Prep Work

Everything I'm doing for the next several days will be in some way preparing for next week's short trip to the beach. It always seems like a lot of work to get ready for a short trip, but then the trip itself is completely relaxing. I don't mind doing some of it ahead of time, but it means making a lot of lists and dividing my time among the many tasks ahead. Just thinking about the food yesterday took me at least an hour and a half. And then there's the problem with the thinking part. When the smoke starts pouring from my ears, I worry about starting a wildfire.

Fortunately, I had a lot of help from kitties yesterday. When I went to sew the binding on the Dream Big quilt, Sadie was at the ready. She gave it the snuggleability test. Here, she paused to soak in the ambiance to make sure its character was subtle and well balanced.

While I waited for her assessment, I cut the binding strips. The Resident Retired Engineer helped me choose a fabric. I pulled about half a dozen from my stash, and we agreed this pink was the best. I can't remember how I used this fabric when I first bought it. It is one of my earliest fabric acquisitions, and I've used all but just a small strip now.

Sadie had finished with the snuggleability evaluation by that time, and so she helped me sew the strips into a binding.

And then she helped me join the ends when it was sewn to the quilt.

Honestly, I'm not sure how I could have accomplished this without so much catsistance.

And, yes, even that was prep work. It's packed into a box now with all the things I'll need to hand sew the binding while we're at the beach.

Smitty was no slouch in the sewing room either. He was outside hunting gophers, and he caught a big one too. When he heard there was work to be done, he came running on his dirty feet to see how he could help out.

Smitty's specialty is helping me hold the ruler as I trim the edges of things. Here, I was cutting the background for the next Pieces of the Past embroidered quilt block.

I'm close enough to finishing the Heartland Barns block it made sense to take along another project. This is the 8th block for the Pieces of the Past quilt, traced and colored now. I'm not sure if I'll need this, but better safe than sorry. Goodness knows we don't want a stitching emergency while we're trying to relax.

Okay, and so the rest of the day was spent on housekeeping chores, thinking about food, and actually making food. I made up some steak marinade and poured it into a mason jar. It can be refrigerated until we're ready to use it. Then I made some frozen breakfast burritos. Those will keep us in breakfasts for the whole trip. And, bonus: they don't even require silverware or plates. We just eat them over the paper towel we use to heat them up in the microwave.

So, I've spread my cooking tasks over three days. Today I'll be making Enchiladas Suizas with Creamy Tomatillo Sauce. For those, I'll make the enchiladas ahead of time, and then take along the ingredients I need to make the sauce. After Thanksgiving, I deboned the last of our turkey and froze it in two-cup portions for this purpose. The recipe calls for chicken, but turkey will work too. Also, I roasted the tomatillos ahead of time, pureed them, and then froze them in 3/4-cup portions for using in the sauce. For camping, I'll take the tomatillo puree and the cream, and then just pack all the seasonings in a sandwich bag. It makes for a quick and easy prep on the road.

As long as I was in the kitchen, I made dinner ahead too. These little Cheesy Meat Loaf Minis were assembled, and then refrigerated until we were ready for dinner. I squirted some ketchup on the tops, and then they were baked 25 minutes at 425 degrees. They were really good...an item from our diet...and about 250 calories per meat loaf. One was enough for me. We really liked these, and there are three left over for when we get home.

The white substance you see pooled around the bottom is melted white cheddar cheese, which makes them seem more indulgent than their calorie count would indicate. We opened up one of the refrigerated jars of beets that were pressure canned a couple of weeks ago. You might recall I was a little worried about a couple of the jars that siphoned so badly. As it turns out, the beets are fine, and they tasted good. I'm glad because we still have 7 pints of them.

Okay, so aside from cooking, I should have some time to get back to my challenge piece today. For all my beginning enthusiasm would say, I haven't made a bit of progress since starting it. I'll get out and hoe some weeds in the garden today too. There's always plenty to keep us busy here at the Three Cats Ranch. Time to get a start on Saturday. I hope you have a good day, whatever you're doing.