• Category Archives Recipes
  • If I had not been a quilter by profession I would have been a chef

  • How to Make a Layer Cake!

    And now for a bit of humor:
     
    How do you make a layer cake?
     
    Here is my recipe: Start with a foundation made of some sketches you need to file away in your artwork portfolio – when you have the time to find the appropriate folder.
     
    Add a few bills that need to be paid as soon as you get some checks you are waiting for.
     
    Next you will need a contract that you need to fill out for a teaching engagement in 2019 (no pressure there – huh?)
     
    at this point a photo of a quilt you needed to enter a show (the page was big enough to print two images and who wants to waste a two cent sheet of paper, you never know when that second picture will come in handy)
     
    Scatter some business receipts that you cleaned out of your purse but didn’t have time to sort through before rushing off to a class – they really spice up your cake.
     
    Don’t forget to tuck in a JoAnn’s coupon flyer – and hope it doesn’t expire before you get around to pulling it out again.
     
    And finally frost it with some supply lists you printed out for (oh dear, I have no idea why I printed those).
     
    And don’t forget the filling between your layers – things in sheet protectors have a lovely texture but admittedly make it hard to keep your cake level as they tend to be slippery.
     
    Now let the cake age a bit before consuming (but don’t forget those JoAnn’s coupons have a shelf life).
     
    Perhaps I would have eaten it sooner if I had made it chocolate!

    My 'Vanilla' layer cake (I shoulda made it chocolate!)
    My ‘Vanilla’ layer cake (I shoulda made it chocolate!)

  • What to do while you are snowed in? Make Potstickers!

    I love potstickers, we always order them when we go to our favorite Chinese restaurant (Hunan Pearl in Lake Oswego – if anyone cares to ask). I had just cooked up the last ones from the previous batch I made and froze and though I have some commercial ones from Costco in the freezer, I have yet to find a brand I like as much as my own. Luckily, I had anticipated making them and had the raw ingredients on hand. My husband doesn’t eat pork so I use ground turkey, it’s a great pretender when trying to replace pork (plain ole ground turkey, not ground turkey breast, it’s too dry and has a very distinctive taste). I also have diabetic issues and try to steer away from white flour so I used a mixture of AP unbleached white with King Arthur Whole Wheat White flour (very finely milled so it’s a pretty good substitute for regular white flour) at a ratio of about 3/4 whole wheat to white. I like to make my own wrappers, I do not like the commercial wonton/dumpling skins and there is an art to making the dough. I found a great tutorial online at Steamy Kitchen Cooking Shortcuts. For the filling I used the ground meat, minced Nappa cabbage, chopped water chestnuts, scallions, grated ginger and a bit of toasted sesame oil and soy sauce, and as an afterthought, threw in a bit of a dried tangerine peel/Szechwan peppercorn salt mix I make up myself. We had some with dinner last night – YUM!!! The rest are in the freezer in zip lock bags.
     
    I just hope that this doesn’t follow a precedent set about ten years ago in another record breaking snowstorm where I had just made five dozen potstickers to freeze the day before we lost our power in the storm. We were without power for 6 days and our generator was not working. Authorities tell you to keep at least several days worth of non-perishable food for emergencies – which we do, but we never touched it. After the first couple of days eating whatever we didn’t want to go bad from the refrigerator food we put outside in the snow (it was colder out there than in the fridge) our daily meals consisted of deciding what had thawed out enough that it needed to be eaten NOW and we had nothing but potstickers for dinner that night. By the second night, they had thawed out – probably perfectly safe but they had congealed into one big mass of dough with little meatballs. It hurt more to throw those away than the expensive roast that had to go into the trash; the roast may have cost more but didn’t take hours to make.
    My partially whole wheat flour potstickers
    My partially whole wheat flour potstickers