Michael left for golf on Saturday (3/22) when it was still only 39 degrees outside…..brrr-r-r-r-r!! I read my book for a bit in the morning, before getting 2 rows done on my QoV (only 6 more to go), and reclaiming some backing fabric before Iris arrived.
We decided to embroider instead of bake, and made a beautiful butterfly for her youngest daughter:
After she left in the afternoon, I read for a bit before quilting a bit more.
My honey made spaghetti & meatballs for dinner and we binge watched episodes of BEYOND PARADISE before going to bed.
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My honey made GRANDS biscuits Sunday morning (3/23) while I scrambled up some eggs for our leisurely breakfast:
-still a bit of cooking to go....
After that I was in the studio, and by dinnertime I finished quilting on the QoV:
and got all of my ‘’new’’ fabric folded:
(BG – just curious - are you folding your fabric like this????)
Dinner for Sunday was chicken Parmesan…which I have not made in FOR_E_VER!!!! I did it the way friend Cathy L always made it when we lived together.....not swimming in sauce so that the chicken stays crispy!
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It was very overcast when we got up on Monday (3/24) and Michael headed over to ALDI’s early hoping to beat the rain…but he didn’t make it :~(. I needed yogurt from ALDI’s to get started with my baking, so while I was waiting, I headed to the studio to load up the second QoV:
He was home by then, so I hit the kitchen to make banana bread:
So....I have to tell you a funny story. While Michael was out shopping, I was downstairs thinking about the banana bread and I said to myself ''wasn't there any butter in that recipe? I don't remember setting out any butter to get soft''. Well, yes...there is butter in it and no, I didn't remember to set it out....so I decided to put in 6 tablespoons of oil instead. That should have just made the bread more moist (since there's more fat in oil than in butter), but Michael kept saying that it seemed lighter somehow....almost fluffier. I knew that wasn't the oil, but couldn't figure out why. So...I went to sleep...and woke up...and as so often happens, the answer appeared overnight. This recipe calls for some amount of cake flour...and I didn't have any...so I threw in some corn starch (since that's a kitchen hack to make regular flour into cake flour you add some amount of corn starch). I didn't measure it...just chucked some in....anyway...THAT"S what made the texture lighter and fluffier....mystery solved!
And since I had the oven on, I decided to make the cookies I had set out ingredients for when Iris visited...thinking we might bake. Since Easter is coming, PINTEREST is full of beautiful Easter desserts….sucking me in because they are all swirled pastel rainbow colors! Jello cookies are everywhere and look lovely…and I have been considering buying jello, when I realized, I don’t have to do that. I have a wonderful sugar cookie recipe already that I just love and I have AMERICOLOR dyes and I could use that and dye my own cookies….et voila:
I didn’t have any purple coloring, so I tried to mix my red and blue…unfortunately I got an unattractive shade of gray!!! Oh well…they still taste wonderful. By then it was early afternoon and I headed back to the studio to set up a program and get some quilting done. I was going along swimmingly, and then my thread began to break….and to break….and to break!!! It is SO FRUSTRATING!!!! So, I stuck a pin in it (as they say) and headed upstairs to read for a bit. I’ve been reading a series of cozy mysteries by Nell Goddin, about a woman who moved from the USA to a small village in France and they are EXCELLENT (Janice, to me they're a little like those Irish ones we like). I know I've mentioned this several times before, but whenever I find a new author I like, I head over to WWW.FANTASTIC FICTION.COM to get a list of all of the books written by that author and in what order. Then I begin to put them on hold at the library.
We had leftover chicken parm for dinner (still wonderful) and binge watched the final 2 episodes of season 1 for BEYOND PARADISE!
And I've been meaning to post these pics for quite awhile....someone really knows how to PAR-TAY.......
-showing off all of her jewels!
And 10 years ago....
-(Iris - here's the butterfly I was looking for...still haven't found it) https://foodandfiberfloozie.blogspot.com/2015/03/butterflies-mile-minute-blocks-cookie.html
*** A good friend is great…but a good friend with chocolate is basically a superhero. ***
*** In quilting, WIP stands for ‘’works in progress'', but let’s be honest, it’s really more like ‘’waiting in piles’’! ***
YEP to the waiting in piles !!!! And I sure have a lot of them...
Awwww, thanks for sharing the pics of my special evening.
I dont fold mine that way…it usually stays as is and goes into a storage container.
Quite the limousine! Who did you use?