Beets and Blocks

It was another hot day yesterday. We're promised some cooling today. I'm hoping we can turn off the air-conditioning. It's so cold in the basement sewing room that I've been confining myself to the upstairs part of the house. Our house is on three levels with a daylight basement. The sewing room is in the far reaches of the basement. When weather goes from cold to warm each year, we close off the ventilation to the basement and open it in the upstairs portion, where our bedroom is located. In winter, we do the opposite. When the heater is running in colder weather, the bedroom can get stifling. For the time being, the bedroom is cool enough, but the basement feels like a refrigerator.

The morning started with me processing beets. I pickled another four pints, which brings my total to nine pints. That's probably enough for the year. 

As long as I was working with the beets, I harvested a couple more for their greens. From those I made beet green pesto. We were to have this for dinner last night, but ended up getting take-out for no other reason than sheer boredom. 

We'll have the pesto with tonight's dinner. I've made pesto from basil, kale, chard, carrot tops, sorrel, and even nasturtiums. I loves me some pesto. Spread on a slice of bread from a crusty loaf and topped with some grated parmesan...mmm, mmm, mmm. By the way, where I've linked to the recipe for the pesto, there's a recipe for Fettuccine with Asparagus, Beet Green Pesto, and Poached Egg. It occurs to me the same recipe could be made with shaved zucchini in place of the asparagus. That way I could kill two garden vegetables in one dish. That has me thinking of another way to avoid grocery shopping this week.

So anyway, kitchen duties complete, I got busy with the quilting. I was hoping to get one row completed, and I managed two. Yay, me! I'm a day ahead of schedule with this. Here are the blocks I did yesterday.

Chicken Caesar:

Chicken in a Basket

Chicken Chow Mein

Stewed Chicken (This is one of my favorites.)

and Hawaiian Chicken.

Sadie was bored with quilting by then.

Smitty was so bored, he took to bathing in the middle of everything. With such hot weather, it's especially important to attend to one's purrsonal hygiene.

So I'm hoping I'll be able to quilt another row today. We have to go into town today though. I called our local extension service yesterday because I need to have the gauge for my pressure canner calibrated. They'll do it for free, but their walk-in hours for that service are only on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Since I'm getting my hair cut on Thursday, today is the only day I can do it. The green beans will not wait. Mike is going with me. We're turning it into a little date, and we'll have lunch at a restaurant with a nice outdoor dining area. It shouldn't take all day, but sometimes these little excursions take longer than anticipated.

Okay, so I'm hopeful for some cooler weather today. How are you holding up in the heat?