Pinterest Confession and Tomato Cobbler

I have become addicted to Pinterest.  After resisting for some time I got bitten by the Pin It bug and now I have to say I am completely infected by it and loving it.  LOL.  If I read your blog, chances are I've seen a pic to share and I'm happy to do that, I hope it brings you more people looking at your pages.

Recently I tried this recipe I found there and thought I would share it with you.  I made some changes, not least of all because I'm not a blue cheese fan.  So my version is with goat cheese.  If you want the original recipe there is a very pretty picture on my board called "Food Other People Make" I hope you enjoy!

By the way, this was originally a Martha Stewart recipe that was reworked and posted on the blog "Joy the Baker" and now it's been reworked by me.  :)

Tomato Cobbler with Goat Cheese Biscuits

Biscuit Topping:

2 c. Flour
2 T. Baking Powder
1/2 t. Salt
1 T. Sugar
1/2 t. Ground pepper (I used lemon pepper)
6 T. Butter cut in pieces and made very cold.  I never use unsalted butter in biscuits.
1/2 c. Goat cheese, very cold, broken into crumbles
3/4 c. Buttermilk

Just a couple of notes, if you have self-rising flour, you can use that instead of the first three ingredients listed. I freeze butter because I buy my favorite brand it when it's on sale.  A frozen stick can be chopped up pretty easily and makes the biscuits nicely. Also, buttermilk is easy to buy and keep in the fridge.  It doesn't really start tasting like buttermilk until it's been there for a month.  Now, if you're not a big baker or buttermilk user you might be getting grossed out by this idea, but I promise you it will stay there and get better and better for several months.  Three months old is not out of the question, it just gets thicker and more tasty as it waits for you to bake something, I promise you you'll notice a color change when it begins to go bad, I think it's happened to me once with a jug that was six months old. :)

Put flour, baking powder, salt, sugar and pepper into the food processor and give it a whirl.  Add butter pieces and pulse it to get them started incorporating with the flour, when you're almost done, add the goat cheese pieces too and give a few pulses just to cover them with flour mix.  Now, you can add the buttermilk to the food processor if you like, I often do when I'm in a hurry, but I prefer to pour the flour into a bowl and add the milk by hand.  Incorporate it and turn it out onto a floured surface, I did it on a baking sheet, pat it out.  I know people like to cut biscuits into rounds but I don't like having scraps to reform so I cut the biscuits into squares or rectangles and get them all done in the first time the dough is shaped.  Put the biscuits in the fridge which was part of why I did them on a baking sheet in the first place...  easy transport and less mess to clean up!

Tomato Filling:

2 T. olive oil
1 T. butter
2 onions, very large or 3-4 medium size, sliced thin (I prefer mine cut in half first)
3 cloves of garlic
3 packs of cherry or grape tomatoes (I recommend using red, yellow, and size)
1/4 c. coarsely chopped basil
1/4 c. balsamic vinegar
1/4 c. flour
1/2 t. red pepper flakes
salt and pepper

Set oven for 375 F

Heat oil and butter in an oven safe large sautee pan if you have one, over medium heat.  Add onions and salt and pepper.  Stir them occasionally and let them get caramelized which takes about 20 minutes.  You can begin at a slightly higher temp, just to get them started and giving off moisture, but turn it down as soon as they start to lose shape you want them to get their color from caramelization and not high heat.

While onions are cooking, either cut the tomatoes in half (if you bought cherry tomatoes) or pierce them with a knife (if you're using grape tomatoes).  This decision came to me after getting spurted by hot tomato innards several times when using whole tomatoes the first time I made this recipe.  Oh, I promise you the pretty picture is lovely if you use whole tomatoes, but your table cloth, shirt and chin will be happier if they are given a break.  It takes 5 minutes and the onions are still cooking, so you have the time.  :)  Place in a large bowl with basil, flour, and pepper flakes.  Toss well.

This is delicious even without biscuits!

When the onions are done, add garlic and cook for one more minute.  Turn off the heat (if you use an electric oven, move the pan to a cool burner) and add the balsamic vinegar and stir well.  Add tomatoes mixture.  If you don't have a sautee pan big enough for this dish, you could pour the onions into the tomatoes and then pour the whole mixture into a baking dish.  I liked making this all in one pan.

Next time I will add 2 less biscuits to the pan.

Bake the tomatoes for 25 minutes.  Remove the pan from the oven, top it with biscuits.  You may have more biscuits than you need, they can go in the oven on the baking sheet for other snacking.  :)

Bake for another 15-20 minutes, until the biscuits are browned and juices are starting to bubble around them.  Trust me when I tell you that it's worth waiting to make sure the biscuits are actually cooked all the way through. :)


 Enjoy!

A Crowded Village

Two weeks ago I gathered fabrics from my stash and went to my first class in 2012.  Getting to plan to attend a workshop that lasts all day is strong testimony to how much better I am.  During the lunch break I actually went and took a nap which allowed me to come back in the afternoon and do more work, which is good because even at the end of the day I didn't get anywhere near done and I chose to let 2/3 of my quilt be NOT a village!  My friend Melinda managed to get a whole piece covered in a village!  I'm glad it was a workshop and not a competition.  

It was especially great to take Karen Eckmeier's workshop because I had wanted to study with her a couple of years ago during the North Carolina Quilt Symposium and couldn't get a spot, so I was really happy to see she was coming to ECQG just as I was ready to try taking a class again.

It was a busy day and it took days to recover but I'm really glad I did it and I'm really grateful to have created the beginning of a project that will almost surely be an auction item for the ECQG Quilt Show next June.

Georgia Pecan Coffee Cake

This recipe makes me giggle.  I actually buy my pecans from a company in Alabama which I drive by on my way to Florida, but I make the cake in Georgia so I guess that's okay.  Also, like many coffee cake recipes it originally called for sour cream but I seldom have that on hand while I often have fat free or low fat greek yogurt, turns out that works perfectly.  

I made it for the Mavens recently and they all seemed to like it so I thought I'd share it with you.  I hope you like it too!

Georgia Pecan Coffee Cake

Cake:

2 c. flour

1/2 t. salt

1 T. baking powder

1 c. butter, softened but not melted

1 c. greek yogurt

1.5 c. sugar

2 eggs

1 T. vanilla extract

Streusel Topping:

1 c. pecans 

1 t. ground cinnamon

2 T. butter

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line a 9x13 inch pan with aluminum foil, and lightly grease with vegetable oil or cooking spray. 
2. Prepare a pan, the original recipe called for a 9x13 but I prefer my 8x11 which happens to be pottery rather than metal.  I butter it well and set it aside.  
3. Put the pecans on a cookie sheet and toast them lightly while getting ingredients together.  Don't let them toast too much, this step is just to keep them well textured after being mixed in the streusel.  If you toast too much then they will burn while baking later on.  Take them out of the oven (I used my toaster oven) and let them cool a bit before chopping a bit, big pieces are nice for this cake.  This whole step takes less then 10 minutes and make a good difference in the quality of your cake.  Mix with brown sugar, cinnamon and melted butter and set aside.
4. In a medium bowl dry whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. 
5. In a large bowl use a mixer to cream the butter until light. Add the greek yogurt and mix to combine well and then beat in sugar. Add the eggs one at a time and then the vanilla.  Without the mixer add the dry ingredients, folding it in to combine as quickly as possible.  Pour the batter into the pan.  
6. I find it's easiest to apply the streusel by hand to make it even across the cake.  Here's where using a slightly smaller pan makes for a better layer of topping.  
7. The original recipe called for baking 30-35 minutes, but in an even slightly smaller pan it takes about 45 minutes.  Check for doneness by inserting a knife into the center of the cake and make sure it is cooked all the way to the center.  Let it cool 15-30 before cutting into pieces and serve.  

Sew-in Day for (most of the) Mavens

Fabric for spool blocks exchange

Before Mavens got together today I grabbed these fabrics and started cutting them for the blocks that the Piecemakers are making for our annual exchange.  This is what I was looking at when the Piecemakers walked in through the front door.  I thought we were all working on our blocks for this exchange, but Jan was done with hers already which was no surprise, Stella was working on her hand sewing project, and Melinda was working on a project that is due this week.   Somehow I failed to take a picture of Jan's work which was cutting for a quilt she's working on in teal and orange.   The spool block exchange is going to be pretty cool.  I got 12 of them done today, I need to finish another five I'm pretty sure I'm in good shape at this point.  :)  We missed you Lynda!

Stella giving another block of hand stitching.

The spool blocks I got finished

Melinda's exchange project due this week

Quilts of Valor, Wounded Warriors, Women and oh, something ready to be quilted, finally!

 I made the backing for the Sherwood Forest Romance, so it's going to Melinda tomorrow for long-arm love.  I've only asked her once before and I have to say that I have great emotional attachment to that quilt although I didn't love it at all.  I can't wait for her to quilt this one because I do love it already.

Sherwood Forest Romance & backing

My bee group "The Piecemakers" made quilt tops for Quilts of Valor last week.  My guild did quilt tops for Wounded Warriors.  I managed to work in both sessions through the week. (Then spent days resting, including Saturday which basically took 22 hours of sleep, but unlike our wounded heroes I will get better and be fine in the next few months!)  

Of course JAN finished her quilt top, LOL

Wounded Warriors Quilt

Some of the Piecemakers 

Pam having no fun at all!

Also Quilts of Valor in Progress

A quilt Jan & I made last year... thank goodness she quilted it!

e

Well, That Didn't Work

 While cleaning up the studio space (which will soon become Kay's bedroom and I'll be moving the studio across the hall to her current bedroom space) I found a lot of things that were practice pieces or workshop try-outs.  I found this block.  I'll be darned if I can remember which teacher had us doing it.  It's got paper scraps in some of the seams, so it was obviously paper pieced.  I love red and would love to use this block, maybe as a round robin style setting.  I love doing groups of borders around a single block.  I also found a ziplock bag with green square in a squares.  I thought they would work.  I put them aside to try with the block.

Last week I put the center block and the setting blocks on the design wall together.  I had six of the square in square blocks.  I could make some more and get the first border done.  Making 10 of them wouldn't take any time at all, right?  LOL  I'm still doing things on the not so impressive schedule of getting things done.  First I had noticed that these blocks had the same background fabric as the center block.  I realized I must have thought of this back when I made the block.  Funny that apparently the same thought came to me then.  I looked through my fabric and miraculously managed to find both the background fabric (not much of it) and the green fabric in my stash.  WOW!  So I made 10 more squares and surrounded the block with them on the design wall.

At which point I decided I HATED them.  Hmmm.  Well, this is maturity.  Deciding before I sew the quilt together with borders I know I'm not going to like it.  This shade of green with this shade of red brown and yellowish cream does not work for me.

So now, I'm thinking about what I might do in the future with this block, and putting the new square in squares back in the ziplock.   There will be another 12" block to be bordered at some point.  Now I can move on a bit.  Also, I'm almost done cleaning the stack & whack quilt top and I've figured out the backs for that one and the one I'm giving to Melinda to quilt.  Today I'll be taking on a new project that I'm hoping to do for a friend's birthday, something really small but fun.  Hopefully I'll have something to say about it (and maybe even pictures) before the end of the week.

Making Progress!

Last week I began working on this quilt top.  I think I've shown you the blocks when they were on the design wall last week.   I had bought some fabric for sashing during shop hop day (my quickest trip EVER to Tiny Stitches) and I think I had two windows of time to work, about 15 minutes long each, and began sewing the vertical pieces to the blocks and making rows but then I discovered I didn't have enough of that fabric for the border around the rows as I was going.  A fret began to grab me, even as I was too tired and weak to work more.  I began to think about what I would do next if I couldn't get more of this fabric, oh, and I called my dear sweet Melinda who works at the shop and in fact was going in to teach that day as luck would have it.  I emailed her pictures of the fabric and asked her to buy me another half yard please.  She was willing but couldn't find the fabric in the green section.  She asked Mindy to look for it the next day.  I was hopeful but beginning to thing I'd have to go to plan b.  Don't ask me what it was, I can't remember any more.  LOL.

A friend of mine came to visit me on the next day and I asked if she could please take me over to Tiny Stitches.  I was still not feeling good but I really wanted to look for myself.  We drove over there and I walked in, Mindy was working and knew immediately that I was coming to find this fabric.  Of course I had a scrap of the green, she looked at it and said, oh that looks blue to me.  She went right to the blue section and found the bolt immediately.  I love Mindy a lot but I really do think it's green fabric, definitely on the blue half of green rather than yellow which is much more popular these days, but green at any rate.  I didn't care, I was just glad she got the bolt.  I bought extra too, so I could use it for binding too when I get there.  These blocks were a little wobbly but I think the quilt will do well when it's quilted out.

It took a lot of work and effort but I did finally get the horizontal sashing on and the inner border and then cut and pieced on the outer border.  There's no way this 1990's fifth ever quilt in my life is ever going to look like anything but a 1990's quilt, but honestly, I love the floral fabric and I'm glad to be getting it re-worked to something I actually might have enjoyed better.  I'm going to use it to practice some of the more challenging quilting options out there that I tend to chicken out on.  Right now it's just a big enough wahoo that I got the top finished.  I'm slowly working my way through it cutting out all the loose threads that are every where from having dismantled the original setting that was so awful.  It's the kind of work that I can do while watching NCIS, it's going to take a while but that's okay.  :)  It enough to say I have a completed top.


Actually, I have 2 completed tops.  For reasons I'll explain another time I was able to put my hands on a lot of UFO's in the past few weeks.  One of them is Sherwood Forest Romance which I loved when I made it during a Tiny Stitches retreat in January 2011, and finished the top the same week of the retreat if I recall correctly (and posted pics here, I think) but didn't love the border I put on.  I showed it to Melinda while she was here recently and agreed that the border doesn't need to be removed, just cut down.  Yesterday I cut it from 12" to 7.5" and I love it so much more.  I turns out I have more of the floral fabric to make the backing I think so I'm going to have Melinda who is a professional quilter go ahead and complete this one for me.  So really, that was finishing 2 tops this week.  Not bad for a girl still doing serious recovery from brain surgery.  LOL

How I Know I'm Getting Better

Sharon Schamber and a beautiful red quilt.

On Friday I took a chance and went to the East Cobb Quilters' Guild meeting, mostly because they had a teacher I really wanted to see give a lecture.  I was really bummed at not being strong enough to take a class with Sharon Schamber, but I was glad to see her quilts and hear her talk about her design methods.  It was very exciting to hear her talk about how she perceives color, too.  She is the first adult I've ever heard say some of the things I've experienced in color.  While she seems to see auras, which I don't, she is overwhelmed by color in ways that I sometimes am.  I sometimes experience colors along with emotions, words, and experiences.  Most of her lecture focused on how the colors she experiences end up her quilts.  It was very cool indeed.  I spoke to her for a minute or two after the lecture and told her how encouraging it was to hear from another person who feels color in unusual ways like I have since I was a kid.  She also offered a healing energy exercise so that God could be active on my brain and asked me what color I was experiencing and when I said it was green she laughed and said that was the color of healing.  It was pretty cool.

I have a few pics from the meeting, they were not great pics, but if you sense how great her quilts are, let me encourage you to go to YouTube where many of her lessons are presented in video.  She said a couple of times during her lecture how she makes all her techniques available to people for free.  If you admire anything you've seen here, I encourage you to go look at some of her lesson videos.

Going to the meeting undid me.  I did some serious resting for the weekend AND I finally came off the awful drug.  The good news is that doing so didn't cost me as much physically as it did the last time I tried, and in fact I am remarkably better this week than I have been all along.  It's a good sign that real recovery will happen with better engines from here on out.  Thanks so much to all of you who have encouraged me and gotten me through the worst of my post-surgical experiences.

Here are some pictures of Sharon's applique, quilting designs and a couple of large quilts, one with detail shots.

About an Hour of Quilting Projects in a Week... a VICTORY!

Last week I told you how hard the recovery has been but that I was excited because it was the day to come off the awful drug and start looking forward to real recovery.  Well, it didn't quite go that way.  With in 36 hours of stopping the drug I was so sick I didn't know what to do.  I wound up calling my doctor in Arkansas who called me 3 times that day to follow me and put me back on the drug again.  I had to take it every day for a few more days, now I'm taking it every other day.  I was very sick and in a lot of pain and needing pain relief drugs that I hadn't taken for a while.  Here's hoping I won't go through that again.  The doctor thinks perhaps I had some kind of viral infection that added to the problem because some of the symptoms I had aren't things they usually see with brain surgery patients.  LOL, leave it to me to come up with something exciting!

I started to have some better times yesterday.  Two fifteen minute windows that I was able to use for working on a quilt!  (How exciting is that?)  The quilt that I've been working on is OLD.  One of the oldest quilts in my UFO pile, a stack and whack that I made in 1997!  I like the floral fabric for the flowers but didn't like the border treatment I put on at the time.  I took the blocks out a few years ago because I had decided I was NEVER going to quilt it as it was.  This week I decided I would do something really easy to get the top finished and be able to decide whether I'll quilt it or ask Melinda to do it.  I think I will use this quilt on my guest best in the future.

The day I got very sick my sister Lauren was visiting from Hong Kong for a week.  It was great to have her here, and very good to have her here that particular day because she helped me do the one errand I really wanted to do on Friday before my symptoms had gotten really bad while I was doing them, we went to Tiny Stitches during Shop Hop so I could find the right green fabric for the sashing in the quilt.  I found it pretty quick, got to say hello to Maetha and Melinda who were of course both working and get out of there in what might have been my quickest visit to Tiny Stitches in my whole life.

Yesterday I managed to cut the fabric into 3.5" strips and start playing with them.  Turns out I didn't have enough fabric, of course.  I was thinking why didn't I cut it to 2.5", or why didn't I buy an extra quarter yard while I was there.  You know how these things go, and please, if you don't know let's just acknowledge your perfection and move on because I make these mistakes, plenty of times.  LOL  Melinda was going to get me another 1/2 yard but she couldn't find the fabric.  I sent her pics but neither really got her to the right bolt.  A friend came to visit me today and I asked her to take me back to Tiny Stitches.  Melinda had asked another friend to look for it today, Mindy is awesome and surely she would have found it without my help but I walked in today and had a piece of the fabric and instead of going to the green section she went to the blue and said "it's here".  Turns out she didn't think the fabric was very green at all and didn't even think to look there.  Such a funny thing how we take in colors, isn't it?  I'm just grateful that she found it and quick as you can think about I was in and out of there and on my way home again.  It was an even quicker trip than Friday's!

 I came home and napped.  I haven't had the opportunity to do more cutting and sewing but I will do it as I can.  I bought a full yard of the fabric so that I could have some to do binding with which will be good, I think, since this green (which looks blue to some people) matches the green in the focus fabric quite well.

I might get to feel March before it's fully past...

It has been an interesting month.  So many of you have been encouraging, both here and in my email and I am incredibly grateful.  I am glad for those who have been able to drop by and visit with me, drop off meals and red socks and mail cards and email.  It is incredible, I will never be able to tell you all how much it made a difference in my healing but I honestly don't know how I would have gotten through March without it.  Thank you very much.

The truth is that this recovery has been much more challenging than I really was ready for.  The surgery went very well and the success was exactly where the doctors had hoped it would be.  I expected that would mean that my healing would go quickly, too.  I was naive.  The drugs I have been taking have been rough.  They specifically try to make the healing happen slowly and completely which I will be very grateful for as my life regathers but it's been challenging in the meantime.  Today is my last day taking the steroids which means (hopefully) one more week of my body saying "why are you changing the dose amount" and then perhaps I can get on with getting better.  That would be awfully nice!

Melinda and I have taken a pic together every year, even this one!

Last week I had a lovely morning with the Mavens.  Every year we go to the Bullock Hall quilt show where many of us hang quilts, but I decided I shouldn't go so everyone else could go and not worry about having to take me home in the middle.  Melinda talked some sense into me and said I was going and she didn't care if she had to drive me home.  I'm so grateful for her love and encouragement and common sense.  We went to the show and had a great time.  Bullock Hall seems to have gotten smaller in the past several years which worked out well for me.  I got to see every quilt which was lovely and then we even stopped for some lunch before coming home.  I promise you I slept for the rest of Monday but it was such a special treat to get to go do something normal!

Also last week I had to move some things in my studio because there was a roof leak that was seeping through the ceiling in there.  It was interesting, my strength lasted for about 15 minutes or so and then I would rest for anywhere from 1 hour to 4 hours.  Even so, over the course of several days I managed to make the room very livable which is great because I hope to start sewing again sometime as my strength improves!  I even found two projects that need some help that I could do while not actually sewing.  While sitting in the kitchen with Melinda and Lynda I managed to unsew a few seams.  Not as much fun as sewing but the first sewing project I've turned to since 2012 started!  I'll load up some pics of them when I get the chance.