the foot bed gave it more depth.

This shoe would be really cool to wear, but I think I will see what I can do with a pair of flip flops....

Menu Monday (5) Chicken Marsala

I love have good recipes that are easy, but look like you've spent a lot of time in the kitchen. Chicken Marsala is one of my favorites for an impressive dinner for guests or a make ahead entree for a party. This is another recipe from Graziella.
Ingredients:

6 chicken cutlets
1 cup flour
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup Marsala wine
1 pound mushrooms
1 cup chicken broth
fresh parsley
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Pound chicken cutlets to tenderize.  Put flour in separate dish for dipping.  Dip cutlets into flour. Shake off excess.  Saute in olive oil until golden brown.  Add salt, pepper and Marsala wine. (Don't worry if the saucepan flares up when you add the wine.  Just remove the pan from the stove for a moment.)
In a separate pan, saute mushrooms in some olive oil or butter. Add mushrooms to chicken.  Add some chicken broth if the sauce is dry. Sprinkle with parsley and serve.

Eating well doesn't get any easier!

Funky Friday (4) Challenging Yourself

Challenging Yourself

I feel that challenging oneself creatively by limiting yourself the amount of on-hand supplies when developing an art piece a good tool to help you think out of the box as an artist. In Feb. of 2010, I decided to participate in the 12^th International Collage Exhibition/Exchange taking place in New Zealand. We had just moved back to Key West and living among moving boxes in a temporary rental. It was a lifestyle we called “glorified camping”. I saw the collage exchange posted on an Internet Assemblage Group I belonged to. Since we were in a holding pattern waiting to move into our home, I thought this would be a good project for me to get involved in to keep my mind “busy”.

 The idea behind the exchange was to make 13, 8’x10’ collages. Twelve of the collages would be exchanged and returned to me from 12 other artists from around the world, and one would be shown in an exhibit at the Real Tart Gallery in New Plymouth, NZ.  I thought receiving artwork from artists from around the world would be fun. In actuality, I received a lot more than that.

As I mentioned before, I was in the mist of moving. Everything I owned was pretty much, in a box. This is where the challenge began. Having very little access to my supplies, I had to come up with ways to make the collages with very few resources. I was able to recover some paper a pair of scissors, some markers and a glue stick. Now the fun began.

I began to cut out pictures and words from magazines, catalogs and newspapers. I pulled cereal and snack boxes out of the recycling bin and cut out letters from them to make designs, rolled up pieces of corrugated boxes to make stamps that resembled roses.  Paper towel tubes were great for circles.  Sometimes I would have a glass of wine while I worked and used the cork as a stamp and wine as ink! Not having much to work with, pushed me to be resourceful in using what was around me. I didn’t feel limited at all.

At completion of my 13^th collage I was please at was what I have accomplished. A couple of months later, I was happy to receive 12 wonderful collages from artist within the US and as far away as Australia. At the end of the exhibit, my piece that was in the exhibit was sent to be in permanent museum collection with the other collages in the ArtColle in Brittany, France.

As a reminder of this fun experience, I framed two of the collages I received and hung them in our home.

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