Father's Day Feast

L and I have been alternating making dinner while they're here for the summer. It's great! For Father's Day, we collaborated, using L's recipes for a chinese feast. We made (bottom to top) jasmine rice, the meat mixture for lettuce wraps, spring rolls (okay, they're from Costco!), the special sauce for lettuce wraps, beef with broccoli, and the lettuce for the wraps. It was delectable, and when you share the cooking, easy!

Second in "Quilting Green"

Here's the second quilt. This one is bound, though, and finished. I think it looks charming hanging on my clothes line.

I love that tiny purple polka-dot one in the middle.

The middle fabric on this one is wonderful!


I like the black.

I love the analogus colors in this block.

So much fun!

Quilting Green

Here's a picture of a recent quilt. It's made entirely of scraps. It all started when I got sick of looking at my scrap basket, overflowing with pieces of this and that. I started cutting for six quilts. This is the first of them--a mini-whistle stop quilt. I love the final effect--so much that I made a second quilt for an ecological-minded friend who is having a baby soon--maybe today! Everything is from my stash--I didn't purchase a thing!
These are a few of my favorite blocks. The middle fabric is from a skort I made for one of my girls, many, many years ago. The outside fabric is from my friend, D.

The tiny block in the middle started as a 1" scrap, and ended up being a 1/2" square in the center. I used the last bit of the outside fabric, a favorite of mine, but I found another yard at a recent garage sale!

I've never had so much fun putting fabric together. Mostly, I just put it in piles, and took what came off. Only did I change it if it was the same color as the fabric it was next to.

Dinner Tonight!

Little R is not for dinner, but it's always fun to take a picture of her. Any picture is adorable!

Tonight we're grilling pizza! I made pizza dough, we patted it out thin, then grilled it on one side. We took that off, and put toppings on the side we just grilled, then the pizza went back on the grill to melt the mozzerella cheese and get all the toppings (sauce, onion, green pepper, sausage, pepperoni, and mushrooms) hot. Here's pizza ready for toppings, and pizza ready to go back on the grill.

The finished product was fantastic! We were so hungry we ate them without taking a picture of them! But trust me, they were great! And they were easy, and didn't heat up the kitchen.

Something new for little R!

I was watching R one afternoon. All the sudden, it was very quiet. I found her, in an empty cubby where Grandpa's briefcase goes at night! Good thing the camera was close! What a cutie!

June 1st Garden

It's June 1st, and the garden is doing great! Here's a little tour...these are butternut squash.

Here's the zucchini. Kirt planted them. He put 8 seeds in one hill, of course, they all came up. He wouldn't let me get rid of any. Unbelievably, we have another hill, with another four plants. Let me know if you need any zucchini this summer. I'll have plenty.

This (from left to right) is garlic, planted last fall, spinach, what's left of the radishes, Walla Walla sweet onions, leeks (something new this year, you can hardly see them, though!) and finally, beets.

Here's my flowerpot. Charming!

Here's my side garden, where seven of my tomatoes are--I have 2 Health Kick, 1 Amish Paste Tomato, 2 Super Fantastic, and 2 Celebrity tomato plants. Most already have blossoms on them. They were planted the end of March in walls of water. You're not seeing the Victoria Grape tomato in the other garden...

Here's my newest addition to the garden--raspberries! (Thanks, Kristie!) There's one other plant that didn't fit into the picture. Kirt love me lots, he put four posts in to build a barrier, into our hard clay soil. He doesn't even like raspberries, but he knows I do.

Cucumber is looking awesome. It needs to be trained onto a cage though, so my cukes will grow long and straight.

That's it for now. We've been eating lettuce, spinach and radishes, and I can hardly wait for the rest. Yum!

This is for you, Kenzie!

Peonies! I love them, so does Kenzie. If only I could gather you a bouquet!

another perfect lunch!

Last summer I posted a picture of a BLT--my favorite summertime lunch. Here's another new favorite--Cream of Aspargus soup--made even more perfect when served in my Buffalo china cup! (I have green Buffalo china cups, but the greens together just weren't right!) The recipe is from Everyday Foods. I will tell you right now I halved it, and there was plenty! I had to call Mal once to find out what shallots are--they're green onions. I didn't have green onions, so I just used onion, and it tasted great.

Cream of Aspargus Soup
3 T. Butter
1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped shallots (about 6 large)
1/2 t. dried thyme
3 T. flour
3# asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1" pieces
coarse salt
1/3 c. heavy cream
2-3 T fresh lemon juice
*3 cups chicken broth (the recipe just says to cook asparagus in water, I used broth instead)

In a large 4-qt. saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Add shallots and thyme, cook until shallots are soft, about 5 minutes. Add flour, cook until incorporated, stirring constantly, about 1 minute. Add aparagus and 6 cups of water*, season generously with salt. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer until aparagus is bright green and just tender, 2-4 minutes.

Working in batches, puree soup in a blender til very smooth. To prevent splattering, fill blender only halfway, and allow heat to escape: remove can from hole in lid, and cover lid with a dish towel. If serving right away, stir in cream and lemon juice.

To freeze, leave out cream and lemon juice. Cool to room temp before dividing amoung airtight containers, leaving 1 inch of headspace. Freeze for up to 2 months. Defrost overnight in refrigerator, reheat over low heat. Stir in cream and lemon juice before serving.

Delish!