MOON IN THE MORNING

This morning the moon was perfect, shining in a blue sky just before the sun came up in the opposite direction.  What a nice way to start the day.  You can even see the moonlight casting shadows of the railing on the balcony. Just click on the picture to enlarge it.

The snow is gone and we had a lovely, warm and sunny fall day.  Quilt club started at 9 and we were there until a bit after 5 p.m.  We all agreed it was a pity to spend the day indoors, but it was quilt club time so we did.

Today we had a lunch-time potluck and, as always,  the food was delicious.  Last potluck we had was a total salad meal.  But we all agreed that it had been a terrific meal.  This time it was very balanced, a crock pot of stew, a crock pot of chili, some salads, a loaf of fresh homemade bread and a few desserts.  I brought two pies: Cranberry Pecan pie.  A simple but very tasty pie, suitable for Thanksgiving dinners:

Cranberry Pecan Pie

Preheat over to 375º.
Spread a single pie crust in a 9" or 10" pie plate.
Spread 1 1/2 cups cranberries (fresh or frozen) on the crust.
Mix together 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup chopped pecans.
Sprinkle this mixture over the cranberries.
With your electric mixture beat two eggs until thick, about 5 minutes.
Gradually beat 1/2 cup sugar into the egg mixture, and then gradually beat in 1/2 cup flour, alternating with 1/2 cup melted butter.
Spoon this mixture over the cranberries.
Bake on the lower rack until the crust is brown, 40 to 45 minutes.
Cover the pie loosely with foil during the last 10 to 15 minutes if the top is becoming too dark.
Cool and slice into 8 pieces.

I use four toothpicks to hold the foil off the top of the pie.  Otherwise the foil will stick to the custard topping and rip off the nice browned surface.

I cut the pie into 8 pieces, but as the women helped themselves to a piece, most often they first cut the piece in half.  So we ended up with about 16 pieces from the one pie.  I think they did this so that they had room for more than one dessert.  Aren't we indulgent!

I was busy machine quilting the Jacob's Ladder.  Hoped to finish it today, but there's still more to do, so I will have to put it away for now and finish it when we get back from AZ.

THE VIEW THIS MORNING

This all arrived overnight:

Time to do the "snowbird" thing!

LAST OF GARDEN

Last week S. and I put most of the garden "to sleep."  We knew that frost was forecast for later that week, so we picked all of the tomatoes in the front garden.  We stripped the plants of green tomatoes, threw the plants onto a pile to go to the compost and carefully spread the green tomatoes on tables in the Sales Building, covering them with newspaper.  Did you know that you can keep green tomatoes covered in a cool place in the fall and they will gradually ripen?

On the table behind them under the old curtains (from the 70's, can't you tell) are boxes of potatoes and one box of carrots.  This building is not heated, but they will be good here for many weeks.  We'll just use them up as they ripen.  Here are two more tables of covered tomatoes:

                        

There were a lot of tomatoes in another bed in the back garden, but since we have probably more than enough tomatoes I convinced S. that we should just leave those other tomatoes.  If someone wants to come and pick them, they would be welcome.

Last Saturday I picked all the ears of corn that remained in the back garden.  We had been eating them for about two weeks and sharing the harvest with friends.  It was great corn!  I had been very disappointed that only 18 of the seeds I planted (out of 43) actually germinated and produced a plant, but OH MY! those plants!  They towered over my head and produced about 5 ears each!  There had been some frosts all right, but the corn still there was all right, so on Saturday I picked all that remained, blanched and cooled them and put them in the freezer.  There are 30 nice ears of corn in the freezer for eating later when there is no fresh corn available.

Today after the morning walk I pulled up the Fava Bean plants that remained in the front garden.  I stripped off the bean pods that seemed to have beans in them and threw the plants on the pile of wilted tomato plants, all destined for the compost pile.  The blue pail in the foreground holds the pods that have been picked.

                         

Here are the few remaining plants:

In the house I stripped off the pods and had a very modest amount of beans.  I started a pot of "vegetable stew" with some olive oil, chopped onions, a cut up mild Italian sausage, and garlic.  When that was sautéed I added some chopped tomatoes (skin removed), the beans and a zucchini that I picked this morning.  That didn't look like enough for dinner, so I got out a package of Bear Creek minestrone soup, added the water and stirred that in. Some frozen corn kernels would be good in that. Just before we eat I'll add one can of beans in sauce.  That, plus the cheese biscuits that I made on Saturday and we'll have just the right meal for a cold, damp, cloudy day!

A MISTAKEN BLOCK

Today I sewed together the Jacob's Ladder quilt top.  I'm really loving the combination of fabrics and they are far from my usual palette.  At this point the borders are just stuck onto the design wall, not sewed onto the quilt.  I need to buy more of this gold fabric so that there can be whole borders, not so many pieces.  And we need some more for the binding.  There are just scraps of the purple and of the batik left.  Fortunately there will still be more of the gold to finish a border and binding, as that was a very recent purchase.  For the backing I'm thinking a nice purple flannel would be a good choice.

But as I sat looking it over just now I saw that one block was sewed together wrong.  It's still very "fixable" I just need to remove a few seams, turn things around and sew it back together.  

Can you spot the block that needs fixing?