Yarn to dye for at CJKoho Designs

I spent yesterday at CJ's (Carla's) studio dying a set of colorwheel yarns and then two skeins to attempt to match a cowl that my friend, Jackie had knitted for me.  It was tons of fun and I think more yarn and fiber dying is in my future.

The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Vegetable Cookbook

I've been trying a couple of recipes out of this book and they were very good.

 Savory Vegetable Bread Pudding and the Beekman 1802 Split Pea Soup.

Chicken Patrol

Making Olga Bread

I made OLGA bread today.  Just like Olga's.  I  googled the recipe and almost all were identical.   I let the dough rest over night in the frig (actually it was about 20 hours).  It still was really stretchy and when the recipe said "roll out", it was more like a pizza dough so using my hands to finish it by stretching and twirling in the air helped to get it a little bigger and thinner.  Now that I've dipped my fingers into this recipe, I will look at the book "Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day" by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois to see what they suggest.  This should make an awesome sandwich this afternoon.

CONQUERING "FEAR OF PIE CRUST"

My friend and baker extraordinaire, Melissa, came over on Friday to give me ANOTHER pie baking lesson.  I think I can safely say I conquered my fear of pie crust phobia.  The pie crust recipe was from Cooks Illustrated (the no-fail one with vodka) and we used Melissa's delicious home canned peaches, some fresh blueberries and some frozen raspberries.  Things I would do different next time: - a little less juice or a little more thickening and remember to take the pie out of the oven RIGHT WHEN THE TIMER GOES OFF.  It got just a wee bit brown.  Also, I need to buy some of that big crystal baking sugar for the top.  We used raw sugar crystals but it just wasn't right.  On the upside - it was delicious!!  No doubt about that.  Thanks, Melissa.  You have won a special place in this baker's heart.

Spied Saturday a.m in Ann Arbor

Back to the important things in life....

"People may not remember exactly what you did, or what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel."- Maya Angelou


I know, right?   

I laid Holly to rest this afternoon.  She was in a lot of pain it was the only thing I could do to fix it.  It was only going to get worse and I loved her too much to ask her to go through that just to stay a few more days with me.
She was my best pal.  Goodbye, my love.  xoxo