And here it is after we made a serious dent in it (and yes, there are only two of us here…ahem.)

Nothing really important to say about this except, YUM!….and don’t be afraid to delve into this project, even if you’re a beginner.  I had no problems whatsoever; just be sure to follow the directions exactly and enjoy!  You will be so proud of yourself.  I could have cooked the custard maybe ONE MORE MINUTE and it would have been thicker (more to my personal liking) and the bananas could have been riper, but let’s face it, that would have meant waiting one more day and I’m not doing something like this on a Monday night after work.  I’m lucky if I can warm up leftovers for dinner before I collapse in front of my DVR recordings.  If I can scrape up anymore energy than that, it is reserved for music practice. 

Wishing all a good work week.  At the end of it is a 3-day weekend for me, so let’s just get going on it!

Addendum:  If you find that you have lumps in your mixture after adding the eggs and milk to the dry ingredients, once you get it thoroughly dissolved, but still thin, just use a small strainer to get them out.  It’s a common problem with egg mixtures such as this, but easily solved.  Also….I want a wall or a sofa the color of that golden meringue!

These were so much fun, I was like a kid playing with play doh!  I found the tutorial online (though not free) and it was very detailed and helpful.  This project uses air-dry white clay (DAS is recommended) and some cookie cutters.  I used some rubber stamps for texture, as well as rolling between linen fabrics.  I had some special clay stamps for the lettering.  It takes a little patience for the drying, and you do need to flip them over frequently to prevent the edges from curling as they dry.  The final stage is some sanding (I used plain old emery boards) of the edges, and then adding loops of 1/8″ white ribbon.

It was a very satisfying project and well received, because the ornaments were chosen and embellished for the individuals involved.  I did lots of extras to use as gift tags (just write on them with a fine point Sharpie.) What I loved about these is that they are simple, basic and earthy, somehow at the same time both rustic and elegant, and very personal.

I made some brown sugar scrubs and just packed them in recycled cosmetic jars.  The luxury lotion bars were a simple matter of melting together three ingredients (beeswax, shea butter and avocado oil) and pouring into small molds.  I packaged these up rather grandly for the gifting, but you don’t need to go as far as I did!

One of my gifts was a box of hand-made ornaments for a person who will probably decorate a small tree for herself with them. There were several of the white clay ornaments, as well as crocheted roses in several sizes and different textures of yarns (forgot photos, sorry!)  There were some crocheted snowflakes and some fabric rosebuds, as well as these adorable yo yo flowers.

All the objects were white, off-white, or natural in color;  I just got started with the white clay and kept going, so I called her gift, “variations on a theme.”  There was also a button-covered, beribboned ball ornament and I am so kicking myself for not remembering to photograph it!   She loves buttons and all of them were white, off white or natural variations with a large silk bow.

Another fun project (mostly because it was for someone really special) is this shrug for my violin teacher, Monika.  I promised her I would not post her picture here, so the second best thing would be these photos with the strange color (the sweater is actually black.)

I almost forgot!  There was also homemade hot fudge sauce and caramel sauce, which people received with great enthusiasm.  I’ve already shown the caramel, but here is the hot fudge sauce being jarred.

I found a recipe that was very straightforward, though I must admit that the first batch got thrown out, due to a really dumb mistake.  I put about 10 times too much salt in it and it took for-EVER to boil, but it looked beautiful when it was done.  One taste, however, told me what I’d done wrong.  No matter how long you’ve been cooking, you can still make silly mistakes that destroy your project.  I tried not let it mess up my head and just started over.  In half an hour I had the project done correctly, but that was a long evening.  I was just grateful that I had enough of the ingredients to do another batch without going shopping again.

There were some huge batches of granola made for a few people, also.  I love this stuff myself and it’s a huge sacrifice for me to give it away, LOL, but the people who received it are very special to me, so it’s all good.

Hope your holidays are as wonderful and warm as mine.  I loved the making and giving….wish I could give handmade gifts to all on my list, but some don’t value it as much, or want/need more technical or practical things and that’s okay, too.  I spent time with my family (and Skyped with the daughter not here) and ate a bounty of good food.  All the gifts I received were thoughtful and personal (including the kitchen appliances that I specifically requested!)

Following a recipe I found on the web, I made us some quinoa patties.  They saute in a small amount of olive oil (I used a non-stick pan) and take about the same amount of time to cook as a thick hamburger.  Here is what they looked like:

Not bad, actually.  My husband thought they actually had a texture similar to burgers made of ground beef, but they were definitely bland tasting and needed some help.  I seasoned them with several spices, salt and pepper of course, celery, onion, egg, and shredded cheddar cheese.  They are small patties, so we placed them on dinner rolls and called them “sliders.”  We added some mayo (or thousand island dressing) and a slice of tomato, and they really were okay.  Nothing to get excited about, but definitely something we could both add to our list of acceptable foods for a non-meat meal–occasionally.  Neither one of us is going to give up meat (unless we suddenly can’t GET any, LOL!), but this is one thing we can handle once in a while. I will add some stronger seasonings next time.  Or more of the same ones.

Addendum 12/02/11:  I find another recipe for these that uses cottage cheese (yum) and chopped carrots or zuchini…sounds moist and yummy and I’ll try it next time.

I did promise photos of my Halloween costume, but I didn’t promise photos of myself wearing said garment.  The pictures were so awful I could not post them.  I deleted them from the camera and that is that.  I didn’t get to wear it for work anyway–long story I won’t bore you with, but here is my Little Red Riding Hood cape/hood:

I don’t know why these pictures make it look pink–it was definitely a fire engine shade of red, with red braided trim.  The fabric was a polyester velour that was suede-like and easy to work with.  Maybe I’ll wear it sometime.  Or pass it along to someone who needs a fast costume.  Add a basket of muffins and some boots, a dirndl skirt and peasant blouse and it is a perfect costume for a younger person.  I just looked like someone made a mistake and put the grandmother of the story in Red’s Riding Hood.  (sigh—full disclosure.)

The table looked like this before food and people:

I got a little bit more “Martha” than usual, just doing some simple things.  The centerpiece was not original; I’m pretty sure I saw that somewhere on Pinterest.  It’s just corn, dried kidney beans and lentils poured in around a candle I already owned.  Cheap and natural for some fall color.

The place cards are something I’ve never done before, and the download was free on Martha Stewart’s site.  I had the wonderful cardstock paper already, so this was totally free for me, except for a few minutes of time on the download and printing, and I got youngest daughter to cut them out for me and write names.  Just a fun little touch that I’d never have bothered with back in the days when I frequently had 14 or more for holiday dinners.

The food went like this:

The traditional, of course–turkey, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce (homemade by Linda), mashed white potatoes (Linda again), sweet potatoes with apples, nuts and marshmallows (no picture, due to slightly burnt m’mallows), three vegetable casserole with cheese sauce, rolls (from Texas Roadhouse), apple crumb and pumpkin pies eaten with the homemade caramel sauce and whipped cream.  We were stuffed, to put it bluntly, but happy.

A couple of these dishes are family favorites here.  The yam dish not pictured is one I’ve been making for many years and is simply canned yams layered with apples, and a mixture of pecans, brown sugar and cinnamon, dotted with butter and when finished baking (covered), topped with mini marshmallows and broiled for a couple of minutes.  The name of this dish is “Apple Mallow Yam Yum” and it is quite fitting.  Brother Dave doesn’t care for sweet potatoes, so we get to indulge in mashed whites, also, and who doesn’t love that?

The other one that is a Sawyer family fave is the Three Vegetable Casserole.  Been making this for over 30 years and even people who don’t usually care for one or more of these veggies loves it.  Frozen broccoli florets, cauliflower and brussels sprouts, topped with a mixture of condensed soup (we like cream of mushroom, cr. of chicken, or cr. of celery) and Cheese Whiz ((I know, but it’s the only time we eat this particular junky food), melted together.  You bake at fairly high temp for 30 minutes with foil or a lid over top and then uncover and top with bread crumbs and bake another 30 minutes.  Even when my kids were little, they loved it.

The food was great, but the company was even better.  We enjoyed having brother, Dave, his wife, Linda, my oldest and youngest children here.  We played Scrabble in teams, and even though David and Scott’s team won (not surprising), the scores were not that far apart.  We must have had well-matched teams.  It was great fun and followed by the pies.  By nine o’clock, I was ready for sleeping, but forced myself to stay up later so I could visit with my daughter, whose company I thoroughly enjoyed.

Friday, Julee and I got to spend the afternoon making cookies.  Our family’s favorite is Chocolate Bits and we made a batch of Chocolate Chip, too. Husband thoroughly enjoyed this, even though he was in another room.  Guess why.  Maybe it’s because, by the time we actually finished the baking, Julee and I had only tried one each of each cookie type, while Jim had sampled several…of each.

We each wound up with a large canister of cookies and kept a dozen aside for my son.  Wasn’t that nice of us?  :) Actually, if he found out we made dozens of his favorite cookie and didn’t save him any, there might be repercussions

Tonight is leftover night for Jim and me.  Such a chore, but has to be done Hope everyone’s family time was as good as ours.

But this one uses only white sugar, real butter and real heavy whipping cream.  It really only takes a few minutes, but it requires very specific steps, taken at very specific times and it’s kind of persnickety about everything.  I made only one tiny mistake that caused a little bit of sugar crystals to happen, but I’m not going to let that deter me from putting this on everything from ice cream to the apple crumb pie I intend to make for T’day this week.

The only change I might make (besides the little error that caused some sugar crystals) is to add a little salt next time.  They say you can also add other flavors, such as rum or vanilla.  I think I’ll just keep this one simple.

This stuff could be seriously addicting and heaven knows I didn’t need another sweet thing to love, but I do like to know how to make things from scratch, and I’ve added another one to my repertoire.  Sometimes I just like the challenge of learning a new skill and being able to say I can do it.

I will try to get pictures of my food this week before we dive into everything.  If I don’t get anymore posts done before Thursday, (I shall be VERY busy), I wish everyone a wonderful, heart warming and tummy filling Thanksgiving, full of gratitude for all the blessings in their lives.

What better way to use our homegrown apples than apple pie?!!  None, I say.  I rarely remember to take photos before we dive into our food (nevermind what that says about me, please), but here it is in the current state of being enjoyed.

We also drizzled homemade caramel sauce and topped it with store-bought whipped cream (the real stuff.)   I was very disappointed with the caramel sauce recipe that I found on Pinterest.  It used corn syrup, brown sugar, butter and cream, but for all the expensive ingredients and time invested, I thought it was rather tasteless.  Other than being sweet, you couldn’t really taste that it was caramel.  Caramel has a very distinct aroma and flavor, and I won’t waste my time again on this supposed “short cut” recipe.

Next time I’m going to try the real thing (sugar, butter and cream.)  If I mess it up, I mess it up.  I was actually going to make the “easy” recipe for some holiday gifts, but if I can do the real thing, I’m going that way.  I know I’d appreciate it if someone made real caramel sauce for ME.

Anyhow, I was pleased with my pie–possibly the best one I’ve ever made and certainly the prettiest, though you certainly can’t tell that from the photo showing it after being demolished.  We also had beef stew with Bisquick dumplings on top for dinner, so it was a comfort food night here.  Lots of good leftovers for week-night eating.

 I hope you can see the elegant shape of it and the fact that it is the perfect color match to my camper bedroom fabrics.  When I saw that, I knew I was supposed to have it, even if it was empty!  But it’s NOT!  A pattern I will eventually use, lots of thread, needles, buttons and even some yo-yo circles already cut out just waiting to be sewn.  It was meant for me.

I didn’t really “need” any of the things in the basket; I have plenty of supplies, but this basket is the perfect size to put on the floor and set my phones, watch, glasses, etc., when I go to sleep.  I’ll transfer the rest of my sewing supplies that are already at the camper into it and free up valuable real estate in a cabinet.  Yes!

As for the injured bird, it’s a sad/happy tale.  We arrived home from breakfast out this morning just in time to hear the loud “thud” with which we have become uncomfortably familiar.  We have a few casement windows which have the screen on the inside and the window glass on the outside and one of them sits at just the right angle that the sun reflects and the birds think they are flying between the branches of a tree.  We have found a number of them stunned and a few deceased. 

We were particularly upset by the large hawk that we heard one day (it’s a wonder he didn’t break the window.)  He must have been flying at a high speed and hit just right to immediately break his neck. 

However, when I heard it today and went to check, it was a little sparrow that was just standing there on the deck.  He allowed us to pick him up and take a few photos and then we placed him in a safer area, so he could recover and fly away when he was ready.  Obviously, he was disoriented, or he would never have allowed us to pick him up.  I stroked his little soft feathers and his tiny little head (can you imagine his awful headache?), gave him a bit of Reiki and wished him well. 

When I went to check on him about 10 minutes later, he was sitting, and as I approached, he did what all normal birds do…he stood up and flew away!  Yay!  He didn’t go far, but he perched on our arched trellis and eyed me cautiously from a distance.  I figured if he could perch and fly, he was going to make it. 

Here, for your enjoyment, are a few photos of our little buddy:

Since I was curious as to what specific bird he was, I looked him up and found this image:

White-throated sparrow, it was apparently NOT your day to leave earth. We are so relieved and wishing you happy (and safe!) travels.

The prep was easy, just popped a few simple things together in a zip-loc with the chicken and let it marinate in the fridge for a few hours.  It was NOT a day for grilling outdoors today, so I dug out my stove top grill pan and fired it up for this one (George Foreman works fine for this, I’m sure.)  My chicken turned out absolutely delicious, tender, juicy and full of flavor.  I look forward to doing this next spring and summer, when the weather is nicer, so I can use the stove top for my Corn/Pepper/Orzo recipe, because that takes up most of the stove! 

For today, we had another new recipe I found in “Taste of Home” magazine.  It is Sweet Potato Wedges and they were cooked in the oven, which worked perfectly for today’s circumstances.  I am extremely slow and clumsy peeling and slicing sweet potatoes, so this is not something I would do often, but the results were outstanding.  The sweet potato wedges are coated in a briefly boiled mixture of balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, butter, sea salt and red pepper flakes, then spread out on a (foil lined!) shallow pan and baked at 400 for 45 minutes, turning every 15 minutes.  Sweet, savory, spicy…what else could you want?!   They were perfect with the chicken.  Since it’s just two for dinner here, I have enough of both the chicken (I made a lot!) and the potatoes for another dinner and who doesn’t love cooking once and eating twice?  Especially those of us that work during the week.

Currently in the works is a simple Halloween costume, which I plan to whip up before Monday, so I can wear it to work.  Will have a post with photos for you soon.  I haven’t worn a costume since I was about 12 years old.  Finding a pattern in my size was the difficulty.  I had no lack of ideas–just couldn’t find much that would fit me.  This works and you will soon see why!

Anyhow, I would have enjoyed more sunshine, but it was still good to be away and I completed my camper bedroom decor that was begun at home.  I sewed the curtain trim on by hand, so I could do it while I sat outside and then rehung the curtains, hung the ones behind the bed for the first time and popped on my newly-made pillowcases.  Voila! Done.

Cozy, right?  The striped throw at the end of the bed gets tossed over that front window at night to block out the too-bright security light just outside our camper.  On the bed it’s just decor.  We have warmer, larger blankets of various sizes we use, depending on the temperature.  The ivory blanket beneath the striped one is a lightweight fleece and beneath that is a light thermal one.  We have a heavy fleece one that we only add when it’s COLD in there.

I’m really happy with this room and now it’s time to bite the bullet and do the curtains for the living room area, which is a huge project (but hopefully, my LAST project for the camper.)  There’s an area behind the sofa that is wider than the one behind the bed and there are large, long windows on the front and back of the camper on that end.  I need more fabric and time to think it through.  The good news is that we won’t be returning to the camper till next May, so plenty of time without having to do it all at once.  I can fill in when I get bored with all that straight sewing and do something fun occasionally.

As a source of amusement (only to locals of my area) I took photos of a street sign between Wytheville and Speedwell, VA, that can also be seen in Salisbury, MD.

Beyond the sign for Zion Church Road in Wytheville, however, are hills.  In Salisbury, it’s all flat.  There is also a Bethany Lutheran Church in both areas and in nearby Rural Retreat, VA, (I think that’s where I saw it) there is also an Asbury Methodist Church, just as there is in Salisbury.   Funny how these names pop up in both places– probably in many places…just like Oak Street, Maple St., First Street and many others.  It makes me feel like I’m in an alternate universe

Another source of amusement during this trip was the constant sound of walnuts hitting the ground.  There seems to be a real bumper crop of nuts from the abundant walnut trees at the campsite and they could be heard hitting earth with loud thuds, especially when a gust of wind came through.  We were thinking of getting hard hats for our time out of doors.  Those things sounded like hard-slamming baseballs when they hit the roof of the camper!  Raised me right up out of sound sleep, with my heart pounding.

So our little camper in the hills is tucked in for the winter and we’ll see it when the trees are once again covered in new green leaves.  I have lots of living to do till then.  I love my retreat, but I also love my home and I’m happy here, too.  I will not wish the next seven months away wishing I was somewhere else, but it will be good when I get back there.