Dazzling Day

Good morning, my friends. Are you keeping warm...or cool? Depending on which part of the country you're in, you're probably breaking some kind of weather record. Here, we had more snow fall in a single day than we have since 1943. Pretty impressive. And when the sun came out in the afternoon, it was a dazzling display.

After finishing my post yesterday, I stopped off at the "necessary room" on my way down the stairs. Our window there looks out on the roof of the garage. With our new metal roof, the snow won't stick very well, and we're often listening to avalanches of snow as they slide off and fall to the ground below. One is wise to stay out from under the eaves these days. Here, you can see a crack forming.

Sadie was mystified by the whole thing. She stared out the window for a good part of the morning. Later, she thought she might venture outside. We opened the door. When a blast of cold air hit her nose, she folded up like an accordion and headed back inside. Smitty did the same thing a little later. 

We were a little worried about them getting buried in an avalanche from the roof. It was just as well they weren't interested in being outside. They spent most of their day tied in knots, someplace warm.

So, my next task of the morning was to do the day's inchy. This one has blanket stitch, double lazy daisy, stem stitch, French knots, and the dreaded bullion stitch. Stitched without tears. And this is the first time I've done this stitch without first having to watch the video tutorial.

And then, before doing anything else, I baked this Orange Banana-nut Bread for National Banana Bread Day. I wanted to be prepared in case any inspectors showed up at the door wanting to see if we were in compliance.

I tried to find the recipe online. It's from Cooking Light, and Cooking Light is no longer publishing its magazine. They have other recipes online, but I couldn't find this one, so I'll give it to you here.

Orange Banana-Nut Bread

Recipe from Cooking Light

Makes 1 standard loaf

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup butter, softened

2 large eggs

1 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana (about 3 bananas)

1 1/2 tablespoons orange rind, grated

3 tablespoons fresh orange juice

1/3 cup walnuts, chopped

Cooking spray

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups, and level with a knife.  Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt, stirring with a whisk.

Place sugar and butter in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended (about 1 minute).  Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.  Add banana, rind, and juice; beat until blended.  Add flour mixture; beat at low speed just until moist.  Stir in walnuts; spoon batter into an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray.  Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 5 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.  Cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack; remove from pan.  Cool completely on wire rack.

Just FYI: I didn't have enough banana. There were just two in my freezer, and I needed just a little more. I added some unsweetened applesauce to make up the difference, and that worked out fine.

Okay, so with my banana bread responsibility fulfilled, I was ready to do some sewing. Another four leaves were completed. The first was a sort of alternating over and under swoopy hook. I missed a few times with my "alternating," and a few are going in the wrong direction, but we're going to ignore that.

For the next one, I stitched over the veins and then filled in with an upsy-downsy thingy.

For this one, I stitched in the footprint of the three-toed sloth.

And for the last one, I stitched over the veins and filled in with a sideways version of the upsy-downsy thingy. 

At this point, I've quilted about half the radius. The next round of leaves are oddly shaped, and so I'll have to see what my hands do before I know what I'm going to quilt.

It's difficult to see the quilting from the back, but you can see the texture from this angle.

It was late in the day by this time, and the roof avalanche was still hanging on...looking threatening. I haven't checked it yet today. It's very cold here this morning. It's just 17°F with a windchill factor of 11°F. (And I know some of you are colder than that. You have my sympathy.)

As I've mentioned, it's shrimp week here at the Three Cats Ranch. I've used three of the four pounds of shrimp I scored last week. Last night's dinner was Red Curry Shrimp Cakes. It's another Cooking Light recipe and surprisingly simple to make. I made it even easier by placing the shrimp cakes on a sheet pan and then roasting them in my toaster oven instead of frying them, as the recipe suggests. I preheated the toaster oven to 450°F and then baked them for 20 minutes. They came out perfectly.

They were served up alongside some Vegetable and Shiitake "Himalayan Dumplings" from the Farmer's Market. You might know these better as "potstickers." Those were super easy too. They came frozen with two different sauces. The sauces were so hot they nearly blew our heads off. We ended up using some refrigerated sauces in the form of Hoisin, Thai Peanut, Oyster sauce, and Mae Ploy. (We refer to the Mae Ploy affectionately as "hoi polloi.") They were all preferable to the packaged sauces. We thought we might end up in the emergency department if we ate the super hot ones. And with the snow like it is...well...it could have been a terminal eating experience. 

Okay, so I believe we're stuck here for a few days. It's beautiful to look at, but treacherous to venture out. Today will probably go much like yesterday, but I might get started sewing together the quilt top for New Mexico Kitchen. It's next on my list, and it would make a nice break from quilting leaves.

I've been thinking about this for a while, and I have some good ideas about how to finish it off. More about that later. Until then, stay warm (or cool), and stay safe.