Sweet River Studios

In this class we went over the process of breading meat. We used dry bread crumbs, panko bread crumbs and we discussed using seeds. Our class was small due to bad weather so we had to drop one of the recipes from our menu and it involved pumpkins seeds. We made cordon bleu chicken with noodles, breaded pork chops with green peppercorn sauce, shrimp croquettes and the usual staple of salad. The shrimp croquettes were quite rich. First, you make a rue that is more like a wet pastry dough then the shrimp are poached in wine and pureed. Then you add the shrimp to the dough and some aromatics and cheese and make ping pong sized balls and fry them and serve them with a garlic mayo. They're really good. Today, I worked on the breaded pork chops, noodles and green peppercorn sauce. Here's the finished pork with sauce on a sheet pan. We also prepped some duck legs for duck confit. I've never used this method of cooking and it'll be fun to see how everything turns...

Now that I have all my units cut out and bagged, I need to move on to my fabric. I know there's a lot of advice out there about washing or not washing your fabric before sewing and I'm firmly in the wash first group. But let me tell you why..... A few years ago, I decided to make a quilt for my 40th birthday and turning 40 that same year was the 1973 triple crown win by Secretariat. So I designed a quilt featuring horse and rider, all hand appliqued, the background was hand painted using Inktense pencils, hand embroidery and trapunto in the borders. So a lot of work went into this quilt. I used a blue batik with a white fabric to make a checkerboard which was the Meadow Farms colors. And during my quilting process I decided to use the chalk method to mark out where I as going to quilt. Well, I couldn't get the chalk out and pink chalk was kinda ground in the white fabric from the quilting. So I took a spray bottle with water and I was going to lightly buff the chalk out w...

Well, its a new year and apparently winter is for meat because that's the focus for next 6 weeks or so  and first up is chicken. We made several dishes such as Hunter style chicken, Grandmother style and chicken in beer. All of the chicken dishes were very good but we did wind up putting all the chicken in the oven to finish cooking after searing in the pan. In the grandmother style chicken, all the vegetables are prepared separately then placed around the finished chicken which seemed pretty labor intensive to me and I was glad I didn't have to do that one. I got to work on beer chicken. The beer chicken recipe is from the Alsace region which is close to Germany and beer is used instead of wine. The chicken is browned in the pan then the aromatics and beer are added. The chicken continues to cook, however we finished our chicken off in the oven since we were hungry. The sauce is then strained and finished with egg yolks and cream. And we served some egg noodles on the ...

I did it. I finally picked the fabric for my Paradise in Bloom Quilt. I ordered about 22 yards of fabric and the box was huge. It was big and full of fabric! I ordered from Fabric.com. I really like their design wall feature and I played with colors for a long time. What I didn't like is that some colors, specifically dark greens, for some reason all required a 2 yard minimum purchase. I think everything is at least a 1 yard minimum but why 2 yards on certain colors? So needless to say that was annoying especially when I only need about 1/2 yard of 5 different green colors but this way if I mess up I'll have extra fabric and all these colors might make a pretty binding. Anyway, I went with an orange center surrounded by blues that ranged from very dark to very light, add in some dark brown and cream with the blue and orange and that's the main parts of the quilt. The appliques will be greens and multiple hues of color for the flowers. I still need to buy about 4 yards...

Another year has passed and for me it was a fairly quiet one. We didn't go on vacation and I'm pretty sure I sewed less this year than last year and I definitely posted less. I had around 30 blog posts from bluebirds to quilts to cooking classes. There were no anniversary parties this year but I did take my grandmother to OSU Orton Museum to speak with someone about her rock collection. My grandmother is 89 and fondly remembers the time she spent traveling out west with her husband in the 1980's. During their traveling she picked up rocks from all the states they visited and they came back with the trunk full. It's a wonder they didn't break the car she has so many rocks. She loves her rocks but she doesn't really know what type of rock they are and some are very unique. She's wanted to go over her rock collection with a geologist for years and often spoke of inviting someone from OSU to her house to see her rock collection. Now that she's 89 and fee...