Category Archive: food

2015
09/28

Category:
food
Garden
quilts

COMMENTS:
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Back to quilting

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The quilts I had made earlier have been delivered to some of the people living at the Okanogan campground tent city for families who were burned out and had no where to go.    I understand that the Wenatchee group gave 80 and Spokane another 60.    However many more are needed and will be given to these people as soon as they are completed.   So I have started on my next set of quilts.       It seems patchwork is always welcome, so this is the one I started today.  I think I may want 30 of these blocks as they will measure 10″ finished.

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IMG_3294In addition to that the summer is over and it is getting colder and darker.   Today we took the shade cloth off the greenhouse and picked most of what was in it.  There are still some squash, celery, and beets.

2015
09/15

Category:
food
spinning

COMMENTS:
2 Comments »

Roving to yarn – blue

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After a fairly simple, but delicious lunch – boiled potatoes,  zucchini patty and tossed salad –

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I sat down to an afternoon of plying and now this one pound of blue roving is spun and plied, ready to wash and knit.   This pile of blue yarn represents hours and hours and hours of work, done bit by bit.     Little bits of time really add up.

2015
09/14

Category:
food
Life
quilts

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“Warm Wishes” completed

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“Warm wishes” has been completed.

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The quilting is quite simple but looks nice on it.

Mary and I spent the afternoon at the sewing center learning about the new machines and other products and we came home empty handed!

Tomorrow I will be back to finishing the grapes.  After using all our will power to keep from making a purchase, I was just too tired tonight to finish them.

2015
09/13

Category:
food
Garden
Life

COMMENTS:
1 Comment »

Grapes, grapes and more grapes

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However, first I want to update you.  A friend and I went to a new to us church  yesterday and learned about the Hebrew New Year, Rosh Hashana, which was very interesting.  IMG_3196

  At this Messianic Jewish church, they had a lovely “Ark of the Covenant” replica as well as an amazing Torah Scroll that survived the Holocaust.

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I  took the granola off the dehydrator this morning after breakfast, did a small amount of spinning.

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Then I decided to pick grapes.    I was surprised at the amount that were out there.   With what I picked on Friday, we had over 6 of these 4 gallon buckets of grapes.   This is the first year that we have had much of a harvest.   Last year, the chickens got them and then again this year, the chickens were busy with keeping the bugs out of the grapes and then reaping the reward.   Still there were more than enough for us.    So we have been cleaning and freezing and dehydrating grapes today – and maybe tomorrow as well.

2015
09/11

Category:
food
Garden

COMMENTS:
1 Comment »

More food prep

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I’m so glad that it is Friday and tomorrow is a day of rest.   God knew we would need one day a week to keep from wearing ourselves out.  Today, after gym, I went out and picked more grapes.   I will probably finish picking them on Sunday.   Maybe I’ll freeze them on trays so it will be easy to just take out what we want to use.   It will be so nice to have them in the freezer and we can just add them to our winter fruit salads.

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and here is another 14 quarts of potatoes canned.

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The pears look like they would like to wait several more days, which is okay with me.

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So I baked another 6 loaves of zucchini bread.  There is more zucchini shredded, but I’m debating whether to just freeze it that way or make up more patties.

My wish for each of you is one restful day and one productive day this weekend.   Enjoy your families.

2015
09/10

Category:
food
Garden
Life

COMMENTS:
2 Comments »

Does this sound like your life.

Get up groggily, get breakfast on the table and then eat mine.   Still tired, but not enough to go back to bed, so sit down and spin wool for a bit.  After I catch my breath,IMG_3173

grate the two huge zucchini with plans to make bread, brownies, and patties for the freezer.

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It grated into 3+ gallons of zucchini.   I refrigerated that for later use.   Next I get out the jars and other canning supplies to can the potatoes.

IMG_3176About then DH would like to eat at his favorite local Mexican restaurant.   I had a large tostada with beans, lettuce, tomato, and guacamole.  We get back just in time for a conference call I agreed to attend.   Oops, lasted nearly 2 hours instead of one, and then another 1/2 hour phone call.   Wow it’s 3.30 and I haven’t accomplished much yet.

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14 quarts of potatoes..   The plan is to do another 14 quarts tomorrow plus the zucchini products.

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While I was waiting for the pressure canner to heat up, I went out to check the grapes which are small this year, but that’s probably because we didn’t know how to prune them   I am thrilled and delighted with the sweetness.   They are so wonderful.   I filled the bowl I took with me and will finish picking them tomorrow.

So I get to the end of my day and there were more things I wanted to get done than got done.  In fact, I feel as if I am swimming backwards.    If I could get going a bit sooner in the morning and not have phone conferences……………but then tomorrow  there is gym, then a drive out to get a loom someone wants to find a home for which I’m sure will consume 3 hours, then to finish picking the grapes and canning the potatoes.    There is no time in this schedule for housecleaning and gardening and so the garden suffers a lot and we won’t talk about the house.     Oh, and there are still carrots and beets,  to get done in the near future and applesauce after that.

2015
09/02

Category:
food

COMMENTS:
2 Comments »

THE BOOK

 

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The book is published and I have copies!    It is so much better than I thought it would be.   It is a fairly thick 8.5 x 11 book

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The list of contents

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And look what I will be doing the first part of next week

 

2015
08/28

Category:
food
Life

COMMENTS:
1 Comment »

A day of cooking

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This morning, I grated potatoes that had been boiled yesterday, added seasonings, then put them on parchment paper on a cookie sheet.   At 400, I baked them for 20 minutes, flipped them, and did a bit over 10 minutes on the other side.   Delicious and no oil!.

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I FOUND the recipe for the zucchini patties that DH likes so much.   It is in this cookbook by Barbara Watson.

 

IMG_2973   I made 2 batches of triple the recipe which made 6 dozen patties.   We should be good with zucchini patties the winter.  I don’t know what I’ll do with another big zucchini.  I may have to discover more recipes.IMG_2975  I did not have enough bread or bread crumbs to make the second batch, so used oats instead.   The patties are very good, but not as delicate as the ones with bread crumbs.   At least now I know that if we have to remove wheat again, we can still have these burgers.

2015
08/26

Category:
food
Life

COMMENTS:
1 Comment »

Zucchini and shopping

 

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Not one, but two of these monsters were hidden in the garden.

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Since DH likes zucchini bread, I made 6 large loaves tonight after supper.   There is still enough grated zucchini for several batches of his favorite zuke patties, but I can’t find the recipe.   I know that it uses tofu and I’m thinking oats, but perhaps it was wheat because I haven’t made it since he was put on a gluten-free diet.   This summer he decided he was tired of that and didn’t think it made a difference, so went back to eating wheat.   Now I just need to find that recipe so I can make them and freeze a lot of them.

I started the day at the gym after breakfast, then came home, a quick clothing change and off to both of the Costco stores.   One is for merchants for resale and the other is the normal type of Costco.  It’s interesting how ideas and habits are passed down.   I know that we have stores available all winter long, but Mother came from a Dakota wheat farm, where that wasn’t the case.   They ate during the winter what they put up in the summer.  In turn she canned and put up most of what we ate during the winter.

 Now, even though I don’t grow all our food, I still seem to be driven to have enough food on hand to get through the winter and in this case that means water as well, since when we lose power, we lose water.   Even then, in the winter,  I do go to the store for fresh salad items and other things I’d like, but could get along without.   So it was off to the Costco stores for about 3 hours of browsing and some buying.  (Don’t you love to look and see what new items are there).  There will be another trip or two before bad weather hits.  Then home to make dinner.

 

2015
08/24

Category:
food
Life
quilts

COMMENTS:
1 Comment »

Too short

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Quilting was very challenging today.   Perhaps if I quilted a quilt every day, I might actually get good enough at this to enjoy it.   Today there were several challenges.   But the worst was that I did not measure correctly for the backing.   Fortunately, I have more fabric and I’m only doing one block at a time instead of moving across the entire row with one stitching.   Can you see that I am about a foot short – what’s up with that?   Because of how this is being quilted, I took it off the machine and will sew the additional fabric on before continuing.

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Here is the block I’m currently quilting and then I will go back and do the ones in between.

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So now, it looks like this with which I am happy.    Because a friend is coming over tomorrow that wants a quilt done, I decided to just quit early and get the floor swept and a couple smaller projects done, so we can use the cutting table.

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I have been bemoaning  the zucchini were so slow and DH wants zucchini bread.   Look what was very well hidden.   With this there will be several loaves in the freezer.