I got all 11 rows of 12 sunflower granny squares each, connected vertically. I also began connecting them horizontally.
It seems like I am so close, but so far away from finishing. I have many horizontal rows to single crochet together and then I need to do a border around the whole thing to “square” it/neaten it up.
Then I have all the ends I did not already weave/crochet in to weave in 😦
But I try to focus on far how I have come and how much closer I am to being able to snuggle under my sunflower blanket!
Weather is weird in my part of Colorado and it is at time trying to be Spring, then Summer and then switches back to Fall. To encourage Fall to come to us in full force (bring on 40 degree days!) I made a batch of yummy Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins:
I think I’ve posted about these muffins before but here is the link to the recipe by Sally’s Baking Addiction:
The recipe looks tedious because you have to make 1) the streusel topping, 2) the cream cheese filling, and 3) the pumpkin muffin BUT it is totally worth it. I put on some good music and before I knew it I had to components assembled and they were baking the oven.
John was naughty and have two once they cooled down but they were VERY tasty with our coffee/tea!
What is an “Agriculture Report”? Well I was inspired by @quiteayarnblog‘s ongoing series of posts titled “Agriculture Report” (and this title always cracks me up) that are actually updates of what is going on in her garden.I just had to adopt this same title for updates on what is going on in my garden/my “garden report” (and now @AlissaMakeshas joined us in Agriculture reporting on her blog too!)
Oh the Sunflowers!
I love sunflowers, I am actually obsessed with them. When I was in Asheville, North Carolina in May 2025 (see post Concerting in the Carolinas and More), I became obsessed with the menu for the eatery we stopped at for breakfast one morning – Sunny Point Cafe with it’s sunflower art:
And the very kind manager on duty gave me a laminated copy of the front of the menu to take home!
(I have it up on my studio and it always makes me smile when I look at it)
In Spring our friends R and D gave us packages of heirloom seeds from a family collection which included packets of sunflower seeds.
We planted them in the raised bed that John built in the backyard last year (see post John gets “ScrapHappy” too – new raised bed) and they did very well! They are now pretty tall and blooming!
Other Agriculture
In the raised bed with the sunflowers is our “bumper crop” of basil also from the heirloom seeds our friends gave us:
There is going to be some pesto in the future!
Here are some happy flowers around my front and back gardens:
It is a delightful time of year in relation to “Agriculture”!
Lasagna From the Garden
We also have fresh herbs and tomatoes growing on our deck patio garden. Along with the basil in the raise bed and tomatoes from the patio John and I made some lasagna for dinner on Sunday with handmade noodles and sauce from scratch.
We roasted the tomatoes for the sauce with garden herbs, garlic, onions and carrots; and then blended the roasted tomatoes. We combined this blended mix with a large can of San Marzano tomatoes, red wine, pepperoni, beef and bacon (we didn’t have prosciutto handy) and let it simmer for hours (the house smelled yummy).
With John’s handmade thin pasta sheets we were able to make an 8 layer lasagna layering the sauce with a ricotta mixture and mozzarella.
It was delicious and partially made from our garden! We froze the leftovers for a future meal.
We enjoyed eating it outside on the patio on a lovely summer evening with a nice bottle of red wine, caesar salad and garlic bread.
Once plated the dish we topped it with a little fresh parmesan for an extra boost.
It is very easy to make and I was able to use fresh basil from my garden. If you have a better growing season where you like than we have in Colorado, you might be able to use tomatoes from your garden too.
John made fresh pasta (he has mastered pasta making…as much as an American can…he daydreams someday of going to Italy and attending one of those “learn pasta making with an Italian grandmother”workshops we’ve seen advertised) for the dish. According to this chart below, he made Tagliatelle:
Warning: this dish requires you to turn on your oven and you might not want to do it in the summer heat. This dish is fun to enjoy in other seasons too 🙂
Buon Appetito!
Postscript
This past weekend my brother and sister and my nephews met up in Baltimore, Maryland to hang out and go see the new Superman movie. I sure wish I lived close enough to join them (but I love Colorado so much!).
Thought I would share this sweet selfie they sent me with the four of them together. I love my family so much!!!
I’m not sure what the proper name is but I am going to call it an “entertainment console”…
John recently finished making us a new entertainment console for under the television in the basement den area. Thought I would share some photos from his build to completion:
John designed it from scratch and I continue to be impressed with his work as a self-taught woodworker! He put holes larger enough for cords at several locations in the back so we had space for the DVD player and gaming console cords!
Postscript
John got a new flat top grill this summer and even though the weather is very late Fall/early Winter-ish he is still trying to occasionally use it. He made his first attempt at shrimp friend rice on the outdoor griddle and it came it out awesome!
Oh and I got obsessed with these pumpkin muffins this season and I highly recommend them. I’ve made a couple batches of them so far and they freeze well:
Those of you who’ve followed my blog a longtime might (and it’s okay if you don’t) remember when I was obsessed with making “little wallets”. Here is a batch of them from a post in September 2017 titledLittle Wallet Madness:
Well recently I’ve made some new little wallets, this time from a recycled indigo batik vest and here is the background on how it came to be.
We visited friends in Asheville, North Carolina in October 2023 (see posts Greetings from Asheville – Blue Ridge Parkway and Folk Art Center, Asheville, NC) and our friend S knew I liked to work with recycled materials so while we were visiting she gave me an old indigo batik vest of hers that she was about to donate to a charity shop. She challened me to make something out of it.
It took me nearly a year to revisit the material (and the pressure of these friends coming to visit in August 2024) to finally make something – a set of little wallets. I made 5 and gave 3 to S when they visited us last week.
Unfortunately I did not think to take a photo of the vest before I cut it up to become material for the little wallets, so you’ll just have to use your imagination.
S was delighted with her 3 little wallets – one to keep and two to give as gifts.
We had a very fun 3 day visit with S and her husband E and we took them on various Colorado adventures including a visit to Fiction Beer/Brewery where you can borrow a book (or take for free) while you have your delicious craft beer!
They loved it and S is a big reader like I am so she left with a book.
John made lots of good while they visited including using his new outdoor griddle which he loved to make breakfast on; and a wonderful dish called Mexican Picadillo with simmered meat and potatoes served in corn tortilla with various toppings:
We ate outside nearly every meal as the weather has been nice in the Denver area, especially in the mornings and evenings.
S lives a “gluten-free” lifestyle so I challenged myself to do some “gluten-free” baking while she visited and made my first “gluten-free” cookies – peanut butter cookies without flour:
They were delicious but very crumbly!
Our non-stop summer of traveling or out-of-town visitors in nearly coming to a close. We’ve had fun but we are looking forward to a semi-quieter Autumn and tentatively a very quiet Winter…perhaps I can even get some “tierneycreating” done 🙂
So I finished knitting another hat (same pattern as I always make), even though I can’t wear it until it gets cold again.
Yummy purple and blue variegated yarn from who knows where…
I need to be distracted when I am a passenger in the front seat a car (or I get anxious) so I always have some handwork with me:
Riding in the car is better with a project!
If you’ve followed my blog for a while and seen the endless hats I’ve made in this same “Rolled Hat” pattern, then you know I had to take my photo with the double pointed needles in the hat as it nears completion (it’s tradition!) – ha!
Where is Tierney?
SUNFLOWER GS
I’ve been working through random balls of yarn I find in my stash, some of them left over from making other people gift hats.
With the hat complete and the weather getting warmer (into the 70s F and next week into the 80s F) I wasn’t in the mood to start knitting another hat. I have some crochet granny squares to work on using recycled yarn (see post Plastic Yarn?) but wasn’t in the mood for that standard pattern after already making 3 granny square blankets with it.
So I decided to challenge myself and learn a new granny square pattern – Sunburst Square. Here is the YouTub video I used to teach myself:
The YouTuber does a great job teaching you how to make this granny square
Here is my first Sunburst Square in progress:
In the center photo I am in the car as a passenger working on it!
I love Sunflowers and I just had to make my flowers look like Sunflowers! I will share more progress as I work on them while in the car. We have a couple road trips to explore Colorado coming up this summer so I hope to make lots of blocks then!
“AGRICULTURE REPORT”
What is an “Agriculture Report”? Well I was inspired by @quiteayarnblog‘s ongoing series of posts titled “Agriculture Report” (and this title always cracks me up) that are actually updates of what is going on in her garden.I just had to adopt this same title for updates on what is going on in my garden/my “garden report“…
It’s the 15th of the month and time for my monthly “ScrapHappy” post as part of the ScrapHappy group I belong. At the end of this post I have a link to the other blogs participating in this monthly event in case you’d like to check out their ScrapHappy posts.
I completed piecing the table runner per the piecing instructions from her pattern SuperSymmetry, and discovered I needed to make more blocks in order to make it long enough for the table as well as finish each end (more on that later). Unfortunately Y seams were involved in the piecing (shudder) but I made it through.
I ended up making 14 additional blocks.
I floated the pieced SuperSymmetry blocks in taupe-brown Peppered Cotton (a heavy duty linen like shot cotton). Here is a little photoshoot I did of the completed table runner top on the new dining room/library table:
In the last two photos you can see the new rug that arrived that I mentioned in a previous post. It is one of those Ruggable rugs that can be laundered in the washing machine (in case there is “The Great Spaghetti Sauce Spill” during a meal someday).
And in case you are curious here is how I finished the ends of the table runner with all those triangle blocks in the piece:
Thank goodness for a good steamy iron as there was a lot of pressing involved to get it looking like I hadn’t been on mind altering substances while piecing…
In addition to the SuperSymmetry orphan blocks and fabric scraps, Wendy also sent me 7 traditional quilt blocks orphan blocks for a taupe quilt she was working on. I’ve decided to use these blocks as part of the back for the table runner.
I am going to float each of them in the taupe Peppered Cotton and then add in enough length in side borders as well as a bottom and top to meet the length. I am getting ready to start working on floating each block by doing some “log cabin” style piece around each block:
AND MORE
We’ve had a run of sub-zero Fahrenheit (colder than -17 Celsius) temperatures in the Denver metropolitan area and we’ve been spending a lot of time inside. John got addicted to watching cooking/culinary themed videos on YouTube and this weekend decided to try and make a copy of the famous Chick-fil-A (very popular fast food eatery in the US) chicken sandwich and the accompanying sauce after watching a video on how to do it.
He made enough for his father, sister, son and son’s family (who all live nearby) and then delivered them to their homes! You might have heard of the popular food delivery service DoorDash – well we named John – “DadDash”!
The sandwiches were a hit and included the famous pickle like the original. Here is a little photo spread from yesterday to close out this post.
Oh and if you’d like to try and make them yourself, here is the video John used:
As promised, here are the bloggers that participate in the ScrapHappy monthly posting event, check out their blogs linked below for their ScrapHappy posts:
I had a couple brief updates and I thought I would spread them out into a bunch of brief blog posts but I am lumping them all together.
GO BOLDLY
An update on the quilt (which might end up more wallhanging size) that I mentioned in the post What I’ve Been Up To and What’s on the Design Wall, which I named “Go Boldly“: I am now sewing the blocks together. There are 64 blocks and each need to be sewing into blocks of 4 to make them into 16 blocks to then sew together.
I am currently debating whether to make the quilt larger (I have enough leftover blocks to make 1 – 2 additional quilts or wallhangings) or leave as it is. I think I am going to just sew the 16 blocks (4 mini sections to make a block) together and then decide.
The longarm machine quilter (Sew Colorado Quilting) has finished quilting it and sent me some photos, here is one of them.
I actually picked up the quilt today from her and will do a post on it with more photos once I get the extra backing and binding trimmed (I like to do my own trimming) and decide on a binding. I am thinking about doing a “facing” on it (like you would do with an art quilt) as I plan to hang it on the wall.
COLOUR WHEEL
A quick follow up on this post The Colour Wheel Quilt is Done, about the color wheel quilt I made to use as a teaching aid when I give a workshop next year (September 2024).
By the way I will share more information about that workshop including the venue once that venue gets ready to publish its online catalogue listing the workshop. If that doesn’t happen before October 2023, then I’ll go ahead and share as I’ve shared it with the Quiltfolk article writer for Issue 28 that comes out in October so it will be publicly revealed then anyway!
I had put the quilt away until next year for the workshop but then I decided to find a place for it in my studio so I could enjoy it before then – here it is now on a wall in my studio that I rearranged to make room for it:
VARIOUS RANDOM INFORMATION
John who loves to cook, tried making Ramen for the first time the other night and it came out pretty good!
My yellow rose bush in my front garden is finally taking off and here is one of its lovely roses:
And finally, here is Mike and his “cousin” Goose both trying to via for John’s laps (Goose won) when John was visiting his Dad the other day.
Hmm, I just realized that technically Goose is Mike’s “uncle” not his cousin – ha!
I was going to blog about 3 more drawstring/project bags I made but I thought I would spare you from another one of those mind numbing posts for a day or so – ha! I’m currently working on the last 5 drawstring bags I had cut out and interfaced months ago before I broke my ankle. I am so excited to be done with them. I can’t wait to list them on Etsy and not think about making drawstring bags again for a LONG time!
So this post is about a get together we had with our friends F and M last evening – we had an amazing Mexican food feast!
My husband John is of Mexican decent (he is 1/2 Mexican, 1/2 Irish) and learned to cook green and red chili as well as other dishes from his Mexican grandmother. Our friends F and M are of Mexican decent and have much experience making authentic dishes they learned from relatives. We decided while meeting for drinks last week that it would be fun to get together and have a homemade Mexican food feast to include:
Homemade refried beans
Green Chili and Red Chili*
Tortillas (corn and flour)
Chili Relleno Poppers
Tamales (Red and Green Chili Tamales)
Open Faced Enchilladas
Posole (a hominy and pork based Mexican stew)
Homemade Guacamole
Various toppings/fixings
*Note: According to John, a native Coloradan, Colorado Green Chili is made with Hatch or Pueblo Green Chilis, tomatoes, pork, flour for thickening, salt, garlic and water; Colorado Red Chili is made from Red Chili Powder, browned flour, water, garlic, salt and ground hamburger. Arizona’s Green Chili does not have tomato; and New Mexico Green Chili has potatoes and is called “Green Chili Stew”.
Here are the Chili Relleno Poppers which contained Mozzarella Cheese, Oaxaca Cheese, Green Chilis, wrapped in an egg roll wrapper and deep fried:
They are served with Green Chili (“sauce”)*
*(According to John you are not allowed to call it “sauce”, you must call it “Green Chili” but I didn’t want to confuse you with the terms “Green Chili” and “Green Chilies”! John says Coloradans are very pretentious about their “Green Chili” and do not want it referred to as “sauce”. By the way “Red Chili” is what I used to refer to in my previous life as “Enchilada Sauce”…ha!)
Here are photos of the rest of the yummy Mexican Feast:
For dessert we served my homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies and Haagen Dazs Ice Cream:
And to close this post here is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer sitting between us as we all sat on the sofa (we served the food buffet style) watching the NBA Basketball Playoffs, trying to convince us to share our feast (we did not as there were no Schnauzer friendly foods on our plates, but he did get lots of pets from our friends while they ate…):
I’m writing this post to share an idea for a fun dinner party idea or family movie night.
My partner John loves to cook and loves to make homemade pizza. He’s gotten pretty good at it.
At first he would make his own pizza dough/crust but then we discovered that a local grocery store has a wonderful pre-made pizza dough in their deli section. He pre-bakes the pizza pie/crust before putting on toppings and after putting topping on he brushes the crust with olive oil and garlic salt which adds a nice touch to the pizza after it is baked with the toppings.
We invited friends over for a movie night and thought it would be fun for dinner to do a “make your own pizza” event where everyone could choose their own toppings for their pizzas.
So John, using the pre-made pizza dough, split each pre-made dough in half and made 4 pizzas bases and pre-baked them:
We had a whole counter top of pre-cut and pre-cooked (like for the Italian hot sausage, onions, green peppers, etc.) toppings, cheeses and of course pizza sauce for people to select from for their pizza.
Of course I forgot to take a photo of that display but here are photos from the rest of the “make your own pizza” event:
Are you hungry for pizza now after seeing those photos?
The pizzas were exceptionally delicious and we were laughing as one of our friends kept exclaiming – “this is the best pizza ever”. We think it was the “best pizza ever” because he had put it together himself – ha!
We watched a science fiction movie The Edge of Tomorrow and gorged ourselves on pizza!
This is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer guest posting as Tierney has been taking too long to write Part II of this two part series of posts that began with John, Project Man (Part I). Okay it’s only been a couple of days but Miniature Schnauzers are an impatient breed in general so it’s my nature.
So I opened up the laptop and got to work:
Ready to fill in for lazy Tierney
Yes, John has been busy on projects, and I would prefer he follow my lead and do something like this:
The perfect “hobby”
He won’t listen to me about napping instead of remodeling, so I’ve had to spend a lot of time at home improvement stores supervising him:
I need to charge an hourly dog biscuit wage for all this work
So Tierney and John got it in their heads that they needed to remodel the basement bathroom, which is also the main guest bathroom for pesky humans that visit us.
And then they decided that they should also replace all the toilets in the house as they are the original toilets from when the house was built.
I am unclear why they would want to waste their money on new toilets as we have a perfect good backyard to take a pee in like I do.
And if they need to poop they could just follow my lead and do it on my twice a day walks.
But I am not going to carry around their poop bags like they do for me – ew! (What is wrong with humans, why are they always collecting my poop and carrying it around in little baggies on our walks – what are their plans with it?!??!)
I know the answer…
We have a lot of pesky humans scheduled to visit us in the near future, so last weekend they worked on remodeling the bathroom (I used the term “they” loosely as it appeared Tierney was only in charge of snacks).
Here is John removing the old tile floor:
Take that floor!
I stayed away from this as he was making a lot of noise and creating a lot of dust.
Instead I did this on his behalf:
These naps aren’t for me, they are for John so he can live vicariously…
Tierney did not bother taking step by step remodeling photos (there goes her career as a home remodeling Instagram influencer) but here are some photos of what it looked like with a new floor, new toilet (waste of money), new lighting, new fixtures (whatever that means, dogs don’t care about “fixtures”), and new shower curtain:
John has his bar near the bathroom and collects nice whiskeys as a hobby, and so they went with a whiskey themed bathroom. The shower curtain according to Tierney is a reproduction of the original “whiskey still” patent (whatever the heck that means, humans are so weird).
They also took photos that John took in 2019 when he went on a Kentucky Bourbon tour with his friends, converted them to black & white photos, enlarged them, and then framed them as art for the bathroom:
They were pretty pleased with themselves when the project was done.
Tierney did mention that her fantasy would have been to just gut (that sounds painful) the whole bathroom and do a nice tiled walk in shower but that was too expensive an option. But they are happy with the small amount of money they spent (they wasted) on the remodel.
When John is not doing remodeling projects, he is doing his other favorite hobby: cooking.
Here he is in the kitchen making my favorite of their human meals – pizza! I like when they (using the word “they” loosely again as Tierney is in charge of getting pizza making supplies out of the refrigerator only) make it because sometimes a little cheese will fall on the floor, and they always give me a piece of their pizza crusts!
John always makes a pizza for my Grandpa (John’s Dad who I visit all the time) who lives nearby; and my human brother (John’s son) and his family, whenever he makes pizza. It’s like he supplies pizza to 1/2 the neighborhood!
So this closes out the series of posts on “John, Project Man”.
Now I have to get back to my very important project:
If you’d like to read more of my musings, they are all under this blog post category: Miniature Schnauzer Musings.
Whew, I fell seriously behind in blogging again. Let’s just say I’ve been distracted by curious things going on in the country I live in (and somedays I am thinking of moving to a different country, I might be over the United States…).
I know you might be tired of reading about this quilt, but I have this one more post on it before I send it off to the longarm quilter for professional quilting.
This is a follow up to the post – And then there were 100 (yay)!– I’ve sewing together all 100 blocks for the Tula Pink’s City Sampler 100 Modern Quilt Blocks quilt:
I had looked at those blocks on my design wall so much my eyes were crossing, so I asked my partner John to come out with an initial design/layout. He likes symmetry and order and he created an initial layout and then I refined it a little.
He did it in “color rings”, where the outer ring (well square ring, ha!) is teals/blue-greens and greens with gray blocks as corner anchors. Then the next set of rings are yellows, browns and reds. The inner ring is purple with then blues in the center.
I know to some it looks like a “hot mess” but I love it!
Sewing together 100 blocks can be daunting so I sewed it together by breaking it into 4 – 25 block sections. I sewed 5 rows of 5 blocks together to make each section twice and sewed those two sections together. I repeated the process for the other side and then sewed the two halves together.
As there is so much piecing of small pieces to make each block, I stitched the entire edge of the quilt with a 1/8 inch seam to prevent unraveling during travel:
In case you are curious – the actual measurement of the quilt top came out to be 60.5 inches x 60.5 inches.
Currently I am piecing together the backing with a collection of teal/blue-green yardages I have:
And then off to the longarm quilter. You won’t see another post about this quilt (whew) until it returns to me quilted and I have put the binding on. Then I will show you the finished quilt!
We are continuing to experiment with meal prep and making meals out of the cookbook Damn Delicious Meal Prep by Chungah Rhee.
Recently I made Skinny Gumbo (a lower fat version of Louisiana Creole gumbo) and I was able to have enough for dinner that night and 3 additional servings. John’s father is in his 80s and lives alone since his wife passed in late December 2021, so we bring him meals (he lives less than a mile away) and this new meal prep process is great to make up meals for him also!
Also, strawberries were on sale, and I made homemade vanilla sugar scones and we had strawberry shortcake with fresh whipped cream for dessert!
My partner John and I love potstickers, we have them anytime we go to a restaurant with any sort of Asian cuisine. Recently we discovered a recipe for a vegetarian version of them in a new cookbook we are experimenting with (to try and make healthier food choices): Damn Delicious Meal Prep by Chungah Rhee:
So during John’s lunch break (he works remotely) we took a stab at making the potstickers in the cookbook, which made enough to be able to also freeze a large batch for future use.
Neither of us have made potstickers from scratch before, and it was a fun adventure to work through the recipe together.
I didn’t take any photos of assembling the filling for the potstickers but here are a couple photos of John filling the wonton wrappers and then pan frying the potstickers (you pan fry, then steam, then cook off the liquid):
The cookbook did not include a dipping sauce but we found one on the web:
And finally we could sit down to a nice potsticker snack!
We froze the rest (though we wished we had cooked up more after tasting them – YUMMY!):
They will freeze on parchment paper on top of a cookie sheet for 24 hours and then I can place them in a freezer bag to store them up to 3 months in the freezer. It will be nice to have homemade potstickers handy when we are in the mood for them!
I cannot for copyright reasons share the recipe published in the cookbook but the author did have a version of her potstickers made with pork (what is commonly used) that I found online:
I think we will try this version next time we need to restock our potstickers stash!
Postscript
In case you are wondering, I have tried another recipe from this cookbook before we made the potstickers. The reason why we got this cookbook was to find a way to better prep for our lunches and dinner when we are not really in the mood to cook.
John and I love to cook but sometimes we are tired and sometimes we made “bad food” decisions when we do not feel like cooking. This cookbook has recipes to prepare meals that you put in individual containers that are ready to eat – breakfasts, lunches and dinners. You can cook on Sunday and have a week’s lunches all planned.
You can also make dishes to freeze for dinners. Or you can have things like potstickers on hand when you want some tasty like you would have at a restaurant but not spend restaurant money!
I’ve planned out two more dishes to make with the cookbook next – a shrimp gumbo and a dish that mirrors a tuna roll we have a favorite sushi place (but used canned tuna not fresh).
The author did publish some of her meal prep recipes on her website and here is a link to some of them if you want to experiment with meal prep:
I’ve been on hiatus from blogging for a couple weeks to temporarily remove any “artificial” obligations in my life in order to have some time to “reset”.
Now feeling “reset”, I thought I would jump back into blogging with a little essay “primary/elementary” school style like the infamous “What I Did on My Summer Vacation“.
By the way I was not hanging out with the fabulous looking women at the beach during my hiatus, like those in the feature photo of this post (photo by Vitae London on Unsplash), I just thought it was a fun beach photo to use in the middle of semi-freezing winter in Denver!
Okay so now it is time to imagine me standing in front of our 4th grade class presenting this essay below (and perhaps my parents helped me make a slide deck for my images/photos)…
READING
Listening to audiobooks and turning the pages of actual physical books, I’ve done a lot of reading during the past several weeks.
I’ve finished the book City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty, that I read for my virtual book club with a friend (see post Virtual Book Clubs):
image credit – Kirkus Review
Last Friday a friend and I had another card-making playdate like the one I shared in the post Card Making Playdate from last October and discussed City of Brass. In tomorrow’s post (why yes, I am going to now post frequently…hope you don’t grow tired of me) I will share what we made.
I recently finished the next book in our “Virtual Book Group” (but wait is it “virtual” if we are meeting in person, socially distancing of course, to discuss the book?) and it was quite the awesome page turner – The Guest List by Lucy Foley:
image credit – Publishers Weekly
It’s been a long time since I’ve read (actually I listened to the audiobook) the kind of book I absolutely could not put down. If you’d like to read a synopsis of the book – here is the link to the one on Publishers Weekly (no worries, there are no spoilers) – The Guest List.
Currently I am listening to an excellent (so far) Science Fiction/space novel – To Sleep Under a Sea of Stars by Christoper Paolini. I love it so much I’ve already bought the hard copy of the book as my library loan of the audiobook is about to expire and there are a zillion other library patrons waiting in line to listen to it next.
image credit – Paolini.net
It not just fiction books I’ve been inhaling, I’ve also read several new crafting books I picked up over the past couple of months.
I’ve been obsessed lately with making non-quilt items such as tote bags (see post Tote, Tote, Tote Bags) and pincushions (a future post); and love my new book by Ayumi Takahashi – Patchwork Please which features lots of fun things to make:
image credit – amazon.com
I am sort of obsessed with “zakka” and Japanese author craft patterns. I love the aesthetics of their designs as well as the function. Here are many of the books in my home library collection of Japanese author craft patterns:
COOKING
For a while in the Denver metro area, our restaurants closed down again to inside dining during the pandemic. Finally they opened to 25% capacity and now I think they are starting to reopen to even 50% capacity (or perhaps I am hallucinating at this point as I have complete pandemic fatigue at this point).
While they were closed again, like in the early days of the pandemic, we tried to make fun meals at home and not get home cooking fatigue. Here are a couple photos of the delicious meals my partner John (a very good cook who used to actually cook professionally) and I made.
Delicious Irish Stew and Homemade Biscuits
Salmon Fried Rice
Nachos!
Pizza (with dough made from “scratch”)
Orzo Pasta Salad
Are you hungry yet?
One of my favorites that I could not locate easily locate a photo for was the handmade gnocchi with gorgonzola sauce and scallops that John made one night. I thought I was at a high-end restaurant!
Yes, I will not lie, I had packed on a couple “pandemic pounds” from all this good eating, but we do not eat like this every night. We do try and have salads for dinner a couple nights a week.
WALKING
To combat the effects of all those delicious home cooked meals, I’ve been going on a lot of very long walks. It is always a great way to listening to my audiobooks. Most of the times I take Mike my Miniature Schnauzer with me but many times I just go walking alone (then I do not have to stop for the “frequent signing in on bushes” that Mike loves to do on his walk).
Here are a couple Black & White images I took on a wintry walk, in which someone had left a found glove on a branch for its owner to hopefully someday find. I got a kick out of the “composition” in the stark landscape created by the glove.
If you enjoy B&W images, I do have a series of posts where I feature B&W images – Life in B&W.
In case you are wondering – either the glove blew away or was reunited with its partner by the owner as the next day it was gone.
REFLECTING
During my break from blogging, I spent a lot of time reflecting and trying to figure out my life. As many of you know, I am in my second year of widowhood caused by the very sudden and very expected death of my life partner, Terry the Quilting Husband (see post Remembering Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH)).
I’d been with Terry since I was in my early 20s and I am now on a journey to “reinvent” myself in my middle years of life as “Tierney minus Terry”, after what seems like a lifetime of “Tierney +Terry”.
In previous posts, I’ve discussed re-opening my tierneycreates Etsy shop and my original plan when I took a hiatus from blogging was to start blogging again in about a month when I was ready to re-open my Etsy shop.
Over the past several months, I’ve made a lot of items in preparation to re-open the shop but still could not move forward with re-opening the shop. I was struggling to figure out what the big block was for me.
Then while looking at some old photos on my Google Photos account which I rarely use, I found an old image of the joint tierneycreates business card Terry and I had together when he was helping me with my Etsy shop. He was listed as a “Maker” on my Etsy shop as he helped me with many of the items I produced by cutting out patterns and doing preliminary sewing, especially on items like Miniature Kimonos, which were very popular on my shop.
I realized that my tierneycreates Etsy shop is just too closely tied to memories of crafting with Terry and I am just not ready.
Part of my “widowhood journey” is trying to figure out what to do with what is basically a lifetime’s worth of memories with someone who is now gone.
After losing your spouse you are expected to go on with your life but what do you do with all those memories (and mementos) of a life previously lived? I think that is the $64,000 Question which I have yet to answer for myself (I’ve done a lot of reading on grief and the answers of other people’s journey but I still have to find my own answer).
But I have figured out that unless it is something critical, not push myself to do anything I am not ready to do, even if it seems like a good thing to do (like re-opening my Etsy shop).
(The above images are of Terry, Sassy, who passed in Dec 2017 a year before Terry, and I vacationing in Cannon Beach, Oregon; and of Terry modeling a quilt he helped me make)
CRAFTING
There’s been a whole lot of crafting over the past couple of weeks. I’ve found a lot of peace in making things. I feel very lucky to be a “Maker”.
Many of the items I’ve shared on my tierneycreates Instagram account but many I have not. I am going to save a discussion of what I’ve been working on for future blogs posts but I will share that I’ve been making more tote bags like I discussed in the post Tote, Tote, Tote Bags.
Here are some of my latest tote bags:
I look forward to diving into more about what I’ve been making in my future posts!
WAKE UP, THE ESSAY IS FINALLY OVER!
So that concludes my essay and I can safely assume the whole class is asleep now at their desks!
Oh wait, I see the teacher is also asleep at their desk! Maybe I won’t get a “A” on this presentation…
December was challenging for me but I stayed busy with crafting and reading. I will share those crafts in future posts.
I wanted to share some of the positive highlights of December now that this month is over and it is time to start a New Year!
Furniture Shopping with Mike the Miniature Schnauzer
Mid month we went to a furniture store to look for a new loveseat for the front room. The furniture store had a sign on the front “No Dogs Allowed”. But they did not say: “No Dogs in Backpacks Allowed”!
We waited for one of the many furniture salespeople to approach us about our dog in a backpack but instead they asked if they could pet Mike.
Mike might be the first “Furniture Shopping Support” dog!
We did not end up buying a loveseat for the front room (looking at the prices we decided we would just make work what we have for now) but we did buy the clock in the photo above!
After furniture shopping (and clock purchasing), we stopped at Starbucks and Mike got his first Puppuccino.
Christmas and Bombs (Hot Chocolate Bombs)
We had fun celebrating Christmas with Mike the Miniature Schnauzer and my partner John’s immediate family that live in the Denver metro area. Unfortunately one of his son’s could not come visit from California because of the pandemic. (We were supposed to go to the East Coast and spend Christmas with my family but the pandemic made us make the difficult decision to cancel those plans).
Here is my partner’s darling wonderful granddaughter enjoying some of her stocking stuffers (I went crazy shopping for them and over did it I am sure) while watching a Christmas movie, over our house at Christmas:
John and I wanted to do something special for Christmas and kept hearing about “Hot Chocolate Bombs“. We bought a couple silicon molds and followed the recipes and directions from this page – The BEST Hot Chocolate Bombs.
No one would buy Hot Chocolate Bombs from us (because they looked like a “hot mess”) but we had so much fun making them on Christmas morning:
Our Christmas dinner guests (my partner’s son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter) had so much fun pouring steaming hot milk over their hot chocolate bombs and watching them “explode” into hot chocolate.
Here’s a video courtesy of YouTube that demonstrates what happens when hot milk meets a bomb!
We made basic Hot Chocolate Bombs and maybe next Christmas we will experiment with more complicated recipes such as Salted Caramel!
I’ll close this post with Mike the Miniature Schnauzer on Christmas looking cute in Christmas ribbon:
This past Thursday was Thanksgiving in the U.S. and traditionally it’s a holiday where family and/or friends gather and share a large meal featuring TURKEY.
However in 2020, time of the global pandemic, ongoing traditions likely did not work, especially with all the current COVID restrictions in place around the U.S.
In our region for example we are on “Level Red” restrictions and we are not supposed to congregate with people outside our immediate household. So that means no having relatives over for Thanksgiving.
My partner John has a son, daughter in law, and darling granddaughter in the area, as well as much of his siblings and parents in the Denver Metro area where we live. We could not gather with them for Thanksgiving due to the current restrictions in place.
I was not really in the mood for two of us to make and share a traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinner so we came up with the idea of John asking his son what his wanted to eat on Thanksgiving and John making it (he loves to cook) and dropping it off at his house. We decided to do the same thing with John’s elderly father and his partner who have been fairly homebound during the pandemic.
And what did John’s son choose for Thanksgiving dinner? He chose – CHICKEN STRIPS and MACARONI AND CHEESE, one of his favorite meals that his dad makes! John’s dad was happy with the same menu also so we made up several batches of homemade “mac & cheese” and chicken strips.
John set them up for delivery and then did a door drop off to each household for their “Thanksgiving dinners”!
We also included some ranch dressing for dipping the chicken strips.
John and I had the same dinner ourselves when he returned from dropping off the meals (which got rave reviews).
In a strange pandemic-times-way we “shared” a meal with family outside our household for Thanksgiving.
Here is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer asking for a sampling as the meals got boxed up for delivery.
Postscript
Speaking of Thanksgiving and cooking, if you like podcasts, head over to my blogging buddy, Portland based author Tammie Painter’s wonderful The Book Owl Podcast for the latest episode – Cooking Up Something Good – all about the history of cookbooks! It was another fun and informative podcast!
I love public libraries and as my series of posts The Library Stack shows, I am always browsing them and borrowing books when I can. A couple of years of ago I studied and embraced Minimalism trying to live a simpler lifestyle and letting go of things that I thought cluttered my life. I decided to stop buying books and just borrow them from the library.
Then in December 2018 my husband suddenly died and things shifted in my life on a large scale. And in early 2020 the pandemic hit and more shifting occurred to include examining how I could redefine a “simpler lifestyle” and have the physical things I enjoy in my life.
Our local libraries closed for what seemed like endless months during the early days of the pandemic and when they reopened it was only for curbside pickup. Currently they have fully reopened but have many strict protocols (beyond mandatory masks) and there are not that many patrons in the library anymore. It feels like something is lost from whole public library experience (and it is strange to see the librarians behind glass).
Pre-pandemic I was really in to audiobooks. Something shifted in me during the pandemic and I began to crave reading physical books rather than listening to them. I also remembered my secret dream of having an extensive home library like the ones I see in the home decorating books I borrow from the public library.
Like this one below:
Image credit: insidehook.com
With all the above things in the background of my mind, a couple of months ago I decided that I wanted to proceed with curating my own home library. Nothing as extensive as the image above but a nice collection with books that I’ve read and loved (and want to read again) and books I want to read (and might read again).
So how to do this and not “break the bank”? Well I used the following sources to find books for my home library:
Thrift Stores
Garage Sales
Thriftbooks.com
Independent bookstores selling used books
I was able to buy books from 50 cents to $5.00 from these four sources. Most books I paid between $1.49 and $4.99.
In addition to amassing a collection of second hand books over the past couple of months, my partner John also added an additional bookcase to the front room beyond the two he already built for me.
So here is the current version of my home library which used to be the front room/sitting room in my house:
I had so much fun hunting for books at thrift shops (one local thrift shop has 1/2 priced Saturdays).
I’ve loved the books by the authors Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child and I’ve read at least 85% of their entire catalogue of books. So I put together a collection of their books of my very own (previously I had borrowed them from the library):
I do not have their latest books as those are not at thrift stores yet or reasonably priced on Thriftbooks.com but it was so fun finding each book one at a time while hunting at thrift shops.
At the beginning of my home library book curation process I thought about filling part of my home library with classic novels and books that might impress a book collector. But that thought lasted only a couple seconds. I have no need to impress anyone with my home library except myself. It is only filled with the kind of books I will read (and my partner too).
Like lots of Science Fiction and Fantasy (especially Young Adult Fantasy, I love it):
You might wonder what I did with my craft book collection. Well it is on the opposite wall organized by craft or topic (like art quilting):
All those books – got to have a cozy place to read, right? Here is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer sitting in my favorite reading spot:
And here is Mike and I snuggled cozy under a warm blanket on a cold Saturday reading (it was quite a delicious morning with my pot of tea next to me). I rediscovered the joy of reading a while, napping, waking up and reading some more!
Note these images were taken before my partner put up the third bookcase last week.
In case you are curious, I am still occasionally getting a “Library Stack” from my local public library, though not as big as the ones I was getting (the ridiculously large stacks like in the post The Library Stack Is Back!) when the library first reopened. Here is my current linrary stack:
Speaking of libraries, some of the second hand books I’ve purchased over the past several months are former library books! I’ve gotten pretty good at removing the library’s plastic dust cover with all their library specific stickers so the books sitting on my home library shelves does not look like I stole them from a library – ha!
As I mentioned earlier in this post I used to listen to a lot of audiobooks. Current I am only listening to podcasts now, taking a break from audiobooks. I am currently enjoying holding a book in my hand and reading it. Quite a different experience. I am taking a break from multitasking in life and just enjoying a solitary task of reading a book!
Postscript
Over the past several months of going to thrift stores to find books for my home library, I’ve come across many curious items for sale at thrift shops.
Here are my top 5 favorite finds that gave me the chuckle (and I promise you I did not buy any of them):
Number 5: If you need a lamp and a place to store your leftover yarn, would this not be the perfect solution?
Yes it’s – YARN LAMP!
Number 4: Patriotic pants – they defy any further comment (but my apologies to you if you happen own these…)
My partner John is modeling them
Number 3: Donated photo frames with family photos still in them.
I could not believe how many donated photo frames I came across with family pictures still in them at various thrift stores, like the example below. Wouldn’t you perhaps remove your family photos before donating?!?!?
Number 2: An outfit for a very adventurous and crafty person.
Though it was on display way before Halloween, I think this was supposed to be a suggested Halloween outfit (hopefully as you would get a lot of stares should you select it for a cocktail party…)
And Number 1 is…
Something that you absolutely cannot imagine living without…
A cattle leg (yes real cattle leg) with hoof attached Barometer!
Yes, now you can remember the favorite steer you raised on your farm and know the current barometric pressure!
My regret is I did not buy it and put it away as the ultimate future “White Elephant” Christmas gift! (Could you imagine the look on someone’s face when they opened their gift!)
I’ve shared many of the photos below already on Instagram but I thought I would pull them together and share a quick post about Autumn, my favorite season.
Fall Scenery
Who doesn’t love the colors of Autumn and the changing leaves?
Not only the color of the leaves but the sounds of the leaves? Usually when I’m on a walk I have my earphones in and I am listening to an audiobook, a podcast or music. Yesterday I went on a little afternoon walk and actually just listened to the trees – their dry autumn leaves rustling in the wind. It was sort of glorious.
In addition to the trees/leaves, we’ve seen some beautiful skies at sunset – my partner John captured these photos.
Fall Cooking
The other day it dropped to 48 degrees F outside so was it’s cold enough for homemade chicken noodle soup with handmade noodles!
On Instagram I shared these two images below, implying I made the soup…
But I was only adding extra noodles to the soup – actually my partner John made the soup and the noodles.
But I did make an apple pie – a perfect Autumn desert!
I was super tasty and we had it for desert after our soup and garlic bread for supper.
Now it’s time to pull out the stew recipes as well as the soups I like to make recipes. Cooler weather means lots of cooking (and maybe some more baking).
Postscript
Oh I will close this post with what Mike the Miniature Schnauzer is up to – providing emotional support for more home remodelingprojects (see his guest post Guest Blog Post: A Whole Lot of Remodeling Going On) by going on trips to home improvement stores.
Here is his photo from the other day when he went to pick up more supplies and it looks like he’s trying to give the humans some directions…
Homemade chicken noodle soup, with homemade stock – this was my big accomplishment for the later part of this week.
I love cook and bake but my cooking and baking (until recently, see previous post Valentines) have been on hold since my husband suddenly died in December 2018.
For the past couple of months I’ve been living on what I could forage at Whole Foods (well at least it was a recently healthy diet). Many very kind and thoughtful friends and coworkers gave me Whole Foods gift cards after my husband died.
At first I would just get food at the Whole Foods hot food bar and sit in the supermarket dining area and eat so I would not have to dine alone every night. Luckily that got old after a while (plus the hot bar food is charged per pound and is rather “spendy” unless you only get really light food…) and I started buying groceries to take home.
But I was only buying groceries for quick prepare meals and it seemed like I lived on avocado toast, boiled eggs, Miso soup, and hummus with carrots for a couple weeks.
My diet was fairly vegetarian and the thought of meat turned my stomach, but earlier this week I was really craving some hard core protein. So armed with the remaining funds on the last of my Whole Food gift cards, I bought a whole cooked rotisserie chicken.
After a couple days of chicken, chicken, chicken, I was trying to decide what to do with the rest of the bird. I convinced myself to not only make homemade chicken noodle soup but to make my own from scratch chicken stock with the carcass, something I’ve never done before.
Here is the stock simmering with the cut up and browned rotisserie chicken carcass:
Here is the strained stock:
The soup made with my homemade stock simmering (and the house smells so good):
And finally a yummy bowl of my very own homemade chicken noodle soup!
I’ve made homemade chicken noodle soup before but with store bought chicken stock or chicken bouillon base. Soup with my own homemade chicken stock tasted very different – It is pretty darn delicious!
One of the best things I learned from the Chowhound recipe is that you have to cook the noodles separately – do not try to cook them in the soup. You boil them per package instructions in their own pot and then add the cooked noodles to the soup. If you try to cook the noodles with the soup you will get what I’ve experienced in the past – a pasty mess of noodles!
Of course this recipe made a lot of soup so now my life is chicken soup, chicken soup, chicken soup – but it seems to be satisfying my soul (smile).
Postscript
I’m currently listening to an amazing audiobook – Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life by Eric Greitens.
image credit: amazon.com
I did not think I would be at the point now where I would be interested in reading any “Self-Improvement” books but this one caught my eye when I was browsing my local library’s audiobook loan offerings online.
You cannot bounce back from hardship. You can only move through it. There is a path through pain to wisdom, through suffering to strength, and through fear to courage if we have the virtue of resilience.
In 2012, Eric Greitens unexpectedly heard from a former SEAL comrade, a brother-in-arms he hadn’t seen in a decade. Zach Walker had been one of the toughest of the tough. But ever since he returned home from war to his young family in a small logging town, he d been struggling. Without a sense of purpose, plagued by PTSD, and masking his pain with heavy drinking, he needed help. Zach and Eric started writing and talking nearly every day, as Eric set down his thoughts on what it takes to build resilience in our lives.
Eric’s letters drawing on both his own experience and wisdom from ancient and modern thinkers are now gathered and edited into this timeless guidebook. Resilience explains how we can build purpose, confront pain, practice compassion, develop a vocation, find a mentor, create happiness, and much more. Eric s lessons are deep yet practical, and his advice leads to clear solutions.
We all face pain, difficulty, and doubt. But we also have the tools to take control of our lives. Resilience is an inspiring meditation for the warrior in each of us.
It is a pretty powerful book even if it took listening to a chapter or two to get me engaged. Although the book is based on letters from one Navy Seal to another Navy Seal suffering from PTSD who also recently lost his brother to an auto accident, the messages in this book are quite universal.
I’ll close this post with a quote from this powerful book:
Smiling and breathing. These are simple things. Exercising and serving. These are simple things. Being grateful and gracious. These are simple things. Acting with humility. Acting with courage. These are simple things. Some people try to make this business of living too complicated
― Eric Greitens, Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life
Several readers expressed concerns that even though the trees were neglected, technically I did not have permission from the home owners (even if some of the houses were empty) to pick the fruit from their trees. Although the fruit was falling to the ground and rotting and no one was picking it, I put these comments in the back of my mind and skipped “fruit rescuing” in 2017.
But recently I’ve noticed several apple trees in front of a business at the edge of my neighborhood where the apples are ripe and are just being allowed to fall to the ground and rot. I couldn’t take it anymore and decided it was time for APPLE RESCUE!
Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) felt like an intervention was needed also and helped me pick apples from the trees:
TTQH helping with Apple Rescue
Until we had a bag full of apples:
Saved from just being left to rot on the ground
We took the home and washed them and ended up with a nice haul of apples:
Getting a bath
Freshly rescued apples all safe and cozy in a bowl
What to do with out apple haul? Make an apple pie of course!
But as the tierneycreates Beastie mentioned in yesterday’s guest blogger post,Guest Blogger: A Monster Needs Her Sweater, the weather has dipped from late summer weather to early Fall weather.
The cool weather makes me want to start making stews now!
Oh just a note on the linked recipe I provided – the original recipe calls for cannellini beans but I used black beans instead. Also I like to sauté the kale first in the already sautéed sausage and garlic; and if I am using fresh tomatoes as I did this time – I sauté the tomatoes also, before adding the beans (and their liquid) and the broth.
Remains of the tasty stew!
Postscript
Disclaimer: I am not a cooking blog and cannot even pretend to be one.
If you want to read actually cooking blogs I recommend these two that I enjoy:
Continuing my ongoing series,TheLibrary Stack, sharing my latest stack of borrowed books from my beloved local public library.
This current stack is laden with cookbooks as that was the kind of mood I was in during my recent library browsing. I realize this should have been a “Winter” thing, but I am in the mood to use my slow cooker more and wanted some new recipe ideas.
I am curious about Air Frying and might buy an Air Fryer someday so I borrowed a book with recipes for an Air Fryer.
I did just purchase an Instant Pot and I have reserved a huge list of books with Instant Pot recipes. So the next library stack is likely to be filled with Instant Pot cookbooks!
Also I was lured into the New Nonfiction Releases section (okay I am am always lured into that section when I visit the downtown library) and several new crafting and home decorating books just had to come home with me!
Here are some comments and thoughts on the books I’ve dived into so far in my latest library stack:
The Little Book of Lykke: Secrets of the World’s Happiest People by Meik Wiking
“Lykke” according to the author is the Danish word for “happiness” and is pronounced “loo-ka”. Meik Wiking is also the author of the book The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living which I discussed in my 04/15/17 post The Library Stack and Hygge.
I read the first couple of chapters and then remembered how much I enjoyed listening to the audiobookThe Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living after I read the book and the author’s delightful Danish accent; and I decided to reserve The Little Book of Lykke on audiobook as it looks like it will be another delightful listen during my daily walks.
Denmark is one of the coolest places I have ever visited and definitely had a happy vibe!
The Joy of Hygge: How to Bring Everyday Pleasure and Danish Coziness into Your Life by Jonny Jackson & Elias Larsen
There appeared to be a “Danish Hygge theme” going on in the New Nonfiction Releases section of my library so I added this one to my stack also. This book is more of a lifestyle book with images of decor, activities and crafts to bring “hygge” into your life.
I came across a quote in the book that gave me a huge smile as this is exactly how I want to live my life:
Fear less, hope more; eat less, chew more; whine less, breathe more; talk less, say more; hate less, love more; and all good things are yours. – Scandinavian proverb
Writing for Bliss: A Seven-Step Plan for Telling Your Story and Transforming Your Life by Diane Raab
This is an amazing book! I am tempted to purchase it as there is so much in the book I do not think I can digest it all during my library loan period. I am going to share verbatim the overview on the back cover of the book to give you a tiny feel of all the good stuff in this book:
Writing for Bliss is most fundamentally about reflection, truth, and freedom. With techniques and prompts for both the seasoned and the novice writer, it will lead you to
– tap into your creativity through storytelling and poetry,
– examine how life-changing experiences can inspire writing,
– pursue self-examination and self-discovery through the written word, and,
– understand how published writers have been transformed by writing.
The is amazing guidance on meditating and become centered so you can reflect and writing, and many other tips. The book is like a course and there are assignments. I think I am going to go ahead and buy the book so I can write notes and work through it at a pace that works for me.
The Dutch Oven Cookbook: Recipes for the Best Pot in Your Kitchen by Sharon Kramis & Julie Kramis Hearne
This book inspired me to drag out my Dutch Oven:
Today I am going to make Lentil Sausage Soup on page 11 of this wonderful cookbook.
Hopefully the rest of the books will be as wonderful as the first four I am working through. While taking photos of my latest library stack, Mike the Miniature Schnauzer wondered what I was up to and ended up “photo-bombing” one of my shots:
He likely felt that I should return to my chair in the front window and continue cuddling with him instead of whatever strange thing I was doing posing books and taking images with my smartphone!
Postscript
The reason why I stopped at the library for a browse and ended up with this stack was I received an e-mail notification from my library that a whole bunch of movies I put on hold were available.
It always seems to be “feast or famine” when it comes to library movies that I put on hold being available. No movies for a couple of weeks and then BAM – 6 movies available at once! You only have a short window to pick the movies up before they put them back into circulation for the next library patron on the hold list and since I did not want to wait a long time to get these movies again, I checked them all out.
The loan period for DVDs is 7 days so Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) and I are having an ongoing movie marathon – 1 – 2 films each day. So far we’ve watched Molly’s Game, Star Wars The Last Jedi, and The Greatest Showman. We enjoyed all three films.
The Greatest Showman was spectacularly entertaining and TTQH were glued to the screen the whole time. I will close this post with a quote from this movie, that really resonated with me. It was one of those life lessons that I have worked on learning for many years (but finally I think I am getting it):
This post has nothing to do with quilting or crafting! However my blog is about a “Crafter’s Life” and crafters have to eat right? So I want to share a recipe for a very delicious “detox” soup I recently made.
We have local health food store called Natural Grocers. I received their sale flyer in the mail a week ago and it contained a recipe for Super Detox Soup.
I love making soups but normally I would be suspicious of such as soup (i.e. it sounds too healthy and not yummy) but after reviewing the recipe I decided to make it.
Natural Grocers’ Super Detox Soup simmering on the stove
It was MAJOR tasty! Surprisingly tasty! I had it for lunch each day for 4 days in a row and did not tire of it. The fresh ginger in it has a nice zing and it has pseudo-Thai soup flavors (without the lemongrass and basil).
I would paste the entire recipe into this post but it might be easier for you to just access and save the link to the original recipe. If you do end up making it note in my opinion you do not need to add all the red chili pepper flakes the recipe calls for – I added only 1/2 and the spice level seemed perfect!
Now this is not a cooking blog so there are no step by step instructions – ha! If you would like to check out a real cooking blog I enjoy, check out InDiane’s Kitchen
I did create a new Blog Post Category – ACrafter Needs to Eat , where you will find previous posts that have to do with cooking/provide recipes or links.
Postscript
This might seem random, but a Crafter also needs to use MS Office (MS Word, MS Excel, MS Powerpoint, etc.) and I discovered this wonderful sight with great tips on MS Office products:
I always say this blog is about a “Crafter’s Life”, therefore this is how I am getting away with this post about Fall Cooking…and Crafters cook (Crafters also do laundry, wash dishes, floss their teeth, etc. but you would likely stop following my blog if I start posting about those Crafter life activities!)
Recently I was blessed with shared bounty of a friend’s Fall Harvest: Fuji apples and Heirloom-like tomatoes.
So far the apples have become an Apple Crisp and the tomatoes became Homemade Pasta Sauce.
The Apples
This past weekend, during a visit to a friend’s house, I was given a large bucket of Fuji apples from her apple tree harvest:
Recently I’ve been playing with B&W photography
Arriving home, I gave many apples away to neighbors and friends. However I still had many apples left:
I asked Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) what he thought I should do with them and I suggested making a couple apple pies (and freezing some). He replied off the top of his head: “Why don’t you make an Apple Crisp?”
Screen shot of partial image from tastesbetterfromscratch.com/apple-crisp/
Peeling apples is not something I get excited about so I enlisted TTQH to help (he has to work for his “Crisp”):
The recipe came out excellent and we ended up with a very delicious Apple Crisp, which I served warm with vanilla ice cream.
The house smelled wonderful as it baked, very “Fall-like” with the smell of cinnamon and baking apples in the air.
Here is a close up of the baked topping (which was so delicious on top of the tender baked sliced apples):
The Tomatoes
In addition to sharing her Fuji apple harvest, my friend also gave me 5 – 8 pounds of her spectacular heirloom type tomatoes in red and yellow varieties.
I decided to make my first completely from scratch pasta sauce. I have made pasta sauce from “semi-scratch” using canned tomatoes. I have also made pasta sauce with fresh roasted tomatoes. However, I have never made pasta sauce with fresh peeled tomatoes!
screen shot from wellnessmama.com/8907/pasta-sauce/
I learned a lot from this recipe including how to remove the skin from fresh tomatoes (dropping in hot water for 10 secs) and using an unsliced carrot to remove acidity from the sauce.
I won’t share photos of my first attempt of putting little Xs on the top of tomatoes, dropping them in boiling water, retrieving them, and then peeling them. Why? Because it looked like a tomato-slaughterhouse in my kitchen until I got the hang of it (several tomatoes sacrificed themselves for the sake of my learning curve on how to peel hot tomatoes).
Here is the sauce during its initial simmering before it spent time with my immersion blender:
Okay so if you checked out the recipe link I provided and now you are looking at the image above, you are thinking: “Tierney what kind of brown round vegetables do you have simmering in the sauce? I did not see them mentioned in the recipe.”
Well…those are meatballs. I did not make this recipe vegan, I added meatballs and let the meatballs simmer for many hours in the sauce. As you can imagine, and if you like meat, the house smelled absolutely delicious most of the day while this simmering was going on.
Eventually I removed the meatballs:
And I pureed the sauce using an immersion blender:
You’ll notice the sauce does not look very red. Actually it is orange-red because the bulk of the tomatoes I used were yellow varieties.
I remembered a sauce tastes even better the next day after the flavors have time to “think about themselves’ overnight, so we waiting until tonight to have wonderful Spaghetti and Meatballs supper! (Now if I could have made my own pasta…)
I am always fascinated by the science of cooking and I loved this new trick I learned from this recipe to simmer a half peeled intact carrot to absorb acidity in the tomato sauce. The 1/2 carrot is removed and discarded at the end.
Discarded fresh thyme sprig, bay leaf, and the 1/2 carrot used to absorb acidity
I also added a little honey at the end as the recipe’s author suggested to balance the acidity.
I made enough sauce to use for supper tonight and to freeze for a future meal (I froze it without the meatballs).
Okay, so next post, I will discuss and share photos of how I fold laundry (joke).
Tierney! You are not a food blogger and this is not a cooking blog, what are you thinking with this post?
Well I wanted to share one of my favorite food recipes (and what I am having for lunch today) – Split Pea Soup with Cumin & Orange from the 01/19/11 online issue of Portland Monthly.
I am not vegan, though I do enjoy vegan cooking – it feels so “clean and pure“. I love a thick hearty traditional split pea soup simmered with a ham bone with tender ham meat simmering in the soup. I also love this vegan version and find the flavor equally as satisfying!
In the link above from Portland Monthly you can find the original recipe, but below I will share my version of the recipe and photos:
(1)HEAT olive oil in a heavy saucepan on medium and add garlic, cumin, and black pepper. I have burned the garlic in the past, so I always make sure I do not overheat the olive oil before putting the garlic. cumin and pepper and then I stir them constantly on medium heat.
(2)SAUTÉ until garlic just begins to brown (about 5 minutes).
(3)ADD onion, carrot, celery, and jalapeños—stir well and cook until onions begin to soften (5–7 minutes). I also add the celery leaves and I always put in a little extra carrots and celery than the recipe calls for.
(4)ADD water and half of the split peas, and bring to a simmer. I do not add the water first, I add the split peas (1 1/2 cups/half of them) to the sautéed vegetables and sauté the peas a little in the vegetable/spice mix to add a little extra flavor to the dried pea. Then I add the water.
Stirring occasionally, cook until peas are tender (about 45 minutes).
(5)ADD remaining split peas and orange zest and cook on a low simmer, uncovered, until all of the peas are tender (30–40 minutes), and season to taste with salt and pepper. I use my microplane to zest the skin of one orange. Usually what I will do is have an orange at breakfast and save the skins for orange zest. If you do not have a microplane (or you are terrified of this very sharp cooking instrument in which you can also zest off your skin, been there…) then you can just use a grater and lightly grate off the orange skin/zest (I know the culinary purists are cringing right now).
After I add in the orange zest and remaining split peas, I also add a dash of hot sauce instead of just adding it as a garnish is step #6.
(6)GARNISH with toasted cumin seeds, orange zest, and hot sauce. I only garnish with a little extra hot sauce after serving into my bowl.
This soup freezes beautifully and I think it makes more than 6 servings. I am a telecommuter so I am always trying to plan my lunches out ahead of time. I love just pulling out a serving of this soup in the morning to thaw before starting my workday.
Postscript
Being Stealth
I am getting ready to leave for the annual quilt retreat in the Vancouver, Washington area I go on with my quilt sisters from Washington, Oregon and California. Sassy, the Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer, gets very stressed when one of her humans is leaving her sight/management for a while.
She becomes very anxious when she sees suitcases, so I am having to do stealth packing for the retreat. I pack a couple days early and keep them hidden (behind the sari curtain in my studio):
Why yes, that is all I am bringing to a 4-day quilt retreat. I decided to just bring hand quilting projects. I did bring a small project I could use a borrowed sewing machine on if I suddenly become overwhelmed with the need to sit at a sewing machine.
Also I packed minimal coordinating clothes and figure I can repeat an outfit (if I start to smell, oh well, I am at a quilt retreat – ha!)
A Couple of Cool Blogs
I follow several non-crafting blogs and I wanted to share a couple very cool blogs I thought some of you might enjoy:
The Tiny Potager:Self Sufficiency and Sustainable Living – with a family of six – tinypotager.com – this blogger is out of the UK and posts wonderful photos of farming, farmlands, hikes, road trips, etc. I feel like I am on a relaxing virtual mini-holiday when I look at this blog.
I’ve Read This: Looking for something good to read? – ivereadthis.com – this blog is for people who love to read and love cats! The blogger posts adorable cat photos and great book reviews. The latest post is on a book called The Lion in the Living Room by Abigail Tucker; and has a great video on why cats love boxes!
Example of “kitty in a box”, my friend Wendy’s darling cat
tierneycreates 