Fall will be here soon.

Everyone has been talking about how it is fall already, of course that is not true.  This week all that will change.  I love all the fresh food of summer and will be sad for that to end.  All is not lost though.  Autumn is my favorite time for food.  Rich, warm and comforting food will soon be a mainstay.  Does this mean the food will be unhealthy, of course not.

Here is look at the menu for this week.  Meat is on the menu more than usual this week.  Friday I will spend the evening with my quilting friends!

Sunday Chicken with Brussels Sprouts

Monday Fettuccine with Seared Tomatoes, Spinach and Burrata

Tuesday Honeycrisp Salad with Maple Vinaigrette add some chickpeas to salad

Wednesday Slow Cooker Red Beans and Rice

Thursday baked-honey-mustard-chicken with a salad with pears and pomegranate

My new love

It’s true I have a new love, free motion quilting!  I am still learning so many new things.  I started an Italian language class last week.  Wow I’m back to pre Kindergarten days.  Learning a new alphabet is a little bit challenging to me.  Of course it’s not completely different so I do have a head start.

Last week I also took a free motion quilting class with, Cathy Franks http://cathyfranks.com/  She is a wonderfully talented lady.  I was so nervous about this class that I practiced as much as I could the week before class.  Once class began, I felt pretty comfortable.  I did well in class and come home and continued to practice.  Yesterday I knew it was time to start a real project, no more practicing.  I made a super quick split nine patch table runner.  This morning I quilted it!!  I love the way it looks.  Is it perfect?  No, but it is perfect to me.  Here is a look at the front and then a look at the back, the back really shows off the quilting.

Quilt Finished

I did finish a quilt this summer.  I must admit summer is usually time I do not sew or quilt.  The sewing room is upstairs and can get quite hot plus since it’s hot I really don’t like having a quilt on me.  It is really hard to put on the binding without having that quilt on you.  Well that might not be completely true.  One could finish the quilt on the sewing machine instead of hand tacking down the binding. 

I made this quilt for the French Seam State Fair Challenge.  The French Seam is a great little store in Indianapolis.  They have a wonderful selection of apparel fabrics and a small but great selection of quilting fabrics.   My challenge was the color surf, a really pretty deepish blue.   I had the fabrics picked out right away.  I have been collecting ocean fabrics.  Next I needed a pattern.  Sonia taught me to quilt and she has 2 of these stars hanging in her house.  I love them and thought an ocean star would be perfect.  I do love the way this turned out. 

Weekly Menu

It’s another wonderful week!  I do love putting together a weekly menu.  Looking at recipes is certainly one of my favorite things to do. 

This past weekend I did a lot of cooking and loved it.  Really no meal was bad this past weekend.  My two favorites were  Potato Bacon Breakfast Taco and Thai Chicken Chopped Salad.  I think these two will will be repeated.  Repeating a recipe is very rare for me.  There are just way to many yummy recipes to try.  

Here is a look at this week’s menu

Monday Mediterranean Kale Salad

Tuesday Pasta with Tuna (use broccoli)

Wednesday Beet and Cabbage Borscht and Kale and Goat Cheese salad

Thursday Spicy Sriracha Chicken Quinoa Bowl and Chinese Restaurant style Green Beans

Friday baseball game!

Dessert for the week Red, White and Blue Berry Parfaits

Banana Nut Muffins (eggless)

Yesterday morning I wanted to make muffins.  After thinking about it for a couple of minutes I decided to make this Sour Cream Banana Muffin recipe.  I felt the recipe was too large and could use a few other changes.  Here is my version.

Banana Nut Muffin

2 tablespoons butter, softened

1/3 cup sugar

1 ripe banana

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup white wheat flour

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup walnuts, chopped

Heat oven to 350ºF

Mix together the butter and sugar for about 4-5 minutes, until pale yellow in color.  Add in the banana and mix until banana is well blended in.  Mix in sour cream and vanilla extract.  In a separate bowl whisk together the flours, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Add dry ingredients into the wet ones, mix together gently.  Mix in the walnuts.  Spoon into muffin pan.  I made 8 muffins with this recipe.

Bake for 21–25 minutes.

Cool for 5 minutes in pan and then remove and enjoy.

 

Menu for the weekend

It’s July 4!  Happy Independence Day for all of us in the USA.  This is one of my favorite holidays.  Families seem to be less stressed for this let’s just have fun summer holiday.  We are having a quite day at home.  We will grill and have a couple of special desserts this weekend.  Whatever you do this weekend, be safe and have fun.

Friday July 4!

Lunch  Italian Pesto Pasta Salad

Dinner Lemon Chicken Skewers, corn on the cob and Rice Pilaf

Dessert Pineapple Butter Cake

 

Saturday

Breakfast Potato Bacon Breakfast Taco

Lunch Thai Chicken Chopped Salad

Dinner Zucchini Pancakes and Honey Mustard Pork Tenderloin

 

Sunday

Breakfast Brown Rice Porridge

Lunch Strawberry Poppyseed Bacon Salad

Dinner Chicken Cream Cheese Taquitos

Dessert Panna Cotta with Strawberry Balsamic Compote

Chocolate Pudding

This summer I am trying not to eat ice cream.  I can’t go completely without ice cream this summer but I will definitely eat less of it.  I do love it.  I have a smoothie that has been a go to any time I want some ice cream.  Here is the recipe to this wonderful smoothie.  Strawberry Chocolate Milkshake.  

Now onto the pudding recipe.  Usually I do not like pudding.  Any pudding from a box or pre-made is certainly not for me.   I am beginning to love making pudding.  I looked over a few recipes before creating this version.

Chocolate Pudding

serves 8 or 4 if you love pudding

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup cornstarch

2 tablespoon cocoa powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 3/4 cups milk plus 1/4 cup milk

4 ounces dark chocolate, chopped

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon chocolate extract

In a medium saucepan combine sugar, cornstarch, cocoa powder and salt.  Whisk this together to blend.  Add 1/4 cup milk (I used whole milk but really I think any milk will work), whisk until smooth.  You need to blend the cornstarch well or lumps will form.  Mix in the rest of the milk and heat over medium heat.  Whisk often, after about 8 minutes the mixture will be thick.  Then add in the dark chocolate.  Cook another 4 minutes, mixing the whole time with a rubber spatula.  Remove from heat and add the vanilla extract and chocolate extract.  Strain into a medium bowl (with a spout is certainly nice).  Pour into serving bowls and chill for 2 hours.

Weekly Menu

I have to plan ahead.  After work if I come home without dinner planned I don’t make dinner.  I wish I could be an Iron Chef cook but that is just not me.  Of course I have heard the Iron Chef chefs do not cook without planning ahead as well.  Usually every weekend I sit down and plan out my menu.  We eat a lot of vegetarian meals, many healthy meals and well every once in while completely unhealthy things.  Here’s a look at what we are eating this week.

Sunday  Salmon with herbed butter and Honey Mustard Brussels Sprout Slaw

Monday Chickpea Salad with pita

Tuesday Slow Cooked Pork Tacos

Wednesday Pulled Pork Stuffed Sweet Potato

Thursday Italian Pesto Pasta Salad

Friday Lemon Chicken Skewers, corn on the cob and Rice Pilaf

dessert Pineapple Butter Cake

 

Let’s Keep Learning!

Cathy

Friday Night Finishers

I have the best group of friends.  My quilting friends are really some of the best friends you could ever ask for.  We get together every so often to do a Friday Night Finishers night.  Now most of the time we start projects, really very little finishing happens.  Today I was going to finish a quilt.  Going to is a key word here.  This afternoon I head down to begin a fun night of sewing and chatting.  I get there and start handing tacking down the binding.  As we chat my friend T says hey you should sign up for the state fair challenge.  You have until July 1 to sign up, she says.  I say, I don’t think I can finish a quilt that quickly.  Well about 1/2 hour later I’m at the store signing up for the challenge.  There it happened again, Friday Night Finishers turned into a start a new quilt night.  Of course I only have the binding to work on.  I spend the rest of the night hand stitching with my mind in over drive about what I am going to make for my challenge quilt.  I do think I have a great idea in mind now let’s see how this really turns out.

I did almost get the binding completely attached, almost of course.  I do think the next time I sit down with it I will finish it.

Here’s a look at this fun quilt in progress.

 

Let’s Keep Learning!

Cathy

Wine Class June 26, 2014

This is a weekly class put on by Payless Liquors.  I started attending these classes at the start of this year.  Really I think we started the first of January.  These classes have been great.  They are free, we try 6 – 10 wines per class and we get a 10% discount if we buy any of the wines.  Of course the shop wants to sell wine and I do think this class certainly is a great way to help increase sells.  This is a large shop and over half of the store is wine.  It certainly can be an overwhelming experience.  The classes certainly help make the wine shopping experience easier.

This weeks class may be favorite one yet.  The lady teaching was so good, her knowledge was amazing and her willingness to share this knowledge was equally amazing.  The wines were all good, some certainly better than others.

  This is one of my favorite Chardonnay.  It has flavors of lemon and lemon rind, limestone and nice acidity on the finish.  The wine has not been aged in oak but has gone through 100% malolactic fermentation.  I think this would pair wonderfully with creamy cheeses, creamy pasta dishes and, if I wasn’t allergic to them, oysters.

This Chardonnay is from Chile.  It has a sweeter fruit flavor than the first one.  I thought more like the flavor of lemon pie with a floral finish that had mild acidity.  I have a hard time picking a food to pair with this one, think of it more like a porch pounder.

This was the wine I was most excited to try.  100% Cabernet Sauvignon!  It has red berry , green bell pepper, and stone  flavors with medium tannins on the finish.  This wine has seen no oak so the fruit flavors really show.  I would serve it with steak and/or lamb.  For about 10 dollars this is a nice wine for the price.

This one is a new favorite of mine.  Very nice red and black berry, plums, bell pepper, black pepper, and cedar flavors.  It has a long earthy finish with nice acidity and high tannins.  I would serve it with a nice peppered steak.

This is a really nice Malbec.  It has red fruit, floral and vanilla flavors with a long finish and medium tannin.  I do think this is the perfect wine for burgers on the grill this summer.

This is the wine we bought!  It has a plum/prune, leather and Mexican mole flavors.  Very rich and smooth.  I really think a beef dish with chile powders will be perfect with this wine.

Let’s keep learning!

Cathy