Delicious home made garlic salt

I made some garlic salt a few years ago and ran out a couple of months ago. It is really easy to make and so handy. Yes, you can peel a garlic clove every time you want to use some garlic or you can buy pre-peeled garlic or you can buy garlic salt. Nothing holds a candle to home made garlic salt, ahem, in my opinion. Here are 2 different batches of garlic salt and the larger jar holds celery salt. You can see that the smaller jars are different colors. The jar on the left is air dried garlic salt. It wasn't hot enough when I made the middle batch of garlic salt so I put it in the oven on low to hurry up the process and it dried out but got a little yellow. I messed up with the celery salt as it should be made with celery seed not celery stalks. I'm going to keep adding dried celery leaves to the jar as I get them. Maybe I will make a spice mix with it. Oh, and I didn't have jar rings to put on but make sure you do especially if your going to shake the finished salt occasionally to prevent clumping.

You only need 2 ingredients to make garlic salt, fresh garlic and salt. The ratio I used was 2 full heads to one unit salt container. I used regular iodized salt. I have also used sea salt. Iodized salt contains anti-caking ingredients where kosher and sea salt don't. If you use the kosher or sea salt, try to find fine salt. As the garlic salt dries, the salt crystals grow. If the salt grains are large to start with, they get even larger. If they do, you may need to put the garlic salt into a salt grinder or back into the food processor to grind down the salt. It won't fit in a regular salt shaker. I use a pinch when cooking scrambled eggs. Somehow, the larger the salt grains, the larger the pinch, so for those on salt restricted diets, you are forewarned, use small grain salt. This is all I used. My trusty old Cuisinart. If you don't have one just put the garlic through a press or chop it up fine. You only need 2 ingredients to make garlic salt. Fresh garlic and salt. I use the ratio of 2 full heads of garlic per full container of salt. The hardest part of making the garlic salt is peeling the cloves of 2 heads of garlic.

You can see that the crystals can get quite large. If you put it back in the Cuisinart to grind down, let it sit awhile as it makes a powdery cloud of garlic dust. I love to put garlic salt on my meat and in my scrambled eggs just a dash! It's really addicting!

As is my home made granola! Made with fresh picked and air dried blueberries! I have some refinements to make to the recipe before I post it, though. I had such trouble writing this post and arranging the photos (well, I couldn't see some of the photos or get them separated to write comments). I wish Google and Apple would get along better. Anyway, enjoy!

Homemade Soap Season

I guess I could have said homemade soap season is nigh upon us but who says that anymore except those of us who watch period dramas and read old books? For me it's harder to make soap in the summer because the temperatures get too high unless you start early in the morning. It takes too long for the sodium hydroxide to cool to the proper temperature unless I use up all the ice the ice maker produces then there is none for iced tea. Fall weather is so spectacular I really just like being out and about and in the garden. Early in the spring is the traditional time to make soap, post holidays and pre-spring cleaning, before there is weeding and gardening to do. (Having just wrote that, I don't think we have winter in California anymore. I am still harvesting squash from the garden, some roses are blooming, not all the leaves are off the trees and the weeds are starting to take off!)

These soaps turned out very nice (except for the spots). I used sodium lactate (which is a sugar) to make the soap harder since my recipe is not that hard but apparently, I didn't mix it in enough or something. Still even with the spots I am very pleased. I have a couple of these types of tray molds and I never seem to get anything aesthetically pleasing from what I have tried until now. I don't want to "paint" the details in as some have done (I have seen beautiful painted soaps on the websites that are usually selling the molds). My basic recipe is not that opaque but I refuse to whiten it up with titanium dioxide which is toxic.

So here is what I did. I made a batch of soap. I kept out about an ounce of distilled water when I made the sodium hydroxide (I put red devil lye into the distilled water). Then I made a small amount of green (sage) and brown (java) coloring (making up with the 1 ounce of water I withheld from the main batch of sodium hydroxide). I use dedicated pyrex measuring cups for soap making so that I can control the pour easier. So after putting soap in the individual pyrex cups and mixing in the colors, I poured the brown colored soap into the pine cone and branch areas and green colored soap into the pine needle areas. Then I poured the uncolored soap into the tray mold. As I had more green colored soap, I finished off pouring that into the tray. I have done this technique before on other detailed tray molds but they didn't turn out to my satisfaction probably because the color combinations didn't blend together as naturally as these do.

After letting the mold sit and unmolding  (plus 4 weeks curing time for the lye and fats/oils to completely saponify) and voilá! I have always thought of these soaps as very Christmasy but I guess they could also be considered rustic or woodsy and be used year round especially at a cabin. It's so nice I don't want to use it just yet.

Works in Progress

I've been attempting to get back into the swing of normal life…  I thought I would try part 2 of a small project I've been wanting to do since last Christmas. Some small Christmas tree skirts for 2 barbed wire Christmas trees that I have had for a couple of years and just adore. Here is one in a Dresden plate still unfinished. I have been trying it out with different backgrounds to see how I will back it. The plan now is to sew 2 circles together, slightly larger than the Dresden plate, turn it inside out, press it and sew the Dresden plate onto it. When I laid it out on one of my quilts, I thought, I am going to have to make another quilt like this with random Dresden plates on it. I'll add it to my list of quilt projects...

I cut out 20 blades for the Dresden plate but it became obvious that I was going to have to stop at 17. Thus, my pattern is not symmetrical. It was a trial run made from scraps but I love it anyway regardless of its imperfection.

Here it is ready for assembly with the first tree skirt I made out of felted wool in a rustic penny rug style I started earlier this year. (Yes, my creative output has been very minimal this year.)

I still have to stitch a piece of wool felt to the bottom of it with a blanket stitch. Here is a shot of the wool pieces I made my selection from. I hope to get them finished in time to decorate for Christmas.

Zentangling Away

 This is my third zentangle doodle. I was looking at the prow of a ship from a Viking ship if you can't guess. Still working on my medieval Norway quilt...

The doodle just progressed and grew until it became the whole ship. The perspective is off and it isn't historically correct and would probably fall over if it was built but it isn't a drawing just a doodle! And, did I say it's a lot of fun!

This is the first zentangle I tried. I am hoping to make some zentangle inspired embroidered hearts before Christmas.

Memory pillows

Okay, maybe this isn't the best title for this post... The pillows aren't made of memory foam but from old, favorite t-shirts of my friend's son. He is back from college and having to downsize his clothes. I needed some rags so she brought me some of his discards. I thought I would make him a quilt of his favorite t-shirts from the pile. Alas, he liked plain, un-logo-ed t-shirts...I found these 2 with nice logos from vacation trips to Hawaii. I could tell the Longboard Surf Club was a favorite from the frayed neck. With only 2 t-shirts to work with, I decided to make pillows instead. The t-shirts were boys medium in size so I had to add some fabric to the top of the white pillow to keep the logo centered on the pillow. The black pillow was a wife-beater t-shirt so I sewed a scrap in the spaces where the armholes were to make a 12 by 16 inch square. I cut the t-shirt apart at the sides and used the back to make a the flap since it had a finished t-shirt edge and I don't do zippered closures. I also sewed a 12 by 16 inch scrap piece of cotton batting to the wrong side of the front piece to give it a little more body and to help center the design on the pillow. Then, stitched around the logo, assembled the pieces (make sure the back is in the right order when turned inside out), trimmed the edges down and zig-zagged the cut edges. I slipped in the pillow form,straightened out the back and fussed it about to get it set right. Hope he likes them!

Hana Fukin Sashiko

Wanting to do something productive while wasting watching the TV at night, I decided that sashiko, a Japanese embroidery might be the ticket.  In the days before TV watching, well, folks used to be productive.  Men might carve wooden toys, spoons or bowls.  Women would sew or knit.  So, they would have to pay attention to what they were doing.  For me apparently, knitting and crocheting aren't mindless.  I have to concentrate.  That means I have to choose what to concentrate on.  But sashiko doesn't take much thought to do, once you put the pattern on your fabric.  Now, I am one of those people who is reluctant to throw something away, if it has faithfully performed its duty with style and maybe, is just a little worn out through use.  Hence, these lovely cotton dish cloths.  They were too thin to keep on using and people kept buying me new kitchen towels since I wouldn't quit using them.  And, it seems, well, silly so to buy throw away dusting cloths from the store.  So, I learned about hana fukin, Japanese kitchen cloths.  In the Japanese way of extreme thriftiness called shimatsu, items are reused, when no longer serving their original purpose.  In this instance, I folded the cloths in half, doubling their thickness and sewed them together.  Then, using a tin top, I traced intersecting semi circles to make these flowers.  Sewing the sashiko design went pretty fast.  Once again, my dishcloths have been recycled into pretty dust cloths.

My Mom used to be constantly in search of the most worn out t-shirts and pajamas because they made the softest dust cloths and wouldn't scratch the furniture.  I never understood why she prized her soft dust rags.  (Okay, she is the only person I ever knew who was obsessed with dusting).  She didn't sew her rags into hana fukin and I have never seen them in the houses of my Japanese aunts and uncles.  But, my grandmother died when my Mom and aunts were very young, so maybe this cultural practice wasn't passed down to them.  Sometimes, it is unspoken why people do the things they do.  (Another story is when my Mom would plant potatoes in the garden each year taking up the place where I wanted to grow tomatoes).  They just do things and we don't know why.  So, I think I will make more hana fukin.

Feathering my Nest

I meant to post photos of some of the things I made last year but I didn't get around to it.  So here is a queen sized duvet cover I made for my down comforter.  I bought the fabric online so I didn't realize the it was gold.  But, it was beautiful and I loved it.  I made a couple of pillow cases to match.

Here it is laid out in the spare bedroom looking like a bohemian squat amidst some of my other ongoing projects.

I liked the pillow cases so much I made some green ones.  Then, I made some blue ones, too.  They are very cheery and make me feel like a princess!  Since they are 100% cotton, I usually don't throw them in the dryer after washing but air dry them and iron them to a crisp finish.  People (wives/women and servants, I suppose) used to iron all of their linens along with their clothes!  Hard to believe in this day and age.  Sometimes, I think I could be a hermit and never leave the house except to go on vacation!

Quilt in Progress

Here is my Norwegian medieval quilt in progress.  I still have elements to work out.  Since the diamond blocks are at a 60 degree angle, they will not make a 45 degree angle, so I must figure out how the diamond sections are going to mesh with the cross pieces.  I still haven't decided the end corners yet either.

Originally, I have the blue block in the middle of the cross but it looks a bit out of place.  The blue block was going to be appliqued or pieced like a small, stained glass window to represent the window in the cathedral in Trondheim.

The diamonds represent shingles on a stave church roof.  I tried out random placing versus rows and thought the rows looked more roof-like.  Stave church roofs can have a number of levels, topped by a smaller roof.  Some roof timber ends have carved dragon-
like finials.  For the shingles, I chose fabrics that I thought might be recycled from finery.  I wanted to put in a wavy path encircling the quilt but I might just put a wide border with curly elements in it because the quilt's name originally was "All Roads Lead to Nidaros" as in the pilgrim's trail.  Still a ways to go to finish up the layout before I start piecing but when I look at it at random, I like it.

My Little Shifuku

My sister invited me to a tea at her church on Saturday.  We are supposed to bring a teapot and cup.  After looking through my cabinets, we decided on this cute little square teapot.  I didn't have a good way to transport it several towns away so I decided to make a shifuku for it.  A shifuku is a little drawstring pouch made specifically for this purpose and many times for a specific object as in my case.

I thought the square shape would be a perfect choice for a first time try.  I spent some time (a good part of the day) yesterday thinking about how I would make said shifuku and looking up examples on the Internet (few and a book on how to make them cost $40 plus, I didn't have time to wait for the book).  Then, it was onto what fabric.  I bought some Japanese print fabric at Joann's and then looked at my fabric closet to see what would make a nice contrast and chose this green, vintage cotton plaid scrap dissected from a thrift store man's shirt.  As I make reversible bags, I followed the way I make those except with a few variations.  Firstly, The sides aren't sewn up all the way but about the bottom third of the finished bag (it is about half way up the bag before the bottom is squared up).  The top two thirds open up, so they had to be hand sewn together.  I used a thick poly batting between the inside and outside fabrics.  (I don't know what they used in the photos I saw online but their filling seemed much denser and packed tighter plus, the shifuku should be made of old silk but I didn't want to use silk on my first try.)  I didn't like how the teapot sat in it with the poly batting, as it seemed bulky and not level, so I took it apart.  Then, I racked my brain for any kind of scrap I might have around to make a hard and level bottom.



I didn't really want to use card board, and traditionally, a Japanese paper called washi would be folded up and used.  I didn't have any spare washi laying around and even, if I did, no way!  Washi is way too beautiful to hide away in the bottom of a bag.  So, I found last year's monthly datebook with a hard plastic cover and cannabalized it.   I wrapped some flatter, cotton batting around it, sewed the sides up, trimmed the excess and inserted it in the bottom of the outside bag.  It looked like this.



Then, I stuffed the batting in moving it around squaring it to the corners of the outer bag, put in the liner bag, doing the same thing and pinned it all up making sure that the little teapot was nice and snug in the bag.  In the Japanese versions, I am sure that the bottoms aren't made this way but that a fabric covered square or round is attached to bottom.



Then, I had to make little loops to sew into the top and inserted a drawstring and voila!  Here it is, my little shifuku.  I want to get some ceramic beads for the ends of the drawstrings to finish it unless I can find something around the house (hmm, I'm guessing I can as I write this but I just have to figure out where I might have put said beads).  I also practiced mottainai which I do anyway but I didn't know the Japanese word for it.  I read about it in this unbelievable magazine I bought at the San Jose Kinokuniya bookstore called Kateigaho.  Since, it was dark after I finished, the photo is a little yellow.  I'll post some more photos tomorrow, if I have time.

Vespa Bag

For my friend's birthday (one that ends in a 0, her husband bought her a cute little black Vespa.  So, I made her a bag to go with it as her birthday present.  What do you think?  Stylish, no?

I liked it so much I made one for myself so we can be twinsies except that she is tall, thin and blonde and I am short, dark and, well, let's just leave it at that.

French Gardens baby quilt

My sister and I designed this quilt for our cousinette who is having a baby soon.  Our inspiration was the French gardens at Villandry.  Each cross represents a garden path.

The Bluebirds of Happiness

That is what I think everytime I look at these bird soaps!  Handwashing has risen to a new level of pleasure.  The shape is pleasing and as it gets used it loses its detail but is still pleasing to me.  This was also experimenting with colors and I like how they turned out.  What can I say, I'm into the simple pleasures!

Finished magnets

These are the finished magnets. I think they turned out quite nice considering they are photos from a date book glued onto magnets that came with the phone book.

This is a magnet that I made from a panforte wrapper. Panforte is the Italian version of fruitcake. The wrapper was so pretty but I didn't really have any purpose for it before it got a second life as a frig magnet.

Recycled goods

Last year, I received a beautiful, spiral bound datebook about my favorite love, Italy. The datebook was made of a wonderfully thick cardstock and although, it was lovely, I had my regular, monthly datebook in which I scribble all of the things I am supposed to do and things I have done. Still, I kept the Italy calendar on my desk, opened to the nearest photo page, so when I glanced over, I would see the photo and smile. So, as the year comes to a close, I hated the thought of throwing the datebook away but didn't really want to store last year's calendar for an indefinite amount of time. (Yes, I am one of the millions of viewers who have made A&E's TV show, Hoarders, a hit.) After all, I have my own photos of Italy neatly stored on digital media or in albums. So, I leafed through the calendar, tearing out my favorite photographs thinking that I would make a collage or maybe just put them up on my bulletin board with a stickpin holding them in place.

But then, I found these gentlmen stuck on the refrigerator. They were lovely 4 inch by 4 inch advertising refrigerator magnets that came with last year's phone book.

Last year, I made a bunch of these smaller refrigerator magnets from scrapbooking materials. But the photos from the calendar were much larger and I didn't think that the scale would work for the size of the magnet.

So, I took a piece of scrap paper, put the magnet on the paper and used a exacto blade to cut the area of the magnet from the paper. I could then move this template around the photo to choose what portion of the photo to use for the refrigerator magnet. I guess the size works.

Unfortunately, I have to choose between these two possibilities for this photo of St. Peter's Basilica.

As much as I love the dome, the one below is the one I decided on.

So, carefully mark the limits of the photo from the template and cut it down to size ( I prefer to use a large paper cutter rather than scissors or, ack!, my rotary cutter). You may want to leave the photo just a bit bigger than the magnet and trim off any excess photo after gluing. If you cut your photo short, no problem! Just trim the magnet down. Lay down some newspaper to protect your work surface and spray adhesive on the non-magnetized side of the magnet and press the cut out photo on it. If you get any air between the photo and magnet, try to smoothe them out. Trim any excess photo and voila! Beautiful refrigerator magnets from Italy! (Photos tomorrow!)

Baby Quilt in progress

My sister asked me to make a baby quilt for a friend. In a moment of weakness, I said, uh, sure. How much fabric do I need, she asked me. Considering the small size, I said about 2 yards plus fabric for the back. She showed up a couple of days later with about 12 yards, none of which more than 2 or 3 fabrics worked together. We looked through my considerable quilting stash but didn't find much more to add to the mix (I don't do baby quilts that often and have avoided adding any flannels to my stash). What is her theme, I asked? She didn't know but was going to go home and look online. When she called me back, she said the colors for the baby were pink and brown. Pink and brown? So, I laid out about 4 possible color combinations to think about of which only one was pink and brown when she showed up the next day with even more fabric! At least this time they had pink and brown colors. However, almost all of the fabric she had bought had a one way direction or lines! (Over all patterns are the best, without linear features and real quilters don't like printed, fake quilt patterns on fabric.) Cutting and sewing are not my strong suits. In fact, I can pretty much say, I don't particularly care for sewing at all. But I like having my own creations.

So after considerable consideration, I came up with this. I first cut the 5 inch blocks and the fabric was cutesy and babyish enough but kind of blah without any pop. So, I decided to fussy cut the rick-rack fabric, with long vertical lines to sew in between the blocks. I fussed alright, because, I am not the best at sewing straight lines and the quilt was going to look bad if the long vertical lines weren't straight. And, lucky for me, I only had to redo one vertical line. I was tormented by how to cut the shorter, rick rack fabric pieces in between the longer vertical pieces because the fabric repeat was close to the width of the block. I decided to hedge my bets by centering the cut on a yellow line since I was pretty sure it would be impossible/I would go insane trying to match the pattern. But, I did cut them all lined up colorwise the same. I'm quite pleased with the baby quilt. If I have enough fabric left over, I want to make a matching bag to go with it.

P.S. The light doesn't do the colors justice but I haven't gotten around to working on a better lighting situation yet.

Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day

I've been wanting to make bread all summer long, except that it has been too hot to even think of heating the oven long enough to bake bread. I have managed to go the entire summer without turning on the air conditioning (yay, utility bill) by opening up the windows after the temperature has cooled off. So last night, all the stars came together, (weather cool, boule made, sufficient time) and I baked my first loaf. Ta da! Here it is. I made it with an all purpose, unbleached whole grain flour courtesy of my sister and Costco. It was chewy and flavorful and crusty after baking on a pizza stone. I also got the pizza peel this weekend in San Francisco at Sur La Table and seasoned it up with mineral oil so it slid right off the peel (use the edible mineral oil for constipation found in the pharmacy section of the grocery store, don't use a cooking oil).

I suppose that if I lived in Europe, I would not be compelled to bake my own bread but I don't think that the Europeans would tolerate the current list of ingredients now in bread. The last couple of times that I opened a package of bread, it didn't smell like bread but slightly like the chemical aisle in the hardware store where all the pesticides are sold. Particularly repulsive are the hot dog and hamburger buns. When we looked up the ingredients on Wikipedia, I was taken aback by the fact that one of the preservatives is used as a foaming agent in plastic. Of course, the article goes on to say that all of the gas is burned off in the baking process. Is that why it smells so bad? Even the artisan bread at the local grocery store has a list of ingredients longer than I want. Here is what I want my ingredient list for bread to say: flour, salt, yeast and water. Okay maybe some flavorings but certainly not any combination of this list of additives. I am willing to live with the fact that bread made without additives will not last 2 weeks in a plastic bag but I'm thinking that the stores need the longer shelf life since customers are buying/wasting as much food in the past.

So, while my sister has been making bread with an Italian sourdough starter from Ishcia which I plan to bake with next time, I opted for the basic recipe in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I've ordered the book from Amazon but in the meantime, the basic recipe was in an article in Mother Earth News. Can't wait to make focaccia, pizza and hamburger buns!

Saturday Still Life

Bouquets of flowers from the garden.

A mixed bouquet of hydrangeas, calla lillies and aglaia daisies.

These are cone flowers otherwise known as echinaceas from my garden.

I couldn't decide which photo I liked better. Plus, I just love these flowers.

Some more flowers and greenery from my garden as well as the first squash minus what has been already eaten (I did try some batter fried zucchini blossoms stuffed with mozzarella cheese with little zucchinis attached this afternoon-delicious!) . We also made some frutti di bosco jam as well as some pickled beets. I was lucky enough to find golden and chioggia beets at the farmers market on Saturday.