3 Quick Cooking Tips

photo by Vangelis Thomaidis

1. Brush olive oil on sweet potatoes before baking them, and the skin will peel off effortlessly once cooked.
2. Rinse quinoa easily in a mesh strainer and cook it in chicken broth for a better flavor.
3. Avoid future tears and cleanup (and cut fingers in my case!) by chopping or slicing an entire onion at once and refrigerating what you don't use for next time. 

What are some tricks you use in the kitchen? You can read more of my cooking tips here.

5 Cooking Tips

Just some random but useful tips to make cooking easier!

1. If you lack a vegetable steamer, use a mesh strainer instead. Cover it with a pot lid for quicker steaming.
2. Don't have any eggs to coat food with before breading it? Use mayonnaise instead!
3. Use ice cube trays to freeze lemon or lime juice and fresh herbs in olive oil so you always have some on hand.
4. When you buy meat, cut, portion, and store it all the same night so you don't have to take the time to do it (and clean up the mess) the next time you cook meat.
5. Wash your hands with toothpaste to get rid of garlic and onion odors.

"Calm Down" by The Galaxy Electric

This is the new single by my cousin Jacqueline and her husband. If you are in California, you can catch their tour. Otherwise, you can follow The Galaxy Electric on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Bandcamp, and Soundcloud. Even if it's not your type of music, there is no denying her voice is beautiful!



Some of Jacqueline's previous work: "Wedding Song" & Swan (my favorite)

100 SALES!

Today I got my 100th sale on Etsy! I am so excited!

In reality, that's not accurate. Etsy calculates sales on listings sold, meaning if one person bought 3 items, it's counted as 3 sales. So I really have had only 77 orders. But if you list an item and say you have more than 1 available and someone buys 3, it's counted as 1 sale. So I've really sold 105 items.

Whatever. I'm still happy!

Etsy Taste Test

I just discovered Taste Test on Etsy. It's a little test you take to find things that match your taste. I took the test twice. The first resulted in mostly baby items, the second in bridal accessories. I didn't think it was accurate; there was hardly anything I liked. But it's fun! Try it out for yourself: http://www.etsy.com/tastetest

p.s. I just did it again and got much better results!

New Banner!

A wonderful fellow Etsian, Jewel Charsley of Strawberry Jude Handgrown, offered to make me a custom-designed shop set. Even before I replied, she had already painted an idea. Although we only ended up using a part of it, it is too beautiful not to share:

I hated seeing it chopped up to fit the banner size, so we went with just the wooden sign with some honeypots and bees. After a million color changes, this is the final product:

She also made me an avatar, which I used for my new button on the left sidebar, and two "Reserved Listing" avatars.

Isn't Jewel an amazing artist? And person! Visit her shop for more beautiful work.

Which Etsy Shop Banner?

I want to buy an Etsy shop set since I can't use any Winnie-the-Pooh images. I've gotten it down to two. Which do think better fits my shop, The Shop at Pooh Corner?


*This one has bees and honeycomb, representative of Pooh's favorite treat.

*This one reminds me of the Hundred Acre Wood.