Soup and Chocolate - Ultimate comfort foods

It's April, and we woke up to a blanket of snow.  I haven't blogged about food in a long while.  With the weather being so unpredictable, I thought the best comfort for today has got to be a nice pot of soup and for dessert, what's better than a warm cup of Italian hot chocolate?  There is a cookbook in my collection that I truly love and use more often than any other.   I bought it from a bookshop in the UK about 6 years ago.  It's called, "New Covent Garden Food Co. - A Soup for Every Day".  When I purchased it I had no idea how good and valuable these recipes would be.    Today I made Celery, Potato and Mature Cheddar Cheese soup. It's amazing and like most all soups, it's extremely easy to make.

Celery, Potato & Mature Cheddar Cheese Soup
Serves 4-6
Ingredients:
50g. (3Tbsp) unsalted butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 large head of celery, finely chopped (I only had 4 stalks left in my produce drawer)
450g. (2 large) potatoes, peeled and sliced (I used 3 large russets to use up what I had on hand)
725 ml. (about 3 cups) chicken stock (I used vegetable stock)
750 ml (3 cups). double cream (I used 1 cup of 1% milk)
To Garnish:
50g. (2-3 Tbsp) mature cheddar cheese, grated (I omitted the cheese)

Melt the butter in a soup pot, add vegetables and cover.  Cook gently for 10 minutes without browning.
Add the stock, season well.  Cover and bring to a boil.  Simmer gently for 30 minutes or until the vegetables are tender.
Blend 1/2 the soup finely with a stick blender and the other half blend coarse.
Return the soup to the pan, stir in the cream (or milk) and season to taste.  Reheat and serve with grated cheese.

I am watching the Masters Golf tournament this week.  Most of the time people talk about the awesome fare offered at the Masters and how cheap it is.   For decades, they've hand made their egg salad and pimento cheese sandwiches for $1.50 each.  These are easy to make and satisfying in that southern climate along with lemonade or iced tea (sweet tea if you're southern).  For me, the sandwich has got to be cut into quarters and served with hot English tea.    I know, you can't take the Brit out of me.

Egg Salad

6 hard cooked eggs, diced finely
1 Tbsp. fresh chives, chopped
1 tsp. dried dill weed
1 stalk celery, diced
salt and ground pepper to taste
3-4 Tbsp. Mayonnaise (I use light mayo)
1 tsp. stone ground prepared mustard or Dijon mustard
Whole Wheat or White sandwich bread (I use Delightful Multi-grain light loaf by Sara Lee)

In a small bowl, combine all ingredients and mix well.  Spread about 2-3 Tbsp. onto 1 slice of bread. Top with a plain slice of bread and cut into quarters, maybe even cut the crusts off?  Not me.

As I mentioned above, I love English tea, but sometimes I gotta have a cup of coffee.  Italian coffee is superior to me.  They really know what they are doing.  Who doesn't love Espresso or Cappuccino?   I've started to find Illy and Lavazza coffee in my supermarket, but you can find them online.  The smooth, not bitter taste is not like almost every national brand and I love it with a bit of foamy milk.   Sidetracked...anyway, one day I purchased a can of Illy and it came with a free box of Italian hot chocolate.  It's thick, rich chocolaty taste just brought back memories of sitting in a cafe I used to frequent where I had a chocolate taster tray for dessert once.  Yes, only once, darn it!   On it was a small demitasse of hot chocolate along with a selection of chocolate pastries and confections.   When I tried the hot chocolate, it was like having a rich dark chocolate bar melted in a cup.   As you can tell, memorable and worth trying if you should ever come across it.  Here, my cup of hot chocolate is topped with a little whipped cream and cinnamon.  Oh yes I did!

Well, enough about food, it's time to get back in the studio.  I'm finishing up kennel quilts to mail off next week.  Then, it will be time again to clean up the studio and update my UFO list.   :o)

Inspiring air and space museum

 Just a little inspiration from a recent visit of the Air and Space Museum at Petersen Air base, Colorado Springs...

The terminal was built in 1941 and was Colorado Springs first airport terminal.  It has stylized eagle entryway and art deco architectural detailed features. 

Adjacent to the air base is this structure..."Airplane Restaurant"  Covering the walls, nooks, crannies from the ceiling to floor are artifacts of flight, signed photographs and amazing history.   You can be served on the plane in retrofitted booths.  

Interesting shots taken by my DS.  This museum had artifacts from WWII to the Cold War.  The evolution of flight and communications was interesting.  In the Broadmoor hangar, you will find displays, a fighter, and a test simulator for airmen going to missile silo duty. 

In the Broadmoor Hangar...

Test Simulator

EB-57E Canberra

EC-121T Warning Star or Conny as they call it.  This was a flying radar ship that tracked enemies and directed our fighting resources.  

CF-188A Hornet

You can visit this link to find out more information on the Peterson Museum

Inspiration in January

January is my least favorite month in the year.  Freezing cold days with a mix of snow and ice storms that seem to last forever even though the days are short.  For me, sleeping is interrupted by the glow of moonlight and snow coming through the windows.  Though I feel rested, coffee is still needed to give me that boost in the mornings.   It should be a good time to stay inside and plan, organize and finish any lingering UFO's.  However, I find myself at a stand still.   

Turning to my pictures, spring blooms cheer me up and give the inspiration I am craving. The carpets of crocus's winding around trees in bright happy colors gives me ideas like scraps of prints in these colors winding through a background of green grass and using thread painting techniques and beads to add interest and texture.  

I love this crocus with the water droplets.  I would like to experiment using threads and/or beads to get the look and depth of the droplets.   Dying, painting or even discharging the dye in a fabric patch would look flat to me, so possibly using trapunto work would make it more visually appealing.

This Hellebore would be a great subject for discharge dying, thread painting, embroidery, and bead work.  

Glancing through these pictures gives me inspiration in not only new projects, but to finish the UFO's I've started.   

I suppose this winter picture could be inspiring, but for me, winter is not my season and I anticipate spring and the promise it brings.  

Moonlit Night

A nice moonlit night for inspiration.  

As the evening wore on, the moon moved near the power lines, so I couldn't resist taking some photos.  It was really beautiful and I am seeing a small piece of work here.  This would be a good subject for fabric painting and/or thread painting.   

  Years ago I started a post card series of quilted pieces I called "Postcards From the Edge", which were journal pieces of places we have been, so I'm adding this piece based on that series.    The sizes of these postcards vary.  

 The photos were printed and placed in a collage.  I also wanted to add a bird, so I drew that out as well.  

I used Inktense sticks to paint the background onto white cotton fabric.  They are water soluble and blend nicely.   I layered the background over the batting piece.  Using a pigma pen, marked where the moon was placed with a circle smaller than the actual moon piece.  Using a ruler, I marked where the power-lines went.  

Now, moving on to the shapes (moon, power lines, and bird).    The moon is an applique circle shape with slight gray colors shaded in random areas.  I drew a circle on the reverse side of the white fabric, sewed an interfacing on the drawn line and cut it out.  Cut a slit in the center of the interfacing, clipping close to the sewing line and turned right side out.  To lightly shade the moon, I used water soluble pencil in a gray color.   I ironed the shape and top-stitched it in place over the background.   Then I started thread painting over my marked lines for the power lines and bird.   

I cut a backing to cover my threads, but you could have sandwiched it in the beginning and stitched.  To finish, I zig zag stitched all the edges.  It turned out well and am happy with the colors.  

Hit the Ground Running

When I wake in the mornings, I feel like I hit the ground running from that moment until evening.  I am convinced this is true for the majority.  This can be a good thing, but not always for me.  I love those golden silent moments when they occur.  This morning, I woke very early watching the sunrise and listening to the singing birds.  Usually my mind races making mental notes and lists to fill the day, but today's golden moments have set me up for the day with a smile on my face.  Just to stop and take a deep breath, letting the mind rest which relaxes all the muscles in the body, is refreshing.   

Ok, with that said, I will get on with this post.  It's been too long since I last posted anything, but with good reason.  

We went on a three week vacation with our DS.  It was wonderful to get away and spend time with him.  
We've also been so busy with the gardening and repairing the shed.  Skunks, rabbits and snakes seem to love making holes digging under our shed making a mess along with being somewhat of a danger.  The skunk in our area have been reported as being rabid, so we had to come up with a way to deter the animals.  

DH has filled in all the holes with rock and dirt.  Then, dug a trench and buried half of the wide planks against the sides all around and replaced the dirt.  We will also put rock around all sides and hope they won't want to dig through all that.  He also removed some of the brush, tree trunks, weeds and roots from all around the sides.  It looks 100% better already. So hopefully, the animals will give up and move on.

On our walks, I have come across these flowers and couldn't resist taking some photos of these wonderful wild flowers.  In the back of my mind, I would like to make something very artful with them.  Holding on to files and files of photos for reference.  Maybe you do this as well?  

At the moment, I am working on a quilt for my cousin-in-law's daughter which is a 6' quilt.  She just graduated from Clemson University, so you can imagine this quilt is nothing but orange and purple.  What a combination.  I took the advice of some fellow quilters and just simply quilted this because she will use it for tail-gating.  So I did some quilting in the ditch and a meander pattern in the borders.  Honestly, I can't wait to be done with it so I can tackle my UFO's and start a quilt for my DS.   He has a space for a wall size quilt in his office.  I will make him a patch quilt with the Utah National parks theme.  

It is predicted to be over 90°F for the next 5 days.  That's too warm for me anytime of the year, so I plan on staying inside working on these sewing projects.   ;o)

Portrait quilts

In my last post, I mentioned a surprize for a friend of mine.   I started working on it right away and want to share the process with you.  First off, use a picture with good composition with few details as it will be easier to convert.  I use photo editing software to convert color photos to black and white and posterize the image which will give you 3-4 shaded areas where contrast is high on the subjects features.  When I made this green challenge quilt, I used close up pictures of my DH, DS and myself.   The challenge was to create a quilt measuring 6" X 24" with greens and muslin/calico.  The picture to the left looks pink, but I assure you it's muslin and not good lighting for this photo.   This was an odd size and for most of the participants, the challenge turned into table runners.  For me, I wanted something that would hang in a tight space and try out the portrait technique. 

Getting back to my friend, she is a proud Grandmother and doesn't get the chance to see her son's family as much as she would like as they live out of state.   She sent this picture and I just couldn't resist in trying the portrait technique again. 

So, like I said the first thing to do is to turn it into a black and white photo. 

Then, using photo editing software you posterize it.  If you have patience and a great photo software program, play with the image to get it the way you want it.  You could turn it into a real work of art.  You will be able to edit, save, change or even delete several files until you get the one you like.  Choose what colors you want to use at this point. 

Sketch drawing

Color Posterized photo

Slightly  Posterized

Posterized to show zones of contrast



The next step is to print to your paper.  I wanted to keep it small, but you could make a huge quilt from the printed image.  I also drew out the image onto freezer paper so that the image wouldn't be reversed when fused and appliqued onto the background. 

 

 

You can see my sketch on the freezer paper above.  Fuse the steam a seam or other light weight bondable product to the back side of your fabrics.  Cut the freezer shapes out and fuse onto the right side of your fabric and use a teflon sheet underneath where the fusible is.  You don't want to fuse it onto your ironing board.  Then you carefully cut each piece and layer it onto the background.  Choose what should go down first.  In my case, white was the most prominent fabric used.  Then gray and finally just a few black contrast pieces.  Carefully iron the shapes in place.  Check to make sure they are placed correctly, again you don't want to fuse the shapes onto the ironing board or the bottom of your iron.  Why do I keep stressing this....experience!  I've been there and done that before. 

 

 

 

When you have it fused and ready to go, pin it on your design board and step back.   How does it look, make any changes now before you start your stitching.  I made a few changes at this stage.  The babies head didn't look right to me and the hat looked cut off on the very top. 

Now you can choose your stitching technique and threads.  I used monopoly thread in the top and bottom and zig zagged around each shape.  Take your time, it's not a race, put some music on and enjoy the process.

 

 

Yes, I'm old so I have to use my magnifyer when I sew small spaces.  When you've completed this step put it back on your design board and take a picture.  Now, layer your batting and backing and pin or baste together.  Quilt inside your shapes first saving the background for last.  I find this to be easier as you assign zones and keep your mind straight on what is to be done and where.   So, here I started quilting the white areas on the faces.  Leaving all the contrast alone.  I used white to blend.  On the background, I used gray thread lines to bring out the brick pattern. 

 

 

Now you're ready to trim, add the binding and finish the quilt.  I went back and fixed a spot on the hat and removed the gray contrast piece on the babies head.  Don't forget to add a label to the back.  The finished size is 9" X 11" with a label on the reverse stating who is in the picture, who made the quilt, date and who it is for. 

 

 

 

Now I want to do another one.  I have the coolest picture of my Dad when he was 17 years old.  I am thinking of sticking to the black, white and gray look.  But, I may change my mind as I very rarely do something the same way twice.