Thoughtful Thursday- Tomato Edition
Category: Gardening
Musings
I’ve been doing some thinking on how the blog has changed in the past few months and especially at the amount of change since I started this project. I started it as a way to keep myself accountable for using my recipes and craft books and so far it’s definitely done that.
I think though, I may have outgrown that strict model. I am still more likely to pull out a cookbook or to find a Pinterest recipe when I want to try something new, but I am finding it very limiting for some types of recipes, such as baking.
The blog has definitely helped inspire me to sew more too! I am much more adventurous and willing to try new things, as well as finding a ton of new inspiration. I even wrote a short piece with a picture for a huge site, Sewcialists. A year ago, I was still not putting pictures of myself on the blog at all! Now there’s a picture of me with messy hair, wearing bellydance pants!
Don’t worry, I’m not planning on going anywhere, but you may start to see different content. Maybe some original recipes, maybe some tutorials or sewing tips. Possibly even some dog treat recipes!
I’m also experimenting with the new editor, which is still in the Beta stage. Supposedly, it shows me all my pictures how they appear when loaded, but that’s not true… I was only recently logging into the blog on my desk top and saw that the pictures taken with my phone held a certain way loaded sideways. For the record, they look the right side up when viewed on my phone or IPad. Technology and I do not get along. So be patient please, I will fix them as soon as I can. In the meantime, maybe just use it as a way to stretch your neck? 🙂
I have gotten so far off my posting schedule with all the crazy going on here, that I figured tonight would be a great time to just admit it and start over. Fancy, our adventurous pup, got sprayed by a skunk last week, and we’ve spent most of the weekend attempting to make her smell less disgusting. She’s super stressed, as she doesn’t understand why she isn’t allowed in the bedroom, or why we don’t want her cuddling with us. Poor thing. Hopefully the shampoo and other things will help and she can be a snuggly dog again soon.
Other things are going well though. The garden is booming! We have peppers galore. I think I may have to can some more salsa this Friday and use these tiny, but super hot peppers in it. We may not be able to eat it, but it will be delicious!
We also have Jalapenos and cayenne peppers growing.
I will also use these in salsa. 🙂 We even have red bell peppers popping in. I think once I cut back the zucchini enough, they were finally able to grow and get the nutrients they needed.
I am very excited. I thought the red peppers were going to be a wash this year. I had such lovely plans for roasted red peppers in the freezer.
The herbs are growing well, except the bee balm. I killed that one by accident. The lemon thyme is growing back slowly. Everything else is good, but I forgot pictures.
The tomatoes are, of course, growing like crazy! I honestly didn’t expect them to grow this well, but here we are. The Husband had to buy 6 foot stakes for me, as the plants kept falling down! The tomatoes got too heavy. I froze some green tomato salsa using the ones that fell down while being staked.
It was meant to be canned, but I didn’t have enough head space to safely can it. I haven’t tasted it yet either. We have two other jars of salsa opened that I should eat first. It smelled good though and I canned it before work!
Mr. Stripey has yellow tomatoes! They were all in weird places to get pictures of though. I’m so excited! I hope they are lovely. My Indigo rose tomatoes are getting huge! They are supposed to be cherry tomato sized, but they seem to enjoy being in the soil much better than pots. They are in the back. The front ones are a bush cherry tomato.
I’ve also made some delicious plum cardamom jam, which I may have to make a second batch of. I might be selfish and keep it all for me. I guess the Husband can have some too… Maybe… If he’s nice to me. It was from Southern Living: Little Jars, Big Flavors. Here it is on a chocolate chip poppy seed muffin.
I could eat this directly from the jar with a spoon. Maybe I’ll get some more plums for Friday too.
I have also been crafting for our Harry Potter party. I want to make it fit in with my fall decor so I can use it again. I’m a fan of multi season and purpose decorations.
These were jars and vases from the basement that I used mirror spray paint on to make faux Mercury Glass. You know, the old glass that’s kind of streaky and wonderful?
How cool are these? Here’s what some of them look like with LED candles in them.
They are so pretty! I’m going to try some with colored glass items as well. For our party, we need lots of different glass vases, bottles, and vessels. These items will work through out the year too. It’s been fun to find new uses for things.
I’ll have to catch you all up on my sewing too, but that will come at another time. I should probably get to bed so I can finish more projects before work tomorrow. Have a great night!
Not So Simple Sunday- Canning Edition
I have canned all the things! Well, not quite all, I still have a list. I was determined to make a few things for our party this weekend, so those definitely got done, along with some others. I’ll add the jams to the Recipe Roundup, but the savory ones will get their own post. I had lots of extra time this week, so ended up making lots of new recipes as well. Seeing my low numbers for recipes last review didn’t hurt either.
I’ll start with the jams. 🙂 Several of the canned things have garden or local produce.
Pineapple Sage Preserves from Southern Living Little Jars, Big Flavors. The sage was garden grown.
I have another jar in the fridge, as there wasn’t quite enough headspace to safely can it. It’s delicious! I’m hoping the sage come out more as it sits. It will be going in a cake for our Big Summer Blowout Party. The book includes a vanilla bean layer cake with this in the middle which I think will be wonderful and summery.
When I bought the pineapple, the apricots from the farmer’s market looked good as well, so I made Apricot Riesling Jam from Simple Recipes. https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/apricot_riesling_jam/
This one is a very lovely orange color and has just a hint of the wine. I’m looking forward to this on toast. I think it would be lovely on ice cream.
I’ve made this one before, but it’s been a few years. I love it because it does taste exactly like strawberry lemonade. It uses Myer lemons, which are slightly sweeter than regular lemons.
This batch turned very dark red and I forgot to mash up the strawberries, as I had them in the freezer first. They are from last year and I had forgotten that I had them. There’s still a bag and a half left for my next strawberry jam endeavor. I have an Instant Pot freezer jam recipe and a strawberry basil that both want to be made.
There are more delicious jams and jellies on my list, but I need to regroup and figure out what I need. I ran out of single rings, but have tons of new lids. I may have to start storing them without the rings.
On to the recipes!
The Husband got special cookies for picking up the puppers from the dog sitter and letting me stay home. Chocolate Chips and M&Ms!
These were from the cookbook 101 Things To Do With Chocolate by Stephanie Ashcraft.
He liked these, but he likes the chewy ones better.
I got bored with breakfast this week and couldn’t sleep on top of it, so I made strawberry doughnuts. They were supposed to be mini muffins, but I couldn’t find the mini muffin tins.
These are from the Pillsbury: Best Muffins and Quick Breads.
I was hosting craft night the same day, so I made meringues with leftover egg whites from ice cream. These are super crumbly, but they taste okay.
The ice cream is Amaretto Ice Cream from The Cookie Writer.
https://thecookiewriter.com/amaretto-ice-cream/
I had it with leftover peaches and it was delicious! The amaretto is very light, but you can definitely still taste it. There’s only two tablespoons in the whole recipe, but it doesn’t get cooked out, so bear that in mind.
We used the new Food Network magazine already. It’s the September issue. The Hoisin Meatballs were good.
I thought they needed more seasoning in the meatballs themselves, but the Husband thought they were just fine. We used Udon noodles, mushrooms, and carrots as the substitutions. It was nice to find another use for ground beef.
We had Macaroni and Many Cheeses from the 2014 Food and Wine.
We had to have it because of the name. 🙂 I had Gouda, triple cheddar, and a Monterey jack mix. It was quite soupy at first, but firmed up over time. It had parmesan cheese crusted on top. It was pretty tasty.
We had grilled steak for dinner on our anniversary, after going to the shooting range and going to the chocolate factory for a tour. We weren’t allowed to take pictures at the factory.
Mashed potatoes and grilled zucchini completed the meal. The Husband is an excellent grill master, so everything was great. We had fun chocolate from the factory for dessert. I had a peanut butter block and he had cookies and cream clusters.
The range trip was fun, but both of our pistols broke towards the end. My back sight fell off my revolver and Eric’s 22 was not having it at all. They definitely both need to be cleaned and we have the name of a good gunsmith. It was a little disappointing but the rest of the day was fun. 🙂
We had Margarita Shrimp for Saturday. We intended to grill, but had an unexpected rain shower, so they were broiled instead. They were from A Farm Girl’s Dabble.
https://www.afarmgirlsdabbles.com/grilled-margarita-shrimp-kebabs-recipe/
They were still tasty. We paired them with cilantro rice from Five Heart Home. https://www.fivehearthome.com/cilantro-lime-rice-recipe/
We used jasmine rice and it was delicious. This rice will definitely be staying in the recipe collection for a nice side dish. The Husband approves as well, which is surprising, as he doesn’t like a lot of Mexican based dishes. This one is lightly flavored though. It heats up great as it has butter and olive oil in it to keep it soft instead of dried out.
We had it tonight as a side with Tequilla Lime Chicken and pico with the leftovers from salsa making.
The purple plate was awarded for my enormous amounts of canning completed this weekend.
Those are just the jams!
The featured picture is the second set of zucchini and the others as well. I used the peppers in the salsa and the zucchini in squash pickles.
So there’s the update so far. I’ll have a savory canning post shortly. I figured it would be too long, considering how many pickles I made. 🙂
It’s been so much fun to use things from the garden while canning. I’ve tried to use local produce as well, as much as I can. Somehow I don’t think I can find Michigan pineapples…
Stay tuned for more canning! Sewing too, hopefully, but I have been a little busy. 🙂 Have a great night!
Monthly Review
Hello again! This month has been a strange month with getting sick, a blown tire, and many, many social events. We sometimes look at each other and say “did we really plan this much?!” It’s nice to see friends and do fun things, but I am grateful for the chance to just relax tomorrow. I do have some sewing and maybe even some canning plans.
Fancy was with the dogsitter this weekend, as we went to the Toledo Zoo with some friends. We got periodic dog pictures and she looked very content. This was the look I got all week from Fancy when I tried to go sew in the basement.
I made sure to walk her a bunch this week and tried to get some longer walks in. We went for two walks a mile or more and this was her face then.
Then, of course, this was her when we got home.
Silly dog. 🙂
I wore new shorts to the Toledo Zoo this weekend and since we had gone with my sewing friend, she was wearing shorts, a tank top, and a hat she had made herself! The shorts and tank had jungle animals and the hat had sea creatures, so she matched the environment very well. Here is a picture of my shorts fabric. They are very wrinkled from wearing them and are in the wash, so I don’t have a better one yet. (This was taken before we dropped Fancy off on Friday, hence the tiny dog paw in the corner.)
They are Bermuda length and a very light cotton I got at the fabulous discount store. I have about a yard left and need to decide if I want a tank top out of it, or a little cotton skirt. They have a blue cotton lycra yoga style waistband and were extremely comfortable for walking around all day in the 80-90 degree heat.
Here are a couple of other pictures from the zoo. Notice that there don’t appear to be any penguins or flamingos missing… 😉
It was a very fun day and I’m glad we could go. I have never been to that zoo and the Husband had been when he was small, but not recently.
Now for the review part of the post.
I did finish two things from the UFO box; a bag for my friend and the blue floral shirt.
The owl cardigan is done too and I wear it a lot, but it’s hard to take a picture of it, since the owl is on the back. I didn’t finish the blue striped skirt and don’t quite have enough material for the star tank top, but am working on what to do. I think I’ll pair it with a plain black back and go with that.
When I pulled out the blue stripes, I wasn’t sure that I wanted it to be a skirt. I realized I didn’t have a lot of colors to pair with it and now am conflicted. The picture makes it look like a darker blue, but it’s actually very bright. It is also more see through than I realized, so I might have to line it.
I’m still thinking about what else I could make with it if it’s not going to be a skirt.
I did make 8 pairs of the Linen Loungers, plugging a huge hole in my wardrobe. I have consistently worn a pair of them at some point during the day every day this week. There were two that I didn’t blog about, both sleep shorts. One has sharks, made at the beginning of Shark Week, and the other pair has yoga frogs. 🙂
So overall from this one pattern, I made two pairs of shark shorts, the yoga frogs, the plaid Bermudas, purple linen shorts with fancy pockets, the grey/teal/purple with lace, Minion sleep shorts, and flamingos. Whew. That’s a lot of shorts! It’s been so hot lately though that if I’m at home, they are all I want to wear. I had no sleep shorts too, just had been wearing my normal bike shorts, which then caused problems when I had no clean shorts to wear under skirts or dresses. It’s nice to have fun sleep shorts! The Husband can shake his head all he wants, but he also likes his Minion shorts I made him last month, so he really doesn’t mind.
I made two other items specifically for Shark Week this year, a shirt and a pair of every day shorts. Here is my shark week wardrobe! I enjoyed wearing them all and surprisingly, no one really commented! My fashion sense must be either pretty cool, or pretty weird, so no one really wants to say anything. 🙂
I kept thinking I had made more things this month, but I think I was remembering mending some things and doing some organization. Only 11 things got made. My brain seems to want to make 20 every month, but I had to tell it to chill out. 11 is fine. 🙂
The garden is growing well, although I did have some blossom end rot again. We’re trying to be very consistent with watering and it’s been rainy the last little while, so I’m hoping that helps. Here’s some garden pictures. These tomatoes are still orange on the bottom.
There was a bee in the zucchini blossom.
The peppers look about the same still. I’m going to harvest some peppers to use for salsa for our Big Summer Blowout Party. Hopefully I’ll have a few tomatoes to throw in it too!
Foodwise, it was a very blah month. I didn’t make a lot of new recipes. I was better about getting pictures, even if I though it wasn’t a new or exciting recipe. We did eat a lot of garden lettuce and still have some to eat up this week. When I went through my blog posts, I think I must have missed a recipe post, because I didn’t have much going on. Both the Husband and I seem to be in a food funk. Normally it’s only one or the other, so it’s enough tougher when it’s both. We’ve also been out with friends for a lot of the weekends, which tends to be when I do a lot more new cooking.
I made 14 recipes total… That’s so low! Out of those recipes, 6 were new recipes. Luckily, all of the new ones were hits. I only had one miss, the manacotti which didn’t cook.
The Husband’s favorite was the Turkey Parm.
I did use a new recipe from Voracious by Cara Nicolleti- The Olive Oil and Yogurt Cake.
It was pretty good and I ate it for breakfast. It had less sugar and was almost on the edge of savory rather than sweet. It had citrus in it, but you could definitely taste the olive oil. The Husband didn’t eat any. The olive oil weirded him out. I ate it with cream when I wanted sweet and yogurt when I wanted breakfast. It was pretty dense, with a crispy outside and tender inside. The citrus didn’t come through very much.
This post is getting super long, so I won’t type out the whole recipe, but if you want it, I can do it at a later time, or you could visit your local library! 🙂
Overall, I think my sewing is growing by leaps and bounds, but my cooking has fallen by the wayside. I think I’m a little burned out and don’t really want to plan things. It’s very confusing. I think I might go through my cookbooks and see which ones I haven’t used yet and decide if they should really be on my shelf if I don’t get excited to use them. This coming week is fully booked and I think I have mostly late evenings, so I’m going to see when and what I can prep ahead.
Goals for the month:
Food:
- Go through cookbooks and weed them out.
- Meal Plan consistently.
- Try 1-2 new dishes (main, side, dessert). I keep getting stuck on just having dinner new and I can do other things to count towards this goal.
- Use garden produce and herbs.
Sewing:
- Work on October Bellydance costume.
- Sew/Finish one UFO.
- Catalog fabric.
- Go through craft books and weed them out.
Garden:
- Keep things alive.
- Use produce and herbs.
- Develop canning list and plan.
Wow! That post got a lot longer than I thought it would. Thanks for sticking with me! I hope you enjoyed the pictures from the zoo!
Recipe Roundup
I’m sitting on the couch, watching sharks of course, with a dog who is quite certain that she needs pets on her head to help her sleep. 🙂 It makes typing quite difficult. The Husband got me a fancy keyboard for my IPad that’s bluetooth enabled, so the typing part isn’t as bad, but the constant nose nudges under my hands do make it more difficult. Dropping my IPad face down without the cover on the screen didn’t really help the other screen issues I was having. It’s kind of interesting to watch the spiderweb cracks spread across the screen. :\
We just came back from what was about a 3 mile walk on the river. That’s where the featured picture comes from. It was just sunny enough that I wore my shark shorts and a tank top, but there was a nice breeze, so it was a very pleasant, shady walk. Fancy is snoring away. We’re hoping to have her mind less that we’re in and out all weekend.
I have not made any new recipes this week! We had delicious food, but we hadn’t meal planned, so we didn’t really have new ones.
I had grilled cheese one night with chips and veggies. Probably an apple or something too, but I don’t remember.
We had Taco Salad with garden lettuce and fritos on top.
It was delicious! I used my taco meat recipe which is a pound of ground beef, half a jar of salsa, about a tsp or so of ground cumin, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder. I also used chili powder this time, but not all the time. It was a little spicy from the salsa and we had pepper jack cheese too.
We also had Shepherd’s Pie with ground lamb and garlic mashed potatoes. No recipe, just cooked up a pound of lamb, threw in some Worcestershire sauce, chicken broth, salt, and pepper. I used half a bag of frozen veggies and cooked off some of the liquid. The potatoes were smaller yellow potatoes, mashed with cream, butter, salt, pepper, and garlic powder.
Bake it for 20 or so minutes at 400 until the potatoes get a little brown. We had this on a cooler day that had been pretty grey and rainy. A garden lettuce salad went with it.
I made blueberry muffins too, but ate them all! I remembered to take pictures of our waffles this morning that we had with maple syrup made by our friends in their own sugar shack. It was delicious! I don’t typically like maple syrup because I find it too sweet. This is slightly thinner and has a smoky taste. It’s sweet, but not sickly sweet.
MMMMMMM! I enjoyed breakfast very much. We have bottle for my parents too, but it’s going to be hard to keep it for them until we see them. They’ll have to be very nice to us! I think we’ll get two bottles next year, if we can.
The garden is still growing very well. I was a little concerned because we’ve had some really hot days and have a soaker hose in only one of the beds. The tomatoes are so big, it will be tricky to thread the hoses in there.
Speaking of tomatoes, we have a tomato that is orange! Which means soon I can eat a garden tomato!
It might be a Roma, or an Early Girl. These four are definitely on one of the Early Girl plants. 🙂
And Mr. Stripey has a tomato started, as well as blossoms.
No stripes yet, but they will come. I’m so excited to start using the tomatoes. The hot peppers are growing well. They look about the same, so no pictures. The red peppers may be fighting a losing battle with the giant zucchini plant.
This is the view from the front of the garden. You cannot see the back, but the plant now covers the entire box… Maybe next year, I’ll see if there’s a smaller variety. 🙂
We still have some lettuce growing and the marigolds are hiding, but still there.
Well, I should probably go do some meal planning for the week. Have a good day!
Recipe Roundup and Gardening
I was so mixed up on all my days this week and spent all of yesterday making cheesecakes for Battle Cheesecake. So this is a little belated recipe post and a garden update. I will post the party pics and recipes tomorrow, I think. We all had a lot of fun!
The garden is growing very well! We had the lettuce from it in a salad with meatballs after the cheesecake tonight. Everyone liked it and there’s so much left. We may deliver some to my in-laws, as they weren’t able to plant a garden this year.
These are the three buttercrunch. We had romaine as well, but I forgot a picture. It was a proud moment to share our homegrown produce. I’m looking forward to sharing more.
We have peppers of both the hot and sweet variety starting. This is the small Thai chilies.
The spicy peppers both have actual peppers on the vines and the sweets have just flowers. The sweets are getting kind of taken over by the zucchini plant, but they are fighting the good fight.
I believe this is the Jalefuego pepper. The dragon cayenne is harder to take pictures of, as the peppers are still small.
Here’s the mutant zucchini, you can see some pepper plants coming through the leaves.
I have no idea how many squash we are going to get, if we get as many as the flowers, I may be looking for recruits to take them. After I make lots of zucchini things, of course. I’ve read that you can shred it and freeze it too, so I might do that.
The herbs are going well for the most part. I’ve accidentally murdered a few, but they seem to be hardy and coming back.
And, of course, the tomatoes continue to expand. Mr. Stripey is doing well.
Almost all the plants have tomatoes started.
They are growing a little close to each other, so it’s hard to tell sometimes which plant is which.
It will be fun when they start turning colors. I’ll know for sure then.
So now that we’ve seen the food growing, here’s what we ate!
Turkey cutlets looked good at Trader Joe’s, so I made Turkey Parmesan on Sunday. No recipe, just breaded the cutlets with seasoned panko and fried them up. Regular homemade marinara and fettuccine.
I made this after we had walked around the zoo for the photo safari for multiple hours, so didn’t use fresh herbs. They had been a little wilted too. It was good anyway though. It was fun to try something new. The Husband was very complimentary and wants to have it again.
We had sandwiches a couple of the nights. The Husband got the sandwich maker back from his parents’ house and was very excited. It’s a Betty Crocker “Stuff and Munch.” It makes little sandwich pockets and is his favorite way to eat sandwiches.
This was a pastrami provolone sandwich. It was pretty good.
We also had manicotti, but I don’t have a picture, as I was at work.
http://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/easy-manicotti-56784
It says that you don’t have to cook the noodles, but it’s a lie. Cook them at least halfway. The Husband left it in for over an hour after checking it and it finally got soft. It tasted okay.
The cheesecakes were my other new recipes this week, but that will be in the party post.
I hope you’re enjoying seeing the garden. I know I’m very excited that it’s going so well. Have a great night and stay tuned for my party post for Battle Cheesecake!
Recipe Roundup and Concert Pictures
My week got all thrown off by a concert and being still sick. I did go to the doc yesterday and don’t have bronchitis, just really severe asthma flares. I have a stronger version of my meds, so hopefully that will help me kick this. In the meantime, I have been trying to get through it.
We saw Evanescence and Lindsey Stirling with a full orchestra and they were both amazing! Here are a couple of pictures.
It was really hot, but definitely worth it.
I haven’t been wanting to cook or eat, but we did have a couple new recipes this week.
We had chef’s salad with lettuce from the garden! We have so much lettuce right now. It’s been very hot, so the salad was nice and cool. Today it’s already 75 and I’m going to stay hiding inside. My lungs aren’t handling anything well.
We also had a new brand of all beef hotdogs.
They were the Teton brand from Costco and were pretty good. I have to be careful with hot dogs. One of the all beef brands was still in natural pork casings, which wouldn’t have helped me.
I had a friend’s kids over for Lego time and made tacos with homemade tortillas. We had taco meat leftover, so I made a beef taco soup.
I roasted peppers, onions, garlic, and tomatoes and threw everything in the crockpot while I was at work. It turned out good. I like using the leftovers.
We had baked chicken with garden herbs on Thursday, but ate separately, so I have no pictures.
Speaking of the garden, it is growing very well. I do need to water the herbs a little more, but I have lots of tomatoes started!
The zucchini plant won’t even fit in a picture. 🙂 I keep seeing new blossoms on it too, so we’ll have to see how many squash we get.
Here’s the lettuce:
A bunch of the pepper plants have flowers and buds too, so I’m Excited about that. Everything is growing much better than it was in pots!
Well, I’m going to see if I can sleep some more. Hopefully I’ll feel up to doing some sewing, baking, or canning today. For now, I’m content with not coughing quite as much.
Have a great day!
Monthly Review
Well, hello! It’s hard to believe that it’s time for a review again, but I guess it is. My garden has exploded in the past month with all sorts of new growth. I had a salad made with lettuce from the garden just yesterday!
I picked some of both, buttercrunch and romaine. It was delicious! I’ve been picking the basil for caprese salads a lot too. I can’t wait to have homegrown tomatoes and basil for it.
My zucchini plant has taken over part of the garden. (Pictures withheld as to not frighten my father…) I have five blossoms on it. I may be giving away zucchini shortly. 🙂 I think part of the plant ended up in every picture I took of the pepper box. Except the lettuce.
The tomatoes have absolutely taken over their box. I had to find some sticks to stake up the plants. The Early Girls are huge!
Mr. Stripey is holding his own in the corner.
I have some tomatoes started on the plants, but they are hard to get pictures of, as they are small and green. It’s exciting to see them growing though. So far, no sign of blossom end rot, which was the bane of my existence the last couple of years. I think the garden soil is keeping everything much more stable, moisture wise.
The peppers plants have a few flowers on them and seem to be holding up well, despite the encroaching zucchini. The herbs are also doing well. The strawberries never flowered, but that’s alright. I’ll keep them through the winter again and get some more plants for the berry boxes next spring. A friend has some raspberry plants that we can steal cuttings from too.
I’m pretty pleased with how it’s working out. I think we’ll get a lot of yield this year.
I’m also pretty pleased with my sewing this month. I have made lots of useful wardrobe items and am considering what of my ready to wear clothes I can replace or how to fix previously made items that don’t quite work.
My favorite things this month have been my harem pants, my Harry Potter table runner, the abstract floral dress, the blue lotus Agnes, and my Cocoon Cardigan.
I haven’t blogged about the cardi or the three pairs of shorts I have made in the last couple of days yet. 🙂
I finally found a pattern for pj shorts and pants that fits the Husband. He got his minion shorts a few days ago and I can catch up on Christmas pjs too. He has flannel pants with sweater bears on them that are not yet made. Here are the minions.
They were from the book Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross. The failed slipper pattern was from this book, so I was glad to find a pattern that worked. 🙂
I realized that all of my recent patterns have been ones that I’ve traced! My friend slowly dragged me over to Team Trace when I wasn’t looking. She tempted me with PDF patterns that I couldn’t resist. I’m not very mad about it, for being firmly on Team Cut That Sh*t Out (terms coined by my favorite sewing group on Facebook- The Self Sewn Wardrobe by Mallory Donohue.) I will admit that it does make sense, but I still hate printing and taping PDF patterns.
I will admit, this Cocoon Cardigan by Patterns for Pirates, had a lot to do with it as well. It looked so snuggly and wonderful on everyone online who made it that I had to have it.
The shoulders look weird in this picture. I swear it doesn’t actually make me look like I’m a linebacker. 🙂 They are a dolman sleeve, so they start sloped and pick up the sleeve partway down your shoulder. It was a new technique for me and I was super nervous, but it came out so nice. I have plans to make a lighter weight black cardi with an owl appliqué on the back. It’s going to look so cool!
The stars are french terry, which is a new fabric for me too. Here’s a closeup of the stars. They are multi-colored.
There’s a grey colorway with pink stars on the website and I think I want it too. Next time I make this in a non-stretch fabric, I’ll add a tiny bit in width to the lower arms. They are a tiny bit tighter than I’d like. I wore it to work and received several compliments. A very stylish coworker said “I don’t even ask anymore, I figure if you’re wearing it and it’s cute, you probably made it.” 🙂 Also, it has pockets!!
The other PDF pattern I have tried and loved has been the Linen Loungers by Patterns For Pirates. I made two pairs for myself yesterday. I may have flamingo fabric ordered to make another pair…
They are both sleep shorts and have a yoga waistband. They are very comfy and didn’t make me feel fat and horrible, which most shorts do. I will be making more of these. The pattern comes with curved hem option, pants, and bermudas as well.
I’ve done a bunch of organizing in the basement, so I’d like to keep it that way.
Foodwise, we did pretty well. We mostly planned pur meals and we used the InstantPot. We had 24 recipes, with 9 being completely new.
Hits were Korean Beef,
Chophouse Cheesy Burgers, Cinnamon Coffee Cake, and the chewy chocolate chip cookies. The Husband also tried searing pork and did an excellent job!
We only had one miss, the blueberry muffins that were very dense. I managed to make dinners even though I was horribly sick. Overall, a pretty good month.
We’re looking forward to trying to have more new recipes this month and also grilling some more.
Goals for the month:
Food Goals:
– Try a new Instant Pot recipe
– Two canning recipes
– Battle Cheesecake
– Meal plan
– Pantry meals
Sewing/Craft goals:
– 1 or 2 new patterns
– 1 or 2 UFO projects
– Continue to organize
Garden Goals:
– Put together composter
– Keep everything alive
Well, I have to to get ready for a family wedding. I’m wearing a me made dress and my starry cardigan, so I will feel cute all day. 🙂 Plus, I get ice cream! Have a great weekend!
Simple Sunday
“Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade.” — Rudyard Kipling
“Gardening is cheaper than therapy, and you get tomatoes.” – Unknown
“Flowers are restful to look at. They have neither emotions nor conflicts.” -Sigmund Freud
“Gardening is learning, learning, learning. That’s the fun of them. You’re always learning.” – Helen Mirren
Behold the Garden! (Now When Can I Nap?)
Aren’t those roses spectacular? They are growing up a tree. We’ll move the trellis in the fall and try to train them back to it for next year.
There was no Recipe Round up this week, as I mostly made things I have already made and have zero pictures of any of it. No food pictures! I need to step up my game on that. I might be in my tri-monthly food slump again. In the meantime, I thought I’d post about the foods we intend to grow. 🙂
We have also been very busy getting the garden started. It poured on my Husband and FIL yesterday as they were shoveling dirt out of the back of the truck. It stopped by the time I was home from my meeting though, so we were able to finish it by the evening.
Here’s a shot of the whole shebang:
Fancy was excited that the hose was out. She likes trying to eat the water. Hates sprinklers, but loves the hose. She hasn’t tried to climb in the garden since we put the second layer of bricks in. She has sniffed some of the herbs though, so I will have to watch that.
The first plot is the tomato box.
It has 11 tomato plants, two peppers, and two lettuces. Also, herb pots. I’m never sure about putting herbs directly in the ground. I think that’s how we got mint in the grass. From the previous owners; I know better than that!
This tomato plant is an heirloom tomato named “Mr. Stripey.” Seriously. I did not make that up, but it is, of course, the reason I bought it. 🙂
I also have a Husky Red Cherry Tomato, a Juliet Roma Grape Tomato, 6 Early Girls, 1 Roma Tomato (could only find one of them, didn’t feel like going elsewhere,) and an Indigo Rose cherry tomato. Those are the ones that have black stripes. 🙂 I might get enough tomatoes this year.
The second box has mostly peppers and lettuce. Also, I’m pretty sure I have a zucchini plant, but it might be a cucumber. We have to check the receipt.
I should also end up with a bunch of spicy peppers for salsas! I have a “Jalafuego,” a Thai Hot Pepper, and Dragon Cayenne, and a ridiculous amount of sweet red peppers. I thought I grabbed a red and a yellow, but turns out they were both red. Whoops! I guess I’m going to be making lots of roasted red pepper dishes.
We were in a hurry, since it had started raining again, so I missed a few of my normal herbs. I did get lots of lemon thyme to make teas with, along with bee balm.
Those are strawberries in the red pot, bee balm in the black one.
I did get two types of basil: regular and purple.
I didn’t get Thai Basil. I seem to just kill it.
Not pictured are the sage, oregano and chocolate mint. The last two are safely potted, as they will spread.
I might get regular thyme and parsley in the next couple of days. My heart wants me to go get all the things! My brain is reminding me that I don’t have that many more pots for herbs.
We also bought flowers for our window boxes, but they look a little sad right now, so I’m going to post them after they’ve recovered. I’ve also mysteriously acquired a pretty glass solar flamingo. 🙂 Can you get cited for too many flamingos? Asking for a friend…
My parents are coming to visit today. My Mom has been here a bunch, but my Dad has never seen the house, so we’re excited. They should be here shortly, so I should probably do the last bit of straightening up. We’re having crockpot spaghetti for dinner. 🙂
Have a great evening!