A major setback, a dog attack, and some cheese

We had a major setback today, woke up to snow, a lot of snow, it was a big fat Christmas like snowfall....on April 29th. Disgusting it was. The picture below shows how unhappy ol' Blue is, you see ol' Blue is a summer loving truck. He loves going to the dump to drop off tree trimmings, garbage (mine and the neighbors), he loves going for a summer drive out to the country to get a load of manure, he even enjoys coming to the golf course and hauling firewood and bags of leaves......he does not like winter. He gets parked all cozy and toasty in a shop all winter and waits for spring. Even his previous owner never made him work in the winter. I pulled him out of the shop a week and a half ago and we made a  trip to the hardware store (he likes the hardware store too) for a load of wood for some new garden boxes....it was a fun day. Today, not so much fun. 

Poor ol' blue

Major setback

 Despite the crappy weather I had a fairly productive day. Some 10 years ago I started making a pair of moccasins from a kit I had bought....yup, I said 10 years ago. Anyway, I did not know how to make moccasins at the time, I figured how hard can it be? If they sell it all in a kit it should come with instructions and  away you go....well, not quite so. I got as far as cutting it all out and found out I could not poke my needle through the hide...nope, was not possible to get a needle through it, so I put it away...awwwaaay back in the closet, but not forgotten. Last fall just before I left here for Mexico I had the opportunity to take a class and learn how to make authentic moccasins, taught by a lovely native lady (bless her), it was so much fun and I am so happy that I had that opportunity. I learned that the reason why my needle would not go through the hide is because it is a chemically tanned hide as-apposed to hand tanned, when a hide is tanned that way it is so solid a beading needles cannot poke through it, whereas a hand tanned hide is softer and a beading needle just slides through it. I made a pair of moccasins in the class with a hand tanned and smoked moose hide, this is the ultimate hide to work with, deer and elk are nice too but the hide is thinner and floppier, moose is more durable. The smell from the smoked moose hide was just so soothing and comforting when working with it. It smelled like there was a wood burning stove, cozy and warm in the background. As I was stitching away my mind would wander at how it must have been in the days long ago, when the fire was heating a cozy cabin out in the woods with the wind blowing and the coyotes howling and the family was seated around the fire stitching away and telling stories. I found the bead work to be very soothing and relaxing and knew I would be making many more. This weekend I was supposed to take a hide tanning class taught by the same lady but it was canceled (postponed) ......guess why? Snow! And cold....I was so disappointed. A smoked hand tanned hide is hard to come by these days, the natives have become modernized too and very few still practice their native traditions.

These were my first pair of moccasins.....I wish you could smell them

To wear them outside I wear them with the little rubbers when the weather is yucky, which is how the natives wear them as well. So, when I went to a friends house I took them off at the door and while we were having tea in the living room her dog got them and attacked them .... viciously....it was ugly and it was very sad for me, but they do smell like something smoked...like maybe sausages, which could be tempting to a dog I guess. Now they look like this;

I never ever would have thought they would be as warm as they are in the rubbers.....love them. 

So, today I decided to finish the other pair (the 10 year old pair), in order to bead on the top you have to bead on a piece of stroud, which is a woolen like fabric, almost felt-like but thicker. I was making pretty good progress until I got to the fur and I decided I didn't like the black fur I had, I thought white would look better so off I went to buy some white fur.....you know you live waaaaay too far north when you can just go downtown and buy a rabbit pelt, just like that. I get to the store and I can't decide if white really is the answer, ,the chocolate brown looks very nice too, and the black and white bunny looked nice too....aghhhh! So I do the only thing I could do and buy the chocolate brown one and the white one.....so now I have 4 bunny pelts....oh I bought a light brown one last fall to redo the pair that got attacked by the dog. That is how far I got today....so no picture of the new moccasins...yet. I got sidetracked with another project....Cheese. I was given (ok..I begged for it) a gallon of fresh cow milk from a friend of a friend....oh yes, I rushed to the library and checked out a book on making cheese.....I've seen it there before and have fantasied about making cheese...seriously.

Lovely lovely cheese book, I might need to own it

This was the recipe I used to make a cheese called "queso blanco" which just means "white cheese", easy peasy instructions

This was my dripping method

My cheese turned out a little harder and drier than I would have liked which means I left it dripping too long......while I was downtown bunny hunting, but it is still good, sometimes multi tasking isn't the answer.

 This cheese reminds me of the cheese that is very common in Mexico called "queso fresco" it is a soft cheese that does not melt when heated, which I love. I don't like goopy, gooey, sticky, stringy and sloppy cheese. Which makes queso freso my favorite cheese. Perfect with eggs and nopales (cactus).....but, no nopales here so I opened a can of chili I had in my freezer and heated it up in a saucepan and added some cheese. Then I dolloped a bit of olive oil in a pan and tossed in about 3 minced garlic cloves and stir fried up some sno-peas and added some cheese.....the cheese browned beautifully. The whole meal took me about 6 minutes and again it was worthy of a glass of wine.
Oh.....don't even try cheese making with store milk.....befriend a farmer.

I love how shiny the peas are when they are tossed withe olive oil

wow, that was a lot of rambling again, but now I have a movie to watch, a few months ago while I was sitting under a palapa by the ocean having a meal and cold coconut or two with some friends we had a conversation about a song, I can't remember what song or why we discussing it I just remember that the rest of the party was surprised that I had never heard the said song, I am not surprised because I was raised in a home without television and dads 5 old records were the only music we had. Now a days it's called raising your children "media healthy" back then we called it "having other things to do". So my knowledge of old music and movies are 0.  Anyway....it was suggested I watch "West side story", if I watch it I might find the song and remember what the conversation was that we had about it.

oh.....hows the spinning coming along you ask?.....

It ain't art just yet.....and so not relaxing yet either, I have some library books coming on the subject of spinning......it worked well with the cheese making

Spaghetti Squash worthy of a glass of wine......and a new dress

I had two spaghetti squash left over from last fall, if you read the post "Yes sir, yes sir two bags full" you may have noticed that I store my squash under my spinning chair for the winter. That is my entry room and is very cool in the winter unless the "cheesy fireplace" is on, which it hardly ever is because the gas company just chuckles at the other end of the line every time that switch it flicked, and so that room has become my cold storage and apparently the perfect temperature for squash....my potatoes however...whoooo, like a box of creatures from out of a horror movie, something Steven Spielberg would create....anyway. Today I cooked up my squash, it was so good! Here is my recipe;

First poke holes in the squash all over about 2 inches apart (or else she explodes in your oven), put the whole thing in a roasting pan and bake at 350 F for about an hour.....nothing else in the pan, no water, no butter, no nada. Easy peasy, go have a nap for an hour. (set a timer)

After an hour take it out of the oven and let it cool on your cutting board. Meanwhile to make my special marinara sauce put a good dollop of Olive oil in a deep sided frying pan and dice a few garlic cloves (about 6) and a medium sized onions.....or more or less depending on taste, garlic and onions are so good for you so don't be shy. Then I put some chicken broth....remember the post "let me tell you about soup" you all went out and made a bunch of chicken broth right? Grab some out of the freezer and dump the whole frozen chunk (about 2 cups) in your pan and let it slowly melt. Once it's melted get a can of tomatoes from the freezer that you froze last year (remember I told you how to freeze tomatoes super fast and easy in the post "mary mary quite contrary how does your garden grow") dump that frozen chunk in there too and add some dried oregano and basil and the ever so special Tomato consume, however much you like, add some pepper, I usually stick my hand blender in there as well and puree it so that it is nice and smooth. Let it sit there and simmer while you deal with your squash which is now cool enough to handle.
Cut it in half and scoop out the seeds and stringy stuff, you know the stuff that looks like the inside of a pumpkin. Now take a fork and scrape out the flesh, it will come out stringy like spaghetti, scoop it into a serving bowl. It looks magical doesn't it.
Now, your sauce is all pretty and red, take a baggie of frozen green beans out of your freezer....you did pick and freeze some green beans from your garden last fall didn't you? Well, if you didn't you can buy some frozen green beans and add to your sauce now, you don't want your beans to be over cooked and all limpy and soggy that is why you leave it to the last. If your sauce is a little runny at this time, which mine was, take a little container and put about 1 heaping tsp of cornstarch in and some water and shake it until it is smooth and no longer lumpy and pour into your sauce and stir over high heat until it thickens. You are done....that is my marinara sauce. Pour on top on your spaghetti and sprinkle some fresh Parmesan cheese on. This is a meal worthy of a glass of red wine, garlic toast and ceasar salad are great with it as well.....then you might even need 2 glasses or wine.

Having homemade chicken broth and frozen tomatoes in the freezer makes making quick meals so much easier and healthier. Freezing tomatoes is so easy. I just wait until I have a a bunch of ripe tomatoes and cut them into quarters and stuff them in a 500 ml canning jar and stick my hand in there and squish them so the juices comes out, leave about 1 inch of head room for expansion and stick in the freezer. Some people peel their tomatoes first and stew them up with all kinds of spices, which is all good but so much work. ( I used to do it like that too) I add the spices when I am making the dish anyway and they get stewed then, so I don't feel there is any need to do all that. This way you can freeze them in small batches and as they ripen and it's not a big messy production. There is so much you can do with frozen tomatoes, don't ever be afraid of having too many jars of tomatoes in the freezer.

By the way, now is a good time to start some tomato plants indoors, mine are already about an inch high

 A few weeks ago I went to see my mom and sisters in La Crete which is about an hour drive East of here, when I am there I like stopping at the second hand store there. I discovered something incredible this time, there is a door that leads to a separate little room that I had never seen before, it's a hidden door. I was invited in this time...oh my. Had I not had my grandma with me I would still be in there. It is a little room full of sewing patterns, every kind of pattern imaginable from every era, yes, old old old patterns....vintage patterns selling for 25 cents each, I know....shocking, exciting and just so incredible, but I didn't want to keep my grandma on her feet for too long, although she was almost as excited as I was, she was a seamstress (still does lots of sewing). If you would have been on the other side of the wall you would have heard this "oh grandma look at this one" "wow, look at the this," "oh, I remember these dresses...oh those sleeves", " this used to be the dress to have", "oh grandma look at this one", "look look look" and so it went......I bought a dress pattern, dropped grandma off and drove to the fabric store as fast as I could in search for some green cotton with white polka dots.....and they didn't have any, I was heart broken, I had an imagine in my head of this dress in green with white polka dots. I had to have this dress, so I bought some other green fabric....I am still on the hunt for the green/white. Then I drove to my moms and she whipped me up a new dress in about 2 hours. It;s always good to come home for a visit. My mom phoned me a few days later and said grandma wanted the same dress....in beige, I have the coolest grandma. Next time I visit I am taking her to "the room" again....without her there I might spend the whole weekend in "the room". We'll bring refreshments and some snacks.....I wonder if I should make a reservation?

I haven't yet figured out how to take a nice picture of myself and the dress hanging empty looked a bit silly. See the brown dress on the right, that's the one my mom made.....it would be amazing in a grass green with white polkas....am I wrong? 

Alleluia He is risen!

This statue of Jesus stands on a hill on the outskirt of Cusco Peru