Finally....a quilting blog with quilty content:)

I did promise something quilty, didn't I?




And I actually have almost 2 completed quilts!




This first one, I'm embarassed to admit, has been languishing in the bottom of a pile of quilt tops for .......several years. I first blogged about it here. The original intent was for it to go in Jessie's room as a wall hanging to match her batik flip flop quilt. She wanted it as a bed quilt, but I didn't have enough batik fabrics....

And it is now quilted and awaiting it's binding. Which i have to go BUY as I can't find the binding I picked out for this quilt when I first finished the top!

But she has been making noises about wanting her room repainted. Truthfully, she's been wanting her room repainted since Thanksgiving. I told her when your room is cleaned out, I'll repaint it. This past weekend she hauled 3 garbage bags out of her room, so I guess I'm painting over spring break...if she can keep it semi clean. So far it's stayed clean, and they've been off school for 5 days due to a teacher inservice day, the holiday, and a major snow storm yesterday:)






I'm hoping I can talk her into yellow walls with lime green and pink accents, and her furniture painted white. Right now she is lobbying for lime green walls and YELLOW furniture.....



Of course, along with the new paint, she wants a new chair (lime green) for in the corner so she can read, and a new quilt (look at the Diamond Diva kit - that's the pattern and fabric she picked out!) and dust ruffle. So while this little quilt won't be of use in her room, I figure it will be a good lap quilt on those chilly spring evenings!


I'm plugging along on another baby quilt for my nephew, along with a dust ruffle for his crib. I used the tutorial here for the dust ruffle, and talk about a piece of cake! I hope to get the binding sewn on tomorrow when I get home from work, and then it will just be stitch the binding down and deliver it. I'll show pictures of it once it's completed (hopefully tomorrow).





And finally? Jessie made a cake:





She's enjoying baking cakes, brownies and cookies lately. I'm just glad to have a little something sweet in the house every now and again:)

1928

Tyler joined cub scouts this year. Todd was a boy scout all the way through high school (and actually is an Eagle Scout - 5 palms) as is Todd's brother and their father.





Last night we went on a field trip to the historical society.




It was interesting, to see the pictures of what our little town used to look like 100 years ago. They had advertisements, posters, newspaper articles, and all sorts of old kitchen ware and farm equipment.


Tyler had fun having me read the articles and posters to him, until we came to this one:

I don't know how to make it so you can click to enlarge the pictures, but it says: "Home baking in most homes is no longer an economy - it is an expense that should be done away with. Baked goods from our ovens, fresh daily, have taken the place of the home bake day, freeing the housewife from hours of drudgery. Make 1928 a bakeless year in your home."

And for Tyler, who loves nothing more than fresh baked bread straight out of my oven (with butter and cinamon sugar on it of course) - he was appalled that someone would even consider this!

Interesting how times have changed, isn't it?

Kris

Meet Barlie

It was a wonderful drive, but llllloooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggggggggggggggg!

The mom and dad of our puppy.

Add to the fact, I had to do some driving, means I didn't get a whole lot of crafty time. Which is OK, as my neck and back would have rioted if I had tried to do any more.

And yes, her name is now Barlie, which in german means "little bear." So she fits right into our Bair (pronounced just like the animal) family. Thanks Mary for the reminder to post what breed she is - she is a German Wirehair Pointer, and will hopefully be a good little pheasant/bird hunting dog here later on this summer/fall.

I didn't take any pictures of scenery. 1 - I drove through all of Indiana and most all of Wisconsin and I didn't think Todd would appreciate my skills driving down the road at 75 mph and taking pictures; and 2 - as we went through Chicago on Friday, I was just praying that some of the idiots would avoid us. The rest of the time? I was knitting or it was dark.

However, I did get quite a bit done in the two days - most of the back of a sweater I am test knitting for Thea Coleman - Calvados:

I just have 2 more inches to do on the sleeves and the back is done and I will move onto the fronts. It was hard to get a good picture of the yarn color wise, but think varigated green, brown, beige and grey and you'll get the idea:)

While we were involved in some marathon driving, the kids went to my parents house and Jessie made candy with Grandma. Homemade peanut butter cups. Which were so good, the ones that I brought home when I picked them up were gone in....about 10 minutes after walking in the door. So last night, rather than cook dinner, I made these:

You can find the recipe here. Although I did BIG ones, and used crunchy peanut butter. And out of the 24 that I made (I had to triple the recipe), I think we may have 13 or 14 left.

Have a good one,

Kris

Basketball, baking and knitting

Hope everyone had a fantastic weekend. We had a good one.....I won't show a picture of the 5 trashbags full that I took out of the kids' rooms on Friday night in my efforts to clean the house:)Well, my pictures are out of order but here goes:

My newest knit - short lucky. I'm 8" into it and loving it. It's knit from the bottom up, which was causing me a panic attack hoping it won't be too short, but I'm simply knitting the length longer by 2 inches or so if it works, so all should be well. The color in this picture is not exactly right - it's more of an olive green than this grey toned green. I'm hoping to have it done by the weekend. I want to wear it in the worst way......

Jessie and I went shopping yesterday. For nothing fun (Jessie's medication, jeans for Todd and Tyler, a new wisk attachment for my KitchenAid mixer) until we stopped at the junk store. You know you will find something good in a store with a name called "Useful Junk," right? I had to have this scale and wait until you see the bench. The best $20 I spent all day. And that girl can shop with the best of them....

Jessie's comment was "good - we can use this scale to weigh out the pig feed this summer for her fair pigs." ummmm.....no. My postage scale goes down to a tenth of an ounce - I will use that again - what can I say - my obsessive compulsive tendencies come out when I'm weighing out pig feed.

I was in the mood to bake when we got home. Had to try out my new wire wisk and the silicone pastry mat I brought, right?

Sorry I didn't get a picture of the pie before we cut into it. What can I say - the kids and Todd love berry pies.....

And the basketball? 16 to 6 in our favor... The girls were a little intimidated when they first got out there - 3 of the girls on the other team were easily 5'6" tall.

So we now have 1 more game this weekend and then a tournament game. Right now our girls are in second place overall in their division.

Have a great day!
Kris

Grilling

For a brief (very brief) moment I thought I would have to call 911. Then thought to get a pitcher of water to dump on it as the flames were up OVER the lid of the grill.

It would not look to well for a volunteer firefighter's wife to be calling 911 for a house fire, now would it?

But I saved the steaks. And did not burn the blueberry peach cobbler and the brownies that were in the oven. Which are now gone. I had to have 2 servings of each to calm my nerves, right?

No More Baby

He would be MORTIFIED to realize that I still think of him as my baby – since he has referred to himself as a BIG BOY for…..4 years now probably.

But that is a Mom’s right – to think of him that way, right??????

Today was the first day of school. I didn’t get up as early as I needed to……we have friends who are both working full time jobs this year and they needed someone to get their son on the bus. She drives right by our house on her way to work, so I said no problem. The problem will be when she drops him off at 6:45 and I am still in my pajamas packing lunches…..maybe tomorrow I’ll do better. Too funny though when she had to CALL me after leaving wanting to know where I got my pajama pants because she wanted a pair…..uh….vintage sheet that I had and I made them. At least I was decent.

I made a French toast casserole that Katie had posted on her blog a while ago. Can I just say yummy, yum, yum, yum? I mixed it up last night, mixed the topping this morning (at the unheard of hour of 6:30 a.m.) and shoved it in the oven. You all are so lucky you got a picture after I dished up the kids’ plates. The loaf of bread I used was HUGE. I'm thinking I can reheat it for Friday morning as well. Unless Todd wants it for dinner tonight, which is fine by me. Todd thinks this is going to be crap that I am cooking breakfast as he is walking out the door (I offered to let him get up even earlier to cook breakfast, or he could change his hours and go in later……no go).

The great news is, with the kids bus not coming until almost 8:30, I CAN cook breakfast, clean up the kitchen after we eat, get myself ready for work, wash a load of clothes and get them out on the line all before we have to run out the door.

So he is now an official kindergartener. I did drive up to the school to help the kindergarteners get off the bus and get to their classrooms – but did not get to help Tyler, as he had already gone inside the building. Seems like he is ready. He is only going 1 day this week, as they have some sort of state mandated testing they have to do – but his teacher sent me an email this morning. Apparently he asked her If I do a bad job on the testing today, can I come back to school tomorrow and Friday and try again? I really want to start coming to school every day.

I don't know why he looks almost sad in this picture - he might have been concentrating on what Mrs. Hartzler was telling him to do.

I guess he REALLY wants to go to school.

And when I was at school this morning - I NEVER saw Jessie - I'm assuming she was where she needed to be.

A little chicken love

With the kids at home for the summer, I have been baking up a storm. They have to have snacks, and I AM NOT paying $3.99 for a little package of cookies - that will last maybe 2 days. If we are very, very lucky.

But I have issues. I don't like lots of things sitting on my kitchen counters. A crock for my spoons and spatulas and a soap dispenser is about all I can handle. And I wasn't thrilled with a tupperware container sitting there either.

Then I found this on Amazon:

And found these salt and pepper shakers to match:

Which I think will look great with my soon-to-be-yellow kitchen. Well, as soon as I go get the rest of the paint to finish painting it.

And this week, I get a break from all the baking. Seems my babysitter for this week (I have 2 sisters that are alternating weeks) loves to bake. So she made my kids chocolate chip cookies, no bake cookies and today will make zuccinni bread for them. She keeps my kids entertained and happy, she cooks and she cleans my house (vacums, dusts, and does the dishes). What more can I ask for????

Have a great day

Kris

Still here....

Between working a little extra (which I am really not complaining about in this economy) and end-of-the-school-year busyness, well.....last night I met myself coming and going!

Jessie is so into this whole 4-H project thing. Doesn't help that she got her project books, and she can be a little OCD (read: anal) like her mother. And she will tell you this. At least she doesn't say she has a mouth like me, right?









I have been trying to organize my time a little better - and usually right when I come home from work (around 2:30-3:00) I've been spending time cleaning the house. Just for an hour. And baking something. The kids are revolting that I am not buying fruit snacks and double stuffed oreos anymore but....they have their choice, homemade cookies, frozen fruit or crackers for their snacks now.




Peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. I found the recipe on a blog yesterday. I'll look for it later today and post a link here. This is a recipe that will need tripled in our house. It made 38 big cookies. Which are mostly gone now. And I really need to get a cookie jar.

I had to hide some to put in Todd's lunch for today:

Then I have been trying to spend an hour (or more) in the evenings playing in my flower beds. Nothing as intensive as what my Mom is doing to her flower beds at the moment but.....the dandelions are not my friends this year. At least the chickens like them:)

Last night I thought Midnight had the right idea:

So I sat on my swing for 10 minutes and saw this:

While the kids were playing something on the trampoline. I don't know what EXACTLY they were playing, other than it involved a hose and lots of yelling "Pull him up NOW". Ok then.

And I was off and running to make sure chores were done, baths were taken and the kids were ready for bed at 8:00:). Which I then realized as I was starting to fill feed buckets that I had ALREADY fed the steers (or rather, I had helped Jessie feed them when she was done washing and drying Oreo). Duh.....

Have a great day!
Kris

Guinnea Pigs

Before work Tuesday morning, I spent some time online looking for recipes (at the UNEARTHLY hour of 5:30 a.m.). I wanted to find a GOOD recipe for ranch salad dressing, cheesy broccolli and rice casserole and cream of mushroom soup. So when I got home from work (after stopping at the bulk food store to buy some of the ingredients to make these items) I got busy in the kitchen:




Todd and the kids are my guinnea pigs. The waffles are all gone, the muffins are all gone, the saucy pork chops were a hit. So I'm guessing that so far, this new way of cooking is becoming a big hit with them. Todd is of course complaining that I am feeding him to well. My response.....give me a chance to get some of the leftovers into the freezer and you won't be tempted.....




It was a little labor intensive (in that I had no cans of cream of mushroom soup and had to make my own from scratch before making the cheesy broccolli and rice casserole - but I'm sure the homemade soup is much better for us. And I froze the leftovers immediately into quantities that I can use again in recipes) but it was oh so worth it:



Yes, it takes a little more time (especially as I am a very slow cook) but.....it's oh so much yummier than buying the stuff ready to eat from the store. And you know it is a good day when Tyler eats broccolli, rice and cheese all together. On the same plate, in the same pile. And says he would be happy with the exact same meal. Every. Single. Day.


I think I need to come up with something new for tonight though. Todd may revolt if I feed him chicken 2 days in a row:)

Kris

Yummy.....

I seem to say that a lot, don't I?

The youth worker in our church district and I were talking the other day. Her and her husband want to start eating healthier - not eating convenience foods, planting a garden etc.

Sound familiar?

She called me at work this morning (she works from home most the time but comes into the office once or twice a week) - all excited because she found her great-grandmother-in-law's recipe book stuffed in a box - with lots of good sounding recipies handwritten in it. And it had a recipe for homemade waffles in it, which they tried last night and loved. So of course, I had to try them:

Homemade waffles:

• 1 3/4 cup flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 3 tsp. sugar
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 3 egg yolks, beaten
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 cup milk
• 3 egg whites beat stiff
• 1 tsp. vanilla

Measure dry ingredients into mixing bowl. Combine egg yolks and milk. Stir into dry ingredients. Stir in cooking oil and vanilla. Carefully fold in egg whites - do not overmix. Pour 2/3 cup or more batter onto preheated griddle. Close and bake.

Oh. My. Gosh.

You know they are good when Tyler eats 2 waffles pieces (my griddle makes 4 triangle shaped pieces), 2 scrambled eggs and a sausage patty for dinner. We won't talk about how much the rest of us ate:)

Yes, 2 different plates of food - if I take a picture of 1 kids food, I have to take a picture of the other kids food.

The good news - I have a few waffles to freeze to pop into the toaster for breakfasts this week. Supposedly they work very, very well this way.

The bad news - I really need to get another mixing bowl for my Kitchen Aid mixer.

1 bowl for my mixer just isn't cutting it anymore....

And she is bringing this wonderful recipe book into work so I can copy some of the recipes. I can't wait........

In a slump....

Not just the markets, but we are too:) Add in the fact we are looking at needing to make a major lifestyle change in how I cook, snacks we eat, etc.....I really need to work to combat it.


So I'm wondering just how I can stock my pantry to our best advantage. I've never been a big menu planner, but I think that has to change now. For the girl who up until 3 or 4 years ago thought the perfect mac n cheese came out of a box..... Hamburger helper used to be a mainstay in our diet.... - this has to be an attitude adjustment. A good one, I think.....

So I have a question a couple of questions for everyone:

• What are some items in your pantry that you consider essential to cooking from scratch????
• What do your kids eat for snack foods? I need low sugar, healthy snacks now....
• Is there any value to a freezer inventory? I pretty much have an idea what is in there right now...but don't know quantities.....with 2 big chest freezers and 2 refrigerator/freezer combos....we've got lots of storage space.
• What in the HECK do I do with dried mixed beans and dried kidney beans (other than bean soup, chilli and baked beans?)
• Any good down home cooking cookbook ideas......
• And most importantly (to me) give me some good, quick, easy recipes for dinner. We are SICK of the same old stuff.......keeping in mind that Todd is really and meat and potatoes kind of guy.....and my cooking style could best be described as the lazy cooking from scratch style...

I know....these aren't difficult questions at all.....right?? haha

Kris

Simple Weekends...

I had a fantastic weekend.

The baby quilt for our friends on the fire department - is on the frame ready to be quilted:

I worked on spring table runners for my Mom and I, but am going to put these on hold until I buy a yard of fabric from this fabric line for the center stripe (which is discontinued so I have to wait for an auction to end on Ebay). For this pattern, I'm thinking the cherries are too busy......

I cooked a terrific dinner for Saturday night - ham loaf (brought ready to bake from our butcher), green beans frozen from last year's garden, homemade egg noodles, and artisian bread in 5 min. a day.

Fortunately for me, everyone loved the egg noodles. I had my doubts they would turn out, but they did. I cannot wait to eat the few that are left for lunch.

Today I baked a yellow cake to frost with the leftover blueberry frosting from the Angel Food Cake. And we had beef stroganoff w/ homemade egg noodles (again) for dinner.

And I finished pillows for Jessie's bed. Last night we ran to Lowe's to get the pieces to attach the headboard and footboard to her bed. I'm pleased with how it came out:

Now I'm off to watch the rest of the race - have a great Sunday evening!

Kris

Heaven

I was in the mood to bake when I finally made it home from work and errands.....

I had seen a recipe on-line for Angel Food Cake. Which was yummy enough - until I read a comment that had the frosting (which consists of cool whip, blueberry yogurt and powdered sugar). I thought this would be a change from our normal chocolate filled deserts....

So I set to work baking 1 from scratch.

Just a couple rules to follow:

Rule #1 - when you think it is done, leave it in a little bit longer. My oven tends to run hot but not in this case.

Rule #2 - DON'T slam the oven door.

Rule #3 - make sure you hide the frosting. Or the little boy in the house will think it's fine to sneak into the fridge and scoop it up with his fingers!

Rule #4 - even when the top falls in because either you took it out of the oven too soon or you slammed the oven door - it will still taste yummy. So yummy that the entire cake will be gone in 1 evening.....

If you can survive making this - it is Oh so Yummy. This just might become a favorite desert....

Thankfully we couldn't eat all the frosting, so I just may have to bake another one tomorrow night.

Kris

Glass Jar Saurkraut

• Remove outer leaves from cabbage - wash, drain and cut into quarters - discard cores
• Shred 5 lbs. of cabbage at a time - should be no thicker than a dime - I shredded mine right into the kitchen sink to mix it up with the salt in the following step.
• sprinkle 3 1/2 Tbsp. salt over cabbage and mix thoroughly
• pack into clean, glass jars, pressing cabbage down firmly - fill to within 1 1/2" - 2" from top - Juice will form with packing; add water to cover cabbage in jar
• wipe off jar top, put on lids, but do not seal tightly
• set filled jars in shallow pan to collect overflow; keep at room temperature for 10 days. Keep cabbage covered with brine (1 1/2 Tbsp. salt - 1 quart water)

To process, clean jar tops; add new lids; process Quart jars in boiling water bath for 30 minutes

A few words to the wise - pack very tightly - I did not pack mine tight enough - after the 10 days, my jars were only 3/4 of the way full. Still tastes the same, but need more.

Your house will reek to high heaven of cabbage/saurkraut smell after day 5. Just warning ya that it will smell - but not in a bad way (but at the same time, I was oh so glad to get to day 10:))

Chained to the Stove

Not really, but....the alternative is grocery shopping, and with the prices of some things - I can bake much better!

On Tuesday, I stopped at Aldi's. Didn't need much but a few snack type foods for Todd's lunches. 2 boxes of nutty bars and a box of hoho's (the generic ones from Aldi's), 2.97 later I'm out of there. Figured this would get me to the weekend when I could think of some good baking snacks and actually go grocery shopping.

Only to have them be ALL GONE after packing his lunch this morning. What the heck. So today right after getting home from work, I made:

Homemade granola bars:

Strawberry jello with peaches:

Rice krispy treats:

And baked spaghetti casserole for dinner.

Now, normally, I would leave the pans sit out on the counter (for the granola bars and krispy treats) but since I want these to last for a couple days, I'm going to cut them up and put them in containers and put them in the snack cupboard. We'll see if they last any longer that way. My reasoning is they (Todd and kids) won't eat so much if they actually have to open the cupboard, open the container, take out a treat, close the container and put it back in the cupboard.

Think it will work?????

Running the oven

Last night, at 8:30, it was 13 degrees out. I think I NEED to move somewhere warmer....

So tonight is a good night to run the oven. Homemade maccaroni and cheese for dinner with venison sausage and then I might as well make some cookies. Or something. It all depended on what ingredients I have on hand.


Don't these look yummy?!?! They don't taste like regular chocolate chip cookies - they aren't very sweet, which is fine by me.





Of course, the batter was the best:




Amish Chocolate Chip Cookies.

2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs (I used 3 chicken eggs - since ours are still on the smaller side)
1 cup Crisco (the recipe said lard....)
6 tsp baking powder (I used 4 - seemed a little wierd to use that much)
2 tsp. baking soda
5 cups flour
2 tbsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. salt
1 large bag chocolate chips
1 cup milk


Mix all wet ingredients. Add flour, salt, soda and baking powder. Drop on greased cookie sheets. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes (I only had to bake mine for 7 - we like our cookies a little soft).



word to the wise - if you have a dough hook on your mixer, use it. I'm so glad I have a Kitchen Aid with a dough hook - this dough gets very, very stiff.


Makes 66 large cookies that fit comfortably in the palm of my hand:




Sorry for the blurriness - aparently I cannot eat a cookie and take a picture of a cookie at the same time!

And just because he is so cute, here's what Midnight has been up to:

This cat loves to play with rubber bands - of all things. I'll try and get him on video one of these nights. I spend a lot of time hunting him down and taking his rubber bands away because I'm afraid he's going to swallow them. Jessie's hairbands work for him to play with when I get all the rubber bands - from the rubberband guns that someone gave the kids a few years ago:)

Kris