Sorry to leave you without posts!!!

 So I apparently left you all without reading material....what was I thinking!?!?

 I am proud to say Mr. Domestic Dude and I had our first date night last night since before "TDMM" was born! Its been almost 11 long months or no out on our own time! We even celebrated our first wedding anniversary with baby in tow. She did a fantastic job with Mimi and Biba, she even went to sleep without me! I was SHOCKED!!

 I didn't get a whole lot done this weekend, but I have a beautiful little clutch that I made up as I went along to share with you!

 

 Its made from a bit of the black stretch dress pants fabric that I made my dress (not pictured yet) and a vintage scrap of what I think is a poly-satin. 

I absolutely love it and I can't wait to use it!! 

I have a request from a friend to make one, so hopefully I can make a tutorial for those of you who are interested in it!!

On a cooking note, I made a home run meal tonight! I saw a commercial for the French's French Fried Onions, its called onion chicken or something equally creative. 

Essentially, you crush up the onions, dip your raw chicken breast in beaten egg, then roll in the onions. Place chicken in a baking pan, and cook in a 400 degree preheated oven for about 25 minutes (depending on the thickness of your chicken). 

It is YUMMO! And we really don't like onions here, so that's saying a lot!

I don't have pictures, sorry! Just try it out, you won't regret it!

 Well, I guess that's all from the peanut gallery tonight, I'm currently fighting with making ruffles for a purse that I'm trying to make. Hopefully with in the next 10 years I'll have that to share with you!

Balls o' meat??

If there is one thing I hate most in the world, its putting my hands in raw meat! Never mind smashing breadcrumbs and milk and seasonings in said meat, and then forming it into small balls and frying them in a pan. ICK!!! I just HATE it. However, there is nothing yummier than saucy hot meatballs with melted cheese on a wheat sub roll!!! So I muck through the....well, muck and roll those slimy meat balls and make them into delicious balls of yum. (This is starting to sound dirty....tee hee!)
Anyway I'll add my meatball recipe for those of you who would love to make your family happy!

I get the majority of my recipes from an AWESOME and creatively named website called.....


....wait for it.....


Food.com! Yup you read right, super creative right? I know, I wish I'd come up with it, but alas, I missed the boat on that one. Though I am proud to be a member, because the website rocks. Its majority is from member submissions, and the members rate the recipes, etc. I have rarely found a recipe I didn't like. I almost always use higher starred recipes and the great part is most members add comments so if the recipe needs extra salt, well someone mentioned that! LOVE IT!

Ok, without further ado;


Meatballs

Ingredients:
1.5 lbs Ground Beef
2/3c milk
1c bread crumbs
1 sm diced onion (I use about a 1/8c minced dried onion)
S&P to taste
Flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix meatball ingredients together by hand, (clean please) leaving the flour out in a small bowl, or like me, in a large ziplock bag. Once mixed, roll meat mixture into bite sized balls, then roll in flour. Once floured, brown in a olive oil coated pan, then transfer into a baking pan. Place meatballs in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes.

Remove cooked meatballs and place in your simmering sauce.

I won't tell you this is doctored up jarred sauce.....

Simmer for about 10-15 minutes. Serve & ENJOY!

An uneventful day....

 Well, today didn't garner very much sewing or much of anything fun to share. I managed to re-arrange my living room to accommodate the new (to TDMM) kitchen set into the "sea of toys" that is my life now.
I put together my dress for this weekend yesterday, and managed to hem it today, and that was it.....I really need to line the top of it and do a rolled hem on the raw edges of the top as well. MAYBE I can do that tomorrow and get a few pictures of it! From trying it on to have help pinning up the hem, I'm getting some some good feedback! That makes me very happy.

 Aside from sewing, I did make a 14.5 lb turkey for dinner tonight, that actually turned out delicious! My gravy on the other hand was a bit "gloppy", yes, that is a real word. It describes my gravy to a "T". Thats what I get for trying to rush and get it on the table. Lesson learned.

On a happier note, Sunday night I made home made pizza dough from a blog I found called Home Ec 101. I would love to get my rear in gear and make menu plans and a daily chore schedule and all that good stuff, but alas, I'm too busy with kids, cooking, sewing and soon will be working to worry about a clean house...I mean really? Who needs a clean house! 
So, back to the pizza dough. It was DELICIOUS! I made Mr. Domestic Diva, who has cautiously asked if he could become Mr. Domestic Dude, so I think I shall oblige him, and myself calzones and the 3 older boys have pizzas, TDMM had everything she could get her hands on! The pizzas were a hit! After making 2 batches of dough I had about 2 balls left, which make a 8 inch pizza each, so I bagged them up and froze them.
In my planning ahead mode, I pulled a ball out yesterday and made myself a pizza for lunch. I have to say, it was equally yummy thawed as it was the night I made it!!! I think I shall make dough and freeze it for those nights when no one wants to cook. I'm so in love!

It isn't beautiful, but it was yummy!
So for those of you that don't want to search the Home Ec 101 site, I will offer you the recipe here!


Ingredients:

• 1 TBSP active dry yeast
• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 3 1/2 cups bread flour + a little more for dusting
• 1 1/2 TBSP olive oil + extra to grease the bowl for rising
• 2 TBSP molasses
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp Italian seasoning – OPTIONAL
• cornmeal for sprinkling

Directions:
Add the yeast to the warm water and set it aside.  Place the flour in a large bowl and whisk it to fluff it up.  With your hands, clean please, create a well in the flour.  Remember when you used to make a volcano with mashed potatoes and gravy? Yes, just like that.
To make clean up easier, measure the olive oil and then the molasses.  There is no chemical reason for doing this, other than the oil lubricates the spoon so you don’t have to struggle with the sticky molasses.  Add the salt and Italian seasoning.
Does the yeast and water look foamy?  Wonderful, add that to the well.  If you are using a stand mixer, use your dough hook to stir and knead.  Use the lowest setting and only knead it for about a minute after the dough comes together.
If you are kneading by hand, stir the ingredients until they are moist and well mixed.  Flour your work surface and knead the dough for around three minutes.  Estimate, this is pretty forgiving.
After kneading shape the dough into a ball. (Just like playdough folks, just like playdough).  Set aside.  Grease a large bowl with olive oil.  Place the dough in the bowl, turning it several times to coat with oil.  Cover with a damp cloth and allow to rise for at least thirty minutes.
Divide the dough into equal portions.  We make 4 thin crust 12″ pizzas, if you prefer thicker crust you will have fewer pizzas.  If you have multiple pans allow the dough to sit for ten or fifteen additional minutes, before shaping.  If, like me, you only have one pizza stone, immediately begin shaping the dough (with a rolling pin or by tossing)for baking, the other three can rise and your first really won’t suffer.
Preheat the oven to 450°F.
If you use a pizza stone, allow the stone to heat for 10 minutes in a 450F oven.  If you are using a metal baking sheet, preheating is unnecessary.
Sprinkle the  stone or cookie sheet with cornmeal; set the shaped pizza crust on the surface and top with your favorite pizza sauce and toppings.  Bake for 10 – 15 minutes (watch it carefully, this depends on your toppings).
Enjoy.

Well I will leave you to drool, and for me to catch some zzzzz's!

Signing off
   The Domestic Diva

Fabric shopping, quick dinner recipe, changes on the horizon!!!

So I managed to get out today in the arctic cold and my car started after laughing at me for a minute! I bundled up The Divine Miss M, strapped her in the car and off we went for our trek into the big city! We left the woods and ocean behind us and headed in to Mimis house!
With my impending "going back to work" date quickly creeping up, we have to get this little baby ready to behave for someone else and become accustomed to something other than a boob as nutrition. Although if you look at all 24 lbs of her you would never know she prefers the boob juice over just about anything else!
Anyway, I dropped "TDMM" off at Mimi's and I went to find some fabric.
I have a boat load of ideas flooding my brain and very little time or money to complete them. The only place in this one-horse town to get affordable fabric is a, hmmm....how to describe it?....a wholesale, liquidation, department store? I'm not sure it deserves any of those labels, but it really is an awesome place once you get used to it. Marden's its my home away from home, my cheap shopping adventure!

So, first on the sewing agenda:
A dress for me. I just recently made a convertible Infinity dress that I found on Rostitchery's blog. Its an amazing concept and is SUPER expensive if purchased from a regular retailer. 

Here goes the neighborhood!

Well here I go.....on a journey into blog-dom!

I thought it would be fitting to introduce myself and explain to you what exactly brought me to this point. That way maybe, just maybe you will understand what makes me, well, me!

 I am self-proclaimed  "The Domestic Diva", I'm a penny pinching, granola-wannabe, stylish, crafty momma! I am 30 and I have 4 children at home, 5 if you include my video-gaming husband, "Mr. Domestic Diva". We have a combined 5 children, 4 living at home.
 "The Teen" who just turned 13 yesterday!
 "Beanpole" who will be 11 in April,
 "SBD" (yup, that's right "Silent But Deadly", you can imagine why....) he turned 10 in December
and last but certainly not least, our only little "diva" in training "The Divine Miss M" who will be 1 in March!
The oldest is also a girl, she lives in Central Florida, attends college and we call her "The Textinator", shes got the fastest fingers on the east coast!

 So in order for me to be a stay-at-home mom I had to find ways to make our family run on a shoestring. Fortunately I'm a resourceful gal, so I started cloth diapering and cooking every meal at home. I also love to bake so I make all kinds of yummy goodness to keep my family sugar'd up!
I was given a sewing machine and I soon started figuring out how to sew. I think my first few projects were baby leggings made from woman's knee socks.

Halloween Baby Legs!

I quickly moved on to making wool longies from sweaters I found at Goodwill, then it was pillowcase dresses. I love it so much that I have decided that I would like to hone my sewing skills by helping others learn to sew.
I will be posting tutorials and tips that I learn over weeks and months of practice with all of you!
I will also share recipes and menu ideas. Hopefully I will get motivated to try new things and hopefully learn some things from all of you as well!
If there is something you would like to see, let me know, I'd love to hear what you have in mind too!!!

 I hope that you enjoy this as much as I do!
Welcome to my world.....

Signing off ~
 The Domestic Diva