Wordless Wednesday

Sunday Morning

Like a Rainbow

I've been in love with recycled glass beads from Ghana for a long time. The colors are so pure and vibrant and they remind me of beach glass with their worn, smooth surface. I went on a buying spree and picked up several new colors for spring. I was also lucky enough to find vintage chain that is thin enough to replace the antiqued brass chain that I've been using. I will be discontinuing the brass chain as soon as I run out of what I have on hand. Most of the necklaces in the collage are in stock or will be soon. They can be found here. I will also be listing earrings made with these beads. Soon come~

The Ravioli Experiment

Last Sunday, we decided to pull out our much neglected pasta machine and learn how to make ravioli. Equipped with a handful of recipes that I found online and a head full of ideas, we prepared the dough and fillings and began what turned out to be a 5 hour process.
We made three different sizes. Small. Medium. Large. Why not? After all, it is was the Ravioli Experiment. After each batch was finished, we sat down, ate them and judged them. Think Iron Chef.
Number 2, the medium size ravs won the taste test.
We took two of the large ones and dropped them in the fryer. I read about them online, the fryer was out from the night before and we thought "why not"? They were OK, but I won't be making them again. I felt like I was at a carnival, where it seems that they now fry everything under the sun.
We had some leftover pasta strips, so we formed them into bow ties, dried them out a bit and popped them in the freezer.
Turns out that ravioli is a lot easier to make than we thought. I can see more Ravioli Experiments in our future.

Wordless Wednesday

Water Chestnuts

John made a trip to one of his favorite markets this weekend. He came home with these. They're water chestnuts. I had never seen fresh ones before. They taste SO good. You know the difference between a homegrown tomato and a store bought one? Same thing here!

Water chestnuts are easy to peel and slice. They're super sweet and crunchy. We had a lot more than we needed, so I experimented with three of them.

I took one and peeled and sliced it. The second one was just peeled. The third was left whole and untouched.

Then I put them in the freezer. The next morning I got them out to thaw. I couldn't wait to see the results of my experiment.

The sliced chestnuts were too mushy when they thawed. The whole, unpeeled one had a brown rim around meat when I peeled it. The whole, peeled chestnut was the winner. It looked and tasted like it was fresh, never frozen.

So this afternoon, I froze the remainder of them on parchment paper. When they're frozen, I'll pop them into freezer containers and we'll be good to go next time we fire up the wok.

Woman Overboard

OK, so I went a little overboard. I wanted to restock my anchor cameo supply for the summer. Who knew there would be so many colors to choose from? What's a girl to do? Buy a few of each, of course. Some are listed in my shop now and the rest will be there by the end of the week.

Sunday Dinner

Actually, this was from a couple of Sundays ago. My birthday and the SuperBowl were on the same weekend. We celebrated by buying a sack of oysters from the Farmer's Market. They came from Louisiana, so we know they'd be good. And they were!

Earth Tones

I love the winter landscape. You can see every line. Every detail. Plain and simple. Or is it?

Groundhog Day

So, it's official. Puxatony Phil saw his shadow this morning. Six more weeks of winter. Maybe in his neck of the woods, but around here Spring has sprung. Our bulbs are growing like weeds and several of our daffodils already have buds on them.




And yesterday, the mockingbirds started to sing. They usually start around Valentine's Day. I love to listen to them.
As crazy as the weather is, we could get a snowstorm next week. It's happened before. Snow covered daffodils are rather pretty. It's like they've been dusted with powdered sugar.
If you click on the groundhog, it will take you to minouette's shop on Etsy. I found it while making a treasury this morning.
Happy Groundhog Day!