Everything. And then Some.

There was a little of everything going on at my house today.  But before I go on, check this out.  This is the number of steps I walked yesterday.  That's my new world record.

When Sue and I walk, we don't mess around.

With all that walking, I figured I deserved a coffee cake.  No, it's not on my diet, but here's the thing:  I. Don't. Care.

I've been wanting to try this for a while.  It's a Sweet Potato Coffee Cake with Caramel Glaze.  I made it exactly as the recipe specified except I substituted butternut squash for the sweet potatoes.  Why?  Because I had some pureed butternut squash in my freezer, and I figured it was pretty close to the same thing.  Since I haven't tasted it with sweet potatoes, I can't say whether it made any difference, but I can assure you that it was good.  Here's how it looked when it came out of the oven:

Essentially, it's a giant cinnamon roll.  You make a yeasted bread dough.  That needs a rise of about 1 1/2 hours.  Then, you divide the dough in half, roll each half into a rectangle, sprinkle it with yummy cinnamon sugar, cut it into strips, and then start winding.  You roll up the first strip, and then just wrap the remaining strips around the center until you've used them all up.  Then, it needs another short rise, and then you bake it.  Then you cool it.  Then you take it out of the pan.  Then you glaze it.  Then it looks like this:

Then you eat it.  Yum.  Can't wait for breakfast tomorrow.  Mine was a little under baked in the center, and so it fell a little bit when I took it out of the pan.  Next time, I won't trust the way it looks.  I'll stick a skewer in the center just to be sure.

That took most of the day, with time for sewing inserted while I was waiting for it to rise.  When I was finished eating the coffee cake (only one piece, not the whole thing--although it was tempting), I started on tonight's dinner.  That was another new recipe for me.  I watched Ina Garten make what appeared to be a really good Winter Minestrone and Garlic Bruschetta on TV last weekend, and I couldn't wait to try it.  

First you fry up some pancetta.

Then, you throw in the veggies, consisting of onion, carrot, celery, butternut squash (there it is again!), garlic, and fresh thyme (I used half the amount of dried thyme).  Then you saute the veggies until they start to soften.

Then you toss in some canned tomatoes and some chicken broth.  Then you simmer it for 30 minutes.   Next, Ina wants you to add some things, including already-cooked pasta.  I used ditalini--a short tube pasta. It didn't make sense to me to cook it separately, however, and so I let the pot simmer for 20 minutes, and then added the dry pasta for the remaining ten minutes.  You need to stir it fairly frequently to keep the dry pasta off the bottom of the pot, but otherwise, it works just fine.

When the entire thirty minutes of simmer time is up, you're going to dump in a can of cannellini beans and some fresh spinach.  I used the braising greens I got at the Farmer's Market last week.  Aren't these beautiful?  It's kale, collard greens, beet greens, and all kinds of yummy, healthy stuff.  (I think it more than makes up for the coffee cake, don't you?)

Also, she adds some white wine and two tablespoons of store-bought pesto.  Ina used regular basil pesto, but I had sun dried tomato pesto already open in the fridge, so I used that.

Stir that all around.  The greens had to cook down some, but that took just a few minutes.  It was pretty thick by this time, and so I ended up adding about three more cups of chicken broth to the six cups I started with.  Looks pretty tasty, huh?  Here's the link to the recipe.  

That's our dinner for tonight, and I'm using some frozen Texas Toast rather than making the garlic bruschetta like Ina did.  A girl can only stand so much cooking in one day.

And throughout the day, I was working on my Laundry Room project.  I try to keep a pretty tidy workspace most of the time, but when I do applique, things get messy.  I tried to keep it down to a dull roar, but things still piled up everywhere.

My little helper cat wasn't there to help me.  He was crashed out next to the fire almost all afternoon.

This is how far I got with this project.  The hardest part is nearly finished now--building the background piece.

The sun is fused into place, and the fence posts and the middle jagged row of grass is also fused into place.  The top border is sewn down with a quarter-inch seam.  The pattern suggested stitching close to the edge like raw-edged applique, but with that piece not fused, that seemed silly to me.  I just sewed a regular seam, and it's a lot cleaner for it.  The darkest grass at the bottom, and the light grass behind the fence posts is not fused, nor are the pink and blue buildings along the sides.  Those will be stitched down along the edge.  As of now, they are all pinned into place, and that's where I'll start tomorrow.

After that, I'll be able to add the roofs and windows to the houses and then add the clothesline and the clothes.  It's moving right along.  I'm supposed to use twine for the clothesline, but after giving it some thought and staring at the pattern for a while, I've decided to embroider it on using the triple stitch on my sewing machine.

So that's what I did today.  Phew!  How was your Saturday?