A Kitchen Day

Good morning, my friends. It was a busy day yesterday. I left early for my pedicure, and so I was home before noon. I had plenty of time to do the cooking/baking I wanted to do. It took me nearly to the end of the day. After spending most of the day on my feet, I was tired by the time I was finished. 

So let's take a look, shall we? When I arrived home from my outing, I went straight to work making some peanut brittle. I'm using Mike's Mom's recipe, although I decided to add some vanilla to it. So, here we go. Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble:

It's cooked to a blistering 310°F before adding two teaspoons of baking soda. But, beware if you want to try this. When you add the baking soda, it expands and threatens to boil over the top of the pan. Mine had just barely topped the lip of the pan, and I had to carry this *very* hot bubbling brew about five feet to the prepared baking sheets. Quietly repeating, “sh*t, sh*t, sh*t, sh*t” to myself, I managed to get it to the pans without spilling any or burning myself. Pouring it into the prepared baking sheets, it looked like this:

It kinda looks like somebody already ate it, doesn't it? It's tempting to spread it out here, but the recipe says not to in bold letters, so I just left it. It spreads and flattens as it cools. Mike was already eating it before I had a chance to break it into pieces. When it was finished, it looked like this:

But I wasn't finished yet. I wanted to try this new recipe for Cranberry Orange Muffins. When I finished making our cranberries for Thanksgiving, I'd only used half the bag of fresh cranberries. So I packaged it up in a zip-lock bag and then took it to the freezer. When I opened the freezer, I discovered a half bag of frozen cranberries from the year before. Well. That required something, and so these muffins were just what I needed to use up the rest of the bag. 

They were easy to make. The ingredients are all whisked together in a single bowl. No mixer required. When they came from the oven, they looked like this. The recipe notes that if you're using frozen berries, you might need to bake it longer. Indeed, I left mine for an additional five minutes or so.

When they were cool, I added the glaze. And I'd say here that my glazing technique is no better than my drizzling technique.

But then I noticed the picture from the recipe in the NYTimes. Theirs don't really look any better than mine.

Okay, and I was ready to sit down then. I hadn't finished my slow-stitching from the morning, which was a perfect reason to put my feet up and relax. And this is the only sewing I did yesterday. This is Tiny Treasure #28. It has stem fill, basketweave stitch, French knots and stem stitch.

When I had that finished, I tipped back and took a nap. It was a good day, but also tiring. 

Today will go a little easier. I want to get in a Bowflex workout, and I have one quick housekeeping chore. Aside from that, I can spend the day sewing. For sure, I'm going to get busy sewing together the Shop Hop 4.0 blocks. Here they are all together.

There's no sashing between the blocks. The pattern shows it with just two borders. I'm not sure yet how I want to finish it off, but the fabrics will tell me what to do.

A big wind blew through here last night. We took a momentary power hit. I only know because I heard my printer cycle through, as it does, when the power returned. We've been lucky so far. We've taken a few power hits over the past several days, but none lasting for more than a few moments. Fingers crossed it stays that way. So with that, I'll leave you to your day.