2012 January 24 — Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara

So NOT Right!

January 24, 2012 · by JudyL

Remember when Vince was living here and I was living there. He was staying at the Star of Texas B&B. I was back home dealing with Chad getting his tonsils out, getting the house sold, getting things packed . . and he was staying at the Star of Texas B&B, and they were just named one of the Top 10 Romantic Inns. TOP 10 . . and I was in MO pulling my hair out.

I think I’m going to be upset all over again! No, I’m not. Congratulations to Don & Debbie. Staying out there for a couple of months really helped convince Vince that he wanted to live way out in the middle of nowhere and have some goats and donkeys.

· Filed Under: Home & Garden · 7 Comments

Sewing in the New Room

January 24, 2012 · by JudyL

Yesterday morning I woke up at 2 a.m. You know what I was thinking . . My sewing room . . if I sneak out there now, I can sew and sew and sew and get so much accomplished! Then I looked at my cell phone (because we have no clocks in the bedroom because I look at them all night and spend the night calculating how much longer I can sleep if I wake up at 5 or what if I wake up at 7 . . so we got rid of all the clocks but not the cell phone and I can do the same thing with the cell phone!) and I saw that it was 2 a.m. and even with a new sewing room waiting for me, getting out of bed and going out there at 2 a.m. didn’t seem like a good thing to do.

Vince left for work a little before 7 and I started to go out then but decided to get some laundry going and went ahead and took my shower and got dressed so Vince wouldn’t come home for lunch and find me out in the sewing room in my pajamas. By then, I remembered that I had to take Speck to get his stitches out sometime on Monday so I went ahead and did that. Then I decided to grind wheat and make bread. See how my day gets away from me? Vince usually gets home about 11 for lunch but he called about 10:45 and said it was probably going to be around noon before he got home so I went out to the sewing room. I cleaned and oiled the Bernina which hadn’t been used for a while and made one seam and then I heard Vince drive up. It was just a few minutes after 11 but I didn’t say “Didn’t you just tell me you’d be home around noon?” I thought it though.

Once he went back to work, I went out and sewed — went back in the house to bake the bread and set myself a timer so I wouldn’t forget about it; went back in to get it out of the oven, then went back later to stick a chicken in the oven to roast but other than that, I sewed from about 12:30 til close to 6 and it was heavenly!

I got 6 more star blocks completed and the remaining 9 close to being done.

Aren’t these blocks so pretty?

· Filed Under: Quilting · 21 Comments

The Big Fridge

January 24, 2012 · by JudyL

Before we brought the big fridge from the rental to here, we measured every which direction to make sure it would fit. The doors had to come off to get it through the opening into the kitchen but they had to come off to get it out of the rental so that wasn’t a big deal. We knew the fridge was 1/2″ narrower than the spot it was fitting into. We knew there would be about 3/4″ clearance above the top of the machine.

When the movers were bringing it in, I saw the look on one of the guy’s face change to one of those “it ain’t gonna work” looks. I said “What’s wrong?” The freezer is a drawer that slides out. See the window trim at the bottom? He thought the trim was going to block the freezer door from sliding out far enough. I gasped! Then I decided that I didn’t like that trim enough to keep it if it blocked the freezer door from opening but in the end, the freezer door slides all the way out and clears that trim by about the width of a sheet of paper!

I fought against getting this refrigerator because mom and dad had so much trouble with theirs that is similar but we love it and I missed it so much when I was using the other fridge here. When we bought it, we knew we’d probably never drink Brownwood water or use it for ice so we didn’t get the water and ice dispenser on the door. Now we have a well with the best water ever and I do wish we had water and ice on the door but . . who knew!

· Filed Under: Home & Garden · 22 Comments

Dee’s “Health Bread”

January 24, 2012 · by JudyL

This may be the very best wheat bread recipe I’ve ever made! The whole wheat bread I’ve made for years is good but I was thinking more along a multi-grain bread . . something more exciting than just whole wheat, and I came across Dee’s Health Bread. It had so many reviews and comments that I just had to try it. It’s been several months since we had wheat bread because of . . the second move, but we’re not thinking about that.

Yesterday I dug out the wheat grinder, a jar of wheat and it felt good to be doing another thing that makes life seem normal.

I made half the recipe and made 3 one pound balls of dough. I baked two of them and put one in the freezer just to see how it will turn out. If it works ok, then I’ll make the whole recipe next time and put 5 balls in the freezer so we can have warm, fresh bread every few days. I should add . . I will not make the full recipe til I find my Bosch mixer!

This bread is soft and squishy, not crumbly at all. It really has a great texture and crumb and the crust is really good — not brittle at all.

Modifications I made to the recipe (remember I used half of the recipe):

I used milled flax seed and since I was using only half the recipe, I used 1/8th cup but next time I will probably go ahead with the full 1/4 cup.
Same with the sunflower seeds. I will use more next time.
For half the recipe, I should have used 2 tsp. salt but the dough tasted like it needed more so I added another teaspoon salt (a total of 3 tsp.) and it tasted right and we are not heavy salt users.
I added 3 T. of lecithin (from soy).
For the white flour, I didn’t measure but just added til the dough pulled away from the sides of the bowl. Instead of the suggested 2 cups, I think I used more like 1-1/2 cups of white flour but I was using home ground whole wheat flour which seems to absorb a good bit more liquid than does storebought whole wheat flour.

This is an excellent bread and from the reviews posted, even non-breadmakers are having great success with this recipe. Not only did it feel good to be using the wheat grinder again but it felt good to be eating whole wheat bread and, this morning it was great toasted with homemade cherry jam!