Quilting Projects

For far too long my poor sewing machine has been sitting downstairs feeling neglected. This week I finally got my sewing supplies together enough to continue working on some quilts I planned several months ago. 

The fabric above will be used in a quilt for little Sammy, the 3 month old son of our friends Patty and Edo. At their baby shower back in January I asked all of the guests to write a special message to the baby on some hexagon shaped pieces of cloth. The plan was to use them to make Sammy a baby quilt. Unfortunately, here it is May and I haven't even started piecing the quilt together yet! At least now I have a plan and fabric and I'll start cutting out the rest of the quilt pieces later this week. 

My big accomplishment of the day was finishing up the piecing for a quilt I'm doing for my cousin Kattlyn's son Jacob. I bought the fabric for it late last summer (intending to make it as a 1st birthday present, then a Christmas present, and now... well maybe an almost 2 year present). 

I've heard that Jacob really likes airplanes and trucks so I tried to find fabrics featuring them. I ended up picking out 3 blue fabrics (2 with airplanes and 1 with clouds), 3 green fabrics (1 with trucks, trains, and boats, 1 with grass, and 1 with leaves), and 2 yellow patterns (1 with dots and 1 with stripes). I had originally planned to lay them out in a random pattern with the yellow as a border around the edge. However, Woodley convinced me that it would be much more fun to create a picture on the quilt with the sky at the top and the grass at the bottom (see below):

Here's a close up of the sky section:

And here's one of the grass section:

I have a bright red polka dot fabric to go on the back but I will likely add a border of either yellow squares or a mixture of blue and green squares around it. I'm still trying to decide exactly how I want to quilt it. It would be nice to do an airplane pattern that would be visible on the back of the quilt, but that might be a bit too challenging. Maybe I'll just end up using ribbons. 

It's so fun to be using my sewing machine again! 

~ElizabethRose

Escaping the Heat with Homemade Popsicles

Last Autumn I picked up this wonderful popsicle mold but didn't get to enjoy it very much before the weather got too cold for popsicles. I pulled it out again for the first time this year a couple of days ago when the temperature started heading up, up, up. 

This weekend was almost unbearably hot so we were very grateful for these refreshing icy treats!

For these popsicles, I used our new juicer and combined: 

2 mangos (puréed) 

1 pint strawberries (puréed) 

4 oranges (juiced)

1 lemon (juiced)

However, they could easily have been made with half as many ingredients. In addition to the popsicles we had an entire pitcher left over which we drank over a couple of days. It was so delicious that I'm planning to get more fresh fruit to juice and freeze this week!

~ElizabethRose

Events of the Past Two Weeks

The past two weeks have been packed with so many fun events! To start with, last weekend we headed down to Big Sur with a group of 4 other couples. We had a wonderful weekend relaxing, eating, playing games, and hiking to the beach. It was so nice to get away for a bit and to introduce some of our various friends to each other! 

On our way home from Big Sur we stopped off in Carmel for a quick dessert (which was lovely!) and unfortunately I forgot my purse at the restaurant. (silly me!) The worst part was that I didn't actually realize it was missing until Tuesday afternoon, just as I was about to head out to run a bunch of errands. Instead, I stayed home and cleaned the house and in the evening we make another quick trip to Carmel Tuesday night. As Woodley commented, "That's probably the farthest we've ever driven for dinner." Thankfully we were able to recover my purse without any difficulties. 

Although we did our best to eat up everything we took down to Big Sur, at the end of the weekend, we realized we had way too much cheese left over. In order to solve the problem of too much cheese (if that can actually be a problem), we held a Cheese Eating, Wine Drinking, Game Playing Party last Wednesday evening. It was great fun and we did in fact eat up lots and lots of the 10 or so cheeses that needed to be consumed. 

The next big event of the week commenced on Friday afternoon when we headed back down the coast to Monterey to attend Cooking For Solutions at the Monterey Bay Aquarium (thanks to a very generous gift of tickets from Woodley's Aunt). Since the event lasted until quite late at night, we decided to spend the night in Monterey at The Clement Monterey. While wandering around the lobby with Woodley's cousin on Friday afternoon we discovered a hallway with some amazing lights: 

We had actually seen these very interesting lighting fixtures (featuring lots of fiber optics) at The Plumed Horse, a restaurant in Saratoga, CA. However, Woodley and I both agreed that the effect was much better at The Clement where they seemed to go along with the ocean theme. At The Plumed Horse, they served to cast strange colored hues around the dining room. Actually, it was somewhat disturbing to see your food change color every few minutes as each new wave of color came along the fiber optics. 

Before we knew it, it was time to head over to the Aquarium for the big event! We were very lucky and were able to attend the VIP reception featuring a demonstration by Alton Brown, of The Food Network. It was very interesting seeing him in real life. 

To go along with the theme of sustainable seafood, he showed the audience how to make 2 dishes featuring fish that are on the green list. I was thrilled when I realized he was actually showing us how to make a version of pickled herring. Although not a favorite among most Americans, I actually love pickled herring (perhaps due to my Northern European heritage). It was fantastic to actually see how I could make it in my own kitchen! 

Following the fish pickling demonstration, we headed out explore the rest of the aquarium which had been filled with dozens of booths featuring sustainable foods. Many of the booths featured fabulous chefs who prepared excellent samples of all types of different foods for us to try. Along with the food stations where wine tasting tables hosted by a wide variety of vineyards. There was even one station hosted by a brewery (As I prefer beer to wine, I sampled all of their beers). 

When the crowd got too tight, we headed downstairs in the Outer Bay Wing to explore the newly opened Seahorse Exhibit. I had no idea there were so many different types of seahorses! Woodley had lots of fun capturing pictures of them. :)

Do you see the seahorse in this picture?

There were also some impressive sea slugs!

After a couple of hours we were absolutely stuffed! Of the samples I tried, my favorite main dish was a small tilapia taco made by the chef's of Fishwife Restaurant. My favorite desserts were the amaretto injected strawberries with chocolate ganache and the pot de creme topped with strawberries (unfortunately I can't remember who made the desserts).

There was also an impressively large model if the Eiffel Tower made out of cream puffs. 

At the end of the evening we retreated to the Outer Bay Wing where we relaxed in front of the impressive one-million gallon tank. A collection of comfortable furniture had been set up in front of the tank which made for a perfectly relaxing end to the evening. It was even better when the bubble curtain came on!

Just before 10pm we headed back to the main lobby and discovered the silent auction. Woodley had never seen one before so we spent some time perusing the items. Although there were many interesting options, we were most intrigued by a sofa (one of the ones on display in front of the million-gallon-tank). We thought about it for a moment and then rushed back to the Outer Bay Wing to take another look at the sofa. We tested it briefly and decided we liked it enough to bid on it. 

Following a fast walk back to the lobby (the auction was ending in under 5 minutes at that point), we bid on the sofa and hovered anxiously while the last few minutes of the auction ticked by. At 10pm the auction closed and we found out that we had won the sofa! 

We have been talking about getting a new sofa for about a year now and I am so thrilled that we found one so easily and while supporting such a great cause! Now I'll finally be able to move out the Ikea couch I've had since college! 

Below is a picture of our new couch taken in the dark at the aquarium. It is now happily installed in our living room (although I'm still trying to figure out exactly how to arrange the furniture). I'll post more (better) pictures of it soon!

Now, there's just a couple other exciting events to report on. 

Saturday evening we had the fun of attending the Third Annual Irene Dalis Vocal Competition at The California Theater in San Jose with Woodley's parents. We got to see 10 semifinalists compete, each sang 2 songs (one selected by the singer and one selected by the three judges). During the performance, the audience was encouraged to take notes so that we would be able to remember our thoughts later when we got the opportunity to vote for the audience's choice award winner. There was such a wide range of songs performed and each singer was so different from the next. It was quite hard to pick a favorite, but in the end, we were quite pleased with the judges' picks (Woodley's personal ranking system lined up almost exactly with that of the judges'!) 

To finish off this exciting weekend, this afternoon (Sunday) I headed up to Palo Alto to attend a bridal shower for our friend Beth, whose wedding we will attend next month. It was such a nice party and we had a great time celebrating Beth! (sadly I forgot to bring my camera)

Whew! After all that, I'm looking forward to a quiet week at home (hopefully with lots more cooking than I did last week).

~ElizabethRose

Dreams of Remodeling

Now that we actually own a house of our own, we have joined the millions of other homeowners around the world who spend their time dreaming of how they want to remodel their property. 

Since our new house is in the city's watershed area we are a bit limited in what we can do. So far, we know we are allowed to remodel the inside but aren't able to change the current footprint of the house. In some ways that is nice because it gives us a straightforward starting point.

During our last trip up to Bellingham, we ran all around the house measuring the walls and closets and doors so we could try to figure out the blueprint. We took that information and used a computer program to help us draw the floor plan. It was great to finally see the a rough layout of the house on paper. 

To help us brainstorm possible new layouts, we made a version of the blueprint that only showed the outer walls. Then, I cut a bunch of rectangles out of colored card-stock (left over from our wedding invitations) and labeled them with the names of different rooms we wanted to include in our new plans. 

Following those preparations, we had a very fun evening coming up with all sorts of fun and crazy ideas for our house! 

Below are some of our layouts for the main floor (the top side of the picture is the one that the lake would be on)

I'm also having a lot of fun cutting pictures of rooms and decorating ideas out of magazines! Once I actually paste them into a scrapbook I'll post some pictures of it. 

~ElizabethRose

Fava Beans

Sadly, it has been way too long since I last posted (over a week). So, I'm going to try to catch up a bit by posting several small entries about things I've done in the last week or so. 

About a week and a half a go I got a big bag of fava beans in our CSA box. I had never cooked with fava beans so this was another fun challenge. I started by shelling the beans while I caught up on Grey's Anatomy online. 

The beans were such a lovely pale green color! 

But what surprised me the most, was the fuzzy inner coating that cushioned the beans inside the pod. It was so soft but was easily crushed with just a slight amount of pressure. 

Once I shelled all of the beans, I stuck them in a tupperware in the fridge and about a week passed before I finally figured I really had to do something with them. I ended up making "Fava Bean, Herb, and Wax Bean Soup" from Local Flavors. It was fairly decent, but not worth sharing here. In the words of my friend Zaz, it was reminiscent of "rabbit food." (very green and not too much flavor other than extreme greenness) 

So, do any of you have good fava bean recipes I could try next time? 

Making Orange Rhubarb Jam

Growing up, my mom and I would always can berry jam in the summer. That's something I've been looking forward to doing when we're up in Bellingham for the summer. However, last week I got my hands on some lovely rhubarb plants and I figured I could use them to make something that could be canned. 

On a side note, the peacock is still with us. Above is a picture from this morning. The peacock appeared to be displaying for Leila. She wasn't too sure about the situation. 

I decided that yesterday would be my baking day so in the morning I started my two loaves of bread. While they were rising I moved on to jam making! I found a recipe for Orange Rhubarb Jam in my book of Home Preserving (see below). It's a great resource filled with all sorts of canning recipes and an excellent section about food safety and canning which is definitely something to take seriously. 

First I got out all the jars I would need for the recipe and washed them, along with their lids and screw tops in the dishwasher. I'm not going to go over all the steps here and safety concerns here, just some of the main steps for canning. So, if you do decide to can something, please be sure to read through a proper resource to make sure you're following the necessary safety precautions. Botulism is scary. 

Next, I washed out my big canning stockpot. It is so big that I had to wash it in the bathtub! I put a metal canning device down in the bottom of the pan and rested the washed jars on it. The metal prevents the jars from actually resting on the bottom of the pan and it allows water to flow all around the jars. I then covered them with water and started heating them up.

Next, it was time to get the jam ready. I chopped up a bunch of rhubarb into tiny pieces. 

Then used a vegetable peeler to cut off some strips of orange peel. 

Which I cut up into tiny slivers. I didn't add quite all the orange peel because I didn't want the jam to be too bitter. I'm not very fond of marmalade and I didn't want the jam to turn out that way. 

I also squeezed the juice from the oranges and mixed that up with the chopped rhubarb and orange peel. 

I was so thrilled to find that I had exactly the right amount of Sure Jell in the pantry. I can't remember exactly when I bought it, but it was so nice to be able to make the jam without having to run to the store! Before I started heating the rhubarb orange mixture, I stirred in the Sure Jell until it had dissolved. 

Next, I brought the rhubarb orange mixture to a boil then added the sugar. (and boy do you need a lot of sugar!)

Once the sugar was mixed in the jam was almost ready. It just needed to boil for another minute before it was time to ladle it into the jam jars. 

It was a bit tricky and very very sticky (which is why I don't have very many pictures of the process) but I managed to get the hot jars out of the water, fill them with hot jam, remove the air bubbles, wipe the rims of the jars, and cover them with a hot lid and screw top. They looked so pretty! Then they went back into the water bath where they boiled for 10 minutes to sterilize and seal. 

I now have 14 beautiful jars of Orange Rhubarb Jam to eat and give away! It was a bit messy and took several hours but I love the process and can't wait until my next canning project! 

And it tasted simply divine on the fresh, homemade Buttermilk Bread that came out of the oven right around the time the jam was finishing up. 

~ElizabethRose

A Loud Visitor

This morning Leila woke me up a bit earlier than I might have gotten up on my own. She hopped up onto the bed and laid down on my arm several times but each time she would rest for only a moment before jumping up again. After a few moments she ran out of the room meowing loudly. At the time I thought she was acting a bit strange, but I wasn't sure what she meant by it. 

Then I actually got up and walked out into the kitchen. Looking out of the kitchen window I saw what must have startled her:

There, sitting on the roof of the workshop, right outside my kitchen window, was a large peacock. It was quite surprising. 

When we first moved into our house there was a peacock on the property who liked to walk about on the roof and stare in through the windows at us. However, about 6 months ago the peacock disappeared and though we could still hear him calling faintly in the distance, he didn't come by to visit. 

We figured he had come back to see us again. He certainly tried to show off:

It was wonderful to see such a beautiful display so close up and from the comfort of my very own kitchen!

He does make some very loud noises though which can be a bit disturbing. His main cries sound kind of like loud meows and as he's working himself up for a good one he actually makes a honking noise that sounds like an old bicycle horn. 

Leila was very curious about the peacock.

She didn't seem to be too nervous, but instead followed him along the window sill, intently watching his every move. We wondered if she was contemplating what he would taste like. 

Eventually she settled into her kitty bed and watched the peacock from there. I think it made for a very enjoyable afternoon for her. 

We had just begun to get over the excitement when, around 6pm, our doorbell rang. When we opened the door, we discovered a rather distraught boy who appeared to be around 10 years old. He told us his peacock had disappeared and he believed it had come over to our house. We confirmed that a peacock had showed up this morning and we pointed out to him where we last saw it on the roof. 

He was very excited to see it and even had a pet name for it. I still think it might be the one that used to live over here since the boy told us that it lives outside at his house and isn't always around. Still, he did seem very attached to the peacock. 

In the end, he decided that there wasn't much he and his adult friend could do to remove the peacock and take it back to his house because there wasn't a way to capture it and get it into his friend's car. 

I think he will come back to visit the peacock tomorrow if it hasn't flown back to his house by then. 

I have to say, this is a very interesting way to meet the neighbors. 

After they left (without the peacock) we enjoyed the beautiful views around the house. 

We've had so many cloudy days lately that it was very exciting to see a bit of sun peeping out! 

Tomorrow I will report on the yummy Orange Rhubarb Jam I made this afternoon. :)

~ElizabethRose