green is good for you!

good morning, and happy st patricks day! yesterday was cold, windy, rainy and miserable, so i decided to forgo the all-red outfit i'd planned and take a day off - aka wear jeans and a t-shirt to work. i have to admit, it was nice to be cosy on such a disgusting day, and given how long i ended up waiting for the bus yesterday morning, i would have been miserable and probably have ruined the vintage shoes i was going to wear. but moving forward! in this week of single tones, today's was a pretty obvious choice: the brightest green i could muster. i also have a fridge full of food, and sam and i are going away to florida for a week starting saturday, so i decided to rise to christine's challenge of matching my food to my outfit and use up some leftovers. amongst the fresh ingredients that needed using were chicken, arugula, basil, mushrooms, and piles and piles of egg yolks (extra egg yolks! the plight of the macaroner. . .) so i decided to make some raviolis, to freeze and eat upon our return. i used the leftover pasta dough to make some papardelle for my dinner last night. ta-da!



basil pasta dough:

1 1/2 cups semolina flour
1/2 t salt
about 5 basil leaves, minced
4 egg yolks
2 T water
2 T olive oil

whisk together the flour and salt, then make a well for the egg yolks, basil, and water. mix them in with a fork until it's clumpy, then knead with your hands for a few minutes until it's smooth and doesn't feel grainy. wrap and put in the fridge to rest for a half hour or so.



chicken mushroom & arugula filling:

1 1/2 T butter
2 skinned, boneless chicken thighs (is what i happened to have in the fridge - you can use any chicken you like!)
about a cup of sliced, cleaned mushrooms
2 cloves of garlic
about 1/2 cup of baby arugula

start the butter in a medium sized skillet. keep an eye on it and move it around - let it brown before adding the chicken. pan fry the chicken on medium-low heat, basting it in the butter and it's juices as you go; keep flipping and checking it - you want it to be totally cooked before putting it inside your raviolis. once it's just about done, add the mushrooms and toss them around so they get coated in all that good stuff; cook them until they are soft and brown. add the garlic and cook until softened and fragrant. remove from heat and let it cool down, then pull the chicken apart with your fingers or a fork until it's nice and stringy, then add the arugula and stir it all up. add a little salt to taste.





cut off a decent piece of pasta dough and roll it out until it's at it's thinnest. brush the dough with egg yolk and then add about a tablespoon of filling at a time, kind of scrunching it up in your fingers so it's nice and compact. fold the pasta back over it, make sure it's well sealed, and then use a cutter to cut them out.



ta-da! raviolis. these freeze well (but are even better fresh, of course.) they only need to be cooked for a couple of minutes - once they start to float and look paler in color. you can test one to be sure.



and for today's outfit, which i'll call "how to wear all green and [hopefully] not look like a leprechaun." i've got a vaguely elfin quality about me, so i probably look kind of hobbity in this all jade ensembe, but whatever.







skirt: vintage, thrifted for $8!
shirt: american apparel:
tights: my mom's, once upon a time
belt: paper source ribbon
shoes: dsquared
necklace: gift from my mom

i absolutely love this color, and i've been trying to find a way to wear this skirt for a long time - i bought it over the summer - but it's kind of tricky to wear without looking like christmas. i actually think that pairing it with the same-colored shirt, to give it the appearance of being a dress, weirdly makes it more wearable. what do you think?

tonight i've got more yolks to use and lots of cleaning to do! we leave for florida at the crack of dawn on saturday, and i could not be more excited - bare legs!! freckles! drinks with umbrellas!!

until tomorrow,

xo audrey

fashion flake

hello hello! yes, it has been awhile. after receiving a bit of good-natured hell from a friend of mine about being such a flake about posting i realized that there is one thing i miss about my old office job: all the time i had in front of my computer every morning. it's also one of the things i'm most relieved to get away from - spending 9 hours a day in front of a computer was, for me at least, a pretty depressing affair and one that i certainly grew weary of, but it did make writing a blog post a highlight and something easily squeezed into my day before my first cup of coffee and microwaveable lunch. (yeah, i guess there really isn't much else i miss about that job. except the people, of course.) so what has been keeping me so damn busy? well, lots of this.







i made smitten kitchen's best birthday cake.


and shrimp tacos,




and green things,



and red things,

and the most delicious shortcake i've ever had. i think.

so, maybe i'll be a girl here for a minute and go a bit further into explaining my blog hibernation; the winter is just ending, and i work in a bakery, and i spend most of my free time cooking, and i just don't feel like taking photos of myself every day. it's a thing i've always had a strange relationship with anyway; i'm not a big fan of having my picture taking, and like anyone, i'm my own worst critic, but i do love clothes and dressing up and i feel it's an artistic expression in a way that i am proud to show to the world. that said, not only does spending 12 hours a day in a kitchen not really lend itself to wearing one's most delicate vintage finery, but the results of all that cooking (and eating) don't really make me feel like getting super dressed up. the summer seems to be just around the corner, though, and i'm determined to "health up," so to speak, and get my style groove back. i hope you'll be satisfied with delicious recipes and food porn filling in the spaces when outfit posts are less frequent. additions to the store are still to come and i'll be doing my best to make my posts more frequent - but, you know. i'm human. obviously. thanks for sticking with me.

much love,

xo audrey