I haven’t posted a recipe in a little bit so thought it was time – also I needed to take breaks from quilting today so thought it a good break time to do so.

This morning I got a crock pot full of the ingredients for the white bean chili and I have it cooking.

I am actually rather new to white bean chili.  When we visited our daughter in Wisconsin for Thanksgiving she made it from leftover turkey one day.  I have no idea why I never made it before.  Since then I have made it several times.

This is a Paula Dean recipe.  Everything is in the pot and I’m plugging it in to cook for the day.

White Bean Chili

1 pound dried navy beans
5 cups chicken stock
4 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
3/4 cup diced onion ( I used one large)
1 1/2 cups chopped green chilies (fresh or canned)
1 pound boneless skinless chicken breast – finely chopped
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 to 2 teaspoons ground black pepper (I found 2 teaspoons way too much for us and used 1)
1/2 teaspoon white pepper (don’t have so I left it out)
pinch of red pepper flakes
1/2 bunch cilantro leaves – chopped

sour cream and shredded cheddar cheese

Rinse and soak beans overnight.  Drain in the morning and rinse.

Put all of the ingredients in the crock pot and simmer all day.  I use high heat for about half of the day or until it is about boiling and then turn it to low and let it go the rest of the day.  You should do it how you know your crockpot cooks.   This could be done over the stove top as well and just stir now and then and simmer until the beans are soft.

To serve put in individual serving bowls and garnish with sour cream and cheese if you desire.  Have some bread too if you like

Plenty for leftovers for lunch a couple of days:

Which brings me to the next recipe!  I love homemade bread and thought to make some corn bread but then decided to adapt a recipe I have for yeast cornbread.  I had some sour dough left in the refrigerator that I wanted to get rid of – here is what I came up with.

Sour Dough Mixed Grain Bread
1 package dry yeast
1 1/4 cups of warm water
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1/4 cup dry powdered milk
3 tablespoons soft butter
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 1/4 to 3 cups flour

My additions:
2 cups of sour dough
1 egg
1 cup old fashioned oats
1 more cup of flour to knead in

In a large bowl place the yeast and 1/4 cup warm water let sit for about 5 minutes.  Add the rest of the ingredients – saving the flour for last reserve 1 cup of the total amount of flour to knead in on the board.

Mix to form a dough, then put on a floured space and knead in flour to make a nice dough that isn’t too sticky.

Put in a greased bowl and let double in size (in a warm area).  Punch down, shape into two loaves and place in greased pans.  Let the loaves raise again in a warm area about 30 to 45 minutes.

Pre-heat oven at 375 and bake loaves for about 35 to 40 minutes.  Makes 2 loaves

Enjoy!

Only one thing left for me to bake and that is my coffee cake that I always have for Christmas morning.  I made the dough yesterday – it sits in the refrigerator for a day and then I bake it in the evening.  Here is a link to it from several years ago.  It is called Potica, there are a lot of recipes for it.

If you do a search they are all going to be different.  I believe it originates in the Scandinavian countries.  I found my recipe for it over 35 years ago and have made no changes to it and grateful that it has turned out every year.  My daughters love it so much that they make it also for their families if they are not here for the holidays.  EDITED:  Not from the Scandinavian countries – more from central Europe – here is a link

If you are like me you have finished your shopping ages ago and can sit back and relax – do a little cooking and preparation and be ready for family.   Today other than getting some food ready for this evening – finger foods – I need to give the house a little cleaning and I’m relaxing.  I have some more of the melons cut out for Joseph’s Coat ready to put on the design floor so I can pin some pieces together.  I want to have some hand work for off and on the next couple days for in between visits.  I will also get some more quilting done on the Star Crazy quilt.  We do not have a lot of family around for Christmas so it is a quite holiday.  Our daughter that lives in North Little Rock and her husband will be with us for part of the evening.  Then they will go visit with his mom down the road from us and be back in the late morning for some visiting and late lunch then back to his mom and home they go from there.  Melanie is in retail and needs to be back for the bright and early day after Christmas sales.

I hope you all have a great holiday and get everything from Santa that you wish for

I don’t make a lot of cookies anymore for the holidays – I used to make dozens and dozens and probably 12 different kinds at that.  I started to bake cookies back when I was about 10 years old!!  My mother was not into baking, she made bread and an occasional cake, but cookies was not something she enjoyed making a lot.  As soon as my sister Vicki and I were old enough we took over the kitchen at Christmas time for making cookies – shortly after when the two brothers that were directly under us in age were old enough they started to make them too – we were stair-step ages about a year and a half between all of us (12 total, one set of twins).

When I married and had children of my own I continued making cookies and candy for Christmas time – forgetting that we only had a family of 4 compared to the family of 14 that I grew up with!!  I made way too many cookies, they would be in the freezer for weeks afterwards until we ate them all up.

Before the recipe though here is a photo of my grandchildren after they made a snowman in Wisconsin (where they live) this morning.  Just enough snow to get the front yard cleaned up!

One of the favorite recipes that my girls always liked and they both make them now that they have families of their own are called “Golden Thumbprints”  we all love them.  I am not a Martha Stewart type of baker, my cookies are not equal sizes the jam in them is not the same amount – you can tell they are homemade!

The recipe (I have no idea where I ever got this recipe, I have had it for years)

Golden Thumbprints

1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup softened butter
1 egg, separated
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup of flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup finely chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Cream together the first four ingredients.  Save the egg white for later use in recipe. Stir in the flour and salt. Refrigerate for an hour or two.  Roll the dough into little 1 inch balls (or close to).  slightly beaten the egg white and roll each ball in it and then and roll in the chopped nuts.  Bake for 5 minutes, take out of the oven and quickly indent each center with your thumb, fill center with a small spoonful of jam of your choice – I usual use raspberry.   Bake again for 8 minutes.  Cool on wire racks.

This recipe doesn’t make many – I usually double the recipe and I got 3 dozen cookies.

Ready to get started on the second baking sheet of cookies, as you can see you do get sloppy after awhile, I get chopped nuts in my egg whites, but that is ok – it all turns out right in the end!

Fill with jam and put back in the oven to bake.

Another tray ready for the oven.

We have each sampled these already of course – now I am putting the remainder away for when our daughter and her husband get here on Christmas Eve.

How about a good apple recipe from Karen’s Kitchen – well actually it is from Betty Crocker but don’t we all wish we could come up with such good recipes!

Apple Streusel Cheesecake Bars

1 pouch (1 lb 1.5 oz) Betty Crocker® oatmeal cookie mix

1/2 cup firm butter or margarine

2 packages (8 oz each) cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup sugar

2 tablespoons Gold Medal® all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 egg

1 can (21 oz) apple pie filling

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Spray bottom and sides of 13×9-inch pan with cooking spray.
2. Place cookie mix in large bowl. With pastry blender or fork, cut in butter until mixture is crumbly and coarse. Reserve 1 1/2 cups crumb mixture; press remaining crumbs in bottom of pan. Bake 10 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, in large bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar, flour, vanilla and egg with electric mixer on medium speed until smooth.
4. Spread cream cheese mixture evenly over partially baked crust. In medium bowl, mix pie filling and cinnamon. Spoon evenly over cream cheese mixture. Sprinkle reserved crumbs over top. Sprinkle with walnuts.
5. Bake 35 to 40 minutes longer or until light golden brown. Cool about 30 minutes. Refrigerate to chill, about 2 hours. For bars, cut into 6 rows by 4 rows. Store covered in refrigerator.

Makes 24 bars (if you want them tiny- we like them big )

This is cut and pasted from the Betty Crocker site.  I substituted my chunky applesauce – a pint for the pie filling – it worked out great – delicious!!

Done with my pumpkins!  Done with my apples – now I can get back to quilting and piecing.  I got 3 more quarts of pumpkin from the second one plus about one more cup that I will use in some pumpkin pancakes or bread this weekend.

Not a bad amount from 2 decorative pumpkins – they did double duty – decorated my porch for awhile and now enjoyed by us in bread, cupcakes, pies, just to name a few of the delicious items I will be baking this winter.  6 quarts in all.  I will be tired of pumpkin by summer!  So glad to be done with fall canning and freezing.  I don’t do this every year – just if I feel like it.

This is the old food mill I use – does anyone have a recommendation for a better one and one that is easier to use – wow did my arm get tired out cranking this one through two large pumpkins.  It is hard to hold it steady over a bowl.   I don’t mind spending a bit for one that will be easier to use than this – I just haven’t really searched for one.

Other than my battle with the pumpkin Mike was having his battle over replacing a ceiling fan in the dining area.  The fan didn’t work well and never circulated air well and then the other day the light quit working as well.  It was time to replace it.

The mess on the floor.

Half way done.

The new fan with 4 lights!  Much better light and I can tell that the fan will give off a lot more air next summer.

Another busy day in the kitchen – yesterday was making applesauce day.  I love chunky applesauce and they just do not sell anything but that pureed stuff  – I like chunks of fruit in it and no sugar.

I had two pots going on the stove top – this pot had been full of apple slices when I started cooking.  Here it is finished – cooked down by half.  When the apples get soft I use a mashing tool and start mashing – leaving chunks behind.  I put in cinnamon and some nutmeg, stir it up and it is done.

The smaller pot was full too.  This is when it was starting to get soft and I started to mash, let it cook some more and mash some more.

The end results:

And this – total of 15 pints -

I didn’t remember to show how that apple peeler worked – I meant to and forgot.  The one I have has a suction cup on the bottom of it to stick it to the counter top next to the sink.  It did cut down on work but I still had to take some of the peelings off with a knife when I was slicing them up.  Overall though it did cut back on the time spent in preparation.  I didn’t order mine from that site that I linked to, I found mine locally at a local owned store – the link is to show what it looks like and how it works.  I didn’t like how it worked for taking the core out and only used it for peeling.

Off to quilt group in just a little bit, I’m taking the quilt with me to work on.  Last night I was working on the Joseph’s Coat quilt top – maybe I will have the diagonal row that I showed last time finished by the end of the weekend?  We will see.

EDITED:  I just found this link to another site that sells these peelers and I wished I had seen it first.  It has a demo to watch to see how to use it and it is much better than the instructions provided in the pamphlet that came with it.  I have bookmarked this site and will watch the demo again before I use it.  Done in the way shown it would work much better and get the job done even faster!! Some of the reviews are not good but I think watching the demo really puts it to the test for you and would work well.

Because I hand piece and hand quilt I really have not made a lot of progress lately and just have the same old stuff to post about so I didn’t bother to do that yesterday.  Progress moves slowly and I’m not starting anything else right now.  I went and started that table runner a couple weeks ago for something new and then haven’t even picked it up in over a week to work on.

I have been concentrating on the small quilt “Looking Through the Fence” so that I can get it done before the end of the year and count it as a finished 2011 project.  I just want to get it done and I’m sure a lot of you are like that at this time of year you want to see some finishes to things you started this year.

The lower half is about done, see the two lower corners – finished!

This is part is left to do

And this side, it is moving along nicely.

On Joseph’s Coat – I have not worked much on it since I extended the design wall and got the next diagonal set of pieces laid out, but I have gotten done with a little.  The lower part of the row is pieced up to the section that is obviously not there – that is sitting on the sandpaper board that I keep in the living room waiting for me to take some stitches while I am watching tv.

Yesterday I was very busy doing other things than quilting – I was cooking pumpkin!  This week is to get in the 30’s a couple times at night so I thought it was time to cook the fall pumpkins that I bought for decoration outside.  “They” the powers of the cooking world always say you should use the tiny pumpkins for pies and such but I always use my big pumpkins and think they taste just fine.  I cut up one big pumpkin yesterday and after cooking, mashing and putting through the food mill I got 3 quart bags of pumpkin.  I do not measure to put equal amounts in the bags I just stick it in there.  I use it for pumpkin bread, muffins, pancakes ect I normally just thaw out a bag and then start baking until I use it all up.  I have one more pumpkin to do – but one large one took me several hours yesterday and I will wait a day or two and then do the second one.

I also have 3 large bags of apples to take care of.  I like chunky applesauce so I do not put the apples through a food mill to puree.  I peel them, core them, chop them up and then cook on the stove.  I don’t add sugar as the apples are sweet enough as it, I use 3 varieties combining them and add some cinnamon and nutmeg and that is it.  Natural applesauce.   The jars and the peeler are ready for me to get busy – I might do it today or I might wait until the weekend.  I found the peeler when I was picking up more jars and thought it would be helpful.  I’ll let you know if it is or if it was a waste of money.

You can see in this photo that I have several jars of applesauce in the box already.  I made some  a couple weeks ago but it didn’t make much.  When we went to Little Rock on Tuesday we stopped at “Sams” and I got 3 large bags of apples to make more.  I have tried to find a pick your own apple orchard but I have found none listed anywhere around where I live – plenty of peach orchards but I have heard on no apple orchards.  There used to be one years ago but they went out of business back in the 80′s I believe and I have heard of none since.   If any of my readers in Arkansas know of one where you pick your own could you let me know the name of it, where it is, and when is their picking month so I will know where it is next year.  I don’t mind making a day of it and driving a couple hours to have a fun day outing.

Since I got home I have been busy -

Getting laundry caught up – this stack is small compared to what it had been!  I think I have done 8 loads of laundry since we got home – this is including the bedding & towels from the camper-quilt, blanket, sheets, towels – ect. all get put back in the camper for next time.  The sheets of course had been done off and on the whole time we had been traveling but I hadn’t done laundry the last week of the trip so it all came home with us.

Restocking the freezer.

Six weeks of no baking meant a batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies were in order

The refrigerator is getting back to normal full.

Now it is time to look through the two new quilting books that I bought.  I looked at them while I was gone but then they got put away and I barely even remembered what I had picked up!

The other one.

Do any of you have these books?  How did you like them?

For our Monday night evening meal seeing as it was so chilly out I thought some Vegetable Beef Stew sounded good.  A one pot meal and easy clean up.

I brown some beef stew meat, a chopped onion and some garlic in a little oil. I try to only make what we will eat in one meal as the refrigerator is small and I don’t have room for leftovers.

Vegetables chopped, I use what I have in this case I used a large potato, some small carrots that I chopped into small pieces and green beans – what was the end of a frozen bag.  I chop in small pieces because of the high altitude – it takes forever to cook.

For the liquid I use a can of good old American tomato soup, 1 1/2 cups of water and a packet of the beef flavor boost that I recently found in the stores – it is a concentrated flavoring like the cubes give.  Seasoning was just plain salt and pepper besides the garlic.

Our simple meal – mine on my little pull out table and Mike’s on his.

Wow – what can I say – this place is small but packed full of scenery and hikes.  We are about 75 miles southwest of Moab – it was a short drive yesterday.  We had planned on stopping a night or two at Goose Neck State Park but after some research we found that it is a primitive state park – no facilities other than an outdoor toilet.  That would have been ok but it is totally out in the sun with no shade whatsoever and also no hiking trails – only the scenery and really after an hour or two that gets a little boring.

Instead we made our way to the Natural Bridges National Monument but when we got here we found the camp ground to be small and full  – the ranger told us about a place we could camp for free – the BLM – (Bureau of Land Management) has areas set aside for primitive camping – no facilities – that means no toilets, no tables, no water.  You bring your own and pack out your trash.   This place though has some shade so that worked out well.  We had figured we would be camping at a place with no water so before leaving Moab we had filled the fresh water tank in the RV and filled 8 – gallon jugs of water – plus a case of 16 oz. water bottles.  We are doing fine here.  We are not alone.  There have been campers here every evening – some staying for more than one night like us.  They either know about the place or the ranger sends everyone down here when the campground is full.  It is not real crowded although last night we had a rather loud couple on one side of use, gone this morning though.

Here we are in our spot – a little tight but shady.  We put the table and chairs towards the back on the side.

Not quite level for the chairs and table but it is working out ok.  We are only here for two nights anyhow.

Mike chilling

Close by but not where we are sitting – a huge patch of cactus – we have a little patch closer to our door but they are half way under a tree so we are not in danger of stepping on them.

Some have asked how do I cook = we are not primitive even if we camp in primitive spots   I have a two burner propane stove in the camper, I also have a propane grill and a propane camp stove to be used outside.  A microwave in the camper for when we are hooked up to electricity although truthfully I really do not use it much and could have used more cupboard space instead.

Getting our evening meal prepared – cooking will be outside.

Fresh green beans – steam them first to get them cooked a little – high altitude means things cook slower!  I just covered them with water and put the lid on the grill which has steam vents.

The set up – the grill and the table.  The grill (kind of like an electric skillet actually) (I don’t actually have a propane grill – it was too big and won’t fit in the storage area I have and takes up too much room in the car so it stays home)  comes apart for easy clean up and is non – stick service.

Worked out well, when the water evaporated away the beans were well on their way to being finished.  Then I added some olive oil and a little garlic and season to the beans, dribble a little oil on the other end of the pan and put in some roasted potatoes that are pre-cooked – comes in the freezer section in a bag.  I used about half of them.  Knowing I was going to use the potatoes today (the 30th) I took them out last night and put them in a ziplock bag in the refrigerator to thaw out – faster cooking that way.

When the veggies were almost done I added the steak – no fires allowed here, not even charcoal so this had to do.  One pan used so it was easy clean up with paper plates being used – one pan, cooking utensils and silver ware.

When we first started to camp at places with no hookups I had gotten a small coffee percolator.  I find them messy to clean up when you are watching how much water you use so this is what I came up with.  Coffee Filters and a hole punch!

Fold the filter – I like to double them up and use two at a time – I fold it in quarters then use the hole punch in the center.  Fits pretty good.  Then for clean up just dump in the trash – a little grounds will be left behind but not a lot.  Makes clean up much easier.

The view from our bedroom window the past two nights.

My “office” this evening – Mike is busy taking photos on a timer of the clouds moving, we have music playing on a portable Ipod player that we had charged up and we are enjoying the evening here.  We pull out in the morning heading to Arizona which because of the round about way the roads go — about 4 hours from our next campsite which is very near the Grand Canyon.

Next post will be on the terrific hike we took today – which has so many photos it might take 3 or 4 post to do it all!!!

Edited: 10/1/11 we are now in the Glen Canyon Dam area of Arizona by the town of Page.  We move to the Grand Canyon on Monday.  Has anyone besides Terri been getting comments from me intended for other people?  I have no idea why but two times that I replied to two different people the comment I sent got sent to the right person plus Terri — I haven’t a clue why that is happening and nothing I can do about it that I know of.  I use Word Press not Blogger so it is not a blogger problem.  I use Outlook for email and the comments from my blog go to my outlook box and I respond to the person from there by clicking on their message – their address is in the return area — I have no carbon copy going to Terri but yet she has received two of them — any ideas?