Busy Weekend

It's been non-stop activity today, and it's only the beginning of what needs to happen over the weekend. Getting an early start, I had time to work on my Wine Country embroidery piece, and also to start a journey of many inches around the Yard Art quilt hand sewing the binding. You know I always start close to the corner so that I can feel like I'm making progress. True to form, I've already turned the first corner. The whole binding is about 10% done, but those corners are 25% done! Here's how it's looking.

After that, I was out the door to meet up with Mae for our trip to the Beaverton Farmer's Market. We were having so much fun picking out plants for Erik and Mae's garden that I didn't even think to take pictures. We had a delicious breakfast at a Lebanese food stand...fabulous tzatziki on a wrap with some chicken and veggies for me. Mae had an omelette with some baba ganoush on the side. She was so cute when we got home and unloaded all her new plants. Now her work is cut out for her the rest of the weekend. 

Mine will be too. I came home with three bunches of some nice short fat carrots, which happen to be the perfect length for making the dilled carrots we tried out for the first time last year. Here's a picture of the ones from last year. They've all been devoured at this point, and these are positively addictive. Obviously, we needed more, and as quickly as possible.

So despite my already long to-do list for the weekend, I sprung for the carrots, and I'll get busy canning them tomorrow. They're actually pretty simple since it's a raw pack. You can see the recipe I use right here.

Yesterday, I purchased a half flat of strawberries. The Hoods are so sweet this year. I had to cut the seeds from enough to equal a full pound of berries. Those on the right of the image below are seedless. They're seeded brethren are on the left.

When those were finished, I had two pints left from the half flat, and I finished those off so that we could have strawberry shortcake for dessert last night. I just make our favorite little shortcakes from the back of the Bisquick box. I can't make them without thinking of my mother and brother who loved them as well. Mike gets the denuded strawberries, and I eat the seedy sides. Honestly, you can't tell the difference, although I imagine his is a little less crunchy than mine. That's his seedless shortcake on the right of the image below.

He always claims I don't need to go to the effort, but honestly, how could I possibly eat strawberry shortcake and strawberry ice cream in front of him? We oinked and snorted and yum-yum-yummed so much, and I said to him...how could I possibly enjoy this without you? I'd have to eat silently, which is near on impossible. It would be like trying to have a silent orgasm, and where's the fun in that? Well. Enough said, I think. Probably more than enough said.

Today I used the original pound of seedless berries and cooked up the component parts of the strawberry ice cream. It's chilling in the fridge now, and tomorrow morning, I'll churn 'er up and we'll have strawberry ice cream for dessert.

Continuing my assault on the vegetables, we had a chicken Caesar salad for dinner last night. There were two beautiful small heads of Romaine lettuce in this week's share. It's honestly the most delicious Romaine lettuce I've ever eaten...so crisp and robust. I always add red onion, Roma tomato, avocado, croutons, and plenty of Parmesan cheese to this salad. And I don't think you can beat good old Newman's Own Caesar dressing for a Caesar salad. Here it is prior to adding the chicken.

For tonight's dinner I'm making some grilled shrimp and trying a new recipe for a bok choy Waldorf salad. We're not big fans of bok choy, and so far, we've only eaten it to be good sports. This afternoon, I made the dressing for the salad and it was pretty tasty. It's made with nonfat plain yogurt, a little mayonnaise, lemon zest and juice, and some honey. The bok choy is first salted to get rid of excess liquid. Then you squeeze out the water and mix it with apples, grapes, walnuts, and the dressing. I figure with all that sweet stuff added in, the bok choy has to be good, right? Well...I'll let you know how it turns out.

Tomorrow I'm doing to make the dilled carrots and the ice cream, and then I'm hoping to have some time to work on transplanting the tomatoes into their largest pots of the year. There's lots to do, but I'm still hoping to get some sewing in.