Sailing off into the sunset

Best Friday night ever.

Rhubarb Jam

Between the sailing, we had some rhubarb from the in-laws.

And now, we have rhubarb & vanilla jam. And a fresh batch of rhubarb in the fridge for more jam!

This was the recipe I used - it's a bit too sweet so I think I'll use slightly less sugar next time.

NYC "Love" Wedding Quilt

My friend Emily got married back in September, and I wanted to make her and her new husband a quilt.

My inspiration: the "Love" sculpture, by Robert Indiana.

I liked this quilt, but I wanted to go for something a bit bigger and a bit more graphic.

This was my initial layout design:

Emily is a librarian, so when I saw that Lucie Summers' "Summersville" fabric had a library in the city pattern, I knew that I had to make a feature of it in the quilt. My embroidery skills aren't going to win any awards, but I LOVE how it came out!

Then, I found the perfect backing fabric - "To Work" from the Commute collection by Jay Cyn Organics. Shut up, New York.

Here it is, all completed on the back.

Oh, ok, I'll show you the picture of the Library again. Surrounded by Big Apples, of course.

Here's the completed quilt top. I used the bicycle fabric that I bought because it reminded me of a dress Emily has, and I used some of the leftover red bicycles from Ed's Rangers Quilt for the bottom of the L.

One New York quilt, now with its happy new owners!

Arroz con pollo

We had some friends over for supper on Saturday. When I was trying to figure out what to cook, I was aiming for something a little bit spicy, relatively straightforward, and warming, since we were supposed to have been sailing all day (which was subsequently cancelled due to crazy high winds).

I found Smitten Kitchen's (who else?) interpretation of a 2007 Gourmet magazine recipe for Arroz con Pollo. I mostly left the recipe the same, except I used red peppers instead of green, and boneless chicken thighs. We also left out the beer, because John was worried that English Beer would make it taste funny.

It was delicious and was very well received. It was also fairly easy - I did all the prep beforehand (and marinated the chicken all day), and then just put it all together as everyone arrived and let it simmer for half an hour.

Can you tell I love any excuse to bring out the Le Creuset?

We served it with salad from the garden and a mustard vinaigrette (which actually went really well with the chicken & rice). Dutch apple pie for dessert. Mmmmm.

In which I finish a sweater and read several books

I finished my Blakeslee Tee a few weeks ago - it's super cozy and not too warm, but good for chilly English summer days. No pictures of it On Me yet, mostly because I still need to figure out the best angle. The horizontal stripes are somewhat chubby-making. I love it anyway, though. It was an excellently mindless knit.

The slipped-stitch stripes are so pretty, especially close up.

I've been reading up a storm, lately. I downloaded Dark Triumph, the sequel to Grave Mercy. I started reading it and realised that I really couldn't remember who any of the secondary characters were (several of whom were featuring heavily in the sequel), so I went back and reread Grave Mercy. I enjoyed it as much as the first time round, and then jumped straight in to Dark Triumph, which I loved, too.

Then I thought I'd read something improving: Crusoe's Daughter, by Jane Gardam. It was recommended on a few blogs, and reviewed favourably in the NYT when it came out. The prose was lovely but it was Utterly Dull. I really wanted to like it, too. Oh well. Who needs plot when we have pretty writing?

To recover, I read the much-recommended book by John Green, The Fault In Our Stars. It's the story of love between two teenagers, one with terminal lung cancer, and it is improbably quite funny but also predictably heartbreaking. Cathartically so.

And finally, I blasted my way through Insurgent, the second in Veronica Roth's Divergent trilogy. Post-apocalyptic Chicago with teenagers and running around and kissing? Why, yes, I don't mind if I do. Too bad the third one's not out for a while. And I'm worried the movie might be crap...

Current favourite recipe: Eggplant Dirty Rice

I agree. It's not the prettiest recipe title. But what it lacks in curb appeal, it makes up for in taste.

The Amateur Gourmet blogged about David Kinch's Eggplant Dirty Rice, as featured in Food and Wine magazine. We tested it out last week and liked it so much we had to make it again when The Stepson was here (he loves spicy food).

I'd never heard of Dirty Rice. It's apparently a Cajun thing, and as a born-and-bred Yankee, I had no knowledge of such awesomeness.

The only changes we made: no salt added (other than the soy sauce), double the garlic (5 cloves -WOOO!), and no white pepper, because we didn't have any. Oh, and a courgette was looking somewhat forlorn in the fridge, so I added it at the same time as the eggplant.

Oh, and we had red romano peppers, rather than green ones. Pretty colours!

Here's the Amateur Gourmet's effort:

And here's ours (I wasn't quick enough to get a shot of the full batch...hungry boys):

We used some of the Cajun hot sauce that The Stepson gave me for Christmas - it was perfect.

Result? 3 very clean plates and 3 very happy campers.

I took the leftovers from batch #1 to work the day after, and it was equally tasty reheated in the microwave the following day.

What are you waiting for? Go make it!

Gone sailing...

Apologies for the radio silence. Now that it's sailing season, all free time is spent either sailing with EAST, learning about sailing, or racing with the HPYC squibbers. Miss Kanga went in the water at the end of April and has been enjoying herself (and making her crew rather wet) ever since.

Do normal people not have wet waterproofs and lifejackets festooning their living room?

Light and dark

When my mom was here for a visit, we had dinner in Ipswich one evening and then went for a walk along the docks just before sunset. 

We also brought the camera along on a very sunny (but cool) afternoon at Helmingham Hall.

Review: Divergent

I loved the Hunger Games, and I enjoy dystopian YA romps as much as the next person. I don't remember where I was recommended Divergent, by Veronica Roth, but I really loved it.

It's set in post-apocalyptic Chicago, and reminded me a bit of the Hunger Games.  Both have strong teenage girls as their protagonists, and both require them to do things they never thought possible. I've also acquired a vocabulary word: abnegation (self-denial or renunciation, to save you having to look it up, too).

I'm about to read the sequel and am rather enthusiastically awaiting the movie!

Bury Bach Choir concert Saturday 18th May

Well. I know where all the cool kids will be on Saturday 18th May. The Bury Bach Choir will be singing Verdi's Requiem in the Bury St Edmunds Cathedral, as part of this year's small-but-perfectly-formed Bury Festival.

We last sang the Requiem about 5 years ago - it was one of the first Big Choral Works that I'd ever taken part in, and it was unforgettable.

Tickets are available for £23 and £16 (reserved), and £13 and £10 (unreserved)  and are available from the Apex box office or on 01284 758000.

See you there!

Buttercream and Bunting

My mom arrived for her annual English Week on her birthday. So, while she was napping after her red-eye flight, I made some cupcakes with her favourite (buttercream!) frosting.

I used this chocolate fudge cupcake recipe (and overfilled the cakes slightly), and this buttercream recipe (with vanilla added).

The cupcakes were super-chocolatey and not too sweet.

And the buttercream was delicious (vanilla, sugar and butter...what's not to like!?)

Our random entertaining activity this time (in the past, we've Delia'd and screenprinted fabric) was making Bunting at Halfpenny Home in Needham Market. Nicola and I have been twitter-buddies for a while, and I randomly pop in when I need buttons/fabric/etc. Side note: hers was the angora yarn that was beautifully soft but that filled the airplane with fluff when I went to NY in February.

My mom was initially skeptical. They don't really DO bunting in New York. I pointed out that she could make some in colours to match their boat, and she perked up. I gave Nicola a general idea of what we might be using in terms of colour schemes, and she managed to scrounge up a surprising amount of orange fabric!

We ended up doing the workshop with Nic and her mum, who was making (gorgeous) bunting for a summerhouse.

Here's some free-motion embroidery practice:

Here's my pile of fabrics:

Nic made a pear and ginger cake and some lemon tarts. YUMSTERS.

We spent the whole day either sewing and concentrating or laughing. This one was both!

More concentration:

The combination of top-stitching the red polkadot fabric and union flag bunting was making me somewhat dizzy.

Finished!

All three of us with our creations - they came out SO well and we had a blast. There are still workshops to come on the schedule - I'd highly recommend booking one!

Family Dinner!

I've been reading Gluten Free Girl for a few years now. I have no gluten issues (I'm only allergic to eleventy-seven other things), but I love her writing, her photography, her sense of humour, and her recipes. I love that she bakes and cooks by weight, which means that I can use her recipes with "normal" flour.

And I love her love stories. Not just with her husband, who she clearly adores. But with her daughter. With her friends. With her home, Vashon Island. And with her food.

Her new cookbook, Gluten-Free Girl Every Day, comes out in the US today. I'm not sure when the UK release date is, but it's on Amazon.co.uk already. For those of you not in the UK, you can buy it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble or IndieBound.

And to celebrate the release of the new cookbook, she's not doing a blog tour or anything. She has, however, asked us to blog about our experiences with family dinners, as that's what inspired her and her husband to create their new book.

I had family dinners as a kid and as a teenager. They were generally on Saturday or Sunday nights (depending on who was in or out), and frequently featured steak, sauteed mushrooms, and mashed potatoes. Sometimes even Potato Buds (to John's horror). Sorry, Mom, secret's out. There were always tealights (my dad loves tealights), and usually Prairie Home Companion (not my favourite...) in the background on NPR.

Since we only have the stepson every other weekend, and there are only the three of us, there was never any thought of kid-dinner and grownup-dinner. From very shortly after I met him, when he was about 7, he ate what we ate, albeit in smaller portions or without whatever substance was currently deemed "fizzy."

We cook a lot. We like to eat.

We make veggie chili, and the boys eat it with rice while I eat it with cornbread (too American, they say).

We tend to eat meat-light- a lot of our favourite recipes are veggie ones. If we're having steak fajitas, it's one small steak, divided between three. Bacon is a seasoning. Chorizo & kale pasta is one of our faves.

Once, I made toad in the hole.

We make homemade pizza all the time. For whatever reason, the photos aren't cooperating.

We made meatballs in honour of my friend's mom when she passed away, and sparked a global meatball supper on what would have been her birthday. 

And then, there's always Julia. And her mushrooms.

Which go in to the famous and endlessly delicious Boeuf Bourguignon.

We love to cook because we love to eat, but it's more than that. We love to sit down as a family and talk about the food, talk about our days, tell fart jokes (we DO have a teenager, after all), and eat. The only differences now, from 7 years ago? I'm a better cook, which helps. Teenager now gets the biggest portion (and pronounces himself hungry shortly afterwards).

We'll stay with the family dinners, thanks.

Before & After: New Kitchen Tiles

We moved into our house 6 years ago (no, I can't believe it's been that long, either). We have left all the walls off-white (hanging colourful art on them, for the most part). 

The wall behind the cooker had been getting a little grimy...it turns out that curry, spaghetti sauce, and white walls are not a good combination.

I pinned a few kitchens I liked on Pinterest, and then my mom and I picked out some red tiles when she was here last year. Our neighbour next door is a builder, so we asked him if he could recommend a good tile-guy. He said he wouldn't recommend anyone but would definitely do the tiling for us.

Fast forward a year (um...summer, sailing, our New York trip, Christmas, and a LONG winter got in the way).

Here's the before. Perfectly reasonable, if somewhat uninspired. The counters and cabinet surrounds are "cherry" and the cabinets are a creamy yellow-white. 

Here it is, in progress:

And finished!

And the other side:

We. Love. It.

I think it looks brilliant - it matches the red KitchenAid exactly.

What? You don't decorate around your stand mixer? Why ever not?

The tiles have a little bit of texture - they're not completely flat. It gives really nice depth to the kitchen. We only did the one wall - I think going all the way around the room (or all the way to the ceiling) would have made the wall close in somewhat.

Just in time for my mom to see them in person (she arrives Wednesday for our annual Adventure Week)!