Category Archives: Kitchen-Cooking & Misc

December 2020 Crafty News

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Well, it’s near the end of the year. I’m still not in a very active crafting mood. However, I thought I should make a bit of a crafty post since the last crafty one I made was way back in April.

During this month of December, My husband and I made a couple diamond dot paintings. It’s become a Christmas time tradition for us. We sit at our kitchen table, each with our own diamond dot kit. Over the course of the weekends, hours at a time, we work and enjoy sharing a pleasant relaxing craft together.
Yesterday, I transformed leftover baked ham and deviled eggs into ham salad. It’s a very easy thing to do.
I chopped up some ham,
mashed up 3 deviled eggs,
mixed them together,
and spooned the ham salad onto snack crackers.
It made a nice tasty snack and used up the rest of the leftover deviled eggs.
In November, I tried to do a bit of crocheting. Unfortunately, I had to stop because I got a very uncomfortable ache in my hands. I’m surprised that I haven’t experienced it, to this extent, before this stage in my life. When in the mood, I love crocheting, so I know I don’t want to give it up. I looked online and ordered a set of cushioned crochet hooks that are made to hopefully help ease the ache. They’re real nice.
To try my new crochet hooks out, I attempted to crochet some popcorn. I thought I’d make oodles of it and string them for garland for our tree. After crocheting only 3 popcorns, I lost interest. It’s a lot more work and requires more holiday spirit than I can muster up this year. Maybe, some day in the future, I’ll give the popcorns another try.
On a more happy note, We got a nice extra bit of cheer this Christmas when we awoke to a light snowfall. I know it’s silly, but it feels so much more jolly with snow on Christmas day.

I’m sorry I haven’t been around but very little.
I’m going to try to do better in the new year.
I pray you and your families are well and
looking forward to hopefully more positive
times to come in the new year.

 

 

 

Snow – Soup & Christmas Tree

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11-12-2019 We woke up to a light snow that had fell during the night.
It was super cold and in the teens, so that meant it was a great day for a pot of chicken vegetable soup and a pone of cornbread. It really hit the spot and felt like a warm nostalgic hug.
My husband has been in the mood to put up our Christmas tree since first frost, but held off until the 10th of this month. You can say it’s way too early, but we enjoy the extra festive sparkle it brings to our home. Thankfully our livingroom is large enough that the tree and decor isn’t in-the-way.
Shelibean supervised the holiday decorating.

So, what’s up at your home?
Has the winter weather put you in a nostalgic mood or holiday mode?

Wishing you all a warm and happy rest of the week!

 

 

Nostalgia For Stories while Breaking Beans

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In my youth, I considered breaking beans to be an enjoyable chore. I felt so grown up helping to break the beans for canning while spending time with my Mom. Now, I consider breaking beans an enjoyable nostalgic activity.
I watch documentaries while doing any sort of lengthy food prep like breaking beans. I some times wonder why it is that I prefer to watch a documentary instead of a regular movie.
Perhaps, it’s because when I was growing up and I’d help my Mom break beans, shuck corn, peel peaches or any one of many time consuming chores, she would tell stories that ran the gamut from silly to serious. The stories helped to pass the time and made the chore more enjoyable. I feel blessed and so very thankful to have these wonderful memories of my Mom.
A documentary is more personal than a movie, it’s like folks sitting around sharing stories of their experiences and thoughts. I suppose watching a documentary while breaking beans is my feeble way to relive a tiny bit of the special story telling moments from my youth.

Wishing you all many happy moments this week.

 

 

 

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Potatoes, squash, beans, chard, basil, onions, & Temperature Blanket Update

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We got a pretty mess of vegetables out of the garden the other day. We were happy we could harvest a few squash.
We had several potatoes; we used some and stored some for later.We have a rule at our house that the first mess of squash has to be fried. It used to be fried in oil in a skillet method. A few years ago, we needed to change our way of cooking to be healthier, so we make a stir-fry instead. Our stir fry is a bit of olive oil, squash, potatoes, basil, onions, and a bit of cornmeal just for nostalgia. 😉

Thankfully, our area is finally getting some rain. My husband thought it a good idea to go ahead and harvest all the potatoes so they wouldn’t ruin. I agreed with him since the potato plants were starting to die and since we got such a nice harvest a few days before.
Considering that we didn’t plant but 5 lbs. of potatoes, I think we got a good harvest.
I’m guessing there’s probably a couple pecks (half bushel)
We’re happy with them.

Temperature Blankets Update:

I decided to skip May temperature blankets update and wait until June to do my update so they’d be a bit bigger than every couple weeks.
They’re still coming along fairly well.

Wishing you all a great weekend!

 

 

 

 

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