Category: Recipes in SC

The Traveling Flower Vase

My neighbor spoils me on a daily basis. Look what she brought me the other day!

These falls colors are just so gorgeous, and I love the little bit of frilly white that breaks up the density of the fall colors.

For the past year, and maybe a bit more, we have shared “the traveling flower vase.” She started it! She gave me flowers, and I returned the vase with flowers in it for her. Now this vase goes back and forth between us. We each enjoy the flowers the other puts into the vase, and sometime after the flowers have faded, the one with the vase puts in new flowers and delivers it to the other.

It’s so much fun!

One of my favorite meals is best done in the fall when the butternut squash is nice and ripe. I cut one into cubes, add lots of chopped garlic and fresh rosemary, some REAL olive oil (not the kind with mixed seed oils added), and a bit of rough salt. I roast on a fairly high heat (375 or so) until the squarsh starts to carmelize a bit–which makes it so so sweet. I usually turn it all over once with a spatula as the bottom will burn if you don’t. Don’t cook it too long as you don’t want it to get mushy.

This month’s Tara Faughnan Blocks3 class is “Garnish,” a pickle dish quilt block form. Tara gave us extensive instructions on how to improv cut this block AND many templates of different sizes if we wanted to have a bit more precision.

Here’s where I am now–with blocks ready to be sewn together. Each “flower” will finish at 8 inches, for a 32-inch square…something? A table topper maybe. I’m going to hand quilt it.

I could keep moving around blocks forever I think, but I’ll stop here. I love how the warm black is working with the other colors in this month’s palette.

What interests me also is the pattern where two big blocks come together and form a circle. So I made one of those which I’m now hand sewing and will put on stretched canvas if it comes out ok.

How did it get to be Friday already?

It’s still very dry, and I’m going to have to water the flower beds again, as I don’t see any real rain on the horizon. I’ve given up on the grass for this year.

Have a great weekend!

Good Morning!

How did it get to be November already?

We had a lively Halloween here in my small subdivision, which is filled with small children who delight me with their laughter most days as they play outside. It is so fun to see them growing up–but they are growing up so fast. In no time at all, it seems, these children leave their strollers and are pedaling small tricycles.

It’s time now to do the fall outdoor clean-up chores, but the roses are still blooming, so it’s hard to get the motivation to cut back those bushes for the winter cold that is coming.

I can still have my noon dinner on the porch most days, but often need a sweater. Yesterday I had baked cod and for a real treat, some delicious Carolina “gold” rice. I had some crunchy fresh salad veggies, so I cut those up as an addition and dressed them with some leftover homemade mayonnaise.

I’ve spent the summer cutting starchy carbs as I’m trying to drop a few more pounds, but all the summer fruit got in the way of that goal. I can, apparently, eat good fats or fruit, but not both outside of about an 80-20 ration for one or the other. LOL. Still I have dropped a few pounds, and the rice didn’t show up on my scale this morning, but eating only a half of an apple illustrates this truth.

I am ALMOST done with the blocks for the leaf quilt sewalong with Rachel LaBour of the “Stitched in Color” blog. Maybe today I will be able to start sewing that quilt top together.

There may be more moving of blocks around. But I’m really loving this quilt. I ordered a Tilda fabric for the backing that will work with these fall leaves, and it will come Saturday. As for binding… Maybe the gold fabric? I don’t know… Yet.

This little quilt is done. It was to be a donation quilt, but I’m holding it for either a family baby or a neighborhood baby. (My neighbor’s baby is due any minute now, and I’ll gift the finished pink quilt when she arrives and will share pictures here on the blog.) All the fun neutral fabrics are so fun.

The backing is a cheddar color from my stash, and the pantograph is “Bayside,” which lays down lovely texture without dense quilting. (When in doubt, pull “Bayside” out.) I used a pale peachy orange from Signature cotton threads, which does not draw attention on the front.

The other little donation quilt is getting its binding sewn down, so a final picture for the blog and my archive will happen soon.

Meanwhile, we have our November block for Tara Faughnan’s Blocks3 six months sewalong. It’s “Garnish,” a curvy orange-peel improv block, though I may make mine via precision cutting. I have a batch of block parts cut in all the colors, so will carve out some play time to try out various combinations.

Here’s Tara’s sample of one idea.

This month’s palette (13 colors) is so pretty too. It’s “dustier” than I would normally choose these days, but rich and very “Tara Faughnan.” I love it.

Of course, as usual, Tara has given us MANY ways to manipulate this block and the colors involved.

Quilty “play” is…everything. So fun!

Quilty Update–Early August 2025

“Spring’s Song” is off the longarm, and the quilting in lime green looks so pretty.

This quilt is now trimmed and bound, and I’ll start sewing the binding at night. Look how pretty the backing is with its trees in spring green.

The design wall is once again…FULL of fun projects–organized from the piles on my cutting table: strips of bright solids, a pile of fabrics and a quilt pattern, and print strips waiting to be cut for desired blocks.

On the left is the almost finished top made with Bonnie Hunter’s 2025 Leader/Ender block “Four Patch Fun.” More stash scraps are getting used. I am aiming for 60 by 60. The light and dark braids that form are visible now.

Here’s a link to Bonnie Hunter’s 2025 leader/ender block pattern–scroll to get to the printer friendly link.


2025-leader-ender-challenge-four-patch.html

The long rows growing in the middle of the design wall are from leftover fabrics and cut block parts from a Tara Faughnan early The Color Collective quilt project called “Stacks.” I had a lot of leftovers that I put in a big plastic sack when I moved from Maine. This project goes back to the first Color Collective, in 2019 I think. I’ll make a smaller quilt and then call it a day on this project. The first quilt was big and was gifted as a family wedding present. *It feels good to be moving this bag of fabrics out of the stash.

The solid bright improv log cabin type blocks are 14 inches and are using up solid strips and fabrics. It is so cheerful! A lap quilt would need to be at least 4 blocks wide and maybe 5 long–which I will do as I don’t need another wall hanging.

The 4 rectangle blocks above the log cabins are just improv play with the leftover solid log cabin pieces–and longer ones too. Who knows what will happen here, if anything. I’ll just keep on playing.

It’s been hot here off and on, but overall this summer has been cooler than summers for the past two years. July is the hottest month here. I would have thought August would be hotter, but data says no.

I’ve been able to eat on my wonderful screened porch for all but a handful of these summer days. And the other day I had some hamburger and thought I had not made a stir fry in some time.

So this pan of goodness happened–and fed me for two days.

As you all who read this blog know, I cook by what I have on hand. And this stir fry contained summer sweet onion, sweet red pepper, some carrots chopped into small chunks that will cook quickly, some garlic, and a mixture of “Italian” dried herbs. I added my bunch of kale torn off its stalk and roughly chopped when the firmer veggies were soft. I added the handful of frozen peas that were the last in a bag with the hamburger.

I sauteed in beef tallow and added the kale when the veggies were getting soft. When the kale was wilted, I added the frozen peas and the hamburger and just turned the mixture until the hamburger was lightly cooked to pink. (I don’t like overcooked meat as the nutrients get killed.)

This day was an indoor eating day, sadly. The fruit is ripe canteloupe.

I’ve been trying to lose weight to hit a long-term goal for me, so I’ve cut all starchy carbs for the moment. And I seriously control the amount of fruit I eat twice a day. This morning I saw a number on the scale I have not seen in years.

I was very excited!

Thanksgiving 2024

And here we are. It’s Thanksgiving.

I will start cooking my part of our meal in an hour. Dinner will be around 4 at my younger son’s house, and I’ll go over early afternoon. My cooking part will be roasted Brussel sprouts and a platter of garlicky roasted carrots and sweet peppers. I’ll bring the green salad ready to assemble. Bryan is going to cook the turkey on his fancy wood chip grill that smokes things. There will be also mashed potatoes with raw butter. And pies for dessert, to include the family chocolate chess pie which is super rich and which I can’t eat due to the gluten in the pie shell. (Yes, that is sad, but life is messy, isn’t it?)

It is overcast and hopefully it will rain as it is very very dry. So likely, there will not be a walk on the beach today.

I went to Whole Foods to get the organic veggies, and the Christmas trees are in place.

I stood for a moment or two and inhaled the smell of green fir trees–which I do miss here in South Carolina. Hiking in the Maine woods was always filled with this wonderful scent. But here the tall pines sway over the woods. They are long-needled and quite spectacular.

I also bought a butternut squash for one of my favorite dishes, which is to roast skinned chunks with fresh rosemary, garlic, salt, and good olive oil.

The ” Pot Pourri 5: Crosses” quilt is off the design wall and ready to go on the longarm. The backing I ordered (also Ruby Star Society) is adorable. It’s washed and ready to be ironed and organized.

AND!!! Ta da!! Here’s this month’s work from my online Blocks 2 class with Tara Faughnan. I could have gone on and on, but…

I hung the grey piece in the front hall next to the alarm system box. My walls are a soft grey. The rest are all installed on stretched canvas frames.

I’ll hang the big blue one in my quilt room. But the rest will be gifts. I’ve really enjoyed learning how to wrap a block around stretched canvas and am pleased with the outcome.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

More Potholders!

And a rope trivet too.

And a fall lamb soup/stew.

With the last of my units made for my online monthly class with Tara Faughnan, I made these adorable POTHOLDERS. (And the rope trivet for a neighbor, who also collected two of these potholders yesterday.)

I wanted to just play with the leftover “hourglass” units I’d made to see what kind of patterns would emerge. Two of these (hourglass squares in the middle) are just the straight hourglass units–and they make the intriguing square–which would make a nice quilt block if set off with sashing. Hmmmm. Two use trimmed hourglass units combined with the half-rectangle triangle units and trimmed in an improv way. And one just uses up the remaining scraps from this month’s “play” block.

What was really fun was to figure out this new way to bind a potholder so that one leaves a tail that can be made into a loop. This way means NO need to join the two binding ends somewhere in the middle of the little potholder (about 6 inches finished). The end tail just folds over–turn in the raw ends–and sew it down. Then make the loop and sew it to the potholder. I sewed just outside the actual potholder as that was easier.

I’m sewing down binding on the last two projects from this month’s class, and it’s a good thing as the next project comes November 1st. It’s all good, and I certainly enjoyed this October project.

It’s cooler now, so it’s time for warmer dishes. I made a lamb stew the other day, and it has been rich and delicious. I bought a rolled leg of lamb some time back and unrolled it. I cut the thicker piece into a roast and cut the thinner piece into chunks for k-bobs or a stew–and froze the two packages. The roast was cooked some time back, and now, this stew.

I wanted some turnips, but couldn’t find any organic ones. They were a fall staple in Maine. But, I did find parsnips, so included those. The green is collards. The rest is chopped onions browned with lots of garlic–then carrots, potatoes, the parsnips, red peppers that needed using, some onion chunks, and herbs–all thrown into the pot after I browned the onions and garlic–then when the mixture started caramelizing, I threw in the meat and cooked for a bit, the added water.

It has been delicious!

It’s a Beautiful Day!

You would never know we were worried about a hurricane only two days ago!

The death/damage from Helene inland has been terrible. A dam in North Carolina below Lake Lure broke and devastated a small town below it. Tennessee has also been hard hit. I am feeling so, so lucky this morning.

I got “Arrowheads” off the design wall last night–which opened up room for the other projects trying to happen. The arrowheads run from the top right corner to the bottom left corner. Some are more subtle than others, but they do form a line for the eye to hunt for and follow. The “left” or “right” rectangles shift on either side of the arrowheads. Perhaps the line should have been from right to left as that is how we read…but I also wanted this arrangement to be subtle.

I love this quilt top–all made out of fun and not subtle fabrics just sitting around in my stash. I think there may be a series in the making with this large half-square rectangle block made with Latifah Safari’s Hurty ruler.

I put the leftovers on the design wall–just to get them up so I can see what I have and what needs to be cut and sewn. None of these blocks will stay this way–but I do want to play with diamonds mixed into rows. Clearly I need to cut and sew more blocks–and to employ better color mixtures than what’s on the wall now. And I’m anticipating LOTS of moving of blocks around.

The “glitter” blocks to the left are a challenge–and I’m not having fun with them. I can’t get the points at either end right–so that there is 1/4-inch beyond them. I’ve measured and redrawn the pattern several times now. It’s a different and exciting block, but… I’ll make one more, sew these together, and call it a day. I’ll probably hand quilt it??? I’ll see what it looks like sewn together. Maybe it will become part of an improv quilt.

The “crosses” leader/ender top made from the bins of 3.5-inch squares (Cotton+Steel/Ruby Star Society) in light and dark colors is growing. I can sew together the row in each block, but not the whole block, so it looks a bit “off” right now as most of it is pinned. The bins ARE SLOWLY going down.

AND yesterday, I made a new pin cushion, using scraps and ground walnut shells for the filling. The shells came with a packet of powdered “emery,” which is an abrasive mixture of some form of alumina. (Emery used to be ground rock. Emery is used on things like stair treads and fingernail boards.) Directions said to make an extra little bag for the emery and to put said bag inside the pin cushion–among the walnut shells–and it will keep your pins sharp.

I recently started pinning my quilt tops on the longarm, rather than using the red snappers–using new-to-me pins (Magic pins). The ones made for using on a longarm canvas are quite sturdy–and mine are now in a pin cushion made and gifted to me years ago in Maine by Linda Satkowski. (It’s going strong Linda!). I used hers as a model for how to make my new pin cushion, which now holds the pins for the design wall. I think the combo of walnut shells and emery I bought on Amazon were too pricey–and not enough of the walnut shells is leftover if I want to make another pin cushion to gift to someone. Well…maybe if I make it smaller???

Yesterday I roasted my first fall butternut squash–with garlic, dried herbs, olive oil, and salt. I didn’t use the rosemary in my herb garden which I would prefer for this dish as Mount Pleasant is still spraying for mosquitoes. That spray is said to be GRAS–or “generally regarded as safe,” which means only that no one has done any searching for problems. Here in the USA, we allow thousands of chemicals in our food that Europe does not allow. My take is if it kills insects, it can also kill us or make us sick.

Except for the butternut squash and the fruit, this dinner was from leftover “assets.”

Have a great weekend!

We Dodged a Hurricane Bullet

Hurricane Helene hit the Florida coast as a Category 4 storm. But the main part of the cone went mostly a bit to the west of us here in the Charleston, SC, area. There was a hurricane warning in the early morning this morning, which I didn’t hear as I had my phone in airplane mode. My neighbors were NOT happy with me as they worry about making sure I’m ok in the night. And it is good to know that airplane mode stops these warnings.

Younger son and family lost power in the night on Isle of Palms, so they came early this morning with the three granddaughters so they could do their online homework.

This storm is HUGE!

Here is where it is right now:

I don’t want to set up a jinx, but this is the second storm we have dodged in recent weeks. We got 5 1/2 inches of rain yesterday and last night, so I’m happy about that “just right” amount.

Before the rain started in earnest yesterday afternoon, I grilled a beautiful flank steak and air fried a small potato into French fries. I was able to sit on the porch with my meal for quite some time before the wind sent the rain onto the porch and I had to bring cushions inside. The second dish was for supper, so I had time in the afternoon to sew.

And now, we get back to “normal.”

Fall Comfort Food

I cooked on Saturday–roasted veggies to go with the meatloaf I made on Thursday. For this meatloaf, I used a pound of ground bison and almost a pound of beef hamburger mixed with 25% ground organs (liver, heart, kidneys) that I can buy locally.

My basic meatloaf or stuffed anything is ground beef, bison, or lamb to which I add an egg or two, some oatmeal with a little raw cream or whole milk to soften it, some good fat if the meat is too lean, some grated veggie (carrot, zucchini), some chopped onion, some cheese (mozzarella for me), some herbs, and salt. Mix it up and top with some good ketchup (I use Annie’s) and, if you have some, top with sliced sweet peppers. You could also use sliced tomatoes to top the meatloaf, which I can’t do.

Isn’t this pretty?

Here’s everything all roasted. I put in the sliced fingerling potatoes and a stray onion in the pantry and carrots in the oven about 20-25 minutes before the baby bok choy and sweet peppers which only take about 20 minutes or so. Then I usually broil everything at the end to brown up the surfaces–just a few minutes, and keep a sharp eye on the pans.

Yummy food that feels like fall.

The screened porch “outdoor room” is also yummy now that it is cooler–though I did eat out there most of the summer and just left when I got too hot.

Have a great day everyone!

Tropical Storm Debby

…is hanging out over Charleston because she has “nowhere to go” given a weather “high” to the north and northwest that keeps her stationary–and will keep her stationary for some days to come unless some wind develops to move her up the coast.

Meanwhile, while I’m writing, torrents of rain are falling as the bands swirl around over us.

Saturday night we had a thunderstorm that dropped 1.75 inches of rain. Since then the rain gauge has shown 8 inches of water–but it overflowed last night, so there was more. And now there is steady rain, which is often heavy.

A tornado touched down on Isle of Palms last night–where both of my sons live. It damaged a house and took out power lines, so one son does not have electricity at the moment. The electric company has promised to return power very soon now.

The other son and DIL are driving back from the Jersey shore (3 girls) and are about 5 hours out now. Right now they can get back to their house on IOP and they do have electricity. Flooding in this stationary storm is a big issue. If they can’t get home due to today’s rain, they will stay with me.

I took out all the saved chicken bones in the freezer on Sunday and made a huge broth–the packets of bones were taking up way too much room in my small freezer, so it was time.

When the broth cooled, I drained off the liquid and put it in the refrigerator. Yesterday I made the soup–and the broth had jelled so beautifully into consommé. The soup is DELICIOUS! So I’m ready if my son’s family comes here–and if not, I have food so I can “play.”

My noon dinner today–eaten inside, of course. All the porch cushions are inside the house to keep them dry.

Here’s the design wall right now: there are THREE projects on it. How fun is that?

On the left is the snuggly scrappy leader/ender quilt–it will get wider and one more row longer when I finish the 4th row of Prickly Pear on the right. The third row will be done today. Making the triangle rings takes time and I need 16 more.

On the bottom, I’m playing with “modern” Churn Dash blocks and the new Cat’s Claw ruler that came in the mail. These 2 blocks are 12 inches. I love playing, and goal is to see how I can make “modern” alterations to the Churn Dash block. It’s a challenge…from the modern group. And I have no idea where it is going.

And the hand-sewing (Big Stitch) project is coming along. It will be a wall hanging upstairs–it’s 32 inches square. Cathy Beemer taught us this Maria Shell method in our modern group’s monthly Sit and Sew. She made a whole quilt of these blocks with four quadrants, and I am in awe of that effort.

Now it is almost 1 pm. There are 3 more inches of water in the rain gauge. Folks here are worrying about the dry ponds filling up now, and the creek is about to overflow, which would impact my back door neighbor. Low tide is coming up, but the overflow water just does not have a place to go.

If the lull persists, when I’m done with lunch I’m going to take out my hearing aids, wrap up in my raincoat, and go out for some pictures.

That would be learned behavior from my father… He always wanted to investigate how deep the snow had gotten, or how high the tides were, and so on. And he always took us with him when he went out into the elements.

Bits and Pieces, Sunday, July 28

It is a quiet weekend here. I’ve resisted going out to get more sand and compost, in anticipation of FIVE Drift “Popcorn” roses arriving here this next week. Instead, I played. I cooked a bit, ate dinner on the porch, caught up on the book I’m reading, walked, sewed upstairs, and hand-sewed after supper downstairs with the tv and a harmless, simple tv series that requires no concentration, Wildfire.

As I’m sure I already wrote, I dug out the “Encore” azaleas in front that were so NOT happy there and took them to Bryan, who has more shade than I do. I couldn’t find the Drift “Popcorn” roses locally, and both Andres Hernandez and I tried. But I found them on Amazon for a very good price. I’ve ordered plants I couldn’t find here from Amazon before this time, and they come beautifully packed and healthy as can be.

The clay here was also not helping those Encore azaleas–when I dug them out, some had water at the bottom of the hole, after all the rain we had recently. And that is exactly what clay does. When dry, clay is like cement; when wet, it’s like mud soup. So, now, deeper holes and more sand for drainage to help with the “bathtub” effect. But the real problem was that the Encores had too much sun.

I made deviled eggs again this past week–I was, again, so hungry for them. And I put the broken ones on a recent salad made with some grilled steak leftovers. I’ve been able to eat my noonish dinner on the porch all week, as it has been cooler.

And, I saw this X post last night from Tony Heller documenting that it is actually cooler this summer in South Carolina. (The data is from the US Historical Climatology Network, which is a designated subset of the NOAA Cooperative Observer Program (COOP) network.). Heller has been putting up this climate data recently, state by state.

Screenshot

The design wall is filling up again:

“Prickly Pear” is coming along: two more rows are needed. It will finish at about 67 inches square. I have the centers and the pink backing and blue triangles all cut, but I have to make 16 more of the dark navy blue and pale, pale peach triangles for the third row and 16 more for the fourth row. I cut the binding and borders before I cut into the pink backing for the background units to make sure I’d have enough of that fabric. This project is…slow going. But it is a handsome quilt.

Longarm quilter Wendy Currie (Wendy’s Quilting blog) helped me decide on how to quilt this very modern quilt. I love her work. And I just ordered one of the pantographs she suggested. I also ordered a pink thread for the longarm that perfectly matches that pink field fabric. And I found a backing IN MY FABRIC STASH that is perfect.

The leader/ender scrappy quilt on the left is…scrappy. It is made from the two bins of the 3 1/2-inch squares of Cotton+Steel/Ruby Star Society I cut up back in Maine: one neutrals and one colors. It’s just fun–and will make a cuddly lap quilt meant to be used and used. I will probably donate this quilt to the Patchwork Gals extraordinary efforts to give quilts to those who need them, like foster children.

I spent time yesterday reading my current book: Jan Karon’s THESE HIGH GREEN HILLS. It’s the 3rd in Karon’s Mitford series. Yesterday I hit a part of the book I couldn’t put down as Tim and Cynthia were trapped in a cave with a tiny, hidden opening in the total dark. I find these books soothing to read. Peaceful. Until yesterday, LOL. I had to get Tim and Cynthia out of the cave before stopping reading and going upstairs to sew.

How many times do we get trapped in a metaphorical dark place that we slid into through a tiny opening? How many times does our “light” go out, leaving us in the dark? How many times do we need to be rescued?

It happens, doesn’t it?