Soup & Sewing

Since I'm trying to be a little more thrifty (and I'm already pretty darn thrifty) I thought I'd try my hand at making my own chicken broth. We often buy the seasoned rotisserie chickens at Sam's Club - they are so good and so CHEAP! (less than 5 dollars). After most of this one was eaten, I picked off the leftover meat and put the carcass (isn't that a lovely word?) in a pot full of water with an onion (chopped in half, not peeled) a couple of cloves of garlic (again, chopped but not peeled), a few stalks of celery and a couple of carrots. I didn't season it because the chicken skin was already liberally seasoned. Then I let it simmer for between 5-6 hours, occasionally skimming the top.

I strained it through a fine mesh strainer (we call it our fencing mask, like Nigella) and then stuck it in the fridge. The next morning, I scooped the layer of fat off the top, although surprisingly there really wasn't much fat there. The broth was SUPER rich, so I used it in a 1:1 ratio with water, added the shredded chicken, a few carrots, an onion, celery, and garlic and let it simmer for a couple of hours. Right before we ate it I added some whole wheat organic egg noodles from our local bulk Amish food store. It was quite delicious, if I do say so myself! And the kids actually ate it.

On the sewing front, I finally finished my friend Renetta's table runner. I just made some improvisational log cabins and surrounded them with linen. Her only request was that it be framed with AMH's Garden Party polka dot. I'm pleased with how it turned out, especially considering it was my first real attempt at free-motion quilting. I'm sure it will get nice and puckery after its first wash.

Here's a litte detail of the quilting - I LOVE that mustard-colored thread and use it every chance I get.

Sorry about the dreary pictures - it was a dreary day.

Enjoy your Thursday - it's almost the weekend!! As Dawson would say, "Yay! Wow! Woo hoo!"

Like I need one more thing to do

I couldn't help myself. I signed up for Creative Kismet's Birds of Change exchange. I have been really wanting to make some sweet birdies to hang around the house and this is my motivation now! The birds are due by the 17th, so this will be a quick exchange. I have a few ideas floating around and my goal is to get started on them later this week.

Off to decorate a Barbie cake now - so far today I've baked a cake, made buttercream frosting, The Lady's Cheesy Mac (yum!) and cleaned windows and a bathroom. Since we're just having a family party I don't feel the pressure that I would if we were having a ton of people over. So that's a good thing, I guess.

Have a good Monday afternoon - have you recovered from the holidays yet??

My Resolution

My bloggy resolution, that is. I am going to post more in 2009. Here's my problem - I feel the need to wait to post until I have an enormous amount of pictures and things to share and a perfectly written post to go with it. That (obviously) doesn't happen much. So this year I'm going to just throw it out there as it comes - or as I download my pictures. :) Does anyone else have trouble finding time to download, edit, and then upload pictures? It seem like such a process that I hardly ever sit down and do it.

So did you guys have a wonderful Christmas? We absolutely did - the kids are getting to a great age for opening gifts and they had a BLAST. It was so fun to watch. I didn't make them many gifts this year, as I had planned, but that's okay - they didn't notice!

Here's a little covered notebook that I made for my hairstylist, Erica. We have pretty much the exact same taste when it comes to decorating, and she is just the sweetest thing. She had two antique quilts (cutter quilts) that she wasn't going to use so she gave them to me! This was my Christmas gift to her - it's one of the Dresden Plates from the quilt! I used my trusty seam ripper to take it off of the old quilt and also pulled out all of the old batting. I ironed the seams under and then machine-appliqued it onto linen. I am in LOVE with this little book - I need to make myself one soon.

Delaney's birthday is on Monday and I think we're having her party on Saturday. I need to do some serious planning this week - she wants a Barbie Diamond Castle cake. Whoa.