2010 April 20 — Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara

April 20, 2010 · by JudyL

Ever had Quinoa? Ever heard of Quinoa? If you’re not familiar with it, google it and read about it. It’s easily digested and has a very high protein content and is gluten-free. And, it tastes so good! What’s not to like? Here’s what it looks like when you buy it:

In the summer, when it’s hot, we like to eat salads. I tried a new Quinoa Salad last week and it was a good enough recipe to share.

Quinoa Salad

1 cup raw quinoa
2 T. honey
2 T. lemon juice
3 T. olive oil
1 small apple, chopped
2/3 c. dried cherries, chopped
2/3 c. slivered almonds, toasted
Salt & Pepper

Using a fine strainer, rinse 1 cup quinoa. Boil 2 cups water in a medium saucepan. Add 1/2 tsp. salt. Add quinoa and simmer gently til tender, about 15 minutes. Drain using the fine strainer.

In a small bowl, whisk together honey, lemon juice and olive oil.

Mix chopped apple, cherries and slivered almonds with quinoa. Pour honey mixture over and stir. Add black pepper to taste. Serve warm or cold.

A Great Iron

April 20, 2010 · by JudyL

First, speaking of good irons, go check out Bonnie Browning’s blog and see what she did to her iron. She’s busy with the AQS Show so I know she’ll never know we’re all gasping at what she did! After reading that blog post, I looked at my ironing table and realized I had four irons sitting there, all too close to one another. Did I move one or two or three of them? No . . not yet!

Vince was traveling somewhere and stopped in at an antique store. I can’t figure out if he likes to shop for me or if he picks up something for me so I won’t complain about the things he buys for himself.

He got this little travel iron!

How cute is that? And, it gets hot! And, it steams like no iron I’ve had lately. It’s all I’ve used since he brought it home. I love how it feels in my hand, as well as the temperature and the steam.

I’m not an electrician but does it seem weird to you that this little iron is 700 watts and it gets hotter than my Rowenta that has 1700 watts? The little travel iron has different settings and it doesn’t seem to be getting too hot . . it just works like I expect an iron should work. The Rowenta seems hot enough sometimes but not other times. I even unplugged it from the surge protector and plugged it directly into a different wall plug to see if that made a difference and it doesn’t. Sometimes it just doesn’t seem much hotter than warm. I don’t like it! Maybe I’ll take a lesson from Bonnie and park the travel iron too close to the Rowenta and then I won’t feel bad if I toss a 5 month old iron. My luck, I’d ruin the travel iron and the Rowenta would walk away unscathed.

No, I’m not going to do that. But really .. there has to be a real iron out there that gets hot and steams. Oh yes . . there is one. My mother owns it. It’s a Rowenta! I’ve tried sneaking it out of her house. She always checks her sewing room before I drive away to be sure the iron is still there.