Thursday, December 18, 2014

2014 Holiday card

I love this card! The expression on the cat's face is just glorious! It's a happy cat enjoying life.


Saturday, October 25, 2014

More watercolor flowers



+ new Signo Uni Ball white pens!


Sunday, October 19, 2014

Watercolor flowers

Bought some higher-quality pan watercolor paints and really had fun with them. Colors are vibrant and stay that way!

This is a "finished" piece


This was a first sketch



This is a "dribble" sample


Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Sleepy cats of 2014

Luke and Allie, January 2014



Sunday, January 26, 2014

Gelli Prints

Played with the gelli plate yesterday.


I've been away from paint projects for the past couple of months and got carried away with gelli printing yesterday! These first 3 are finished. I added collage pieces that include tissue paper, collage scraps, text, and "tulip" paint skin as demonstrated by Jane Davies.










Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Mom's spinach and knoefla

Another favorite Slovak dish my mother used to make and that was passed down from her mother is creamed spinach served over knoefla. Here is the recipe for creamed spinach:

Ingredients for creamed spinach


1 nine-oz bag of spinach (or 1 pkg frozen)
1 c water
3 or 4 cloves of garlic, chopped fine
2 T flour
2 T butter
1 cup milk

Place spinach and chopped garlic in 2-qt saucepan with water and cook until spinach wilts down and is tender. Drain the spinach and save the spinach water in separate containers and let cool. After the spinach has cooled, put it into a food processor and blend until chopped. Be careful not to over-process to ensure that the spinach does not turn to a liquid (it should be "finely chopped" spinach). I use the Nutribullet and process the spinach with the nut-chopping blade for about 3 seconds. Set aside.

Using the 2-qt saucepan, melt 2 T butter and mix in the 2 T flour to make a rue. Cook and stir this until bubbly. Then slowly add spinach water and milk to the rue, all the while stirring. Be careful not to add the liquids all at once so that the rue does not cool down and become lumpy. When you have added all the milk and water, you should have a smooth cream sauce. To this cream sauce, add the chopped spinach. Heat through and serve over knoefla (recipe below).

Prep time (including knoefla): 1/2 hour; serves 2 nicely with leftovers

This dish is delicious served with breaded pork chops or just hard-boiled eggs cut in half.