Box of Veggies (5 of 22)

I was up in Seattle for the Fourth of July weekend (just like last year), so E&A picked up the box of veggies. I came back last night in time for E&A to leave for England this morning. They'll be gone for over 2 weeks, so they dropped off whatever they didn't eat: carrots, lettuce, cucumbers, 2 onions, cabbage, 2 cats, zucchini, cherries, and a tomato; plus some from the previous box they didn't finish: cilantro and garlic scapes.

My meal planning has been thrown off track this week for several reasons, primarily because my stove broke just before I left for Seattle and I hadn't had a chance to get it fixed. I will be improvising a lot this week. Perhaps I'll make a soup or something that can be cooked in the crockpot. I suspect I will be eating lots of salads and raw veggies.

Photo Dump

I'm clearing off the photos from my camera. Here's some pictures that never made it into blog posts yet.

Things found in my yard:

Holly trees and mowy boys.

Things that go Bloom!

My catnip brings kitties to the yard.

Silly Fiver, cowslips are for Owsla.

(sorry for the photo quality, this was taken through the screen on my bathroom window with the highest zoom my camera has.)

Our new patio furniture.

Chris made me a cherry pie from scratch for my birthday. (We're not in the "things found in my yard" section any more, by the way)


Remember when I used to spend my Saturday mornings at the Majestic Theatre? Well now they've got a machine to do my job!

Quilt Project #3 - Checkerboard Pot Holder

For my first pieced top, I made this checkerboard pot holder.


There's a trick to it. First I cut four long yellow strips and four long black strips and sewed them together in alternating colors. Then I cut the resulting bumblebee looking piece into perpendicular strips. Then I flip every other strip and sew them back together.

The hard part is getting the corners to line up exactly. I made it difficult on myself by using so many squares (this is usually a 9-square instead of a 64-square) and by using such small squares (small errors become proportionately bigger).

For the quilting stage, I decided to use the "stitch in the ditch" method where you quilt along the seams of the pieces. This was a little more tricky than I expected. It was hard to keep my stitching in a straight line, and little variances are more obvious with this method.


I also had difficulty with unintentional pleats. These were formed when I pressed the seam allowances. The fabric folded, and the folds were ironed in, so the "ditch" was inaccessible to stitch. When I pressed the seam allowances, I always pressed them onto the darker fabric so that it wouldn't show through. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but of course this wasn't possible once I got to the point where I was sewing the alternating strips together. I realize now I should have pressed the seam allowance open. This would have prevented the pleats, and the show-through problem would at least be symmetrical.

Box of Veggies (4 of 22)

This week we split the onions, potatoes, and beets (E&A took the beets and I kept the greens). I got the lettuce, tomato, cucumber, chard, and strawberries, E&A got the cilantro, garlic scapes, and carrots (am I forgetting something?, it seems like I took more than my share this week).



Last week I put the strawberries in scones. They were tasty, but it seemed like a waste of really good strawberries. This week, I sliced the strawberries and mixed them with a couple tablespoons of sugar and will use them as a topping. I had left over cream cheese from last week's carrot cake frosting, so I made stuffed french toast. The recipe I used called for Irish Cream liqueur which I didn't have, so I had to substitute soy milk and sugar, but I love the idea and will be pick some up the next time I'm at the liquor store for just this purpose.

The chard and beet greens will be blanched or steamed and served with potatoes as a side dish. The lettuce, tomato, onion, and cucumbers will be sandwiches.

Pride in the Park

This is Tristen; you may recognize her from her photo in the paper. She is one of the organizers of Pride Corvallis, the first (and hopefully annual) lesbian and gay pride festival in Corvallis .

When I first heard about the event a couple weeks ago, I sent an e-mail asking if they needed volunteers. Tristen wrote back and said I could help set up. This mainly consisted of unloading tables, chairs, and one ridiculously heavy generator (for the 'bouncy castle') from trucks, but constructing the helium balloon arch was easily the highlight.

I missed the actual parade (I went to the Farmer's Market instead), but after lunch I came back to the park with my juggling props and juggled, took in the sights, listened to the music, visited the vendor booths, and juggled some more.

This was the most wholesome Pride event I've ever attended. There was no alcohol, lots of folks my age, and lots of little kids (there was a kids area with games, face-painting, and that bouncy castle). If this had been my first Pride festival 20 years ago, I'd have been disappointed. Back then I was young and looking for a wild time; I enjoyed seeing people in their fetish gear with their slaves on a leash, mostly naked go-go dancers, and flamboyant drag queens lip-syncing to disco. But now I'm much more mellow and I really appreciate the family-friendly and laid-back atmosphere.

I do wish there had been more shirtless guys though.

.

Tomato Update

A year ago today, I posted a picture of my first tomato.

Here's this year's tomato for comparison.

Box of Veggies (3 of 22)

This week we split the potatoes, spinach, mizuna and lettuce. I took the onion, carrots, and strawberries, and gave E&A the scallions, basil, and tomato.

The only thing new to me this week was the mizuna. It's a slightly bitter, slightly spicy leafy green - somewhere between mustard greens and arugula. It's usually used in salads. I will stir fry it later this week.




I'm not a big fan of carrots, but it's seems we will get a large bunch of them every week in the box. I can't just keep forcing them on E&A (like week 1) and I won't have a bunch of friends over for game night every week (like week 2); so I will have to find carrot recipes that I can eat. This week I made these carrot cupcakes.

I also made spinach calzones and strawberry scones. The potatoes are parboiled and ready for breakfast burritos, and the onion and lettuce will be eaten on sandwiches throughout the week.

.