Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Colorful Couscous Salad — One More Gooseberry Patch Cookbook Recipe Early Review (plus a Giveaway!)
Today was a rainy, nap-taking kind of day here in NW Florida … only I don’t take naps, so I got myself into the kitchen and made recipe #3 from Gooseberry Patch’s new Meals in Minutes – 10th Anniversary Edition.
If you follow all of us here at Threaded Together then you already know that we are all trying to eat healthier. Without knowing what I would do with it, I picked up some couscous a few weeks ago when I was on the shopping aisle looking for some alternatives to plain white rice (I LOVE plain white rice, but I’m trying to LOVE brown rice, too!). So, when I saw this recipe in the new cookbook, I knew I had to try it … I loved it! I think it is my new favorite salad recipe! Yum!!! The couscous was unbelievably easy to make (bring water to a boil, toss in the couscous, cover and remove from heat…wait 5 minutes and then fluff!). The dressing is an exotic blend of flavors … sweet, tart, spicy. This salad was so good that I called Jen and told her I was on my way down to her house to bring her lunch – a small container of this salad!
I did make a couple of minor ingredient substitutions … I did mention that it was rainy, right? Not only did I not want to spend the money, but I also didn’t want to get wet!
Colorful Couscous Salad
Donna Cash
Dexter, MI
(Page 41)
Ingredients:
Salad:
10-oz. box couscous
1 green pepper, diced
1 bunch green onions, diced
4 carrots, shredded
15 ¼ oz. can corn, drained
15 ½ oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed
Dressing:
¾ cup olive oil
¼ cup lemon juice
1/8 cup white wine vinegar
2 Tbsp. sugar
1 T. garlic, minced
3 drops hot pepper sauce
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. pepper
½ tsp. lemon pepper
½ tsp. seasoned salt
¼ tsp. turmeric
1/8 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. ground ginger
Directions:
Prepare couscous according to package directions; drain and set aside. In a large serving bowl, whisk olive oil, lemon juice, vinegar, sugar and seasonings; stir in vegetables and beans.
Add couscous, mixing well. Cover and refrigerate until serving. Makes 6 to 8 servings.
Things I did a bit different:
*I didn’t have any white wine vinegar so I substituted red wine vinegar.
*I used 2 large cloves of fresh garlic, minced
*I used Tabasco for the hot pepper sauce
*I didn’t have any turmeric. After doing a bit of online research (Google is my friend!), I decided since it seemed to be mainly for color, to just leave it out. No harm, no foul!
*Don’t look too hard in the pictures for the diced green pepper … I’m not a huge fan, so left it out. I increased the amount of carrots and green onions to make up for the “bulk”.
*I don’t have a 1/8 tsp. measuring spoon, but I have these to meaure a smidgen, a pinch, and a dash … aren’t they cute??
I think I used a smidgen each of cinnamon and ground ginger.
It is not too late … Do you want a copy of Meals in Minutes — 10th Anniversary Edition before it hits the bookstores? Be sure to enter by clicking here!
Tags: Cooking, Debbie, Giveaways, Gooseberry Patch, Salad
A Baby Quilt Finished
My sweet little boy turns two years old this week. Where. Did. It. Go?
I started this quilt for him when he was two or three months old (don’t judge me…I have a problem finishing projects). A few months ago, I finally decided that I wasn’t going to start another project until this one was DONE. Maybe it was the realization of him getting so close to his second birthday or maybe I was tired of the guilt trip it caused seeing it incomplete for so long…whatever it was, it motivated me to sit down and get it finished.
The design was fairly simple being that the front of the quilt only had eight sections in total (not including the owl). Normally I put my quilts on my free-arm frame, but I decided to do this one by hand. I quilted each section with a different design; one section had small quilted circles, one section was diagonal lines, and another was quilted to follow the flowers patterned on the fabric. It was ‘a little bit of this, and a little bit of that’. 
I appliqued the owl on the largest section in a color completely different from the others. I’m still not sure what I think about him, but he’s slowly growing on me. I used the sewing machine to applique him as I know how my son’s fingers can pick apart just about anything.
I also tried a new technique on the binding. Normally, I use four separate pieces of binding and my corners always look sharp and…awkward. A sweet lady at work had given my son a baby quilt and she had used one long piece of binding. Her corners were slightly curved and tucked in on the back…they looked great!
So…I did what any crafter would do.
I studied it.
And I copied it.
It took some time (I think I picked it out a couple of times before I finally got it down right), but I got it and fell in love with it. Basically, you sew your binding to the front as usual. Once you reach a corner, you ‘tuck’ in two or three tiny pleats/tucks to make your binding curve around the corner. When you hand sew it down on the back, you’ll tuck under the extra fabric and sew it down flat.
Now that this quilt is FINALLY finished, I have about seven other quilts I want to start making. My only problem? I have about four other quilts that still need finishing.
What motivates you to finish those forgotten projects?
Stitch-A-Long: FINISHED
Okay, so it turned out to be a 25 month Stitch-A-Long, rather than a 12 month Stitch-A-Long, but it is still FINISHED! And, I do like this method of taking large projects and breaking them up into “doable” chunks.
I’m afraid the budget doesn’t allow for a gorgeous double -matted frame job, so what to do, what to do? I reached way back into my “toolbox” of sewing skills (WAY back, haven’t made a quilt or wall hanging in years!), and decided to turn it into a little wall hanging. I found some sweet fabric to reflect some of the dominant colors which are also found in my office (I spend much more time there than at home, so decided that is where it will hang — it will also help on some of those challenging days to remember these “Living with Charm” words).
I considered how wide I wanted the finished product to be, and decided that I wanted the emphasis on the stitching so the borders and binding are fairly narrow.
It needed a little something to give it some form, but I didn’t want to use iron-on interfacing. I had some leftover pieces of soft white flannel which worked perfectly!
Then it was time for the binding … It has been a while since I mitered a corner, so Google was my friend! I found this great free tutorial online at Jaybird Quilts.
Success!!
Tags: cross-stitch, Debbie, Sewing, Stitch-A-Long
Pie Crust
I was in the grocery store today and the refrigerator pie crusts were on sale for $2.29 for a brand that will remain nameless. My first thought – I NEED TO GO INTO THE PIE CRUST MAKING BUSINESS!!!
Why? Well, have you ever made your own pie crust before? I hadn’t until four days ago. It is RIDICULOUSLY easy.
My husband and I were discussing our current food cravings and the first thing he wanted was a pumpkin pie.
“But sweetheart,” I told him, “I don’t have any pie crusts.”
My spoiled husband’s response was, “well can’t you just make one?”
I had never tried before and had no idea what went into it. I explained to him I would probably have to use yeast and let the dough rise and all those fun things. I also had NO motivation to go to the store to buy a pre-made pie crust. I get an F- on that one. I could not have been farther from correct.
Later in the day I turned to my trusty old allrecipes.com and looked up a pie crust recipe. OMG, I cannot believe I have never made a pie crust in my 30 years. It takes only four ingredients, and ten minutes of your time. You know what else? I think it made a BIG difference in the taste. It was the best pumpkin pie I had ever eaten, even with our family’s well guarded secret recipe (I think Libby’s stole it though because last I checked it was on the back of their pumpkin pie can).
So here is the recipe for homemade pie crust. Try it and see how yours tastes.
I have no picture because the pie disappeared far too quickly. If I remember, I’ll post one next time (which according to my husband is going to be soon).
A Quick Donation Quilt
There’s a huge Christmas charity event that happens each year where I work. They poll area schools for 100 children to come out, ‘meet Santa’, attend a party, and…the best part…get presents. This event is huge. I mean HUGE. They plan for it all year, host several fundraisers, and it always makes the local newspapers. They allow the teachers to select the students and then they take it from there to make sure each child is taken care of. I’ve seen it two years now and each time it makes me cry.
As the Christmas party gets closer, they have a silent auction to have one last fundraiser before the party. Each year I’ve wanted to donate something, but having time to prepare was always my problem (time is almost ALWAYS my problem). This year, though…this year I planned ahead and made a lap quilt to go in the auction.
I know it’s a simple design, but I’m a sucker for a good ol’ square patterned quilt. I love the simplicity of them, the allowed randomness, and, I don’t know, I just like ‘em. I made this one in red, white, and blue fabrics (that I bought in a yard sale!). While I did follow a diagonal blue and red pattern, I didn’t follow a pattern in how to arrange the various patterns of fabric. I used 9 different patterns and didn’t worry if one of the squares was touching the same pattern…I just went with it.
I did run into a little issue about which I’d like to give a ‘quilting tip’. I wasn’t paying close attention to how wide my quilt top was in relation to my back fabric. The top was about 2-3 inches wider than the back. I really didn’t want to remove a row of squares and make it narrower (the quilt measures 43″ wide and 56″ long). So I started thinking…I made my bias tape for the edges and instead of making the top side equal to the bottom side, I simply made the bottom about twice the width as the top. You can see in the pictures what I mean.
Because I was using fabric from a ‘grab bag’ found in a yard sale, I was on a bit of a ‘budget’ for the backing fabric. I didn’t have a large enough fabric piece to use for the entire back, so I ended up using four different fabrics (all were also used in the quilt top) to complete the back. I was a bit afraid of how it would turn out, but now I love it. It’s truly a scrap quilt!
(Pardon the junk on the shelves. The craft room is a work in progress.
Do you have any crafts or ideas that you frequently use for donation items?
Joan’s Homemade Hummus
I LOVE hummus … I do NOT love paying for it in the grocery store, especially for the good stuff; in addition, when you make it yourself you can control the ingredients/taste – I added some extra garlic to mine. Jen alerted me to her friend Briony’s blog several months ago, Freeze Your Way Fit, and this yummy recipe for homemade hummus. Full disclosure here – I make a HUGE mess in the kitchen when I make this recipe so I make a lot of it at one time. I can fit 3 “batches” into my 9 cup Kitchen Aid food processor; this time I made a total of 6 “batches”. Tahini is the most expensive ingredient, and it is also the messiest! Even our local Walmart here in L.A. (lower Alabama, also known as NW Florida) carries tahini, $4.75 for the amount needed to make all of these batches — it probably cost me about $12.00 to make all of the hummus shown below.
Ingredients (for one batch – multiply by 3 to fill a 9 cup food processor):
1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed (I grew up calling these garbanzo beans!)
1 small garlic glove, minced
½ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. ground cumin
Pinch of cayenne (red) pepper
3 Tbsp. juice from lemons (I uses concentrate this time and it worked just as well)
¼ cup water
6 Tbsp. tahini, stirred well
2 Tsp. extra virgin olive oil
Directions:
Step One: Put chickpeas, garlic, salt, cumin, and cayenne in a food processor; process until fully ground. Scrape down sides with a spatula. Make sure all parts of the food processor are put together before you put the ingredients in!
Step Two: With the food processor running, slowly add the lemon juice and water and continue to process for one minute. Scrape down the sides with a spatula again.
Step Three: In a small bowl, whisk together the tahini (easier said than done – it is the consistency of tile grout!) and 2 Tbsp. oil.
With the food processor still running, add the oil-tahini mixture in a steady stream through the feed tube. Continue to process until smooth and creamy, scraping down sides as needed.
Can be served immediately with crackers. Refrigerate any not used immediately. Also freezes beautifully! Freeze small portions. Reheat in the microwave for 30 seconds on full power, stir, and heat another 5-10 seconds. If it seems a little dry, just add a little bit of olive oil.
Enjoy!
What Week is This?
I’ve been so busy with work and child and husband that I seriously fell off track. BUT, I’ve still been working on it. While I certainly haven’t tackled a project each week, I have tackled some of them. Now that we’re house hunting, I’m on a mission to get the rest of this place de-cluttered and organized.
I tackled my ‘craft project book’. I now have dividers separating each craft category with each craft project contained in its own page protector. If I wasn’t interested in the project anymore, it went in the trash. The book now is much thinner and is something I actually want to dig in to.
My linen closet is somewhat ‘tight’, meaning my shoulders don’t actually fit in the doorway. However, I try to make the most of the space that I have. I found some spare ribbon and tied each sheet set together. I’ve found that I love this method because it keeps the entire set together. Pillowcases go between the sheets, ribbons go around the set, and it’s a happy family.
Our hall closet is a place where we stash all kinds of stuff crap. In this closet I have a tub containing nothing but gift bags, gift boxes, and tissue paper. It. Was. A. Mess. I pulled everything out, reorganized the bags by occasion, placed a few sheets of matching tissue paper in each bag, and neatly put them back in the tub. I cleared out about half of them. So liberating! I also have another tub in the closet where I keep gifts. These are gifts I purchase throughout the year…things I find on a great sale, things I find that would be loved by certain people, or even things that I know will come in handy when it’s Sunday night and I remember that I’m supposed to take a generic gift to work for someone. I’m not a hoarder, I swear…I just plan ahead. I cleared out quite a few gifts and ‘set dates’ for when others were going to be given away. See all those coats and jackets? I cleared about 60% of them out. Some went to the thrift store and some went in the attic (we only get to wear jackets for about three months in Florida…which makes them last forever…which kinda stinks in a way).
The dog kennel is something that’s been seriously annoying to me. Anytime we sit in the living room and try to enjoy a movie, I stare at the kennel and give it the stink eye. After cleaning out the basket and loving how clean it looks, we’re actually considering putting up the kennel altogether.
The kitchen cabinets have also been de-cluttered. I cleared out a few Pyrex items that I haven’t used in years, but I also bought a new set of casserole dishes (OH! Did I mention that my new hobby is cooking?!?! Yes! I’m cooking!). Anyway, the cabinets have been cleaned out and it feels so much better to look for dishes and actually find them. I’ve recently discovered milk crates for organizing. One milk crate holds all my mixing/blending/chopping appliances. Before the crate, all of that stuff was scattered in the bottom of the cabinet…another mess (I SO wish I had a before picture).
My dresser drawers also were tackled. All the shirts that were too tight or too floppy either went to the attic or the thrift store. I now have stuff that fits and it’s organized and…less stressful.
I haven’t accomplished as much as I had hoped, but I’m working on it. With my new motivation, I’m hoping to see more steady progress.
Have you done any organizing and what’s your motivation?
Refrigerator Bread & Butter Pickles
It is summer, and the living is easy — 99° here at 6 pm on June 4 — after an absolutely beautiful spring, I think we’re going to have a Long. Hot. Summer. We made the first of our annual visits to A & N Blueberry Farm early Friday morning to pick blueberries (I got 10.5 pounds and Jen got around 7… pretty sure we’re going to have to squeeze in another trip!). They also had some other fresh produce for sale and I picked up some of Sarah’s delicious blueberry jam (because I don’t can), cucumbers and a nice big zucchini … I already have some yellow squash in the fridge, so just might have to make some zucchini bread later this week.
I don’t can, did you catch that above? I love the idea of canning and once helped my friend, Jenny K. (Jen’s namesake!), can about 400 pounds of tomatoes (we washed them in the bathtub). My sister-in-law, Rhonda D., is the canning queen — I love visiting when the pantry is full of homemade grape jelly, corn, tomatoes and other yummy treats from their garden. So, since I don’t can, I freeze and refrigerate! I bought these cucumbers specifically to make some EASY refrigerator pickles.
Ingredients:
7 cups cucumbers (number of cucumbers needed depends on how big they are — I used 4 today)
2 Tbsp. salt
2 cups sugar
1 cup cider vinegar
1 tsp. celery seeds
Directions:
Thinly slice cucumbers — or thickly slice, up to you! I prefer a thinner slice. Place in a colander and sprinkle cucumber slices with salt. Let stand at least 2 hours.
Meanwhile, combine the sugar, vinegar and celery seeds. Let stand until the sugar completely dissolves, stirring occasionally.
Rinse the cucumber slices and drain well. Put the cucumber slices in a large canning jar—my original recipe from about 30 years ago says “or a mayonnaise jar” … can you even buy mayo in a jar these days?? Really cram the cucumber slices in tightly. I finally had an opportunity to use this cute jar that Jen made for our annual holiday cookie exchange!
Pour the vinegar mixture over the top.
And, refrigerate. Done!
Now, try to wait 24-48 hours before snacking on these tasty morsels. Won’t kill you if you don’t wait, but they are better the longer they sit in the cider-sugar solution. I’m not sure if these ever have an “expiration” date … I’ve kept them in the fridge for weeks and they’ve been just fine.
Enjoy!
Clutter-oholics-Anonymous Weeks 7, 8, 9, 10 Whew!
Can you tell we’ve all been busy? Believe me, it’s not that we don’t want to post; we do! It’s just finding time. But…that doesn’t mean that we haven’t found little snippets of time to get projects done. Not only have I been knocking out organization projects on my list, but I’ve got lots of craft projects that I want to share. It’s just finding time.
But…here’s a brief post to show what I’ve been up to:
Week 7: I cleaned up and decluttered my back porch. My back porch was disgusting. With the weather so nice, I’ve been dying to get out there and enjoy it. But…as gross as it was, there was no way. It took me a full week of cleaning, washing down the walls, making new cushions, and getting rid of items that we no longer wanted. The lawnmower was given away on craigslist and I sold the canopy tent (folded up in the corner) to a guy needing it for his daughter’s wedding. Technically, I still need to pull down the lights (long story…don’t ask) and I also want to make a clear cover for the smoker and the grill. I used to have one for the smoker that I made a made out of an old vinyl tablecloth. Although cute, I found that it was a prime ‘hideout space’ for big, nasty frogs (I hate frogs like you have no idea). So…just this once…out with the cute, in with the practical. I’m proud to say, we’ve been sitting on the porch almost every other night and have thoroughly enjoyed it.
Week 8: I tackled my master bedroom closet. This job wore. me. out. Even my husband had a few complaints about it. Of course, I had him installing ventilated shelving at 8:30 on a Sunday night. Behold the chaotic mess that I started with:
I’m learning that to really clean out and organize a closet/cabinet/junk stash you need to get everything out of it. Everything. I’m also learning it’s great to go ahead and group and organize everything before putting it back in the closet/cabinet/abyss.
We added a shelf (at 8:30 on a Sunday night) and WOW the difference an extra shelf makes. I also said goodbye to many clothes and purses that either didn’t fit, were worn out, or I was just plain sick of wearing. I still have a small basket of things to sort through, but the closet is pretty much done. I can’t tell you how nice it is to see what clothes I have available and to know that what’s in there fits and is in the correct season. I love it. The hubby is also much happier. Which is good.
Week 9: I organized our files. I explained to my husband (about a month ago) that I wanted to get a tall file cabinet and put it in the garage so that we could merge all of our files into one area. We had our files all over the place: a milk crate in the office closet, a short cabinet in the garage, a box or two on top of the short cabinet…it was a mess. We would stack papers until I couldn’t handle it anymore and then I’d try to file them in the milk crate. The system was way less than ideal.
I knew I wasn’t going to pay full price for a four-drawer (I’m cheap frugal) so I started scanning craigslist like crazy. I even had my mom asking her work friends if they knew of anyone wanting to unload one. No success. My mom and I went to garage sales one Saturday and she saw this tall older style cabinet at one house. We looked at it and it was older, but worked fine. It was a bit scratched up, but it was going in the garage anyway so what did I care? I asked the lady how much it was and she said, “Five dollars, and I’ve got muscles sitting in the house to help load it for you. I want it GONE.” I giggled and paid the woman. All FIVE drawers work great and it even had the little frames inside for hanging files. SCORE! It took a full week of working on it during the evenings, but we now have all our files in one place as well as older files shredded. The top drawer has older files, second drawer has current files, third drawer is still empty (awesome, yes?), fourth drawer has my college notes (I’m a dork, I know) and owner’s manuals, and the bottom drawer has all of our ‘office supplies’…mainly notebooks and stuff like that. I’m thoroughly enjoying paying the bills and immediately filing the statements instead of letting them pile up like we did before.
Week 10: I organized our medicine ‘cabinet’. It used to be in the kitchen above the stove, but after another organization project, I needed that space for something else so it was relocated to the hall linen closet. Granted, the ‘before’ wasn’t too bad, but the containers (old wipes containers) were mismatched and too small for everything.
I bought six new containers (all matching) and grouped all the meds. Everything fit where it needed to and I made ‘labels’ from scrapbook paper and stuck them in the fronts of the containers. I swear…I only buy that paper for projects like this. I honestly don’t remember the last time I did any scrapbooking. The shelf is about a half inch too narrow for all three containers to fit side by side, but, as a friend of mine used to say, “If it won’t fit, force it.”
So…that’s four weeks’ worth of organizing and decluttering. Now…off to finish this week’s project. It technically isn’t on my list, but the hubby has been ‘requesting’ it (‘Pleeeeease can we clean this up?”). He better be careful…I can always request more shelving be installed at 8:30 at night.
Decadent Cake Holders
I cannot believe it has been two weeks since any of us posted! We have all been busy with end of the year school activities, spending time with our family, and getting ready for summer. I haven’t even been doing too much crafting but I have been working around the house and plan on posting a Clutter post this week! I am also hoping to post craft projects that are perfect to do with your kids this summer as I will be trying to entertain my two!
Today, I wanted to share some pictures of a Christmas gift that I made for several friends and family members. They were so easy! All I did was purchase cake/cupcake holders and decorate them with my Cricut vinyl cutouts. I am not sure how they are still holding up, but they were a hit!
This may become my quick go to gift!
