Yes, I Can

The question of the day is this: Can I stand (literally) another day in the kitchen making plum chutney? And the answer...yes, I can. Because if I do it today, then I can take the day tomorrow to sew. Yes, sew...all the live-long day. I won't even have to cook because I'll have leftover chili from last night. Someone asked if I was going to share the chili recipe, and well, again...yes. As long as you asked so nicely.

It was a bit of a production because there are three rounds of roasting...first, peppers. Then corn (although you could use frozen corn if you wanted to). Then, tomatillos, onions, and garlic. Oh yes, and I only made half the recipe. It still makes enough for an army. So, it's made with poblano peppers and Anaheim peppers. I bought some poblanos at the local market, but I used all the CSA peppers piling up in my vegetable crisper. Aren't they pretty?

There are a couple of wax peppers there, poblanos, an Italian "blistering" pepper, two Anaheims, and a couple of other ones I'm not sure about. Except for the poblanos, they're all from our CSA share. The peppers, onions, tomatillos, and garlic are all pureed in your blender or food processor along with a handful of fresh cilantro. The corn is roasted and then cut from the cobs and set aside. Also, it contains some squash and some raw onion chopped. You can do all the heavy lifting ahead of time and then refrigerate it until you're ready to make dinner. Once you have all those component parts made, then it's just a matter of assembling it and heating it up. Also, you can add some meatballs if you want, but those are optional. I used ground chicken in my meatballs.

This is a fairly spicy chili. The recipe will tell you to add some jalapeno, but don't add a single smidgeon of jalapeno without tasting it first. Ours was spicy enough without it. If I'd added any jalapeno at all, I'm afraid it would have knocked our heads off. So anyway...here's the recipe as it appeared in the Washington Post. Scroll down about halfway to find the related recipe for the meatballs. Oh yes...I didn't get all fancy with the "Mexican" oregano and the "ancho" chili powder. I just used what was in the drawer. 

Despite standing in the kitchen for the past several days, I've still made time for slow stitching. How else would I maintain my already-questionable sanity? I finished Block 18, Bee Bountiful.

When that was finished, I reached behind me for the Hocuspocusville block already in progress. I'm just about ready to move the hoop to the next position.

As long as I was in the sewing room pressing and trimming the Bee-utiful block, I made up the next block for the Wine Country quilt. Hocuspocusville will probably keep me busy while we're on our trip, but just to be sure of my sanity, I make sure there's plenty of slow-stitching to be done.

Now here's a question for you: I'm considering starting up a stitch-along at the beginning of the year in 2017 of the Bag Ladies of the Fat Quarter Club. Remember the "Bag Ladies"? You can see them right here. You might recall that Chickadee Hollow Designs generously sponsored a giveaway of the Quilting Snowladies patterns several months ago. During the giveaway, many of you selected the "Bag Ladies" as your favorite thing on the site. Now, I have an opportunity to give away a set of the Bag Ladies; but win or lose, Chickadee Hollow Designs will generously offer 10% off the patterns to anyone who wants to participate in the stitch-along. The patterns include the design already stamped and colored on fabric. All you have to do is stitch! I've even created a badge for it and I'll share the code if there's enough interest.

So, is anyone interested in signing up for a stitch-along to start in January? No need to do anything now other than let me know if you're interested. If enough people are game, we'll do it. Either way, the giveaway will be coming up in October. 

It's time for me to get busy on chutney, but here are the rest of the pictures from the dahlia festival. Enjoy.