The Domestic Goddess

I think I should change my name ;-) I feel like a domestic goddess right now, what with all the cooking and sewing I'm doing. Yesterday found me back in the kitchen making our favorite 'butternut squash' soup with the little guys we got out of our garden. I didn't take a picture cos I've made that before and it looked just the same. You can CLICK HERE if you want to see the post from last year about the soup I made. I did take pictures of the acorn squash though. . .

Ya know, I've never even tried acorn squash! I just realized this yesterday when these came out of the oven. These were simply baked upside down on a cookie tray on 400 until soft, about 45 minutes, cos they are just small. Then I added a little butter in the middle and sprinkled brown sugar on top and put them under the broiler (grill) for just a few seconds.

They taste delicious. Of course the butter and brown sugar has a lot to do with that, but I actually had one with nothing on, just scooped out the lovely flesh and it's got a buttery taste all of it's own. At least I think it has.

And today, I've been sewing some pillow covers. Thought I'd take a picture and show you the curtain (and there is only one so far) that I have up in the game room. It's not finished yet, I need to make a sash to wrap around the middle to 'pinch' it together. But


It will look much better when the whole room is done, but I know a few of you have been wanting to see at least a peek of what I'm doing, so there ya go.

oops!

I forgot to take pictures last night when I set out all the yummy food for my book club meeting! This morning I took a picture of what was left of the 'baklava' . . .

This stuff was Y-U-M-M-Y! I don't even want to think how many calories is in it, but man it's delicious. The soup was a big hit too, a couple of ladies even took a bowl home with them, so it must have been good.

The evening was a success :-) Our group has 14 members now and 9 came last night, inc me to make 10. I had to bring in the dining room chairs to seat everyone. We had a fun time, always a lot of laughs and a great discussion about the book. I really love this group and the fact that it's combined with one of my favorite hobbies, just makes for a great night every time.

Guess what? The sun isn't shining!!!!!! I just checked yahoo weather and it's still forecast to get to 101 today but it also says 'isolated thunderstorms'.... oh, I really hope they're right. We so need a good downpour. I'd love to just stay home and watch the rain come down. It would feel so cozy. I'll let you know if it happens.

Have a great weekend.

Morning Harvest

We are in the habit of popping out to the 'Farm' each morning to see what we can harvest. Here is my basket of goodies from today. . .

I'll show you them indivudually. Here's the butternut squash. . .

These seem very small compared to what I see in the supermarkets, but I didn't want to leave them too long and have them go bad. I think I will try to make a small batch of our favorite butternut squash soup today. I'll let you know how it turns out.

These are the Acorn Squash, again quite small compared to store bought. To be honest I've never bought Acorn Squash, but I saw them in the store yesterday and realized they do indeed stay green, they're just a little larger than ours. When I saw ours was starting to turn a little yellow, and had been green for a couple of weeks now, I decided to harvest them also. I'll have to look for a recipe for these as I have no idea what to do with them!

Here's some little chili peppers that have finally turned red and are a little longer than most of the ones left on the plant! Again, don't know what I will do with them though. . .

And here's my yummy tomatoes. . . "let not the eye deceive you'"!

See what I mean about the skins splitting? There I was waiting for these to turn even redder, when I double checked their label - they are called 'Golden Boys'! They don't turn red, they go orange! So, despite the fact that they didn't look ripe enough to me, I harvested some the other day and got a really lovely surprise. These 'guys' are the most sweetest and juiciest tomatoes I've ever had. I wish you could try them! Jason is even eating them on his salad, and he hates fresh tomatoes! He says it's different when 'they're your own' ;-)

And finally. . . cucumbers! We are starting to realize that we don't need to plant as many cucumber plants as we have this year. We seriously can't eat them fast enough, and I've already given a ton away! Here's the pile in the kitchen from the past couple of days. . .

I've also pickled some already, and we're waiting to see what they turn out like, before we decided if we want to do more (of course not with these guys as they won't be that fresh by then!). These guys are going in to the office with Jason today!

Yesterday, I was busy in the kitchen'cooking up a storm'.It's book club at my house tonight and we've been reading (my pick), Pomegranate Soup by Marsha Mehran. I've actually made the pomegranate soup that the book gives the recipe for, and also some Baklava (again from the book). Surprisingly the soup is rather tasty. I'll take pictures tonight when I set everything out for my guests. I think you've got enough photos today to keep you happy ;-)

Mood girls by Mulberry Street Graphics (no longer on line)

Finally!

It finally happened.... Kristen lost her first tooth tonight! What a momentous occasion! One we seem to have been waiting for, for the past year or so. She's 8 1/2 years old, and most of her friends have lost just about all of their front teeth and have new ones in their place. I'm not really surprised that it's taken Kristen this long to lose her first one. She didn't get her very first tooth until she was 13 months old. I have been told that the later you get your teeth, the longer you keep them.

We've waited so long for this loose tooth to come out that her new tooth was already growing in behind it. But here's her cute little smile where you can just see the gap.

I was wondering how long before the others followed, but you know, there's not another one loose right now, so it may be a while! Look at the gleam in her eye, she's wondering how much the Tooth Fairy is going to leave ;-) Hmmm? what is the going rate for a tooth these days?!

OK Tooth Fairy. . . . come and get it!

A good weekend

We went over to our neighbors on Saturday night instead of just watching a movie on our own. The night before, (while I had just popped in for a chat) Cheryl's dad had brought over some ribs he'd just made for dinner. Of course I had to try one and oh my goodness was it good. It was a dry rub he'd used on there and the flavors were ginger and teriyaki. So for Saturday night I bought the rub too and took out two racks of pork baby ribs from the freezer. We took them to Cheryl's for dinner. She grilled steaks too, and made stuffed jalapeno peppers wrapped in bacon AND made strawberry margaritas. And at 9pm she whipped up a quick chocolate cake and put it in the oven, that made the whole kitchen smell delicious. Cheryl's sister and her friend were there and all 6 of us played a game of 'Battle of the Sexes' :-)

On Sunday morning I went to pick up Kristen from her sleepover. She'd had a fun time but said she didn't get much sleep cos some of the girls were talking still past midnight!

I didn't go to church yesterday :-( Instead I got out my sewing machine! We changed the game room around yet again, and it looks in more of a mess than it previously did, so still no pics I'm afraid. In the hopes of 'pulling the room together' once we get it all decluttered again, I bought some material to make some curtains and cushions. I made one curtain yesterday. It came out ok, and now I have to do two more. Hopefully I can get them done this week otherwise I will become bored with them. I am feeling more in the mood for sewing though (a good thing considering my new $500 machine hasn't seen much of the light of day since I bought it last year) and I think I will look in to taking more sewing lessons. It took me an hour just to get the machine to work yesterday! I was probably threading it wrong or had the tension wrong, who knows, but eventually it worked.

My sis asked how the sunflower was doing? I took this picture last week when we finally saw the head of the flower emerge.

Unfortunately the head of the flower never really got any bigger than that and it now seems to have wilted and died already :-/ Still an impressive sight, and we might think of planting more next year around the edge of the garden. The tomatoes could be doing better. Our plants are huge and there are many green tomatoes on them but they seem to be taking a while to turn red, and by the time they do the skins are split and dry (not surprising with 100 degree weather every day) and one was already pecked by birds. We need to put some netting around and I think up the watering too. So far I've only tried one tomato which tasted lovely, so I would like to have more.

This morning we're off to piano lesson at 10.30am and then it will be back home to escape the heat, and get on with the sewing! Hope you all enjoy the day.

Saturday Surfing!

Surfing around blogs this sunny Saturday morning I came across this delightful blog... and she's having a giveaway! I'm feeling in the mood to get crafty and have started thinking about getting my sewing machine out! I said 'thinking', it may be a while before I actually do. But one of the things I want to do when my sewing machine does eventually make it out of the closet, is try my hand at making an apron. For me :-) and then if it turns out good, well, I think a hand made apron for the women I love in my life would be a great Christmas idea. . . . oooh, did I just say that out loud? That's ok, cos knowing my procrastinating self, it probably won't actually happen this year!

But in the mean time, I thought I'd try my chances at winning a lovely apron, and that's why I've posted the button above :-) Here's keeping my fingers crossed! If you want a chance to win too, pop on over to SUSAN's blog.

Let's make our own!

Everything went well at the ENT the other day. He looked up my nose with the camera and said there was no sign of polyps. I don't have to go back until December. I would think that in future I may only have to see him a couple of times a year. Things are ok now, but it will be interesting to see how I fare come the winter months too... but so far, so good.

We weren't very successful at Ikea looking for bean bags. Does anyone know a place where these are easily available? Target had some in, but they were either pink, or embroided with sports motives, and the balls inside of them felt really large! After Ikea we popped across the street to Petsmart. Kristen wanted a new ball for Boo, one that he can actually pick up. He loves playing with balls but he gets frustrated because he can't get his little mouth around most of them to pick them up and bring them back to you. What he needs is a 'soft toy' kind that he had before. We were lucky to find him the perfect one. CLICK HERE to see. Kristen then spied another toy that she liked for him. When I looked at it I realized it was simply just fleece braided together! You can CLICK HERE to see it, but I had a better idea. We went right next door to JoAnns Fabrics, bought a yard of fleece (on sale for $5) and made our own 'Fleecy Clean' toy.

Of course if you want to really go all out, you would buy 3 different colors of fleece, but fleece can be expensive. When not on sale, this one cost $10 a yard! It had 3 colors in it so I thought it would do.

You can see above that the fleece is doggy themed, with little dog houses and bones on it. I cut tassels on either side of this piece to make a 'blanky' for Boo (as per Kristen's request) and there is still another piece left this size if we want to make another toy for a doggy friend. And of course if you have bigger dogs then you just make the braid bigger and thicker.

And while I was in the mood for making stuff I decided to try a new recipe. I posted this on my Facebook page when I found it, but I'm showing you 'my version' here. I made more pesto with my fresh basil on Thursday, and went looking for a recipe in which to use it. I came across THIS ONE from Allrecipes.com. It's called 'Phenomenal Chicken and Pasta in Creamy Pesto Sauce. I didn't follow the recipe exactly but to simply things I just sauted onion then cooked the chicken pieces, added a little wine, 2 tblsp of Pesto and then some heavy cream. I boiled some low-carb pasta (forgot to mention I am trying to eat very low carb at the minute, to help shift these stubborn 10lbs!) and added that to the chicken and sauce. Served with a small side of my home grown zucchini. . . . and voila!


Today Kristen is off to a friend's birthday party, then she's actually staying the night. She is very excited about the sleepover. The little girl was her 'best friend' in 2nd grade, she's called Hannah. It would be nice if they got in the same class again this year, but there's no telling if that will happen.  Jason and I will have the evening all to ourselves! Not sure what we'll do yet either. Perhaps a movie? dinner out? or the usual. . . . .  a movie at home with our feet up ;-)