The Life, Designs & Crafts of Marie Haigh
Life is what happens while I am busy planning my next knitting design.
Thanks to everyone who left a comment last week when I asked for ideas on how to use up all the lemons I bought on sale.
Though I loved the idea of lemon jelly, I actually didn’t have enough lemons leftover to make it. Pity. Next time.
Instead I opted to whip up the following:
Lemon chocolate chip cookies
Recipe here
2 Lemon Yogurt cakes, freezing one
Recipe here
They were on sale.
I can never walk away empty-handed from a produce sale. It’s equivalent to a shoe sale in my mind.
I had no idea what I would do with all the lemons when I bought them. It didn’t stop me. I have a healthy supply of recipe books. Plus there is always the internet.
The problem I’ve found is that most recipes only use 1 lemon. After a week of where I made 2 lemon pastries and 1 dessert, I still have more than half a bag of lemons left.
Any ideas?
Last Tuesday was Fastnaught Day. Since moving to Pottstown, I have embraced the local tradition of eating the traditional square doughnuts. I can’t turn down good food.
This year, I decided to try my hand at making them. I had some leftover mashed potatoes in the fridge and I always keep yeast on hand. After running a quick search online, I followed this recipe though I made the following changes:
I may never go back to store-bought Fastnaught Day doughnuts. They were delicious.
My only problem was inconsistency in the deep frying process; some of the doughnuts didn’t get cooked through. Next time I’ll use an egg timer to make sure I’m cooking them long enough.
I’ve been knitting up a storm in an attempt to gift this to Elly on her birthday.
I only have 2 weeks to sew the peices together and add the stitching. (You do know what it is, right?)
To make sure the idea I stole from the Cake Boss would work, I made Rice Krispie treats today.
The cake itself will be Devil’s Food cake topped with white and red buttercream icing.
When I bought this bender a year ago, I wanted it to puree soups and to make baby food.
On Amazon, review after review talked about how great it was at blending smoothies. I found such reviews unhelpful since I was so sure that I would never use it to make smoothies. I like to eat my fruit not drink it in a straw.
I should have known to never say never.
Not only have I been bitten by the smoothie craze, but Elly is loving them also. Currently, we are enjoying a mango and orange smoothie.
Recipe: 2 mangos, the juice of 4 oranges and about 1/2 cup of yogurt.
What changed my mind? The thing that always brings me to my knees: taste. I am a sucker for good food.
On a whim, I blended up pineapple, avocado, applesauce and yogurt together. My main goal was to use up the leftover pineapple and the leftover avocado sauce in the fridge; I hate throwing out food. It was delicious! Elly kept vying for the mug I was drinking it out of. Naturally, I let her try it.
Now we’re both hooked.
Elly’s wishy-washy embracement of solid food has not stopped me from pureeing every vegetable in our refrigerator for her. Sooner or later, she is going to come around to my way of thinking. I don’t want to be caught with my pants down. Thus, the top shelf in our freezer is lined with ziploc bags filled with colorful ice cubes.
On the menu are the following pureed foods: carrots, corn, summer squash, zucchini and, of course, peaches. Next up: sweet potatoes.
These past 2 days Elly has given me cause to worry. Either she is getting this whole swallowing food down to a science or she is her father’s daughter, but Elly seems to like zucchini better than the peaches.
Hopefully, she won’t grow up and tell me that she doesn’t like sweets which is exactly what Dan told his mother. I think I would cry. I’ve been hoping for a partner-in-dessert-crime.
On Tuesday of last week, a major thunderstorm rolled through our area. The thunder claps that followed the huge bolts of lightning shook the whole house. Poor Jake spent the entire time laying underneath my feet.
We lost electricity several times, but each time it snapped back on. It seemed we had escaped the worst. When I started to turn lights and appliances back on, it became clear that not everything was still working.
As luck would have it, Dan was in Las Vegas attending a bachelor party and wedding. That left Jake and I to tackle the long list of broken items. You can just imagine how much help Jake was.
Both of the GSI outlets in the kitchen had been tripped. The less important one could be reset, but the one that the fridge was plugged into could not be. An industrial extension cord solved that little problem until the handyman could arrive the next morning to replace the outlet.
The home phones didn’t have a dial tone. Verizon had to come out and replace the wire that ran to the telephone pole. It had been fried. The tech was the first one to suggest that we might have been struck by lightning.
The exhaust fan in the kitchen died. We still haven’t come up with a plan to address that problem.
The cable modem, router and everything plugged into the router died. Since Dan is the official techie in our house, the internet stayed down until his return.
Which left me with ample time to reap the benefits of my vegetable garden:
Tomatoes Galore!
The large tomatoes were cooked up into tomato juice (the ones that didn’t end up in my salad, that is).
The smaller Roma tomatoes were made up into a soup. Plus I still had extra to throw into a chili.
And more tomatoes are still coming off the vine every day. Oh, how I love this time of year.
Baby Notes:
I had my 19-week appointment yesterday. I have gained the appropriate weight and am right on target for belly growth.
The baby’s heartbeat was holding steady at 140.
But the big news is that I am scheduled to have an ultrasound done on Friday, Sept 4th. Hopefully, we’ll find out whether the baby is a he or a she.
Yesterday, I spent the afternoon reconstructing my Phillies t-shirt that I blogged about on Friday. I forgot to take a before picture of the Phillies t-shirt on Maria, my dressform. Allow me to describe the problem. It’s due to the fact that Maria, who is set to my exact measurements, is pear-shaped. The t-shirt fit wonderfully in her bust and waist area and less-than-flattering in her hip area. More bluntly, it wouldn’t stay down over her hips area no matter how much I tugged. Several of the Phillies boys couldn’t be seen. Top among them were Stairs, a hero in Philly thanks to him coming up with a homerun against the Dodgers when we needed it most, and J.C. Romero, whom I affectionately call Romeo. Something had to be done so that Maria & I could wear the t-shirt, proudly displaying all the Philly champs.
First, I cut off the bottom 4 inches of the shirt. It was too long anyway.
Then, I opened up the sides of the shirt with a 1-inch slit.
Next, I staystitched around the slit and then folded the edges inwards.
Noticing that some raw edges were still visible, I covered all ends with a white bias strip (so as not to draw attention to the hip area).
Lastly, I hemmed the bottom of the shirt.
I’m not entirely pleased with the outcome. Though this does mean I can wear the shirt the way it was intended, I don’t find the design appealing. Next time, I may try inserting a pleat instead.
After dreaming of baseball games and warmer weather, I woke up to find snow on the ground and more falling from the sky.
I couldn’t think of a better way to start an imposed Snow Day than with pancakes and bacon. mmmm.
“Why add rum to your brownies?”, you ask.
There are several good reasons: (1) rum tastes good, (2) the children aren’t allowed to eat these which means more for you, (3) it makes a dense, almost fudge-like brownie and (4) Why not?.
Recipe:
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter
2 tbsp strong, black coffee
6 oz good chocolate, your preference of sweetness (I used dark bittersweet)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
3/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
3-4 tbsp rum
Mix the flour, baking powder, salt and walnuts together. Set aside.
Heat the sugar, butter and coffee over low heat until the butter is melted. Remove from heat. Add the chocolate and vanilla, stirring till the chocolate is melted. Add eggs, beating well.
Pour the chocolate batter into the flour mixture. Mix well.
Pour the brownie mixture into a greased 9-inch square baking dish.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.
With a toothpick or fork, poke holes into the top of the brownie. Pour the rum over top. Let cool.
The brownies taste good with or without new yarn arriving in the mail, but if you have the choice, I’d encourage you to have yarn arrive on the day you bake these up. Or any other day.
Behold 100% bamboo yarn.
It was handspun by the talented Bobbi of Kitty Grrlz. She named it Ice Princess.
These past 2 days have been very productive.
Thanks to the miserable weather, I got a lot of baking done, since I couldn’t rightly go outside and run any errands.
Candy Cane cookies
Buttermilk Sugar Cookies
Coffee Cake
(a Christmas hostess gift)
Maple Pecan Pie
(requested by my Uncle)
I also finished Dan’s knee warmers in time for Christmas! They are downstairs drying after receiving a good washing.
The guest bedroom is mostly ready to receive my father-in-law. At the very least, I have reduced the amount of dust and located the beds under the mountain of pillows.
We have clean clothes. I’m sure all our guests will be appreciative.
All I have left to do tonight is finish the silk tie, but the couch on the way to my craft room is looking awfully tempting.
The Life, Designs & Crafts of Marie Haigh 