Sunday Night Reflections

Sunday's Supper/Zucchini Pie

I just love when all the fresh vegetables begin to make their way into the market. When I was growing up, we ate squash, but it was always yellow squash. I had never heard of zucchini squash until we moved to Chicago. But, it was love at first bite. There are so many dishes that can be made, everything from zucchini bread, to pasta dishes. 

I especially love Zucchini Pie, or some would say quiche. My recipe is super simple, and minus the crust!   

I begin by cutting up 3 medium size zucchini.

A little spice is always a good thing in my book, and I especially like this cheese from Boar's Head. It is a bit spicy, so if you would prefer, a colby/jack blend without the peppers will work just fine. 

The zucchini is sauteed in a little olive oil with garlic until tender. Salt, black pepper, oregano, along with the cubed cheese is added to the sauteed zucchini, and placed in a greased pie dish.

Three beaten eggs are then poured over the zucchini cheese mixture. Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 40 minutes, or until eggs are set.

Allow the pie to cool slightly, about 10 minutes before cutting. Slice, serve, and devour!

This pie is great for breakfast, lunch and dinner. If serving for breakfast, add a fruit salad on the side. For lunch or dinner, a nice green salad, or a cup of soup will be perfect. 

Here's the recipe...

Zucchini Pie

ingredients;
3 medium zucchini sliced into small pieces. 
2 cloves garlic minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1/4 teaspoon black pepper, or to taste
1 cup colby/jack 
3 eggs beaten
2 tablespoons olive oil

directions;
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Saute zucchini and garlic in olive oil until tender, about 15 minutes. Combine zucchini with cubed cheese, salt, pepper, dried oregano and pour in greased pie dish. Pour beaten eggs over zucchini mixture. Stir slightly to distribute eggs evening through zucchini.
Place in preheated oven and bake for approximately 40 minutes, or until eggs are set and pie is browned.

Allow pie to cool slightly before slicing, about 10 minutes. 

Hope you enjoy your zucchini pie as much as I enjoyed mine!

Rhonda

Bragging On You!

Another day at the zoo! ;) Night before last, Mr. Berkley woke me up at 1 in the morning, thrashing around in his crate, the horrible cone scraping against the sides. I listened, thinking he would settle down, he did, so I went back to sleep. When I got up at 5, and opened the crate, I saw that this little bugger had managed to pull out some of his stitches. So, another trip to the vet. Now he is wearing a lampshade sized cone on his head, and has brand new staples in his incision. But, I figured out that I could take the cone off of his head when we go for a walk. He and I are so much happier. And, no crate for sleeping, he has found a place beside me. So, I don't know, maybe I would have been the worst mom in the world, or maybe the best ;)

There is nothing I love more than being able to brag on things that you do, especially if I have given you a bit of inspiration.

A few weeks ago, I received a note from Jelena telling me that she had made the Caught In A Wave dress, but in a woven fabric. I asked that if she had time, to send a picture. I am SO very happy that she did!!! Isn't this a lovely dress?!!!

I love how it drapes. Check out those fabulous shoes! 
The dress was worn to a Tango Festival. She said that it moved beautifully, and that she received tons of compliments, and she should have, it is gorgeous. Jelena was a little concerned about the dress staying in place with it being such a slinky satin, but it did. Thanks so much for sharing your lovely creation! 
   

You can find the original post and how tos on the Caught In A Wave Dress HERE.

I also received a note from Penny. I did not inspire this make, but since I posted something on working with tea towels, she thought she would share these pics of her daughter. It was actually her daughter's inspiration that brought about these lovely tees. She was shopping at Ikea, found the towels, and thought they would make great summer tops. Had her mom put them together for her. 

I especially like the top below with the embroidery along the hem. Who would ever think that these were initially intended for the kitchen?!!

Thanks so much for sharing your lovely makes. This is where my inspiration originates :)

Rhonda

Tea and Tea Towels/ A Challenge

Well, I am getting a taste of what it's like to be a mother today. Little Berkley went in to be neutered yesterday, and has had a few issues with the medication. Add to it that he does not want to leave my side. And then I have Gracie, who is terribly afraid of the rain. Between fast trips outside, if you know what I mean :/, and 2 dogs that are wanting lots of attention, I've had a difficult time getting anything accomplished. But the rain will come to an end, and Berkley will heal, in the meantime, I'm just enjoying the fact that they look to me for comfort :)

Today is the first day of woven t-shirt challenge that Becky of Trail Balloons and I are doing as a collaboration. The fun part about it is that we have a specified challenge each week, but we have no idea what the other will be doing.

This week, the challenge was to work with tea towels. Becky picked up a lovely towel while on vacation and used it as the basis of her design. You can see her post HERE. It really turned out to be the perfect 'throw it on and go' top as well as an airy, 'stay cool through the summer' piece. For anyone who loves good tea, she offers a wonderful idea for making your own tea bags. 

I have a box full of vintage linens and tea towels that I have collected over the years. When Becky suggested using tea towels, I thought of a pile that I had found, all new/old stock, so, old but never used. And, all the same. They were especially wide, so maybe not really tea towels, but they would work for this project. 

I decided to use the free raglan tee pattern that I used in THIS post. The pattern plus my pile of towels resulted in this!      

I was able to turn the pattern so that I could use the finished edge of the towel for the hem of the top. There's a faint black accent line woven into the fabric, so I decided to use a piece of vintage black gingham as an accent. One corner was cut, turned on the bias, and then laid on top of the gingham to create the pocket. 

For the back, I used another corner to cover up an issue. While the towels had never been used, there were some age spots that I could not work around. For fun, I added a piece of the gingham to the back and topped it with some embroidered initials from another tea towel.

A lovely time when towels were monogrammed :) 

Below is the age spot that the back overlay covers up. I also used the black gingham to bind the neckline.

I felt that the sleeves needed a little interest, so I added a stripe of the gingham. Just stitched it over 1 of the stripes in the towel.

Not quite sure what I will wear the top with, maybe a pair of linen pants. 

And now for my recipe...

Like Becky, I love tea, and I have quite the collection. During the summer, I especially like a glass of lavender iced tea. While the tea is great to drink, it's also great to cook with! Believe it or not, it's the secret ingredient in my lemon bars. 

I begin with a box of lemon cookie thins that I get from Trader Joe's. If you don't live near a Trader Joe's, I'm sure you can find something comparable in your grocery store.

The cookies are crushed to make a  cookie crust.

Mashed into a foil lined pan and baked until golden brown.

All of the ingredients for the lemon/lavender filling are combined in a blender, and then poured over the baked crust.

The result is a lemon bar that is sinfully good!

Lemon Lavender Bars

Crust Ingredients;

8 oz. butter, melted

2 teaspoons vanilla extract 

2 cups crushed lemon cookie thins

Filling Ingredients;

8 large eggs

1 1/4 cups fresh squeezed lemon juice

2 3/4 cups lavender sugar

zest of 2 lemons

1/2 cup flour

To Prepare Crust

Crush cookie thins. Add vanilla extract and melted butter. Mix well. Foil line a 9"' x 13" pan. Spray or grease the foil. Pour cookie mixture into pan and press out smoothly. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 30 minutes or until crust is golden brown. 

Filling;

While the crust is cooking, place eggs in blender and blend until frothy smooth. Add lemon juice, and continue blending. Add lemon sugar and flour and blend until smooth. Finish with the lemon zest. 

Once the crust is golden brown, pour the filling over the crust and place in oven, reducing the heat to 325 degrees. Bake for approximately 30 minutes, or until filling is set.

Remove from oven and allow the bars to cool. Sprinkle the top with powdered sugar. The bars will store well in the refrigerator for up to a week. 

Lavender sugar can be purchased, but you can also make your own. I used the lavender tea to make mine. Use 2 tablespoons of crushed lavender to 3 cups of sugar. This is a very nice sugar to keep on hand. Use it in cookie recipes, as well as pancakes.

Enjoy!

Rhonda

Sunday Night Reflections

Sunday's Soup/A Soup With Options

Little Mr. Berkley has now been with us for 2 weeks. He is the happiest dog I have ever seen. Believe it or not, he actually wags his tail while he sleeps :) What a gift!

Back in May, my husband and I spent 3 days touring around Wisconsin, visiting creameries, and tasting cheese. In my book, heaven! We try to do this about once a year. It's such fun. One of my favorite creameries is Union Star Cheese Factory. It's a family owned business that has been in existence since 1911. They make a 5 year aged cheddar that is my absolute favorite.  

I had given a friend of mine a block of the cheddar. She had thrown away the wrapper, so didn't know where it came from, but wanted to share the information with a friend of hers. So, I looked up the site. While I was there, I noticed that they had a recipe section. I like recipes :) Come to find out, they had a recipe for a Beer Cheese Soup. Now, typically, I would have passed right over the recipe, but what caught my attention was the list of ingredients with all the vegetables. Really?!! I always thought that Beer Cheese Soup was just that, beer and cheese. While I do love cheese, I absolutely hate beer, at least to drink it. But, there are a few recipes where I will use beer. So, I decided to give it a try.

The vegetable ingredients consist of carrots, green pepper, onions, celery, and mushrooms. You can find the recipe HERE.  

Since I had not made the soup, I followed the directions pretty much as written, but with a couple of exceptions. Rather than saute the vegetables in butter, I used 3 tablespoons of olive oil. I also deleted the ham, so mine is a vegetarian version. 

Once the vegetables are tender, but still crisp, flour and cornstarch are added  to thicken the soup. The recipe says to stir the flour/cornstarch into the vegetables and continue to cook for another 3 minutes. You'll find that it seems quite thick at this point.  

Rather than chicken broth, I used a vegetable broth. Milk is also added to the mixture. I decided to use my hand held blender and slightly puree the vegetables. So, they are somewhat pureed, but still have texture. Once the spices have been added, the soup is delicious without the cheese and the beer. So, you could actually stop here and enjoy the soup as is.   

I added the cheese and only 1/2 cup of the beer. 1/2 cup of the beer blended nicely into the soup, an entire cup, in my opinion would have been too much.

What I ended up with was a velvety smooth, delicious soup.

Union Star does have a mail order service, but they only ship cheese from October-April. I sent some to a friend of mine who now lives in Galveston, Texas, but grew up in northern Wisconsin. She said that it tasted like home. Their 5 year aged cheddar crumbles when sliced and has a true sharp cheddar taste. Delicious!

Even if you can't get the Union Star Cheese, get a really good sharp cheddar from your grocer and give the soup a try. A wonderful treat! Just in case you missed it, you can find the recipe HERE :)    

When I Fell In Love

Did you ever make a garment that you just could not forget? One that has such fond memories that you would love to make it again, if only you could find the pattern?

I learned to sew when I was just a child. If you've followed the blog for some time, you've heard me tell the story, embroidering a handkerchief and stitching the edges when I was 5. That of course led into garment sewing. 

There was never much money in our household, so I figured out ways to earn money for what I needed. I am going to sound like a true stone age leftover with this ;), but I actually sold greeting cards door to door. At the age of 11/12, that was the most intimidating thing I had ever done, but I was determined. With each door that I knocked on, I became a little stronger, a little more confidant. My grandmother had also taught me to knit, so I made scarf and hat sets, as well as knitted bags. I really didn't make anything off of my endeavor, enough to cover the cost of my yarn, and maybe $5.00 of profit. But, I could knit while I babysat, so basically, 2 birds with 1 stone :)

With my earnings, I was able to stretch my money even further by making my clothes. It only took 1 shopping trip to figure this out!

For years I have thought about a pattern that I bought when I was 16 years old. I purchased a lovely light blue piece of wool that had a faint plaid in the weave. I also purchased a coordinating piece of blue wool for the pants. I LOVED that outfit! It was the first time that I made a bound buttonhole, and had worked with a good piece of wool. As I am writing, the thought just came to me, I think it was this outfit that made me fall in love with sewing. Maybe that's why I have dreamed of that outfit all these years. 

The pattern lost to time, I thought would only be a memory, but as fate would have it, I found it. You know how it goes with the internet, you click on 1 thing that leads you to another, and then in the end, you have no idea how you got from 1 place to another. I think that how it happened was that I saw a pattern on Instagram that someone had used. I typed the pattern number into the Etsy search engine. It came up, and then I clicked on something else that caught my attention, and then suddenly, I saw the pattern. That was it!!! That was it!!! The pattern that I have thought of for more years than I want to count.

Without hesitation, I hit, buy now, and it arrived yesterday. It's not a fabulous Vogue Designer pattern. I couldn't afford those at that time. It's really quite simple, but it brought me so much joy.

I loved the rounded yoke. As I said earlier, rather than do machine worked buttonholes, I took the leap and made my first bound buttonholes. I'm sure that they were atrocious, but I was proud. 

  
The rounded yoke is repeated in the back. The elastic casing only runs across the back. The tie is stitched to about the middle of the bodice on the front. 

I haven't been as excited about a garment as I am now in I don't know when. Crazy, I know. 

I have a special piece of wool that I have had for quite some time. A plaid. It will be perfect!

Sometimes memories are best left were they are, in the past. And then sometimes, we get to have them visit us once again, bringing with them all the happiness, and joy that they gave us so long ago.