Survivor: Kitchen

The second week of Survivor: Kitchen and the recipe called for lamb.  I was going to cook this earlier in the week but had already had lamb twice in the previous few days. I like lamb, but sometimes I suffer unpleasant side effects - don't ask. After already eating it twice I thought it prudent to leave it for a couple of days.


This is the original

Lamb Stacks With Mint Relish

I used this capsicum instead of a jar.

I stuck to the recipe except when it came to the salsa. I couldn't be bothered cutting into an onion just for a few bits for the salsa, so I just cut up some mint and drizzled a little lemon juice over.  I also added the feta and diced roasted capsicum to the top of the lamb while it was still in the pan, to heat it up a little. Oh and I used lamb sirloin as it worked out cheaper for one than buying a pack of lamb leg steaks.

I was a bit more generous with the feta, I love feta.


Served with some spinach and coleslaw.

I agree this is a keeper, it was quick, easy and very tasty.

Back on the bike again!

I feel like I'm starting to make headway with some sewing. This week has seen the finish of the Hopscotch quilt top.


There are some good points


 and not so good points,


but overall I'm really happy with the way this has turned out. Next I need to make the backing.

I also needed a quick finish and to play with some fabric.

the front

the back

That stitching is not as wonky as it looks here.

Sorry about the huge gaps between photos, blogger is not playing nice today.

There's a little fishy courtesy of Susan. A scrap of fabric I received in a swap, and I used a couple of scraps that I had on hand, including Anna Maria Horner, Aneela Hooey, and Sweetwater.

Survivor: Kitchen

Pinterest is one of my biggest time suckers, that and my incredibly amazing ability to procrastinate. I've been pinning on Pinterest for ages now. There's so much inspiration and I have a squillion and one pins, BUT I pretty much never do anything with them. Occasionaly I have a look through them to see what I've pinned.  I mentioned this to Shay last week. We quite often pin each others pins, especially the food ones. More often than not, the "totally bad for you but god they look good" recipes. Shay came up with the brilliant somewhat insane idea that each week we are going to pick a recipe and both of us are going to cook it. Now I'm sure you know by now that cooking/baking is not really either of our strong points. This is going to be a very interesting exercise. I'm going to apologise in advance to the very nice people that have produced these recipes, for all the disasters etc that are going to arise from this experiment.

This inaugural recipe is from Simply Delicious and is Creamy Dijon Chicken.

The original

My version of Creamy Dijon Chicken

Rather than retype the recipe here, you can go over to the actual recipe by clicking on the link above. You'll notice that my attempt doesn't look much like that one. I think that will be a recurring theme over the coming weeks. I didn't let the sauce reduce enough, I was in a hurry and hungry!

My changes to the recipe, that's official changes as opposed to "stuffed it up" changes -
I halved it as I was making it for one, so one for now and one for later, or possibly a late night snack "a la Nigella" when I get the munchies before I go to bed!
I didn't have any leeks, I only had a Spanish onion, I forgot to buy them at the supermarket, because I was completely shocked when I walked into the supermarket which was in the middle of renovations and everything was not where it should be.

Despite the differences, it was ok, I had it with a crisp salad, using whatever I had in the fridge, which wasn't much as most of my salad vegetables had succumbed to my scientific experiment of how long they could survive in the fridge, and had finally died.  (Side note, they don't last as long as you hope they will.)  I concur with Shay that maybe American dijon mustard is not the same as the French dijon mustard we get here, it was very mild.  I stress, this may not necessarily be the fault of the original recipe but I found that the mustard did not shine through and the lemon took over.  As it is, it is an easy,  quick recipe, especially if you flatten the breasts or cut them into bite size pieces so that they cook quickly, great for a mid week meal.  In my mind that's always a winner. I'm forever looking for quick easy meals.  If you're not a huge fan of strong mustard flavour, and I'm one of those people, it's mild enough that the kids should like it.   I'd probably tweak it next time, and either reduce or leave out the lemon.

This one didn't make the cut.

Jeff Shay has spoken. Creamy Dijon Chicken it's time for you to go.

Pop on over to Shay's Kitchen Survivor post at Quilting In My Pyjamas and stay tuned for next week's  burnt exciting offering.

I hit the jackpot, the Mouthy Stitches jackpot

Recently I joined in the Mouthy Stitches swap. It was the second time for me in this swap, and I loved it. It's full of really nice, positive people. I love the rules for these swaps, as it stops people trying to outdo each other. You don't feel bad because you've sent what was stipulated, when others make a bigger, better item or number of items and add a couple of hundred dollars worth of extras for their partner. This swap was for a tote and a key fob.

I tried to find as much time as possible to comment on all the photos appearing on flickr, although sometimes it was difficult as I was in the middle of moving. There were lots and lots of amazing totes showing up.  I had a couple of favourites that I was secretly hoping would come my way.  I didn't want to get my hopes up too much but imagine my absolute delight and surprise when I opened the parcel and found this absolutely gorgeous tote inside. I was so excited.  It's for me. All for me.

Kelly from Jelliquilts did an amazing job, it's perfect. I love every bit of it. The text fabric, the rainbow wonky stars and stripe on the back,  the hand stitching, and the gorgeous lining fabric, that will just have to be reversed so I can parade that side too.

I love the key fob, it's hot pink and has text fabric to match the tote, fabulous.

A big thank you to the swap mamas for pairing me with two very lovely partners.

I really did hit the jackpot with this one, thank you so much Kelly for being the best stalker ever.

Bloggers Quilt Festival - Harlequin

Amy is hosting the Bloggers Quilt Festival again. I really love finding new to me blogs and seeing so many beautiful quilts.

I wasn't going to join in this time as I've hardly made anything in the last 6 months due to renovations, sale of my house and moving to a new house, but thanks to Suz at PatchworknPlay who reminded me that there are different categories and if I finished my mini quilt I would be able to enter it. So here it is.

I started this way back in March, when I was in the middle of renovations and de-cluttering so that I could sell my house. It was so bright and cheerful after working on more muted projects.


It began with a charm pack of A Stitch In Color and a Kona solids charm pack.  I used Elizabeth from Oh Fransson's  stamp collection tutorial.

It grew from there. I added some borders and decided to play with some wonky triangles.

The triangles were only ever so slightly wonky, not really wonky enough, which kind of made it look like I was really crap at piecing, not, oh wow those are fabulous wonky triangles. So to give them a little more character and make them look a whole lot better, I added yo yos to the points. The yo yos are made from both solids and A Stitch In Color scraps. I really like that they have added a touch of whimsy and fun to the quilt.



A little hand stitching using co-ordinating perle thread. Another thank you to Susan at Canadian Abroad who helped with suggestions on hand quilting.



I pieced the scrappy binding using solids and one piece of the A Stitch In Colour charm pack.

HARLEQUIN


Fabric -  A Stitch In Colour charm pack, various Kona and Bella solids including Bella snow.
Hand quilted using perle thread
Embellishments - yo yos
Sewn and hand quilted by me
Best Category - Mini Quilt, Wall Hanging



So pop on over to Amy's and check out all the wonderful talented people who have joined the festival.

Finished

The tote for Mouthy Stitches 2 swap.














I can't say much as I don't want to give away who this is going to,  but I'm hoping my partner will love it.  I really enjoyed making it. I had a hard time finding some contrasting lining fabric but I think the Tilda print works well.

Meanwhile back to the never ending grind of unpacking boxes and trying to find a place for everything.

I'm back...at least I hope I am

Yay, finally unpacked (sort of, I still have eleventy hundred boxes in the garage that need to be opened and places found for everything that is in them), but at least the rest of the house is pretty much unpacked, except...............

My sewing room is a total disaster zone.  I'm trying to bribe people with a holiday in paradise so that they can come and organise my sewing room for me.

The day we officially moved in I was greeted by this-

Furry cute cuddly (well kind of cuddly, at least they look cuddly even if they don't particularly like being cuddled) wildlife for a change, instead of great big huge scary spiders, humungous pythons, bats, ticks, and all the other icky creatures that used to be found in and around the old Chez Sunshine.  Contrary to what some people think, yes Shay, I did not cut and paste the koala on to the palm tree.
I lived at the last house out in the country for 13 years and never saw a koala, ever. I move to suburbia, and on the first day, lo and behold, a koala in a palm tree in my garden. I think that must be a very auspicious sign.


Even though my sewing room is a total disaster, I've set up the sewing machine and searched through boxes to find some of my stash so that I could work on the Mouthy Stitches Swap. I've really enjoyed stalking my partner and I hope this reflects both her mosaic and her brief. If not, I'm in trouble.

I still have to embroider the centre and cut out the pieces for the tote but at least I'm on my way to getting it finished.  I spent today trying to find some hardware to make the key fob that is to go with it.  This evening I'm hoping to work on the embroidery or the key fob. Unfortunately this house has no power points in the living area, so all my lamps that I had in the last house are useless. It also makes it difficult to sit and watch tv and hand sew.  I'm crossing my fingers that somehow there will be a solution.

Hopefully I'll be back to regular blogging now that I have the computer set up, internet, and about 5 mins a day where I'm not unpacking or cleaning so that I can take photos and start blogging regularly again. It would be nice too, to be able to sit and enjoy the new view.

PS  I'm really sorry that I haven't been able to catch up on blog posts and leave comments. I tried to at least read a few in between the mayhem of moving but I still have over 1000 posts in google reader. I think it may be time to hit delete, but  yikes, what am I going to miss though?