A Fun Project

My daughter asked me if I'd make a couple of potholders for a good friend of hers.  Since I just love to make and inflict potholders on everyone and anyone, I told her I'd be glad to.

K's kitchen color is blue so I told daughter to pick out some fabrics that she thought K would like, and then I picked out the old sampler blocks to use for the designs.

"Carrie Nation" on the left and "Calico Puzzle" on the right.

The backs were made of coordinating scraps.

Making the quilted potholders made me realize how much knitting I've been doing this winter, and how much I've neglected my quilting.  Must remedy that!

Happy Valentine's Day to Me . . .

. . . from my dear husband.

Yesterday morning I went to visit a friend who took a nasty fall on some ice last Tuesday.  When I returned home around noon-ish, on the kitchen table I found not one but two beautiful pots of cyclamens . . . a Valentine's Day gift from my husband.  (He said he couldn't decide which one he liked better, so got both.)

The coloration of this one is even darker than the picture shows.  Some of the blossoms are nearly blue.

This one reminds me of tulips!  The buds are closed up so tightly before showing their full bloom.

Many years ago I had a cyclamen plant that bloomed steadily for over a year.  I'm hoping I can keep these going for as long.

I'm also keeping the sweet man I live with who is so thoughtful, kind and caring to remember occasions like this.  He's definitely my Cupid! 

Recipe for Burger Buns

Since showing a picture of my Cheesy Onion Burger Buns in my post of last Thursday, February 4th, I've had hundreds of (okay, two) requests for the recipe.  So here it is.

Cheesy Onion Burger Buns

5-1/2 to 6-1/2 cups unbleached flour

3 tablespoons sugar

1-1/2 teaspoons salt

2 rounded tablespoons dry yeast

2 tablespoons softened butter

2 cups water, 120-130°

1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese

1/4 to 1/2 finely chopped onion 

In large bowl thoroughly mix 2 cups flour, sugar,

salt and undissolved dry yeast.

Add softened butter.

Gradually add hot water to dry ingredients

and beat 2 minutes at medium speed

of mixer.

Add 1 cup flour and beat at high

speed for 2 minutes, scraping bowl occastionally.

With a spoon, stir in cheese, onion and enough

additional flour to make a soft dough.

Turn out onto lightly floured board and 

knead until smooth and elastic, about

8-10 minutes.

Place in greased bowl, turning to

grease top.  Cover, let rise in warm place until

doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

Punch dough down and turn out onto

lightly floured board.  Divide dough into

20 equal pieces.  Form each piece into

a smooth ball, place balls about

2" apart on greased baking sheets.

Flatten balls with palm of hand.

Cover and let rise until doubled, about

45 minutes.

Bake in 400° oven about 15-20 minutes.

Cool on wire racks. 

Notes:  I've used part whole wheat flour in this recipe with success.

I don't measure the grated cheese, just put in what looks to be about a cup.  A little more or less doesn't seem to make a difference.  Obviously, use more if you desire the cheese flavor to dominate.

Same with the finely chopped onion.  We like an onion-flavored bun so I usually put in about 1/2 cup.

After the buns have risen on the baking sheets, sometimes they will look a little too puffy to me so I smoosh them down again a little before baking.  You can make the choice if you want a higher, smaller bun or a flatter, slightly larger one.

These buns freeze beautifully and are so handy to have in the freezer to use for burgers, sloppy joes or any other sandwich that requires a bun.  They make a great breakfast sandwich with a fried egg, slice of cheese and sausage patty.

Enjoy!

Black and White with a Splash of Color

We've been getting a bit of snow over the last few days which is finally starting to pile up and making it look like a real winter around here.  Yesterday we had that strange occurrence where it rained for a period of time with snow falling both before and after.  So, of course, we discovered when we went out for chores and clearing snow this morning that there was a coating of ice underneath the snow everywhere.

This is our back yard when we first started plowing this morning.

Our wood working area in the back is slowly being covered over with a blanket of snow.  Those maple logs are 16' long and many of them are a foot in diameter.  I'm encouraging Papa Pea not to order firewood again from the logger who delivered these.  (They were supposed to be "small" logs.)  Once the big logs are chainsawed into pieces, they have to be split, more than once, and most of them are so heavy we can't lift them up onto the splitter, but rather have to roll them up a plank.  Oooof.  Not looking forward to working up this pile in the spring.  The wood will eventually yield lots of BTUs, but it will take a bit of work to get it to that point.

I snapped this right after I had shoveled the deck and walkway.  You can see the frosty coating of ice I couldn't remove.

To add a little color to this post, last night I finished the second two pairs of mittens on a string for the twins.  They've gotten used to the mittens that "won't go away" and their auntie and nanny both love the way there's no more hunting for mittens for those four little hands when getting dressed to go outside.  I made these a little bigger than the first ones hoping they would still fit the two little munchkins next year.  Wishful thinking? 

Wondering About Your Water

This morning as I was pumping buckets of water to take to our chickens, ducks and geese, I was fantasizing (as usual) about having a barn plumbed with water that would be free-flowing year 'round.

We have a hand pump on top of our well which is a very handy back-up to have should we ever, for any reason, have a period when we would not be able to get water pumped into the house.  The hand pump is also used for water for the livestock.

We could fill buckets in the utility sink in the heated part of the garage, but since carrying the buckets of water to their destination at the animal pens is twice as far from the garage as from the hand pump, we choose to use the pump on a daily basis.

Besides thinking this morning of how nice it would be to have water available right near the animals, I was wondering what kind of a water system any of you with animals have on your homestead.  Perhaps we can learn from each other and modify our own systems to make it more efficient . . . and easier.

Care to share?

Old Habits Die Hard

Toward the end of last month I found myself being a real ol' Ms. Cranky Pants.  It took a while but it finally dawned on me that I had fallen right back into my old rut of working on all the "should do" tasks all day long and not taking any time for the relaxing, feel-good things I've said I was going to do in the months of January and February.

How easily we fall back into our old habits without even realizing we've done so.  This has shown me I need to reorganize my work day so I regularly (not just in the [slow - ha!] months of January and February) schedule in time to read, watch movies, quilt, knit and do some of the things I always say I don't have time to do, but actually do . . . if I make them a priority.  And, for heaven's sake, we all know that the To Do List will NEVER get done, no matter how many waking hours we spend working on it.

It's taken me a few days (gotta ease back into this) to get my thinking rearranged again, but I hope I'm back on the right track again now.

This is the last pair of socks I've finished.  Still not crazy about the way the design turned out, but they'll prove to be good, serviceable socks all the same.  (Geesh, just noticed the feet look enormous and the tops look skimpy, but it's just the angle of the photo.)

I've already started on another pair.  Anybody keeping track of how many pairs this will be that I've knitted?  (Me neither.  I'd have to go count.)

And the most recent crocheted rag rug I've made.  The next rug is going to be made with some jazzy, bright, spring-like colored fabrics someone gave me.  I can't think of anything else I'd use the material for so this rug can provide a chirky splash of color to use when spring starts to make an appearance.  (Which also means the rug will get smudged with muddy foot, or paw, prints in short order.)

It's been too long since I've had a good supply of burger buns on hand so I got busy this afternoon and made these.  Being a person who needs to see the fruits of her labor at the end of the day, baked goods fill the bill about as much as something knitted or crocheted or sewn.  Baking homemade bread of one sort or another is definitely one old habit I have no desire to break.