Oh dear! Long time no post!

It's been WAY too long since I've written a post. Time has been flying by, and I've been as busy as one can possibly be, but I've done no quilting for almost a couple weeks. And when I'm not quilting I'm not thinking about blogging.

I started writing a post, which immediately became lengthy and wordy - you know me, when I tell a story it seems like it takes me forever. I figured no one would take the time to read it all, so I erased it. I'll just let a few words and lots of pictures tell the story.

I've refound my love of cooking, thanks to being on Weight Watchers and actually reading their cookbooks. So I reorganized my kitchen. It was organized fairly well before, but now it's still way better than it used to be.

The first picture shows a car full of stuff to take to Goodwill. There are still more things in the back seat. Clearing out things I've not used in years, things that are worn out, things no longer needed, and things that I'm replacing because they are flimsy and of poor quality.

I also took two large boxes of cookbooks I cleared off my shelves to the library for the book sale.

Staples for baking in the first cupboard to the left of the refrigerator.






More baking staples, plus plastic storage boxes for various cookie cutters, tart pans, and more. A Cuisinart Griddler is on the right of the bottom turntable - replaces and electric grill and an electric griddle.









Baking pans, bowls and liquid measuring cups to the left of the staple cupboard. Gone are all the duplicate pie, bread and cake pans. New little pans - 6" cake pans, pie plates and mini bunt pans are ready for me to start "baking for two".

Now I actually have counter space in this area to work on.









The cupboards for dishes and glassware have also been reorganized. Now that I've shrunk a couple inches it's much harder for me to reach that top shelf.

I can actually reach my pitchers and iced drink glasses now without a step stool! (Gotta love that Crystal Lite in so many different flavors!) I don't show them in a picture, but suffice it to say they are no longer above the refrigerator.






The other turntable - just below the dish cupboards, now holds cereal - much better than on the other side of the room where they were.

The bottom shelf has bins for potatoes, root vegetables and more. Cleaning out the pantry allowed me to move all the pasta from here into the pantry. Much better!


I've not shown pictures of everything, but you get the idea. It's much more pleasant to work here now. I can't wait to bake something! I think the first thing will be cookies for Fred - something that I won't find too tempting to resist! Since this burst of organizing energy I've been spending a lot of time reading cookbooks, marking recipes for trial (what did we do before Post-Its?), and watching Barefoot Contessa and America's Test Kitchens/Cooks Country. And after years of being bored out of my mind when cooking I'm enjoying it again.

Weight loss journey report

After three weeks of doing badly - and seeing the scale rise pound after pound higher - I'm back on track. I did really well eating healthy and tracking everything last week, and it showed at Weight Watcher meeting Wednesday morning. 3.2 pounds down! That's half of what I gained the three weeks before. The other 3 pound loss I attribute to not eating much while I was sick, causing a false weight loss, that went away as soon as I started eating again. I did have a considerable splurge at Applebee's Thursday night - a Long Island ice tea, a half rack of baby back ribs, and the bartender's signature "chocolate milk" for dessert. That totaled a LOT of points, but I wrote every one of them down on my tracking sheet. It took almost every one of the extra 35 points I get each week, but it was worth it. And I've ridden 30 minutes a day on the stationary bike during ball games - every day this week! If I can do that every day from now until next meeting I should see another drop in weight next week. So overall I'm happy with the progress.

My current favorite cookbook is "Now and Later", the newest Weight Watchers book available only at WW meetings. If you attend WW I encourage to at least take a look at it. Every recipe makes one dish for today's meal, plus leftovers and a recipe to make something different from them the next night. I've tried a bunch of the recipes and found only one that wasn't a hit.

Total loss as of 4/15 is 32.4 pounds! It's so much fun to walk back into the credit union - I've been retired for 15 months already! - and being told I'm just fading away to nothing!

No quilting going on here

I've done next to no quilting since my last post - just a bit of appliqué on Tuesday night during our weekly Tangled Threads get together. So what have I been up to?

First of all - I've been wandering regularly into the quilting room, where my friend Kathi's quilt has been pinned to Gandalf for several weeks. This is a beautiful quilt - but not my style at all. I'm having a really terrible time figuring out what to do, and for once the quilt isn't really talking to me. It must be done by Tuesday, so it better start talking soon! Tomorrow I'll stabilize it by stitching in the ditch around all the blocks and outlining the appliqué. I've got my fingers crossed that it'll start talking a blue streak once I start working on it.

Secondly - I reached the point where I had to stop long enough to prewash my fabric purchases. I tend to toss fabrics in baskets when they arrive in the mail or from the store. When there are just too many - the baskets are overflowing, the lid doesn't fit on the big one, and there are fabrics stacked on top of the lid too - I decide I need to take care of them. This happens about twice a year. Foolish, because I can't use any of them until they are prewashed, but that's just the way I operate. So Thursday morning I started washing and pressing. Seems to take forever when I wait this long. I have only two stacks left to press - fat eights and fat quarters on the ironing board and bigger pieces on the recliner. On the table is what I've finished. Doesn't look like much for two days of work, does it? I've been catching up on recorded TV shows while working, so I guess that's a plus.

Finally - now that I'm feeling back to normal I'm back to planning meals and really tracking my weight (I'll save that for the next post.) My Thread friend Kim - who is an excellent, knowledgeable cook in addition to a great quilter - is always amazing me with the things she knows about food preparation. I asked her where she learned so much - I should have known. She watches a lot of the Food Network, and told me the two best shows for learning things are The Barefoot Contessa (who's on a total of 12 times a week!) and America's Test Kitchens on OPB. So I set myself up with a "season pass" to both shows on our DVR, and started watching the recordings on Thursday. I've already learned a great deal - I hope it sticks! I tried a few new things for dinner yesterday, and was happy with the results. When I saw that our tax refund had been deposited I took a trip to Barnes and Noble to choose myself some new cookbooks. And I've started doing research in p[reparation to buying a new grill - what we have now is an old, cheap grill that doesn't do anything well except for hot dogs and hamburgers. My goal is to do at least 90% of the cooking outside this summer!

************
Gratitudes:
1. A beautiful sunny weekend
2. A great start to the Mariners season!
3. New Mariners management who can actually put together a decent team
4. The return of Ken Griffey Jr.
5. Renewed energy and determination - finally!

Disaster strikes!

The cinnamon rolls had been in the oven about 5 minutes - at my best guess. They'd had their "oven spring" where they jump in size as they get hot, but hadn't cooked enough for the "spring" to be baked in.

Suddenly the power went out. Then it came back on. Then it went out again. It came back on again. It went out. This time it didn't come back on. Called the kids to see if I could finish baking them there. We were running around getting ready to head out the door when the power came back on.

I put them back in the oven to finish baking but the damage was done. They've shrunk to half the height they should be - one to two inches instead of 3 to 4 inches. Fred and I just did a taste test - no way are these going to be given as gifts. (If you click on the picture you can see how badly they shrunk in height. Maybe this is a hidden good thing - I'm now much less likely to eat them and screw up my diet!)

I guess our friends at Applebee's will have to wait another week for their Christmas present - and I guess it will be New Year's rolls!

Yum yum! Part 2

The dough has risen twice so I've punched it down and rolled it out. If you want BIG rolls then make the rectangle narrower in width.

I melt a whole cube of butter - these are NOT diet rolls - to spread on the dough.

Add lots of granulated sugar. Does anyone else still have ancient Tupperware like mine - or any avocado colored kitchen utensils LOL?

Sprinkle lots of good quality cinnamon over the butter and sugar.

Sometimes I add raisins - dark or golden - or currents. This time I'm trying pecans - I've not done that before. Sure wish I'd chopped the pecans BEFORE I put the pastry cloth and dough on the breadboard!

Carefully roll up the dough.

Slice and put the slices in the pan. If you want bigger rolls (see above) make your slices much fatter. My pans were made many years ago by my father - a very skilled sheet metal mechanic - for my mother. Thirty-two slices fit exactly so I shape and cut the dough accordingly. When all are sliced and in the pan they are ready now for one last rising. A warm place is needed for that. At our house I've found the best place is on the counter in the bathroom - just turn the heat up to 80 and close the door. Fred hates that I use more electricity to do this but he likes the rolls too much to complain.

They're rising - soon the house will smell SO good!

I have a perfectly good Kitchen Aid mixer and bread machine, but I just love making breads by hand. If you've never kneaded bread dough I highly recommend it - it's a marvelous stress reliever! Cinnamon rolls must be treated somewhat gently, but bread can have the stuffing pounded out of it and it just makes it better.

Nothing much quilty going on

Dare I say it? I seem to have fallen into a bit of a quilting slump. That doesn't happen very often, so when it does I just don't know how to act. Not a good thing when I have a baby quilt to finish and Finn's Challenge to work on. I've been managing to find lots to keep myself busy - of course! - lots and lots of non-quilty things.

In my last post I mentioned that I'd committed to a challenge to plan weekly menus. Yesterday I started the process - creating a spreadsheet in Excel where I could list everything, track points, make notes about items to remember (like taking things out of the freezer the night before!), etc. I added formulas to track the daily points so I could make sure that each day's menus stayed within my allotment. I kept at it today, and have finished five of the seven days. I'll finish the rest tomorrow. I know I'm going to be very happy once I've finished each week - gone will be the last minute quandary of what to fix for dinner.

Today I made a huge pot of vegetable beef soup - love it that a big bowl is only 3 points! I used up lots of three-quarters empty bags of frozen vegetables, plus celery and carrots and fresh green beans from Farmer's market. Because the main dish was so low in points I started a loaf of sourdough bread in the bread machine. Whoops - this packet of yeast must have been past its prime - talk about a deformed loaf of bread! Still tasted great however.

I need to make some aprons like the one I made for Chelsea's birthday - two for gifts and one for a door prize for October's guild meeting. I've cut them all out but haven't started sewing yet. I finished putting sleeves on the last two quilts for the quilt show at The End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center. I was glad to get those last two quilts over to Rick's and Rebecca's and out of my living room. I went through the stack of quilt magazines that I've gotten over the last few months - tore out a few patterns, filed the two or three "keepers" with like magazines, and recycled the rest.

Lucky me had three Joseph days last week instead of the usual two - delightful time spent with someone who must be the most even tempered, happiest, grandson a grandma ever had. He and I took a LONG stroller ride on Friday, walking to the Starbucks in the shopping center that's at least a couple miles away. I kept a very brisk pace, pushing the stroller and talking about the sights with Joseph. We had a great time - we will do it again this week weather allowing - but it sure didn't seem to help the weight loss much. All that brisk walking was worth only 3 exercise points as far as I can tell!

Now that school has started I'm trying to get back into a routine. I set my alarm for 6:30 so I could get up in time to watch the morning news - both local and national - while I put in my time on the exercise bicycle. I like to do that in the morning - by the time I'm really awake my exercising is over for the day LOL! Now - if I can just do that 21 days in a row I'll have created a new habit - at least that's what the experts tell us.

I've now had the tubs of fall decorations in the living room for almost two weeks. Maybe, just maybe, I'll actually get them put out sometime this week!

************

Gratitudes:

1. Wonderfully cooler days

2. A sweet, juicy fresh peach

3. The smell of bread baking

4. Squirrels on the patio coming to say "Hello!"

More cinnamon rolls

But first! Just in case some of you skip the post because you aren't interested in making rolls, I want to announce that I'm rapidly drawing near my 500th post! I think I have about 12 or 13 posts to go. So between now and that last post I'll toss your name in a hat for each comment you leave, and after my 500th post I'll draw a winner. Between now and then I'll have to think of a prize!

And now back to the rolls . . . .

We are seeing some friends for dinner tonight - friends that I promised cinnamon rolls the last time we saw them before Christmas. The nice thing about making cinnamon rolls - or any other kinds of yeast bread for that matter - is that even though it's a long process one can get lots of other things done while the dough is rising.

I made our Christmas rolls using my Kitchen Aid mixer - I'd never done that before. It worked great - until it came to finishing the kneading of the dough. I've always kneaded by hand, and didn't realize how very much I depended on the feel of the dough in order to determine how much flour to add. I always kneaded in the last 1/2 to 3/4 cup flour because sometimes it takes more flour than others depending on the weather and the temperature in the kitchen. When I used the mixer to knead the dough I couldn't tell just by looking. Maybe it was my imagination but I didn't think those rolls were as good. They seemed a little bit dry from too much flour.

So today I went back to my old fashioned method. I mixed up the butter, sugar and eggs in the Kitchen Aid - no reason not to do that. But when it came to kneading I turned the dough out onto my breadboard and used my hands. I could immediately tell that the dough was too wet so I added some extra flour. Sweet rolls don't take nearly the kneading that bread does - the gluten doesn't have to be developed as it does for bread. I kneaded for about 5 minutes adding more flour as needed. Because the dough picks up flour from the breadboard it's important to reserve at least the last 1/2 cup called for in the recipe for flouring the breadboard.

I've cranked up the heat in the bathroom to 85 as we keep our house at about 65, and that's where the dough is rising. I put a tablespoon or so of oil in the bowl and rolled the dough around so it was covered with oil. Cover the bowl with a damp dish towel and let the magical yeast do it's work.

Now I have an hour to an hour and a half to do whatever else I want to do. Let's see - the bed is made, I've had breakfast, I'm dressed - hmmmmmm - I think I'll head to the sewing room!

*************

Gratitudes:

1. A healthy, growing grandson who should be here soon!

2. A healthy, growing granddaughter who has started to walk

3. A spoiled old dog who's decided he loves having me home

4. The feel of bread dough in my fingers as I'm kneading

5. A cup of hot tea with milk

Cinnamon Rolls

Home made cinnamon rolls have been a tradition at our house for years and years. My mother baked them, and then taught me when I was about 10 or so. The recipe she used was from a very old Fleishmann's recipe booklet. It was in black and white, no pictures, and talked about scalding and straining the milk. Mom had already adapted it when she taught me, as it was no longer necessary to heat and strain the milk. She made these at Christmas for sure, and several other times during the year. Sometimes she shaped them as Swedish Tea Rings - my father was a full Swede - and now and then in the shape of a Christmas tree. Neighbors would be given some for their Christmas breakfasts.

My father was a true craftsman - a sheet metal mechanic. Hundreds of schools, restaurants and hospitals throughout the northwest had sheet metal kitchens made by my father. My father made mom's cinnamon roll pans, and then made me some when I became engaged. This recipe makes 32 rolls, which fit perfectly into two pans.

Soften together:

• 2 pkgs. yeast
• 1 tbsp. sugar
• 1 c. warm water

Mix then add to above:

• 1/2 c. evaporated milk
• 1/2 c. very warm water
• 1 tsp. salt

Stir in 3 cups stirred flour

Beat together well, then add to above:

• 6 tbsp. butter (REAL butter)
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 3 eggs

Add about 4 more cups of flour and mix until dough pulls away from sides of bowl.

I add about 3 1/4 more cups of flour, reserving the last 3/4 cup flour for the bread board. I use a pastry cloth. I rub about half of the reserved flour into the cloth, then dump the dough onto the board. Knead, adding more flour as necessary. (The humidity in the room will affect how much flour is needed.) The dough should be smooth and shiny. 4-5 minutes of kneading should do it - it doesn't take nearly as much as regular bread does.

Oil a large bowl. Shape the dough into a large ball, put it in the bowl, then turn around until surface of dough is oiled. Cover with a damp cloth and keep in a warm place to rise. (I put mine on the bathroom counter, turn the heat way up and then close the door.) When double in size punch it down. Let rise until double in size again.

Flour your pastry cloth covered breadboard again as necessary. Punch down dough and turn onto cloth. Shape into a rectangle with your hands, and then roll dough into a large rectangle. Roll until it's about 1/4" thick. It's about 20" x 24".

Melt butter - REAL butter - about 1/2 cup. Spread it over the surface of the dough. Sprinkle the dough with sugar and then cinnamon. I've no idea of the amounts. I just try to cover the dough with a thin layer of each. Roll up the dough, starting at one long edge. Pinch it shut, and turn the roll so the pinched spot is next to the breadboard. Cut into slices of about 3/4", and lay slices in an oiled pan. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise until double.

Bake in 375 degree oven for about 25 minutes or until brown. I always set the timer for 15 minutes, then switch the pans so the bottom one is on the top rack. If I'm giving them for gifts or freezing them I take them out about 5 minutes early, so they don't get too brown when they are reheated in the oven before serving.

Make a glaze from powdered sugar and evaporated milk. I usually start with 2 cups sugar, then add milk until desired consistency. Beat well to make sure there are no lumps. Increase the amount of glaze if you want very sweet rolls - or make a cream cheese frosting for them. Drizzle the glaze over the rolls as soon as they are removed from the oven.

Currents or raisins can also be rolled inside, as can chopped nuts. My mom used to decorate them with red and green candied cherries at Christmas, but I don't as my family doesn't like them.

Somewhere in the process - I think it was when I was shaping the rolls - I forgot to put my apron back on. I laughed when I happened to look down at myself. I couldn't resist poking fun at myself by having Fred take a picture to post.

Enjoy!

Apple pie time

I used to make pies all the time, especially in the summer when our cherry tree was covered with pie cherries, and then later when the apple tree was full of apples. Now the birds get the cherries and the apples are few and far between. I think it's been at least a year or more since I baked a pie, and longer than that since I baked one from our own fruit.

I rashly - on the spur of the moment - promised some friends a few weeks ago that I'd bake them an apple pie. They've been hinting broadly every time we see them, so I figured I'd better come through. I hoped to get it made so I could give it to them the Tuesday before Thanksgiving as I knew we would be seeing all of them that evening. I bought the apples but didn't get any farther than that. As we are seeing them again tomorrow I decided I'd better bake tonight instead of doing my appliqué.

I have a marvelous no-fail pie crust recipe that always turns out perfectly. And I love to decorate the top of my pies with leftover pieces of the pie dough. To avoid having a soggy bottom crust you need to bake your pie in either a glass pie plate or a dark dull metal pie pan. I have my mothers pie pans that are wonderfully dark and dull - they must be well over 50 years old because I remember her making pies in them when I was very small. My crust recipe makes enough for a double crust and a single crust pie, so this time I made two apple pies, and put a crumb topping on the second one.

No Fail Pie Crust

3 cups stirred but unsifted flour

1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/4 cups shortening

Stir the salt into the flour so it is distributed well. Cut the shortening into the flour-salt mixture

Mix together:

1 beaten egg

1 tsp white vinegar

5 tbsp. cold water

Add the above mixture to the flour-shortening mixture slowly, stirring with a fork while adding. Continue to mix until the dough forms a ball. I usually finish up with my hands in order to gather all the flour-shortening crumbs.

This dough rolls out nicely, doesn't tear when putting it into the pan, and the second roll out of the scraps is almost as tender and flaky as the first roll out.

Another secret to great pies - breads too - is to use a pastry cloth cover on your breadboard and a pastry sock on your rolling pin. You need much less flour this way so the dough picks up way less flour as you are rolling it out. It's easy to clean the board also - just remove the pastry cloth, shake the crumbs of flour and dough into the garbage, and then toss in the wash. My pastry cloth is sewn into a tube that fits exactly around my breadboard so I don't have any trouble with it moving.

Oh boy - I can smell those pies cooking. Bring on the vanilla ice cream - I'm ready to dig in!