New Website!

I have been working like crazy this week to redesign my website and it is finally done!  You can visit me at www.vanessasorensen.com.  I did a lot of testing to try and find any errors, but let me know if you notice anything that doesn't work correctly.  Happy browsing!

Fish Cutting Board

When I saw this fish cutting board at the Duck Creek Antique Mall I knew he was coming home with me.  I just love the way the board has started to split to form a slight smile (you might have to click on it to see it better).  I also love that he has been used and has a nice worn patina.  Keeping him company are three cast iron hens my mom bought me at the Springfield Antique Show last summer.  This is making me excited to go antiquing this spring...oh the treasures that await me!

Birding Journal: Through the Seasons

I am very excited to announce my new book Birding Journal: Through the Seasons is officially available!  You can buy it directly from the publisher, Adventure Publications, or Amazon or Barnes and Noble.  For those of you unfamiliar with the book it is a birding journal for people to record what birds they see throughout the year.  It is filled with illustrations and various ways to record your bird sightings, plus lots of extra tidbits like suet recipes, birding hotspots, and tips to attract birds to your yard. 

Below are a few sample pages from the book.

Spring is upon us so if you know any bird lovers out there let them know about the book!  Happy birding!

Quiche Crust

Tonight when I made this spinach mushroom quiche I had enough extra dough to make this nice beaded border for the crust.  It looks impressive but is very easy to do.  After I rolled out the dough the first time I turned the pie plate upside down and cut around it to make a perfect circle.  I then rolled the dough out a little bit more to make it wide enough to compensate for the vertical side of the pie plate.  When I placed the circle of dough into the pie plate I had about 1/2 inch of space between the top of the dough and the top of the pie plate.  This provided a nice little "ledge" for the dough balls.

To make the dough balls I squeezed and rolled the dough into a snake shape about 1/2 inch thick and then squeezed off pieces of dough roughly every 1/2 inch or so.  I just rolled the dough between my hand to make dough balls and then placed them on the ledge.  They had a tendency to fall off so I pushed them down and out against the side of the dish.

The recipe for the crust is from Molly Katzen's Sunlight Cafe.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick cold unsalted butter
up to 3 tablespoons of cold water, milk, or buttermilk

Instructions:
Place the flour and salt in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade.  Cut the butter into slices, add to the processor, and buzz several times, until the mixture is uniform and resembles coarse meal.  Continue to process in quick spurts as you add the water, 1 tablespoon at a time.  As soon as the dough adheres to itself when pinched, stop adding water and turn the dough out onto a floured surface.  Gather it gently into a ball.  Roll the dough into a circle 11 inches or so in diameter.  Lift the dough and ease it into a 9-inch pie pan or 10-inch springform tart pan. If you're not going to use the crust right away, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate or freeze until use.

I substituted Earth Balance for the butter and it was delicious!

(The recipe for the quiche is here.)

Valetine's Day Cards

I hardly ever do two posts in one day, but I wanted to post the cards I made this year.  For those fontophiles out there the "O" is Poster Bodoni and the "M" is Americana. Same for below except the "R" is Bodoni MT.

This card is now available for purchase from from my zazzle store.

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!

Vintage Valentines Tablecloth and Bottles

When I saw this tablecloth at Duck Creek Antique Mall I tried to resist it.  I even went home and tried to forget about it.  But how could I forget about that cute Pennsylvania Dutch design?  Just look at the cute Dutch girl!  And the quality was really, good!  When I went back to buy it a couple days later I was nervous that it would be gone and when I got to the booth I was so disappointed because I couldn't find it.  My heart sank...I knew that it was too cute to last even a couple days near Valentines's day.  So I decided to console myself by looking through the stack of tablecloths and there it was!  Oh joy...Valentine's Day was saved this year!

And to top it all off George got me white tulips which looked great in my vintage bottle collection.  I love the curvy shape of this bottle.  I hope everyone has a very Happy Valentine's Day!

Rabbit Fabric

For about a year now I have been voting in Spoonflower's fabric design contest.  For those of you not familiar with Spoonflower it is a company that you can send a design to and they will print it on fabric.  So lately I have been toying with the idea of getting more into fabric design and I decided it was finally time to start submitting some designs for their weekly contests.  Each week they have a different theme and this week it was the Chinese Year of the Rabbit.  I decided to draw up a bunny under the moonlight.  You can vote in the contest here and you can vote for as many as you like.  This week there were an abnormally high number of entries so there were 16 pages to get through, but I really enjoy seeing everyone's creative designs.  Have fun!