Frankenmats.

Do you recall, before I got ill, way back to February? 

I was playing about with crumbs.

Well today, they finally got some more attention. I had gone into my room to have another look at those florals to see if I could come up with a solid plan for them. But I was distracted by the crumbs. I have played about making up blocks here and there and had even gotten some of them sewn into good sized pieces for placemats. One was even quilted, using the templates which Tony gave to me at Christmas. Today I found myself making Frankenbats for the rest of the pile..

Some have not only frankenbats, but also Frankenbacks. LOL

Some are more scrappy than others, but that's ok, these are just utility mats for my table, and I wanted to use them to practice using my quilting templates.

In hindsight, all of those tiny little crumbs and the multitude of seams was probably the wrong project for a first try at using my templates.

I struggled at times to move my sandwich and the template in unison.

A close inspection will reveal many little mistakes.

But I can live with the errors and to be honest, the fronts are so busy, even I'm hard pressed to find the wobbles and I'm easily distracted by all of the happy memories of other quilts and projects all sewn together to create these Frankenmats.

And here they all are.

Six Frankenmats and a frankenrunner.

Not only will those very busy tops hide my first attempts, I think they might hide a few spills too.

Now, I just need to find a suitable binding fabric. I think I may have enough of the blue grey that I used for the backings. Hmm, where is my tape measure?

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While I sewed in my room, Tony fiddled in his room and visited the kitchen to bake bread.

He made a pretty good looking loaf.

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ANZAC Day tomorrow.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of he sun, and in the morning

We will remember them.

More Kitchen Happenings.

When we still lived in Ramsey on the Isle of Man, Tony and I both enjoyed visiting one of the local Chinese Take away stores.  We have been disappointed not to find a good replacement here in Timaru. So we have been trying out various recipes for some of our favourites.  Tony especially misses his Deep fried crispy shredded beef. We've tried one or two recipes that I have found on the internet, then this one popped up on Pinterest.

Crispy Chilli Beef 

This recipe got a big thumbs up. I tweaked it a little the second time we made it by adding the carrot pieces.  Oh my goodness, even I have to agree, it is very tasty and we will be making it again.

This morning I came across a yummy looking slice recipe and just had to give it a go.

Chewy Coconut Slice.

It took a little longer to bake than the recipe said, but it is incredibly good, tasty, moreish and chewy just like it's name says.

I highly recommend both recipes. 

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My mystery illness seems to have turned a corner. My voice is improving, I sound almost normal at times. I still sleep late and take naps, but I'm feeling better.

Thank you to everyone for your get well wishes, it really does mean a lot.

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Time to go and play with Lucy. 

 

In the kitchen

Just as a change from Lucy, I thought you might like to see what else is going on here at my place.

Although I'm off work with something respiratory I have been able to get on a do a little bit in the kitchen. Tony as you know is partial to some home baking and has been known to devour a whole slice in less then 16 hours!

I'm happy to say this latest slice is in to it's second day.

I wonder if he hopped on the scales recently?

This tasty wee treat is called magic slice.

It's one of those recipes where you pretty much dump everything into the tray and let it sort itself out.

Very tasty. It was a new to me recipe and will be a keeper. I'd better have a look about and decide what to make next as it is almost gone now.

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A friend recently asked if she could have a baby off my spider plant. The plant was pretty heavily laden and many babies broke off easily as I tried to prise out just two or three pieces. So I popped them all in to water. They only took a few days to grow roots.

A job for today will be to get them potted and ready to go to new homes. 

There are still plenty of babies on the mother plant, but it is getting a little late in the season for propagation, so I'll leave them where they are until spring. 

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Before I get all green fingered though a must do job today is to use up some tomatoes.

The weather this summer has been changeable to say the least. Hot one day, cold the next followed by a few days of mediocre. A recent spell of warmer weather brought on a whole bunch of tomatoes.

Added to the few that were already in the pantry I have enough to make a batch of relish and also a small batch of sauce. Hopefully Tony will volunteer to help chop and stir again today.

With frosts forecast for next week we had better make the most of what we have as I don't think there will be many more batches of sauce or relish this year.

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It was good to see those of you who made it into Chookys impromptu zoom session on Saturday. I still sound weird and get out of breath over nothing, so will be on to the Doctors office again tomorrow. (Monday) Though I did sound almost normal when I was talking to Tony early this morning.

Well that's my news, I'm off to get busy in the kitchen. 

Hope you're all having a good weekend. 

Weekend progress

Thank you to those who sent get well wishes. 

We've established that it is not covid!

But what ever it is, it got worse since Fridays post.  I sound like scooby doo, or a tweenage boy.

It's making me just ill enough to sleep in past nine and run out of energy very regularly.  But I have been able to carry on crafting. I thought about playing some more with my rulers, but decided that required too much brain power, next I thought I might try cross stitching, but that just didn't appeal. In the end I spent some time with Lucy, it really does not take much thought or effort to cut and baste plain white honeycomb pieces. So I did that, until I ran out of papers.

Next I started sewing some blue squares together, and adding white honeycomb pieces. After joining the first row of crosses together on Friday, I was able to free up some more honeycomb papers. It feels a little like robbing Peter to pay Paul, but at least I was able to make progress.

So here is a whole weekends progress, in between naps and snoozes. There are a couple more square blocks that were completed, but I forgot to take a picture of them.

Honeycomb papers are hard to get hold of in NZ at the moment, everywhere I look has them on order and is awaiting delivery. So in order to free up some more, I'll have to finish the row of squares and add another row of crosses. 

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It wasn't all about Lucy. 

On Saturday I made a batch of tomato sauce for the freezer. Well I ended up as more of a supervisor really, I set out with good intentions but after chopping all the onions, a carrot and some celery, Tony helped out by chopping the massive bowl of tomatoes and volunteered to stir the pot while I had a rest.

On Sunday I made a flapjack. Tony helped again. Weighing all the ingredients as I read them out.

Although I've made flapjack many times before this is a recipe I had not tried previously. 

It was a little dry, maybe I'll tweak it and try again.

It must taste good, there are only three pieces left!

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Well that's my news. How was your weekend?

 

A foodie post

 I often think to myself  while I am baking...

'I should get a photo of this and blog it'.

And then I usually forget.

I know many of you do post blogs about food, especially new recipes.

Recently I have been remembering to get photos while I was creating in the kitchen. Here are the last two days worth.

Yesterday was Shrove Tuesday, or pancake day. I'm not really a religious person, but do like to note some of the tastier traditions, and pancake day is one of them. I made a yummy batch of buttermilk and bacon pancakes for lunch.

Tony very much enjoyed them.

Prior to making the pancakes I had made an ANZAC slice.

It's always a winner too.

We had a slice each after lunch, while it was still warm.

Then I tucked the remainder in to the red baking box, before heading off to work.

By the time I got home from work at 10.30 pm, there were three slices left!!!

Tony said he wasn't sure if it was up to standard and had to carry out extensive trials.

LOL

We polished off the last slices for supper.

So today I needed to refill the box. I had some buttermilk left over from making the pancakes, so used it up in some cheesey scones.

Another of Tony's favourites, I wonder how long they will last?

Then as a reward to myself, I made myself a chocolatey treat.

Do you like chocolate?

How about hot chocolate?

Do you like these little treats?

This is a new to me recipe.

I really don't recall where I saw it, but someone on the WWW suggested warming some milk and dropping two or more of these little balls of bliss in to it.

It doesn't have to be the red ones, it can be any of the flavours, but my fave is the red.

YUM!

I find that the boxes and sachets of instant hot chocolate have added sugar or sweeteners and they are just too sweet for my taste, but two of these is perfect.

What a yummy treat.

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A day off work.

Tony will not be home for lunch.

What's left of the day is mine.

I'm off to sew.