Cutting Up Jeans For A Rag Quilt

I recently cut up 10 pairs of jeans that Mr. in The Mid-west had worn out. I have been collecting them for some time. From 10 pairs of jeans I got close to 120 squares for my Rag Quilt, 10 zippers for skirts, and a bunch of scraps that I think I will use for stuffing or making fire starters or something. Waste not, want not......

So I added the square pieces to the stack of squares that I been accumulating for several years. I think I have enough now to make a Rag Quilt. I am so excited to get started!

As I looked through the square pieces I had cut a couple years ago I saw that I had been much more desperate for material in the past. I had used a seam ripper and taken all the stitches out so I could unroll the hems and use every last scrap. 

I thought I was being frugal now, but I was way more frugal then. 

In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

1 Thessalonians 5:18

I am planning to share some pictures of the finished quilt when it is done.

Are you working on any projects? Let me know in the comments section!

Birthday Cake Recipe From BA Kitchen

This is a great Birthday Cake recipe. It uses an interesting butter-in-the-flour technique. This is a recipe by Claire from the BA Kitchen. If you go to their web site they have some really helpful step by step pictures to go with the instructions. HERE is a link. Every time I have made this cake it turns out rich and fluffy, with a moist crumb, and great flavor.

Pineapple Upside-down Cake

I have used this recipe as the base for Pineapple Upside-down Cake, and it works really well. I make a half recipe of Birthday Cake and pour it into one 10 inch cast iron skillet, over the caramel topping.

Here is the full size recipe, which will make a 9×13 inch cake.

Claire's Birthday Cake

1 cup Butter, softened and cut into 1" pieces

3 1/4 cups Flour

2 cups Sugar

1 Tbsp. Baking Powder

1 tsp. Salt

1/2 tsp. Baking Soda

2 eggs and 5 egg yolks

1 1/4 cup Buttermilk, room temperature

2 Tbsp. Oil

1 1/2 Tbsp. Vanilla Extract

Before starting prepare your 9×13 pan by greasing generously with some butter and then dusting with flour. Also, preheat your oven to 325° F.

First whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Add the soft butter pieces and, with a whisk or whisk attachment on your mixer, mix until the combination looks like cornmeal. You want the butter to be coating all the flour.

In a second bowl combine the eggs and yolks, buttermilk, oil, and vanilla extract, stir until everything is combined.

Make a hollow in the flour mixture and pour half of the buttermilk mixture into the hollow. Stir until all combined. Add the last half of the buttermilk mixture and, again, stir until all combined. Once the batter is smooth beat on high speed for 1 minute, until the batter turns glossy.

Scrape the batter into prepared pan and bake in preheated oven for 45-55 minutes.

Peanut Curry Recipe

I first made this recipe back in 2015 when I was challenging myself to try a new recipe every week. I really liked this recipe and wrote about it on my blog. You can check out the old post HERE. 

I hadn't made Peanut Curry since that time. A couple of weeks ago I made it again. I was looking forward to tasting it again, and when I did, I wasn't disappointed. 

I highly recommend that you serve this meal with the garnish of cilantro and fresh lime. It really adds a lot of flavor and balance.

Peanut Curry Chicken (My Rendition)

1 Tbsp. salt
5 tsp. curry spice blend
1 tsp. paprika
1/2 tsp. cayenne (optional)
2 1/2 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped
1 Tbsp. finely grated fresh ginger or 1/4 tsp. ground, dry ginger
6 garlic cloves, minced  
1/2 cup ketchup
3/4 cup smooth peanut butter
about 3 1/2 cups chicken broth, depending on desired thickness
1 pound zucchini, cut into chunks
1 red bell pepper, cubed
1 green poblano pepper, diced
1/2 cup roasted peanuts
serve on rice
garnish with Fresh Lime, Cilantro, and Peanuts   

1. Mix salt, curry, paprika, and cayenne pepper together in a small bowl.
2. Place chicken pieces in a separate bowl and add 1/2 of the spice blend. Mix together thoroughly to coat each surface with spice blend.
3. Heat oil over high heat in a heavy pot. Brown half of the chicken pieces on all sides. Transfer to a bowl. Repeat with the rest of the chicken.
4. Reduce heat to medium and add onion to pot. Saute until onions start to turn translucent and golden, 1 or 2 minutes. Add garlic and ginger; cook about 1 minute. Stir in remaining spice blend; cook and stir one minute. Pour in chicken broth. Add browned chicken along with accumulated juices. Stir in peanut butter and ketchup. Bring to a simmer and reduce heat to maintain a gentle, steady simmer. Simmer, stirring occasionally, about 30 minutes.
5. Transfer zucchini, red bell pepper, poblano pepper, and peanuts to the pot. Stir to mix. Continue simmering until chicken and vegetables are fork tender, 30 to 40 minutes. Remove from heat.
6. Serve over rice with a squeeze of lime and a sprinkle of peanuts and chopped cilantro.

A Lovely Tea Pot!

A few years ago I wrote a post about a tea pot that I was so happy to have. I had bought it at a garage sale. My sister found some tea cups of the same style and mailed them to me. At the end of the post you find out that I didn't get to keep the tea pot long because I broke it. I was so sad! You can read the post HERE.

This is a long overdue, follow up post. I read my old post recently and realized that I never told the rest of the story. 

The Rest Of The Story.....

My sister heard about my catastrophe and sent me this little gem for my birthday at the end of that summer!

Isn't she so sweet!

She looked on eBay until she found a tea pot with the matching blue design.

It even has these opaque, rice shaped details that the tea cups had, as well. 

And, some foreign markings on the bottom.

It is the perfect size for the little cups that she had bought for me, previously.

Sometimes in the afternoons I brew  some tea with this set for me and my little boys.

My sister has a history of tea related gifts. You can read about the
French Press she gave me, HERE, in this post.

Thank you for stopping by! Do you have a special tea pot? Let me know in the comments section! :)

Baby Whales

Back when I was making the Denim Humpback Whales I came across some pictures of baby stuffed whales on Pinterest.

I worked on drafting a pattern for stuffed baby whales, and sewed a few to work out the bugs.

I really want to write out proper instructions for how to make these, with pictures and everything. But, for the time being, I only have taken the time to show you the finished product.

I think I started this project back in January. I have been dragging my feet when it came to stitching the eyes. I don't think that part is very fun. I have finally finished them all! I was very excited to be able to get them listed on my Etsy store, QuietStandards, this past week! You can check the listings out HERE.

Little Bits Of Wisdom

This is a cute little book that BMW picked out at the resale shop.

Isn't it adorable!

Thelma Christenson's illustrations are darling! This book was published by Hallmark and is copyrighted 1967. Little Bits of Wisdom is a collection of wise and witty sayings along with pictures that correspond to the sayings. 

This publication is 42 pages long. 

As you leaf through the book, you will find a saying on the left-hand page, and the matching image on the right-hand page. Every other image is color and the ones in between are plain pencil.
 I'll share a few of my favorite pages.

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲

🍞 🍞 🍞 🍞 🍞 🍞 🍞 🍞

💲 💲 💲 💲 💲 💲 💲 💲

🍌 🍌 🍌  🍌 🍌 🍌 🍌 🍌

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Do you have any witty little sayings that you can share with us? I love to hear them in the comments section!

Fun Yeast Experiment!

I conducted a yeast experiment with my boys a few weeks ago. My oldest son is 4 and he loves science experiments. Technically, this wasn't a true science experiment because we didn't set up a control, but oh well, we had fun anyway.

Our experiment was about what types of fuel that bread baking yeast will produce the most carbon dioxide consuming. We had 5 plastic bottles and chose 5 fuel sources; sugar, honey, molasses, corn syrup, and all purpose flour.

Into each plastic bottle we poured 1 tsp. of yeast, 1 TBS. fuel, and 1/4 cup warm water.

We secured a balloon onto the top of each bottle to capture carbon dioxide.

We labeled the bottles as we went.

Within 5 minutes of setting up, the sugar bottle was in the lead.

At the 15 minute mark I noticed that some of the balloons had teeny tiny holes in the stem portion of the balloons. I used rubber bands to seal off the stems.

I took a picture of the bottles after 30 minutes,.....

1/2 hour

... At 1 hour,...

1 hour

... And at 3 hours.

3 hours

The next day I blew up the balloons for the children to play with. We discovered that one of the balloons had a teeny tiny hole on the top of the balloon. I didn't know which bottle it had come off. My first thought was that the holey balloon had been on the bottle with flour. I really had expected the flour balloon to do better than it did.

The next day I ran the experiment again, with a bottle with flour as fuel, and a bottle with sugar to act as a control.

After 4 hours,....

4 hours

There you have it folks, yeast really likes simple carbohydrates.

Bread baking yeast produced about the same amount of carbon dioxide with each of the sweeteners that we tried. There didn't appear to be any significant difference between using sugar, honey, molasses, or corn syrup as fuel. Sugar had a little head start, but after an hour the rest caught up.

Let us know how we could improve this experiment! If you have any ideas tell us in the comment section!

Carrot Jam; Layer Cake Filling

This post is for documentation purposes. I was "winging it" when I made this jam. If you are interested in a recipe for Carrot Jam, I will share the one I found and I used for inspiration. You can check that recipe out HERE.

After making Carrot Food Coloring For Icing.......

I had a bunch of grated carrot that I had squeezed a 1/3 cup of juice out of.

I added a 1/3 cup of water back to the grated carrots and put them into a sauce pan. I cooked them; steaming the carrots with the lid on the pot, for about 10 minutes, until the carrot pieces were soft and tender.

I placed the cooked, grated carrots into a blender, reserving about 1/2 cup. I thought that leaving some carrots un-blended would add some texture to the final product that would be pleasant.

I pushed the blended carrots through a mesh sieve. Why? I don't know. It seemed like the professional thing to do. I did want the jam to have some texture, so I probably didn't have to do this step.

I added the 1/2 cup of reserved grated carrots and 1 cup of sugar. I cooked the carrot mixture over medium/high heat until it started boiling, stirring as little as possible. Once it was boiling really good I cooked it for about 10 minutes, if my memory serves me correctly.

I allowed the jam to cool 10 minutes and then added 1 tablespoon of bottled lemon juice and 2 drops of lemon essential oil. I would have liked to add some lemon zest instead of essential oil, but I didn't have a fresh lemon. If I make carrot jam again I would add more lemon juice. I feel like my jam was lacking some acid. Carrots don't have any tanginess and most fruits that jams are made out of have a good amount of tanginess.

I used the carrot jam for the filling in a birthday cake. Everyone seemed to enjoy the carrot jam. Because of the color my mom expected the filling to be apricot. 

Carrot jam could be a little confusing on the taste buds, but it does make a very pleasant spread. I ate the leftover jam on oatmeal and liked it that way, too.