Chilly

Chilly, originally uploaded by lilly1975.

I found the recipe for this great, quick and easy dish at a wonderful Israely blog and modified it to a vegetarian Chilly, I'm not so found of cooking meat (though I will eat it out). It was super easy and quick to make so I thought I'd share.

Ingredients
For cornbread:
1/4 cup of regular flour
1/4 cup of corn grits (sometimes called polenta)
1/2 tea spoon of baking soda
1/2 tea spoon of salt
1 egg
1 cup of yogurt

For chilly:
2 cups of sprouted beans (if you don't sprout beans this can work with canned beans, which I personally don't like, or dry lentils or dry munge beans)
A spoon of flour
A small can of tomato paste
1 onion
2 carrots
2 chillies (I used jalapeno but any type is good)
Chilly flakes
cumin

* I used carrots cause that's what I had, this can also work with potato, mushrooms, corn, peppers or any combination of those.

How to make it:

In a small bowl mix all the dry ingredients for the corn bread (2 type of flour, baking soda and salt) then ad the egg and yogurt mix as little as possible till the mixture is unified. Then put in the fridge.

Chop the onions and chillies and other vegetable and fry in a pan. The pan later on will have to go into the oven, so don't use one with a plastic handle. mix and add the beans, then add the tomato paste mixed with about half a cup of water. mix again by now you'll have a pan full of red stuff.

Mix a table spoon of flour with a cup of water and add to the frying pan. mix for about 5 minutes, the mixture will thicken and look really yummy, add a pinch of cumin and, if you like spicy, some chilly flakes. turn off the stove and then, with a spoon, put dollops of the corn bread mixture on top. I fitted 6 of them in there.

Put the pan in the over for 15 set on about 300F then under the grill for another 5 minute (just so the corn bread will get a nice toasty color).

That's it really, the whole thing, including cooking took about 30 minutes to make, it made a huge lunch with leftovers for me and Ned.

Stab stitching tutorial

This is a tutorial for my currently favorite book making method. A Japanese style stab stitching cook, it's perfect for making small notebooks, sketchbooks and albums, as well as bigger hard cover books (though I personally haven't tried those.

The benefits of stab stitching books are - since all the pages are stitched together, there are no signatures and so you can bind any number of pages together. Also, there is no glue involve which make this craft a lot less messy (though you won't be able to judge that by how the studio looks right now.


Materials
A rubber ballet or a hammer, paper cut to size, I used about 25 pages for this one, nice paper for the cover and pack cover, also cut to the same size at the pages inside, an awl, a ruler, craft knife, pencil, floss, needle, 2 clips.

Step 1. Attach all the pages together using the clips, put the clips in about a third from the top, leave at least 1"-2" clear to work on.
Step 2. with the ruler and the pencil, mark a straight line on the top part of the book (where the stitching will go). Mark 5 points in equal intervals.


Step 3. Using the awl and mallet, puncture 5 holes where you made the marking. make sure the awl made it all the way through all layers of paper and that the holes are nice and even. If you down have an awl, this can also be done with a nail.

Step 4. make a knot at the end of your floss and thread it through a needle. Start by passing the needle through the center hole from the back of the book to the front, then loop around the top part of the book and insert the needle again through the same hole.

Step 5. Then, pass the needle through the hole to the right of the center hole, and loop around the top part again. turn the book to the back part and move to the next hole to the right (the last one) and loop around it as well. Loop around the side of the book and insert the needle through the first hole to the right again. Then stiched back to the center.
Step 6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 to the left side of the book, then tie a knot at the end and trim the floss.

Ta-Da! the book is done, you can decorate it with rubber stamps, bits of paper, beads, drawings or whatever you like. Or, if you are too lazy, you can hop on to my store and buy one. Writing the instruction is honestly more complicated then actually making one, there are very few options to where the needle can go and it's really really easy to make.

More book binding information
Book binding glossary
The how to make books book
Japanese book binding
Center of book art
The Arm - a wonderful gallery and letter press shop, that offer classes and is just a great place to visit.