Crab Salad

Hello world!  Today I am sharing an easy summer salad which should be served as a first course and it is very simple to prepare but could be time consuming therefore I recommend preparing a bit ahead of time if you are planning to entertain a group of people.

Crab Salad

Ingredients:

1lb crabmeat

¼ cup mayonnaise

2 tablespoons sour cream

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

2 tablespoons chopped jalapeno or green pepper

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 avocado thinly sliced

1 cup English cucumber thinly sliced

1 cup cherry tomatoes cut in half

1 bag arugula

2 teaspoon fresh chives (chopped)

1 teaspoon fresh tarragon (chopped)

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon pepper

¼ cup champagne vinegar

2 tablespoon evo

Method

In a bowl combine crab meat, mayonnaise, sour cream, mustard, peppers, juice, chives, tarragon and salt & pepper.  You can do this up to six hours ahead of time and put in refrigerator. You need to have about 1 hour to prepare your dish before ready to serve so make sure to plan ahead.  For this part you need a biscuit cutter 3” in diameter.  Place your biscuit cutter on a platter and start layering salad; crab meat mixture (about 2 tablespoons) then avocado, cucumbers and tomatoes.  You should do 2 layers each. You should be able to make about 4 servings from the above quantities; I have double the amount of ingredients and made exactly 8 portions.

Shortly before serving, mix arugula, vinegar, evoo and salt & pepper.

To serve place about ½ cup of green salad mixture on a plate and carefully place your crab salad on top (use a small spatula to transfer).  I plated each dish right before serving and simply arranged each crab patty on top of arugula but it took me about 10 minutes to do this.

Sisters

This is my true first "Mixed Media" canvas and I am happy with the way it turned out.  At first I was having second thoughts about it; thinking its not perfect.  Then thinking about the whole composition of it (folk dolls) and folk dolls are not real; so I decided to keep it as such. You see all of my life I have been a very linear person, I worked on a field that everything had to be precisely done, calculated and measured to the best of my abilities therefore, I am having difficulties letting go of that word and accept ART for what it is.  Even though I do not consider myself an artist in any way, just an enthusiast! I love all types of art with all of  its beauty and imperfections. And for me mixed media allows me to incorporate all of the different types of painting, drawing and paper-crafting that I know then, mix them up and see what comes out of it.

 

This work was inspired by Kelly Rae Roberts works, I love all of her mixed media folk dolls on canvas!

 

This is the real life picture of my sisters and I at our high school reunion (fm left, Lolie, me, Kathy). As you can see everyone is smiling so I had to give everyone a "poker" face on my drawing.

Birthday Easel Card

Good Morning World!  Well it has been trying times for me lately with some health issues but I am back and willing to face the world again.
It was my friend Randi's birthday a couple of days ago and since she is a well known fashionista I thought that my version of Marie Antoinette easel would be appropriate for her birthday card.

 

I made this little mixed media easel using the hard cover of a book and added lots of bling that I know Randi likes, like Marie's hand made earrings and filigree top

 

Since the card measures 9.75" x 6.25" I had to make my own envelope/bag using velum paper and added the tag which I embossed with a birthday sentiment

Well that it's all for now I am off to make the birthday cake and will have more of that tomorrow!

Graduation Card

While going thru my pictures I ran into  this ease/card I made for my girlfriend's daughter college graduation.  I know it's a late post but since I like it very much I decided to put it up anyway just so that I mar remember how I made it. The card does not open but instead it is held together by ribbon to form a free standing easel and, on the back has a congratulations sign hanging by a fancy die cut post from Spellbinders. 

Of course the stamped image is from Tim Holtz my favorite of his stamps. The young girl graduating is a wonderful artist therefore, I had to use my small artistic elements like the hand design and cut cap and diploma.  I also embossed the school's initials/logo and die cut flowers.

Baby Shower Cards

Good Morning World!  It's going to be another Santa Clarita triple digit scorcher so I will do as much as I can in my "MPR" area before I can no longer breathe up here.  I am trying to organize my pictures and ran into these two little pictures of a cards I made last year as samples for a baby shower invitations I had a request for.  As it turns out these are not the ones they chose but a much simpler one which was fine with me.

For the "onesie" card I used a template from Chia's Rubber Stamp Templates.

 

For the baby buggy I saw a sample in someones gallery (sorry but i cannot remember the name) and used that as a sample.  The little baby in it, I die cut from Spellbinders designs.

Tag-distress markers

So I have been working hard on this technique with Tim Holtz distress markers and, like Tim until now I have not been much of a colorist myself but, I really enjoy the way the colors get "washed out" and gives the ink a further distressed look.  I am entering my tag in Tim Holtz "12 Tags of June"; therefore I followed his demonstrations and used all of hoarded Tim Holtz supplies.  And without further ado: "Here it is"

 

Because the colors on my stamped image were blue and red, I decided to go with a patriotic theme and also using Tim Holtz 4th of July inspirations created my rosette with his demo technique.

Here is another tag I initially created but decided it was too "babiesh" so I will give it to my nephew for his birthday party this weekend.

Paper Dolls

So it's no secret I love playing with Julie Nutting rubber stamp dollies, I have a great collection of them and I will like to share some of them. They are so easy to make now that I bought the rubber stamps instead of drawing the girl's body and then the dress but, it was good practice.  I still design some of the dresses myself without the rubber stamp plus the tags are a small space to work on my mixed media elements "work in progress".

This one is my favorite right now, I used a beautiful trim on the dress that I got from my sister's shop and graphi45 paper.

Isn't she sweet? Here I used a flower die design from my friend Marisa Job.

More of Marisa's flowers

Since the dolls faces are so tiny I decided to keep their eyes closed, easier for me to draw because there's not enough space to detail the open eyes.

Shadow Box

It was my husband's birthday last month and I was agonizing over what to buy a man who doesn't need anything.  Another bottle of wine for his collection, another night out to a fancy meal?  Instead I made him this shadow box with a picture of us when we got married.  Actually the picture was taken a month after our wedding because, we initially did not want a professional photographer at our wedding but then had a change of heart afterward.  So, we hired a photographer that I had worked with and recreated our wedding (only by wearing the same clothes) and took some pictures at a local country club.

 

The shadow box was created from one of my husband's science textbooks, I sealed the pages and added some wording from an old book with some embellishments that I created my self.  On the side which I don't show it has our wedding date and our names.

 

Crab Enchiladas with Mexican Rice Pilaf (white Mexican rice)

I was inspired by a beautiful sunny day yesterday and decided to cook a nice homemade meal and also to write down this recipe for Mexican Rice Pilaf or Mexican white rice before I forget it.  My mother used to prepare this dish and as far as I know everyone in my family cooks some version of this but, when I ask people if they ever had such dish, no one has ever had "White Mexican Rice".

  Crab Enchiladas

Ingredients:                                                                                      Serves: 4

8 oz crab meat                                                                                  1 T cooking oil

12 oz can green enchilada sauce                                                      1 T butter

1 cup heavy cream                                                                           1 Boursin cheese round

1 large shallot, minced                                                                     10 large corn tortillas

80z monterey jack cheese, shreadded                                              1 bunch diced green onions

pinch of nutmeg                                                                               1 t sugar

Method:

In large pan heat oil and melt butter, add shallots and cook for 3-5 minutes until soft.  Slowly pour in enchilada sauce until heated thru, add heavy cream, nutmeg and sugar and simmer 20 minutes.  Prepare assembly items for enchiladas.  Heat oven to 350 degrees.  13x9 baking dish, warm tortillas, crab meat (separate and fluff with fork), cheeses and green onion. Add 1/2 cup enchilada sauce to bottom of baking dish. To assemble enchiladas; spread warm tortilla with Boursin cheese, crab meat, monterey cheese and green onion, roll and place on baking dish seam side down.  When all enchiladas have been assembled add the rest of enchilada sauce over them and add about 1/4 more shreadded cheese over top, bake for 15 minutes.

       

 Mexican Rice Pilaf

Ingredients:                                                                               Serves: 4

1 cup long grain rice                                                                 1 T cooking oil

2 cups chicken broth                                                                 1 t salt

4 large garlic cloves, minced                                                    1/2 t white pepper

Method:

Make sure you have a pan with a tight fitting lid. Heat oil in pan add rice and brown about 5-7 minutes, make sure that it does not over brown only to light golden brown.  Add garlic to rice and continue cooking until garlic is nice and gragrant (about 1 minute).  Pour chicken broth and bring to boil, add salt and pepper; place the tight fitting lid on pan and simmer on very low for about 45 minutes.  Check the rice after 30 minutes and add more broth if necessay.  Do not stir rice after liquid has absorbed, just like steamed rice.