Slow Stitching Fast

Good morning, my friends, and Happy Winter Solstice.

It was wet and dark here at the Three Cats Ranch yesterday. I did a little packing of items from our freezers. It was a job that produced very cold hands. Well. Don't you know I had a remedy for that. Ordinarily, Spanish coffees are on our menus for cold and wet days. As it so happens, I returned to a long-forgotten recipe I had for Hot Buttered Rum batter a few weeks ago. It seemed like a good time to give that a try.

We used to make this and take it along on camping trips when the kids were little. We were die-hard tent campers then, and sitting around a campfire drinking hot buttered rums was a nice way to spend an evening after the kids were snuggled into their kid-sized sleeping bags. 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we're meeting up with some friends for a week-long camping trip in one of California's state parks in January, and it seemed like a good time to make up a batch to share. We tried it out yesterday, and it was so yummy. It's a little like chai tea with a kick. A friend from back then gave me this recipe, and I'll share it with you here:

Hot Buttered Rum Batter

makes enough for a crowd

Ingredients:

1 cup butter (room temperature)

2 1/4 cups brown sugar

3/4 cup honey

1/8 cup rum extract (1 oz. bottle)

1 tablespoon ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves

Directions:

Cream together all ingredients.  Chill.  Place heaping tablespoon in each cup.  Add 1 ounce of dark rum.  Fill with hot water.  Store batter in refrigerator.

* * * * *

If you're avoiding alcohol, you can leave out the rum, or substitute an equal amount of apple juice or apple cider. The batter will last in the refrigerator for a long time.

And lest you think I was drinking hot buttered rum before breakfast, you should know I made good progress on the morning's slow stitching project:

 

While we watched the news later in the day, I stitched the rest of it, and that puppy is finished. That's one day for applique, one day for slow stitching. (Casually blows smoke from the tip of her needle.)

Okay. Well, I didn't expect to finish that so fast, but there you go. Here are the two blocks I have for this quilt so far.

There's been a major change of plans here at the Three Cats Ranch. Looking ahead at the forecast made our teeth chatter. Here's what we saw. And as you look at this, remember that the forecast you see is for the valley floor...not on our hill here at 1,400 feet. It will be worse for us.

Snow starts Saturday night, and we weren't scheduled to leave until Wednesday. You'll notice I said that in the past tense. We've changed our plans and decided to head out on Christmas morning. We've also changed our route. Instead of heading down the interstate (where we are required to cross over the Siskiyou Mountains), we'll be going west to the Pacific coast and driving south from there. It meant changing the first two stops on our trip and adding new destinations along our way.

The other fly in the ointment was that our truck was in the shop to have an oil leak repaired. It's not terribly important that it get fixed before we leave, and so we called the shop and asked them not to do the repairs. Then, we went and picked it up. We'll take care of that when we return home. And all of that to say that the next few days will have us packing things up for an early start on our winter trek south. Oy boy. As if the season weren't stressful enough already.

Since we're hosting dinner here on Christmas Eve, today's plans include a trip to the grocery store to pick up a few last-minute items. I was planning to make a cranberry cheesecake for our dessert on Friday. Did y'all know there's a cream cheese shortage? Heck. Kraft foods was actually paying people *not* to make cheesecake this year. No kidding! Check it out. Well. Learning that made me plenty nervous, and so I stopped at a grocery store yesterday after picking up the truck and found the shelves bare. 

Fortunately, I was able to drive down the street to another grocery store, where I found all I needed. Phew! That was a close call. And cheesecake...there must be cheesecake!

So, I'm going to sign off this morning. I'll catch up again after we get started on our trip. It could be a week before I'm back. I have a post written ahead to participate in the "Best of 2021" linky party over at Meadow Mist Designs. 

So the latest I'll return is Sunday, the 26th. By then, I should have myself pulled together enough to return with an update the following day. Until then, I'm hoping y'all will enjoy this shortest day (or longest night) of the year and have a very merry and safe Christmas Day!