I love cooking shows and am loving ABC’s newest cook off show, “The Taste”. It comes on ABC at 8pm on Tuesdays. I loved those little tasting spoons they were sampling the various dishes from when they were building their teams. For what I would do with them is not determined yet but I want them! I also noticed that they immediately dismissed the vegan and vegetarian dishes/cooks when choosing their team members to lead. I was a little surprised by that, I thought they would want the diversity but apparently not. Guess there will have to be a spin off show for them. I would watch a vegan or vegetarian cooking competition show. As I’m trying to reduce my meat intake, I’d be interested to see what dishes I could get inspiration from. But I’m going off on a tangent. Are any of you watching? What are your thoughts?

Image from QuellyRue Designs

So I am totally in love with the QuellyRue Designs Afro Woman sweatshirt (pictured above). Because everyone is on how fly they are and they are hand crafted by Raquel herself, only a limited number go up and when they do, I’m never fast enough to buy one before they are sold out again. I work and don’t live by the computer so I decided to make my own sweatshirt inspired by this Quelly Rue one. Step One: purchase a sweatshirt. I’ve purchased a sweatshirt. For step two, I have chosen to base my graphic off one I created for my natural hair blog, AGrlCanMac, pictured below.  Step three, I will determine what types of media I want to use to create it:  fabric, fabric paint a design on, or felt.

Because I’m working on a million projects at once (I really need to get with doing one project at a time), I will provide updates as I make progress with this. What projects are you working on?

One of the cool gifts that I received for Christmas was a cast iron skillet. It had been on my list for a while to get one but I never got around to it so I was pleasantly surprised when I was gifted one. I have the 10 1/4 inch size model by Lodge and it came pre-seasoned so all I had to do before using it was wash it in hot, soapy water; dry it and rub with some cooking oil. I didn’t have any cooking oil or Crisco on hand so I just used extra virgin olive oil and that worked out just fine.

If you bought a new cast iron skillet and it was not pre-seasoned, Martha Stewart has a super easy video showing how to season a brand new one. The first thing I cooked in my skillet was sauteed kale with garlic (pictured above), yummy! I can’t wait to make some catfish in it soon, there’s nothing like catfish fried up in a skillet.

Since my skillet was gifted, I don’t know where it was purchased but you can find it HERE on Amazon.

{Image Source: Dry Icons}

Happy New Year! I disappeared for a bit but I am still here. I took an unplanned break from writing but it was much needed and refreshing. I’m recharged, ready and brimming with ideas, posts and tutorials for 2013. I’ve got some great things up my sleeves for this space. Thank you for your readership, leaving comments and showing your support! It does not go unappreciated. Wishing you all a healthy, fruitful and adventurous (my re-newed take on life) 2013!

New material will be coming soon!

Stay creative,

Milan

I spontaneously bought a ticket last week to see the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater last night at the NY City Center. I took a modern dance history class in college and one of the dancer/choreographers that I was never able to forget about was the magical Alvin Ailey. I vowed to see dancers in his company perform live one day and I finally did!

The performance was nothing short of amazing. Alvin Ailey dance movements are so “angular” and precise yet are liquid and all flow together. They require strength and grace at the same time. its beautiful. Now I was super excited to see Ailey’s most recognized, “Revelations”, bc i just love the performance and the costumes. Wade in the Water and Rocka my Soul are my absolute fav segments from “Revelations” and they kilt it last night. I also fell in love with “Episodes” which was choreographed by the late Ulysses Dove. Wow. It was great. It inspired me to research him and his work.

Overall, I absolutely loved the performance. The precision, passion and skill the dancers had was inspiring and amazing. They made me want to get up and dance but I knew better. Lol. I went by myself bc I just had to see it and I’m glad I did. This will NOT be my last time seeing an Alvin Ailey performance!

They have a few more days left in NYC, they are here till the 30th. See if you can still get a ticket. You will not be disappointed!

Visit the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater site for more details.

Yes honey, that’s the name of one of my new favorite restaurants. Located in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, some girlfriends and I ventured here for brunch last Sunday. When I tell you the food is so good that it should be illegal, I mean it! This is the place to indulge in your cheat meal. I ordered the chicken biscuit and a side of cheese grits. That chicken biscuit… I need a moment of silence for how good it was……. This fried chicken cutlet was served with hot sauce and honey butter slathered on the insides of the biscuit. The cheese grits were served with a little salsa on top. I never thought to eat my cheese grits with a little salsa but it was working and I inhaled those grits. I inhaled that chicken biscuit too!

My girlfriends ordered the chicken and waffles with sides of cheese grits and breakfast potatoes.The waffles were garnished with a little raspberry jam and cinnamon butter and the breakfast potatoes were delish.

Everything was delish, fresh and tasted like your granny from down south was burnin in the kitchen. I must go back!

Pies-n-Thighs

166 S.4th St (at Driggs)

Brooklyn, NY 11211

www.PiesNThighs.com

Twitter: @piesnthighs

I’ll be back to regularly scheduled posting soon. Been so busy but I’m challenging myself to start blogging from the phone more when I’m not home to write. Thank you for reading my blog.

It’s fall and in the cooler weather, I crave comfort foods that are warm, hearty and “stick to your bones”. I wanted to make chili last weekend but my schedule didn’t allow so I decided to make some last night in my slow cooker and let it cook overnight. I adapted Debbie’s Crock Pot Chili recipe from Food.com to create mine.

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 Russet potatoes
• 1 (15 oz) can of Tomato sauce
• 2 cans of Diced tomatoes
• 1 can of Black beans
• 1 can of Pinto beans (I didn’t have any northern beans on me)
• 4 Tablespoons of Chili powder
• 1 1/2 Teaspoons of Garlic powder
• 1/2 Teaspoon of Cayenne pepper
• 1 Teaspoon of Italian seasoning

Wash and cube potatoes. Dump everything (you can drain the beans first before adding if you like, I didn’t though.) into the slow cooker, stir it to mix up the contents and let cook on low for 6-8 hours. Eat alone or serve over rice. Makes about 4-6 servings. Enjoy!

I like to eat my chili with rice so I made some jasmine rice to go with it and I also made cheddar bay biscuits (I’ll share that recipe in another post). Easy, tasty and perfect comfort food for a fall day. This was my first time making chili and I’m happy with the results. I will definitely be making it again. I plan to play around more with chili variations. There were some spices the original recipe called for that I didn’t have on hand (like cumin, oregano and coriander) so I’d like to make it again using them to see the difference in flavor.

Did you watch the Steel Magnolias remake this past Sunday night? I was excited when I first heard there was going to be a remake with an amazing cast including some of my favorite actresses like Alfrie Woodard, Jill Scott, Phylicia Rashad, and Queen Latifah. If you never saw the original one, watch it; it was very good. I like the original version and this one. Lifetime stands behind quality productions and are always able to present viewers with film that captures the real life situations and emotions we as women, and people, experience in the different circumstances of life. If you’re like me you were blubbering at the end. It’s not a complete spoiler to those who have never seen this one or the original but I had to say it to bond with those that have. Lol. Just watch it, it’s good.

If you watched, what did you think?

This DIY Gladiator Sandals tutorial I saw recently is ingenious. Why didn’t I see this tutorial earlier?! It is super easy and is making me want to dig out my sandals (we do have an Indian summer goin here in the big apple- was 70 something degrees today!) and do this and wear them out somewhere. For those in climates where it will still be warm for a few more months, you definitely can do this now. I must remember this for next summer.

This tutorial above was guest featured by GlitterNGlue. I checked out her site and love it, I followed instantly (she’s a fellow “WordPresser”). She has so many cool crafts to do and I love that so many of them involve accessories.

I love Erin Bailey of Scandalous Beauty. I fell in love with her beauty channel on Youtube years ago, she doesn’t really update it now but she still has her site and is still a huge beauty enthusiast. I follow her on Instagram and just found out that she has a food Instagram account AND a food blog. As lover of cooking and an emerging foodie, I am loving her food blog, Bread Butter Wine. It has totally been added to my Reader on here.

So those are my link picks. What links are you all diggin?

This will be the start of many phone posts when my days are packed with productivity and adventure outside of the home. I got around to doing the Sharpie mug craft last weekend. I first saw it on A Beautiful Mess and then kept seeing it all over Pinterest and finally said let’s give it a go.

I bought the mug on sale at Target for the low and I already had Sharpie markers laying around. On a clean and plain porcelain mug, write whatever you would like on it with a permanent marker, set your oven to 350 degrees and let the mug bake in there for 30 minutes. Take it out and let cool completely before use. That’s it. Elsie from A Beautiful Mess advised they hold up better when you hand wash them. They make great gifts. This was just a trial run for me. I want to make some more w various designs on them.