Sunday, June 14, 2020

In the kitchen and a free pattern I found

I feel like I'm a day behind again. This time it's because I had Friday, Saturday and Sunday all planned out with a list of everything I was going to work on. I love lists, don't you. It helps me cope when I know I have way too may things to do. If I can break everything down into days, and sometimes even times, I feel more in control (and that helps with my panic attacks). Well, Friday started out good. I got up by 9, and that's early for this night owl, had a quick shower (which is quicker now that I cut my hair into a short bob) and got dressed for working around the house and in the garden.

The problem started when my husband decided I needed to go with him to our other home to get the riding mower which was going in for repairs. Since Saturday was going to be my day for working on the garden over there I was completely off my schedule. You say well why not just switch the lists but that wouldn't work since I thought we wouldn't be there for more than an hour or 2. Turned out I was at the house for 4 hours and could have worked in the garden. I didn't think I'd have enough time for all that needed done while Jack  was out on his "quick" shopping trip and would want to get back to what I call the play house. Not wanting to stop what I would have been working on outside I stayed in and cut out some fabric. Worse was that he really didn't need me there and could have gotten the mower in the back of his red wagon trailer by himself.

Now again you are going to say why not get back to your list once you got back to the play house? One, even though we could have left at 10, Jack wasn't ready to go until almost noon. Waiting around and thinking I shouldn't start anything because he'll want to leave at any time. Come on ladies, you know how husbands can be. They hate waiting for us but think nothing of making us wait for them. I did get the dusting done but not the vacuuming. Back to why, Two, it was close to 4 by the time we got back so that meant doing a load of laundry (that was on my list) and getting dinner started. Then came cleaning up, dishes, and going out to water the garden. By then it was close to 7 so I finished the laundry and hit the couch for some embroidering and TV.

Here's some pics of what I did yesterday. I spent the day baking. These are just 2 of the things I made. The bread on the right is fig walnut bread and the one on the left is a rosemary, garlic, chive bread. As you can see I baked both in old cast iron skillets. They belonged to my mother-in-law and I love to use them when baking bread. This was the second fig & walnut bread I made.



I didn't have the honey beer the recipe calls for so I used Yuengling black & tan cause it was a choice of it, porter, or summer shandy. That's what it's here and I didn't want to go out searching for honey beer. I added 2 tablespoons of honey instead of the 1 it called for. I used 1 of buckwheat and 1 of red bamboo. I also went overboard on the fig pieces and walnuts. I increased both by about 1/2 cup more. Jack liked the first one I made so much he didn't want to share any of it with family and friends. I did manage to get some to my brother and sister-in-law and a few slices to some friends. Not sure if this one will get shared either.


The recipe came from a small cookbook I bought at a store checkout counter a few years ago. This was the first recipe I made from it. It's all about cooking with beer. I have a big collection of cookbooks and hate to admit that I haven't made anything in a lot of them.


This is a peach shortcake recipe I adapted from one posted here: http://www.elefantz.com/2020/03/daily-rhythms-and-surprise.html


Since the recipe measurements are in grams and we here in the states still use cups I had to get out my scale for measuring. It was good and a fun way to use up canned peaches.




These are somethings I've been making as I get sidetracked easily. I came across the free pattern for the tea towels while researching how to make prairie points. Those are the little triangles in case you don't know what they are. I of course made a few changes like making the triangles smaller so I could have more and adding a second row. 

 The pattern can be found at https://fortworthfabricstudio.com


The sunflower one I made into a cover for my sewing machine with ties at each end. I had made the mat using seashell fabric. I'm thinking I may have to dig out that fabric so I can make a matching tea towel cover.


This one covers my keyboard and mouse. Needed something to keep the cat hair off it. I was using a plain tea towel so this is much nicer.

The owls are hanging in my sewing room for now. I'm not sure what I'll do with it. I know people do use them to dry dishes not to just hang and look pretty. I'm not ready to let them get used yet. Next I'm going to make 2 mat/runners for the kitchen table and island. Everything's ready to get going, I just need to do it. Guess I better get off the computer and go sew :)