Thirty-two in '23

Good morning, my friends, and Merry Christmas Eve to all who celebrate. Our family usually does our biggest part of Christmas on Christmas Eve. When the kids were younger, we opened gifts under the tree...gifts from one another. And when they still believed, Santa brought more stuff on Christmas morning. With our youngest approaching his 40th birthday next spring, we no longer exchange gifts, but we still get together with a nice meal on Christmas Eve. Erik and Mae are cooking tonight. I'm bringing dessert.

Backing up to yesterday, it was a productive day...surprisingly so. I finished everything on my to-do list, and even added in some holiday bread-baking. The morning started with slow-stitching, and I took the first stitches on the last block for the Domestic Affairs quilt.

It's a good thing it's the last block because I've run out of that red floss now.

From there, I did some housework and I got in a workout. After that, I spent some time on my quilt binding. I've turned the third corner now, and I'm on my way to the fourth and final corner. There's a good chance I'll finish this today.

While I was stitching the quilt binding, the kitties had some time outside. It's been cold, and so their outings don't last more than a few minutes.

In the sewing room, I continued quilting the quilt block flowers on the Purrfectly Pieced quilt.

Continuing around counter-clockwise, I outlined the applique in this block and then did a looping meander like the tangle of yarn there.

For these button blocks...some dot-to-dot quilting.

And then for this last block, I outlined the applique and did a little meandering in the largest of the open spaces.

Then, a diagonal grid for the spools of thread.

Finally, some straight-line quilting in the center sashing and around the outer border. Originally, I thought I'd switch to black thread here, but then decided to stick with the gray.

I might have done one more row of stitching here, but the quilt binding will stitch down that outer edge.

And then, the quilting was finished. Sadie wanted me to show you the back. 

Binding strips were already cut.

Smitty helped me square it up.

And then he held it down while I stitched the binding strips together.

After that, I sewed on the binding, and that puppy is ready for hand-stitching. Unless I break both hands or something, I should have no problem finishing this off before the end of the year. That will make it my 32nd finished quilt in 2023.

And that brings me to this section on my white board. There's only one quilt listed there.

It's this little shorty embroidery project I finished a few weeks ago.

I rooted around in my Christmas fabrics, and came out with these three. I'll use the one on the right for a border. The middle one will be for the back, and the peppermint stripes for the binding. It's my go-to fabric for all Christmas bindings.

While I was doing other things, I mixed up and baked some holiday bread. I hadn't planned this when I wrote yesterday's post. With Erik and Mae cooking the dinner tonight, I wanted to take them a little gift. This is Cranberry-Orange Bread with Grand Marnier Glaze. One loaf is for them, and the other loaf...well, let's just say we'll take care of it somehow.

Also, for dinner last night, I tried something new. Earlier in the day, I made the Asian Coleslaw you see there in the upper left corner. Mike really liked that, having seconds, and then thirds, and then fourths until it was all gone. I've made this before, as the recipe states. For yesterday, I purchased a package of Asian Coleslaw mix in the grocery store. I discarded the dressing and the crunchies included. (The crunchies contained sesame seeds, and you know how we feel about seeds around here.) I still used the same dressing from the original recipe, but I only needed half for the pre-packaged mix of cabbages and carrots. 

As for the main course, I made this Yaki Udon published recently in the NYTimes. We really liked this a lot. Mike had seconds here too. The recipe called for a couple of unusual ingredients. First, "dark" soy sauce. Who knew? As it turns out, it can be found in Asian markets and in some grocery stores...not mine, of course. The notes that accompanied the recipe made me think it was worthwhile seeking it out. I was able to order a small bottle from Amazon. I worried about breakage in transit, but it came wrapped so tightly in bubble-wrap, it was nearly safe from even this cook breaking into it. 

Also, it called for 16 oz. of "frozen udon noodles." Well, I looked in several stores for those. I could find frozen noodles, but they contained flavorings I didn't want. I just wanted the noodles. I ended up using dry noodles...this brand:

Then I got thinking...dry noodles will pick up weight from the moisture they absorb in the cooking process. I puzzled over this...did some Googling...asked a couple of groups on Facebook...did I need the full 16 oz.? Or should I do just half, using one 8-oz. package? I ended up making just one 8-oz. package, and then weighing them after they were cooked and drained. As it turns out, they weighed almost exactly 16 oz. And it was an appropriate noodle to vegetable ratio. So, you can try getting the recipe from the NYTimes (I linked to it back there). Also, there are lots of recipes online for Yaki Udon, as it turns out. If you want to make it the way I did, then you can use my recipe. I've adapted it from the NYTimes, and so I feel okay about posting it here.

So that's all the news from yesterday that's fit to print. I'll take tomorrow off from blogging, but I'll be back with my Best of 2023 post on Tuesday. Until then, have a joyous and safe celebration. Merry Christmas, everybody!