Projects on hold!

I have two projects going at the moment that I am going to have to put on hold until after the party. One is the felt book I am making for my nephew Zachary. The book will be titled "Z is for Zachary". Zach loves books thanks to his parents who started reading to him the day they brought him home from the hospital. The following are pages A to F. I made the background color for each page with a color that starts with the letter.

The other project that I'm working on is trying to fix my glass birdbath that I made last year. The bowl broke off with part of the base attached. I had a hard time getting the broken piece off the bowl and then had a hard time trying to figure out how to reattach the base to the bowl. I found this small blue glass jar and tried to attach it to the broken piece but it doesn't seem to want to work.

It's very pretty so I must find a way to save it!

More Food!

I worked on more food for the party on the 31st this past weekend....I saw these cookies on the bakerella site. They are giant chocolate chip cookies with brownie centers. I didn't follow her recipe, I just made brownies and chocolate chip cookie dough, and followed her instructions. Joe is very pleased with these, I could only eat half of one, so he had to eat the other half which pleased him even more.

This is a huge plate by the by....anyone who knows Joe will understand his love for these monsters.....but alas they are now in the freezer until the party so he will just have to wait!

Also made basil cubes this weekend. Basil cubes are wonderful! Just clean basil really well, spin it dry, throw it in the food processor with a little olive oil, put it in ice cube trays and freeze then pop into a plastic bag. They last for months in the freezer. Add them to sauce or use them in salad dressings.

More food soon.....

Yum!

This was last nights supper (well part of it, Joe had to have two grilled cheese sandwiches with this, because you can't eat soup without grilled cheese even if the soup is fancy and cold). I saw the recipe on my favorite site Simply Recipes it is White Gazpacho. So good and very easy, excellent for a hot day, which is all we are having here in the Boston area. White grapes, cucumbers, day old bread, chicken broth, blanched almonds, garlic, olive oil, vinegar, salt and a food processor.....that's it and no cooking involved. It was great last night and even better at lunch today. Chilling in the fridge over night did it wonders. Go to Simply Recipes and enjoy.... I can spend hour researching her recipes and have never found one that wasn't great! I will do with this recipe what I do with most, twist it and turn it into my own, but honestly there is not much tweaking to be done here.

I am officially in party mode. Every year I have a party in the summer. It started years ago when my nephew Lucas was small. He and my husband Joe share the same birthday. The first few years it was just family, then it grew into this monster with the whole world stopping in. The cooking and cleaning has begun and I have two and a half weeks to get it all done. This past weekend I made (and canned) 10 jars of tomato sauce,

and about 100 large meatballs stuffed with half of a tiny mozzarella ball,

and I made 150 mini egg rolls (spring rolls) I got the inspiration from the Steamy Kitchen site.

Every year I try to make the food better and have the types of food that don't have me chained to the kitchen the whole day. More food soon.......

I love this ring! I found it at an antique table at a flea market a year ago. My grandmother Mary had a pendant with the same stone. I believe its called sandstone. Anyway love, love, love it but had nothing to wear with it.




Last month my mom, sister and I took my nieces from California to Rockport MA for the Day. There was this great bead shop and I found beads to match the ring. For $10 I got the materials to make the earrings. Very happy with them...

Also that day I found this blue glass jug that I hung over my kitchen sink. I added some philodendron to root.

All I need is a couple more hot sunny days, a ball of mozzarella, a little olive oil, a squirt of lemon, salt and pepper and I will be in summer heaven......

I saw these herb markers on a craft site and was not happy until I made one for each herb in my potted herb garden.