Pulling Fabric and Biscuit Baking at 3:30 a.m.

Our niece is expecting baby #2 in January. Bethany's always been such a neat kid and she is the first grandchild. She spent lots of time with us on the ranch during holidays and summers - treasured memories!  Alas, we don't get to see her much anymore, but when she had her first child, I made this quilt for him:

                                   

Bethany is a teacher now and she loves to fish so this was definitely the perfect quilt for her baby boy. Now he is going to be a big brother to a little sister and this is the quilt pattern I have chosen for her:

Bethany was very involved in 4-H and her Mama taught her how to sew. She sewed all sorts of clothes while she was growing up so I thought this little clothesline filled with cute little girl outfits would be just the ticket and now I am in the process of pulling fabrics. I love this part and end up creating quite a mess before I settle on my final selection.

Maybe this:

Perhaps this:

It's a start:

I'm trying to shop at home. My bins of fabric hold their breath when I open their lids and wonder who will I choose?

Oh, boy! I think I've been spending too much time inhaling bleach fumes. I've been cooking for a crew all week and if my fabric is beginning to talk, that's probably the first sign that I need a break. :)

The second sign? Well this morning I stumbled into the kitchen at 3:30 and starting mixing up a batch of biscuits. Gosh they looked nice as I popped them into the oven. Time ticked away and said biscuits wouldn't brown. And they were flat. Who messes up biscuits? -Raises hand- Then it hit me. I had added cornstarch instead of the called for baking powder. Seriously? Yup. Yes, I know. The cornstarch container looks nothing like the baking powder container.

                           

That's what happens when a 50 yr old has too many 3:30 am wake up calls in a row. And I've still got 2 more days this week.

I texted my friend M, who was also up at that ungodly hour slaving away over a hot stove, feeding a cowboy crew in Texas. I knew she would commiserate with my situation. She's so tired and has cooked so much that she said she even cooked in her dreams. We're a sad lot us two, but I love and miss her and we are planning an escape in the not too distant future. And what do you wanna bet we'll get together and end up talking about food!

When Our Girl Comes Home and She's Not Helping Her Daddy...

We visit. We laugh. We share music we've discovered. We talk about books. And life. And we cook. And bake. A lot.

I had to work on Monday and I told college girl to dig through some recipes we've collected and have wanted to try and send me a grocery list. One of her friends said that was the best chore ever. :)

So I shopped and lugged home ingredients and we hunkered down in my little kitchen...with music. And this is some of what we made during the week:

 These little cheesecake cupcakes were yummy! College girl's boyfriend's Mama shared the recipe with us and I quickly added them to my collection of favorite recipes - thank you S! I ate the last one for breakfast the other day and it was to die for.

We made these cookies:

I'm sorry to say these did not make the cut. Ick, but yes, I know they look amazing. :) They were a Banana - Peanut Butter - Chocolate Chip cookie. Epic fail.

But these were good:

Lemon Sugar Cookies? Yes. please! However, I expected to taste more lemon and I think I'll add some lemon extract next time around.

Loved these pretzels too and had to make them twice because they were the perfect UFC Fight Night snack on Saturday and the first batch had disappeared. The recipe for these can be found here. We baked ours at 250° for about 10 minutes because we wanted to eat them immediately. :)

DH and I were somewhat skeptical about this next recipe. The look on DH's face when he saw his girl pull these out of the oven was priceless, but we loved it.

Spaghetti Squash Lasagna Bowls. We're trying to cut down on starches and carbs and this dish was surprisingly satisfying and made it to my cookbook.

Then Baked Portabello Mushrooms were on the menu - loved these! The only thing we will change the next time is to cut back on the salt - otherwise - perfect!


 -Photo from One Perfect Bite -

And  Cajun Chicken Fettuccine was next!

This one was a home run! If you come for a visit, this may very well be on the menu.

And we made this wonderful Chicken and Rice dish. Judy over at Patchwork Times posted this a few weeks ago. I remember this from my childhood and hadn't had it in years. I never really had a recipe for it, but now I do and its tucked inside my cook book now. Thank you, Judy - this was delicious, but I forgot to take a picture.

We also made Sangria:

I'm on the hunt for the perfect Sangria and this was the first batch. It was OK, but not what I had in mind so on to recipe #2.

Then we whipped up some homemade barbecue sauce from a recipe a friend shared:

It was out of this world! Thank you Pauline! Pauline has shared many recipes with me - she has her own section in my cook book. :)

It was a guinea pig week in the kitchen and so much fun! We have some new favorites and dishpan hands from washing mountains of dishes, but the memories are priceless and I've added a couple extra miles to my morning trot. :)

It's What's For Supper

Can I just say that this smoker is the best thing since sliced bread?! Every time we smoke something and sit down to eat, we say, "It just doesn't get any better than this!". It's dove season so dove was on the menu today. We stuffed it with a slice of jalapeno, added some rub, and wrapped it with bacon. Oh my! That was some seriously amazing food!

 We also smoked ribs for the first time...perfection!

DH has this smoking thing down! We had the dove for dinner and then when the ribs came off, we just stood in the kitchen eating them directly from pan.

Last week it was chicken

and roast...both just so, so good!

Next up, brisket and probably some more chicken and most certainly more dove! DH already said that we may need a bigger smoker and I know exactly where we can get one! :)

We are having so much fun!