Eggplant anyone??

I never had eggplant while I was growing up, ever.  We always had a garden full of fresh vegetables but I guess my parents were not very adventurous when it came to some things.  Anyway, I am 54 years old and had eggplant for the first time around two years ago at Olive Garden, when I ordered eggplant parmesan.  Let me say up front that I love Italian food, so the yummy marinara, pasta, and cheese was part of what I loved about it.  I have also had it at Johnny Carino's, another Italian restaurant in Lexington.  My husband, who is from Mississippi, did have it while growing up and it was battered and fried, much like fried green tomatoes. 

I started doing some googling because my kids also love the dish from Olive Garden and I wanted to make it at home.  I came across several web sites that suggested slicing the eggplant and then laying on a paper towel and sprinkling with salt to get out the extra moisture and soak up any bitterness.  Had I not already had this yummy dish in a restaurant, I would have stopped right there.  Watery and bitter are not adjectives that I look for when choosing my vegetables.  I did as suggested, let it sit for about 30 minutes then rinsed the salt off and patted dry.  Let me tell you, the eggplant experts are not wrong about the moisture.  I was amazed at the water that came out of those slices!!!

I had made homemade marinara over the weekend with fresh herbs from my garden, and all those amazing flavors had two days to "marry" as Emeril would say.

I made an assembly line of sliced eggplant, all purpose flour with a little black pepper and oregano, beaten egg and a little milk, Italian bread crumbs with added thyme and oregano to "kick it up a notch" (also as Emeril would say), then my pan with hot canola oil.  The eggplant really cooked up pretty quickly and browned nicely.  I didn't want anything greasy, so I laid them on a cookie sheet and put them in the oven for about 5 minutes before layering. 

First layer was homemade marinara, then eggplant, mozzarella and parmesan, layer again, and end with marinara. I baked it covered in foil for about 45 minutes then took off the foil and baked 15 more minutes. Not to be patting myself on the back or tooting my own horn or anything, but this is turned out waaay better than the restaurant versions. Sorry Olive and Johnny. Mine is just better. The real test will be when the kids get home to eat.

And this picture has absolutely nothing to do with anything I have just written ----- I am just so happy to have pumpkins on the vine and had to share it!

Just a little something with Oh Cherry Oh fabric

The more I look at the quilted grocery bag holder made with the cherry fabric, the more I am leaning toward doing a little kitchen decorating with cherries.  I don't want to go overboard, just a touch here and there.  I found a picture of a heart-shaped potholder on line and decided I could do that too!  I made things harder on myself by cutting out the front, back, and batting separately, then quilting, and the same with the front panels.  If I had had my quilting head on straight, I would have simply quilted a 15 x 15 sandwich and THEN cut out the heart.  Okay, so I thought of the easy way AFTERWARD, it still turned out okay and I will remember next time.  I had to make a bias binding for the curves, so went to Youtube and watched a few videos on cutting bias binding and chose one that makes it sooo simple.  The speaker on one of the videos suggested using bias binding for all quilts, even ones where you would normally use straight grain binding, because they last longer and have less wear than straight grain.  I had never heard that.  What about it, quilting bloggers?  Do you use bias binding for all your quilting projects?  Anyway, I hung this little cutie pie on my refrigerator.

Pioneer Braid wall hanging

This wall hanging isn't new, but since I basically deleted my blog and started from scratch, and also since I have some new blogging friends, I thought I would show some of my earlier quilting.  I love the pioneer braid quilts, another one of those "one block wonders."  It is a simple rectangle block, sewn one on top of the other, usually in rows of darks and lights.  The only real tricky part is trimming off the triangular edges once you have the strips the length you want them, and then very, very carefully sewing the strips together because they are on the bias and will really strech out if you are not careful.  The key is not to handle those strips any more than absolutely necessary to pin them together and then stitch.  The bias edges also makes the binding a little more tricky, but slow and steady will keep those edges from stretching out.  I had a sweet little lady tell me that she literally threw away a whole quilt top once because she stretched the edges out so much that it was beyond fixing.  I was more than a little bit anxious about tackling this one, but it really was much more simple than I thought.  I wanted to do something patriotic for summertime so I did the braids in dark reds and creams and then added a top of blue and appliqued stars to my "flag."  I ended up quilting with three different stitches --- stitch in the ditch for the strips, blanket stitch applique for the stars, and stippling around the stars. 

Oh Cherry Oh!

Despite my goal to NOT purchase any more fabric until I have started using up my stash, I found this gorgeous fabric by Moda called Oh Cherry Oh and I fell in love with it.  It is just so summery and vintage looking and bright and cheerful ....!  I could think of so many more adjectives but will stop there.  I finished quilting this grocery bag dispenser but bought enough fabric for a window topper, a garter for a Longaberger basket that is sitting on top of my refrigerator, and a big placemat for a marble slab that is sitting on my island.  I really love this fabric, can you tell???

My sweet mom has been gone for 13 years now, but in honor of Mother's Day I am making a supper that was one of her favorites and also one of my favorites that she made ...... spare ribs, potatoes, and saurkraut.   My husband is from Mississippi, where ribs are ONLY barbequed.  They have their secret dry rubs for the slow process over the smoker and Mississippians may differ somewhat on whether the sauce should be sweet, smoky, tangy, or spicy, but they never disagree that ribs are only for Bar-B-Q-ing.  My husband still doesn't care for my method, which probably is German in origin.  But, he smoked a nice pork loin yesterday and I am fixing my mom's recipe on top of the stove for the kids and myself.  We do agree on the sides, fresh greens from a dear friend's garden and cornbread.  I am not sure if the ribs in heaven are "Suhthen" or German, but Happy Mother's Day Mom, I love and miss you every day. 

Dresden Plate, Finally!!!!!!!!!

 I made my first ever Dresden plate block and I do not know why I waited so long!!  They look very difficult and I guess I was just was a little apprehensive about tackling it.  This made an 18-inch wall hanging.  I need to play with the size of the blades in order to make a 12-inch block to put in a shadow box.  I see lots and lots of these in my future .... fall quilt, Christmas quilt, 30s ....

Quilted watermelon

I cannot wait for that first piece of sweet watermelon....one of my favorite things about summertime.  In the meantime, I quilted one of my own to look at --- another bag to store my plastic grocery bags.  The weather sure feels like summertime, may as well make my kitchen look like it.