Category: Recipes in SC

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?

Bits and Pieces, Sunday, July 30, 2024

The palm trees are “blooming” now. I still find their “flower” fascinating.

I have been so hungry for deviled eggs for days now. And I realized that I would be fine making some with my local eggs (Chucktown Acres) that don’t have corn or soy in their feed, with homemade mayo with a tiny bit of plain mustard that uses white vinegar for the needed acid to make it jell, some finely chopped sweet onion, and, of course, organic olive oil and salt. I wanted these eggs to be plain, so I didn’t add any herbs to my mayo this time.

It didn’t take but a minute–as cooking the eggs is quick and making mayo is even quicker and easier, and now I have some to drizzle over salads and other things in my bowls, like the chicken and potatoes below. I can’t use cayenne pepper to decorate, but my deviled eggs are DELICIOUS. They really hit that hunger spot I had.

Here’s my dinner salad last night. I had made a big bowl of salad with the last of the roasted chicken, so I just took half of it for my supper and added the eggs.

I washed my improv quilt. It has a coral backing that ran when I washed it, so I was nervous about washing this quilt as there are so many light colors on the front. But so many of these fun blocks used glue, so I needed to wash it out. I put 6 color catchers in the wash and crossed my fingers (and toes) as I so love this quilt. She came out beautifully from the dryer, and now is all crinkly and cute.

Right now she is living on a chair in my tv/reading/hand-sewing little room. With different folds, different parts of the quilt show on the chair. Right now it’s the red “wheels” block. (Tara Faughnan is going to do this “block” class again starting in September. If you are interested, go to her web site and sign up for her newsletter.)

So, improv blocks joins “Happy,” where I am working on the final hand quilting of the border. See the big pillow–I found it at Costco the other day so I don’t have to use one of the couch pillows I made to get a hand project up and out of my lap, which is too low for easy hand work. I’ve not had any issues with my neck or shoulders once I adopted this pillow practice a few years back, and as you know, I do a lot of hand work. (The loose orange threads you see are from the longarm basting I did to hold the layers together.)

In line, waiting for its turn, is this recent project which is set up to be a wall hanging and is yet unnamed. You can see the orange machine basting threads, which I will remove as I work.

“Pieces of My Heart” (the neutral) is on the longarm. The colored version with the light heart is growing on the design wall, and I’ve been making parts for the “Prickly Pear” quilt designed by Annabelle Wrigley and using her solid fabrics.

This double heart pantograph is new for me, and I’ll use it on both of these “heart” quilts. I am using a soft grey here as it was better for the backing than a neutral thread. There are enough darker “neutral” blocks here to make the light grey work well.

Enjoy your Sunday!

Bits and Pieces on a Wednesday

The leader/ender quilt is done, and it’s very cute. The pattern is “Pieces of My Heart,” and it is on the “all people quilt” web site. This lap size quilt will be 54 by 63.

The binding will be this Riley Blake stripe. And I found a great video of how to match up the strips on bias binding. It is super easy. And one doesn’t need glue. Here’s the link:

The 3 1/2 inch squares are all from my bins of cut-up Cotton+Steel/Ruby Star fabrics. I have two bins–one neutrals and one colors. The neutral bin is still half full, LOL. I think it is breeding in the dark of night. So I guess this project of using up this fabric is still ongoing.

Hmmm… I’m wondering how this little quilt would look made with colored squares and a low-volume heart. So that’s the new leader/ender project.

I’ve now finished–for the moment–the sewing project Cathy Beemer has been teaching us at our monthly Sit and Sew for the Charleston Modern Quilt Group.

I say “for the moment” as I would like to make a 60 by 60 quilt using this fun and creative method–especially now that I’ve more or less finished with the learning curve to make it.

To remind you what a bigger quilt would look like, here’s Cathy’s quilt, hot off the longarm and not yet bound. Cathy has taken many classes with Maria Shell, and you can see that influence here. (I love Maria Shell’s work.)

I installed a hanging sleeve as I’m seeing a wall hanging here. I sew my hanging sleeves with my binding. And I bound (bias, of course) with aqua, which is working well I think. I used a “request” lighter batting as I’m now going to hand quilt using the big stitch method and 12-weight cotton thread. I learned recently that one can install binding and sew it down with hand quilting, which is nice as one wouldn’t now have batting fluff everywhere. I basted the quilt sandwich on the longarm with easy-to-see and easy-to-clip loose orange thread.

I used a backing piece I had in my stash that has some of the same colors as the front.

Note that I do not sew down the label or the hanging strip until after I have finished quilting in those areas of the quilt.

No rain yesterday, so I watered early evening last night. And I got frustrated enough with my available water sprinklers and how they don’t work well in small yard areas that I spent some time this morning ordering two that should work better.

And, here’s a fun supper salad made with a leftover beef pattie and cooked potatoes, among other goodies, like fresh dill.

LOL, I see I left a sticker on the red pepper. That’s another rant–the glue on the sticker is super strong and takes pepper with it when one tried to get it off.

Daily, I set up my supper when I’m organizing my noon dinner.

Have a great day!

It’s Salad Weather

And the markets are full of wonderful berries. I am addicted to this mixture of organic blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries. (I drizzle the strawberries with a bit of maple syrup to sweeten their sourness as they are often picked green so they can be shipped.)

The other day I only had a bit of grilled steak in the refrigerator at supper time, so I fried an egg in a bit of butter to go on top of the salad. The corn is from some cobs I steamed. The base is a mixture of hearty baby greens. And I splurged on some fresh dill to put on my salads. The milk is, of course, raw milk, upon which I have thrived for over 20 years now.

This supper salad’s protein is one of the stuffed green peppers I froze a few weeks back. I added some of the steamed broccoli I cooked at noon. The onion bits are from an organic Visalia.

My new reverse osmosis system has been installed in the kitchen, so I now have what amounts to purified drinking water–which means it does not have any minerals either, and we need the minerals in water. So I’ve been drinking sparkling mineral water about once a day–poured over ice. Am I succumbing to the southern need for ice in drinks? It seems so…

There are several brands of sparkling mineral water here. I got a carton of Pellegrino at Costco about a week ago.

Today I’m cooking a small lamb rack I also got a Costco. I love lamb, but recognize that either one does or doesn’t.