Some of the meals of the past week...

The yellow squash in the photo above is an average-sized yellow squash.  And Carey swears that the day before he picked each of these, the zucchini was the same size as the yellow squash.  I think that's what most amazed us most about the garden, is how rapidly things can grow from one day to the next.  And what do you make from a zucchini this large?  My friend recommended either zucchini bread or stuffed zucchini.

This is not the best photo, but the Stuffed Zucchini was fabulous!  I sauteed onions, cherry tomatoes, kalamata olives, mushrooms, and bacon...oh, and the squash that I scooped out to make room for the fillings.  Once I piled it all back into the zucchini, I topped it with a slice of Provolone cheese and popped it in the oven.  Carey LOVED it!  He usually isn't a fan of strong flavors, so I really expected that he wouldn't care for the kalamata olives, but that was part of what he liked best.  

Quinoa Salad Bowls.  You can't see it well, but these toppings are on a bed of cabbage slaw mix.  Clockwise (from the top) we added cooked chicken (from those vacuum-sealed packages in the freezer), dried cranberries, sliced red onion, orange segments, garbanzo beans, avocado, and in the middle is quinoa.

After adding a Honey Mustard Dressing (made with orange juice instead of vinegar) we tossed it before eating.  YUM!

Twice-Baked Barbecue Sweet Potatoes are a common repeat at our house, and I'm sorry for showing it yet again.  After the sweet potatoes are baked till tender, I remove most of the flesh of the potato, mash it and add a little butter, sour cream, dry Ranch Dressing mix, Parmesan, and the barbecued brisket.  Mixed and piled it back into the potato skins and topped with a slice of Provolone and put back in the oven to heat through.  After they came out of the oven, I drizzled (a little too heavily) with barbecue sauce.  

We love these, and they are so easy, because while one of us are out running errands, we stop by the barbecue joint and pick up a half pound of sliced brisket to put in them.  Of course, Rudy always begs a few bites of brisket before it makes it into the potatoes.

The rest of the week we ate leftovers, takeout, and one night a friend sent me home with a meatball sandwich for Carey.  She had fed them to us during a gathering at her house where we wrote get-out-the-vote postcards.

What I'm reading Wednesday...

Prompt #13 - Bookface

This prompt really intrigued and challenged me this year.  Here is a sample of the trend of 'bookface':

Bookface samples from www.boredpanda.com/bookface-challenge/

Follow the link above to see more examples, some of them are so imaginative!  As I was contemplating what book to use for this prompt, I realized how complicated it could get.  I decided to look for a book that would match my model.

So without further ado, may I present my version of 'bookface'...

I browsed Amazon for a cover that would work for my intent, and ordered a used copy.  Frankly I can't believe how (relatively) easy it was to get this photo.  Rudy had a vet appointment yesterday, which always wears him out...so many new people...so many new animals all in one place.  He wants to interact with every single one of them.  So when we got home he was exhausted, and I was able to get a few minutes of subdued cooperation from him to snap this photo.  :)

He has to go back to the vet today for an ex-ray.  There was no containing (constraining?) him yesterday, so they sent us home with some 'relaxing' meds to give him last night before bed and this morning before his appointment.  Hoping it does the trick so they can get an ex-ray without having to fully sedate him.  The vet heard a heart murmur during yesterday's exam, so they wanted to get a pic of his innards to look for any problem visually before prescribing him meds, and to have as a baseline for future reference.  He has slowed down a bit since he turned ten earlier this year, but he can still run circles around me...literally!

Now back to what I'm reading Wednesday and the 2026 challenge...

Fifty-first challenge finish of the year.

It's a childrens' chapter book from Tasmanian authors.  A little challenging as the authors use made-up words and put a glossary at the end of every chapter.  (Example:  Bathwater.  One of the worst swear words I know. )  I believe this is one of a series of a dozen or so.

Kind of a cute story.  It definitely gives a good representation of terrier breeds.

Finished my 'project'...

A friend and fellow quilter/crafter nearby became a first-time grandmother two weeks ago.  I decided I wanted to hand make a gift for the baby.  The last time I used this pattern to make a gift was 40+ years ago!  I remember it working up rather quickly and not being too difficult.  The first part (the rosette above) looks more difficult than it was.  I did have some difficulty keeping a good tension for my stitches; my hands are not as dextorous as they used to be!  :)

Four audiobooks later I had the back rosette, the crown, edging, and embroidered flowers across the top done.  Considering I hadn't crocheted in an eon, I'm rather happy with it!  I have to say the embroidery is the most difficult part, since you are working on a limp item without a hoop; and working the embroidery floss into the bonnet's stitches without letting the floss show between the crochet stitches or leave knots on the inside that might be uncomfortable for baby was a little finicky.  

I'm a firm believer in blocking needlework projects to improve finished results.  I washed it in a bowl of cool water with mild soap, then I rinsed it twice.  I used a large bath towel to press as much water out of it as possible.  I didn't want to wring it and distort it, so I folded it in half, and just kept moving it to a dry part of the towel and pressing it flat between a top and bottom layer of towel.

When I had as much water out of it as possible using that method, I used a rather large plastic Christmas ball ornament settled into a smallish food container to stand in for a baby-sized head mannequin.  I made sure that both the ball and the food container were very clean before I let the bonnet come in contact with them.  I gently smoothed the bonnet over the ball, and set it under the best ceiling fan in the house overnight.

The shape tightens up in the drying process, and has a much more stable texture.

The proud nonna (my friend is Italian) texted me the sweetest photo of baby wearing the bonnet.  Such an adorable sweetie pie!

What I am reading Wednesday...

Forty-eighth challenge finish of the year.

I found a prompt to to put my book club selection under!  I had to Google to check that boredom is an emotion (never really thought of it as an emotion).  It is.  Then I Googled whether one could be intensely bored (it seemed like an oxymoron to me); it turns out people do suffer from intense boredom.  So, yay, there is my strong emotion!  LOL

This is about a butler (from early to mid 1900s).  His job was how he defined himself.  He had no clue how to relate to people in a personal way.  I wanted to slap him and scream.  Oh, look!  Anger is another strong emotion it provoked.  :)

Forty-ninth challenge finish of the year.

I have been dreading this prompt all year, as I'm not much of a fantasy genre fan.  One of this author's books was listed as a candidate for this prompt on the Goodreads community page.  I didn't find the one that was mentioned available at my library, but I found this one, In Calabria.  It was a quick read at under 200 pages.  

This modern-day fable was about a farmer who's property is visited by a unicorn.  It was a sweet story about the farmer and his animals and neighbors.  I'm still multitasking, so listened to the audiobook.  I have to say that the narration of this one was delightful.  

Fiftieth challenge finish of the year.

The Armand Gamache series of mysteries isn't necessarily a favorite, but they are reliably sure of including a red herring; and the cast of characters are growing on me.  :)  

I feel like these last few prompts didn't excite me, so I put off reading books that would fill them.  

What I'm reading Wednesday...

Forty-seventh (?) challenge finish of the year.

I chose this one for the 'featuring a natural disaster' prompt even though I don't actually consider the Dust Bowl as a natural disaster so much as a man-made catastrophe.  But the drought that started it was definitely a natural disaster.  With all the wild fires everywhere, this was very depressing realizing that climate change is only getting worse.

So I started listening to this audiobook because I have had a TON of other things to do this week.  I was several chapters in when I realized I had already read this around 2020 or 2021.  Anyway, because I was so busy, I finished listening to it, and so I am counting it dammit!

I also listened to The Remains of the Day, which is my book club's selection for this month.  This is the third book I have read by this author (two of them for book club) and I didn't like any of them particularly well.  I don't really think it fits into any of the challenge prompts, but I may go back and look.  Also, I will BEG my book club never to add this author to our list again!

I'm trying to get this post done in a hurry.  I am on hold with my bank for the second or third (fourth?) time today.  I have succumbed to a fraudster, and trying to get it all straightened out is a pain in the @$$.  I could just cry.  Right now I noticed two more transactions that need to be added to the fraud report.

I worked in the financial industry since 2001, and I am VERY careful.  These guys were good...er...bad...very bad!  Don't trust ANYBODY!

What I'm reading Wednesday...

Forty-sixth challenge finish of the year.

Interesting premise.  Would you like a chance to have one last meal with a lost loved one, to ask a question, share something left unsaid, or just be in their presence one more time?

Unfortunately it was looooooooong, and all the things I hate in a book.  Chapters from different characters points of view...some chapters I couldn't even grasp which character was speaking.  The descriptions of food which would call your departed loved one was detailed, wordy, went on and on, neverending; I think you get my drift.  

Then, when things go awry, the veil between this world and the next is ripped, ghosts are hangry and all in attendance at the restaurant's opening night, and it was like the climactic scene from the original Poltergeist movie.  Nope!  No more.  Just...no.

I did finish it, but out of self preservation I skimmed great swaths of it, picking out just enough to be able to follow the story.  Honestly, I wish I hadn't, but after spending so much time in it, I wanted to be able to count it for the challenge.

Perhaps the most ludicrous of all?  After acquiring a backer to open a swanky restaurant (a mob boss), and spending a fortune and so much effort...they name the restaurant "Duh."

Will I be reading any other work from this author?  Uh, no.  Duh!

 

Found a treasure trove...

A few days ago, I found a box that needed a good declutter.  Inside was a 'record' book.  My mom had a hidden stash of similar books (unused) and they fit the bill for any need.  Need a journal?  Here, use one of these.  Need a book for writing poetry?  Here, use one of these.  She seemed to be in possession of a never-ending supply.  I'm not sure if she still had a case from when she was in business school or if she brought them home one at a time from work (though that does not sound like something she would do).

I wish I had taken a side-on view before I started going through it.  It was unclosable, and stuffed full of letters, clippings, etc. This 'record' book was my mother's recipe collection.  I told Carey this morning that it felt like I was unearthing an ancient book of spells or something.  Kinda looks like it too.  I can attest that it has battle scars from being used out on a crowded, and often, wet countertop.

The two photos above are samples of what it looked like chock-full.  The letters were from friends and family members...a great aunt...a second cousin...and possibly my great grandmother.  There was one from my sister who is gone now.  I didn't recognize all of the handwriting, but I was tickled pink to find so much of it written in my mother's hand.  She was somewhat ashamed of her handwriting, and very seldom wrote letters.  If you were lucky you got a perfunctory note dashed off with a signature.

 

It looks very small now (on the left) after spending two very late nights, and an early morning, going through every single scrap stuck between its pages.

I discarded almost all of the recipes she had clipped from newspapers and magazines.  A majority listed ingredients that we don't even keep in our kitchens these days...lard...oleo...something called Spry?  The Spry seemed to be a product name as it was listed twice and capitalized both times, but I've never heard of it, and couldn't tell from the context exactly what kind of product it was.

The box now holds the loose recipes that interested me, either for the recipes or for the handwritten messages.  One I was particularly excited to come across was a recipe that my mother wrote down on the back of a punched time card.  Not sure whether it was her time card or my dad's (as they both worked at the Navy base where they had to punch in), but I love it because my mother was in charge of payroll at her job, and she would routinely bring home a large box of timecards and sit up at night checking and double checking them.

But THIS is something that I have been searching for for FIFTY years!  It is a copy made from, I believe, an autumn of 1975 Woman's Day or Family Circle magazine.  It is a recipe for a dried fruit pie.  I believe it used apricots, dates, and prunes, and didn't call for any additional sugar because the fruit made it sweet.  I remember my mom making it just once or twice, and I remember it being delicious.  Otherwise, why would I have gone through every single magazine in her house after she died (and believe me there were a few...hundred) looking for the recipe?  And periodically searched the internet for any recipe resembling, even trying to back search old issues of both of the named magazines I was so sure it had originally been printed in.

I am going to have to make it very soon, and I'll let you know if my pie lives up to my memory.

Late breaking news...

My curiosity got the best of me, so I Googled "vintage kitchen product Spry."  It was a vegetable shortening which was the competition for Crisco back in the day.  Maybe I hadn't heard of it because my mom was a Crisco girl, or maybe it was a regional product we didn't have here in Texas.

Still, going through that recipe book was fun and educational.  :)