Sweet River Studios

The last class of 2017 was shellfish. We cooked 5 different shellfish dishes: A bouillabaisse with fish and shrimp with a potato topped crouton on top, shrimp calamari vegetable tempura, shrimp poached in broth with a cocktail mayonnaise, a tomato wine broth with mussels and garlic toast and scallops with corn ragu and salad. We shelled and cleaned a lot of shrimp, mussels and clams for this class and everything turned out great. I really enjoyed the tomato wine broth. It was light and all the shellfish in it was filling. So this was the last cooking class for 2017 and our 10 week of cooking. I've already learned a lot and my fellow classmates are fun to cook with so that makes it even more enjoyable. I'm looking forward to the remaining 20 weeks of this class in 2018.

For two weeks we cooked fish. We learned a lot about what to look for in purchasing fish and of course how to cook it. In our first class on fish, we learned what to look for when buying fish fillets or whole fish. We sauted some trout in brown butter, lemon and capers and served it over rice with soft skillet fried croutons. We also made a clam chowder and a dish with fish and vegetables baked in parchment with wine. The fish dishes were both light and filling and easy to cook. The second class, we made a flounder with mushroom sauce, a red pepper risotto, a lobster bisque and a salmon salad on crouton. The lobster bisque is very labor intensive. It's not really difficult to make but definitely time consuming. The risotto was also a bit labor intensive but 2 cups of arborio rice easily fed 12 people.

It's week 8 of the French cooking class and we made 6 dishes with potatoes. Yep, 6 different dishes and it's the week after Thanksgiving and I'm pretty sure I don't want any more potatoes for at least 2 weeks. We learned how to "turn" potatoes and make little footballs. This is an effort to make all your potatoes the same size so they cook evenly. We also made a spicy sweet potato soup, mashed potatoes, a gratin with rosemary and Gruyere, potatoes anna, and latkes. I'd say the most time consuming to make were the potatoes anna and latkes. The anna dish requires the potatoes to be sliced on a mandolin very thinly, layered around a skillet with clarified butter then baked. The latkes were made using shredded onion and potatoes on a box grater, squeezing the water out then frying. Of course a food processor would've saved us some time on the grating but we do things by hand so we learn. We also made a tossed salad with a honey mustard vinaigrette and so

A lot of people are intimidated by gravy but you don't have to be. Once you do it, you'll see how easy it can be. Two things you MUST have when making a really good gravy is stock and brown bits. So in order to get ready for our gravy we need to make stock. Yes, you can buy turkey or chicken stock to make this and you can even start with turkey stock from the store or start with water. Either one is fine but the stock you make at home will be 10x more flavorful then the store bought stock. And that's what you want - flavor. So in my stock, I'm going to start with turkey stock bought at the store instead of water. I figure the more layers of flavor I can add to the stock the merrier. The purchased turkey stock (pictured below) was a nice dark color, which I was pretty happy with. You can use this as is or reduce it further to concentrate the flavor but I'm going to add more meat and vegetables. I bought 4 turkey legs and 4 thighs for my stock but I also had

At my cooking class, we learned how to make emulsion type sauces. We learned how to make a hollandaise sauce, which we put over the classic poached egg and toast. We also made a mayonnaise and roasted potatoes. And we made a white wine sauce for our hamburgers with caramelized onions, along with a ceasar salad with dressing. All of that was in just one day! Needless to say, I'm usually stuffed at the end of class. The following week was salad week and all we did was chop a lot of veggies and make salad dressings and a pumpkin soup. It was definitely a lighter meal but I was still just as full.

It's less then two weeks before T-giving and I'm on cooking duty this year. It's been a few years since I've cooked and I've been taking a french cooking class so I'm ready to start planning and start cooking. We also have a couple of people with food allergies, so I try to be mindful of what everyone can or cannot have and make sure there's something for everyone. There will be some new items this year and of course some traditional. I like to change things up a bit but others don't want anything but the same thing year after year but since I'm cooking it's my house, my food, my rules. If you've never cooked Thanksgiving before here's a few tips: Plan Ahead. Don't wait until the last minute to go shopping. Make a list of what dishes you're serving, under that write down your shopping list and under that list keep your recipes. Then under the recipes or next to them, write down the day you're going to make them. Also, f

When I first started learning how to sew, I decided to learn paper piecing. Paper piecing is very easy to learn. It's learning how to sew pieces of fabric together in a certain order and you sew them together by sewing on lines printed on the paper. Yes, you sew on a line so everything is straight and everything lines up fairly easily. My first paper piecing pattern, was the 4th of July quilt pattern by Judy Niemeyer from Quiltworx . The hardest part is literally getting all the fabric cut and taking off the paper. But I learned a lot about 1/4" seams, trimming, sewing and piecing all the parts together. I thought the instructions for the pattern was really well done and was easy for a non-sewer to follow. After the 4th of July quilt and my sewing skills improved, I got another pattern called Amazon Star. This was a very, very big quilt. I think it was 98x98" and I really didn't like handling something that big. That one taught me that I don't like Y seams. I go

Over the last few weeks of cooking class we've been learning how to make different stocks, binding of sauces and of course soup! We made 6 six soups last week and I got pictures of 4 of them below. We also made a salad with dressing and homemade butter to add to our bread. We made a potato leek and a celery soup... and a spicy vegetable soup with pesto.. ... and a parsnip and pear soup with apple cider reduction. We also made a french onion and cauliflower soup which I didn't get pictures of. I've learned already after just 4 weeks of class to not eat breakfast (or very little) on Tuesdays. All of the soups were really good and I'm looking forward to more classes.

The fall horse was more difficult to paint than the other two but I think I did okay. I put fall colored leaves, flowers and grapes on vines around the legs and I might add more on the skin of the horse. I also started the summer horse. I went with a black horse with blueish highlights and I'll probably add sunflowers and butterflies on it and maybe some cracked parched earth under it's hooves. I took about 2 weeks off from painting to take a break from it but hopefully, I'll start the background area soon then onto the quilting.

I can't believe I actually signed up for a 30 week cooking class! What was I thinking?! Okay enough whining. I signed up for the 30 week French cooking series offered by The Seasoned Farmhouse in Columbus and our first class was October 3 and should go through mid-May with a couple weeks off for holidays. I've never been the Seasoned Farmhouse but I knew about their cooking classes but believe me when they're announced they fill almost immediately so it's really hard to get in. When I saw this 30 week French cooking series I gave it a brief thought and discarded it. Signing up for a 30 week class isn't something to do on a whim and the cost was considerable for the class so I decided to watch it and if the class looked like it would fill then I'd sign up. One class was offered on Monday nights and one on Tuesday during the day. So I watched and waited. When I saw the Monday night class fill within a few weeks I didn't think the Tuesday class would but it s

Painting the horses continue. There's a lot of detail work on the Spring and Fall horses with a lot of vines, leaves, flowers etc. so that's more detailed and very slow going but I'm making progress. When I'm tired of working on the small intricate areas, I started working on painting the fall horse so I can go back to painting a large area. I don't have the hooves or mane painted yet and no highlights but at least it looks like a horse.

I spent several days drawing leaves, vines, flowers, ice crystals and whatever else I could dream up on the horses using Frixion pens. They erase with heat so when I make a mistake or want to change something I just iron it away and start over. I waffled a while on whether or not I would quilt the horses first then paint or paint first then quilt. So it took me a while to get started but I went with paint first. I started with the Winter horse first, mainly since its the first horse from the right and rest of the quilt is rolled up onto a cardboard tubing. I decided to paint it gray with some kind of icicles coming up from the hoof landing on the ground. But for now, just trying to get the horses done and you know, looking like horses. The second horse in the Spring horse and I decided to make it a palomino color which is a golden color with white mane/tail. Since white on white fabric never really shows up, I went ahead and added some gray to help it stand out. This horse

I came across a video from Red Heart Designs on YouTube demonstrating square triangles. It's basically a kaleidoscope quilt, which I have never done before. It was nice to be able to listen to the video multiple times especially for figuring out how much fabric you need and how to do the measurements. Basically, you get 8 repeats of a fabric pattern and cut it into strips then into squares then cut those in half to get triangles. Each group of triangles is 1 block that you sew together. Remember to keep everything pinned together and you're good to go. The most important thing about selecting a fabric for this type of quilt is contrast not colors. So fabric that is black and white is usually a good pick. You just have to make sure that there's an interesting pattern not just plain stripes or something. This is the fabric I selected. It's Kaufman Lumina Metallics Floral Bouquet Peacock, which is a mouthful. There's very dark blue to light cream colors with pink

You know how your looking around on the internet and you might be on Pinterest, a magazine website or a blog post and you see a particular quilt pattern that you really love and you bookmark that webpage and tell yourself, "one day I will do that quilt, it's awesome!" and within a week or so you forget all about it? Yeah, we've all done it, don't lie. Anyway, I was going back through my bookmarked webpages basically cleaning out what I don't want anymore and I found this Four Patch Charm Quilt from Tamarack Shack. I bookmarked this quilt years ago and I since I re-discovered it, I decided to get my backside in gear and get it done. It's a simple quilt yet very interesting, which I think is it's appeal. Tamarack Shack was also kind enough to put up a PDF file with instructions on how to make the quilt. This quilt uses 96, 5" squares. So look for some charm packs or get your scrap fabric out and get sewing! I couldn't find any charm packs th

Yes! I've started my 4 horses art quilt. I've made some additional decisions since my last post so here they are. I bought 4.5 yards of PFD (prepared for dyeing) fabric. This fabric hasn't been treated with any stabilizers and I've not washed it. The fabric is supposed to hold onto paints/dyes really well. I didn't wash it but I did throw it into the dryer on the refresh cycle so a little steam was added but that was it. I created my own image of four horses and projected it onto the fabric and made an outline of the horses. I decided to make the horses realistic in coloring and decorate each one with seasonal themes. So for example, I decided the Spring horse will be a palomino color with white mane/tail and then I'll decorate the horse with flowers, leaves, ribbons and whatever else I can come up with. I might applique them on or just quilt them. I'm not sure about that yet. I'll probably take some scrap fabric and do some experimenting and see w