Event Horizon

The Work Quilt (AKA Pinwheels that I Sewed During Slow Times My First Few Months at My Call Center Job) is slowly, steadily taking shape as a Real Quilt now. I've been messing with patchwork and the sewing of quilt tops for quite a while now. Except for a wall-hanging or two, I haven't done the actual "sandwich some batting between two layers of fabric and sew together" thing.

So, the Work Quilt (AKA Oh Man I Am So Not Confident In My Abilities to Do This But Here Goes Anyway) is my first large-size quilt. I already had to rip out some seams and tore the backing flannel a little bit. But since this is the Work Quilt (AKA Practice Material That I Will Love and Use Regardless), I'm just going to keep plugging along and trust that things will work out. Any mistakes I make with this one (and I'm sure there will be plenty) will just mean mistakes that I'll know to avoid with my next quilt. (Which, hopefully, will be the Churn Dash quilt.)

When I was growing up, one of my favorite dishes that my grandma would make was Nilaga, a Filipino beef stew. It had onion, garlic, potato, cabbage, and bok choy. She always seasoned it with whole white peppercorns. It was cooked until the meat was almost falling apart into shreds (not quite in the pot, but definitely when you pushed at the meat-cubes in your bowl) and served on top of plenty of rice.

Now that I cook for myself, I usually make Nilaga with fish (almost always white fish). The fun part is the variations.

Sometimes I omit the garlic and onions. Sometimes I use savoy cabbage instead of bok choy. Sometimes I add black beans. Sometimes I don't add salt and pepper (ground black pepper).

Just today I made a really tasty version of my fish soup. Just recording the ingredients here:

1 small-medium golden potato, peeled and cubed
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
3 sole fillets
6 white button mushrooms, chopped
about four stalks of bok choy, leaves torn and stalks chopped small
salt and pepper
a splash of lemon juice

I covered the potatoes in water and boiled until somewhat soft. Then I added the frozen fillets, pulling them out and chopping them up when they thawed. Added mushrooms. Chopped and tore the bok choy, added them to the pot and let it simmer uncovered for a while. Added salt to taste and a sprinkle of pepper, stirred a bit to mush up the potatoes and thicken the broth. Added a small splash of lemon juice as a final touch.

Veggie Craving Stew
1 tsp vegetable oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 medium onion, coarsely chopped
1 qt container vegetable broth
1 can (14.5 oz) green beans (do NOT drain)
1 and 1/2 lbs. golden potatoes, washed and cubed
3 small turnips, peeled and cubed
6 medium carrots, sliced thin
6 stalks of celery, sliced thin
1 can (6 oz) tomato paste
a handful of fresh baby spinach leaves, destalked and torn
1 small bay leaf

spices to taste:
Parsley
Black Pepper
Italian seasoning
Thyme
Paprika

Instructions
Heat oil in a large stewpot; add garlic and onion when hot -- saute until garlic is slightly golden and onions are translucent.

Pour in the vegetable broth (I use the kind that comes in a box, so I always rinse it with about a 1/4 cup water to get all the flavor I can) and the can of green beans. Stir.

Add chopped potatoes and turnips -- reduce heat to medium-low and cover. Allow to cook as you slice the carrots and celery. Add carrots and celery when prepped, and the torn spinach leaves. Cook for about five minutes.

Open the can of tomato paste. I always empty out as much as I can, then fill the can with a little water and stir with a spoon to get the rest of the paste out. This usually ends up adding about 12 oz water to the stew. Stir well to integrate, then season with spices to taste.

Reduce heat to low, add bay leaf and cover. Simmer until both potatoes and turnips are soft. Remove the bay leaf before serving.

I did not need to add any more water, and I got a thick broth, but I'd advise keeping an eye on it. Make sure you scrape your stirring spoon along the bottom of the pot -- potatoes have a tendency to stick, and this stew has plenty!

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My dear carnivorous boyfriend has a tendency to neglect his vegetable intake. Last night, he asked me if we could have vegetable stew -- insisting even as I suggested adding chicken or fish that he only wanted veggies. He said he was feeling slightly off-kilter, so I figured he was missing some nutrients or something.

I made this up after consulting a few different vegetable stew recipes on the Internet. The turnips (which I love) are my own addition to the basic list of veggies you find on most vegetable stew recipes. I also added some leftover canned black-eyed peas, but there were so few I didn't include them in the ingredient list.

I always season "by eye", so I can't tell you the measurements of the spices. Lotta parsley, less pepper and Italian seasoning, only a little thyme and paprika. I didn't add salt because I figured you get enough from the boxed broth and the water from the canned green beans. We had a couple cans I forgot to take in for the Thanksgiving food drive last year. I really don't know what to do with canned green beans, as I always opt for fresh or frozen.

More quilt design babble. Feel free to skip.
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Nine sashed blocks, 6" total across makes a big quilt. That number of blocks, about 10" across when finished, without sashing...that's gonna be huge. I might need to cut down Pinwheels-OIC size to six across...without a longarm quilting machine or the space, it will be difficult to do.

Work Quilt will be finished with "in the ditch" quilting. If I ever make a quilt with a more monochrome color scheme, I might wander out doing more interesting patterns, but for a first time, I'm only comfortable with following the current seams. Besides, that's how Granma does it. If it's good enough for her...

Current progress:
top row sewn together, bottom row still apart
five 3x3 sections sewn together, four to go

The Work Quilt was planned to be a Sixteen-Patch-and-Pinwheels, but I suck at doing 16 patch blocks, so I switched the design to what you see now.

Though I've been sewing and doing patchwork for several years, this will be my first completed quilt (the other blocks and partially finished tops were lost). I guess this is also a 'Work Quilt' because I have a lot of skills that need work, and this is a practice piece as much as anything. As long as the finished project does its duty as a blanket to keep us warm, who cares if it's not perfect, right? Learning experiences are good.



Click on the pic for a larger view of my WIP.

The picture you see is the first of nine 3x3 sections for the top. The finished quilt is going to be nine blocks wide by eleven blocks long. It will fit on a single bed with some extra, and maybe on a full without any hang. The binding will probably match the polka-dot corner-squares.

crossposted to quilting and quilt_nerds

I am sewing together the pinwheels from the work quilt. I decided to change it from Sixteen-Patch-and-Pinwheels to framing each pinwheel block. It will be 9 x 11 blocks, probably the size of a double-bed blanket when I'm done. I found this really neat neutral fabric, white with black-and-tan designs, for the frame -- each corner also has an accent fabric, tiny multicolored polka dots on black. The framing fabrics 'pop' a little more than I was expecting, but this is my "Work Quilt" in more ways than one...

Though I've been sewing patchwork for years, the Work Quilt will be my first completed quilt. I'm having difficulties with the bobbins -- since the auto-winder is being crappy, I have to wind by hand, which takes time and the damn things are never as full as I would like. But it is going...slowly, yes, but going.

Silly Dani decided to stay up ALL night, only going to bed around 6:45 am, and Dick forgot to set his alarm so we were in bed asleep until 5:45 pm. I feel well-rested, at least.

Last night when I couldn't sleep, I decided to finally use up the egg roll wrappers and do some lumpia. It was real simple this time -- Yves Meatless Ground, potato, fresh green beans, and my homemade Worcestershire sauce. Dick is happy now that we have lumpia in the freezer. I must remember to leave a note on the foil packages reminding him to pan-fry, not deep fry (as I worry about these ones coming undone in hot oil).

I had several wrappers left over, and I couldn't save them for later because they would have gone bad. So I cut them into quarters and made a potato-filling for mini-pierogi. It was cheap, but Richard liked it; and if I don't have to mess around with a new dough recipe, I'm happy.

Will probably post recipe once I figure out the proportions.

Heat one tablespoon oil a frying pan over medium heat, then add:
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 one yellow onion, chopped
and cook until onion is translucent.

Add:
1/2 package Smart Ground original (hamburger substitute)
1 chipotle soysage, sliced into small pieces (fake-meat sausage)
1 teaspoon soy sauce
Stir until combined and well heated. Layer into 5" x 11" glass baking dish.

Next I cut some tortillas into thirds, to make 'strips' about the size of lasagna noodles. The tortillas I used were about five inches across, and I used about four 'strips' per layer.

The second layer was a can of black beans, heated in the frying pan, with some shredded Pepperjack Almond Cheese added to it. I didn't drain the black beans at all, so it was a slightly soupy mixture that I ladled on top of the tortilla layer. Another set of tortilla strips went over this one.

The third layer was a can of corn, drained, plus two 'serving spoons' of red salsa. This was mixed together, and spooned into the baking dish. Then I topped it with crushed corn chips and shredded cheese.

(We always buy a big jar -- 26 oz this time -- of regular picante salsa for cooking with. And after we finish off the 'eating salsa' and chips, we pour the 'crumblies', as the Boyfriend calls them, into a Ziploc bag for recipes like this.)

Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 25 minutes, until cheese is hot and melted. Top with some more crushed corn chips, slice, and serve. (We got six "squares" out of this.)

Dick is hungry. Dani is awake before he goes to work, miracle of miracles. Several opened packages of food items are in the fridge and freezer, including a package labeled "Beef Miscellaneous/Beef for Stew".

A few days ago, I made pork curry. I always trim the fat off meat when I'm slicing it up for food -- it's a texture thing; biting into fat or gristle is #1 on my list of "Things that Will Make Me Retch" -- but since money has been getting tighter as of late, I didn't want to waste the small bits of meat clinging to the fat I'd trimmed. So I simmered up a little bit of water in a saucepan and threw the pieces in. I also added some pork gravy I had left over from homemade Filipino breakfast sausage a week or so ago. One grated baby carrot, a spoonful of soy sauce, and accidentally a lot of parsley and I had pork broth.

Last night I made burritos and, not wanting to use up our black beans, I used baked beans. The tin was still in the fridge, with about half the beans inside it. I also had an opened 'family size' pack of frozen mixed vegetables.

Idea.

1 lb of Miscellaneous Beef & 1 clove garlic, chopped -- sauteed with vegetable oil in soup pot until beef is partially browned.
1 cup pork broth & 1 cup water -- added to pot.
1/2 tin of baked beans & about 8 oz. frozen mixed vegetables -- added to pot.

Let boil, covered, for about ten minutes. Lift lid of pot and realize that the soup smells funny. Worry that perhaps you let the gravy sit unused in the fridge for too long, then realize that its the baked beans and their sauce of brown sugar and bacon fat interacting with your pork broth. Lower the heat and try not to panic.

Squirt a copious amount of brown mustard into your stirring spoon and mix it into the foul brew; add water as necessary (about 1/2 cup). A generous shaking of pepper over the mess, and (here's the secret) a little bit of cinnamon.

Let simmer, covered, for five more minutes. Cautiously taste test a little bit of the broth; submit to significant other for taste testing. Significant other, in rare moment of culinary brilliance, suggests noodles.

1/2 package of whole wheat spiral noodles added to soup, along with another splash of water from the Ozarka bottle. Enough so that it covers the noodles. Bring this to a boil, then lower the heat to medium-low. Cover and cook for fifteen to twenty more minutes.

Success! Miscellaneous Beef Stew!

Pineapple-Frosted Baked Bean and Pineapple Cookies

2 cups rolled oats
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 can baked beans
1 can crushed pineapple
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup butter

(Makes 2 dozen)

Place oats in blender and grind until it becomes oat flour (if some parts haven't totally ground, that's fine). Pour into a bowl with the flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Stir these dry ingredients together and set aside.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit (190 Celsius).

Open the can of baked beans. (Optional: If it has that white chunk of bacon fat in it, go ahead and fish that out.) Pour the baked beans into the blender.

Open the can of pineapple, and drain the juice into measuring cup. You're saving that to make icing!

Pour the pineapple chunks into the blender as well. Now run the blender (I use the Liquefy setting) until the beans and pineapple are well combined. Put the bean mixture into a bowl, and mix in the brown sugar.

Add the dry ingredients in small amounts, mixing well after each addition until it is all combined. The dough should be somewhat sticky, looking more like cake batter.

Drop dough by the tablespoon onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake in preheated oven for twelve minutes.

As the cookies are baking, cream together the powdered sugar and butter. Add enough pineapple juice to get an icing of spreading consistency.

Remove cookies from oven, let cool, and frost.

Note: These cookies end up more like small cakes, somewhat like pumpkin cookies. And if I made another batch, I would have definitely put cinnamon in the batter. As is, I sprinkled some on top of the icing.