A Finish in my Future

It rained a good part of the day yesterday, and it will again today and tomorrow. This wet weather gets old, but it does make for good sewing weather. We had grocery shopping to do first thing. When we got home, the kitties were chomping at the bit to get outside.

Smitty, if you come over here and look purrthetic along with me, maybe they'll open the door.

They can look outside and see that it's wet and raining, but they aren't convinced the open door won't lead into summer. Then, reality literally hits them in the face, and they lose their enthusiasm pretty quickly.

Luxuriating in fabric scraps begins to sound much more enticing.

Before I headed into the sewing room, though, I wanted to try out a new recipe I've been carting around for several months. This is a Chocolate Cream Pie. The full-up version of the recipe is from Food & Wine, and you can find it right here. But you know me. I'm always turning these into desserts for two, which is what I did yesterday. 

Pies are pretty easy to scale down for two. You just need a 6-inch pie plate, and then you cut the recipe in half. In my experiments, I've found that all the baking times are pretty much the same as for the full meal deal. So, I made this pie just as written in the full version, halving all the ingredients, but I used one whole egg in place of the egg yolks. (It's hard to cut an egg yolk in half.) For this recipe, it worked beautifully. 

It was very simple to make. Only the crust is baked. Then, the chocolate custard is prepared in just a few minutes on the stovetop, and the pie is then refrigerated for three hours before adding the whipped cream topping. I made the topping from heavy whipping cream, but I probably could have accomplished it just as well with Redi-Whip. Also, the recipe has you strain the custard through a coarse sieve. I probably could have skipped that step since there was nothing in the sieve when I was finished. And we certainly enjoyed that for dessert. It's a keeper, and easy enough to do while RVing.

The rest of the day was spent on my challenge quilt. I'm very happy to say the animal is finished now. Yesterday, I laid him out on the fabrics I'd chosen for the background. First, I liked my selections. Then, I walked away and had second thoughts about them. Then, I looked at this picture this morning and decided I liked them again. Five minutes from now, I might change my mind again. No one will really know what I decided to do (including me) until it is actually finished. Here's your peek. I'd ask you for your opinion, but that would be cruel.

That took me all the way to dinner time. I had one more recipe I wanted to try. This was borne of an error when I took a package of "tenderloin" out of the freezer, thinking it was steak. So it thawed in the refrigerator after several days. When I went to open it on steak-for-dinner day, it turned out to be a pork tenderloin. That, of course, required some rethinking. 

I decided to make these Crispy Pork Medallions. This recipe first appeared in Cooking Light way back in November of 2011, and so it's also fairly diet friendly. (See Chocolate Cream Pie above for less diet-friendly options.)

 

This was way easy to make, and it was really good. The tenderloin was cut cross-wise into "medallions" and then rubbed with Dijon mustard. Then, it was dredged in a mixture of panko, thyme, parsely, salt and pepper. It was browned on the stove-top for a couple of minutes. And then the whole shebang, iron skillet and all, went into a hot oven to finish it off. The coating was indeed nicely crispy, and the pork was delicious. It's another dish easy enough to make while RVing. We served it up with the last of my home grown and canned green beans. We were sad to see the end of the green beans. I've linked to the recipe back there above the image. The only thing I did differently was to use half the amount of dried thyme and dried parsley in place of fresh. 

This morning I'll probably finish off the Domestic Affairs embroidery piece, and so I'll have to make up something new today. It's tempting to get back to my challenge quilt, but I think I'll give myself a little break from it and work on my monthly blocks for the Books and Roses quilt and for my Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt. The colors for June are bright and dark blues. I'm trying to get all the sewing room stuff finished before the big move for new carpet. And the good news on that front is that our mold lab report came back clean, and so they can commence finishing up the restoration in the basement. The wall will need to be rebuilt, and then there will be painting. Carpeting will be the last step. 

Sewing is the only thing on my agenda for today, and so it's going to be a good day.