Sewing: Day Three

Good morning, my friends. It was kind of a busy day yesterday. I had to drive into town for my haircut. Then, I stopped off at Wholly Too Expensive Foods to score some chanterelle mushrooms. The mushrooms were available, but packaged in 16 oz. packages. I really only wanted 8 oz., and so I quickly checked my Paprika app to see what I could do with the other 8 oz. No worries. I can make a Leek and Chanterelle Tart with those.  

Chanterelles in hand, I headed to our regular grocery store to return those dill pickle pistachios (perish the thought), and got the plain unsalted variety. Also, I picked up a few things I'd need for the Leek and Chanterelle Tart. I was home around 1:00 p.m. And after all that, I needed lunch and a nap.

There was still time in the afternoon for sewing. For the past three days, I’ve worked on the same projects. My first priority was the quilt binding, and I was able to make my way around the third corner.

There was still a little time left in the day, and so Sadie offered to help me sew together the second block for the second row of the Zebra quilt. She thought it was for her. She always fancied herself a calico cat, and she likes how those white patches complete the look of her lovely tortie fur coat.

She didn’t give it up easily. At the top of the image below, you can see she still has her foot on it. It’s like when you play checkers, and you can still change your mind as long as you don’t take your fingers off the checker.

Eventually, she agreed I could have it, and I was able to sew it to the first block. Here’s what I have for the second row so far:

After that, Sadie helped me lay out the squares for the third block. She watches me like a hawk to make sure I don’t put anything in the wrong place.

And there we go. A lot of black in this one. Fortunately, I’d cut lots of black squares the day before.

There wasn’t time to sew that together yesterday. I needed to get going on my risotto. It isn’t hard to make, but it takes some time. I’d already roasted the mushrooms earlier, but the rice takes some time to cook down and absorb the added liquid. This is Chanterelle Mushroom Risotto. Way back in 2011 (sheesh), I wrote a blog post about this. A link to the recipe is included in that post. When it was served up, it looked like this.

It’s a bit of a production to make it, and it dirties a lot of pans. Still, it’s so good, I have to make it every year when chanterelles are available.

As for the rest of those chanterelles, I’m going to make the tart I mentioned above. I needed a full pound of mushrooms, and now I only have 8 oz. The recipe tells me I can substitute creminis, and so I’ll use both. That’ll be on today’s agenda. On Fridays, I like for dinner to be something I can make ahead or or else reheat. This tart can be served at room temperature, and so I’ll make it earlier this afternoon. And since I haven’t tried it with the creminis before, I’m not linking to the recipe until I can say more about it…tomorrow. Patience, Grasshopper.

All right then. There are a couple of easy to-do’s on my list, and I want to go for a walk on the treadmill today. I like to watch documentaries while I’m walking, and today I’ll be starting an old PBS documentary about The Pilgrims. I’ve wanted to watch it for quite some time, and so it gives me something to look forward to. It’s my way of tricking myself into actually doing it.

There was no time for slow-stitching yesterday, and so I’m heading there next. Have a slow Friday, everybody.