Friday, May 31, 2013

Mrs. Potato Head

A skin have I, more eyes than one. I can be very nice when I am done. –A Potato

It's been a really long time since I posted any kind of recipe. It's not that I haven't been cooking. But I posted most of my favorite recipes. Also, I just found that getting good {i.e. appetizing} photos of food to be difficult. And photos to accompany a recipe are kind of a requisite. I mean, isn't it the photo that draws you in and makes you want to try the recipe? Nevertheless, I am posting a couple of recipes today with somewhat non-spectacular photos.

Since I went dairy-free in January of this year, I've been limited in what I can eat. There are milk products in everything from chocolate to taco seasoning to bouillon cubes. It is kind of ridiculous. Over the past several months, I have been relying heavily on Mel's Kitchen Cafe to replace my dairy-laden casseroles. Mel does not use many canned/prepared items {i.e. cream-of-whichever soup} in her recipes, so it is easy to use dairy substitutes. I particularly enjoyed her post on food allergies, during Food Allergy Awareness Week earlier this month.

Today I want to share a couple of potato recipes. Potatoes are a tricky business for dairy-free folks. While they do not contain dairy themselves, they aren't particularly appetizing with out it. Mashed potatoes with almond milk and butter substitute are not bad. As a matter of fact, the Not-So-Little Bugs didn't even notice. But I'm not too fond of the sour cream substitute I've been able to find and wouldn't really like to try it on a baked potato. Whipping up a batch of flavored instant potatoes is out of the question. So, I've been looking for different ways to dress up a potato. Here's what I've come up with.

Garlic & Herb Potatoes
Garlic & Herb Potatoes (with Lamb Shanks)
Photo courtesy of Shay at Quilting In My Pyjamas
8 medium to large red potatoes
1 teaspoon fresh minced rosemary or ¼ teaspoon dried rosemary
1 teaspoon fresh minced thyme or ¼ teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon fresh minced oregano or ¼ teaspoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon fresh minced parsley or 1 teaspoon dried parsley
½ teaspoon salt
⅛ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon paprika
⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
¼ cup olive oil, butter or butter substitute

• Scrub potatoes and dice into ½" - 1" cubes. Fill a 4-quart pot about half-way with water and bring to a boil. When the water reaches a boil, add 1 teaspoon salt and the diced potatoes all at once. Return to a boil and boil potatoes for 5 minutes. Drain potatoes.
• Meanwhile, in a small mixing bowl add rosemary, thyme, oregano, parsley, salt, pepper, paprika, cayenne pepper and garlic to melted butter or olive oil. Toss together with potatoes to coat.
• Place potatoes in a greased 9" x 13" baking dish and place in a 350˚ oven. Bake for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes.

Notes:
• For crispy wedges, cut potatoes into wedges rather than dicing them. Combine seasonings as directed and toss with potatoes to coat. Place in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake as directed.
• I've tried this recipe with dried and fresh herbs, as well as russet and red potatoes and it is delicious no matter which way you make it.

Gram's Best Potato Salad
1 dozen eggs
5 lbs. red potatoes

Dressing
2 cups mayonnaise
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon spicy brown mustard

Additional Ingredients
½ cup pickle juice
1½ cups chopped celery
¼ cup finely diced onion
½ of a dill pickle, finely diced
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons pepper
¼ cup + 2 tablespoons fresh minced parsley or 2 tablespoons dried parsley
Paprika

• Place eggs in the bottom of a 4-quart pot and add cold water to 1" above eggs. Bring to a boil over high heat; cover pot, reduce heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and allow eggs to stand in hot water for 10 minutes. Drain water from eggs; fill pot with cold water and ice and allow eggs to cool.
• Peel and slice the boiled eggs; reserve the slices with pretty yellow centers for garnish on top of the potato salad and grate the remaining eggs to be added to the potato salad.
• Scrub and dice potatoes. Fill an 8-quart or 10-quart pot about half-way with water and bring to a boil. When the water reaches a boil, add 1 tablespoon salt and the diced potatoes all at once. Return to a boil and boil potatoes for 10 minutes.
• Meanwhile, to prepare dressing, mix mayonnaise, sugar, red wine vinegar and spicy brown mustard together in a small mixing bowl.
• After the potatoes have boiled for 10 minutes, drain them and transfer to a large mixing bowl. Pour the pickle juice directly on top of the hot potatoes. Add grated eggs, celery, onion, dill pickle, salt, pepper and parsley and stir to combine. Toss together with dressing. Top with sliced eggs and sprinkle with paprika. Refrigerate 6 to 8 hours.

Notes:
• There are no notes, except to say that no picnic is complete without a good potato salad and this is a good potato salad :biggrin:.

Thursday, May 30, 2013

The String Ring Dresden and the Bogart

Bogart: /ˈboʊ gɑrt/ — Slang, Verb:
1. to take an unfair share of something; keep for oneself instead of sharing. Derived, presumably, from actor Humphrey Bogart's tendency to frequently hold a cigarette between his lips or in his hand, but never to actually smoke it.
Noun:
1. a person who hogs or monopolizes something.
2. a magical creature that takes the form of whatever you fear the most.


Once upon a time, P. made a fabulous String Ring Dresden quilt top {String Dresden Tutorial here}. P. does amazing things with fabric. I loved the colors she picked. I even sent her a few fabrics when she put out a call for more strings in those colors, and it was really fun to see them incorporated into her quilt top. So when she said she wasn't going to quilt it herself, but send it off on a fabulous quilting vacation—destination to be determined, I opened my big mouth and told her I had an idea for those fabulous Dresdens.

A few months later, a box arrived at my doorstep, which I resolutely ignored for a good three months. I was absolutely terrified that I would mess up her beautiful quilt top with my poor quilting skills. Eventually, I took a peek at her flimsy {she had it folded right sides together} and was completely amazed by it all over again. Photographs don't quite do quilts justice. From there, I started fleshing out the quilting plan details in the back of my mind, while still ignoring the quilt in its box for a few more months. Sometime around the five month mark, I knew it was time to get going or send the quilt back. I took a deep breath and started quilting. I stitched in the ditch to stabilize the quilt and then did ¼" echo quilting around all the Dresdens, diamonds and border.

Then I started adding some details. I'm not finished yet, but so far, not bad.

What P. doesn't know, is that when I'm finished with this quilt I'm keeping it. I even got her to send me the binding for it. I told her that I like to put the binding on part-way through the quilting process to keep lint from building up on the quilt top from the excess border of batting. It is true, but I told P. that as part of my evil plot to get possession of this super fabulous quilt. And now that it's here, there's pretty much nothing she can do to get it back :mischief:.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

The Early Bird

The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. –Unknown

According to Phineas and Ferb, there are 104 days of summer vacation. The Not-So-Little Bugs say it is more like 77½. Whatever the case, the annual problem is finding a good way to spend those days. We're only mid-way through our first week and I'm running out of ideas.

One of my goals before turning 40 was to learn to love mornings. Mornings have been my arch nemesis for many years. On-again off-again insomnia, pregnancy and having newborns and naughty energetic toddlers who wouldn't stay in bed interrupted my sleep patterns and I never had a pressing need to adjust them back. I grew to love the quiet time at night. I felt my best in the evenings and liked to create at that time of day. But I realized that it might be beneficial to make friends, once again, with the early hours of the day. I made a little progress; if not friends, mornings and I are at least allies. Logically, I know that getting up earlier and getting a jump on the day is less frustrating for me. Physically, by about 9:30 pm my eyelids are drooping and I no longer want to stay up until 1:00 am sewing. But mentally, I miss that quiet time after everyone's gone to bed. And I never spring out of bed bright eyed and bushy tailed when my alarm goes off. As a matter of fact, when my alarm goes off I wonder why it is going off so early. I can't ever think of a reason for it and sometimes sleep until my back-up alarm goes off. It is only once I get up and get moving that I remember why I needed to get up so early. I'm not a very clear thinker while I'm half alseep.

It was with great trepidation, then, that I decided that I would push my alarm time back a full hour so that I could get to work and back before the day has barely begun. There were many factors that went into this decision, but being home for the greater part of the day to help the Not-So-Little Bugs fill their summer vacation weighed in the heaviest. They have lists of chores and suggested activities they have to do, but I just feel like a kid needs his/her mom around during those long, lazy days of summer, to at least try to keep the chaos from getting too out of hand.

Having a day that is heavily weighted during the daylight hours is very interesting. Although I was getting up early enough to shower and get dressed before helping the Not-So-Little Bugs get to school, I also took a little time for myself to read blogs eat a leisurely breakfast, balance my checkbook, or send e-mails, among other things, before I went to work. I've cut all of that out of my routine and I'm out the door with my breakfast in hand before the Not-So-Little Bugs are even awake. When I get home, we have lunch, do our afternoon chores together and by 4:00 in the afternoon I'm wondering what to do with myself.

Getting up at a quarter-to-the-crack-of-dawn is definitely not my favorite thing ever. It requires that I go to bed at 9:00 pm, so that I can toss and turn the requisite 45 minutes before falling asleep. And even with a full eight hours of sleep built into the schedule, I still wonder why in the world my alarm is going off so early. I've discovered something interesting, though. The world is just as quiet in the early morning as it is late at night. The difference for me is momentum. At the end of the day I'm already moving, so it is easier to keep on moving. In the morning, I'm at a dead standstill and it is harder to get that momentum.

Perhaps if I keep plugging away at it, I'll get the hang of mornings. In the meantime, I'm going to see if I can figure out how to get my iPhone to play a few get-up-and-go tunes instead of an alarm in the mornings. And I'll keep looking for things to add to my list of fun {free} things to do during summer vacation. Maybe that will help me get rid of the earworm I've had since last Friday.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Inchworm

Inchworm, inchworm
Measuring the marigolds
You and your arithmetic
You'll probably go far

Two and two are four
Four and four are eight
Eight and eight are sixteen
Sixteen and sixteen are thirty-two

–Frank Loesser

Over the last 22 months, Grasshopper has grown like a weed. A very tall, skinny weed. It is impossible to keep him in pants. Right now, he's wearing size 18 slim, with an adjustable waistband from the boys' department, but he's almost too tall for those. I'm not sure where I'm going to find him jeans that are 24”W x 34” L. I've looked on-line, and some sites say they carry that size, but when I click on the link to order them, they are sold out. The closest I've found in stock are Levi's Shrink-to-Fit 501's, but even after a good shrinking, the waist will still be about 2” too large. At $45 a pair, and with only a general estimate of actual shrinkage, I haven't been willing to chance it yet, especially since as the length increases, so does the waist size.

Now that Grasshopper has grown taller than his mother {he's got a good 2” on me}, we thought it was about time to let him do a few important grown-up things, like riding shotgun. And mowing the lawn.

He's still perfecting his technique, especially with the edging. But with a few more months' practice, I'm sure he'll get there.

Now, if I can just keep him in pants we'll be all set.

Monday, May 20, 2013

Gilbert's Grape Ultra-Mini Star Quilt, Amish Style

Becky: I love the sky. It's so limitless.
Gilbert: It is big. It's very big.
Becky: Big doesn't even sum it up, right? That word big is so small.
What's Eating Gilbert Grape, 1993

This is my adorable LadyBug. As part of their U.S. studies, the 5th graders at LadyBug's elementary school are assigned a project on one of the states. The project is done in partners and includes a poster with details about the state and a float that represents that state. LadyBug was assigned to a team of three. She and the other girl in their group put the float together and the third man on their team did the poster. When Grasshopper was in the 5th grade, he also had to do a float {he had Tennessee, if you were wondering}, so we recycled the base for LadyBug's project {there's no sense in wasting good fringe, right?} and they stripped it down to the basic elements. Then LadyBug and her partner reinvented the float. I'm not sure how they got anything done, because I didn't hear a peep out of either one of the girls while they were here, but somehow, it came together really well. They painted the base green {like grass} and added the state seal and state quarter for Pennsylvania. LadyBug's partner supplied the Amish LEGO barn, and together they put together the little LEGO Hershey's factory workers and the state abbreviation {PA, seen in reverse behind the state seal because it is facing backwards} in LEGOs.

And then I butted right in and made a tiny quilt to go on the float. I had exactly eight - 1” HST's left from the label on Miss Butterfly's Zig-Zag quilt, and from that a star was born. The finished quilt is 4¾-ish”, and is hand quilted because that's how the Amish would do it. I'm not showing you the back though. A few stitches in, I realized that I could make teeny, tiny, ultra-mini stitches, or I could quilt it the right way. I picked the ultra-mini stitches.

After LadyBug's assignment was finished, she gave the quilt to her {stuffed} pet lizard, Gilbert.

Gilbert has a spot on LadyBug's bed and every night, she tucks him in before she gets tucked in herself. Until Gilbert got his new quilt, he was sleeping under an eyeglass lens cleaning cloth. Doesn't he look cozy?

Today's post brought to you by:
My 2013 Finishes