This and That

 

A couple of weeks ago I was at one of the mark-down home stuff stores and I saw these round orange pillows that looked like flowers. They were for outside, but I thought they were cute as hell, and besides I have a chair in my living room the same color. So they came home with me.

 I arranged the Whirlygig quilt on the back of my couch, and put the two flowered pillows on either side. Looks good! Whirlygig is a Scap Slab quilt. You can see a picture of the full thing here. (scroll down a bit.) 

I like the blue in the quilt and wanted to carry the color idea over to the red-orange chair, so I poked around in my stash, found some fabric that shared the colors of the quilt and whipped up this pillow cover. Now the room looks fresh for the summer and Julie's visit.
 

I rearranged the birds so they are all right side up. I don't know how I am going to arrange them, but at least this way they look like birds and we can see they are individuals. The other way the legs grabbed the viewer's attention, and that didn't make any sense. They stopped looking like birds, which is NOT what I want. I will figure it out.

You don't always know what you need until you need something. I've got an overstuffed freezer, and I'm trying to work my way through all the stuff I've got in there. I thought I'd made some pulled chicken tacos for dinner. It was 90F and I certainly didn't want to be cooking. I pulled one chicken breast out of the freezer. Perfect. I could easily make the pulled chicken in the crock pot. Only problem is the crock pot I have is one of those enormous six quart ones. Great if you are feeding a crowd. Not me. It's also good if you like leftovers (not me either, I already have too much stuff in my freezer.) I knew cooking ONE chicken breast in that big crock pot would not work. So I wondered if I could get a TINY crock pot. Sure enough, on Amazon (where else?) I could get an one quart crock pot for less than 12 bucks. And if I ordered it "in the next 57 minutes" I could have it at my house the next day. Oh glory be. Worked like a charm. The big crock pot will very likely be going in the yard sale at the end of the month.

My granddaughter and I made some Caramel Delight Energy Balls via FaceTime. She got to use her new mixer. My son had specifically asked for these. My DIL said she'd need to go to the grocery store as she didn't have all the ingredients. We'd made them once before, but they hadn't had the coconut, so they substituted chopped pistashios. This time I suggested she get some mini M&Ms to use in addition to the mini chocolate chips the recipe asks for. "They look cute and I think DGD will like them." Ok, mission accomplished.

DS helped DGD toast the coconut, then left her to shape the balls and roll them in the toasted coconut. After she'd done about half of them, my son came by and asked if he could try one. DGD proudly handed him the biggest one. "OH HOLY HELL," I heard my son proclaim, "these are GOOD!" My DGD grinned. "These won't last."

How good were they? Two thumbs, and toes, up! 

Many years ago my son's pediatrician commented about him, "There's a lotta ham in this kid." Well, I think it rubbed off.

 

The Captain!

 

Last weekend, as I watched my five and a half year old granddaughter struggle to make cupcake batter with a hand mixer and not quite soft enough butter, I had a thought, so I did a little research. 

I thought about getting her a KitchenAid stand mixer. I've had one for years, and I adore it. I figured it would be an appropriate present when she was about 8 or so, given the cost, but as I watched she and her father try NOT to make a mess with the hand mixer, I rethought my idea.

It turns out that you can buy a refurbished, but fully warrantied KitchenAid mixer for about 40% less than MSRP. Since these mixers hover around the $500 range, that was a huge savings. I texted my DIL and asked if I'd be overstepping if I sent one of these to my California family now, and didn't wait two years. She said they would be fine with that. We discussed color options, since KA had 72 of them (Not all were available in the size option I had in mind however, and the pink was a wimpy pink anyway.)

So after our cupcake making adventure I went back online and pulled the trigger. A lovely Matcha Green 5 quart swing head stand mixer would be heading to DGD around June first.

Imagine my surprise when I received these photos yesterday. They are calling her "The Captain" because she has a Captain [dough] Hook.

Today is my son's birthday. Can you say BIRTHDAY CAKE?
 

Top Three

 

I've been doing a bit of sewing. I sewed the top three rows of the Defying Gravity quilt together.

 

I also had another cooking session with my DGD. 

This time we made corn muffins. And my DGD did everything herself!

 She did a great job, and decided she loves corn muffins. (I use the recipe on the side of the package.) Here's the recipe for the energy balls we made last time. 

And YES! We are already planning our next kitchen adventure.

Long Distance Cooking

 

A week or so ago my DIL sent me this picture. My GRANDDAUGHTER made this "overnight bread" from a cookbook I sent her for kids aged 4+. 

My granddaughter is FIVE! I was impressed as hell. I didn't make my first loaf of yeast bread until I was in my twenties.

So I did what any good grandmother would do. I went shopping. A set of bowls, measuring cups, measuring spoon, a liquid measuring cup, some kid sized cooking tools (in pink), child safe knifes, a small cutting board, cooky scoop, timer, kid sized potholders, and instant read thermometer, cake testers, dish towels, wooden spoons, microplane grater, vegetable peeler, bench scraper and a couple more kids cookbooks went flying across the country to my DGD.

And yes, a custom embroidered apron with a PINK dinosaur and my DGD's name is being made (thank you Etsy) and will be flying to DGD this week.

Of course I went over the top. I'm a grandmother. That's my job.

That it enabled a long-distance cooking session was just frosting on the proverbial cake. Yes, DGD and I made the same thing at the same time. I was able to walk her through every step of the recipe and told her how to do it all. As you can see she did a great job. We made almond butter energy balls with coconut and mini chocolate chips. Next up we'll be making muffins. We had a great time.

It sure did wonders for my mood.