Crunchy Granola

I made granola on Sunday. Why didn't I ever do this before?




And, it was good and I'm gonna make it again.









If you want to follow along with me, here's the next recipe I'm going to try:

Granola

5 cups rolled oats
2/3 cup liquid sweetener (maple syrup, honey, molasses, or agave nectar)
1/3 cup vegetable oil

3/4 cup powdered milk
1 tsp salt
3 tsp cinnamon
Choice of nuts and/or dried fruits

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly greeze 2 13 x 9 pans. Whisk together wet ingredients. Combine dry ingredients. Mix wet and dry ingredients together except for fruits. Spread into pans. Bake for 5 to 10 minutes or until toasted. Cool and add dried fruits.

So there you have it: inexpensive, easy and fun to make. What more can I tell you?

Now, most people would be satisfied and stop there but I have to crazy things up by scouring through many cookbooks to see if there are granola possibilities I haven't even contemplated.

Back to Back Peach Cobbler Weekends!

Last weekend a friend brought me some peaches and knowing that any form of cobbler is a big hit with SO, I made a cobbler.

After looking on the internet and comparing some recipes, I combined a couple of recipes and changed some things around and my own little version of peach cobbler was born. And, it was good and SO liked it very much.

However...we both thought of things that could make it just a little better...so I bought more peaches on Friday and Saturday morning went at it again. Here's the finished product right out of the oven:
















And, this time, it wasn't just good -- it was very, very good...Now, I'm going to try to formula on some blueberries and see how that works out.

Late Week Variety Pack

Oy, what a week! It was a toughie at work for starters and then I got caught up in a fever thinking about buying a little internet yarn business for a couple of days. In the meantime, SO is doing his best John Henry imitation and has been hauling paving stones around in the backyard. So, yay for the weekend!

Last Saturday in between lots of tasks in the kitchen to get the farm shares under control, I drove out to Feederbrook Farm to pick up some roving for spinning. The owner, Lisa, was the teacher for the cheese class the week before and had mentioned that she was having a big sale if you brought some items for the food bank. Since I needed some roving to practice with, it seemed like a good excuse to go to the farm and check it out. Lisa gave me a great tour -- I got to meet all the animals (sheep, mohair goats, alpaca and peacocks!) and tried to get some pics for this blog, but my darn camera phone decided not to work! Can you stand it? When it finally came back to its senses, I got some snaps at home of the bags of roving:









The blue/green roving is called "Fairy Garden"!














On Sunday, we were out doing a little end of the weekend yard-saling, when we saw this funny sign:




I admit I had to look several times before I noticed that someone had taken the "e" off of receive. It gave us a little chuckle anyway.






Don't know what the weekend holds, but tomorrow is supposed to be 99 degrees so it could be a good day to watch the copies of "Dark Crystal" and "Labyrinth" that came in the mail this week and spin up some of my new roving.

The Frogtowne Faerie Patch

Come with me down a pretty little path through the woods....
















Look to your right...What do you spy?


Do my eyes deceive me???
No, it is a faerie house!!!
You know what that means -- there might be a real live faerie patch around here.









And, lo and behold, shortly thereafter, you see the entrance to a faerie patch that is under construction:

















Oh, yes, the little people have been at work here...











We can't reveal the secret location of this spectacular discovery but we here at The Broken Dishes will update you periodically as construction progresses.

The Yard Sales of the Seven Valleys...

Not to be confused with the Dance of the Seven Veils...SO and I set out for some yard-sale-ing last Saturday and ended up in the town called Seven Valley(s?). As luck would have it, it was a town-wide yard sale and for a good part of the adventure, we were able to walk from sale to sale. In addition, the town Fire Hall had a large in door yard sale going on complete with concession stand and bake sale. The bake sale part ended up being important as we needed a cake for that evening -- the cake turned out surprisingly delicious!

Here's a snap of our consolidated findings:












Yes -- you see fairy wings which were purchased for the princely sum of $3!!! Here I'd been looking at them on the internet for $75 to $100 a pair or making them...
The cute little chair was only $6 and now sits in a little alcove near my kitchen. There was plenty of knitted/crocheted items to be had and they are all stashed in the little doll crib on the left of the picture. It's hard to see, but there are even two handmade yarn dolls that will be part of some yarn grafitti some day. Total yarn grafitti investment was less than $5! SO got a brand new router, an electric clock, some bottles, a meat plate and a charming picture of a deer on a slice of a tree (bottom middle). The only thing that slowed us down a bit was some rain, but that just meant less competition.

Yard-sale-ing is on haitus for this weekend, but we will be back to fine picking form in short order!

Cheese, Glorious Cheese

Taking a little break from collecting things and knitted objects, I had a cheese making class in my kitchen today for a friend in honor of her 40th birthday. A local shepherdess who conducts cheese making classes came and walked four of us through the world of basic cheesemaking. Enjoy the pics!

The series of photos below depict making mozzarella cheese from raw cow's milk:























So, what would fresh mozzarella be unless it was combined with juicy, ripe tomatoes and basil???













The mozzarella was gobbled up in a flash...since the feta cheese takes a lot longer, we couldn't pig out on that and there was some left and some to give away.

Then, I find out that the teacher also teaches a cheddar making class...can you see where this is headed?

A Little Giftie

I'm sure it's my insane love of knitted objects that has me thoroughly convinced that everyone is dying to receive some little hand-crafted woolen item from me at some point. At the same time, I confess there's a sliver of my personality not inhabited by my obsession that realizes this isn't necessarily true.

However, as I said, it's a sliver and rarely wins out in the occassional discussion in my head regarding gift-giving and potential gifts to be given.

In my saner moments, I will often buffer the knitted gift by giving it with something else so if the person wasn't experiencing deep-longing for the knitted object, there's something else to fall back upon.

So, recently I've been thinking about pedicure socks -- this is where you make all of a sock until you get to the toe and leave off the toe. This way, the sock can be worn with a flip flop. And, I have a birthday gift to come up with, so I plunged into making a pair of pedicure socks. See below:












I know they look a little short, but they fit my big size 10 foot so I think it will be ok. These are made out of a chunky yarn and should be pretty warm and suitable for those fall pedicure excursions.

Now, I want a pair.

Happy Independence Day! From StitchFace

Children running loose in the streets of Moldova are benefitting from my purchase of this cute, patriotic piece from a yard sale yesterday ($2).

This little 4th of July tribute is actually pretty well-knitted and I think looks rather nice tucked into this spot.

Happy 4th!

The Way to Glennville, Part 2

You have to look close, but the sign is now wearing a hat and two scarves...













At this time, the original scarf at the bottom has remained in place for about a month and the hat and additional scarf are going on about two weeks.

The hat was a particularly ugly crocheted item. It was saved from the jaws of yard sale death two weeks ago. But, I will say that the pompom on top (which is hard to see in the picture) was very well made.

In other news, I'm almost through the veggies from the farm from TWO weeks ago and have to go pick up this week's shares today. Of course, it always exciting to see what you get.