Sunday Stuff…

Worked at the barn Friday, Saturday, & Sunday morning and afternoons. Had a small side job to do Friday morning as well, and then a call to help out my HVAC engineer friend Saturday morning. Here’s my progress on Beacon House:

It doesn’t look like much, just more snow infill, but I did 2 birds over one (the 2 darker blue ones):

 

Today, I tried to recreate Deborah’s ort “jar” from memory:

Looking back at Deb’s, I see I need to use a narrower seam allowance, plus make it a tiny bit bigger overall, and a larger radius on the arc on the points. Oh, and maybe be a little neater when I double-sew seams….

Wonderful Wednesday Wrecipes…..

Sorry about the lack of post-age. I’ve been helping out at the barn a LOT due to the barn owner’s rotator cuff surgery at the beginning of November. She’s started P.T., but it’ll be  while before she’s ready to toss 20+ bales of hay down from the loft.

The other lady helping out is there a lot, too, so I feel compelled to stay as long as she’s there, plus she’s riding one of the retired horses, and asks  several times a week if I’ll ride with her. So instead of my usual in-and-out in 90 minutes or less on any given evening, I’m there 2-1/2 hours or more, plus cleaning stalls for about 2 hours three mornings a week. By the time the weekend comes around, I just want to sack out on the couch. Blech. Plus my computer has been slow- I think I have to start taking old stuff off…

Anyway, I came across the soup thru this link from Edgar’s blog. I think it’s the best soup I’ve ever made- it was really hard to stop at one bowl! My recipe below is a tiny bit tweaked from the original, mainly by substituting turkey for beef.

Pasta E Fagioli Soup

Ingredients:

• 1 pound ground turkey (or Shady Brook Farms 20.8 oz. package)
• 1 small onion, finely diced
• 2 carrots, finely diced
• 2 stalks celery, finely diced
• 1 can diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1 can red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can cannellini beans (or white kidney beans), drained and rinsed
• 1 (26 oz.) carton beef broth (or 3 cups)
• 1 jar (25 oz.) spaghetti sauce (I used about ¾ of jar)
• 2 tsp. dried oregano
• 2 teaspoons dried parsley (I used fresh because I had it on hand)
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 3/4 cup uncooked ditalini pasta (or your favorite pasta shape)
• Salt, to taste (about ½ tbsp. kosher salt)

Directions:

1. Brown meat in a large skillet; drain excess fat & discard. Add to crock pot.
2. Drain & rinse both types of beans, and add to crock pot.
3. Add all other ingredients, except pasta, to crock pot and stir to combine.
4. Cook on low for 6-8 hours, or high for 4-5 hours.
5. My crock pot was too small (YIKES!) so I used a French oven (6-quart, I think), and cooked in the oven at 275 degrees for about 4 hours.
6. During the last 30 minutes of cooking time, add the pasta & stir.

You may want to have an additional can of broth on hand- the pasta will continue to absorb liquid as it sits leftover in the refrigerator. When you re-heat the soup, stir in a little additional broth.

Just a Quickie….

Here’s my latest progress on Beacon House:

I finished that window, started the (rein)deer, and started filling in all that snow. And realized that there is a whole middle section of chart-age between this sheet and the right side sheet. I’m starting to implement floss-saving measures now, even though I have the called-for amounts of skeins. I think it uses less floss to stitch large swathes of color (like the snow) at an angle, rather than horizontal line back & forth. You don’t have to carry over to the beginning of the new stitch as far: at an angle, if you end your stitch correctly, you only have to go up or down one stitch to start the next. Try it!

I made these babies for stitching last week:

Joanne Chang’s Carrot Cake Cupcakes, from her “Flour” cookbook. (This was to satisfy a craving for cream cheese frosting- %^P)

We were also introduced to Deborah’s new puppy, Stella. Such a sweet little thing! She didn’t even make a peep! and soooo soft! Nothing like a new puppy and a cupcake to make a night of friends and stitching just about perfect!

F***ing Brilliant!

You may not know, but I'm a huge Florida 'Gators fan. My younger brother is an alum- class of  '85. It was because of him (so goes the legend) that a lot of rules regarding frat parties were instituted. I wear my 'Gators ball cap every morning, with pride, on my walks and at the barn. And I especially love me some Tim Tebow. I've watched him his whole time at Florida, rejoiced at his Bowl wins & championships- I think he's an exceptional role model for today's kids who aspire to any kind of organized athletic teams. I as happy he was picked up by Denver, although Bill Belicheck spent a lot of time with him before the draft, so I kind of got my hopes up that he’d be on the Patriots.

Tomorrow night, Tebow and the Broncos take on the New England Patriots- my favorite  NFL team. I'm torn as to who I want to win. I guess I'll be happy whatever the outcome  %^P

A Face book friend posted this video from Jimmy Fallon. It is absolutely hysterical!

 

Thursday Stitching Update…

Beacon House progress:

My piece of yellow floss ran out with one row to go. I also don’t think the individual snowflakes show up very well as the Smyrna crosses that they are. I used one strand of floss for those because they were just a hot mess with 2 strands.

I obviously didn’t finish this for my barn owner:

But this year I’m planning *SNORT* (we’ll see how that goes!!) to stitch an ornament a month again.

Jane brought these delicious peanut-butter brownie bites:

The peanut butter was low fat, so these were virtually health food! We all had several- yummy!

Off to my couch-TTFN!