Juicy Meatloaf

I promised to give this recipe to my cousin Gary, who stopped here overnight a week or so ago. So Gary, here it is, enjoy!

Juicy Meatloaf

4 slices rye bread, or whatever kind of bread you have
1 cup water
1 medium onion, chopped
1 tbsp. parsley
3 tbsp. parmesan cheese
1 lb. ground beef (lean)
1 egg
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. oregano
6 oz. tomato sauce
1 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. salt

1. Preheat oven to 375 F.
2. Pour water over bread in a shallow quart casserole. When soft, break it up finely with a fork.
3. Combine with onion, parsley, cheese, beef, egg, salt, pepper and oregano. Mix well. Pat down flat.
4. Mix the tomato sauce with the chili powder, garlic and salt. Pour over the top of the meat.
5. Bake for 60 to 90 minutes, or until the meat is cooked all the way through and is no longer pink.

( I usually make 1 1/2 times the recipe or I double it, to have leftovers to make grilled meatloaf and cheese sandwiches, and then to add the leftover meatloaf to mac and cheese.)

In My Backyard

We Love It! Oh, Me Too!

In March I was approached by Style at Home magazine wondering if they could borrow one of my rugs to photograph for inclusion in their July issue. I had just sold the rug, but the new owner graciously agreed to loan them the rug for the photo shoot. I have been very excited these past couple of months waiting for the arrival of the magazine. I am still waiting, it should be here next week. 

It has been my pleasure to have been in contact with Brett Walther, the Associate Design Editor who produced this article. He was kind enough to send me this PDF file and gave me permission to post it here. Thank you Brett! A special thank you to Jenn Houlihan, assistant editor for choosing my rug!

We Love It!

I love it!

Thank you too, to Mr. Uli for changing the PDF file into a usable format for me!

I am excited and grateful for this opportunity. It will be fantastic exposure for my work.

Freezing Rain

We have had freezing rain most of last night and all of today. The ice is building up out there, very slippery underfoot. Not a good place for me to be, as I do not have much balance to start with! I am really quite worried about our frail little pine tree, it is heavily coated and the branches are hanging low, I sure hope they do not snap. A friend from St. Joe's Island, gave me the tree quite a few years ago, I traded some white dahlia bulbs for it!

close up view from our ice crusted kitchen window

view from kitchen out to the back yard

This Sad Life

I got home a few days ago, from a trip away. My sister and I traveled to southern Ontario for the funeral of my cousin, his wife and son. It has been a very sad couple of weeks.

Heading out of Toronto on a Greyhound bus... life is a blur..

Left behind are two young adults, young university students.

Life will be hard for them. There has been a trust fund set up. If anyone is interested in donating to it, for them, please contact me for info.

Happy Birthday to Me!!

It is my birthday today! I do love my birthdays, they are a celebration of me!

I woke this morning early, to see a lake freighter passing by, all lit up like a Christmas tree, so pretty. What a treat! What a fantastic start to my day!

I had a leisurely morning, coffee and chatting to the ladies on the Canadian Etsy thread! Nice!

During a long hot soak in the tub, a cake recipe finally came to me.. chocolate sponge cake, with lemon cream and fresh raspberries. I topped it off with chocolate buttercream. It took me most of the afternoon to make the cake, big and yummy!!

Chatted on the phone to some family and friends, and then cooked dinner. We had wasabi baked rainbow trout, balsamic roasted red onion sliced thickly, and mashed potato cakes. Everything was fabulous!! Hmmm yum! I had the cake chilling out in the front porch, maybe too cold, the icing which was a little wonky to start with got a little too hard so it cracked when I cut it. I might use a softer buttercream recipe next time. I combined a few recipes to come up with this recipe. Maybe at some point I will post the recipe, I do not even have any photos.

It was a wonderful day!

Bistro 305

This morning I took my sling off. My elbow was tender, but throughout the day even though you think you are not using your arm you really do use it. It is quite sore now. It is driving me a little crazy doing nothing. I can't even cook.

After dinner I noticed my junk email icon bouncing about. I thought it was another Twitter follower notification, but it wasn't. It was an invitation to join the blog Bistro 305 hosted by my cousin Kim. It will be a place for family and friends to share cooking and craft ideas. Right up my alley!

I am excited about this great idea, and will be anxious to watch it grow into some thing wonderful! Thanks Kim, I needed this right now, perfect timing!!

Frosted Olives

I started listing some of my fall fair pieces on Etsy today. This one is a gorgeous, pale pastel blue and olive green freshwater pearl necklace.

Delicate, pale elegance!!

Wow!! Roasted Beet Pizza!!

Last night for dinner I made a variation of the roasted beet pizza in the new Cooking Light magazine. It was so delicious, hmmm yummy!!

I have linked to their recipe, I will type out the recipe with my changes. I made two pizzas, and tripled the dough recipe. 

Roasted Beet Pizza

4 oz. Red Beets.....I did not weigh them but used more than they called for

1 1/2 heads garlic, loose skin removed, and cut the very top off

1 1/2 Basic Pizza Dough, 10" pizza

1/2 cup feta cheese

1 cup, crumbled goat cheese

1/2 large red onion, sliced thinly

1/4 tsp. flaked sea salt

1 tsp, olive oil, plus extra for drizzling on the garlic.

1. Preheat oven to 450° F.

2. Leave root end  and 1" of stem on beets: scrub with a brush. Wrap beets in tin foil. Bake at 450° for 40 minutes or until tender. Remove from oven and cool. Trim off both ends of the beet and remove the skin( it will rub off). Cut beet in half lengthwise and slice thinly.

3. Place garlic on tin foil, and drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, wrap tightly and roast along side the beets. Roast for 40 minutes, remove from oven and let cool. Squeeze garlic from skin and set aside the garlic pulp.

4. Saute the thinly sliced red onion in a frying pan in a small amount of olive oil, until very soft and well cooked. Set aside to cool slightly.

5. Position an oven rack in the lowest setting. Place pizza stone on lowest rack.

6. Increase oven temperature to 500°. Preheat pizza stone 30 minutes before baking pizza.( I only heated it for about 10 minutes).

7. Roll pizza dough out as thin as you can, take stone from oven, and transfer your rolled dough to the stone, carefully the stone is hot. Rub 1 tsp. olive oil over the dough. Smear the roasted garlic evenly over the surface.  Sprinkle the onion evenly over the surface. Next add the sliced roasted beets, and then sprinkle both cheeses over the whole surface, leaving a 1/2" border.

Sprinkle with the sea salt.

8. Bake at 500° for 8 minutes or until the crust is golden.

Enjoy!

Recycled Textile, Handwoven Wool Rug

This was a red Hot morning for me!! I had one of my felted wool sweater rugs featured in this front page treasury. I am not sure who curated it, but am very grateful to whoever did!!

Always a pleasure, always a thrill!! Thank you!

Big Denim Rug

After two weeks of prepping, I have started my first denim rug on this upright loom. I used a frame loom previously. To date I have cut up about 35 pairs of jeans for this rug, and so far I have used about 28 of them. I will have to cut more before I am done.

My loom malfunctioned twice as I was getting ready to start weaving. Mark has found a solution for the problem, and so far it is  holding up!!

The rug is 49" wide and hopefully 6' or 7' or 8'  long. I will see as I progress. I had a hard time winding the warp on due to all the seams in the jeans. I am excited now... another few days or so and I will have it finished, off the loom and all the ends woven back in.

Whimsies in Wool

The article I co-wrote with Wendy Tremayne, for Craft magazine is out on the news stands. Wendy wrote the article, and I did the step by step, on how to weave a felted wool sweater rug.

I had a friend call today, she was in Athens, Georgia and was at a bookstore,  and happened to pick up the magazine and she said it fell open on page 152. There I was! She was very excited to see my name there, and the article!

It is exciting, my first time published, and  in an International magazine! I am hoping it will bring people to my shop, and maybe generate some excitement about my rugs!

Pegg's Pesto Recipe

At this time of year I have an abundance of basil growing in our greenhouse. We grow a lot of it, for the purpose of making and freezing pesto, to supply us for the long winter months. It is a treat to have a taste of summer in the dreary cold month of January. 

Fresh basil picked and waiting to be made into pesto.

Freshly made pesto, ready for the freezer! Yum!

Pesto Recipe

2 cups packed fresh basil leaves

1/3 cup pine nuts

1 large clove garlic, chopped

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 cup olive oil

1/3 cup Parmesan cheese

Finely chop the basil, pine nuts, garlic and salt in a food processor. With the processor running, add the oil in a slow steady stream through the feed tube until the mixture is thoroughly blended. Add the cheese; blend until mixed through.

Serve with freshly cooked hot pasta. Makes enough for about 1 pound of pasta. Can also be frozen, and thawed just before using. A good way to use a bounty of fresh basil.

My Tzatziki Recipe

Very simple, very easy.... just have to start the day before you want it.

2 - 750 gram containers of plain yogurt

I large English cucumber, grated

2-3 cloves garlic, minced

salt to taste

Strain yogurt in a tea towel lined colander in a bowl overnight, up to 24 hours. It should be think like a soft cheese, not runny.

Squeeze as much liquid out of the cucumber as you can. Add it to a bowl with the strained yogurt with the minced garlic and salt to taste. i do like mine a little salty.

Mix thoroughly, and it is ready to eat. You can also let it sit in the fridge for the flavours to mingle. Yum.

Please feel free to add mint, vinegar, or what ever flavours you like in your tzatziki. Make it your own!

Chunky Copper Chain

Last week my friend Kathy sent me some copper chain to try out. I have never worked with chain before, so it is a bit of a challenge for me, and this chain is large and chunky!

I have combined the chain with vintage yellow and white swirled glass beads. Very simple design. I have just listed this necklace in my Etsy shop.

Is This a Cicada???

As Mark was getting ready to leave for his run, sitting on the back step, tying up his running shoes, he heard what he thought was a large bird plop landing on the greenhouse. It wasn't, it was this large bug. Of course you cannot tell the size of it in my photos, but I an not really that fond of large flying beetley type bugs.. I didn't want to put my hand near it.

I looked through my insect book, and  the closest I can guess is some type of cicada.

Look at its pretty lacey wings!

I would hate to have this little creature land on me, it would set me off screaming for my life...haha! Ewww!!

Recycled Cardboard and Plastic Basket Weaving Step by Step.......

A few months ago I was asked to teach a workshop to some elementary school aged children. I searched online for an idea for something using recycled materials. I could not find anything suitable, so developed this basket. I used cardboard from boxes I retrieved from our hardware stores garbage shed, and the plastic is shrink wrap that our local grocery store was kind enough to save from the shipments they got in.

The photos should be fairly self explanatory, but if you need any other info please feel free to contact me. For this project the cardboard strips were about 24" long.

Things With Wings!

A couple of weeks ago, I had a string of treasuries on Etsy grace the front page. I was contacted by one of Etsy admin, asking if I would be interested in making a collection for Etsy Finds. Very exciting, and an honour in my opinion!!

Mark and I were about to leave for vacation, so I did it once we were back home again. The collection is called "Things With Wings". There were so many bugs out on the Island, and it is spring, and so many birds are singing. I was lucky enough to hear the sandhill cranes conking, as I call it, every day while we were there. They seemed to be nesting in every direction from camp.

Pretty Pearls and Copper

I have been enjoying working with copper lately. I do love the elongated copper kidney wires. Their earthiness works very well with pearls, another of my favourites to work with.

I made this pretty pair of earrings last night, and tomorrow morning will list them in my Etsy shop.