Home Again

We're home after being gone for almost two weeks. A trip to Colorado to help our son and his family move into their new home in their new town. We had a wonderful time. And hopefully we were of help. :-)

We opened many boxes and unwrapped many items. All seemed to have survived their trip across the country from Virginia. Amy was happy to begin finding things that have been in storage since June; however, the packers seemed to have their own method for loading the boxes: cookie jar lid found, but no cookie jar; pots, but no lids (Amy did announce during a phone conversation on Saturday that they had finally been found!); baseball bats and a tennis racket on top of silk flower arrangements. Hmmm...

The weather was incredible. We spent a Saturday afternoon in 80 degree heat, slathering on sunscreen, watching grandson Ryan play soccer while in the distance the peaks of the Rockies were white with snow. Most spectators were wearing shots. Amazing!

Here's our number eleven, on the field:


Matt behind the boxes in the kitchen:


And one of Amy making a cup of Russian Tea on a much colder day with rain and snow coming down (note the cookie jar lid to the right!):


Our trip down was accompanied by perfect weather--sunshine and beautiful fall days. Our trip back was quite different. Snow as we left and up into Wyoming. The roads were terrible and we lost four hours because of delays caused by accidents. Gratefully, we were not involved in any of them. We finally arrived at Bruder Bear's house fourteen hours and fifteen minutes after our early morning departure. What a welcome treat to settle down in front of their fireplace and just relax and visit. In fact, it was so wonderful, we stayed an extra day and night. (Thanks again for your hospitality, Bruder!)

And now we're home. The weather has changed and it's cold and wet outside. The wind is whistling down the fireplace chimney and I can hear the wind chimes ringing. We're thankful for a trip filled with time with our wonderful family. We are blessed.

Pressure Cooking

Several of my faithful readers have some questions regarding pressure cooking, so I'm going to do a little info-mercial. :-)

I thank two blog friends for encouraging me to get a pressure cooker and then to actually use it. CJ of Created by CJ and Judy of Patchwork Times often wrote of using theirs, and when I began to ask them questions they offered a lot of help and encouragement.

Dan bought me my six-quart Fagor brand cooker two years ago for Christmas. It was one of two brands available here in our town, and it looked the best. True confession: it took me a year to use it. Yes, I was buffaloed. I finally got brave and tried it around Christmas last year. Dan later told me he had been sorely tempted to wrap it up and give it to me again!!

Here's a picture of mine sitting on my stove top:


It's nowhere near the size of my canning pressure cooker. And you can buy four-quart cookers. My blog friend CJ has several sizes and loves her four-quart.

The pressure cooker my mom had when I was growing up had a "jiggler" on the top that rattled all the while the cooker was under pressure. Today's pressure cookers are called second generation, or new generation, and have no jigglers. They are remarkably quiet and very easy to use. I could kick myself for taking so long to use mine.

Here's a picture of the top of mine:


The dial at the top can be set to no pressure, low pressure, or high pressure. Further down the handle you can see a small yellow dot that is the presssure indicator which pops up when pressure has been reached. To the right of the indicator is the slider which locks the lid closed. As you can see, pretty easy to run.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I bought Lorna Sass's book, Pressure Perfect. CJ recommended Lorna Sass to me and this book and another of hers in particular. Lorna is a pressure cooking guru and is almost single-handedly responsible for the pressure cooking revival that is starting to take place. If you google her, you'll find she has several websites and a number of videos you can watch.

I'm very much a novice at pressure cooking, but I love being able to create wonderful bean soups in a fraction of the time. Would that I had known about this when I was teaching! There are hundreds of recipes I still need to try and I look forward to learning more. Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately?) for you, dear readers, you'll probably hear about them.

Soup, Soup, Soup

When the weather turns to fall, I'm always drawn to my kitchen. I'm not much of a summer cook, but cooler weather brings out all my cooking instincts. Meatloaf and baked potatoes, soups and bread, crock pot meals, I'm even thinking about food before lunch! As in planning ahead! Trust me on this, I don't plan ahead in the summer--all of a sudden it'll be four o'clock and I'm forced to think, "What's for dinner?!?" Barbecues are us.

I found a recipe a week or so ago for a crock pot minestrone and decided to give it a try. It made a huge pot and we really liked it. I used Elk stew meat and it was nice and tender, easily cut with a spoon.


It's not a pretty soup, but it was quite tasty, especially sprinkled with shredded Italian cheese (mozzarella and parmesan). I got the recipe here.

And by the way, the split pea soup I made earlier this week was fantastic. The recipe came from Pressure Perfect by Lorna Sass.

Cozy

After a long, beautiful, warm fall, we seem to have come to a turning point. The wind has howled today, the rain has beaten against the windows, and there's snow on the mountain. But then, it is the 25th of October.

Dan was in the woods all day, and as the weather got stormier, I decided it would be a good day for soup and bread. I worked up the last loaf of the current batch of artisan bread dough and baked it, then I got some ham from the freezer and some dried peas from the pantry. My pressure cooker made short work of a big pot of soup and we're set for dinner tonight and tomorrow. Dan just got home, and we'll eat when he emerges from the nice warm tub.

Tomorrow, since dinner is in the bag (or pot, to be more accurate), I plan to spend the day in my sewing room. I did lots of little chores around the house including changing the sheets on our bed, so I'm certain I deserve a fun day. :-)

My last two projects have been table runners. One was for a new lady at church who lost all her possessions in a strange series of events. She worked overseas for a few years and had her things in storage. She arranged for her bank to make the necessary payments to the storage facility, but for unknown reasons, they stopped after a year. The storage facility then sold her possessions at auction for non-payment. Imagine coming back home to find everything you own is gone. And you don't even have the money! Many people have pitched in to provide Patty with new things, and she has been overwhelmed. My little part was this runner for her new table.



It was my first attempt at invisible, turned applique and I'll definitely try it again. Patty loved it and yes, she cried when I gave it to her. Such a small thing, but I pray it will help in some tiny way to make up for the loss of so many precious things from her past.

Seen Through My Bedroom Window

I was making our bed yesterday and on my way past our window, a series of sounds caught my attention. I looked down into the back of some shrubs and there were quail. Lots of quail. They seems to be coming out of the bushes in pairs, hopping up on the limbs, and then hopping down and moving along. I ran for my camera and snapped some photos through the window.


Can you see the gorgeous male and his sweet little wifey next to him?

We have many quail here at the resort and I love watching them. They trundle through our yard at various times, always a large group, usually in single line formation. And there's always one or two who seem to have trouble keeping up with the group. I always think they must have been sight-seeing and lost track of time. It makes me giggle as I watch them scurry, their top-knots bobbing away as their little feet hurry to catch up.

Signs of the Season

We've been either very lazy or very busy around here. The busy days lead to the lazy days! Dan checked the green beans on Monday and lo and behold, we had more! Out came the carefully put away canner and back to work we went. It froze that night, so we know we're done now. That, and he pulled up the plants as he picked!! My nice neat basement pantry is really looking stocked now.

I changed out some wall quilts and here's one of my favorites, made years ago. It's a "herky jerky" pattern, done by "hand", not machine embroidery.


Amazingly, we still have some beautiful roses climbing below our deck:


And the scarecrow has made his yearly appearance on the front porch.


Hope your fall is arriving with all its brilliance. Enjoy!

A Cozy Sunday Night

Fall seems to have settled back in today after a week of rather warm weather. I canned the last of the green beans yesterday and today we got some sprinkles of rain. I think canning is over for the year.

Dan went out with a friend after church to look at some land the friend is in the process of purchasing and to cut some wood. A tree had blown down near the fence line and they cut it up after running the survey lines and finding a section marker. I stayed home and took a nap! Yeah, as usual, Dan was out being busy and I was resting easy. :-)

When I roused myself from the sofa where I'd been curled up under the quilt daughter-in-law Amy made us last Christmas, I decided we'd have leftover soup for supper. I got the last of some artisan bread dough out of the fridge and shaped a loaf. I love that it's fall and time for cozy food again.

The bread turned out perfectly. I've figured out the best temperature and time for my oven. The towel is one I made using a Mary Mulari machine applique design. Isn't it perfect for fall?

The soup is an easy one I found in Paula Deen's magazine (September/October 2009) and it's very yummy.

Paula Deen's Black Bean Soup

• Five slices bacon, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 14-oz cans of black beans, drained (I used 50% less sodium)
• 2 14-oz cans chicken broth (I used reduced sodium)
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon chili powder

In medium Dutch oven, cook bacon over medium high heat until it begins to brown. Add onion and garlic; cook for 3 to 4 minutes until onion is tender. Add beans, broth, cumin and chili powder. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

In container of a blender, spoon half of soup and process until almost smooth. Return processed mixture to Dutch oven and stir to combine. Paula suggests garnishing with sour cream and chives. I did not. (And I also did not use onions because they don't like me.)

I told Dan that if I ate this soup and bread at a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant somewhere I'd be singing its praises to friends. Yes, dinner was that good. :-)