Category Archive: Foods

2014
12/02

Category:
Foods
Life
quilts

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Sew Fun Party Day

Today  was a full day which started with the Sew Fun Christmas party.   As you can see, it was well attended.    Party-goers were given tickets for various things such as bringing a show-n-tell, doing a paper game etc.    Then numbers were drawn and prizes were handed out.

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Of course, food was part of the program, but I forgot to photo the table before it was mostly empty.

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This afternoon, I got a phone message and here is Christian.   His new quilt had arrived in the mail.   He does have a happy look all wrapped up.

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I ended the day with canning 7 cups of apple butter (1 is already in use and the jar is in the refrigerator.   These apples were so sweet, no sugar was needed.   I cooked down the applesauce to about half in the crock pot and canned it

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2014
12/01

Category:
Foods
Life

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Apples are sauced!

DSC00194  applesauce

Today was mostly spent in the kitchen making applesauce out of the two boxes of apples we purchased last month.  They were losing their crispness which is a great time to sauce them.   I got 62 pints, but saved out 12 pints to make apple butter.   I’m trying to make it in the crock pot – a new approach for me.  The instructions said 8 hours, but I really think it will take overnight.  I spent the processing time trying to catch up on the mail since last Wednesday.

2014
11/22

Category:
Foods
Knitting
Life

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Slow, rainy day

After church, we came home and had delicate squash boat halves with Quinoa and kale in them.    Last summer there were so many squash in the garden, we couldn’t eat them all, so I cut them in half, took out the seeds, cooked, and froze them.      We added a tossed salad

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For dessert, I had made a fruit salad with apples, bananas, mandarin oranges, and pineapple (make sure the pineapple juice covers the other fruits to keep them from getting brown)    I drained the pineapple juice, put it in the blender with cashews to make a cashew cream and added it and blueberries to the salad.   Delicious meal!

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The socks are still progressing very slowly.   I’m on row 27 of 65-70 for the leg part.

2014
11/13

Category:
farming
Foods
Life
quilts
Shopping

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Sewing/craft show

Mary and I attended the sewing/craft show today.  This year there were a lot of fabrics, patterns, machines, and notions for sale.   There was also the required embroidery designs and a bit of thread.  Here is Mary shopping.

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It seems that each year there are fewer vendors and fewer things in which we are interested.   We each bought tweezers and that was all.    I’m not sure if that is because there are fewer things of interest, higher prices, or because we have what we need.   I took photos of a couple of booths just to prove that we were there this year, though we may not repeat this.   Our time would have been better spent making items and using some of what we have instead of out gathering more ideas and tempting ourselves with more product.

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We did see these rather nifty little beads that swell up and are very pretty in vases.   They come in colors and are so pretty.  They hold a good measure of water so you can actually grow some houseplants in them.

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Then it was off to pick up my co-op order.   If several of us order together we get better prices.  Today I had ordered apples and cauliflower.   DH would like some applesauce since he finished the last of what we had.   Perhaps next week, I can work it in.

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And the last project was capturing 20 chickens to take to a friend’s house tomorrow morning.   They are spending the night in cages as it is far easier to catch them roosting than running around the yard,

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2014
09/24

Category:
Foods
quilts

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BANANAS and quilts

The bananas were ripe and ready for processing this morning.    It took about 1.5 hours to peel and put them on trays in the freezer.  3 banana boxes produced 10 trays in the freezer

  P1020322 freezer bana

and 8.5 trays on the dehydrator

P1020320 dehydrator bana

We moved them from the freezer to bags this afternoon and put the bags in the freezer.   The dehydrating ones aren’t done, but will make delicious sweet pieces this winter.

Then it was off to the sewing room where I chose and cut fabrics for 3 twin size “I spy” quilts.

P1020317 I spy fbrics

2014
09/21

Category:
Foods
Garden
quilts

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More food and Pat Sloan quilt bom

It seems during the summer that the week starts in the garden – most likely because we didn’t check on it the previous day.     We went to the garden with the intention of picking tomatoes, however, 17 of these personal sized cantaloupes filled the 5 gallon bucket.  They are incredible sweet and juicy.

P1020302 some of today's cantSo a second trip to the garden brought in some of the tomatoes.   I canned 7 quarts.   Now here is the problem:  with all the jars of beans, salsa, jam  etc which was well over 150 jars, I only had 2 that didn’t seal.   With these tomatoes, out of 7, 3 did not seal (yet) and I don’t know why.  They will get a chance to go back into the canner tomorrow.

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Did you know Safeway delivers?   After a two unsuccessful attempts to use my personal special price they emailed to me, in the store,  I called their delivery customer service rep.   She was very patient and we got it all set up and the first delivery is free.   After that there is a small charge – she thought about $6.  The driver arrived with the bananas just as the tomatoes started boiling and brought them into the house where l ‘ll be working on them – probably Wednesday as they are green.    The reason I wanted this many bananas was because we use at least 2 daily.   I wanted to be able to freeze some and dehydrate some for snacks.  It was also good I checked the bill as they had charged me $1.09/# instead of the .69, I was supposed to be charge.    When I called it to their attention, the fellow was really sweet about it and refunded the difference, saying he didn’t understand how it happened in the first place.    I met two lovely people on the phone and have the organic bananas that I want at the good price.   All worked out in the end.

P1020301 3 boxes bananas

 I was tired by now, but this blog is supposed to keep my fiber adventures motivated so, I put together this September block from the Pat Sloan Trip around the World BOM.

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This is the placement photo.   We are now done with the large X interior block and all the small ones around it.   So we will probably beginning the sashing between the blocks next month.

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2014
09/19

Category:
Foods
quilts

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A Knitters gifts – mittens

Today seemed like a good day to tackle these 6 paper pieced mittens for this  quilt.    Paper piecing is still difficult for me, so they took much longer than I think they should have.   So only 2 of the 6 are finished.

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 Then I was back to normal things such as picking raspberries, a trip to the grocery, etc.   I am so happy tomorrow is a rest day.

 

hhu

2014
09/18

Category:
Foods
Garden

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Pillowcases and more canning

I woke up early this morning so was able to come to the sewing room and work on more pillowcases before I needed to make breakfast.   I think there are about 15 here.

P1020292 more pillowcases

I ended up canning another 20 pints of salsa and 4 of string beans (that’s the end of the beans – bushes are pulled out of ground).     There are still probably 10 gallons of tomatoes in the kitchen, most of which can wait until Sunday and those that can’t will get refrigerated.    I only have 15 pint jars left and still have applesauce to make, so I’m thinking another trip to the store to see if they still have them on sale.

I’m guessing that I will need to pick more tomatoes and raspberries tomorrow.     Oh, and I forgot about grapes.   I do have another 2 weeks for those, don’t I?

Someone contacted me about what to do with extra tomatoes.   She said that the food bank doesn’t accept them.    Do any of you know what’s up with that?

2014
09/15

Category:
Foods
Life
Shopping

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Shoes and canning

I did sew this morning, but nothing really to show yet.

The doctor ordered new shoes, so that was the first order of business when the stores opened.   New Balance, they are.

P1020250 Black walking shoes

Then it was off to the hardware store and Costco.    When I can get the camera to take color again, I’ll show you the new garden boots and shoes.     Costco was more expensive trip.   They have really changed things around since we were there three weeks ago and now near the entrance, have an organic section with many gluten-free selections.   In case you missed them there, they are also in the regular section.   We were like kids in a candy store.

Then home to face a mass of tomatoes.   Fortunately there are still about 5 gallons that are not ripe enough to process.    But I did make and process 22 pints of salsa.   Since we use about a pint a week, I’ll get some more green peppers and onions and do about that many more.   The rest of this years tomatoes will just be sauce and canned as is.  I do write the products and date on the lid so we have some idea of age and product.

P1020242 salsa

 

2014
09/12

Category:
Foods
Life

COMMENTS:
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Learning and trying

Thank you Lois and Darlene for your recipes.   I will try them soon.   I feel like a stranger in a foreign country with this new way of eating.   I had no idea we were consuming that much wheat and at first thought it would be no big deal.   HA!

Today I got out the package of Organic multigrain bread mix that I found at the store this week..   The ingredients are all organic and include:  brown rice flour, sorghum flour, tapioca starch, quinoa flour, evap cane juice, xantham gum, yeast, and salt.    ‘

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Here it is nearly risen.

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and after it came out of the oven

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This is how a slice looks

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Notice how dense it is.   It holds together quite good and slices easily.   It is edible with something on it.   I think it will be okay for sandwiches thinly sliced, if the real thing isn’t around..    But it is NOT bread, nor does it taste like it.   Still I am thankful we have food to eat.

I also tried this mix using the biscuit recipe on the package

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This accidentally is not organic.   The ingredients are brown rice flour, non aluminum baking soda, non GMO cornstarch, vanilla bean powder, sea salt, baking soda, xantham gum.     Although this baked up fairly good, because it is not organic, I will try to come up with something similar from scratch.

P1020228 vegan GF strawberry shortcake

with the strawberries and the “ice cream” (not real) we nearly fooled ourselves and it was a very pleasant treat.

I also made a batch of strawberry jam for a gift.