Shrimp, crackers and Textiles and Tea

Yesterday I did the shrimp, dipped in aqua faba, as an eggwash substitute,  then cooked in a mixture of oil and the liquid off the shrimp, and breaded with panko.

Here cooking away, soon browned enough 

I made a Will Yeung style dipping sauce and the crunchy shrimp were great. I took the single person's privilege of having a one item meal. Just shrimp. Lovely. 

Today is about crackers. I'm planning on red lentil crackers with all kinds of seeds chucked in. I haven't made crackers for a while, so this will be good. I love crackers and cheese.

I was surprised at the variety of seeds I have here, caraway, fennel, cumin, methi. Should be interesting.

So here's the upshot 

Ending in afternoon snack of crackers and cheese with tea, just in time for Textiles and Tea,  featuring Lynne Dees.  

She's a great freeform basket weaver making commentary on the political and natural environment in wonderful pieces she hand dyes. Her large pieces, about 40" + inches square, take inspiration from tobacco baskets, large, shallow and open weave to store the leaves but let air circulate.

She's a basket weaver without borders! Take a look

This is really painting with reed.

Coraline Cake, reference to the suffrage movement in America where suffragists wrote and sold cookbooks as fundraisers and to counter the vicious claims that they were neglecting their families and ruining everyone's lives! The recipe for this cake is embroidered around the placemat.

Left is a detail from Australia Burning, see her website for the whole piece

Fish trap. It's caught mainly plastic refuse

Crab trap likewise

This piece reflects on a period when the artist's  heart suddenly gave her trouble

She was originally a painter and makes drawings and paintings of design ideas

This was a lovely episode, and makes a person want to weave baskets!

Happy day, everyone! Get weavin. One way or another.

May, well, spring, goeth all in white, nearly

 Out walking today I noticed how many blossoms are suddenly out, and how many are white or cream. Honeysuckle, feverfew, dogwood, blackberry, all over. Also what I think is deadly nightshade, not white.

Lovely walk, with temptation to keep going but I did turn back and slept about an hour once home and fed. So I guess that was enough walking.

That thing on the spider web in the maple tree is either a trapped insect or a spider building some kind of structure. I have to keep checking this to see what happens.

Sone of the afternoon was taken up by filling out official State forms connected with property tax relief. They've simplified some of it and complicated other bits. 

I added in my own complication by dropping the three large file folders as I was replacing them. Papers skittering all over the floor, where I can't reach down. 

It took a while and some unsuitable language to grabstick retrieve and reassemble and file them. Now it's done, all the numbers I had to find and enter done, and the packet is now in the mailbox. 

I could have filed online but that involved finding yet more identification and copying long numbers accurately, and life's too short.

Whether the tax relief -- the difference between current real estate tax and the base year I filed, depends on the State budget. 

Most years they send me a nice check, my own money returned in fact. But under GOP Gov. Christie, it didn't always happen, so sorry, we spent it on fun stuff. Usually Dem governors come through. We'll know in July.

Now it's tea and honey toast on the deck.  All winter I look forward to deck time and now it's here, me, bees, dragonflies, birds in twos,  squirrels, no chipmunk sightings yet, tea, book.  

Happy day everyone, try not to drop important files full of tax forms, it's better not.

Mother's Day dessert, spring planting

Here's dessert after a lunch of roast chicken and potatoes 

Slice of lime cake, some Greek yogurt, blueberries and pure cane sugar.  

I got some sewing supplies organized for Pine Ridge 

Lovely walk Sunday morning, beautiful warm sunny day and walking in the morning means shade. Greeting neighbors on their patios. I went about two thirds pondwards before deciding I needed the rest of my energy to get home.

Then a period of sitting doing niksen on the deck in morning shade. 

This afternoon Gary wanted to get going planting so I gave him a few tiny sprouting potatoes to set out. Many questions. Which way up, how deep, what size pot, knowing he'd do what he wanted anyway! I don't worry if my advice gets wafted away on the wind. 

I already had some potatoes going, so I decided the linited amount of planting I could do Sunday was this. I'm taking Rita seriously and trying not to overdo.

Chives to restart after my ancient ones didn't make it, wildflowers to just throw about, this worked last year, honesty seeds from my own plant. Note the grabber within reach. And the container with the blue lid is the squirrel deterrent. 

It's essential peppermint oil, and qtips. I soak them in the oil and push two or three into each pot. Squirrels don't like it and stay away from your seeds.

That's Sunday's gardening done. I put Chris's morning glory seeds to soak before I put them in, maybe Monday. They'll go in the ground this year, near the shepherd's crook to give them something to climb. And there's a pot ready for some other flower.

And that's today's Hope Springs Eternal Gardener's Hour. I just had to water the seeds in and I was ready for a cup of tea.

And for supper the world's easiest stew. 

Can of diced tomatoes, can of cannellini beans, with what's becoming a go to seasoning, umami mixture and smoked paprika.

The aqua faba from the beans is saved for baking as an egg substitute.

Happy day everyone. Plant seeds, real or metaphorical. Real toads in imaginary gardens.

Gardening is an art. Mine's on the artisanal good enough for gummint work side.

Ted sez. 

Shut up, Ted 

Billie sez

Happy mother's Day, winnowing sewing materials

Happy mother's Day if you celebrate, otherwise happy Sunday.

I was checking through materials that might be useful to the friends on the Pine Ridge reservation, and I think these pieced patches and strips, and English paper piecing motifs might work. 

I'll explain about the card templates. I'm leaving them in, in case anyone wants to join the motifs. They can remove and keep them if they plan to applique them onto another project.   Then they can keep and reuse them.

The lace embroideries will go into my fabric book.

Next I'll go upstairs for bigger pieces of fabric and some tools I'm pretty sure I have in multiples. Then I'll cut down a box I have to a suitable size, and I'll get it sent off.

I did another first today -- changed my bed and did a load of laundry. The grabber stick was in constant use, since I can't reach the back of the dryer at the best of times, too short, and I probably would have been wise to get a grabber years ago.

And I'm learning not to gaily throw sheets, pillows etc on the floor while I'm stripping the bed,  can't retrieve them. The upstairs walker is in use here, to keep them at a reachable level.

It went pretty well, and I finally have a clean bed, and enough clean clothes to continue with.

I still haven't put down the bedside rug or a couple of other small rugs in the house, and maybe I won't. At least not yet.  I don't want to skid.

Saturday morning's walk and laundry, and a bit of gardening, tidying the lavender bush of deadwood, a trip to the mailbox and then the recycling bin with the mailbox contents,  then lunch of crisp roast potatoes and chicken with lime cake and yogurt for dessert, led to an afternoon nap. Now I think about it, not surprising. 

Happy day everyone, do what I say not what I do. Don't overdo it. Like I say. But then 

Rainy afternoon, corny movie

Just as a coda to my joke about lifting $60 worth of groceries, I rewatched that ancient movie, Yours, Mine and Ours, from the sixties, on Friday afternoon, after all the cooking.

It's a Hollywoodized version of a much grittier real life story where a widow with eight children, Lucille Ball, marries a widower with ten, Henry Fonda. One scene shows the couple grocery shopping. Cart after cart at the checkout,  three clerks assisting. Yards of register tape. Total $120. Just sayin.

I delivered slices of the lime cake to neighbors who were very happy, froze some slices for next time Handsome Son visits, and that leaves enough for me to enjoy. This is how you bake when you live alone. How I do, anyway. 

The original recipe comes with a glaze, which I skipped, because I found in the past that the mixture of citrus juice and sugar triggers asthma. Probably just me.

And Saturday morning, cooler, sunny, perfect for my first solo walk on the grass. 

No duffers out playing golf, but this is the last hole, so they're probably still slicing away on the first few holes. 

Now I need to work on stamina. I'd like to revisit the pond before it gets too hot to go that far, so that's my plan. I went about a third of the way this morning.  Working up bit by bit.

This is not in my plan, is she nuts?? No, she's working within her own ability.

I would be nuts if I tried it. Also my PT would probably fire me.

Happy day everyone, inch by inch, life's a cinch.

Ted sez breathe.

Improving the shining hour

This morning was planned for PT but Therapist Emil got stuck in Philadelphia with something that overran its schedule. So I got a free morning.

Which I put to good use, baking a cake and roasting those chicken drumsticks.

This is Beatrice's lemon cake with some changes. I didn't have lemon zest so I used lime zest. Saved on eggs by using aqua faba, quarter cup per egg. And as you see, it came out fine

Very tender because it uses oil -- I used avocado, which is very good at lightening baked goods. And the lime zest worked lovely. Nice flavor.  See the dense crumb here, where I sliced the (cook's privilege) first piece.

A couple of neighbors will help me with this. And thank you Beatrice!

The drumsticks took advantage of the stove already being hot, just oil, some ground kosher salt with seasonings, and basil and salt.

This will be good when I need a drumstick with this evening's crisp roasted cheesy potato dice.

Lovely gentle rain overnight for the first houseplant I put out, the coleus swinging and looking happy.

The sage is budding up now, before bursting out in purple blossoms.

And buds are starting on the rose which I think was planted by birds 

I'm not seeing any signs of life on the hibiscus, but this time last year I didn't either and it bust out some great flowers later.

Happy day everyone, bust a move, it's Friday!

Sez Ted 

Misfits today, I must be strong

Today Rameer delivered the Misfits box and took the ice and cooler bag.

This is about $60 in groceries. I must be getting stronger. Years ago I could scarcely lift $60 in groceries..

Anyway chicken drumsticks which I'll roast all at once and have ready for salads, soup, curry, whatever else I fancy. 

Plant based spicy sausage for spaghetti sauce, burger type things, shrimp for various meals, and I'm thinking of breading with panko, because the tofu sticks were so good. Maybe bread some chicken, too. 

Lime juice for afternoons on the deck. Oat milk to go with the muesli from last week, and because I'm too lazy this week to make my own. 

Yogurt to go into a nice cake recipe I'm swiping from blogger Beatrice, thank you. Also for afternoon tea on the deck. Berries with breakfast muesli.

Now a rest, then a walk maybe, and reading Trollope on the deck. This is the life!

Happy day everyone, what's your version of reading Victorian novelists on the deck?

Ted wants to know