Recipe?

Apparently when one talks about food, one is supposed to provide recipes.

Problem is that one (me), trained by Burda, cooks like she sews - cursory look at the ingredient list, deeper look at what's in the fridge/pantry/garden, heavy sigh, make it work.

So, basil/garlic scape pesto, as best I can describe it:

Take a bunch of garlic scapes (I had about 20; the section of the garlic bed where the stray cat lays hasn't put up scapes yet), cut off and discard the pointy heads, which are the seed pods, and cut the rest into inch long pieces.

Take your basil (in my case, about 3 cups worth - I know this only because I have a 4 cup food processor), put it in the food processor with a good slug of olive oil, and whiz down to a lovely green paste.  Add the chopped garlic scapes, more oil, and whiz again.  I'm not being deliberately vague on the oil, I just add whatever feels right.  This may also depend on how pasty or smooth you like your pesto.

Salt and pepper to taste, whiz.  I know there should be pine nuts or some other nuts in pesto, but I didn't have any, so instead I added a heaping tablespoon of goat cheese.  Not sure how that was a substitute, but it's tasty so who cares?

Lemon juice to taste, then a nice helping of grated parmesan.  Whiz one more time, taste again.

Cook pasta, drain.  Add a little olive oil to the pot, whirl the pasta around in the oil so it's coated and doesn't stick together.

Put your pasta in bowls, add a big dollop of pesto on top, a few grinds of black pepper and another sprinkle of parmesan.  Mix, eat, go back for seconds.

That's the closest I can come to a written recipe, folks.  It's all seat of the pants in the kitchen as well, but other than having to clean the food processor (which is a job I choose not to do), it's quick, easy, requires no cooking and, if you're lucky, you have some left over for another night.

Serves 6, maybe (2 bowls each the first time, probably enough left for another 2 servings).

More backyard goodness

It still hasn't stopped raining.  Today we were supposed to have monsoons all day, starting before dawn.  When I got up at 7:00 and it was still dry, I went out back to get some time in the garden.

This was before I made my coffee.

This is very unusual.  Very.

I fed the chicken, hilled up the potatoes (they're growing like weeds, plus all the rain has been washing the soil back), picked a half pint of blueberries, a few strawberries and then happened to look at the garlic bed on my way back inside.

Yikes.  Last time I checked, the garlic was getting nice and tall, but this morning there were scapes waving all over the place.  Not for long.

Dinner tonight: goat cheese ravioli with backyard basil/garlic scape pesto.

Yum.

That is all.

Shades of Blue

Tis the season - the blueberries are getting ripe.  We've already had a few handfuls from the bushes, way more than the birds have gotten since I wised up last year and spread netting over the blueberries.

It generally means that the strawberries get trashed, but it's a lot easier to get strawberries than the abundance of blueberries that we've missed out on to to the birds.

And speaking of birds, the other reason the berries are so abundant is that when I clean out the deep-bedded chicken coop in March, most of that bedding goes straight onto the berry bushes.  They really seem to thrive on it.

The strawberries actually seem to be holding their own this year, at least so far.  I'm sure I've jinxed them by saying this.

The other shade of blue I've just finished dealing with is a pair of keepsake bears that I made for a friend.  She's donated huge amounts of good fabrics to the cause and passed along her sister's school uniform.  I'd asked several times if I could make something for her, and she'd always turned me down, but she said that her sister was expecting her first grandchild and it would be nice if I could make something from the uniform that could be passed down.

Aside from the fact that I'm on a bear kick lately, I would have probably chosen to do that anyway, because the pieces (a navy wool blazer and a blue, green and gray plaid kilt) just begged to be cut up and made into a bear.

Or two, as it turned out.  When I was almost done the first bear, I realized that it was just too much for an infant, but I didn't want to "dumb it down" and remove the eyes and the National Honor Society pin that had come with the uniform.  So I made a "baby" bear (which illogically is bigger than the first bear).

I handed them over today, and I can't wait to hear the reaction of the grandma-to-be.

Coming Soon

I know, I know, I have a separate blog for the craft business, but I'm sharing here anyway for those who might not think to check both.

Saturday, Saturday, Saturday - Craft Market at 30th Street Station, June 15th, 11:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Hopefully the rain will have finally stopped - I have standing water in the back garden now and the chicken is threatening to turn into a duck if I will only let her out to paddle around in the puddles.  "Madder than a wet hen."  I now know where that expression comes from.  Though "miserable" would be a more appropriate word.

The new machine and I have become close pretty quickly.  I had no idea just how loud and clunky the Singer had gotten until Mario mentioned that he could no longer hear me sewing in the living room.  Or the kitchen.  Which means I can also now do late night/early morning stealth sewing without waking our housemate, whose bedroom is right above the sewing room.

I've been working on a few things - for the upcoming show, yes, but I'm planning a little spring something for myself as well.  More to come.

Getting to Know You

New bears on Etsy.  

Sorry for the radio silence, but my new Brother and I have been getting acquainted.

Due to the heat, I've been staying out of the workroom during the later part of the day (west-facing windows let in so much heat that it can defeat the air conditioner when it's particularly hot).   This doesn't mean I haven't been sewing, just not as much and not as late.

Yesterday I broke open the box and read the manual.  Or most of it, anyway.  This is new for me, but I'm used to Singer and I figured Brother might have a few quirks that I should be warned about.

Which it does, but nothing too unusual.  The bobbin gets loaded in the opposite direction from the Singer.  The automatic needle threader actually works - or did, on the second try.  The needle stays down when the machine stops, unless I reset it to stay up.  Choice is good.  

The buttonhole function is good.  After a few test runs, I put buttonholes on all the pieces I'd had waiting, and they all came out fine.  I could love this machine just for that reason.  

But honestly, back to the manual.  I think if they left out all the "notes," "memos" and "cautions," it would be about 4 pages long.  I worked for lawyers for 30 years, I know people do stupid things and then sue because they got hurt doing stupid things, but on every single page there is at least one mention of "could cause injury." 

Yes, I know if I put my fingers too close to the needle, it could cause injury.  I've done it; it does.  And you know what?  I slapped a bandaid on that puppy and got back to sewing.  

I'll have something to show you soon, I think I'm going to take a glass of wine in there and do some more acquainting myself.  Brother needs to understand about wine and sewing.  And that it doesn't, as a rule, cause injury.

Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou?

According to Amazon, my sewing machine has shipped and will be arriving sometime tomorrow.

According to the tracking information provided by Amazon, what sewing machine would that be?  The tracking number provided was not associated with any shipment.

To be continued.

Out with the Old, in with the New

Otherwise known as, "out with the broken, in with the hopefully longer-lasting and fully functioning."

Otherwise known as my freaking Singer is dying a horrible, loud, metallic yet squeaky, non-buttonhole forming death and I have headed her demise off at the pass and replaced her with a Brother CS6000i.

It'll be my first Brother machine.

I started out on my mom's Kenmore, affectionately known as the "gut buster" because you had to get its 20 plus all metal pounds from the upper reaches of the bedroom closet to even start sewing.  When I started sewing heavily in high school, it stayed set up on a trunk at the foot of my bed and I sat on the floor and sewed.  Hey, it worked - there was nowhere in my room for a table and I couldn't sew in the rest of the house.

When I moved out, I tried to take the Kenmore with me, on the logic that I was the only one who used it.  But it was not to be.  Mom visited my apartment and repo'd the machine, and I ended up with some crappy plastic job from a local chain store that lasted about 2 years.  The best thing about that machine was the store credit card - the interest was horrific, but at least I had credit.  And a sewing machine.

After that, there was a secondhand Necchi that I got from a friend of a friend.  That sewed like a dream until one evening greasy smoke started billowing from its innards.  Mr. Necchi left in a hurry.

That was followed by a Singer that lasted me at least 10 years; that was replaced by an old boyfriend (who was gratified that my kind of shiny gift objects were power tools or sewing machines) with another Singer.  That lasted until shortly after I bought my house; it was replaced by the predecessor to the currently deathbed machine.  When it kicked, I tried to have it repaired but the repair would have cost more than the machine was worth.

My sense of thrift is offended that it costs more to fix things than replace them, but I'm also no fool with my money.  If I can replace for less, or close to it, then I will.

The current Singer has lasted for about 2.5 years of daily sewing, sometimes for several hours a day, on any and every type of fabric.  It was about $129 new.

I think I got my money's worth, but it still irks me.  I also think it was having problems before this happened.  That just seemed to exacerbate it.

I read reviews on Patternreview; I looked at machines at SewVac Direct and Ken's Sewing; I asked my sewing friends on Facebook.  I eventually looked at Amazon.  The machine I'm getting had 28 reviews on PR, mostly all positive.  There were 1,612 reviews on Amazon, giving it 4.5 stars.

And despite wanting to buy the machine from SewVac or Ken's, I ended up going with Amazon because it was more than $30 cheaper.  Again, I'm no fool with my money, especially when there's less of it coming in.

Brother will be here soon.  I'm expecting great things, but really, I'll settle for no squeaks, no thumps, no metallic grinding noises and really good buttonholes.