A visitor and a quilt block

I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving. Our younger son flew in last Saturday to spend the holiday with us, and his visit was just the boost I needed to bring me out of my funk. Here he is with John yesterday, checking the roasting chickens on the rotisserie.

We always cook two so we have leftovers and so I can freeze some of the meat for a casserole or chicken pot pie at a later date. Plus, it doesn’t take any longer to decontaminate the kitchen after prepping two chickens as opposed to just one, so may as well go for it.

Here is the November vintage tree block. I’m so glad that there is only one more to make!

Thanks for stopping by!

A non-traditional Thanksgiving dinner

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Our day was quiet, so we skipped the Thanksgiving fare and planned a menu around a 3-pound beef tenderloin so we could play with some more features on our steam oven.

When we built our house, instead of the standard, built-in double oven configuration, we splurged by pairing a conventional 30-inch single oven with a steam oven and have never looked back.

In fact, we love this appliance so much we’re not sure we’d ever live without one again. It does wonders for your leftovers, elevates a fruit pie to professional chef status, hard boils eggs in 22 minutes and cooked today’s beef to perfection. We followed the instructions written by a chef who works for the local appliance dealership here in Houston and they are shared below:

The beef was sprinkled with salt, black pepper and garlic powder.

Next, it was seared on high heat (400º) 2 to 3 minutes per side.

After searing, a generous amount of rosemary was pressed onto all sides of the meat. The meat probe was inserted and plugged into the oven, the beef tenderloin setting was dialed up, and that was it.

The oven figures out how much time the meat needs to cook, including time for it to rest at the end.

There is a way to override the temperature, but we wanted to use the default settings for our first attempt so we would have a better idea of what we might want to do next time.

In the meantime, I prepped the vegetables for roasting:

carrots, butternut squash, brussels sprouts and shallots tossed in a drizzle of oil and seasoned with salt, black pepper, fresh thyme and half a dozen cloves of fresh garlic tossed into the mix.

We also roasted a few red potatoes seasoned with salt, black pepper and rosemary.

When the beef was done, John sliced it

and returned two slices to the griddle for additional searing.

Delicious!

For dessert, I baked an apple crisp – Granny Smith apples are the best!

More quilt motif decisions and a raspberry tart

After a lot of pondering and playing, I finally settled on the quilt motifs for a top in my UFO pile, which was made from a pattern called Kwik Krazy Quilt.

My quilting strategy is to ditch quilt between

1. all the rows and columns
2. the blocks and the border(s)
3. major patches in the blocks

Once the layers are stabilized with the ditch quilting, the free motion quilting designs are added. While it is time consuming and a tad boring to add that much ditch quilting to a project, I feel better knowing that the quilt has a better chance of not coming apart after a few years and wash cycles.

In the meantime, I found some beautiful raspberries at the store last week, so I made my very first tart:

While paging through my cookbooks and searching the web for recipes, I was amazed at the huge variety of crust and filling options. I finally settled on a shortbread crust

and a French pastry cream for the filling.

John said that was a good combination and gave it a big thumbs up.

Thanks for stopping by!

Boy makes kuchen

This was our first Christmas since moving back to Houston and we’ve been having a good time ever since the boys flew in a week ago. We celebrated Eric’s birthday on the 19^th and marveled at how much better the chocolate cake is when baked at sea level (click here and here for the back story on the chocolate cake).

Because of our temporary housing situation and our desire to unpack as little as possible until we move again, the Christmas tree and all the decorations stayed tucked away upstairs in a hallway closet. We also successfully avoided bringing additional stuff into the house, not setting a single foot inside a mall this season (the kids just want cash anyway) by shopping online and shipping directly to the recipient. Still, it was a fun day with the family all together, sharing our traditional Christmas dinner of lasagna, playing games, helping Ross in the kitchen, and staying unplugged.

When Ross was a sophomore in high school, his German teacher wrapped up the fall semester by asking her students to bring German food to share with the class. That was Ross’s introduction to making kuchen and he’s made it at least once a year since.

Preparing the custard filling.

Kuchen takes on different forms, but our family’s version is made with a yeast dough, fruit and a custard filling. John remembers his mother and grandmother making it but believes the recipe to have been handed down from his great grandmother.

So yesterday was Ross’s day in the kitchen because I’d made the lasagna the day before.

Ross made cinnamon rolls with the extra dough. Between the two of us remembering how our moms made them, John and I were able to guide Ross through all the steps.

After making the first cross cut (much like cutting a strip set in quilting), we heard him exclaim, “Hey, this is a true spiral!”

The dough didn’t get a second chance to rise, but they were still good.

While Ross was busy in the kitchen, John, Eric and I played Scrabble,

then Rummikub.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Birthday milestone/dinner

Tomorrow is Ross’s 18^th birthday, but since he’ll be at school until all hours for play rehearsal, we celebrated today.

His birthday menu has not changed for years: manicotti.

It was a marathon day in the kitchen: baking his cake in the morning, then making marinara sauce and then assembling the dish.

Here is the recipe:

Marinara sauce

2 Tablespoons olive or canola oil

1 small yellow onion, finely chopped

3 large cloves garlic, minced

28-ounce can crushed tomatoes

15-ounce can tomato sauce

(2) 12-ounce cans tomato paste

¼ cup fresh parsley

¾ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon oregano

¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

In a 5-quart pot, brown onion and garlic in oil.

Add remaining ingredients and mix well.

Cook on medium high about 20 to 40 minutes, or until the sauce begins to caramelize on the bottom of your pan. You will have to monitor this, as it is difficult to give a precise time because of differences in appliances. Use a long-handled spoon to feel whether or not a coating has begun to form on the bottom of your pan. When this happens, the acids in the tomatoes are converting to sugars and this step makes the sauce so much tastier. Turn off the heat when you feel the coating, wait about 30-45 minutes for the sauce to cool and then use your spoon to scrape it off the bottom of your pan and incorporate it into the rest of the sauce. The coating will be a darker color than the rest of the sauce, but that’s okay.

16 ounces manicotti (tube-shaped pasta), cooked to package directions.

Stuffing

4 cups fat-free cottage cheese

8 ounces finely shredded mozzarella cheese

⅓ cup dried bread crumbs

¼ cup fresh parsley

¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

In a large bowl, combine all ingredients and mix well.

Use a large pastry bag containing cheese mixture to fill the pasta.

Assembly

Spread a thin layer of the marinara sauce on the bottom of a 9″ x 13″ glass baking dish.

You will need a couple of extra baking dishes to hold all the manicotti—these will be your leftovers for another night. 

Place the stuffed manicotti tubes in the dish so they slightly overlap.

Top with marinara sauce. 

Sprinkle with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

Bake at 350 for 30 to 40 minutes, until bubbly. 

Garnish after baking with fresh parsley.

Happy birthday to our youngest, our band baby, our heart attack child. Love you!

Catching up

I’m finally caught up from taking four days off in Houston last week—you play, you pay, but it was so worth it.

Things are very sparkly around here as Mother Nature has dumped a bunch of snow here over the last few days, requiring significant shoveling three days last week.

I made oatmeal raisin cookies yesterday and took a bunch of them over to our neighbor, Dave, who kindly ran his snow blower across both lengths of our sidewalk this week, saving John a good half hour or so.

This is another excellent recipe from my maternal grandmother, and I’m pleased to share it with you:

Grease and flour your cookie sheets.

Combine in a small saucepan:

• 1 cup raisins
• 1 cup water

Bring water to a boil, reduce heat and cook raisins for 5 minutes. Drain water from pan and set aside to cool while you prepare the remaining ingredients.

Measure and set aside:

• ½ cup milk
• 3 cups quick cooking oatmeal

Sift together:

• 1½ cups flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• ½ teaspoon salt

In a large mixing bowl, combine:

• 1 cup brown sugar
• ¾ cup shortening

You will also need

• 1 egg

Cream shortening and sugar.

Add egg.

Add sifted dry ingredients alternately with milk.

Blend in raisins.

Add oatmeal.

Drop by heaping Tablespoons onto cookie sheets.

These cookies don’t spread a lot during baking, so you can bake 16 per sheet.

Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes, making sure they don’t get too brown.

I also finished the next lesson in Electric Quilt’s Pieced Drawing book, which dealt with circular blocks on the PatchDraw worktable. These blocks were much more difficult and took me a lot longer than the previous lesson’s blocks. I ended up working on them over several days, but finally finished last night.

The next lesson involves arcs which are akin to circles, so I hope they don’t take as long.

Great salad

A restaurant in Longmont, Colorado, serves a phenomenal salad, so I made note of all the ingredients (with a few modifications) so we could enjoy it at home.

Start with a bed of fresh spinach.

Add a layer of Romaine lettuce.

Add grated carrot, red pepper strips and chick peas,

sliced fresh mushrooms,

grape tomatoes, finely shredded sharp cheddar cheese,

chopped hard boiled egg and chicken (I broiled mine, but you could grill or bake).

Toss with a balsamic vinaigrette.

Enjoy!

More Christmas, some blocks and a recipe

Today I have some more Christmas crafts to show you, a tasty vegetable recipe and a progress report on my Aunt Grace snowball blocks.

I made this advent calendar when the boys were little. It was a panel and difficult to work with because it was printed crooked. It’s one reason I shy away from panels now. It was my first attempt at machine quilting.

Very 1990s, but still cute, this stuffed, stamped, hand stitched Christmas goose was my first attempt at basic embroidery stitches.

John sanded and finished this set of three shaker boxes for me before I padded and applied the cross stitched tops to the lids. The edges of the lids are finished with a green grosgrain ribbon.

Even older than the stuffed goose above, I cross stitched and finished this in the late 1980s.

This was my first published quilt. You can read all about it by clicking the MY QUILTS tab at the top of this page.

I confess: When I finished this project, I joined the binding ends together with no attention to matching the stripes and it looked terrible. Upon learning that McCall’s wanted to feature it in their magazine, I ripped out the binding and struggled to figure out how to make the stripes appear continuous before delivering it to their office. I’m not sure I could explain what I did exactly, but I’d do it again because it looks so much better.

I found this project in a 1998 issue of a Christmas crafts magazine. You can read all about it by clicking the MY QUILTS tab at the top of this page.

And finally, here’s a photo of the mantle over the fireplace in the kitchen

and the family room:

I finished 20 more Aunt Grace snowball blocks over the weekend. My goal is to make 10 per week. At that rate, I’ll finish all of them by the last week in June 2014. It’s a lot of blocks, but at 4½” square, you need a lot of them to make a decent sized quilt.

On Sunday, it finally warmed up enough to fire up the grill so John cooked a couple of pork loins and I made this wonderful butternut squash casserole.

The recipe was posted on a college friend’s Facebook page, and it looked pretty good so I made it with a few modifications. The original recipe called for Swiss cheese, which I could not fathom with the squash so I substituted parmesan. I also doubled the mushrooms and onions because I thought doing so would provide a better balance between savory and sweet in the dish. The modified recipe is given below. To conserve space, I’ve colored in orange the main ingredients you need to make the recipe.

But first, to make easy work of peeling the squash, I purchased one of these—totally worth it:

Butternut Squash Casserole

Small butternut squash. The recipe calls for 2½ pounds, but I only use half since there are just three of us. I peel and chop the entire squash, though, saving the other half to make another casserole later.

Peel and chop the squash into small, bite-sized chunks.

Coat a 9-inch deep-dish pie pan or gratin dish with cooking spray.

In a hot skillet using olive or canola oil, sauté:

• 16 ounces fresh mushrooms (coarsely chopped) for 2 minutes, then add
• 1½ yellow onions (finely chopped)

When onions are lightly browned and water from mushrooms has evaporated (about 10 minutes)

Add to mixture in skillet:

• ¼ cup fresh parsley
• ¼ teaspoon black pepper
• salt to taste

Mix well, remove from heat, cover and set aside.

In a small saucepan, whisk together, then heat to a simmer:

• 1 cup 1% low fat milk
• 2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 clove garlic (minced)

Whisk constantly and when sauce is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, add:

• ⅛ teaspoon nutmeg
• ½ cup parmesan cheese, finely grated
• salt and pepper to taste

To assemble:

1. Spread one-third squash in prepared dish.
2. Top with ⅓ of the onion/mushroom mixture, then ⅓ of the cheese sauce.
3. Repeat twice to create three layers in your dish.
4. Top with ¼ cup parmesan cheese.

Bake 45 minutes at 350°F or until squash is tender.

Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Fall baking

I love fall, not only for the beautiful colors

and cooler temperatures the season gives us, but also for baked treats like this apple loaf which I made yesterday:

I always double the recipe. One for now, three to go into the freezer for later.

I don’t know where my mom got this recipe, but we love it so I thought I would share it with you:

1. Peel, core and cut into bite sized chunks 3-4 Granny Smith apples (enough to yield 4 cups)

2. Measure 2/3 cup walnuts and set aside.

3. Grease and flour two loaf pans.

4. Sift together:

• 3-1/3 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon

5. Combine in large mixing bowl:

• 3 eggs
• 1-1/2 cups sugar
• 1 cup oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

6. Beat the ingredients in #5 together until well blended.

7. Add flour mixture. (Batter will be very stiff).

8. Stir in apples and nuts.

9. Divide batter equally between the two loaf pans.

10. Bake at 350 for 50 to 60 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

11. Cool 10 minutes and turn out onto cooling racks.

 

A salad summer day

It is HOT today. At 6:00 p.m., the temperature was 90 degrees, down from 96 earlier in the day. I made this cool, fresh salad for dinner, found in Cooking Light’s Salad book.

Start with orecchiette pasta (described as “little ears” in the cookbook).

Great, but please, can we not describe food by associating it with body parts? I know the ear reference (orecchio) is contained in the name of the pasta, but how about one of these instead:

• bowl-shaped
• hat-shaped
• dome-shaped
• flying saucer-shaped (my favorite)

Just sayin’.

Add cooked lentils.

Next, add chopped fresh zucchini, yellow or red pepper, halved grape tomatoes,

and red onion.

Season with fresh parsley,

fresh basil, thyme, oregano, salt and pepper.

Toss with a balsamic vinaigrette.

Sprinkle with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

Yum! This recipe’s a do-again!