Seize the Strawberries

It was a day to rest yesterday, although I managed to fill it up with an assortment of activities. Of course, I first poked the Quiltmaker's Garden repeatedly with needles, turning two corners on the binding.

I'm only about one-third of the way around the quilt, but the corners are half finished!

After that, I fed my sourdough starters, and used the half that was poured off the white starter to prepare another one for baking. When I fed it and left it on its own, it looked like this.

When I checked it later in the afternoon...about five hours later, I'm guessing...it looked like this:

A little slow, but definitely alive. Always a good sign.

After getting that going, I went outside to water the flower pots and took a little walk around. The first buds on the day lilies are showing themselves. These were a gift from Erik and Mae many years ago, and they are stars in our garden of neglect.

And look over there yonder...the dark purple iris are blooming.

In fact, quite a few of the colors are showing off right now. Here's the apricot one.

Here's this two-toned one. I've seen this one much more blue than it appears right now. Something different about the soil, I'm assuming. The grass growing thick in the bed must be stealing its thunder.

Also, this pretty two-toned purple. It's in the shade of a tree, and so it was a little difficult to photograph in such weird light.

Walking on, I noticed these little micro-flowers on a bush that was planted by the previous owner of our home. That was more than 16 years ago, and so I'm clueless about what this is. It turns bright red in the fall, and so I call it the burning bush. In the spring it gets these tiny flowers.

So, then, I couldn't put off any longer the tedious task of cutting the seeds off the strawberries. The strawberry ice cream is worth it, and if you must know, Mike's gut is worth it too. I'm always at a loss about what to do with the seedy sides. I've made strawberry shortcake from them before, but that means cutting even more strawberries for Mike. After cutting a pound's worth, I wasn't really in the mood. But then I got the idea to make some strawberry-infused vodka from them. Wouldn't you know it? I had a brand new fifth of vodka purchased just the day before.

So here's how this is done: Put the fruit (it can be anything) into a glass jar and pour a fifth of vodka over the top. All of the fruit should be submerged. Some fruits, like raspberries, can be used as is. Others, like cranberries, need to be chopped up a little bit. After that, let it sit at room temperature for 30 hours. Then, strain out the fruit and funnel the vodka back into its original bottle. Store in the refrigerator. You can use it in any beverage that uses vodka, or...if you like it...you can just drink it over ice. Here's how mine looked when I started it yesterday.

It'll be ready this evening when the sun crosses the yardarm. I see Strawberry Lemon Drop Martinis in our future. I've linked to a Lemon Drop recipe there. Just substitute the strawberry-infused vodka for the regular vodka. Yum. You can also do this with gin or rum. I've only ever tried vodka.

After that was done, I figured I'd do some sewing. There are two projects I'd still like to work on before the end of the month. One is to make the second row of blocks for the Shop Hop quilt. I did the embroidery for these a couple of weeks ago, and yesterday, I started sewing the blocks together.

We visited this shop on our ill-fated trip to Rocky Mountain National Park. We were staying in Estes Park when rains of Biblical proportions started up. That was the weatherman's term for it, not mine. You can read my blog post about it right here.

It was a nice little shop on the other side of the Rocky Mountains. I enjoyed the shop, and it was good to get a chance to visit before we had to run for our lives. You can read my post about the shop right here. It appears it's still in business, and its website is right here.

We visited this next shop on our trip across the Montana Hi-Line. This is a huge wheat-growing region, and so it was easy to find a good regional print. I recall the owner of this shop being quite a delight.

You can read my blog post about it right here. It appears the shop is still opened, but I don't find a web presence for it.

We found this next shop just on the other side of Wyoming's border with Nebraska. It was a fabulous shop for such a small town. You can read my blog post about it right here.

This shop was inundated by flood waters when the Niobrara River flooded in June of 2015. The shop was closed for some time, but has since reopened. You can read about the flooding aftermath right here.

Each row of my quilt will have eight blocks, and so I'm only halfway through this row. The last one I did yesterday was this one from Orchard's Edge in Bayfield, Wisconsin. This was a lovely shop in a gorgeous town right at the edge of Lake Superior. You can read my blog post about it right here. I was quite surprised to find it opened on the Sunday when we visited.

I chose this fabric because we had visited a number of lighthouses along the Great Lakes, including Split Rock Lighthouse, pictured on the left side. Sadly, the owner of Orchard's Edge passed away since our visit there and the shop has closed. On a brighter note, the owner's son has opened another shop in Ashland, Wisconsin. You can read all the details right here.

So that brings me to this morning. As usual..."Open, open, open."

The first thing I did was feed my starter. Forty-five minutes later, it looked like this. I think it's ready! I put a plate under its jar, just in case it overflows. I'm not quite ready to bake the bread, and so I'll just keep it going until Wednesday when I can start my three-day baking project.

And, hey...let's churn up some ice cream, shall we? I absolutely love my Cuisinart ice cream maker. It might possibly be the best small appliance ever. The "custard" sat overnight in the refrigerator to get it as cool as possible before starting this process. Into the chute it goes.

After ten minutes, I added the chunked up and now seedless strawberries.

Five minutes later...YUM!

Now it will go into the freezer and we'll have it for dessert tonight. Is it time for dinner yet? No? Sigh.

I'm using the recipe from America's Test Kitchens, which requires a membership, and so I can't link to it. It's a bit of a production to make it, and it will dirty every pan and bowl in your kitchen. Once a year, it's worth it. You can find lots of recipes for strawberry ice cream online, however, and so find one that looks good to you and then knock yourself crazy!

As for me, I'm going to go poke needles in the Quiltmaker's Garden for a while more this morning. Makes me feel all squishy just thinking about it.