A Kitchen Day

As expected, there was no sewing yesterday. I spent practically the whole live-long day in the kitchen. It was my choice, and I'm as much in my happy place there as I am when I'm sewing. Even though I thought I was finished canning for the year, I decided to give it one last gasp for 2019 and planned four projects for the weekend. Two were accomplished yesterday.

First, we got a stalk of Brussels sprouts in our last CSA share. That was quite a treat since they usually don't appear at the farm until the winter share. (We don't ever purchase a winter share since we're usually traveling that time of the year.) It was tempting to make a side dish from them, but I decided to pickle mine instead. Erik loves them pickled, and so do I. I needed to supplement with a few from the grocery store. When they were all finished, I had six pints.

They're kind of a sweet and sour pickle...like a bread and butter pickle. I'm still searching for the perfect recipe for pickled Brussels sprouts, but this one isn't half bad. It's my adaptation of one I found online, and you can find it right here.

After that, I got straight to work on this Cranberry Pepper Jam. I think I made this for the first time last year, since it uses Pomona's pectin. Pomona's was new to me last year. It looks so pretty in the jar. My yield was 8 half-pints.

It's good on turkey sandwiches, or as a condiment with any kind of meat. My favorite way to use it is with cream cheese on crackers. It's a nice little gift item at this time of year. I used up the last of the jalapenos and serrano peppers from the CSA. You can find the recipe right here. I take the ribs and seeds out of two of the four peppers. If you like it less spicy, you can remove all of them...or leave all of them in if you're into masochism. It's your choice.

It would have been nice to take a little break there, but last night's dinner had to cook for 3 hours, and so I went straight to work on that. This is a Beef Bourguignon Soup. The recipe is from Martha Stewart.

It used up some more of the CSA veggies (I'm kind of over-run with veggies right now) in the form of celery and carrots. It also uses beef short ribs, and those cooked down until they were tender and flavorful. Mike was out working on the RV all day yesterday, and he was chilled to the bone by the time he came in. He took a dip in the hot tub, and then we had this stick-to-your ribs soup. It was a nice way to end the day. Serve it up with some bread, and you've got yourself one tasty meal. It made enough for dinner for another night, and I'll probably still have some left over for freezing. I'm freezing a lot of leftovers right now. I'll load it all up in the RV when we head south. (I'm really loving the big freezer in the new fifth wheel.)

The only "not work" part of the day was in the mail delivery. I'm so lucky to have a quilting fairy god mother in my friend Ila. She's often sending me the most generous of gifts. Take a look at this box of Aurifil thread she sent yesterday. Holy moly...so many beautiful colors.

You know I love thread as much as I love fabric, and these colors look good enough to eat. I won't though. For sure I'm going to grab out that dark blue and one of the reds for when I quilt Semper Fi.

Also, she included this cat panel. Last night it occurred to me that I have a few panels in my stash downstairs. These are perfect take-along projects for our "head-south trip." All I need is a fabric for a sashing, and maybe a border, and I can have myself an easy quilt top to sew on the road. Look how precious these are:

And, oh my gosh. This Christmas cat fabric is just too stinking cute.

Thank you, Ila. Your generous gift made my day.

Today I'll be back at it, but it should take less time today. While I was doing yesterday's canning, I was also roasting and skinning beets for today's pickled beet effort. I'm afraid my yield will be low. The volume of beets seems less than expected, but I'll can up what I have. Also, I'm making some cranberry chutney. It can be used the same way as the jam, but it's less spicy. It's dynamite on a turkey sandwich. I'm hoping to get back into the sewing room today, if for no other reason than to vacuum up stray threads.