{Post #812} Quilting Frame Moved

This AM my quilt frame was moved down to the sewing room.  Yesterday Susie and I made way for it by moving around everything in my sewing room.  She helped make it short work.

See who is in the window of the sliding glass door trying to see what's happening??  Our curious Pepper.  With the new room set-up, I don't have to be looking in her sad puppy eyes with her begging me to come out and play every time I sit down to sew at my sewing machine.

Moving around nearly everything in our bedroom today.  We put a recliner and rocking chair where the frame used to be in our bedroom.  It will be a nice place to sit and relax to hand sew, read, etc.

~Joan

{Post #811} Bell Garland

This is a picture for Emily.  I am going down to see her in November, and the plan is to make garlands for our Christmas trees from bells she used at her reception for her wedding.  Above is a sample idea i had.  The bells come with the little white bows.  I was thinking a red whispy ribbon just tied at the top in a square knot (as opposed to a bow) would look nice, but I'm not sure I want to do the extra work.  This is  5-1/2" section.  I have always liked Christmas tree garlands but have never seen one I liked that was worth the price.  Now I will use something with a happy memory as well!

~Joan

{Post #810} Washing Dishes

Another BIG benefit to being vegan?  The dishes are a snap to clean up.  Most meal prep only involves peeling and cutting veggies or opening cans.  The baked-on cheese and grease from meats and cheesy meals is no more.  Scour?  What is that?  Grease on drinking glasses?  From what? 

We had a scrumptious lunch today...but the name is funny.  Potato Vegetable Medley.  As if a potato is not a vegetable.  Anyway, I found it in one of my REGULAR cook books.  I used to be a sucker for those little Taste of Home specialty recipe books at the checkout for different occasions.  This one happened to be an Easter one.  The dish was small red potatoes, quartered, baby carrots, and an onion cut into wedges.  Bake those in a covered casserole dish with 1/2 cup of veggie broth and a tsp. of seasoned salt for 30 minutes, then add 2 diced zucchini and bake another 10-15 minutes.  We had steamed broccoli as a side.  Scrumptiousness!!  The only substitution I had to make was that it called for chicken broth.

My son, Ben, also helped me download some apps to my Acer Iconium Tablet today.  So now I have a notepad and can use my camera on there.  Yay, Ben!!  I made a list of all of my quilting UFOs (guess how many there are?).  I am including quilt tops that are not quilted because some are large and will be given as gifts when the time is right.  I make scrap quilts as I have scraps and time, and not all of them have intended homes from the get-go.  I'll post the number and breakdown of the list tomorrow. 

~Joan

{Post #809} Ahh...the Aroma!

Who can resist the smell of a fresh loaf of bread?  Not my husband.  It is not uncommon to see his smiling face right after bread is taken out of the oven.  Today was no exception.  I don't think he even realizes he does it!

The loaf in the front of the pic is the rice bread.  We mill our own wheat fresh for every baking, so the others are browner because they are our freshly-milled flour bread.  Can hardly wait to eat a slice!

~Joan

{Post #808} Bread on Broadway

My wheat bread is in the oven rising.  Doesn't it look like it's "famous" with the lights in the back?  It doesn't?  How embarrassing!

The following is an experiment...using a tablespoon of soy flour to replace an egg in a bread recipe.  The bread is not baked yet, but it is looking like it will be a success.  I just left here for a minute to put the 4 loaves in the oven, so I'll have an after picture soon.

This is one of our adapted recipes to accommodate our vegan lifestyle.  Several of my bread recipes call for an egg.  In the past I read one could successfully sub a T of soy flour and a T of water in baked goods like cookies, pancakes, etc.  I hope it works in breads, too.  This is actually a new-to-me recipe.  We had rice for lunch and had some left over.  This has 1-1/4 cups cooked rice in it.  I will be interested to see what it bakes up like and how it tastes.

It has been raining so hard for so long today that I have been worried it would flood again.  The creek behind our house was roaring and LOUD.  The opposite bank was only showing about 3 inches a short while ago.  The creek normally is several feet on the other side of the bushes that you see sticking out of what appears to be the middle of the creek.  I admit I was getting slightly worried.  It is hard to tell in the pic, but the level was nearly to our back gate.

I am going to go sew some Churn Dash blocks together that I pieced the units for this AM...just until it's time to take the bread out of the oven!

~Joan

PS:  something I noticed from the new diet is that my skin is so soft and supple on my face.  I have rosacea, and there have been many times (like 99% of the time) where it is scaly, flaky, and rough.

{Post #807} Vegan and Seeds of Kindness Update

Breakfast:  same as usual

Lunch:  soup that none of us liked much, but we all ate (that's progress).  It was great northern beans, onion, celery, and vegetable broth. 

Supper:  very delayed because my husband and I were used-car shopping and got delayed about 90 minutes more than anticipated.  I made vegan pancakes, and they were good tasting.  The ingredients are flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, oil, and orange juice.  Mmm-mmm.  It was interesting that as we passed the supper hour, neither of us were hungry (not that we could have stopped at Vegans-R-Us anyway!). 

I also hand-quilted a row on my SOK quilt. 

Off to read some more about the vegan lifestyle and hopefully convert some recipes into ones we can eat now.

~Joan

{Post #806} Vegan and Seeds of Kindness

Our menu for today:

Breakfast:  same as yesterday...oatmeal with apples, raisins, and cinnamon.  This is truly delicious.  Wes peeled the apples today, which was a major improvement to ME.

Lunch:  left overs from yesterday (pasta with marinara sauce, new steamed veggies or veggie stew over rice) with the addition of trying a new fruit...mango.  We all liked it but would never crave it.  We (with the exception of my husband) are not new-food tryers, so this was impressive. 

Supper:  Speedy International Stew.  This was a matter of opening 4 cans and dumping them in a saucepan and heating them 5 minutes.  But it.  was.  so.  good...2 cans of Italian-flavored stewed tomatoes, 1 can of whole kernel corn, rinsed, and 1 can of black beans, rinsed.  We also had sweet potato fries which were just raw sweet potatoes scrubbed and cut for fries and baked in a 450 oven for 30 minutes on parchment paper, covered with foil for the first 15 minutes.  They were decadent.  Soooo good.  Will make more next time.

I bought 4 full grocery bags of fruits and veggies at Aldi today and only spent $26.  Then I did some more shopping at Wal-mart.  I was impressed with the small amount I paid for things (even buying some things out of season).  Not buying meat, butter, milk, and cheese might be less expensive after all.

Of course I'm already thinking about tilling up the whole back yard for a garden next spring.  Just kidding...I think!

The thing about eating this way is that because one is not ingesting tons of salt, sugar, and fat, everything has much more potent flavors.  Oh, yeah...delicious.

The kids still have sterling attitudes about all we're doing, and that makes it so much more pleasant.  I am striving to have some variety so we don't keep eating the same old things.

I had to take Rachel to her piano lesson today, so I got some hand quilting time in.  The Seeds of Kindness quilt has only 11 more rows of hand quilting, plus the 7/8 of the border.  Yippee!!

~Joan

{Post #805} Three Toppers Bound

I don't have a picture, but I quilted and bound (hand-sewn down binding) these babies over the weekend. 

I am spending some time today reading our new healthy-living books to procure some recipes for meals for (I was going to say next week, but I must be honest) supper tonight.  This is such a drastic change for us, but we are all determined to see it through.

~Joan