Mama 'N Me

Happy Mother's Day, Mama

2008-05-11T12:47:00.007-05:00

A card just won't do, Mama.

Instead of writing about how much I love you (and I do), seems like a good idea to review four really important lessons you taught me. Took years to understand most of them. Probably don't have it all quite right even now.

Never chew gum "off the property."
I always thought you hated the sound of gum being snapped, but it wasn't about the gum, was it? It was about showing the world our best, about having respect for ourselves and others. You taught us there was a time and place for everything.

Say "Thank you."
Yes, you taught us basic manners. Beyond that, you taught us to be truly grateful for things and to express that gratitude. Long before it became fashionable, you knew that gratitude changes everything.

Pick up your feet when you walk.
You always did hate the sound of dragging feet, but that wasn't the whole story. Picking up our feet pretty much guarantees that we step lightly on the earth. We trust that the ground will be beneath them when we put them down again. You taught us to let go, again and again, in ways big and small, our whole lives long. Turns out, there aren't many skills more important for life.

Home is where you are.
We grew up hundreds (sometimes thousands) of miles from your home, mostly in a town where you barely knew a soul. But you gave us an unshakeable sense of home. Wherever we are, wherever we may go, your love is there. That has given us the freedom to see the world, knowing home is always right there waiting. Not always in the same place, because you have moved through the years, too. But always, always home.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom. I love you.

When Life Gives You Grapes, Make Raisins

2008-05-07T05:19:00.010-05:00

We hoped to show you another project for green living today but didn't get it finished in time. Aunt Grace is flying in from California this afternoon, and Mom's in a spin, getting ready.

Aunt Grace is my grandfather's sister, the only surviving sibling in that family, and one of our favorite people in the world. Look up the word indomitable in the dictionary and you'll find her picture.

Years ago the women of our family went to the national quilt show in Paducah, KY. Grace flew from CA to Iowa and then drove to KY, arriving well after dark. I flew from Minneapolis to Kansas City, then Mom, her sister Donna, my sister Deb, and a couple friends-who-became-family drove to KY together. Moments after we got there, Mom realized she'd given Grace the wrong hotel name/address. Worse yet, the hotel Grace was looking for no longer existed. We panicked a bit. I got a phone book and started calling every hotel in town, explaining the situation and asking them to watch for an elderly lady who was confused and concerned.

Yeah. Don't know who I was describing, but it wasn't Grace. About 11 pm, we heard someone beating on the door of our room, yelling, "You can run, but you can't hide!"

When Grace got to the address she'd been given and discovered nothing but a demolition site, she found a gas station with a phone and called my dad. He told her where we were, she got directions from the gas station guys and drove herself over there. In a strange city. In the dark. She was 76 at the time and had had a mastectomy about a week before the trip. Still had drains in place, even.

That was nothing for Grace. When she was a young woman, her husband came home with a pick-up bed filled with grapes he'd gotten from some farmer for a couple dollars. She didn't miss a beat. Just pulled out a ladder and crawled up onto the roof of her house. Spread screens all over and laid out the grapes to dry into raisins.

When I grow up, I'm gonna be like Grace.

Meantime, I cleaned out my pantry on Sunday. Among other things, it was chock-full-o'empty containers. You know, old cookie tins and wide-mouthed jars—things that could be really cute and useful if only I did something with them other than stuff them into the back of the pantry.

Here's what I did with a tin that once held ginger cookies from World Market.

It took three or four coats of spray paint to cover the original wild markings, but it worked eventually. I used Aileen's Jewel It glue to apply the rick rack. (It should hold through hand washing.) A little small-g-grace for the pantry.

See you Friday. We'll try to get that green project done by then. It's majorly cute.

Going Sleeveless

2008-05-05T12:24:00.009-05:00

This cute little reusable sleeve is going to cut our carbon footprints. Just a tiny bit, mind you, but every little bit helps.

Out early the other morning, Mom and Debbie and I stopped for coffee and bagel on a whim (read no travel mugs with us). Of course, the paper cups were too hot to handle, so we reached for cardboard sleeves. As soon as we picked them up, Mom and I looked at each other and laughed.

Using the cardboard sleeve as a pattern, we made one for each of our purses.

We sandwiched Insul-Bright (an heat-insulating batting) between two layers of fabric and stitched them up. Added Velcro and some trim, and we were done. Now we won't throw away cardboard coffee sleeves, even when we have to use paper cups.

Stay tuned. We've got a couple more projects for green living up our sleeves. If everything goes well, we'll show you the latest on Wednesday.

Super Easy Placemats

2008-05-02T16:32:00.014-05:00

Mom and I have been on kind of a placemat kick since we figured out the ones she uses most of the time are about 30 years old. She has some fabric in the stash that's been waiting to become placemats for almost 10 years. It's time. It's really time.

We played with some heavy interfacing/stabilizer a couple of weeks ago, working on the projects for the book proposal. I got the bright idea that we could use it for placemats. Turns out we can.

We made one this afternoon. Super easy and we love the way it turned out.

Even if you don't sew a lot, you can make these guys. All it takes is a bit of measuring, some pressing, and a couple lines of stitching.

Start with:

*heavy-duty interfacing and stabilizer (we like Timtex but other brands work, too)

*fabric (two 16 x 21 inch pieces for the foundation and two 3 x 45 inches pieces for the border)

*fusible web (we like Wonder-Under)

Cut a 15 x 20-inch piece of the Timtex. Cut two pieces of fabric, each slightly larger than the Timtex.

Now cut Wonder Under to fit the fabric. Iron the Wonder-Under to the back of the fabric. Remove the paper backing and iron the fabric to the Timtex. Repeat on the other side.

You'll end up with a sandwich of fabric/Timtex/fabric.

Cut two strips of border fabric, each 3 inches by 45 inches. Press under 1/4 inch on each long edge, then press the strip in half lengthwise. Cut 3/4-inch strips of Wonder-Under and press one to each side of each strip.

Press a finished strip to the top and bottom of the placemat and trim the edges. Stitch the border in place, close to the folded edge.

Fold under 3/8 of an inch or so on one end of a strip. Slide the placemat under the folded edge and then sandwich the strip around it. Press in place.

Stitch. Repeat on the other side.

That's it. You've made a darling placemat in no time flat. Now. . .about that napkin. We're all thinking green these days. Cloth napkins are inexpensive and easy to make, and they can be used practically endlessly.

One yard of fabric will make four napkins. I got this piece on sale for $4.00 a yard, and it took less than an hour to finish all four. All I did was press under 1/4 inch all the way around and then press that under again, to make a double-folded hem. Then I stitched around the edges. (Straight lines are not my best thing, so I use a small zig-zag stitch. Worked great.)

Ants

2008-04-25T11:34:00.006-05:00

Michelle asked about an ant problem. I really have never had a problem with them so I don't have any real first hand advice for you. I do have a book called "Club the Bugs and Scare the Critters". It's by Dr Myles H Bader. Here are a few of his suggestions,

1 Giving the Queen Heartburn
3 1/2 Ounces of Strawberry jam (any sweet jam will do)
1 1/2 Tablespoons of wet, canned cat food (cheap brand)
1 Tablespoon of boric acid

This concoction is a treat for ants and the workers will bring the treat to their queen. The queen gets excited and quickly gobbles up the goody and within a few hours dies of heartburn. Make sure this treat is out of reach of children and animals that you wish to have around for awhile. If they do ingest it, it will make them very sick. However, it doesn't take very much to do the job and eliminate the queen.

2 Feed them Melon

If you have a bad ant problem and can't get rid of them, just leave a slice of watermelon or cantaloupe in your yard far from the house. They would prefer melon to anything you have in the house most of the time.

3 The Ant Trapper

6 Tablespoons of granulated sugar
6 Tablespoons of active dry yeast (fresh)
1/2 cup standard grade molasses or honey
10 small plastic lids or bottle caps

Place all the ingredients in a small bowl and mix thoroughly until it is smooth. Place the mixture into the lids or caps and place near an ant trail or near their mound. The mixture can also be spread on a piece of cardboard or small stick and placed in their pathway or in a crevice.

4 Getting Rid of Ant Hills

1/4 cup of liquid hand soap
1 gallon of cool tap water

Place all ingredients into a bucket and mix well, then pour 1-2 cups on the anthill and repeat after 1 hour to be sure that the mixture penetrates deep into the chambers.

5 Repel Them with Tansy

If you sprinkle some fresh tansy leaves in the corners of your kitchen counters and in the window sills it will repel ants 100%.
Tansy is a perennial flowering plant of the aster family. Lots more information if you google it.

These next two are just interesting

It takes 500,000 sugar ants to equal a pound. If you weigh all the ants on earth, they will weigh more than all humans on earth.

In Africa a hungry ant can enter an elephants ear and eat them from the inside out. A number of elephants every year fall prey to ants.

If you think you know where the ants are entering the house and need to be sure, just place some strips of masking tape glue-side up and put some sugar or honey on it. Check it in the morning and see how many ants you trapped.

Hope one of these things works for you Michelle. Let us all know what you think.

Mama

Plant Some 'erbs, Herb

2008-04-25T06:38:00.008-05:00

Last Saturday we went to the farmers market. Actually, we went to TWO farmers markets--one in Overland Park, KS, and one in downtown Kansas City. What a great way to spend a morning.

We each picked up some herbs and thought we'd show you our kitchen herb gardens. If you haven't planted one, try it. There are few pleasures more pure than harvesting your own herbs for a dish you're cooking. Container gardens like ours are oh-so-convenient and easy to do.

I'm crazy about galvanized buckets. Love them. And here's the deal--since I use them for lots of things, I hate to put drainage holes in them. After all, they could become something entirely different later, but only if I haven't poked them full of holes. SO...I don't.

But container gardens need drainage, you say? Right! We solve that problem by filling the bottom of the container with plastic bottles before adding the dirt. Works like a charm. My theory is that the bottles create little rivers and valleys for the water to run into. They also replace a lot of soil, so the container ends up lighter and easier to handle, which I like.

The bottles I had saved were too big for this container. They fit inside, but didn't create quite the right number of hills and valleys.

That's better: I cut some of them in half. A generous layer of bottles goes in first, then the dirt. We use Scott's potting soil with the moisture retention stuff. It helps come July and August when it's over 100 degrees in the shade!

Here are our herbs. (only $5 for all 4 at the farmers market!)

We slide each out of its pot, break up the soil around the root, and slip it into a pocket in the new soil. Pat the soil around it, and it's set. I put basil, thyme, and chives into one pot.

x

And dill into another. (It gets really big.)

That's it. Now all they need is water. We'll pinch them back from time to time. Basil gets leggy if you let it and chives try to take over the world. A quick pinch now and then takes care of that.

Dad Cooks!

2008-04-16T11:14:00.005-05:00

While Mom and I have been hard at work designing and sewing up projects for the book I'm writing, Dad has been keeping us fed in grand style. We can't show off the projects yet, but we can show you one of Dad's casseroles.

He got the recipe from his favorite cookbook, Taste of Home's Contest Winning Recipes, 2004. Before Mom had shoulder surgery last year, Dad read through nearly every recipe she has, looking for things he could make while she was out of commission. He made lists, shopped, and cooked up a storm. Baked pies from scratch and everything. Still does, once in a while.

Anyway, here's his recipe for Cajun Cabbage Casserole. We finished everything in the nick of time, so we should be back with something interesting to show you on Friday.

1 lb. ground beef
1 medium green pepper, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 can (10 ounces) diced tomatoes and green chilies (Rotel)
1 can (8 ounces) tomato sauce
½ c uncooked long grain rice
1 t salt
½ t dried basil
½ t dried oregano
¼ to ½ teaspoon each white, black and cayenne pepper (Dad stays on the low end of the range)
4 to 6 drops hot pepper sauce (Dad usually leaves this out, depending on whether he expects anyone with a sensitive stomach in the dinner crowd)
1 small head of cabbage
1 c shredded Colby cheese

In a skillet, brown beef, green pepper, onion and garlic. Drain. Stir in the tomatoes, tomato sauce, rice and seasonings.

Spread in an ungreased 9 x 13 baking dish. Top with cabbage and cheese. Cover and bake at 350° for 65 to 75 minutes or until the rice is tender.

Removing Cooked-on Grease

2008-04-06T14:23:00.004-05:00

In a comment on our Cleaning Day post, Jess asked,

So how do I get cooked on grease off of my toaster oven baking pan? Can I use vinegar for that? I've been wondering what to do about this for a while.

Glad you asked, Jess. This is a place for the Tide and hot water. Place your baking pan in the hottest water you have available and put in a good amount of Tide. When the water is cool enough to put your hands in comfortably you should be able to wash off the grease. You might have to use some S.O.S. for some really tough spots. This is the way I clean my oven racks.

I don't have to worry about small children so I may have my water hotter than some of you girls. If your water is not really hot just add some boiling water.
Hope this does the trick for you
mama

Jerri says: Hey Jess, while we're talking about hot water, be sure to check the hot water heater in that new house of yours. Set the temperature at about 120 degrees. If the dial doesn't show degrees, put the indicator on the low side of center. Keeping your water hotter than 120 degrees wastes energy and poses a danger to children and older people, whose skin is thin.

Celebrate!!!!

2008-04-04T16:55:00.011-05:00

Yes, we know it's April. And yes, this is a Christmas quilt. But Mom finished piecing this top today after 8 to 10 years of working on it, on and off. Here's a sneak peek at what perseverance can do for you.

Here's my favorite bit--a darling little gingerbread man. The photo's a little fuzzy, but you get the idea.

This reindeer looks like he's leaping through the forest on a dark winter night.

These hearts are near the top, in just the right place to rest over your own heart when you're curled up in the quilt.

Speaking of hearts, this snowman has a big one. Can you believe it—all these years after she started the quilt, Mom still had the original buttons for the hearts.

That's it for today. We'll post more pictures when she gets it completely finished.

ps--my camera has gone walk about. When it shows up again, I'll post pictures of Katie with her birthday quilt.

CreamPuff Tree

2008-04-03T06:52:00.002-05:00

Wowsers. It's been a long time. Sorry we've been away so long. I (Jerri) went off to Minnesota for a week with Katie and we've been all out of kilter since I got back. Anyway, we've missed you all.

Last Sunday we had a wedding party in at the salon. You know, all the members of a wedding came in to get their hair, nails and make up done. When that happens, we serve pretty food and mimosas.

One of our favorite quick-but-pretty things for these events is a cream puff tree. No cooking, just a bit of assembly and you've got an edible centerpiece.

You need a styrofoam cone, frozen cream puffs (we get them at Costco), strawberries, and white chocolate candy coating. A little powdered sugar is nice. Start by wrapping the cone with plastic wrap. (That way we can reuse the cone. It just seems cleaner, too.)

We forgot this time, but usually we melt the chocolate and put a little pool in the center of the serving dish. Set the cone on top and let the chocolate cool. The hardened chocolate anchors the cone to the dish. Starting at the bottom, use toothpicks to anchor puffs in a circle.

Add strawberries here and there as you move up the cone.

Drizzle the puffs with white chocolate. We usually just use a spoon, but Mom has a new icing decorator thing, and we tried that. Didn't work that great, really. The chocolate cooled too quickly and clogged the tube. Next time we're going to try buttercream frosting.

Sprinkle with powdered sugar and you're done!

You can see we've got a few holes in this one. It was a small wedding party and Dad wanted us to save him some cream puffs, so we left the holes. For larger groups, we put the puffs closer together. Sometimes we fill any holes with silk flowers, which is pretty.

We'll be back on Friday with some sneak peeks at what we've been working on lately. See you then!

Food O' the Irish

2008-03-15T17:02:00.002-05:00

(Jerri here) Nancy, my brother's wife, drove up from Springfield to spend the day with us. We finished a baby quilt for her great-niece-to-be and had a wonderful time. For lunch, we had corned beef and cabbage.

Like most people, we think of corned beef and cabbage as traditional Irish food. My sister, who spent two weeks in Ireland recently, reports there was hardly any to be found. No matter. Irish or not, it's delicious. Grab your shillelaghs and give the Blarney stone a smooch. Let's get cooking!

Start by washing the corned beef with cool water.

Put it in a Dutch oven and cover it with water. Slice one onion and add it to the pot, along with 2 T of Penzey's Corned Beef Seasoning. Bring the water to a boil and let it cook for 10 minutes. Turn down the burner and let the meat simmer for an hour per pound of meat.

When the meat is almost ready, it's time to prepare your vegetables.

Today we used small red potatoes, so we didn't peel them. All you have to do with those is wash them well and cut off any spots that look suspicious. Then cut them into medium-sized chunks. Scrape the carrots and cut them into good-sized chunks. Wash the cabbage and cut it into quarters. Cut out the cores.

Finally, cut each wedge in half.

When the meat is ready, remove it from the pan and put in the potatoes and carrots. Simmer for about 10 minutes, and then add the cabbage. Check after 10 minutes. You want the potatoes and carrots to be tender when you poke them with a fork, but not mushy. Do be careful. If you cook the cabbage too long, it makes your house smell and your stomach hurt.

While your veggies are cooking, put the finishing touches on the corned beef. First, scrape away as much fat as you can from the surface of the meat.

Next, spread a goodly amount of yellow mustard on top.

Combine 1/2 c brown sugar with 1/2 t of ground cloves and sprinkle it over the mustard.

Put the corned beef into the oven at 350° and let it cook until the sugar is melted and bubbly.

Meanwhile, your veggies should be done. Remove them from the pan, using a slotted spoon. They should look something like this:
Now all you need to do is slice the corned beef--across the grain--and serve it immediately. Oh--you'll also need to sit back and enjoy the compliments coming your way!
Happy St. Patrick's Day to everyone.

Bavarian Apple Torte

2008-03-14T10:01:00.002-05:00

We made this torte for Quilt Night on Tuesday. Everyone really liked it, so we thought we'd share.

Here's how it's made.

Beat one stick of butter and 1/3 cup sugar in a small bowl at medium speed with an electric mixer, until fluffy. Gradually add 1 1/3 c flour. Beat just until the mixture is blended.

Stir in 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla. (Be sure to use good vanilla. Nothing ruins baked goods like poor-quality vanilla.) The mixture will be slightly crumbly.

Press the dough into the bottom and 1 1/2 inches up the sides of a slightly greased 9 inch spring form pan.

Now you're ready to make the filling. Beat the cream cheese and 1/4 cup sugar at medium speed until the mixture is smooth.

Add an egg and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Beat well.

Spread this filling evenly over the pastry you put into the springform pan.

Peel and slice the apples.

Combine 1/3 cup sugar and 1/2 t cinnamon. Add to the apples and toss lightly.

Arrange apple slices over cream cheese mixture.

Sprinkle with almonds. (The recipe says 1/4 cup, but we used more. They're so pretty!)

Bake at 400 for 40 minutes. Cool on wire rack; remove sides of pan.

Mama says: If you're going to do all this baking, you need to keep your oven clean. I'm fortunate enough to have a self-cleaning oven, but even with it, you have to keep the racks clean.

Here's my tip for the day.

To clean your oven racks, put them in a container big enough to cover them with water. (I use the bathtub!) Add the hottest water you have available and a goodly measure of Tide laundry detergent. When the water is cool enough to comfortably put your hands in, you should be able to just wash everything off the racks. You might need an SOS pad on some stubborn spots, but there's no need to use oven cleaner or any of the rest of that messy, smelly stuff.

Here's the full recipe for the torte:

Bavarian Apple Torte

½ c butter
1/3 c sugar
1 1/3 c all-purpose flour
¼ t vanilla
1 8 oz package cream cheese, softened
¼ c sugar
1 large egg
½ t vanilla
1/3 c sugar
½ t cinnamon
3 large Granny Smith apple ( 4 cups)
¼ c sliced almonds

Beat butter and 1/3 cup sugar in a small bowl at medium speed with an electric mixer, until fluffy. Gradually add flour, beating until mixture is blended. Stir in 1/4 teaspoon vanilla. Mixture will be slightly crumbly. Press pastry into bottom and 1 1/2 inches up sides of slightly greased 9 inch spring form pan.

Beat cream cheese and 1/4 cup sugar at medium speed until smooth; add egg and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, beating well. Spread filling evenly over pastry.

Combine 1/3 cup sugar, cinnamon, and apples, tossing lightly. Arrange apple lices over cream cheese mixture; sprinkle with almonds. Serve warm or chilled. Top with creme fraiche, sour cream or ice cream.

Ta Da!!!

2008-03-11T12:01:00.000-05:00

(Jerri here)

We finished Katie's quilt over the weekend. When the quilting was done, it took 9 more hours to sew the binding on by hand, but it's done! And washed. And ready to wrap up. Well....almost. A few flowers need buttons.

Just to make them extra special, we're using buttons that once belonged to one or the other of my grandmothers, Katie's great-grandmothers. We have their button boxes, which are storehouses of treasure, if you ask me.

These little chickies are among my favorite blocks.

We stipled around some designs.

And outlined others.

Added some stars here and there.

And filled every block with love.

Keep Your Parsley and Green Onions Fresh

2008-03-10T12:47:00.001-05:00

(Mama here)

Today's tip is how to store fresh parsley and green onions. (You are using fresh parsley in your cooking, aren't you? Oh, I knew you were. It's so much nicer than dried, don't you think?)

As soon as you get home from the store, wash the parsley and green onions and dry them with a paper towel. Trim the tops of the green onions, but leave their roots.

Set them upright in Mason jars and put on the lids.

We put this parsley into the frig about two weeks ago. Still fresh and pretty!

Sneak Peak

2008-03-06T13:21:00.000-06:00

WoooHoooo!!! We got Katie's quilt on the long-arm last night.

For those of you who aren't quilters, that means we finished piecing the top (sewing the individual blocks together). Each block you see is a separate piece of fabric. I hand sewed each heart, each star, each X and O to its background. (I machine stitched the layers of the flowers because I want the edges to fray.) Then Mom helped me sew the blocks together.

We attached the quilt top, backing fabric, and batting to the machine's rollers. Now we're ready to quilt it (sew those layers together).

It's a little hard to tell in these photos, but this machine is about twelve feet long. Katie's quilt is roughly 85 inches wide and 105 inches long, but the machine has no problem handling it with space to spare.

Stay tuned. If I really focus (yeah, right!), I should be able to finish quilting in two or three days.

Tea Party

2008-03-05T09:16:00.000-06:00

Here's another page from Katie's cookbook/scrapbook.

Christmas, 1988. Mom and Katie are having a tea party at the table and chairs Santa just brought. Don't you just love Katie's hair? And about those marks on her forehead: she fell on the fireplace hearth the night before, just minutes after we arrived from Minnesota. Stitches and everything. That child led with her forehead for the first 5 years of her life. It's a wonder she survived with her brain intact.

Oh My God

2008-03-04T13:50:00.000-06:00

Doesn't she know how to make banana bread?

Seasoning Cast Iron Pans

2008-03-04T12:51:00.001-06:00

(Mama here) We missed you all yesterday. It's Jerri's fault. She's got us running in circles with Katie's quilt and her cookbook and all that stuff.

Plus, we spent Sunday afternoon buying area rugs for my living room and dining room. My grandson put in hardwood floors for us last winter when we were traveling. We love the hardwood, but our little doggie misses the carpet. We compromised by adding area rugs. Now everyone's happy.

Last week Prema asked how to season a cast iron skillet. Lots of people will tell you lots of things about how to season cast iron, but this is the way I do it. My skillets stay nice, so I guess it works fine.

First, wash the pan (and the lid, if it has one) in hot soapy water. This is one of the things I do that some people warn against. The soap, I mean. Lots of people say you should never use soap in cast iron. I say you should never eat out of dirty pans. So...I use soap.

Rinse the pan thoroughly with hot water. Make sure you get all the soap out of the inside and off the outside.

Next, you need to dry the pan. It needs to be very dry, so I put it on the stove and turn on the burner and watch. You can see when the pan gets dry because the color gets kind of dull. Let it cool slightly, but only enough to handle. It's best if the pan is still warm. Use a paper towel to oil it with a dab of Crisco. First the inside.

Then the outside.

Set the pan upside down on a broiler pan

and put the whole thing in the oven at 350° for about an hour. When the hour is up, turn off the oven and let it sit until cool.

One of the most important things you can do to keep your cast iron from rusting is to make sure it's dry after you use it. I wash my pans, again with the soapy water, and put a light coat of Crisco on them when they're dry. I also store them with one crumpled paper towel inside and another beneath the lid, just to let some air in.

And don't forget that if you do get some rust, you can clean it up with vinegar and water. (Check out my vinegar tips here.) If you go to garage sales or flea markets, keep an eye out for great deals on cast iron. Rusty old pans sell for next to nothing sometimes. You can clean them easily with vinegar and save yourself a whole bunch of money.

There you go. That's how I do it. If any of you have other ideas or suggestions, we'd all like to hear about it. Leave us a comment. As a matter of fact, leave us a comment even if you don't have ideas. We love to hear from you.

Dilly Bread

2008-02-29T17:15:00.002-06:00

(Mama here) We baked bread this afternoon. I had some meatloaf left over from dinner last night, and there really is nothing better than meatloaf sandwiches with this bread.

Dilly Bread

2 ½ c flour
2 T sugar
1 T instant minced onion
2 t dill seed
1¼ t salt
¼ t soda
1 package yeast (2 1/4 t)
1 cup cottage cheese
¼ c water
1 T butter
1 large egg

In a large mixing bowl, combine one cup of the flour and all the sugar, onion, dill seed, salt, soda and yeast.

My yeast was a little past its prime, so I "proofed" it. That's just another way of saying I checked to make sure the yeast was still alive and would help the dough rise. To proof yeast, you add a teaspoon to about a quarter of a cup of warm water (about 110 to 115°). Add a teaspoon or so of sugar and mix. Wait five or ten minutes. If the yeast is good, it will foam up and get puffy looking, like this:

In a saucepan, combine the cottage cheese, water and butter. Heat until the mixture is warm. (I use a thermometer to test it and try to get it around 115°.)

Add the egg and the warm liquid to the flour mixture.

Blend at your mixer's lowest speed until the ingredients are moistened. Scrape down the bowl, then beat 3 more minutes at medium speed.

Stir in remaining flour to form a stiff dough. (The recipe says to do this by hand, but I use the dough hook on my mixer. It works fine.) Cover the dough and let it rise in a warm place until light and doubled in size. This will take about one hour.

(I like to put the dough in a container like an ice cream bucket or even this cream puff bucket, whatever I've got handy. The key is to use something with a nice lid.)

Stir down the dough and turn it into a well-greased 2-quart casserole. Cover the dish and let rise in warm place until light, 30 to 45 minutes. This shows you how the dough looked at the beginning. I wanted you to see how much the dough has to rise. See that little black line on the side of the dish? That's where the dough has to get before you bake it.

This is what the dough will look like when it's ready to bake. You can barely see my black line, but if you look closely you can tell how much higher the dough is in the pan.

Bake at 350° for 35 to 40 minutes or until golden brown. When you take it out of the oven, brush the top with butter and sprinkle with kosher salt on it.

Let the bread cool on a wire rack. Slice and enjoy!

Phun with Photoshop

2008-02-27T00:14:00.001-06:00

We didn't get a lot of sewing done at Quilt Night last night. We all wanted to watch the debate, and one of the few things we don't have in the sewing room is a television.

Anyway, today I thought I'd show you a little of the cookbook I'm making for Katie's birthday. At Christmas, she asked me to put together recipes for some of her favorite foods. Surely by now you know better than to think I made a bunch of xeroxes and let it go at that. You do, don't you?

Over the last few weeks, whenever I've had a few minutes, I've typed recipes into Word documents. I've also scanned a bunch of photos and saved the files.

On Saturday evening, I bought Photoshop Elements. Now that I've owned Photoshop for almost three whole days, I'm on a roll. I blame Ree at The Pioneer Woman. She got me all hyped up about Photoshop and made me believe I could figure it out. She also introduced me to the idea of photoshop patterns and brushes. As soon as I got Elements loaded, I searched some out. Yeah, Baby. I loves me some patterns. And the brushes? Crazy. It's absolutely crazy how many gorgeous brushes you can get free on the internet.

Forgive me. My mind wandered for a moment. Back to the project in progress.

For each page, I open a document and create a layer for the pattern. (So far, I've used a different pattern on each page.)

Then I create another layer and draw a box. I fill the box with white and set the opacity at a level that lets me see some of the pattern in the layer below. I mess with different percentages until I find a setting I like. Even though I want to see the pattern, I also want to be able to read the text easily. This box is at 50% opacity. I use a brush to fill a selection around the box to make the darker border around the box.

Next, I create another layer and make a text box. From there, it's a simple matter to copy and paste the text from the Word documents into the photoshop file.

After adding another layer, I cut out a figure from one of the scanned photos and add it to the page.

Can we talk about that photo for a moment? Halloween, 1992. The thing she's wearing on her head is a skirt from her dress-up box. She called it "my beautiful long black hair," and she wore it on her head like that nearly every day. She made it into pony tails and pig tails. Buns, even. Her own hair was fine and thin and curly. And short. It took forever to grow. But not long after I made that skirt, she figured out that the stretchy sequins waistband functioned as a headband, too. From that moment on, she almost never wore it as a skirt, only as hair. She wore it so much that it seemed normal. One day when we were shopping, I noticed people smiling and laughing and pointing. It took half an hour to realize it was because she had that skirt on her head.

(Sigh)

About the project: There are probably many, many better ways to go about making these pages, but from the vantage point of 72 hours whole hours of experience, this is what I can manage. If you've got suggestions, I'd sure love to hear them. If anyone is interested, I'll show post more pages as I get them done.

Too Much Fun

2008-02-25T06:25:00.000-06:00

(Jerri, here)

We had too much fun this weekend. I spent most of my waking hours over at Mom's house, in the sewing room. Only stopped long enough to sleep and try to teach myself Photoshop. Yeah. Like I need another project. I'll try to explain that later.

Here's Mom getting her sewing machine ready for action:

The original pattern was for a small wall hanging, so we adapted it, adding some of our own designs to make it bigger. Here's what we've got so far:

And a close up.

We had a little miscalculation and ended up having to take off several rows. Mom's going to post her oh-so-much easier way to unsew (rip out) later. You really don't want to miss that. Mom's been sewing for almost 60 years and I've been at it for 30 years or more. We just learned this trick a couple weeks ago. Boy, does it make unsewing less painful!

Oh, and before we go—a big thank you to Dad, who manned the kitchen this weekend so we could work on Katie's quilt. Her birthday is less than 30 days away. We'd never get done in time without his help.

Cleaning Day!

2008-02-22T10:58:00.001-06:00

(Mama here)

Today is cleaning day at my house. This is so we can have a work-free weekend.

Dad will do some cooking and the dishes for us so that we can play in the sewing room. What a guy. He wasn't always like that but now that he is we sure do enjoy and appreciate it.

I have some cleaning tips for all of the young people who may be reading this and also for some of you who would like to go more green.

Mrs Stewart's bluing is the best thing I know for cleaning windows and mirrors. Just a few drops in some hot water , no streaks and you don't have to be afraid to use it. Some days I just use plain water. My Aunt Betty taught me this many years ago.

I like to use cast iron to cook in. I do have some LeCreuset but I also use Lodge. If you happen to get a little rust in that you can take it out easily with a little vinegar and water. Use 1/4 cup vinegar in water and boil for 30 minutes to an hour.

Vinegar is good for lots of things.

Use equal parts olive oil and vinegar to remove water rings from wood.

To clean a shower curtain , put in washer with 1 cup vinegar and a bath towel. All you have to do then is run it through the washer cycle.

A good wash for your produce is 1 tablespoon vinegar in 1 gallon water.

Thats all for today. I really do have to clean. Jerri and I will be back on Monday with pictures of the progress over the week-end.

Quilt Night

2008-02-20T22:35:00.000-06:00

Tuesday night is Quilt Night at Mom's house. My sister, one of her daughters and I gather for food and fun. Dad does the dishes.

This week Mom made an incredible beef and wild rice stew for supper and I made a simple salad with Green Goddess dressing.

About that dressing: a week or so ago, thoughts of Green Goddess dressing climbed out of a tiny drawer somewhere in the back of my mind. I hadn't eaten any for ages...hadn't even seen it offered anywhere.

Last Saturday, Mom, my sister-in-law, Nancy, and I went to Penzey's Spices in Overland Park, Kansas. The first thing I noticed on the shelves was an herb mixture for making Green Goddess dressing. You know I bought some.

Oh, yeah. It's every bit as good as I remembered. And couldn't be simpler. You combine one tablespoon of the mixture with two tablespoons of water and let it sit for 5 minutes. When the herbs have absorbed the water, you combine them with plain yogurt or mayonnaise, and you've got fresh, preservative-free, low sodium, yummy salad dressing.

Speaking of yummy—Mom baked cherry cobbler for dessert. Like the Little Red Hen, she did it all: picked, cleaned and froze the cherries last summer, made the crust and filling, and created a gorgeous lattice top.

We didn't get a lot done in the sewing room. Meg discovered she'd made a pretty big mistake in her project and spent most of the evening "unsewing."

Deb was looking for the materials for her new project, which led to a major clean-out-the-bags-and-boxes blowout.

Mom helped me make flower squares for Katie's quilt. I've got to get a move on. Her birthday is only 34 days away.

Hello and Welcome

2008-02-20T22:26:00.000-06:00

Hello and welcome. Come on in and sit down a while.

This is Mama with her husband of 56 years (and my father), Chuck.

This is me.

Mom and I always have projects going. Truth be told, we always have one too many projects going. Between playing with computers, quilting, embroidery, knitting and cooking, it's a wonder we get anything else done at all. But we do.

We decided to start this blog to have a place to share some of what we've learned over the years and to learn from other foodies and fabric freaks. We'll try to have pictures of our projects and recipes for what we're cooking. Maybe even a few instructions from time to time. We plan to post on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. More often if something exciting is going on.

Here are a few things Mama and I believe:

Pretty food tastes better.

Presentation matters.

You can never have too many dishes.

When you're covered by a handmade quilt, you're wrapped in love.

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