A Day for Everything

The morning started out mild-mannered enough. First, I worked on my slow stitching, as I always do. Yesterday's effort took me to the end of February's heart.

There is just one heart left to stitch, and then all the blocks for this one will be finished. I have some good ideas about how to set it into a quilt, but that will have to wait for a while. Possibly, I'll take it along for the finish when we head south this winter.

There were some things I needed to take out to the fifth wheel. Just then, I spied the pool noodle I ordered. I had an idea about how to solve a problem inside the fifth wheel. I'd tried describing it to Mike, but he was skeptical of my design. Mainly, I think he was having trouble envisioning it despite my (cough) perfectly clear description. So here's the problem: When we go down the road in the fifth wheel (and the truck camper too), the turntable in the microwave oven can bounce off its track. Then, when you open the microwave door for the first time, the glass turntable threatens to fall out and break.

So, I'd seen on Facebook where someone wedged a cut-off piece of pool noodle to hold the turntable in place. (Smacks hand to forehead.) What a great idea! She even got her pool noodle at the Dollar Store. I couldn't find one there, but I was able to get one from Amazon, which our mailman had mercifully delivered the day before. (We expected another trip to the post office.) So...going on...the pool noodle was a great idea, but then I realized it wasn't going to work in our microwave because ours is also a combination convection oven with a wire shelf.

Thinking this through, I considered cutting the pool noodle into two pieces, but then scrapped that idea because the bottom piece would necessarily put upward pressure on the shelf, pushing it out of its brackets. But then I had another idea. And in a no-time-like-the-present moment, I decided to put my idea into practice. Here's how it looks now:

And here was my solution: I simply cut a slot in the bottom half so it would fit over the wire shelf. Also, I had to trim off the sides because it was too thick to fit between the wires.

So, this is just a prototype. I wanted to see if it would work at all. I only used 9 inches of the 55-inch pool noodle, and so I have plenty to make another one, a little tidier this time. My prototype looks as if I chewed the sides off with my teeth...which, to be clear, I did not.

I'll make one for the truck camper too since it has the identical combination microwave/convection oven. Also, I want you to notice the first picture above. See the label above the oven cavity? It's because we old people can never remember the steps for using the convection oven from one usage to the next. It isn't particularly user friendly, and so Mike added the label. Now we don't have to get out the instruction manual every time.

When I came back in the house, I found Sadie sitting on the bottom step with her favorite little plastic rat toy. She kills it several times a day. Fortunately, she does not attempt to eat it.

And here's the thing...once I get into a no-time-like-the-present mood, I start checking lots of things off the list. And that meant I decided to try making apple fritters from a recipe I found recently. I've always wanted to try this, but you know...deep frying. The way to help get over an aversion to deep frying anything is to use a Dutch oven. The tall sides of the Dutch oven cut down on the splatter significantly. These only used a half inch of oil in the bottom of the Dutch oven, and so there was no splatter at all. When I was finished, I had apple fritters for two.

I made just a half recipe, which I'll share with you here. They really weren't very hard to make, but they are best eaten right out of the fryer. We had two for breakfast this morning, which I toasted lightly to crisp them up. They weren't as good after sitting overnight, even with the toasting. Here's the recipe adapted from America's Test Kitchens:

Cast Iron Apple Fritters for Two
adapted from America's Test Kitchens
Recipe may be doubled

Ingredients:
1 Granny Smith apple (6 1/2 ounces), peeled, cored, halved, and cut into 1/4-inch pieces
1 cup (5 ounces) all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, divided
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg, divided
1/2 cup apple cider, divided
1 large egg
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted and cooled
4 cups peanut or vegetable oil, for frying
1 cups confectioners' sugar for the glaze

Directions:

Spread apples in single layer on paper towel–lined baking sheet and thoroughly pat dry with paper towels.

Whisk flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, salt, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, and 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg together in large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons cider, egg, and melted butter together until smooth. Add apples to flour mixture and toss to combine, then stir in cider mixture until incorporated.

Set wire rack in rimmed baking sheet and line with triple layer of paper towels. Add oil to Dutch oven until it measures about 1/2 inch deep and heat over medium heat to 325 degrees.

Using greased 1/3 cup dry measuring cup, carefully scoop out and drop 5 heaping mounds of batter into oil. Press batter lightly with back of spoon to flatten. Fry until deep golden brown, 4 to 5 minutes, flipping fritters halfway through frying. Adjust burner, if necessary, to maintain oil temperature between 300 and 325 degrees. Transfer fritters to prepared rack. (Fritters can be kept warm in a 200°F. oven for up to 30 minutes.) Return oil to 325 degrees and repeat with remaining batter. (Only one fritter was left at this point, and it burned rather quickly in the hot oil. In the future, I might try using a 1/2-cup measure in order to use all the batter in one batch.)

Whisk confectioners' sugar, remaining 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, remaining 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg, and remaining 2 tablespoons cider together in bowl until smooth. Drizzle 1 heaping tablespoon glaze over each fritter. Let glaze set for 10 minutes before serving. (I had about twice as much glaze as I needed, and so I might try halving this next time around. Also, the oil can be strained, saved, and reused.)

* * * * *

Okay, so it was after lunch when I finally got to work on the Wine Country binding, but I've turned three corners now. 

With a minimum of procrastination, I should be able to finish it off today.

While I was doing all of that yesterday, I was also washing and pressing the fabrics for my new quilt project.

I had to wash the blues three times to eliminate bleeding. The reds were washed twice. Now that I've eliminated the excess dye, I'm ready to start cutting and sewing. Hopefully, I'll get started on that today, but finishing off Wine Country is my first priority.