I decided to make a cake yesterday. It called for softened butter, but all we had were sticks of butter straight from the fridge. Without a microwave, I needed a way to soften the butter. I took a gratin dish, filled it half way with hot water from the tap and put the sticks of butter in for about 20 seconds on each side. And viola, softened butter. All the other techniques have yielded melted butter, not softened.
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Our friend's birthday was this past weekend and I wanted to do something homemade for a gift. In looking through my sewing books I ran across a grocery tote, but after going to the fabric store and found this mod floral print, I decided to go with a shoulder bag.
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I worked from home this afternoon to take care of an injured pup. Having eaten breakfast at my desk (yogurt) & skipped lunch trying to get everything wrapped up at the office, I decided to make something that could jump start my late afternoon, brunch or a fry up. I went for the leftover greens and onions and added a couple of eggs from the chickens and a cup of tea; no meat this time. It was just what I needed to fuel the late afternoon and make some real headway on the tasks at hand.
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It's been busy since my last post. I've travelled back to Iowa for a short visit with family, up to Fairbanks for work and then lots of projects around the house. New and challenging activities have consisted of planting three new trees in our front yard on Saturday by myself. I planted a white spruce and two State Fair apple trees (in the background of the second picture you can see a landscaping project I did earlier this summer. Landscaping is WAY different than gardening, but that's an entirely different post).
I've also been smoking salmon. Zach went dipnetting on Thursday and Friday while I stayed home and played dog whisperer to Honey (she's not been herself lately, but I'm not sure who she's trying to be). Unfortunately, he had to head to Fairbanks on Sunday which left him just enough time to clean and fillet the fish, so that left the smoking part to me. Last night I smoked two batches using alder chips and the charcoal grill. Tonight I have two more batches to do.Comments [0]
For our first anniversary on July 4th, Zach and I were in McCarthy and Kennecott and I thought my gift to him should be something associated with that experience. So, I got us a guided glacier tour where we got to spend 4-5 hours on the glacier. While Zach and I have seen many glaciers we've never been able to get on them and explore. It was a great experience and the first time in crampons for both of us. Certainly an anniversary to remember.
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Update: The edible border has gotten much fuller and without harvesting could turn into a hedge. Luckily, I've got co-workers that love kale.
Running out of space to transplant my garden starts this spring, I decided to plant them as borders around the front walk. Of course, they've been there for a month at this point, but they're finally big enough that I thought I'd share how they look. As you can tell one is kale and the other is dinosaur chard. And, yes, I need to do some weeding
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Another fun crafty project for my sister's upcoming baby shower. He handled the cutting and I did the ironing (they're held together with this iron on interfacing). We've decided to make the baby shower animal themed, so we'll put these pre-made ones out as examples and let others make finger puppets during the baby shower.
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Usually, during my lunch hour I sit at my desk and eat my lunch while continuing to work. Today I just couldn't. All of the problems we try to solve at work just got to feeling insurmountable, so I stepped away. Instead, I indulged in two of my most recent addictions, berries and biking.
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Update: I put together another pair of pants on Sunday and these turned out much better. So much so, I may just keep the first pair and call them a prototype. Perhaps give them to my sister's kid later in life for a doll.
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We've been talking about recovering the kitchen chairs for a while. Running across a fabric remnant at the store we decided to finally get this done. The old fabric was torn and the cushions were starting to disintegrate. So we disassembled the chairs, removed the old fabric, added bamboo batting to beef up the old cushions and recovered them with the geometric green fabric. We're very happy with how they turned out and how easy it all came together. Plus, I now own a really heavy duty stapler.
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I keep three blogs with the help of my husband and some foodie friends:
todayitried.com
patrioticandromantic.com
anchoragegourmet.posterous.com
