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Archive for the ‘Cooking and Recipes’ Category

More Family Fun

Saturday, November 26th, 2011

I can’t believe that we are heading home tomorrow. The days have flown by. Yesterday, was a beautiful day. We drove in to Crescent City where Mark had a plan to forage for sea food for a family dinner for Saturday night. You can see that the intrepid Scooter was ready to help.

As was Mia –

Here comes the expert, decked out for some serious seafood gathering.

If  you look closely, you can see him out there on the rocks at low tide.

With the help of Mia, Miles, Jack and Stephanie – they more that harvested their quota of mussels. Mark was able to get one fish with his poke pole. Mark enjoys catching fish by poke poling.

Last night, Steph made some fabulous turkey and squash enchiladas. This morning, Mark led an expedition to the docks in Crescent City where they hoped to get some crabs for tonight’s meal. They managed to get one after 3 hours of waiting,

Lisa, Clay, the dogs and I stayed back here and went for a nice walk at the Crissey Field State Park, just over the state line in Oregon.

Here are some photos from our walk:

I love beach grass!!

This tree is in our back yard.

Mussels waiting to be cleaned.

We all took turns scrubbing the mussels.

A couple of kids wait patiently for their food.

The wait was worth it.

Jayme made some delicious brown sugar cookies to finish off the meal. It was all good.

Tomorrow, we have to clean up and head home. It has been great.

This and That on a Thursday

Thursday, July 21st, 2011

It has been a day of getting odds and ends of things done. I felted three more colors for backgrounds for my next  felted piece. I need to do at least six more for the composition I have in mind.

Yesterday, I picked up 2 quarts of Marionberries at the farmer’s market. They are an Oregon treat and, like the Hood strawberries, I have grown to love them and like to put several batches in the freezer. I spread them on a big baking sheet and freeze them and then I vacuum pack them in plastic baggies. In the middle of the winter, they taste like summer. I also picked a quart of raspberries in my garden which we will  enjoy some and freeze some.

We have had so much rain that the weeds had taken over my veggie garden so I spent an hour pulling weeds and tending my poor plants that are hoping for some sunshine and warm temperatures.

Tonight we had a veggie feast from my CSA pick up — roasted baby carrots and roasted beets with braised beet greens and an arugula salad with delicious heirloom tomatoes. The tomates were not from Oregon, but were left over from the focaccia sandwich. When I was preparing the beet greens, I was taken with the beauty of the greens and had to snap a photo of them.

We were hoping that the railing would be installed on the deck before the week-end, but they couldn’t get the aluminum ordered in time so we have to wait until next week. Mr C has been working on the area between the house and the garage. I will be happy to have that finished as I have to navigate a construction area every time I go to the freezer or my car.

I took a big sigh of relief yesterday when we were given until September 30th to get work entered in the next SAQA Oregon show. I need that extra month.

Talking Food

Wednesday, July 20th, 2011

This is a Focaccia Sandwich that I prepared for STASH, today. The filling is pesto mayo, tomatoes, red onion, arugula and fresh mozzarella. I made the Focaccia di Patate that I made yesterday. It has yukon gold potato in it and cherry tomatoes on top.

This is Scooter after I found him checking it out and hoping for some bites.

I served it with chilled melon soup and brownie with raspberry coulis and vanilla ice cream. The raspberries were picked from my garden yesterday.

Last night I went to High Fiber Diet. We selected the theme for our 2012 show – Elements: Air, Earth, Fire, Water.  I think I can work with that – lots of ideas. Our current show opens the first week of August in Oregon City:

NW Vibes, a new fiber art show by High Fiber Diet, opens with an Artist Reception on August 5th   from 5-8 pm at the Singer Hill Café, 623 7th St, Oregon City, OR.  Musical entertainment by “The Sale” will be from 6 to 8 pm.  Singer Hill Café’s Fundraiser Friday will donate 25% of food and beverage purchases at the Cafe that evening to the High Fiber Diet group. The show runs from August 3-31, 2011.

If you live in the Portland area, I hope you will come by and enjoy the evening with us.

Here are some photos I took at m beloved Rhodie Garden today on my walk with Mr Scooter.

And, I even saw a Blue Heron.

Check Off One

Monday, March 7th, 2011

Today was the postmark deadline for the Alliance for American Quilt’s annual contest. The theme this year was “Alliances: People, Patterns, Passion”.  When I heard the theme, I thought of the Pearls of Wisdom piece that I made for the Quilt Art’s 15th birthday. It fit the theme so well, but it was 15 inches square and needed to be 16 inches square. So, I trimmed it to 14 inches and added an inch of batting on each side. I then pulled out some of the batiks used in the hands and fused a border. I don’t usually like borders, but I think this looks ok.

I got to the post office at 4:45 pm. But, I made it!!

On Saturday night, we had a collaborative dinner with some friends. I made dessert. It was so yummy — a gingerbread and pear upside down cake.

In between baking and other quilting, I am plugging away at the river piece. Stitching the bridges in place is very tedious.

I hope you are checking in on the Twelve by Twelve blog. We are taking turns talking about our chapters and asking questions. The answers left in the comments section will give you a chance for winning our book, which keeps getting wonderful reviews. We discovered today that Target is carrying the book and we are #4 on Amazon’s quilting books.

The Birthday Girl

Saturday, January 15th, 2011

My daughter, Lisa, and her partner, Clay, are here for a long week-end to celebrate her birthday. They are both vegans so her local vegan friend invited us to her home for dinner. She made fried vegan chicken (an oxymoron, you say?), mashed potatoes, mac and cheese and the most divine mushroom gravy. Steph brought cole slaw and collard greens. I contributed the vegan birthday cake and wine. I bought the cake at a local bakery — Irish Oatmeal cake — and it was delish. The whole meal was fantastic.

The photos were taken in a dark room with my new iPhone. Not too bad!

I rephotographed my Twelve X Twelve quilts. The color is more true, now.

The last one is the one which will be the official Twelve X Twelve piece.

I am really getting the urge to get in my studio and do some playing and experimenting. I am postponing my weekly challenge for one more week unless I get to it tomorrow. The girls are here until Monday morning. I have to get up early that day for some training on Drupel for the new SDA website. Drupel is a free and open source content management system for the web. Then, I have a field of vision test at 9:10.  So the week is starting off on a busy note.

It has been a week since the violation of our home. It has been a long week. I think I am beginning to feel as if I am getting my life back on track. There have been so many little things to take care of, not to mention the emotional strain of something like this. I just want to say a big thank you for all of your kind comments. It is very appreciated.