Cookies and Kits

Good morning, my friends. Oh my...it is so dark outside. We're expecting lots of rain over the next several days. There could be around 4 inches in our area with minor flooding concerns in some places. Here on our hill, we're not at all worried about flooding. Sadly, however, Mike discovered the drainage pipes leading away from our downspouts are clogged with pine needles that cannot be dislodged with any equipment we have. We're going to have to call a plumber to snake those out. That should be a nice tidy plumbing bill. When it comes to spending money, I rank plumbing and new tires at about the same level of too much money for the return on gratification.

It was a busy day yesterday. I finished most everything I wanted to. My first stop was to bake up a cookie recipe I was testing for America's Test Kitchens. I'm sorry I can't share the recipe, but it will appear in a new book tentatively titled "Cookie Swap." These are Espresso Iced Oatmeal Crunch Cookies. Here's how they look straight from the oven.

After they cooled completely, they were iced with a very thick icing made from confectioner's sugar, egg white, and some espresso powder. I'm kind of a cookie snob, baking just one particular cookie, exclusively. These are good enough, I might let them into my exclusive cookie club. They're both crunchy and chewy at the same time.

Okay, and with that done, I went to work on my traveling quilt kits project. This Nordic Star Table Runner is the largest of the projects I'll take with me, and so I started with that.

These are the fabrics I'll be using, and the pieces are cut. The green fabric will be for the back, and there's enough of the red for the binding. I'll leave those two at home, taking only the cut pieces for the top with me.

I've taken to saving those zippered bags that sheets are sold in to make these kits. They can hold a surprisingly large amount...maybe not so surprising, since they can hold a set of king-size sheets. Anyway...this one is bagged up and ready to go now.

Next, I started with this Vintage Valentine.

When it's finished, it will be a small quilt at just 13-1/2 x 16 inches. It'll be made using about ten different mini quilt blocks. Probably, I won't do the cutting for this, although I might change my mind. With all those little quilt blocks, it makes sense to do the cutting on the road. And since I'm working mostly with fat quarters, they won't take up a lot of space when I do the cutting. These are the fabrics I pulled for this project. I'll use that red and white at the bottom (second from the left) as the background, and the rest can be used in the mini quilt blocks.

For that one, I found a larger zip-lock style bag.

From there, I moved on to this Carrot Top mini quilt.

These are all the pieces I'll need for this quilt.

And now it's all bagged up in another zip-lock bag.

I was just getting started on this Tulip Time mini.

I selected the fabrics, but then decided to call it a day before cutting anything. I'll start here today. 

In my sewing room, I have some backless bar stools I sit on when I'm working. They're great in the sewing room, but sitting on those for several hours means I'm slouching. Eventually, it starts to make my neck hurt. I had a surgery over twenty years ago to fuse some of my cervical vertebrae, and I have a metal plate in my neck. My neck is fine, but it bothers me when I spend too much time slouching. It made sense to stop there, and I sat with some ice on my neck before making dinner. It's really nothing serious, but I have to be mindful and take care of it when it bothers me.

So, as I mentioned in yesterday's post, I was riffing off a recipe for these Sausage-and-Apple Stuffing Bites. The original recipe uses toasted bread cubes, and some other veggies and sausage to make up a little bowl of "stuffing." (No bird required.) I wanted to see if I could make this using my leftover stuffing from Thanksgiving, and I'm happy to say that it worked! Here's how they looked coming straight from the oven.

They cooled in the pan for five minutes, and then I plated them up to have with our dinner.

For this, I used 2 cups of leftover stuffing, 2 oz. diced pancetta (fried crisp), 1/3 tsp of dried sage, 3 minced garlic cloves (added to the pancetta as it fried), 1/2 a peeled and diced Granny Smith apple, one beaten egg, and one tablespoon of wine. (You can substitute anything for the wine...water, chicken broth...anything.) Then, I mixed it all up and baked it in my toaster oven at 350°F for 20 minutes. They turned out great. I'm happy to find another way to use up leftover stuffing.

We had those with Cranberry Grilled Cheese Sandwiches. Here's the picture from the recipe. (I didn't take a picture of mine.)

The recipe description suggests adding Dijon mustard. I used some homemade cranberry and apple mustard and some mayonnaise to mine. That cranberry mustard has seeds, and so Mike's was made with regular Dijon. Also, mine was made with my homemade whole-berry cranberry sauce. Mike's was made with the jellied cranberries. If you have a toaster oven, you can simply assemble the sandwich and then toast it in your toaster oven. Otherwise, grill it in a skillet like any other grilled cheese sandwich. We really like these, and it's a great way to use up leftover cranberries. 

Okay, so today is going to look a lot like yesterday. Today I'm going to make some Peppermint Bark...so yummy. And, you know...we need something sweet to go with our cookies. It's super easy to make, and so that won't take a lot of time. I'll get back to my kits, but I probably won't get them finished today. See, pain-in-the-neck above. 

It's going to be a dark and stormy couple of days. Good sewing weather. Besides, it helps motivate us to get on our way to warmer climes and all the preparation that goes along with it. And with that...I'll leave you to your day. Make it a good one.