Bring on Christmas

Like it or not...Christmas is coming. We've significantly reduced our Christmas stress here at the Three Cats Ranch by foregoing the gift exchange the past couple of years. Instead, we plan a family weekend together. There are no little ones in our family, and so none of us needs a gift. What we relish most is time together. Which brings me to our Thanksgiving at Erik and Mae's house yesterday.

Before leaving home yesterday, I'd practiced taking a selfies with my phone. Selfies seem hard to me. I'm always getting my hand in front of the lens. There's a way to snap a picture using the volume controls, and so I was practicing how to hold my phone so that I could snap the shutter and not cover up the lens at the same time. When I tried to do it, I couldn't fit all of us into the image. Mike hopped up and snapped that image above with my point and shoot camera.

The young lady on the right is Emily, one of Matthew's roommates attending school here in Oregon. She lives in Massachusetts, and so it was too far for her to travel home this season. She was a delight, and we enjoyed having her with us. Behind Mae at the top of the photo is Mae's mother. She's recently returned to Oregon from Georgia.

After that, Emily hopped up and took a picture of our whole family...a rarity. One of us is usually behind the camera, and so I love it when we can all be in a photo together.

Erik was in charge of the turkey, as he has been for the past several years. He deep fries it. Dunking it into the hot oil seals the skin so it doesn't absorb oil, and it also keeps the juices of the turkey inside the bird.

When it comes out of the fryer, it has the nicest crispy skin, and it's moist and juicy inside. Yum.

Also, Mae knocked herself out making some beautiful desserts...an apple tart on the right, and pumpkin cheesecake on the left. It's made from roasted CSA pumpkin. Wrapped in foil in the front is some pumpkin bread Emily brought to share.

Below is my plate. Turkey at the top, and going clockwise, sweet potatoes, sauteed mushrooms with mashed potatoes beside them. In the middle, fresh cranberry cherry marmalade, at the bottom a delicious green bean casserole with some leeks. Above that Mae's delicious stuffing and to its left, jellied cranberries. In my humble opinion, it is impossible to eat a Thanksgiving feast without including jellied cranberries straight from the can with all the can impressions included along it's seductive lines.

Clementine was unusually friendly last night. We're told she's actually the friendliest of their cats, but she often hides when folks come around. Apparently, she's taken a liking to us, and she posed for many pictures. Here, she's practicing for her next cover shoot for Vogue magazine.

Earlier in the day, I baked a third loaf of the Cinnamon Raisin Sourdough bread. This one had just 300g of water. The dough was a little easier to handle, but the loaf didn't bake up any lighter or fluffier.

My thinking now is that my whole-wheat starter isn't robust enough. This loaf got almost no oven spring. You can see in the image below where I tried giving it a wheat stalk scoring, but the holes didn't really open in the oven. The yeast seems to poop out before the bread even goes into the oven.

Inside, the crumb is dense, but it still tastes good. We had some for breakfast toasted with butter. Fear not...it will get eaten...all of it.

My thinking now is that I need to get the whole-wheat starter out of the fridge and start feeding it twice a day until it starts looking livelier. For now, I'm kind of done with sourdough baking. My next loaves will be of another variety, and made with commercial yeast. I'm needing to bake up some beautiful loaves. Bakers cannot live by good taste alone.

There was just a little time left in the day for sewing, and so I headed down to the sewing room to piece together a back for Heart & Home. There, I found Smitty napping on my sewing chair.

This is the fabric I've chosen from my stash for the backing for Heart & Home. It isn't the best choice, but it's the best choice from my stash. I'm really trying to use the fabrics I already have on hand.

It has cherries...or maybe those are apples...I'm not really sure. You can see a similar design in the sashings of the quilt top.

Smitty gave it his paws of appurroval.

Also, I had enough of the red fabric left over to cut binding strips. The red strips will tie the colors from the front and back together.

So, the cutting is done, and I just need to sew one long seam to the quilt back to call the project ready for sandwiching.

As for the kitties...it's the worst time of the year in Kittyland. Rain, rain, rain. It's always wet outside. Smitty sits on the wood box next to the window and under the eaves when he's out.

Sadie joins him, but she prefers to stay inside.

In other random news, the amaryllis is starting to grow. It's turned green and grown about an inch since last weekend.

There's not much on today's agenda, and so I'll finish the back for Heart & Home, and then I have another little project to start on. I'll say more about that in tomorrow's post.