What's Baking? May: Bake With Spring Produce

This month's theme is Bake with Spring Produce, hosted by Ammie of Adventures in my Kitchen. I get excited for spring produce, because it finally means that one of my favorite vegetables, asparagus, is around again. Unfortunately for this bake along, I always steam it and gobble it up (plain) too fast to ever put it in any baked good. My new favorite spring veggie is fiddleheads. I finally tracked down some last year at the Coop in Lebanon, NH and we sauteed them with balsamic vinegar. They were... just ok. Not great. This year I prepared them much more simply and they were amazing. New favorite veggie! I parboiled them  for 5-6 minutes, while sauteing some minced garlic in butter with salt in a pan, and then drained the fiddleheads and tossed them in, stirred around for a few minutes, and that was it. Amazing. They suck up all the buttery garlic flavor the way mushrooms do. It's just too bad we can only get fiddleheads for a couple weeks a year! I may start growing ferns just to have some fiddleheads...

Anyway, enough with steaming and sauteing, let's bake something.

My area is a little tricky for spring produce. The grocery store will carry it if it's available, but I don't think they put much effort into obtaining local stuff. We've again opted out of the CSA (sigh! hopefully next summer), which doesn't start til June anyway. We have a farmer's market at the end of our street, but none of the farmer's markets around here start until the 3rd week of June. My mom mentioned going to the one across from her office this week and I was instantly jealous. :-/ So where to get the produce?

Here. Friends, this is my garden. Further to the left is my giant patch of pachysandra, and in the picture you can see my weeds, my little garlic plant and my beautiful chives. These are all things that require no effort on my part, because I'm a terrible gardener. Although the other day Clint and I were checking out the big empty area where our arbor vitae used to be and we kind of got the idea to put a box garden in there... ideas are not actions though, so we'll see. Fortunately, I have many gardener friends to turn to for advice. So maybe one day, my chives won't be the pride of my garden- although honestly, I grew a mean crop of hostas. Seriously. And we have some nice Lily of the Valley, and our mulberry tree seems to be in good form this year.

So I turned to my local, fresh, spring produce chives to help me out. I used them in one of my new favorite recipes, Dorie Greenspan's Cheese and Chive bread. The first time I made this, I used Penzey's sage, because it was during the winter. But now I have all these chives at my disposal! (as well as 2 other chive plants in pots on the porch).

Savory Cheese and Chive Bread
recipe from Dorie Greenspan, in Around My French Table

1 and 3/4 cups flour
1T baking powder
1/2-1t salt (depending on what kind of cheese you're using, and this time, I only used a pinch- the people I baked this for are all trying to cut down on salt in their diet)
1/4t white pepper (couldn't find it in the baggies-of-spices bowl (I need more spice jars! I buy all my spices in bulk), so I used freshly ground black pepper)
3 eggs
1/3 cup milk (Dorie says whole, I use skim)
1/3 cup olive oil
1 heaping cup grated cheese (gruyere, cheddar, etc)
1/3 to 1/2 cup of cheese chunks (gruyere, cheddar, etc)
1/2 cup minced chives (or other herbs)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional, I omitted- I'm funny about nuts, I only like them in sweet things)

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and pepper. Set aside.

Beat the eggs together until frothy, about a minute. Whisk in the milk and olive oil and beat til combined, then gently stir in the dry ingredient mixture and stir until just barely combined. Be gentle! Fold in the cheeses and herbs and nuts.

Bake in a greased 9x5 loaf pan at 350F fo 35-45 minutes, until it's just beginning to brown and a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean. Wait until cooled to slice! I learned the hard way that this'll fall apart if you're not patient in your slicing.

For this loaf, I used half sharp cheddar and half chipotle cheddar (both Cabot). Normally I get the Cabot sharp cheddar in the 3lb block and keep it on hand- it's the favorite hor d'ouerve for when my parents visit! But this time I was running low so I added in some of the 8oz block of chipotle cheddar Clint and I bought when we went cheese and wine tasting in Quechee, VT. The bread doesn't really have any of the spice of the chipotle cheddar, but it has the smokiness. I have to remember this cheese combination! The chive flavor isn't a star in this bread, but it's a nice compliment to the cheeses, and it makes it look more appetizing than when I used dried sage.

This is my favorite recipe now for when I need to bring a room temperature savory appetizer- for DAR meetings, our choir's Wine Tasting fundraiser, for picnics. It's lovely and cheesy and really easy! 

Oh here's Clint's idea of how best to eat this bread- with my delicious turkey burgers. I might need to make this recipe into a scone-like bun recipe next!

Spring, part 3 (leftovers)

so 2 weeks ago I went to the store... I'm a little behind on blogging. I'll blame it on my poor health. My health issues don't actually stop me from doing anything, but they freak me out so I can't really sit still to do anything because I'm too busy worrying and fretting. Anything in short bursts I can do (facebook, clean), but anything requiring thought for more than 5 minutes (emailing, blogging, deciding what to make for dinner) isn't so easy.

Anyway, I've been on about 1 full week of good health. Today's not so great but it's one of those days that I say, "if it could always be like this, no worse, no better, I can live like that." and pray it doesn't get worse.

But I can still try on clothes.

The day I went shopping was the Friday following the Monday/Tuesday 2 day sale. Of course, the Lilly store I frequent is on the route for the Boston Marathon, which happened on Monday. I would have gone to their sale, but I come from the other side and I didn't think I could cross the marathon route. (when I said that to the saleslady, she looked at me like I had 3 heads. Hey lady, not everyone lives in the rich surburbs, some of us have to come from the other direction!) And on Tuesday I was too busy. Boo! But my wallet thanked me, especially when I saw what I believe was the sale section: Taytays, Stefe shifts, lots of tops and skirts, and a Dark 'n Stormy Worth shift. On their facebook page, they advertised "30-70% off", but I don't know what was marked down to what in that section. But I can tell you, I'm pretty sure I would have walked off with that Worth. Check it out.

 I take a size smaller in Worth than everything else in this post, but it's still comfortable roomy. I looove this dress. It was really hard to leave it behind. But you know why I did? A couple reasons: first, it's like 2 years old. Or 1 year? Either way, really not current, and I don't see why it's still full price. This particular one has been there since August so it's like not they're so popular they have no reason to mark them down. But the second, and more important reason, is that the salespeople were pretty rude to me, and I was insulted. Normally I try to buy at least one thing, something within my budget, just to make up for all the time I've hogged the dressing room. But this time I was first insulted for being so long in the store (seriously? Don't you think you'd want customers to try on a zillion things and increase their chances of buying a lot? Maybe they're onto me and know I'm not going to buy all that I try) and another salesperson came over and started complaining about the person who'd been in the dressing room (hi, that was me) while the first saleslady was helping me. Then I stood at the register for literally 5 minutes, holding the above dress, all 5 salespeople walked by me at some point, but no one helped me. Yes, 2 were with other customers, but the rest were not. I take that as karma telling me not to buy it. So now I'm on the hunt for this in a 10. Or any Worth shift for a good price, but I'll pay slightly more for this one.

I'm also not going to name the store I was in because all my other experiences there have been pleasant. I do hope they're not annoyed that I try stuff on there, I have dropped a significant amount of money there over the past year, just not on each visit, so it's not like I'm completely wasting their time. Stores are weird. I would think they wouldn't want to turn any customer away in this economy... I guess we'll see how it is next time I go in. Plus once I'm employed again I actually will buy something each time I visit. You'd think a store wouldn't want to risk alienating someone with that intention!

Anyway, rant over. I was pretty mad when I left, though.

So here's some more spring. I'm not going to link to everything and tell you prices, I just don't have the time or energy for that. Sorry!

Delia, size 12: a little snug, love the embroidery and the low back (sorry, not shown!), iffy on the exposed zipper, not thrilled about the length. I'm 5'6, btw.

Ha. Felicity, because everyone's talking about this. Someone said it was hard to get on. I tried my normal size and it was super easy to get on, about the same as a really stretchy strapless top. It was big, I probably would need to size down (in strapless?! unheard of!) but it looks ridiculous on me so why bother? I knew it would look like this. I call this look "hourglass in a funhouse mirror".

Clare, size L. This is actually the first Clare I've ever tried on! I don't love it. It's flattering but I don't care for the flutter sleeves, I have enough shoulder without adding to it. But the rest of the dress is very slimming.

Peggy, size 12. Another one people were talking about. Yeahhhh not in love. It's ok. People have said it's short, but I thought the length was fine. It fit true to size, though.

Adeline, size comparison. First is size 14. Looks fine, maybe a little big in the belly.

Now size 12. .....looks fine.

The bust was the same in both, but 14 had a slightly bigger belly. I think I'll go with the 12.


A little skirt comparison! This is the Hallie skirt, which was on bloomingdales.com recently with a little price typo- $48 instead of $78. ha oops! I was tempted to get it, but it seemed short. Well, it's quite short, and I'm glad I didn't get it. Fits more snugly than a Roslyn, too.

 Tate skirt, also way too short, and fits a little snugly.

Wynne top, size L. I do like the ruffle on the top, but I wasn't thrilled by it overall. It looks fine in the picture, but when I had it on it was awfully long. I might hunt for this on sale. Once upon a time it was such an ordeal to find a cute shirt that wasn't inappropriately low-cut, so years ago I would have bought this immediately, but lately it's easier. I don't do crew neck, and anything else showed too much! I don't know what happened to tops so that I don't have this problem anymore, but I really like it.

Clementine top. I first tried a M, assuming Elsa sizing. Not quite! It pulled at the bust too much. 

 Here's a L, which isn't significantly bigger in the belly, but is perfect in the bust. I'm not madly in love with this print (although I do love this shade of pink!), otherwise I would have taken this home. I was really hoping it would pop up in the summer line, but alas. So I think I'll get this when it's on sale. It's also available in Valley Girl, which isn't a good shade of yellow for my complexion.

Telyn, size M- Elsa sizing! Really love this, but I think I may have to wear a tank under it. that's ok! It's so cute and summery, it makes me want to wear it on the beach. I'm hoping this appears on my birthday, my mom was raving about it one day when she called me from a shopping trip. ;)

Krista polo, L. Ick. Just, ick. I feel like this shirt has stolen all of the shoulder pads used in the 80s and is using them all at once.  If you have more sloping shoulders, or perhaps a longer neck, I'm sure it's lovely. The color's fab, but I couldn't wait to take this off.

Ricci, size 10. A little short, not bad, and I like the neckline even better than my Look Lady one from last summer! I felt this was a little tighter than Ricci should be, but I think 12 would have been too large. So I'm not sure what size I'd get, if I got this dress. My Look Lady Ricci is a 12 and it's lovely and roomy, but I can't wear any pins on it because pulls the dress down so much- so maybe I should have sized down last summer!

Ok now let's talk about Elsas. I feel like I need to have a whole post dedicated solely to Elsa. Let's start by saying that I have 2. I almost had 3, I got a silk one on sale but I couldn't stand the print- it was one I'm not a huge fan of anyway but I thought having a half price Elsa in it would make me like it enough. I was wrong.

I have 2 cotton Elsas. Here they are:

 In starfruit yellow's picture, I was doing a sleeve comparison to a dress. But you'll note that the sleeves are different lengths between hotty pink and starfruit yellow. Both are size M. They might be different seasons, though. Both were Rue La La purchases, but pink was in January, yellow in April.

This is from fall, size L- a little roomy but not enormous.

 Here's one from resort, size L. This is Elsa Pintucks. It's huge.

And here's the same in M, much better.

More Elsas from fall, but not pintucks. I didn't like them, they seemed huge and blousy and ready to swallow me whole. Both size M. I think it was mostly that the sleeves were quite big, not so much the body.

So with that in mind, here's the spring Embroidered Elsa. Very pretty. It's a woven cotton, a nice, airy fabric.

And it's a little tight in the bust. Interesting. And note the enormous sleeves. I have relatively long arms, and generally sleeves are too short for me (one of the reasons I can't wear button-down shirts, the arms are never long enough). This Elsa isn't necessarily on my "no" list, but it was surprising.

Now I'm eager to check out summer! I haven't seen anything in person yet- part of my reason for this trip to the Lilly store was because I'd emailed about when they'd have summer in, and was told it'd be on the floor the next day. Yeah, what the guy meant was actually the last shipment of spring, they had a couple boxes still being unpacked when I was there, and I saw a stack of Leilas in Lavish Lillys. Not the same as summer! But I am patient. I'm also not loving the summer styles overly much. I fully approve of Ugotta Regatta, Sailor's Valentine, and Summer Classics, but I really have no idea what I'd buy in each print. A murfee and/or bag in Summer Classics, maybe the Whitney pants in Sailor's Valentine, but I have no clue about Ugotta Regatta. I may hope the Camie dress is as cute as the Carolyn on me, but I'm worried it'll be more like Cassie, i.e. no thanks. Maybe Treena, the long dress, but I'm not holding my breath on that one! Now, if they had a Worth in Ugotta Regatta, I'd be all over that! Full price, even!

What's Baking? April: Baking with Yeast

Lindsay of Peace, Love and French Fries chose the theme for this month, and she chose yeast! Her intent was to try to get people who haven't done much/anything with yeast before to give it a try. Obviously I'm not one of those yeast-fearers, but I did try to make some I've never done before. Originally I planned to make soft pretzels, but things were way too hectic to plan for that. Fortunately, I had another recipe in the back of my mind that was a little easier.

Pitas!

I'd wanted to make pitas ever since someone mentioned how she never bothers buying them anymore because her homemade ones are so much tastier and are easy to make. I can't really compare these to storebought pitas because I have never found any in my area. Because of that, pitas aren't really on my radar, I never think of them as an option for anything. After my first attempt at making them, that's totally changed!

Homemade Pitas

recipe adapted from Tide and Thyme

I only use active dry yeast, since I buy it in bulk (2 cup deli containers) at the store, and that's all there is in bulk. The original recipe used instant.

3-4 cups flour
1.5t salt
1T sugar
1T yeast
1 and 1/4 cups warm water
2T olive oil

Sprinkle the yeast and sugar over the warm water, let sit for a few minutes to let the yeast wake up. In a medium bowl (or the bowl of your stand mixer), combine 3 cups of flour and the salt, and then add the yeast mixture and oil and stir together with a wooden spoon, until the mixture forms a ball. If it seems dry, add a little more water.

Knead for about 10 minutes- either by hand or with your stand mixer. While kneading, gradually add more flour until the dough is tacky but not sticky (I added an extra 3/4 cup or so).

Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, roll the dough around so it's oiled all over, and cover with a dish towel and let rise for 1.5-2 hours in a warm spot.

After the dough has approximately doubled in size, punch it down and divide into 8 equal pieces. Roll each into a ball, and place on a cookie sheet and cover with a damp dish towel. Let rest on the counter for about 20 minutes.

On a well-floured surface, roll out each dough ball to a round with about 1/4in thickness, about 6-8 inches in diameter. If you're having trouble getting the dough to stretch, let it rest and come back to it after working on the others. Place all the rounds on a parchment-lined cookie sheet, cover with the damp towel and let rise for 30-45 minutes.

Now preheat the oven to 450F, and preheat the baking surface- either a baking stone or a cookie sheet. My baking stone is small so I used a cookie sheet. When the pitas are done rising, open the oven and place each round directly on the preheated baking surface- using my biggest cookie sheet I could fit 4 pitas at a time. Bake for 3 minutes (or up to 6-8 if you want them a little crispy). They'll puff up impressively.

Now fill them and enjoy!

The reason I made these pitas the day I did is that I had some ground lamb in the freezer and a recipe from the Sandwich King I wanted to try. Greek tacos! Ground lamb cooked with chopped onions, tomato paste and oregano, made into a pita sandwich with some tzatziki and a cucumber-tomato-red onion relish

I won!

Last week I entered a giveaway. Well, ok, this is a regular occurrence. There are a lot of giveaways in facebook groups I frequent, and I enter many of them. Some I really want to win (ahem, In The Pink's $500 shopping spree), some would be nice to win, and some I really don't care about the prize but it would make a nice gift for someone.

Last week Purse Lady Too had a giveaway. I don't think there was a specific reason for it, she just had one. All you had to do was share the giveaway information on your fb page and comment that you had done so, and you'd be entered. The prize was one of Lemon and Line's rope bracelets.

So I entered. Why not? The bracelets are cute, they're not exactly anything I'd go out and buy, but again, nice possible gift for someone.

Now, Purse Lady Too is really cool. I think Bird told me about her. She sells lovely little stationary goods, including Lilly, Kiel James Patrick, Fornash, etc. Lots of great things. And she likes to offer special deals often! I made my first purchase last fall, I bought a bunch of things on sale that I used as gifts. And included in the box (mind you, I didn't buy all that much, maybe $40 worth), I got a free lobster notepad! too cute. I gave it to my mom as a stocking stuffer. But that little free gift got me hooked.

My most recent purchase was on Leap Day, when there was a free Lilly tech case/wristlet with a purchase of $65 or more. I stocked up on birthday gifts for 2012 and planned to give the wristlet as a gift, but when I actually saw it I decided I can't part with it.

Too cute! Perfect for the beach.

So I want to spread the PLT love. Go sign up for emails and like her on facebook, and be the first to hear about her upcoming specials!

But back to the giveaway.

Well, wouldn't you know, I actually won! I never win. I used to be good at guessing the number of jelly beans in the jar because I can do some quick math, and I have a secret trick for tea cup auctions, but I never win random giveaways! I was excited about the novelty of winning, not so much about the actual prize. Again, great birthday gift for someone. But then PLT contacted me to ask what color and what size bracelet I'd like. Um, size? Get this- these Lemon and Line rope bracelets come in different sizes. Whoa! I love bracelets but they're just so hard to fit right. Either they're huge and fall off, or they're tiny and more like a large ring. I checked out L&L's size chart (which, btw, isn't the most user-friendly thing, actually go as if you're about to purchase a bracelet, then there's a drop-down menu where you select the size and it tells you the measurement of each size in inches).

I selected my color and size, and PLT shipped it off to me immediately. I received it a couple days ago, when I got home between choir rehearsal and going out to dinner, opened it up, put it on, and kept it on for the rest of the day. I'm quite fond of this bracelet! I predict I'll be using it quite a bit this summer it's a great, colorful, casual accessory. Perfect for the CT shore. There's some give to the length because of the rope and the knot, and it has a neat-looking clasp (although L&L would have you believe it's the best clasp since sliced bread, super easy to put on, etc. It's not all that easy. It could be worse, but I have to fuss with it a bit to get it to close). The size of this is perfect, I like my bracelets a little loose, and it is. I just hope it doesn't get all weird if I get it wet!

I'm wearing it today, since the pink in it is the same shade as my pink Elsa.

And speaking of giveaways, I won another one a few days later! I won a Fornash fishy necklace. Another perfect-for-summer accessory! I'm a roll! I need more giveaways to enter before my luck runs out!

Cookies topped with other cookies

Not in a sandwich cookie way, either.

I was recently introduce to Biscoff Spread. It's essentially ground up Biscoff cookies, pureed into a peanut butter-like paste. It looks like gooey peanut butter, but it tastes amazing- like cinnamon-y nilla wafers. Or, it tastes like a paste made out of Biscoff cookies, but I'd never had those before.

We enjoyed biscoff on nilla wafers, pretzels and a spoon. It was good. This was at M's house, so of course once I got home, and was getting ready to have a few people over, I had to go out and buy Biscoff Spread for myself. You can find it with the peanut butter, and it's a little pricey, about the same as Nutella (although I lucked out and Nutella was on special this week! woohoo!). I branched out a bit and tried it on granny smith apples, and discovered it's quite delicious on bananas. Biscoff is good stuff- not the healthiest snack ever, but I like to think eating it on fruit almost cancels it out- or makes a better dessert choice.

It just so happened that at the same time as the Biscoff Discovery, I was looking for a good cookie recipe. I had some self-imposed restrictions which were making the search a little tough. No chocolate, not oatmeal, I was sick of sugar cookies, I'd just made peanut butter nutella cookies and wanted something different.... well, I found a snickerdoodle recipe. Sounds good. But there was a second part...

Snickerdoodle cookie sandwiches with Biscoff Frosting. Oh my.

Snickerdoodles
recipe from Two Peas and Their Pod

1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature
2 eggs
2 3/4 cups flour
2t baking powder
1/2t salt
2T sugar
2t cinnamon

Cream together butter and sugar and beat til fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time. Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt, then stir into the butter mixture.

Whisk together the 2T sugar and cinnamon. Form dough into tablespoon-sized balls, roll in the cinnamon sugar, then place on a cookie sheet. Bake at 350F for 10-15 minutes (original said 8-10, I needed 15min), until they just turn golden brown.

FINALLY, I have found a good snickerdoodle recipe. They have the perfect snickerdoodley, cinnamony, eggy flavor that I love, and are nice and chewy. Mr Snickerdoodle Expert over here says they're better than the last recipe I tried, but they're supposed to be flatter. Yeah whatever. I'll smoosh them down before I bake them next time. But whatever he says, I think these are absolutely great. But there is a next step...

Biscoff Frosting
3T butter, softened
1/2 cup Biscoff Spread
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2T cinnamon
2-3T milk

Beat together butter and biscoff, then beat in sugar and cinnamon. It'll get crumbly, then add in the milk, tablespoon by tablespoon, beating sufficiently after each addition, until it's fluffy. (I only needed 2T).

Spread the cookie spread frosting ON the cookies. Whoa! They were supposed to be cookie sandwiches, but I was trying to save on the calories and just used one cookie with frosting on top.


But then, my friends, I got a little crazy. I had to go to the grocery store for milk yesterday, and I was on the hunt for Lilly Pulitzer animal crackers (none at the Mayfield St Big Y, which I expected). I did, however, find Biscoff Cookies- the stuff the spread is made from! I had to get them. The package says "Europe's Favorite Cookie with Coffee". I haven't yet tried them with coffee, but they're pretty darn good with tea!

We're running out of snickerdoodles by now... but we still have a lot of the Biscoff frosting left. So I kind of went to town with the Biscoff.

Biscoff Frosting on Biscoff Cookies. And I ate it too quickly to photograph it, but I also put Biscoff Spread (straight from the jar) on the Biscoff Cookies.

Cookies topped with spreads made from cookies... it's the ambrosia of baked goods.

Happy Pi Day!

First of all, in case you didn't know, we're kind of nerdy in our household. Clint's a computer guy, I'm a biochemist. He goes on and on about computer stuff and coding and scheduling, and I get all excited by protein-protein interactions and diagrams of such. In the grand scheme of things, that's pretty nerdy.

And we both have an intense love of pie. Apple pie, blueberry pie, chicken pot pie, lemon meringue pie... we love it all.

So it's not surprising that we both freaked out for awesomeness when we saw this picture

First of all, HOW DID WE NEVER NOTICE THIS BEFORE?!? I love this, I'm still laughing over it now, a day after I first saw it.

So in our extreme nerdiness and love of food, we had pie for pi day. I always intend to make pie for pi day, but in the past it's just never happened. So this year I made up for lost time with three pies.
Chicken pot pie with biscuit crust (blogged previously here), apple pie and blueberry pie.

This chicken pie is one of my new favorite dinner recipes. This may be its last hurrah before fall returns, because it's great for a chilly night. It's the perfect way to use up leftover chicken- a week ago, I boiled up 2 split breasts and 4 bone-in thighs to make chicken stock. We made pizza and tacos with the chicken, but still had quite a bit left, so I tossed it all in here. And used the chicken stock for the gravy!

I don't use recipes for my fruit pies. It always causes a little trouble when people ask for a pie recipe- honestly all a fruit pie is is pie crust lining a pie dish, filled with your choice of fruit tossed with some sugar and spices of your choice, and baked. If you're using wet fruit (like frozen berries with a lot of ice crystals on them, or fresh peaches), I also toss the fruit in flour or cornstarch to soak up the liquid. I like tossing apples with cinnamon and cardamom, and blueberries with allspice.

The one exception to my "no recipe" pie rule is my infamous Lime-Peach Pie. The pie I worked so hard on, combining the delicious flavors of fresh peaches and fresh limes, inspired by a peach margarita... and when I entered it in the Cornish Fair, the judges ruled that it had "overwhelming citrus flavor". Which was the WHOLE POINT OF THE PIE. But I'm not bitter- more pie for me!

Did you enjoy pie for pi day?

Jeans, and how I deal with them.

Many people say they hate bathing suit shopping. I don't. I never really have. I'm far from happy with my figure, but over the years I've been lucky to find two brands of bathing suits that always have at least one style that works on me- Lilly (duh) and J Crew. I've gotten to the point where I can even order online. It's a big relief.

But one thing that's just impossible to fit is jeans. Pants are ok, it's something about the denim or the rivets or the seaming... I don't know, but jeans are awful to shop for.

I think this is fairly common. I mean, that's why there are so many different fits of jeans. Curvy fit, straight fit, relaxed fit, boyfriend fit, skinny, slim, petite, cropped, long, flared, bootcut... oy. I've tried on all of it. I got to the point where I found a pair of jeans that fit, and I bought 3 pairs. Then I went through a phase where I bought 2 sizes. Then I saw that sometimes sizing up makes them wearable, but I might have to belt them. All of this worked for a while, but of course when they started to wear out, I went to get more, only to discover they no longer make that style, or anything close to it. Ugh!

When I try on a pair of jeans, if I get my normal pants size, the waist/butt fits perfectly, but the legs are so tight I can hardly pull them up. If I size up, the legs are perfect but the waist is huge. If I try on anything flared, that scenario is more exaggerated. If I try on skinny jeans... well, it's the opposite, sizing up makes the waist fit nicely but the legs are weird and baggy. It makes no sense!!!

Over the summer I found a pair of really cute new without tags size 12 Lilly jeans on ebay, they were misspelled so not very easy to find, but I found them, and I got them for $29.99. They have adorable pink and green stitching on the back pockets, and they were kind of a consolation for a pair of size 8 jeans I bought at Nordstrom Rack a few years ago, completely forgot about while I was that size, and then had no hope of fitting into again. Well, like I said, lately I size up in jeans, and these were that up. They arrived, they're lovely- they look completely brand new, they're that good bootcut fit that I love from the pre-skinny jeans days. They fit perfectly through the leg.... but the waist was enormous. We're talking Jenny Craig commercial enormous (ok I exaggerate, but it felt like that!) There was no way I could wear them. So sad!

So I tucked them away while I tried to decide whether or not to sell them.

A few weeks ago, I went through a big closet purge- wear it or sell it, that's my motto now. I found these jeans again, tried them on, but I just couldn't bear to list them. Legs fit and look great, but the waist is too big to actually wear them, just walking around the house makes them fall down.Aren't they cute?

And then came my brilliant idea.

If you have a skirt that's just a tiny bit too big, how do you alter it? Take in the seams a bit. Easy peasy, just one seam on each side. Why not try that on a pair of jeans? The only obvious issue is the super thick denim.

I made a seam on each side, first about a 1/4inch in on each side, reducing the waist measurement by 1 inch (the pink seam), and then it was still too big, so I made a seam another 1/4inch in, reducing the waist measurement by 2 inches (the green seam). I stitched over the existing seam again, just to reinforce it.

The seams are kind of hard to see in these photos. This isn't a fool-proof fix, however, because pulling jeans on and off puts a lot of stress on this area and these seams, which is why I sewed again over the innermost seam. You'll probably need to resew them after a handful of wears. I had to urge my sewing machine along by turning the wheel thing with my hand, when the motor fought the foot pedal, but that's the same as when I sew something that has 6 or more layers of fabric, and other than that, sewing these seams takes just a minute and is very easy and straightforward.

Here's how the jeans look after the seaming. You can see the little indents on each side from the added seams. Honestly, the first time I put these jeans on those indents felt a little odd, but by now, after wearing them a handful of times, I don't notice it.
Over the weekend, I was going out with the girls, and the pub we chose is fairly casual, so I wanted to wear jeans- but what jeans? I found a pair of trouser-style jeans from White House Black Market (the only item I own from there, sadly), but these were a pair I bought after I decided I needed to size up in jeans- I tried on the 12s, too big. So the 10s: roomy, but there's no way I can still be an 8, I was sure of it. So I bought the 10s, and wouldn't you know, too big. The wide legs make the legs look fine, but they were another pair I had to belt. Well, on Sunday afternoon, the light bulb went on, and I sewed these up too. I'm wearing them as I type, so I can't show you any photos at the moment. I didn't have to take these in quite as much, only about a 1/4 inch on each side, and they fit perfectly. I'm so excited, yet another pair of pants available in my closet. :)

So if you have this same problem of baggy waists in your jeans, get out your sewing machine, or go to a friend who can let you borrow it for 5 minutes. It's such a quick and easy fix, and might open up a whole other section of your wardrobe. Also, it's a great way to salvage your old pants after losing a little weight- but I wouldn't suggest trying this to reduce the waist measurement by more than 2-3 inches.