Market Picks

From the last couple of Saturdays.


Wall of Big Beef tomatoes.


Bunny ears.


Delicious varieties you wont find in your grocery store.


Italian sweet peppers.


What a fig should look like when it is ready to eat. (I didn't know this about figs)


Such an exotic looking fruit.


The morning sun.


Sweet peppers and tomatoes.


Pole beans.

Now I Just Need Some Pins

My pin cushion is finished! Hurray! I just love love love cupcakes and really wanted to come up with my own design for my pin cushion. I crocheted the bottom and used a felted wool sweater for the top. The cherry is the coolest bit though, it is filled with steel wool for sharpening your pins! I got the idea from Diane.

Now I want to get some colorful pins that will look like sprinkles.

I still want to make this little cutie, as I've always wanted a hedgehog.

Baking Bread: The Short Version

This recipe is seriously fast and easy. I started it at 5:30pm and pulled it out of the oven at 6:45pm. I got this recipe from my sister-in-law when they were visiting in July. It makes a great basic dough that can be used in many ways. I made a loaf, burger buns, and Violet shaped a bunch of rolls.

Here is the recipe as I got it from my sister-in-law.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
5 1/4 c flour
1/2 c sugar
1 & 1/2 rounded T of instant yeast
1/2 t salt

Give the dry ingredients a mix

1 & 1/2 T liquid lecithin (found in the health department or at baking stores)
2 c hot water

Mix for 1 minute and check consistency, dough should be sticky. Add flour or water. Knead for 4 minutes. Spray pans, counter and your hands with cooking spray. Cut dough in half and shape into loaves. Cover and let rise for 25 minutes. Cook for 25 minutes, or until bottom is lightly brown.

*For whole wheat flour, knead for 10 minutes instead of 4 and use apple sauce for half of your water.


OK, here's what I did. I tried the recipe the way it was written, using the lecithin, apple sauce and white whole wheat flour. It was very tasty, but a bit sweet. I wanted to try it without the lecithin and apple sauce to see how it came out. Mostly to make it less sweet and also to cut down on the ingredients list. I also switched the sugar to honey. It worked great!

My version:

5 1/4 c white whole wheat flour
1 & 1/2 rounded T instant yeast
1 t sea salt

Mix dry together

1/2 c honey
2 c hot water

Mix together for 1 minute and test constancy, needs to be sticky or else your bread will turn out dry. Knead for 10 minutes making sure dough remains sticky, adding more hot water if necessary. Spray pans, counter and hands with cooking spray, shape and let rise 25 minutes, or until doubled. Bake for 25-35 minutes.

What? No Internet??

Our trip to Idaho was wonderful. We went boating and swam in Lake Pend Oreille and spent most of a day at Silverwood Theme and Water Park, and had a great time with my cousin and her family.

We had brought the lap top expecting that we would be able to hook up to the internet somehow. Our expectations didn't quite match with what was probable. We could get dial up for $10 a week, but our lap top doesn't have a phone jack! What?!? So, no internet. I did manage to sneak on at my cousin's house where they too can only get dial up, wow, that is one slow connection! I have forgotten all about my dial up days. I didn't have the patience or the time to wait for pages to upload. So, a week with out the internet...what did we do?

Read books, talked(!) to one another, I got some knitting in, swam, went for a drive, hung out!


Finding round granite stones on the river.


Violet and I being pulled by the boat on the tube!


Denny and Violet swimming in Lake Pend Oreille.


Wren "wading".

I have market pictures to show you from the last two Saturdays. The bread posts are almost ready, I'm making one batch today! And I'm excited to show you my new pin cushion.

It's My Birthday!

And we are off to Idaho for our last summer fling. I plan on popping in to say 'HI'. I've got a lot of ideas brewing for when I get back, like new pin cushions and bread recipes, to name a couple.

Hope you have a wonderful day, and remember : Groove is in the heart!

R Is For Robot

This is the very cool prize I won for submitting my Memory Mobile in the Summer Doldrums Contest that Dot held over at Dabbled. It is an original water color by Dot herself.

Dot, I love it! Thank you!

I Heart Presents!

I was super lucky to win this great purse from Nikolaas at digibudi's Digital Garden.


He threw in a super cute butterfly iron on as well.


I love the kitchen design, suits me nicely!

Nikolaas sews, does cross stitch and has some great drawings. He is over in Belgium, so it was especially fun receiving an international gift. Thanks Nikolaas!

Half Way Through Market Season

Melons made their debut this week from Denison Farms. This golden one is called Tangerine Dream. We were all amazed by the lovely scroll designs and the depth of flavor of this melon.


Yellow Doll and the Super Bowl were the other two there. More varieties are on their way.


Denison grows lovely lettuce, and at $1.50 a head, it can't be beat.


The cherry and pear tomatoes are like candy, so sweet and delicious, it is hard to pick a favorite.

I love my Saturdays at the Market. Working with Tom Denison and the crew, and all the great organic produce really makes my day.

Ta Da!

This green bunny was given to Violet's now 3 yr old friend yesterday. The two of them were giving the bunnies shoulder rides around the park and pushing them in the swing. Super cute!





I made a couple of changes with green bunny. I thinned out the arms and legs by decreasing earlier and attached the arms a tad lower than at the neck. The ears are a big difference, I made them wider and attached them facing out. I used felt to make green bunny's face and attached it on with permanent fabric glue. I found it is hard to embroider much detail directly onto the crochet stitches.

To make the bunnies, I used this basic amigurumi pattern from Crochet Me and just adapted the arms and legs and made up the ears. If anyone would like me to go into more detail about my changes, please let me know and I'd be happy to!

It really doesn't take long to make, it is only single crochet stitches in the round. You can take this pattern and make what ever you dream up.

A Day Spent In The Kitchen

I spent most of Sunday in the kitchen.


Baking bread. I'm re-working a recipe and as soon as I've got it right, I'll post it. I'm also going to try making Yeast Free Bread, very interesting.


Making more jam, black berry this time.


And these crumb bars. I used up the black berries and it was delicious!


For dinner we had grilled summer squash. We use a little olive oil, salt and pepper, throw them onto a baking sheet and then put the baking sheet right onto the grill. YUMMY!


Along with some delicious turkey burgers topped with divine market tomatoes.

Market Offerings and A Mountain Climb

While I was working at the Market, Denny was off hiking Mt St Helens.


What I brought home: french white zucchini, yellow and green pole beans, purple viking potatoes, red bell peppers, sungold cherry tomatoes, persimmon tomatoes (orange), black copia tomato (green and red), zypher summer squash, zucchini. Oh how I love summer squash!

I'm going to make a green bean, potato, zucchini salad for a picnic in the park. Our neighborhood park is having a celebration for National Night Out on Tuesday August 5th (tomorrow!).

Denny put together a slide show of his climb for your viewing pleasure.


Hobbled on St. Helens from Denny McEntire on Vimeo.

Hope you are all having a great Monday!