Mystery Monday Link Up and Design Wall Monday

What a whirlwind week!

This getting up early and out the door has messed up my head.

We get home about 8:30 from getting the kiddos on the bus and

by the time I get done with the stuff I need to do,

I'm too tired to sew.

But I made myself go in and sit down and 

pretty soon, I was happily doing what I love to do.

All parts of Good Fortune are complete. 

I had to set it aside for a while though.

I have a special baby quilt that needs to be finished 

and in the mail tomorrow. 

That is my focus for today.

Saturday and Sunday were baking days.

I made up a bunch of breakfast muffins and bars to take to the kiddos for the week.

Then I made Ernie a lemon meringue pie. 

It's our favorite pie and I don't make it often.

It felt good to be in baking mode for a bit.

Now back to quilting mode. 😃

Check out all the goodness over at

Quiltville Monday Mystery Link Up 

and 

Small Quilts and Doll Quilts Design Wall Monday.

Have a wonderful week.

Design Wall Monday

What a fun, full week I've had! 

My plan was to quilt and quilt I did.

Tuesday was a good day to channel my friend Julie and get some basting done.

I set up my basting tables and basted 4 quilts,

2 baby quilts, 1 twin and 1 queen.

I had one already basted and on the machine with the quilting started.

When Ernie is away hunting for the day,

I take advantage of no interruptions.

This is the Calendar Wall Hanging that was 1st up.

I can't show it to you until I share it with the gals at Christmas Club.

I'm so happy to have it finished finally and can't wait to hang it.

Next up is baby quilt 1.

I don't know who designed this block. 

I've searched and searched but have no idea.

It was fun to sit down at EQ7 and figure it out.

Baby quilt #2

These will both go to a local charity.

I loved digging in my strip bins and using up strips from our swaps.

It was also fun deciding on backs for these.

I wanted fun and bright (and fabric out of my stash!).

My next retreat is next weekend.

I had already planned to work on Virginia Bound from

Bonnie Hunter's book Scraps & Shirttales.

My string bins are overflowing and I've wanted to make this one for a very long time.

Friday I decided to cook up my last Blue Moon pumpkin

and get the puree in the freezer.

My friend Pam gave me 3 of these,

I gave 1 to Crystal.

I saved the seeds from my 2 to share.

She saved her seeds too.

We are going to have plenty of pumpkins next year.

Isn't it pretty.

I don't think mine is going to last very long.

Hubs has decided he really really likes pumpkin bars.

We celebrated this weekend with Leland.

He's in the blonde in the middle.

Happy 9th birthday Big Guy! 💗

My plan for this week is to take a short break from quilting.

I'm going to make some doll clothes for some special girls

 and a couple sweaters for myself.

Then it's back to quilting.

This is the next quilt to be quilted.

Have you watched Angela Walters' on You Tube?

She has a series on Dot To Dot quilting.

That's what I'm going to do on this one. 

Or we can say that's my plan. 😉

Check out other design walls around Blogland at

Small Quilts and Doll Quilts Design Wall Monday.

Canning & Freezing Chicken

Monday was chicken canning day at our house.

I ordered 80 pounds of boneless skinless chicken breasts from Zaycon Fresh.

Gosh when there's a good sale, buy it!

Pick up time was between 8 and 9 am.

We were there before 8 and was 2nd in line.

Hubs wanted to be 1st. 😊

We borrowed a pressure canner from our DIL so we could have 2 going and get this knocked out.

At the end of a long day, we have 28 pints and

72 half pints on the pantry shelves.

5 pressure canners full.

Ernie watching in the shop, me in the house.

Without his help, I'd still be working. 

 

After all jars were filled, 

9 quarts of chicken chunks went into the freezer.

This morning, lids were removed, jars wiped with vinegar and lids labeled.

Everything is put away!

This will last us at least a year. 

Hooray for a full pantry.

I need to find more jars. 

Tuna season will be here soon.

Stocking The Winter Pantry

It's hunting season for the hubby.

Opening day, Saturday, he got his buck.

 That means Monday was processing day.

 Backstrap, a few steaks and venison burger.

My Facebook friend Pat had posted a picture the other day with how she freezes her burger.

So I copied her and wow, what a game changer!

Put a gob of burger in your vacuum sealer bag,

seal it, then take a rolling pin and flatten the burger.

A light bulb moment for me!

I canned 3 pints of burger to try

plus 5 half pints of chunks and 6 1/2 pints of bone broth made with the rib bones.

Yesterday I picked up my Zaycon order of 40# of chicken.

First up was 30 1/2 pints of canned chicken chunks.

By the time that was finished, so was I.

This morning I pulled the remaining chicken out of the fridge and got busy.

These are big breasts so 3 half breast were frozen whole for baking.

Then 4 more chunked into large pieces for whatever.

7 packages each of chunks and strips that I did the same as the venison burger.

Flat packages stack so nice! 

I also cooked a nice pan full to shred to put a few bags in the freezer.

I do have some noodles cooked in the fridge so it will be chicken & noodle bake for dinner tonight.

My pantry cupboards are a mess so I did some rearranging on the jar side.

You can see my stash of beans that I did last month.

Below that is my honey and the clam chowder soup base and jars of smoked clams. 

Recipes for the soup base and smoked clams are in the Ball Blue Book.

Below that is my little bit of jams and jellies.

Next up I want to can some garbanzo beans.

I'm hoping for an elk next month.

In the meantime, there is a turkey and 3 whole chickens that need out of my freezer.

I have a few pork roasts that are a bit on the tough side.

I'll pull those out and pressure cook them.

Then I'll freeze the meat up for soups.

The chicken and turkey will be vacuumed sealed for future meals.

I'm doing my own Freezer Challenge this week. 

It's time to clean the kitchen freezer again.

I know there is an abundance of bananas and reruns (leftovers) to use up.

Banana bread will be baked today.

That should earn me a few more Good Wife points. 

I've discovered a couple of really good you tubers that have me excited to get my pantry in order. 

It all started with a simple little video I found about what I canned that I love and didn't love.

Check them out.

Lisa at Sutton Daze

I just started watching her Pantry Preparedness from August 2016.

Amanda at Moore2Life

Plus several more. 

Oh the plans I have on my list!

Long Day In And Out Of The Kitchen

Our freezer has an abundance of clams.

I don't like them but Ernie loves them.

I canned Clam Chowder base from the recipe in the Ball Blue Book

last year and emptied the last jar a few days ago.

So it was time to make more.

11 half pints (single serving) and 8 pints were canned today.

Plus 2 more pints went in the freezer.

I ran out of potatoes so will grab some tomorrow for another batch or 2.

Clamming season is about to open again and the freezer needs space.

I figured since I had the canner out, I may as well can some beans.

I love this simple process and having them on the shelf ready to use.

8 pints of red kidney beans, 5 pints of black beans and 19 pints of pinto beans.

My pantry shelves are going to look full again.

And my husband is thrilled to have his stinky clam chowder whenever he wants!

While I was canning, Ernie was outside.

He is the proud owner of an Alaskan Chainsaw Mill.

While wood cutting this summer, 

he brought home some maple logs to mill.

Out son in law is a woodworker and cannot wait to get his hands on these slabs.

I can't wait to see what he does with them.

This will make a gorgeous, rustic coffee table.

Corny Day

This morning I got up early so I could go in and sew before Ernie got up.  I knew once he was up and the paper was read, we were going to go.  He needed to go to the shop at work and I wanted to go shop at Walmart for a couple pair of jeans.  So after breakfast, off we went.

On the normal way home, he saw a sign for fresh corn, asked if I wanted some and of course I did.  We got our 80 ears of corn and decided to take a different way home.  I haven't been the "back" way for a long time.  So much has changed, lots of new fancy houses dot the old farmlands.  Saw some fabulous vegetable gardens and beautiful flower gardens. 

Once home, we got to work.  I loaded all the bags of corn into my big yellow wagon.  Then we pulled up a garbage can and a couple chairs and started husking.  Doug, Lacey and baby Estella stopped by so Gramma had to hold Stellie and Doug and Lacey took over husking.  Pretty smart on my part! Then they left.....before the real work started.  But it was nice to visit with them.  I don't see my son often enough.

So Ernie set up the outside kitchen.  The turkey fryer is filled with water and boiling to blanch the corn, the canner kettle is filled (and refilled several times) with cold water and ice.  The the corn cutting begins.  Under the green towel is where I dump the corn when the dishes were full.

When the first tub is full, I bring it in the house and start bagging it into gallon freezer bags.  When we want corn for dinner, I just break off a hunk and cook it.  Works for me and saves bags.

We ended up with 16 bags in the freezer. I figure there are at least 4 dinners in each bag for the 2 of us--each bag has 6-7 cups of corn--so 64 dinners......corn once a week or so.  We are all set!  
The chickens will get the cobs.  The deer can eat the husks. We all win.

Oh, and see those pop-cycles?  Those are blackberry smoothie pop-cycles.  The kiddos picked me some blackberries the other day and I promised to make pop-cycles with them.  They turned out delicious.  See that half eaten one???  Those are too big for little boys.  I need to make some smaller ones.

My Day So Far

I'm having one of those days. I don't like those kind of days. I didn't sleep well last night. We watched the Sons of Guns show and I kept having wacky dreams about them. Why would they contact me to make them quilt blocks to shoot at??? Told you it was wacky!

I was reading Pokey's blog yesterday and couldn't stop thinking about those cute little houses. So I played in EQ7 for a while and drafted my own paper piecing pattern. Right after Ernie left this morning I pulled out a bag of bright scraps and started playing. I can't wait to play more but I really need to get the crumb quilt finished today.

After checking on the baby chicks--it's always good luck when they make it through night one--then feeding the hens and changing out the water, I got busy in the kitchen.

I took spaghetti sauce out of the freezer and did a quick thaw in the microwave and put it in the crockpot--it's not as thick as I like it to be so it can cook down more until dinner time. Then I decided to cook some Italian sausage and add it to the sauce. Heck, I have 2 packages in the fridge so I cooked both of them. I put some in the sauce and now when it is cool enough, I will package the rest of it up and put it in the freezer for the next spaghetti day or to put on pizza or put in an egg/veggie casserole.

Do you do that??? I precook hamburger and sausage then flash freeze them before putting them into zip bags. I usually have taco seasoned burger in the freezer too. Then I can take out the amount I want for a quick lunch or dinner.

While the sausage was cooking, I changed out the washer/dryer, folded clothes and put them away. Then the dog groomer called saying the boys could go in at noon for a bath and pedi.

Looks like my day is off to a great start. I'm about to head into the sewing room again and dance with the longarm.

Stocking The Pantry

Today I had to finish processing the venison. I love having canned meat in the pantry. Now I have 14 pints of venison to add to the beef and chicken.

As I was filling jars today, I kept thinking how good burritos would taste and then I thought about enchiladas. I can't wait until I try them.

It's now official. All of my pint jars are full. I think I should stock up on more pint jars during the off season. I also was quite surprised how low my lid stash is. I usually buy a box or 2 of lids when I grocery shop but I haven't been doing much of that lately. Just picking up a few things now and again.

I'm thinking of trying the Tattler reusable lids. Have you used them? What are your opinions.

Now I'm going to grab my crochet bag and work on my Granny Square Project while I enjoy an episode or 2 of Drop Dead Diva on Netflix.

I'm Done, And...

...I'm done in! I'm tired of green beans. I'm tired of tomatoes. Friday was a long tomato day. Saturday was a short green bean day. I picked the garden clean and snapped all the beans. I couldn't believe there were exactly the right amount of beans for a full canner. No jars were short and no beans were left over. Amazing! So 14 more pints done. And we are done doing beans this year.

Ernie brought home 45 pounds of Roma tomatoes yesterday. Today was spent canning 7 more quarts and 7 quarts of sauce. Both crock pots are full and will cook overnight. I should have 5 or 6 more quarts of sauce in the morning. The dehydrator is full and there are about 6 pounds of whole tomatoes in the freezer. As soon as the last sauce is sealed in jars Monday, I will be officially done!

Except for the apples that we will get next weekend...........I better wash more jars!

Tomato Tamahtoe

Or whatever.........I say tomato goodness!

Crystal brought me 2 boxes of tomatoes. We think maybe 50 pounds.

Now most of them look like this. Or they will. I have 7 more in the canner with that many more to go in. What doesn't fit into the last 7 quarts will go into the freezer. As tired as I am right now, I will be very happy when I go into the cupboard and bring out a jar of red gold.

Dinner tonight? Leftovers.........thank goodness for leftovers. I don't really care if we have dinner. I just want to sit with my feet up but I have a feeling Ernie is bringing me home a couple more boxes of tomatoes. Guess what he's going to be doing if he does!!! He's been pretty good about helping. He's been doing an awesome job of picking and snapping green beans.

Edit: At the end of the day there were 28 quart jars canned, 6 quarts in the freezer, 2 empty boxes and 1 tired woman. I fixed grilled cheese twice for dinner and was sound asleep by 8:30. It was a good day!

Small Appliance Love

I know it's crazy but I love my FoodSaver! If I had to choose only one small appliance to own, it would be this one. I'm spoiled and I like all my kitchen toys/tools. I'm glad I don't have to choose.

Sunday I smoked 4 chickens for daughter Crystal while working on The Pantry Project. They were deboned and but in the fridge to rest while we celebrated yesterday. First thing this morning, I packed them up into 7 packages for her freezer. Maybe I could have gotten another package but while deboning, I ate a lot of chicken and Ernie got a super sandwich today for his lunch. I work pretty cheap, don't I.

Today I get to do pretty much whatever I want to. Yes, I do that most days but today seems to be more special to me. I have the washer going and a load ready to hang outside. The water is on for the garden and the timer is set so I don't forget to turn it off. I am going to finish up a couple more things and spend lots of time in the sewing room today.

I hope you get to do whatever you want to do today.

More Kitchen Gadget Fun

Last month I wrote about my Kitchen Gadget Fun. I wrote about my dehydrator and food saver. Today I am loving on my Kuhn Rikon Wide Corn Zipper that I bought from Pleasant Hill Grain when I ordered the meat tenderizer. This little thing is the best $12 I have spent in a very long time. With Ernie helping me by using the zipper, we had the corn in the freezer in no time. He's a pretty good helper.

I did some math and figured I want to have corn for dinner 2 times per week, sometimes less, sometimes more with soups and stews. I'd like to have at least 100 dinner portions in the freezer. I'm packaging mine up in gallon Ziploc freezer bags with 5 dinners per bag. That means I want 20 bags in the freezer.

I put the open bag inside a 6 cup Rubbermaid canister (sad to see they have discontinues this line although I do like the look of the new line) and fill it with 6 cups of corn, press out the air, work it around so it will lay flat and stack it in a cardboard box for the freezer. Then when it's time, I'll bring a bag in to the kitchen freezer, break out what I need, reseal it and put it back in the freezer. Easy Peazy!!!

I have 10 bags now and I'm on my way in to town to get 8 or 10 dozen more ears. I will be done with corn tonight. I love having a freezer full of goodness. I don't care what the cost comparison is, I know mine will taste better than any corn that comes out of a can or a store's freezer.

Onion Processing-Day 1 Results

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be blogging about onions. Not just any old onions, these are Walla Walla Sweet Onions from Walla Walla, Washington. Isn't that fun to say?? My friends live in Walla Walla, Washington. Hi Marilee, Hi Mary C!!

I remember as a kid when Walla Wallas were first in season, mom would peel one and eat it like an apple. To this day, that still makes me shudder. I love them but I can't eat one like that.

So the first photo shows one of eight trays after they have been dried. I loaded them up pretty good. 16 chopped onions yielded 3+ pints dry. Time in the dehydrator--20 hours. I think I will rotate the trays tonight though. The bottom 2 trays weren't quite as dry as the other 6. I'm giving them another couple hours while I prepare the next round.

The second photo shows the Sweet Onion Relish. With my adjustments to the recipe, instead of 3 pints, I ended up with 5 1/2 pints. You know that happens sometimes when you make relish. It isn't like when making jams or jellies, the recipe doesn't have to be exactly the way it is written. Of course I had to try the relish for breakfast. I want to keep my family safe. Just let me say OMG!!! The Ritz with relish is delicious but now I'm thinking gourmet. This needs to be put on some cream cheese and eaten with Wheat Thins. Watch out Top Chef, here I come!!!

Onion Processing Day 2 begins now. More relish and more drying. And Ernie wants onion rings with dinner. Yes, I do live an exciting life!

Kitchen Gadget Fun

While at the produce market yesterday, I bought a $1 bag of 5 apples and a pear from the discount bin. They didn't look too bad, a bruise here and there but not pretty like the apples and pear we like to buy.

I cut them up last night and loaded up the dehydrator. This morning the little bits were all nice and crispy. I can't throw away a perfectly good jar, not when I have a Food Saver and a large canister. Did you know you can seal up these jars if you put them inside the canister and seal the canister? When you release the vacuum seal from the canister, the jar lid pops and it's sealed!

This mix of apple and pear bits are labeled and put in the cupboard until its time for oatmeal cookies. Or maybe just as a snack!

Now I just have to figure out how to get the pickle smell out of some other lids. After a trip through the dishwasher, the smell remained. I thought soaking them in baking soda would do the trick but after they were closed up for a while and then opened, I could still smell the pickles. Any suggestions?

Now to tackle that bag of onions!

Edit 11:30 am: 16 onions peeled and chopped to fill the 8 dehydrator trays. Turned it on at 10:30 am, will check it around 4, again before bed. Then again in the morning around 6 or so. That will give it about 18 hours. Hope I don't have to get up in the night to go out to the shop--it could be scary out there. :) I'm very curious as to how much this will yield.

Design Wall Monday

Here she is, Miss Meadow Breeze. All the blocks are made. I just have applique to do on 3 of them and I will be caught up.

I have decided to take the applique off the green block on the bottom and remake it to put it on a block with the stripes going in the right direction so the placement will be like Pat Sloan has it in the original design. I will only take off the flower parts as the curve stem is showing up in the other green sections. Shouldn't take too long.

I have the applique shapes drawn onto the fusible for the next step. I don't know how much I will be working on it this week but I'm sure I'll squeeze some time in.

We went to the fair yesterday and stopped at the produce stand on the way home. After a quilt show Saturday and the quilt display on Sunday, I want to hide away in the sewing room. But I bought 50 pounds of fresh Walla Walla sweet onions and they need to be taken care of first. The dehydrator will be set up in the shop away from the house and I found a recipe for Sweet Onion Relish from Paula Deen that I will start soon. It looks like today will be a kitchen day instead.

Grab yourself something to drink and maybe a snack because when you visit Patchwork Times and start blog hopping, you are going to be there for a while. With all the inspiring Design Wall Monday posts, it really makes me want to hide away but I can't, I have onions....enjoy your visits.

Kitchen Gadget Love

If you know me at all, you know I love my Big Red Mixer. One day while reading Chickens In The Road/Farm Bell Recipes, there was this blog post - The Strainer of he Gods. Loving my attachments as much as I love my mixer, I knew one day soon I would need to own the Kitchen Aid strainer/juicer. It attaches to the grinder which I already own and use.

Taylor, my sidekick and I went to the produce market yesterday and bought a flat of raspberries. The strainer/juicer arrived yesterday also. Co-innky-dinky? I don't think so.

We made juice, 2 1/2 quarts of pure red goodness-there are a few seeds but I think that may have been from be being a rookie. Soon we will make raspberry jelly/jam (whatever!) and some raspberry syrup for this cheesecake or ice cream or pancakes...


The raspberry pulp was spread out on a fruit leather sheet for the food dryer. I had apples to dry so this morning I loaded up 5 trays of apple slices, 1 tray of apple peelings and 1 tray of mango slices. If I'm going to plug it in, I like it to be full.

The raspberry pulp and the apple peelings will be made into powder for tea flavorings. Here is a great video on making your own teas. Dehydrate2Store is an excellent website loaded with information on food drying.

Strawberry Goodness and A Friend's Giveaway

Daughter Crystal got me a flat of strawberries yesterday and today we now have some fresh jam. Or is it jelly? I don't know, I can never remember which is which and really, I don't care! I do know it is delicious!

Granddaughter Taylor is spending the weekend so this morning she blended berries for 3 trays of roll ups and sliced 1 tray for the dehydrator. The girl doesn't like fresh berries but will eat the roll ups that only have a little apple juice for sweetener and the dried berries are like candy. Funny girl.

Kat at Kathy's Fancy Stitching News is having a giveaway to celebrate having 10,000 visitors. You should go visit her and increase her numbers. She is a very nice lady.

I think I need to make some toast and have a peanut butter and strawberry jelly foam sandwich for lunch! Yumm