We're Back in Action

So, we've been away from the blog for a little bit.  The past 6 weeks have been the usual mix of life for each of us: some weeks were better than others, some moments were fantastic, others...not so much.  We decided to get the blog back on track and we look forward to further postings.

Since I last wrote, my husband and I renovated our kitchen!  After we finished, I couldn't believe that we didn't change everything years ago.  When you think about it, the cliche of the kitchen being the heart of the home is really true.  You're in there multiple times a day, making messes, chopping things up, simmering sauces, cranking up the oven, wiping down counters, soaking pots and pans, etc.  The kitchen sees an enormous amount of activity several times a day.  My feeling is, we're in there so often, we might as well enjoy it.  I think that's why I started to fall in love with cooking over the past few years. A lot of times it's easy to look for ways to stay OUT of the kitchen...making excuses for lack of time to cook and eat, blaming being tired or exhausted from the day on always eating out.  When cooking becomes a hobby, being in there is simultaneously a joy and an amazing way to relax.  I've said it before, but when I'm in the kitchen, I'm happy.  Chopping, peeling, prepping...all of it is soothing to me instead of a burden.  Pretty much everything Carl and I make is from scratch, and really, at the end of the day, I don't feel like I'm spending thousands of hours in the kitchen in order to achieve that.  To me, making homemade things is natural and easy.  And really, I think of it in the same terms as I consider making a cake from scratch versus using a pre-made mix: if you're going to be cracking eggs, firing up a mixer, and using a spatula to pour batter into pans, why not just add a few extra steps and make everything from what you already have in your pantry anyway? Plus, and this I discovered only a few years ago...a cake from scratch actually tastes like cake.  To me, cake from a box doesn't taste remotely like cake.  A few extra steps, and the taste difference is enormous.  By the same token, I'd rather do a few extra things in the kitchen and end up with food that is homemade and has a minimal amount of processing and additives.

While renovating the kitchen, I also discovered how much I've grown to depend on our own cooking versus grabbing take-out.  The kitchen was out of commission for about 10 days, which translated into 10 days worth of ordering out and going to restaurants.  I was ready to lose it.  There's only so much take-out I can deal with anyway.  Typically we grab a pizza or something on Fridays, but the rest of the week, we cook.  Having to eat out for every meal for such a long time started to get repulsive much quicker than even I anticipated.  I truly felt like I was just ingesting crap and I started to crave vegetables and fruit, which are of course very hard to come by when you're ordering out.

Since our kitchen has been renovated and re-organized, we've been cooking non-stop.  Clambake Soup (a recipe that produces an enormous amount and has a list of ingredients a page long....it was completely fabulous to make and eat this past week,) Slow-Cooker Pulled Pork, Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches, homemade macaroni and cheese, omelets for breakfast, Fully Loaded Potato Skins for a party...the list goes on.  Today, I'm actually running out to the store in order to make 2 Mediterranean Cheesecakes, which is perhaps the most delightful appetizer I've ever tasted, the recipe courtesy of Meg.  It will require lots of chopping up and mixing, and the use of specialized equipment (springform pans.)  I can't wait to get started!

A Weekend of Plums

So, here we are at the end of the summer.  It's Labor Day weekend, and as a child, I used to pretty much hate this holiday.  It was hard to find any joy or frivolity in it at all, because, although it was certainly an extended weekend, school had already started and I'd be returning there the following Tuesday.  It was always difficult to approach Labor Day with the reckless abandon I'd jump into the 4th of July with.  Or any other holiday, really.  Labor Day to me was always a holiday that fell at the wrong time.


This, my friends, is one of the things I most love about being an adult.  Time sort of shifts, and months and occasions take on newer meaning since you aren't attached to a school timetable.  This Labor Day weekend of 2010 (how are we so far into the year already, I beg of you to tell me?) has been beautiful in Cleveland.  Chilly, perhaps, and brisk, which is a bright contrast to what I always associate with Labor Day: oppressive heat and humidity.  I think we got those two weather adjectives out of the way last week.  It routinely hit 90 degrees and going outside after noon was widely-regarded as foolhardy.  Now it's breezy and fall-like, and I'm wearing jeans for the first time in months, as opposed to skirts, dresses and capris.  Lovely!

To celebrate the end of summer, on Friday I decided to make some more jam.  I've already detailed here how I make jam, in this case, peach.  I decided to make another batch because summer fruit season is rapidly coming to an end.  I know I've talked about this before, but canning is funny because you're doing it in the heat of summer when you really can't stand to be over a pot of boiling fruit, or faffing around with piping hot glass jars.  In the cooler months of fall, when you would love to be inside messing around in your kitchen, it's too late.  You absolutely need to capture fruit at its freshest and most natural peak.


So, determined to seize the day, I made another round of peach jam.  There is nothing better than a late summer peach, in my book.  This batch of jam is exclusively for my pantry, where it will sit in cool oblivion throughout the fall, winter and spring, until I reach in and grab a new jar to top yogurt with, add to a Peanut Butter and jelly sandwich (thus elevating the kindergarten classic to a gourmet lunch) or use as a topping on ice cream.  


After making the peach jam, I set out to do some random shopping.  I went to Costco, which is dangerous.  My love for Costco runs way deeper than it probably should.  While there, I spotted a lovely, 4-lb box of...what else...Plums.  Immediately I recalled seeing a recipe for Plum Jam on my pectin recipe insert.  On a whim, I bought them.  So, for the second time that day, I made jam.  This time of the plum variety.

Pretend like, for once, this blogging program didn't switch my photos around from landscape to portrait.  Just imagine that, even though it's incredibly far-fetched and nearly impossible to visualize.  Ha! Anyway, here are the lovely plums.

Plum jam, to me, is genius.  The plums are soft enough to slice that they aren't a pain to prepare.  The only difference with other jams is that you have to simmer them for 5 minutes with water before you start making the jam.  AND this recipe yields a whopping NINE half-pint jars! Woot Woot!


Plums factored into my weekend again, when I had to think of a nice dessert to take to Nicole's house for a cookout on Sunday.  I briefly entertained the idea of making a cranberry white layer cake, the recipe I found and fell in love with in the current issue of Midwest Living, but I decided that would be a bit much for Labor Day.  As fall-like as it is right now, it's still early September and there will be plenty of other chances to eat cranberries and layer cakes up until Christmas!  I decided to use my favorite everyday cake, which I've also blogged about here in my Random Recipe buttermilk selection.  I got this cake from the fabulous Smitten Kitchen blog, and it's perfect.  I've used raspberries, blueberries and strawberries in it.  It's a light, moist easy cake that isn't fussy but tastes absolutely fantastic.  It reminds me of something you'd eat on a farm...on a nice plate of china overlooking the fields. (hey, don't get snippy with me about making far-reaching overtures about food...my grandparents actually DID have a farm in upstate New York, and some of my favorite memories as a child were eating food by the big bay window in the kitchen, which overlooked the corn fields and the horse track.  And then my siblings and cousins and I would go tear around the fields, getting into various forms of mischief and burning off all those calories.  Bliss!)


Anyway, even though I made 9 half-pints of plum jam, believe it or not, I still had several leftover plums.  Another plus to canning: you use a small amount to create a huge amount.  So, this time I decided to make the Buttermilk Cake with plums!  On that topic, you must check out a link to a plum cake on Smitten Kitchen.  I toyed around with the idea of making this one, but I don't have the right cake pan, and I really had a craving for this first cake.  She talks in a lovely manner about Plums and how they signify the end of summer and the beginning of fall.  Read about it, and make the plum cake yourself!, right here.  

How pretty is this?? Here is the plum version of the Buttermilk Cake.  This is just one plum that I sliced and arranged on top of the batter.  From this point onward, you sprinkle the whole cake with a tablespoon (or more) of sugar and then bake it.  The great thing about this cake is that the batter comes up over the fruit and bakes over it.  So you end up having a lovely surprise of fruit in the middle.  Like in this next photo...

Ta Da! Here is the finished Plum Buttermilk Cake.  Note that the batter came up over the plums and baked them right into the cake....yummy.  I hope this version tastes just as fabulous as the berry ones I've made, but I guess I'll find out at Nicole's tonight!

Avocado Love Part 2

Along with Meg, I am also experiencing a love affair with avocados. (Like the Avocado Green I'm writing this in?!)  

Avocados are simply amazing.  I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I had never tried them up until a few years ago.  That's when I went to my now-favorite restaurant, momocho.  This is a modern Mexican restaurant, and guacamole is one of their signature appetizers.  In fact, you'd be downright foolish to go to momocho and not sample it.  There's a basic guacamole which is fantastic, but then there are also more heavenly combinations: guacamole with goat cheese and tomato, with blue crab and corn, with pineapple and jicama.  I was hesitant about trying the guacamole at all, but my parents ordered a sampler on the first time we went to momocho and I fell in love.  Eating their guacamole is truly like eating the best thing in the world.  It is silky, flavorful and filling without being heavy.  It tastes so fresh.

Needless to say, after momocho, I fell in love with avocados.  I have since made my own guacamole at home on numerous occasions (pretty impossible to mess-up and insanely easy to personalize....mash your avocados, add salt, chopped onion, garlic or tomatoes and anything else you think would be fabulous! Don't forget to add some lemon juice so the avocados don't brown...)  

I have also been to restaurants where guacamole is a featured spread on the sandwich, instead of the ever-upsetting mayo.  I'm not a mayonnaise fan, and I doubt I ever will be.  But can I tell you how fantastic a layer of guacamole on a turkey, cheese and bacon sandwich was?? Thank you, bistro in Boston, for introducing me to yet another versatile use of the avocado!

I also eat slices of avocados on top of soup.  Layer some on top of a spicy tortilla soup, and you get cool and creamy mixed with hot and spicy.  Ahhhhhh....I need to whip up some soup as soon as it gets cooler!

And when Meg texted me that she was eating avocado gelato, my mouth immediately watered.  I am dying to try this! I've never had avocados in a sweet sense, only savory, but I can imagine how fabulous it must be.

Yay for avocados!

Eggs in a Basket

So, this past week Carl and I visited my family in the Buffalo/Niagara Falls region.  We had a couple days off from work, so before we went out of town, we had kind of a staycation at home.  While at home last Saturday afternoon, I was watching the Food Network and saw a chef, Sunny Anderson, making Eggs in a Basket.  It looked so cute and so yummy --- a hashbrown crust filled with a baked egg, topped with cheese and bacon.  We decided to get the ingredients and try them out.

Here is the recipe, as copied and pasted from the Food Network Website:

Ingredients

• 3 large russet potatoes, peeled
• 1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted
• Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper
• Nonstick cooking spray
• 6 slices prosciutto, about 2 1/2 ounces, chopped
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 6 eggs
• 3/4 cup shredded provolone

Directions

Special equipment: jumbo sized 6-cup muffin tin

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a food processor fitted with the grater attachment, push chunks of the potato through the chute to grate. Once all the potatoes are grated, put them into a piece of cheesecloth or a clean kitchen towel and squeeze to remove the moisture. Add the potatoes to a large bowl, stir in the melted butter and season well with salt and pepper, to taste.

Spray the muffin tin lightly with nonstick cooking spray. Press the grated potatoes evenly into the muffin cups being sure the potatoes go up the sides and a thin layer and covers the bottom. Bake until the top edges turn light golden brown and the potatoes are cooked through, about 35 to 40 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl toss together the prosciutto with maple syrup and a few grinds of freshly ground black pepper. Set aside.

Remove the potatoes from the oven and gently crack an egg into each cup. Bake until the egg whites set but the yolk remains runny, about 6 to 8 minutes.

Remove from the oven and set the oven to broil. Top the eggs with grated cheese and put the maple prosciutto on another sheet tray. Broil both until cheese melts, and prosciutto crisps slightly, about 1 minute.

Top the eggs with crispy prosciutto and serve immediately.

So, like with most recipes, I improvised a little bit.  I typically love bacon or prosciutto and we actually cook with it a lot, but this time we were out of it.  We had plenty of eggs and cheese, so all I needed to buy were the potatoes.  I decided to skip the bacon this time.  I also used cheddar cheese instead of provolone, simply because that's what I had on hand.

These Eggs in a Basket were truly so much fun to make!  They look so pretty, and they're really filling.  When you bite into them, the hashbrown base is crunchy and a bit salty.  The egg is nice and soft (ideally you have the yolk still-runny, kind of like in an Eggs Benedict) and the cheese on top is simply amazing.  We ended up eating a couple for breakfast and then eating the rest for dinner.  These are one of those rare food items that would be great for any meal --- breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner.  They were also easy to make!  And now...my photos.

Woot Woot! Okay, I forgot to take a picture of just the hashbrown bottoms.  Anyway, this is the picture of them with the eggs already baked in.  You'll notice that I baked them until the whites just cooked through.  They go back in the oven when you top them with the cheese, so you don't want to overcook them at this point.  Also, you want the yolks to be slightly runny anyhow!

 

And here they are covered with melted, yummy cheddar cheese! They would have been superb if a little bacon or prosciutto was added at this point, but I didn't have any on hand.  Plus, this would be a good version to serve to vegetarian people or to eat on Fridays in Lent. (for all you fellow Catholics out there....holla!)

And here is a finished egg in a basket out of the muffin tin! They come out surprisingly easy, as long as you remember to spray the heck out of the pan with a non-stick spray.  Look how cute they are.  Since you used a jumbo muffin pan, they're also a pretty big size, and the potato layer is fairly thick.  These will fill you up!  Enjoy!

 

Guess What this Bag is Made From....

Would you believe it if I told you this super-adorable bag was originally a pillowcase???  Looking at it, you'd never know, would you?

I've blogged before about the sewing and quilting prowess of my MIL and SIL.  Recently, Stacy, my SIL, told me that she found a pattern in a library book about easy sewing projects.  It involved making a bag out of a pillowcase, and she was making one for her and one for me! I was super excited about it.  I knew the colors would be purple and yellow, but that was as much as I knew.

Yesterday, we met for coffee after dinner and she gave me the bag! I was stunned...to me, it is such a cute design, so practical as a big bag to tote things around in, and overall just so sharp-looking that I simply can't believe it originated as a pillowcase.

This bag would be ideal as a grocery bag, a library tote, or a quick beach bag.  I plan on using it as a library bag and shopping tote.

Stacy bought the two pillowcases from Walmart to make the bag, but I couldn't help but think of circumstances where you could re-purpose old pillowcases and turn them into eco-friendly tote bags.  For instance, remember when you were little and you were changing the colors and designs of your room every couple of years? I personally had a Strawberry Shortcake room as a preschooler, and then I moved onto a series of purples and blues by the time I moved out of the house.  What if, instead of getting rid of all the different pillowcases I had as I upgraded bedding and designs, I was able to make these tote bags out of them?  Even a plain white pillowcase could be dyed with RIT to a suitable color and transformed into a stylish little bag.  But really, how cute would it be for a little girl to carry around her own library tote from a pillowcase she used to have in her room?  I'm not one for decorating in "character" themes for little kids --- there's not much I dislike more than the Disney princesses --- but once that little girl changes bedding, it would be super cute for her to carry around a princess tote bag.  Or a Dora tote bag.  Or a Yo Gabba Gabba! one.  I don't know, visit a store that carries children's bedding, and you'll see the possibilities are endless.

I think this is such a great way to re-purpose a pillowcase.  Because, typically I think, they get thrown away when you change sheet sets.  All of these sewing ideas make me think I REALLY need to get sewing lessons...I can't rely on other people to make all of these great ideas for me all the time...  Can I? (Just kidding...I need to learn!)

A Hater in Love with Gardens

I admit it...I'm a hater when it comes to yard work.  I have, to the best of my memory and knowledge, always hated plants, dirt, digging and weeding.  Shockingly, I am also no fan of flowers.  I prefer never to be sent them, as just looking at a lovely bundle of flowers provokes anxiety:  I look at them truly as ticking time bombs...how long will it take me to kill them this time?  You see, I have never managed to keep a plant alive for more than, oh, a week.  No matter what I do, it seems to be the wrong thing.  And that's just houseplants.  I have zero desire to spend my precious free time up to my ankles in dirt, coming across worms and heaven knows what else, in order to plant new flowers or spruce up the yard.  One of the main selling points for buying our condo, in fact, was the advantage that we don't have to do any yard work at all.  No, blissfully, a lawn company comes and takes care of all that for us.  They mow our lawns, remove our snow, and plant our flowers. (quite satisfactorily, I might add.) While I think flowers are pretty, I can't for the life of me imagine spending hours outside under the hot sun watering, weeding and preening.  I am a hater when it comes to gardening.

Enter this past week.  Carl and I visited Buffalo for a few days, where the majority of my relatives live and where I myself held an address for over a year during the early part of my college career.  We stayed with my aunt, uncle and cousin, who are simply the most amazing family you will ever encounter in your life.  I can't begin to tell you how lucky...how miraculously lucky...I am to be related to these people.  At any rate, yesterday morning, Carl and I were poking around their yard after doing the usual trip-errands like getting gas and visiting an ATM.  I went into their backyard, where I remembered my uncle used to grow sunflowers.  As a child, I vividly remember riding the swings on the swingset with my cousin as high as they could go, our feet nearly touching the enormously high sunflowers.  Well, it's been quite awhile since I was a kid, and I was pleased and delighted to note that the garden now bears all kinds of fruit and vegetables!! I was immediately enamored and took bajillions of photos.  

Imagine walking through a gate on an August morning and stepping into such a lovely garden.  Tomatoes to your left: cherry and beefsteak weighing down the vines.  Just below them, lovely and waxy banana peppers.  To the far corner of the garden, a huge raspberry bush blooms.  And directly along the back wall are grapevines.  Yes, grapevines!! My family has grapes growing in their own backyard, how awesome is that?? I took a photo of a bunch where one or two of the grapes even started to turn purple.

I imagined the possibilities of such a garden: imagine having an entire raspberry bush at your disposal! My aunt told me that, while this year most of the raspberries seemed to dry out, on most summers they have an overabundance to pick from.  And the grapevines were a suggestion of my cousin, who is now an adult and lives on the east coast, but as a young child brought up the idea of growing them.  Now, after growing for the past 20-some years, they serve almost as a privacy fence along the backside of my aunt and uncle's house.  Lovely.  

So, I am now in quite the quandary.  I hate gardening to the point of near wincing when I talk about it, but I want a garden like this!! However, I fully admit that I know it would wither and die under the supervision of someone like me.  Let's be honest...I'm also less than enthusiastic about starting such an undertaking on my own.  I know my good friend Akane has her own garden, and now that I know my aunt and uncle have a thriving one, I feel I can go to several people with what will undoubtedly be many insane and appalling beginner's questions.  But I can't do it alone.  So, dear friends...who wants to start a garden with me next year??? I say we go half-sies on everything...labor, start-up costs, seedlings, etc.  Then we can both reap the benefits, and I have less of a chance of destroying a new crop of plants.  We have almost a year to think about it.... any takers?? Any? Hello?

For now, as you mull over my once-in-a-lifetime offer, enjoy the photos of the loveliest garden ever.

I love you, Summer, but I'm ready for Autumn!

So I never want to be someone who wishes her life away: it's Monday, and you want it to be Friday.  It's winter, and you're yearning for spring. (that one, I think is unavoidable...especially with Cleveland winters!) Fall arrives, and you're looking forward to Christmas.  I try as best as I can to live in the moment and fully appreciate each day, and realize what a true gift it is to live it as a healthy, happy person with lots of loving people in my life.  All that being said...there comes a time with each season where I gleefully anticipate the next one and I want to put a lid on the current one.  As hard as I try, I can't avoid it!

So here we are, in August.  August is a hot, sweltering month.  Summer is winding down, but we still have a long way to to go.  At the beginning of August, we all start seeing advertisements for Back to School supplies.  When I was in school, I absolutely hated this time!  It was proof positive that the summer was winding down and I'd be back in school before I know it.  Worse yet, I'd be back in school in SEPTEMBER, which has always been my least favorite month of the year.  It's piping hot outside, but you're stuck in school.  The school year had just begun, too, so you had a lovely 9 months to look forward to before the next vacation.  In short, it was awful!

As an adult, I still pretty much dislike September.  You see, by around August, I start getting nostalgic for Fall.  Sweaters and jackets start showing up in stores, and though I know by the time March rolls around I will want to throw all of my sweaters onto a big pile and light the whole thing ablaze after wearing nothing BUT warm clothes for the past 5 months, I get excited when I see that fall is coming.  By September, I want to be wearing my fall clothes and enjoying apples and pumpkins and all the whimsy we associate with fall, but it is invariably 95 degrees out and I'm sweating while running after a classroom full of 2 and 3 year-olds on the playground.  Ick.  

I have a feeling my desire for fall will grow stronger this year because I'm already looking forward to it a very special component of it: cooking.  If you're like me, once it starts getting warm outside (and by that I mean once the temperature reaches the glorious 65 degree mark in Cleveland sometime around April or May) you spend most of your time cooking quick, light meals that are usually fired up on your grill.  And I love grilling.  I love summer food.  I love being out of the house as much as I can. I concede that nothing beats the taste of freshly grilled chicken or burgers.  But it's August now, and I miss cooking.

I miss stirring a big pot of beef stew, chili, or soup when there's a chill in the air and leaves are falling.  I long for the amazing smells of comfort food baking in my oven.  I return in thought to when I frequently have pots of homemade applesauce simmering on my stovetop.  And I think about those two glorious spices that, to me, signify fall and winter better than any other spices:  cinnamon and nutmeg.  Ahhh...I want my kitchen to start smelling like warm cinnamon again.  

But...if I were to try that now, I would alienate my husband, who would complain (rightfully so) that I'm trying to roast him.  It's hot enough as it is with our air conditioner on, and it gets unnecessarily hot when the oven is cranked up or the range is on full heat.  Even if I could stomach facing a hot kitchen on a hot day, who would really want to eat such hearty, heavy food in the middle of summer?  You never go over to someone's house in July or August and get served pot roast.  The very thought is appalling!  It's way too intense for summer.  And don't get me wrong, I love that.  Tomorrow I'm going over my in-law's house for ribs and corn on the cob...what's better than that?  

Still, I look forward to inviting people over for beef bourguignon or loaded baked potato soup.  I can't wait to throw a crusty loaf of bread on the table and encourage people to sop up their plates with it.  In short, bring on cooking season, baby!

And while I know it will be here before we know it (what does time do, if anything, but fly faster than we can ever believe?)  I decided to whip something up in the kitchen in the middle of the summer.  This particular recipe required both my stovetop AND my oven! 

Without further ado, let me tell you about Sicilian Lemon Chicken.

I got the recipe from Lake Erie Living magazine, and I figured it would be perfect to make right now.  Though it requires being pan-fried and baked, the overall dish is light and summery.  You think of lemon chicken, you think of summer.  The cook in me smiled in delight and charged out to the nearest grocery store to buy the items!!  Here is the recipe!

Sicilian Lemon Chicken

4 chicken breasts

Vegetable oil for frying

2 eggs

1 cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs

3 tablespoons milk

For lemon dressing:

4-5 lemons

1 tablespoon crushed garlic in olive oil

¼ cup vegetable oil

¼ cup Parmesan cheese

4 basil leaves, chopped

¼ teaspoon black pepper 

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together eggs and milk in a shallow bowl and set aside. Pour Italian bread crumbs into a shallow bowl and set those aside. In a small bowl squeeze lemons (remove all seeds). Add crushed garlic, vegetable oil, Parmesan cheese, chopped basil and black pepper and set aside.

Rinse and dry chicken breasts. Cut each piece horizontally into two and then fillet the half of chicken that is thicker into two pieces. When finished, you should have 3 pieces per breast. Pound chicken between sheets of plastic wrap.

Heat vegetable oil in sauté pan over medium heat. Dip chicken breasts into egg mixture and then into bread crumbs. Fry chicken until golden brown.

Place chicken into a roasting pan. Pour lemon sauce over all layers of chicken. Cover and bake for 20 minutes. Plate the chicken with lemon wedges and fresh parsley.

* This recipe can be made up to the point of baking and refrigerated the night before. Do not add the lemon sauce until you bake it. Remove from the refrigerator 30 minutes before baking to allow it to rise to room temperature. 

I copied this recipe exactly as it was found on Lake Erie Living's website.  I made it recently, and it was perfect!  Better yet, I got my cooking fix: I chopped garlic and basil, squeezed the heck out of 5 lemons, filleted chicken breasts, and fried and baked.  Ahhh...I feel much better now.  Back to enjoying summer!

But first, please enjoy the photos of my lovely Sicilian Lemon Chicken!

Here are the three bowls needed for the lemon chicken. The one on the left is the egg and milk mixture you use to batter the chicken.  The middle is the breadcrumb mixture which then coats the egg-dipped chicken.  The third is the frankly amazing and tasty lemon sauce that you bake the chicken in!

Ahhh...the battered and pan-fried chicken cutlets.  Ready to be put in a baking dish and covered with the lemon sauce!

The finished lemon chicken! That's right...turn your head to the right and you'll see it.  For some reason, both this blogger program and my photo program think this is supposed to be in portrait instead of landscape.  No matter how many times I edit it and save it, it turns out this way! Bah! But hey, it's a photo of lovely lemon chicken, so I can get over it!  By the way, you'll notice that some of the chicken in my baking pan is more blackened than other pieces...to avoid this, simply de-glaze your pan inbetween the different batches you fry.  It will remove any residual bread crumbs and pan juices that create the blackened look.  We actually really like blackened chicken, so it isn't a problem for is.  And it accentuates the recipe rather than overpowers it, so it's not a big deal to us.  Your choice!

"Life is better than death, I believe, if only because it is less boring and it has fresh peaches in it." ~Thomas Walker

So, today I got to spend a lovely morning with Meredith and Gabe at a Summer Market. (more on this later, I assume, in a post by either one of us!)  As we were driving to the craft market, Mere told me that I had to remind her to give me a peach; turns out, one of her good friends grows peaches and Meredith had a couple last night.  They were exquisite, they were so fresh, and she saved one for me!

After our morning of shopping and coffee (and Gabe!) we pulled into Meredith's driveway and she gave me the peach! There it was, ripe, lovely and beautifully pink and yellow. I instantly smelled it, as they recommend you do, and it was the sweetest smell.  I said to Meredith "This smells exactly like summer." You know how sometimes you say things, or something happens, and you know with absolute certainty that you will reflect upon it at a later date? I instantly thought of how it feels in the depths of winter...when Christmas is over and spring is a long way away, and I think I will remember smelling that peach in her driveway at the height of summer after attending a craft market on Lake Erie. That memory will probably bring a little bit of summer to me as blizzards rage outside!

Driving home, I couldn't help but reflect on how lovely the peach was, and how fantastic it is that Meredith saved it for me.  It was a small gift, but then again, what on earth is better than a freshly-picked peach given to you by someone who knows you will enjoy it?

And so I had to take a picture of the one perfect peach sitting next to me in the car.  And I love that I have a friend who thinks of me when she eats a fresh-picked peach and then saves one for me.  If that's not a friendship made in heaven, what is?

Check out this lovely peach! Thanks for saving it for me, Meredith! It was heavenly!

Late July, 8:30 AM, Peach Jam

Beautiful Mason Jars just waiting to be filled with peach jam!

So, I've been wanting to post about canning and making jam for quite some time now.  Over the past couple of months, I've made probably 4 or 5 batches of homemade jam.  The problem was, it was such a new experience to me that I never felt comfortable taking pictures during the process.  A few of the crucial steps take place in under 60 seconds, so I definitely didn't want to turn my back for a second and grab my camera!  Luckily, this morning I made peach jam, and I felt comfortable with documenting the experience.  But first, let me share a little bit about how I decided to start making my own jam.

This is something that I had wanted to try for several years.  Ever since I got majorly into cooking and baking (which was probably around 5 years ago) I thought making my own jam would be fun.  I even took books out about canning from the library.  The problem was, these books all made it sound tremendously scary.  You have to sterilize jars, process jars, cook the jam itself for a precise amount of time, and then hope and pray that your seals actually set, or else the whole exercise will have been for nothing.  Needless to say, I never ended up making any jam!


Then, last winter, Megan and I started talking.  She shared how Steve's family has always been big canners and how she, too, wanted to make her own jam.  Since it was winter and most fruits were out of season, we decided to make pepper jelly.  This was a pretty easy recipe for beginners, as it didn't require any processing of jars. (more on this soon)  We were amazed at how easy it was to do! All you do is chop up some peppers, add vinegar and pectin, boil it, ladle it into jars, and voila, you have pepper jelly!  Megan and I gave some jars of it out at Christmas, and I also put it on that old standby of pepper jelly, cream cheese and crackers.  Let me tell you, it sounds like a simple snack, but it is one of those things that is truly heavenly.  Similar to yogurt and honey...so simple yet it tastes out of this world.  

The pepper jelly that Megan and I made last December.  Note the cute little jars...these are great for jam but cost a bit more than your typical mason jars.  We were so proud of this pepper jelly! Yay for our first canning try!

This past spring, I started hearing a lot about The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond.  Her cookbook came out and I read a review of it in People magazine.  Then my sister-in-law mentioned that she got the cookbook from the library and was enjoying it.  Meredith mentioned that she occasionally reads Ree's blog.  I decided to check out both the book and the blog, and I came upon possibly the best blog post I've ever read by Ree: how to make Strawberry Jam.  This post is very long, and it takes place in 2 parts.  What I love about it is that it covers ALL the bases of canning, but with pictures of her actually doing it and explanations of how it should look along the way, and why each step is vital.  Though these were the same instructions as seen in the books about canning I took out from the library, they were SO much more helpful.  I guess, as with most things, it really helps to see an ordinary, everyday person doing them.  I can't imagine how long it took Ree to do this series of posts, but after I carefully read over both of them, I decided I would be able to make my own strawberry jam! I followed her blog to the letter, and it worked out perfectly!


In this post, I'm going to talk about making peach jam.  But, before I do that, it is absolutely worth checking out Ree's Canning 101 and Strawberry jam post here.  This is the link to part 1, but you will find part 2 at the bottom of the initial post. Seriously, there's no way I could ever devote as much time to beginning canning and in such ideal fashion as Ree has.  I can't say enough about this fabulous post, as it introduced me to canning!

So, in around May when strawberries were hitting their zenith, I made a batch of strawberry jam.  My lovely comrade Nicole let me have a case of leftover Mason Jars from her wedding. (she made adorable vases out of them to display gerber daisies as centerpieces at her wedding...Nicole, I think you should post about this sometime! They were some of the most lovely homemade centerpieces I've ever seen!) I gave a jar to my parents, Carl's parents, Carl's grandpa (who loves homemade jam) and left one for us to sample. (I used pint jars so the recipe only made 4...typically you would use half-pint jars for strawberry jam and end up with 8)  I have to say, homemade jam is fabulous.  And I'm not tooting my own horn, because all I did was follow directions.  Plus, the only ingredients are strawberries, pectin, sugar and a pat of butter.  So I didn't add any of my own personal flair to it.  On the contrary, you have to be pretty straight and narrow when it comes to making jam.  Follow directions and measure ingredients exactly, or else! (haha...but that's pretty much how canning books make it sound!)


In reality, it's not a big deal to make jam, and it's pretty easy.  I've made strawberry jam 3 different times, blueberry jam, and just this morning I made peach jam.  My plan is to take advantage of canning season now and make several batches of jam, of which I will arrange in baskets and give out as part of my Christmas gifts to family. (sorry if I'm spoiling the surprise to any of my family who are reading this...yes, you will be getting a few jars of homemade jam, but of course that's not all you'll be getting! The jam is one component of the gift....!)  

The first step in making jam is preparing the fruit.  This is the most time-consuming part, especially for the strawberries because you have to hull and chop each individual strawberry.  Blueberries are easier because it's just a matter of crushing them with a fork.  I thought peaches would be super-annoying, because you have to peel them, pit them and finely chop them.  So, I did an amazing thing this time around: yesterday after work, I prepared the peaches.  Turns out, it was really easy to do.  Peaches are so soft that they chopped easily under the knife and the whole job took maybe 10 minutes.  I then measured out the 4 cups I needed and refrigerated the fruit until this morning when I needed it.  Knocking out this step the day before made the actual jam preparation SO easy!! To give you an idea of the time frame, I woke up at 7:30 this morning and watched some TV and went online.  At 8, I put the jars and the lids in a pot of simmering water.  While they simmered, I had cereal and coffee.  At 8:30, I started making the jam.  By 9:15, I was done...and that includes the 15 minutes where the jam sits in a pot of boiling water and I do nothing at all!!  It's now 10 AM and I've been blogging about it for about 20 minutes.  So fast, so easy!

After preparing the fruit, you combine it with lemon juice (if needed...some recipes call for it, as the peach recipe does, because certain fruits need a little extra acidity.)  Then you add the pectin.  I whisk it in everytime to make sure it's fully incorporated.  An insider tip from Ree is to add a pat of butter to your fruit at this time.  It reduces the foam that could always show up at the end.  If foam indeed does show up, you end up having to skim it off before you ladle it into your jars.  Not a huge deal, but it's nice to skip a step!

Peaches mixed with Pectin...Note the pat of butter!

At this point, you bring everything to a boil over high heat, stirring constantly.  Once the boil can't be stirred down, you add your sugar ALL AT ONCE.  It's pretty imperative to have your sugar all measured out (in this case, 5 cups were ready and waiting) because if you add one cup at a time, you're disrupting the boiling process.  Once you add all the sugar, you stir it all in and return the mixture to another hard boil.  Once it's boiling violently, you time it for 60 seconds. (Ree says 1 minute 15 seconds...I find I usually add a few extra seconds onto the timing too, just in case!) Immediately take the jam off the heat.  At this point, it will look thick and jam-like...woo hoo!  If there's foam, skim it off.  Honestly, since I add a pat of butter to it, I never have a foam problem.  

The finished jam waiting to be ladled...ta da!!

Up until just today, I would ladle my jam into a spouted Pyrex measuring cup, then pour it into my jars.  Then I came across this fantastic kit at Walmart. (side note: I generally am not Walmart's biggest fan, but they carry almost an entire aisle worth of canning supplies.  This makes life easier for me, as I would much rather buy canning jars and pectin at a store versus paying for shipping on such heavy items!) There is an entire canning kit you can buy, but I think that's pretty ridiculous.  Up until now, I used my own stockpot and tongs to process jars.  This was fairly tricky though, because tongs never get a great grip on the jars and I was always afraid I'd drop one out of the hot water.  Last time I was at Walmart, I came across a canning tools kit.  For a mere $6.97, you get a jar lifter (which was worth the entire price of the kit, in my book, as it made lifting the jars in and out of boiling water a cinch!) a headspace measuring device that doubles as an air bubble remover, a magnetic wand to retrieve lids from the simmering water (again not an essential tool as tongs will do the job...but this did it much faster and with way less hassle!) and a wide-mouth funnel that can fit inside either pint or half-pint jars.  This time, I simply took my simmering jar and lid out of the water (you keep them in simmering water so they won't break or crack when hot jam is added to them) and ladled the hot jam into the wide-mouth funnel.  Genius! I made way less of a mess and I ended up having more jam at the end than if I transferred the jam to a pyrex measuring cup and then poured it into the jars.  I recommend buying this time-saving and anxiety-reducing kit, though I probably wouldn't buy an entire canning set since, truly, you can just use your own stockpot for making and processing jam!

My amazing $6.97 canning kit from Walmart that makes my life so much easier.  Also, a packet of pectin!

The fantastic wide-mouth funnel that fits inside your jars.  Simply ladle the jam in this way! (sorry for the specks of jam on my stove...canning can be a messy process and since you work so quickly, I just clean-up everything at the end!)

Once the jam is ladled into jars, take a knife and run it along the inside of the jam to remove air bubbles.  This time, I used my headspace tool, which is pretty useful because it precisely measures how much headspace you've left at the top of the jar while removing air bubbles from the jam.  Then, you run a wet cloth along the outside of the lid to make sure there isn't any residual jam left outside the jars that could ruin the sealing process.  Finally, you place the lid on the center of the jar, then affix the bands to a "fingertip-tight" level.  Basically, this means that you're not tightening so much that you can't easily remove them.

Once all the jars are ready, you use your handy dandy jar lifter and place the jars into the stockpot of simmering water.  Once they're all inside and the water covers them by an inch or two, turn the water up and bring the jars to a gentle boil.  Once boiling, cover your pot and process for 10 minutes.  You will hear the water boiling like crazy in there, which is exactly what you want to hear.  During this process, the boiling water is killing all germs and bacteria inside the jar, creating a vital seal that means you can keep this jam on your pantry for up to a year without it spoiling.  Basically, you're preserving it the natural way...without any chemicals!

Here are the fully-processed jars in Nicole's stockpot on my stove.  Note the bubbling and steaming.  This is what you want to see! This is just at the point where I took off the lid and let them sit for 5 minutes to equalize the pressure inside the jars.

After 10 minutes, take the lid off the pot and let the jars sit for 5 minutes.  This allows the pressure to equalize inside the jars, or so I'm told! (Basically, canning, like soap-making, is a science lesson unto itself...creating air-tight seals, adding ingredients to turn fruit into a gel-like substance that can keep for a year, etc...I wish we had done this in school because it really helps you understand chemistry!)  After 5 minutes, remove the jars using your jar lifter and set them somewhere where they can be undisturbed for 24 hours.  During this time, you will hear little "pops" coming from the jars.  This is your seals setting...and it's such a fun noise!  In the past, sometimes I've made jam and then gone out shopping or to run errands while they've been sitting on my counter and I've missed the popping sound.  In this case, after the 24 hours, you can test if your seals have set in a couple of ways.  The one I always use is simple to press my finger on the center button of the lid.  If there's no resistance, the jar has sealed.  If you can press on the lid and feel it go down, it hasn't sealed.  Luckily...and I say this while knocking on wood...all of the jars I've made have sealed.  But if they don't, you can either re-process them in boiling water and hope to create a seal, or simply put the jar in your refrigerator and consume within 3 weeks!

I really, really love making my own jam. It tastes amazing, first of all.  It's also free of chemicals and additives, which is another huge benefit. And also, it's a sustainable hobby: you can re-use the jars and the bands over and over again.  So you aren't constantly buying new jars or throwing away old ones.  Even if you don't re-use your mason jar for jam, guaranteed there's another use for it.  Mason jars are so cute...you could use them as vases, like Nicole did, to put pens or supplies in, or just generally as a catch-all for various office or random items.  The only parts of the jar you can't re-use are the lids.  But you can pick up replacement lids, and I think they go for something like 8 lids for $2!


One last note: I find it ironic that you make jam in the sweltering summer, when it's really hard to stand over an entire pot full of boiling fruit.  You definitely get your face steamed by the boiling sugar and fruit, and it gets pretty hot in the kitchen.  But, the beauty of canning is that you're preserving fruit when it's at its natural peak and zenith.  Definitely wear an apron when making jam, especially if you're making strawberry or blueberry.  And keep your hair tied back so that your hair doesn't get damp and hang in your face while you're furiously stirring!

I plan on making perhaps another batch of peach jam, another batch of blueberry and a batch of hot pepper jelly (this one I will give out to friends and family who I know love hot things!) In the fall, I came across a recipe for a glorious jam called Apple Pie in a Jar that I can't wait to make!

Yay for canning!!  On a side note, I know I've mentioned the jam I made and talked about some of the ingredients...if you want the full recipe, simply buy a package of pectin.  Inside is a recipe booklet with instructions for making all types of jam. I've bought different brands of pectin and they all have their own recipe packet! Check out my finished jam below!

The finished product!

Make Your Own Buttermilk

It's funny...when we started this blog, I thought I had a long way to come in terms of being green, embracing handmade/homemade and just generally living a more sustainable life.  It was only after racking my brain for ideas to write about that I realized I've been doing certain things the HHH way for several years now! One of them was making my own vanilla, which I posted about already.  Another is making my own buttermilk!

Once I realized how easy it is to make buttermilk, I was incredulous that I ever bought it in the first place and that, indeed, it's still available for purchase and people actually buy it.  I have several recipes that use buttermilk as an ingredient, and it was always a pain to buy it specifically for the recipe.  First of all, it comes in a milk carton, and most recipes only call for 1 or 2 cups of it.  So then I'd have the buttermilk carton sitting in my fridge and I'd feel compelled to rack my brain for other recipes that feature it as an ingredient and then to promptly make those recipes before it expired.  Not anymore!

Cookbooks are a comfort to me, and they're among the only books I actually buy anymore.  The library is my best friend, and I get almost all my reading materials from there.  But cookbooks are different...sometimes there's nothing better than paging through them idly, or furiously ripping through them when you know you need to cook something or take something somewhere, but you don't have the faintest idea what to make.  A couple of years ago, while paging through a Gooseberry Patch cookbook, I saw a tip in the margins about making your own buttermilk.  It said to add 1 tablespoon on vinegar to 1 cup of milk, let it sit for 5-10 minutes and, voila, you have buttermilk.  Skeptical, I turned to (where else?) google and did a search for homemade buttermilk.  Sure enough, there were listings upon listings for adding a tablespoon of vinegar to regular milk in order to create buttermilk!

The rest, as they say, is history.  I've been making buttermilk in my own kitchen ever since! No more buying massive quantities of it when I only need 1 or 2 cups.  This makes me want to cook with buttermilk even more frequently, because it is less of a production to do so!  I simply add my vinegar to the milk and let it sit while I get to work preparing the other ingredients.

So, for this installment of Random Recipe, I thought I'd include 3 recipes in one! The first is the actual buttermilk recipe, as detailed above, and the other are for my 2 favorite buttermilk recipes...one main dish, and one dessert!

The first recipe is for Buttermilk Roast Chicken, courtesy of Nigella Lawson, who happens to be my favorite TV chef and cookbook author of all time!  I first came upon this recipe in her cookbook, Nigella Express, but it's also available on Food Networks's website right here.  This recipe is amazing...the chicken comes out unbelievably moist and flavorful after soaking in the buttermilk marinade overnight!  It's also very inexpensive to make, and it feeds a lot of people.  What's better than that? (as a side note, don't let the small amount of maple syrup in the marinade scare you....I was weary at first, but it really adds a great taste to the chicken!)

The other buttermilk recipe comes from a favorite blog of mine and Megan's....Smitten Kitchen.  I can kill an embarrassing amount of time on this blog, but it's all worth it! I've come away with several amazing recipes from it, and each one I've tried has been fabulous! I first came across Smitten Kitchen while doing a search for, of all things, Irish Car Bombs.  (brief background information so I don't appear psychotic: Carl turned 30 in the spring and he always enjoys drinking Irish Car Bombs with friends for celebratory events. In a moment of boredom, I did a google for them, since they are pretty crazy.  You have to consume them in one huge chug because the shot of Bailey's dropped into the Guinness, combined with the whiskey, makes the whole concoction foam up and overflow.  Weird, huh?  Anyway, a listing popped up for Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes.  Get this: you bake chocolate guinness cake as the base, insert a chocolate whiskey ganace into the cake, and frost the whole thing with Bailey's cream cheese frosting.  Yumm!!! Smitten Kitchen has this recipe, and I emailed it to Meg in the hopes that one day this fall she'd make them with me.  We both got hooked on the blog!)  Anyway, here is the Raspberry Buttermilk Cake recipe from Smitten Kitchen.  This cake requires few ingredients, is incredibly easy, and tastes so fresh and lovely.  I've also made it with strawberries and blueberries in place of the raspberries.  It's a wonderful cake for a light dessert or to eat with a cup of tea or coffee. Not fancy at all, but perfect in its simplicity.

And don't forget, to make your buttermilk for these recipes, just add 1 tablespoon of vinegar (officially my all-time favorite household substance!) to 1 cup of regular milk.  Now, get cooking!!

Laundry LifeSaver Part 2

So, in the first part of this series, I talked about the joys of homemade laundry detergent. (3 ingredients, no fragrances or unpronounceable ingredients and completely clean and soft clothes...what could be better than that?)  Now, I have a tip for an annoying laundry issue I came across this summer...that horrible musty smell that sometimes arises.

We've all experienced it.  Sometimes you might get to your load of freshly-washed towels a bit later than you intendend; before you get around to throwing them in the dryer, they smell musty.  Or, sometimes you dig something out of the very back of your closet and the smell arrests you. 

This happened to me a few weeks ago when I was cleaning out our bedroom closet.  Carl and I have lived in our condo for almost 7 years now (sheesh! Time flies...) and while I routinely pull out things I no longer wear or don't want anymore and donate them, there are the few residual items of clothing that have found their way to the back of the closet, never to again see the light of day, despite my frequent weedings-out.  I finally pulled out all the old stuff and decided it obviously needed to be washed before I could donate it. 

Typically, you would use bleach to get rid of mildew and odd stains or smells.  Clearly, you can't do that with a load of clothes.  Knowing that vinegar is a disinfectant, I added one cup to the washing cycle....voila!! All mustiness was totally gone....naturally, to boot!

I now keep a ginormous container of vinegar in the laundry room and periodically add it to my laundry when it first goes in.  In the middle of summer, humidity like we frequently experience can often lead to increased musty smells.  I like throwing it in there to prevent any musty smells from emerging.  Plus, vinegar softens laundry (Megan adds it during the rinse cycle of her laundry instead of fabric softener) and I notice increased softness from using it at the beginning of the cycle, too.

Once again, vinegar is truly amazing and I am so surprised at how often I use it around the house....uses as varied as conditioning my hair with it as a rinse to putting it in my laundry to get rid of mustiness!! Vinegar is awesome!

Laundry LifeSaver Part 1

So, due to the fabulous schedule I work at the CDC (4 day weeks working 10 hours per day) I typically get a 4-day weekend once a month.  Loveliness....this happens to be my 4-day weekend!

These weekends are delightful at any time of the year, but they are especially welcome during the summer.  I love having a few extra days to read, swim, eat out, and just generally enjoying living easy.  However, before I could get to the relaxing part of the weekend, I had to do some chores.

Last night I went to start some laundry and realized I was almost totally out of our homemade laundry detergent.  No worries...I was able to mix up a new batch in less than 5 minutes.  I know Meredith blogged about making this for the first time back in the winter, but this laundry detergent has truly changed my life! First of all, I love not having to go out and buy detergent all the time, spending $6-$8 each time.  Also, think about how much detergent you have to use each time you run the laundry machine...that huge scoop in there is pretty serious!!  That's why I was always running out in the past....you use a ginormous amount each time, and if you're like me, there always seems to be laundry that needs to be done.  

With the detergent we made, there are only 3 ingredients and you use, get this, ONE TABLESPOON per load.  So it truly takes a long time to deplete your supply.  

I love this detergent.  My stuff comes out so clean.  Here was the ultimate test: earlier this spring I washed my car on one of the first nice days of the season.  I used a variety of white rags (I only buy white towels, rags, sheets, etc so that I can bleach the living daylights out of them without worrying about ruining color....working with small children everyday trains you to constantly wage war against household germs!) Imagine what the rags looked like after washing away an entire winter's worth of salt and grime from my car...yuck! This detergent made them rags white again...without me adding bleach.  If that's not a cleanliness test, I don't know what is!!

Initially, I was afraid I'd miss the scent of my laundry, because I always bought detergents that were heavily fragranced.  I still sometimes miss that scent, but I end up getting clothes that are enormously clean and soft without chemicals.  So it's a fair trade! Plus, in the future I'm thinking about using a chamomile-scented soap to add to the detergent to give it a scent!

I can't say enough about the softness of my clothes, towels, sheets, etc when they come out of the drier from this detergent.  It's like using fabric softener all the time, and I never have to do that anymore.  Yet another round of savings!

Here's the recipe again for those of you who forgot it from last winter! (You ARE committing all of these recipes to memory, right?? Haha)

1 cup Borax

1 cup washing soda

1 bar mild soap, grated (I've adjusted this amount in subsequent batches...I wash my laundry in cold water for a variety of reasons, chief among them being energy savings. Sometimes the soap flakes don't fully disintegrate in the cold water like they would in hot water.  The same thing would happen when I used regular detergent from the store...I would often see residue after washes.  Scaling back the soap flakes still gets my laundry clean, and I see virtually no residue from the cold water! Woo hoo!)

Truly, this takes all of 5 minutes to put together. 

The washing soda is the only ingredient that's hard to find.  We ended up ordering it from drugstore.com  If you are a first-time customer, you get free shipping, so Meredith and I each ordered 2 boxes of the washing soda to stock up.  You only use the 1 cup each time, so I think our boxes will last awhile!

So, there you have it...last night I started doing my chores, realized I was out of detergent, and promptly whipped up my own in the kitchen...all within 5 minutes!! If this had been a year ago, I would have had to grumpily march out to Target, buy detergent, THEN start laundry, thus postponing the fun of my "do-nothing" 4-day weekend! Disaster averted!

In Part 2 of this installment, I will discuss a great tip about getting musty smells out of laundry.  And trust me, I never thought I'd have any laundry tips, period.  This going green thing is really pretty fun...otherwise how could I possibly have a blog series on laundry?? :)

Quilting Forever...Housework Whenever!

Okay, Okay...I have to apologize for the lame title.  I couldn't think of a good title about quilts, so I did a search for quotations about quilting.  I went with this one, because there weren't too many other inspiring ones, to say the least.  Probably because, like many homemade and handmade creations, quilting became viewed as old-fashioned and even archaic over the past 50 years.  Instead of sewing/making your own goods, people happily trotted out to department stores to buy shoddier versions en masse. Quilting, sewing, cooking, canning and the like all became seen as Pioneer-era silliness.  Happily, we all know that handmade/homemade is making a comeback.

Luckily for me, I have people in my life who are embracing handmade/homemade right along with me.  In addition to my 3 HHH friends, I have family members who are in the midst of this movement.  My mom has been passing my great-grandmother's recipes on to me, and has been whipping up lovely baked good from scratch in recent years.  My dad has always been a prominent cook in our household growing up, and continues to make famous things, usually with the flair that can only come from a Texan.  And my mother-in-law is a gifted seamstress, quilter, and creator of all things handmade.  And now my sister-in-law is getting in on all the fun by taking up sewing and knitting!

When I met Carl, I was surprised to hear that his mother had her own sewing room.  This was way before I started getting into handmade/homemade, and I was one of those people who was surprised by people actually sewing their own things.  It just seemed like no one did it anymore.  Especially then, a whopping ten years ago (time flies!) the movement had dwindled.  I was absolutely astonished to hear that Carl's mom had made wedding gowns, bridesmaid dresses, clothes of all sorts for children and adults and, in a weird twist of fate, had made the prom dress for a girl in my high school class.  (We discovered this years after the fact!)

About four years ago, Carl's mom, Carol, expanded into making purses.  I recently talked about how I only carry purses and bags from her (and now my SIL, Stacy.) She has a real flair for picking out cute coordinating fabrics, and the bag designs have gotten progressively more awesome and varied over the years.  Recently, Carl's mom took up quilting. For my 29th (yikes!) birthday this past April, she gave me a picnic quilt.  Check it out:

What makes a picnic quilt nice is that it's a smaller size than most other quilts.  Don't get me wrong, there's no need find fault with a large quilt.  When I was in high school, my sister's boyfriend's mother (following?) was a quilter and made me my own quilt.  I remember going to the fabric store with her and picking out all the different fabrics.  That was probably 12 years ago, and I still have the quilt in my linen closet, where I trot it out on cold nights, when I'm feeling sick or down, or when I'm just in the mood for extra comfort.  Friends and family who stay the night at our house are given that quilt to use, because it is extraordinarily soft, warm and just generally amazing.  This picnic quilt, though, is smaller and can be used more often and for more occasions.  As the name implies, you could throw it in your car and take it to a lovely destination, where you would then proceed to picnic upon it.  I will probably do this eventually.  For now, I've kept it on the arm of our loveseat, where I throw it over myself when reading or relaxing.  It's small, so it doesn't take over the entire couch, and it's made of lighter material, so it doesn't make me extremely hot. (It's summer, after all!)


Here are some more views of the quilt, along with the underlying striped fabric:

My MIL continues to make more quilts, and SIL is making them too.  Look for future posts! And I'll end the current post with another corny quilting adage I came across; this one is appropriate for Carl and me:  Blessed are the children of quilters, for they will inherit the quilts!  Go us!