60 Weeks Until ..... Number 14

This week was delicious!  I highly recommend this one.

Yogurt-Baked Fish with Walnut-Herb Crumbs

You will need

500g White Fish season with salt and pepper

Grease a baking dish
Remove any stray bones from fish and place in one layer in the dish

150g breadcrumbs
150g finely chopped walnuts
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/4 chopped tarragon
1 tablespoon butter

Mix altogether with your fingertips until the consistency is fine crumbs

250g natural Greek yogurt
1/2 teaspoon cornflour
1 egg
1 tablespoon lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

Mix all these together into a smooth cream. 

Pour the creamy yogurt sauce over the fish.
Pack the walnut crumbs generously over to cover the fish.
Bake for 15-20 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius.

Serve hot with rice and fresh salad. 

I used New Zealand Hoki but any firm white fleshed fish that becomes succulent and tender when cooked will be successful.

Enjoy!

Colour Coordination and Naxos Red

Yesterday the HD3QBEM and I went to Daruma Sushi and here's the proof.  Doesn't the HD3QBEM eat a lot!   I colour coordinated the pile of dishes to make it easier for the waitress to count.

On the way home we called at my LNS and I sneaked a couple of shots of Christmas trees.   Somebody else has made a Suffolk Puff tree!   I really like the idea of cinnamon quills for the tree trunk.   Might try that myself next year.   The button tree would be better in green and/or red I think but I doubt I will copy that idea as I couldn't be bothered sewing all the buttons on (^_-)

Last night I completed the final ornament for the 2013 Christmas Ornament SAL and the big reveal will be later this month.   This one is not a hanging ornament - it stands alone on its own one foot.

The Naxos Necessaire is coming along well.   I have one main panel, the wide hinge and the two narrow hinges to stitch and then I will have completed my target for this year.   Construction of this is complex and not suitable at all for the silly season busyness of this time of year so I will put it away, joyfully start a new project and finish-finish in 2014.
Yes, she says with a small jump of great happiness.  I can make a start on a new piece.  What shall it be?   I have already decided -  it will be a sampler so that I get a variety of stitches and colours.   While it may be traditional,  these monochrome Naxos inhabitants have created in me a total boredom and somewhat temporary dislike of red.  
 Weekend chores are now done and I'm off to put tonight's dinner in the oven and then read some more of my Henning Mankell e-Book.   Enjoy your weekend as I have enjoyed mine.

November Christmas Ornament

And now for the November Christmas Ornament.  I have had this one prepared for a few months and soon it will be wrapped and posted off so it can be displayed on its very own tree.  
But here's a photo to prove I've done it!

Please don't ask me where the design came from.   I can't remember.   It's a scrappy piece of A4 paper but I do know that I stitched this on 28 count linen in DMC115

Still a little early to say Happy Christmas so I'll try Happy Thanksgiving instead.

This is made for me!

I work for an office products supply warehouse and today while chasing up the manager for a signature I went past a new shelf and saw a "made-for-me" notebook.
What sort of notebook is that?
Let me show you

Just perfect for someone like me who loves lists!

I can see this filled with a variety of lists but first up is of course an embroidery To Do List (^_-)

60 Weeks until .... Number 12 and 13

It's catch up this week.

First up Easy Lemon Chicken

4 chicken breasts (around 250g each)
500g potatoes peeled and chopped into small pieces
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 and 1/2 teaspoons Italian seasoning

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius
Arrange the chicken in a single layer in a shallow pan.
Place the potatoes around the chicken.
Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Combine the vegetable oil, lemon juice, garlic and seasoning
Bake for 50-55 minutes until the chicken is done and the potatoes tender when seasoned with a fork.
Increase the temperature to 200 degrees Celsius and cook for another 10 minutes until the potatoes are browned.

Delicious and enough for three meals.   Yay!   An easy week for meals this week.


Next is Roast Pumpkin, Zucchini, Capsicum and Feta Crustless Quiche.

Cut 500g of peeled pumpkin into 1cm dice and roast in a hot oven
In a pan sauté

• 1 clove of garlic crushed
• 1 small red capsicum diced
• 1 zucchini trimmed and diced
• (and I added four mushrooms also chopped finely)

Season the mixture well then add the roasted pumpkin.

In a bowl mix together 1 cup self raising flour with six eggs and 100g of grated cheddar cheese.

Add the vegetable mixture to the egg flour and cheese mixture and combine well.

Pour into a well greased and floured 24cm springform cake pan.   Smooth the top and crumble 100g of feta cheese across the top.

Bake for 40 minutes until golden brown and the egg is set.
Serve with a side salad and tomato chutney. 

Yummy!   But should really be called Vegetable Cake as that's what it looks like on the plate.

So this week the HD3QBEM won't have to cook anything, just reheat as needed.   Isn't she lucky to have such a kind daughter ;-)



  

The week of odds and ends

This week I seem to have filled my time with odds and ends.   All profitable and all on the "to do" list but not as enjoyable as constant stitching!
The HD3QBEM has had a fair few dropped stitches in her knitting so I have been repairing that.  Then she decided to "tidy up so that there wouldn't be a mess left for the children".   That plan went well until we reached papers that she could no longer read properly so I was eyes and ears for an evening.  
My oh my!   Photos of my grandmother at 21 in 1924 (I wish I had her looks),

my grandparents wedding in 1926,

letters my father wrote when he was travelling in India (still carrying Delhi Dust inside their plastic pocket), various birthday cards, etc etc.   I am amazed -  the HD3QBEM is very decisive!   A pile to go through the shredder; another pile to go in the rubbish bin; and another pile to go to Little Brother.  

Next shelf had two framed samplers stitched in the days before blindness came -  one is going to the storage cupboard in the garage (postpone that decision?!) and the other to a granddaughter (when I get to writing the accompanying letter).

The end result was empty shelves and a happy mother -  but no stitching!

Tonight I am going to have a stitch session - accompanied by a most interesting audiobook.   My local library provided this one "A Teardrop on the Cheek of Time" - all about the history of the Taj Mahal.   I'm enjoying the history of the moguls while stitching on my Naxos Necessaire and plan on making good progress this evening.   Three of four panels are done as well as the needle case panel and the scissor keep panel so on I reckon I am half way through the stitching.   So far so good.
The Dutch Hussif is at the stage where no further stitching can be done until the next 'pages' are completed.  I won't be doing any more on that until my two weeks of summer holidays which start in one months time.

Tomorrow I have to go to the City and exchange my bus ticket as they have changed the system and my old electronic ticket will expire on Sunday.   The HD3BEM has a small list of Christmas shopping I need to do for her and I have a few items on a list myself.   When am I ever without a list?

My list of  "Want to Stitch" for 2014 includes the following

Mermaids Sea Chest -  Lauren Sauer

Acorn Stitch Roll - Heritage Needlework Guild

My Favourite Things Stitching Basket - Ellen Chester
A small item for Little Sister
A small item for Little Brother

And with that I'm off to my lamp, my needle, my stitching and the delights of the Moguls of Agra.

A few dozen ...

Today was St Catherine's Day and as she is the patron saint of Lacemakers, the local Guild sponsored a get-together.   They had an awesome display of beautiful lace -  some old vintage and some created this past year by members of their Guild.   As happened before ( here)  I was really tempted to try this exquisite work but do not need to add any further obsessions hobbies into my already packed schedule.   So I watched, admired and closed my mouth when I was tempted to make enquiries about lessons.   Beautiful bone bobbins, glittering spangles and detailed textbooks were ever so tempting!

Meet Evan.   He was the guest speaker and he is an expert painter of Pysanka.   Yet another temptation! 

Dozens and dozens of these beautifully painted eggs came out of his capacious supermarket bag.   Gingerly we passed them from hand to hand.   One poor lady dropped two which miraculously did not break so obviously they are more robust than I imagined.   He told us much of the significance of each of the motifs - much of his explanation I have already forgotten but for this egg

I do remember that the oak leaf =  King of the Forest and is supposed to be a good luck  charm for men who have fertility problems.
I rather liked this one with the poppy motif too.

After bringing out nearly a  dozen trays of eggs (yes 144 in total!), apparently only a minute percentage of his vast collection, Evan gave a demonstration of how the original design is sketched on symmetrically. 

He showed how the wax resist (blackened beeswax) is applied with a delicate stylus similar to that used for batik;  how the egg is placed into the cold dye bath = ever so many steps in applying all these colours; how the wax is melted off the completed egg (ever so gently and rubbed delicately with many many paper kitchen towels).  

Many of the ladies wanted him to come and take a workshop, but moi??   I prefer my hands to be their natural lily white, unstained by blue, yellow, red or any other colour dye.  
And as for stitching..... well I have completed the stitching on the Dutch Hussif, Dorset button fastenings included, and now have only the construction of that page to go.    Photos to follow.
The Naxos Necessaire progress report is  Cover 1 and 2 completed, Scissor keep completed, Needlebook cover half done.   Excellent progress Margaret.  Keep up the good work.