A Full Day

There was a little of everything on yesterday's agenda. I spent the morning in the garden, and then in the kitchen. Afternoon was reserved for sewing. The kitties went out with me when I went to harvest green beans. Smitty would like to point out that position is everything in life. All the cool cats know this.

Even Sadie knows it.

She thought she might impurrove her position in life by climbing this cherry tree.

Or maybe not.

Smitty was my garden sentinel. He was on the lookout for any zucchini trying to go rogue.

There's one now!

We checked out the sunflowers.

The bees love them. They barely move, and they are so quiet. They seem mesmerized by this veritable acreage of flower pollen.

Also, I caught a few more wildflowers in the "bee garden."

Checking the apple tree, they're getting pretty big now. There are probably about 2 dozen apples on the tree this year. When I went outside yesterday morning, I saw two deer snarfing up the cherries on the ground beneath the cherry tree. I'm surprised they haven't eaten the apples.

From the greenhouse, I harvested a bowl full of lettuce. There are three kinds of lettuce here. We'll use this in a salad tonight.

Also, I picked another bowl full of beans. I've already asked my friends on social media what we should say about the one I'm holding in my hand. What do you think?

Also, I harvested another zucchini. I have a bunch of zucchini in the refrigerator. We'll be having some marinated and grilled for sandwiches tonight. Also, I used some to make Zuni Cafe's Zucchini Pickles. Zucchini and onion are shaved thin with a mandolin, brined, then pickled in a combination of cider vinegar, water, mustard, and turmeric. These are a refrigerator pickle. We're having them with our dinner tonight, and I haven't tasted them yet. I'll have to report back about them. They look good, though.

Last night's dinner was steak and baked potato, but I also prepared the cut-off ends from the dilled green beans I canned on Friday. I've adapted these from a recipe on our Cooking Light Diet, and it's a super easy way to make green beans. They're steamed and stir-fried, and then a little soy sauce is added at the end for flavor. So yummy. 

This is easy enough to do in the RV. Here's how I do it:

Charred Green Beans

adapted from Cooking Light

Ingredients:

3 large shallots or 1 small red onion, vertically sliced

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 pound green beans, trimmed

2 tablespoons canola oil

2 teaspoons low sodium soy sauce

1 teaspoon dark sesame oil

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Place shallots, garlic, and green beans in a large bowl. Drizzle with canola oil; toss well to coat. Heat a large frying pan until very hot. Add green bean mixture, cover, stirring occasionally until beans are lightly charred. Add a bit of water if necessary to tenderize beans. When beans are done, cover and let stand a few minutes. Add soy sauce and remaining ingredients; toss to combine. Serve warm.

* * * * *

On the sewing front, I finished quilting Chicken Buffet and then added the binding. You can see the final quilting in the border there...a "chicken feet feather."

While I was preparing the binding, Smitty checked the quilt for comfort,

and purrnounced it acceptable for napping.

Also, I was close enough to finishing up with Mulligan Stew, I decided to finish the top-stitching on this piece for I Believe in Snowmen. The applique was finished, but the stitching was not. Also, I added some iron-on stabilizer to the back.

I was going to satin-stitch the eye of the reindeer, but decided to give him a hot-fix nailhead eye instead.

And then this morning, I finished up hand-quilting another border for this go-round on Mulligan Stew. Most of the blocks in that row also needed quilting, and so quite a bit of progress was made on this turn.

Sadie helped me with the last bit of stitching.

So, I'll be setting this aside for a bit now while I work on some of my other embroidery projects. The area inside the pink line is finished now. Also, I noticed I missed a little section kind of there in the middle, circled in pink.

Now it's hooped up and it'll wait for its turn again. I'll be finishing up the blocks and border at the bottom of that image above.

And today is:

 

so I'll be linking up there.

Remember the wavy borders on Tuxedo Tales? I tried my technique of blocking it where it hangs, and it worked! I still left the black-headed pins at the bottom corners, but the wavy borders are gone. I just put a few pins at the worst-offending places, sprayed it down with water, let it dry, and then removed the pins. And, voila!

Okay, so today I'll be pressure canning yesterday's harvest of green beans. I've relearned how to use the pressure canner, and I'm ready to go with that. It shouldn't take too long. Also, today's focus will be on hand-sewing the binding for Chicken Buffet. 

There's still one more quilt I'd like to finish during the month of August. It's a small one...these two stitch samplers from Crabapple Hill Studio. 

This is a small quilt, and I'll do it on my domestic sewing machine. Tomorrow morning we're going to pick apples from Erik and Mae's tree. It's a busy life during canning season, and so we just keep plugging away. It's time to get going on the latest deluge of beans. There are lots more to come.