"But I Don't Like Onions"

As a little girl, sitting on the kitchen counter "helping" my dad cook, he told me he was putting onions in the dish and I in my 3 year old wisdom answered, "But I don't like onions."  It is something my parents love to remind me that I said.  And to this day at the age of 22 I still don't really care for onions, something about the texture.  But I do like the flavor that onions add to dishes and will eat them.  Last weekend I was given a bunch of ginormous red onions.  My dad was thrilled and we used a lot fresh in salsa, tacos, on burgers and sandwiches.  We decided to do an experiment with four of the onions.  In my dehydrator (which is literally falling apart), I dehydrated the onion and the greens.  The first time around onions dehydrated filled one quart mason jars and the greens filled one quart mason jar.  The second two onions I dehydrated just the onion because the greens were just looking very sad and not so green anymore.  This one is actually still dehydrating (I just put them in this morning).

 

The first batch took about 20-24 hours to dehydrate and I didn't lay them out nicely, some were a little layered on top of each other, but it all came out nice and dry.  We are planning to use the onions to make flavored salt, in soups, and also we are going to grind some of is to powder.  The greens, I think would be good in soups, as well as in scrambled eggs or an omelet to give a little bit of onion flavor.

One Year. No Repeats.

I "stole" Rachael Ray 365: No Repeats - A Year of Deliciously Different Dinners from my parents' house when I was home last weekend.  And I have officially decided to work my way through it.  I'm not going to do one every day, but I'm hoping for one per week.  Yes. I know I'm not getting through this challenge quickly, but I don't want to overwhelm myself.  I'm starting with the Scramblewiches sometime this week.

Do you know the Muffin Man?

I had a revelation while looking through our cookbook collection.  Why don't I make up some muffins and freeze them before I go back to school?  I googled it to make sure that I could freeze either muffins or batter.  And lo and behold I could freeze both!  Susanne at Hillbillyhousewife.com gave me the confirmation I needed to proceed with my new adventure (http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/how-to-freeze-muffins.htm)!  A few years ago my Grandma gave me a nifty cookbook "1 Mix, 100 Muffins" by Susanna Tee.

Last night I started with Crumble Topped Cheese & Chive Muffins.  The recipe made about 16 muffins (rather than the dozen that the recipe cited) so I froze a dozen and baked off four for my family to eat fresh. I love this recipe and I'm excited to be able to bake off one at a time while I'm away at school!  Tonight I'm going to make the Jelly Doughnut Muffins with some of my homemade strawberry jam.

Sew What?!

I'm not sure how this all started, but in the past couple months my parents have gone on this vintage Singer sewing machine kick.  We now have four vintage machines with one on the way and one "modern" machine.  The machines are all Singers ranging in manufacture years from 1926 thru early 2000s.

The modern machine is Singer 7426.  It was bought around 2002 when I was learning how to sew.  Unfortunately, we were sadly disappointed with this machine.  The lighting on the machine is horrible and dim, stitches are uneven and seem to be dependent on the speed you are moving at.  The specialty stitches are extremely difficult to use and you have to be very careful not to vary your speed at all.   I would never recommend this machine to anyone!

The next oldest machine, which is the one I grew up watching my mom sew on and was the first machine I ever used.  It is a Singer 328k given to my mom as a Christmas present from her parents in 1965.  It was manufactured April 1, 1965 in Clydesdale, Scotland.  I just bought a new belt for it and we are oiling it up for use again.  The main reason we closeted the machine was it was running on two speeds -- stop and full speeds -- which for a twelve year old learning to sew does not make for a fun experience. This machine is made like a tank and I don't think it could ever break so long as it is kept oiled and the belt replaced every decade or so.  It is a easy to use machine and will do pretty much anything home seamstress could want.

Then comes my mom's Singer 201-2.  Made in Clydesdale, Scotland in 1948.  Bought on ebay and given to my mom for this past Christmas.  It was in great condition and works like a charm.  On Christmas morning my brother-in-law, Mark (whose mother has a similar machine) oiled it up and gave the machine a great overall check.  I haven't had the opportunity to use the machine yet, but I have played with it and it seems to be a great machine!

Then our Singer 66-16 which was also bought on ebay.  Made in Elizabeth Port, New Jersey in 1948.  It is missing the bobbin slide cover (but I recently purchased one from sew-classic.com)  I still need to replace the belt and oil the machine but it should work well.

And finally my Singer 66 treadle which was purchased on ebay from a gentleman in Minnesota.  It was made in Elizabeth Port, New Jersey in 1926.  It came via FedEx and was just plastic wrapped with no box what-so-ever.  I believe the cabinet suffered a couple minor dings during transport, but it is great condition. It was quite obvious the machine was kept in the cellar or garage for a very long time of disuse.  I have already replaced the belt, oiled it up, and got it running pretty smoothly.  Over the next few years I want to refurbish the cabinet and maybe figure out a way to redo the decals.  But as long as the machine works, the cabinet and decals can wait.  I can officially sew when the power goes out (so long as I have candlelight or daylight)!

We still have one more machine on the way, I believe it is a 66 or 201!

Happy New Year!!!

It is officially 2012!!!!  And Happy New Year Everybody!!!!  This year was very low key for me, chicken parmesan for dinner with some homemade focaccia bread.  Watched an episode of Grimm and a few episodes of Bones, drooled over some seed catalogs and played with my dogs.

I can remember, not so long ago, when we had a bigger to-do on New Years Eve.  I remember one year missing the ball drop because we were too busy playing Apples-to-Apples.  I can remember a couple years running up and down the street with sparklers shouting "Happy New Year!".  I remember when my little cousins would stay and celebrate with us.  I remember having Smallville marathons in the freezing cold garage and moving into my bedroom when it got too cold.  I remember watching and making fun of High School Musical when we were all so tired we were tripping over each other.  Now, I look to the future.  This year was low key, next year could be as well.  But there is always something to make each New Year's Eve and Day memorable.